'And still were?' Aston murmured, watching her.
'No way.' Lindsay met his eyes levelly. 'He's part, of my past, nothing more. I've locked him away with the old photos and theatre programmes.'
'He seems to have escaped,' Aston commented drily, and she laughed, relaxing.
'Houdini is his middle name.'
'So long as you can laugh at him,' he shrugged. 'If you took him, seriously, he'd be quite alarming, I should think.'
'Understatement is your forte,' Lindsay agreed. 'Oh, don't talk about him, let's enjoy ourselves and forget Daniel exists.'
'I'll drink to that,' said Aston, getting out of the car, his rugged face alight with dry amusement.
They walked into the restaurant together, talking, and the head waiter came over to greet them politely but without warmth. The place was crowded, every table seemed to be taken, but when Aston mentioned his name the man inclined his head. 'Your table is ready, Mr Hill. Would you like to have a drink at the bar first or…'
Aston glanced at her. 'Want a drink, or shall we go to the table right away?'
'We'll go straight in,' said Lindsay, and they followed the head waiter through the closely set tables a moment later. A group was playing on a tiny dais at one end of the room, their blend of traditional jazz kept low so that it didn't interfere with the conversations of clients. As she walked past tables, Lindsay saw any number of familiar faces, the restaurant was a popular night spot with film and stage people.
The head waiter seated her and Aston at a small table in a corner of the room. A blue glass vase holding a white carnation and a spray of feathery fern occupied the centre of the table, and Lindsay glanced up to smile at Aston. 'Pretty, isn't it?' she said, and as her eyes moved away from his amused face she found herself looking at Daniel. He was sitting at a table on the far side of the room and he was watching her with an impassive face. Lindsay felt her face freeze, she looked away quickly, but not before she had noticed the girl sitting opposite him. She was tiny and blonde and very pretty, she was also a familiar face from television since she was one of the stars in a current soap opera. Lindsay both recognised her and was surprised, she looked much smaller and more human in. that atmosphere. In that one quick glance, Lindsay took in the stunning red silk dress she wore, the carefully casual chic of her hair-style and the fascinated glow with which she was talking to Daniel. She felt her heart constrict as she looked away.
'Aperitif, madame?' the head waiter was asking.
She forced herself to concentrate. 'Oh, yes, thank you, I'll have a glass of white wine— Sauternes, I think.' She accepted the large menu he handed her and he bent forward to recommend several of the dishes which were the speciality of the house. Lindsay tried to listen, smiling too tightly. She couldn't keep her mind on food while Daniel sat there, one brown hand lying casually on the white tablecloth only an inch away from the blonde girl's fingers. She could see the two hands out of the corner of her eye, she didn't want to watch them but she couldn't help herself .
What was Daniel doing there with that girl? Lindsay couldn't even remember her name, she only knew her face, like everybody else she had watched the soap opera now and then. The girl was too pretty for their relationship to be anything to do with business.
Of course, a girl like that would be a feather in his cap; everyone would recognise her and envy him. Lindsay had never liked the soap opera much, herself, the character the girl played was testy, and silly into the bargain, and from the way she was turning on charm for Daniel she didn't need to do much acting, either. Risking another quick look, Lindsay was rewarded by seeing Daniel's hand touching the other girl's now. Her teeth set and she looked back at the menu fixedly.
'Seen something you like?' Aston asked, and she looked up at him, her eyes wide and startled.
'What?' He had his back to Daniel, she didn't think he had noticed him.
'On the menu,' said Aston, laughing. 'What did you think I meant? I hope you haven't been smitten by some famous star at another table, I wouldn't want to be forced into drastic action to get rid of him.' He put out a hand and took hers, raised it to his lips and kissed it softly. 'I can be possessive, too.'
