"How well you put it," she said, and knew from Bob's face that her sarcasm meant nothing to him. He saw things only in terms of profit and loss; and he was determined that the loss would never be his or Nicky's.
"Please agree to it, Valerie," Bob pleaded. "You're not vindictive. I knew it the minute I set eyes on you."
She looked at him for a long while in silence. "You're a ruthless man, and clever," she said at last. "I'm beginning to understand how you managed to talk Nicky into doing what he did."
"Then you'll see it through?"
"Yes."
Nicky gave an exclamation and she met his eyes steadily.
"It's not because I've any feeling for you," she said bitterly. "It's because I don't want all the thousands of girls who believe you're as wonderful as your voice to know how despicable you are!"
Nicky's pale skin went paler but he did not reply and she stood up.
"Where are you going?" Bob asked.
"To my room."
"Have a little chat with Nicky first. He's not Public Enemy Number One, you know. It's not his fault the girls throw themselves at him."
"Of course not," she agreed. "He makes a big sacrifice every time he takes one of them to bed."
Bob chuckled, saw her expression and fell silent. Quickly he walked out, leaving the two alone.
Nonchalantly Nicky sauntered over to a tray of drinks. "What will you have?"
"Nothing."
He poured himself a large whiskey and leaned against the table and sipped it. He opened his mouth as though to speak and then closed it again.
"Don't bother trying to think of something to say," she said coldly. "There isn't anything I want to hear."
"You enjoy thinking the worst of me, don't you?"
"Is there any good that I can think of?"
His eyes glittered. "You said you loved me. Were you lying as well?"
"I loved someone who doesn't exist. The real Nicky—if there is a real one—is a plastic cutout with a Ciod-given talent."
"At least you recognize the talent."
"It's the only thing you have. Take it away and you cease to exist."
With an imprecation he slammed his glass on to the table. "Now listen to me! What's done is done and it's no good crabbing about it. But if you're going to go through with this pretense, you've got to put a decent face on it. I won't force my attentions on you and as soon as it's possible you'll be free to go. But while you're with me you must stop treating me as if I'm a monster. Is that clear?"
She lowered her eyes. This stern-faced man was a Nicky she had never seen before—another facet to add to the many different ones she already knew. But his demand was not unreasonable. She had agreed to continue with their engagement, and the situation would only be tenable if they both behaved in a civilized manner.
"Very well," she said. "I can't forget what you've done but I—I'll try and be nice to you."
"Thanks." He turned his back and poured himself another drink. A large one, from the sound of it. "You'd better go to your room and change. I'm sure Bob's got some great celebration planned for us tonight."
The next few days were strange ones for Valerie. Nicky insisted on showing her the sights and, knowing Bob had publicized her unexpected arrival, she knew it was all part of the act. Together they were photographed in Central Park, at the Bronx Zoo, the Empire State Building, outside the Guggenheim Museum and strolling down Fifth Avenue. Nicky was always charming, and even when reporters were not within earshot, maintained the same attitude, so that there were moments when Valerie almost forgot the real situation and believed they were what they seemed—lovers without thought for anyone but each other.
Neither Bob nor Nicky mentioned Dawn, and Valerie wondered if they had managed to dissuade her from causing trouble. From what she had seen of the girl, she thought it would take more than a persuasive tongue to stop her from an attempt at blackmail. Contemptuous though she was of Nicky, she loathed the idea of anyone being put under such a threat, and hoped that her own continuing engagement to him would frighten Dawn off.
A week after her arrival in New York, Nicky appeared as a guest in an off-Broadway revue. The theater was small, the production inexpensive—by American standards—but the kudos of being asked to participate in this particular show was exceptionally high.
"What number should I do?" Nicky had asked Bob, three days before he was due to appear. "One from my new album or an old favorite?"
"One of your new ones," Bob had said.
"What about the one you sang to Aunt Alice?" Valerie had suggested. She had come up to Nicky's suite to meet a feature writer from a magazine that was doing a cover story on him, and had not yet returned to her own room. She was now able to talk to Nicky with some degree of normality, and the truce that had trembled between them for the first few days had firmed into something solid.
"Do you think the kids will go for that kind of number?" he had asked.
"I don't see why not. It has a beautiful melody and it sounds sincere."
He had reddened, as if finding her comment snide. But then silently he had turned away from her.
"What song is Valerie talking about?" Bob had questioned.
"One I composed a few months back. Just for my own fun—not to play to anyone else."
"Why not?" Valerie had again demanded. "I'm sure your fans would like to hear them. Try one. If it doesn't go down well, you can always sing one of your old favorites."
It was not until she sat in a corner seat in the darkened theater three days later and heard Nicky go into the opening bars of his first song that she realized he had taken her advice. Doing away with his backup group, he appeared on stage alone, sitting in front of the microphone with a guitar on his lap, and dressed casually in slacks and a silk shirt, quite unlike his usual sexy attire.
There was a murmur of surprise from the audience but it died quickly as he strummed the opening bars. It was not the song he had sung in the little Bayswater house but a more lilting one about first love and last love and all the unimportant loves that came in between. The words were catchy, the tune even more so, and when he came to the end the frenzied applause forced him to sing again. This time he did sing the melody Valerie remembered, and tears trembled on her lashes as she thought back to the simple girl she had been then.
