Trust Too Much

by Jayne Bauling

  ‘What about Babs and Charles?‘ Fee demanded rebelliously.

  ‘They’re probably on their best behaviour when other people are around,’ Simon retorted.

  ‘Your cynicism really is total and irremediable, isn’t it?’ she taunted.

  ‘I call it realism,’ he returned with a laugh. ‘No, Fee, I’ve never regarded myself as a cynic.’

  ‘You don’t believe in love,’ she reminded him acidly.

  ‘But I do,’ he contradicted her, clearly enjoying himself. ‘But in love ephemeral, not love eternal, and undoing a marriage can be a complicated business. Not that I wouldn’t like to believe in the sort of thing you obviously believe Charles and Babs have got. I think I’d quite like to be loved in some unreserved, wholly committed way, not in spite of all my faults, but with them, because they’re accepted as part of me.’

  ‘You ask a lot,’ Fee commented drily, thinking of his particular faults.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do,’ he conceded insouciantly. ‘Only I don’t really, because, as I say, I don’t believe in that sort of thing, I don’t need it. How can anyone need something that doesn’t exist?’

  He was so confident, so utterly free of doubts about the cynical code that dictated his lifestyle, that Fee was piqued.

  ‘I suppose all your parents’ marriages have put you off?’ she guessed flippantly.

  Simon flung her a derisive look. ‘Quit the amateur psychology, sweetheart. It’s hardly original, either, if you’re running away with the idea that I’m influenced by the turbulent lives my parents and their various partners led. No one influences me. Only the weak let others shape their thinking.’

  ‘But we’re all affected by the people we come into contact with because none of us can exist entirely in isolation,’ Fee responded sharply. ‘It’s only weakness if we’re influenced against our will, and its very obvious that the life you lead isn’t against yours. You’ve chosen it, it suits you.’

  But she thought his parents’ notoriously frequent marriages and divorces probably had affected him, even if he either didn’t believe it or wouldn’t admit it.

  A mocking glint was evident in Simon’s eyes. ‘I want an assistant, Fee, not a shrink or a philosopher.’

  ‘It was you who dragged the conversation down to a personal level first,’ she reminded him tartly, ‘going on about Warren and Mr Sheldon.’

  Unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘Or is it just that you enjoy arguing with me? Still making up for the days when you were too shy to answer back?’

  It could well be that, she reflected sardonically. Certainly, something about Simon seemed to challenge her, making her unusually contrary-minded, gripped by a need to contradict and question everything he said, but perhaps she ought to start trying to conquer the impulse if she wanted the job he was offering her.

  But not yet!

  ‘You’re not my boss yet,’ she mentioned sweetly, and he laughed again.

  ‘Oh, I won’t expect doormat docility even when I am.’

  They had reached Rhodes Properties and Simon told her to come up to the floor on which he had his suite of offices. In the outer room he introduced her to Maynah Norman, a slim, attractive platinum-blonde in her mid-twenties.

  ‘Maynah can give you some idea of what the job entails while I go through Miss Sung-Li’s assessment. Then I’ll probably have a few questions of my own to ask you,’ he warned her and disappeared into his own office.

  ‘Unfortunately I won’t be around to ease you into the job,’ Maynah cautioned Fee after giving her an outline of her duties and the methods Simon insisted on as well as answering her questions. ‘I’ve told Simon and Personnel that I want to leave as soon as they decide on my replacement, but you shouldn’t find it too daunting, especially as I gather you’ve known Simon for some years.’

  ‘Since I was a teenager,’ Fee admitted.

  ‘So you must be used to him. Immune too, probably. Lucky you,’ Maynah added fervently, smiling wryly as Fee’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, you must know that most of us aren’t. That’s why I’m leaving. He has never been interested in me, of course; he doesn’t like women with brains, only silly, giggling little socialites. But for a long time I accepted it, if only I could be near him. I’d never have believed I could have so little pride, living for the sight of him, knowing I didn’t have a chance. But lately…I suppose it’s reviving pride. I’m not prepared to go on doing that to myself, living on dreams. Naturally, he thinks I should stay and sweat it out.’

