Marriage And Miracles

‘Good God,’ Celeste let out on a shuddering sigh as the lights came on. Slowly, she turned wide eyes towards Gemma. ‘And the man who wrote that is the man you love?’

Gemma flushed fiercely. ‘It’s only a play, Celeste. It’s not real!’

‘Still...’

‘My God, I’m on a winner!’ Byron exclaimed excitedly. ‘Just look at the audience. They can’t stop talking about it. I knew when I first read the darned thing that it was a powerfully emotional and erotic drama, but to see it enacted...’ He shook his head in disbelief and admiration. ‘Lenore’s quite brilliant, isn’t she? And that chap they’ve got playing the hero is simply incredible!’

‘He’s hardly a hero, Byron,’ Celeste remarked drily.

‘You know what I mean. Besides, I’ll bet there isn’t a woman in this theatre who’d say no to him if he put his slippers under her bed.’

‘You could be right,’ she said, revelling in the look of instant jealousy that burnt in his intense blue eyes.

‘In that case, I’m not taking you to the party afterwards. That devil will be there. Gemma can go alone!’

‘I doubt she’ll mind that,’ Celeste muttered, thinking Gemma might not want her father to see what she was up to. Despite Byron’s passionate nature, he was basically a man of old-fashioned principles. It was the man’s place to do the chasing, in his opinion, not the woman’s. Seduction was not supposed to be a woman’s domain. He was still coming to terms with Celeste’s liberated views and would not condone his daughter doing her darnedest to get her husband back in her bed by the methods she obviously meant to employ later tonight. Celeste decided it might be wise to coax Byron away from the party afterwards as early as possible.

She didn’t think she would have any trouble.

Her hand came to rest with seeming innocence on his thigh. ‘Don’t be silly, Byron,’ she said, her eyes locking on his. ‘You’ll be expected to attend. At least for a little while,’ she added, dropping her voice to a husky whisper, her hand moving ever so slightly up his leg. ‘But I see no reason why we can’t slip away early. If Gemma wants to stay and talk to Nathan she can go home to Belleview in a taxi.’

‘You’re wicked,’ he groaned, but did not remove her hand.

She simply smiled. The things a mother did for her children, Celeste thought with a stab of perverse amusement.

Byron cleared his throat. ‘Can I—er—get you two ladies a drink?’ he offered, his voice a little shaky.

‘That would be nice, darling,’ Celeste returned smoothly. ‘Champagne, I think. Celebrations are obviously in order.’

‘Champagne it is.’

‘What are we celebrating?’ Gemma asked after Byron left them. Clearly, she hadn’t been listening to their ongoing conversation.

‘The success of the play.’

Gemma grimaced. ‘I suppose I should be happy for Nathan, but I’ll never like that play. How can I when it was responsible for breaking up our marriage?’

‘The play wasn’t responsible for breaking up your marriage. Nathan was, when he refused to listen to you, when he closed his eyes and ears to your love.’

Gemma frowned as the reality of what Celeste was saying sank in. Why had Nathan turned his back on her love? Why? His blunt confession to having kept her in the dark about Celeste being her mother had been a deliberate act to drive her away and make her agree to a divorce. Would a man genuinely in love do that?

Her highly practical and logical brain reached for an answer but her heart didn’t like the one it came up with. Nathan couldn’t love her, in that case. Maybe he never had. Maybe everyone else was right and he’d only married her out of lust. Maybe he’d even found someone else...the number three Celeste had mentioned.

Panic began to set in till Gemma remembered the baby she might be carrying. Could she afford to think negative thoughts, even if they were logical ones? Love wasn’t logical, she reminded herself frantically. Love had never been logical. Perhaps it was shame and guilt that had impelled him to push her away with the only weapon he could find. That report. He did love her. He must! For if he didn’t...

God, if he didn’t!

Black thoughts swirled in her head.

‘You don’t have to go to the party afterwards,’ Celeste said quietly.

Gemma blinked, her confusion clearing as she realised that if there was even the smallest chance Nathan loved her she had to take it.

‘Oh, yes, I do,’ she said, her nerves calming a little in the face of having no alternative. ‘I don’t have any choice.’

Celeste almost argued with her daughter, till she recalled all the stupid, crazy things she had done in the name of love. Could anyone have dissuaded her at the time? She doubted it.

