by Robyn Donald
‘Crying?’ His gaze travelled from her red eyes to her quivering lips. Some swiftly hidden emotion darkened the pure golden depths beneath his lashes. ‘It’s a waste of time. You certainly don’t look as though it’s doing you any good.’
‘You’re so kind,’ she said, swallowing so that her voice was firmer. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to promise that even if he wants you to, you won’t see Paul alone.’
CHAPTER SIX
Aura stared silently at him as the fragile flicker of hope died.
Impatiently he said, ‘He’s not reacting well to this.’
‘Did you expect him to?’ she asked in a voice whose bitterness was at her own folly.
‘That doesn’t matter. You are not to see him unless Natalie or someone else is with you, understand?’
Her mouth opened to tell him to go to hell when the beeper burst into life once more. He muttered a curse, then demanded, ‘May I use your telephone?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Not that her permission was necessary; he was already halfway across the room.
It was a short conversation. He said, ‘Yes, yes, yes. All right, just make sure that no one goes anywhere near the place or I’ll deal with them myself. How the hell do I know, you’re the man on the spot! Fob them off as best you can until I get there,’ and hung up. ‘I have to go,’ he said, turning to meet her bewildered eyes. ‘I’m due at the airport now. Aura, just promise me, please.’
‘All right, I promise. Where are you going?’ A confusion of emotions drained Aura’s voice of all expression. Overriding her bleak acceptance of his departure was a sudden foreboding.
His features tightened. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
The foreboding became fear. She looked at him with eyes that took in everything, the striking features, the arrogantly outlined mouth, the scar, mute witness to some situation he hadn’t been able to handle. Although the fact that he had survived presumably meant that he had dealt with it successfully.
‘Take care,’ she said, hardly able to articulate the words.
He hesitated, then swung towards her and kissed her as though she was all that he had ever wanted, as though he was famished for her and would never kiss her again.
Aura gave herself wholly to him, moulding herself to the lean strength of his big body.
‘Goodbye,’ he said huskily, and was gone, striding through the rain to where a long, blue car waited. As soon as its door swung closed behind him the vehicle purred off into the rapidly thickening afternoon.
Aura walked across to the kitchen and automatically put the kettle on. When she had made tea she had sat down and attempted to formulate a plan of action.
But her mind kept slipping back to the scene in Paul’s apartment. How strange that he had turned up at that particular moment, when he wasn’t due back until tomorrow. Her mind worried at the strangeness, until a faint niggling suspicion, a hint of unease, shreds and patches of information fed into her brain by barely understood mechanisms, consolidated into the conviction that Flint had known Paul was arriving home early. That was why he’d turned up. Not to collect his gear and go back to his own flat; no, he’d come for the express purpose of forcing the issue.
How had he known she would be there?
That was easy. Natalie, of course. She had almost pushed Aura out of the door with those parcels. What story had Flint spun to persuade her to make sure Aura was there at a certain time?
Flint had looked at his watch in the apartment as though wondering how much longer Paul was going to be.
Yes, that was typical of Flint. He was accustomed to being the man in charge, the man who took control and fixed things. It would be like him to engineer a confrontation.
With conviction came a cold, hard anger, sweeping away the dull lethargy that had pitched her into despair. Drinking her tea, she began to make lists. Being busy would keep the pain and the remorse at bay for a few days, although eventually she would have to deal with them.
But her hands shook slightly, and the skin was clammy. ‘It’s because I’m cold,’ she said aloud, and got up.
The power shortage had persuaded her to use the heater as little as possible, and most days she didn’t put it on until after dark, but the black clouds were being chased across the sky by a brisk sou’-westerly, and the temperature had dropped.
God, she thought wearily, will this winter never end?
The days that followed were sheer hell.
