She shook her head. ‘Don’t feel guilty or indebted. You shouldn’t. I assure you there’s—’
‘I don’t feel guilty or indebted,’ he interrupted. Shaking his head, he corrected, ‘Yes I do. And I’m sorry for interrupting. But that’s not why I was offering to take you home. I shocked you and … God that sounds wrong too! I would just like to see you safely home.’
She closed her eyes for a moment, before slowly opening them. ‘I’m not going home, but thank you anyway.’ She pulled away more forcefully now and he had no choice but to let her slip through his hands. No!
‘I’d like to see you again,’ he said determinedly.
She stared at him for a few moments before saying, ‘Why don’t you believe me? There’s nothing to feel guilty about.’
‘Why don’t you believe me when I say this isn’t about guilt?’
‘You sent six huge bunches of roses with cards expressing your mortification. And you’re George Silbury.’ Her eyes moved to focus to his right. Her expression hardened. No longer meeting his eyes, she continued, ‘The person standing in the doorway behind you, freezing her tits off, is Porsche Sutter-Blythe. I’m Susie Morris. A thirty-one year old schoolteacher. Please know there was nothing to forgive. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know.’
Susie turned to walk away. She refused to let her body betray her. It didn’t want to move. Her legs shook as they took her forward. She wanted to cry. And she had no idea why.
She wasn’t right in the head. Not only had she wanted to fling herself into George Silbury’s arms, clutch hold of him and never let him go – literally never let him go – she’d wanted to slap that look right off Porsche Sutter-Blythe’s face. How dare she look Susie up and down in that way and then snigger! But she had a horrible feeling her violent urges had as much to do with the woman being his Elizabeth, as with the snigger. They were an item, according to the papers, and the look of blatant possessiveness in the woman’s eyes and demeanour confirmed that.
Susie had no right to react to her the way she had. Even with her being one of the most beautiful women in the world.
Susie wasn’t right. She really wasn’t right. Her behaviour around George Silbury was … She needed help. Psychological help. But how could she ever let anyone into her head again? It was just around him, she counselled. If she wasn’t around him, it would be fine. She would be fine. She wasn’t a risk to anyone else. She’d had ten years of … Except Porsche Sutter-Blythe. But she’d not see them again. She’d be fine. She would be. She’d be fine never ever seeing him again.
Susie refused to look behind her when she reached the end of the street. On turning the corner, she headed for the nearest wall. Bracing her back against it, she let herself slide down its surface. And then she sobbed. She hurt so badly … and had no idea why.
George stood and stared after Susie. She was walking away from him and he was being shredded. He didn’t understand why, just that he was. He wanted to pursue her, but made himself stay rooted to the spot. The only way he’d get her to stop would be to manhandle her. Not the best thing to do after the way he’d behaved on Wednesday.
‘George? Who on earth was that woman?’ The drawl came from behind him.
He gritted his teeth.
‘How women can let themselves go like that, I have no idea. No discipline. Do come back inside.’
He turned to fix Porsche with an icy stare as she posed in the doorway, tits indeed freezing off. To think he’d once thought her vulnerable. But she’d only been seventeen back then. She’d not aged well. At twenty-four she was a bitch. In her little red micro-mini and with her forked tongue, she’d be much more at home in hell than standing in the doorway of an old church.
He started walking in the opposite direction to Susie. He couldn’t trust himself to go in her direction. Realising he still held her jumper in his hands, he brought it to his face and inhaled. And that had not been a good idea.
He didn’t react sensibly around her. Everything was extreme in her presence. His body. His mind. If he ever got her into his arms, God knows how he’d control his baser instincts. Not that that began to cover it. It was an extraordinary feeling. There was a connection there. Well, there certainly was on his part. For a moment he’d thought she felt it too, but then she’d rejected him. And now he was walking away.
Chapter Nine
‘How sad are we?’ Cassie declared, taking her third piece of Hawaiian pizza from the box.
George grunted and opened another bottle of lager.
‘Valentine’s day and George Silbury, one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, spends it at home with his spinster sister, eating pizza and swigging Peroni. The tabloids would have a field day. Perhaps I should tip them off, hey sweetie? It’s about time you found loooove and they could put out some kind of appeal. Better still: a competition! You could provide them with three questions and choose the winner from the answers you like best?’
‘Ho. Bloody. Ho, Cassie.’ George was sprawled out on the rug on the floor of his living room, in front of the brown leather sofa his sister was curled up upon.
‘Well it depends on the questions. I’m sure that between us we could come up with—’
‘Enough, Cassie. Please. I’m really not in the mood.’
‘Okay. So how about you tell me why you are in such a mood?’
‘How about I don’t?’
‘Oh you are such fun tonight. Okay then, why aren’t you at the Valentine’s ball?’
‘Why aren’t you?’
‘I didn’t have a date! I was led to believe you were going to be in attendance with Porsche Slutty-Blythe?’
Despite himself, George chuckled at Cassie’s play on the name.
‘So, why aren’t you?’ Cassie pursued. ‘With Porsche that is?’
