CHAPTER NINE
SHE deliberately chose the most demure outfit she had brought with her: a dove-grey straight skirt, a black chiffon shirt which tied at the waist. Contemplating herself in the mirror, she decided it was exactly the look she wanted for the evening ahead. That last thing she wanted was to look sexy, or put ideas in Randal’s head. Her chestnut hair she brushed back and clipped at the nape with a black Spanish comb, leaving her face a clear, cool oval. She wore very little make-up: a faint touch of green on her eyelids, palest pink on her lips. As an afterthought she used a flowery perfume, an English fragrance which drifted about with her, leaving a hint of summer on the air.
She tidied her room, now that all her clothes had been put away, and watched TV for a while, although she found it hard to concentrate.
Randal tapped on her outer door an hour later. She checked on her reflection rapidly before she answered. Yes, that was how she wanted to look—remote, untouchable. As far as possible from the wildly responsive woman he had held in his arms on her bed earlier.
She opened the door and caught a flash of surprise in his eyes. He hadn’t expected her to look so serene, and noticed at once the demure way she had dressed.
But he made no comment, simply said, ‘If you’re ready, I thought we might go downstairs and have tea in the reception area. Renata said she’d bring Johnny back before six, and it’s five now.’
‘Fine, I’d love a cup of tea,’ she said, collecting her handbag, sliding the room key into it. The connecting door was still bolted; it would remain that way as long as they were here. She wanted no repetition of what had happened this afternoon; Randal could stay his side of that door.
Despite her desire to stay cool, though, she felt her pulses leap in that dangerously magnetised fashion when Randal put a hand under her elbow to guide her into the lift. Such a light, polite touch, and yet it sent her body into overdrive.
As the doors shut she hastily moved away from him, and felt his quick, probing glance; he was far too observant, and she did not trust him. But she ignored it. It was better not to say anything, give him any opportunity to gain ground.
Downstairs they sat at a table with a good view of the entrance and ordered a pot of China tea. They drank it without milk, a clear, pale straw-coloured liquid with a delicate fragrance, which was very refreshing.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Randal’s fingers drumming on the arm of his chair as he watched the entrance. He was agitated over whether or not his ex-wife would bring their son back as promised. She felt a pang of sympathy; poor Randal. He would go crazy if Renata had in fact abducted the child. Would she take the boy abroad, if she did? It could be months before Randal saw Johnny again, in that case, and it would turn his life into a nightmare.
To distract his attention, she said casually, ‘I was thinking, just now, that what I need is a holiday, before I start looking for another job.’
‘Where are you thinking of going?’
‘Somewhere warm—Spain or Italy, probably. I don’t know either country. I’ve had very few holidays abroad; I could never afford it until I started earning more money at the insurance company, and then I bought my cottage, and that ate up any spare cash I had.’
His grey eyes skimmed her face thoughtfully. ‘You’ve had a pretty tough life, haven’t you? No family, no real home, and very little money. It was quite an achievement to buy the cottage and do it up yourself, but at least selling it will release a good lump sum. You’ll have money now.’
‘Yes, I suppose I will,’ she agreed, thinking about it. It would be nice to have spare cash with which she could be spontaneous, which she could spend as she wished, when she wished. She had never been in that position before; every penny she earned had been earmarked for something—clothes, food, travelling expenses to and from work, redecoration on the cottage. ‘But then I’ll have to buy a new home,’ she sighed. ‘And it will probably cost far more, so I won’t have money for long.’
‘If you married me you wouldn’t need to buy a new home; you would live in mine,’ he said casually, taking her breath away.
‘Don’t make jokes like that!’ She knew he didn’t mean it, couldn’t mean it, was just teasing her. She looked at him with rage and hostility. ‘It isn’t funny!’
His grey eyes were serious, though. ‘I’m proposing, Pippa. I want to marry you.’
She stared fixedly at her cup of pale tea, fighting with the stab of jealousy in her stomach. ‘You’re still in love with your ex-wife! I realised that at lunch, when you saw her in the dining room. I saw the look on your face!’
‘I was in shock,’ he coolly admitted.
