plenty of total bitches in my life and trust me, Charmaine, you are certainly not one of them. A total bitch wouldn’t work so hard for charity for starters, I can tell you.’
‘Aah, but that’s my only Achilles heel,’ Charmaine said, looking sad and wistful for a moment. ‘Kids with cancer. Poor little mites. I can bear it when life is unspeakably cruel and unfair to adults. But not children. They do not deserve that fate. Not when they’ve done nothing to cause it.’
She swallowed, then gritted her teeth.
You’re not going to cry, are you? Crying never achieves a thing. Crying is for babies, and the broken-hearted. You’re hardly a baby, and your heart isn’t broken any more, Charmaine. It’s been super-glued back together and nothing will ever break it again.
She reached for the complimentary glass of water that sat on the café table and sipped it till she had herself totally under control. Then she put the glass down and smiled at the woman opposite her, who had a worried frown on her lovely face.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I get emotional when I talk about kids with cancer.’
‘There’s no need to be sorry. I think what you feel is very admirable. I can understand it entirely.’
Charmaine refrained from laughing at this statement. How could Renée possibly understand? No one could understand who hadn’t been through it themselves. Watched a child suffer and die. A sweet, innocent little child.
But she probably meant well.
How old was Renée? Charmaine wondered. Early thirties? Older? Must be a bit older, though she still looked marvellous. Some women glowed when they were pregnant. Others looked drawn and dreary. Renée was clearly the glowing kind.
The waitress materialised at their table again.
‘Ready to order yet, ladies?’ she asked chirpily.
‘Absolutely,’ Charmaine replied and ordered the Caribbean-style beef-burger with fries and salad, mango cheesecake with cream, and a cappuccino.
When Renée stared at her, she laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t eat any dinner tonight and I’ll punish myself in the gym tomorrow.’ As she always did. Every single day.
But then her whole life was now a punishment, wasn’t it? For her sins, especially that one really wicked sin, the one she could never forgive herself for, the one she would never forget.
‘You’ll have to if you hope to fit into that dress you’re planning to wear on Saturday night,’ Renée pointed out. ‘As it is, it looks as if you’ve been sewn into it.’
‘Oh, darn, you’re right. I’d momentarily forgotten about that.’ She sighed and looked up at the patiently waiting waitress. ‘Could I change my order to something less fattening, like a lettuce leaf au naturel?’
The waitress grinned. ‘I’m so glad you have to watch what you eat, too. If I thought you could look the way you do without suffering even a little, it would kill me.’
‘Then do not despair,’ Charmaine said drily. ‘I suffer more than a little. I suffer a lot every single day.’ And then some! ‘OK, give me the fish of the day, grilled, with a side salad. No dressing. No dessert. And black coffee to follow. How’s that?’ she asked Renée.
Renée laughed. ‘Perfect. I’ll have the same.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE ballroom at the Regency Hotel was a popular Sydney venue for top-drawer functions. Its spectacular Versailles-inspired walls had borne witness to many society balls, awards nights, fashion extravaganzas, product launches, company Christmas parties and, yes, quite a few charity benefits. Its ornate, high-domed ceilings and huge chandeliers had looked down upon the rich and famous on many occasions as they gathered in their finery to celebrate or support whatever cause had brought them together.
Tonight’s cause was one which never failed to touch even the most hard-hearted. Kids with cancer. Charmaine knew that for a fact. And she’d exploited it shamelessly as she’d put together this, her first charity banquet and auction.
But it had been one hell of a lot of work, taking up every spare moment of her time for the last six months. Her social life—what there was of it these days—had suffered accordingly. Even her career had suffered, with her refusing any assignments that would take her overseas for more than a few days.
But it was all worth it to see the fantastic turn-out tonight. Every table filled, and all by people who could well afford the hefty thousand-dollar price tag on each ticket. For which they would get a moderately nice sit-down dinner which probably cost less than fifty dollars a head to produce.
Not that the Friends of Kids with Cancer foundation had to pay anything at all for the catering. The relatively new owner of the Regency Hotel had been persuaded to donate the three hundred dinners required, plus all the drinks and the ballroom itself. Charmaine had discovered that Max Richmond’s brother had died of cancer when quite a young man, an unfortunate tragedy which she’d been quick to capitalise on.
Ah, yes, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t stoop to to raise money to reach tonight’s ten-million-dollar target, including going without food of any appreciable kind both yesterday and today so that she could fit into the dress she was wearing as co-host of tonight’s auction, a dress that almost defied description.
Wicked was the word that sprang to mind.
How she came to be wearing this particular dress was intriguing. She’d gone to see the head of Campbell Jewels at her home, as she’d personally visited all of the CEOs of Sydney’s top companies, begging and bulldozing them for donations for her auction. Most accommodated her in some way. Celeste Campbell had been very amenable, donating a lovely selection of jewellery. She’d also had that no-nonsense, straight-down-the-line manner that Charmaine admired in a woman. Charmaine had warmed to her immediately, and vice versa.
When Celeste found out the charity auction was being held in the Regency ballroom, she’d related to Charmaine the story of another auction that had been held there a decade earlier, not long before Charmaine herself had first come to Sydney. Apparently there’d been a sit-down banquet, like tonight, followed by the auction of the famed black opal called the Heart of Fire, which was now in the Australian Museum.
Charmaine had been startled to learn that during the course of the evening there’d been an attempted robbery and a shooting. Charmaine had been fascinated by the woman’s story, then totally blown away when Celeste showed her the dress she’d worn that night. It was one of the most provocative evening gowns Charmaine had ever seen.
When Celeste proclaimed she was too old to wear such a dress these days, Charmaine had swiftly jumped in and asked if she could borrow it to wear to the charity auction. She’d known straight away that it was just the thing to get some rich fool to bid a ridiculous price for a dinner date with her. Celeste Campbell had refused—and given her the gown instead! Charmaine had been thrilled.
And now here she was, wearing it, but not feeling quite so confident, or so cocky. Her stomach was doing more somersaults than it had on her very first modelling assignment. Yet she was never nervous these days, no matter how much flesh she was flaunting.
Not that Celeste Campbell’s dress showed all that much bare flesh. Its wickedness was far more subtle than that.
