The Bedroom Assignment. Sophie Weston
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still gave you a hell of shock, thought Zoe ruefully. She felt as if she had walked into a wall.
Who on earth was he?
You don’t want to know, said that voice in her head. There was a distinct warning note in it.
And it was right. Of course it was right. If she had to come face to face with the man she’d probably be as tongue-tied as a new teen with a pop idol whose poster she had had on her wall for years. That was about the level of substance to her feelings.
She did not want to have to deal with fantasies she should have outgrown ten years ago, Zoe told herself. She wanted to have a good time. That was what tonight was all about. Forget her money worries! Forget her non-existent career and her life on hold! Dance and have fun!
She would dance and have fun if it killed her, she resolved grimly.
So she had resumed her journey to her bathroom. And before she’d come downstairs again, she’d splashed water on her face so vigorously that she’d had to rebuild her makeup from scratch.
Suze took Jay back to the drawing room. Now that he’d had time to adjust, he saw it ran the depth of the house, from the street to the garden. At the far end the French windows were open to the night air. He moved towards them gratefully, picking up the rhythm of the dance as he went. Beside him Suze gyrated, a lot less rhythmically.
‘She’ll be here somewhere. When last seen she was listening to a man in a checked shirt talk about megabytes.’
Jay bent his head to her. ‘Why?’ he said simply.
‘Zoe takes being a hostess seriously. She does ten minutes per no-hoper.’
Suze was twining herself round him sinuously as they walked. It would have been sexy if she hadn’t been scanning the room all the time and talking nineteen to the dozen. Jay smiled at her with affection. God bless Susan, who didn’t fancy the pants off him and wasn’t going to break her heart over him.
‘You’re a star,’ he said, taking her hand and dancing her powerfully through a little knot of wild arms and bouncing shoulders.
‘Love it when you butter me up,’ said Suze, unmoved by his touch.
They got to the windows.
‘Maybe she’s in the garden,’ said Jay, with a longing look at the tall shadows of trees and laurel hedges.
‘Maybe.’ But Suze was not looking outside. He felt her jump under his hand. ‘Ah, there she is.’ She raised her arm above her head and waved vigorously. ‘Zo! Over here!’
He looked into the shot darkness, with its shifting shadows of dancing bodies, and at first he saw nothing. Then the woman started to come towards them through the bopping crowd and he held his breath.
She was tall and graceful as a willow. As she got closer he saw she had a cloud of wild hair. He had no idea what colour. He could not tear his eyes away from her mouth. Her lips would have been voluptuous anyway, but she had painted them what looked like a dark purple. It was an aggressive colour, anyway. The whole image was aggressive. But he looked and looked, and saw vulnerability behind the image. More, there was a quivering sensitivity that their owner was trying hard to deny.
He found that he was not surprised she spent ten minutes with every no-hoper under her roof.
‘Gorgeous,’ he said, almost to himself.
Suze certainly didn’t hear.
The woman’s skin was milk-pale beneath an outrageously revealing black chiffon shirt. Under it, he could see a black bra in some shiny material. One thin strap was falling off her shoulder under the transparent sleeve. It was somehow more seductive than nakedness would have been. He felt as if he had been doused in ice water.
That graceful walk, that skin, that mouth…
Hell. Sixteen again, with a vengeance. Sixteen again, and hungry as a male animal for his conquest.
‘Down boy,’ said Jay grimly.
Suze had heard that, all right. ‘What?’ she said, startled.
‘That is your candidate for my research assistant?’ said Jay in disbelief.
‘My friend Zoe. Yes. So?’
‘Your friend?’ This got worse and worse.
‘Yes.’ Suze faced him. ‘And she really needs this job, too, though she may not want to admit it. So go carefully, right? You could be the answer to the maiden’s prayer.’
Jay groaned. ‘Have you even heard of political correctness?’ he said. He was racked by his baser instincts. The only possible solution was to laugh. ‘Maiden’s prayer, for heaven’s sake!’
‘I’m a traditionalist,’ said Suze, unmoved. She reached out an arm and hauled her friend between them. ‘Zoe, this is the man you’ve just got to meet.’
So what’s wrong with this one?
Zoe suppressed a sigh and smiled resolutely at the tall man standing next to her friend. As far as she could tell in the disco lighting he looked all right. Heck, he looked as tall as her prince from the hallway. But he had to have some mega problem or Suze would never have called her over. The party had got to the stage where you didn’t make introductions.
‘Hi,’ she yelled, trying to make herself hear above the dance beat and only half succeeding. She fluttered her fingers at him. ‘Zoe Brown.’
He did not seem to realise that that meant she had not caught his name. He looked bored. Dark as the devil, sleek as a seal just out of the water, and bored.
No-hopers didn’t usually look bored. They looked sulky or wary or too eager to please. And they couldn’t believe their luck when a babe like Zoe stopped by.
The tall dark man did not seem to notice that she was a babe. In fact he did not take his eyes off Suze. He looked as if he’d been sandbagged.
‘Hi.’ It sounded strangled.
Suze smiled and turned her shoulder on him. ‘Zoe, meet your fate.’
He looked startled.
Not nearly as startled as Zoe, though. As he bent his head she realised who he was. The deep, deep eyes. If they went somewhere where the light was normal that shirt would be flame-coloured. And silk. Definitely not a no-hoper.
And Suze said he was her fate?
‘What?’ she said, temporarily forgetting that they would not hear her. After all, she could not hear herself. She took hold of Suze’s arm and shook it hard to get her attention. ‘What—did—you—say?’ she mouthed with great care. Her eyes burned with indignation.
Suze’s naughty smile widened.
‘Nine to five for the next four weeks,’ she mouthed back.
‘What?’
Suze sighed visibly. She looked up at the ceiling. The rotating light balls, hired for the party, were making a great success of turning the Edwardian mouldings into a starship re-entry burst. She shrugged and waved them both to the French windows, with great traffic policeman gestures.
There were no speakers in the garden, at least. Between the incessant beat and the noise of the party it was not exactly silent, but at least you could hear what people were saying. Not that most people came out here to talk. There were several couples, dancing or lying on the grass, heads close, not talking.
Out in the dark, where no one could see, Zoe flinched. Performance Zoe took her to task. So what else is new? No point in minding. That’s what people do at parties.
She even did it herself sometimes. Only she just did it for the look of the thing. Then sidled out later, when she could. Not that anyone noticed her sidling out. If anyone were to suggest that popular Zoe Brown had never gone beyond a kiss in the dark, her friends would split their sides.
She