The Man at Key West (7 page)

Later, when she was dressed in her clean dry clothes again, he took her back to the Villa Repose. There was a quick kiss on her hair before he went round to give her a hand from the car.

‘Goodbye,’ he said with a cool smile as he released her hand when she had stepped from the car. ‘Keep your virginity dusted. Good luck with the photographs.’

His look implied that she would need it in her chosen career.

CHAPTER SIX

The days passed swiftly for Sue. Even so they were not without their torment. Her article, accompanied by photographs, entitled In Search of Mermaids was accepted with delight by her editor and he gave her a few days off to look around and pick something else up worthwhile.

Her relations with Connie, while they did not exactly warm up, were stable enough not to be embarrassing. Vera seemed to melt a little because Sue was neat and clean in the rooms allocated to her. Using the bathroom for her dark room to develop the photographs made no difference to its immaculate appearance when not in use. Sue took great care to clean it up and to make her own bed.

On one occasion Vera had brought her coffee when she had been at work in the dark room developing her photographs.

‘You don’t have to clean up the bathroom when you’ve finished, Miss Sue,’ she said almost resentfully, ‘or to keep your room tidy.’

‘I like doing it,’ Sue replied with a smile. ‘You see, we had a marvellous housekeeper who was more like a mother than anything else to me.’ Tears came in her eyes and she turned her head away to hide them from Vera’s hard gaze. ‘She died. I was looking after her when Daddy remarried. That was why I didn’t show up here for a year. Apart from that there were other things to settle, like selling the house.’

Sue had no idea why she was telling Vera this
except to
explain that the chores she had done so ch
eerfully
were not to gain Vera’s good will.

‘
But surely your father should have seen to all
t
he business of selling your house?’ Vera exclaimed. ‘It wasn’t right for you to bear it all on your own.’

Sue smiled. ‘I didn’t mind. Daddy has his own life to live and I have mine. As a matter of fact Connie is only taking my place in looking after Daddy.’

Vera frowned as though puzzled. ‘But I thought your father looked after you, that he made you his whole life?’ she said in astonishment.

‘Connie will have discovered by now that it was rather the reverse,’ Sue said quietly. ‘My father is a darling, but he needs someone there to look after him. In a way I’m glad he’s found Connie because I can now live my own life. I must confess I hated the thought of change. I never expected Daddy to marry again, which was very foolish of me, I suppose—but there it is.’

Vera was regarding her a little more kindly. ‘And you don’t mind having a stepmother? You aren’t jealous?’

Sue laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be speaking the truth if I were to say that I wasn’t jealous. Anyway, I hope they’ll be very happy.’

Vera studied her frank open countenance intently, then she gave Sue the first genuine smile she had seen since arriving. It occurred to her then that Connie could have misled Vera and her husband about her stepdaughter’s attitude towards her. But she had other things on her mind. She could not forget Jay no matter how she tried.

She was disgusted with herself for getting involved with him in the first place. She had been attracted to him from the very beginning when she saw him on his yacht, she had also known in her heart that nothing would ever come of it. Yet she had let her heart overrule her common sense. Now she was paying dearly for it. Never had she felt so lonely and so unimportant even now that she had her father near.

The magazine article, along with her pictures, had been published, and her father was very pleased about it. Jay sent a bouquet of flowers with a congratulatory note on her success and asked her to have dinner with him by way of celebration.

The stiff little note of refusal that she sent back was something she had to get off quickly in case she changed her mind. She had been to see her editor several times with pictures on the human slant in life, children, dogs and anything attracting the interest of readers, but she had not seen Jay at the offices again.

‘Fond of kids, are you, Miss Blake?’ he drawled, looking up from a particularly funny picture of a small boy giving his pet dog a lick of his ice cream.

Sue beamed as if he was on to her favourite subject.

‘I love them,’ she replied warmly. ‘They’re so unaffected and natural. They make excellent subjects.’

He tossed the pictures on to his desk and leaned back in his chair to look at the enchanting picture she made in her pale blue shorts and sleeveless top. Her tawny hair was tied back in a ponytail and he surveyed her appraisingly.

‘How about the big boys? Do you play ball with them too?’ he drawled sardonically with raised brows.’

