A Rich Man's Revenge

Enrico Mandretti’s scepticism over her love for Charles had been evident from their first meeting. Clearly, he thought her a devious fortune hunter. He didn’t have to spell out his suspicions. They were there in his dark, cynical eyes.

The trouble was…he was right. Yet oh, so wrong.

She did love Charles. More than she’d ever thought herself capable of loving any man. But before she’d met her future husband she’d been exactly what Rico believed she was. A gold-digger. A good-looking girl using her looks and her body to achieve her main goal in life: to acquire a wealthy husband, a gold-plated insurance policy that she would never have to suffer what her mother had suffered.

Dominique was sure that rich men’s wives didn’t go through what her mother had gone through. They were protected from such ignominies. They could at least die with dignity. That was, if they had to die at all.

After her mother’s lingering and very painful death, Dominique had vowed that she would marry money, if it was the last thing she did. Becoming a rich man’s wife, however, proved not such an easy task, not even for a girl with her looks. Rich men married women who moved in their own social circles. Or girls who worked with them; sophisticated, educated creatures with university degrees.

Unfortunately, Dominique’s education had been sadly lacking during her teenage years, her schooling constantly interrupted then totally terminated so that she could stay home and nurse her mother till she passed away. By the time she was eighteen, Dominique knew it would take years before she had the skills which would put her into the immediate vicinity of wealthy businessmen.

But she had youth on her side, and tenacity, and she’d finally achieved her aim a couple of years back, that of being in the right place, working alongside the right kind of boss. Single. Good-looking. And rich.

Unfortunately, her target had been even more ruthless than she was. His life’s plan did not include getting hitched to some no-account girl from the backwoods of Tasmania, no matter how hard she’d worked to educate herself, or how much he fancied her.

Sleeping with her was fine. Lying to her perfectly OK. Marrying her? Never in a million years!

After her mission to become Mrs Jonathon Hall had failed, a distressed and a slightly bitter Dominique had taken her over-generous severance pay along with Jonathon’s guilt-ridden, glowing reference and headed for the bigger fish pond of Sydney. Once there, she’d plotted out her strategy for becoming Mrs Charles Brandon with cold-blooded resolve. More cold-blooded than ever.

But there had been nothing cold-blooded about the feelings Charles had evoked in her during their first meeting. She’d already seen photographs of him and thought him quite attractive—Dominique knew she couldn’t bear to marry a man who was physically repulsive to her—but she’d found Charles in the flesh so intensely sexy she’d been totally thrown.

Those icy grey eyes of his had cut right through her defences to that part of her which she’d kept locked tightly away all her life. Dominique had never fallen in love before. Or even into lust. She had felt varying degrees of attraction to members of the opposite sex over the years. She’d even slept with a few. Jonathon, she’d been very attracted to. Sex with him had been quite pleasurable, but she’d never been carried away by it, or really needed it. Oh, no. All her responses with Jonathon had been totally faked.

Yet when Charles had stared at her body none too subtly that first day, she’d found herself staring right back at his own tall, lean body and wanting it so very badly.

Panic best described her reaction to this alien craving. It was no wonder she had fled, totally abandoning her plan to seduce Charles Brandon. She wanted to marry a rich man, not fall in love with one. Love made a woman weak and foolish and vulnerable. Love brought misery, not happiness.

But Charles wouldn’t leave it at that, would he? And here she was, his wife; his adoring and besotted wife.

Now she knew what her mother had meant when Dominique had once asked her why she’d married a man like her wretched father.

“Because I loved him to death,” had been her mother’s reply.

Words of considerable irony.

As Dominique watched her husband put on his jacket, she tried not to worry about loving him so deeply. She supposed that with Charles she could afford to be a little weak and foolish and vulnerable. Because he loved her back. And he wasn’t anything like Jonathon.

How perverse, she thought, that she’d targeted Charles for that very reason. Because he wasn’t as young or as handsome as Jonathon. She’d thought that would make Charles more susceptible to seduction. She’d thought that would give her more power over him.

But just the opposite had happened. He’d been the one who’d exercised all the power over her, coercing her to go out with him, despite her fear of falling for him.

Yet she was happy, wasn’t she? Deliriously so. There was nothing to be afraid of. Charles was a wonderful husband and lover. And he’d make a wonderful father.

That was another thing which constantly surprised Dominique. Her desire now for children. She’d never thought of herself as maternal before. Never wanted to be the little woman at home. Now she simply couldn’t wait to have a baby with Charles. Not just one, either. Suddenly, her idea of Utopia was being his little woman at home with the patter of little feet around her.

Of course, her home would be nothing like her mother’s home. Not a shack, but a mansion. Her husband was a man of substance who could provide in abundance for his wife and any number of children, not some pathetic failure of a man who couldn’t even look after himself, let alone anyone else.

