by Vaso
'I'm surprised you bothered at all,' she said petulantly.
'So am I. It's a pity you didn't feel like waiting around for me. I can't say I'm flattered by your choice of substitute. Perhaps you should have been left to get what you so richly deserve for playing tricks of that sort.'
'I didn't encourage him. I——' Vanessa wanted to defend herself against the accusation, but somehow the words would not come. Belatedly aware of her state of undress, she heaved frantically at the dangling scraps of what had been her dress in an attempt to cover her bare breasts. He moved a hand towards her and she edged away from him nervously.
'Don't worry. I'm not that desperate yet, and if I was, I've no need of Sam Galveston's leavings,' he told her contemptuously. 'Anyway, I prefer my women willing. Here, take this, if you want to spare your blushes.' With a single lithe movement he stripped off his jacket and thrust it at her. Then, seeing her fumbling efforts to put it on, he swore softly under his breath and, holding her like some limp rag doll, manoeuvred her arms into the sleeves and buttoned it round her. 'Can you walk?' he demanded.
She did not think she could. Reaction was setting in fast. Her lips moved to tell him, but no sounds cameout, will them though she would. It all seemed to be happening to someone else, while the real Vanessa Herbert looked on and was incapable of doing anything. If only she could wake up and find that this whole evening was just a bad dream! She tried to make her legs obey her, but they seemed to have minds of their own. All she really wanted to do was to sink to the floor and sleep.
But Max was not going to let her do anything of the sort.
'Come on, will you?' Roughly he shook her and then, supporting her wilting body, forced her tottering steps along the corridor.
'Where are we going?' she asked feebly. She seemed to recall saying those words to someone else recently. It took a tremendous effort of Will to get the words out.
'To sober you up, if that's possible,' he said. 'Stay there a moment.'
He propped her up against the wall and left her. The dim whine of machinery somewhere in the background indicated to Vanessa's tired brain that there must be a lift somewhere. Where was he taking her? A sudden wave of panic flooded through her. How did she know that his plans for her were not running on the same lines as Sam Galveston? Just now he had told her he found her unattractive, but before that, at the party, he had made it clear that he was interested in her.
Jonathan would know what to do. He would look after her. All she had to do was to find him. Without thinking she turned and stumbled in the direction of the door leading back to the main suite.
'What the hell are you doing!' Behind her she heard Max Andersen's sharp reaction and the sound of his steps in pursuit of her. She tried to move away, but suddenly her head was full of strange music and flashing lights and the world was spinning like a merry-go-
round. Where was Jonathan? Who was this grim-faced stranger who had caught hold of her again and was trying to restrain her?
'I think,' she said carefully, articulating the words as clearly as she could, although it was almost beyond her powers,'I think I'm going to faint.'
And, as the floor came up to meet her, her last conscious thought was of the strength of Max Anderson's arms around her as he caught her to him.
CHAPTER THREE
THE hissing sound of the shower woke Vanessa the next morning. For a moment she lay there with her eyes closed, registering the sound without really thinking about it. Then, realising that if Jill was stirring it must be time to get up, she made the effort, opening her sleep-heavy eyes and wincing as she was half blinded by the strong sunlight that streamed through the window opposite the bed. That had been some party last night! She groaned and buried her Head in the pillows again.
It was a few seconds before it dawned on her that in her bedroom at Jill's flat there was no window directly opposite the bed. Cautiously she dragged up one eyelid, then the other, and peered round her in bemused fashion. A quick impression of cream walls, floor-to-ceiling fitments and a rich chestnut brown carpet confirmed her first glimpse. This wasn't Jill's flat. She was in a strange bed in a bedroom that she had never seen in her life before. And, what was more, it was a double bed and the imprint of someone else's head was clearly visible on the pillow beside her.
