The Millionaires' Cinderellas. Sharon Kendrick
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all over again.
‘What is it you want to know?’ she questioned.
‘I want to know how a small-town English girl managed to meet and marry someone like Louis Patterson. And whether the price you paid for your ten minutes of fame was worth it.’
EMMA’S fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass as she met the accusation which glittered from Zak’s grey eyes. ‘I’m surprised you need to ask me anything about my past—I thought you’d already had me investigated thoroughly by some sleuth you’d hired.’
He took a sip of his own wine. ‘I know the facts. What I’m interested in are the reasons behind those facts. And let’s face it, Emma—if your relationship with my brother does survive this separation …’ He paused, not wanting to acknowledge the dark thoughts which flashed into his mind as he tried to envisage this particular scenario. ‘If you really were to become my sister-in-law—then surely you owe it to me to tell me more about your background.’
‘I don’t owe you anything!’
‘No? Then what’s the big mystery? Are you ashamed of what you’ve done? Maybe dabbled in a few things which aren’t strictly legal?’ he speculated.
‘No, I have not!’
‘And does Nat know about your past?’
‘Of course he does.’
‘So why not tell me, too?’
Emma drank down an angry mouthful of wine. Because Nat hadn’t judged her as she suspected this man would judge her. Because she didn’t fancy being dissected by those cold grey eyes and made to feel like some animal in a laboratory, which was vulnerable to the cruel scalpel of the scientist.
Yet she wasn’t supposed to be ashamed of her upbringing, was she? Not any more. Not when she had coped with it as well as she could. Was it her fault that she’d been given a vacuous and man-hungry mother who had always put her little girl second? Who had taught her daughter all the wrong lessons in life, which had taken a while to unlearn.
‘You know I’m illegitimate?’ she questioned bluntly.
Her candour took him by surprise and, to his astonishment, something in the darkening of her eyes made him want to offer an unlikely chunk of reassurance. ‘That’s no longer the stigma it was.’
‘In theory it isn’t,’ she contradicted. ‘In practice it isn’t so good if everyone knows that you’ve never even seen your father—or that you don’t have a clue who he is. Or that your mother seeks the comfort of strangers to warm her bed at night.’
Zak’s mouth tightened, all sympathy now fled. ‘Your mother was a—’
Emma shook her head. ‘Oh, she wasn’t a prostitute—if that’s what you’re thinking. She was just very …’ she swallowed ‘… fond of men. And not very good at choosing men. Something she seems to have passed on to me.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’
‘Oh, I’m not talking about Nat,’ she amended hastily, remembering a little too late that she was supposed to be masquerading as the lovelorn girlfriend of his brother. ‘Nat has been the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘I’m not here to talk about my brother,’ he bit back, his blood growing heated with what he suspected was more than a feeling of sibling protectiveness. ‘I asked you about Patterson. How did you meet him?’
For a moment Emma said nothing, because it was still painful to relive it. To remember her naivety—a naivety which had been almost laughable in view of the bizarre nature of her upbringing.
‘How did I meet Louis?’ she repeated. ‘Circumstance, I guess.’
‘Circumstance?’ he echoed.
‘That’s right. You could never have planned for what happened.’
‘Oh?’
There was a moment of silence. ‘My mother was a brilliant dancer,’ she said at last. ‘In another life, she might have done it professionally, but that was almost impossible as a single mother with very little in the way of regular income. Her life was one of constant frustration. Domesticity bored her—she saw it as drudgery—and so did motherhood. So she didn’t play board games or read me any bedtime stories, or any of the normal stuff that children get—but she did have a great sense of style, and colour, which I did inherit. And, as I say—she was a great dancer.’
Zak nodded as her incredible posture suddenly made sense. The way she had seemed almost to float out of his office. ‘She taught you to dance?’ he guessed.
‘Yes,’ said Emma simply, leaning back as the waiter deposited elegant layers of aubergine and pasta before her and trying not to shudder at the sight of Zak’s bloody rib-eye steak. ‘They were the best times I ever had with her. She’d put the music on really high—sometimes the neighbours would bang on the ceiling with a broom—and we’d wrap ourselves up in floaty shawls, and just dance.’
‘And Patterson saw you dancing?’ he guessed.
Unwillingly, she gave a nod to his perception. ‘Yes, he did. I was exactly eighteen when I met him and had gone to the most fashionable nightclub in London. It was my birthday present from Mum—she’d been saving up for it for ages. She said that every girl on the brink of womanhood should get a glimpse of what the world could offer—that there was glamour out there if only you looked for it. I’d never been anywhere like it before.’
‘Never?’
She shook her head. ‘It was dark with flashing lights, and the music was thumping out. I didn’t really like it. It felt false … unreal. There was a big podium at the front—all silver and sparkling—and my favourite song came on. I was feeling a bit out of my depth but that was something familiar. One of my friends egged me on, so I got up and danced my heart out and Louis was sitting in a corner, watching. He said afterwards that—’
‘Don’t tell me. It was love at first sight?’ he questioned cynically, imagining the tawdry chat-up lines which must have ensued.
She shrugged. ‘That’s what he said.’
Hearing the defensiveness in her voice, Zak pushed his plate away. He could imagine just what an arresting sight she must have been. Young. Blonde. Presumably virginal. He felt the jerk of some dark emotion he didn’t want to analyse. ‘You inspired him?’ he asked slowly.
‘I guess so. He wrote “Fairy Dancer” that same night. When it hit the top of the charts, he decided that I was his number-one muse and he couldn’t live without me. That kind of thing can easily go to a young girl’s head.’ Especially when your mother was egging you on and telling you that you’d never get another chance quite like this one.
Louis had showered her with gifts and attention—and, more importantly, he hadn’t leapt on her. He told her he respected her virginal status and that he would gladly wait until after they were married. And Emma had agreed, carried along on that unreal wave she was riding—as well as her mother’s excitement. By the time her doubts had set in on the night before the wedding, it was too late. Her mother told her it was nothing but ‘nerves’ and to pull herself together.
‘So I married him. And the rest of the story is well documented. I found him dead a year later from a combination of drink and drugs. It’s not something I care to dwell on. Anything else you want to know, Mr Constantinides?’
Unexpectedly, he said, ‘I thought I told you to call me Zak.’
She stared at him, shaken by the emotional catharsis of recounting a story which she’d buried deeply, wanting to tell him that calling him by his first name seemed ridiculously