‘A woman after my own heart,’ Lang congratulated her. With no change of tone, he added, ‘I understand you were expecting to be Cassandra’s bridesmaid?’
‘Yes, I was.’ Momentarily Penny sounded wistful. ‘But I’m delighted things have turned out this way. It’s just like a fairy tale.’
‘Well, to make up for any slight disappointment, why don’t you come for a visit? Say in about a month’s time.’
‘You mean come over to the States?’
‘Don’t you fancy a trip to California?’
‘I certainly do!’ Penny began eagerly. Then, coming down to earth with a bump, she said, ‘But I’ve already had a holiday this year, so I doubt if I could manage the time off work or—’ About to say ‘or the air fare’, she bit off the words.
‘Well, as you work for me, taking time off will be no problem, so if you’re in agreement I’ll make arrangements for you to fly on the company jet.’
‘Marvellous!’
‘Then we’ll expect to see you when we get back from our honeymoon… Unless you’d like to come a few days early and see something of Vegas?’
‘Oooh… It’s always been one of my dreams to see Las Vegas… But I really can’t butt in when you’re on your honeymoon.’
‘If we thought you’d be butting in, we wouldn’t be inviting you.’
‘Well, I—’
‘Then we’ll regard it as settled. I’ll be in touch again nearer the time.’
‘Thank you.’ Penny sounded as if she was floating on cloud nine.
‘Now I’ll pass you back to Cassandra for a private talk. But don’t keep her too long; we have a full afternoon’s schedule, hopefully starting with—’
Pink-cheeked, Cassandra fairly snatched the phone out of his hand, and made to rise.
Laughing, he let her go, and, switching off the microphone, headed for the door.
‘Okay?’ Penny queried.
‘Yes, he’s gone.’
‘Is he as sexy as he sounds?’
‘And the rest.’
‘So that chemistry was there from the first?’
‘You could say that.’
‘How did Alan take it? My guess would be wounded pride rather than a broken heart.’
‘Your guess isn’t far wrong.’
‘So when did you actually get married?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘Cass, can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is everything going all right…? I mean, after what happened in Paris… You didn’t…?’
‘Freeze up, you mean? Anything but.’
‘Thank God!’ Penny said fervently. ‘I’d begun to think that swine had screwed you up totally…’
The girls chatted for a while longer, then Penny said, ‘I’d better go. Your lord and master said not to keep you too long, and though he sounds a lot like Mr Wonderful personified I should imagine he can be quite formidable if he’s crossed…
‘Well, see you in about a month’s time, and thank you both. I can hardly believe it! In the meantime send me a card from Las Vegas…if you can manage to write postcards in bed, that is.’
Cassandra replaced the receiver and stood staring into space. Penny had said ‘thank you both’… But, though delighted, she’d had nothing to do with the invitation. It had been Lang’s idea, and she was beginning to know him well enough to be certain that he never did anything without a good reason.
So why had he invited Penny over? What was his motive?
‘All set?’ Lang’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Looking up, she saw that, tall and wide-shouldered, he was lounging in the doorway.
‘Something wrong?’ he queried. ‘You seem a bit pensive.’
She turned to face him. ‘Why did you ask Penny to come over?’
He lifted a brow with that quizzical look she was starting to know well. ‘Don’t you want her to come? I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Of course I want her to come, and I am pleased. I just wondered why.’
‘Call it an impulse.’
‘I wouldn’t have put you down as the impulsive kind.’
‘Ah, but there’s still a lot you don’t know about me…’
Cassandra sighed. He was an expert at stonewalling, and it seemed clear that he had no intention of telling her.
‘At the moment,’ he went on, ‘I have an impulse to take you in my arms and kiss you. But if I did we’d end up going back to bed, and as you vetoed that idea earlier… Unless you’ve changed your mind?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Then shopping it is.’
‘It won’t take too long,’ she said almost apologetically. ‘I just need a few things to tide me over, and I can’t afford to spend too much—’
His voice sharp, he broke in, ‘Surely it’s a husband’s prerogative to buy his wife’s clothes…?’
The fact that he was her husband was so new to her that she tended to forget.
‘And as I’m interested in how you look I’d like a say in choosing them.’
‘I wasn’t sure whether you’d want to come,’ she said uncertainly. ‘A lot of men can’t abide shopping.’
‘I don’t happen to be one of them. So let’s go and get your trousseau.’
He escorted her downstairs and across the lobby to the shopping mall, with its rich and glittering parade of shops and boutiques.
Most of the top fashion names were there, and the clothes were a dream. Instead of having to ask the price and spend with care, she was free to select whatever she wanted, and she found herself enjoying the novel experience.
But her main pleasure stemmed from the fact that Lang was interested. It made it all so much more fun. He had very definite ideas on how he wanted her to look, but happily their tastes coincided and most of the things she chose were simple and elegant.
They began with exquisite, cobwebby undies and glamorous nightwear, most of which Lang selected, before going on to buy day and evening clothes.
Because her wardrobe was small and tended to be mix-and-match, Cassandra usually chose neutral shades and, apart from black and white, avoided stronger colours.