“I’m off now,” Charles said as he swept up his cellphone and car keys from the bedside chest. “You know my number if you need me. Be good, now…” And he threw her a wry smile.

A premonition-type panic gripped her heart as she watched him walk towards the bedroom door.

“Charles!” she called out, and he turned, frowning.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I…I love you.”

“I know,” he said, smiling again, a little smugly this time. “Keep it warm for me.” And he left.

CHAPTER TWO

THE distance between Charles’s inner-city apartment block and the Regency Hotel was only a couple of blocks, but Charles still drove. Walking was not his favourite form of exercise. Within five minutes of leaving Dominique, Charles was handing the keys of his silver Jaguar car to the parking attendant at the Regency and striding inside the five-star hotel.

Hurrying across the marble floor, he was passing the row of trendy and exclusive boutiques which lined the spacious arcade-style foyer when his eyes landed on a spectacular piece of jewelry, displayed under a spotlight in the window of Whitmores Opals. Charles ground to a halt and stared at the magnificent choker necklace which was made of two rows of oval-shaped milk opals surrounded by diamonds and linked together with finely filigreed gold.

How marvellous it would look on Dominique with her long, elegant neck and fair hair!

A glance at his watch showed it wasn’t yet eight. He had twelve minutes before he was officially late. The shop was still open. These shops remained open till nine every Friday night.

The price was steep, of course. Quality jewels didn’t come cheap. He tried telling himself that he really had to stop spoiling Dominique like this, but it was too late. He could already see her wearing it.

The decision made, Charles strode inside and five minutes later he had the necklace in his jacket pocket, nestled in a classy black leather box lined with thick black velvet. By the time he’d collected his visitor’s pass-key from Reception and ridden the private lift up to the top floor, it was two minutes to eight. He still had a minute to spare as the lift doors whooshed back and the door to the presidential suite lay straight ahead.

When he’d first told Dominique where he played poker on a Friday night, she’d queried the choice of such an expensive venue. Why didn’t they just go to each other’s homes? So much cheaper.

He’d explained that it was of no cost to him. One of his poker buddies was an Arab sheikh who stayed in the Regency’s top suite every weekend, flying in by helicopter every Friday afternoon from his Hunter Valley property.

Naturally, Dominique had been agog at this news and wanted to know more about this mysterious sheikh who played poker with her husband. Charles had told her the scant details he knew, which was that Prince Ali was thirty-three years old, sinfully handsome and the youngest son of King Khaled of Dubar, one of the wealthiest Emirate states. With four older brothers, Ali was unlikely to ever ascend the throne and had been despatched to Australia several years ago, ostensibly to take care of the royal family’s racehorse interests here.

And he’d certainly done a good job of that. The royal thoroughbred stud boasted some of the top-priced yearlings at the Easter sales every year. Rumour had it, however, that Ali’s skills as a horseman and businessman had nothing to do with his selection for his present position as manager of the royal stud. Apparently, he’d been exiled from Dubar for his own personal safety after some scandal involving a married woman.

Probably true, in Charles’s opinion. Ali had gathered a reputation for being a ladies’ man in Australia as well, though not in any obvious man-about-town way. He was never seen out in public alone with a woman, or photographed with one. Word was when he met a good-looking girl who took his eye during his weekly visits to the races in Sydney, private arrangements were made, and if the object of his desire was willing she was whisked up to his country property.

None of Ali’s so-called girlfriends had ever sold their story to the media, so, really, talk of these liaisons was all speculation and gossip. Ali never personally revealed anything about his love life, being a very private man.

Charles suspected, however, that this gossip was probably true, too. A man of Ali’s extraordinary wealth and looks would find it almost impossible not to become a playboy in the bedroom department. He’d been a bit of a one himself before he’d met Dominique. Yet he wasn’t in Ali’s league. The man was a prince, for heaven’s sake.

Ali’s royal status was the reason they played in his suite here every Friday night, rather than have him visit them. Everything was more secure and more relaxed that way. On the occasion they’d gone to Rico’s hospital room last year, Ali had been accompanied by two hired bodyguards. One had stood outside the hospital-room door all night whilst the other had sat in a corner of the room, after he’d drawn the shades on the window.

A bit unsettling.

In the hotel suite, there was no need for that. Hotel security was always on high alert when Prince Ali was in residence and no one could access the presidential suite without a pass-key for the lift. Even then, their identity was fully checked out a second time via camera during the ride up in the private lift, and again at the door to the presidential suite.

Charles lifted his hand to ring the doorbell, the door being whisked open within seconds. Clearly, his arrival had been anticipated.

“Good evening, Mr Brandon,” the butler greeted.

“It certainly is, James,” Charles replied as he walked in. “Very good.”