His Diamond Bride by Lucy Gordon

can’t,’ Dee said reluctantly. ‘It seems that Phil is already married.’
    Helen gave a little scream and covered her face. Joe grew pale and said, ‘I don’t believe it. A married man, and she’s living with him. She wouldn’t do anything so wicked.’
    â€˜I’m afraid it’s true,’ Dee said. ‘His wife was in the shop when I arrived. She’d come looking for him. They have two children and he seems to have just left them all.’
    She was giving them only half the story, but there was no way she could tell them about the other things she’d learned—about Sylvia’s reputation as a minx who routinely flirted with any man, and perhaps more. His abandoned wife had gone further, calling Sylvia a prostitute, but this, too, she would always keep to herself.
    At last Helen dropped her hands and lifted her head. Her face was hard. ‘She’s no daughter of mine,’ she said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, she’s dead.’
    â€˜Mum!’ Dee protested.
    â€˜She never sets foot in this house again. She’s not my daughter.’
    Dee turned to her father.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he said helplessly. ‘Perhaps your mother knows best. Sylvia has put us out of her life.’
    â€˜But maybe she’ll need our help.’
    â€˜She’s dead to me,’ Helen said stonily. She rose and kissedDee’s cheek. ‘You are my only daughter now. Remember that.’
    She stalked out of the room, followed by Joe.
    â€˜I’m going out,’ Mark said. ‘I need to get drunk.’
    â€˜Let me come with you. We’ll get drunk together.’
    She had no intention of drinking, but she wasn’t going to turn him loose upon the world in his present state. Taking him firmly by the hand, she led him out of the house. She, too, was in shock, but she’d had time to think about things on the way home. Mark was still stunned. When he spoke, it was in short, jerky sentences.
    â€˜How long has it been going on?’ he asked.
    â€˜I…can’t say,’ she said, not entirely truthfully.
    â€˜Tell me,’ he said violently. ‘Don’t spare my feelings. I want to know the truth, however bad.’
    The truth was that Sylvia had been playing them off against each other for at least two months, perhaps longer. Dee had encountered Philip Mason once, a burly man in his thirties, pleasant enough but uninspiring. How Sylvia could have preferred him to the dashing Mark baffled her.
    â€˜It was a few weeks,’ she said vaguely.
    â€˜And I thought she loved me. I respected her, do you know that? I thought she was a decent girl and I didn’t…well, anyway, I respected her. And all the time she was…well…’
    They walked on in silence for a while. Dee had tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and kept it there determinedly, lest he escape and do something that might harm him.
    â€˜Don’t brood about it,’ she begged. ‘It can’t do any good now.’
    â€˜It might teach me to be more wary of girls another time. How everyone will laugh at me.’
    To comfort him, she denied it, but her words were hollow. Their performance at the party would help only for a short time. The truth would soon seep out.
    â€˜They don’t matter,’ she said urgently. ‘You must thumbyour nose at them. All they need to know is that you and Sylvia have split up—’
    â€˜Because she preferred someone else.’
    â€˜No, she pretended to prefer someone else because she knew you’d lost interest.’
    â€˜Who’ll believe that?’
    This was what Dee had been preparing for, when she must risk everything on one throw of the dice. To the last moment she wasn’t sure if she had the nerve, but then she took a deep breath and threw her fate to the winds.
    â€˜Everyone will believe it,’ she said, ‘if you’re seen with another