by Liz Fielding
‘My games? You’re the one playing games, Claudia and since you weren’t too tired to go partying until all hours, despite getting up at dawn for the television show and despite your shopping trip afterwards, you can spare me two minutes to tell me exactly what is going on.’ His gaze swept over the seductive red gown, his lip curled back in disapproval. ‘You can start by telling me what happened to the new dress that you simply had to have this morning? Was there a dress? Or was that all just part of the performance, part of the wind-up to get me good and edgy for the coupe de grace at the restaurant?’ He stepped back, releasing her so suddenly that she staggered slightly in her high heels, holding his hands up as if touching her might in some way contaminate him. ‘My God. I’ve fallen for it again, haven’t I?’ He continued to stare at her. ‘I watched that surveillance video and suddenly I was so certain... God, what an idiot I am. He was put there to keep me interested wasn’t he? The guy in the van watching the flat? You keep trailing these enticing lures and like a hungry pike, I keep on getting caught. Why?’
He was staring at her now with an expression so dark that it sent a shiver up her spine.
‘I don’t think I can answer that question for you, Gabriel.’
He brushed aside her answer with an angry gesture. ‘You know what I mean. Why are you doing this to me? Haven’t I done enough for your personal publicity crusade?’ Claudia turned away, heartsick at his undisguised contempt, unable to listen any more, but he blocked the way with his arm.
And Claudia, her hopes so cruelly raised for the briefest of moments, felt her heart break as surely as if it was made of glass.
She didn’t know what he was talking about, but it was clear as day that she had got it wrong again. He hadn’t come racing back to say that he was sorry, to ask her to forgive him for even thinking she could be so false.
He’d been lying in wait for her because he wanted more answers. More bloody answers. Well she didn’t have any answers for him and she didn’t know anything about a man in a van, but she knew how to get rid of Gabriel MacIntyre. It was easy.
‘Why? Because you’re a gift, Gabriel.’ Claudia was hurting so much that she needed to strike back, so she invested her voice with a deep husky warmth, using his given name because she knew in some deep pocket of her soul that he’d hate that most of all. ‘You respond so beautifully to the slightest suggestion of danger...’ She didn’t know exactly what had sent him rushing back to her, so she kept it vague. ‘Offer you a clue and you’re like a bloodhound after the scent. I knew it would bring you running back…’ - she stretched out her hand and clicked her fingers - ‘…just like that. Am I a clever girl, or what?’ She looked about her. ‘It’s just a pity there’s no one about to see your performance.’
Mac lowered the arm that blocked her way and taking her hand in his, dropped the keys he was holding into her palm before stepping back, leaving her alone on her doorstep. Then he stared at her for one long moment before he turned on his heel and strode across the road to the four-wheel drive parked opposite her flat.
*****
He smashed his fist against the bonnet. He’d been so stupid. Again. What was it about the woman? She had addled his wits, driven him crazy. He’d been right all along, from the very beginning, he just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Couldn’t bear to believe it.
Yet something about the man watching the flat had been so disturbing. He’d been there all day. Not in the same place. He’d moved up and down the street, first one side and then the other, avoiding the traffic wardens, not wanting to become too obvious. But he was always watching the flat.
But Claudia had admitted that it was all a publicity scam. So he’d left his office, gone back to the empty soulless flat that had no memories, determined to forget all about Miss Claudia Beaumont. Put her out of his mind. But his mind refused to co-operate.
It just kept running a scenario where she went home late at night and when she walked in, the man in the baseball cap would be there, waiting for her in the darkness.
Mac knew it was stupid. He’d changed the locks. He’d changed the code of her alarm. He’d at least made her safe from casual intrusion.
But suppose the kindly old lady downstairs had been persuaded to let someone in? If he was polite, convincing, she wouldn’t think twice. How would he do it? Tell her that Miss Beaumont had called the managing agent’s office to complain of a leak. In workman’s clothes, with the right bag, she wouldn’t even ask for ID. And if she did, he would have had something convincing to show her.
