Catherine’s chair was next to Paul’s. His tanned hand rested on the arm. Her own slid forward, obeying a compulsion, a yearning to feel his flesh against hers, wanting to cut Zoe out of his thoughts. Their little fingers brushed. Her wildest imaginings couldn’t have foreseen the amount of feeling it was possible for a little finger to transmit. It brought her to her senses, to the realization that the fire wasn’t cozy anymore. It was a raging inferno that would consume her if she allowed it to.
Her hand jerked back in alarm. She shuddered to think what would have happened if they’d gone immediately to their room after that explosive kiss. She thanked the blessed angel of convention that had forced them to observe the social laws and rejoin their host and fellow guests. She had been given time to come out of the sensual euphoria that kiss had induced. Knowing how easily Paul could arouse her, and to what dynamic effect, plunged her into panic. No way could she spend the night alone in a room with him. She must find Cleopatra and ask to be given a bed somewhere else. In a house this size there were bound to be plenty of empty rooms available.
The coffee cups had not yet been removed. She saw them as a means of skipping out and going in search of Cleopatra to make her request before it got any later. She stacked everything onto the tray, announcing, ‘I’ll take these through to the kitchen.’
‘Don’t trouble yourself with that,’ Gus said airily.
‘No trouble,’ she insisted.
But when she got to the kitchen there was no joy, either. It was spic and span and deserted. She washed the crockery, dried each piece and put it back on the tray for someone else to put away. Still no sign of Cleopatra. She was just wondering whether to try to find her when Paul appeared at the kitchen door.
‘You wouldn’t be following me, would you?’ she inquired, bristling as his long stride shortened the distance between them.
‘We’re out of ice. I volunteered to fetch it.’
‘Oh!’ She sounded more defiant than chastened. ‘Do you know where Cleopatra is?’
His eyes narrowed, active and suspicious. ‘Why do you want her?’
‘To ask for another room. I should have insisted on sorting things out before, when I found out it was you I was supposed to be sharing with and not Deirdre. But your arguments were very persuasive. I didn’t want to cause a scene and embarrass you in front of your friends. But now I don’t care if I raise the roof if that’s what it takes to get it through to you that I am not spending the night with you.’
She didn’t realize that her voice had reached a high pitch of hysteria until he commanded, ‘Quiet. Unless you want the whole house to hear.’
‘I don’t care if they do.’ She’d reached the point where she was past caring. ‘I will not be talked out of my convictions this time. You go too far. You do things to me you shouldn’t.’
‘It takes two. What do you think you did to me earlier, out there on the terrace?’
She lowered her eyes. ‘That was ungallant. You made me like that. You’re very adept at making a girl respond to you. I put that down to experience. You’re an expert because you’ve researched the subject thoroughly.’
‘If you don’t stop this, I’ll do something else thoroughly. I’ll tell you this much, in all this vast experience you credit me with having, I’ve never met a woman like you before.’
She was saved the necessity of thinking up a reply by Cleopatra, who announced herself by calling out loudly from the kitchen door before coming right in. ‘Tell me, Mister Paul, do you two fight all the time, or do you save it up for when I’m about to bust in on you?’
‘You do seem to have a knack for timing your entrances, Cleopatra,’ Paul said tightly.
The whites of her eyes flashed as Cleopatra shifted her gaze to rest momentarily on Catherine before returning it to where her sympathy lay. ‘That li’l gal sure is a pretty parcel of trouble for you, Mister Paul.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know, Cleopatra. Did you want something?’
‘Just to tell you that your room’s ready. I put you next door to Miss Catherine, in the room that shares the balcony. In case you wants to make it up,’ she said, her eyes switching back to Catherine, giving her such a funny look, condemning yet at the same time appealing—presumably for Catherine to come to her senses.
There was a conspiracy against her! If she hadn’t already felt victimized—the circumstances leading up to her finding herself in this predicament had been particularly capricious and unkind—she might have found it quite laughable. And then her impish sense of humor burst through to join her fury, so that despite the rising anger she felt toward Paul for knowing what he did and letting her babble on, the absurdity of the situation struck her and she had to quell a laugh. Perhaps it was just relief she felt, she thought, sobering at the grimness of Paul’s expression as he thanked Cleopatra for organizing things, then explained what had brought him to the kitchen. ‘We need ice.’
‘You two go about your business. I’ll bring the ice in,’ Cleopatra replied in her pretty singsong voice, which slid naturally into a snatch of calypso. For all her size her step matched perfectly to the lilting tune as she moved toward the refrigerator.
As Paul took her elbow to guide her back to the salon, Catherine envied Cleopatra her easy and carefree temperament and wished she didn’t have to make the apology that was sticking in her throat. She felt that Paul could have shut her up and spared her this embarrassment by telling her that he’d already approached Cleopatra about the matter that had been weighing so heavily on her own mind.
‘Thank you for having a word with Cleopatra about you know what,’ she said gruffly.
