An Imperfect Affair

by Natalie Fox

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured as Rupert put her case down at the foot of the bed. He placed her computer carefully next to it. ‘Have you switched on the water heater?’ he asked and went to the bathroom to check if she had.

  ‘No. I didn’t know there was one.’ She stood up and followed him to the small bathroom and stood in the doorway.

  He flicked a switch behind the door. ‘It will take a while to heat up, so if you’re desperate for a bath or shower you’re welcome to use my bathroom.’

  His bedroom had been none too tidy and she could anticipate the disarray in his bathroom, and declined the offer abruptly. ‘I’ll wait, thanks.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he muttered equally shortly, and brushed past her to step back into the bedroom.

  Verity stiffened at the closeness of his body as he moved past her. He’d felt warm and smelled of soap and maleness. She couldn’t believe she’d noticed that.

  He turned at the door. ‘I’ll light the fire downstairs—you look perished. You must be hungry too. I can’t promise a feast; I don’t cook, but I’ll rustle something up for us.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured and then wondered what she was thanking him for. He owed her.

  Verity unpacked only what she’d need for the night after he’d gone: her toiletries and nightdress and a change of clothes. She slid into the warmest clothes she had, ribbed leggings and a baggy chenille sweater in a deep mulberry shade. She was glad she’d heeded Stuart’s warning that the nights could be cold in the foothills and packed warm things. She slid her feet back into her trainers, flicked a comb through her straight, glossy hair and rubbed at a trace of smudged mascara under her eyes. Except it wasn’t mascara but shadows of weariness, and she wasn’t surprised. What a day! She longed for a bath and bed, but she longed for food more.

  She ran downstairs. A fire was blazing in the grate and as yet it hadn’t taken the chill off the huge room; nevertheless, it was a welcome sight. She stopped to warm her hands on it and then went through to the kitchen, hoping that Rupert Scott wasn’t trying to give the kiss of life to that limp salad she’d seen in the fridge earlier. It was on the table when she walked in.

  ‘I hope we’re not eating that,’ she said disdainfully.

  ‘No, I was about to throw it out, but now you’re here you can.’ He was bent over a pan of soup on the hob, stirring it intently.

  Verity looked round the room for a pedal bin but only found a brimming plastic carrier-bag in the corner by the larder.

  ‘How often does the maid come in?’

  ‘Never,’ he told her. ‘I paid her off when I arrived.’

  ‘That accounts for the state the place is in,’ she mumbled as she shook the salad out into the carrier-bag and added the dirty bowl to the pile in the sink.

  ‘You could do that washing-up while you’re there,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ she retorted. ‘You

  shouldn’t have got rid of the maid. Why did you?

  You’re obviously not house-trained.’ She thought

  she saw a flicker of a smile at the corner of his

  mouth.

  ‘I came here for solitude, not female chatter.’

  ‘ So what happens about the chores?’

  ‘Well, you’re here now, so it doesn’t present a problem.’

  ‘I’m not clearing up after you!’

  ‘But I’m making supper for both of us. The least you can do is help,’ he reasoned, quite pleasantly.

  She could have argued that clearing up his dirty crocks—probably a week’s worth, by the look of the pile—was hardly a fair exchange for a measly tin of soup, but she went to it none the less.

  ‘I packed your groceries away for you.’

  ‘You can have them. I can’t take them with me when I go.’

  ‘So you’re going, are you?’

  She was so fascinated at the sight of him hacking at a loaf of bread that she took a while to answer. She’d never seen anything quite like it. The slices were wedge-shaped, and she supposed he had hordes of minions to look after him at home.

  ‘First thing in the morning, that’s if you don’t mind me staying the night.’ She turned back to the sink and scrubbed at a cereal bowl and wondered what she would say to Alan when she got back so soon—which reminded her.

  ‘What interest would Alan have in sending me here?’ she asked him, aware that that was almost an admittance that there had been a conspiracy.

