The Accidental Mistress

by Sophie Weston

  But then she shook back her head and gave him the most wonderful smile, and he forgot everything except that they had to be alone. Now.

  ‘Get your coat,’ he said curtly.

  Her eyes widened. She looked almost dazed.

  ‘No coat?’

  She swallowed. Shook her head.

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  He put a hand under her bare elbow and turned her towards the door. She did not resist but she was quivering. Well, hell, what was surprising about that? So was he.

  They were like machines that had just been turned on. Engines thrumming. Idling, but under power. Ready.

  He wanted her so badly it hurt. And she wanted him. No doubt about that. She was not looking anywhere but at him, and the pulse in her throat throbbed to the same beat as his own.

  Dom gave a laugh that was half a groan.

  ‘Shawl? Bag?’

  She did not answer. But there was a tiny bag in the same scarlet material as her dress on the bar. Dom swept it up as they passed.

  On the stairs, her trembling increased. She clung to him.

  ‘You should have brought a coat,’ scolded Dom, teasing.

  But he paused to shrug off his jacket and tuck it round her shoulders. As the silk lining slid over her shoulders she gave a voluptuous shiver. Their bodies were so close that he felt it run through from hip to heart.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he murmured, in mock despair. ‘Not yet anyway.’

  She gave a little excited laugh, and leaned closer.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed to that silent demand. ‘Home. Now.’

  He pushed open the outer door into the September night. She swayed.

  ‘Imagination,’ she said.

  Late arrivals were getting out of a taxi. Dom commandeered it. He looked over his shoulder. ‘What?’

  ‘Imagination doesn’t get going until the lights go down.’

  He turned to face her. ‘A philosopher,’ he said, his eyes full of tender amusement. ‘You’re wrong, though. My imagination got going the moment I walked into that place and saw you.’ He held out a hand. ‘Come with me?’

  She stopped swaying.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  It was not until later—a lot later, when Dom was asking himself what on earth had happened—that he remembered. She had sounded surprised.

  CHAPTER THREE

  IZZY was having a wonderful dream. A man was taking her into his arms and she wanted him to. She kissed him harder and longer than he kissed her. They belonged.

  She did not know his name. She did not think they had even met before. Certainly not in the real world. But they had known each other before time began. She knew that as she knew her own name. And that she was in paradise.

  When she needed to take a breath, at last, she lifted her head. ‘The best sort of dream,’ she gasped.

  She felt his chest lift with laughter.

  ‘Like I said, a philosopher.’

  She couldn’t quite make out his face. But that was dreams for you. They gave you what you wanted in your deepest, deepest soul. But they didn’t necessarily let you see all the signposts along the way.

  And who needed to see anything when his mouth was sending such wonderful sensations through her skin?

  And his voice! He had a voice like dark chocolate. Delicious and totally sinful.

  ‘Say something else,’ she demanded.

  He was placing soft, playful kisses along her collarbone. At that he raised his head. ‘You want to talk?’

  The wonderful sensation began to ebb away.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ moaned Izzy.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t going to.’

  The dark chocolate voice was warm, spiced with laughter. Like a fire on a cold night. A cold and lonely night. She snuggled against the voice and felt her head spin pleasantly.

  ‘But you were the one who wanted to talk,’ he pointed out. ‘So—we’ll talk.’ He feathered a kiss between her breasts. ‘Or not talk. Choose!’

  Izzy gave a little voluptuous shiver. ‘This is my dream,’ she said reproachfully. ‘I don’t wanna choose. Shouldn’t have to. In your own dream, you’re supposed to have it all.’

  ‘All it is, then,’ he said against her skin. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  She frowned. ‘Not me. You. I want you to tell me wonders.’

  ‘Wonders?’ He sounded startled. She felt his warm breath on her bare skin.

  Izzy stretched her arms above her head and gave a sigh of total bliss.

  ‘Mmm. Persuade me with promises. Seduce me with a sonnet.’ Was it her imagination, or was she slurring her words?

  ‘A sonnet?’

