WHY CANT I EVER LEARN?
Joe Campbell was yet another dark prince. She should walk away, leave him alone, but when her tears and rage at herself subsided, what did she do? Like an idiot, she punched her answering machine play button again.
Look, Im sorry for the way I behaved. I wishI wish wed met under different circumstances. Because I like you.
She made a fist and brushed the tears from her eyes. You cant let yourself want him. You cant love him or save him. You cant save anybody. Havent you learned anything?
Frantically, she dug the phone book advertisement that had his picture on it out of her trash can, smoothed it out and lost another piece of her soul the second she glanced into his fierce, predatory black eyes.
Because I like you.
Joe Campbell was a lost soul. Just thinking about him made defeat slump her shoulders.
I like you, too, she whispered. But dont you dare tell anybody.
Also by ANN MAJOR
MARRY A MAN WHO WILL DANCE
WILD ENOUGH FOR WILLA
INSEPARABLE
The Hot Ladies Murder Club
Ann Major
www.mirabooks.co.uk
To my readers:
Love doesnt transform. It forms.
What if we smashed the mirrors And saw our true face?
ELSA GIDLOW
Contents
Prologue
Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Book Two
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Book Three
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Book Four
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Prologue
Corpus Christi, Texas
The wages of sin must always be paid. Thats what his headmaster used to say right before he tied him up and locked him in that awful cupboard. It came as a pleasant surprise that the familiar phrase, as well as thinking about her punishment, could give him such a thrill.
Yesterday the handsome, debonair Sir Dominic Phillips had lunched at his club in London. Today he was sweating like a pig in a nondescript rental car in a shadowy parking garage in south Texas contemplating his wifes murder.
PleasePlease, sir, let it be her.
He used to say please, pretty please to the headmaster. It had been part of their ritual.
This wasnt the first time Georgina had tempted him to murder. The trouble with murder was the risk that it would catch her unawares. That wouldnt do.
He wanted Georgina to feel the blow coming, to dread it with a morbid, soul-destroying anticipation. That was part of the game. He wanted to overwhelm her in death as he had in marriage. He wanted her last dying thought to be that her precious, darling Georgia, whom shed unwisely favored over him, was now his to do with as he pleased. And Georgina knew his tastes when it came to little girls.
His heart beat in a frenzy. Maybe it was the late-summer, south Texas heat that had him so feverish and crazy. Even in the dark garage the sun seemed to scream out of a too-bright, almost-hostile blue haze. Two minutes ago hed turned off the air conditioner. Two minutes, and already his Savile Row suit that was a blend of silk and wool was dripping wet, and his fine silk shirt was sticking to his armpits. It wouldnt be long before he stank, too.
Even though hed rolled the windows of his car down, he was suffocating. He wiped his damp brow with his soaked handkerchief.
Had he found her?
According to Morrisons report, she was to be deposed at three oclock by an unscrupulous, hotshot local attorney, Joe Campbell. Apparently, Campbell had been run out of Houston for his shady legal dealings with a CEO by the name of Rod Brown. Together theyd looted Browns company and run off with the funds. Brown was living it up in a mansion in the British Virgins while Campbell was exiled to this backwater hellhole doing personal injury law. The creep was representing former clients of Georginas, who were suing her for not disclosing mold growth in a property shed sold them.
Georgina, or rather Lady Phillips, a Realtorhere? How appalling!
As always Morrison had been painstakingly thorough. So thorough, Dominic nearly laughed out loud as he thumbed through the detectives report.
And shed thought she could hide. If the plain-looking woman in Morrisons grainy photos really was his dazzling, wild Georgina, he now knew everything about her new life, her address, little Georgias schooleverything.
When he heard her ancient Mercedes rumble up the ramp of the parking garage, he felt as devilishly excited as a child playing hide-and-seek. As he was about to crouch behind the wheel, a woman laughed close by. She was short with red hair. Walking toward her car, she fumbled in her purse for her keys.
Bugger. This could ruin everything.
A man in the truck that she climbed into started the engine and drove toward the exit. Dom held his breath until he heard Georginas Mercedes, closer now.
With her fear of dark, enclosed places, he hadnt expected her to dare the garage even in broad daylight. Nevertheless, just in case, hed parked in a reserved spot two floors beneath Campbells plush offices, so thered be no danger of her parking anywhere near him.
You shouldve killed me when you had the chance, darling.
That last hideous night in their ultramodern flat on the Thames, shed enraged him by begging for a divorce. Hed grabbed her, and when his hands had closed around her throat shed hit him with a paperweight. Just the memory was enough to contort his aristocratic face into a mask of rage.
Hed plummeted to the floor and landed with a resounding thud. He remembered staring up at her in a weird, semiconscious state as she knelt over him in fear and alarm.
Youll be all right, shed whispered in that throaty voice of hers.
Help me, hed mouthed, the way hed once begged the headmaster for mercy.
Ill get help, but I cant stay. This whole thing, us, is getting worse and worse. Please try to understand.
Understand? Hed tried to talk, to say he was sorry, but because of the coke hed been on, his words had slurred. Hed struggled to move, but it was as if his limbs had been made of lead and he was paralyzed from tongue to toe, helpless to do a thing to stop her as shed gotten to her feet and packed and taken Georgia. Finally, hed regained sensation in his limbs and had been able to crawl to the couch and then to stand.