So she remained silent, and eventually Byron returned with the champagne. Eventually, too, the play resumed, the second half as compelling and shocking as the first. And eventually, the three of them left the theatre to go to the post-première party.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHY didn’t you hold this party at Belleview?’ Celeste asked Byron as he drove up the ramp of the underground car park. ‘Not that I’m complaining, mind. Double Bay is a lot closer than St Ives.’

‘Which is precisely the answer to your question. The cast and crew have two performances tomorrow, it being a Saturday, and most of them live close to the city. So when Cliff offered his place as the venue I jumped at it.’

‘Who’s Cliff? One of your business cronies?’

‘He’d like to be. He’s an American movie producer who wants to buy the rights to Nathan’s play. A colleague of his snapped one up earlier in the year. When Cliff read it, he hot-footed it over here as if he was shot out of a cannon. He’s as slick as they come and thinks we Aussies have all come down in the last shower when it comes to the movie business. Which we have, in a way,’ Byron finished drily.

‘Don’t let him have the rights to this play for less than two million, Byron,’ Celeste advised. ‘I’ve heard that’s what a top screenplay commands these days.’

‘Two million, eh? You’re sure that’s not excessive?’

‘Not at all. That play will be a big hit, be it on stage or screen.’

‘You’re right!’ Byron pronounced firmly. ‘It’s easily worth two million. I’ll ask for three.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Celeste laughed.

Gemma sat silently in the back of Byron’s Jaguar, grateful for her parents’ lively conversation. It took her mind off the evening ahead, and her mission impossible. She wondered idly what kind of place this American movie mogul had rented. A large harbour-side apartment, she supposed. A penthouse, even.

When Byron turned down a quiet Double Bay street and pulled into the kerb outside an outlandishly huge Mediterranean-style white-stuccoed mansion, her eyes almost popped out of her head. She would not have believed that any home could make Belleview pale by comparison, but she was wrong. This particular place dwarfed Byron’s home in size, outdid it for opulence, and made her realise that, while money could not buy everything, it could buy a hell of a lot!

Celeste must have been having similar thoughts.

‘If he can afford a place like this, Byron,’ she said as they climbed out of the car, ‘then three million will be just a drop in the ocean.’

A security guard checked their identities at the gates, then let them inside.

Gemma was all eyes as they made their way through the lushly tropical front garden—complete with fountain—up some statue-lined steps and on to an arched portico that was at least twenty feet wide and God knew how long. It disappeared into the dim distance as did the ranch-style building itself. The ceramic pots lining the covered veranda at regular intervals were enormous and alone would have cost a small fortune.

Byron moved over to ring the front doorbell while Gemma turned to admire the gushing fountain from the top of the steps.

‘If only Ma could see this place,’ she muttered.

‘Have you told Ma about me yet?’ Celeste asked her daughter on hearing her mention her old neighbour out at Lightning Ridge.

Gemma nodded. ‘I wrote to her last night. She’s going to be tickled pink when she finds out Byron is my father. I think she always rather fancied him.’

‘Did she, now?’ Celeste said archly. ‘I think I’ll have to put a stop to all those opal-buying trips dear Byron goes on. I’ve never subscribed to the theory that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I’m more inclined to believe out of sight out of mind, especially where the male sex is concerned!’

Gemma laughed. ‘Ma’s about seventy, Celeste. I don’t think you have to worry on that score.’

‘Worry?’ Byron butted in. ‘What are you worried about, Gemma? Look, I’m sure Nathan will come round eventually. Give the boy some time and he’ll see sense.’

Byron’s reminder of why she had come to this party brought a resurgence of nerves to Gemma’s stomach. Her confidence slipped another notch and it took all of her courage not to turn and run away.

‘Nathan is not a boy, Byron,’ Celeste advised tartly. ‘And we weren’t talking about him, anyway. Did you ring the doorbell?’

Right at that moment, the heavy front door was flung open and a big, barrel-chested man with a ruddy face and thick white hair appeared, a glass of whisky in one hand and a cigar in the other.

‘Byron, my man!’ he boomed in a broad American accent. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to show up. Everyone else has been here for a while. What kept you?’

‘The Press.’

Cliff laughed. ‘I saw them swarming all over you afterwards. I gather they were keen on the play?’

‘Very keen.’

‘How could they not be?’ the American enthused. ‘The damned thing was brilliant! If you don’t sell me the rights, I’ll have to throw myself off your Gap.’

