by Penny Jordan
Star cursed as she realised that she was trying to open a carton of milk from the wrong side, and urged herself to concentrate on what she was doing, as milk spilled from the carton and down over her wrist onto the work-top.
CHAPTER SIX
STAR glowered ferociously at the sun shining through her kitchen window. The sky was a soft haze of blue and already, at just gone eight in the morning, she could feel the heat in the sun—a perfect day for a barbecue. Except that she wouldn’t be going to it; she would not in fact be going anywhere, thanks to Kyle and, of course, her mother.
She could see the postman walking towards the apartment block; the contract gardeners employed to keep their small grounds neat and weed-free were already at work, the boxes of bedding plants that they were removing from their truck reminding Star that her own small balcony area and window-boxes needed attention. That at least was something she could do with her day in addition to working.
She heard her letter box rattle as the post arrived and padded barefoot into her hall to collect it, her body stiffening as she recognised her father’s handwriting on a large square envelope that looked suspiciously as if it contained some kind of formal invitation. Not another wedding, she decided sardonically; surely even he had grown tired now of constantly changing partners?
It was a wedding invitation, Star discovered, but for her stepsister’s wedding rather than her father’s.
Emily was not one of her father’s other children but the eldest daughter of his second wife. Even after he and her mother had divorced, and despite the fact that she was not his natural child, Emily had stayed close to Star’s father—much closer than she had done herself, Star acknowledged as she remembered her old childhood bitterness and resentment over the closeness that her father and Emily had shared.
Star could still remember the pain and resentment she had suffered on her rare visits to her father, when she had seen how differently he’d treated Emily from the way he’d treated her. She remembered how shut out and unwanted she had felt and how much it had hurt knowing that he loved Emily more than he loved her... Hurt... She frowned.
Now it seemed that the bond between Emily and her father was as close as ever since he was obviously hosting the wedding and giving Emily away.
Typically of her father, the invitation included a brief, handwritten instruction that she was to stay for the weekend and that he would book rooms for her and a friend, if she cared to bring one, at a local hotel. He explained:
Unfortunately we cannot put you up at the house as Emily will be staying, of course, along with her fiancé, and of course the twins will be down from university and both of them want to bring their current partner with them. So I know you’ll understand...
Her father possessed a magnificent seven bedroom Georgian rectory which he had bought for next to nothing early in the eighties but Star could well understand that with so many children of his own, plus steps, there would indeed be no room for her. When had there ever been?
She remembered vividly how, on her first ever visit to him, he had had to go out and buy her a sleeping bag and she had had to suffer the indignity of sleeping on the floor of the landing of the small house he had been sharing with Emily’s mother. Emily, of course, had had her own room but Star had been barred from sharing it because apparently she’d frightened Emily.
She flung the invitation down on the kitchen table. She wasn’t going to go; why should she? Why should she once again be made to feel the outsider, the unwanted interloper? Let Emily play the adored and adoring stepdaughter if she wished, but she was going to play it without her as an audience, Star decided grimly.
Suddenly the brightness of the sunshine irritated her and she yanked down the blind over the kitchen window, blotting it out.
She could well imagine what would be said about her in her absence when she did not turn up for Emily’s wedding, but she didn’t care, she told herself bitterly. Why should she? When had any of them, but more especially her father, cared about her?
After she had finished her breakfast coffee she reminded herself that she was supposed to be visiting her mother—the excuse that she had given Sally for not attending her barbecue—and that the last thing she needed was for Sally to find out that she hadn’t gone away at all. With Kyle living next door, even if she hadn’t seen anything more of him since their altercation, it was more than likely that Sally would learn that she had lied about her mother if she stayed in her flat.
Reminding herself that she needed plants, compost and several other bits and pieces if she was going to spend the late afternoon and early evening working on her baskets and tubs, she decided that rather than purchase them from a local garden centre she might as well take the opportunity to visit a very highly acclaimed centre which specialised in the more unusual plants and which was a good hour’s drive away.
It was early evening when Star finally returned home. A quick search around the car park confirmed that there was—as she had expected—no sign of Kyle’s four-wheel drive.
As she unloaded her car she tried not to think about how unsettling her day had been. The fine weather had brought out a good many visitors to the garden centre, families in the main—tight-knit, self-contained, exclusive units of mother, father and offspring.
Fathers had changed since her childhood; now they were far more involved with their children, far more physically affectionate with them. Seeing them today with their children had brought back the pain and misery of her own fatherless childhood—emotions exacerbated, she had no doubt, by the receipt of her father’s note this morning. Despite what Kyle seemed to think, she did not need a counsellor—or anyone else—to explain her own emotions to her; she understood them all too well.
By now Sally and Chris’s barbecue would be in full swing, their small garden filled with their mutual friends. They were a good crowd, sociable and entertaining, with a wide variety of interests and a very cosmopolitan outlook on life, and Star knew that she would have enjoyed being there with them. But, thanks to Kyle, she could not be.
