The Mistress Contract, page 16
‘Probably from his personnel department,’ the ever practical Maisie said in reply. ‘You did work for him for six years, remember.’
As if she could ever forget!
Sephy insisted on sending Maisie back to her own flat to get a good night’s sleep, but after the other girl had gone the hot bath and long soak she’d promised herself degenerated into a hasty lick and a promise followed by brushing her teeth. She couldn’t believe how exhausted she felt once she’d tottered into the bathroom, and by the time she slid back under the rumpled covers her legs were shaking and her eyelids just wouldn’t stay open.
The next morning she awoke very early and lay looking at the vases of flowers—the bouquet wouldn’t fit into less than two—sitting on her dressing table. The freesias and stock had scented the room with summer, and red and gold chrysanthemums and coneflowers were a blaze of colour against the graceful belladonna lilies standing at the back of the profusion of flowers.
Maisie had already told her that the blooms Conrad had previously bought on the Saturday morning were filling the sitting room’s large windowsill, and for a moment—just a moment—Sephy found herself resenting the inoffensive flowers.
It was too easy to send bouquets and buy chocolates and other expensive presents, she told herself wearily. They only cost him money, and for someone as rich as Conrad money wasn’t a consideration. A fistful of garden daisies or buttercups given with love would have sent her to the moon, but he wouldn’t understand that, or even perhaps believe it. And that wrenched her heart.
She had often looked at film stars or top models in the past who had all but destroyed themselves in some way—drink, drugs, depression leading to attempted suicide—and wondered how they could fall apart when they had the world at their feet and everything they wanted, but even the best things counted as nothing if you didn’t have your soulmate to share them with.
But Conrad wasn’t her soulmate, however much she wished it different. She couldn’t turn him into something he wasn’t any more than he could make her give up the loving, giving part of herself that made her what she was, the part which would become an irritation to him—at best—if she put both feet into his world.
He wanted a cool, worldly Caroline de Menthe clone and she needed roses round the door and happy ever after, something he just wasn’t capable of providing.
Maisie breezed in just before eight and insisted on cooking her fried eggs and bacon with two rounds of toast before she disappeared to the boutique, with promises she would return at lunchtime with sandwiches. ‘Don’t you dare try and do a thing today,’ she warned firmly as she placed the loaded tray across Sephy’s knees. ‘The doctor said a week in bed at least.’
‘Maisie, I hate staying in bed!’
‘Well, you can get up and lie in the sitting room,’ the other girl conceded, ‘but that’s all. Have a bath, drift around looking pale and interesting and prepare to twist the knife when he - who - deserves - his - comeuppance calls. Okay, sweetie?’
‘Maisie, you’re the most unlikely mother hen in the whole of creation.’ Sephy grinned with genuine warmth.
‘I know it.’ There was a vivid shade of purple coating Maisie’s eyelids today which exactly matched her mini-dress, and as the other girl winked at her Sephy laughed out loud. As desolate as she was feeling about Conrad, there was something irrepressible about Maisie that lifted one’s spirits in spite of oneself.
Once she was alone Sephy forced down a few mouthfuls of food and then slept most of the morning, before rising just after eleven and running herself the promised bath. She had been feeling so warm and sticky that the silky water felt heavenly, and after soaking for some minutes she washed her hair, luxuriating in digging her fingers into her scalp and washing out the staleness of the weekend.
Once out of the bath she wrapped a big fluffy bath sheet round herself sarong-style, and peered into the mirror. A brief glance was enough to inform her that the pale and interesting look Maisie had mentioned was definitely in evidence, although she wasn’t sure the interesting part applied.
Her face was lint-white, the sprinkling of freckles across her nose standing out like a scattering of nutmeg on thick cream, and she actually looked thinner. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining,’ she muttered wryly to herself as she walked through into the bedroom to dry her hair.
