She listened with fascination, disbelief and finally incredulity as Drew managed to get himself put through to people further and further up the system—first at the Water Board and then at the Electricity Board. And when he’d finished he slid the phone back into his jeans and grinned.
‘Sorted! They’ll be here by the end of the afternoon.’
Shelley was aware of a great, gaping hole of insecurity which made her pathetically ungrateful for his help. So that instead of thanking him she found herself sniping, ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’
He shrugged, half modestly. ‘Well, you don’t have to be clever to beat the system, Shelley—just have persistence and confidence with a little gift of the gab thrown in for good measure.’
‘And you’ve certainly got those three in abundance, haven’t you?’ she snapped, trailing into the sitting room, her heart beating even faster when she heard his footsteps behind her. ‘You’d have to be amazingly confident to go to the trouble of telling your staff to pretend that you didn’t own the Westward! And you must have told Jennie to join in with all the subterfuge, too—’
‘She didn’t want to,’ he confessed. ‘But I made her promise.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘And what prompted all this intrigue, I wonder, Drew? Not modesty, surely?’
He leaned negligently against a piano which had not been played for years. ‘Not modesty, no. Just a desire to see whether you’d changed.’
‘Whilst maintaining the pretence that you hadn’t?’
‘To be honest, I rather enjoyed being patronised by you, Shelley—it made a refreshing change. Women can be so obvious once they know you have money.’
Now why did it feel as though he was twisting the knife when he said something like that? Something told her that she was walking straight into a trap, but the wine had made her reckless. ‘How obvious?’ she asked. ‘A throwing-their-knickers-at-you sort of obvious?’
She saw the fractional darkening of his eyes, the crooked grin which made him look like a roguish kind of pirate, and again felt the dull ache of regret.
‘Mmm,’ he purred. ‘Unfortunately that hasn’t happened yet.’ He lifted his eyebrows in a kind of mocking question. ‘Of course, I live in hope, Shelley.’
His murmured words tugged at her with stealthy sorcery, and desire unfurled inside her like a bud in spring. She folded her arms across her chest, which didn’t really help at all. It was supposed to be a gesture of self-protection and defiance, but all it succeeded in doing was making her painfully aware of the tingling fullness of her breasts.
She thought about Marco’s gallery in Milan—the must-see place of the fashionable city. So what interested little question would she ask a man in whom she had no emotional interest? She would curve her lips into a polite half-smile. She did so. ‘And how did you manage to acquire the Westward in the first place, Drew? Did your Premium Bonds come up, or something?’
‘There’s that superior little voice again,’ he mocked. ‘How it does a man good to eat a little humble pie now and again—particularly when it comes from such a delectable source!’
‘No, seriously. I’m interested.’
‘Oh, well, if you’re interested…’ His mouth curved into a lazy smile. ‘Who told you, by the way?’
‘Told me what?’ she enquired innocently.
‘So you’ve learnt to play the tease?’ He gave a half-smile of rueful acknowledgement. ‘That I owned the Westward?’
Shelley kept her promise to the blonde. ‘Oh, come off it—how long did you honestly think you could keep something like that a secret for? I was bound to find out sooner rather than later!’
‘Which neatly answers the question, while not answering the question at all,’ he mused. ‘Very loyal of you, Shelley. Funny, that; I didn’t think that loyalty was a quality you rated very highly.’
‘I asked you a question which you were in the process of answering,’ she pointed out testily. ‘If you could just put your character assassination of me on hold!’
Still half sitting on the piano, he stretched his legs out in front of him, completely distracting her, in spite of her determination to remain unmoved. It would take a woman of steel not to be affected by that endless dazzle of faded denim, stretched tautly over his thighs.
The slight smile which hovered around his lips indicated that her ogling hadn’t gone unnoticed. ‘You want to know how I made my money?’ he mused. ‘There’s no secret. Just plain hard work with an added bit of luck—the usual way.’
‘You make it sound so easy?’
