by Miranda Lee
‘For pity’s sake, tell me you feel something for me other than a sexual attraction. If not, just tell me I can see you again. Under whatever terms you want. Geez, I’m making a right mess of this. Max would be appalled. He always taught me that women liked their men to be suave and masterful. But to hell with that. I don’t feel in any way suave or masterful tonight. I haven’t ever since you walked out.’
His outburst had dazed Lucille. Stunned her, in fact. Delayed shock from the incident downstairs had already dried her throat and sent her palms all clammy. Her head started spinning.
‘Val,’ she said weakly, her spare hand clutching at her temple. She could almost feel the blood draining away from her head. ‘I…I need you.’
He groaned. ‘You don’t have to say any more. That’s enough. Being needed is enough.’
‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ she croaked.
‘What don’t I understand?’ There was confusion in his voice.
‘I…I’ve just been mugged.’
A gasp, then a frantic, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. No. I mean…he didn’t bash me. He just pushed me over. But I feel funny. I think I’m going to faint.’
‘Put your head down between your knees,’ he commanded. ‘Fast.’
She did what he said.
‘Have you done that?’
‘Yes,’ she answered tremulously.
‘Now stay like that for a minute or two. When you feel well enough, go and lie down. After a while, if you think you can safely stand, make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, with plenty of sugar in it. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Okay?’
She swallowed. ‘Val…?’
‘Yes, Lucille?’
‘Please don’t be long.’
He wasn’t long. And yet he was far too long. She had too much time to lie there and think about what he’d said, to feel her own answering female feelings well up inside her. By the time he arrived her heart and mind were in turmoil, wanting to tell him that she loved him too, but far too afraid to do so. She’d once put her life in the hands of a man who’d said he loved her, and whom she’d thought she loved. And lived to regret it. What did she know of this man, really, other than what he’d chosen to show her?
At the same time as Lucille was thinking these fear-filled thoughts, a voice inside her head kept telling her not to do what Val had accused of her doing; not to spoil the future because of the past; not to throw away the chance of happiness simply because she’d once been hurt.
But wouldn’t it be foolish to throw all caution to the winds and rush into a relationship she might later regret? If she hadn’t learnt something from her marriage to Roger, then it had all been for nothing.
By the time she let Val into her flat, her emotional anguish was at fever pitch. So were her twin dilemmas. To tell or not to tell. To trust or not to trust.
On top of that were her ongoing physical reactions to what had just happened to her downstairs.
‘Thank you for coming so quickly,’ she said tautly, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her. ‘I…I don’t know why I still feel so shaken up. It’s not that he hurt me or anything. But my hands keep shaking. When I tried to make myself a cup of tea just now I spilled everything all over the place. And I want to cry all the time.’ Her eyes flooded with tears. ‘See? There I go again.’
‘It’s all right,’ he soothed, gathering her gently into his arms and cradling her head against his shoulder. ‘You’re in shock. And I didn’t help by loading all my lovesick outpourings on you. I do apologise.’
Lucille gulped down her sobs and drew back to stare up into his face. He looked almost as dreadful as she felt, with dark rings under bleak black eyes.
‘There’s nothing for you to apologise over,’ she managed, moved by his distress. Maybe he did love her. ‘What you said…was…was…’
‘Embarrassing for you,’ he finished firmly. ‘I understand. Truly. I can see I was deluded in hoping you might feel the same way about me as I do about you. I guess it was the way you made love to me tonight. I thought… Oh, what the hell does it matter what I thought? Passion is often mistaken for something else. I know that. You were never anything but honest with me. I’m the fool for imagining there was more. But that’s not important right now. What important is the here and now of your wellbeing. Are you sure you’re all right? No cuts or bruises? No sprained muscles?’
She shook her head, biting her bottom lip to stop herself from blurting out that he hadn’t been mistaken. She had been making love to him tonight. It hadn’t just been lust.
But it was still too soon for her to lay her heart bare like that. She simply could not risk being wrong again. She’d survived the experience the first time. But only just. A second time would totally destroy her.
‘I’ve called the police,’ he said. ‘They’ll be along shortly. I presume you lost everything you had in your bag? Your purse, licence, et cetera?’
‘Yes. Everything but my keys, which I guess is something. At least I can drive my car to work tomorrow.’ The thought of going to work in the morning sent a shiver running down her spine. She hugged herself, suddenly feeling cold and clammy again.
‘You’re not in a fit state to go to work in the morning.’
‘Perhaps I’ll have the day off,’ she agreed, appalled as tears filled her eyes again.
‘You need the rest of the week off. And some medication as well.’
‘Whatever for?’ Lucille had never been one to turn to pills to survive. The doctor had wanted to put her on antidepressants after her baby died, but she’d refused. She’d needed to feel the pain. Needed to use it to face the truth, then escape a marriage which had become intolerable.
‘You need something to calm you down. And to make you sleep. You’ve got yourself into a state, Lucille. I know of a good doctor. I’ll arrange a home visit.’
‘Doctors don’t make home visits any more,’ she scoffed.
‘This one will. She’s by way of being a friend of mine.’
‘She?’