No doubt right now he would be charming all the women whilst still managing to earn the respect of the men; she had seen how highly Brad thought of him. And no doubt Sally would have managed to introduce Lindsay to him by now. And Sally was quite right, of course—Lindsay was exactly his type.
Would he look deep into Lindsay’s eyes and tell her that for him sex without emotion was like a flower without perfume? If he did Star could well imagine the effect it would have on her far too vulnerable friend. And when he drove Lindsay home and she asked him in for a cup of coffee would he hold her and kiss her and then tell her—?
Stop it, Star warned herself angrily as she carried her plants up to her flat. Why should she care what he said to Lindsay or how her friend reacted? She cared because Lindsay was her friend, she told herself defensively. That was all... Her thoughts, her feelings were nothing to do with her emotions. The anger and bitterness that she could feel coiling so tightly in her chest were on Lindsay’s behalf, not her own.
It took several journeys to carry all her purchases up to her flat and once that was done she opened the French windows onto her private balcony area and started to remove her display of pansies, whispering tenderly to them that they would be quite safe and that they would enjoy their new home in a protected corner of the flats’ grounds which she had earmarked for them.
Once this had been done it was already past eight o’clock and beginning to grow slightly dusk, though the air was still warm. Star worked on. What, after all, was the point of stopping? What else had she to do other than to compose a note declining her father’s invitation to Emily’s wedding?
The pots were now complete. She had decided on a scheme of all white flowers this time, having seen a similar display in the corner of the garden centre. White... How bridal... Emily would be thrilled, she taunted herself, but in some countries wasn’t white also the colour of mourning?
Mourning... Star sat back on her heels and
closed her eyes. What the hell had she to mourn? Nothing, thanks to her wisdom in making sure she did not fall into the same trap as the rest of her sex and allow a man to steal her heart and then destroy her life.
At eleven o’clock she tucked the final plant into place. The balcony needed cleaning where she had spilled compost on it but she would leave that until morning, she decided tiredly as she opened the door slightly to allow some air into the sitting room whilst she stripped off her grimy clothes and showered.
Kyle frowned as he drew up outside the block of flats and saw the lights on in Star’s flat. According to Sally, she was supposed to be away for the weekend.
His frown deepened as he got out of his car and realised that Star’s balcony door was open. It would be an easy enough task for a burglar to climb up to it and break in; the locks were flimsy enough, as he had seen from his own, and Amy had told him only the previous morning that she was concerned about the lack of security.
He was just wondering what he ought to do when he saw Star’s car. What was she doing at home? Had she, perhaps, come back unexpectedly and surprised an intruder? If so...
Kyle took the stairs two at a time, then rapped firmly on Star’s door. Star heard it as she came out of the shower. Frowning, she pulled the belt of her robe a little more securely around her waist and went to the door. Chances were that it would only be one of her neighbours—Amy. more than likely, unable to sleep and come for a chat.
Her hair, wet from her shower, was wrapped in a towel turban-style on top of her head, and with her face free from make-up she looked, although she didn’t know it, more like the solemn child she had been than the woman she now was.
As she opened the door the last person she was expecting to see was Kyle. He at least, so far as her imagination was concerned, was very cosily ensconced in Lindsay’s home, no doubt offering her solace and comfort of a kind that made Star’s upper lip curl in disdain just to think about it.
Only he wasn’t. He was standing outside her front door. In her hall now, in fact, she recognised as he closed the door firmly and demanded tersely, ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?’ she challenged him.
‘Sally said you were going to spend the weekend with your mother. When I drove up and saw your lights on and the balcony door open, I thought you might have had burglars—’
‘And so you knocked on my door, hoping that they would let you in,’ she scoffed. ‘Is that what you are trying to tell me?’
‘No. I knew you must be here because I saw your car, but I thought...’ He paused, raking his fingers through his hair, all too aware of how she was likely to react if he told her what had been running through his mind. A woman on her own...vulnerable...beautiful...and with the kind of temperament all too likely to push a couple of thugs into...
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ he demanded instead. ‘Sally told me that your mother lives down on the south coast.’
‘Yes, she does,’ Star agreed uncommunicatively. It was unfortunate that he knew that she hadn’t been away but she would just explain to Sally what had happened, only changing the timing so that she could pretend that she hadn’t realised her mother would be away until it was too late to change her mind about the barbecue, and, after all, so far as Kyle went she owed him no explanations. None at all.
‘I was just about to go to bed—’ she began, and then stopped as she saw it—the tell-tale mark of another woman’s lipstick on his jaw... Lipstick on his jaw and... Her nostrils quivered fastidiously as she moved slightly closer to him and caught the scent of perfume on his clothes—Lindsay’s perfume; she would have recognised it anywhere.
A sudden sense of fate having played into her hands, having dealt her all the cards she needed to win, made her feel almost dizzily reckless. Now was her chance to prove what she already knew. He had come here to her flat straight from another woman...from her friend with whom he had been sharing—if she was any judge, and she was—an intimate goodnight... A very intimate goodnight, she decided bitterly as she saw another lipstick stain, this time close to his ear.
