Dark Obsession

by Valerie Marsh

  She turned away from him and wriggled out of her cape, jealousy knifing through her. She hadn't expected him to abuse Julia nor to give details of what was essentially a very private matter, but she had been totally unprepared for the guilt she could sense behind his words; the strong loyalty he obviously still felt towards her.

  Even now Julia was blameless, a woman without flaw he had driven to desert him. She wondered incredulously what he could have done—what monster could be hidden under the surface that had made it impossible for her to stay with him.

  Escaping finally from the hot folds of her cape, she gave it into his extended hand and he took it to a coat rack. When he returned she had herself under control again and managed to ask quite naturally, 'When did you start writing?'

  He re-filled their glasses and said absently, 'Oh, it's something I've always done for my own amusement. God knows how many first chapters of novels are hidden away in drawers back home. Television reception was abysmal in those days and it was something to do in the long winter evenings. I never considered it seriously until I went to university, though you can forget all those newspaper stories about instant success. I'd spent a hell of a lot of time and done a hell of a lot of writing before I earned enough to cover the cost of the typing paper.'

  Wryly, Fran said, 'You make me feel humble. I can't even type.'

  'Because you've never needed to,' he pointed out. 'How is the modelling business?'

  'Not what it's cracked up to be,' she said dismissively. 'Over-crowded and not very highly regarded. Most people equate it with a low IQ.'

  'To be fair, I've met one or two who were pretty dim.'

  'There are dim ones in every job, but you can say you're a typist without it being automatically assumed that you're half-witted or that every pay negotiation is conducted from a horizontal position!'

  He flicked her a swift glance. 'Don't get heated. I didn't assume it.'

  'Then you're in the minority. It does go on, of course, but it doesn't apply to all of us, and personally I prefer to keep work and my private life separate. I was never so…'

  She broke off what she had been about to add, suddenly aware that she was presenting Grant with a very contradictory picture of herself.

  He was watching her with a faintly cynical twist to his mouth, and bluntly he demanded, 'Where does Bernstein fit in then?'

  'I…' Tongue-tied, she flushed deeply and his expression hardened. Seeing it, she found she was more ashamed of what he believed than what he might guess if she told him the truth.

  But it was still difficult to get the words out and she had to force them. Her voice low, she said, 'What Seth said at the hospital, making you think we were living together—it wasn't true…' She halted, swallowing as she met Grant's swift frown. 'He'd just been telling me that you'd been round to his office asking questions about me, and he tends to exaggerate everything, I know, but he seemed to think you…' She paused again, then went on, 'Anyway, I thought you were still married and I didn't want to get involved in anything, so I asked him to play along—pretend things were serious with us. Seth took it rather further than I intended. He doesn't like half measures.'

  'He certainly doesn't,' Grant agreed grimly. He tilted the carafe to see how much was left in and Fran wondered if he would point out that she could simply have said no to any unwelcome suggestion on his part.

  He was bound to realise that it had been against herself that she had needed Seth's reinforcement, but he only said, 'So you didn't know I was divorced. Was that the only reason for the double act?'

  Evasively, she replied, 'I came tonight,' and he smiled, the quick, brilliant expression she remembered so well.

  'My reward for persistence.'

  He reached for her hand and balanced it across his palm. 'It wasn't easy to come back, believing what I did.'

  Her hand still across his, he began slowly rubbing his thumb round the end of each nail. It set her teeth on edge, like the half pleasurable frisson of a finger run down the spine, and she shivered suddenly with the thought that she could so easily have succeeded in her object and he might never have come back. She whispered, 'I only did it because I thought you were married, Grant. I'm sorry.'

  'So am I.' He gripped her fingers, grinding them together so that she winced. 'You caused me weeks of self-destructive mental torture. I've lain awake every night imagining you in bed with him.' He released her hand abruptly and looked up at her. 'Am I pushing you?'

  'Yes… I don't know.'

