A Rich Man's Revenge

CHAPTER TWO

THE distance between Charles’s inner-city apartment block and the Regency Hotel was only a couple of blocks, but Charles still drove. Walking was not his favourite form of exercise. Within five minutes of leaving Dominique, Charles was handing the keys of his silver Jaguar car to the parking attendant at the Regency and striding inside the five-star hotel.

Hurrying across the marble floor, he was passing the row of trendy and exclusive boutiques which lined the spacious arcade-style foyer when his eyes landed on a spectacular piece of jewelry, displayed under a spotlight in the window of Whitmores Opals. Charles ground to a halt and stared at the magnificent choker necklace which was made of two rows of oval-shaped milk opals surrounded by diamonds and linked together with finely filigreed gold.

How marvellous it would look on Dominique with her long, elegant neck and fair hair!

A glance at his watch showed it wasn’t yet eight. He had twelve minutes before he was officially late. The shop was still open. These shops remained open till nine every Friday night.

The price was steep, of course. Quality jewels didn’t come cheap. He tried telling himself that he really had to stop spoiling Dominique like this, but it was too late. He could already see her wearing it.

The decision made, Charles strode inside and five minutes later he had the necklace in his jacket pocket, nestled in a classy black leather box lined with thick black velvet. By the time he’d collected his visitor’s pass-key from Reception and ridden the private lift up to the top floor, it was two minutes to eight. He still had a minute to spare as the lift doors whooshed back and the door to the presidential suite lay straight ahead.

When he’d first told Dominique where he played poker on a Friday night, she’d queried the choice of such an expensive venue. Why didn’t they just go to each other’s homes? So much cheaper.

He’d explained that it was of no cost to him. One of his poker buddies was an Arab sheikh who stayed in the Regency’s top suite every weekend, flying in by helicopter every Friday afternoon from his Hunter Valley property.

Naturally, Dominique had been agog at this news and wanted to know more about this mysterious sheikh who played poker with her husband. Charles had told her the scant details he knew, which was that Prince Ali was thirty-three years old, sinfully handsome and the youngest son of King Khaled of Dubar, one of the wealthiest Emirate states. With four older brothers, Ali was unlikely to ever ascend the throne and had been despatched to Australia several years ago, ostensibly to take care of the royal family’s racehorse interests here.

And he’d certainly done a good job of that. The royal thoroughbred stud boasted some of the top-priced yearlings at the Easter sales every year. Rumour had it, however, that Ali’s skills as a horseman and businessman had nothing to do with his selection for his present position as manager of the royal stud. Apparently, he’d been exiled from Dubar for his own personal safety after some scandal involving a married woman.

Probably true, in Charles’s opinion. Ali had gathered a reputation for being a ladies’ man in Australia as well, though not in any obvious man-about-town way. He was never seen out in public alone with a woman, or photographed with one. Word was when he met a good-looking girl who took his eye during his weekly visits to the races in Sydney, private arrangements were made, and if the object of his desire was willing she was whisked up to his country property.

None of Ali’s so-called girlfriends had ever sold their story to the media, so, really, talk of these liaisons was all speculation and gossip. Ali never personally revealed anything about his love life, being a very private man.

Charles suspected, however, that this gossip was probably true, too. A man of Ali’s extraordinary wealth and looks would find it almost impossible not to become a playboy in the bedroom department. He’d been a bit of a one himself before he’d met Dominique. Yet he wasn’t in Ali’s league. The man was a prince, for heaven’s sake.

Ali’s royal status was the reason they played in his suite here every Friday night, rather than have him visit them. Everything was more secure and more relaxed that way. On the occasion they’d gone to Rico’s hospital room last year, Ali had been accompanied by two hired bodyguards. One had stood outside the hospital-room door all night whilst the other had sat in a corner of the room, after he’d drawn the shades on the window.

A bit unsettling.

In the hotel suite, there was no need for that. Hotel security was always on high alert when Prince Ali was in residence and no one could access the presidential suite without a pass-key for the lift. Even then, their identity was fully checked out a second time via camera during the ride up in the private lift, and again at the door to the presidential suite.

Charles lifted his hand to ring the doorbell, the door being whisked open within seconds. Clearly, his arrival had been anticipated.

“Good evening, Mr Brandon,” the butler greeted.

“It certainly is, James,” Charles replied as he walked in. “Very good.”

“I trust you had an enjoyable honeymoon, sir,” the butler went on in his usual formal manner. Charles suspected he’d been to a school for butlers in England.

Somewhere in his late thirties, tall and dignified-looking with a patrician nose and close-cut sandy blond hair, James was the house butler assigned to the presidential suite at the Regency every Friday night. He was always polite and respectful, and his attention to detail was incredible, as was his memory for names and faces and facts.

“It was marvellous,” Charles replied. “Paris in the spring is always superb.”