If it wasn't JilFs flat, it wasn't Jill who was using the shower. Vanessa groaned as she sat up rather too suddenly for her present state of health. The bedclothes felt heavy and restricting against her bare skin, bringing home to her with a further shock the fact that she was as naked as the day she was born. She put a hand to her head, brushing away the strands of hair from her hot forehead, and tried to force her brain to work. A little
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man with a hammer was doing a tap-dance inside her head and her mouth felt horribly dry.
Where on earth was she? How had she got there? And, more important still, who owned this place? The questions chased through her mind, begging answers that refused to come. She thought back to the events of the previous evening. The party—yes, she remembered that well enough, and going there with Jonathan. Then, with a shudder, she recalled the meeting with Max Anderson and her rebound into the clutches of Sam Galveston.
' It had been Max Anderson who saved her. But what had happened then? Vanessa frowned with the effort of trying to remember. She supposed she must have fainted or something. Was it Max Anderson who had brought her here afterwards? Was this his flat? And had she shared his bed? She turned cold at the thought. Presumably whoever had brought her to this place and put her to bed had been responsible for undressing her. What else had happened while she had been dead to the world?
She lay back against the pillow and considered her situation. All in all everything looked rather black. What did she do now? What had she already done that she didn't know about? The sound of running water stopped and she heard a door bang noisily and footsteps outside. For one agonised moment she thought he was going-to come into the bedroom and she clutched the bedclothes to her, shielding her nakedness and dreading the inevitable meeting with the man, whoever he was. Then, mercifully for her, he went past the door and into another room. Presumably the kitchen, because she heard him moving about, then the rattle of" crockery and the smell of coffee drifted along the passage to her.
Breakfast. Vanessa's stomach heaved at the thought. | Trust a man to carry on as usual, as if nothing out of f the ordinary had happened! But perhaps it wasn't all | that unusual for him to pick up a strange girl at a party I and shilre his bed with her. For all she knew it was his normal behaviour pattern every night of the week. But it certainly wasn't hers. He didn't know that, of course. What kind of tramp must he think her? She cringed.
At least It seemed that she had a breathing space to prepare herself to meet him. A shower would be a good idea. It might shake off the heaviness that gripped her limbs and dulled her brain at the moment. Vanessa tugged one of the sheets from the bed and pulled it towards her. She swung her legs to the floor and gasped as the room spun around her. She would be all right as soon as she made it to the bathroom, she told herself, and, wrapping the sheet firjnly around her, she groped her way unsteadily to the door.
She opened it cautiously and paused, wondering if he had heard her. Then she peered into the passage outside. The bathroom was to the left, she thought. To the right a half-open door revealed kitchen cabinets and a fridge. She did not look any further, but, hitching up the sheet so that she would not trip over-it, tiptoed out. Once in the bathroom, with the door safely locked, she relaxed slightly. The confrontation was only postponed, but at least she might feel more like a human being by the time she faced him.
The bathroom was still steamy from his shower and she couW smell the tang of the soap that he used, a clean masculine scent that dispelled the doubt that had been hovering at the back of her mind as to the owner ' of all this. Sam Galveston had used a musky aftershave that had overpowered her with its sickly sweetness; this soap couldn't belong to him. She felt
slightly relieved. Even if the idea of the other contender for the favour
daunted her, the thought of Sam's fat little hands on her naked body repelled her.
She peered at herself in the mirror and shuddered. What a sketch she looked! Hair all over the place, her face blotchy with stale make-up and dark shadows under her eyes, the results either of smudged mascara or her heavy night, she wasn't sure which. It was going to take little short of a miracle to restore herself to something approaching normality.
She stood for some time under the shower, letting its stinging needles rouse her. There was nothing with which to shield her hair from the spray, so she gave up and dpused her head too. After she had dried the rest of her on one of the large, fluffy towels that hung on a nearby rail, her hair dropped in damp black strands to her shoulders. It was, too much to hope that there would be such things as hair-driers in a man's bathroom, but she opened the wall cabinet just in case. No hair-drier, but, joy of joys, something of equal value: a packet of Alka-Seltzer. Vanessa dropped two of the tablets in a glass of water, watched them fiz/ and drank the concoction gratefully.
