‘Well, that’s your fault. You could easily afford to buy yourself some nice things now. In fact, you ought to—I’m sick of seeing you in jeans.’
It was impossible to take offence at Annie’s blunt manner. Ros laughed again. ‘All right, you win,’ she conceded with resignation. ‘I’ll come, as posh as you like. Who else will be there?’
‘Oh, just the usual crowd.’
Ros knew Annie’s voice too well to miss the note of suppressed excitement in it. Her heart sank. It would be typical of Annie to be the first to issue an invitation to the fascinating new owner of the Priory. ‘Oh?’ she enquired drily. ‘ Glad rags just for the usual crowd?’
Annie giggled. ‘Just be here,’ she insisted. ‘ Bye’ She put the phone down before Ros could protest.
The next day was a complete non-starter so far as work was concerned. From the moment Ros opened her eyes, she was thinking of the evening ahead. Much as she chided herself for her idiocy, she just couldn’t concentrate. After several false starts she gave it up as a bad job, and threw her nervous energy instead into vigorously spring-cleaning the kitchen.
She worked hard all day, and by the time she had finished she was glad to sink into a warm, relaxing bath. She swirled in a lavish amount of oil, and then lay back in the green foam and closed her eyes, letting the water lap soothingly over her body.
There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that Griff was going to be at Annie’s tonight. Well, at least there would be several other women there, so he probably wouldn’t even notice her. But, even so, she found herself remembering that brief moment when he had held her in his arms, the mesmerising glint in those dark eyes, and unconsciously she let her hands slide down over her warm, slippery skin, caressing the curves of her body as her mind drifted undisciplined into a realm of pure fantasy…
She woke with a start, to find that the bath water was cold. She jumped out quickly, and towelled herself briskly dry. It was already nearly eight o’clock. She had been thinking of trying to put her hair up, but she didn’t have time now, so she just brushed it and left it loose in a mass of curls around her shoulders. A touch of dark blue mascara brought out the blue-grey of her eyes, but that was the only make-up she wore.
Hurriedly dashing herself with eau-de-Cologne, she scrambled into her dress, and cast a quick glance at her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t help feeling just a little bit pleased with her appearance—it was a pretty dress. She had bought it in a wild fit of ex-travagance with her very first big royalties cheque. Cobweb-soft handkerchiefs of blue-green silk drifted over her shoulders and in deep pointed layers to her knees. It flattered her colouring, and lent a certain gracefulness to her tall figure.
But she didn’t have time to stand here admiring herself. Quickly she slipped her feet into her shoes, and ran downstairs. The only coat she had was that old duffel coat—now that she was starting to make
some money from her books, she really ought to buy herself something decent. Maybe she ought to think about getting a new car, too, instead of the rattly old banger she had inherited from her father.
Annie lived in a big detached house in the center of the village, opposite the church. Several cars were parked in the road outside—she guessed that she would be the last to arrive. She parked at the end of the row, and sat for a moment, trying to screw up her courage. They were all there, the usual crowd, just as she had expected.
She could see Thea McKenzie’s white Porsche— Thea, who had had such a field-day gossiping about her all those years ago, and then set tongues wagging and fingers counting by the speed with which she had married Stuart Cooper herself, and produced his son and heir.
The marriage had lasted only six years, and her second less than that. Now she was on the prowl again—she had her eye on Annie’s brother-in-law Tom. Ros smiled in ironic amusement as she spotted Tom’s blue BMW. Thea was going to have a difficult decision to make—especially if Tom had brought his pretty sister, Chrissie. Should she stick to Tom, or should she compete with the younger girl for Griff’s attention?
He was there—the sleek silver-grey Jaguar was parked by the kerb a little way in front of Tom’s car. Well, at least forewarned was fore-armed, she thought wryly. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she climbed out of the car and walked up to the front door.
Light and music spilled into the night as Annie opened the door, excitement written all over her face.
“I thought you were never coming!’ she whispered, drawing her into the hall.
‘I’m sorry. I dozed off in the bath, and didn’t re¬alise it was getting so late.’