  Izzy opened her eyes. She seemed to be in spacecraft, hurtling forward among strange planets. Too many lights flashing past, decided Izzy. So she half shut her eyes again and concentrated on the important things.

  ‘I want to be wooed,’ she announced dreamily. ‘Tell me I’m beautiful.’

  ‘Now, that I can do.’

  Her dream lover had wrapped her in his ceremonial robe—which left him with just a thin shirt between her and his alien warmth. She drew a long, luxurious breath, savouring the scent of unknown skin and the whole new world he came from. He had something on his wrist, all dials and lights—probably an interplanetary homing device.

  ‘Do you think I read too much science fiction?’ Izzy wondered aloud.

  His arm tightened. ‘I think you’re wonderful, whether you read poetry, science fiction or gardening catalogues,’ he told her with feeling.

  ‘Mmmm.’ She rubbed her face against his wrist. It felt hot as fire and smelled of sandalwood. She closed her eyes and listened to his pulse. It felt like her own.

  The silver spacecraft seemed to go faster. Then braked to a hovering stop.

  Her alien said, ‘We would be more comfortable inside, don’t you think?’

  There was a cool rush of air. The vehicle burned off into the universe, leaving Izzy in the arms of her cavalier. In the sudden silence there was faint ringing in her ears. Her head was now definitely dancing, as if she was on a merry-go-round.

  From a long way away, he seemed to say, ‘Let’s get you indoors. Then we can discuss your wooing programme.’

  The merry-go-round seemed to speed up. Right out of control, in fact.

  Izzy leaned into him. He felt like a rock. How could he not be dizzy, too, when the whole world was spinning faster and faster? The man must be made of iron, she thought. It mildly annoyed her. She was used to being the one with the iron grip on reality.

  ‘This,’ she said very carefully, ‘is a new experience. A—wholly—new—experience.’

  And flopped in his arms, limp as a rag doll.

  The last thing she remembered was her alien saying ruefully, ‘I should have seen this coming. It’s all right, sweetheart. Hang onto me. I’ve got you safe.’

  ‘Safe,’ she said, not slurring the word at all.

  And passed out cold.

  She woke up feeling strange. Her mouth was dry, her ribs ached as if she had been kicked—and the window was in the wrong place. The window—!

  Izzy sat bolt upright. Her heart thumped like a metronome.

  But the window was not an empty space between rotting timbers, with palm trees rattling and creaking outside. It had glass. And curtains. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that she was in a strange bedroom.

  Well—bedroom! It was more like an office with mattress space. There was a desk with a huge flat computer screen. Maps and charts all but covered the walls. There was one wall of CDs and another of videos and DVDs. A bookcase brimmed over with books and papers and photographs. A fraying rug in gorgeous colours sat in the middle of the stripped oak floor.

  No, this was definitely no Andean rebel hideout.

  Izzy put a hand to her breast. Slowly her breathing came back under control. That was when she recognised the pain under her ribs, too. Hunger!

  Hunger? Why on earth was she hungry? What time was it? She looked at her
watch. It was four in the morning.

  That was when she simultaneously realised three things: she was still wearing the flimsy red Christmas dress that she had put on for Out of the Attic’s party; she had left the party with a fantasy figure whose face she could not remember; she had not the foggiest idea where she was.

  ‘Oops,’ said Izzy.

  She swung her legs out of bed. Well, at least she was alone. No fantasy figure was sleeping heavily on the pillow beside her.

  Izzy did not know whether she was disappointed or relieved. On the whole, relieved, she decided. But she could not help wondering who the man was. Had she just latched onto him last night as he was leaving the party? It seemed horribly possible. After all, complete strangers didn’t kiss each other passionately in the back of London taxi cabs.

  No, decided Izzy, those kisses—and her even more embarrassing demand to be seduced with poetry—had to be a dream. Sleeplessness and starvation had obviously combined to knock her out, and some kind person must have brought her here to recuperate. The mysterious stranger with his fiery kisses had been straight out of a dream. Whoever had brought her to this strange house, it could not be a fantasy hero. Not possibly.

  ‘I hope,’ she muttered.

