Fantasy Woman

by Annabel Murray

  'Tod! Please!' Somewhere she found sufficient breath to make the protest she knew she ought to make.

  'Please what? Please make love to you?'

  'No! Ah! No!' She wanted him. How she wanted him! But not like this. She didn't know anything about him. If she were ever again to be intimate with a man, first she must know him through and through, be certain that he was worthy of her admiration and trust, as well as her love. Without that knowledge there could be no self-respect in her giving.

  Frantically she pushed him away. Amazingly he did not resist. Instead he rose to stand over her, his eyes clouded, remote, as he watched her trembling fingers attempt to straighten the silk robe.

  'Don't worry, Gina. I didn't intend to go all the way.'

  'You never stood a chance of doing so!' she retorted, the shame at the liberties she had allowed now overwhelming her.

  'No?' Despite his own self-disgust, he raised a satirical eyebrow. 'Allow me to differ.'

  She jumped to her feet, the fiery temper that went with her hair aroused by his arrogant presumption.

  'You can think what you like! You can't possibly know what I think or feel, so I'll tell you. I think you're despicable. Just because you've bought your way into TLM, into Fantasy Woman, doesn't mean you've bought me, too. If I agree to work with you ...'

  'If?' he enquired sardonically, 'I seem to remember you leaping at my offer.'

  'I can still change my mind!' she flared. 'And if there's any repetition of... your ... your behaviour, I will change it. Just remember, if I still agree to work with you, that's the only kind of co-operation you can expect.'

  But that was all he wanted, wasn't it, Tod asked himself as he, too, rose, making her a sardonic half-bow of acknowledgement. He already knew she was eager and willing to take part in his new venture, so why had he still thought it necessary to try the ploy of binding her closer to him by the mutual attraction he knew existed? Always honest with himself, at least, Tod knew that for those few minutes no such devious considerations had been in his mind. The plain fact of the matter was that he had desired her, desired her desperately. For God's sake, what had got into him? Usually clear thinking, master of his own moods, Tod didn't relish bewilderment at his own motives. He must be missing Marcha, he decided. He'd been too long away from her.

  'My humble apologies!' he said, aware that he sounded far from humble, aware that he was inflaming her irritation. 'I was under the impression that you weren't averse to being kissed.'

  'That's a typical male attitude!' She was scornful now. 'To imagine that just because a woman doesn't have some one currently dancing attendance, she'll be pathetically grateful for any man's attention.'

  Tod didn't like allowing a woman to have the last word, but, prudently, he recognised that Gina was very different from most women of his acquaintance. Having secured her agreement to work with him, there was no point in alienating her. He must keep his prime objective to the forefront of his mind. He moved towards the door.

  'Until Saturday then,' he said, his tone now matter-of-fact. Then, with a brief flash of mischievousness, 'I presume there's no objection to my calling for you here, now I've discovered your hideout?'

  After his departure, Gina made no attempt to dress. She didn't feel she had the strength. Instead, she sank back on to the cushions that still bore the impression of their combined weight.

  She could scarcely believe in the happenings of the last half hour. She realised that in some subtle way Tod Fallon was not really interested in her as a woman, but as a commodity. And why, when she'd resisted the efforts of so many men, had she failed to resist Tod? For, despite her wariness where he was concerned, she couldn't deny her growing fascination.

  But worse than the knowledge of her failure to hold out against him, was the recognition of the nature of the ache that had begun to grow within her, like the thawing of some great glacier, not only in his presence, but just at the thought of him; and it frightened her.

  Despairingly, she looked around her, but for the first time the quiet peace of her flat did not appeal. Tod Fallon had only entered it once and yet he had left an indelible imprint. The old, cosy feeling of being in an impregnable haven, listening to the external, alien noises, had gone. Suddenly silence didn't appeal any more and she rose to put on a record. She felt lonely, a sensation she hadn't experienced in a long time, and angry with herself for feeling that way, and she had a strong suspicion as to the identity of the responsible catalyst.