Slut. That night shed taught him she was like all the others, whod made him love them and then used and abandoned him. Unlike the others, she was his wife, and she still consumed him. Constantly he imagined her with other men.
A diesel engine purred up the ramp. He knew he shouldnt risk her seeing him, but when her Mercedes inched past him, belching plumes of black diesel, he couldnt resist a glance just to make sure.
One look had his heart trilling with excitement and he got hard.
Yes!
Huge sunglasses hid most of her pale, slim face. Sure enough, just like in Morrisons pictures, shed dyed her hair and swept it untidily into a cheap plastic clip. Neither the color nor the style flattered her. Still, how clever of her to mute her dazzling beauty, to dye her honey-gold hair and discard her beautiful clothes and glamorous sense of style, to hide here, of all the dull placesCorpus Christi, Texaswhich was so far away from who and what she really was. So far away from him and their glittering life together.
You shouldnt have told me about your grandmother in San Antonio. Nor about that year when you were nineteen and lived with her when you got your Realtors license.
He scowled. He was the clever one. He was the one who planned while she just drifted, hoping for the best. Her disguise wasnt that good. As soon as his detective had shown him the pictures, hed put two and two together and had boarded a plane.
She was his wife. His. She belonged to him forever. She had no right to run away, no right to take little Georgia. No right to leave him all alone. No right to have another man. Hed show her.
When hed stumbled to the bathroom that awful night to inspect himself in the mirrorto seeWhen there hadnt been anyone in the mirror, hed begun to quake and then to claw the mirror in an attempt to make his reflection reappear. When it hadnt, hed begun to weep and pound the mirror with bare fists.
The same thing had happened when he was a little boy. Hed been very, very badso bad, mirrors had been empty when hed tried to see himself. After his fathers death, his mother had been so frightened, shed sent him away to boarding school. For a long time hed felt powerless, as if hed simply ceased to exist.
The night Georgina had left him, hed broken the mirror with his bare hands. Then hed scrawled Georginas name on the white bathroom tile floor with his own blood. The last thing hed heard before hed collapsed was a siren.
She must have called the ambulance as soon as shed known she was safe because when hed awakened, hed been in a trauma unit and theyd been praising his famous, beautiful wife to the skies.
Where was she, the famous Georgina, theyd wanted to know? Why wasnt she with him? Their unspoken question had been, if she wasnt with him, who was she with?
Hed known what he had to do.
Find her. Teach her. Retrain heras he had in the beginning when shed been a young bride. The wages of sin
Like a cat, hed toy with her awhile. Hed tie her up with bloodred satin ribbons like before. Hed
He got hard just thinking about how her husky voice would sound when she begged him to kill her.
Say, Please, hed whisper. Say, Please, Sir. Kiss me down there and say you love me.
He touched himself, gently, very gently, just like hed taught her to.
Just the thought of her lips there had him hard as a rock. Then he came, wetting all over his suit.
See what you made me do?
She would pay for that, too.
BOOK ONE
When we look into the mirror we see the mask. What is hidden behind the mask?
DIANE MARIECHILD
One
Campbell never forgot a face. Never.
Joe Campbells posh law offices with their sweeping views of the high bridge, port and bay were meant to impress and intimidate. The tall ceilings, the starkly modern ebony furniture, the blond hardwood floors and the Oriental rugs reeked of money and power and social prestigeall of which were vital to a man with Campbells ambitions. Not that he was thinking about anything other than the exquisite woman he was supposed to be deposing.
The case had been dull, routine; until shed walked in. She was beautiful and sweet and warmand scared witless of him.
This should be good. He rapped his fingers on his desk and tightened them into a fist that made his knuckles ache.
The minx had him running around in circles like a bloodhound that had lost a hot scent. His ears were dragging the ground, his wet nose snuffling dirt.
Minutes before the deposition, Bob Africa, one of the partners and a former classmate at UT Law School, had strutted through his door as if he owned the placewhich he practically did. Bob specialized in class-action lawsuits and had just won big, having collected more than two million dollars in legal fees from a cereal company for a food additive.
There hadnt been a shred of evidence any consumer had been injured. Africas fee had come to $2,000 an hour. Consumers had received a coupon for a free box of cereal.
Campbell was jealous as hell.
All smiles as usual this afternoon, a triumphant Bob had slapped him on the back and ordered him to win this oneor else. Salt in the woundafter the Crocker loss.
I went out on a limb for you, buddy. I told the other partners you just had a run of bad luck in Houston and got a rotten hand here with that medical case.
Thanks. Campbell hadnt reminded Africa that hed been the man whod rammed that loser Crocker down his buddys throat and then hed kept the more promising cases for himself.
Bob had smiled his wolverine smile and slapped his back again. Youre the best, buddy. But, we dont pay you to lose
Lose. Campbell had felt the blood rising in his face. Hell, at least Africa hadnt reminded him about the death threats all the partners had been receiving ever since Campbell had lost the case. Hell, the incompetent quack had won. What was he so mad about? Crockers wife, Kay, maybe? Shed made a play for Campbell, a helluva play.