Open-mouthed, decidedly jittery, she stared at him. He was calm and she was terrified. 'N-nothing,' she replied, wanting to be a million miles away.
`Don't lie. You're—' He broke off as someone rang her doorbell. Never had a caller, whoever it was, been more welcome to her.
`Excuse me,' she said in a rush, and went quickly out into the small hallway, only to find Nick Saunders, wine bottle in hand, was just closing her front door behind him.
`Your door wasn't fully closed,' he said, by way of explanation for letting himself in. And, beaming broadly, he held the wine bottle aloft. 'I thought we might celebrate our efforts in your bedroom. That is ...' A roar of a sound from the sitting room caused Alethea to have very rapid second thoughts about her caller being welcome. A split second later, an enraged Trent de Havilland joined them.
`Who the hell are you?' he demanded of her visitor before she had chance to so much as think of performing any introductions. Trent looked ready to flatten Nick if he wasn't fast enough with his answers.
Nick seemed shaken rigid to find a man he didn't know so unexpectedly in Alethea's home. 'Nick Saunders,' he replied. 'I'm a friend ... who are you?' he got his second wind to return.
Oh, grief, Trent wasn't looking any sweeter. But since he hadn't flattened Nick yet, there was hope. Or was there? Alethea was ready to do some flattening herself when, without mincing words, Trent snarled, 'I just happen to be the man Miss Pemberton lives with.'
She gasped and Nick looked astounded. 'You're living with someone?' he asked, staggered. What could she say? Not a thing, Alethea realised. 'But—last week ...'
`I was away on business last week!' Trent clipped, not allowing him to finish.
Nick was still looking thunderstruck. 'Is—is this true?' he asked her. There was no way she could deny any of it.
`Yes,' she mumbled, feeling miserable and starting to hate Trent de Havilland.
But Nick already had his answer: she wasn't arguing. `Thanks!' he offered sourly, and went.
Alethea felt dreadful—and angry. She turned to Trent and exploded. 'Thanks a million!'
He ignored her anger. 'Am I missing something here?' he questioned curtly.
`Not a thing!' she retorted.
`Then how come, when I have to ring your sister to find out this address, Bacchus there not only knew it, but seemed to think celebrations were in order for what the two of you got up to in your bedroom!'
Dearly would she have loved to tell him to go to hell, but, for all Trent now seemed to have his fury under tight control, he still appeared to be enraged enough to strangle her if she said anything provocative.
`I should think you, more than anyone, know me better than that!' She flew at him, and nearly died when she realised that, after the abandoned way she'd been with him last night, that was no reference. For your information,' she charged on, refusing to let him or her memories sink her, 'Nick helped me decorate the bedroom. In fact he did the lion's share of the work. It was a foul colour!'
`How kind!' Sarcastic brute! 'Did he also help you to move your bedroom furniture in too?'
`The furniture removers did that last Friday.' `And you invited him round tonight for a cosy—' `No, I did not!' she blazed. Dammit, she'd done
nothing wrong. But he had! Trent-tell-the-world-de
Havilland had. 'Did you have to make me look so—so
cheap?' she challenged furiously. 'Did you...?' `Cheap? What the hell did I say to—?'
`Nick Saunders works at Gale Drilling!' she erupted, refusing to allow Trent sole rights to butting-in. 'By telling him, you've most likely informed everyone I work with that I live with you! Everyone at—'
`And that makes you feel cheap?' Trent cut in, his fury clearly on the rampage again. 'Living with me makes you feel cheap?' he challenged, hell bent on an answer, it seemed.
