by Penny Jordan
‘I… I don’t know what to say,’ Philippa admitted. ‘It… it would solve a lot of my problems. I still haven’t heard from the bank about the house, though…’
‘Well, think about it,’ Elizabeth counselled her. ‘I’ve got his telephone number here if you want it; I left it with him that you’d telephone and make an appointment for an interview if you were interested. He knows something of your circumstances, by the way—not the full details, just the fact that you’ve recently been widowed and your financial situation; as a potential employer…’
‘Yes, yes, of course… a housekeeper. I’d never thought…’
‘Rather more than just a housekeeper,’ Elizabeth corrected her firmly. ‘I think you’ll find he will place far more emphasis on how you will relate to his god-daughter than how well you can run a home, although I suspect that, like most men, he won’t be averse to finding that his house is both well-run and comfortable; and, of course, his position at the hospital will mean that he could be involved in a certain amount of domestic entertaining, but that is something you would have to discuss with him if and when you meet him. It would be quite a challenge,’ Elizabeth remarked.
‘Oh… does he have a very large house? I…’
‘Not the house, the little girl. Apparently he had quite a battle with the Social Services to convince them that he was the best person to take charge of her. There was a great deal of talk of placing her with foster parents. Of course, they’re bound to be jittery these days about the wisdom of placing any child, male or female, into sole male care, and I suspect he’s very conscious of the need to provide her with the right kind of female companionship and care.
‘I wouldn’t have recommended you for the job if I hadn’t genuinely thought you could do it,’ Elizabeth told her quietly.
Eleven years old and orphaned, both her parents lost to her, poor child; Philippa could all too easily imagine the pain and fear she must be suffering.
She had always wanted another child, a girl… a daughter… She grimaced at her own sentimentality.
This child would not be her child, her daughter… they might not even get on… The godfather might not even like or want her.
‘Do you want his number?’ Elizabeth asked.
Philippa’s mouth had gone dry.
‘Yes. Yes, please,’ she told her.
* * *
‘What are you looking so pleased about?’ Richard asked as he walked into the sitting-room and found his wife sitting in a chair with a very self-satisfied smile on her mouth.
‘Nothing… well, if you must know, I was just congratulating myself on being a wonderful judge of character,’ she told him, grinning at him.
‘Such modesty… Why? What have you done?’
‘You remember your new psychiatrist saying the other evening that he was looking for someone to take charge of his orphaned god-daughter…?’
‘Vaguely,’ Richard admitted.
‘Well, I’d thought of the perfect person, but, as I knew she would, she protested that she didn’t think she was up to the job, until I pointed out to her how much the little girl needed her.
‘She’s one of these women with too soft a heart for her own good. Securing her own financial future couldn’t sway her judgement, but believing that another human being needed her could and did.’
‘Didn’t that used to be called emotional blackmail?’ Richard asked her drily.
‘Not by me,’ Elizabeth assured him. ‘I look upon it more as finding the right piece for the right place in a particularly complicated jigsaw…’
She laughed as she heard Richard murmuring under his breath, ‘Egomaniac,’ as he left the room.
She didn’t normally indulge herself by playing Deus ex machina with other people’s lives—her training had taught her the dangers of doing that—but in this instance…
* * *
‘I’ve got an interview for a job… well, potentially at least,’ Philippa announced after Susie had picked up the phone.
She had dialled her friend’s number almost immediately she had finished speaking with Elizabeth, and now quickly she explained to her friend what had happened.
‘It sounds perfect for you,’ Susie told her enthusiastically. ‘Ring him up now, and if you don’t I’ll come round and stand over you until you do.’
Happily Philippa started to dial the number Elizabeth had given her, a rush of nervous anticipation singing through her body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DEBORAH stared bleakly round the silent flat. It had been three weeks and even now sometimes she still forgot, still opened the door and expected to see Mark there, still thought she heard his footsteps… still thought she could smell him next to her in bed at night.
At work, of course, she had to pretend that she didn’t care, to smile dismissively when people asked her if she still heard from him or if she knew how he was getting on.
She was under no illusions about the reasons for their curiosity. The news of their split, so quickly followed by Mark’s departure from the partnership, had obviously been a subject of intense speculation and gossip.
She still felt numbed by it all; not just by his ending of their relationship but by the speed with which he had completely disappeared from her life.
The partnership had let him go without insisting on his serving out any period of notice; he had removed his things from the flat that same day, having told her that he had found work with an agency.
He had been in touch with her only once, leaving a message on their—now her—answering machine with a forwarding address for his mail.
His address and a telephone number. In case she changed her mind and gave in… left the partnership; accepted the limitations he had put on their future… on her future.
Tears blurred her eyes. Only she knew how much she had been tempted to do just that, but how could she? She knew herself too well. It would never work if she did that. Sooner rather than later she would start to lose not just her respect for him but her respect for herself as well.
