Escape Me Never (6 page)

'Well it obviously doesn't have the same effect on Mr Grant,' Lloyd said with a chuckle. 'Judging by the way she was clinging to his arm, she looked as if she'd been welded to him.'

'What a boost to his ego that must be,' Cass muttered. 'As if he needed one.'

Their seats were in the circle, and it took all her self-control not to lean forward and scan the stalls below.

The play was as light as a bubble—a risque comedy about the efforts of a practised womaniser to seduce the beautiful divorcee who'd moved into the flat opposite his, and everyone except Cass seemed to think it riotous. I must be losing my sense of humour, she thought ruefully, as she joined in obediently with everyone else's amusement. Her sympathies were with the divorcee every step of the way.

In the interval she allowed herself to be reluctantly persuaded to go for a drink. She stood in the shelter of a potted palm, and waited while Lloyd fought his way to the bar, her eyes sifting the crowd nervously. Her reactions, she thought, were totally unreasonable, but knowing that didn't alter them by one iota.

And when Rohan's voice from behind her said coolly, 'Good evening,' she nearly jumped out of her skin.

She said, 'Oh, hello' and looked wildly round for Lloyd's return.

He said, 'Serena, this is Ms Linton the genius who is going to put
Eve
back on the map.'

Serena Vance offered a token handshake, light and dismissive. She said plaintively, 'Darling, the curtain will be going up on the second act at any moment, and I'm dying for a drink. You ordered them didn't you? Do we have to stay huddled in this corner?'

'Of course not,' Rohan turned to Cass. "May I get you something?'

'No thank you,' She could see Lloyd struggling through the crowd with their drinks. 'My escort is just coming.'

Serena Vance gave him the quick all encompassing glance Cass guessed she would give any man, and mentally wrote him off. It was charmingly done, with a smile and a handshake that lasted a great deal longer than the previous one, but Cass wasn't fooled. The fabulous Serena might light up like an electric bulb for any man, but visits to the power station would be strictly allocated according to money and power, she decided cynically.

'Haswell?' Rohan was saying. 'You work at Finiston Webber too do you?'

'In the Accounts department,' Lloyd confirmed, looking in a dazed way as if Christmas and his birthday had suddenly occurred on the same day.

'How fascinating,' Serena drawled. 'And will you be personally involved in this commercial I'm making?'

'Alas no.' Lloyd shook his head. 'It's Cassie here who's the ideas girl.'

'Really?' Serena Vance gave Cass another, longer look. It seemed to Cass to be warning her not to get any ideas beyond those needed for the commercial, but she decided that was probably her imagination working overtime.

People were beginning to stare at them, she noticed with embarrassment, nudging each other as they recognised Serena, peering at her companions and trying to place them in the same glamorous milieu.

Rohan said easily, 'I'll get those drinks.'

Serena watched him go, the full curves of her lovely painted mouth taking on a sudden hard line. It was clear she would have preferred to go with him.

Cass toyed with the idea of saying brightly, 'I'm sorry we're such dull company,' but decided against it. After all, she was going to have to work with the woman, and she'd already heard along the grapevine that Serena's temperament when she was filming in no way matched her name.

Lloyd said eagerly, 'There's a vacant table just behind us. Would you like to sit down, Miss Vance.'

Miss Vance gave it a quick look, deciding immediately that it would put her at a disadvantage by removing her from the centre of attention. 'I'd prefer to stand,' she declared sweetly. 'Theatre seats seem so cramped these days.'

A woman came up at that moment and asked her to sign her programme, and Serena complied graciously, murmuring that it was so long since she'd been in dear, beautiful London, that she really hadn't expected to be recognised.

Cass sipped her white wine, and reflected that appearing on breakfast television on both channels was hardly the way to guarantee anonymity.

When Rohan returned, Serena was almost surrounded by autograph hunters and well-wishers, and obviously loving every minute of it, her face more animated than Cass had seen it.

'Enjoying the play?' Cass looked up to find Rohan beside her, Lloyd having joined the crowd of excited fans around Serena.

'Not particularly,' she said coldly. 'It's not a subject I find very appealing.'

'Trying to make me believe you're a prude, Cassie?' The hazel eyes glinted down at her. 'You won't succeed. Your mouth—the lower lip in particular—tells a very different story.'

She stared down impotently into her glass, feeling a helpless tide of colour rising in her face.

'The pursuit of the human female by the male may not fit in with your own philosophy,' he went on. 'But without it the species would have died out a long time ago.'

'In some cases, I can see where that would have been an advantage,' Cass said bitingly. 'Now will you please leave me alone?'

'I don't know whether that's possible,' Rohan said almost reflectively. The hazel eyes looked coolly, disturbingly into hers. ' "While I am I and you are you", ' he quoted softly. ' "So long as the world contains us both…" .' He paused. 'I'm sure I don't need to go on.'

'You had no need to begin.' Cass put down her glass, her hands shaking. 'And can I point out that you are not Robert Browning, and in no way am I Elizabeth Barrett.'

He laughed. 'I think, on the whole, she may have given him the easier time.'