  Damn it! She was getting maudlin. Men, marriage, were not for her ever again. It was a long time since she'd taken out the failure of her marriage and really looked at it. That she'd done so lately was entirely Tod Fallon's fault. Until just recently she'd been so certain that personal freedom was preferable to the restrictions of a close relationship. But what if it hadn't been marriage itself that was at fault? Suppose it had been the participants. Not just Keith, but her, too. What if she had never really been in love, since so many little issues had annoyed her, including curtailment of her personal liberty.

  Keith hadn't liked Gina's success. His pride demanded that he be the dominant partner, the breadwinner, whereas Gina's independent spirit needed equality. She wanted a loving relationship, but it must also allow her to retain originality of thought and action. Most of all Keith had disliked her work bringing her into contact with other attractive, wealthy men. His so-called love, his fear of losing her, had been suffocating. His moods, heralded by brooding, sullen preoccupation, could, at a moment's notice, flare into noisy, unreasonable accusation. He had believed her career to be a 'whim', that eventually she must and would conform to his ideas, but, on the contrary, her work had absorbed more and more of her time and energy. Yet she had genuinely believed she could cope with career and marriage.

  Keith's work continually took him away from home and he didn't seem to consider that made him any less of an asset as a husband. Why should a career adversely affect her value as a wife? She'd tried every way she knew to cure him of his emotional jealousy, continually reassuring him of her constancy. She'd even begged him to go with her to a Marriage Guidance Councillor, or to see a psychiatrist, but in vain.

  They'd been married two years when Keith presented his ultimatum. Either she settled down to being a full-time wife or their marriage was at an end. It forced her to sit down and take stock. Even if theirs wasn't a good relationship, she believed in the marriage vows she'd taken. But she did love her challenging career, was proud of the success she'd made of her agency. She suggested a compromise. She would do as he asked, employ a manager, if they could start a family. To her indignant amazement, Keith refused. He didn't want any encumbrances; to share her attention. It seemed to Gina that he wanted everything his own way.

  A couple of months later, fate intervened. After a particularly lively New Year party, they had forgotten to take precautions. Gina was pregnant. Perhaps, she thought, Keith wouldn't mind too much. Her optimism was short-lived. He even refused to believe that the child was his.

  It had never occurred to Gina that Keith's displays of jealousy had been a disguise for his own desire for outside sexual experience. His accusations that she was having an affair had been a cover for his own liaison. Gina might never have known of this if Frances hadn't come to see her. Keith didn't know of her visit, but Gina must let him have a divorce, because she, Frances, was pregnant and Keith must marry her.

  It was inevitable that Gina had begun to compare Tod with Keith. Had Keith ever made her feel the heat of sexual desire that she felt flooding through her now, as she remembered Tod's hands upon her naked breasts, his lips hot and seeking on hers? Would Tod really have called a halt if she had not?

  From this point, her thoughts turned to the future, to her next encounter with Tod. How should she face him, with this recent incident lying between them? Coolly, that was the answer, on her guard at all times. He must never guess how much he had affected her. She must keep before him her determination that their relationship would be s
trictly that of business.

  It was going to be difficult. If she hadn't wanted this opportunity to further her career, she would have taken the coward's way out and made sure they never met again.

  *

  'I imagine you're accustomed to flying? You'll have flown quite a bit on location work?'

  Tod had been making most of the conversation since he'd picked Gina up at her flat; none of it, to her relief, of a personal nature.

  'Actually, no. I've only been in a plane once in my life.' Gina hoped her face hadn't paled. She wasn't going to admit to Tod that there was anything that scared her, that he had picked on her Achilles' heel. But during the flight in question she had been literally paralysed with fear which, despite all her attempts at rationalisation, she had been unable to conquer. Since then, programmes that involved filming overseas had been made by the camera team and Gina had merely introduced them from the studio.

  'Oh?' Tod sounded mildly surprised. 'It doesn't make any difference, except that I wondered if you were troubled by airsickness at all?'

  'We'll be going abroad by plane?' If she had to spend any length of time in the air, with him at her side, there was no way she'd be able to hide her fears. Not a good recommendation for a stuntgirl! The answer to her question nearly destroyed her self-control.