“And Mrs Brandon?”

Charles grinned. “She’s superb, too.”

James allowed himself a small smile. “If I may say so, sir, you’re looking extra well.”

“I’m feeling extra well.”

“I can’t say the same for Mr Mandretti,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial tone.

“Oh? Has Rico been ill whilst I’ve been away?” Charles knew that the trio would have still continued to play poker here every Friday night, calling up a substitute player.

“No, not physically ill. I think he has something on his mind. He’s been quite short with me tonight, and that’s not like Mr Mandretti at all.”

No, it wasn’t. A self-made success story, Rico was inclined to treat the workers in this world much more politely than the privileged people he now mixed with. He liked and admired Charles because he’d earned his money through hard work and not just inheritance. Rico had little respect for the silver-spooned species.

An exception was their host every Friday night.

Prince Ali might have had his fortune bestowed on him through birth, being one of the pampered sons of an oil-rich Arab sheikh. But he was no sloth. Apparently, he worked his royal backside off at that stud farm he ran, very much a hands-on man when it came to his beloved horses.

Rico had stayed at Ali’s property a few times, and seen the man in action for himself. He thought Ali an OK guy, despite his billions, and treated him accordingly.

On the other hand, the fourth and last member of their private poker club wasn’t the recipient of Rico’s total respect. Rico obviously had ambivalent feelings towards Mrs Renée Selinsky. Although Renée had been very working class before making it big, first as a model, then as the owner of a highly successful modelling agency, Rico had difficulty overlooking the fact she’d subsequently married a banker old enough to be her grandfather.

In his eyes, marrying for money—Rico couldn’t conceive that she might have actually loved a man in his sixties—was just as bad as inheriting it.

By thirty, Renée had become an extremely rich widow, and had started buying shares in racehorse syndicates. That was how the four of them had met, because they’d all bought shares in one of Ali’s beautifully bred yearlings.

On the day their colt had run in and won the Silver Slipper Stakes, the three celebrating owners—and one very proud breeder—had discovered a mutual love of poker. The four of them had played their first game that Saturday night in this very suite.

That had been around five years ago. Now the merry widow, as Rico sometimes called Renée, was thirty-five, still a looker, and still possessing that cool, self-contained air which seemed to get under Rico’s skin.

But it was her brilliant brain which niggled Rico the most. He hated it when she beat him at poker. But Renée’s bluffing was sometimes simply superb and totally unpredictable. None of them could match her when she was on her game.

Charles accepted her superiority on those occasions with pragmatic logic and played conservatively, hating to waste his money. Ali often tried to force her to fold by raising the stakes outrageously high, and was sometimes successful. Renée was rich, but not in Ali’s league. Rico, however, would become testy and rude, sniping at her in a vain attempt to break her nerve, then inevitably making the wrong call, folding when he should have stayed in, and raising when she had an unbeatable hand.

Privately, Charles suspected that Rico fancied the merry widow but wouldn’t admit it, even to himself. There was something decidedly sexual in his eyes when he delivered his barbs on these occasions.

There again, Rico was an extremely sexual animal. At thirty-four, he was still in his prime, a Latin-lover type brimming with testosterone and over-the-top passions.

Charles wondered if Rico’s rudeness to the butler tonight had something to do with an overload of male hormones. He’d been divorced over a year now and there wasn’t any permanent replacement in his bed as yet. Which was not right for Rico. He was a man who needed to make love, often!

Some warm womanly love wouldn’t go astray, either.

Charles believed Rico needed a wife, someone who loved him this time, someone like his Dominique who wanted children. But Rico wasn’t about to go down the aisle again in a hurry. Once bitten, he wasn’t shy so much as angry, angry that he’d been taken in by a gold-digger.

The appearance of the man himself in the archway which led into the main sitting room showed Charles that James had the situation spot-on. Rico wasn’t in any way ill. He looked his usual swashbuckling self in black trousers and a black crewnecked top, his thick, wavy black hair as lustrous as ever, his flashing black eyes as clear as a bell. But he was definitely out of sorts, scowling as he quaffed back the last of the drink he was holding. It looked like Chianti. Rico loved his Italian wines, despite having been born here, in Sydney.

“About bloody time you got here,” he snapped without a trace of the Italian accent he adopted for his popular A Passion for Pasta TV show. His parents had migrated to Sydney over half a century earlier, not long after the Second World War; all their eight children had been born here—three boys and five girls—and Rico was the youngest.

Charles couldn’t get his head around the idea of so many siblings. He didn’t have any.

“I’m right on time,” Charles countered calmly, in far too good a mood to be riled by Rico’s burst of Latin temper.

“No, you’re not. The game is supposed to be underway by eight. It’s already five minutes past, courtesy of your gasbagging and gossiping out here with the hired help. Here, James, fill this up again, will you?” Rico said curtly and handed the butler his empty glass.

