by Susan Napier
Regan swallowed a grin. ‘Is that why he’s not married?’ she shot back, her flippancy cloaking her urgent need to assure herself that the little information she did have was at least correct on that one, all-important point.
Pierre’s eyebrows twitched in acknowledgment of her riposte. ‘Monsieur is the most intelligent and civilised of men,’ he observed primly as he reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to watch her join him, ‘although a certain degree of wildness is only to be expected of healthy males in their prime.’ The fugitive gleam of mischief in the old eyes glowed even brighter. ‘He certainly does not yet regard himself as being on the endangered species list…’
So…Unmarried. Healthy. Intelligent. Prime…with a dash of wildness thrown in for good measure. Regan lowered her lashes to hide her surge of terrified elation.
No wonder Cleo had been so furious about having to cry off!
She had come hammering on the door of the flat a scant hour earlier, stridently upset when she’d discovered that her cousin wasn’t home and Regan had no idea of her whereabouts.
‘There was a message on the answer-machine when I got back from work to say that she was going out to some party and wouldn’t be here for dinner,’ Regan had said, still annoyed that Lisa had conveniently forgotten that it was her turn to cook.
‘But she can’t be out! I was sure she’d be here—I need Lisa now!’ Cleo wailed. ‘It’s a matter of life and death!’ She barged inside with none of her usual grace. ‘What about Saleena?’ she demanded raggedly. ‘Is she here?’
Regan fell back, shaking her head. ‘Evening aerobics classes.’ Saleena worked part-time at the local gym to supplement her student loan while she studied for a degree in Sport and Recreation. Like Lisa, she was extremely pretty and always game for a laugh, although—being two years older and a great deal more intelligent—her behaviour and attitudes were thankfully more mature.
Cleo screamed, a low, heart-felt shriek of frustration.
‘Can I help?’ Regan sighed, too accustomed to Cleo’s histrionics to be truly concerned. Perhaps she had run out of nail polish for her synthetic talons. Dressed to the glittering hilt, and made up to model-girl perfection, she was obviously on her way somewhere trendy and expensive.
‘You!’ Cleo uttered an insulting laugh that ended in a muffled choke as her exquisite face turned suddenly from honey-gold tan to swamp-green and she dashed towards the bathroom, clutching her concave belly.
When she tottered out and collapsed on the couch in the lounge without bothering to artistically drape her limbs for the best visual effect, Regan knew that she was genuinely at the end of her tether.
It turned out that what Cleo had convinced herself was merely a lingering all-day hangover had developed into something debilitatingly nasty at both ends, and she was frantic to find a substitute for some hot date that an ex-boyfriend, Derek, had fixed her up with for that night.
‘I’ve been trying to call Derek to tell him I didn’t think I could make it, but he’s not answering his stupid phone,’ Cleo shrilled, ‘and I haven’t been able to find anyone to fill in for me, not this late on a Friday night…
‘I thought I might manage it if I took a few pills, and they seemed to work for a while, but now I feel even worse,’ Cleo groaned. ‘In the taxi I thought I was going to throw up, so I told the driver to drop me off here—I knew Lisa would help…’ She looked up at Regan through a tangle of red hair, her green eyes tearful with angry self-pity. ‘I’m supposed to be there in half an hour and I can’t simply not turn up, because I was supposed to escort this guy out to some fancy dinner—Oh, God!’
The mere suggestion of food prompted another mad scramble to reach the bathroom on time.
When she finally emerged on wobbly legs Regan offered to call a doctor, but Cleo was adamant that she didn’t need one. ‘I just want to lie down for a while,’ she said shakily, homing in on Lisa’s cluttered bedroom and crashing gratefully across the unmade bed. ‘I have to warn Derek,’ she moaned piteously. ‘His phone number’s on his card in my evening bag—I think I dropped it in the lounge—keep trying him for me, will you? And if you get through, tell him what’s happened.’
‘Why don’t you just phone your date yourself and tell him you’re ill?’ Regan asked, unable to understand her obsession. What did one broken date matter to a woman who hardly ever went out with the same man twice?