  ‘I’m thinking of starting a few magazines of my own. In-flight magazines, music and film publications. Sargeant has already approached me for editorship.’

  ‘Hmm, I’m not unduly surprised at that,’ she murmured. ‘Alan always has some new scheme simmering away in his mind.’ Yes, he was ambitious, but that had nothing to do with her. She wouldn’t be able to sway Rupert Scott his way even if she succeeded in seducing him. Though she hardly knew the man, she believed him when he said he didn’t do business in bed—he didn’t need to! Furiously she wrung the cloth out and viciously wiped down the tiled work-surface. She was getting as bad as him with her wayward speculations.

  ‘Do you want to eat here or by the fire?’

  ‘By the fire, it’s more...’ She stopped suddenly, stunned by what she had nearly said. She’d been about to say ‘romantic’, which was quite ridiculous—moonlight and roses wouldn’t be romantic with him. She was overtired, that was her excuse for such a silly thought. ‘More warmer,’ she finished as she hastily scooped the bread into a basket to carry through to the sitting room.

  ‘More warmer,’ he mused as he picked up the two bowls of soup. ‘Are you sure you’re features editor of a magazine?’

  Verity was glad he went ahead of her and couldn’t see her burning cheeks. It was as if he knew what she had nearly said.

  The soup warmed and helped to relax her. Rupert had pushed one of the massive black leather sofas closer to the fire, and it was big enough for them to keep a healthy distance between them. Just in case he thought of putting that options remark to the test.

  He tossed her an orange from a bowl on the sideboard and sat down again, peeling his and tossing the skin into the blazing fire.

  ‘Dessert. I’m not much of a cook, so I’m afraid you’ll have to fend for yourself while you’re here.’

  While you’re here, his voice echoed inside her. ‘Wh...what do you mean?’ It sounded as if he was expecting her to stay, and not just for the night.

  ‘What I say. I came here for solitude, but if you keep yourself to yourself we shouldn’t have a problem. I can’t be doing with worrying about when and what you eat.’ He turned and his eyes, smoky grey now, raked her up and down. ‘Though you look as if someone should be worrying about your health.’

  Verity shifted uncomfortably. She was slim, probably thin after that bout of flu, but healthwise she was A-OK.

  ‘It’s only for tonight,’ she told him, ‘so you don’t have to worry.’ Worry—who did he think he was fooling? He wouldn’t even put her mind at ease over Stuart, let alone show genuine concern for her health.

  ‘You don’t have to go.’

  The suggestion was so unexpected that she swivelled to look at him. He’d finished his orange and his arm had crept along the back of the sofa, not nearly close enough to have her worried but something certainly had stirred her awareness. She was being over-dramatic. So he’d touched her hair, teased her with that options remark, certainly nothing she couldn’t handle, so why was she so wary of him?

  ‘No, I can’t stay. I want to find out what’s going on, and you’re not going to tell me, are you?’

  He shook his dark head and the absurd thought passed through her mind that if she did stay she might be able to persuade him to be a bit more forthcoming. Little chance, though. He seemed a pretty determined sort of specimen.

  ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it,’ she went on, ‘but at least you could tell me what you meant by Stuart being perhaps more subtle than you expected.’
>
  He seemed to mull that over in his mind as he stared into the flaming fire, and then he turned his face back to her. ‘It just occurred to me that if you weren’t in on this scheme then perhaps Stuart was trying the softly-softly approach.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Verity hoped she wasn’t sounding too naive, but she really didn’t get the point.

  ‘The dinner party didn’t work, nor did that contrived meeting in the restaurant. I know how desperate your cousin is to get us together. This was his last resort. Put two people of the opposite sex together in an isolated environment, far enough from home for both of them to think twice about flight, and the inevitable will happen—an affair.’

  Verity wanted to laugh hysterically. ‘Are you out of your mind? We didn’t get on before, so we’re hardly going to indulge in a raging affair just because we’re away from home!’ She tore at the peel of the orange she had nearly squeezed the life from as they had talked. ‘That’s a ridiculous suggestion!’