‘You don’t need me,’ Mark had said bitterly, but he had been wrong. She did need him, and that was what hurt her most of all: the fact he had not recognised and understood the need; the fact that he had allowed himself to be blinded to that need by the opinions and false judgements of others.
The fact that she had been promoted while he had not had made no difference to the way she valued him. Even though he had accused her of treating him differently, of reinforcing his own growing sense of ‘coming second’ in their relationship, it was simply not true. She had never felt like that about him. He was the one who…
Tiredly she shook her head. What was the point in going over and over what had been said? Mark had gone and the only way they could be together again would be for her to capitulate to his terms. It wasn’t pride that stopped her and it certainly wasn’t ambition… her career… No, it was more than that. It was the knowledge that in giving up her job and allowing him to dictate the terms of their relationship she would be helping him to destroy something very precious and rare—and she would be destroying herself as well. To give up her job would demean her as a human being… as a woman, just as Mark had claimed that having to take second place to her at work had demeaned him.
Angry tears filled her eyes; desolately she brushed them away.
Ryan had been openly contemptuous of Mark’s departure from the office. Whenever he asked about what he was doing, she parried his questions—or ignored them.
Despite her insistence to Mark that Ryan had offered her promotion on merit alone, she was beginning to feel increasingly wary of doing or saying anything that might lead Ryan to believe that she wanted anything other than a strictly professional relationship with him.
Bitterly she told herself that there was one point at least on which both Ryan and Mark thought alike, and that was that sexually she was vulnerable to Ryan.
Both of them were wrong. No matter how sexually frustrated she might f
eel—and she did—going to bed with Ryan was the last thing she was likely to do.
He kept on subtly pressuring her, though, full of praise for her one moment, fiercely critical of her the next, slowly isolating her from her peers, she recognised, publicly making it plain that she was his personal protégée… his personal property, ostensibly elevating and supporting her, but at the same time subtly undermining her position with the others.
And yet there was nothing he had said or done that she could actually complain about. He was far too subtle for that.
Only yesterday, when he had rebuked her in public, treating her as though she were a mere junior, she had challenged him about her promotion.
‘You’re still on trial—remember,’ he had warned her silkily. ‘Nothing’s official… yet.’
Silently Deborah had digested that warning along with the unpalatable suspicions that went with it. She knew she was good at her job; she knew she had earned and deserved her promotion. But now Ryan seemed to be teasing her with it like an adult offering and then withholding a bag of sweets.
The comparison was too uncomfortable for her to dwell on too deeply.
It was Friday evening and the weekend loomed emptily ahead of her. She missed Mark so much. Ached for him, emotionally, mentally and physically, but how could she pay the price he had set on their love? His love. Hers was given freely, unconditionally—too freely and too unconditionally?
She walked into the bedroom and took off her office suit, changing into leggings and a loose sweater.
In the hallway were the cans of paint she had bought on the way home. Grimly she surveyed the bedroom walls. ‘Right,’ she told the room grittily. ‘This time tomorrow you’ll look so different I won’t be able to come in here and see Mark everywhere.’
She looked at the bed. She had even bought new bedding. Hers still smelled of Mark, she swore, even though she had washed it a number of times since he had gone.
She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, grimacing as she remembered that she had forgotten to buy food. A forlorn bottle of wine caught her eye. She reached for it.
* * *
She ought to be in the bedroom painting, not lying here on the settee drinking wine, Deborah told herself severely.
She was, she admitted to herself, distinctly tipsy. Tipsy? She was damn near drunk, she corrected herself.
The doorbell rang, the sound cutting sharply through the silence of the flat, reinforcing her awareness of her loneliness.
The doorbell… Mark… She swung her feet to the floor and got up hurriedly, grimacing as she almost lost her balance and fell over.
Mark… Mark had come back. She hurried to open the door.
‘Dee… Hi… how are you? Where’s Mark?’
‘Garth…’
Stupidly Deborah stepped back to let her visitor come in.
Garth Preston and Mark had been in the same year at university and the three of them had been close friends, spending a great deal of time in one another’s company until Garth had gone to work abroad. Now they kept in touch via sporadic letters and even more sporadic visits from Garth whenever he came home.
‘Mark’s gone,’ Deborah told him and then suddenly she was crying, crying like a baby, while Garth scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the settee.
He was shorter than Mark but still taller than she was and chunkily built, square-bodied and square-faced with thick, curly dark hair and innocently round blue eyes.
Women loved him, and he loved them. Unlike Ryan, he did not deliberately set out to seduce, and unlike Ryan he did genuinely love his victims, for victims they were, as Mark and Deborah had often agreed, because as quickly as Garth fell in love so too did he fall out of it, and in love with the next adoring woman to catch his eye.
Not that that stopped Deborah from liking him. You couldn’t not like Garth. He was that kind of man.
