Taking Chances (31 page)

Though obviously still surprised, he could see how pleased she was to be asked. He waited quietly as she put her head to one side and thought. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘there’s my job. That’s important.’

He nodded.

‘Then there’s … Let me see, well I suppose there’s …’ She started to chew on her top lip. ‘There’s um, the money I make.’ She looked at him as though seeking his approval.

Again he nodded.

Several more minutes ticked by, until finally her eyes returned to his, telling him she couldn’t think of anything else.

He smiled. ‘A lot of people don’t even get past one,’ he told her.

She took a large sip of champagne and felt some trickle down her chin. Using her fingers to wipe it away, she looked at him again waiting for him to say more. ‘You’re in love with Michael, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘At least you think you are.’

‘Why don’t you believe it?’ she retorted, failing to keep the edge from her voice.

He shrugged. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to inflict all this misery on him if you cared about him,’ he answered.

‘What misery?’ she demanded, her guilty conscience
making
her wonder for one horrible moment if he’d spoken to Forgon.

He looked surprised. ‘You’re trying to break up his relationship with Ellen, when any fool can see how much he loves her.’

Her eyes moved away, but he could see she was stung by his words. ‘She was unfaithful to Michael,’ she suddenly blurted, ‘so now she’s going to get what she deserves.’

‘And you honestly think that’s going to result in giving you what you want?’ he said.

Again she looked away. Her expression was mutinous, but he had no doubt he was reaching her. ‘We don’t always realize what we want,’ she said finally.

‘Bingo,’ he grinned.

Her eyes were flashing as she looked at him. ‘I meant Michael, not me,’ she snapped.

‘Why should it be the case for Michael, yet not for you?’ he replied. ‘But you’re right, we don’t always realize what we want, and most of us are guilty of wishing for things that aren’t in our best interests at all. Often we don’t know that until we’ve got them, so it’s probably best to heed that old warning about being careful of what you wish for, because you might just get it. And believe you me, wishing the worst for Ellen isn’t going to work for you, no matter how it all comes out in the end. Besides, you don’t wish the worst for her really, what you’re wishing for is the best for you, and you think that can only come if her life falls apart.’

Sandy was staring up at him. Her barriers were still up, but he could sense them shifting. ‘This is beginning to sound like a lecture,’ she grumbled.

He shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess it does,’ he responded. ‘And all I was trying to do was make you understand what a wonderful woman you really are. Of course
you
don’t think so, but you can’t fool me.’

She sat quietly with that, enjoying the fact that he
thought
so, even though she wasn’t sure that he meant it. She glanced at him once or twice, then, just for the hell of it, she said, ‘I used to sleep with men for money, or whatever else I could get out of them. How wonderful do you rate that?’

His eyebrows went up. ‘We’re not talking about what you do, we’re talking about who you are,’ he answered.

‘Aren’t we what we do?’

‘As long as what we do isn’t a lie. You sleeping with men for some kind of gain wasn’t true to the person you are.’

‘How do you know that? Maybe I liked it.’

‘Did you?’

She was about to lie and say she did, but then realized she was just being childish. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how much do you like yourself? A little, a lot, or not at all?’

‘What kind of question is that?’ she scoffed. ‘I can hardly say I like myself a lot, can I?’

Laughing, he said, ‘I detected some kind of accent then. Where are you from?’

‘The Midlands,’ she answered. ‘Do you know England?’

‘Very well.’ He paused and drank some champagne. ‘When are you planning on going back?’

‘Next Wednesday. I’ve got a few things to do for Michael here before I can leave.’

He nodded, compressed his lips and frowned. ‘You know, I think I’ll come with you,’ he said.

To his surprise she actually jumped. ‘What, to London?’ she said.

‘Yeah, I haven’t been there in a while, and I’ve got a couple of weeks to kill before Ellen and I get back to work, so where better to spend them than London? With you.’

‘You want to come to London to spend some time
with
me
?’ She shook her head in bewildered suspicion.