‘Dozed off? Aren’t you the cool one?’ teased Annie, hanging Ros’s duffel coat up in the hall right next to Thea’s expensive fox-fur jacket. ‘Just wait till you see who I’ve got to introduce to you!’
There were several people gathered in Annie’s large sitting-room, but Ros saw only one. He was sitting back, totally relaxed, on one of the big farmhouse-style settees, looking devastatingly attractive in a dark green velvet jacket. Chrissie Osbourne had established herself at his side, and was gazing up at him in ingenuous admiration. Thea was seated opposite him, her long legs elegantly crossed, her slim, scarlet-tipped fingers holding a cigarette.
The stereo was playing one of her all-time favourite albums, the smokily seductive male voice filling the room. Ros hesitated, her heart slowing to a halt. That arrogant tilt of the head, that faintly mocking smile… How on earth had she failed to recognise him? She had had his picture on her bedroom wall all through her teens—she still played his records more than any others she owned.
Jordan Griffin. Ex-lead-singer of one of the biggest American rock-music bands ever. Since he’d retired— oh, it must be four or five years ago now since the band had gone their separate ways—he’d turned to managing other people, being responsible for the ca¬reers of several massively successful artists.
Annie pushed her forward as she stood rooted to the spot. ‘Well, she’s here at last. Jordan, I want you to meet my best friend, Rosalind Hammond. Go on,’ she hissed at Ros, ‘say hello. He won’t bite.’
He rose to his feet, that mocking smile curving his sensuous mouth as he let his eyes drift lazily down over her body. ‘Ros and I have already met,’ he drawled, a trace of sardonic amusement in his voice.
She felt a tinge of pink creep up over her cheeks. ‘I… I’m sorry,’ she stammered breathlessly. ‘I didn’t recognise you.’
‘So 1 guessed.*
Across the room, Thea laughed spitefully. ‘Ah, that’s our Rosalind,’ she put in. ‘Not really interested in modern music, are you, darling? She’s our local blue-stocking you know, Jordan.’
‘Really?’ He had detected that Thea was jealous of the momentary diversion of his attention away from herself, and his eyes glinted with malignant amusement. ‘What sort of music do you prefer, then, Ros?’ he enquired. His tone was pleasant, friendly, but she knew that he was playing a game, deliberately seeking to provoke Thea.
‘Good music,’ she retorted, instilling a cool note of sarcasm into her voice.
‘Oh? Mozart, Beethoven, that sort of thing?’
‘More or less.’
The atmosphere in the room was fairly crackling with electricity. It felt as though World War Three were going to break out at any minute. Annie stepped quickly into the silence, putting on her best hostess voice. ‘Well, now that everyone’s here, why don’t we go into the dining-room?’ she suggested, glancing anxiously from one to another to see how they would respond.
‘Great,’ agreed her husband, coming quickly to her support. ‘I’ll promise you one thing, Jordan—you won’t be disappointed in my wife’s cooking.’
Griff smiled. ‘I’m looking forward to it. By the way, my friends call me Griff,’ he added, flickering an amused glance towards Ros.
‘Of course. You know, I’ve been thinking—I bet there’s some cousins of yours still living over in Hamblethorpe. Brian Griffin—his grandfather, used to work on Arnold Fow
ler’s farm.’
As the others moved through the open-plan archway into the dining-room, Ros followed Annie into the kitchen to see if she could help with the dinner. ‘You are a dark horse,’ her friend remarked, slanting her a teasing glance. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d met him?’
Ros smiled wryly. ‘I really hadn’t recognised him,’ she confessed. ‘It was dark. It happened the other night—the night it snowed. His car had gone off the road, and I gave him a lift, that’s all.’ She con¬veniently forgot the rest of the story. ‘Anyway, you can talk!’ she added, turning the conversation before Annie could probe further. ‘Trust you to be the first to invite him to dinner!’
‘It wasn’t me, it was Paul,’ Annie confided. ‘Would you believe it, he actually knows him, and he never even told me! Remember he worked for a year in Central America when he first qualified? He met him then. Apparently he gives a lot of money to hospitals and things in the poor areas.’
‘I never knew that,’ remarked Ros.