‘There is nothing between me and Porsche! For God’s sake, give me some credit. And there was never anything between me and half that list of women you hurled at me the other day and I can’t believe I’m having to say this, to my own sister!’
‘I know and I’m sorry. But I would say, you might like to remind Porsche because all the stories have been coming from somewhere.’
He was fully aware of that. What was she playing at?
‘Anyway,’ Cassie continued. ‘How did you know I wouldn’t be at the ball?’
‘I didn’t. I was calling to say hello.’
‘The mood you’re in, I wish I hadn’t picked up. What’s the matter with you?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Fine my arse!’
‘So it’s okay for you to tell me you’re fine when you’re clearly not, and not for me? And on that subject, Cassie, will you please explain to me what’s going on? Something got to you enough for you to ask for my help last week. You wanted reassurance and my reaction to the hypnosis could have hardly helped, but if you would—’
‘Please, George, we aren’t getting back to that. I’m presently okay, I think. I’ve been meeting with … an old acquaintance, and she’s helped. Of sorts. And I have a plan, which if it works will help even more. Or, at least, I was okay until I came around here and encountered your misery-riddled presence. To think I was going to tell you what I’d come up with on Susie.’
George was up from the floor and deposited in the armchair across from Cassie before he knew it. Leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, he looked at her expectantly … but then shook his head at the expression on her face.
‘Priceless!’ she declared, clapping her hands gleefully, before she appeared to sober. She now shook her head and said quietly, ‘This is unbelievable. This really—’ She cut herself off and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘I’ve never seen you like this before.’
‘Cassie,’ he warned. Why couldn’t she just give him the information? Not that he was sure what he could do wit
h it, bearing in mind he’d been rejected fifty-five hours ago and had yet to work out his next move. There had to be a next move.
‘Susie Morris.’
He nodded. She said no more. ‘Cassie, come on! Even I know that. Susie Morris, thirty-one years old and a schoolteacher.’
‘Steal my thunder why not! And how do you know that?’
‘She told me.’
‘She told you?’ Cassie said, choking on her latest mouthful of pizza and sitting up so abruptly that she managed to knock over her glass of wine on the polished oak floor by her feet. Ignoring it, she spluttered, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’m helping you out here and you forget to mention you’ve talked to her! So, she finally got back to one of your countless messages. I must say, she’s taken her time.’
‘We bumped into each other on Saturday,’ he mumbled. She’d not returned any of his further messages since.
Cassie stared at him with a look of amazement in her eyes before it turned to confusion. ‘How did you bump into each other?’
‘We just did.’
‘And …?’
George shrugged.
‘Dare I ask what you thought of her?’
‘You can ask.’
‘A bit late to be coy. I’ll make a deal. You tell me what you thought of her, and I’ll tell you the other bits of information I have.’
‘That’s blackmail,’ George ground out.
‘Mmmm. A sister’s prerogative.’
‘Tell me if you have information on whether she’s seeing anyone. If you have, I’ll tell you what I thought of her.’ Not that he was sure he even knew that himself.
Cassie grinned and raised her right hand for a high-five. He half-heartedly provided the required hand.
‘She is seeing someone.’
George closed his eyes and attempted to brace himself against the pain that swept through him. It was beyond disappointment. It was—
Cassie reached across to touch his hand. ‘But it’s not serious. I have it under good authority that there is no love involved. My source referred to him as a “boring shite”. Your Susie isn’t at all keen on love. A … bad experience in the past. Hence her being with this man: Peter Boyles; an accountant who still lives at home with mummy.’
Dare he consider there was hope? He grimaced. But how could there be when she’d so clearly rejected him?
‘She teaches at a primary school in Forest Hill. She’s a humanities graduate from Nottingham Uni and, as you know, shares a flat with The Nutty Regresser. She has two younger brothers, who still live at home with her dad in Leicestershire. Her mum died when she was fifteen.
‘I was going to give you a physical description, but now you’ve met … Just how did you meet, George? You didn’t even know what she looked like!’
‘I knew the colour of her eyes.’
‘And?’
George held the bridge of his nose. How to try and explain something he didn’t understand himself? He also considered it to be intensely private. Between him and Susie alone and perhaps something only the two of them might have a hope of understanding. He was making no sense these days. He sighed. ‘I got distracted by a woman in a restaurant and it turned out to be her.’
‘What do you mean, distracted?’
‘I can’t … She’s very attractive and she caught my attention. We got talking and she turned out to be Susie.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
Cassie shook her head slowly. ‘It’s what you aren’t telling me here. This is … So when are you seeing each other again?’
He looked away from Cassie’s expectant face.
‘No! She didn’t. No way. Come on George, she didn’t honestly say no?’
George rubbed his forehead. This was painful enough without having to hear Cassie’s reaction to his rejection. ‘What do you expect with the way I behaved? I don’t blame her at all. I’m not sure any apology will be enough for losing my head that way and—’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘As you keep saying. So what was it like, Cassie? Mutual attraction you say, but she clearly regrets whatever happened.’