  The conclusion was tinged with bitterness and Fee felt both compassion and embarrassment as she saw that tears were standing in Maynah’s sapphire eyes.

  ‘He knows…?’ Sensitively, she abandoned the question, sudden anger turning her own eyes almost black as she recalled Simon’s comments about the lack of reason behind Mynah’s resignation.

  ‘Oh, he knows,’ Maynah confirmed, her lips trembling. ‘But he can’t see my point—he can’t put himself in my place. He thinks I’ll simply fall in love with someone else one of these fine days and the problem will have solved itself. Maybe I am capable of loving someone else, maybe I’m not, but I’m never going to find out for sure while I’m still seeing him every day, because I just don’t see other men at the moment. Simon has blinded me, if you like. If you’ve known him so long, I suppose he thinks it’s an advantage, that he won’t have to put up with the same sort of inconvenience all over again, because if you haven’t been as stupid as I have before now then you’re unlikely to be at this late stage either.’

  It could be true, Fee reflected. She still felt oddly angry, though, mostly on Mynah’s behalf, although Simon’s callous attitude shouldn’t have surprised her.

  The anger was still evident when she was summoned to his office.

  ‘Ah, Fee.’ Simon was seated behind a large desk, looking at a slim folder of papers, but he rose as she entered. ‘I see from this Miss Betancourt’s report that you did in fact resign from the job in Australia. The desperately determined way you were talking about everlasting love earlier had me wondering if the stories about Sheldon firing you might be true after all and you were still yearning for him, but obviously you were the one who tired of the relationship first and were responsible for that very public break-up. I suppose he couldn’t accept it and you felt compelled to leave rather than sit it out until he got over you.’

  ‘The way Mynah is supposed to get over you?’ Fee hadn’t intended to say that, but the angry words came tumbling out before she could stop them and, hearing herself, she paused to draw a controlling breath, dropping her bag on to one of the chairs facing the desk. ‘She says you know why she’s leaving.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Simon agreed flatly. ‘It’s her decision, but I don’t see why she couldn’t have toughed it out, especially when I’ve tactfully ignored the whole thing up until now, for both our sakes. She’d have got over me eventually. Love—’

  ‘—doesn’t last,’ Fee got in swiftly in a softly taunting chant, eyes sparkling with furious derision because there it was again, the emphasis she found so abrasive to her own beliefs concerning love.

  He just laughed appreciatively. ‘You’re really getting to know me, aren’t you? But why are you so angry?’

  ‘All my life I’ve kept falling over women in floods of tears because of you—Ismay Compton for instance, and—’

  ‘Now that has to be an exaggeration,’ Simon drawled, still sounding amused. ‘You haven’t known me all your life.’

  ‘Mercifully,’ Fee snapped.

  ‘So what exactly is the matter?’ He seemed utterly unperturbed.

  It made her pause, because she didn’t really know. His dismissal of Maynah’s feelings was callous, yes, but she shouldn’t be reacting quite so strongly, especially when her sensitive imagination forced her to sympathise to a certain degree. He must get so tired of women falling in love with him.

  ‘Nothing is the matter,’ she finally said bitingly, eyes blazing. ‘In fact, everything is perfect, and if you’re goi
ng to offer me this job it will suit me fine—and suit you even better, obviously. That’s why you actually bothered even considering me when Charles came hinting to you, isn’t it? Because you know I’m not one of your adorers so you’ll be safe from having to feel embarrassed or guilty—not that you’ve ever cared about any of the poor idiots before, but perhaps you’re tired of being adored, because everything bores you eventually, doesn’t it?’

  Fee could hear herself going on and on, and she was disconcerted again. It really would suit her perfectly because she had wanted a boss she could rely on not to start seeing her as Vance Sheldon had—so why was she so incensed?

  ‘Where in the world have you got hold of all these strange ideas—both about me and about yourself?’ Simon gestured expressively, still completely unaffected by her fury. ‘Fee, darling, all I require of my assistant is efficiency—which Maynah provided. The rest was irrelevant, although in your case adoration would be a bonus and I’d be delighted.’

  Fee gasped and she was staring at him, unable to believe what she was hearing, but finally it registered.

