Accidental Mistress

by Williams Cathy

  ‘Something happened—I don’t know what...’

  ‘I think it’s called sexual attraction.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She couldn’t say it; she couldn’t allow herself to admit that something as untamed as sexual attraction had turned everything she believed in on its head.

  ‘No, not whatever. Sexual attraction. Say it!’

  ‘All right! Sexual attraction. Is that better?’ She looked at him defiantly. ‘I was caught up in the moment and I’m sorry but I let myself...do something that I would never have done if I’d been thinking straight.’

  ‘How terrible,’ he snarled. ‘The end of the world.’

  ‘Not the end of the world, no!’ she said angrily, hating him for the power he had over her and hating herself for her weakness. ‘But a mistake. I just want to say that I made a mistake and if I led you on then I apologise.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ he said tersely. He began walking off again and she had to half run to keep up with the pace of his long legs.

  Of course he was still angry. Why shouldn’t he be? As far as he was concerned, she had sent out signals only to retreat hurriedly when the moment of decision had come. Women, she thought resentfully, didn’t play those sorts of games with him. For him, the step from mutual attraction to lovemaking was a simple one. There were no questions about love, or the rightness or wrongness of what they were doing.

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ she told him. The hotel lights were up ahead, and with every step closer to civilisation her feeling of stupidity over what she had nearly done grew.

  ‘No, I’m sure it won’t.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘The fact is that you’re just not my type.’

  He paused outside the hotel and looked down at her. His face was coldly curious.

  ‘And who is? What is your type?’

  ‘I don’t know...’ Lisa whispered uncomfortably. Not you, she thought. Not someone as good-looking, as clever, as wealthy, as unassailable as you, that’s for sure. Not someone who will dally with average little me because the opportunity is there, and then move on to more glamorous types the minute the opportunity arises.

  How many women with more convincing credentials had tried to get him to put a ring on their finger? she wondered. Self-confident women with coy smiles and loud voices and perfect faces...

  ‘Come on,’ he said, with a humourless, assessing smile. ‘Surely you can do better than that?’

  She didn’t say anything.

  ‘Shall I help you out?’ he asked politely. ‘You don’t jump into the sack with a man simply because you’re attracted to him. Oh, no, that would be too easy. What you want is a man who is going to guarantee undying love, and maybe then, if he fulfils the rest of the ridiculous criteria you’ve laid down in that head of yours, you might consider doing something spontaneous.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Except,’ he continued, ignoring her outburst, ‘there are no guarantees in life.’

  ‘I know that! I don’t expect guarantees! You just can’t accept the fact that you’ve been turned down by a woman. I bet it’s something that’s never happened to you in your life before!’

  She could feel the colour burning in her cheeks. ‘You’ve always been able to take what you wanted, and you thought that you would be able to take me as well. You’re angry because your pride has been hurt, and you’re trying to blame me for it, trying to insinuate that the reason I won’t sleep with you, the reason I couldn’t, is because of my inadequacies. The simple truth is that I was swept away because, yes, I am inexperienced, and, yes, you are an attractive man—but I just didn’t find you attractive enough.’

  His eyes narrowed. Had she said too much? Every word had been more or less the truth, but, considering she had been trying to pour oil on troubled waters, she hadn’t made a wild success of it, had she? He looked as though he wanted to kill her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Why not? It’s always a good idea to clear the air.’ He threw her another freezingly polite smile. ‘Points us in the right direction, makes sure that things are black and white, with no awkward grey bits in between.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly. She met his stare briefly and licked her lips.

  ‘So now we can carry on as though nothing has happened.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded with relief. That, she thought, would be best. To pretend nothing had happened. That way she might be able to shove the memory of his hands on her body, the memory of the way she had felt, into the background, and get on with things in the only way she knew how.

  He turned on his heel and stalked off, and after a while she headed back to her room and sank down on the bed with a sigh.

  She shut her eyes and saw them together on the beach, her heart racing, her body straining for his. She would never have believed she was capable of anything like that. When she’d been growing up, her life had been controlled to a large extent by her parents, by their constant travelling. When they had died, she had taken control for the first time. She had bought her flat, she had found her job, she had made sure that everything in her life fell into place the way she wanted it to.

  She had never really sat down and thought about what sort of man she would end up with, but she had known he would be as unthreatening to her as every other aspect of her life.

  She dressed slowly for dinner, and she wondered anxiously whether she would be able to look at him without flinching, without her face telling the world what had happened. She wondered whether her voice would sound normal when she spoke.

  But when she joined the others in the dining room, and glanced warily at him as she sat down, their eyes met for the briefest of moments across the table and she realised with relief and a strange sort of disappointment that it would all be easy. Nothing happened, those remarkable blue eyes said icily. You can go back to your hiding hole.

  This is life, she told herself, and it is what you wanted. Remember?

  Still, it was a shame. She would never have this chance again, this opportunity to see places so beautiful that paradise became reality instead of just a word conjured up on the back of a holiday brochure.