First of all she had to cope with Natalie, who ranted and wept and accused her furiously of ruining her life. Questioning that rapidly degenerated into a shouting match elicited, just as Aura dreaded, that her mother had mortgaged the unit to buy back some of her old furniture for the new apartment. With splendid disregard for actual value, she had contacted the new owners and offered them whatever was needed to persuade them to sell.
The furniture was being held in store; the business of organising its sale took up time and effort that Aura could ill afford, and because it had to be auctioned, no money came in to help pay back the mortgage.
As it was, the agent she dealt with told her that she wasn’t likely to get much more than half of the amount her mother had paid for it. Natalie was no help; once more she retired to her bed, refusing to eat or get up.
The sheer logistics of cancelling the wedding exhausted Aura. Alick and Laurel helped, but she insisted on doing the brunt of the work.
‘You’re punishing yourself,’ Laurel said astutely.
Aura shrugged. ‘It stops me thinking.’
She heard nothing from Paul apart from an impersonal note informing her that the engagement ring had arrived safely. There was one very sticky telephone call from his mother. Laurel, bless her, had met Mrs McAlpine and they had agreed that she should deal with the presents from their side of the family.
‘How is Paul?’ Aura asked his mother tentatively.
‘Broken-hearted. How did you expect him to be?’
Aura had always known that his mother didn’t like her, but she was shocked by the venom that showed through the crisp tones. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you will be, when you realise what you’ve done. Just as I’m sure Paul will come to his senses and see how disastrous a marriage between you would have been.’
‘No doubt he will,’ Aura said quietly, ‘in which case both of you will perhaps feel some sort of gratitude to me. After all, a broken engagement is bad enough, but a broken marriage is much worse. Goodbye, Mrs McAlpine. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.’
Jessica, too, was a great help whenever she could get time away from the agency. It was she who told Aura that Paul had gone abroad.
‘Big-game hunting in Africa, I suppose,’ Aura said acidly. Trust a man to run away and leave the women to deal with everything.
Jessica didn’t catch the allusion. ‘No, he’s gone climbing mountains in Nepal, so Mrs McAlpine told Mother. I can just see Paul up a mountain, somehow, can’t you? He should be at home among the glaciers. How are you?’
Like everyone else, Jessica was dying to know who had broken the engagement and why, but, also like everyone else, she didn’t ask.
‘I’m fine,’ Aura lied, collapsing bonelessly on to the sofa.
The days had dragged by without a word from Flint. Not that she’d expected him to contact her, but this casual underlining of how little she meant to him hurt.
She straightened up. ‘I’ve done everything that needs to be done. I hope. Now I just want to crawl away and die somewhere.’
‘Not you, you’ve got too much spirit for that. How’s your mother?’
Aura cast a harried look towards the bedroom door. ‘Not well,’ she admitted.
Jessica grimaced, then asked, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to find a job,’ Aura told her.
‘Doing what?’
Aura shrugged. ‘Doing anything that gets me a hell of a lot of money.’
To her horror the tea
rs she had been able to hold back until then flooded her eyes. She sniffed, but they continued to fall.
‘What’s she done now?’ Jessica asked in an outraged voice, hugging her close as she stuffed a wad of tissues into her hand.
In as few words as possible, Aura told her
Jessica said on an appalled note, ‘Your great-grandmother’s garnets? Oh, Aura—’
‘Yes, but they weren’t enough. Not nearly enough.’
‘So you need money, and you need it fast. Can’t you borrow it against the value of this unit? Just temporarily? Because that software thingy you’ve been working on is going to sell for megabucks when you finish it.’
‘If I ever do. I had to sell the computer, too. And the unit’s no good. It’s mortgaged.’
Jessica looked her horror. ‘How’s she going to make the payments?’
‘She can’t.’ Aura drew in a shaking breath and firmed her voice. ‘Neither can I. If I could get an uninterrupted three months I could finish the marketing research programme. I’d have to hire a computer, of course.’
‘And of course you can’t get an uninterrupted three months, either.’