Unable to bear the desolation that swept over her, she stumbled from her seat and went outside. How could Nicky compose such heart-rending songs and yet be so unlike them? Or were these songs the real Nicky? The man he could be if he were able to lose his cynicism? There had been glimpses of someone warm-hearted and tender during the time she had spent with him in London. The young man who had so entranced her aunt had not been all pretense, nor had the solicitous man who—after that passionate episode on the cabin cruiser—had steadfastly refused to make such overwhelming love to her again. That had been a month ago, four weeks from this very day. She sighed. How would he react if she could revert to the girl she had been then—who had believed in him and trusted him? Would it enable him to discover his real self or were the layers of pretense too many to be shed? Yet the very fact that he had sung his own songs tonight gave her hope that the Nicky she had once thought him to be still existed, and she dabbed her eyes and turned to go back into the theater.
As she did, a girl stepped out through one of the side doors, and though Valerie moved quickly to avoid her, she was not quick enough, for a hard voice bade her stop. Afraid of causing a scene, Valerie did so and waited for Dawn to approach.
"So Nicky and Bob persuaded you to carry on with the act," she said sarcastically. "You're a bigger fool than I took you for."
"I'm not a fool, Miss Meadows. Just someone who doesn't like to see a gold digger get away with it!"
"You've got a nerve! I love Nicky—rat though he is."
"You wouldn't threaten to destroy him if you loved you. You want him because he's famous and rich."
"And you don't?"
"I don't want to des
troy him," Valerie said. "And as long as I stay engaged to him, you won't succeed."
"Not even if I can prove you've only been engaged for a few weeks and months?"
"You can't prove it. We'd both deny it."
Dawn glared at her. "I can't make you out. Is Nicky paying you to stick with him or are you doing it because you still think he'll marry you?" She saw the flicker in Valerie's eyes and immediately her own blazed with temper. "You don't have a chance of keeping a man like him."
"Don't be so sure!"
"I am! A whole day in your company and he's ready to climb up the wall. Remember when he took you to his boat?" Again Valerie's eyes gave her away and again Dawn saw it and gloated. "He was so bored to be stuck with you that he couldn't wait to get back to me. One hour before he went on stage, he was in my bedroom! Ask him, if you don't believe me."
Valerie's shock was so great that she could not speak. But Dawn mistook her silence for haughtiness and became even angrier.
"I'm not lying, you idiot. Ask him!"
"I don't need to," Valerie said huskily. "He—he told me about it the next day." She heard herself speak as if she were listening to someone else. And it must be someone else who could stand here lying like this. "Nicky and I don't have any secrets from one another," she went on, still hearing her own words as if they were coming from a stranger. "He was ashamed about it and had to tell me."
"Ashamed?"
"Because he had behaved like an animal. Being with you that night made him see that—that passion without love was—was meaningless. So I should thank you for what happened—not be upset by it—"
The look of astonishment on Dawn's face was almost laughable and it helped Valerie to maintain her composure. "You can't come between Nicky and myself, and the sooner you realize it, the better."
"I may not be able to break you up," Dawn hissed, "but it'll cost him plenty to keep me quiet. There are still lots of magazines in the States that would jump at the chance to print the story of my affair with Nicky Barratt."
High heels clicked on marble and Valerie was left alone. Without being aware of moving she found herself back in her seat. Nicky was still singing and she saw that the audience was still refusing to let him go. She heard him as if she were in a dream, and still in the same suspended state, went backstage afterward.
As usual he was surrounded by people, but he spot ted her at once—as if he had been watching out for her—and beckoned her to join him at the dressing table where he was removing his makeup.
"You were right about my songs, Val. The audience loved them. It's opened up a whole new way for me to go."
She tried to answer but was unable to speak. The courage she had called upon to withstand Dawn's attack had sapped her of strength and she suddenly began to shake as if she had fever. The room revolved and she clutched at the edge of the table and wondered if she could get out of the room without collapsing.
"Val, what is it?"
Nicky's voice came from miles away and she tried to answer him. Her lips parted but no sound emerged, only a strangled cry as she sank down into a black abyss.
When light returned she and Nicky were alone in the dressing room. She was lying on an easy chair with her legs raised up on another one, and he was watching her anxiously.
"How do you feel now?"
"Better."
Gingerly she moved to sit up. Only then did she realize the bodice of her dress had been loosened and that her breasts were partially visible. Coloring, she gathered the soft material across them and tried to do up the back zipper.
In silence he stepped behind her and did it for her, his hands cool on her skin, though they lingered there for a moment before he moved back in front of her.
"Why were you so upset?" he asked. "You came in here looking like a ghost. Bob said he saw Dawn in the theater. Did she speak to you?"
The Valerie of a week ago would have lied, butlhe girl she was today was a different proposition. Learning more about Nicky's deceit could still hurt her, but she was no longer willing to suffer anything in silence.
"What did she say?"