‘Because I don’t have his phone number, that’s why—only Derek’s card, with the address I’m supposed to go written on the back and the time I’m supposed to be there!’ Cleo croaked, rolling over onto her back. ‘Hell, Derek’ll kill me if I mess this one up for him—he said he could get some really good accounts from this guy.’ Her former boyfriend was in advertising, and staying on friendly terms with him had landed Cleo several plum modelling assignments. ‘But what in the hell am I supposed to do, for God’s sake?’ she said, panic turning to petulance. ‘It’s not my fault I got sick!’
She dragged her arm from across her bloodshot eyes and glared belligerently at Regan, who wisely held her tongue. In her opinion Cleo’s hectic, party-loving lifestyle involved too much alcohol and too little food, and Lisa’s puppyish admiration for her glamorous elder cousin was leading her down the same path.
Her silence appeared to mollify Cleo, who interpreted it as sympathetic agreement, and in between violent bouts with the re-emerging curry she allowed the rest of the story to emerge: how Derek regularly set up dates for Cleo and some of her girlfriends with wealthy single men, the kind of men who were happy to reward a pretty woman who escorted them around town with expensive trinkets if she was willing to round off the evening in bed.
‘You mean Derek is a pimp!’ Regan gasped, her eyes rounding as Cleo’s busy social life suddenly acquired a shocking new perspective.
‘Of course he’s not!’ Cleo roused from her torpor to snap. ‘He just does a few favours for people who might one day be in a position to do him a business favour in return, that’s all. None of us makes any money out of it; it’s not like it’s a call-girl operation, for God’s sake—so you can stop looking so bug-eyed with disapproval! It’s just consenting adults being introduced to each together and…well, consenting!’
After her initial mental recoil Regan was filled with a morbid fascination. ‘But…you said that the men rewarded you for sleeping with them…’ she probed.
‘Yes, but only with jewellery, not money,’ Cleo tossed back scornfully, as if it made all the difference in the world. And perhaps it wasn’t just semantics, thought Regan, her emotions churning in dark turmoil. At least both participants in the transaction knew the score, and there was no intention to deceive with any romantic pretence of love and caring.
What would it be like to make love with someone on a purely physical basis? she wondered with a shivery thrill. Without the pretences. With a stranger. Someone who had no preconceived notions about your desirability, or your ability to respond, who just wanted a lusty romp in the hay with no questions asked…
An idea, as bizarre and impractical as it was wicked and daring, slyly insinuated itself into her consciousness. After all that had happened was she going to continue to allow herself to be a victim, crippled by the lies with which Michael had ruthlessly manipulated their marriage, or was she prepared to reach out and grab at a chance to shatter his power over her for ever?
‘A glamorous party, some recreational sex and a gold bracelet or a pair of diamond studs to wear home afterwards…what more could a girl ask of a date?’ Cleo boasted feebly, waving a limp hand and drawing Regan’s attention to the thick chased-gold bangle clasped around her bony wrist.
She stared at it as if hypnotised, goaded to ask, ‘But how can you? I mean, what would happen if you found the man—you know…physically repulsive?’
‘I don’t have to have sex with them if I don’t want to, it’s not compulsory,’ Cleo said through gritted teeth, distracted by another threatening liquid rumble in her belly. ‘Derek never promise
s a guaranteed score—that would be tacky. Anyway, sometimes all they want is to show up somewhere with a flirtatious woman dangling off their arm. But most times it doesn’t end up platonic, because I don’t see anything wrong with sleeping with a guy you’ve just met if he turns you on, and since Derek only does favours for the movers and the shakers of this world…well, power’s a great aphrodisiac in itself, isn’t it?
‘It so happens most of them are a hell of lot more virile and attractive than the average Joe Loser who tries to pick you up in a bar and thinks the price of a drink entitles him to a night in the sack! As if!’
Regan had been an earnest, nineteen-year-old virgin studying pre-law at university when she had first met Michael. She had never been picked up in a bar either before or since. She had never even wondered what it might be like.