‘No. Not one of my zillion ex-lovers,’ he said drily. ‘Just a long-time female friend. We met when she’d just left school and was in difficult financial circumstances. I found her various evening and weekend jobs in the shows my father produced so she could work her way through med-school.’
‘Saint Valentino,’ she murmured, not at all mockingly.
His face still became grim. ‘Hardly. Ten years ago, I was driving a car which knocked her father down and killed him. Okay, so the man was drunk, and he staggered out from the kerb without warning. But I was going over the speed limit. I might have been able to swerve and miss him if I’d been going a little slower. But there weren’t any witnesses to say so, and naturally I wasn’t about to tell that kind of truth. What twenty-three-old with his life ahead of him would? Nothing would have been served by my going to jail, anyway. But I still felt rotten when I saw his distraught wife and daughter at the inquest. I felt even worse when they came up to me and hugged me afterwards, and said it wasn’t my fault. Guilt just ate me alive till I looked them up again to see how they were. Naturally, with the father in the family having been a long-term alcoholic, they had very little in a material sense. No home. No car. Nothing. Whereas I…I was living in the lap of luxury.’
Lucille was moved by the cracking in Val’s voice.
‘Do you think they would take any of my money?’ he went on with a wry smile. ‘Not on your life. “Thank you, but we’ll get by,” Jane’s mother said, with such quiet dignity. But I wasn’t having any of that. I needed to do something. Anyway, I took Jane out for coffee and wormed out of her that she wanted to be a doctor. As I said, she’d just left school. But she was going to give up her dream to go out to work to support her mother, who wasn’t well. I talked her into trying to do both, then made sure she got paid top dollar for the jobs she did for Seymour Productions.’
Val’s sigh carried a wealth of feeling. ‘Jane’s mother died while she w
as an intern, a couple of years back. God, I felt so sorry for her at the funeral. Now, I thought, she doesn’t have anyone. But she told me not to be sad, that her mother was where she wanted to be, with the man she’d always loved, despite everything. She then told me some cheering news. She’d met someone, another doctor at the hospital where she was working. She said she was going to marry him but he didn’t know it yet. I didn’t like to dampen her natural optimism by saying he might not feel the same way. And it’s just as well I didn’t. She’s going to marry him next year. She says she’s going to name her first son after me. I didn’t like to disillusion her by saying I might not be worthy.’
‘Oh, Val…’ Lucille’s tears were back, streaming down her face. What a sad, sweet story. What a wonderful woman this Jane was. And what a miserable coward she was.
Val looked concerned. ‘You see? You’re a mess, and not in a fit state to be alone. After the police have been, you’re coming home with me, and I won’t hear any silly arguments. I have a couple of very nice guest-rooms, as you well know. You’re welcome to one of them for a while. And before you say anything, this is me being your friend, Lucille, not your recently discarded lover trying to con his way back into your good books.’
‘I didn’t want to…to discard you,’ she sobbed. ‘I just wanted things…to go on…as they were…for a while longer…’
‘We won’t discuss that now. We’ll discuss that when you feel better. In a few days, perhaps. Things will be calmer and clearer by then. Meanwhile, I want you to lie down here on this sofa and I’ll go and make that cup of tea. And if the police aren’t here by then, I’ll ring them back and find out where the hell they are and how long it’s going to take them to get their butts into gear.’
He wasn’t suave and masterful, as his father had deemed a man should be, Lucille thought as she watched him take charge. He was strong and masterful, this man who loved her.
But why does he love me? she wondered rather dazedly. What did he see in me that first day beyond surface beauty?
She couldn’t fathom that one out. She’d been cold and cynical, as well as prejudiced and prickly. Not to mention downright insulting. So what was it which had captured his heart?
The more she thought about that, the more she worried that maybe he was the one who was mistaking sexual attraction for something else. He himself had told her that passion always got him in. Maybe she was the first woman to show him the sort of passion he coveted. Maybe it wasn’t the real Lucille he loved at all, but the totally turned on, carried away, do-anything Lucille she became in his arms.
The thought churned her stomach, but she refused to turn her mind away from it. She had to face it, had to be sure before she dared declare anything of her own love for him. She believed Val believed he loved her. But love had many faces, some of them just an illusion.
So she remained silent as he went about impressing her with his caring and efficiency. He made her a mug of sweet tea. Handled the police’s questions when they arrived. Rang the various numbers to cancel her credit cards. Even packed some clothes under her slightly bemused direction before she stepped in and finished it herself. He then drove her in her car over to his place, proving that he drove as well as he did everything else.
He parked in his own private parking spot, which he’d never used, then insisted on carrying everything upstairs for her—‘everything’ being a not-that-small suitcase and a roomy overnight bag. Like a typical woman, she hadn’t known what to bring and had ended up packing far too much.
But how was she to know in advance what she might need?
Lucille was grateful to ride up to Val’s floor from the basement car park, bypassing the lobby and the night manager’s ongoing curiosity over her comings and goings. He never said anything but his face spoke volumes. Lord knows what he would have made of her arriving with luggage.
