by Penny Jordan
The violinist had begun to play, the dinner guests had returned, and Mariella had gone to her suite to get changed into her specially commissioned outfit.
A posse of older men and their too-young arm candy were arriving, the girls all wearing similar teeny-weenie, heavily embroidered clinging dresses and tottering on too-high heels. They were all obviously bleached blondes. Carly suppressed a small sigh.
More guests were arriving, and Carly recognised amongst them some very A-list celebrities—a famous actress, the daughter of a pop icon, a couple of ex-models—all of them accompanied by good-looking men.
But Ricardo hadn’t arrived as yet. Not that she was looking for him!
‘I’d better go in and be on hand, just in case Mariella wants me for anything,’ Sarah whispered to her.
Nodding her head, Carly continued to keep a discreet watch on the arrivals.
‘We’re going to run short of cocktails any minute,’ the maître d’ muttered warningly.
It took over an hour for all the guests to arrive, by which time Carly was downstairs in the main salon, keeping an eye on the proceedings there and trying to avoid getting too close to Mariella—just in case she should object to Carly wearing her discarded outfit!
Drugs were being passed round openly, and the sound of laughter was growing louder as they began to take effect.
Already some of the guests had started to behave recklessly. A well-known media mogul had grabbed a girl almost in front of Carly and now proceeded to caress her intimately whilst the girl herself encouraged him.
This was just not a lifestyle with which she felt comfortable, Carly reflected with revulsion. She couldn’t understand how anyone could find any pleasure in something that ultimately was so very destructive. Drugs were anathema to her. Her eyes shadowed as she remembered how she had seen the misery that they could cause.
She felt a tug on her arm and turned to see one of the older men leering at her. She’d realised from overhearing them talking earlier that they were Russian.
‘You come with me,’ he demanded drunkenly.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not a guest. I’m working,’ Carly told him politely, trying to disengage herself.
‘Good, then you work for me…in bed,’ he responded coarsely. ‘I pay you good, eh?’
Carly felt nauseated. Was that how all men saw women—as someone, something they could buy? A commodity they could use? Or did she attract that type because somehow instinctively they could sense what she had come from?
Trash! She winced as though she had been knifed, hearing again the contemptuous word that had been thrown at her so often during her childhood.
‘You are trash, do you know that? Garbage. In fact, that’s where they found you—lying in the rubbish, unwanted—and that’s where you should have stayed.’
Abruptly she realised that she could feel the man’s hot breath on her bare skin.
She turned to demand that he release her, and then tensed. Ricardo was standing on the other side of the salon, watching her.
He knew what she was, Ricardo reminded himself savagely, so why did the sight of Carly allowing another man to hold her arm so intimately fill him with jealousy instead of contempt? And why the hell was he now pushing his way through the crowd milling through the salon, in the wake of the D’Argents, in order to get to her? After all, he had already seen the proprietorial way her male companion had reached for her. And what was driving him through the crowd certainly wasn’t rooted in some kind of male solidarity, or an altruistic desire to warn her latest victim of just what she was, was it? He derided himself cynically. The truth was, he preferred not to analyse just what the sight of another man holding on to her was doing to him—or why.
Instead he channelled his anger into deciding that her escort’s taste in clothes—for obviously he must have bought her the abomination she was wearing—was about as good as Carly’s was in men. The pair of them deserved one another, and Carly deserved everything she would get from selling herself to a man who might just as well have had what he was tattooed across his forehead.
But Carly wasn’t here to have a relationship with another man, and he intended to remind her in no uncertain terms that he was supposed to be her prime concern. How dared she reject him and then let that overweight, sweaty nobody put his greasy hands all over her? Where was her pride? Her self-respect? Didn’t it ever occur to her that she was intelligent enough to earn her own living and support herself, instead of debasing herself by offering herself to any man who would give her the price of a few designer rags?
‘You! Here!’
Carly stared at the man who had spoken to her so arrogantly as he approached, and then realised that he was with the man who was holding her.
‘How much do you want?’
He was already opening his wallet and starting to remove money from it.
Another man had joined the other two, taller and leaner, and with an unmistakable air of authority about him. He spoke sharply to them, and to Carly’s relief she was immediately released.
‘I apologise for my countrymen—I hope you will not condemn all Russian men as unmannerly oafs because of them?’
He was charming, and very good-looking, Carly acknowledged.
‘Of course not,’ she assured him.
‘You are here alone?’
Someone pushed past and he reached out a protective arm to shield her. Unexpectedly Carly suddenly felt very femininely weak and vulnerable. She wasn’t used to men behaving protectively towards her.
‘I’m with the event planning organisation,’ she explained.
‘Ah, so you are responsible for this magnificent party we are enjoying?’
He was flattering as well as charming, Carly recognised.
‘In part,’ she agreed.
‘And you are staying here, on board the yacht?’
‘No, I’m—’ Carly broke off as she saw both Sarah and the maître d’ edging towards her. ‘Please excuse me,’ she apologised to him. ‘But I must get back to work.’
