The Devils Price

‘I wasn’t a nag, I just thought it a rather stupid way to kill oneself. But my concern this time was all for myself, the smoke doesn’t do my voice any good!’

Dark brows rose. ‘Is that your excuse for your earlier show?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘If you weren’t satisfied I’m sure my agent would be pleased to discuss the termination of my contract with you,’ she was stung into replying, well aware of how she had sounded out on stage tonight.

‘You’ll do,’ he dismissed indifferently. ‘That husky quality in your voice always was as sexy as hell. It seems a pity your career hasn’t reached the heights of stardom that you craved so much,’ he derided. ‘Why is that, Cynara?’ He raised mocking brows.

She shrugged. ‘I guess I’m not good enough for the big-time.’

‘But the last I heard you were going to make it happen for you,’ he persisted challengingly. ‘Couldn’t you have brought your way to fame?’

She had known the insult was coming, had been expecting it, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept when it did come.

‘Didn’t my father pay you enough, Cynara?’ he probed hardly.

She moistened dry lips. ‘I’m sure your father must have told you I didn’t cash that cheque.’

His laugh was harshly derisive. ‘I know you couldn’t cash the cheque,’ he amended with distaste. ‘My father put a stop on it as soon as you walked out the door with it clutched in your greedy little hand!’

She should have known Nicholas Buchanan would do something like that, that he wouldn’t take the risk that she just might cash his cheque! But she hadn’t even attempted to do so, by accepting it they all knew she had alienated herself from Zack’s love for good; and that was what she had wanted. It was what Nicholas Buchanan had wanted too, and as usual he had had his way.

‘Why didn’t you simply marry a man who could help your career?’ Zack continued to taunt. ‘Someone in the record business, perhaps,’ he scorned.

‘If that had been what I had wanted I could have married you!’ she snapped, her eyes flashing darkly. ‘You had enough money to buy me a recording studio!’

He looked her over with deliberate contempt. ‘I probably would have done too,’ he conceded with self-disgust. ‘I was totally infatuated with you five years ago.’

Cynara swallowed hard. ‘And I thought it was love.’

‘Perhaps it was, for a time,’ he rasped. ‘But knowing the woman you’re in love with, and who supposedly loves you, has accepted money to get out of your life has a way of souring the emotion!’

It had left him a very embittered man, she could see that. But she didn’t feel she was completely to blame for that. ‘I distinctly remember, on our first evening together, your telling me a temporary relationship was all you were interested in,’ she reminded softly.

‘I changed my mind,’ he bit out.

‘But I didn’t,’ she stated simply. ‘I didn’t want a husband, rich or otherwise.’

‘I soon found that out!’

‘I don’t know why you’re so bitter and twisted about it, Zack,’ she dismissed with an indifference she was far from feeling. ‘You must have been reconciled with Joanne soon after that.’

‘Yes, I must have been, mustn’t I?’ His mouth twisted. ‘Which brings us back to Michael. From the conversation you had with him he seemed convinced it’s only a matter of time before we resume our affair.’

‘I hope you told him how ridiculous that idea was,’ she said dryly.

He fixed her with an arrogant stare. ‘I am not in the habit of discussing my private life with a ten-year-old!’

Cynara’s mouth twisted. ‘Even when that ten-year-old can seem like he’s thirty?’

He gave an acknowledging inclination of his head. ‘Michael is very mature for his age,’ he agreed. ‘Nevertheless, I think you could have refrained from discussing our past—association, with him.’

‘I told you, he was the one who introduced the subject,’ she insisted exasperatedly.

‘And I told you I don’t believe you,’ Zack rasped.

‘Maybe I should just ask Michael to tell you the truth,’ she flared.

‘My son is in bed, asleep I hope, at ten o’clock at night,’ he said disparagingly. ‘And he and Kelly return to my mother’s house tomorrow.’

Her eyes widened. ‘They don’t live with you?’

His mouth tightened at the unspoken criticism. ‘You think dragging my children from one hotel to another would be a suitably stable life for them? he snapped.

She shrugged, frowning. ‘They’re with you this time, I just assumed …’

‘You assumed wrong,’ he bit out. ‘We are all on our way back from a holiday with Joanne’s mother in Australia, Michael will be returning to his boarding school in a week or so, and Kelly will be cared for by my mother and her nanny.’

‘Don’t you miss them?’ The question came out before she could stop herself, biting her lip as he looked at her coldly.

‘Your concern for my children is touching, Cynara, considering you’ve been so self-centred in your career you haven’t had time to have any of your own.’ His mouth twisted contemptuously.

‘But I can see you wouldn’t want to mar that beautiful body, even temporarily.’ He stood up, instantly dwarfing her. ‘I believe this conversation is over.’