`How else would I feel?' She refused to back down. `I should brag about living with you? Tell everybody of my great good fortune that—?' She broke off; she could tell by the narrowing of Trent's eyes, by the taut anger in him, that she had gone too far, but she didn't seem able to stop. 'You think that to be your mistress is the be-all and end-all of my existence. Well, it isn't—and as soon as I can be free of you, I'll—'
Trent stopped her right there. 'Consider it done!' he snarled. 'As yet, you haven't been my mistress, but if it cheapens you so much, then to hell with you! You stay here, sweetheart!' he gritted. 'You needn't even come back to pick up your belongings—I'll have them sent round!' With that, he brushed past her and she was left staring after him
She cried. Pig, swine, pig. It was over, and she had never felt so unhappy in her life. Abruptly her anger at Trent evaporated. But it was too late to take back any of the things she had said.
Alethea went to work the next morning in low spirits, and during a lull in that morning's work, she left her desk and went along to Nick Saunders' office. She wasn't looking forward to it, but after his goodness she felt she owed him some sort of an explanation.
Thankfully he was in his office on his own. 'Nick. I'm sorry. I owe you an apology,' was the best she could do.
`I'd have appreciated you telling me about your man-friend, rather than letting me find out the way I did,' Nick answered, leaving his desk and coming over to her.
`It—wasn't very—nice of me, was it?' she agreed. It wouldn't make it any less honest to say that she'd never dreamed that Trent would turn up at her flat.
`You're in love with him'
She nodded, adding, 'We're—um—going through a difficult patch just now.'
`Which is why you've found somewhere else to live—a sort of retreat?' She said nothing, but felt she had never liked Nick so well when he commented, 'I suppose it would have been something of a miracle if there hadn't been some man around in the background somewhere.' She smiled at him, and felt a whole lot better about the embarrassment she had caused him when he smiled back. `Tell you what, lovely Alethea,' he said then, `if you ever dump him, just let me be the second to know.'
Alethea went back to her own office. Dump Trent! She reckoned it would be a first if any female lasted with Trent long enough to try it.
There were no suitcases waiting for her when she returned to her flat, and she spent the entire evening on the edge of her seat, listening for the sound of someone delivering her luggage. She hadn't truly expected that Trent would call again in person. Nor did he. In fact no one called, and she eventually took herself off to bed, wanting quite desperately to see Trent again but knowing that she must accept that it was over.
During her lunch hour on Thursday, Alethea purchased a blouse and some underwear. She went home that night to find that her belongings had still not arrived. The rest of the evening followed the same dull pattern as previously.
Alethea determined on Friday that she was just not going to spend another long evening watching each heartsick minute drag by. She made a brief stop at her
flat—still no delivery—and drove to her mother's home. She still had a few clothes there. If her possessions left at Trent's home didn't soon materialise, she was going to need them.
Funny that, she mused as she drove along. Judging by the way Trent had been on Tuesday—enraged was not the word for it! —she'd have thought her belongings would have been hurled at her door within an hour of him leaving!
Maxine and her daughters were delighted to see her, and her mother seemed to be making an effort to keep her acid remarks down to a minimum. 'I thought it about time I collected the rest of my clothes,' Alethea mentioned as she sat drinking tea, knowing without ill feeling that, no matter how down she felt just then, she had made the right decision to leave her mother's home.
`I'll come and help you, if you like,' Maxine volunteered.
`And me!' piped up two small voices.
`I thought you were going to read a story with Nanna,' Maxine reminded them.
'Polly's excelling herself,' Alethea remarked. Having lost the two elder children to their grandmother, she,
Maxine and Polly went up the stairs.
`Don't!' Maxine hushed her.
Alethea laughed. She hadn't tempted fate too far, she discovered, because Polly remained angelic as they folded and bagged the articles of clothing she had left behind.
`Has Trent de Havilland been in touch?' Maxine asked.
Alethea nodded. 'Thanks for giving him my address,' she added lightly.
`You didn't mind? I felt I ...'
`I'm glad you did,' Alethea assured her, but did not, could not, discuss it or him. 'How are things with you?' she asked.
`Getting better by the day,' Maxine smiled. 'Believe it or not, when Mother forgets to be sour, she's brilliant with Sadie and Georgia. There's a buyer for the house, and I've started receiving maintenance from Keith.'
