Trust Too Much

by Jayne Bauling

  Fee was shaking her head vehemently, aware of a wound in her heart, as if someone had just stabbed her. Simon.

  ‘You set me up,’ she accused tightly. ‘You let me come up here when you could quite easily have rung and told me you wouldn’t be needing those figures today after all.’

  ‘And miss out on our…celebration?’ Simon prompted, the gentle, indolent mockery incensing her still further. ‘These aren’t working hours, so the rules don’t apply. There’s no work to be done, so let’s play, I reasoned. We both deserve to after the work we’ve put in, getting the Macau project launched, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, this was supposed to be my reward, was it?’ she urged savagely. ‘Getting to see the great Simon Rhodes half naked, being kissed by him—’

  ‘And kissing him back very satisfactorily,’ he pointed out, beginning to laugh. ‘So it was my reward as well, and our private celebration. I’ve enjoyed the anticipation of it too, although I’m a little surprised at how long I spun it out…Do you know, I haven’t made love to any other woman since before that party when you’d just come home? Hell, maybe I’ve really reformed after all. You’ve reformed me, Fee!’

  He sounded so delighted with the idea which had clearly only just occurred to him that, in other circumstances, Fee might have laughed, but his continuing refusal to take her anger seriously outraged her, and her eyes blazed.

  ‘Reform, Simon?’ she prompted, bitingly sceptical. ‘I’d have said the reverse, because this—today—is absolutely typical of you, isn’t it? I suppose I should have guessed, but I honestly believed you’d never really behave like Mr Sheldon. But you have—just like him!’

  ‘You didn’t want him, while you know you do want me.’ Still frustratingly unperturbed by her rage, Simon was smiling lazily at her, and the arrogant taunt contained an almost tender note that seemed to mock her, heightening her resentment.

  ‘Get this, Simon—I do not want a liar, someone who takes advantage of me. I trusted you to be open about things!’ She was so enraged that it was stealing her breath, and she had to stop, coincidentally spotting her keys and snatching them up.

  ‘But then you do tend to trust too much, don’t you? Didn’t your experience with Sheldon teach you anything?’ he mocked gently. ‘I did warn you just how far you could trust me. Never trust anyone completely, darling. We’re all thinking only of ourselves—’

  ‘Shut up!’ She didn’t want to hear him admitting to these things; she didn’t want them to be true—not of Simon. ‘Oh, yes, I know I was stupid, but that doesn’t make what you did any better.’

  ‘Oh, was there room for improvement? I don’t usually get complaints, but come here and let’s—celebrate a little more, and see if I can do better.’

  ‘Celebrate what?’ Fee was caustic. ‘My being a fool or your being—what you are? And that’s something I despise!’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re over-reacting slightly?’ Simon enquired with sardonic interest, still essentially untroubled although his expression had hardened. ‘You’re starting to bore me, Fee.’

  ‘I would have eventually anyway,’ she flared. ‘That’s axiomatic, isn’t it? If a woman interests Simon Rhodes to begin with, she bores him in the end—because there has to be an end. This happens to be ours.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, this is only the beginning,’ he retorted, still indolently confident, real enjoyment sparkling in the blue eyes. ‘Although I’ll accept the postponement of our celebration since in your present mood you’re likely to rip me to shreds if we get close again. But why don’t you stay for lunch anyway?’

  He really was enjoying himself, Fee realised furiously—and she was providing the enjoyment, actually entertaining him by being so angry and showing it, dignifying his duplicity by reacting to it instead of walking out of here. Not any more, though.

  ‘No!’

  Her answer was violent and she swallowed everything else she might have said, turning and walking away, resisting the temptation to halt and let him have it after all, although the soft laughter that followed her tried her sorely.

  She was still furious when she reached her apartment, but it couldn’t last. The anger was a defence, and the reality from which it shielded her was too powerful to be denied any longer. At least it had carried her safely home, though, so the worst, first throes of her descent into sheer misery were mercifully private. Simon’s cynical manipulation and total absence of repentance had angered her; but more than that they had hurt, and she couldn’t bear it, so here she was, crying over him.

