Charlotte Lamb

by Charlotte Lamb

  Her steps slowed, her mouth went dry—he looked so harsh, his mouth set in a forbidding line; she was afraid of facing him.

  'What's wrong? You've gone pale; is it jet-lag?' asked Jamie, sliding an arm around her.

  'I suppose so,' she muttered, moving away from him because she knew how angry it would make Sean to see Jamie holding her like that. She shot a look towards where Sean had been, and then her eyes widened. He had gone. Had he seen Jamie put an arm round her in that intimate gesture? Her heart sank.

  She knew very well what he would have thought, seeing her arrive with Jamie, after leaving the hotel without warning. If Greg had explained about the TV interview, of course, Sean would realise that she and Jamie had been in Miami to do that show, but from the expression on his face he had not expected her to arrive with Jamie. No doubt he had put two and two together and come up with a totally wrong answer for the sum. He had always been suspicious of her relationship with Jamie. Nothing had changed.

  On the way to the taxi rank she kept looking around for Sean but he had vanished without trace. She and Jamie shared a cab into London—he dropped her first before going on to his own home. It was a warm May day; there was white lilac in bloom in the garden at the back of her flat. She opened a window and the scent of lilac drifted in, filling the room. For no reason she could pin down, tears filled her eyes. What was she going to do about Sean?

  Nadine had slept on the plane and didn't feel like going back to bed, so she began making phone calls. First, she made several business calls, and then she rang Larry Dean, at his office, and was put through at once.

  He sounded startled. 'Nadine! Hello, how are you? Are you back? Did you have a good holiday? I thought you were going for several weeks.'

  'I had to come back early. Larry, where's Sean?'

  'Sean?' He sounded wary. 'I... I'm not sure...'

  'I know he's in London, I saw him at the airport.'

  'Did you?' Larry's voice became worried. 'What on earth was he doing there? He wasn't getting a flight, was he?'

  She frowned. If Larry was anxious about Sean there had to be a good reason. 'I have no idea,' she said slowly. 'I thought you might know. Did he tell you he came out to the West Indies to see me?'

  Larry was silent, then said uneasily, 'Yes, I knew he'd been over there. I assumed he went to ask you for money, but he said he didn't. What on earth is going on, Nadine? Can you tell me what his plans are? I don't know, he won't talk about it, and things are getting to crisis point here. I can't pay the wages this month and once that gets out we're finished.'

  She bit her lower lip, frowning. 'If I lend you my million, will that save you? Or will it get eaten up in paying your debts without actually fuelling a new project? Because I don't want to throw my money into a big black hole, you know.'

  Larry's voice was cautiously eager. 'Of course not, that's very understandable, I promise I wouldn't let your money get swallowed up like that—it would help us launch a new project, Nadine. If we had a sum of that size in cash in the bank we could pay off our most pressing debts first of all, but more importantly we could interest bigger investors to back Sean's new plans. Actually, we're hopeful that the mini-series has got a definite buyer.'

  'Greg Erroll?' she guessed and Larry laughed.

  'Well, Greg is still reluctant to get off the fence- he won't say yes or no, he keeps asking for time to make up his mind. But another buyer has come forward.'

  'Who?'

  'I can't talk about it yet, but by tomorrow we'll know for sure whether or not this company is going to sign a contract, and if it does we're back in business.'

  'Does that mean you won't need my money?'

  'No, no, we do need it, but if this guy signs the contract tomorrow then we'll be able to give you a much stronger guarantee if you do lend us the million. How easy will it be for you to have the money in cash? Will it take you time to sell investments?'

  'I've already started the process. The cash should be in my bank within a week. Will that be time enough?'

  Larry gave a long, rough sigh. 'Yes, fine, thanks, Nadine. I can't tell you how grateful I am, and I'll let you know as soon as Sean makes contact.'

  'And let me know if this buyer for the mini-series signs the contract,' she said—because a sale at that stage would probably make Sean feel better.

  Larry rang her early next morning, sounding nervous and agitated. 'Nadine, I'm sorry but.. .how much could you raise at once? We badly need enough cash to pay a nasty piece of work who is threatening legal action immediately if we don't pay now.'