Gemma was startled by this mention of a rather notorious Sydney suicide spot since she hadn’t really been tuned into the interchange. Her mind had been elsewhere.

Byron merely laughed. ‘That’s a bit drastic. I’m sure we could be persuaded to sell at the right price. Have you a spare three million or so?’

‘Three million! Why, you Aussie rogue, you! But let’s not talk money matters on the front doorstep. I’m much better at negotiation after a pint or two of Southern Comfort. And with a bit of luck, you won’t be,’ he chuckled.

‘Come in, ladies, come in,’ Cliff continued expansively, and threw an appreciative glance first at Celeste, then at Gemma. ‘Two women, Byron?’ he joked as he ushered the threesome into the spacious terracotta-tiled foyer. ‘I thought you were a conservative widower. Is this a side to you I haven’t seen before?’

Byron gave him a look of mock horror. ‘Good lord, Cliff, one woman is enough for me to handle, especially one like this.’ He linked arms with Celeste and drew her forward. ‘Let me introduce my fiancée, Celeste Campbell. Celeste, this is Cliff Overton.’

Celeste shook his hand and smiled with mischievous seductiveness.

Cliff whistled. ‘I see what you mean, Byron. And who’s this gorgeous young thing?’ he said on turning to Gemma. ‘I don’t recall seeing you on stage tonight, honey, yet someone as lovely-looking as you are must surely be an actress. I could set up a screen test for you, if you like,’ he whispered conspiratorially.

‘Back off, Cliff,’ Byron said, putting a protective arm around Gemma’s shoulder. ‘Gemma doesn’t want to be an actress, do you, love?’

‘Gemma! What a fantastic stage name!’ Cliff gushed on before Gemma could get a word in edgeways. ‘And so individual. All it needs is the right surname. I can see it in lights now. GEMMA STONE.’

Celeste and Gemma rolled their eyes at each other while Byron’s mouth thinned. ‘Gemma is Nathan’s wife,’ he informed drily. ‘I doubt he would like to see her name in lights.’

The American’s broad grin faded to a puzzled frown. ‘She is? But I thought Nathan was divorced. I mean, he—er—well, never mind,’ he shrugged. ‘I must have got it wrong. Nice to meet you, Gemma. You must be very proud of that genius husband of yours. That is some play he’s written. Not to mention directed. I wonder if he’d consider coming to Hollywood to direct the movie. What do you think, Byron?’

‘You’ll have to ask Nathan that. He’s his own man. I presume he’s here?’

Their host looked oddly disconcerted again. ‘Er—yes... yes, he is. Somewhere...’

‘Perhaps we could go and find him, then?’ Byron suggested, and Gemma’s stomach clenched down hard. Suddenly, she didn’t want to see Nathan. Not here. Not with a lot of other people around. She’d been stupid to come.

Her spirits sinking with each step, she followed the others down the wide tiled corridor to find herself eventually standing in an archway that overlooked a huge sunken living area full of laughing, talking, drinking, smoking partygoers. Music played in the background though only one couple was dancing. Lively conversation and thin cigarette haze filled the air.

The first person Gemma spotted was Lenore, who was standing, arm in arm with her leading man, surrounded by a rather large group of people. Everyone was drinking champagne and generally looking very happy and excited. When Lenore spotted Gemma too, her first reaction was a worried frown and a darting glance down the other end of the room. Gemma’s eyes followed, and what she saw made her breath catch in her throat and her insides flip right over.

Nathan was sitting on a large padded leather sofa. And the beautiful blonde curled up next to him was hardly acting like a platonic acquaintance. She was all over him like a rash and Nathan wasn’t warding her off.

Gemma’s mouth went dry as she watched her husband bend forward to pick up a drink from the table in front of them, laughing and smiling with his companion as they shared the glass. When he brushed his companion’s hair with his lips Gemma was almost sick on the spot. Suddenly, he looked up over the blonde’s head, straight at the archway then straight into Gemma’s appalled face. Without acknowledging her, he looked away and started talking to the couple seated on an adjacent sofa, his arm still firmly around the blonde’s shoulder.

‘Who the hell is that with Nathan?’ Celeste snapped from where she was standing between Gemma and Byron.

‘Her name is Jody Something-or-other,’ Byron grated out. ‘She’s one of the understudies.’