‘Oh, yes!’ she muttered bitterly. ‘I know that. The sight of her took your breath away.’ Renata was staggeringly beautiful; she couldn’t blame Randal for his response to the sight of his ex-wife. After all, Renata had once been his, and now she belonged to another man. That couldn’t be easy to take, especially for a very ego-driven male like Randal.
She suddenly remembered his jealousy over Tom—if he felt like that over her, how did he feel over his ex-wife and her new husband?
‘The sight of her scared me!’ he said harshly, frowning. ‘I’d stopped expecting her to turn up to see Johnny. When I saw her I was suddenly worried, afraid she was going to try to take Johnny away from me, take him off to Australia. Mothers tend to get custody in this country, especially if they can afford a good lawyer, and she can, with her new husband’s money behind her. I thought Renata would never want custody, she was always an indifferent mother—but who knows? Maybe her golfer has decided he wants a ready-made son to trot around the circuits with him? Good publicity for him, probably.’
She frowned. ‘I thought he seemed a decent sort of guy, not the type to think that way at all.’ She looked at Randal sharply. ‘You’re simply jealous of him!’
Dark red rang along his cheekbones; his eyes flashed. ‘Don’t be absurd! Jealous of him? You’re crazy. Why on earth would I be jealous of him! Over Renata? I wouldn’t have Renata back at any price.’ His grey eyes focused on her angrily. ‘I just proposed to you—doesn’t that mean anything to you? All you do in reply is accuse me of being in love with my ex-wife! What do you think that tells me? That you don’t know me at all, and, frankly, that I obviously don’t know you either, or how could you leap to such an idiotic conclusion?’
He was furious with her; she was very shaken, biting her lip. He was right—how could she have leapt to that conclusion? She didn’t know him; she had no idea what made him tick. How could you love someone without knowing them?
‘She is very beautiful,’ she offered in apology, in feeble placation.
His mouth hardened in cynicism. ‘On the outside, maybe, but inside she is far from beautiful. She’s selfish, lazy, greedy, materialistic; she was a bad wife and a bad mother. And I wouldn’t have her back for a million dollars.’
At that second the swing doors into the foyer revolved to admit Renata, the tall, tanned golfer, and Johnny, who saw them immediately and came running towards them.
‘Daddy! I played golf! Alex taught me how to play golf. I hit the ball so hard it went for mile. Alex says I’m a natural. I should play as often as possible, practise every day.’
‘Don’t chatter on and on, darling,’ Renata said in a sort of groan. ‘My God, that child babbles. He never stops.’ She sank into a spare chair at the table. ‘I need a drink. Get a waiter, Alex. Randal, darling, I think Johnny should go to bed; he’s tired and so am I—worn out, honestly. I’d forgotten how much energy kids have, and how much of a nuisance they are.’
Randal glowered. ‘Not in front of him, please!’
‘I’ll take him upstairs,’ Pippa quickly said, getting up. ‘Come on, Johnny. I expect you’ll need a bath—is he coming down to dinner, Randal?’
‘Oh, please,’ Johnny said, ‘can’t I have Room Service and watch TV instead? I’m tired, and I saw they do a great cheeseburger and fries, and a triple flavour ice cream, and
Coke.’
Randal laughed. ‘Just as you like, Johnny. Room Service would be more fun, I expect. Say goodnight and thank you to your mother and Alex.’
‘Goodnight and thank you,’ Johnny gabbled towards them, then took Pippa’s hand and began dragging her towards the lift.
In the sitting room he at once grabbed the Room Service menu and sat down with it. ‘Can I order now? I’m starving.’
‘Why not? I’ll stay until the food arrives. Do you want me to order it for you?’
He gave her a scornful look. ‘I can do it!’ Picking up the phone, he began dialling. ‘Hello? Room Service?’
Pippa wandered away to the window, listening as he ordered exactly what he had said he would like. The daylight was fading a little, the spring sky coloured pink and gold. Shadows lay under the trees in the grounds of the hotel. It would be dark soon.
Johnny put down the phone. ‘They said it would be fifteen minutes.’
