An Imperfect Affair

by Natalie Fox

  She went to the bathroom to shower and dress and wondered at her sudden timidity in standing up to him. She had every reason to refuse his request. She didn’t like being manipulated, for one thing; she didn’t like his out-and-out insistence that she go and live with him. But three things had swayed her reasoning. Sarah was indeed out of his life now, that was the first; the second was that silly, silly word, darling. He had never said it before and it gave her hope that he might care for her more deeply than he could admit. The third was her own deep love for him. If she lived with him and showed it he might learn to love her...

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he breathed when she came out of the bedroom in amethyst silk. He took her hands and raised them to his lips and kissed them tenderly.

  Verity smiled up at him and would have been filled with happiness at the look in his soft grey eyes but she still had so many doubts and insecurities to overcome. She would need to know he truly loved her before telling him about his baby, and that could take time that she didn’t have. And if she found he didn’t love her she would never be able to tell him, and that was one reason why he wasn’t going to get all his own way and reason enough for her to be very firm with him. He said he didn’t bargain but he would have to, because she had to think of herself and the baby in the event that the novelty of his having her in his life wore off the way it obviously had with his last lover.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘I want to carry on working, Rupert. It’s the only way for me.’ It was imperative to have something to fall back on if it didn’t work out.

  Verity leaned back and let the waiter serve her with gingered prawns. It was a lovely restaurant in Holland Park. One of Rupert’s favourites, of course, one she couldn’t afford to frequent if she scrimped for a month.

  She leaned forward when the waiter had left but not before she had seen that tell-tale darkening of Rupert’s eyes.

  ‘And don’t argue,’ she went on, ‘because it will be useless. I like my job and want to keep it.’

  ‘What are you trying to prove—your independence, your feminism, or are you just thinking that I’m the sort to take you over, body and soul?’

  ‘Well, you haven’t done a bad job so far. You’ve insisted on taking me out to dinner.’

  He smiled. ‘Surely not against your will?’

  ‘No, I was starving, as it happens, and quite willing to be manipulated that far, but I want my independence, Rupert, you must understand that.’

  ‘So why agree to live with me?’

  ‘I haven’t yet.’

  His eyes softened. ‘You might not have said the words but you will, won’t you?’

  ‘Depends.’ She was still playing cat and mouse, more with herself than him. One minute she was convinced it would work, the next she was mortally afraid it wouldn’t.

  ‘Terms again?’

  ‘All agreements state terms, Rupert, even marriage. To love, honour and obey and all that.’

  He grinned suddenly. ‘That sounds like my sort of terms. Marry me, then.’

  Verity raised a cynical brow. She didn’t take that proposal seriously, as she knew it wasn’t meant that way.

  ‘With the emphasis on the obey bit, no doubt?’ She shook her head. ‘Marriage wouldn’t make any difference to what I want, Rupert. I want to keep my job because for one thing I enjoy it, and another is that if this cohabiting doesn’t work I don’t want to be left high and dry.’

  His eyes glinted and she knew he was losing his cool. ‘With that attitude it doesn’t stand much of a chance from the off.’

  ‘What attitude?’

  ‘Think positive, not negative, Verity. Think it’s going to work and it will.’

  ‘Fairyland,’ she countered drily. ‘Do you know the divorce rate?’

  ‘We’re not getting married, are we?’

  It was a rhetorical question and she was glad she hadn’t taken that silly proposal seriously in the first place.

  ‘Definitely not, and I’m not sure our living together would work.’

  ‘Well, it will have to, because I’m insisting on it,’ he told her firmly.

  ‘Such macho treatment,’ she sighed theatrically. ‘You really scare me. I can see I’m going to have to take a course in subservience.’

  There was a weighty pause before he said very seriously, ‘Why are you doing this, Verity, why are you being so flippant and cynical about it all?’

  Seriousness suddenly hit her too. ‘I’m sorry,’ she offered quietly. She didn’t know why she was being so offhand about it all—defence possibly, that fear of being left high and dry. Rupert wanted her to live with him, wasn’t it enough for her?