Amongst the things Lang gave his approval to were khaki linen trousers, a beige-coloured silk jacket and an olive-green shirt. But he insisted on her trying a mulberry-coloured suit, a scarlet shift, a tangerine two-piece, and a gold lamé cocktail dress, all of which looked fantastic.
By the time she had acquired all the necessary accessories, it was time to go up to their suite to change for dinner.
They were followed by a small retinue of hotel staff who carried the various bags, boxes and packages, and for the first time Cassandra knew what it felt like to be married to a rich man.
When everything had been taken through to the bedroom, she thanked them, and as they left Lang tipped each and every one with his usual generosity.
‘I’ve a couple of phone calls to make,’ he told her, when they were alone, ‘so if you’d like to go ahead and get ready?’
When her purchases had been unpacked, a little dazed at having such a choice, she glanced through the open door and, finding Lang between calls, asked, ‘What shall I wear?’
‘Why not make it the gold lamé?’
Everything laid out neatly on the bed, she went into the bathroom to take a quick shower.
Dried and perfumed, she slipped on an ivory satin robe and loosely looped the belt. She had just finished pulling a brush through her tangle of curls when Lang walked in.
His eyes swept her from head to toe, lingering where the satin clung, gleaming and seductive, to every curve.
She replaced the brush and, obeying an impulse, went over to him. Putting her arms around his neck, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. As she did so the belt slipped undone and the robe’s satin edges parted enticingly.
He went white to the lips. With a sudden savage movement that took her by surprise, he unwound her arms and thrust her away from him so v
iolently that she staggered back against the shower stall.
As, a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and startled, she stared at him, he demanded with cold fury, ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘I—I don’t know what you mean,’ she stammered. ‘I just wanted to thank you for—’
‘I’ve no need for thanks.’
‘Well, perhaps I feel the need to give them.’
With icy contempt, he said, ‘A verbal thank-you would have been quite sufficient. You’ve no need to act like…like a whore.’
‘How dare you?’ Dragging the robe together, she fastened the belt with shaking hands. ‘I’m your wife.’
‘And, as I’ve already told you, I regard it as a husband’s prerogative to buy his wife’s clothes. I don’t need payment.’
Her own face pinched and white, she cried, ‘Payment! I had no intention of trying to pay you. And I wasn’t thanking you so much for the clothes as for the interest you took.’
The words tumbling over each other, she went on, ‘Back in London, when I bought my trousseau, Alan refused to come with me. I asked him, didn’t he care how I looked? His answer was that he hated shopping, and had no intention of hanging around looking like a fool while I tried things on. He said that so long as I was well turned out, and didn’t let him down, he wasn’t the slightest bit concerned what I chose. Such lack of interest felt like a slap in the face…
‘But you were different. I was so pleased and happy that you seemed to care what I wore and how I looked—’ She broke off abruptly, close to tears, her pleasure totally spoilt.
Head down, she didn’t see Lang’s expression change from anger and contempt to regret and compunction.
Biting back the urge to weep, she lifted her chin and, without looking at him, started for the bedroom.
‘Wait…’ He caught hold of her arm.
Tearing herself free, she cried, ‘Take your hands off me.’
In the bedroom she pushed aside her new finery and, her back turned to him, pulled on the clothes she’d been wearing previously. Then, with no idea of where she was going or what she intended to do, her only thought to get away, she headed for the door.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WAIT, Cassandra! I want to talk to you.’
When she ignored the injunction, he followed her, and, grasping her wrist, turned her back into his arms.
She fought furiously. ‘Let me go; I don’t want you to touch me.’
But, without hurting her, he kept her where she was, saying evenly, ‘If you’ll calm down and just listen a minute…’
He took both her hands and led her to a chair. Pushing her gently into it, he said, ‘I think we could both use a pre-dinner drink. What would you like?’
Unable to find her voice, she half shook her head.
He went over to the sideboard, and returned a moment later with a glass of sherry which he put into her hand. Then, having poured a whisky and soda for himself, he sat down close by and looked at her.
Leaning forward, he put a finger to her lips. ‘I want to apologize for saying what I did.’
‘You were quite wrong.’
‘I realize that now, and believe me, I’m sorry.’
The bitter hurt implicit in her voice, she said, ‘I just don’t understand how you could think a thing like that.’
Heavily, he told her, ‘Because it’s happened to me before.’ Almost to himself, he added, ‘But I shouldn’t have presumed that you were tarred with the same brush…’
Then, with a determined attempt to lighten the mood, he said, ‘Now what about putting on your new dress? We’ll have dinner at Jordan’s, before we go and paint the town red.’
Trying hard to regain her composure, she rose to do his bidding. But she’d never felt less like going out. The gold lamé dress that previously she’d looked forward to wearing no longer held any appeal. Neither did the thought of painting the town.
After a glance at her face he stretched out a hand and kept her there. ‘Forget it. If we’re to have the slightest chance of enjoying our honeymoon, I owe you an explanation… Maybe it’s time I told you about Nina.’ Then he said decidedly, ‘But let’s have dinner first.’
‘I’m not very hungry.’
