Charade of the Heart

by Cathy Williams

  ‘You look dreadful,’ Laura greeted her brightly when she finally emerged from her bedroom. David had already gone to an interview for a job in the city.

  ‘You’re so kind,’ Beth replied.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Beth poured herself a cup of coffee, unable to face anything else.

  ‘Marcos.’

  ‘He’s already found my replacement,’ she said lightly. ‘An older model but still in very good shape.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave?’ Laura asked. ‘You could return to Cambridge, you might even be able to go back to your old job.’

  ‘And what about working my notice?’ Beth asked. ‘The last thing I need is to be given a bad reference.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that! Don’t be ridiculous. In fact—’ she wrinkled her nose expressively ‘—I’m surprised that he’s making you work there at all, given everything that’s happened.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Beth drained her cup and reached out for her bag. ‘I think he enjoys my discomfort.’

  ‘Sadistic monster.’

  Beth nodded and headed off. He’s a sadistic monster, she told herself, so it should be easy to face him. After all, who goes weak at the knees when they’re confronted by a sadistic monster?

  He was already in when she arrived, and, for the first time in days, was whistling softly under his breath.

  She sat down and he leant next to her, running through some of her day’s workload, his arm very nearly brushing against hers.

  Their proximity didn’t seem to affect him at all, but it affected her. It was as if she was being subjected to some electrical charge which made her hairs stand on end.

  ‘You seem in a happy mood,’ she said icily, edging away from him, loading the paper tray with headed paper.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He perched for a moment on the edge of the desk and Beth averted her eyes. ‘Certain activities are so good for…relaxation.’

  Beth’s blood froze. It was an instantaneous reaction, but she recovered quickly.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘And by the way, I’ll be out to lunch. I probably won’t be back until about three.’

  ‘You have a meeting with some developers at three-thirty,’ she reminded him, consulting the diary.

  ‘I’ll try and make it back by then. But if for some reason I’m detained, could you rearrange it for next week some time?’

  ‘Of course,’ Beth said stiffly. ‘And will you be contactable while you’re out of the office?’

  He looked at her, his eyes glinting. ‘Oh, I think the phone will definitely be off the hook for what I have in mind,’ he said softly.

  Beth looked at him with burning resentment. ‘I already told you that it’s not part of my job description to handle your personal life for you. I won’t make excuses to your women and I won’t make excuses to your clients because you’ve decided to be unavailable.’

  ‘You’ll do as I say,’ he grated.

  ‘Or else what?’ she threw at him recklessly. ‘You’ll fire me? Go ahead!’

  She had stood up, her cheeks flaming.

  ‘Sit back down,’ he bit out coldly, ‘and I’ll tell you this for free. While you’re here, in my office, working for my company, you’ll damn well do what I say, and you’ll do it with a smile on your face. If you choose not to, well…references can be tricky things, can’t they?’

  ‘That’s unfair,’ Beth muttered, trembling.

  ‘That’s life.’

  He leant across to retrieve a file from her desk, pausing over her with an icy smile. ‘And have you finished the work on the St Lucian project?’

  Beth shook her head.

  ‘Why not? You’ve had long enough to do it.’

  ‘I’ll try and finish it by this evening.’

  ‘Just so long as you do. Time is money, and I won’t tolerate sloppiness in my secretaries.’

  ‘Then why don’t you hurry up and find another?’ she muttered under her breath, and he cocked his ear as though trying to catch what she was saying.

  ‘I missed that.’

  ‘I said, have you had any luck with finding another secretary?’

  ‘Oh, when I do, you’ll be the first to know,’ he informed her blandly. ‘In the meanwhile, don’t forget your instructions.’ He threw her a calculatingly cool smile before going back into his office and firmly shutting the door behind him.

  Beth wanted to scream. He was doing this on purpose, paying her back in the most effective way possible, and, much as she hated to admit it, it was working. She felt miserable.

  He left the office at twelve-thirty promptly, sparing her only a brief nod, and she could quite happily have thrown her cup of coffee at him.

  He was despicable, she thought. He was flaunting her replacement in her face and loving every minute of it. She had thought that nothing could hurt more than his cold silence, but now she knew that that was a bed of roses compared to what she was feeling now.

  She ate a sandwich for lunch and pulled out a magazine, but the words blurred in front of her eyes, and she found herself thinking about Marcos and Angela with a ferocity that frightened her.

  How could he be so cruel? His pride had been hurt by her deception, she knew that, but did he have to extract his pound of flesh in this way?

  She could barely muster up the energy to be her usual friendly self on the telephone, and some of the customers with whom she had built up a pleasant chatting relationship over the past months could sense the change in her voice.

  ‘Is there anything wrong?’ one of them asked her with concern, and she felt like bursting into tears.

  ‘No,’ she said with effort, ‘I must be coming down with something.’

  ‘You need a holiday,’ he joked.

  I need amnesia, she thought miserably, agreeing with him light-heartedly and replacing the telephone.

  When the office door opened at two-thirty, her stomach clenched and she waited for his entry. Would there be lipstick stains on his mouth? Maybe his tie would be dishevelled just that little bit, indicating what his lunchtime rendezvous had entailed.

