Mistress Of Deception

It had been a long time coming.

At fifteen, she had hero-worshipped him. At sixteen, she’d developed a full-blown schoolgirl crush. By seventeen, she was constantly fantasising about him, till finally, at eighteen, she’d made an utter fool of herself over the man.

She cringed at the still sharp memory of her throwing herself at him in the library that night four years ago, gushing with adolescent stupidity that he must love her if he’d paid for her out of his own pocket all these years. He hadn’t known what had hit him when she’d upped and kissed him. How ironic that it had probably been his momentary but stunning response to that foolish kiss that had been responsible for what had happened three years later.

Oh, he’d stopped the kiss soon enough, well before he could have been accused of tampering with her morals. But the memory of his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth, of his arms tightening like steel bands around her even for a split-second, had been enough to keep fuelling her fantasy that underneath his bluster he loved her and wanted her.

And she’d naively told him so.

Of course, he’d torn strips off her at the time, telling her she was acting like a silly little fool, that his paying for her had been his way of showing gratitude to her father who’d once lent him money when no one else would, that he considered her guardianship a sacred trust that could not and would not be sullied by him, that his briefly kissing her back had been meant as a savage lesson on what could happen if a hormone-filled teenager like herself fell into the wrong hands.

She’d finally believed him that night, shame and embarrassment making her flee his presence. How she had cried and cried! Nothing Mrs Carstairs said—and the dear woman had tried everything— could make her stop. All Ebony had been able to think of was that she couldn’t stay in that house, seeing Alan every day, reliving her moment of humiliation, living off his charity. She had seized on this last reason as an excuse to flee him, and his house, as soon as she could.

But she hadn’t been able to forget him, no matter what she’d done. Hard work and a busy and varied social life had filled her hours, but not her heart.

Gary Stevenson had come into her life when she’d been a very vulnerable twenty. Still a virgin, despite her physical beauty attracting many admirers, Gary had become first her photographer, then her friend, and finally her lover.

Why had she given in to him and not the others?

He’d been good to her. Sweet. Kind, And one night he had caught her at a very weak moment. Afterwards, there had seemed to be no going back. And in truth, she’d found much comfort in the human closeness of their affair, in having Gary hold her and tell her that he adored the ground she walked on. Oh, he hadn’t pretended to really love her, which had been a relief in a way. His being in love with her might have made her feel guilty. But he’d liked her and desired her and, in the end, had even asked her to marry him. They would go to Paris together, he’d said, and become a raging success.

She had had to refuse, of course, and, though disappointed, Gary had not been heart-broken, taking himself off to Paris anyway while she had gone on with her modelling here in Sydney. For a while, she’d been very depressed and lonely, thinking she’d done the wrong thing. But then the unexpected had happened. Alan had become her lover, and she’d quickly found that what she’d experienced in bed with Gary had not prepared her for the intoxicating excitement and wickedly irresistible rapture of being in Alan’s arms.

Which is why I’m here now, she groaned silently, and threw a pained look across at Alan’s sleeping form.

God, why do I let him do this to me—take my self-respect and pride and grind it into the dust, make me say and do things when I know he doesn’t love me? He told me the morning after the first night I slept with him. He loves Adrianna. What he feels for me is nothing but lust, an uncontrollably mad lust.

Ebony could still recall the horror she’d felt when he’d told her that, and then added that he wanted to keep their relationship a secret from the world, and especially his mother. Their passion for each other would pass, he’d claimed. No need to hurt anybody with the knowledge of their liaison when it was only a fleeting thing.

Yet all the while he’d been saying this, she had been hurting. More than hurting—breaking into little pieces. She’d argued with him on this last score, wanting him at least to recognise in public that she was his woman. But no…People would not understand, he’d said. They’d talk.

So he’d kept her as a hole-and-corner mistress, to be visited in the dead of night, to be used for his pleasure in private while the world at large saw them as almost enemies.

And she had gone along with it, despising herself while counting the days till he came to her again, then vainly trying to salvage some pride by never showing any affection or special consideration towards him, by reducing his visits to nothing more than raw sexual encounters, with no love or warmth involved. There was a perverse pleasure in taunting him with her cold indifference to whether he came or not, in letting him think that there were plenty of other fish in the sea to fill her empty bed if he wasn’t in it, in feeding his crazed jealousies that she might actually do some of the things she did with him with other lovers.

As if she would. Not even Gary had been able to coax such intimacies from her, or such abandonment. Only Alan…

Tears filled Ebony’s eyes, but she dashed them away with the backs of her hands. The time for tears was long gone. Now it was time for action.

Last night had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that she had no strength against Alan’s sexual power over her. No matter how angry with him she was, he only had to touch her and she was lost.

And it would always be that way, she agonised. Love him or hate him, she was his for the taking whenever he wanted her. It was this mortifying realisation that propelled her not to change her mind from what she had already decided she must do— go to Paris with Gary.

Shivering a little, she slipped out of the warmth of the bed and dragged on her white bathrobe over her naked and vaguely aching body. She flushed guiltily to think it had been herself—and not Alan— who had been the insatiable one last night. Was it because she had known this would be the last time?

Probably. Even now, the temptation to return to that bed, to rouse him from sleep with her hands and lips, to…

A bitter taste filled her mouth. Maybe it was just that she needed to clean her teeth, or maybe it was the self-hate rising from within. Whatever, she suddenly felt unclean, wicked, rotten to the core. She had to get away from him, from Sydney, from Australia. That was the only answer.

Slipping quietly out into the lounge-room, she picked up her telephone and dialled the number she’d written on the notebook resting beside it.

‘The Ramada,’ the hotel receptionist answered.

‘Could you put me through to Gary Stevenson’s room, please?’

‘Certainly, madam.’

Ebony’s eyes flicked anxiously over at the bedroom door while waiting for Gary to answer. She hoped Alan wouldn’t wake up. Instinct warned her she must keep her plans a secret. Alan must never find out, not till she was safely on that plane.

A bleary-voiced Gary finally came on the line. ‘Hello.’

‘It’s Ebony,’ she said quickly, huskily. ‘I need to see you. This morning. Will you be in around nine?’

‘Sure thing, love. What’s the urgency? You’ve already turned me down. Again.’

‘I’ve had second thoughts. Sort of.’

‘Only “sort of”?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘Not on the phone.’

‘Why not?’

She hesitated, then said softly, ‘I’m not alone.’

Gary’s chuckle was dark. ‘So that’s the way it is, eh? What’s the problem? Won’t he take the hint he’s no longer wanted?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I see…’ His sigh was weary. ‘Well, get rid of him temporarily, love, and get over here pronto. If you feel as bad as you sound, then methinks you need a shoulder to cry on.’

A lump filled her throat. ‘You’re so good to me, Gary.’

‘Yeah, yeah, all my exes say that. I’m a good bloke. But tell me one thing. How come in the movies—and I suspect in life—it’s always the bad guy who ends up with the girl? Oh, never mind. I’ll be here when you get here, love. See you.’ And he hung up.

Ebony lowered the receiver silently back into its cradle, but, when she turned, there was Alan, standing in the open doorway, thunder on his face.

‘You can’t marry Stevenson,’ he ground out. ‘You don’t love him.’

She glared at him, standing there in the nude, as arrogant as you please. And as lethally attractive. Not an ounce of fat graced his tall, lean body, a light covering of dark hair giving him a primitive appeal. Put a spear in his hand and he would make a good savage, she thought bitterly.

‘How do you know?’ she said, using her fingers to comb her tangled hair back from her face till it fell into a sleek black curtain down her back.

‘Because you’re incapable of loving any man,’ he stated harshly.