He frowned his disapproval. ‘You had no breakfast and hardly any lunch, so you must try to eat something… Do you want to go down, or would you prefer to stay here?’
‘I’d prefer to stay here.’
He nodded, and a moment later was lifting the phone and asking for a light meal to be sent up.
A dinner-trolley arrived with admirable speed and efficiency, and in a very few minutes they were sitting down to watercress soup, grilled chicken and artichoke hearts.
In truth, Cassandra’s appetite was non-existent, but when the food was placed in front of her she made an effort to eat enough to satisfy Lang.
He himself ate sparingly, his expression grim, abstracted, as if his thoughts were far from pleasant.
As though he sat in a spotlight, she found herself very aware of him, of the small jagged scar on his left temple, the little laughter lines around his eyes, the fan of long, curly lashes, incongruous in such a tough, masculine face.
Watching him with heightened sensibilities, she noticed the neat, almost fastidious way he ate his food, the angle he held his fork, how from time to time he rested a wrist on the edge of the trolley…
Glancing up suddenly, he caught her eye.
Feeling herself start to blush, she looked hastily away.
‘Coffee?’ he queried evenly.
‘Please.’
Having filled two cups, he carried them over to the low table, before returning to pull out her chair.
When she would have taken a seat in one of the armchairs, he drew her on to the settee and sat down beside her.
She heard his sigh and saw that his face held the bleakness of winter. Whatever he was about to tell her, it was going to cost him dearly…
‘Lang.’ With sudden compassion, she touched his hand. ‘If it’s something you’d rather not talk about, please don’t… I know you loved Nina, and if your marriage wasn’t perfect—’
Flatly, he said, ‘I didn’t love Nina…’
I didn’t love Nina… Cassandra’s glow of relief was followed by guilt. How could she be pleased that he hadn’t loved his first wife? It was cruel and unfeeling…
But he was going on. ‘Our marriage was hell from the word go. I’ve never spoken about it before. Not even to Rob…though he must have guessed how things were.’
There was a pause, as though he was steeling himself, before he continued abruptly, ‘I was living in Beverly Hills when Nina and I first met. I’d been invited to a Hollywood party by a film producer who was hoping Dalton International would provide some financial backing for his next project. She was a house guest there.
‘Nina was a very beautiful woman, a true blonde with a stunning figure and eyes like aquamarines. She came from a good background, and could have taken her pick of the smart set’s most eligible men.
‘As far as her family were concerned, I was more of a rough diamond, and I was flattered when she made a dead set at me.
‘Though her home was in San Francisco she stayed over in Hollywood and I began to take her out. Nina was polished, and clever socially, a modern woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.
‘I’d expected her to be free-thinking, sexually uninhibited, but though she was fond of teasing, of leading me on, she always stopped short of going to bed.
‘We’d been going out for a week or so when she told me I was special, that she’d fallen in love with me. She made it clear that before we slept together she wanted marriage, my ring on her finger…’
Sitting with her hands clasped tightly together, Cassandra listened with almost painful intensity.
‘Used to modern excesses, I saw her unwillingness to make love until we were married as a rare kind of purity, a sign of self-respect. I imagined
she was curbing her natural instincts, her warmth and passion.
‘I was nearly thirty; I wanted a real home and a family. I thought she would make the ideal wife and mother, and she loved me. What more could any man ask…?’
Cassandra bit her lip. Lang had once said that his half-sister was the only person in the world who had ever cared a damn for him. To someone who had needed love as much as he did, it must have seemed like a dream come true.
‘After the wedding I was swiftly disillusioned, as all fools must surely be. Nina might not have slept with me, but she’d certainly had plenty of other lovers. I’d been quite wrong to presume that she was as pure as driven snow—’ his mouth twisted in a wry attempt at humour ‘—but I soon found that as far as I was concerned she was the original ice queen.
‘Instead of warmth, there was coolness. Instead of passion, indifference. Instead of love, expediency and avarice.’
His voice grew harsh. ‘Her father, I discovered, had made a series of disastrous investments that had brought him to the verge of disgrace and bankruptcy, so to save the family name she had married the richest dope she could find.
‘She didn’t love me, she didn’t even want me. As far as Nina was concerned, sex was a weapon, a means of getting her own way. She used it as an inducement, withheld it as a punishment, or amused herself by blowing hot and cold to prove her power.
‘After I’d bailed her father out, or provided her with a new wardrobe, or a diamond necklace, or whatever else she demanded, I was rewarded…’
Cassandra winced. It was becoming only too plain why he’d acted as he had, and why he’d been angry last night when he’d thought she was blowing hot and cold.
‘When, on ethical grounds, I wouldn’t buy her a mink coat, as a sign of her displeasure, she refused to sleep with me. After several weeks of getting the cold shoulder I gave her an ultimatum. Either she stopped that kind of behaviour or I wanted a legal separation.
‘It didn’t take her long to decide she’d prefer to be the wife of a wealthy man, rather than out on a limb. She said that if I would double her allowance, and move to San Francisco—she hated the smog and heat of LA—she would do her best to make our marriage work… But the deal didn’t include having children.
The Marriage Takeover Page 14