She felt a little better as she donned the sheet again t and made her way back to the bedroom without encountering anyone. There hadn't been a bathrobe or dressing-gown anywhere that.she oould purloin, so she supposed she would have to put on last night's clothes, however incongruous they looked in the light of day. Her evening dress must be in quite a state if she recalled her encounter with Sam Galveston correctly. She found its tattered remains on the bedroom floor along with her laddered tights and her minuscule bikini briefs. One of her strappy silver sandals was retrieved from under the bed, but the other seemed to have vanished completely.
She could scarcely face the man with no clothes on, whatever state of undress he had seen her in last night. She flinched at the thought. A glance round the room offered no solution and she hesitated to ransack his ; wardrobe without his permission. It would have to be the sheet again. Draping it securely round her, toga , style, she braced herself and made for the kitchen. The longer she put it off, the worse the meeting would be. '. j
Max Anderson had his back to her when she entered the room and her first sight of him was of a pair of , strong, muscled bare legs topped by a brief towelling f robe that, to Vanessa's eyes, was only just decent. His J hair was tousled and, like hers, damp from the shower. He looked in the peak of condition, alert and active. He hadn't got a hangover. He wouldn't have, she thought bitterly.
She couldn't just stand here like a spare part, waiting for him to turn and notice her. She must take the initiative. 'Good morning,' she said with a nonchalance that she was far from feeling.
He turned and eyed her. 'So you've surfaced at last, have you? Do you want some breakfast?'
The thought of food nauseated her. 'Just some coffee would be fine, thank you.'
He raised a sardonic brow and, not noticeably sympathetic, asked, 'Head bad this morning?'
'I'm fine, thanks,' she lied. 'Just not hungry.'
'Good. We've got some talking to do.' That sounded ominous. He took the percolator, poured her a cup and pushed it across the kitchen table towards her. He didn't invite her to sit down, but she did so anyway. Standing too long, like everything else, was a strain this morning. Hot, black and strong, the coffee steamed invitingly. 'Milk? Sugar?'
She took the sugar bowl and added an unaccustomed two spoonfuls to the cup. Sugar gave one energy, didn't
it? She had a feeling that she was going to need some kind of stimulus before she was much older.
'Well, I am hungry. You don't mind, if I carry on with——' he asked with exaggerated politeness, gesturing towards the electric hob where bacon was sizzling gently in a pan.
'Go ahead.' Vanessa hoped she would not disgrace herself by having to make a sudden dash to the bathroom. She had a shrewd suspicion that he knew exactly how she was feeling this morning and was deliberately playing up to it.
She stirred the cup vigorously and wished the banging in her head would go away. She studied Max from under her lashes. Nothing from his manner suggested that he had spent the night sleeping with a total stranger. And was sleeping all he had done? He was hardly the sort to be embarrassed, but he didn't look particularly triumphant either. For all his reputation he didn't strike her as the sort of man to take advantage of a girl without her agreement. But maybe he thought she had consented? If he hadn't, what was she doing here?
He turned the bacon out of the pan on to a plate, cut himself a hunk of bread and buttered it and brought the food to the table, eating with a heartiness that was not assumed. He ate in silence and she watched him, sipping her coffee and getting more nervous by the minute. What had happened last night? Was he going to tell her? She fidgeted, playing with her coffee spoon. How did one ask a man what he had done after one had passed out on him?
Finally he pushed the plate away and poured himself some coffee. 'Would you like some more?'
She accepted gratefully. He took a long gulp of his coffee and then studied her carefully. Exactly as if he could read what was going through her mind and wasdeliberately choosing to prolong the agony, he asked, 'Did you sleep well?'
'I must have done,' she said tautly. 'I don't remember.'
'No, you were pretty far gone, weren't you.' His tone was purely conversational. He could have been discussing the weather, damn him. 'But I don't suppose that's a new experience for you.'