‘No, not easy. Simple, yes—but not easy.’ He smiled. ‘It may surprise you to know that all the day-release and night-school classes which took me away from you so much finally paid off. I realised that people paid a hell of a lot more for having their houses designed rather than for having them built. And the thing that set me apart from my competitors was that I could do both.’
Her eyes dilated. ‘You mean you actually design houses now?’
‘Well, I can. I have done. Sometimes I still do. But I do other things, too.’
‘Such as?’
He suddenly looked rather pleased with himself. ‘I call it reinvention. It started when I bought a repossession on a mortgage. Got the house dirt-cheap and I thought I’d just do it up and sell it on. But it occupied a vast plot of land—so I applied for planning permission and built another house at the bottom end of the garden. The challenge was in making both houses look wonderful and complete and not as though someone had just lopped the garden in half—’
‘Which you did, I suppose?’
He shrugged, and then grinned. ‘Yeah, I did. Then I sold them on—two for the price of one.’
‘And made a big profit?’
‘Huge. Don’t look so surprised, Shelley.’
‘I can’t help the way I look! I suppose you invested the profit?’
He shook his head. ‘Not in the conventional sense, no. Houses are about the best and safest investment there are—but not many people have the skills to make the best of them. Fortunately, I do. So I carried on. I bought various properties—one here, one there. One might need an extension, another a new kitchen—a big house might need a granny annexe. I put in loft extensions and conservatories and earned a reputation for sympathetic additions—and that was what did it. If people think you’re going to create something which is both well made and beautiful—well, you’re onto a winner. I even learned to landscape gardens.’
So he still had that driven work ethic. ‘And all the time you were getting a big return on your money?’
‘That’s right,’ he nodded, and rubbed his chin with a thoughtful thumb and forefinger as he watched her reaction. ‘When John Cutliffe grew tired of running the Westward, he was very particular about who he sold it to. He wanted someone he knew would love the building. Someone who would preserve and care for it. The oak panelling in the hall badly needed the attention of a carpenter, and that was just for starters. John wanted reassurance that the new owner wasn’t going to blitz those exquisite stained-glass windows and put ugly replacements in their place.’
‘I can see why he chose you,’ she said truthfully.
Suspicion touched the thoughtful features. ‘Why, thank you, Shelley,’ he murmured. ‘Praise from you is always welcome, if a little unexpected.’
Her suspicion matched his. ‘But you’ve obviously spent masses making the Westward look so beautiful. Hasn’t that eaten into your profits?’
‘What’s the matter, kitten? Worried that the coffers have all dried up? That I’m rich in assets, but not in cash?’ He pre-empted her indignation with a shake of the honey-tipped head. ‘I realised that the place was not being used to its full potential. Milmouth is too far off the map to rely on being fully booked all year round—and I didn’t just want to open during the summer season. So we started specialising in celebrations. Weddings are our big thing. But we do birthdays, too, and we hire the house out for corporate use someti
mes, if the price is right.’ He pulled a face.
‘Those aren’t my favourites,’ he admitted. ‘Corpulent businessmen getting drunk and trying to pull the receptionists!’
‘Oh,’ said Shelley faintly.
‘We bought our very own Rolls-Royce, which is driven by our very own chauffeur. Brides like to travel in style,’ he grinned. ‘Then I hired a chef fresh out of college who has proved inspirational—he was featured in one of the nationals last month. Plus we now have year-round employment for our workers—it doesn’t stop when the summer ends.’
‘Quite the knight in shining armour, aren’t you?’ she sniped. ‘Do you rob the rich to pay the poor?’
He smiled. ‘That was Robin Hood—and he wasn’t a knight. I think you’re mixing your metaphors, kitten.’
‘Gosh, you seem to know something about everything, these days, Drew! And all without the benefits of a university education!’
There wasn’t a flicker of response. ‘Do I detect a note of bitterness beneath the sarcasm? Perhaps of regret?’