‘Think nothing of it.’
‘Oh, but I do!’
‘Chivalry had nothing to do with it, if that’s the mistaken impression flitting through your head,’ he replied in contempt. ‘I was being characteristically selfish. Seeing it as the lesser of two evils.’
‘Oh?’
‘As I saw it, I could either throw myself at Cleopatra’s mercy, risking her scorn, or if your determination was a reliable indication, contemplate spending the night on the balcony.’
‘I see,’ she said, trying to keep the skepticism out of her voice.
‘After our dalliance on the terrace, however, I wondered if I should have bothered asking for a separate room.’
‘If you hadn’t, it would have been the balcony,’ she retorted, stepping ahead of him on her precariously high heels.
Just short of the door he reached for her fingers, holding them captive, his gaze dropping to the vulnerable curve of her mouth. She thought he was going to say something, but his eyes merely lifted to hers in frowning interrogation, the inquiry sealed in their jade green depths.
She still felt shaken by his appraisal as they joined the others for the tail end of the evening. The time was racing by, dinner having been served at a late hour. The sparkle had gone for her and she wasn’t sorry when bedtime murmurings were made, yet each person seemed to be waiting for someone else to make the first move.
Finally it was Paul who levered himself from his chair, his eyes floating across to meet hers. ‘I’ll escort you up, if you’re ready?’
‘I am,’ she responded gratefully. She rose and turned to her host. ‘Thank you for a wonderful meal, Gus.’ She had started out calling him Mr. Strindberg, but he had insisted that she drop formality. Because he was a very easy person to know, she had been able to do so without any self-consciousness.
‘My table was enhanced by your delightful presence,’ he said with old-world gallantry. ‘Good night, Catherine. Sleep well.’
‘Thank you, I’m sure I will. Good night, Gus.’
Zoe and Jeremy were also getting to their feet and in the general exodus the good nights continued up the stairs. Now that the humiliation of sharing a room was not to be forced on her and the fear of that intimacy had been removed, she didn’t mind Paul taking a proprietorial hold of her hand, which fitted in his fingers as though it had been fashi
oned for that purpose. At her door it did not gain its freedom until it had been warmed by a gentle squeeze.
Then he bid her an airy, ‘Good night,’ and continued along the passage to the room next to hers, the one that shared her balcony, she remembered in discomfort.
She hoped he realized that ‘good night’ was final. He turned his head at just that moment and caught her eyes on him, and immediately a trace of wry amusement lifted the corners of his mouth. It was as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and his smile mocked her prudishness and at the same time held a taunting threat that made her confidence ebb and brought hot color into her cheeks.
With a scathing lift of her chin and a determined straightening of her shoulders, she swept into her room, closing the door with a decisive bang.
Once out of his vision her hauteur left her. She sat down on the edge of the bed and wished that she were better able to cope. It was infuriating to feel so put out. Her original opinion of him still held, but with certain dangerous qualifying factors. He was everything she disliked in a man, yet she could not bring herself to dislike him. He was too assertive, and overconfident. It was supremely egotistical of him to think he was irresistible to all women. Perhaps not all women, she thought wearily, but certainly a high percentage would have difficulty in evicting him from their thoughts. It wasn’t in the least comforting to know that, contrary to all the ardent disclaimers she had made to herself, she, too, was one of the women who found him devastatingly attractive and impossible to resist.
The knock on her balcony door, though not unexpected, made her jump. She would have preferred not to answer it, but realized that Cleopatra wouldn’t have locked it, so if she didn’t go he would probably come in anyway. And she could hardly be so juvenile as to jump up and lock the door herself, knowing he would hear the noise the key made as it was turned. Hoping to strike a compromise, she drew back the curtain and looked at him through the glass.
He held up a copy of his book, the copy she’d bought so she’d be able to say that she had read his work before applying for the job of typing his manuscripts. Even though Cleopatra had made it perfectly clear that she expected some to-ing and fro-ing, this had not been a piece of deviousness on the housekeeper’s part, but a clear-cut and obvious mistake. Cleopatra would naturally have assumed that the book belonged to him and had removed it, with the rest of his possessions, from her room. He could have picked a more suitable time to return it, though, she thought, fuming as much as she was quaking at the blatant pretext for getting into her room.
She opened the door the merest crack, allowing just sufficient space for the book to be passed through. She didn’t exactly reel back in surprise when he assisted it the rest of the way and boldly gained entry.
‘The book was an excuse,’ he admitted, carelessly tossing it down on the bed. ‘I could have returned it in the morning. We have to talk.’
‘Talk?’ she said with an eloquent lift of her brows.
Since she had seen him last he had removed his jacket and tie and he looked casually elegant in shirt sleeves. Several strands of hair had found their way onto his forehead. He pushed them back, his eyes too knowing for her peace of mind.
‘Unless you’ve got a better idea?’ he quizzed in lazy insolence.