  She pattered softly round the room. It looked as if someone had made up a bed for her but had balked at taking her clothes off. Not that there was that much to take off, she thought ruefully. She found her shoes, the charmingly impractical matching bag that Pepper had given her—and somebody’s jacket.

  She picked it up. And dropped it immediately. It might have been red-hot, she let it go so fast.

  Oh, Lord, she knew that smell. It was imprinted on her memory. In part it was her own—her perfume, her shampoo, the new, fresh smell of tonight’s silk dress—and in part it was his. His!

  Izzy swallowed. In the dark she could feel her cheeks burning.

  ‘Time to go,’ she told herself sturdily.

  The handbag was so tiny there was no room for anything in it—not even her slim cellphone. She had her front door key and, thank heavens, a small cash float. She and Jemima called it their running away money. They never, ever went out anywhere without enough money to take a taxi home. Though this was the first time that Izzy had ever had to use it.

  Shoes in hand, she tiptoed out of the room. She seemed to be at the bottom of some stairs, with a light on a half-landing above. Cautiously she went up, ears strained. But the house was silent except for the ticking of a big grandfather clock somewhere. Before she saw that, however, she saw a big front door, with leaded lights and some impressive locks.

  Izzy skidded across a slippery black and white floor, fumbled the locks and dived out into the street. It did not occur to her, until the front door had closed behind her, that it was the silliest thing she could possibly have done.

  She did not know where she was. She was dressed in only the flimsiest clothes. It was the sort of thing that all the personal safety notices warned you about. But anything, absolutely anything, felt better than having to face the man whose jacket she had purloined. Whose mouth she had kissed with abandon. Whom she had just happened to cast as her Fantasy of the Day.

  Izzy could have groaned aloud.

  She didn’t. Instead, she set her teeth and marched firmly down the street, looking fierce. The ferocity was not entirely to repel attackers, either. Izzy was furious with herself.

  So furious, indeed, that she was hardly grateful for her luck when she found herself in Knightsbridge, where there were several international hotels and black taxis cruised all through the night.

  She was home by half past four.

  She looked wincingly at the fridge. She longed for a cheese sandwich. She knew she ought to have something to eat. Tonight’s fiasco had to have something to do with the lack of food. But cheese made you dream, didn’t it?

  ‘Enough dreams already,’ said Izzy grimly.

  She compromised with a couple of pints of water and a mug of hot milk, and took herself off to bed, muttering.

  She was gone! Dom could not believe it. He had put her in the study, like a gentleman, not so much as slid that scrap of scarlet provocation off her delicious body. And now, in the morning, he found she had thrown his jacket on the floor and left without a forwarding address.

  ‘That’s the last time I behave like a gentleman,’ he told the mirror ferociously.

  With Molly di Peretti, however, he was more circumspect. So circumspect, indeed, that she entirely misunderstood his motive for calling.

  ‘So you want to do the party circuit after all, do you?’ she said tolerantly. ‘Enjoy yourself last night?’

  Dom ground his teeth but kept his own counsel. ‘Very much.’ He was not going to tell anyone that his lady in red had decamped without his getting so much as a name or a phone number out of her.

  His scruples had not been so nice that he hadn’t looked in that silly little bag before he left her sleeping. But it had revealed nothing. Not so much as a credit card with her name on. Just a key, lipgloss, a couple of bank notes and a tiny phial of perfume. He could still smell the perfume. If he did not find her, he thought, that perfume would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  Only, of course, he was going to find her.

  So he said to Molly di Peretti, ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a pain. Jay was quite right. I’ll do whatever you say.’

  ‘He said what?’ said Jay Christopher and Abby in unison, when Molly reported this unlikely conversation.

  She repeated it.

  ‘He’s up to something,’ said his fond sister positively.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ agreed Molly. ‘But he came round this morning, meek as a lamb, and went through the press cuttings with me. Learned all the names on the guest list. The full works.’

  Abby’s eyes narrowed. ‘Definitely up to something. He told me he was much too busy to make time for a PR campaign.’

  Jay was more optimistic. ‘So now he’s had time to think about it, he’s seen that it’s worth making the time. Now it’s up to us to prove that’s right.’