‘I believe so too,’ she agreed numbly.

‘Don’t discuss our past affair with anyone else, Cynara,’ he warned softly.

‘I haven’t discussed it with anyone,’ she flared. ‘Although I would think by now that most of the staff, and quite a few of the guests, are well aware of it.’

His eyes narrowed to green slits. ‘How?’

She sighed. ‘Before Michael decided not to eat his lunch he stood up and loudly told me I was no good and not to go near his father again.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘He said he would kill me if I did.’

‘Damn,’ Zack bit out fiercely. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

‘I can see now where he gets his temper from,’ she softly mocked.

Green eyes blazed at her. ‘I do not care to discuss the temperament of my son and myself with you,’ he bit out coldly, glancing at the plain gold watch on his wrist. ‘I believe you have another show to do,’ he reminded abruptly before leaving.

It had been worse, so much worse, than she had imagined. She still loved Zack, and there could never be a future for them, never could have been and never would be. She had known that the night they met, had been grateful for Zack’s honesty about any relationship they had. It hadn’t occurred to her that the fact that they had fallen in love would change those plans. When Zack had asked her to marry him she hadn’t known what to do, or say. In the end she had had no choice, Nicholas Buchanan made sure of that.

‘We’re back on,’ Sean appeared in the doorway to tell her. ‘I like the dress,’ he leered teasingly.

It was a low-cut, low-backed black dress that clung everywhere—and for all the notice Zack had taken of it she might have been wearing a sack! Had she secretly hoped he would still find her attractive, that he might even suggest resuming the affair they had once had? She knew she had hurt Zack too much in the past for him to ever forgive her.

She gave a rueful look at the chicken sandwich that had curled up at the edges while she spoke to Zack, following Sean out of the room; she didn’t have the appetite for it now, even if she had had the time to eat it.

The table at the back of the room had been filled with two young couples now, and a quick glance around the rest of the lounge showed her Zack wasn’t seated anywhere else either. He had seen her, made his feelings clear, and now had no reason to bother with her further.

The second show was an improvement on the first. She allowed herself to relax a little now that Zack’s ominous presence was no longer in the room, and knew that the audience appreciated her performance.

But by twelve o’clock, when she had finally cleaned away in her dressing-room, she felt exhausted, just wanted to fall into bed and go to sleep. But she knew she wasn’t going to, going over and over in her mind that last meeting with the triumphant Nicholas Buchanan.

Thinking about it wasn’t going to change anything, she knew that, and yet the images wouldn’t be banished. Zack had invited her down to his family home for the weekend, something he had done plenty of times before. His parents seemed to accept that she had been sharing an apartment with him in London for the last three months, his gentle mother always warm and friendly, his father not openly disclaiming the affair but making it clear he thought his only child could do better than a young singer in a nightclub.

On the Saturday evening she and Zack had gone to the local country club for dinner, and as they had walked outside in the moonlit garden after their meal Zack had asked her to marry him. Her stunned surprise must have shown on her face.

‘Darling, it can’t be such a shock,’ he had laughed indulgently; he had laughed a lot since they had been together, no longer the remote man she had first met. ‘It must be obvious from the way I can’t keep my hands off you, that I have to keep touching you, that I’m in love with you.’

She had blushed at the mention of the amount of time they spent in bed together, Zack liking to touch her and caress her even when they weren’t making love. Physically they had been perfect from the first, and that part of the relationship only got better. In fact, the whole relationship was absolute bliss for Cynara, the fact that Zack was still technically married to Joanne meaning there had been no pressure on her for a more permanent relationship.

But in a matter of seconds Zack had changed all that, and she could feel the panic rising up inside her. ‘We’re happy as we are, Zack,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘Let’s not spoil it.’

‘Spoil it?’ the laughter slowly left his face. ‘How could being married spoil anything?’

‘You told me you didn’t want another permanent relationship,’ she had reminded him, the smile on her lips not concealing the strain in her eyes.

‘Cynara, I love you,’ he had said impatiently. ‘I believed you loved me.’

‘I do—–’

‘Then where’s the problem?’ he had frowned. ‘People that love each other usually get married.’

‘I—I just don’t want to—to upset things between us,’ she had been very pale in the moonlight. ‘You loved Joanne once, and look what happened to that marriage,’ she had added desperately.

‘I still love Joanne,’ he had told her softly. ‘But I don’t know that I was ever in love with her. We met when we were both at university, married because we thought we were in love and Joanne’s parents were urging her to return to Australia. By the time the first heady excitement of what we had done had died down Michael was on the way. We were lovers who, as the years passed, became friends who loved each other. When someone else came along for her about a year ago I didn’t stand in her way of happiness. She’s a wonderful woman, she deserves to be happy. But I think I deserve happiness too,’ he had told her frowningly. ‘Meeting you and falling in love with you was the last thing I had in mind when I walked on to that ship almost four months ago. But I did meet you, and I love you more than life itself. I can’t imagine ever being without you now.’