Cass shrugged, listening avidly for the bell which would signal the commencement of the second act. Would it never ring? she wondered miserably. 'If it's an easy time you want,' she said, 'I suggest you transfer your attentions to your companion. I'm sure you'd find her more than receptive.'

His brows lifted. 'Showing your claws, Cass?' he asked with dry appreciation. 'A disinterested bystander listening to you might wonder if you could possibly be jealous.'

'Then he would not only be disinterested, but misinformed,' she said sharply, hearing with a rush of relief the sound of the bell above the hum of laughter and chat around them. 'I don't care what women you favour, Mr Grant, as long as I'm not one of them. I just want to be left in peace.

'Those bruised eyes I saw when we first met don't indicate a particularly peaceful existence, Cass. What are you frightened of?'

'I'm not frightened at all,' she denied hurriedly, aware that the group round Serena Vance was breaking up reluctantly, that the actress was rising and Lloyd was coming towards them. 'Just—bored, and rather irritated with all this hassle. I don't need it.'

Rohan shrugged, his gaze taking one last relentless look. 'Very well,' he said. 'Then I'll do as you wish. I'll—er transfer my attentions to where they'll be appreciated from now on. Does that reassure you?'

She didn't answer. She moved to Lloyd's side, slipping a hand through his arm with a deliberately possessive gesture. 'Ready?' she asked smilingly.

As they moved back to their seats, Lloyd shook his head, expelling his breath in a silent whistle.

'What an evening,' he muttered incredulously. 'What an evening.'

And for very different reasons, Cass could only agree.

Cass got up the next morning, ruefully aware that she hadn't slept very well, and glad, under the circumstances, that it was the weekend which faced her, and not the office.

It was a sunny morning—Spring taking a firm hold on London at last, perhaps, after the cool showery weather of the past few weeks, and Cass, looking restlessly round the flat as she and Jodie ate breakfast, and Jodie investigated the remains of her box of chocolates, decided it was a good a time as any to remove the outward signs of a year's wear and tear.

'I think I'll get some paint and start on these walls,' she said. 'What colour shall I get?'

'Yellow,' said Jodie, as she always did. 'Like the sun,' she added unexpectedly, and Cass who'd been about to propose mushroom or caramel, paused, arrested.

Perhaps Jodie was right, she thought wrily. Maybe they needed some sunshine in their lives, even of the artificial variety.

'All right,' she agreed. 'We'll go and get it after breakfast.'

This accomplished, she began to transfer the movables, and as much of the furniture as she could manage, out of the living room, and cover up the rest, Jodie helping, although basically more interested in a picture she'd started of how the room would look when it was finished. An interior designer in the makings Cass wondered with a smile as she cleared bookshelves.

They ate a quick lunch of soup and scrambled eggs, then Cass began to wash down the existing paintwork. She considered herself competent at housework without being in love with it, and it was always shaming to discover how much accumulated grime lurked in little seen corners and along ledges.

She was rubbing vigorously at a length of skirting board when the front door buzzer sounded. She paused, puzzled, tempted not to answer it. It might be Lloyd, she thought with vague annoyance. He'd wanted to see her this weekend, and she'd made the excuse of prior commitments. He'd accepted this, albeit reluctantly, or she thought that he had, but all the same he might have decided against taking 'no' for an answer, which would be a problem.

She got up from her knees, stripping off her rubber gloves, and looking wrily down at her grey dungarees. They were old and baggy, and together with the scarf she'd wrapped round her head, were hardly the outfit she'd have chosen in which to receive callers.

She opened the door, her lips curving into a reluctant smile, already forming words of excuse which died on her lips when she saw Rohan confronting her.

'You?' Her voice was bitter. 'Your guarantees don't last long, Mr Grant. I hope Barney's had his lawyers go over our contract with you.'

His brows rose. 'I'm not breaking any agreements, Ms Linton.' His drawl emphasised with mockery the last two words. 'It isn't you that I've come to see,' he added, strolling past her, as Jodie with a squeal of pleasure ran to meet him. 'Hello, sweetheart.' He didn't stoop, he went down on his haunches in front of her. 'I've got my young nephews in the car outside. We're going to the zoo, and I thought you might like to come with us—if your mother permits, of course,' he added, his eyes meeting Cass's with cool irony.

'Oh, Mummy, may I?' Jodie's pleading gaze was fixed on her, and Cass suppressed an inner groan.

'But you'd need to change,' she began. 'And Mr Grant is obviously in a hurry.'

'Not in the slightest,' he corrected levelly. 'Take as long as you need, my pet.'

Jodie whooped with delight, and fled to her room, leaving them facing each other.

Cass said angrily, 'How dare you? Do you realise you made it impossible for me to refuse to let her go with you?'

'I do,' he said. 'It was quite deliberate, Cass. Why should your daughter be deprived of an afternoon's fun with kids of her own age, just because you don't like their uncle? And even if you're anti-zoo,' he added. 'At least you must admit that it will be more interesting for her than cooped up here with you, watching paint dry.'