‘No, and even if I do, it’s not going to mean instant money, and that, Jess, is what I need. Because if I don’t get it, I can’t pay the interest, let alone any principal, on the loan. And you know what that means. This place will be sold over our heads.’
Jessica snorted. ‘Even if you do get some money or a job, what about your mother then? Is she going to be able to cope, or are you going to be mortgaging your life to bale her out, time and time again?’
Aura’s mouth tightened. ‘She’ll just have to learn to live within her income. Damn it, Jess, it’s not as though she’s poverty-stricken. She has a small income—bloody Lionel couldn’t dip his sticky fingers into her trust. My grandfather set it up too tightly. The only reason he got into mine was because she and my father were trustees, and she signed everything over to Lionel when she married him. She should be able to manage!’
‘Yes, but she’s never had to watch her spending.’
‘Oh, damn my grandfather.’
‘You can’t blame him entirely,’ Jessica pointed out, exasperation vying with a need to be fair. ‘He may have started her off wrong, but she’s had a good few years to grow up. She didn’t have to let Lionel run through everything you both had. She could have taken some interest in her own affairs.’
Aura sighed and frowned and rubbed her forehead. ‘I know. She’s just going to have to learn how to deal with life.’
Jessica looked at her keenly. ‘It’s about time. You’ve played nursemaidfor long enough. Look, I might be able to do something about this. I can’t promise anything—’
‘I’m too short to be a model,’ Aura said, blowing her nose with vigour and feeling oddly better.
‘Yes, but you’ve got fabulous legs and hands and face, and wonderful skin and hair, so you should be able to do well with those, and God knows, the camera adores you. Remember, in our school photos the rest of us invariably looked like gargoyles, but there you were, always exquisite. It used to make us all sick. As it happens, there’s a big cosmetics firm that’s going to make a push for the Pacific market, and they want a local model, somebody from here or Australia, but a woman with exotic looks who’ll be suitable for the Asian market too.’
‘I can’t model.’
‘Oh, of course you can. All you have to do is swan around looking glamorous, and you do that instinctively. You’d wing it, no problem, if they decided you were the one. They’re being rather fussy, but you’re interesting, and you’re new, which they’re rather keen on, and you’d certainly show off their stuff. You’ve got those wonderful eyes, and perfect cheekbones, and a mouth that might have been made to show off lipstick.’
‘Jess, I know you mean well, but I’ve—’
‘Don’t say no yet. Look, it’s not going to take much time. You’ll be working like hell for six months or so all around the Pacific, but then it will be finished. You could send your CV around and apply for a proper job next year. It would get you out of New Zealand until the heat dies off, and it would certainly tip your bank balance the right way.’
It sounded seductive, but Aura couldn’t make a decision yet. Vaguely she said, ‘I’ll see.’
‘What you need,’ Jessica said firmly, ‘is time out.’
Aura smiled sardonically. ‘Not a chance of it, I’m afraid.’
But that evening Laurel and Alick came along, offering her just that: as long as she liked at Kerikeri, or anywhere else for that matter.
Aura smiled. She had become very good at hiding her emotions behind a mask. ‘You’re so kind,’ she said, ‘but would you mind very much if I said no? Honestly, I’m not feeling madly social at the moment.’
Alick began to say something but Laurel broke in firmly. ‘Of course we understand,’ she said, ‘but Natalie, you’ll come up, won’t you? It’s been a while since we’ve had you there, and you really do need a change of scenery.’
Natalie sighed, and wept a little, and without looking at Aura agreed that a small holiday might be just what she needed, although of course she really adored the tropics at this time of year, and the fares to Fiji were so low right now...
When neither Laurel nor Alick reacted to this blatant attempt at manipulation she gave in with a good grace.
Aura felt as though a load had rolled from her mind. As Laurel and Alick left she gave them both a fierce hug and whispered her thanks.