  Just like all the others, she reflected bitterly, hopelessly in love and heartbroken.

  Disliking him, resenting him, for all sorts of reasons and on behalf of so many people including herself, had been such a habit; otherwise she would have known long ago—oh, and hadn’t she suspected the truth lately, and then complacently convinced herself that she wasn’t that stupid?—because she thought she had loved him a long time and had perhaps even sensed her capacity to do so all those years ago when she had been so self-consciously awkward under his eyes, and so devastated by the public humiliation he had caused her when she had spilt her drink over him and ended up in his lap.

  She had been a child then and her family, or Babs at any rate, still treated her as if she were one, probably because she had never challenged their perception of her with any real conviction—because some subconscious, self-protective part of her had wanted her to remain a child, safe from loving Simon? Children didn’t fall in love with Simon Rhodes. Women did. But she was a woman and it had been inevitable, the fight always futile. Most women fell in love with him; a few of them got over it.

  Fee didn’t believe she ever would.

  She was subdued all weekend, too deep in despair to spend more than odd moments wondering if their usual rules would still be in force when she went to the office on Monday, or if her emotional reaction to his duplicity would have caused Simon to lose interest in her at last, once he stopped being amused by it, especially as even in the midst of that amusement he had claimed that she was beginning to bore him.

  On Sunday, eager to try out her built-in barbecue, she invited Babs and Charles over for lunch, but her mood and the fact that the day suddenly turned grey and damp made the occasion less than a lively success.

  ‘Oh, baby, what’s wrong?’ Babs took the opportunity to demand anxiously when the two of them went inside, leaving Charles to make sure the fire was truly out. ‘You’re so quiet. Are you lonely here all on your own, or is something wrong at work?’

  ‘Work is fine. Simon—’

  The slight inadvertent emphasis plus her inability to get Simon’s name out properly made Babs’s eyes widen in realisation.

  ‘Oh, no, Fee, not you? Not Simon!’

  ‘Why not?’ Fee returned bleakly. ‘It happens to nearly everyone else. Why not me?’

  ‘But…he’s not actually interested in you, is he?’ Babs was suddenly suspicious.

  ‘Oh, only in his usual casual way,’ Fee offered dismissively. ‘It will pass. We all know that.’

  ‘Have you—?’

  ‘No!’ Fee cut in. ‘You know me, Babs. I don’t want the things he enjoys…affairs. I want to get married, and be loved, and know my husband is as faithful as I am, and have children; those things.’

  ‘Yes, of course you do. You mustn’t give in to him, Fee,’ Babs advised rather dramatically. ‘He’ll break your heart. You have to resist him!’

  Fee tried to laugh, and shivered, suddenly chilled.

  ‘When he’s irresistible? I’m not sure if I can go on doing it, Babs, but he has had so many lovers, and hurt them, even if he didn’t mean to. I don’t want to end up like them, but I’m so scared I will.’

  Babs put a comforting arm round her. ‘He’s a swine.’

  ‘It’s starting to rain.’ Charles joined them.

  ‘Do you know what that friend of yours has done to poor little Fee?’ Babs challenged furiously. ‘Simon Rhodes. You must pack that job in,
Fee—Charles, you have to speak to him. In fact, I’m going to—’

  ‘Cut it out, Babs,’ Charles roared, making them both jump. ‘Just stay out of it! It’s their business. They’re both adults, and if you stopped treating Fee like a baby and worrying about her all the time, trying to improve on the job you did when she really was in need of mothering, maybe you wouldn’t have such a hang-up about having some real babies of your own.’

  ‘I’ve told you I’m no good—’

  Suddenly they were both yelling at each other, but then Charles stopped and said, ‘We’re leaving—now! Sorry about this, Fee, and thanks for lunch. It was great.’

  Fee hated quarrels at the best of times so she let them go without protesting. Their conflict was more than she could bear just then, added to the weight of her personal distress over Simon, and especially as it seemed that she was indirectly responsible for a marital problem she hadn’t even guessed existed.