‘If you’ve got something to say, say it and get out of here,’ she said, her voice abrasive, despite the emotion that was making it difficult for her to breathe evenly.
‘That’s not very friendly,’ he chided, his smile as feigned as his indifference, encompassing his mouth only and not touching his eyes.
‘There’s a perfectly good explanation for that. I don’t sound friendly because I don’t feel friendly.’
His face hardened and she knew that she had handled things all wrong. It was penetrating her shaking senses somewhat belatedly that she had misjudged his reasons for butting in on her at such a late hour. He’d said ‘to talk’ and she hadn’t believed him. Now, though her belief was too late to be of practical help, she did. There had been an affableness about his manner when he first came in which, as a result of her suspicions, had now gone.
‘To be blunt, shouldn’t you have worked out your feelings before taking on the assignment?’ he said. It was a reasonable query, but asked in a cold, jarring tone.
She swallowed hard. ‘That’s a fair question. Yes, I should.’ She had known all along that it was a difficult situation. As far back as the interview—even before that, when they had first met at Lois’s party—he had made improper passes at her with his eyes. ‘I needed the money, desperately, for the survival of Allycats. I didn’t think beyond that.’
‘That’s honest, at least,’ he spat out contemptuously. Just before he’d spoken he’d given a small choked-back gasp, as though she’d said something to shake him. His composure, however, was not as lost as hers and he retrieved it without apparent effort, his features taking on a look of scorn that flicked her already raw nerves. ‘My only motive in pressing to see you was to put your mind at rest, to allow you to get a good night’s sleep and wake up in the morning without worrying about what the day would bring. I’ve been weighing the pros and cons all evening, and I’ve finally decided that this was another of your unconscious decisions, that you got yourself into it without really appreciating what it was all about. But have a care, Catherine. I’m only human. Never in my born days have I met such a provocative bundle of mischief as you. Not only your tongue, but your body, runs away with you. Any girl who acts like you do should be prepared to take her punishment. And what that will be if you go on the way you are is anybody’s guess. I might heed Cleopatra’s words and rectify the omissions of your childhood and take you over my knee, or I might take you up on what you’re offering.’
‘You’re not human at all; you’re a beast,’ she spat at him in fury.
Their eyes locked for a long, frozen moment; perhaps his composure wasn’t as secure as she had believed, because he seemed to be restraining himself from committing physical violence.
‘Just watch it, you silly little fool. You don’t know what you’re talking about or how lucky you are that I’m the one you picked to take for a ride. You could have come up against a real monster, someone who’d resort to brute mayhem to get his pound of flesh. You could have landed yourself in deep trouble. Some men make mean lovers and ask things of a woman you don’t know anything about, and I hope to God you never do. What I came to say is this: Even though you’ve welched on me, it’s still to my advantage to make the best of a bad bargain. In fact, thinking about it, this way suits me better.’
‘Paul, perhaps I’m as stupid as you say I am. I haven’t understood a word you’ve said.’
‘How much more clearly do I have to spell it out? I need the cover more than I need the woman. The pretense that we’re on . . . close terms will do. You put up a good performance tonight. Keep it up and that will square the books.’
‘Paul, I’m sorry. Please don’t be angry with me—but I don’t know what you’re saying. Oh, I know that you want the others to think that we’re lovers, but I don’t know why.’
‘You can’t have missed the gossip,’ he ground out in bitterness. ‘The vultures of the press had a field day.’
‘What gossip?’ she asked weakly, knowing that she was making him angrier still, but refusing to pretend that she knew what he was getting at when she didn’t.
‘What are you trying to do to me, Catherine?’
‘I’m not trying to do anything, except understand.’
‘All right. But if you’re being funny, expect to be paid back. The gossip concerning Zoe and Jeremy.’
‘Oh that.’
‘Yes, that. The other story, the one not in the screenplay, caused more talk and trauma and human pathos and drama than anything in the script. It certainly made quite a rumpus when Zoe fell in love with her co-star under the direction of her boyfriend.’
Catherine wondered why Paul was bringing this up now; it was hardly relevant to them. She also
wondered at the bitterness on his face. Had he been a special friend of the director who had been given such a bad deal? Or was it something more? Had he fallen for Zoe himself?
‘I’ve never seen such feeling on a set. The critics set Zoe up on a pedestal for her fireball performance. They called her brilliant . . . the most exciting discovery of the decade . . . a sensational mixture of whore and angel, harlot and innocent. She was referred to as the actress destined to add even more bubbles to the champagne scene. They said she acted everyone else off the set and held their breath at the artless beauty of the love scenes that reached a new dimension in film intimacy. Scorchingly intimate scenes played with artless candor and innocence. They made film history. Hardened old cynics, stringent critics who’d seen it all before in a variety of guises, wept openly. At the other end of the scale, even the most straight-laced member of the public could view it without embarrassment. So there you are.’
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