"That I was a fool to let you talk me into continuing our engagement and that you went to bed with her l our weeks ago, which was the day you took me down to your boat."
Nicky spun round to face the mirror. But as if he could not bear the sight of himself he turned again ;ind faced her. Already pale, she would not have thought he could grow paler. But he did. His eyes were black as coal because of it, and burned with an intensity that made them luminous.
"I wanted to tell you about it," he said, almost in- audibly. "But I didn't think you'd understand."
"That you felt the need for a person like Dawn?" she said scathingly. "I understand that very well."
"You don't." It was a cry of anguish. "How can you understand something I'm only beginning to understand myself! That day on the boat—when I wanted to… when I lost control It had never happened to me before and I was—well, bowled over by it. No girl had ever got under my skin the way you had and… and to be honest about it, I hated the idea of it. That's why I went to Dawn. To prove to myself that you weren't the only girl who could arouse me." He turned his back on her. "I suppose that makes you hate me even more than you do already?"
She considered the question. She was surprised by what Nicky had said, but the more she thought about it, the more she appreciated the fear that had motivated his behavior. Of course he would hate the girl who made him feel vulnerable. That was something Nicky Barratt had vowed never to be. But he was. Vulnerable to herself. It was an exhilarating thought but she was careful to hide it. Nicky had to see this for himself. When he did, he would either run away from it—as he had subconsciously done when he had gone to see Dawn—or he would face up to the knowledge that one girl had come to mean something special to him.
"You still haven't answered me," he said.
"I don't hate you," she replied. "You aren't the person I thought you were, but—"
"I'm not the person I thought I was either!" he put in dryly. "But maybe by the time we return to England we'll both have a better idea of who Nicky Barratt is."
"I can't stay here until you're ready to come home."
"Why not? You'll like Hollywood."
"You'll be shooting for three months and I—I don't want our engagement to go on that long. Bob said we should end it when you were halfway through the film."
"You're eager to see the back of me, aren't you?"
"Won't you be pleased to see my back too? Having a fiancé must curtail your activities." She was delighted at the casualness of her voice and even more delighted to see him scowl. She stood up. "Which nightclub are we going to tonight?"
"None." He looked faintly on the defensive. "As you weren't feeling well, I thought we'd go somewhere quiet."
"Your friends won't like that."
"I don't have any friends. I told you that once before."
"I remember. But I thought you only said it as part of your act."
"I didn't put on an act with you, Val. Leastways not after the first few times we met. And I don't give a damn whether or not you believe me." He strode to the door. "Come on. We're going to a place I know on Park and the Sixties. And if it's still the same, there'll be no one there who's ever heard of me."
Valerie found this hard to believe, Nicky's publicity being what it was, yet amazingly it was true, for no one gave them a second glance when they entered Mama Luigi's. It was an Italian restaurant that looked homely and inexpensive and was homely and fantastically expensive.
They were shown to a corner table, half-hidden from the other diners by a large potted palm, and Mama Luigi herself came out to take their order, suggesting various dishes of the day and firmly refusing to serve them cocktails.
"We have Italian wine only. But the very best. You start with a bottle right away, and perhaps with your cheese, another half bottle of something special."
"I'm in your hands, Mama," Nicky smiled.
'Better you should be in the hands of your beautiful girl friend."
"My fiancée," he corrected.
Mama Luigi cast a look at Valerie's ringless fingers and Nicky looked startled. "We got engaged in a hurry."
"Always the young are in a hurry. But don't be in such a hurry that you forget to put a hands-off sign on this girl of yours."
"I'll do it first thing tomorrow," he promised, and gave Valerie a rueful smile as the woman walked away. "I forgot to tell you what a character she is. Tonight she's in one of her quiet moods!"
"You could have fooled me!" Valerie studied the other people nearby. They were conservatively dressed and nearer middle age than young, which was not surprising when one considered the prices here. Yet they did not look like expense account diners either. "How did you find this place?"
"By chance. I was in New York a few months ago and slipped away from the gang. I asked a cabby to take me to the best Italian restaurant he knew, and he brought me here. Don't tell Bob about it," he warned, "or everyone will know."
"What other secrets do you have from him?" It was an idle question and she was unprepared for the grim look that came onto his face.
"Only this one, so far. But I'm learning."
"Learning what?"
"To keep my own counsel and make my own decisions."
He broke off as their wine arrived but even when the waiter had gone, he did not pick up the same subject. For the rest of the meal, he talked about his forthcoming film and she had the impression that his mind was elsewhere. But it was only when they were driving back to the hotel that he said something that proved her right.
"I look on tonight as our first proper date, Val. You know me for the skunk I am and there was no need for me to pretend. I forced myself not to talk about anything that's happened between us, and though it made the conversation hard going, I didn't do badly, did I?"
"You did very well. I know as much about making films as a film producer!"
He was still smiling at her remark when they entered the lobby and went to the reception desk for their keys. A sheaf of telephone messages was handed to Valerie and she looked at them uncomprehend- ingly, wondering who was trying to get in touch with her. Nicky took the bundle from her hands.
Rachel Lindsay - An Affair To Forget Page 12