`He's got another job?'
`A good one. It's in the Middle East—not the same work he was doing but it pays well.'
Alethea vaguely remembered that Keith had acquired a degree in civil engineering or something similar before he'd gone into finance. Perhaps there would be less temptation in civil engineering.
At her mother's invitation she stayed to dinner, but drove back to her flat afterwards with Trent, as ever, in her mind It occurred briefly to her to wonder if, since she had not made love with him Alethea felt herself go pink; that had been solely his decision—my stars, she had been willing enough! Since she hadn't made love with him, might Trent consider any agreement not to prosecute her brother-in-law null and void? But, she had wondered only briefly. Somehow, she realised, she trusted Trent. Somehow, no matter what went on between her and Trent—or in this case, what hadn't gone on—she just instinctively knew that he had not picked up his phone to ring his lawyers.
Trent was still in her head on Saturday. He had wanted to talk to her, for them to talk, he'd said. Alethea swallowed hard. Whatever it was he had thought they had to talk about, she could guarantee the subject had long since been consigned to the waste-bin.
That Saturday seemed to go on forever. She didn't go out all day, and he did not call. She wondered when, if ever, this aching emptiness would get any better?
On Sunday it was still there. As she had so many times, she went over again that last time she had seen Trent. Oh, how could she ever have accused him of making her look cheap?
So much for fearing he might have gleaned how she felt about him. She guessed that her 'cheap' comments had firmly hit on the head any notion he might have nursed that she was in love with him.
And, while she was heartily glad that her pride was saved in that direction, Alethea at last owned that, when once she had wanted a place of her own, now it was not what she wanted at all. What she wanted was to live with Trent.
Alethea knew then, as she supposed she had known from the time Trent had left last Tuesday, that he would not be calling at her flat again.
Having been away in South America for a couple of weeks, he'd probably had a heavy workload to catch up on. It was painful to her to think of him leaving home so early in the morning and returning late in the evening. She wished she was there to look after him; not that he'd let her—he'd most likely die laughing at the very idea. Though if he was putting in all those hours, there would be little time left over to think of bundling her gear into a couple of cases and having them sent over in a taxi.
Alethea resigned herself to hoping that Trent would get around to gathering her belongings together at some time next week. Unless... Unless, of course... She made herself finish the staggering sentence that pushed to be admitted. Unless she saved him the bother and went to his home and did it for herself! She took a shaky breath.
Why shouldn't she go over and collect ...? In an instant she dismissed the idea. Grief, as if she would! For Heaven's sake, had she no more pride than that? She faced that pride took a hammering when placed up against her longing to see Trent again. But, really, she would stop thinking such nonsensical thoughts at once!
And yet, throughout Sunday, the notion once born stubbornly refused to go away. It plagued her, made her cross with herself that she, a fairly intelligent person, seemed incapable of thinking beyond Trent. Trent! Trentget-out-of-my-head-de Havilland.
She took herself off for a walk, and found she was silently arguing with herself. Why shouldn't she go round to Trent's house for her clothes? They were hers, and she could do with a change of business suit.
Having counter-argued that she'd buy another suit, she returned to her flat. Now she was thinking along the lines that he probably wouldn't be in even if she did go round. He worked hard; he was probably playing hard at this very minute.
She didn't like her following thought: doubtless there'd be some sensational-looking female helping him play! But she dismissed such painful images. She had a key, didn't she? No way, she determined firmly.
It was early evening when Alethea knew she could take no more. Thoughts of Trent, her need to see him, the things she had left behind, had bombarded her all day. Pride just didn't enter into it any more. She needed action. She had to go, if only to know that she had achieved something.
She was in her car and on her way to Trent's home when nerves started to bite and she hoped Trent was not in. Perhaps he'd gone abroad again.
Alethea was pulling up outside his house when she had the most diabolical thought: perhaps he wasn't out, but in, entertaining some woman-friend! She almost pressed her foot hard on the accelerator and shot past where he lived.