'If you think I make a habit of behaving the way I did last night, you're very much mistaken.'
He shrugged. 'There's no need to make excuses for your actions. I'm not that interested.'
'No? You should be. It was all your fault,' Vanessa flared._
'Really? How do you work that one out? As far as I'm concerned I'm only the fool who interfered for long enough to save you from the consequences of your stupid behaviour. Perhaps you'd rather I hadn't bothered?'
She winced, knowing all too well what the outcome would have been if he hadn't chosen to interrupt at the precise moment that she needed help. 'I didn't realise he was like that until we got outside,' she defended herself. 'By then it was too late——'
He laughed unpleasantly. 'Quite the dewy innocent! Don't expect me to believe that. Not after the effort you put in to make such an impression on me earlier in the evening. You know when a man's interested in you. All women do.'
'It wasn't like that. You don't understand.'
'Don't I? I'm not that much of an idiot. You couldn't be bothered to wait until I came back, could you? Or did you see Sam Galveston on his own and decide that he had more to offer you? You waited until my back was turned and made a dive for him. You're not very
discriminating in your choice of men. He's the worst lecher in Globe Television, and that's saying quite a lot. He must really have thought his luck was in when you threw yourself at him.'
'He said he wanted to tell me about his new series,' Vanessa persisted.
'And of course, being sweet sixteen and trusting, you believed him. Don't make me laugh!'
'So what do you think happened?' she demanded furiously.
'I think it's fairly obvious to someone with limited intelligence. Do I really have to spell it out? You were on the make. What was it you were after that you thought half an hour in a dimly lit corridor with that little creep would do the trick? Something to do with the new series? A part in it, perhaps? Sam's not that gullible, you know. I don't think the sacrifice would have produced any concrete results. At least, not the ones you were expecting.'
Her face flamed. 'Do you have to be so crude?'
'I'd say I was realistic. And I fail to see that it's my fault if you drank rather more than you could comfortably cope with in an effort to make Sam Galveston Iseem more palatable.'
'As far as I was concerned anyone would have been preferable to you,' she said heatedly. 'I was in a fair way to loathing you last night before I even met you, and your behaviour last night when you did introduce yourself only confirmed my o
pinion.'
'So I was right. You were hiding something.' He frowned. 'What am I supposed to have done to you?'
'You ruined my life, that's all—a mere detail to the mighty Max Anderson. Not worth losing any sleep over, so don't bother——'
'Don't worry, I won't,' he assured her coolly. 'Cutthe melodramatics, will you? Do I know you from somewhere? I had a feeling last night that there was something vaguely familiar about you.'
'So I strike a chord in your memory, do I? That's great!' Vanessa almost spat the words at him. 'But I suppose you meet such a host of interesting people every hour of the day. It must be hard to keep track of them all. Why should I rate a second thought in that wonder brain of yours?'
'So you've got claws, have you? I thought the sugary approach was beginning to wear a little thin last night. The irritation was showing through.' The tawny eyes gleamed with something that might have been an appreciation of the situation he had placed her in.
'I'm sorry, I don't find it funny.'
'Look——' He broke off impatiently. 'What is your name? I can't keep calling you nothing.'
'That didn't seem to bother you too much last night before you were called away!'
'Otherwise I might have discovered what all this was about then, instead of at this godless hour of the morning-'i
Tm Vanessa Herbert,' she told him coldly.
'I gather from your tone of voice that it's supposed to i mean something to me.'|
'Doesn't it?'
A well-shaped hand drummed irritably on the table * top. 'I dislike guessing games. If you ever get to know -me better, you'll learn to avoid them.'
Til bear it in mind,' she said sarcastically.
'So, you're Vanessa Herbert and I've ruined your life. We progress by leaps and bounds. Might one be permitted to ask for further details?'
'Oh, very witty! If you really want to know I'll tell you. I'm an actress. Most people thought I was quite
good. And I had a job until you decided to play God and interfere.'