She smiled at him and felt Daniel's eyes on them, but refused to look in his direction again, angry with herself for the brief, agonising stab of jealousy she had felt as she saw him touch the other girl's hand. She wouldn't let herself care, hadn't she learnt even now that Daniel Randall refused to belong to anybody? Tonight he was here with a blonde, tomorrow he would be with someone else. It was none of her business, thank heavens, he could date a whole harem and she wouldn't care!
'I'm having difficulty choosing, it all reads like a poem.'
'The chef is a very good,' Aston agreed. 'That's why it's so popular.'
'Crowded, isn't it?' Lindsay let her eyes move around the room, being careful not to look towards Daniel's table. 'I can see why it takes all evening to be served.'
She let her gaze drift casually over Daniel and felt her throat close up in agitation at the expression in those hard, grey eyes. He looked grim, his jaw taut, his mouth straight, and Lindsay was angrily pleased, she felt a fierce rush of satisfaction at knowing that Daniel was not pleased to see her with Aston. It might only he a dog-in-the-manger sense of possession because she had been his wife, but at least he wasn't indifferent, and despite the melting smiles of his blonde companion his attention was on what was happening at Lindsay's table rather than his own. Lindsay liked that, she smiled at Aston over her menu.
'I think I'll start with the Waldorf salad,' she said. 'I like this place, it's fun.'
'Good,' said Aston, his eyes wrinkling in amusement. 'I told you we would enjoy ourselves, didn't I?'
'So you did,' Lindsay agreed. 'And that's just what I mean to do…' And then she had a twinge of conscience about him, because she knew she was far more interested in scoring off Daniel than she was in Aston. Keeping her eyes firmly on Aston's face, she asked: 'How are your sister's twins? They must be nearly two by now, or is it three?'
'Three,' he said, smiling, and settled down to talk about his family while she listened intently, and did not allow herself to look away. Why couldn't she fall in love with Aston? He was a fantastic man, the nicest she knew, he was funny and kind and attractive, and she ought to be mad about him, anyone with any sense would adore him. An intelligent girl wouldn't even be aware there was any other man in the room; certainly not one who was selfish, egotistic, totally ruthless and hadn't a scruple to his name.
CHAPTER SIX
Daniel rang her the following evening. She had spent the day with Aston, in the country, and had barely got back into her flat when the phone rang. The weather had been gorgeous all day, Lindsay had sunbathed in a tiny white bikini, and her skin had that tight, warm glow the sun leaves, she felt lazy and relaxed, she was still smiling after Aston's parting remark. Aston always made her smile, and today he had helped her to banish Daniel from her mind, but as she picked up the phone Daniel sprang back again like the Demon King in a pantomime, scattering her thoughts.
'Where the hell have you been all day?' he demanded without telling her who it was—not that he needed to, Lindsay knew at once from the first syllable. 'I've been ringing since early this morning—did you spend the night with him?'
'Hallo, Daniel,' she said while she tried to gather herself together, then could have kicked herself. It would have been much better to say: 'Who is that?'
'Did you?' Daniel repeated, his voice harsh.
'Did I what?' she-fenced.
'You haven't been at home all day, where have you been? I told you I was going to ring you.'
'I spent the day visiting Aston's sister, she lives in the country. It's a long drive, Aston picked me up at eight o'clock this morning.'
'Visiting his sister? How cosy—his intentions must be serious.' Daniel's voice held a sneer.
'You sound like a Victorian father.' Two could play at that game, if Daniel wanted to turn nasty Lindsay was more t
han happy to do the same.
'Can he lend Stephen enough to keep the factory going?' Daniel put a bite into that question and Lindsay winced. She didn't answer and after a brief silence, Daniel asked: 'Well, have you thought over my offer?'
'I've tried not to think about it at all,' she muttered, and he laughed shortly.
'I'm sure you have.'
'It's too disgusting!' Lindsay spat that at him, her hand gripping the phone so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
'Take it or leave it,' Daniel shrugged. 'Stephen's your brother, he isn't mine, nobody does anything without getting something back.' He sounded brisk and businesslike and she hated him, then his voice deepened and darkened. 'And Aston Hill's out of the picture, for a start,' he added. 'I don't want him around in future.'