  ‘You,’ pointed out Abby bitterly, ‘don’t have to design the campaign—or make Dom co-operate.’

  ‘He’s falling over himself to co-operate,’ said Jay airily.

  Abby shook her head. ‘No matter what he says now, he won’t stay obliging. Dom and compromise are strangers to each other.’

  Molly had been thinking. Now she tipped her chair back and stared at the ceiling with narrowed eyes. ‘Okay. Dom doesn’t do compromise. How is he on delivering his side of the bargain?’

  Abby sighed. ‘Oh, he keeps his promises.’ She looked at her friend curiously. ‘You’re not seriously thinking of trawling for a blonde film star for him, are you Moll?’

  Molly let her chair come back to earth with a thud. ‘Not a blonde film star,’ she said with relish. ‘But I can do you a very nice line in red-headed models.’

  Jay snapped his fingers. ‘Jemima Dare! Of course. Molly, you’re inspired!’

  Abby looked worried. ‘Dom doesn’t do blind dates, either.’

  Molly grinned from ear to ear. ‘This is not a blind date. What I have in mind is a whole lot more exciting than that.’

  Abby groaned. ‘Well, Dom does exciting, all right,’ she admitted.

  Jay was beaming. ‘I like it. Two problems. One solution. Neat. Very neat.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ agreed Molly. ‘She might even turn up this time, if I tell her manager that I’ve got Jemima a big strong man to jump with.’

  Abby was alarmed. ‘Jump? Jump where?’

  The others ignored her. Jay said, ‘Blane’s in Australia. You’ll have to speak to the PA. Or Jemima herself.’

  Molly pulled a face. ‘Couple of flakes. She’s got a sister who’s pretty together, though. I might call her.’

  ‘Jump where?’ yelled Abby.

  Jay looked at her in mild surprise. ‘Chelsea Bridge.’

  ‘She’s jumping off Chelsea Bridge?’
gasped Abby, horrified.

  ‘No, no. It’s one of those bungee jump things. Full safety harness.’

  ‘And a pile of society photographers for her to land on if it breaks,’ said Molly with a grin. ‘And now Dom will be her consolation,’ she added, bubbling over at the thought.

  Abby closed her eyes. ‘If you think that, you’re crazy.’

  ‘Well, he looks good. All tough and outdoorsy. Not at all the pretty boy-band type she usually hangs with,’ said Molly, whose taste ran to leather-clad drummers—or had until she’d met and fallen in love with a car-mad computer genius. ‘Be an experience for her.’

  Abby opened her eyes. ‘Oh, it will be that, all right,’ she said. ‘Jumping off a crane with my brother Dominic in a right royal temper. That’s an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.’

  ‘It will be good for her,’ said Molly callously. ‘The moment Jemima Dare got that big contract she turned into a total pain in the ass.’

  Jay nodded sadly.

  Molly bared her teeth. ‘Frankly, Abby, if your brother Dominic cuts her down to size, I’ll personally contribute to his expedition. Put me down for a pair of the best snow shoes money can buy.’

  But tender-hearted Abby shook her head. ‘You don’t know Dom. All I can say is: Jemima Dare has my sympathy!’

  The next week passed in a rush for Izzy.

  Just as well, really, she thought. Every time she stopped, her late night adventure returned to make her jump and sweat. It was like having a splinter—most of the time you could ignore it, but when you stopped to think you knew it was still there. Still hurting. And probably going deeper.

  ‘It is not going deeper,’ said Izzy aloud with great firmness.

  Okay, she still dreamed about those heated kisses. Her own abandon. That, of course, was the masked ball of the unconscious, and probably pure fantasy.

  But the thing that really brought her up short, and made her exclaim aloud if she wasn’t careful, was a laughing dark chocolate voice saying in horror, ‘A sonnet?’ That wasn’t fantasy. That was horribly like real life.

  The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that she had flung herself at a living, breathing man. Who had taken her home and tucked her up safe. On whom she had run out without so much as a note of explanation. Whose face she could not even remember. And who still haunted her dreams.