  She didn’t think that she could bear another minute of this.

  But it wasn’t Marcos. It was Roger. A little thinner and a little browner, but with the same warm disposition that she had liked when she had first met him. And right now he was just what the doctor ordered.

  I won’t mention a thing about Marcos, she told herself, I won’t say a word, only to find herself pouring her heart out to him five minutes later.

  ‘Poor Roger,’ she said shakily, mopping her eyes with the handkerchief he had given her, ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said smiling. ‘I’m told that I’m quite good at helping women who are carrying the world’s problems on their shoulders.’

  ‘Are you really? You own a scaffolding company, do you?’ But he had done her a world of good, so when he pulled her to him she rested willingly against his warm frame, enjoying the comfort of his arms more than she would have thought possible.

  It had been unbelievably comforting to pour her soul out to another person. True, she had briefly explained the situation to Laura, but her sister had been too wrapped up in her own world to spare her more than the barest cluckings of sympathy.

  Roger, on the other hand, had listened. She felt the warm cotton of his shirt under her cheek and had an insane desire to remain where she was until the sharpness of the pain dulled a little.

  She was only aware of another presence in the room when he whispered into her ear, ‘Don’t look now, but I think we’ve got company.’

  She disengaged herself from his arms and saw Marcos staring at them from the door, his black brows meeting in a thunderous frown.

  Before she could flee to the sanctuary of her desk, Roger had pulled her back to him, whispering under his breath, ‘I think some jealousy might go a long way here.’

  Beth cleared her throat meaningfully. Play
ing any sort of game with Marcos was not something she intended to do, but Roger was ignoring her and there was very little she could say.

  ‘The joyous reunion,’ Roger explained to Marcos with such bare-faced cheek that her lips twitched in a reluctant smile.

  ‘I thought you were in the Seychelles,’ Marcos said shortly, his eyes avoiding Beth’s face. There was a dark flush to his cheeks.

  ‘I was,’ Roger said pleasantly enough, ‘but something’s cropped up and I had to see you personally.’

  ‘In that case you can wait in my office.’ His tone of voice implied an order and Roger obediently went through the connecting door, leaving Beth to face Marcos across her desk, oddly defensive.

  ‘No wonder you have so little time to get your work done,’ he said with icy hardness. ‘You’re obviously very easily distracted.’

  At least my distractions don’t take me out of the office, she wanted to retort.

  ‘We must have been chatting for fifteen minutes before you came in,’ she objected.

  ‘I don’t pay you to chat.’

  Beth looked at the ruthless contours of his face without flinching. ‘Shall I fax the information to the relevant offices once I’m finished with the report?’ she asked sweetly.

  ‘And you can wipe that smile off your face.’

  ‘What smile?’

  ‘I said that I don’t pay you to chat.’

  ‘Which is why I’m discussing the report with you,’ she said calmly. ‘After all, there’s no point both of us wasting our valuable time here chatting, is there?’ She stared at him with wide green eyes.

  ‘You’re treading a thin line, my girl.’

  Beth gazed at him as if she hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.

  ‘Were there any messages for me?’ he asked curtly, as though her bland expression was beginning to infuriate him, and she smiled briskly.

  ‘Two. I’ve left them on your desk.’

  The look he gave her was sardonic. ‘I’m surprised you managed to take any messages when you were so wrapped up in other things.’ He looked pointedly at the connecting door to his office and Beth flashed another brisk smile.

  Her colour had long returned to normal, and for the first time in days she felt as though she had slightly relieved herself of some of her nightmarish passivity.

  ‘Oh, those calls came before Roger arrived.’

  He leaned across to her and she automatically shrank back, not caring for the expression on his face.

  ‘Keep your mind on your work, darling. Just don’t forget who pays your salary.’

  ‘How could I do that,’ Beth asked with an innocent expression, ‘when you won’t let me?’

  She could see that her control was getting under his skin. He didn’t like that one little bit, she thought. He might have seen fit to toss her aside, to remind her with Angela’s presence that she meant nothing to him, but that was his way of rubbing salt into an open wound.

  He wanted her to respond. What he didn’t want was her indifference. She smiled.

  ‘I’d advise you not to keep Roger waiting,’ she said blandly. ‘You only have half an hour with him, then the rest of the day is booked with appointments.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he snapped and she smiled again.

  ‘Only doing my secretarial duties,’ she murmured tonelessly. ‘After all, we can’t have any sloppiness, can we?’

  He looked as though he could quite easily have hit her and she hurriedly focused her attention on the open file on her desk.

  There was no point pushing this temporary triumph too far. But as he strode into his office, slamming the door behind him, she couldn’t help thinking that at least the gods had meted out some victory to her, even if it was short-lived and changed nothing at all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ROGER DID NOT EMERGE for another hour and a half, and when he did Beth looked up at him and smiled. He winked back at her and strolled across to her desk.

  ‘So,’ he said with no attempt to lower his voice, ‘about what we were discussing earlier on. How about it?’

  Beth looked at him, bewildered, and he whispered conspiratorially, ‘Do try and look as though you know what I’m talking about. I’ve got my back to Marcos, but I’ll bet anything that he’s listening to every word we’re saying through that open door.’

