He let go of her, walking across to stand with his back to her as he stared out of the window into the sunny street below. As she struggled into her robe, shaking from head to foot, he said expressionlessly, ‘She was just a female like any other, but I was young and idealistic and thought there was such a thing as love in those days. I was seventeen years old and she was the new French mistress at the school. Funny, eh? Like one of those bawdy jokes that make people laugh?’
He turned to face her then, and his countenance was dark and stony. ‘Knowing what I know now, she must have been around some to get the experience she had, but she didn’t look her age—she was twenty-six—and she lied so beautifully she could have made the devil himself believe black was white. She was tiny, petite, and she made every lad in the school feel like Tarzan, so the fact that she was sleeping with me… We were going to get married, as soon as I’d finished my A Levels and was out of that place. And then some weeks into the summer holidays, when I was waiting for my results and for her to join me after she’d settled things in France, I got a letter.’
A ‘Dear John’, Sephy thought painfully. She swallowed once, twice, before she managed to say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘She’d married the local big-wig in her hometown,’ Conrad said evenly. ‘Apparently she’d been engaged to him for years but he was twenty-five years older than her and a gangster type with plenty of women on the side. She’d caught him out a few times and come to England in a fit of pique. Anyway, true love triumphed, or in her case a mansion of a house and her own Ferrari etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. A seedy little story involving seedy little people.’
‘And that’s when you went abroad,’ she said softly, sinking down on to the sofa before her legs gave out. She felt sick for him, heartsick, but her misery was all the more acute for knowing that this was the death knell on any faint hope she’d had that he would ever understand how she loved him. He might want her, he might even care about her in his own way, but the ability for anything more had been burnt out of his soul long before he had met her. She had met him far, far too late.
Her head was swimming now, and she felt nauseous, but she forced herself to sit quietly. She sensed he had never spoken of all this before and he might never again, and she had to hear it all. She had to know.
‘Yes, I went abroad,’ he agreed expressionlessly. ‘The original angry young man with money in his pocket and no one to answer to. I made a few mistakes—hell, I made a lot of mistakes—but it was beneficial in the main. I grew up, learnt what my strengths and weaknesses were and I found I was more like my parents than I cared to admit. I didn’t need anyone to make good.’
‘Everyone needs someone, Conrad,’ she said sadly.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Sephy,’ he said with disturbing conviction. ‘Society perpetuates the myth that we’re pack animals because it makes it easier for governments to control the hordes, that’s all. Marriage, family units—they aren’t necessary, believe me. I’m living proof of that.’
If she hadn’t been so tired and her head hadn’t been pounding so badly she might have thought more about what she said, but as it was the words were out before she had time to consider how they sounded. ‘That’s such rubbish,’ she said flatly. ‘Such utter and absolute rubbish. It’s the most natural thing in the world for two people to fall in love and want to create a family. When it goes wrong it can be the most devastating thing in the world, like in your case, but that doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. If anything I would say you are living proof for a secure family unit rather than against. Proof of what a mess someone can become when they aren’t loved and cherished by the very people they have a right to expect it from.’
He stared at her for a moment, the slash of colour along his chiselled cheekbones deepening as her words hovered in the taut silence. ‘Thank you so much for that vote of confidence,’ he said coldly, the tone of his voice cutting, ‘but I don’t think I’ve done too badly on the whole.’
‘Materially you’ve got the world at your feet,’ she agreed quietly, ‘but that’s nothing. Money and possessions are nothing.’
‘There are a good number of women out there who would disagree with you.’ It was bitterly cynical.
‘Yes, there are.’ This was it; this was the end. She had offended him beyond the point of no return. It was there in the blazing blue eyes and savagely tense jaw; he looked as though he would like to strangle her with his bare hands. ‘And they are as emotionally crippled as you,’ she said softly. ‘No good to themselves and no good to anyone else. Life is more than performing well in bed, Conrad, more than making people fear and tremble when you walk into a room to conduct a business deal.’
‘Here endeth the first lesson?’ The sarcasm was raw and deadly. ‘What makes you such an authority on human relationships anyway?’ he said with biting control.
‘I’m not an authority; I’ve never pret
ended to be,’ she shot back tightly. ‘But I know what I know and you’re wrong, so wrong.’
‘Oh, to hell with this,’ he ground out furiously. ‘I’ve a deal worth millions hanging in the balance. That’s real life! And if I can have a few of them in fear and trembling this morning that’ll suit me just fine; it’ll have been a successful day.’
‘Then I feel sorry for you,’ she said bravely, lifting her chin as she stared up at him from the sofa. ‘If that’s all you’ve got.’
‘Keep your pity for someone who needs it, Sephy,’ he said with sudden chilling softness. ‘Because I don’t.’
‘No, of course, I’d forgotten.’ She was so angry with him; he would never find anyone else who would love him as she did and he was throwing away her chance of happiness along with his. This was so unfair. ‘You don’t need anyone, do you?’
‘Dead right.’
She knew he was going to walk out on her and she steeled herself not to move or speak as he left, nodding at him with almost clinical detachment as he turned in the doorway to survey her one last time. The look on his face chilled her to the bone.
And then the door closed behind him, she heard his feet on the stairs outside—a brief pause—and then the sound of the door into the street being slammed with some force. He had gone. She turned her face into the upholstered plumpness of the sofa and let the pent-up tears come in an overwhelming flood. She had known it was going to happen—that it must. There had only been one way this could all finish from the start, so why—knowing that—did it still hurt so much?
It was a good half an hour later before Sephy roused herself from the sofa, and by then she had realised—her desolation taken as read—that she wasn’t feeling physically well.
Her throat was burning, there were a hundred little men with hammers inside her head and she felt as exhausted as if she had just completed the London Marathon.
In spite of her consuming misery she fell asleep immediately she crawled back into bed, and it was some time later—how long she had no idea—that she became aware of Maisie’s voice talking to her as a soft hand shook her awake. ‘Sephy, Sephy, are you all right? For goodness’ sake talk to me, kiddo. What’s wrong?’
‘Wh-what’s the matter?’ she asked groggily, the urgent, almost tearful note in Maisie’s voice penetrating the consuming heaviness as she struggled to open her eyes.
‘I’ve been pressing the buzzer for ages, and then I tried ringing; we were supposed to meet for coffee and croissants this morning, remember?’ Maisie said earnestly. ‘So I got the pass key from Jerry; he’s waiting in the living room.’
‘Is he?’ She tried to sit up but every bone was aching and she felt indescribably ill. It was easier to fall back against the pillows.