  Her heart sank when she heard a knock at the door only a few minutes after their departure. Babs must have refused to get into the car with Charles—

  But Simon stood at the door, ironic impatience flickering in his eyes as he observed her pale, tense face.

  ‘Don’t tell me yesterday is still bothering you,’ he began sardonically, but then he gave her a more searching glance. ‘No, it’s not that, is it? Something has upset you. Something to do with Sheldon? Or—I passed Charles and Babs driving away. What’s the trouble?’

  Fee hesitated, beginning to tremble. Part of her was frantic, desperate to get away from him and the pain of loving him and knowing she could never have him, which was unbearably heightened by the simple fact of his presence. But in her vulnerable state Simon’s question sounded like an offer of comfort, admittedly too impatient to constitute caring or concern, but nevertheless a reaching out of sorts.

  ‘Babs and Charles…they were fighting and I think it might be my fault,’ she confided through chattering teeth as he stepped inside and closed the door. ‘I didn’t know before…She doesn’t want to have babies and Charles does, and I know it must be because she believes she’ll be no good as a mother because she still feels guilty about how she sometimes failed me, but she was only a child—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Simon stopped her tautly as a gasping sob convulsed her, a single stride bringing him to her, his hands going to her upper arms which were clammy beneath the short sleeves of the black T-shirt she was wearing with jeans. ‘You’re frozen…Your bloody family. Here, put this on.’

  He was shrugging out of the casual biker’s jacket he had on and wrapping it round her. Fee shivered violently.

  ‘Simon, I don’t want to—’ she began agitatedly.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m just here to talk, Fee, and anything else is up to you. Forget Charles and Babs and their problems, and let’s concentrate on ours. Listen to me,’ Simon added quietly but emphatically, pulling her close for a moment. ‘Whatever the trouble is, it’s their responsibility, not yours, and worrying about it or feeling guilty isn’t going to help anyone. You are not to blame for any neuroses or hang-ups Barbara may have, because they’re hers; she created them.’

  ‘That’s one of your favourite theories, isn’t it?’ she prompted tartly, finally beginning to gain some control over her distress. ‘That’s why you won’t blame your parents and all their partners for the way you are.’

  Simon gave a faint grin. ‘I don’t consider that the “way I am” constitutes a hang-up, but you’re right. I’ll go so far as to admit that the way they lived may have affected me, as I think you once put it, but they’re not to blame for anything, because being affected—I refuse to say influenced—is a voluntary act; we let ourselves be affected…But I didn’t come here to discuss those people. I want to talk about us, and the rest is up to you. No hidden agenda this time, Fee, because I’d like to have your trust back, please.’

  Still distraught, Fee half accepted it, almost welcoming the way he was taking charge—taking over!—relaxing slightly and her teeth ceasing to chatter.

  ‘I’m sorry, I know I’m being boring and probably over-reacting again,’ she acknowledged acidly. ‘It’s just that Babs is so special. It makes me feel cold, wondering what would have become of me if I hadn’t had her when my father and Angela forgot about us, because I was even littler than she was and couldn’t do a thing for myself in the beginning.’

  ‘I know; it almost makes her general silliness forgivable,’ Simon conceded, shaking his head slightly. ‘What a childhood, and what a paradox too, because, while you were utterly neglected in most practical ways, you obviously never lacked for love, and only occasionally for money, which most people regard as the two most important things in life…But stop worrying about Babs. You’re not responsible for her limitations, whether real or imagined.’

  ‘I know. Oh, it’s just that everything seems to have come at once, all in one weekend,’ Fee excused her distress, with no thought of trying to minimise her reaction to the previous day’s events or pretending that she had dismissed his behaviour.

  ‘You’re too emotional for your own good. That was also a very emotional reaction yesterday, wasn’t it?’ Simon added, glancing at her pale face. ‘Not that I didn’t enjoy it all, but after you’d gone I started wondering if I should have taken it a bit more seriously. Plus, I regretted losing your trust—because I knew you’d been starting to trust me, and I’d taken advantage of it. But hell, Fee, you do want me.’