‘Mark’s gone… gone where?’ he asked her.
‘Gone…’ Deborah repeated tearfully. ‘Gone… left… He doesn’t want me any more…’
Fresh tears fell… It must be the wine she had drunk that was making her react like this, she told herself muzzily. This just wasn’t her… she just wasn’t the ‘tears and helpless vulnerability’ type. Her feelings were normally something she kept strictly to herself.
‘Mark’s left you? Impossible,’ Garth was saying. He was wearing a soft woollen jumper that felt good against her skin, the warmth of his arms holding her making her feel cosseted and protected, reminding her of Mark, reminding her of all that her body had missed since Mark had gone.
‘Hey, come on; stop crying and tell me exactly what’s happened,’ Garth cajoled while he stroked her hair gently, pushing her hair back off her face and settling her more comfortably in his arms. ‘Come on; tell Uncle Garth…’ he coaxed teasingly.
Reluctantly Deborah smiled.
‘That’s better,’ Garth encouraged as he touched her mouth, pretending to hold her lips in their smile.
The pads of his fingers felt slightly rough, their touch against her skin unexpectedly sensual, reminding her of that last quarrel with Mark, of what had happened beforehand, of the way her body, her breasts had ached with such delicious anticipation for the touch of his skin against them… they were aching now, she recognised. In fact her whole body was aching. There hadn’t been a night since Mark had gone when she had not lain awake wanting him. It had hurt her that he had accused her of being too sexually aggressive, especially when in the past he had always told her how much her sexual openness and honesty had turned him on.
Why did men feel that they had to control a woman’s sexuality, that they should be the ones to give her permission to exercise it? Who ever heard of a man being ashamed of having a strong sex drive, and how many women did she know who were equally proud to acknowledge theirs?
‘You’re too thin,’ she heard Garth accusing her. ‘What have you been doing to yourself…?’
Deborah bunked up at him. It felt so good being physically close to another human being. In her mouth she could still taste the wine she had drunk, its taste sweetly sour on her tongue.
‘I’m not too thin here,’ she told him huskily, and she reached for his hand and placed it against her breast, and then, before he could say anything, she reached up and covered his mouth with her own, letting herself drown in the sensation of his hand reacting instinctively to the provocation of her warm, hard-tipped breast bare beneath the soft covering of her sweater, the response of his mouth to the demand of hers.
His thumb touched her nipple. Achingly she pressed herself closer to him. She felt so empty inside, so needy…
‘Dee… no… we can’t do this. What are you doing to me, you witch? You know how much I’ve always wanted you,’ Garth protested.
If he wanted her then why was it he had stopped kissing her… touching her?
She saw Garth frown as he accidentally kicked over the wine bottle, swiftly reaching for it, his frown deepening as he looked at her.
‘It’s empty,’ he told her.
‘I was thirsty,’ Deborah defended. ‘Garth… take me to bed… make love to me… I need…’
She closed her eyes, willing back the tears she could feel forming behind them.
Garth was picking her up, carrying her… asking her the way to the bedroom.
* * *
Deborah groaned as she opened her eyes. The light felt like ice-picks, the pain in her head agonisingly sharp, the taste in her mouth…
Groggily she tried to sit up and then stopped as she felt her stomach heave and then it heaved again as the events of the previous evening came back to her.
Garth… oh, God… What had she done…?
Queasily she swung her feet to the floor and then froze as the bedroom door opened.
‘Ah, so you are awake; I thought I could hear you…’
‘Garth…’
‘Feeling hung over?’ he asked sympathetically. ‘Never mind; I know just the cure�
�’
‘Garth…’ she repeated anxiously.
He stopped beside her bed, sat down on it and looked at her. ‘It’s OK,’ he told her quietly. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘Nothing happened…?’ Deborah stared at him.
‘More fool me,’ Garth added, grinning. ‘All these years I’ve been waiting for you to look past Mark and see me and what happens when you finally do…? I go and get a fit of conscience and do the gentlemanly thing——’
‘You mean my coming on to you turned you off as much as it does Mark?’ Deborah interrupted him bitterly.
‘No way.’ He reached out and took hold of her hand between his own, ignoring her attempts to pull away from him. ‘Listen to me and listen good. If I’d thought for one moment that it was me you wanted last night, then nothing, and I mean nothing, would have kept me out of your bed… Even though I’d have probably had to wait until this morning to get you to fulfil those promises you were making me,’ he added ruefully.
Deborah looked at him.
‘You’d passed out by the time I carried you in here,’ he told her.
‘Passed out!’ Deborah stared at him.
‘The wine… remember?’ Garth prompted her.
Remember? How could she forget?
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘The wine?’
‘No, not the wine,’ he told her softly. ‘Mark… Mark, and the reason he… Mark… and what’s happened to the pair of you.’
‘What’s happened.’ Deborah gave him a twisted smile.