  ‘You must have the most incredible ego!’ she raged scornfully. ‘What sort of satisfaction does that give you, having even those women who don’t interest or attract you falling in love with you—worshipping you?’

  ‘Hell, if you think I suffer from that sort of vanity, you can’t know me so well after all. Why shouldn’t you interest and attract me, please tell me?’ Simon invited her smoothly, following it with a blazing smile. ‘In fact, Fee, you could quite easily turn out to be the next woman in my life. Would you enjoy that? I think I would.’

  Heat flooded Fee’s face. ‘I cannot imagine a fate more appalling. Very funny, Simon. I thought you were supposed to be responsible where Rhodes Properties is concerned, however much you fool around away from work.’

  His smile vanished as he heard the resentful note. ‘Oh, I agree, this is hardly the occasion and it’s something we’d do better to pursue at our leisure, but, since the subject has arisen, let’s not be too strict with ourselves. The world isn’t going to end if we occasionally happen to discuss personal matters in between business.’

  ‘There’s nothing personal to discuss,’ she flared, feeling rather desperate suddenly.

  ‘Aren’t you over-reacting?’ Simon enquired coolly. ‘I merely commented to the effect that you could well turn out to be the next woman in my life, darling.’

  Was that what Vance Sheldon had started out thinking? But Fee still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that Simon was serious. He had to be teasing her.

  ‘Just how gullible do you think I am, Simon?’ she demanded tautly.

  Simon frowned. ‘Gullible in what way?’

  ‘This is a joke, isn’t it?’ Fee condemned, striving to quell the emotional agitation suddenly afflicting her. ‘I remember how you used to tease me sometimes…’

  ‘When you were a kid, which you’re not now. Oh, I know you’re not my usual type—small and either sassy or dumb—but I imagine you see what I see when you look at yourself in a mirror. It’s not strictly beauty, but there’s a certain tender sophistication, and all that sensual grace…something I never visualised your acquiring even if you lost the clumsiness. But, in view of the way you’re reacting to a casual comment, I’ve an idea that there are other things from the past, some excess emotional baggage, that you have yet to discard,’ he observed thoughtfully, a speculative gleam in the brilliant blue eyes. ‘You were a child then, and I treated you as such, but you’ve come home a lovely and desirable young woman with a welcome amount of experience behind you, obviously, and I for one am delighted, even if no one else can see it.’

  ‘If that’s true—’ Fee was convinced that she was probably making a fool of herself by even considering the possibility that it might be ‘—it‘s because you’re bored, isn’t it? You’ve always got any woman you’ve ever wanted, quite easily, but you know I don’t like you and that I’ll never—’

  ‘Oh, not that old cliché about being a challenge to me,’ Simon interrupted derisively, laughter lurking in his eyes now. ‘I’m not one of those men who claims to enjoy that sort of challenge. I’ve never really believed them anyway. I think I’d find it far too damaging to my pride to have to pursue a woman who kept on resisting and rejecting me, and only a total animal could take any satisfaction from an unwilling woman if his patience ran out.’

  ‘Then you won’t be…pursuing me, will you?’ Fee prompted caustically, still utterly sceptical.

  ‘Meaning you’ll be resisting me?’ Frustratingly, Simon didn’t give her a direct answer, and Fee grew very still as he moved out from behind the desk. ‘We’ll see, won’t we? It’s quite possible that once you accept that we have a new relationship these days, that I no longer regard you as a child and won’t treat you like one, you may find that you don’t want to resist me after all.’

  His arrogance was outrageous, and Fee gave him a scalding smile, her eyes dark with denial.

  ‘Because no one else ever does? I could never be interested in someone like you, Simon,’ she asserted passionately. ‘I don’t even like you, and, if I did, with all the women you’ve been involved with, all the women I’ve seen crying over you—’

  ‘They come into the relationships with their eyes wide open, so I don’t know why they depart crying.’ The dismissal was ruthless.

  ‘Maynah Norman wasn’t in any sort of personal relationship with you.’ Fee’s voice shook with rage.