Sue laughed and wished she could rid herself of her usual embarrassed blush.

‘Sometimes,’ she replied. ‘Don’t forget I’m a working girl and I have my career to think of.’

He fondled his clean-shaven chin and gave her a narrowed-eyed look.

‘They can help to further your career,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Get on well with men, do you? I mean, you don’t freeze them off or anything like that? You’re easy on the eye and I know some men need no encouragement when it comes to pretty girls. You’ll probably have assignments interviewing tycoons—-you know, photographing their pads and that kind of thing. Think you can handle it?’ ‘Sure,’ Sue replied, and wondered who he had in mind.

When Sue returned to the villa Connie called her as she was about to pass the door of the sitting room.

‘Hello, Sue,’ she called amiably. ‘I’ve just been reading your article about searching for mermaids. It isn’t bad at all for a beginner. Come and sit down, I have something to tell you.’

Sue, feeling vaguely irritated at the criticism which relegated her to the status of office girl turned professional entered, the room reluctantly. The smile she had forced to her lips faded as she sat uncertainly on the edge of a chair.

‘First of all, what’s happened between you and Jay Denver? You aren’t seeing him now, are you?’ Connie asked curiously.

Every muscle and nerve in Sue’s body tightened painfully and her tell tale blush came with it.

‘I wasn’t aware that I was in any way a special friend of Jay Denver’s,’ she began unconvincingly. ‘He’s only an acquaintance.’

Connie’s mouth thinned. ‘You spent the day with him and have had meals out with him, then suddenly nothing. I hope you haven’t quarrelled.
It will make things very awkward if you have.’

Sue took a deep tremulous breath. ‘I think you’d better enlarge upon that,’ she said quaveringly. ‘What has my friendship to do with anyone but myself and the person concerned?’

Connie made an impatient gesture with beringed hands.

‘I told you to be nice to him because it’s important,’ she said shortly. ‘You’ve worked with your father, haven’t you, in the past and you know how important it is to create a good impression when dealing with prospective clients.’

Sue felt her face go pale and there was a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘Daddy has always been on the level,’ she said in a low voice on the edge of a wobble. ‘I don’t understand what’s required of me. Daddy hasn’t mentioned anything about business to me since you’ve been married. But if you’re on to something shady I demand to know what it is. Daddy has never done anything to be ashamed of in his life—perhaps that’s why he’s not a millionaire. He has principles and as far as I know he’s stuck to them.’

Connie’s mouth looked ugly. ‘You talk like someone from a kindergarten! We live in an age of tycoons who stop at nothing to get on. All you I have to do is to be nice to Jay Denver. He’s a very powerful man in the world of finance. In fact, he has earned the reputation of being a wizard where I successful enterprises have been built up from bankrupt ventures.’

Sue had recovered from the knowledge that her stepmother was out for what she could get regardless and new strength dismissed the wobble from her voice.

‘If you’re aiming to deceive Jay Denver you’re kidding yourself,’ she said grimly. ‘He’s too clever to be taken in by any shady deal. I don’t believe he’s the kind of tycoon you speak of who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. What is it exactly what you want from him?’

She was clutching the edge of her chair and her knuckles were as pale as her face.

‘Calm down,’ Connie murmured silkily. ‘All we want is a loan to tide us over a bad patch, that’s all.’

‘What bad patch do you mean? Define it,’ Sue demanded bluntly. ‘Daddy has never been through a bad patch, as you term it. He always cut his losses and moved on to something else.’

‘Bill was having a bad patch when I married him,’ Connie said with hard eyes.

‘I don’t believe you, because if you’d known that you would never have married him. You must have had other offers of marriage. You’re an attractive woman and you dress well. I left kindergarten years ago, so don’t try it on me, Connie. And if you get Daddy into trouble I swear I’ll let the public know it’s all your fault.’ Sue smiled grimly. ‘I’ll even get Jay Denver on my side!’

Connie eyed her with hate in her cold blue eyes. ‘You don’t like me, do you? You would love to break up our marriage, wouldn’t you?’ she almost spat.

‘Why should I love to break up your marriage if Daddy is happy? I love him very much. He’s all I have, and I think he’s all you have too, Connie. If I were you I would take good care of him. You’ll find no better nor sincerer helpmate than Daddy,’ said Sue with pain in her eyes.