Until now.
Now she was wondering about all sorts of things that she had never before considered.
‘What’s his name?’ she ventured. ‘The man you’re supposed to meet tonight?’
‘Oh, God, who cares?’ Cleo groaned, rolling off the bed to hit the floor running. ‘Look, just get hold of Derek and let him sort things out, OK? I don’t give a stuff what happens—all I want is to be left alone to spew my guts out in peace!’
So Regan left her wallowing in her misery and went to rifle the contents of the sequinned purse she picked up from the floor of the lounge. From it she extracted Derek’s business card, and, after a moment of shocked contemplation, one of the packets of condoms that Cleo obviously considered essential dating equipment. Surely she hadn’t expected to use all four packets in one night!
Pushing that daunting thought aside, and acutely conscious of time ticking away, Regan hurried through her nervous preparations, hampered by her restricted access to the bathroom. Luckily she had washed her hair that morning before work, so a quick shower sufficed, and she borrowed some of Lisa’s manufacturers’ samples to experiment with a bolder style of make-up which made her violet eyes look provocatively large and heavy-lidded. Her hand shook as she carefully applied a thick coating of black mascara, her mother’s oft-repeated catch-phrase ringing silently in her ears: A painted woman is the devil’s handmaiden.
Fortunately for her nagging conscience, Saleena arrived home just as Regan was ready to leave, and she was able to gratefully hand over the responsibility for their miserable guest.
‘I was going to study for next week’s exam,’ Saleena had protested mildly, her exotic brown eyes taking in Regan’s uncharacteristic glamour. ‘But I suppose I can keep an eye on Miss Chunderful while I’m at it, to make sure she doesn’t drown in the toilet. Where’re you off to?’
‘I have a date,’ Regan replied, fussing with her hair in the hall mirror so that she didn’t have to look her flatmate in the face.
‘No kidding? Cool!’ Saleena approved the unprecedented event with her customary laid-back nonchalance. ‘Who with?’
‘Oh, no one you’d know,’ said Regan vaguely, not about to confess that she didn’t know either. For all her fun-loving personality, Saleena had a tendency to be a little over-protective where Regan was concerned, perceptive enough to realise what a culture shock it had been for her to move from a ritzy house in the suburbs to a cramped inner-city flat with two gregarious bachelorettes.
‘OK. Have a good time.’ No one could claim that Saleena Patel couldn’t take a subtle hint to mind her own business. She flashed a cheerful smile. ‘Did Lisa at least do the food shopping for tonight, do you know?’
‘No, but after I listened to her message I went and got a few things down the road.’ Regan was halfway out of the door before she recognised a serious flaw in her plan. She hurried back to find Saleena in the kitchen, unpacking the small plastic shopping bag that Regan had left on the bench-top.
‘By the way, if Cleo asks, tell her not to worry—everything’s sorted out as far as Derek’s concerned and she can forget all about it, because the whole thing was apparently all off anyway…’
‘What thing?’ Saleena asked, opening a packet of dry pasta, and when Regan’s face pinkened betrayingly she grinned and rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, one of Derek’s high-flying pals was supposed to be in town looking for some action, huh? No wonder Cleo’s yowling so loud in there—she thinks she’s missing out on her next jewellery fix!’
‘You know about that?’
‘Sure,’ Saleena admitted casually, snacking on a brittle strand of spaghetti. ‘She even tried to get me interested in joining Derek’s swinging circle at one stage, but I told her I’d rather choose my own partners, thanks…’
Saleena was so blasé in her acceptance that Regan was once more made aware of her embarrassing naivety. What had been a shock to her was already common knowledge to her flatmates, and probably most of their friends. None of them was married, and all of them seemed to be sexually active, so doubtless they didn’t see anything so shocking in Cleo’s behaviour.