  'No. We're not going abroad. But one of the things you'll have to do is fly a small plane ... solo!'

  Gina felt her stomach flip, her throat close up. They hadn't discussed the nature of the stunts she would be expected to perform.

  'Why?' she croaked, hastily turned the croak into a cough, as if something had irritated her throat.

  'You'll find out,' was his maddeningly cryptic reply. He angled a glance at her set face. 'You have some objection?'

  'N ... no,' she managed. 'Wh ... why should I?'

  'No reason that I can think of. Good. Then a fortnight's intensive training should be sufficient for that particular incident.' He drove on towards their destination, which she now knew to be just north of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

  'Mallions!' Tod said about an hour later, an hour during which Gina had feigned sleep. But she hadn't slept. She'd spent the time in appalled contemplation of what was in store for her, a prospect as daunting as that of hiding her reactions to Tod himself, the ordeal she must face without revealing her abject terror. Hiding her fear was one thing, but how was she to overcome it? She could only hope that she would be lucky enough to get an instructor who would be understanding and able to reassure her.

  She opened her eyes. The car had halted before massive iron gates set in a high wall that seemed to stretch for ever in either direction. The gates were locked and two formidably large men, whom Tod hailed as Greg and Andy, emerged from a gatehouse to allow the vehicle access.

  Once through the gate, the car negotiated a slight bend in the drive, which straightened out to reveal a panoramic view of a Tudor house of stately home proportions, standing in what appeared to be a great many acres of land.

  The instant the Rolls came to a halt before the house, figures appeared, as if from nowhere; one man to drive the car away, two more to carry suitcases, while an elderly woman stood in the doorway to greet them; Gina realised that she was not family, but the housekeeper.

  'Welcome home, Mr Fallon. I hope you had a pleasant journey?' and, to Gina, 'Good afternoon, miss. Your room is ready, but perhaps you'd like some tea first?'

  Gina nodded and smiled her acknowledgement.

  'Tea in the library then, Mrs Bush,' Tod requested briskly. 'Then perhaps you'll be good enough to show Miss Darcy the general layout of the house. I have an important phone call to make.'

  About to turn away, the housekeeper hesitated.

  'Will you be wanting to see Miss Melanie just yet, sir?'

  'No,' Tod said, a little brusquely Gina thought, wondering who Melanie was that she could be so lightly dismissed. 'Later will do.'

  Tod ushered Gina into the library. From floor to ceiling, two walls were lined with exquisitely bound books. Gina wondered cynically whether Tod had ever read any of them, or whether they were just part of the decor. He didn't strike her as the kind of man who could ever sit still long enough to read a book.

  The rest of the room was sparsely, though expensively, furnished. Two large leather chesterfields faced each other before a massive hearth and a large leather-topped desk was angled to the fourth wall. This was composed almost entirely of a large mullioned window, looking out over sweeping parkland to the rear of the house. Beyond and above a colourful shrubbery, Gina caught sight of an object, which rose and fell with the breeze. A windsock? She turned to Tod with a question on her lips.

  'Yes. That's an airstrip. I have a small Cessna for my private use, the one you'll be learning to fly.'

  An insidious suspicion crossed Gina's mind. 'Who's going to teach me?'

  'I shall, of course!' His reply confirmed her uneasy conjecture.

  The arrival of Mrs Bush with a tray interrupted this topic and, as she sipped her tea, Gina avoided any return to it by complimenting Tod on his house.

  'Has it been in your family long?' she asked, as she studied a large oil painting hung above the fireplace. The work depicted a beruffed Elizabethan gentleman in doublet and hose.

  Tod smiled, that brief flash of white teeth which lent his face such disconcerting charm.

  'Sorry to disappoint you,' but I can't claim any lengthy noble descent. I bought the place lock, stock and barrel, including the family portraits, about five years ago when the last member of the family died.' Again that glimmer of amusement. 'Now you're here, you'll find out a lot about me you didn't know. Perhaps,'—the gleam in his eye, its suspect implication, disconcerted her—'the reverse will apply and I'll be finding out more about you. What else would you like to know?'