  Mustique, which prosaically took its name from the French word for mosquito but had none, small enough to walk around inside a few hours, exclusive to the point of absurdity, flowed into Canouan, with its hidden coves and beaches, which flowed into Mayreau. Then the Tobago Cays, with water so clear that you could see every grain of sand underneath. Lisa snorkelled there, for the first time in her life, and saw underwater scenes that were unimaginable unless seen at first hand.

  She saw more islands—beautiful little emerald and sapphire blobs in the middle of the ocean, picture postcards for her to remember from photographs and memories in the years to come.

  But as the yacht sailed down the glorious Grenadines everything was so overshadowed by Angus’s presence that it all seemed to slip past in a blur.

  Not that things didn’t carry on as normal, on the surface, because they did. She smiled and laughed and chatted and grew browner under the sun and pretended that Angus’s remoteness wasn’t affecting her. She watched him from under her lashes and saw everything even when her attention was apparently somewhere else. It was as though her whole body was sensitised to such a degree that everything he said or did, every nuance of every action, was filed away in her mind.

  With only a couple of days of the holiday left, she found herself yearning to return to the refreshing normality of her life with its pleasant routines.

  Angus intended to dock the yacht off Grenada and they would spend their final night there before flying back to London.

  They had breakfast aboard the yacht the following morning, which was lovely. Lisa relaxed on her chair and stared out at the horizon and at the turquoise water. The sun, even at that hour, was already hot. She was as brown as Caroline now and the colour suited her. Her face, she knew, seemed more vibrant, the chocolate-brown
of her eyes less uninspiring. She had the sort of colouring which, when its usual pale shade, did not stand out, but which, when tanned, made her look exotic. She half closed her eyes and let the conversation drift around her.

  ‘Super little market... fresh fruit...’

  ‘Must get some souvenirs for the girls at the bridge club...’

  ‘Grand Anse beach is lovely; do you remember it? Shall we meet for lunch at the hotel there? Have a swim...?’

  ‘Darling, have I put on a ghastly amount of weight? Be honest...’

  The voices floated over her head. They were making plans but she was too pleasantly lulled by the sun to make any contribution. The sun made everyone too lazy to discuss anything with much vigour, even the planning of the day—their last day.

  It was only when she heard Angus mention her name that her mind refocused and she sat up abruptly to find him looking at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, flustered. ‘I missed that.’

  Liz made some remark about the sun and its soporific effect, to which Gerry illogically replied that if his financial director hadn’t sorted out that tax business for the accountants his head would be on the block, and Lisa repeated, ‘What were you saying?’ She didn’t think that he had addressed her at all for days on end, not directly.

  ‘Caroline is going to spend the day on the beach,’ he said casually, and there was an odd look in his eyes, as though he was being very careful not to reveal too much. ‘Since it’s our last day here and you’ve never been this way before, I’ve decided to take you on a tour of the island. You’ll be fascinated by the plant life over here.’

  ‘Thank you, but really, I’d rather just laze around.’ You’ve decided? she thought. And so I must fall in? Like the last time?

  ‘I’m sure Lisa would much rather do her own thing than trek around the island with you in this heat.’ Caroline’s voice, which seemed disembodied because her eyes were hidden, as usual, behind her sunglasses, was sharp.

  ‘I’m sure Lisa is quite capable of making up her own mind, Caroline,’ Angus drawled, his eyes on Lisa’s face. ‘You can’t leave the island without seeing the plant life,’ he told her blandly. ‘Unless, of course, you have other, personal reasons for not coming with me?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said brightly, with a laugh. There had been a soft challenge in his voice and now he smiled the smile of the victor, knowing that he had trapped her.

  ‘Good. Then that’s settled.’ And he relaxed back with his hands clasped behind his head, while Liz resumed the conversation, asking interested questions about her job at the garden centre, and Caroline sat stiffly back with a frown on her face.

  ‘My mother is interested in plants as well,’ she said, dipping into the conversation and silencing everyone in the process. ‘Does a lot for the Chelsea Garden Show. Has a permanent stall there every year. Such a bore. I like flowers but I simply don’t see the point of labouring over them, not when you can pay someone else to do it.’

  ‘You don’t see the point of labouring over anything, Caroline,’ Angus pointed out, looking at his watch.

  ‘Why bother when you don’t have to?’ she asked, and Angus didn’t bother to answer.

  Caroline’s conversations always seemed to take the same course. She stated, everyone listened, and if none of her statements seemed to provoke lively discussion, then it didn’t seem to trouble her because she simply returned to whatever it was she had been doing in the first place. Every now and again she had mentioned her ex-fiancé. with an air of boredom, and Lisa got the impression that very little roused her out of her self-centred little universe, in which she always had the starring part.

  Very little except Angus, perhaps. Did she have a crush on him? She did look at him quite a bit when she thought that no one was watching, but then so did most women, she had noticed. He had the sort of dark, arresting face that attracted stares.

  The yacht docked and amid the general chatting, clutching of hats and impossible arranging of times when they would meet and where Angus stalked off in search of a car to hire.

  ‘What fun for you,’ Liz said, beaming, ‘driving around the island with Angus, looking at all those wonderful plants and flowers. What a clever idea of his!’