She hoped he couldn’t read her lying eyes. ‘Regret?’ she said lightly, and even managed a disbelieving laugh as she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘No?’ He had moved away from the piano and was standing just in front of her, and Shelley found herself shying back from him, like a nervous horse. ‘That’s not what your body language is saying to me, Shelley.’
‘I don’t know very much about body language!’
‘Well, I do—’
‘So I hear! Especially female body language!’
He stilled. ‘Don’t talk in code, Shelley,’ he said softly. ‘Say what you really mean.’
It hurt. That was the stupid, crazy, illogical thing about it. It hurt like mad. ‘I gather that women fling themselves at you in locust-like numbers—but that you’re very choosy!’
‘So?’
She realised that she had run herself into a tight corner. She looked at him. ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged helplessly.
He looked angry then. No, not just angry.
Seething.
The explosion, when it came, was quiet and deadly. ‘Do you really think that you can break off our engagement—’
‘You forced me to break it off!’
‘—to go swanning off to Italy with your rich lover and live with him for three years—so it doesn’t exactly fall in the category of brief fling, does it?—and then come back here and start acting like a betrayed wife—as though you have every right to?’
Some inner need to know and to torture herself made her ask, ‘So have you?’
‘Have I what? Made love to hundreds of women?’ he grated. ‘Do you want names and dates while we’re on the subject?’
She clapped her hands over her ears, completely forgetting that they had been covering her aching breasts for a reason. ‘No!’
‘No, that’s right!’ he agreed roughly, his eyes riveted to the straining swell. ‘There’s only one thing you want right now, isn’t there, Shelley? And you’re just crying out for it.’ He pulled her into his arms, as she had known he would. Prayed he would…
He dipped his head to speak softly into her ear. ‘Like I said, kitten—your body language speaks volumes.’ His mouth moved from ear to neck with painstaking precision. Barely touching her when, quite frankly, if he had thrown her down onto the carpet and then, weighted himself on top of her she would have cried out with pleasure.
He placed his hands loosely at her shoulders—so no one could have said that he was holding her against her will. Because he wasn’t. He wasn’t. Oh, Lord—his mouth was brushing across her cheek now, and she was restlessly turning her face so that he could capture her lips and he was laughing at her, mocking her.
And finally, when their lips fused, the pleasure was so intense that it was like lights going off inside her head, sparks igniting in her veins. Coupled with the honeyed tug of desire, it was the most devastating cocktail imaginable. And he had always been able to do this. Bring her to this earth-shattering brink within minutes.
The hands moved from her shoulders with lazy deliberation towards her breasts. She could have stopped them. Stopped them before they started playing idly with the tips so that she moaned. And then prevented him from cupping them luxuriously, measuring their weight like a connoisseur, even though she hated to think of his expertise in this area. Pain fused with pleasure, making it even more intense.
Feeling the hot, sharp pull of surrender, she pressed her body against his in blatant and unashamed need, when he abruptly pulled away from her, his face full of bitterness as he stared down at his shaking hands.
‘God, it’s so true!’ he said, as if he was talking to himself. ‘It’s so bloody true! The predictability of women in general—and you in particular!’
She stared at him, shook her head in confusion, too baffled for words.
‘Last night you wouldn’t come near me!’ he accused hotly. ‘You looked like I was guilty of a capital crime when I tried to kiss you! Did you still see me as your poor, jobbing carpenter with no ambitions other than to keep a roof over his head?’
The unjustness of the accusation stung her. All her life she had wanted him, no matter how much he had—or didn’t have—in his wallet. ‘You know that’s not true!’
‘Do I?’ He shook his head. ‘All I know is that today you’ve discovered that I’m worth something and you can’t wait to fall into my arms like a windfall—overripe and juicy—just waiting to topple from the tree. Are you overripe and juicy, kitten? Want me to find out?’