But, being so close to his home, so close to where he might be, somehow she just could not do it. Someone else seemed to be in charge of her as she got out of her car and went up the steps to Trent's front door.
That person was still in charge of her when, feeling it would be an intrusion to use her key and walk straight in, she rang his doorbell. Then she immediately wanted to run. She should have phoned first; he wasn't in—oh, God, somebody was coming!
CHAPTER NINE
ALEA was a quivering mass of nerves when, after seeming to take forever to be opened, the front door was pulled back. Trent! For several seconds she was too emotionally full to be able to utter a word. It was just plain wonderful to see him.
But Trent, his unsmiling expression telling her nothing, appeared to have little he wanted to say. He had not a word of greeting, nor did he tell her to get lost, either. But, with his dark eyes looking nowhere but at her face, he just stood there.
Striving with all she had to get herself under control, she blurted out in a sudden rush, 'Is it convenient? Are you entertaining? I sh-should have telephoned first.' Oh, Lord, she was gabbling. He was nobody's fool. He'd know she was nervous. `I'll—er—come back later,' she uttered in a breathless sentence, and had half turned from the front door when, moving with lightning speed, Trent stepped forward and caught her arm in a detaining hold.
`You might as well come in now that you're here,' he remarked smoothly, and Alethea felt his firm hold on her arm tighten, urging her towards him and over his threshold.
`Am—I—interrupting anything?' she asked jerkily as he closed the door after her and let go of her arm.
`Not a thing,' he replied evenly, ushering her into the drawing room.
`I don't want to intrude. I can just go up for my things if you ...'
`You're not intruding, Alethea,' he cut in pleasantly. `Your belongings can wait for a while. Take a seat and tell me what you've been doing this last few days.'
To tell him about her recent activities would bore him out of his skull. But, and she knew she was being weak, Alethea went over to one of the sofas and sat down. 'I er—haven't been doing anything very exciting,' she mumbled, looking around the room which, in so short a time, had become very familiar to her, but which she now wanted to photograph in her mind. Self-inflicted punishment it might be, but she wanted to imagine Trent in this room, on that sofa opposite ...
`You've not been out for an evening?'
He was merely being polite; she knew that. 'I went to my mother's on Friday.'
`How was she?'
`You care?'
He laughed, and she loved him, and suddenly she started to feel a little better. 'Can I get you a drink? A coffee?' he offered.
`Nothing, thanks.' She didn't seem to be able to remember a time when she had never loved him. 'You've been busy, I expect.'
He shrugged. 'You know how it is,' he answered, using the arm of the other sofa for a seat.
She might be ling a trifle more relaxed, but sud-
denly she ran out polite conversation. 'I'd better go
upstairs and—' She didn't get to finish.
`I think we should have our talk first,' Trent cut her off shortly.
She stared at him in consternation. Clearly he had got tired of small talk too. But, by that criteria, did he now mean he wanted them to talk in depth? He had said, on Tuesday morning, that he thought they should talk. All her fears rushed back with a vengeance. 'I thought—I didn't think—n-now, after... I thought that there was not now anything to talk about. Everything seems to me to be resolved.' She shouldn't have come. Oh, where had her brain been? Why had she so let her emotions lead her?
`We've resolved nothing,' Trent said evenly.
Alethea was a seething mass of panic inside that he might have seen her love for him. 'Oh,' she murmured while trying desperately to cope. `I—um-' She broke off. Trent could be tough, she knew that, but he wasn't a cruel man. He wouldn't deliberately want to bring up the subject of how she felt about him for the pure hell of it, would he? Because she had offended him by telling him he had made her feel cheap, would he? Surely, now that she no longer lived with him... Her thoughts stopped right there—and went up another avenue. 'Has this anything to do with my brother-in-law?' she asked abruptly.
The Trouble with Trent! Page 13