Legacy of Lies

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“Better. Eleanor Lord has finally seen the light.”

Alex remembered the call she’d interrupted the day months ago when she’d shown Debord her sketches. The call canceling Lord’s proposed collaboration with the designer. “Do you mean—”

“There will soon be an Yves Debord collection in every Lord’s store in America,” he revealed with not a little satisfaction. “And, of course, London.”

“That’s wonderful! I’m so happy for you!” She waited for him to mention her own small contribution to his successful line.

“It is about time that old woman recognized my genius,” he said instead.

Reminding herself that without his oversize ego, Debord would not be the man she’d fallen in love with, Alex tried not to be hurt by his dismissal of her efforts. She realized he could not acknowledge her publicly. But it would have been nice if at least privately, he’d given her a smidgen of credit.

Trying to look on the bright side, that some of the richest women in the world would soon be wearing her designs, Alex reminded herself how lucky she was.

Here she was in Paris, the most romantic city in the world, about to make love to the man who’d played a starring role in her romantic fantasies for years. She would not ruin the moment by wishing for more than Debord was prepared to give.

As they passed the magnificent église du Dome, Napoléon’s final resting place, Alex realized that Debord was taking her to his home. It was the first time he had. Her heart soaring, Alex took the gesture as an important shift in their relationship.

“Welcome to my little maisonette,” he said as they entered his hôtel particulier.

Unlike the stark modernism of his atelier, where she knew she could work for a hundred years and never feel comfortable, Alex found Debord’s Paris residence charming.

He’d decorated it in the colors of eighteenth-century France—sunny golds, flame reds, rich browns. The walls were expertly lacquered and trimmed with marblized bases and moldings. Small, skirted tables were adorned with candid photographs of the designer with Nancy Reagan, Placido Domingo, Princess Grace, all testaments to Debord’s high-gloss life.

As Debord led Alex up the stairway to his bedroom, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the art lining the walls, and although she was no expert, she did recognize a Dali giraffe woman, a Monet Gypsy and a Picasso sketch.

They entered the bedroom. Outside the window, a white, unbelievably large full moon looked as if it had been pasted onto the midnight black sky.

She held her arms out toward this man she loved, anticipating his kiss. But he turned away to light the fire some unseen servant had laid. “Take off your clothes,” he commanded brusquely.

Although it was not the romantic approach she would have wished for on this special night, Alex obliged. But by the time she’d dispensed with the final scrap of silk and lace, the heat that his dark gaze could always instill in her had begun to cool.

His expression remained inscrutable, his eyes devoid of warmth. She stood there, hands by her sides, firelight gleaming over her nude body, growing more and more uneasy.

His dark eyes continued to hold her wary gaze with the sheer strength of his not inconsiderable will as took off his own clothing. When he put his arm around her and led her to the bed, Alex’s heart leapt. Now would come the tenderness, the love, she’d been yearning for.

But instead of kissing her, as she’d expected, after drawing her down onto the smooth Egyptian-cotton sheets, Debord’s teeth closed sharply on her earlobe.

“What are you doing?” Shocked, she touched her stinging lobe, startled to see the drop of crimson on her fingertip.

Once more, his eyes locked on hers as he took her finger between his lips and licked the faint drop of blood from it. There was a menace in his gaze that frightened her.

“Making love to you, Alexandra, of course. What did you think?”

“I don’t want this.” A dark shadow moved across the ghostly moon. Another moved over her heart. Her earlobe throbbed; the warmth between her thighs went cold.

Alex tried to turn her head away, but his fingers grasped her chin and forced her face back to his.

“Of course you do,” he said. “You want me to penetrate you, to possess you.”

“Yves, please. Let me go.”

“You know that’s not what you want.”

When she tried to pull away, he tightened his hold. His eyes glittered dangerously, and for a moment Alex thought he was going to hit her. Afraid, but unwilling to show it, she held her ground, refusing to flinch.

He obviously mistook her silence for consent. His lips curved in a cruel, unfamiliar smile. “I promise to make this a night you will remember always.”

Before Alex could determine whether to take his words as a promise or a threat, Debord pinned her wrists above her head and thrust into her dryness, smothering her startled cry with his mouth.

At first she fought him, but she was no match for his superior strength. A vicious, backhanded blow cracked across her face like a gunshot.

He took her with a savage, relentless, animal ferocity. Finally, when she didn’t think she could stand the searing pain another moment, he collapsed on top of her, his passion spent.

The moon reemerged from behind the cloud. Alex lay bathed in its cold white light, feeling cruelly violated and sadder than she’d ever felt in her life. He shifted onto his side, his elbow resting on the rumpled sheet, his head propped on his hand, and looked down at her. Unwilling to meet his gaze, Alex covered her eyes with her forearm. She heard the bedroom door open. Surprised, since she could feel Debord still lying beside her, watching her with his unwavering intensity, she removed her arm and looked up.

The newcomer was Marie Hélène. The woman was standing over them, clad only in a crotch-length strand of pearls. For the first time since Alex had known her, she was smiling.

“Ah, ma chère.” As if nothing unusual had happened, as if it were commonplace for his sister to arrive unannounced and undressed in his bedroom, Debord rose and drew the nude woman into his arms, showing her the tenderness he’d denied Alex.

“Your timing is perfect,” he murmured when their long, openmouthed kiss finally ended. He looked down at Alex. “Isn’t it, chérie?”

As they smiled down on her with benevolent, expectant lust in their eyes, Alex realized that this was not the first time the brother and sister had engaged in such activities.

Self-awareness came crashing down on her like a bomb. She’d thought she was oh, so sophisticated, with her darling little Paris apartment and her fancy couture career and her French lover!

Now she realized that deep down inside, where it really counted, she was just a country bumpkin who’d come to the big city and lost her heart. The trick was to escape before she also lost her soul.

Although every muscle in her body was screaming, she managed to push herself to her feet. Her nose was running. Wiping it, she saw the bright blood on her hand.

“Speaking of timing, I think it’s past time that I went home.” She managed, with effort, to push the words past the sob that was lodged in her throat.

She looked frantically around the room, searching for her wispy panties and stockings. When she couldn’t spot them, she reminded herself that the important thing was to escape this nightmare.

“Surely you do not intend to leave now?” Debord questioned with an arched, mocking brow. “Not when the celebration is just getting started?”

Vomit rose in Alex’s throat. She swallowed it back down again. “If you think I’m going to—” her voice was muffled by the dress she was pulling over her head “—play musical beds with you and Morticia here, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“Alexandra.” Debord caught her arm and shook his head in mock chagrin. “I have spent these past weeks patiently introducing you to a world of erotic pleasures. I’ve taught you passion. I’ve taught you to set free your darkest, most innermost emotions.”

That much was true. Some of the things he’d asked Alex to do in the name of love had made her grateful that her bedroom was usually so dark he couldn’t see her blush. Many of them she hadn’t enjoyed. But he obviously had. And at the time, to her, making Debord happy had been the important thing.

“A ménage à trois with Marie Hélène is simply the next step in your education.”

Her blood was like ice in her veins; it pounded behind her eyes like a jackhammer. “You’re both disgusting.” What the hell had happened to her shoes?

“I warned you about Americans,” Marie Hélène sniffed, slanting a knowing glance at her brother.

“I thought you were turning into a sophisticate,” Debord told Alex. His fingers tightened painfully on her upper arm. “But non, my sister was right about you. You are merely a silly schoolgirl with dreams of Prince Charming on a white charger.”