*
It seemed that, the more glamorous her cabaret act became, the plainer she dressed when not performing. This morning when she went into work she was wearing a plain grey skirt, rather long, and flat ballet-style pumps, together with the white silk blouse of her lunch interview with Herman Ward. It had a frilled, pie-crust collar and this time she wore it with a simple string of seed-pearls. Since that lunch date she had taken to wearing her hair up every day. It suited her oval face. Without makeup or earrings she looked almost like a schoolgirl, and a prefect at that, she thought, as she caught sight of herself in the plate-glass window of the store.
She was frowning slightly as she made her way upstairs. So far she hadn't made any decision about Herman Ward's offer. The simple reason was, she had no one she could discuss his terms with apart from Ray, and he had hesitated to influence her one way or the other.
'The thing is—and I may as well be frank—I get a percentage if you go to him for making the introduction.' He looked away. 'There were others. But I feel he's one of the most reliable.'
She wondered if she should make an appointment with a solicitor and get a professional opinion? The small print outlining options and rights worried her. Somehow, though, with working a full week in the store she didn't seem to have time to get anything sorted out.
By mid-morning she was sitting with her feet up for ten minutes, having finished her displays in record time, when the same junior who had brought her a message from Hilda's secretary appeared in the doorway again. 'Mr Priest's livid. He wants you to go up at once, Rachel.'
'What has Mr Priest got to be livid about?' she demanded as laconically as she could. In reality her heart began to pound like a marathon runner's.
'He didn't say. He just said, "Get her up here at once. If she's condescended to come in today."'
Rachel was in two minds. Should she finish her coffee and then meekly do his bidding? Or should she simply remain here and pretend she hadn't got the message? No to that, she thought, for the junior would probably get it in the neck. Sighing, she finished her coffee break, then, conscious of the sympathetic glances following her out, she made her way to the lifts.
This time there was no hand on her elbow as she stepped out on to the seventh floor, nothing but an impersonal ocean of blue carpet and several imposing doors behind which she could hear absolutely nothing. She headed for the one where Elliot had offered lunch just after they met but there was no one inside so she went down the corridor, peering at all the plaques until she found one with his name on it.
Her heart was hammering unaccountably and she told herself not to be so silly. She was reacting like a schoolgirl up before the head. There was nothing he could do to her. He couldn't even give her the sack.
She tapped lightly on the door. From somewhere deep within the room came a voice ordering her to enter. Elliot was seated at the far end behind a vast expanse of polished oak. He had his back to the light so she could only guess at his expression. His jacket was thrown across the back of a chair beside him, and in his shirt-sleeves he still looked formidable, like a man getting down to business.
His manner, she discovered when she heard him greet her, was glacial. 'Sit down.' He indicated the chair in front of the desk.
She felt like declining the invitation, but a moment's reflection made her see how childish this would appear. She sat.
'Well?' he demanded.
'Sorry?' Play dumb, she thought, and anyway, I really don't know what this is all about.
'Why?' He leaned forward, his high cheekbones more pronounced as if anger had made the skin tighten. There was a moment's silence while his eyes glittered as impersonally as frost under an arctic sun.
'Why what?' she asked eventually. She tried to breathe, having found that she had been holding herself rigid throughout the pause, breath held in.
'Stop playing games for once. Why have I been handed this?' He held up a piece of paper.
'I don't know.' She bit her lip. 'I can't see it from here so I can't tell what it is.'
'Read it.' He skimmed the paper across the desk. Her chair was so low she had to get up so she could reach for it. As she stretched out her hand he clamped one hand hard down over the back of it, pinning it to the desk. For a moment the physical contact hit her like a bombshell. She felt a lick of flame envelope her body. With head averted she waited for him to release her.
With the same suddenness, he released her hand then got to his feet and walked rapidly over to the window. There he stood with his back to her, every taut muscle of his broad shoulders outlined under the straining cotton of his white shirt.
With trembling fingers, for she had never seen anyone in such an unaccountable, such a barely contained rage, she reached out and picked up the sheet of paper that seemed to be the cause of it all.
'It seems to be a list of employees who have either handed in their notice or been sacked,' she said in a subdued voice after she'd scanned it.
'And is your name among them?'
'I should think so.' Confused, she couldn't find it, and had to read the short list two or three times before she recognised her own name.
'So why the hell, Rachel?'
'I felt it was time to—well, I felt it was time to leave.' Her face felt drained of colour. It wasn't fair that he should make things that were difficult even more so. He was unfair.
'Is it because of me?' He swivelled in time to watch her expression change. He noted the colour flood her cheeks and, misunderstanding it, grunted, 'I thought so. Pace too hot for you. Can't trust yourself. So you run away. To hell with you, then. Go on, then. Get out!'
She placed the sheet of paper on the desk and stood looking down at it, unable to think straight. With an effort she turned towards the door.
He was across the room in two strides, barring her way, his voice a rough whisper, steel on silk, rasping, 'Couldn't you have told me yourself? Why let me find out like this?'
'I didn't think you'd --' No, she silently corrected, it wasn't true to say she thought he wouldn't notice. 'I don't know,' she finished miserably. 'Why should I have?'