  She frowned, thinking quickly. 'Well, I think I could write out a cheque for twenty thousand pounds without it bouncing! Would that be any good?'

  'It would be wonderful. I'm sorry to ask... but how soon could we have it? The nasty piece of work is here, in my office, and won't leave empty- handed.'

  'I'm on my way,' Nadine said.

  'I could send someone...' began Larry.

  'No, I'd better come myself.'

  'Thank you, Nadine,' Larry said gratefully. 'I can't tell you how much I appreciate this.'

  She arrived at the film company offices half an hour later with the cheque already written out in her handbag. She was shown up into Larry's office immediately.

  Larry was sitting behind his desk looking distinctly harassed and leaning against the wall was a hulking great brute in a horrible acid-green suit who wore black sunglasses on his nose and what looked to Nadine like a false moustache.

  Nadine ignored him, gave Larry a soothing smile, took the cheque out of her bag and handed it over the desk to Larry who read it carefully and then gave a sigh of relief.

  'Thanks, Nadine.' His look was gratitude enough, then he picked up a document from the desk. 'Right, then, sign for this, would you?' he said pushing the piece of paper across the desk in the direction of the man in the vile green suit.

  The brute read the document slowly, his large finger following the lines of type, scowling over it, then said in a rough, East End accent, 'Look 'ere, I'm not signing nothing till I've made sure the cheque won't bounce. Give me the number of her bank so I can check with the manager.'

  Larry looked helplessly at Nadine. Coldly she looked in her address book and gave the brute the telephone number. He rang her bank and asked to speak to the manager, then had a short conversation before handing the phone to Nadine.

  'He says he wants to talk to you before he'll tell me anything about your account.'

  She spoke to her bank manager, who was clearly eaten up with curiosity, reassured him that the money was a business deal and it really was her speaking, then she handed the phone back to the brute who talked to the manager again before hanging up.

  'OK, now we're in business,' he said. 'Where do I sign?'

  He scribbled an unreadable signature then slipped the cheque into his wallet, nodded to Larry and then as an afterthought to Nadine.

  'When I provide equipment I expect to get paid for it, as agreed,' he said as if justifying himself, then left, letting the door bang behind him.

  'Equipment?' Nadine asked Larry who grimaced.

  'Electronic stuff, sound equipment—it costs the earth, and our head of sound said he knew this man who could supply it cheaper than our usual people.'

  'Oh, Larry! How could you make such a stupid mistake? You know deals like that are always with crooks!'

  Larry looked rueful. 'We were desperate. And you're right, that man is an absolute crook! He has some very vicious friends who break things if you make them angry, he says. They break people too, as a last resort, he told me. I'm very relieved to have got him out of my life. We'll never buy anything from that source again!' He came round the desk and gave Nadine a warm hug. 'Thanks, Nadine, I can't say it adequately.. .but thanks.'

  She kissed him lightly. 'My pleasure...'

  Behind them the door opened and they both felt the freezing wind of disapproval coming their way. Larry stepped back, looking alarmed. Nadine turned round, hazel eyes w
ide with a muddled mixture of shock and relief.

  'What the hell is going on here?' Sean demanded through his teeth. 'And why was Buzz Brown looking so pleased with himself as he went just now?'

  'Nadine paid him off,' Larry gabbled.

  Sean hit the roof. 'She did what? You asked her for money to pay that rat off? I told you to leave her out of my business affairs! How dare you go to her behind my back again, after everything I said, and ask her for money!' He took three strides and grabbed Larry by the collar, hauling him up on to his toes and shaking him as a terrier would shake a rat it had cornered. 'I ought to break your neck!'

  Larry had gone red in the face and was choking. 'Sean... for heaven's sake...'

  Nadine leapt across the room at Sean, grabbed his hands and tried to break their hold on Larry.

  'Let him go! Let him go, Sean! Are you mad? You're choking him to death!'

  Sean hurled Larry to the other side of the office, where he fell into his own chair and slumped there looking dazed. Sean turned to Nadine, his blue eyes blazing with a menace she found infinitely more disturbing than she had found the glowers of the hulking brute who had just left.