He smiled. ‘I wasn’t planning on staying with you,’ he told her. ‘Just on getting to know you. I could catch up with a few old friends, there’s a couple up in Scotland I’m particularly fond of who I haven’t seen for ages. And maybe I could see Vic Warren while I’m over. He’s flying back on Monday to start the sound edit for his latest movie, but I’m sure he could fit me in somewhere.’

Sandy said, ‘Maybe you could meet some of the investors too. I think they’d appreciate that. I’ll call the World Wide business managers on Monday and get them to set up some meetings.’

‘Sure,’ he said, noting how the confidence had crept back into her voice now she was on familiar ground.

She smiled, then lowered her eyes as he continued to look at her. She wasn’t entirely sure how she was feeling right now, except excited that he was coming to London. She wondered if it meant he wanted to sleep with her, and if he did, whether he planned to wait until they got to London, or do it now. She looked up, and finding him still watching her she wondered with alarm if he was reading her mind.

‘When was the last time you had yourself some fun?’ he said.

A hint of wariness crept into her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

He laughed. ‘How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘And when was the last time you went to a disco? Took a vacation? Screamed at a rock concert? Looked round a museum? Went for a picnic? Or did anything that didn’t involve work?’

She blinked.

‘It’s time you loosened up a bit, Sandy,’ he said. ‘You’re getting old before your time, and there’s nothing in the rule book that says it has to be all work and no
play
, no matter how ambitious you are. Nor did I ever see it written anywhere that you have to dress like a forty-year-old executive before you’re even thirty.’

Her eyes widened in amazement. ‘This suit is a Christian Dior,’ she protested.

‘And perfect for a wedding,’ he conceded. ‘But I’ve seen you all dressed up in that stuffy designer rubbish ever since you arrived. It’s for women twice your age, and believe me, no-one’s going to think any the less of you if you tone down the make-up. In fact, you look gorgeous without it, so I’ve got to wonder why you’re trying to hide your own beauty?’

He waited, but she didn’t answer.

‘So I guess we’re back to you not liking yourself too much,’ he said.

‘I never said that,’ she protested.

‘You don’t have to say it,’ he smiled. ‘You’ve just got to change it. You know, I think I’ll take you shopping myself. I’m no expert, but I reckon we could have ourselves some fun.’

‘My name’s not Eliza Doolittle,’ she grumbled, though secretly she was delighted by the suggestion.

‘God forbid that an American should ever presume to teach a Brit how to talk,’ he laughed.

She looked confused.

‘Wasn’t that what Henry Higgins did for Eliza Doolittle?’ he reminded her.

She nodded.

He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s seven thirty,’ he said. ‘The stores don’t close until nine, so what do you say we go get you something entirely different to anything you’ve got in that trussed-up, expensive wardrobe of yours, then go paint this crazy town red?’

Her heart was racing with pleasure. No-one had ever taken this kind of interest in her before, and that it was Tom was blowing her mind. The trouble was, she wasn’t entirely sure how to handle it. In a way she’d have
preferred
to have sex. She’d feel more comfortable with that. A bit more in control. Though something told her she might not be in control where he was concerned, so maybe the idea of shopping and clubbing was safer than she thought. In fact, the very idea of shopping with a man, which wasn’t something she’d ever done before, was extremely appealing.

‘What shall I wear to go shopping?’ she asked.

His grin widened and she felt her heart catch on how devastatingly handsome he was. ‘Do you have any jeans?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not with me.’

‘Then show me what you do have, and if you as much as reach for the make-up, the date’s off.’

‘Date?’ she echoed.

‘Don’t tell me you never heard of a date?’ he cried.

She laughed. ‘Of course I have, I just didn’t realize that was what we were doing.’ She paused.

‘Well, get used to the idea,’ he said, swinging his legs off the bed, ‘because that’s what we’re going to be doing for at least the next eight hours, and if you tell me you don’t dance I’m going to sign you up for therapy. Now, let’s take a look at this wardrobe.’