He opened the car door and slumped into the seat, glancing up at the window where she was probably right now laughing her socks off. She had made a fool of him and he had let her do it. Then he shook his head.
No. That wasn’t right. She’d simply gone along with what he had said, just the way she had this morning.
He was so damned confused. She’d admitted it was all a stunt, but she had been angry with him. And suddenly he wasn’t sure what she had been angry about. Had it been because he had misjudged her, because he had leapt to the wrong conclusion?
He had seen how sensitive she was when her moral integrity was challenged.
And she was volatile, she would have reacted without thinking of the consequences, she was quite capable of leaving him to think what he liked and let the devil take the consequences. And if that was the case, she’d still be in danger.
But she wasn’t. He was the one reacting with his emotions instead of his head. In fact, he was in desperate need of a cold shower. His hand was shaking slightly as he reached forward to put the key in the ignition and he let it fall. Several cold showers.
He opened the window to let in what passed for fresh air in London, sat back, glanced again up at her flat. Her light hadn’t come on.
He watched for a moment, but her windows remained dark and his gut contracted. It was the same feeling he had whenever he thought of her in danger. The feeling that had sent him rocketing up the M4 without a thought for the speed limit. The feeling that had kept him cooling his heels outside her flat until the small hours of the morning.
He reached forward and started the engine. Her light still hadn’t come on but it probably meant nothing, except that she was standing behind her curtains in the dark quietly enjoying his vacillations, maybe hoping to tempt him to come up and check that she was safe. Yet he still couldn’t bring himself to drive away and leave her alone in the dark even when he knew that to ring the bell because he needed to reassure himself, was to invite ridicule.
What was the matter with him? Why on earth was he still sitting there? Her new locks would take too long to pick for even the most skilled locksmith to take the risk of discovery. Her alarm would have sounded if she hadn’t switched it off by now. She had the personal attack alarm he had given her.
Then, quite suddenly, he began to laugh because he knew what had happened. She had forgotten the new code for the burglar alarm. She was standing outside her flat door trying to remember it, knowing that if she got it wrong it would wake the street, bring out the police. It would serve her right if he left her there.
But he wouldn’t.
He eased himself out of the car and crossed the street to the front door and rang the bell.
There was no response. After a moment he frowned. That was odd. Even if she had got inside, she must know it was him. Surely she wouldn’t miss the opportunity to gloat? Some inner instinct for danger raised the tiny hairs on the nape of his neck. The same instinct that had once sent him diving for cover when a sniper had lined up his sights...
He jammed his finger onto the bell, holding it down for the count of five. When there was no answer he knew that his instincts were right.
‘Claudia!’ he called. ‘Claudia!’ And then he was pounding on the door with his fist, punching at the bell with his thumb, still shouting. Lights began to come on in windows up and down the street and he stepped back to look up at her window, but there was still no sign of life. ‘Claudia!’ His voice sou
nded desperate even in his own ears now and he swung again at the door with his fist. But this time it opened to the pressure, swinging back. And Claudia was clinging onto it as if for dear life.
Her mouth was working, but there was no sound. Great silent wrenching gulps of breath were being gasped in but she couldn’t catch at them. And in the streetlight, her hair and face were wet, soaked with something that was the same colour as her dress.
*****
‘You can come in now, Mr MacIntyre. Miss Beaumont is asking for you.’
The sense of relief that she was well enough to speak, was prepared to speak to him was like being given a new life. He’d been driven from the emergency room by a sharp-tongued nurse who’d told him to wait in the day room, but the hour that he’d been waiting had seen more like ten.
He’d called Luke who had promised to find Edward Beaumont and tell him what had happened but after that he had nothing to do but berate himself for ever doubting her, blame himself for what had happened.
‘How is she?’