‘No—he doesn’t like any publicity about it. Anyway, yesterday morning one of the men working
on his house had an accident—cut his hand really badly—and Griff brought him down to the surgery himself. Well, of course, they got nattering, and it was only natural for Paul to invite him to dinner.’ She sighed, and rolled her eyes expressively. ‘Just think, ten years ago, if this had happened, we’d have been like jelly now! In fact, 1 am a bit sort of wobbly round the edges. He’s absolutely gorgeous, isn’t he? I think he’s even better-looking now than he was then.’
‘Annie! And you a married woman!’ Ros chided her teasingly.
Annie giggled. ‘I know. But there’s no harm in looking, is there?’
‘1 do think it was a bit mean of you, inviting both Thea and Chrissie,’ Ros commented, glancing into the softly lit dining-room where the two rivals were jockeying for the prime places close to him at the dinner-table. ‘The poor man’s in danger of being eaten alive.’
‘Poor man, indeed! You should have seen him, playing them off against each other—I had to run away to the kitchen, or I wouldn’t have been able to keep my face straight.’
‘He does seem to be enjoying it,’ confessed Ros, hoping Annie wouldn’t notice the slightly wistful note in her voice.
‘I think they’re both making complete idiots of themselves,’ her friend declared roundly. ‘As if he’s going to be interested in either of them. Look at all those really fabulous women he’s been out with! He’s just amusing himself, and more fool them if they take him seriously.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ conceded Ros thought¬fully. And even more fool me, she chided herself. Now she had even more reason to know that he was never in a million years going to be interested in her. But it didn’t help—the man in the flesh exerted a tug of attraction a hundred times more powerful than the un¬reachable idol she had adored in her teens.
‘Anyway, come on. We’d better be taking this stuff in,’ said Annie, oblivious of her friend’s train of thought. ‘CM you carry this pate for me?’
To her relief, Ros was able to sit a safe distance away from Griff. He was on Paul Osbourne’s right at the other end of the table. Chrissie had artlessly plopped herself down beside him and started a bright conversation with Nigel, Paul’s partner and always an obliging ‘spare man’ at Annie’s dinner parties. Thea, cheated of the chance to be next to Griff, had ruthlessly manoeuvred so that she could take the seat opposite him, and found that it was just as easy to flirt with him across the table.
Tom Osbourne grinned at Ros in his usual friendly way as he rose to help her to a seat. ‘Hi. You’re looking very nice tonight,’ he complimented her lightly.
She returned him a warm smile. Tom had always been nice to her, even though he had been one of Stuart Cooper’s crowd in the old days.
‘So, are you madly in love with our new neighbor, too?’ he asked her in a wry tone.
She shook her head. ‘I gave up being in love with pop stars when I was sixteen,’ she responded casually. ‘Besides, he seems to have his hands full at the moment.’
From beneath her lashes, she watched the scene that was developing at the other end of the table. The competition between the two women was growing in¬creasingly sharp, and the arrogance in Griff’s smile was unmistakable as he absorbed their unabashed adoration.
How on earth had she failed to recognise him? His hair was much shorter now, of course, but the fea¬tures were exactly those that had brooded from the covers of a dozen top-selling albums. Of course, she had never expected him to turn up in Arnby Bridge.
His eyes flickered in her direction, and immediately she turned all her attention to Tom. ‘Annie was telling me you might be made a partner soon,’ she remarked quietly. Tom worked for a local firm of solicitors.
‘That’s right. George is retiring this summer, so I might be taking his place.’
‘Well done,’ she flattered, her eyes dancing merrily.
‘It’s a step in the right direction. Speaking of which, when are you going to sell me that cottage of yours?’
She laughed, shaking her head. ‘I’m not ready to sell yet, Tom.’
‘Well, if ever you change your mind …’
‘You’ll be the first to know,’ she promised.
They chatted easily as they did justice to the ex¬cellent dinner that Annie had set before them, a little withdrawn from the acid rivalry that was developing at the other end of the table. The two girls were let¬ting themselves be drawn into a heated competition for Griff’s attention, apparently unaware of the glint of cynical amusement in those dark eyes as he subtly manipulated them both.