Regan contrived to act blasé now, as Pierre ushered her further into the huge, fan-shaped living space dominated by a wraparound view of the city skyline. Soft up-lights on the smooth walls and on slender free-standing lamp-bases revealed a room that was a symphony of delicate colour—subtle, warm hues blended and contrasted to present an impression of exquisite harmony. Outside the full-length windows, the wide, sweeping curve of a marble ledge echoed the various curves within—the round support pillars, the round marble coffee table centred between two long, half-round couches in blush-coloured leather and the semi-circular padded chairs dotted about the room, facing the fanned-out city. Away to one end, a few more steps led up to a raised dining area with a huge oval wooden table, and beyond that, presumably, to the kitchen. At the other end of the room was a curving corridor whose even subtler lighting suggested…the bedrooms?
Regan hastily turned her head, forcing herself to concentrate on the main room.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she murmured, and then was annoyed with herself for sounding awed. A sophisticated woman of the world would take such beauty for granted. Knowing Cleo, the first thing she would have done was demand an ashtray! ‘Monsieur has impeccable taste,’ she added, with a suggestion of dry mockery.
‘Merci.’ Pierre shifted his bandy legs, clicking his polished black heels and inclining his head. ‘This is a corporate apartment, used by many executives, so it must fulfil many functions. It was I who hired the interior designer and advised on and approved her designs, as well as supervising the physical decorating work.’
‘You!’ This time her jaw did drop at the idea of this ugly little man helping create such beauty.
‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ he replied modestly, un-offended.
Tell me about it! thought Regan evilly, her hand spasming on her purse as another spurt of anger shot through her veins. Michael had been blessed with sunny good looks—blond hair, boyish features, guileless blue eyes, and a white smile that predicated a charmingly frank and open manner.
Who would have believed that behind that golden façade had been a lying tongue and a cheating black heart—a man without honour? Not Regan. Right up to the night that Michael had wrapped his precious BMW status symbol around a tree she had believed that they had a secure and happy marriage, with only minor problems to cloud their shared contentment. She had admired her husband’s dedication to work and respected his ambition to succeed. Only after he had died and the huge, unexpected bills had started to roll in had she begun to re-examine her former contentment, and come to realise that her willingness to overlook the flaws in their relationship had played right into Michael’s cheating hands.
Over the following months, as the mess his lies had created had grown to staggering proportions, she had gradually been forced to the painful conclusion that, to all intents and purposes, she had been sleeping with a stranger for the four years of their marriage!
So what she was going to do tonight was not so very different after all, she thought bitterly, as she watched Pierre begin to put his personal order
s into action.
He moved across to open the curved doors of a teak cabinet, revealing a wide-screen television and the most complex stereo system that Regan had ever seen. Concealed in a false support pillar next to the cabinet were racks of video tapes and CDs, arranged with alphabetical precision. Pierre settled her on one of the demi-couches with the remote controls and furnished her with a vodka and tonic with a twist of lime in a chilled crystal glass, setting it down on a round side-table on top of a deftly folded cocktail napkin. He told her that the bathroom was down the curving corridor to her right and if she had a question, or required a refill for her drink, she could summon Pierre merely by pressing one of the hidden buttons strategically placed around the room, or she could help herself from the superlatively stocked bar which opened out from yet another mock-pillar.
Left alone, Regan drank her vodka quickly, in the hope that it might help her to relax. Except for warming the pit of her belly it didn’t seem to have any appreciable effect, so she guiltily fixed herself another, embarrassed at the idea of summoning Pierre back so soon…he might think he had a rampant alcoholic on his hands!
Sipping more slowly, she ignored the television and chose a CD of smoky ballads from the wonderfully eclectic selection of music, and after a bit of clumsy experimentation managed to get the remote control to set the volume and balance at the perfect level for her position in the room. As she lounged back on the feather-soft couch in her splendid isolation she reflected that she could get used to being ultra-rich!
The most difficult part about flatting was the lack of privacy. As an only child Regan had been closely monitored by her over-strict mother, but Michael had worked such long hours—or at least, he had said that he was working—that during her marriage she had got used to the quiet freedom of having the whole house to herself for hours on end. In the flat there seemed to be a constant flow of visitors and phone calls and emotional upheavals, accompanied by the loud, head-banging music that Lisa adored.