  Panic suddenly clawed at her. She couldn’t do it and it was because of this baby. It wasn’t fair to him. A life with conditions he’d led with Sarah; well, there would be conditions with her as well when she told him about the baby. Not ones imposed by her, but emotional bonds he’d feel duty-bound to uphold. No, not that way.

  ‘Do I get time to think it over?’ she murmured at last.

  ‘Not one second,’ he told her firmly. ‘I want you in my life, here and now—’

  ‘I can’t just up and move in—’

  ‘Why? You don’t own your flat; just give in your notice and move out.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘How did you know I don’t own my own flat?’

  He smiled secretively. ‘What a short memory you have. You told me at Stuart’s dinner party.’

  Verity tilted her head. ‘Funny you should remember that and not my name when I first arrived at El Molino. You called me Beryl.’

  ‘It was a slip of the tongue,’ he said and she didn’t know whether to believe him or not but there was one way of finding out.

  ‘Were you attracted to me the first time you met me at Stuart’s and Angie’s dinner party?’

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘You’ve never asked me that before.’

  ‘No, and I’ve never asked you if you like your porridge made with sugar or salt but it’s one of the things I’ll find out if I agree to live with you.’

  ‘And is that question relevant to your decision?’

  ‘Not really. I don’t suppose I’ll ever cook you porridge—’

  ‘The first question,’ he interrupted tersely.

  ‘Silly me. No, it isn’t relevant, but I’d just like to know.’

  Rupert leaned across the table and his eyes were suddenly teasing. ‘Yes, I was attracted to you, so strongly that I wanted to drag you away from the party and make love to you in the back of my car. Happy?’

  Verity held his eyes, searching for the truth and finding it without any trouble. Of course he’d been attracted—sex again. No, she wasn’t happy.

  ‘Why didn’t you, then?’ she asked brazenly.

  ‘Because I knew why we were both there. You were bait and I wasn’t biting.’

  ‘Because you were still involved with Sarah?’

  His eyes darkened. ‘No, I just like to pick my own women and not have them thrust upon me. Now, if this is question-and-answer time, it’s my turn. Would you have come with me to the back of my car?’

  ‘No, I damned well wouldn’t!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because... because I’m not that sort of girl.’

  ‘But you are.’ His voice was low and very pointed as he said that.

  Verity shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I’m not,’ she insisted faintly.

  ‘But you are, Verity. I don’t mean it in the way that you’d jump into the back of a car with anybody, but we have a strong sexual attraction and it was there from that first night, and that’s why you will never accuse me again of wanting you for sex on tap. Look to yourself before passing judgement on me.’

  Oh, that statement was so loaded, and she couldn’t respond to it because if she did the only answer would be that love was her excuse for her desire for him. She must really have got to him earlier for him to have made such a cutting remark.

  ‘So why do
you want me to come and live with you? Upgrading me from back-seat sex?’ she asked.

  ‘I upgraded you long ago, but don’t get too smart, Verity, there’s more to life than bedding. Apart from the fact that we are good together in bed, I happen to like you around.’

  ‘That’s something,’ she breathed exaggeratedly, as if it were a weight off her mind. ‘But we’ll hardly see each other. We’ll both be out all day.’

  He smiled. ‘Not me. I’ve decided to work from home. The screenplay turned out well and I want to do more.’

  ‘ What about your companies?’

  ‘ I keep slaves. So are you really determined to carry on your work when you come and live with me?’

  So he’d given in. Her terms. She felt no triumph, was only slightly galled by the fact that he’d said when not if.

  ‘Yes, I do want to carry on until...’

  ‘Until when?’ he urged when she didn’t go on.

  She wondered what he would say or do if she told him the truth—that she would work as far into her pregnancy as was possible.

  ‘Until I change my mind,’ she went on. Or until you fall in love with me, she added to herself, knowing she’d give a limb to have that happen.