  Beth glanced past Roger, and to her surprise he was right. Not only was Marcos listening to them, he was also staring at them broodingly.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘How about it?’

  ‘Sure.’ She flashed a wide smile, not having the faintest idea what she had agreed to. Lowering her voice, she hissed, ‘I don’t think this is a very clever idea, really, Roger.’

  He ignored her whispered plea. ‘So I’ll pick you up at eight, then?’

  Beth nodded in resignation, and Roger grinned encouragingly. ‘Be sure and put on the glad rags, my beautiful; I think we’ll paint the town red tonight.’

  With that he left the office, a smug smile on his face. Well, he was certainly having fun with his little idea for arousing Marcos’s jealousy, but she didn’t like it one little bit.

  She had had enough schemes to last her a lifetime. Still, it would be nice to go out with Roger for a change, instead of moping around the flat, which seemed to be how she spent most of her leisure time these days.

  Marcos’s voice, crashing into her introspection, startled her.

  ‘Now that your social gathering has disbanded,’ he said in a voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘would it be asking too much for you to come in here and apply yourself to a little work?’

  Beth obediently trotted into his office and sat down, barely catching her breath before he began barking out his dictation to her, indicating sections on the various reports which she needed to identify, yet giving her hardly enough time to make the necessary notes.

  After ten minutes her wrist felt as though it was on the verge of dropping off, and she interrupted him politely, ‘Would you mind slowing down a bit?’

  Marcos leaned back in his chair and inspected her with infuriating thoroughness.

  ‘Going a bit fast for you, am I?’ he asked in a dangerously innocent voice.

  Beth recognised the tone instantly. She had heard it used often enough with certain members of staff whose attitude to their work did not happen to conform to his, and it usually preceded one of his bitingly critical attacks.

  She eyed him warily, not knowing what sort of response the situation demanded.

  ‘I’ve reached the bit about the targeted profits,’ she began, deciding that she couldn’t go too far wrong if she stuck like glue to the subject of work.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said in a falsely conciliatory voice as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘your mind is elsewhere.’

  Beth schooled her features into a look of uncomprehending blankness.

  ‘Dear me, have I lost you?’

  ‘My mind wasn’t elsewhere,’ she objected truthfully, abandoning her stab at pretending that she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  ‘Well, you’ve never had a problem keeping up with me before.’ He looked down at the sheafs of paper on his desk and absent-mindedly began leafing through them.

  ‘Still,’ he carried on in that voice that was forbidding yet patronising at the same time, ‘no doubt you were wrapped up in your plans for this evening with Roger. How exciting for you to be renewing your old friendship.’ He uttered the word ‘friendship’ as though it were one of the seven deadly sins.

  He’s jealous, she thought suddenly. She felt a brief moment of delight and then just as quickly stifled it. What was there to feel delighted about?

  He might be jealous, but it wasn’t because he cared two hoots about her. Oh, no. He was jealous because he might no longer want her, but he didn’t care for the thought that she might be switching her attentions to someone else. That didn’t fit in with his plan to torment her at all. He wanted t
o have her attention all for himself, so that he could parade Angela in front of her with shameless blatancy.

  ‘Yes, it’s very nice seeing Roger after all this time,’ Beth responded offhandedly, noticing the grim hardening of his features. ‘We got on like a house on fire in St Lucia.’

  ‘Did you really? And now you plan on slotting him into your life on a more…rewarding basis?’

  Beth opened her mouth to deny any such thing, and then closed it. Why should she protest her innocence? Why should she give him the satisfaction of suspecting that she had eyes for no one but himself. He probably knew that already anyway, but she damn well wasn’t going to confirm it.

  She shrugged eloquently and stared at her typing pad.

  ‘I hate to disappoint you,’ he ground out, ‘but he won’t be in the country for more than a week at the most.’

  ‘An awful lot can happen in a week,’ Beth pointed out mildly. ‘Is there any more dictation or can I return to my desk now?’ She smiled at him and he scowled.

  ‘I might have guessed,’ he said coolly, ‘that you would start playing the field once you had gained a little experience.’

  Beth turned white. ‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’

  He shrugged. ‘Merely an observation. Women who have spent their lives in physical hibernation often show a tendency to break out once they’ve tasted what they’ve missed. And you weren’t exactly practised when we first met, were you? Sure, you might have had the odd boyfriend, but none of them did anything for you, did they?’ He held his fountain pen up and inspected it. ‘In fact, no one did anything for you until I came along.’

  There was a thick silence and she wished that the ground would open up and swallow her.

  ‘That’s the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard in my life,’ she muttered in a strangled voice.

  ‘But true, admit it.’

  He was staring at her intently, assessing her.

  ‘I don’t admit anything of the sort,’ Beth threw at him bitterly, ‘but maybe you’re right about one thing. Maybe I have decided to break out, not that it would be any of your business if I did. As for your generalisations on the female race—well, you should know, shouldn’t you? After all, you’ve slept with enough of them.’ And still are, she thought. Or at least with one of them. Angela Fordyce.