She had felt the same way, but she had known she couldn’t marry him. And if she were to make him understand that without revealing the true reason then she was going to have to hurt him. ‘Marriage is too confining, Zack,’ she had dismissed brightly. ‘I have to be free, free to do what I want.’

‘And what do you want?’ he had rasped. ‘I thought you wanted me!’

‘I do,’ she had drawled throatily. ‘But I also want a career, to travel where that career takes me.’

‘You can still have those things married to me,’ he had protested.

‘Zack Buchanan’s wife a singer?’ she had mocked. ‘I don’t think so, Zack. What would your friends, your family, have to say about that?’

‘I don’t give a damn what anyone has to say.’ He had scowled. ‘I want you for my wife.’

‘You say that now,’ she had grimaced. ‘But what about in a few years time when you do care what those friends and family have to say? What then, Zack?’

‘It won’t happen,’ he had dismissed impatiently. ‘Besides, I doubt you will want to continue with your career for ever.’

‘Why won’t I?’ she had prompted.

‘Well—I—You can’t sing for the rest of your life,’ he had protested frowningly.

‘Why can’t I?’ she had persisted softly.

He had given an impatient sigh. ‘Surely one day you will just want to take things easy, settle down?’

‘No.’ She had shaken her head firmly. ‘That’s exactly what I don’t want.’

‘You want us to just continue with this living together arrangement?’

‘Yes!’

‘And if I want more than that?’

She had swallowed hard. ‘I can’t give you more than that.’

His mouth had thinned angrily. ‘Maybe you just need time to think this over,’ he had bit out. ‘After all, I’m still married to Joanne; we haven’t even discussed marriage before. You probably haven’t given it a thought.’

He had been wrong, she had thought about it, and had dismissed it, as she always must.

They had driven back to his parents’ house in silence, and for the first time Cynara had been relieved that they had been given separate bedrooms, not have felt able to be near Zack that night without sobbing out the truth to him. They had parted at her bedroom door, and from the tight-lipped disappointment on Zack’s face she had known there would be no late night trip to her bedroom tonight as there had been in the past when they stayed with his parents, that Zack had been too hurt to want her tonight.

She had been right, sleeping badly as she knew things were over between the two of them. He wouldn’t settle for less than marriage now, and she would never marry him.

‘My son has gone out riding,’ Nicholas Buchanan had informed her when she had joined him at the breakfast table. ‘He seemed a little—distraught.’

‘Really?’ She had sipped her reviving coffee, wishing Alice Buchanan were there to counteract the harsh disapproval Nicholas Buchanan had never hesitated in showing her whenever they were alone. But Alice always breakfasted in her bedroom, and so Cynara knew she would get no help from that direction.

‘Have the two of you argued?’ Nicholas had probed mercilessly.

Not as tall or well-built as his son, Nicholas Buchanan had, nevertheless, exuded power of a different kind. Cynara hadn’t felt comfortable under his blue-eyed stare from the moment they had met.

‘We’ve—er—had a slight disagreement,’ she had conceded warily.

‘I’m glad to have this time alone with you.’ He had spoken softly, with all the charm of a snake. ‘I want to talk to you, about something personal.’

‘Yes?’ She had eyed him guardedly.

‘In my study,’ he had told her. ‘Where we can’t be disturbed.’

Not ‘wont’ be, but ‘can’t’ be! Cynara had felt her tension rise as she had followed him from the room. Nicholas Buchanan had never gone out of his way to talk to her before; this meeting seemed ominous.

‘Sit down,’ he had invited, moving to stand behind the imposing desk. ‘I have something I want to show you.’

‘Yes?’ She had sat down demurely, wariness in every bone of her body. Nicholas Buchanan had the look of a snake about to fatally strike his victim—and she was it!

He had moved the picture on the wall behind him to one side to reveal a safe, deftly unlocking it to take out a folder. ‘Do you know what this is?’ He had turned to her Cynara had frowned. ‘Should I?’

‘Perhaps, if you had come to know me a little better.’ He had smiled without humour, sitting down behind the desk. ‘When my only son and heir brings home a cheap little singer like you and introduces her to his mother and me then I feel I have reason to try and protect him from making a fool of himself.’

Cynara had tensed at his emotionless insult, knowing there was worse to come. There was, much worse!

‘So I had you investigated—–’

‘No!’ she had gasped.

‘Yes,’ he had stated coldly. ‘This file tells me everything I need to know about Cynara Williams. You see, I believe my son intends to ask you to marry him—–’

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