She walked back to sit down near him. ‘So you had a good time this afternoon.’
‘Yes, Alex is great; I like him. My friends all want to meet him. He’s a terrific golfer.’ He didn’t mention his mother, and went on to ask, ‘Am I going to be able to ride tomorrow? Dad said I could.’
‘Yes, he said he meant to go with you, but I don’t have any gear with me, so I think I’ll just stay here and rest.’
‘Okay,’ Johnny said without interest. ‘Alex and Mummy are leaving tomorrow, so I don’t suppose I’ll see them again.’ The thought did not seem to bother him. ‘She gets bored easily, Alex says. And she doesn’t like the country much; she prefers cities. She talked a lot about Sydney and New York and London, and shopping. She loves shopping. Alex says she has so many clothes they had to buy a new wardrobe. She doesn’t play golf, although she always goes with Alex when he’s playing in a tournament, but she stays in the bar, he said, and waits for him. And she doesn’t like kids much; she says she’d never have another one, not ever. Kids are boring.’
‘I’m sure she was joking,’ Pippa quickly said. How much had that hurt the boy’s feelings? Randal was obviously right when he said Renata was a bad mother; how could any mother say such things to her child?
‘She wasn’t,’ Johnny dispassionately said. ‘I could tell. She couldn’t be bothered. But Alex is okay; I like him.’ He found the TV zapper and flicked through the channels. Pippa’s heart sank as he settled on a noisy, blaring cartoon.
It was a relief to her when the Room Service waiter knocked on the door and wheeled in a table on which were spread a silver-covered plate of food, a bowl of ice cream nestling in crushed ice, to keep it cool, and several small bottles of cola.
She signed for the food and tipped the waiter, who left, while Johnny sat up to the table. Pippa tied his napkin round his neck, suspecting its protection for his clothes would be very necessary.
‘I’ll just go through to my own room,’ Pippa said as he picked up his burger and took a bite. ‘If you need me, give me a shout.’ She didn’t think she could stay to watch him eat; melted cheese and tomato ketchup had already spilled out of the burger bun and on to the napkin.
‘Uh-huh,’ Johnny said, turning up the TV and feeding chips into his chewing mouth.
Pippa left the connecting door open in case Johnny needed her, then settled down on her bed with a book she had brought with her: a paperback detective story by one of her favourite authors. It wasn’t easy to concentrate on the pages, though, with the boom of Johnny’s TV in her ears.
After a while she went back to see how he was doing and found him sprawled on the floor on his tummy. Pippa rearranged the table and wheeled it out of the suite, left it in the corridor, then rang Room Service to ask them to collect it.
‘Why don’t you get into your pyjamas now and watch TV in bed?’ she suggested to Johnny, who enthusiastically agreed. ‘Better wash and clean your teeth first,’ Pippa casually added, an idea to which he was less enthusiastic.
‘You don’t want your daddy to see you with tomato ketchup all over your face, do you?’ she gently said, and he grimaced horribly.
‘Oh, okay, then.’ He went into the bathroom and was back a minute later. ‘Can I have a shower?’
‘Of course.’
He was in the bathroom for twenty minutes. Pippa wondered a little anxiously what he was doing in there, and hoped he wouldn’t leave the room looking as if a bomb had gone off, but eventually he emerged looking very clean in his pyjamas and climbed into one of the twin beds, clutching the TV remote control.
Pippa turned off the main light but left his bedside lamp lit. ‘I’ll be in the next room if you want me,’ she said, leaving him. ‘Goodnight, Johnny.’
‘Goodnight, Pip,’ he said, then gave her a grin. ‘Do you mind if I call you Pip?’
‘All my life people have called me Pip.’ She smiled, not adding that she hated the name.
Going through into her own bedroom she changed rapidly into the cocktail dress she had brought with her; a delicate fantasy of different shades of green silk and chiffon, falling to her mid-calf in a flurry, with a scooped neckline and tiny frilled sleeves. She found a silver chain in her bag, from which hung a dark green stone and a silver tassel. Around her throat it gave exactly the right touch to the outfit.
She knew she would never hold a candle to Renata’s blonde magnificence, but at least she looked her best, she decided.