‘It’s not too late to change your mind,’ Alick said, returning the embrace. ‘We’d love to have you, and the kids adore their cousin Aura.’
Aura shook her head. ‘I adore them, too, but—not just now.’
Ten o’clock the next morning saw her waving them away in Alick’s big car. On her way up the path her nose traced a faint, sweet smell. It was a tiny gold narcissus shaped just like a miniature hoop petticoat, blooming in the border she had weeded only a fortnight before. A fortnight before, when she had been going to become Paul’s wife.
Perhaps it was a little omen, a promise that however bleak her days, hope was never lost.
Hope seemed to have become very much mislaid, however, in the days that followed. Aura missed Paul. She missed him alarmingly, missed his pleasant temperament, his humour, his never-failing thoughtfulness. But she missed Flint with a hunger that ate deep into her bones, a desire almost physical in its intensity that coloured her days and darkened her nights with an ever-present ache of loneliness.
She didn’t love him, not as she loved Paul, but some part of her was bereft.
Lust. An ugly word for an ugly emotion, if emotion it was. She wanted Flint, longed for the sensual pleasures he could give her, and despised herself for this obsession, because she didn’t like him. She could respect his strength, admit his good qualities, appreciate his cold, hard intellect, but the man himself meant nothing to her.
On the day that was to have been her wedding she stayed at home. Jessica tried to persuade her to spend the weekend with her and Sam, but Aura refused, just as she refused Laurel’s telephoned plea to go up to Kerikeri. Deliberately emptying her mind, she went about her chores racked with regret, with remorse and self-disgust.
During that weekend she made the decision to give Jessica’s plan a try. Delighted, Jessica was immediately all business; she gave her the address of a photographer and introduced her to her partner, an alarmingly beautiful woman in her mid-thirties who Aura had met a couple of times before.
Apparently she approved. Eight days after she had handed in her portfolio Aura found herself ringing Alick for the name of his lawyer.
‘What do you want a lawyer for?’ he asked after he’d given it.
‘Mind your own business,’ she said automatically.
‘I made you my business twenty years ago.’
She was already regretting her curtness. ‘Sorry.’
When she had finished telling him he said, ‘Hm. Are you sure you want
to do it? I can lend you any money you need, you know.’
‘I know, but it’s time I stopped relying on you.’
‘Well, don’t let your pride stand in the way of common sense. By the way, Natalie’s been prospecting up here, and unless I’m reading things wrong, she’s getting her own future sorted out.’
‘A man, I gather.’ Aura hid the note of hope in her voice with dryness.
He laughed. ‘Yes, a nice rich Canadian who thinks she’s wonderful.’
Oh, if only it happened! Aura said guiltily, ‘I hope he knows what he’s doing.’
‘I think he does. Don’t worry about him, Aura, and don’t worry about your mother, either. She’ll fall on her feet.’
Life suddenly became at once simpler, and infinitely more complicated. The company and the agency took over her life. She met executives, got used to being looked at and discussed as though she were a piece of merchandise, attended a modelling course, and discovered that photographic sessions involved a lot of hard work and boredom.
At least she no longer had to worry about Natalie’s debts. The money she received as an advance paid them off, and, following Alick’s advice not to let pride stand in her way, she borrowed enough from him to keep herself going until the next payment was due.
Two months later she was in Cairns, posing against a swimming-pool in sunlight so bright she was glad it was just her legs they were photographing and not her face. This session was for sunscreens and moisturising lotions, and it was going well, as was the campaign.
It still surprised her that she, ordinary Aura Forsythe, photographed like a houri. Originally the job had been a means to an end, but now she was determined to give her employers value for the indecent amount of money they were paying her. At first she had worried about whether she could actually do the work, and been heartily relieved when word came back that they were delighted with the shots so far.
The actual work she still found dull, but fortunately the camera lens transformed her boredom into a profoundly seductive glower. She enjoyed the travel, and she liked the crew she was working with.