Lindsay thought of the blonde actress he had been with last night and her skin burned with fury, 'You're not dictating my life to me—I had enough of that when we were married!'
'Up to you,' Daniel said tersely. 'If Stephen hasn't paid back that bank loan by next Friday he'll have to liquidate. You have until Thursday to decide.' He slammed the phone down and she jerked as her eardrum rang with the noise. She put back her own receiver, her hand fumbling, trembling, then looked at her watch. It was gone nine, too late to ring Stephen. She would have to talk to him tomorrow, he should have recovered a little by then.
When she got to her office next day she found her boss lying back in his chair with his feet on the table and his eyes closed, his face turned towards the sunshine streaming in at the window. Chris was a calm, lazy man who moved very rarely and when he did performed each action with the considered grace of a two-toed sloth. Small, slightly built, with smooth blond hair and bright blue eyes, he would have been exceptionally good-looking if it had not been for that lack of vitality. His face was happy but distinctly unimpressive.
'Busy as usual, I see,' Lindsay remarked, standing in the doorway of his office and watching him with resigned amusement.
Chris opened one eye to observe her. He flapped a welcoming hand, 'Hi.' The effort of speech apparently exhausted him, his eye closed and he sank back into golden slumber.
'Have those stills come yet?' Lindsay asked, cruelly insisting that he should make some pretence of working.
The hand flapped at his desk. She saw a large brown envelope lying on it and went over to pick it up, shooting a small pile of glossy photographs on to the desk. She leaned over, a hand propping her up, and spread them out, recognising some faces, looking at others with curiosity. Most of the girls in the photographs were models, some were actresses, and over the month Lindsay and Chris had seen hundreds of different girls without feeling that any one of them was the girl they were looking for, the girl whose face would fit an image they wanted.
Vivons were about to launch a new range of cosmetics and they wanted someone very special to appear in their advertising campaign. The managing director of the firm had begun to be impatient, because so far they hadn't come up with what he called 'The Face.'
'It's hopeless, Charles won't go for any of these,' Lindsay said gloomily. 'They don't say a thing to me—what about you?'
Chris turned a thumb downwards without opening his eyes. He didn't waste time or energy in pointless discussion, yet he always managed to get what he wanted, although Lindsay often wondered how he did it. Whatever magic he performed, he did it when nobody was looking. Every time you saw him he seemed to be asleep, but Vivons would have fought tooth and nail to keep him if another firm tried to steal him away.
'Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way,' said Lindsay, sitting down on the edge of the desk and swinging her legs. 'We're waiting for The Face to come and find us, maybe we should go out and find her.'
Chris opened both eyes, they looked at her, so blue they sparkled like clear sapphires, and she stared into them, raising her brows.
'What do you think?'
'Keep talking,' Chris encouraged, shifting very slightly in his chair and crossing his feet. He almost always wore jeans and a thin, tightly fitting shirt open at the neck and worn without a tie. Shoes were his one extravagance, he had them hand-made for him because his feet were incredibly small and thin for a man and he could never get mass-produced shoes that fitted. Today he was wearing soft, supple blue leather, so velvety it made you want to stroke it.
'Why don't we draw up a list of what we're looking for? Should she be brunette or…'
'Blonde,' Chris decided. With the sexy, sweet look of a Marilyn Monroe, we don't want to put women off buying the- range, they've got to like her, want to look like her.' For him that was an enormously long statement. He had obviously been thinking about it, he knew precisely what he was looking for, Lindsay should have known he wasn't just haphazard in his search.
'Why do you let me talk myself into looking silly?' she asked wryly. 'You had it all worked out already, didn't you? Why didn't you tell all the agencies you were looking for a sexy blonde? Then they wouldn't keep showering us with girls we can't use?'
'One of them might be perfect,' he said, his wide mouth amused. 'A brunette we can always dye into a blonde, it's the face that matters, not the hair colour,' he yawned, running a hand through his hair. 'I'll know her when I see her.'