The insults fired her up, his scorn and obvious dislike giving her back her power of speech. And pride. ‘You? You think you’re worth so much? Well, I’ll tell you exactly what you’re worth, Drew Glover—nothing! Nothing at all!’
‘But you couldn’t wait for “nothing” to engage in a vigorous bout of sex with you, could you, Shelley?’
She burst out with a high, nervous laugh. ‘You make it sound like a boxing match!’
‘Then tell me how you like to describe it, kitten,’ he suggested, on a silky threat.
And his question brought it crashing home to her how completely his love for her had died. Oh, he still felt desire, strong desire—yes—he had made that very clear. But what was desire without respect? Wouldn’t that just chip away at her self-esteem, and risk destroying it completely?
‘Your new-found wealth seems to have affected your judgement,’ she told him coldly. ‘You have become even more high-handed and right now I could almost hate you, Drew Glover!’
‘Maybe you could—but you still want me all the same, don’t you, Shelley? Just the same as I want you.’ His voice was like silk, his words rich and dark and sultry, and she could feel the tension between them gathering momentum, like a snowball rolling down the side of a hill.
‘You’d better get out before either of us does something we might really regret,’ she warned him.
‘I think I just have! I stopped before the home truths. I should have waited until afterwards—and at least that way I might have got you out of my system once and for all!’
And he slammed his way out of the house before she had time to think of a suitably crushing reply.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE resumption of power supplies to the house gave Shelley a feeling of having some control back in her life. It was just slightly galling that she had Drew to thank for the speedy arrival of men in vans wearing overalls.
‘It’s very sweet of you to come out so quickly,’ she ventured to the man from the Water Board.
He shrugged. ‘Drew Glover drinks with the boss—what do you expect?’
Guilt at the inequality of life nagged her. ‘That’s terrible!’
‘Not for you, it isn’t!’ The man grinned at her, and looked around curiously at the house. ‘You’re going to be living here, are you?’
The tone of his voice told her what he really meant—that she looked all wrong in a tiny semi, wearing her sleek designer clothes. And
he was right.
‘For the time being,’ she said, aware that she was making her mind up as she answered his question. ‘But I’m going to decorate, first. Then decide.’
‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘The place could do with it!’
She spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening scrubbing the house from top to bottom and fell into bed exhausted after eating beans on toast. To her great pleasure and even greater surprise, she had a dreamless and Drew-less night’s sleep. Maybe she was slowly working him out of her subconscious. Maybe…
The next morning, following a delicious hot bath full of childhood memories, Shelley walked into the village centre to buy groceries and a newspaper. It was a cool, misty morning and in the distance the sea looked all fuzzy and indistinct, like a grey mohair scarf lying on the shore, stretching as far as the eye could see. The sea drew her like a magnet, and she decided that she would go for a bracing walk before she bought her shopping. If she had heavy bags to carry she knew she wouldn’t get round to it.
She peered into the windows of the shops as she passed, noticing that there was nothing which catered for clothes of either sex…not even a baby boutique. She wondered if the new-look Milmouth approved of that.
She was dressed more appropriately today in an outfit which was casual and warm. She had hung the linen suit at the back of her wardrobe where she suspected it would remain unworn. At least for the time being. In the meantime she found a pair of black jeans and a black sweater in her suitcase, which were the most suitable things for facing a blustery sea breeze.
Admittedly, the jeans were designer-made so they were cut to flatter rather than to stride around in—and a costly cashmere sweater wasn’t the best thing to wear if you were pottering around the house! But they were the best she could come up with and obviously she was going to have to invest in some new clothes. Maybe she would suggest that shopping trip to Jennie soon.
The sky was grey and smoky and rain didn’t look very far away, but Shelley took a chance, and walked along the shoreline, filling her lungs with great breaths of salty air. Beneath the mist, the sea was the colour of mercury and the tips of the waves were crested with bubbles like bath foam. Seagulls circled overhead like low-flying aircraft, and in the far distance she could see the slow, stately movement of a ship.
The Final Seduction Page 11