  'Larry deserved that,' Sean said grimly. 'And now it's your turn! I told you I didn't want your money, didn't I? But you never listen. You've ignored everything I said and now you're going to have to take the consequences!'

  'Don't you shout at me, Sean Carmichael!' Her voice shook slightly; she hoped he wouldn't notice. She hated it when he was so angry: the male aggression made her nerves quiver with tension.

  'I am not shouting,' he shouted. 'I told you I would only take money from you on one condition—don't pretend you've forgotten. Well, you've handed over a lot of money to the company, and now I'm going to insist that you fulfil the condition too. I am not '

  Larry was sitting up, straightening his collar and tie, brushing back his hair, looking puzzled. 'What condition?' he interrupted.

  Sean stopped talking, his face startled, as if he had forgotten Larry was there. He swung round to eye him threateningly. 'Haven't you left yet? There's the door, get out.'

  'This is my office, Sean!' protested Larry.

  'I'm borrowing it.' Sean's voice was at its most arrogant. 'Get out.'

  Larry got up, shuffled to the door looking uneasy but made a last effort to intervene before he went. 'Now, Sean, don't bully Nadine any more. She's done us the most enormous favour and you ought to be grateful, not bellow at her...'

  'Get out!' Sean roared.

  Larry gulped and vanished, banging the door behind him.

  Sean turned his dangerous blue eyes on Nadine and a quiver ran through her. 'Now... as I was saying... if I take your money, you come with it.'

  CHAPTER NINE

  'DON'T be ridiculous!' Nadine darted towards the door but he got there first, barring her way, too tall, too powerful, for her to push him aside, so she stopped and lifted her chin defiantly. 'And don't you threaten me, Sean!'

  'I'm keeping my temper,' he said, incredibly, because he was looking like a volcano about to erupt. 'But I can't promise to keep it for long, so tell me what I want to know before I get really angry. I know you left the island to do some TV show in Miami. I found out that Greg Erroll had booked the private plane that picked you up, and I rang him and Greg told me about the show, but he thought you were coming back to the island when you'd done it. So I waited for you.' His blue eyes burnt down into her like branding irons. 'But you didn't come back, did you? Instead, you spent time in Miami with Jamie Colbert—did you sleep with him?'

  Very flushed, she crossly shook her head. 'I told you once, I have never slept with Jamie and I never will! I'm very fond of him and I know he's fond of me, but we're friends, not lovers.'

  'Hmm.' Sean didn't sound convinced. 'But you spent several days in Miami alone with him!'

  'Sightseeing. We were sightseeing! Jamie had his camera; he took endless photographs. If he has a mistress, that's it—his camera, not me! He'd hired a car, we drove around the Everglades, right down the Keys to Key West, we drove around Miami, I shopped and we swam in the hotel pool and sunbathed on the beach. We had a few peaceful days' holiday...'

  'Together!' Sean made the word sound like an accusation, his face tense.

  'Yes, together,' she agreed impatiently. 'Friends do go on holiday together, all the time.'

  'If you wanted to continue your holiday why didn't you come back to the island?'

  She laughed disbelievingly. 'With you there? Peaceful? Are you kidding?'

  His face tightened as if she had hit him. 'So you admit it—you didn't come back to the island to avoid me!'

  She didn't answer that, her lashes lowered over her eyes, her hands restless.

  Sean waited, then said harshly, 'You stayed on in Miami alone with him, and then you flew back with him to London. I might be sitting in the West Indies now, waiting for you, if I hadn't got tired of waiting and rung your hotel. You weren't in, but I did find out that you were due to check out next day and fly back to London. I thought the hotel might have made a mistake about your flight, so I checked up with the airport and found out that you were booked on a London flight. So I got a plane back myself, intending to meet you at Heathrow when you arrived.'

  'I saw you,' Nadine muttered. 'Don't think I didn't see you lurking there! So if you'd come to meet me, why did you rush off without a word?'

  His blue eyes glittered at her. 'Why do you think?'