She could not help wondering how much Connie had influenced her father into doing some deal entirely against his principles.

Her stepmother was silent for a moment, toying with the bracelets on her arm that were worth a small fortune. She said at last.

‘We’re dealing with inflation, Sue, and you’ve been out of business too long to understand how deadly it can be.’

‘Daddy had a hundred thousand pounds from the sale of our house just after you married him. Where exactly does the bad patch come in?’ Sue retorted.

‘It’s far too complicated to tell you,’ was the reply.

‘I bet it is! Do you know what my guess is?’ Sue glared at her companion. ‘I think you want me to get friendly with Jay in order to impress certain people you’d be better without.’

‘You’re brighter than I thought,’ Connie admitted with reluctant admiration. ‘Perhaps I want to be free of certain friends since marrying your father. Don’t forget, if I get hurt so will your father.’

The words were a barbed arrow aimed directly at Sue’s heart. But she refused to be intimidated.

‘As I said before, I shall see that Daddy doesn’t pay for your misdeeds. Think it over, Connie, and don’t try to blackmail me into being an accomplice.’ Sue paused to look her stepmother right in the eye. ‘What is it you wanted to tell me?’

Connie drew in a deep breath and was very careful to hide her true feelings.

‘We’re giving a dinner party next week,’ she answered.

‘And Jay Denver is invited,’ added Sue dryly.

‘Along with others. I’ve discussed it with your father and he thinks it’s a good idea to invite your editor and some of the staff of your magazine. Agreed?’

Sue met the cold blue eyes head on. ‘If Daddy
h
as a hand in it, yes,’ she replied.

She felt slightly sick on going to her room as she recalled the lines of strain receding from her stepmother’s face. The incident with her was distressing
a
nd lowered her morale more than it was when she had entered the Villa.

Lying on her back on her bed, she gazed unseeingly at the ceiling. Her father was married and it was up to her to make something tolerable of it for his sake. Optimism told her that all situations, however distasteful, improved with time. There were traumatic experiences much worse than an unhappy love affair happening to people all the time, and most of them managed to survive.

When the tap on the door interrupted her thoughts she slid from the bed and smoothed her hair.

It was Vera with freshly made coffee. ‘I thought you’d like a cup. I was making one for Mrs
.
Blake, so it was nothing in the way of extra work to make one for you.’

‘Thanks, Vera. I’d love a coffee right now,’ Sue greeted her warmly.

Sue found that the hands around her coffee cup were trembling when she held the drink to her lips after Vera had gone. She was on the verge of tears simply because Vera had been kind and thoughtful towards her. She must be getting run down.

The coffee calmed her. Maybe a party was what she needed too, especially as her editor had been invited. She could ask him for an assignment somewhere for a while. It was the thought of seeing

Jay again that worried her. Perhaps he would not I come.

The days preceding the party were hectic ones, with furniture being arranged and rearranged and I food brought in along with flowers for the occasion. Three long trestle tables had been hired so that all the guests could be seated for a meal.

Sue dressed for the occasion in a moth’s wing dress in crepe-de-chine with a teasing low neckline and trim-waisted skirt. The blue lovers’ knots printed all over it gave her a tender untouched look and she was pleased with the result.

So was her editor Bob Lilley when he arrived with his colleagues.

‘You look like my favourite dish,’ he chuckled. ‘Good enough to eat! It’s quite painful to send you out of orbit for a while.’

Sue had given him a drink from one of the trays carried high by passing waiters hired for the party. She looked at him with wide tawny eyes alight with anticipation. This was what she had been waiting for, a break away from her problems.

He eyed her with a twinkle.

‘How would you like to go on a sexy assignment?’ he asked, tongue in cheek, with one eye on her cleavage.

‘Such as?’ Sue asked warily.

‘Such as topless bathing beauties at Key West. Interview them while you’re taking
pictures and I ask them questions like how it feels to have their boobs exposed,’ he said, and grinned at her sudden blush. ‘You can get away with things that a man can’t. The girls will let their hair down to you. And get one or two good shots of a Mr. Universe while you’re there.’

Sue was still getting her breath back and playing
f
or time, but she was becoming used to the unexpected in the magazine game.