Much as it went against the grain, the time had come for her to use a little subtle subterfuge. This was, after all, war, she reminded herself as she lowered both her voice and her eyes and murmured mock-dulcetly, ‘It was kind of you to come and check that I was all right.’ A contrite smile curled her mouth. ‘I was just about to have some supper; would you like to join me or did you have enough at the barbecue?’
For a moment Star thought that he might have cottoned onto the secret meaning underlying her words. He certainly looked rather sharply at her but as she held her breath and waited he simply said, ‘A cup of coffee would be very welcome.’
‘A cup of coffee... Well, I think I can manage that.’
The balcony windows were still open and as she went to close them Star deliberately shook her damp hair free of its constraining towel; her cotton robe was only thin and with any luck the light from behind her ought to give him a pretty clear impression of exactly what it was concealing.
Star knew without vanity that she had a very sensual body—strong-boned and yet at the same time alluringly, femininely curved and delicate, her waist narrow, her hips softly curved, whilst her breasts were taut and firm, her nipples, now that she was standing in the cooling night air, suddenly stiff. A little too much so, she decided as she turned away from the window and made her way to the kitchen... It never did to overgild the lily, and in her experience men preferred to believe that only they could have that particular effect on a woman.
Male egos—how much damage they caused... how much pain and misery. If he responded to her sexual overtures now, it would prove beyond any shadow of a doubt—not that she had any doubts—that she was right about him, that beneath that assumed demeanour of caring sensitivity he was just as self-centred and untrustworthy as the rest of his sex, and that his claim to want to make an emotional commitment to a woman was just another male ploy designed to trick a woman into trusting him.
If he was genuinely even one tenth of the man he claimed to be, there was no way he would be able to respond to her overtures having just, quite obviously, made love with Lindsay. But of course he wasn’t what he claimed to be at all; she knew that.
She walked into the kitchen, her body movements deliberately subtle and sensually enticing, and Star knew that he was watching her as he followed her into the small, confined space. As she filled the kettle she smiled at him and purred, ‘Why don’t you make yourself comfortable?’
He didn’t look at her as he sat down but Star knew that he had to be conscious of the firm yet seductively soft curves of her breasts, which were now virtually on a level with his eyes. There wasn’t an awful lot of room in her small kitchen, but there was no real need for him to move his outstretched legs so betrayingly, turning away from her slightly as he removed his jacket and placed it over his thighs.
The invitation from her father was still on the table and as she carried his coffee over to him she picked it up quickly.
‘A duty invitation from my father—a way of underlining the fact that Emily is so much more the kind of daughter he prefers, all pliable sweetness and wanting to please...’
‘Emily?’ Kyle was frowning, Star saw, and she wished that she had not made any reference to the letter and wondered why on earth she had.
‘Your half-sister?’ he quizzed in that open, interested way that Americans seemed to have.
‘No,’ Star snapped grittily. ‘She’s my stepsister. Louise, her mother, was my father’s second wife; they’re divorced now but Emily has always stayed in contact with my father. She claims she looks on him as her real father. God knows why, since he and Louise were only together for four years before he ditched her for a new, younger model—just long enough for her to produce the twins and for him to get bored.
‘After Louise came Harriet—no previous convictions—sorry, children. That lasted five years and produce
d Anne and Sam and then...let me think...Gemma or Jemima. I can’t quite remember.
‘You see, by then the visits had trickled down to one or two a year. There wasn’t any room, you see... not with all those children who needed a father so much more than I did... And, of course, I was such a difficult child, so disruptive with the little ones, not like Emily who was always so sweet and loving with them. They all adored her...all the wives...but they were all so alike...and all the best of friends... Tragic, really, in a black-comedy sort of fashion.
‘And now it’s Lucinda’s turn. She and Emily are close friends. In fact I seem to remember being told that they were at school together, although I suspect that Emily might have been in a higher class. She’s only three years older than me, you see, and Dad’s taste runs to sweet, innocent young things.
‘He must be getting rather tired now, I imagine, because they’ve been together three years, but then, of course, the triplets are very energetic—not easy for a man in his late fifties, although he does try not to show it.
‘No doubt he’ll fully enjoy the role of father of the bride, although Emily will have to make sure that he always believes that he’s the most important man in her life, and he won’t like it when she makes him a grandfather—’
‘So you’re not going to the wedding, then?’ Kyle interrupted her quietly.
‘Weddings aren’t my style,’ Star told him curtly, and added vehemently, ‘No, I won’t be going—not that I’ll be missed. It’s only a duty invite. No doubt someone, probably Emily, has even had to remind him that I exist.
‘The truth is that my father would like to believe that I don’t exist. I’m not his kind of daughter, you see... I’m not the kind he can show off to his friends as his pretty, adoring little girl. Emily’s much more suited to fulfilling that role than me.