When the buzzer sounded she grimaced to herself and then glanced at her little bedside alarm clock. Twelve o’clock—Maisie was nothing if not punctual.
She padded quickly through to the hall, surprised to find how much the bath had tired her, and flicked the switch on the intercom as she said, ‘Come on up, mother hen. Your chick’s just drying her hair,’ before opening the flat’s front door and walking through to the sunlit sitting room.
And it wasn’t until she heard footsteps that definitely were not Maisie’s that she realised Maisie would have used Jerry’s key.
CHAPTER NINE
THERE was no time to think, let alone move, and as the tall, lean figure of Conrad walked into the flat Sephy faced him from the middle of the sitting room, her hair falling in thick, damp, rich brown waves about her pale face and bare shoulders, and her honey-gold eyes open wide with shock.
He stopped still in the doorway as he saw her, and in spite of herself she let her eyes feast on him for a moment; she really couldn’t help it. His hard, handsome face was full of very sharply defined planes and angles as a shaft of sunlight hit him, and his coal-black hair and impossibly blue eyes, the tailor-made suit and silk shirt and tie, completed the picture of a man who knew exactly where he was going and woe betide anyone who got in his way on the journey. A man at the top of his profession.
Cold, hard and ruthless; he could definitely be called that on occasion, and yet she had seen the other side of the coin, and it was that which made her heart ache and her senses tighten to breaking point. And it was that weakness she had to fight now.
She had never felt so vulnerable and defenceless, and something of what she was feeling must have shown in her face because he said, his voice soft and steady, ‘It’s all right, Sephy. I’m not here to fight.’
‘I…I thought you were Maisie,’ she murmured breathlessly.
‘Ah, the coffee and croissants, right?’
It was the smile that did it.
He could smile. He could actually smile like that, as though nothing was wrong, when he had all but ripped her heart out by its roots in this very room not three days ago, Sephy thought bitterly. But at least his casual demeanour had the effect of putting adrenalin in her veins and steel in her backbone.
He probably expected her to beg and plead or cry buckets, but she’d rather be hung, drawn and quartered! Pride and dignity were poor bedfellows but they were all that was left to her, and by golly she intended to hang on to them.
In the past she had always tried to make things easy between them by filling in any awkward silences with chatter, but now she lifted her head slightly and continued to stare at him without speaking. She was blowed if she was going to speak next.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked after a few endless seconds.
‘I’m fine,’ she said tightly.
‘Rubbish. How are you feeling?’
Typical Conrad! Well, if he wanted the truth he could have it. ‘Tired, my throat’s sore, the headache I thought had gone is returning—’ since you walked through the door ‘—and I ache all over. Okay?’ she snapped testily. ‘Satisfied?’
‘You really are in a bad mood, aren’t you?’ he drawled lazily, and then, as she opened her mouth to fire back, he added, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t realise you were ill on Saturday, Sephy.’
She shrugged, and then as the towel slipped a little decided she wouldn’t do that again. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. We had things to say and we said them,’ she said shortly.
Why did he have to look so good in a suit and tie? Why did he have to look so good in anything? she asked herself silently.
‘The doctor told me you are extremely run down and could do with a break,’ Conrad said quietly. ‘All those months of working all hours for me started a downward spiral, no doubt.’
She had to get something on other than this towel! ‘Look, I won’t be a moment,’ she said curtly, before walking quickly into the bedroom and shutting the door. She stood for a second, her heart thumping so hard it made her feel dizzy, and then pulled on a baggy T-shirt and a pair of panties before slipping into her robe and jerking the belt tight. Psychologically fortified, she opened the door and walked into the sitting room, saying, ‘Conrad, why did you come back on Saturday? Maisie told me.’
‘Ah, yes, Maisie.’ He frowned, and then said with grudging generosity, ‘She’s a good friend.’