‘You’re not running a porn magazine, are you?’
she
queried. ‘I mean, that kind of thing is becoming deadly boring.’

Bob grinned, reached for a drink from one of
t
he trays en route for another group of people and thrust it into her hand.

‘Have a drink on it. You’ll quite enjoy Key West,’ he assured her. ‘When men find photographs of pretty women boring they’re well and truly too old to bother. I think a picture of you in a bikini on the front page as our latest recruit will go down well too.’

‘Hey, I’m a photographer, not a model!’ she protested.

‘It’s an idea—you’d get by easily. You’re a wow in that dress, too distracting for an office worker like me.’

‘Get away with you!’ Sue grinned.

Bob introduced several of the office staff whom she had not met before and they ogled her pleasingly. .She saw Jay talking to a small group of business men. In his cream dinner jacket and bow tie he looked very cosmopolitan and heartbreakingly attractive. She saw Connie approach him followed by one of the hired waiters with a tray of drinks. Jay accepted his politely with a grin at Connie which was not just a flash of white teeth.

Connie responded coyly and Sue looked away, wondering what particular kettle of fish she was cooking. She tried to ignore Jay’s masculine elegance and gave a start when a man of medium height with dark shining hair and peculiarly colourless eyes spoke to her.

‘Good evening, Miss Blake. Henry Cassells is the name. I’ve been wanting to tell you how beautiful you look this evening.’ m His voice purred with a softness which gave Sue
shudders down her spine as she recalled Jay’s withering remarks about the man.
The podgy hand he held out was soft, with that
softness of a man who did no manual work of any description
.
His colourless eyes, which she now saw as a pale grey, might have been attractive on any other man, but on this one they had an ominous glint. She drew her hand away when he would have
held it longer. She had seen times when on meeting men she disliked on sight she would have murmured the conventional greeting, then politely walked away. But this man was a friend of
Connie’s, so she had to treat him as such.
She had got to the point of telling him that she
worked on a magazine when everyone began to drift into the dining room. Jay had not sought her
out mainly because he had seen her with Henry Cassells, a man he would not associate with normally. To Sue’s dismay she found herself sitting opposite Jay at the table, and when their eyes met his greeting was skilfully casual. She felt a trifle piqued by it and was cheered to find herself by her editor and flanked on her other side by a young journalist named Dirk Bell.

The hired waiters came around to fill their
glasses and Bill stood up to welcome his visitors to
an enjoyable meal. All eyes turned to the tall di
s
tinguished-looking man with white wings at his
temples as he looked at his daughter.

Very briefly he said that the party was for his daughter to celebrate her entry into journalism. He
said
that he did not think that it would last long
as
she made a prettier picture than any she would ever take and more than one man would notice it in due course.

With burning cheeks Sue avoided all eyes, momentarily catching Jay’s mocking glance before lowering her eyes. During the meal she tried to avoid looking across the table at Jay, but she found that it wasn’t easy. He was quite the most attractive man at the table and he was apparently talking shop to an elderly man on his right who was dressed impeccably.

Sue wrinkled her brow, trying to remember where she had seen the man before. Then as his keen intelligent eyes met her across the table she remembered.

Her smile of recognition was radiant. ‘Mel Rasen! It is, isn’t it?’ she exclaimed recalling meeting him in Paris two years before. He had been staying in the same hotel when her father had been feeling unwell after a dinner of lobster. She remembered how kind he had been in reassuring her that her father’s collapse was nothing more than a slight attack of food poisoning. He was a surgeon on holiday from his hospital in Switzerland. He smiled at her, his thin face with its high intelligent forehead assuming a certain attraction.

‘Miss Blake,’ he said with pleasure. ‘Congratulations on your new career. I’m very pleased you’re setting out on your own, and I wish you every success—though I trust you’ll follo
w
in your father’s footsteps and get married.’

Jay looked across at her flushed face and said maliciously, ‘Heaven save me from a career woman! They lose all their femininity in nine cases out of ten.’

Sue looked him right in the eye. ‘But the men don’t lose their masculinity, do they? They become more bigheaded than ever,’ adding demurely on seeing Mel Rasen’s lifted brows, ‘In nine out of ten cases, of course.’