‘Sleepy. She’s been given a sedative, so if you’re planning on talking you’d better be quick. Down the hall. Third door.’
Claudia was lying in bed, one side of her face and neck covered in angry red blotches. And great chunks had been hacked from her glorious hair. She was so still that he thought for a moment that she was asleep. Then she turned her head and looked at him.
‘Gabriel,’ she murmured, drowsily. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d stay.’ She thought he’d go away and leave her alone after what had happened? Well, why not? Hadn’t he left her, when she needed him most? ‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘Thank me? For what?’
‘Being there.’
‘But I wasn’t there.’ If he’d been there this would never have happened.
She reached out and took his hand. ‘Yes, you were. If you hadn’t run the bell just when you did I would have had a face full of paint, it would have been in my eyes, my nose, my mouth. It could have been a hundred times worse.’
If that was true she’d been lucky. They’d both been lucky. ‘Did you see anyone?’
‘No.’ She yawned. ‘I sat on the bottom of the stairs for ages trying to recall the new code for the burglar alarm. I was so tired I just couldn’t remember whether you had said five seven or seven five and I knew if I got it wrong I’d wake the whole street.’ She raised her hand in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I finally decided it was seven five-’
‘It was five seven.’
‘Oh, well. I always was hopeless with numbers. It was why I chose my birthday in the first place.’
‘Most people do.’
‘Well, whatever. I’d just got to the top of the stairs when you rang the bell. I knew it was you and you can’t begin to imagine how relieved I was. Then as I turned to come back down, I heard someone behind me’ Her eyes darkened as she remembered. ‘I ... I thought for a moment it was acid...’
‘It was paint,’ he said, quickly. Red paint. Thick and sticky and for one terrible moment he’d thought it was blood. He leaned over her, brushed the hair back from her forehead. ‘In a day or two you’ll be like new.’
‘Except for my hair.’ Her eyes were getting heavier. ‘I’ve never had short hair. My mother said I should never have it cut.’
‘It’ll grow again,’ he reassured her, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Why did you do it, Claudia? Why did you pretend it was all a hoax?’
But she had drifted away on the sedative induced sleep. He stared down at her, guilt eating away at him because he knew that he had failed her. That this attack had been his fault.
‘She’s asleep, then?’ the nurse said, looking around the door a few minutes later.
‘She just drifted off.’
‘Good. You look as if you could do with a nap yourself. There’s no need to stay you know, she won’t stir for a while.’
‘I’ll stay.’ Nothing on earth would move him from her side again unless he could be certain she was quite safe.
‘Then you’d better sit down before you fall down.’ There was a chair beside the bed. He moved it until it was between Claudia and the door and he lowered himself into it. ‘You think whoever did this will try again?’ the nurse, who had watched his manoeuvring with interest, asked curiously.
Not and live to tell the tale. He turned to her. ‘It’s possible. In case that point was missed by the emergency staff, will you mention that I have put a cross in the box marked “no publicity”.’
‘Right. I’ll be sure to pass on the message.’ She backed out of the door. ‘Will you be needing a constant supply of coffee to keep you awake?’
‘No, thank you. Staying awake isn’t a problem.’ The nurse gave him an old-fashioned look and he shook his head. ‘I don’t need drugs either.’
‘Lucky man.’
He was glad she thought so. Doing without sleep was something that he had had to learn the hard way behind the lines in the Gulf and Bosnia. It wasn’t a method he would recommend.
Claudia slept peacefully for several hours. The nurse looked in once in a while and he stretched and walked about the room whenever sleep threatened to overwhelm him. Just before seven she stirred and he crossed to the bed.
The inflammation on her cheek and neck where the paint had been removed contrasted starkly with the greyish pallor and dark hollows of the rest of her face. As he reached forward to take her hand, he heard someone behind him and he swung around, but there was no threat, it was Edward Beaumont.