  'Nothing,' she said sharply, 'I wasn't prying.'

  'Nonetheless, I'll give you a brief resume; it will save explanations later. Tod Fallon, christened Theodore, which incidentally I hate! Age, thirty-three. Multimillionaire by the time I was twenty-eight. Eighty per cent owner of a large group of companies, some of which are located overseas and one of which is a film company, based in this country. This house stands in two hundred acres of land, every boundary of which is humming with security precautions, controlled from the gatehouse we passed.'

  He hadn't mentioned whether or not he was married, Gina noticed.

  'Why the security precautions?'

  'Various reasons. Among other things, this place is a treasure house of antiques.'

  'And?'

  'Excuse me,' he said abruptly, 'I must make the telephone call I spoke of. If you've finished your tea, ring the bell and Mrs Bush will show you round. I'll see you at dinner.'

  The tour of the main areas of the house left Gina bewildered. Even then there was a whole wing and the attics left unexplored.

  'How can one man possibly live in all this?' she asked the friendly housekeeper.

  'Bless you, miss. It's never empty! Later on today it'll be swarming with people. It always is when Mr Tod is filming.'

  'Filming? Here?'

  'Bushie! Bushie! Is he home yet? Is he?'

  A very diminutive person erupted from a room Gina had not entered, a little doll of a girl, with saucer-wide sapphire eyes and jet black hair that bubbled in natural curls. This unexpected apparition was followed by an apologetic young woman in a nursemaid's uniform.

  'I'm so sorry, Mrs Bush. I did tell Miss Melanie she should wait until Mr Fallon sent for her. But she's been so excited…'

  'Who are you?' The child was staring up at Gina. At first the blue eyes had been hostile, but now this was replaced by puzzlement. 'At first I thought it was her. You're very like her, but I think you're prettier and I think I might like you. She's horrid!'

  Gina wondered with some amusement which of the child's female acquaintances had warranted such rancour.

  'That will do, Miss Melanie.' Mrs Bush spoke firmly, though her expression was indulgent
. Gina guessed that the housekeeper sympathised with the child's feelings about the unknown. 'Miss Darcy doesn't want to be bothered with your nonsense just now.'

  'Are you staying here?' The dark-haired mite was evidently aware of the housekeeper's partiality. 'Are you going to be in my daddy's films?'

  Tod Fallon was this child's father? Gina knew just why her heart rose so sickeningly in her throat, preventing speech.

  'She's in his films,' Melanie continued.

  'Melanie,' the nursemaid intervened, 'you heard what Mrs Bush said. Now back to the nursery for your tea. Miss Darcy will want to unpack and rest.'

  'All right.' The child responded to the urging hand, but over her shoulder she had a parting word for Gina. 'Will you play with me sometimes, when you're not tired?'

  Protests from housekeeper and nursemaid that Gina's presence at Mallions was not principally for Melanie's entertainment fell on unheeding ears, and the child fixed Gina with a penetrating stare which demanded an answer.

  'I'd like that, Melanie,' she said truthfully, 'so long as your daddy doesn't object. I'm here to work, you see.'

  With this the child appeared satisfied and allowed herself to be led away, but the encounter had given Gina more food for thought than she relished. Tod Fallon had a daughter and therefore, presumably, a wife. She was dismayed by the strong disappointment this conclusion engendered.

  Dinner, she realised Mrs Bush was warning her, would be a formal affair.

  'Mr Tod always says it would be a crime to own a house like this and not live in it in the style to which it's accustomed.'

  Gina was grateful for the housekeeper's hint. 'Will there be many other people at dinner?'

  'Bless you, yes. It's rarely Mr Tod sits down with less than twenty.'

  'He must have a lot of friends.'

  'Technicians mostly,' Mrs Bush returned, 'actors and actresses. He's choosy who he calls friends.'

  Left alone in the white-walled, low-beamed, chintzy bedroom, Gina considered what she should wear for her first dinner party at Mallions. Thank goodness she had brought a large and varied selection from her wardrobe, even though Tod's eyes had risen a visible inch or two at the number of suitcases he'd been required to fit into the boot of the Rolls Royce.