Beloved by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

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."

194
    Beloved
    Diana Palmer
    195

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 flier 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 mur deress."
    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