  ‘So, it’s up to me to change it for you,’ he said softly and raised his wine glass to hers, and somehow she knew that that was it, confirmation that they would live together.

  Verity loved his riverside house at Kew. It was elegant and comfortable and she lacked for nothing, but happiness eluded her.

  Their first few days together had been wonderful, with Rupert trying to please her in every way and she him, but the transition from her cosy flat to this elegant home in Kew wasn’t easy to adapt to and it was beginning to show. There were staff hovering, for one thing, and she didn’t like that because she wasn’t used to it and it made her feel uncomfortable.

  ‘I can’t help the way I feel,’ she told Rupert one morning as she was dressing for work. ‘I’d like to get up one morning and go downstairs for my breakfast and not trip over an assortment of grovelling serfs.’

  ‘Dismiss them and serf yourself, then. Fifteen rooms—’

  ‘OK, OK, bloody point taken!’ she retorted.

  He used every opportunity to get her to give up her job but she was defiant. And work; it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t admit it to Rupert, or anyone, for that matter, but she was losing interest in it. She had her love and the thoughts of the baby to fill her mind, and somehow that was suddenly more important than her career, a startling discovery but none the less true.

  She hadn’t told anyone she had moved in with Rupert, and keeping that secret was proving to be a strain as well. In fact, everything was a strain and she sensed that Rupert was feeling it too.

  ‘Darling, you look exhausted. If this goes on I’m going to insist you give up your job,’ Rupert declared one evening as they were having a drink before dinner.

  Here we go again, she grumbled to herself as she sat by the window, gazing out at the grey river. The weather was struggling through spring and she wasn’t seeing much of it. It was usually dusk by the time she got home after work.

  ‘Career, not job,’ she corrected stiffly, ‘and you insist on far too much, Rupert.’

  She held the gin and tonic he had handed her but didn’t touch it. She couldn’t drink it, the doctor had said not to. He’d also said to ease up; she was stressed, and that wasn’t healthy for the baby. She was only two and a half months pregnant and it felt like ten, and the thought of the rest wasn’t particularly enthralling.

  ‘I want you to be happy,’ he murmured.

  Love me, then, she wanted to cry, make it easy for me to have to tell you about our baby. She looked up at him and smiled faintly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed regrettably. ‘I am trying, but...but...’

  Greta, the housekeeper, came in to tell them dinner was ready. Resentfully and without another word Verity got to her feet, and Rupert frowned at her as she walked towards the door. He caught her arm.

  ‘What’s wrong now?’ he asked impatiently.

  She snatched her arm away. ‘Nothing. I’m just tired, and for God’s sake don’t tell me to give up work again—you’ve pushed that one to death and back!’

  She walked away from him, knowing in her heart that it was all her fault. The gulf was widening and she wasn’t doing anything to stop it.

  That night he didn’t come to bed till two in the morning and when he did he didn’t make love to her. Verity lay awake all night and stared into the darkness and listened to the night sounds.

  She had everything and nothing. Rupert was always there for her and yet he wasn’t. She felt that these last few days he’d had something on his mind but she hadn’t asked what, and that was her failing, not his.

  The next morning she didn’t go to work. She was tired and felt slightly sick, and worry was beginning to take its toll. Rupert would notice her condition before long and she wasn’t ready for that yet.

  ‘I’ve a few days’ leave,’ she told him when he queried why she wasn’t rushing around at the last minute as she usually was every morning.

  It was partly true. She had some leave coming and would phone Alan later and tell him she wanted it now.

  ‘Good. I’ll take a break with you—’

  ‘No!’ Verity sat up in bed, her heart hammering. She had a doctor’s appointment later. ‘No, it isn’t necessary, and didn’t you say you had a lot of work on this week?’

  ‘It can wait. Why don’t we go out for the day?’

  Verity smiled. ‘No, it would put you behind, Rupert. I’ve masses to do and... and I’ll keep popping into the study to see you.’

  He seemed placated but she noticed the slight frown on his brow and later she thought she knew why.

