Innocent in His Diamonds (15 page)

‘No, it's an excuse people use to hurt to each other. Every time I think I can forgive her I remember that she chose the most dramatic way possible to demonstrate her so-called love. A love that didn't include me.'

* * *

Ana swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump of pain that had taken root there since Bastien had started speaking. Her heart ached for him. The thought of the toll his mother's action had taken on him tore at her insides.

‘Did you...were you the one who found her?'

He frowned down at her. ‘No. Don't you remember?'

Puzzled, Ana shook her head. ‘I'm sorry. I don't think so...'

‘You don't the remember the chaos after my father and Lily returned a few hours later?'

‘Yes, I do, but—' Shock stopped her breath. ‘Are you saying
that's
when your mother tried to...?'

Bitterness twisted his lips. ‘And she almost succeeded. The doctors said another half an hour and she'd have been dead.'

‘But
how
?'

Ana remembered the sad, broken figure of Solange Heidecker. Ana had been in one of the guest rooms, hiding after the screams had lapsed into an eerie silence, when the door had opened. Solange had walked in, looked around, and immediately turned to leave. At the last moment she'd seen Ana and slowly approached. Even at her young age the melancholy surrounding Bastien's mother had struck her.

‘Which is your mother's room,
mon enfant
? Come and show me.' She'd held out her hand.

Ana had shown her, had stood in the doorway as she'd inspected every item of clothing, every shoe, every trinket in the room. Finally she'd sunk onto the bed, tears coursing down her face. Ana remembered her own sadness, remembered feeling in some way responsible for the woman's pain.

She'd watched Solange take her shoes off slowly and lie back on the bed. ‘I'm not feeling very well,
cherie
.' She'd smiled another sad, heartbreaking smile. ‘Please ask the housekeeper to bring me something for my headache, would you?'

Icy fingers of dread clamped around Ana's heart. Her vision clouded, a dizzying faintness overcoming her.

No! No, no—

‘Ana!' Bastien's voice came from a far distance, from beyond the vacuum closing around her.

Oh, please God, no...

Her whole body had gone numb and her heart was beating dully, as if preparing to stop beating altogether. Bastien's hands gripped her shoulders, but even his firm shake couldn't force Ana from the dark fog of the past.

What had she done? Dear God, what had she done?

‘Ana, talk to me. What is it?'

The urgency in his voice finally scraped the edges of her consciousness. Slowly his face swam into view. Her heart ached at its perfect beauty, at the hard, impassive edge he portrayed to the world, at the concern he couldn't help but feel—because deep down Bastien was just a man whose heart ached for love, just as hers did.

Most of all her heart was ripped open at the knowledge that
she
was the cause of his pain. That she had helped shape him into the hardened cynic he was today.

Tears blistered the back of her eyes. ‘I'm so sorry, Bastien. Oh God, I...I'm so sorry.' Her voice broke and a sob dredged from the very depths of her pulverised soul erupted through her lips.

‘For what?'

‘Your mother. She took pills, didn't she?' The words scraped her throat, as if rebelling against being aired.

A frown slowly gathered on his brow. ‘Yes, but how...?'

‘She... Oh, God, Bastien... She didn't try to commit suicide. I think she overdosed by accident. And I...I gave her the pills.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

B
ASTIEN
'
S
FACE
,
NORMALLY
a vibrant, masculine hue, paled. It was almost as if he'd turned to stone, so statue-still he became. His eyes reflected shock. Horrified, disbelieving shock.

‘Non, il n'est pas possible!'

His lips barely moved with the denial, but his fingers tightened painfully on her shoulders.

‘That is not possible, Ana. She came to Verbier with the express purpose of...' His words trailed off and he swallowed, his eyes darkening with remembered pain.

Ana's heart twisted. ‘You weren't there, Bastien. You were in the gazebo. She asked me to get pills from the housekeeper for her headache. Lily always kept a bottle of pills on her bedside table. She...she told me they were for her headaches. Oh, God, I didn't...couldn't read the label. I...I gave them to your mother—'

‘How many did she take?'