  ‘So how do you explain both of us being here at the same time, and this place just happening to belong to a friend of Stuart’s? No coincidence, Verity. It was his belief that we’d get together intimately, and I don’t mean sharing the household chores.’

  Horrified, she tossed the uneaten orange into the pit of the fire and shakily stood up.

  ‘Said like that, it’s an appalling suggestion.’

  ‘I fear it’s the truth,’ he told her calmly.

  ‘I fear it’s not!’ she husked heatedly. ‘And how dare you believe that I’m capable of that? You might have shaky morals, but mine are intact.’

  ‘Somebody obviously thinks yours are unstable enough for an affair, otherwise why pitch us together this way?’

  Verity’s blood was swiftly coming to the boil. Not normally prone to violence, she felt very inclined to slap his head.

  ‘Sit down, Verity,’ he calmly ordered. ‘And don’t be mad with me. I’m not suggesting your morals are weak—’

  ‘But you’re suggesting Stuart thinks they are?’

  ‘I don’t know what he was thinking for sure. I’m only offering up some suppositions. You know him better. What do you believe?’

  Verity slumped back down on to the sofa and covered her face with her hands. ‘I don’t know; I don’t know what to believe any more. All the time I thought he was being kind and thoughtful and caring towards me because of Mike’s death—’

  ‘Who’s Mike?’

  Verity uncovered her face and stared into the fire. ‘He was my boyfriend, and it was a complex affair and I won’t bore you with the details, but he died tragically in a car crash about six months ago. We’d had a row just before he’d driven off and I suppose people felt sorry for me and believed I blamed myself, which I didn’t,’ she added quickly. ‘Stuart thought it his duty to pair me off with a replacement as quick as possible. I thought that was the idea with the dinner party and then the restaurant, just a matchmaking attempt to get me back on my feet.’ She faced him and looked into his eyes. ‘But... but you seem to think it something more sinister.’

  He didn’t speak for a long while, and then he said softly, ‘I’m sorry, this must be very painful for you.’

  ‘I can cope,’ she murmured bravely, tilting her chin defiantly.

  ‘Prove it, then,’ he suggested with intrigue.

  The flames from the fire were reflected in his eyes and they didn’t look half so cold and penetrating, just smoky and mysterious now.

  ‘How?’ she asked, her eyes violet and bright with curiosity.

  ‘Stay’

  ‘For... for what reason?’

  ‘To get on with your work and to prove to your cousin that you aren’t the easily seduced woman he thinks you are.’

  ‘He doesn’t think that!’ Verity shot back hotly. ‘He knows me better than that. If he thought I was willing to bed you so easily he would have told me why, got me to go along with this so-called seduction plan to get your damned advertising for him you so hotly believe in.’

  ‘Then the man is an even bigger bastard than I thought,’ he drawled dangerously.

  Flame burned in Verity’s eyes and it had nothing to do with the fire. ‘I’ve had just about enough of this! What the hell have you got against him?’

  ‘Until today, not a lot. Now I see him for the greedy, grasping, selfish bastard that he undoubtedly is.’

  Verity tried to get up again, but this time Rupert clasped her tightly by the wrist and held her in place. ‘Think about it, just sit still for a couple of minutes and think about it. Your boyfriend is dead. I don’t know how deeply you cared about him and I don’t want to know, but whatever, it was a relationship and he’s gone and it’s left you vulnerable. Your loving cousin is very likely working on that vulnerability.’

  ‘How can he be?’ she protested.

  ‘He’s arranged for us to spend a considerable time together. You’re here for a month, me much the same time: long enough for something to develop between us, long enough for temptation to bite into us, long enough to fall in love.’

  His voice was soft and low as he spoke, and Verity’s heart raced so painfully that it hurt. She couldn’t imagine for a minute being in love with him. They were poles apart.