‘Luke left a message on my answering machine. I’d taken a pill so I only heard it an hour ago. I came as quickly as I could. How is she?’
‘Asleep.’
Mac stood to one side so that he could see for himself. For a moment Edward looked down at his daughter, his face grim. Then he turned to face him. ‘You’re Gabriel MacIntyre?’ Mac nodded. ‘Luke told me about you.’
‘Then he will have told you that I promised him I’d look after Claudia. I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job.’
‘I don’t suppose she made it easy for you. She’s never made anything easy, for herself or anyone else.’ He offered his hand. ‘I’m Edward Beaumont.’
Mac took it and for a moment the two men sized up one another. Edward Beaumont was tall with an aristocratic bearing. He was elegantly dressed despite the early hour and would never be caught with a hair out of place, or his chin unshaven in public. Mac was twenty years younger, three inches taller and carried a great deal more muscle. He was wearing denims, a well-worn t-shirt and he hadn’t had a shave in twenty-four hours. The contrast was striking, but the respect was apparently mutual.
‘Luke was impressed with you, Mr MacIntyre. I can see why.’
‘I’m not feeling very impressed with myself. Claudia could have been seriously injured and it would have been entirely my fault.’
‘Entirely?’
‘I offended her and so she sent me packing in the one way she knew would work.’
‘Oh?’
‘She told me the threats were all part of a publicity stunt.’
‘Did she? And you believed her?’ He was surprised, but clearly didn’t expect Mac to answer because he continued without a pause. ‘Actually that wasn’t what I meant. I was wondering what you had done to offend her.’
Mac stiffened. ‘I asked her to trust me. Unfortunately I didn’t return the compliment.’
Edward Beaumont lifted a hand in a supremely helpless gesture and his whole body sagged a little. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Mr MacIntyre.’
‘Beau?’ Her voice was unusually small.
‘Oh, darling, we’ve disturbed you,’ Edward Beaumont said, turning to bend over his daughter and kiss her forehead. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I don’t know. Sore. Scared.’ Mac heard the rising panic in her voice and caught her hand as she reached up to touch her face.
‘Leave it.’
‘Gabriel,’ for a moment she clung to his hand. Then, as she regained her composure, she
let go and her voice was neutral, giving nothing away as she turned to her father. ‘Will you take me home now, Beau?’
‘I think we’d better see what the doctor says. You’ve had a nasty shock.’ He patted her arm gently. ‘Whoever could have done such a terrible thing?’
‘You have no ideas?’ Mac asked.
‘Me?’ Edward Beaumont was clearly surprised by the question. ‘I haven’t a clue why anyone could do anything so wicked.’
‘Mac thinks people will do anything for publicity,’ Claudia murmured and he flinched.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Claudia,’ Edward said, firmly. ‘One thing is certain though, you can’t go back to your flat. I’m all over the place for the next two weeks or I’d take you home with me, so I think the best thing is to call Fizz, she’ll be able to look after you properly.’
‘No. Fizz mustn’t know about this.’ Claudia’s voice was stronger now and she was quite emphatic. ‘She’ll only worry. And whoever did this knows where she lives. I couldn’t risk anything happening to her.’ She looked to Mac for support.
‘I agree, but your father’s right, the flat is out of the question. I don’t think you should stay with any of your family. You need to stay right out of sight until ... well, until the police have made their investigations.’
‘You called them?’ It was an accusation.
‘Enough is enough, Claudia. They’ll want a statement as soon as you feel up to it.’
For a moment he thought she was going to tell him to take his statement and take a running jump. He wouldn’t blame her. But then she nodded and let her head fall back against the pillow. Mac hesitated. He’d let Claudia down once and now she was getting over the shock of what had happened she hadn’t been slow to let him know it. He wasn’t sure how she’d take his next suggestion.
‘Look, I’ve got a cottage ... it’s a bit basic, but it’s out of the way and at least no one will look for you there. You’re welcome to stay. If you want to.’