‘I don't remember—'

He thrust her away from him, surged to his feet. He stalked to the window, his movements stiff, wooden. For several seconds he said nothing, then he whirled to face her.
‘Mon Dieu!'
The hand he shoved through his hair shook badly.

‘I'm sorry,' she whispered brokenly.

‘And all this time I've believed—' He stopped, fists clenched at his sides.

A deep shudder raked through his frame and her heart twisted anew.

‘I'm so sorry... Oh, God!'

He crossed the room and caught her arms. ‘Stop apologising, Ana. You were eight years old and you couldn't read. You are
not
to blame for this!'

‘But if I'd called someone instead of just handing her the pills...' She clamped her hand over her lips, racked with horror. ‘The repercussions of that day have shaped your life, Bastien. What I did has coloured the way you see your mother for the last sixteen years...'

He shook her once, the act almost one of desperation. ‘No, it hasn't. Don't forget the things she said before she took the pills. You had nothing to do with that. That was
her
...all her.' Renewed pain threaded his voice.

Ana wanted to offer something, anything to soothe his pain. Except
she
was the cause of his pain.

‘Let me go, Bastien.'

‘No, you wanted to talk, so we'll talk about this.'

‘There's nothing left to talk about. I ruined your life—'

‘No, dammit,
listen
to me.'

‘There's nothing you can say that'll make me forgive myself, Bastien. Nothing.' She pulled away and ran to the door.

Thankfully, he didn't follow.

Her whole body trembled with the force of her emotions as she climbed the stairs to her room. She collapsed on the bed, her legs unwilling to support her as renewed shock ripped through her. She drew a pillow to her face to muffle the sound of the wrenching sobs that rumbled through her chest.

She
had caused Solange Heidecker's overdose.

She
had ripped Bastien's life apart!

Her tears fell faster, her insides quaking with the force of her pain. His father's affairs had made Bastien bitter, but Ana realised it was his mother's rejection and suicide attempt that had flayed him. Discovering he'd spent the last sixteen years hating his mother for something she hadn't meant to do had rocked him. Ana had seen his shock when he'd realised this.

How could Bastien ever forgive her?

* * *

She woke bleary-eyed and heavy-hearted the next morning to the sound of knocking on her door. Her heart lurched, but it was Chantal who greeted her when she wrenched open the door, not Bastien.

‘
Bonjour, mademoiselle.
Your crew...they have arrived.'

‘Oh...okay. Thanks,' she murmured, licking lips stiff with dried tears. She caught Chantal's quick scrutiny before she started to turn away. She'd fallen asleep in her clothes and still clutched a tissue she'd used some time during the night. ‘Wait! Is Bastien...is he awake yet?' She didn't know how to begin to repair the damage she'd done but she'd lain awake knowing she had to start somewhere.

Chantal shook her head, her eyes solemn. ‘
Non
.
Monsieur
—he left last night.'

Misery and pain spiked through her, their bite so ferocious she folded her arms around her middle in self-preservation. ‘Left? When will he be back?'

The housekeeper shrugged.

Dazed, Ana closed the door. Bastien had left, and taken with him any opportunity to ask for his forgiveness.

The thought of him suffering because of what she'd done brought fresh tears. But Ana brushed them away and sucked in a deep breath. He was gone. She couldn't do anything about that. What she
could
do, though, was throw her every last skill at making the ad campaign the best it could be.
That
she could control.

Trudging to the bathroom, she undressed and showered.

* * *

The crew's arrival threw the château into a whirlwind of frenzied activity. Ana gladly submerged herself in the organised chaos, helping to unload equipment and assisting Chantal in setting up the crew in their allocated rooms. Anything to stop herself from revisiting that desolate place inside her that threatened to overwhelm her every time she thought of Bastien.

The first fracture in her false façade came when her phone beeped with a text. Thinking it was from Bastien, she jumped on it—only to find it was from Lily, wishing her luck for the shoot. The hope she'd been trying to stem since that phone call with her mother refused to die, no matter how much she tried to stave it off.

