The Season Of Love: Beloved. Diana Palmer

and his jaw clenched. The two of them were going out the door and Nessa looked as if she were crying.

      “You can’t,” she said, catching his arm when he looked as if he might follow them.

      “She should leave him.”

      “She’ll have to make that decision for herself.”

      He glanced down at her with worried eyes. “She isn’t like you. She isn’t independent and spirited. She’s shy and gentle and people take advantage of her.”

      “And you want to protect her. I understand. But you can’t, not tonight.”

      He made a rough sound in his throat. “Damn it!”

      She leaned against him affectionately for an instant. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

      His arm slipped around her shoulders. “One day,” he promised himself.

      She nodded. “One day.”

      “Why, Charles, how handsome you look!” Jill Sinclair’s high-pitched, grating voice turned them around. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

      “I’m having a great time,” Charles said through his teeth. “How about you?”

      “Oh, Simon is just the most wonderful escort,” she sighed and glanced at Tira with half-closed eyes. “We’ve been everywhere together lately. There are so many charity dos this time of year. And how are you, Tira? I was so sorry to hear about your near tragedy!” She was almost purring, enjoying Tira’s stiff posture and cold face. She raised her voice, drawing attention from the couples hovering near the buffet table. “Isn’t it a pity that the newspapers made such a big thing of your suicide attempt? I mean, the humiliation of having your feelings made public must be awful. And for the gossips to say that you wanted to die just because Simon couldn’t love you back…why he was just shattered that you made him look like a coldhearted villain in the eyes of his friends. God knows, it isn’t his fault that he doesn’t love you!”

      Tira was too shaken by the unexpected attack to reply. Charles wasn’t.

      “Why, you prissy little cat,” Charles said with cold venom, making Jill actually catch her breath in surprise at the unexpected verbal jab. “Why don’t you go sharpen your claws on the curtains?”

      He took Tira’s arm and led her away. She was so shocked and outraged that she couldn’t even manage words. She wanted to empty the punch bowl over the woman, but that was hardly the sort of thing to do at a benefit ball. Her proud spirit had all but been broken by recent events. She was still licking her wounds.

      Simon was talking to a man near the door that Charles was urging her toward. He paused in midsentence and looked at Tira’s white face with curious concern.

      Before he could speak, Charles did. “Never mind adding your two cents’ worth. Your girlfriend said it all for you.”

      Charles prodded her forward and Tira didn’t look Simon’s way. She was barely able to see where she was going at all. Until Jill’s piece of mischief, she’d actually thought she could get through the evening unscathed.

      “That cat!” Charles muttered as they made their way to the bottom of the steps.

      “The world is full of them,” she breathed. “And how they love to claw you when you’re down!”

      None of the valets were anywhere in sight. Charles grumbled. “I’ll have to go fetch the car. Stay right here. Will you be all right?”

      “I’m fine, now that we’re outside,” she said.

      He gave her a last, worried glance, and went around the house to the parking area.

      She drew her wrap closer, because the air was chilly. Once, she’d have made Jill pay dearly for her nasty comments, but not anymore. Now, her proud spirit was dulled and she’d actually walked away from a fight. It wasn’t like her. Charles obviously knew that, or he wouldn’t have rushed her out the door so quickly.

      She heard footsteps behind her and her heart jumped, because she knew the very sound of Simon’s feet. Her eyes closed as she wished him in China—anywhere but here!

      “What did she say to you?” he asked shortly.

      She wouldn’t turn; she wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t bear to look at him. The humiliation of having him know how she felt about him was so horrible that it suffocated her. All those years of hiding it from him, cocooning her love in secrecy. And now he knew, the whole world knew. And worst of all, she loved him still. Just being near him was agony.

      “I said, what did she say to you?” he repeated, moving directly in front of her so that she had to look at him.

      She lifted her eyes to his black tie and no further. Her voice was choked, and stiff with wounded pride. “Go and ask her.”

      There was a rough sigh and she saw his good hand go irritably into the pocket of his trousers. “This isn’t like you,” he said after a minute. “You don’t run and you don’t cry, regardless of what people say to you. You fight back. Why are you leaving?”

      She lifted tired eyes to his and hated the sudden jolt of her heart at the sight of his beloved face. She clenched every muscle in her body to keep from sobbing out her rage and hurt. “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me,” she said huskily, “least of all your malicious girlfriend. Yes, I’ve spent most of my life fighting, one way or another, but I’m tired. I’m tired of everything.”

      Her lack of animation disturbed him, along with the defeat in her voice, the cool poise. “You can’t be worried about what the newspapers said,” he said, his voice deep and slow and oddly tender.

      “Can’t I? Why not? They believed every word.” She inclined her head toward the ballroom.

      His features were unusually solemn. “I know you better than they do.”

      She searched his pale eyes in the dim light from the house. Her heart clenched. “You don’t know me at all, Simon,” she said with painful realization. “You never did.”

      He seemed to stiffen. “I thought I did. Until you divorced John.”

      Her heart stilled at the reference. “And until he died.” Defeat was in every line of her elegant body. “Yes, I know, I’m a murderess.”

      His face went taut. “I didn’t say that!”

      “You might as well have!” she shot back, raising her voice, not caring if the whole world heard her. “If Melia had died in a similar manner, I’d never have believed you guilty of her death! I’d have known you well enough to be certain that you had no part in anything that would cause another human being harm. But then, I had a mad infatuation for you that I couldn’t cure.” She saw his sudden stillness. “Don’t pretend that you didn’t read all about it in the paper, Simon. Yes, it’s true, why shouldn’t I admit it? I was obsessed with you, desperate to be with you, in any way that I could. It didn’t even matter that you only tolerated me. I could have lived on crumbs for the rest of my life—” Her voice broke. She shifted on trembling legs and laughed with pure self-contempt. “What a fool I was! What a silly fool. I’m twenty-eight years old and I’ve only just realized how stupid I am!”

      He frowned. “Tira…”

      She moved back a step, her green eyes blazing with ruptured pride. “Jill told me what you said, that you blame me for making you look like a villain in public with my so-called suicide attempt, as well as for John’s death. Well, go ahead, hate me! I don’t give a damn anymore!” she spat, out of control and not caring. “I’m not even surprised to see you with Jill, Simon. She’s as opinionated and narrow-minded as you are, and she knows how to put the knife in, too. I daresay you’re a match made in heaven!”

      His face clenched visibly. “And you don’t care that I’m with another woman tonight, instead of with you?” he chided, hitting back as hard as he could, with a