‘Yes, she is.’ And Maisie knew as well as she did that her present exhaustion was due to the fact she’d lived on her nerves from the first day she had worked for Conrad Quentin. And it had got worse, a million times worse, since she’d agreed to his preposterous demand that they see each other. And she also knew, as she stared at his dear face, that she could never go back to that, even if the pain of losing him continued to the day she died. She felt light-headed, and sank down quickly on the sofa as she said, ‘Please go.’
His guilt she could do without, and it was clear pity was the only thing he felt for her. Not once since he had walked through the door had he made any attempt to touch her, and she found she couldn’t bear it. She just couldn’t bear it.
‘Not yet.’
To her horror he walked across and knelt back on his heels in front of her, the pose stretching material tight over hard male thighs and bringing the scent and warmth of him too close for comfort. He was looking straight into her eyes now, his dark head on a level with hers and the blue of his eyes piercing.
His voice dropped an octave as he said, ‘Do you trust me, Sephy?’ The tone was cool and almost expressionless.
‘What?’ Of all the things she had expected him to say it wasn’t this. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I need to know about this man, this David.’ His eyes watched his words sink in, and as hot colour stained her white face he leant a little closer, not touching her with any part of himself yet enveloping her with his magnetic pull. ‘I’ve no right to ask—after Saturday I haven’t even got the right to be here, as Maisie’s pointed out more than once—but nevertheless…’
‘I…I can’t.’ She took a deep breath and managed to say, ‘We’re not seeing each other any more so what’s the point?’
‘I need to know, Sephy,’ he said softly, his eyes never leaving her face for a moment. ‘Believe me, I really need to know.’
She expelled a shuddering breath as her stomach churned violently. She could see this meant a great deal, but she didn’t understand why, and the humiliation and pain of having to tell was too much. And it wasn’t fair to ask, not now.
‘Please?’ It was said very, very softly.
He had never said that word before, and he had never looked at her as he was doing now. She couldn’t read what was in his eyes but it was clear he was in the grip of something that was tearing him apart. And in spite of everything she couldn’t bear that.
Her profile was white and fragile as she turned slightly, her voice low and strained as she began. ‘There were a whole bunch of us who grew up together and David was one of them. He…he was the handsome one, the charmed one; everyone was crazy about him and wanted to be with him. And then…’
It didn’t take long to tell, but when she had finished she sagged against the sofa as though she had been talking for hours. She hadn’t looked at him once as she had spoken, and he hadn’t said a word, so when his voice came, dark and deadly, saying, ‘I would like to kill him, Sephy,’ she was actually shocked.
‘It was a long time ago; it’s in the past,’ she said quickly, feeling it had been a terrible mistake to tell him.
‘I’m going to hold you, just hold you.’ He had taken her in his arms before she could demur, lifting her as he rose and then sitting on the sofa so that she was cradled in his arms with her head resting against his throat.
She held herself rigid—it was either that or turning in to him and saying she would take any terms, any conditions, as long as he didn’t go. But it would be a mockery of a relationship. He didn’t love her; he didn’t love her.
‘Listen to me for a minute without saying anything,’ he said huskily, after what felt like a lifetime. ‘You’re ill now, tired and low and at the end of yourself, and I should have realised it weeks ago. The doctor said you are completely exhausted.’
‘But—’
‘No, just listen, Sephy. I want you to do one last thing for me. I want you to let me send you away somewhere hot and lazy, somewhere where you can recover in peace and quiet and get strong again. Will you let me do that, please? And soon?’
She swallowed once, twice, but she still couldn’t speak. He was sending her away, that much had registered, along with the knowledge that for a moment—just a split second of a moment—she had hoped he was going to say something else. That he had grown to love her, that their quarrel on Saturday had opened his eyes and he understood he felt more for her than he’d felt for the others. Had there ever been such a fool as her in the whole of time? Would she never learn?
He was breathing hard, she could feel his muscled chest rising and falling, and then he cleared his throat and said, ‘Will you let me do that? The doctor says you need to convalesce.’