He tilted her chin and she was conscious of his fingers trembling against her jawbone. 'Why should you?' His eyes bored into hers as if to pierce through to whatever secrets lay hidden in her heart. 'Are you saying you could walk away without saying goodbye?'
She blinked, longing to shut out that lancing look, yet mesmerised too by the intensity of it.
He pressed his free hand down her spine, dragging her savagely against him as he did so. The shock that ran through her seemed to set her senses ablaze.
'Don't, Elliot --' she began, knowing already it was too late. But the reprieve did not come; desire for his touch, aroused, was not satisfied. He went on looking down at her, slowly allowing her release. He paced across the room then came back until he stood a yard in front of her. She thought it unlikely that the dynamic Elliot Priest was lost for words, but that seemed to be the case.
She waited, helplessly, not knowing what else to do, while destiny seemed to weigh the pros and cons in the balance. Eventually, as if something had been decided, Elliot gave her a slow, burning look and went to sit down behind his desk. He leaned back, looking anywhere but in her face. He seemed suddenly exhausted, as if the life had seeped out of him.
'I imagined that if I gave you time you'd see sense. But it seems I underestimated your puritan instincts.' He gave her a measuring glance that took in the flat shoes, the long grey skirt, the sensible white blouse and the neatly pleated hair.
'No make-up... ? Well, it suits you. You've got the skin, as I'm sure men are constantly telling you. Seeing much of that gentleman friend of yours? I can't bring myself to call him boyfriend --' He laughed derisively.
'Elliot, it isn't like that --'
'No, don't tell me. You're just good friends. He was your uncle, your elder brother. Your father even. No,' he corrected savagely, 'he didn't look like a farmer. Too knowing for that. Too dissipated. H
e didn't look like any sort of uncle a girl like you might have, either, so try another line.'
'He's an—an associate,' she stumbled over the word.
'A close associate, do you mean? How close, Rachel? Very close?' He laughed harshly again, answering his own question. 'Judging by the way he was slobbering over you all through lunch, very close indeed!'
'He was not—slobbering.' She drew herself up. 'He was merely being charming and courteous.'
'You like old-world charm, do you, Rachel? Come near me and I'll show you "old-world charm" you won't forget in a hurry.'
She tightened her lips but could find nothing to say.
'I said,' he repeated lethally soft-voiced, 'come here.'
'I don't see why I should.'
He uncoiled from his chair and moved towards her with all the contained savagery of a panther about to spring. 'Does he make love to you?' His voice shook. 'Do you make love to him?' He was touching her again, this time with just one finger, allowing it to snake a crazy path down the side of her cheek.
With a sharply indrawn breath he allowed it to slide down her neck and over the soft swell of her blouse. His lips tightened cruelly. 'Does this old-world lover of yours do this to you, Rachel? Does he touch you like this? Does he touch you here --' he cupped one of her breasts in his palm '—like this --?' He let his hand slide down to her waist, squeezing it, massaging in ever deeper intimacy the rounded curve of her thighs, then slithering his hand over her buttocks, pulling her slowly and rhythmically against him so that she felt the old inability to resist sweep over her again.
'Don't do that,' she croaked in a token protest, wishing he would stop, for she could not when she felt the evidence of his own desire burning against her like this. She stifled a groan. 'Don't, Elliot. I don't know what you think you prove by this, but please don't.'
'Move away, then,' he whispered maddeningly in her ear. 'I'm not holding you, Rachel, you're doing this of your own accord.'
It was true. His touch was featherlight, with no force in it, yet it held her against him like a band of tempered steel.
'You want me as much as I want you. We both know it. I've given you time. I've been patient and God knows I'm not a patient man. But I thought things waited for were best. I'll give you time. I'll take the pressure off. I thought what was happening between us was so powerful, so cataclysmic, that we both needed time to get used to it, time to find our balance—what I never expected was for you to walk out on it. I don't see how you can! What demon of self-punishment is leading you to walk out, Rachel? What sort of self-inflicted joylessness drives you to say no to what you really want?'
She was swooning now. His arms, loosely holding her, supported her weight. She felt her eyes close, tears of longing, of love—she recognised it now— building up behind them. But then the future swung into focus. It taunted her. His words were honeyed traps, designed to lead her along the primrose path. All her dreams would be destroyed. And when he had used her and drained her, no matter what she had sacrificed for him, he would discard her, because for a man like him the world was full of pretty women waiting for love.
Opening her eyes, she said, 'You only want me because you're attracted to what you can't have, Elliot. You shan't have it. You can't.'
His reply was to sink his lips against hers, to savage her soft mouth in a brief plundering, eyes closed, veiling his bitter anger. With tension marking his features he began to let her go, moving away little by little until he reached the limit of his ability to leave her entirely. She could feel the heat of desire from him drawing her back towards him. If he had reached out again she would have been powerless to stop the words of love tumbling from her lips, but reprieve lay in his own pride and anger and some other emotion blinding him to his own power. It made him draw back still further until at last the contact was broken.