It would never surprise Lucille if men in his position tipped off gossip columnists with scandalous tit-bits about the residents they were supposed to serve. Val wasn’t the only famous man-about-town to inhabit this particular apartment block. A well-known American tennis player had rented one of the apartments for the summer, and a billionaire bachelor businessman from England owned the multimillion-dollar penthouse. Journalists would pay good money for scoops on either of those fellows’ love-lives.
There again, maybe the night manager valued his job too much to risk losing it by being a muck-raker’s tout. She hoped so.
‘Which guest-room would you like?’ Val asked as he kicked the door shut behind him, his hands full of her things. ‘You can have the bedroom next to mine. Or the one opposite mine. Either way,’ he said, ‘you’re within calling-out distance.’
‘Meaning what?’ Lucille asked a bit sharply, and Val’s face filled with frustration.
‘Meaning I’ll hear you if you call out to me in the night,’ he bit out through clenched teeth. ‘Some people have nightmares after the sort of experience you had tonight. Post-traumatic stress.’
‘I don’t think I’m that bad, Val. Neither do I think I need a doctor. I feel a lot better already. Truly.’
‘You might think you do now. But later on you might change your mind. I’m still going to call Jane. She can prescribe you a mild sedative, make sure you sleep at least.’
‘I’m sure your Jane’s got better things to do than be called out in the middle of the night to give silly women sedatives.’
‘Maybe, but this is my call, Lucille, not yours. Now,’ he said, his face brooking no more argument, ‘which bedroom?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE chose the bedroom opposite his, for no other reason than it was the first she came to. It was a spacious but simply furnished room, rather like those found in good hotels, with pale blue carpet, grey walls, white woodwork and grey-lacquered furniture, and no cluttering knick-knacks on any surfaces.
A single painting hung above the queen-sized bed: a cool seascape which was in harmony with the blue, swirling patterned quilt. The nearby window had matching curtains, which were drawn at that moment. The lamps on the white bedside chests were pewter-based, with pale blue shades the same colour as the carpet.
It would be a soothing room to sleep in, Lucille thought. And to wake up in.
Val lifted her two pieces of luggage onto the grey-lacquered ottoman at the foot of the bed whilst she walked over and sat down on the side. She still felt weak, and still close to tears all the time.
‘I’ll give Jane a ring straight away,’ Val said, on glancing worriedly at her, ‘then get you something to eat. If my memory serves me correctly, you haven’t had much in the way of food this evening. But first, I think a nice relaxing bath is in order.’ He strode over to open the door which led into the three-way bathroom. ‘I know you don’t think you’re hurt, but you must have some bruising. By morning you’ll be aching all over.’
He disappeared into the bathroom, and presently she heard taps running and steam came wafting through the open doorway.
Her frown reflected her feelings. ‘You don’t have to wait on me like this, Val,’ she said when he came back into the bedroom. ‘I’m not an invalid.’
‘I know that,’ he returned. ‘I want to. It pleases me.’
It had pleased Roger too, she thought unhappily as Val left the room, to dance attention on her when they’d first met, and even during their engagement, though to a lesser degree. But once the honeymoon was over, things had been very different indeed. He’d been hard pushed to get out of a doorway for her. Getting her a drink or a meal, even when she was sick, had been out of the question.
How long, she wondered, would Val’s kindness last? Till she did what he wanted and maybe moved in with him? Or could he afford to continue being Prince Charming because it was only a passing role? It would end in four months’ time, after all.
Lucille groaned at her own thoughts. She was beginning to hate her chronic cynicism. Why couldn’t she be like this Jane woman? Always full of optimism, no matter what rotten
things life threw at her.
Val popped his head in the bedroom door. ‘Jane’s on her way. She’ll be about half an hour. So get your gear off and pop yourself into that bath, madam. Or do you want me to come and do that for you as well?’ he added with a dry smile.
She stood up straight away. ‘I can manage.’
‘I thought that might get you moving.’ And he disappeared again.
Twenty minutes later, Lucille had bathed and dressed herself in a her favourite navy nightie and robe, a birthday present from her mother which surprisingly she liked. The silky nightie had narrow straps and a scooped lace-edged neckline onto which the rest was gathered, falling in soft silky folds to just below her knees. The wrap-around robe had elbow-length sleeves and a sash.
Both were cool and comfy, but hardly seduction material. With all make-up removed from her face, and her hair brushed out like a schoolgirl’s, she was far removed from the well-groomed, sleekly polished image she’d always presented to Val.
Yet when she emerged from the still steaming room at the same time as Val walked in with a tray his eyes revealed he still found her highly attractive.
Not that he leered. Val never leered. He just let his gaze linger slightly on various places as they swept over her.
Her mouth. Her breasts. Her bare feet.
Lucille had never thought of bare feet as being objects of sexual desire before. But she found her naked toes squirming in the thick pile of the carpet.
His eyes finally lifted back to her face.
‘You’re looking much better. Find any bruises?’ He walked over and slid the tray onto the nearest bedside chest, pushing the lamp to the back to make room.
‘A couple on my right thigh and hip,’ she admitted. ‘And, no, don’t ask to see them,’ she added in sudden panic at the thought of lifting her clothes up for his far too knowing eyes.