  ‘Then I’m not responsible for whatever she feels, because I haven’t encouraged her.’ Simon’s voice was hard, without a trace of either compassion or compunction, and Fee winced for Maynah and however many others there were like her. ‘But I think I could end up encouraging you, Fee.’

  His voice had dropped now, assuming a warmly caressing note, and apprehension made her pulses leap as she realised how close to her he was suddenly.

  ‘You just don’t care, do you?’ she accused him tempestuously, gripped by a terrible tension now. ‘You may love women, but you don’t respect them. All they’re good for is entertaining you—pleasing you until you get tired of them. You amuse yourself at the expense of their feelings, and now you think you’ve found a new way of amusing yourself, with me, by dragging me into this pointless argument, but I’m not playing. This is supposed to be an interview, remember?’

  ‘In fact, an interview is superfluous since I know you, know the person you are, while Miss Sung-Li’s assessment and the Betancourt reference have told me all I need to know about your abilities and experience. But we’ll keep it formal for now—Miss Sung-Li will be contacting you and offering you the position—because once you’re officially hired as my assistant we’ll have to confine this sort of thing to after-hours.’

  Simon’s hands had come to rest lightly on her shoulders, and Fee was suddenly trembling violently as they now slid confidently down to her back. Otherwise, she found herself unexpectedly incapable of movement. His hands were gently massaging as if he sought to ease her tension, his arms were strong, and she was possessed by a treacherous urge to lean, to let him support and soothe her and take away all the terrible, humiliating things that had happened to her in recent weeks and keep her safe.

  But no woman who yielded to Simon Rhodes was ever safe for long. He broke hearts…

  Her lips shook beneath the light touch of his mouth, and her eyes fluttered closed—just for a moment, she promised herself, to see what it was like. This was what he did to other women, the women who loved him…

  Simon’s lips were warm, lazily exploratory, nudging and encouraging, and Fee couldn’t stop a sigh that sounded suspiciously like one of surrender as her hands moved of their own accord to his upper arms and clung, discovering the reassuring strength and solidity of the taut muscles beneath the fine expensive fabric of his jacket.

  He accepted the involuntary invitation confidently, deepening the kiss with a sure sensuality that altered and intensified the nature of her trembling
as a sweetly piercing thrill of sensation manifested itself in the core of her being. Her mouth felt all tingling and sparkling, responding tentatively now to the warmly erotic play of his, and Simon had drawn her closer, making her body aware of the power of his.

  ‘You see, Fee,’ he murmured against her lips as he ended the kiss, ‘you’ve only come back to Hong Kong. You haven’t gone back in time. You’re still the woman that man in Australia found so irresistible. Others as well, I imagine. And a woman I too find desirable.’

  Fee had stiffened at the mention of Australia.

  ‘Let me go,’ she demanded in a stifled voice and he did, glancing at his watch and laughing softly.

  ‘That was interesting…and very promising,’ he commented with offensive nonchalance. ‘I’m encouraged to pursue it, but unfortunately I’ve got a meeting in five or ten minutes. Miss Sung-Li will be in touch with you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want the job after all,’ Fee began tempestuously, snatching up her bag.

  ‘Why not?’ Simon enquired silkily, a dangerous glint in his eyes. ‘What’s changed? All right, you’ve just discovered that you’re capable of responding to me, but you don’t seem to have had any objection to mixing business and pleasure in the past.’

  ‘Pleasure?’ Fee was scathing. ‘Your arrogance is amazing, but that’s why Miss Sung-Li can contact me if that’s the way it’s done at Rhodes—because I’d dearly love to prove to you that you’re not as irresistible as you think you are.’

  ‘When can you start?’ There was a wicked charm to Simon’s insouciant smile. ‘Maynah wants out as soon as possible—’

  ‘I haven’t said I’m definitely accepting,’ she cautioned him sharply. ‘I said Miss Sung-Li could contact me, and I will consider what she has to say very carefully, with reference to both my future interests and the things you’ve just been saying to me, because the one thing I don’t need in my life is a repeat of what happened in Australia…Although I suppose I should see the funny side. Apparently I have a peculiar attraction for older men! First there was Mr Sheldon, and now there’s you. Thank you for seeing me.’