Charles wondered what was eating at Rico but he decided not to ask. Best to just get in there and start playing poker.

The others were already sitting at the card table where it was always set up, next to the bullet-proof plate-glass window which overlooked the city below. Renée, looking softer than usual in a pale pink cashmere sweater, lifted her glass of white wine in Charles’s direction in acknowledgement of his arrival.

Ali, dressed in blue jeans and a shirt, managed a polite nod as he sipped his usual glass of mineral water. Ali never touched alcohol himself but always supplied the best in spirits and wine for his guests.

“See, Rico?” Renée said in that silky voice of hers as the two men sat down at the table. “I told you he’d show up. Though he’d be forgiven if he didn’t. After all, he’s only been married to that stunner of a wife of his for a month.”

Renée was still a stunner herself, Charles appreciated. Just not his type. Too tall and too thin. And a brunette. Charles preferred blondes, and a softer more feminine kind of beauty.

There was nothing soft about Renée. But she was very striking, with those high cheekbones and unusual eyes. Pale green they were, with rather heavy lids which she emphasised by plucking her eyebrows to the finest of arches. The set of her eyebrows gave her face a range of expressions, none of which were soft or sweet. When smiling, she looked either drily amused or downright sardonic. Unsmiling, Renée carried an air about her which could be interpreted as snobbishness, or at the very least belief in her own superiority. Possibly this had been an asset on the catwalk, where models specialised in looking aloof these days. But not such an asset in one’s social life.

Charles had not liked her to begin with. But first impressions were not always correct, he’d found. He still could not claim to know her all that well, even now after five years’ acquaintance. But he’d warmed to her after a while. Impossible to totally dislike a woman who could play poker as well as she did, and who had what he called strength of character. Renée was always her own person, and he admired that.

It didn’t matter to him if she’d married the banker for his money or not. No doubt she had her reasons. Still, Renée was far too cool and controlled for him. Not like Dominique, who was a wonderful mixture of sweet surrender and wildly impassioned demands.

“Again, Charles,” she’d beg him, even after he thought he was done. But he was rarely ever done with Dominique.

Damn. He shouldn’t have started thinking about Dominique.

After they had cut cards for the deal—which Renée won, much to Rico’s irritation—Charles tried to settle back to enjoy the game. But it was no use. His concentration was shot to pieces. By the time they broke off for supper at ten-thirty, he was losing more than he liked.

“Your mind’s not on your game tonight, Charles,” Ali remarked over coffee and cake.

“I’m just a bit rusty,” he replied.

“Maybe he’s setting us all up for a sting later on in the evening,” Renée suggested.

Charles smiled what he hoped was an enigmatic smile.

“Trust you to think that,” Rico snapped. “That’s just the sort of thing a devious female like you would do. But Charles is a straight shooter. The reason he’s not playing well tonight is because he can’t keep his thoughts above his waist.”

“And who could blame him?” Ali said in that rich Eton-educated voice of his. “Renée is right. You are a very lucky man, Charles, to have found a woman so beautiful for your bed.”

Charles bristled at the inference that Dominique’s role in his life was nothing more than sexual.

“Dominique has a beautiful mind as well as a beautiful body, Ali,” he said with a hint of reproach in his voice. “We are friends as well as lovers. Equals, in every way.”

Rico laughed. “Who do you think you’re kidding, Charles? That girl has you by the short and curlies.”

“Must you be so crude?” Renée said with a withering glance Rico’s way. “Take no notice of him, Charles. He’s just jealous because he can’t find anyone to love, or who truly loves him in return.”

Rico laughed again, yet it had a hard, hollow ring to it. “I wish I were jealous. Oh, yes. That would be much better.”

“Better than what?” Charles asked, not quite following Rico’s train of thought.

Rico looked remorseful for opening his mouth. “Nothing. I’m rambling. I’ve had too much to drink. I think I’ll stick to coffee for the rest of the night.”

“An excellent idea, Enrico,” Ali said. “Alcohol is the root of all evil.”

“I thought that was money,” Rico retorted.

“No. It’s sex,” Renée surprised them all by saying. “Sex is the root of all evil. We would all be much better off without it.”

“But then there wouldn’t be any children,” Charles pointed out.

“Exactly,” she returned.

“Trust you not to like children,” came Rico’s cutting comment.

Renée stiffened. “I didn’t say that. But the world is overpopulated as it is. And so many children are suffering. I would rather there be no more children than to see such suffering.”

“Sorry, but I can’t oblige you there, Renée,” Charles piped up. “Dominique and I are planning to have children. And soon.”

Rico’s eyes jerked his way. “I thought you’d put that off for a while,” he said with a frown. “Hell, Charles, you’ve only been married a month!”

“I’m forty-one next birthday, Rico. I haven’t got time to waste. Besides, Dominique’s keen to have a baby.”