‘You are just going to have to charm her, George. Is that the right time?’ She tilted her head towards the clock on the marble mantelpiece.
He nodded, without looking.
‘Okay. Time to go.’
‘Come on, Suse! I’m not going to take no for an answer,’ Rob insisted, arm outstretched.
‘Ask Rach. She’s over there and you’ve not danced with her so—’
His grin disappeared and he shook his head abruptly. ‘I’m asking you, Suse.’ He now raised his brows and smirked. ‘And no is not an option.’
Sighing, Susie grabbed his hand and let him pull her up from her seat. ‘I’m really not in the mood for …’ She groaned at the track that started playing. She now shook her head at Rob and attempted to pull away. He chuckled and nodded back.
‘No, really Rob,’ she laughed, shaking her head more forcefully and upping her efforts to retrieve her hand. ‘I’ve seen you dance to this before and I promise you, I’m not your girl here.’
‘You are tonight,’ he chortled, pulling her into his arms with one big tug, and manoeuvring them both on to the dance floor.
Why on earth had she decided to come out tonight? It was hardly getting her mind off … someone. She saw him again, standing before her in his shirtsleeves … before she’d walked away. And the pain was still with her. It hurt so much. The sensation bore more than a little resemblance to … She reinforced the box in her head. She couldn’t go there. And she’d had to walk away. Before she’d done something seriously disturbing. Again.
Perhaps dancing this dance with Rob was exactly what she needed? If there was any hope of being distracted, it would be this.
She let Rob twirl her around and forced her mouth into an over-wide smile, no doubt exposing her gritted teeth. She braced herself for the moves she knew would be coming her way.
‘What are we doing here?’ George asked, climbing out of the taxi. He was facing the Saint George & Horn, evidently a popular nightspot, but not one he frequented when back in London. Anonymity was always an issue.
‘There’s a private party upstairs and that’s where we are headed, so no worries. Just keep your glasses on for now. I’m sure they’ll simply think you’re a lookalike. Especially with that wretched look on your face. You’ve never been splattered across the press looking like that.’
‘Cassie? Whose party?’
‘Sorry. Can’t hear you,’ she shouted over her shoulder, as he followed her up the stairs, past the ground floor bar, evidently hosting a live band. ‘And before you tell me you’re not in the mood, check it out.’
‘I’m sorry, Cas. I’m not—’ George got no further, although he did whip off his glasses.
‘Whoops,’ Cassie released on a breath, evidently following his gaze. She attempted to propel him. ‘George. We are heading to that table over there. George? We’re heading over to the table Rachael is sat at. Will you please move your feet!’
George made a guttural sound, suspiciously like … a growl?
He couldn’t remove his eyes from the dance floor. Susie was in the arms of another. Spot lit. The music from Dirty Dancing was playing. But it was the dirtiest dirty dancing George had ever seen. The man’s hands … his hands … He couldn’t think beyond the pain and fury that engulfed him.
He didn’t know why seeing her with that man hurt so damned much. Well, yes, he did. He’d felt like this when she’d walked away from him the other day. And now that pain was combining with fury and … He had no right. But he wanted to beat the man to a pulp. Let him rut to the music then.
George was instinctively moving towards the dance floor,
when he found his arm grasped. Shrugging it off, he vaguely heard Cassie in the roar that was now his head.
‘George? George? What’s the matter with you? George? For goodness sake! He’s just Rob, their neighbour. I met him briefly when I went to see Rachael.’
He didn’t care who the hell he was. Cassie stood in front of him. He carried on ploughing forward, so she was forced to move out of his way.
‘Oh boy,’ Susie thought. Rob was doing that thing with his leg between hers. She gasped when he grasped her bum again. Enough was enough. Pursing her lips, she gave him the look. He winked, but gave a slight nod, acknowledging he’d gone too far, albeit for the sake of the dance. He repositioned the offending hands. She knew what she’d been letting herself in for though. She’d watched agog as he’d done this dance before. His enthusiasm couldn’t be faulted.
She smiled wryly at the thought of what her dad would say if he saw her now. It turned into a grin as she amended that to Peter and a chuckle when she put Peter’s mother into the equation. And … George Silbury? That thought wiped the smile right off her face.
Damn! And she was feeling that tingling sensation again. This was not the time to get all hot and bothered and wanton. She even had that sensation of being watched. She was so clearly losing it. She released a huge sigh of relief as the track finished.
Standing with Rob’s arms still around her, she looked up from his chest to tell him off for some of those moves, but got distracted on seeing Rachael.
‘Hey.’ Susie breathlessly exhaled, giving her a grin.
Rachael hardly acknowledged her before stretching up to talk in Rob’s ear. Susie was pleased to note she wasn’t the only one out of breath from the dance. Rob’s heart was pounding.
He was looking over the top of her head as he listened to what Rachael was saying. His eyes widened and he paled. She caught some of Rachael’s brisk words. ‘I know you don’t believe in this stuff. Yet. But trust me here. And if that’s not enough, spare a glance at his body language.’
Romancing the Soul Page 8