He stood behind the desk once more, picked up his discarded jacket, fumbled in the pockets, put it on, and stood again, undecided, gazing without a word until at last he broke the silence with a harsh exclamation, saying, 'I've probably broken every rule in the book for employer-employee relations. Are you going to take me to court for sexual harassment? I wouldn't blame you.' He looked as disgusted with himself as he was with her.
'I simply want to walk out of here and forget this ever happened. Forget we ever met.' Her voice dropped to a whisper.
He waved a hand towards the door. Reading it, she turned blindly and walked out. He said nothing more, and she closed the door between them with a sense of deep despair.
CHAPTER SIX
Compared to the grey gloom hanging over Rachel's daytime world, Zia's existence was nothing if not multi-coloured. Rising from the ashes of Rachel's life, Zia was a phoenix, a creature of flame and brilliance, an incandescence that spread its glow everywhere. She would arrive early at the club these days, as if something drove her to cut short the painful hours of Rachel's existence and embrace instead the gaudy dream that awaited her as Zia.
In the privacy of her dressing-room that evening she stripped to the skin, catching sight of the pale, vulnerable form in the mirror. Then she reached for the exotic concoction of hot pinks and cherry-reds she was to wear that night. An image had evolved without her even trying and now when she donned her stage clothes she looked as sultry and sinful and as far removed from Rachel as it was possible to get.
The silk slithered over her head, concealing and revealing her pearly skin in unexpected places as the diaphanous material swirled with every gesture. The neckline plunged low, the bodice was delicately boned, lifting and shaping her firm breasts beneath the thin fabric.
She slid into a pair of gold sandals with impossibly high heels that made walking a problem. But then, she smiled grimly, she wasn't going far, was she? Ten paces from the wings to the centre of the stage. A little provocative step or two when the music commanded. A teetering step to the edge of the spotlight to accept the acclaim at the end. Then back into the darkness.
She lifted the tight skirt to thigh-level so she could sit at the dressing-table and began to work on her make-up. It was taking her nearly an hour or more these days. As she worked, skimming on layer after layer of silk foundation, highlighter, shader, blusher, powder as fine as spun silk on her already perfect features, she talked herself into her role. Then she shaped and deepened her eyes with a skill taught to her by a friend in the make-up department. She added two layers of false eyelashes, outlined her lips in scarlet, glossed and buffed and perfected until the transformation was almost complete.
By now she was coming round to the idea of having her hair lightened, growing it, having a perm perhaps to give it body, but in the meantime she allowed the hairpieces to become her trade-mark. Tonight it was a wild confection of real and false hair, plaited and curled, an outrageous sexy provocative coif that emphasised the gamine in her but hinted at an all-female sensuality too.
It was play-acting. She thought that was obvious to everyone. But one or two, like Henry, like the mystery man who had sent the flowers, seemed to take it seriously. Tonight was the first night she didn't care. Rachel might lurk when the night was over, ready to reclaim her for the land of the half-dead in which she existed by day, but the night— tonight—belonged to Zia.
Her cue came over the intercom and she made her way through the shadowed passage towards the bright oval of the tiny stage.
Her theme tune had already started and she hesitated in the wings for a moment, frightened to go on, yet more frightened to stay in the shadows where no one knew her name, where love was only another name for heartbreak. Out there, in the bright circle of the stage, her name was known and loved and heartbreak was only the theme of a song. Now, as her melody lilted around her, she still hesitated.
From her vantage-point she could see the boys in the band. Dapper as always in dinner-jackets, with brilliantined hair and rings on their fingers, they were her team. Her knights in chivalry. Once when a drunk had tried to get on stage to kiss her the drummer had materialis
ed from nowhere, leading the man off to face a polite ejection from the premises.
Tonight, she thought, conscious of the unseen audience packed tight in the darkness beyond the footlights, she desperately needed their protective, collective presence. She needed all their help to get her through the night.
It was late when the last note died away on a whisper of sound. There was a brief pause, then the applause began, building to a tidal wave of emotion swamping them all. Zia had tears streaming down her cheeks. She turned, blinded by them, blinded by the emotion the words of the song had aroused.
He was so right. He had accused her of being driven by some self-torturing demon. And she was. Anyone else would have forced themselves to forget the love they had deliberately rejected. But she couldn't forget. Every note of every song was for the tragedy of lost love, for lovers the world over parted by the hand of fate, for her own love lost... for Elliot.
A vision of the desert that lay in wait, the lifetime without him, the endless years ahead, reared up to taunt her. When she came off stage she hurried straight to her dressing-room, closing the door, cutting off the applause as it echoed hollowly on and on without end. Tonight wasn't the night for encores. She collapsed on a chair in front of the mirror, her eyes reflecting back all the emptiness she felt inside.
Was it worth it? she asked herself. Was anything worth this hell? Would success assuage the torment of loving and losing? She doubted it.
When Henry sent his usual love token to her dressing-room, this time she put out a trembling hand.
'May as well open it,' she suggested to the waiter as he was about to leave with the unopened champagne. He did a double-take.
'Yes, I mean it!' She gave Zia's throaty laugh, reluctant to leave the safety of her disguise. She picked up the red rose and placed it in the cleft of her bosom. 'What's he like, this Henry? As nice-looking as Ray says?'
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