‘But you’re going to find it so different over here,’ Thea was telling him. ‘It’s like another planet.’
‘Oh?’ One satanic eyebrow was raised a fraction of an inch. ‘I don’t think Ros would agree with you— would you, Ros?’
Suddenly she was aware that everyone was watching her, and she looked up, uncertain. He was regarding her with that mocking gaze, and in that moment she felt as though she hated him. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she queried in glacial accents.
‘Didn’t you say that I’d feel very much at home— among all the male chauvinist pigs?’ he taunted.
She hesitated, unable to think of a suitable retort.
Chrissie gurgled with laughter. ‘Oh, Ros! What a thing to say!’ she protested. ‘I’m sure Griff isn’t like that at all!’ She swept him a lingering gaze from be¬neath her silky lashes.
‘Oh, all this feminist talk is such a lot of nonsense,’ put in Thea, her voice a velvet purr. ‘I like a man who knows he’s the boss.’
Coming from Thea, that was such a preposterous statement that Ros couldn’t quite suppress the smile that twitched her lips.
The other woman’s eyes sparked with anger. ‘But then, you wouldn’t really know about that, would you, Ros?’ she sneered spitefully. ‘You couldn’t even hang on to Stuart.’
‘Nor could you,’ Chrissie reminded everyone with malicious triumph.
‘But at least he married me,’ flashed Thea haughtily.
Ros could feel her cheeks flame scarlet with hu¬miliation, painfully aware of Griff’s curiosity as he watched the barbed exchange.
Annie, bless her, came to the rescue. ‘Well, does everyone want coffee?’ she asked brightly. ‘Ros, give me a hand, would you?’
‘Of course.’ With an inward sigh of relief, she began to gather up the debris of the sweet-plates, and made her escape to the kitchen.
CHAPTER THREE
THAT brief moment of unpleasantness soon seemed to be forgotten. They lingered long at the dinner-table over their coffee, until by some unspoken consent they chose to move back into lounge to talk and drink. Thea had latched her arm through Griff’s, coaxing him to sit beside her, but Chrissie wasn’t going to let her get away with that. She was leaning casually over the back of their settee, engaging his attention in a flirtatious conversation.
From across the
room, Ros watched them with covert interest. It was small wonder that he was so arrogant, she reflected wryly. It must always be like that, wherever he went—beautiful women throwing themselves at him. And plain women too, she amended, remembering her own behavior. It must be very tedious for him.
‘Why don’t we have some music on?’ Thea pro¬posed, determined to reclaim all Griffs attention. She moved with an eye-catching sway across the room to the music center, and chose a record—one of Griffs. But as she opened the cover he came up behind her, and took it away from her.
‘Not that one,’ he murmured, bending close to her ear. ‘Let’s have something different for a change, shall we?’
She swept him a coy glance from beneath her sooty lashes. ‘All right—anything you like,’ she purred.
One dark eyebrow was raised a fraction of an inch. ‘Anything?’
She laughed huskily. ‘In the way of music,’ she chided—though she didn’t sound as if that was what she meant. She picked out another record, and slotted it into the record player. Soft, romantic music filled the room. ‘Shall we dance?’ she invited him boldly.
He let his gaze drift down over the luscious curves of her body, displayed to perfection by the clinging fit of her black dress. ‘Sure,’ he agreed, taking her into his arms and holding her intimately close. Over her shoulder, Ros caught a glimpse of that dark, sinful glint in his eyes. She looked away quickly.
Chrissie was quietly fuming. She grabbed her eldest brother’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. ‘Come on, Paul,’ she insisted with a lively laugh. ‘Let’s give it a whirl.’
‘I didn’t know we were going to be holding a ball,’ he protested, smiling down indulgently at his pretty sister.
‘Oh, just a little dancing,’ she pouted. ‘It won’t hurt—the kids are over at Annie’s mother’s.’ She began to move to the music, swaying provocatively for Griffs benefit. Thea was glowering with fury as he watched the performance with every evidence of appreciation.
Tom grinned wryly at Ros. ‘Come on then, lass,’ he suggested. ‘Let’s not be the only ones left out, eh?’
LOVE IS FOR THE LUCKY Page 3