  She swallowed again, confused because she didn't know what he wanted from her. Not what she had first thought, for in spite of the almost tangible physical tug between them he had deliberately brought her out, away from the empty flat and opportunity. She was puzzled and overwhelmed, projected in too suddenly and too deep. Or was she? Wasn't she prepared to give Grant whatever he wanted? Be whatever he wanted her to be?

  Breaking into her thoughts he said, 'It's getting late. I'd better take you home.' She glanced round to find the place had almost emptied, and he sent her a crooked smile. 'I'm tied up tomorrow with a meeting on scripts, but don't eat when you get in on Thursday. I'll come for you about eight.'

  He hadn't asked if she would go out with him, but it never even crossed her mind to resent his calm assumption. What lay in the more distant future she couldn't know, but there was a curious inevitability to what was happening now.

  When he drew up outside the flat she looked up at their darkened windows on the first floor and saw Grant follow her gaze. He sat unmoving while she found her key and prepared to get out, and at the last moment, impelled by a fierce yearning, she leaned towards him and whispered, 'Kiss me, Grant.'

  He gave a smothered groan and grabbed her hair in one hand, holding her away from him so that he could look into her face.

  'What are you trying to do, Fran?' he demanded roughly. 'If I kiss you, you know as well as I do that we'll end up in bed. Are you telling me that's what you want?'

  It was, but it seemed too shameless, too wanton, to tell him so without even a preliminary caress or endearment between them. She drew away, and Grant said softly, 'We need to get to know each other, Fran, and it would get in the way—blind us. We shouldn't know what we thought about each other, only what we felt.'

  'Yes,' she agreed, matching his quiet tones.

  She gave him a quick, tremulous smile and got out of the car, but when she had let herself in through the front door she stood for a moment with her hand against it wondering if he was right. She had never been able to separate her thoughts from her feelings where Grant was concerned, and she couldn't imagine how it could be made any worse.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sacha shrieked with envy when Fran told her she was going out with Grant. Her mobile face splitting into a wide grin, she exclaimed, 'Darling, I told you he was terribly worried about you! Tell me all about it!'

  'There's not a great deal to tell. We went for a drink and he's taking me out for a meal tomorrow.' Seeing the faint enquiry in Sacha's expectant gaze, she added, 'And he's divorced, otherwise I shouldn't be going.'

  'It struck me as strange for you,' Sacha said candidly. 'None of my business of course if he hadn't been, but one's liable to get frightfully messy and sordid complications, especially with someone so well known.' She raised her brows. 'Do you want me to be out when you get home?'

  'No,' Fran said, colouring. 'I think it might be better if you were here.'

  Sacha gave another little scream. 'Is he terribly virile?' She sighed ecstatically. 'Oh, all that lovely masculinity! It makes me drool!'

  Nervously, Fran said, 'Sacha, you're to behave yourself and not say anything shocking when he comes. And if you start fluttering your eyelashes at him I'll kill you!'

  'He's definitely my type, sweetie, but somehow I don't think I'm his.' The regret in her voice was only half-assumed, and Fran pulled a threatening face at her.

  'Go out and catch your own. This one's mine!'

  'We're frightfully posse
ssive after only a couple of hours of his company,' Sacha drawled. She looked up from filing her nails and regarded Fran speculatively. 'Unless you were a very precocious little girl.'

  'In thought, perhaps,' Fran admitted. 'I did have rather a crush on him, but at that age I didn't get the opportunity to extend it to deeds. Actually I was nearly seventeen before I was first kissed, if you can believe it.'

  'God, darling!' Sacha exclaimed in astonishment. 'I was first kissed in the cloakroom in the infants' school! Though I must confess that at the time I hadn't the remotest idea what people did it for.'

  'What made you then?' Fran enquired, amused.

  'The grubby little swine had hidden my plimsolls and he wouldn't tell me where they were until I did!'

  Fran let out a peal of laughter. 'It doesn't sound as though your first experience was any more stirring than mine.'

  With another oblique glance, Sacha said, 'Have you ever been stirred?'

  'Not a great deal,' Fran replied shortly.