‘Mmm, I see Igor was chatting you up. Mariella won’t like that,’ Sarah warned Carly, when she joined her, having dealt with the maître d’. ‘She’s already got him marked down as husband number four. Mind you, she’ll have her work cut out, because she certainly isn’t the only woman who’s hoping for a legal right to his billions. God, I hate these dos,’ Sarah complained. ‘Sometimes I wonder why the hell I don’t just give in my notice and go home.’
‘Why don’t you?’ Carly asked her
‘Let’s just say there’s a man there who I can’t have,’ Sarah told her bleakly. ‘I need another drink. I’ll be back in a minute…’
Carly was standing with her back to him, watching Sarah hurry away from her, when Ricardo finally managed to reach her.
‘Lost your new admirer?’
Carly stiffened, and then turned round reluctantly to face him.
Before she could defend herself, he continued savagely, ‘What the hell possessed you to let him buy you that? You look like a tart,’ he told her mercilessly. ‘Or was that the idea? It certainly looked as though he was doing a brisk business in selling you on to his friends.’
Carly’s face burned. ‘You are despicable,’ she told him. ‘And for your information—’
‘Ricardo, darling—there you are!’
Although she was delighted to have Ricardo’s attention removed from her, Carly couldn’t help wishing that the woman claiming it was not Mariella—especially when she saw the way Mariella was staring at her outfit.
Fortunately, though, before she could say anything Sarah returned. Equally fortunately, she immediately realised what was happening and adroitly came to Carly’s rescue, exclaiming, ‘Mariella! Carly hasn’t been able to stop singing your praises for being so kind to her and saving her so much embarrassment. I told her that it is typical of you to be so generous, and that you’d understand immediately how she felt about having her suitcase stolen. I knew you wouldn’t mind if I
let her borrow those old things you told me to put to one side for the charity shop. Remember? You said they were too big for you…’
Was it the weight of false sentiment and sugar in Sarah’s paean of praise that miraculously squashed the hostility in Mariella’s gaze? Carly wondered cynically. Suddenly she became all gracious smiles.
‘Of course. I love helping other people—everyone knows that. Although I must say you are rather too big to fit into my things, my dear. Of course I am very slim,’ she added smugly, before ignoring Carly to turn to Ricardo and say prettily, ‘Ricardo, why don’t I introduce you to a few more people…?’
As Mariella drew Ricardo away Sarah exhaled and apologised to Carly.
‘I hope you didn’t mind me saying that—only she looked as though she was about to create a bit of a scene…’
‘No, I didn’t mind at all,’ Carly assured her truthfully. But she would have loved to see Ricardo’s face if Mariella had claimed ownership of her outfit when he had been in the middle of insulting it. Although he hadn’t merely insulted the outfit, had he? He’d insulted her as well.
She didn’t care what he thought about her, Carly assured herself. After all, she knew the truth and she knew that he was wrong. At least this way, even if she couldn’t deny or ignore the physical, sexual effect he had on her, she knew she would be safe from any risk of becoming emotionally attracted to him.
Not, of course, that she had been in any danger of that.
It seemed as if the evening was never going to end, Carly thought wearily. The last of the guests had finally gone, but she and the others were still cleaning up.
‘Look, why don’t you go? There’s nothing more for you to do here,’ Jeff the florist said in a kind voice.
‘It’s my responsibility to stay until everything is packed up,’ Carly told him.
‘You don’t think that anyone else would stay around this long, do you?’ He grinned at her and shook his head. ‘We’re perfectly capable of sorting what’s left, and besides…’ He was looking past her and she turned her head to see what he was looking at.
Her heart gave a sudden heavy thud as the door of the car which had drawn up a few yards away opened and Ricardo got out.
The last time she’d seen him he had been deep in conversation with a stunning redhead whom she was sure she had heard murmuring something about going back to her hotel suite with her. So what was he doing back here now?
Why should the fact that he was striding so purposefully towards her make her legs and her will-power quiver with weakness? He had insulted her in the most offensive way possible, and yet here she was letting his sexuality and, even worse, her own reaction to it, get to her.
Maybe she should adopt a different and more modern attitude. After all, she had heard plenty of women say openly and unashamedly that they were up for having sex with a man without wanting or needing any kind of emotional connection with him. Surely that kind of relationship was exactly what would suit her best?
‘It’s gone three a.m. and we leave for New York in the morning,’ he told her curtly.
‘You go, Carly,’ Jeff repeated. ‘We can easily finish up here now.’
It seemed that she didn’t have any choice. Turning aside, Carly went to retrieve the canvas hold-all she had bought earlier to hold her modest new purchases.
She watched with a certain sense of grim satisfaction as Ricardo frowned and took it from her.
‘Before you say anything,’ she warned him coolly, when they were out of Jeff’s hearing, ‘I didn’t have to sell my body to buy either the bag or its contents. What happened to the redhead, by the way?’ she asked unkindly as they walked back to the car. The fact that Ricardo was a potential client had been overwhelmed by her still smarting pride. ‘Didn’t she come up to your expectations—or was it you who didn’t come up to hers?’