It wasn’t until well after midnight, as she twisted and whirled and laughed and clapped in the flashing lights of some overcrowded nightclub, that she realized how many hours had passed since she’d last thought about Michael. But despite the way her heart sank as she did, she was having far too much fun to give in to it now. Never having felt so good in her new short black petticoat dress and knee-high, three-inch-heel black leather boots, she gyrated brazenly towards Tom, arms high in the air, then shrieked with delight as he scooped her up and swung her round in a circle. For the moment it didn’t matter that it wasn’t Michael she was with, when the time was right it would be, and until then all she could do was thank God she wasn’t in Ellen’s shoes.

Chapter 14

GAZING DOWN AT
the gentle, persistent motion of the waves was like gazing into her own heart. Each time courage reached her, it was sucked away again by an undertow of fear, a pressing need for escape. She was two people now: the new bride who adored her husband, laughed with him, played with him and made love with him so willingly and passionately it was as though they were discovering each other for the very first time. And then there was the other her: the woman whose deceit was eating her up inside, whose fear watched the ‘new bride’ so jealously that she knew it was only a matter of time now before it swept on to the stage and took control.

It astonished her to find she could put on such a show, that she could detach herself so completely from the truth and pretend to be the woman she’d always been. She’d done it at the church, throughout the reception and now, for the past five days, here on her honeymoon. Guilt stalked her constantly, but if it ever came too close she reminded herself that all she was doing was living her life the way it should have been – and would have been had she not taken that single, insane act of revenge that was now about to take its revenge on her. And it would, because there was no way of avoiding it, no way at all.

But why shouldn’t she and Michael have these two
weeks
of happiness? What was wrong with giving him that when she was going to take so much away? Even if the baby turned out to be his she knew how hard it was going to be for him to forgive the doubt, and wondered if in the end they would ever get past it. She hoped desperately that the fact no-one else knew would help, but even if it did, she just couldn’t get rid of the dread that once she told him the truth he was never going to feel the same way about her again.

Right now she was standing in the small patio garden of their Caribbean home, looking down at the white, empty beach and glittering aquamarine sea. To one side of her was the double hammock that Michael had tied between two palms, where they often lay in each other’s arms gazing up at the sky. Because of the time of year the humidity was intense, but this was where they’d wanted to be, away from the rest of the world, yet still in their own home. She looked down at the sun loungers that were strewn with towels, tanning oil and the books they were reading. For a horrible moment the image came to her of him making love to Michelle on a lounger beside their pool in LA. She pushed it quickly away. She had no right to be jealous now, nor to use his betrayal to justify her own. She had wanted Tom Chambers and when faced with an excuse to seduce him, she had done just that.

Walking across the red brick tiles and under the flower-covered pergola, she stopped at a tub of geraniums and began to pull off the dead leaves. As she worked she almost smiled at the unusual spectacle she would present, dressed as she was, to anyone able to see her. But their small two-bedroomed villa in a secluded bay on the west of the island was overlooked by no-one, except maybe the pilot of a descending plane. Occasionally strollers found their way onto the beach below, but the hillside between was covered in giant cacti and other trees and shrubs, enough to obstruct the
view
up to the house. They were very private here.

Hearing the car come to a stop at the side of the house, she left the geraniums and walked across the grass to the two tallest palms in the garden that grew in a giant V from the ground and soared so high in the sky that on a bad day their green feathery tops were lost in cloud. Standing between them she turned so that she could see Michael coming, and leaning her shoulder against one tree she reached out to rest her hand on the other. He had taken many photographs of her here, striking just this kind of pose, but none while she was dressed like this.

As he came round the corner of the house, carrying two bags of groceries, she felt her heart swell, then weigh so heavily inside her it was as though she could no longer support it. She loved him so much it went beyond anything she could ever fathom or maybe even, in the end, endure. And knowing how much he loved her too turned the ache inside her to a terrible, wrenching pain. She watched him, knowing he hadn’t yet seen her, almost afraid of what she would see in his eyes when he did. Yet it was what she wanted, his desire, his passion, his urgency and love.