  It was that phone call. Verity was down in the sitting-room overlooking the river and reading the morning’s papers, and the phone was ringing incessantly. Normally she didn’t answer the phone because it was never for her and usually there was someone else to pick it up anyway. She remembered that Greta was out shopping. She reached out and picked up the receiver just as Rupert picked up the extension in his study. She was about to put it down when she heard Rupert’s voice.

  ‘Sarah, we’ve been through all this before. You’re wasting your time... I’m sorry...’

  Slowly, silently and desperately Verity put down the receiver. There was a cold sweat on her brow and her legs would hardly carry her weight as she rushed to the cloakroom.

  She was sick and then sick again, and then she leaned her hot forehead against the mirror over the sink. She had known...all along she had known that Sarah was still with Rupert, in his mind and his heart. They were still in touch with each other and perhaps they were still seeing each other and... and... Her anguish took her tormented thoughts further. Rupert had suggested they go out for the day because he knew Sarah would ring him and there was a chance she would find out... Verity didn’t know what to do. To tackle him or...or what?

  ‘Verity!’

  She jerked herself away from the mirror and stared at her reflection. She couldn’t tackle it yet; no, not yet. Oh, God, she looked awful and felt it; she was pale and colourless.

  ‘Verity, I have to go out,’ he told her briskly as she met him on the curving stairway, she going up and he coming down. There was no eye contact, just Rupert rushing past her, pulling his leather jacket on.

  He was going to see her, that woman. She just had to pick up the phone and he went running!

  ‘What time will you be back?’ She hadn’t intended to sound so demanding but it came out that way.

  ‘When I’m ready,’ he told her shortly and went out of the front door.

  Half an hour later Verity went out herself after calling a mini-cab. She just had to get out of that house, his house with Sarah’s lingering perfume. She hated him for this, demanding that she live with him and then carrying on with his ex-lover, except she might not be his ex-lover; they might never have stopped see
ing each other!

  ‘Verity!’ Rupert called out as soon as she returned, five hours later and so tired that she was fit to drop.

  He came out into the hall. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been worried...Verity, what the devil have you done?’

  Her hand went instinctively up to her new shorter-length hair. She’d had it cut and restyled and she’d had a facial and a manicure, because that was what kept mistresses did. She looked at Rupert and burst into tears.

  ‘Darling...’

  ‘Don’t darling me!’ she sobbed, and dived for the stairs. She’d had a horribly stressful day, spending his money, trying to make herself into something she wasn’t, and then that painful blood test at the doctor’s and another warning to ease up. She had gone back to her flat—contrary to what Rupert had believed, she had kept it on—and it was cold and empty without her personal things there. She had felt homesick on top of everything else and so so lonely.

  ‘Darling, what’s wrong?’ Rupert asked, sitting on the edge of the huge double bed she had thrown herself on.

  He eased her up into his arms and held her tightly. ‘Did you think I’d be mad at you for having your lovely hair cut off? I’m not, treasure, I adore it.’

  ‘I hate it!’ she sobbed. Her hand came up and rubbed at the new eyeshadow that widened and deepened and added allure to her eyes—so the assistant had told her. ‘I... I wish I hadn’t had it done.’

  ‘It’s lovely, makes you look sixteen and incredibly desirable.’ His hand slid into the bouncy curves and it so painfully reminded her of the time he had first touched her hair at El Molino. She wished they were back there, where life had no outside interferences. Just the two of them, co-cooned so intimately together.

  ‘Verity,’ he breathed huskily and moved her face so he could kiss her lips. And she let him because the day had been so awful and she wanted his comfort and his lovemaking. He kissed away her tears and slowly started to undress her. All the grim questions she wanted grim answers for lay buried under the avalanche of the sensations he was rushing her with. His hands were so warm and tantalising on her rounded breasts, and his lips blazed a trail of white heat as they ran over her stomach. His breathing quickened and was roughened by his rising desire and it all gathered up to swamp all else from her heart and mind.