She wanted to die for a time, dragging herself through each day and putting up a front whenever she was with the others until her nerves were as raw and lacerated as her heart. And at the bottom of her, whatever she tried to tell herself through the long sleepless nights when she tossed and turned until she thought she’d go mad, she knew David would have won his bet if she had gone to his home that night. She had been his for the taking and he had known it. Known she was crazy about him, that she adored him.
And then the holidays finished and David and some of the others went back to university. Months passed and she had the brace off and learnt to make the best of her naturally thick silky hair and smooth creamy skin; several hours at the gym each week toned her body and improved her shape. She took a college course in business management and secretarial skills, and, armed with that and her excellent A levels, left the womb-like village life and her mother’s small, pretty cottage and headed for London at the age of twenty.
But somehow, deep inside, she was still that small, hurt, shy teenager who had had the ground swept from under her feet and had been left vulnerable and exposed, and she had never fully realised it until this moment. She had carved a new life for herself, even dated occasionally—never the same man twice and always allowing nothing more than a goodnight kiss, although most of them had seemed to think ending up in bed was a good idea—and she’d become adept and composed at handling all of life’s ups and downs. And yet sexually and emotionally she had frozen that morning in front of Glenis, and it could have been yesterday so securely had the ice held.
And then this morning she had been drawn into Conrad Quentin’s fiery orbit and now the ice was melting. She was attracted to him. She didn’t want to be, but she didn’t seem able to control the feeling. And he was just another David at heart. Oh, he was undoubtedly wealthier, more powerful, more magnetic and fascinating, but basically he was a ruthless womaniser who worked hard and played hard and lived his life by his own set of rules.
Was she one of those women she’d read about? she asked herself searchingly. Women with a built-in self-destruct button who were always drawn to men who would use and abuse them; men who were charming and hypnotic but with a flaw that made them cruelly self-absorbed and narcissistic?
But, no, any woman would be attracted to Conrad Quentin; he was extremely fanciable, she reassured herself in the next moment. This was just a lust thing, however you wanted to dress it up, an animal awareness, something base and carnal, and as such quite easily controlled once it had been recognised.
And as she was as far out of his league of beautiful, famous models and starlets and the like as the man in the moon, it really didn’t matter too much one way or the other anyway. Conrad Quentin would never bother with someone like her—why, she’d worked for Quentin Dynamics for six years and he hadn’t even known she’d existed until fate had put her right under his nose!
Sephy had been lost in her dark thoughts and oblivious to the miles the powerful car had eaten up, so now, as a deep, husky voice at the side of her said quietly, ‘Here we are. Angus will soon be in Daniella’s tender care,’ she raised her head in startled surprise to see the car was pulling up in front of a nine-foot-high security wall with massive gates set in it, which Conrad opened smoothly with remote control from the car.
Once through the gates, the car moved slowly along a curved, pebble-covered driveway which opened on to a wide sweep in front of a very gracious, large, red-roofed house. Immaculate bowling-green-flat lawns surrounded the mansion on three sides, with a border of mature trees and bushes hiding the wall from view, and at their approach security lights lit up the grounds as bright as day.
It was all very epicurean and controll
ed—just like Conrad Quentin—and the beautifully tended gardens and rich scents coming from the warm vegetation suggested they were in the middle of the country somewhere, rather than the city. A lavish, opulent, fertile oasis in the middle of a desert of high-rise buildings and the madness of the rat-race, Sephy thought enviously. How the other half lived!
Conrad had left the car and walked round to open her door whilst she had been gaping at the view, and now, as his warm hand cupped her elbow once she was standing on the drive, he said, ‘Come in and have a drink while you’re here.’
‘Angus…’ She gestured somewhat vacantly towards the parked Mercedes’ back seat, only to turn her head again and see one very dignified, massive ginger tom padding ahead of them towards the house, his tail straight up in the air and every line of his body indicating he wanted it made plain he was doing Conrad the most enormous favour by consenting to be his guest.
‘He knows the way,’ Conrad said wryly. ‘I told you, you needn’t concern yourself about him. He’s streetwise.’
It wasn’t the cat that was worrying her, Sephy thought with a touch of silent hysteria as she allowed herself to be ushered through the huge double front doors and into a truly baronial hall that would have swallowed her little flat whole. She had a fleetingly brief impression of dark gleaming wood, bowls of flowers and undeniably fine paintings before she found herself entering what was clearly the drawing room. Just as she sank down on the silk-covered chaise longue Conrad indicated, a slender, dark-haired and exquisitely lovely young woman followed them into the room. The girl was holding Angus in her arms and the big cat was purring loudly.
‘He is telling me he wants his dinner,’ the woman said laughingly in a bright, heavily accented voice, glancing at Conrad as she spoke. Then she turned to Sephy and added, ‘You must be Sephy, yes? I am Daniella and I am pleasured to meet you,’ adjusting Angus in her arms so she could shake Sephy’s hand.
‘You are pleased to meet her,’ Conrad corrected softly with an indulgent smile. ‘And I brought a tin of cat food from Madge’s, incidentally, until you can get some tomorrow.’
‘Cat food?’ Daniella wrinkled her small perfect nose in utter distaste, turning to Sephy as though for moral support when she said, ‘Angus the cat, he no like the food from tins.’
‘Not when he can dine on best salmon,’ Conrad agreed drily.
‘Oh, you! You have the—how do you say it?—the bark that is worse than the bite?’ Daniella’s voice was warm and loving, and the glance she gave Conrad caused Sephy’s eyes to open wide for an instant.
Housekeeper, my foot, she thought balefully. This definitely was no employer/employee relationship, but then she shouldn’t really be surprised, should she? It was the nature of the animal after all. But didn’t Daniella mind when he paraded women like the lovely Caroline de Menthe in front of her? Obviously not.
‘I go now and see to the dinner.’
Daniella was smiling at her, and Sephy could do no more than smile back before she said, ‘I’m sure Angus will appreciate that.’
‘Si, si. I think so too.’ And then, as the cat wriggled in her arms, Daniella said, ‘Oh, you cat, you are the impatient one,’ before she nodded and smiled at them both again. She left the room saying, ‘Ten minutes, Conrad? Si?’
‘Ten minutes will be fine, Daniella. That will give us a chance to have a drink first,’ he said with suspicious satisfaction.
‘First?’ As the door closed behind the young Italian woman Sephy forced herself to speak quietly and calmly, even though her heart was pounding. Something was afoot, she could sense it. ‘What does “first” mean?’
‘Before something or someone else?’ Conrad suggested helpfully as he walked over to a large cocktail cabinet set at the side of a huge bay window and gestured at the bottles that were revealed as he opened the polished wood doors. ‘What would you like to drink? Wine? Martini? Or perhaps a gin and tonic?’
‘I didn’t mean I wanted a dictionary definition,’ Sephy said steadily as she met the brilliant blue eyes without flinching. ‘And I don’t want a drink, thank you.’
He looked at her quietly for a moment. ‘Why so wary and guarded, Sephy?’ he asked softly. ‘Whatever have you heard about me that’s so terrible it’s scared you to death?’
Sephy’s face was brilliant and her voice was sharp with embarrassment as she said, ‘I’m not scared! Of course I’m not scared. That’s…that’s a perfectly ridiculous thing to say.’