The phone rang and Lindsay picked it up, listened, then handed it to Chris. 'Charles,' she mouthed.
He cradled the phone oil his thin shoulder. 'Hi, Charles,' he murmured. Lindsay shuffled through the photographs again, her eyes almost blurring with boredom. The girls were all so beautiful, so perfectly packaged, so plastic—when you had seen one you had seen them all, she found it hard to distinguish one from another. Vivons did not a want a girl people couldn't remember, they wanted someone whose face made people rush out to buy their cosmetics.
'Not yet,' said Chris. 'But we'll find her, don't worry.'
Lindsay slid off the desk and went over to the window to stare down at the street below. London hummed and roared all around them, the roads thick with traffic, the buildings throbbing with noise and people. Somewhere out there was the girl they were looking for, but how could they find her when the agencies kept coming up with the same girls everybody used? They wanted someone new, someone with immediate impact, someone so special she focused the eye and held it.
'Don't flap,' Chris said lazily. 'Charles, just leave it with me—I'll come up with the right girl in time.'
A moment later he put the phone down and Lindsay turned to look at him wryly. He smiled and closed his eyes.
London was sweltering in heat all day, Lindsay found it hard to concentrate, her thin yellow cotton dress was sticking to her and every time she moved she felt perspiration trickle down her spine. Chris was in apparent hibernation, whenever she went into his office she found him in the same position, eyes shut, body limp. For once she felt like following suit, it was much too hot to work, but somebody had to keep the routine jobs going and from the start Chris had made it plain that that was what she was there for; he needed a girl who could carry his workload as well as her own. At times she had resented doing two people's work, but now she realised that in his way Chris was a genius; his methods were his own, but they succeeded, which, in that business, was all that counted, so Lindsay worked on without complaining.
By the time she left the office that evening she was exhausted, her spirits as flat as a pancake. She took the tube to Stephen's neatest station, feeling sticky and grubby and dying for a long, cold shower. First, though, she must talk to Stephen.
Alice opened the door to her. She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a printed plastic apron, and her face was flushed.
'Oh, it's you,' she said, moving back to let Lindsay walk past.
'Hot, isn't it?' Lindsay could hear the children playing in the garden, their voices cheerful. She walked into the kitchen. Alice had been chopping cucumber, the smell of it filled the air. 'How's Stephen?' Lindsay asked, lowering her voice as Alice joined her and closed the door.
'He's in the garage working on
his car,' said Alice.
'Is he okay?' Lindsay wasn't sure how to talk to Alice, her sister-in-law seemed rather aggressive today, it wasn't like her.
'I wouldn't know,' said Alice, picking up her small kitchen knife and chopping with noisy conviction.
'Oh,' Lindsay said, watching her in dismay. People were acting out of character all round her, she didn't know this Alice whose face had set like concrete and who was slicing the cucumber as though she was guillotining an enemy.
'I'm not talking to him,' Alice told her, chop, chop. 'If you want to know how he is, better ask him.' Chop, chop. 'He doesn't confide in me, I'm only his wife.' Having despatched the cucumber she looked around for something else to use her knife on; so Lindsay decided to leave and talk to Stephen. It seemed wiser.
He was inside his car bonnet, only his legs visible. 'Hallo,' Lindsay said to them, and Stephen turned his head to peer.
'Oh, hello, Lindsay, when did you get here? Have you been into the house?'
'Alice is getting the supper,' Lindsay told him. 'I think.' Either that or the cucumber-chopping was therapy, she thought. Stephen extricated himself from the bonnet, wiping his hands on a filthy piece of rag. She watched him, trying to read his expression, which wasn't difficult, he looked drained and pale and quite hopeless.
'I wanted to talk to you,' she told him, and he nodded.
'I'm sorry Alice dragged you into all this…'
'Don't be silly, you're my brother, of course I'm concerned. I'm glad she did ring me.'
The Sex War Page 8