Nothing more than a weak whisper could force its way past the painful constriction in her throat as she fought the tears. ‘There’s no need, really. I am strong, or I will be in a day or two. It’s only a touch of flu.’
‘You haven’t had a holiday in over a year and you’re physically and mentally exhausted. I want to do this, Sephy. I’ve a place in Italy that I bought years ago, when Daniella’s father first made contact with me again. It was a means of being around my niece now and again but still having home comforts and being able to work when I needed to. There are people there who will cook and clean and take care of things while you relax and get well again.’
‘You mean live in your home?’ she asked dazedly.
‘This is not a means of getting you into my bed whilst you’re ill and weak,’ he said evenly, his voice slightly clipped now. ‘I don’t operate like that.’
‘I know.’ She hadn’t thought that for a moment. ‘I know that.’
‘I shan’t be there, of course, but I’ll know you’re recovering in beautiful surroundings and that there are people to assist if you need anything. You have my word I won’t visit or harass you.’
His duty—as he saw it—taken care of and this whole unlikely affair finished on a clean note. She knew what he was about, but with the warm fragrance of him all about her and his body touching hers she couldn’t think clearly.
‘I can’t…let you do that,’ she said after a while.
She heard him sigh impatiently and then her heart stopped beating as she felt his hand smooth back a tendril of hair from her cheek, and he said, ‘Yes, you can. Madge has sung your praises more than once for the way you handled things when she was away, and she’s let me know it was totally unreasonable of me to expect you to work the hours she does. You’re young; your whole life isn’t taken up with Quentin Dynamics like she’s chosen for hers to be.’
No, her whole life was taken up with him, and that was a hundred times worse than the position Madge was in.
So… Madge had obviously been on at him, and Maisie had put in her twopenny-worth, and now he felt he had to do something for her. She didn’t like that, it was humiliating, but, knowing Conrad as she did when he had the bit between his teeth, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and besides… She bit her lip hard as she faced the truth of it. She would love to see this other home of his, live somewhere that had the imprint of him all around, even if it was just for a week or so. It was crazy and smacked of masochism but it meant she didn’t have to let go for just a bit longer, that she was still on the perimeter of his life in some way. She closed her eyes and drank in the closeness of him for a moment. And she couldn’t feel worse than she was feeling now. At least this way she would start to face the rest of her life without him bronzed and well instead of pale and pathetic.
‘Look on this as a bonus for the job you did for me,’ the deep, husky voice above her head said softly, ‘if that makes you feel better.’
It didn’t. It only confirmed what she’d known all along—that he was making this offer because he felt uncomfortable about the way things had finished and wanted to end their relationship on a better note. However, once he had touched her, once he had shown that other side of himself which was so dangerously tender, her earlier resolution regarding pride and dignity seemed to have flown out of the window.
She sighed inwardly at her inconsistency, and at the fact that she would be quite content to sit here like this for the rest of her life, and took a deep, steadying breath before she said, ‘You don’t have to do this, but if you really want to then…thank you. A holiday would be nice.’
If he was surprised at her easy capitulation he didn’t show it, but, never one to miss pressing an advantage, he said quickly, ‘A month away should have you back on your feet.’
‘A month!’ She straightened then, twisting to face him, and wished she hadn’t as his face came disturbingly close. For such an uncompromisingly masculine man he had ridiculously long eyelashes, and his mouth was fascinatingly uneven. And sexy. Definitely sexy. It made you want to kiss it, to draw his firm bottom lip between yours and explore its taste…
‘Okay, you’ve twisted my arm. Six weeks.’
‘I can’t possibly stay away a month,’ Sephy said flatly, pulling the belt of the robe tighter before she twisted and rose carefully to her feet. She noticed—with a dart of pain that was confirmation she’d been stark staring mad to agree to anything but a swift clean break with this man—that he made no effort to restrain her or pull her back into his arms. ‘Ten days at most.’