  ‘Very clever, yes,’ Lisa said, trying to look enthusiastic.

  She watched wistfully as Liz, Gerry and Sarah bustled off, leaving Caroline behind, elegant in silk shorts and a sleeveless shirt and a large straw hat which shaded all of her face.

  ‘Aren’t you going with them?’ Lisa asked politely.

  ‘I just wanted a few words,’ she said, and Lisa sighed.

  ‘Look...’ she began, and then stopped and thought, Why am I apologising for this arrangement? It’s hardly as though I engineered the thing.

  ‘No, you look. Look at yourself. I suppose you think it’s started raining money, being invited along with Angus on a trip round the island. I suppose you imagine that your boat’s come in...’

  ‘No, of course—’

  ‘You, in your dowdy little department-store outfits! He’s out of your reach.’

  ‘You’re getting hold of the wrong end of the stick, Caroline...’ she began again, on the brink of apologising and then thinking better of it.

  ‘No, I’m not! It’s obvious that you have a crush on him and I’m just doing you a favour by telling you to steer clear.’

  ‘Why should you care?’ Lisa asked curiously, and Caroline flushed. ‘He’s out of your reach as well,’ she continued gently. ‘I’m not interested in him and I’m certainly not some kind of fortune hunter.’ She paused and frowned. ‘I understand why you feel protective of him, but Caroline, he just sees you as a child; he—’

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ Caroline said, white-faced.

  ‘Liz is waving for you to go.’ It was a pointless argument. ‘You’ll get left behind.’

  ‘You’re not in our class.’

  ‘Nor would I want to be,’ Lisa informed her with a rush of anger.

  ‘Just so long as we understand one another.’ She trounced off, her blonde hair whipping back from under the hat as she half ran, her arms folded.

  Lisa waited, and after twenty minutes Angus returned with a bunch of keys. For someone who had pushed her into a corner, he didn’t seem terribly thrilled at the prospect that lay ahead. His face was grim.

  ‘We needn’t go on this trip,’ she said nervously, ‘if you’ve changed your mind. I’m very happy to spend the last day on the beach.’

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ he replied tersely, angry with her for reasons which she couldn’t begin to fathom but which hardly promised an enjoyable and carefree day. ‘I’m sure you’d love nothing better than to be in company instead of condemned to enforced isolation with me, but that’s just too bad.’ He walked off towards an ageing blue car, opened the passenger door for her and then installed himself in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Have you brought a map?’ she asked, after a while. ‘Honestly, Angus,’ she said, when he still hadn’t started the engine, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

  ‘It’s a damn good idea,’ he contradicted her, in a voice that bordered on aggressive. He looked at her and she fell silent. ‘I haven’t brought a map, in answer to your question. I’ve decided we’ll just take the inland road and see what happens.’

  Lisa didn’t say anything. She didn’t relish the thought of an aimless drive with him, possibly getting lost somewhere along the line, but she also didn’t relish the thought of arguing the point with him.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, Lisa?’ he asked, driving off at a leisurely pace which she suspected had more to do with the car than with him. ‘Or have you been stunned into silence at the adventure that lies ahead?’ He gave a dry laugh and she remained silent. She could cope with nerves, but something about him made her uneasy. What lay ahead? She didn’t know and she didn’t much want to find out.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LISA stared out of the window. There
was no air-conditioning in the car and even with the breeze sifting through her hair she still felt hot and sticky and vaguely plastered to the seat with perspiration.

  He was, she thought, in a foul mood, and she wondered why he had bothered to invite her along in the first place, especially knowing that she hadn’t wanted to come, and why, when she had offered to forget about the whole trip, he had ignored the suggestion. And she had no idea how to break the silence between them. She had never been much good at aimlessly chatting about nothing in particular, and besides, the brooding harshness of his face was putting her off.

  At least he seemed to know where he was going, though, even without the help of a map. He had been here before. Who knew? Maybe he had driven this same route with another woman, some poor woman who had now been relegated to the past.

  She glanced sideways at him, felt that familiar lurching in her stomach, and hurriedly directed her attention back through the car window.

  They had left the coast behind now, heading towards the centre of the island, over mountains and along narrow, uneven and very windy roads.

  She stopped thinking about him and started paying attention to the scenery unfolding outside. After a diet of sand and sea, she was unprepared for the savage lushness of the landscape around them. It seemed to engulf them from all sides. She forgot that he was in a bad temper and that she was a bag of nerves, and started talking about the immense variety of plants and flowers.

  ‘My father would have loved this,’ she said. ‘He would have gone quite mad. He would have been out there, hopping around, dissecting leaves and looking for bugs. He used to bring things home, all kinds of insects and plant life, and show them to me and Mum. Do you know, I could draw a diagram of a cross-section of a leaf before I could read?’ She laughed, with her head turned away from him. ‘I don’t suppose that’s proved a very useful talent, mind you.’ She laughed again and this time she glanced around to look at him.

  . He wasn’t as grim as he had been when they had first started out, but there was still something unreadable about his expression which was unsettling. She reverted to the less intimidating inspection of the trees.