Her composure slipped even further when, at midday, a lawyer from a local firm turned up. He'd been hired by Bastien the day before and instructed to help her redraft new terms for her contract.

The short, moustachioed man was visibly startled when tears welled in her eyes. Bastien had shortened the twelve-month contract to two, and given her first refusal for any serialised campaigns. She signed the documents, her heart aching.

‘Ana—there you are.'

She turned from the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the tower window to find Robin Green, the director, behind her.

‘Okay, that forlorn look you were wearing just now is great for when we shoot the scene downstairs, moments before you meet your handsome prince again after seven years apart. But not for the tower scene. Remember—this room is where love finally triumphs. I want radiance, ecstasy, unforgettable passion. Yes?'

She nodded, although deep inside she despaired about how she could pull off everlasting love when her insides were anguished, raw.

All through hair and make-up her mind drifted, wondering where Bastien was, what he was doing. How he was coping with the bombshell she'd thrown into his life.

Her emotions were so on edge a lump rose in her throat when the two security men guarding the Heidecker diamonds stepped forward. The white diamonds selected for the first scene were dazzling. As always, Ana was awed at the beauty of the pieces the Heidecker jewellers had produced. She'd modelled countless pieces of jewellery before, but none as stunning as the award-winning Diamonds by Heidecker collection.

She held her breath as the necklace was fastened. Against the royal blue of her floor-length strapless Dior gown the stones of the diamond collarette set in platinum stood out so vividly even the seasoned make-up artist gave a murmur of appreciation. Matching teardrop earrings went on next.

Xander Bryson took the role of her childhood love, the prince, but the scene they were shooting now required her to play alongside her current lover, on whose arm she was to arrive at a ball.

Robin yelled, ‘Action!'

A limousine rolled forward and the flashes of fake paparazzi cameras erupted as Ana stepped from the car onto the red carpet. Faking sadness came easily. Her actions had permanently scarred the beautiful man who owned her heart, so she immersed herself in her heartache and went with it.

‘That was
perfection
, Ana,' Robin gushed. ‘Always a great sign when things go so well on a first take. Keep it up and we'll have this thing wrapped in three days.'

* * *

Unfortunately the second day went in the opposite direction. Rain disrupted half a day's shoot, fraying tempers and causing diva fits from Xander.

By the middle of day three Ana's feet hurt and her whole body was mired in physical and emotional exhaustion. Striking poses for the photographer in charge of taking the stills—a tyrant who hid behind a perfectionist label—wasn't going as smoothly as the filming had.

She heard the photographer's annoyed huff one more time and suppressed her own huff. She wanted to scream, to tell him to take his camera and shove it somewhere dark and disturbing.

Swallowing her irritation, she tried another pose.

With another curse the photographer lowered his camera. ‘This isn't working, Ana. Your shoulders are all hunched up. Relax!'

She gritted her teeth.

‘Think of something evocative...naughty. A lover kissing the back of your neck.' He smirked.

Heat unfurled in her stomach as the image of Bastien doing exactly that rose in her mind. Her cheeks flushed, her body reacting instantly.

‘Yes! That's it. Now, look straight into the camera!'

Ana responded to the directive automatically. The shutter clicked several times before she could wipe the look off her face. Shame drenched her as the photographer crooned his approval. Even after she'd lowered her eyes he clicked away.

The minute he took a break she sprang to her feet and rushed out, but the refrain in her head wouldn't stop.

She loved him.

She loved Bastien.

The knowledge swamped her, wrapped tight around her heart, sent a dizzying wave of warmth through her even as her heart broke with the knowledge that she'd never have him.

Keep it together. Keep it together.

Somehow she made it through the rest of the afternoon and the next day without crumbling into a heap of pathetic hopelessness and bawling her eyes out.

Perhaps Robin was right and she
was
a natural, because she even managed the passion required for the final tower scene in which her onscreen lover presented her with the Crown Jewel—the signature marquise-cut yellow Heidecker diamond.

By simply closing her eyes and imagining she was kissing Bastien the scene was shot in a single take.

And, best of all, no one knew her heart was breaking into a million little pieces.