“Is she, now?” he said, and Charles heard the cynical note which always flavoured Rico’s voice when he spoke about Dominique.

Rico didn’t like Dominique. Charles could no longer ignore that fact. Why Rico didn’t like her was just as obvious. He thought Dominique was a gold-digger, like his own ex.

Charles could have been insulted by his friend’s opinion—didn’t he think any woman could love him for himself?—but he understood Rico was still going through a bitter phase after his own wretched marital experience. In time, he’d realise Dominique wasn’t anything like Jasmine. When that happened he might even decide to give marriage another go himself.

“I think we should cease to discuss personal issues and get back to the game,” Ali suggested wisely. “That is why we meet here each Friday night. To play poker and to escape life’s little stresses and strains for a while. Let us leave such matters at the door in future.”

Rico and Renée both gave Ali a look which implied a man of his massive power and privilege wasn’t subjected to too many of life’s little stresses and strains.

Till Charles had met Dominique, he might have agreed with them. Money and success had certainly smoothed his path in life. But he knew now that it didn’t bring real happiness. Love did.

Without love, having all the money in the world could become very empty indeed. Charles suspected Ali was no more happy in his private life than was Rico, or the merry widow. You only had to look into that woman’s eyes to know she wasn’t happy. Not where it mattered. Not in her heart.

Earlier, she’d made it sound as if she didn’t want children. But was that the truth? Or was it a rationalisation of where her life was heading, fast past that age where it was easy for a woman to conceive, especially without a partner?

Charles was only guessing, of course. Renée was like Ali, never revealing much about her private life. Presumably she did have a love life, but what kind and with whom Charles had no idea. All he knew was that she always showed up at the races alone. And she never cancelled on a Friday night. Unusual for a woman.

There again, Renée was an unusual woman. An enigma. A rather intimidating enigma. Charles pitied any man who ever fell in love with her. No man wanted to be intimidated by his woman. They wanted a woman who could make a man feel good about himself, the way Dominique did.

Aah…Dominique. She was very much on his mind tonight. Ali could command they leave their personal lives at the door but Charles couldn’t do that just yet. His love for his lovely wife was all too new, and all too consuming.

He patted the jewelry box in his jacket pocket before he sat back down again, his stomach tightening in pleasurable anticipation of that moment when she opened the lid and saw the necklace. He couldn’t wait to put it on her, to see how it looked.

The next two hours dragged, his play deteriorating further. Ali shook his head at his many mistakes. Renée smiled wryly and Rico scowled.

“What am I going to do with you, Charles?” Rico said when the night’s poker was over and the two men rode the lift together down to the ground floor. Renée had already gone ahead, always the first to leave after play was halted, usually around midnight. Tonight it had been twelve-thirty, due to their late start.

Charles laughed. “I’ll do better next week,” he said, thinking that by then he might have the worst of his lust out of his system.

Not that he said that to Rico. Rico would pounce on the word lust, and claim he’d been right all along; it was just the promise of sex which had bewitched and entrapped him.

But Charles knew that wasn’t the case. It was only natural that he and Dominique were still going through that phase when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Unlike most newlyweds these days, they hadn’t been living together before their wedding. Hell, they hadn’t even kissed!

“Did you mean it when you said you and Dominique weren’t waiting to have children?”

Rico’s question surprised Charles. “Why would I lie about something like that?”

“But you haven’t actually gotten her pregnant yet.”

“No. She’s on the Pill for now. But she’s coming off it next month.”

“I honestly don’t think that’s a good idea, Charles. You should wait at least a year before you take such a big step. Get to know your wife a bit better first. You hardly know the girl, after all.”

Charles’s forbearance over Rico’s negative attitude towards Dominique began to wane. “I know all I need to know,” he replied tautly. “Look, Rico, I realise you don’t like Dominique. You probably think she’s a fortune hunter, but—”

“You’re wrong,” Rico interrupted, his expression grim. “I don’t think she’s a fortune hunter, my friend. I know she’s a fortune hunter.”

CHAPTER THREE

CHARLES whirled, his fists balling by his sides. “Now, look here, Rico, I’m warning you. Stop this once and for all. Just because Jasmine took you for a ride, doesn’t mean that Dominique’s doing the same to me. My wife loves me. Renée’s right. You’re jealous.”

The lift doors opened on the ground floor and Charles gave Rico one last uncompromising glare. “I suggest you apologise before we leave this lift or you can consider our friendship over,” he pronounced angrily.

Rico looked more concerned than apologetic. “I’m sorry. More sorry, Charles, than you can ever imagine. But I can’t let you be taken for a fool. And I can’t let you go ahead and blindly have a baby with that woman. I have proof of what I’m saying. Hard and fast proof.”

Charles’s head jerked back in shock before more anger rushed in. “Proof? What kind of proof?” he challenged heatedly.