Special Treatment. PENNY JORDAN
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conscious of the fact that anyone could walk in and see them, she pulled away from him, mustering a weak smile.
‘I’m being a complete idiot, and you’re quite right. He isn’t worth crying over.’
‘That’s OK, what else are ex-bosses for?’
‘I’d better go upstairs and do something about my face.’
As she turned to leave him, Richard caught hold of her arm and said soberly, ‘It’s a very good face, you know, Susannah. Even more important, there’s a very good brain behind it. Whoever he is, he just isn’t worth what you’re putting yourself through.’
With another watery smile, she left him and hurried up to her room. Apart from a suspicious pinkness round her eyes, she didn’t look too bad, but, as she discovered when she attempted to reapply the small amount of make-up she normally used, it took rather more eye-shadow and mascara than usual to conceal the evidence of her tears. She wasn’t quite sure if she liked the very heavy-lashed effect produced by the extra mascara; it gave her an unfamiliar, almost sultry look.
Shrugging aside the thought, she hurried back downstairs. She was here as Neil and Mamie’s guest, and she mustn’t spoil their party by letting them worry about her.
As luck would have it, Mamie was walking across the hall just as Susannah went back downstairs. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Fine. I didn’t realise you knew Richard, my exboss …’
‘Richard? Oh yes, of course, Caroline’s husband. Heavens, what a coincidence! I really had no idea …’
Having successfully distracted her, Susannah made her escape, pleading thirst.
In point of fact, there was nothing she felt less like doing than drinking champagne and chatting with people who were, in the main, strangers. She wanted to go home and be alone to nurse her hurts, she acknowledged painfully. But what was the point? David wasn’t worth her tears, or her anguish. Savagely, she told herself over and over again, almost as though she was repeating a powerful spell, that she was better off without him, that it was David’s wife who was to be pitied. She had been lonely and David had seen that loneliness and played on it, gradually drawing her deeper and deeper into a relationship which he had known all along was wrong.
Once inside the marquee, she headed for a quiet corner, close to one of the ornate floral decorations. Here she could see without being seen, and with luck escape Mamie’s alert eyes.
If she admitted the truth, she was still suffering from the after-effects of that appalling interview with Louise, David’s wife. The extent to which the other woman had had to degrade herself hurt Susannah; ridiculously, she felt both shame and resentment for Louise on behalf of their shared sex. She didn’t love David any more; how could she? She had deluded herself as to his real personality; the man she had thought she loved had been an ideal, an adolescent’s dream. The reality was the reason for her anguish and shame, she acknowledged, raw with the newness of her emotions. Her hand shook a little, and in a fit of self-disgust she took a deep swallow of her champagne. It tasted tart and sour, like her whole life, she derided herself bitterly, impulsively tipping what was left in her glass into a convenient plant-pot.
It was only as she turned round that she realised that she had been observed. Not by anyone she knew. The man watching her with such compelling eyes was a complete stranger.
His evening clothes had quite obviously been tailored for him; they fitted far too well to have been bought off the peg.
At some time or another in his life he must have indulged in some sort of punishingly physical sport, she guessed, noting the width of his shoulders and the leanness of his torso. He was tanned, not a summer holiday tan, but the tan of someone who had spent long, long hours in the sun. His hair was black and very thick. It was also a shade too long, she noted disapprovingly, its length rather at odds with the sophisticated elegance of his evening-dress clothes. Surely a man whose clothes fitted as well as this one’s did could afford to have a decent hair-cut? Her forehead creased in a slight frown, her reporter’s mind, trained to notice even the smallest anomalies, registered the oddly discordant note of the length of that thick dark hair and queried it. Was it simply that he preferred it that length and didn’t give a damn about what the rest of the world thought? Was it …
Abruptly, she realised that she was staring at him, and that, worse, he was regarding her with a look of insolent knowingness that made her blood burn in a dark red tide of betrayal over her body.
As clearly as though he had spoken the words across the space that divided them, she sensed his sexual appraisal. It was the dress, of course, she realised bitterly. That was why he was looking at her as though she were some sort of commodity for sale. And yet, behind the arrogant contempt, she had glimpsed, if only for a second, something more dangerous: something male and predatory that made her skin tingle and her body quiver. Sexual chemistry at its most potent. And, ridiculously, she had had the distinct impression that he had been as startled by it as she had herself in those few seconds of mental awareness they had exchanged before he had recovered himself and guarded his expression from her.
It was the dress. It had to be the dress. She just did not have that sort of effect on men, especially not on men as blatantly masculine as that one. Everything about him had shrieked that he was a man used to having his own way. It had all been there, in the narrowed, assessing scrutiny of his eyes, and that hard, chiselled outline of his profile. He was about Simon’s age, early thirties or thereabouts, and he looked as though he had lived every one of those years to the full.
He was no David, she thought ironically.
Annoyed with herself, she clenched her hands. It didn’t matter who he was, she wasn’t interested. The last thing she wanted was to get herself involved with another man, especially one who thought she was the sort of woman portrayed by the dress she was wearing.
‘What’s the matter? Wasn’t the champagne an acceptable vintage?’
The derisory sting of his voice shocked her into a frozen pose of surprise. Where had he come from? He must have moved so quickly and quietly. Instinctively, she looked across the room to where he had been and heard him give a soft, satisfied laugh.
‘Quite acceptable, thank you,’ she told him dismissively, hiding her shock.
Close to, Susannah realised she had been right about that sun. It had burned tiny lines either side of his eyes. Pale grey eyes, she noticed, rimmed by a much darker edge. It took a tremendous effort of will-power to drag her own gaze away from them.
Her whole body suddenly felt weak and vulnerable. She started to move away, her voice cool and dismissive. She wasn’t some cheap pick-up, whatever conclusions he had drawn about her from her outfit, and if he didn’t take her hint and take himself off right away he would soon discover his mistake.
A tiny shock thrilled through her as she discovered how much she was relishing the pleasure of putting him down. What was happening to her? What sort of woman was she turning into? She had seen at first hand how hard and embittered some of her older female colleagues had become, and she didn’t want to end up like that. They were so cynical and worldly; time and humankind had destroyed all their illusions and hardened them so that they were incapable of having any real feelings. She couldn’t live like that.
‘What’s a beautiful woman like you doing all alone, I wonder?’
The banality of his words enflamed her. Surely she was worthy of something a little better than that? And then, appallingly, her pain-bruised mind registered the word alone, and she could feel the lump gather treacherously in her throat. Oh, God, she couldn’t cry now! Not in front of this man.
To punish herself, as much as to get rid of him, she said bitterly, ‘If I’m on my own, it’s by my own choice, and if you would please …’
‘Your choice?’ She flinched beneath the derision in his voice. ‘Are you sure that’s the truth? Wouldn’t it be more honest of you to admit that you’re on your own because your lover is with his