  A wan smile crossed her face, because it was so typical of Simon. Sharing none of the idealism that made an affair so impossible for her, he saw that as the only thing that mattered, everything else being extraneous.

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point in denying it.

  He slanted her a quick smile. ‘Yes, so there’s no need for me to take short-cuts without warning you. I’d like you to trust me again, so from now on I mean to be open about the whole thing. I’d like to have an affair with you, and I hope you’ll let me stay with you tonight, or come home with me, but if you don’t feel ready yet then I can wait, and not try to con you, or exploit you in any way.’

  Swallowing painfully, Fee shook her head.

  She could never have an affair with him. Ideals apart, she loved him too much, and she knew she lacked the emotional resilience to be able to bear it when he tired of her, as he inevitably must. She simply didn’t have the temperament to take what he was offering philosophically and accept that she must pay for it with a certain amount of suffering afterwards, as other easygoing or perhaps just plain reckless women seemed able to do.

  Or maybe they simply couldn’t help themselves. Glancing at him, and feeling her heart wrenched by love, Fee suddenly wasn’t sure if she could help herself either—only how could she happily have an affair with him, knowing all the time that it must end? I would destroy her. Oh, she had to stay strong!

  Simon followed her into the lounge, accepting a glass of the red wine she and the others had been drinking with lunch.

  He came and sat beside her on the couch and she tensed.

  ‘So let’s talk about all these complications we have to get out of the way,’ he suggested drily, sitting turned towards her.

  Fee moved her head in denial, saying sharply, ‘There’s no point, nothing to talk about. Once and for all, Simon, I can’t—I just cannot have an affair with you.’

  ‘Can I remind you that you want to?’ he asked softly and moved, dropping a quick warm kiss on her lips before sitting back again, a hand lifted to her face, fingers trailing lightly down the side of her cheek and over the satiny smoothness of her slender neck. ‘But I suppose I have to accept that it’s not as simple for you as it is for me, so let’s hear what the difficulties are.’

  A quivering sigh escaped her, and she stirred languidly. Most of the difficulties seemed absurdly irrelevant suddenly, but on another level she knew that they were real—only how could she go on resisting him, when he was making her feel like this, so warm and weak, trembling inwardly and outw
ardly? Perhaps if she explained her problem properly he would understand and—perhaps the problem would turn out to be something he could banish for her. The thought turned itself into a fatal wish, and, realising it, she stiffened, furious with herself.

  ‘There isn’t any one specific thing, just all your other lovers generally,’ she snapped, and saw him smile. ‘All right, I know it must seem hilarious to you with all your experience, and I suppose if I had a bit more of my own—I mean, if I’d had several affairs myself—I’d be able to see other people’s affairs in some sort of perspective, and be used to not letting them matter as long as they were over and done with, and maybe most of yours wouldn’t matter…But I am not used to it, Simon!’

  ‘Never mind my past for a moment. What about yours?’ Simon sounded slightly amused. ‘You’ve got me intrigued. Just how few affairs have you had, since the Sheldon business wasn’t one, as I believed? I’ve realised since you told me what really happened there that you’ve retained a degree of innocence, but I hardly imagined you regarded your limited experience as some sort of handicap, especially when you’re so scathing of my…wealth of it, shall we say? How innocent are you really?’

  His fingertips still stroked lightly at the tender curve of her throat and it took a moment or two to concentrate on the question.

  ‘When I’ve spent all my life among people who go in for lots of affairs, starting with Angela, and then people like you, I’m not likely to have much mental innocence left, am I?’ she prompted with a wry little grimace. ‘But in myself—practically, I mean…well, it’s total really.’

  Simon looked so shocked that she blushed. Suddenly he was no longer touching her, and the blue eyes were narrowed with suspicion as they raked her face.

  ‘Total? What about Warren Bates?’ he demanded.

  Fee shook her head, her mouth tightening slightly. ‘The first time he even held my hand you appeared and sent him packing, and he was too offended or inhibited or something ever to make another move with me again.’