‘Neither. She left with the man with whom she arrived—and even if she hadn’t I don’t take those kinds of risks with my health,’ Ricardo answered pointedly.
He was opening the car door for her, but Carly paused to turn round and demand angrily, ‘Meaning what? That I do? Isn’t the discovery that you’ve already made one offensive and insulting error of judgement about me enough?’
Without waiting for his response she got into the car, ignoring him as she reached for the seatbelt, and continuing to ignore him when he walked round the car, climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car engine.
They reached the villa. Carly opened the car door and got out without waiting for Ricardo to help her.
The pink-washed building was bathed in a soft rose glow from the artfully placed nightscape lighting, which illuminated both the villa and its gardens. Rose-pink—the colour of romance. A small, painful smile twisted her lips.
‘Carly.’
She stopped walking and turned to look as Ricardo caught up with her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that the outfit you were wearing belonged to Mariella?’
‘Perhaps I didn’t want to spoil your fun. You were obviously enjoying thinking the worst of me,’ she answered sharply.
‘You can’t blame me for making entirely logical assumptions. You’re a woman in her twenties with a career, therefore logically you must have a bank account. Having a bank account means that you have access to credit cards, bank loans, a wide variety of different ways of borrowing money in an emergency—as this—’ he indicated the bag he was now carrying ‘—proves. And yet you chose to ask me for a loan.’
‘Logical assumptions? You’ve already as good as admitted that the assumptions you’ve made about me, far from being logical, are based entirely on your own preconceived ideas and personal hang-ups. The truth is that you know nothing whatsoever about my life or my circumstances. If the women you mix with are the type who are happy to exchange sex for a few gaudy trinkets and a wardrobe of designer clothes, then I’m afraid that so far as I’m concerned it says just as much about your judgement and morals as it does about theirs.’
‘Really? Well, my judgement told me that you were more than ready to have sex with me until you found out that sex was all you would be getting. Miraculously, now that you know that, suddenly you have all the money you need to replace your stolen clothes. Oh, and a word of warning. That gang are notorious for wanting value for their money. They’ll pass you round from hand to hand and have all they want of you. You may not find it worth the pay.’
No one had ever made her feel so furiously angry. She was so angry, in fact, that for once she forgot her normal caution and instead burst out, ‘You are so wrong. The only reason I was ready to have sex with you was because I wanted you—but, luckily for me, I wanted to retain my self-respect more. And as for my bank account and my new clothes—I asked you for a loan because I have had to empty my bank account to…to make my parents a…a loan. I do not own a credit card, since I disapprove of their punitively high rates of interest, and there wasn’t time for me to realise any of my assets.’
Ricardo frowned. Surely no one could manufacture the level of fury Carly was showing? But he wasn’t simply going to give in.
‘But obviously somehow you managed to find some money?’
‘Yes, but not by selling my body, as you so obviously would like to think.’
‘No? How, then?’ The cynical disbelief in his voice infuriated her.
‘If you must know—not that it is any of your business—I pawned my watch,’ she told him flatly.
Ricardo discovered that a sensation akin to the slow, measured drip of ice being fed straight into his bloodstream was creeping up over him—a mental awareness that somehow he had got something very important spectacularly wrong.
He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had wrongfooted him, and the knowledge that it should be Carly who had done so sparked off inside him a very dangerous cocktail of emotions. He looked down at her bare wrist and then back at her face.
‘You said your parents needed a loan? Surely you could—’
; ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Carly cut him off quickly.
Ricardo frowned. Surely the kind of woman he had assumed her to be would have been only too eager to make much of the glow of virtue accruing to her from such selflessness. But Carly was turning away from him, quite plainly agitated and anxious to change the subject.
Why? Ricardo wondered. What on earth could there be about something as generous as lending money to one’s parents to spark off the hostility and fear he could see so plainly in her eyes?
She was starting to walk away from him. He looked down at her wrist again, and then back at her face.
He had always trusted his instincts, and right now those instincts were insisting that Carly had been telling him the truth. Therefore he was guilty of seriously misjudging her. And his body was telling him that, no matter what she was or what she had done or not done, he wanted her.
He strode towards her, catching hold of her arm.
Immediately her whole body tensed, and she demanded fiercely, ‘Let go of me.’
‘Not yet. You aren’t the only one who takes their moral responsibilities seriously. I obviously owe you an apology.’
Ricardo was actually apologising to her? He certainly needed to, she reminded herself angrily. And she needed to apologise to herself, for being so stupid as to actually still want him.
‘Yes, you do,’ she agreed coolly. ‘But I don’t want it.’
She watched his stunned disbelief give way to male anger.
‘No? But you do want me, don’t you?’ he taunted softly.
‘No,’ she began, but it was already too late. He pulled her hard against him and bent his head to take her mouth in a savagely intimate kiss before she could object. And, of course, the moment his mouth touched hers, her own helpless response betrayed her. She tried to pull away but he held on to her, and her eyes widened as she saw in his eyes the same hunger she knew was in her own.