she finally managed to escape from the place that she changed her name to Diana Lamb and tried to stamp out the misery of those years by severing all the ties she had with the people involved with them?
Janette had remarried within six months of Diana’s father’s death, to an Italian businessman who didn’t give a damn about the scandal surrounding her first husband; he just wanted a beautiful woman—and there was no doubting Janette was still that, with her shoulder-length ash-blonde hair and deep blue eyes—that he could display socially on his arm when needed, and leave to her own devices when he found other diversions to amuse him. This arrangement suited Janette perfectly; her main loves in life were herself and the indulgences Marco’s money could now buy her.
Whatever had been between Janette and Reece Falcon at the time of Diana’s father’s death seemed to have ended with Howard Lambeth’s death, and Diana had been glad—glad: why should Janette find happiness with her father’s murderer?
After Janette felt secure in her second marriage she had relented slightly in her attitude towards Diana, and allowed her to join them in their Italian home for several weeks of her school holidays throughout the year. Diana still despised her beautiful stepmother, but any time she spent away from the school had to be a bonus, and Marco was nice. Like a lot of Italian men, he liked children.
Unfortunately, however, Diana hadn’t remained a child…
Her thoughts veered sharply away from that second distressing time in her young life. Reece Falcon. It was all his fault. All of it. If he hadn’t pushed her father to the desperation of taking his own life, none of those things would have happened to her.
Which was why, since meeting Chris, she now wanted Reece Falcon to suffer the same pain she had.
Having now met the man himself, she knew that was going to be far from easy.
But she had to do it. Had to!
‘All right, Puddle.’ She chuckled softly at the antics of her cat, climbing up one of the legs of the yellow and pink leggings she wore in an effort to reach the bowl of food she was preparing for him. ‘Lunch is served!’ She put him out of his mewling misery by putting the bowl down on the cool tiled floor of her kitchen, watching indulgently as he launched himself into the bowl as if he hadn’t been fed for a month.
Which was far from the truth. She had only been away for a week, and Roger, the man who lived in the flat across the hallway, and who looked after the cat while she was away, always told her Puddle ate enough for ten cats. Puddle, a pure black cat, with an elusively absent tail, always reacted the same to her going away: he seemed to sense when she was going and stopped eating for several days before she went, then gorged himself in her absence, and then ate everything in sight once she was back—including little nips out of her legs, just to let her know he didn’t approve of her having gone away in the first place!
It was uncanny how the cat always knew she was going, even if she deliberately delayed packing until the very last moment. But after two years of being subjected to Puddle’s unique form of protest Diana had decided it had to be the Celt in him that knew; he was one of those rare things nowadays—a truly Manx cat, totally bereft of a tail. He was also clever, intuitive, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was the only companion Diana wanted in the large flat she had bought and decorated in her own particular style.
All the floors in the two-bedroomed flat, one of which she had made into a studio for the painting she did as a hobby, were either tiled or wood-panelled, with brightly coloured scatter-rugs thrown at random over their surfaces; the furniture, what there was of it, was all white, as were the walls. As Diana walked through from the kitchen with a mug of coffee, leaving Puddle to finish his brunch, she was like a bright splash of colour in the otherwise austere surroundings, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt over the garish multi-coloured leggings.
She dropped down on to one of the white bean-bags that lay about the room, relaxing back in its body-shaping comfort, letting all the tension of the day drain out of her as she sipped the strong coffee.
It had been an uneventful flight back from Paris early that morning, with very few people recognising the tall woman with her hair pulled back into a tight bun at her nape, wearing the white business suit and white blouse beneath the jacket, as the glamorous model Divine. It was exactly the way she liked it to be.
She enjoyed her work; she had really meant it when she had told Reece Falcon that if she didn’t enjoy modelling any more then she wouldn’t be doing it. She was thrilled that so many people liked the way she looked, how clothes looked on her. But that was the professional side of her life, and as Divine she accepted that, but as Diana Lamb she liked to keep her life very private indeed.
But even if anyone had recognised her on the early flight this morning they had been too polite to bother her. No, her tension had reached a head-pounding pitch long before she even reached the airport. She hadn’t slept all night, had just been too tense, too haunted by memories, to be able even to think of relaxing enough to grab a few hours’ sleep. Reece Falcon’s presence in Paris had deeply disturbed her. As it was, she had packed and left the hotel long before she needed to, and had then sat around at the airport constantly looking over her shoulder in case Reece Falcon should already have realised she had gone and followed her there!
He hadn’t, of course, but by the time she boarded the aircraft bound for Heathrow her tension had been such that she had almost leapt out of her seat when the air hostess approached her quietly from behind and asked if she would like a drink!
Lying back in this bean-bag, her eyes closed, the coffee-mug now hanging limply from her fingers, she realised this was the first time she had relaxed in over twelve hours. Since that meeting with Reece Falcon. She could almost, almost…fall asleep…
The strident ringing of the doorbell did little more than elicit a heartfelt groan of protest; she was too exhausted at that moment to do more than that.
She knew who it was, of course. Christopher had wanted to be with her in Paris this last week, but his father had sent him off on business for him—deliberately, Diana now realised—to America. Diana had told him how busy she was going to be with the show—too busy to spend much time with him really, and so he had finally gone to America, protesting all the way, hence the arrival of those red roses from him every day they were apart. But Chris should have arrived back in England this morning too, and had no doubt come to see her now with the intention of repeating his marriage proposal.
In spite of herself, she actually liked Chris. She certainly hadn’t wanted to, having considered before she met him that as Reece Falcon’s only child he was as much the enemy as his father was. But Chris was nothing like Reece Falcon; he was very easygoing by nature, and, taking after his American-born mother in looks, tall and blond, with the physique of an athlete. Even so, Diana had no intention of marrying him…!
‘Keep my seat warm, Puddle,’ she sighed wearily as she got up to answer the second ring of the doorbell, the now bulging cat instantly taking her place on the warm cushion.
But the tired smile of welcome that curved her lips froze into something resembling a grimace as she opened the door to find it wasn’t Chris who stood there at all, but his father—Reece Falcon!
Silver eyes glittered with mocking satisfaction as he saw the stunned expression she was too tired to mask, his mouth twisting derisively. ‘Breakfast.’ He held up the brown paper carrier-bag he held in one arm. ‘I told you we would have breakfast together.’
And what he ‘told’ her he was going to do, he obviously did, Diana realised dazedly as he brushed past her into the flat, easily finding his way into her