  ‘Love?’ she croaked in disbelief. ‘We don’t even like each other!’

  ‘It’s a good start, so the romantics would have us believe.’

  ‘Fantasy with no bearing on true life,’ she retorted, ‘but that isn’t the point. Speaking hypothetically, of course, supposing for a mad moment we were to succumb to temptation and have this affair you seem so ridiculously preoccupied with. How would that help my cousin and my boss?’

  ‘I’m not familiar with the workings of the demented mind,’ he grated sardonically, ‘but there are two possibilities: blackmail after the event, not for money but for my advertising, although in this day and age not really worth the consideration. The other possibility is even more ludicrous: marriage.’

  ‘Marriage!’ Verity exhaled. She shook her head in wonderment at this man’s soaring imagination.

  ‘You and I married would be a very acceptable situation for the two of them.’

  Verity was speechless. Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him blindly.

  ‘Indeed, the more I think about it, the more I come to believe that that is your cousin’s very intention.’ His lips tightened. ‘Don’t look so shocked. I would be a part of your family if we were to be married and I’d be a heel if I didn’t give my cousin-in-law my business. It would snowball too. Alan Sargeant is part of the family as well; he would undoubtedly expect some favours.’

  Verity remembered an odd remark Alan had made when he had suggested this trip. She had protested at first, claiming that she was well now and didn’t need a change of scene, especially not so far away, but Alan had been so persuasive, and when eventually she had capitulated and told him she could get the wedding book together in that time he had said he was sure she could perform miracles and mysteriously added ‘For everyone’s sake’. She’d thought little of it at the time. Was this indeed a conspiracy? Did those two creeps expect her and Rupert to fall in love, possibly marry... ? It was too despicable... too horrible for words!

  ‘That’s only your interpretation of things,’ she bit out. ‘They wouldn’t do that to me, they just wouldn’t!’

  He said slowly and levelly, ‘I’m just offering you a reason for this, Verity, the only one I can come up with, I’m afraid. The only way you’ll find out the truth is by asking your cousin and hoping he gives you an honest answer. But don’t be too harsh on him—’

  ‘Harsh!’ Verity flamed. ‘This is embarrassing and unforgivable! That’s if it’s true, of course!’ She had a feeling it was, though. It was fantastic, but the only explanation for such subterfuge.

  ‘You said your boyfriend had died; perhaps your cousin genuinely wants to see you settled with someone else.’

  ‘And do himself some good too!’ she retorted bitterly. She raked her fi
ngers through her hair and let out a ragged moan. Stuart had known that her and Mike’s relationship was breaking up but he cared for her and had tried so hard to make it all right for her after Mike’s death, but this... this went beyond the boundaries of caring. This would benefit him more than anyone. Of course, it wasn’t going to happen, but it left a very sour taste in her mouth.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘sorry to have subjected you to all this. You’re right, this is a family matter and it has nothing to do with you.’ She raised her chin proudly. ‘I couldn’t possibly stay now. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I thought you came here to work.’

  ‘Work!’ she spluttered. ‘I’m beginning to think the wedding book was just a thin excuse to get me out here. It’s been hanging around long enough. To hell with it! I won’t do it!’

  ‘You might lose your job over it,’ Rupert suggested.

  ‘Job? I won’t have a job by the time I’ve finished telling Alan Sargeant exactly what I think of him.’

  ‘Do you think all this is worth falling out with him over?’

  Verity gazed at him incredulously. ‘I have some pride, you know!’

  ‘Pride doesn’t pay the bills; nor does stubbornness.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with being stubborn. I don’t like being used—’

  ‘You haven’t been yet,’ he interjected reasonably. ‘Nothing has happened and it won’t if you don’t want it to.’ He held her eyes, and as she stared at him she realised that he was trying to make it easier for her—and himself of course. He wanted no involvement with her and she wanted even less with him, but he was certainly trying to make her feel better about it.

  ‘What are you trying to say? That I should brave it out?’

  He gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘I’m willing to.’