  Sacha held one of her purple talons up in front of her and studied it with absorbed interest. 'Not even by the celebrated writer?'

  'Possibly I might have been, but he didn't kiss me.'

  Sacha's regard changed to a fixed, bemused stare. 'Life is full of surprises,' she murmured, then twisted round and asked baldly, 'Why?'

  'The atmosphere seemed rather too—combustible.'

  'But how thrilling! You mean his intentions might be honourable?'

  'Sacha, I haven't the remotest idea what his intentions are! Since all he's done so far is take me for a drink, I don't suppose he's got any.'

  'Don't be naive, darling,' Sacha said with mild contempt. 'They've all got evil ones.' She wielded the nail file for a moment and surveyed the result, then commented, 'Judging on appearance, I would have said gentlemanly restraint was a teeny bit out of character.'

  'Perhaps he's afraid he'd have to find himself another blacksmith if he seduced me,' Fran suggested flippantly. 'My uncle is the only one for miles around back home.'

  She saw Sacha's lip curl in derision and suddenly stood up with a jerky movement and went to stand by the fireplace. She had lain awake for hours after Grant left her, puzzled and confused by his rejection of her unspoken offer. Initially she had thought it was what he had come for but he had proved her wrong, so what had brought him?

  In her own case first love had endured. All the wild longings he had aroused in her in those teen years had only intensified, but a man of twenty-eight didn't feel for a fourteen-year-old what she had felt for him.

  It was when he was speaking of Julia that the faint, uneasy suspicion had started to take shape, and she had felt her presence like a ghost at the table, an unwelcome third between them. Grant had revealed regret, remorse, in the way he spoke of her—the woman he had loved and married and shared his life with for six years. The woman he still loved?

  And she and Julia were so alike that even all those years ago her uncle had said they could be sisters. So alike that he must be reminded of Julia every time he looked at her. His reaction to her had been too quick and too strong to be merely the product of ordinary physical attraction, and besides, if that had been the case, he would have taken advantage of her willingness. The very fact that he hadn't was confirmation that she was merged in his mind with Julia, for no man would ever dream of treating Julia with anything but the utmost respect. Cynically, Fran reflected that she would bring out chivalry in even the most dedicated womaniser, and for a moment she wondered how Grant had managed to reconcile both of them in his mind. But if feelings were strong enough they overrode everything, thoughts, reason, common sense, leaving nothing but a blind response which left no room for anything else.

  She went out next day and spent far more than she could afford on a dress for the evening. It was in soft, swirling material, patterned in pinks and greys, and fitting high up to the neck at the front. It wasn't her usual style, and her long hair didn't look right with it, but it wasn't until she was pinning it up on the top of her head that she realised the dress was exactly the kind of thing Julia wore, and that her hairstyle was almost identical to Julia's when she had seen her that time in the theatre.

  Arms upraised, she stared at herself, stunned, her mind too frozen to function when the doorbell rang and Sacha said obligingly, 'Make sure it's safe, sweetie. I'll let him in.'

  In the mirror, she met Grant's eyes almost fearfully as he came in through the door. He halted, his smile fading, then walked up behind her and said, 'Take it down.'

  Too overcome to reply she stood mutely while he felt in her hair for the pins and removed them, and the silvery blonde curls tumbled about her shoulders again. He lifted them in his hands, then let them fall back, and ordered, 'Leave it like that.'

  Fran found she was shaking. She hadn't meant to copy Julia—the intention had never entered her head, but she had tried, with her dress and her make-up, to be the sort of woman she thought Grant admired. Unconsciously she had made herself into an almost perfect facsimile of his ex-wife, and for a split second his eyes had revealed an inner anguish. He had hidden it quickly, but she knew the memory of that stark expression would be with her for a long time to come.

  Hands trembling, she picked up the comb and ran it through her hair. It really was too long to wear loose, and forcing a smile, she said, 'Compromise,' and pulled it forward over one shoulder to form it into a thick, loose plait as she had sometimes worn it when she was young.