  She refused to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate her.

  'Yes,' Sean said. 'Because Colbert was with you, wasn't he? Whether you say he's a friend or a lover, there he was, with his arm around you in a very possessive way—so I left.'

  'Well, if you were going to talk to Jamie the way you've been talking to me I'm glad you did! He would have thought you were crazy if you'd rushed up and made angry noises at him over nothing! That's just why I left the island. I was having a wonderful time learning to paint, I liked Luc and Clarrie Haines, the food was delicious, the island a dream... but once you arrived I never had a minute's peace, did I? You were like a wasp at a picnic on the beach. You buzzed around all the time, making me nervous; I couldn't relax or enjoy myself. As you wouldn't leave, I decided I had to.'

  He watched her, his brows very black above those bright blue eyes. 'If you hate me so much, why are you here?' he bit out, and she jumped, her face white then red.

  'Hate you? I didn't say I hated you!' She saw his eyes narrow and gleam, and hurriedly went on, 'And anyway, I told you, Larry rang me and asked me to help—what was I supposed to do? Refuse point-blank?'

  'Larry had no business asking you for money! I made it crystal-clear to him that I did not want him involving you!'

  'How can I not be involved?' she flared. 'The company means something to me, too, you know. I've been in on it from the beginning, I don't want to see it going bankrupt if there's anything I can do to stop it.'

  'But this isn't simply a question of money, is it?' Sean murmured softly, and her mouth went dry at the way he looked at her. 'The real question is... are you coming back to me or not? If you're not, you can take your money away, I don't want it.'

  'I'd have to be insane to come back to a man who gets jealous over nothing, won't listen to reason, wants to control my entire life!'

  He caught her face between his hands and said huskily, 'It will be different this time, Nadine! I'll try not to get jealous...'

  'Oh, yes?' she asked him with a cynical smile. 'For how long? While we were on the island I kept telling you I wasn't having an affair with Jamie, I'd never had an affair with Jamie, but you still exploded because you saw me with him at the airport!'

  His mouth indented. 'I said I'd try! I didn't say I'd always manage it. I can't help being jealous of you; I love you so much it makes me see red whenever another man goes near you.'

  Her heart turned over and she felt her knees go weak, but she couldn't let the pattern repeat itself all over again. She had to be firm with him. 'Can
't you see how embarrassing that is for me, not to mention what a strain it is to have you going into a rage if another man says hello to me?'

  He frowned. 'Yes, it must be. I hadn't thought of it like that, Nadine.'

  'Not to mention the fact that it means you don't trust me an inch—how do you think I feel about that?'

  She felt the sigh he gave. 'I told you! I do trust you! It's them, not you, I'm afraid of.'

  Nadine froze, staring up at his tense, pale face.

  'Afraid of?' she repeated and saw the dark flush crawl up his face, saw his jaw tighten.

  'What I meant was...' He broke off, groaning. 'No, that was what I meant—I've always been afraid I'd lose you. You know my parents were divorced—my mother was a very beautiful woman. She went off with another man when I was fourteen, and my father took it very badly. I watched him fall apart—it ruined his life—and I swore to myself then that I'd never let that happen to me, I'd never care that much about any woman. Then I met you and I couldn't help myself. I cared, badly, and I was terrified that some day someone would come along and take you away from me the way somebody took my mother from my father.'

  She had known that his parents had divorced when he was in his teens, and that his father had died of a heart attack a few years later. She had met his mother only once or twice since the older woman was currently with her third husband in the States and had shown no real interest in either her son or his wife; but this was the first time Sean had ever told her how his parents' marriage had broken up and how it had affected him, and it altered everything.

  Huskily she said, 'Why didn't you tell me all this long ago?'

  'I hate talking about it!'

  'But can't you see what a difference it makes, to understand why you should be the way you are? It makes sense of what seemed completely crazy.'

  He watched her intently, his blue eyes dark with emotion. 'Does it? I wish I could make sense of you, darling. When we were together on the island I was so sure you loved me, every response you gave was so strong; and yet you suddenly flew off without even leaving me a note! How could you do that to me?'