The Devils Price. Carole Mortimer

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      It had been a very formal parting, both of them conscious of the curiosity of the other passengers as they had watched the progress of their romance through the last week. Cynara had watched from the side of the ship as a black limousine waited for Zack and his party on the dock, banishing the tears to smile and wave as he turned to glance up at her, anxious that his last memory of her shouldn’t be an unhappy one, that he should remember only the laughter and loving they had shared when he thought of her. If he thought of her.

      She had thanked God it was her last trip when the next cruise began a few days later, knew that she couldn’t keep up the air of jollity that was expected of her on board ship. Everywhere she went on board there were memories of herself and Zack, the ones in her cabin impossible to live with. Until the note had been delivered.

      They had docked in Turkey, and she had taken advantage of the stop to go round the Grand Bazaar, had been enthralled with the exotic jewellery displayed in so many of the windows, coming back from her trip exhausted. She hadn’t taken any notice of the envelope slipped under her door at first, was too used to these ship’s memorandum being delivered in this way, throwing off her shoes to collapse back on the bed.

      Finally she pulled herself up, picking up the envelope, ripping it open half-heartedly. The message had been short and brief, ‘Call me. Zack.’ And at the bottom of the page had been a telephone number.

      She had paced her cabin frustratedly until they were underway again and the ship’s telephones were back in use, unable to make calls while they were docked.

      I’ll be waiting, Zack had told her. And he had been.

      She was under no illusions of them becoming friends this time, knew it was the one thing they could never be. The cold contempt in Zack’s eyes as he continued to watch her seemed to say he had lived through the same memories—and came to the same conclusions.

      But five years hadn’t changed the shock of awareness she felt at seeing him again, the need she felt to be in his arms. Suddenly, she knew she had only been half alive the last five years, that her heart still belonged to this man. How could she have been completely alive with no heart, she thought hysterically.

      The rest of her early evening show passed in a blur for her, singing automatically. It had all become mainly routine for her the last few years, but she usually enjoyed herself; tonight the show couldn’t be over soon enough for her, needing to get away from the steady contempt in narrowed green eyes as her voice slowly deteroriated.

      She was aware of Zack’s every move. He didn’t speak to anyone, his glass automatically replaced as soon as it was empty, and his gaze never left her. She was a nervous wreck by the time she stepped gratefully off the stage and out of the spotlights, not sure if she could go back on in an hour and do another show, shutting herself in the privacy of her dressing-room.

      ‘What’s wrong, Cyn?’

      She looked up wearily as Rod, her agent, came in unannounced. ‘Don’t call me that,’ she snapped automatically. ‘What are you doing here?’ she frowned.

      ‘Josie told me you didn’t seem quite yourself today.’ He shrugged, a tall blond-haired man, with a face and physique that should have taken him into films, but he preferred to be the man behind the stars rather than become one himself. ‘So I thought I’d come and see for myself.’

      Josie followed him into the room, grimacing. ‘Sorry,’ she asked for forgiveness.

      Cynara gave her a tired smile. ‘It’s a good thing I love you both so much.’

      ‘What’s happening out there, Cyn?’ Rod wasn’t at all daunted by her show of temper earlier at his shortened version of her name.

      ‘Not a lot, couldn’t you hear that for yourself?’ she sighed shakily.

      ‘You weren’t your usual effervescent self—–’

      ‘I was awful,’ she put in flatly. ‘And everyone knows it.’ Including the man with the contemptuous green eyes!

      ‘Hey, you’re a professional,’ Rod comforted. ‘You don’t give bad performances, just ones that weren’t as good as they could have been. Besides, half those people out there wouldn’t know talent if they heard it.’

      Her vividly painted red mouth quirked into a smile. ‘I think I may have just been insulted,’ she mocked.

      Rod made an impatient movement. ‘You haven’t had a break in years,’ he defended, frowning as he realised the truth of that.

      Five years. Oh she had had the odd day or few days when she was ‘resting’, but they hadn’t been made through choice. When she stopped this mad merry-go-round of shows she had too much time to think, to dwell on the man she loved and who now hated her with a vengeance. The fact that she had meant him to hate her didn’t help the feeling of desolation when she knew that he did.

      ‘My life is one bit holiday,’ she dismissed briskly. ‘I was in Germany last month, Las Vegas the month before that. I’m always in one glamourous locale or another.’

      ‘Working,’ Rod put in firmly.

      ‘It’s what I do best,’ she shrugged.

      ‘It’s what you do, period,’ he frowned. ‘Maybe I should have insisted you take a break—–’

      ‘You happen to be my agent, Rod,’ she scorned. ‘Not my manager!’

      ‘You need managing—–’

      ‘Rod, I have only forty minutes before my next show, I’d like to shower, change, possibly have some dinner,’ she told him pointedly.

      ‘You’re going back on?’

      ‘Of course,’ she dismissed. ‘The gruffness will have gone by then. Besides, I’m a professional,’ she reminded dryly.

      Rod pulled a face. ‘You certainly are. Okay,’ he sighed. ‘But if you change your mind about taking a break just let me know and we’ll arrange it.’

      ‘I won’t,’ she told him abruptly, knowing that she would fall apart if she ever sat back and thought about the next thirty to forty years without Zack. She lived her life day by day, never thought of tomorrow; it was the only way she could go on.

      She ordered a sandwich to be sent to her dressing-room, securing her hair out of the way of the shower as she moved to stand beneath it’s soothing spray. Would Zack have left by the time she went out for her late-night show? Why was he there at all? Curiosity, perhaps. Maybe he wanted to see if she had changed at all. Had she? No, she didn’t think so. Her gleaming red hair had always been this length, the image of beauty she could attain with the expert application of make-up showed her that her face had changed little either. Maybe she was a little thinner, but that only threw into prominence the classical lines of her bone-structure, made her wrists and hands seem delicately beautiful, the figure-hugging gowns she wore on stage showing she didn’t possess an ounce of excess weight. No, on the outside she was still very much the same, it was on the inside that she felt nothing, not allowing pain or pleasure to colour her controlled existence, not daring to in case she fell apart.

      ‘Leave it on the table,’ she instructed the waiter as she heard him bring in her sandwich, wrapping a towel about her СКАЧАТЬ