  With her expensive dress and high heels it now seemed sophisticated, and Grant nodded agreement when she had finished, picking up her cape to slide it on to her shoulders.

  Sacha had been watching the by-play intently, aware that it had some significance that was not apparent to her, but her expression changed to one of superior benevolence as she surveyed them both, and grinning, she said, 'Have a lovely time, children.'

  'We shall, but no thanks to you,' Grant returned. 'Why the devil didn't you tell me Fran was sharing with you?'

  Sacha's eyes widened. 'You never asked, darling,' she said limpidly. 'And besides, I thought you knew. I presumed Seth had sent you.'

  'Nothing so simple,' Grant told her, his smile crooked. He propelled Fran ahead of him as he spoke, leaving Sacha to stare after them in frustration, and when they reached the street, Fran said, 'Was that just the instinct of a playwright for a good exit line?'

  'Possibly,' he admitted, smiling faintly. 'But I did have a hell of a game finding you. I went round nearly everyone at that bloody party before I eventually got a girl who said she thought you were a friend of Sacha Longraine's. It's an unusual name so I was able to track her down. At the time I didn't even know which hospital they'd taken you to.'

  'My aunt and uncle could have given you my address,' Fran said hesitantly.

  'They could, but they wouldn't.'

  She sent him a glance of swift surprise and he shrugged. 'I asked them for it some time ago, but I was given the impression that I was persona non grata where you were concerned. Didn't they ever mention it?'

  She shook her head. They may have tried and she'd stopped them, or it could have been before his divorce and they thought they were acting in her best interests in not telling her. They would have been deeply suspicious of any interest on the part of a man in Grant's position.

  He reached out and slid a hand down her cheek. When she turned to look at him, he said, 'So I wasn't going to let you get away again when I had found you.'

  He started the car and put it into drive while she was still going over what his words implied. It was ridiculous that she could love him and yet not know him well enough to be sure of how much he meant by them. But it was too soon to be seeking reassurance from him. He had said himself that they needed time to get to know each other and he was right.

  The restaurant he took her to she could never clearly recall afterwards, just as she hardly remembered what they ate or talked about. The food disappeared and plates were removed without smells or tastes impressing thems
elves on her consciousness.

  They talked and smiled and answered each other's questions, drank their wine and their coffee, but it was all dreamlike. Beneath it was the true reality, the mounting tide of awareness consuming them both under the surface. Conversation slowed and died, everything seemed suspended, and Grant said abruptly into the silence, 'Let's go.'

  He paid the bill and drove her home through dark, wet streets in the same charged silence. As though mesmerised, Fran watched the rain sliding down the windscreen and being lit up into individual sparkling droplets by the headlights of oncoming cars. When he stopped and switched off the engine she was strained with expectancy.

  For a moment neither of them spoke, then he said flatly, 'I was wrong before, wasn't I? We've got to get this out of the way before we can even begin to find out what we think about each other.'

  She swallowed and whispered helplessly, 'I don't know, Grant. I don't know anything any more.'

  He watched her for a few seconds longer, his hands rigid on the steering wheel, then with a muffled exclamation he reached for her, pulling her against him, his mouth on hers brutal with a stark hunger that jolted all her nerves into wild, uncontrolled response. Twisting against him convulsively she felt his hand thrust her cape aside to find her breast, the hard, hot pressure of his fingers a pleasure and a pain. The sensation made her gasp and she strained towards him even more frantically, searching for a closeness denied them by the confines of the car.

  When he lifted his head at last, she was trembling with a desire she made no attempt to hide or control. Grant knew it was there, just as she knew the same passion was raging through him, blinding him to their surroundings and the pain he was inflicting on her with his savage grip. In the quiet, the harsh sound of his breathing mingled with that of hers as they stared at one another in the darkness, oblivious to everything except the overpowering desire driving them both.

  Then footsteps rang out on the pavement outside, recalling them. Two teenage girls sauntered by, pausing to giggle as they passed the car, and Grant swore under his breath, watching as they dawdled away with backward glances. When they had gone he pulled her into his arms again and sighed harshly into her hair.