‘I’d hoped I got the wrong idea earlier,’ Cliff muttered on the other side of Byron. ‘Clearly I hadn’t.’

‘Gemma, darling,’ Celeste said abruptly, grabbing her daughter by the shoulders and dragging her back out of sight. ‘Why don’t I take you home? You can see for yourself Nathan doesn’t want a reconciliation. Don’t belittle yourself by trying. Please.’

Having snapped out of her shocked reaction, Gemma’s logical brain jolted into gear. What she’d seen with her eyes didn’t make sense. Nathan loved her, not some strange woman. In that case, what was he doing, draped all over her like that and doing something as intimate as sharing a drink, not to mention kissing her hair?

Every instinct told her to flee. But she’d run away once before when things looked bad and look what had happened!

‘I...I have to talk to him.’

‘Not in there, for pity’s sake,’ Celeste said, nodding towards the crowded and quite noisy room. She turned to her host, her voice assertive. ‘Cliff, you must have a quiet room near by where Gemma could speak privately with Nathan.’

‘Yes, of course!’

Gemma was ushered back down the corridor and through a door into a darkly furnished study-cum-library, where she waited with Celeste while Byron went to get Nathan. A lingering nausea continued to swim in her stomach as she tried desperately to get a grasp on the situation. But it was beyond her.

Nathan came in the room alone, looking elegantly cool in his black dinner suit, not the slightest bit perturbed at having to face his estranged wife.

‘You wanted to see me, Gemma?’ he drawled with an indifference that stunned her.

‘You unfeeling bastard,’ Celeste bit out. ‘We saw you just now with that little tramp.’

Icy grey eyes turned her way. ‘Watch your mouth, Celeste. Jody is no tramp. And I should know. I’ve seen plenty of the real thing. I’m looking at one right now.’

‘Nathan!’ Gemma gasped, appalled by such open rudeness.

‘It’s all right, Gemma,’ Celeste said sharply. ‘I can take care of myself. Now you listen to me, you creep! For some weird and wonderful reason which eludes me, Gemma here still loves you, and believes you still love her. Or she did till she saw that lovely little scenario out there with that blonde! But you and I know what you are, don’t we? You’re not fit to be the husband of a lovely young girl like this. Why don’t you do her a favour? Get the hell out of her life and stay out of it!’

‘Celeste, please,’ Gemma groaned, clasping her hands to the sides of her head.

‘I’d like to do exactly that, Celeste,’ Nathan snarled. ‘Your precious daughter just isn’t getting the message. Why in God’s name you allowed her to come here tonight is beyond me. I don’t want her back. I want a divorce. What more is there to be said?’

‘There’s plenty more to be said!’ Gemma suddenly burst out. ‘And I want it said to me! I’m here in this room, Nathan. Don’t talk around me.’

He turned slowly to face her, the cold fury in his eyes making her flinch away. ‘I have nothing more to say to you.’

Gemma almost crumbled at that point, but she knew if she walked out of here right now without asking him critical questions, she would never be able to live with herself, or the doubts that would remain. ‘But I have things I want to say to you, Nathan,’ she said with more steel than she was actually feeling.

His shrug was indifferent. ‘Please yourself.’

Gemma turned to her mother. ‘Celeste? Will you leave me alone with Nathan?’

Celeste grimaced. ‘I don’t like this, but I suppose I have no alternative. It is your life, after all. I’ll join Byron for a while. But I won’t be far away.’

Giving Nathan a warning glance, Celeste strode from the room, banging the door shut behind her. A strained silence descended, with Gemma eventually moving a little nervously away from Nathan.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not going to attack you again.’

‘Good God, Nathan,’ she groaned, ‘is that what all this is really about? Do you think that I can’t possibly have forgiven you for what you did that day? I can and I do, because I understand the pressures you were under when you did it.’

‘You misunderstand me, Gemma,’ he returned coldly. ‘I do not care if you forgive me or not. And it’s immaterial to me now whether you slept with Campbell or not.’

‘But I didn’t! I swear to you, I didn’t. I won’t deny that he fancied me and that he might have wanted something to develop between us. But nothing did. And now that he’s found out he’s my uncle, there’s no risk of that.’

Nathan’s laughter sent a chill running through her soul. ‘As if something as trivial as a little incest would stop a man like that. God, but you still haven’t grown up, have you? I would have thought some time spent in the bosom of the Campbells would have opened up those innocent eyes of yours.’