A quarter of an hour later, Randal let himself into the suite and found Pippa reading, curled up on the sitting room couch. She lifted her head to survey him expressionlessly, and he in turn contemplated her with what she saw with a gulp of shock to be rage. His grey eyes were molten steel, his mouth taut.
Breathing thickly, he finally erupted, ‘What the hell do you think you are doing up here? We were supposed to be having dinner with Renata and Alex; we’ve been waiting for you for half an hour.’
‘Sorry, I was taking care of Johnny and I forgot the time,’ she apologised anxiously. He looked so angry it made her mouth dry and her heart beat harder.
‘Where is Johnny?’
‘In bed, watching TV.’
He turned on his heel and stalked through into his own bedroom. The burble of the TV stopped, the faint gleam of light was switched off, then he came back.
‘He’s asleep.’
‘Oh, good, I expect he was very tired after all the excitement of today,’ she said, getting up and collecting her handbag. ‘But we had better leave a low light on in here, and the door open so he can see it, in case he wakes up alone in the dark and gets scared. I explained to him that he could ring Reception and ask for us to be paged, if he needs us.’
‘Good idea,’ approved Randal. ‘Did he eat?’
‘Burger, chips and ice cream—yes, quite a lot. And he had a shower. After he was in bed I thought I’d better stay within earshot, in case he needed me.’
‘You’re very thoughtful.’
‘I remember how scared I was of the dark when I was nine.’ She shrugged dismissively. But there had been nobody to come to her rescue, then; her foster parents had dismissed her fear of the dark as childish, and told her to pull herself together.
Randal took her arm and hurried her towards the door. ‘It was me who needed you, downstairs, helping me to put up with Renata.’
He did not say thank you, she noted—no Thank you for looking after my little boy; no Thank you for going to so much trouble on my behalf! All he was doing was complaining because she hadn’t been downstairs with him to protect him from his ex-wife. Men were incredibly selfish creatures.
‘I couldn’t be in two places at once!’
He urged her into the lift, which started with a jerk which sent her sprawling sideways into him, grabbing at him to stop herself falling on the floor.
His arm came round her, supporting her, holding her close to him, and she felt her treacherous body shudder with awareness.
His head shifted so that he could look down into her wide, disturbed green eyes. She looked away,
unable to meet that stare, afraid of what her eyes must be revealing. She must not give away too much; she had already betrayed too much to him. She wanted to clamp a mask on her face from now on, stop him guessing any more about her.
‘Pippa, don’t look like that,’ he murmured huskily, and his mouth came down, skimmed hers for a second before the lift stopped, and he straightened before guiding her out of the lift.
His arm was round her waist, his hand beneath her breast; she was afraid he could feel the fierce beating of her heart, the raggedness of her breathing. Every time he touched her, looked at her, there was this wild reaction; she couldn’t stop it. The sooner she could get away from him the sooner she might start to feel safe. At the moment she was living moment to moment, like someone on the very edge of a live volcano.
‘You look lovely,’ he suddenly told her. ‘I love that dress, all those shades of green. And your hair looks wonderful against them, a perfect match, chestnut and green. You look like spring itself.’
She flushed, her throat trembling in pleasure. ‘Thank you.’
‘Renata and Alex have gone into the dining room; they’ll be waiting at the table,’ he told her as they walked through the foyer.
‘Has Renata changed for dinner, too?’
‘Yes, she put on something black, very formal. I’ve always been turned off by the sight of women in black; it makes me feel I’m going to a funeral.’
When Pippa saw Renata a moment later she had to be incredulous about Randal’s comment. The ‘something black’ he had said Renata was wearing was body-hugging, sleek, daring black satin with a plunging neckline, revealing a great deal of golden skin and the deep valley between her high breasts, curving down into her small waist and swelling out again, smoothly, over her hips, ending at her knees.
She looked sensational; men at every other table were staring, hardly conscious of what they were eating, while the other women in the room looked daggers at her. There was nothing funereal about her whatever.
‘Is that what you call formal?’ Pippa whispered to Randal as they walked towards the table.
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