Gemma closed those eyes with a pained sigh before opening them again, her expression sad as she surveyed her cynical husband. ‘You always believe the worst of people, don’t you? Not everyone is wicked, Nathan.’

He laughed, then moved slowly towards her, making Gemma stiffen inside with an odd mixture of excitement and apprehension. When he reached out, to tip her chin upwards with a single finger, her eyes were wide and fearful.

‘If they aren’t, my darling,’ he said in a dark silky voice, ‘then it’s only a question of time and opportunity. Even the best person can be corrupted, given the right weapons. Just look at Byron. All he needed was a woman like Celeste to come into his life and his morals went right out of the window. With some people it’s sex. With others it’s drugs. Or money. Or power. Total innocents can be corrupted even against their will, if they fall into the wrong hands.’

The awfulness of Nathan’s words seemed to get lost under the spell of his physical closeness, and that finger which had slid under her chin and was even now tracing an erotic circle around her quivering mouth. Smoky grey eyes locked on to hers and Gemma found herself unable to tear her gaze away from his.

‘I could have really corrupted you if I’d wanted to,’ he murmured thickly.

Gemma moaned softly when that tantalising finger retreated from those tortuous circles. Dazed, she just stood there for a moment till she realised he was staring down at her braless breasts, which were at that moment rising and falling with a betrayingly increased heartbeat.

‘Maybe I already have,’ he rasped, startling her when he slipped his hands into the deep neckline and slid the dress off her shoulders, dragging the material down her arms, till her breasts were totally exposed.

‘Why else would you have dressed like this tonight?’ he taunted, his thumbs rubbing her rapidly hardening nipples. ‘Unless you wanted me to see that your breasts were within easy reach. Unless you wanted me to touch them like this, maybe touch you far more intimately...’

She whimpered as desire shot through her, her heart leaping when his eyes locked on to hers and she saw an answering desire flare madly within his glittering gaze.

‘If I did,’ she whispered breathlessly, ‘it’s because I love you. And because I know you still love me.’

Her words brought a stunned look to his face, quickly followed by a darkening fury.

‘Then you’re a bloody fool!’ he exclaimed, angrily yanking her dress back into place. ‘I do not love you and neither do you love me. God, there I was, thinking you might have grown up a little, that you might have learnt to call our feelings for each other by its correct name. It’s called lust, Gemma. L-U-S-T. Only romantic-minded little fools talk of love when they mean sex. Now get out of here before I do something we’re both going to regret afterwards.’

Gemma stared up at him with her mouth agape and her head whirling.

‘Didn’t you hear me, you silly little bitch?’ he snarled. ‘Get out! And take your naïveté with you. I have no patience with it any more. I should never have damned well married you in the first place and nothing you or anyone else can say will stop me divorcing you!’

Gemma stumbled over to the door where she gripped on to the knob with a white-knuckled intensity. But she did not turn that knob. She dragged some deep, steadying breaths and, when she felt enough in control, slowly turned to face her husband once more.

‘Just tell me one thing before I go,’ she said.

‘What?’ he snapped, scowling over at her.

‘If you never loved me, and didn’t believe I loved you, then why did you marry me? You could have had me without marrying me. You did have me without marrying me!’

His sardonic laugh increased her confusion, and her pain. ‘So I did. And you were enchanting, my dear. So enchanting that I thought I wanted you in my bed for forever and exclusively. I was even prepared to let you have a child to keep you there. Foolish of me, I realise. But even a mature man can be made a fool of when in the grip of a sexual obsession. Frankly, I was still quite enamoured of your charms when fate stepped in and sent you racing off to Campbell Court, which is why I reacted so poorly to finding you in Damian Campbell’s bedroom.’

‘But I wasn’t sleeping in there!’ she cried. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I never went to bed with Damian?’

‘As I said before, dear heart,’ Nathan drawled, ‘I no longer care whether you did or not. My maniacal appetite for youth and innocence seems to have been cured somewhere along the line. Perhaps you saw the cure yourself with me earlier? She’s thirty-three, blonde and very, very inventive.’

Gemma stared at him before shaking her head in a blank and bleak disbelief. ‘I never really knew you, did I?’ she said dazedly. ‘Damian did. He said you were bad. I should have believed him.’