Phantom Marriage

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Out,’ Tara told him vaguely. ‘But Chas, what on earth are you doing here and…’

  ‘Call it a small apology,’ he told her wryly. ‘I haven’t been the easiest person in the world to work with recently, and as one of the models commented to me yesterday, it would serve me right if I lost the best assistant I’ve ever had.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Only a tiny little thing as well—remember her, the kid we were using for the shoe shots?’

  Tara did. A tiny elfin brunette with huge brown eyes and a pixie hairstyle whose size three feet were ideally suited for shoe modelling.

  ‘It seems I’m guilty of sexual harassment, among a whole host of other crimes, so I decided to take her advice and come round and offer a small peace-offering.’

  Tara laughed, rescuing the roses. ‘If this is what you call a small peace-offering, I’d hate to think what a large one would be!’ she told him.

  ‘A weekend in Paris at least,’ Chas responded with a wicked grin. ‘Only somehow I don’t think it would have the desired effect.’

  Feeling more at ease with him than she had done for some time, Tara laughed again.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, Tara,’ he reiterated. ‘I have been giving you a bad time recently, I know. A combination of things if I’m honest—not least of which is your delectably sexy body. Okay, I know it’s a sexist remark,’ he admitted before she could speak, ‘but that’s the way I am. You’re a very desirable woman, and I found it as frustrating as hell having you working so closely with me and yet knowing that you’d turn a freezing look on me the moment I tried to make a pass. It didn’t do a lot for my ego, I can tell you, but I consoled myself with the fact that I probably wasn’t the only man you’d given the “touch me not” treatment. Anyway, what I’ve come round to say is simply that I’ve come to my senses if you like, and from now it will be strictly business between us—okay?’

  Tara smiled at him, wondering with a sudden flash of intuition if a certain dainty, dark-haired model had anything to do with his sudden volte-face, but she was too wise to make any comment, and when Chas suggested they toast their new-found friendship in the champagne he had brought she did not demur, even though drinking Moët-Chandon at three o’clock in the afternoon wasn’t one of her normal habits.

  It was five before Chas left. They had started to talk about work; and without the sexual innuendo which normally antagonised her so much she had found him such an interesting companion that Tara was barely aware of how much time had passed.

  By the time he left she was beginning to feel quite lightheaded—the champagne bottle was two-thirds empty, and a couple of stubs from the thin cigars Chas smoked lay in the ashtray she had had to find for him; the rich smell pervading the room so that Tara was subtly aware of how very rare it was for her to entertain a man even in the most innocent way.

  When he had gone she finished cleaning the windows and then decided to have a bath and wash her hair before the twins returned. The arrangement was that Sue would bring them back, so after her bath Tara simply pulled on clean underwear, jeans and a sweat-shirt, leaving her damp hair to dry naturally.

  She was just beginning to pick up the threads of a complicated family saga—a book she had received as a Christmas present and which was still unread—when the doorbell rang. Glancing at her watch, Tara frowned. It was barely six o’clock.

  She opened the front door expecting to see Sue and the twins outside, but to her dismay only James stood there, still wearing the same clothes she had seen him in earlier in the afternoon, the dark jeans and shirt giving him a faintly dangerous, look in the gathering dusk.

  Her first thought when she realised he was alone was that some accident had befallen the twins, but before she could voice her fears, James was inside the house, closing the door behind him, assuring her calmly that they were perfectly all right.

  ‘Sue and Alec were delayed, and so instead of eating at the Zoo Sue’s taking them to a McDonalds. We tried to ring you, but couldn’t get through, and as she was concerned that you might be worried, I volunteered to come round and soothe your maternal fears. It seems I needn’t have bothered.’ His eyes were resting on Chas’s cigar stubs and the almost empty bottle of champagne, and to her annoyance Tara felt herself flush. Cynicism darkened his eyes and she longed to refute the accusations lying heavy but unspoken in the silence between them.

  ‘I’m sure you must have plans of your own for the evening,’ Tara managed pointedly.

  ‘Meaning that you have?’ James countered softly, crossing the room and picking up the receiver of the telephone, which Tara realised she must have accidentally knocked because it was already partially off the stand, explaining why Sue hadn’t been able to get through to her.

  ‘A sensible precaution,’ James murmured sardonically. ‘Are you expecting the same “friend” who visited you this afternoon to pay a return call, or.…’

  Tara didn’t let him finish.

  ‘For your information,’ she burst out angrily, ‘my visitor hapened to be my employer. He came round to…’

  ‘To drink champagne with you and bring you roses?’ said James in a voice icy with venom. ‘But of course. Quite natural behaviour in an employer. God, Tara, I’d thought better of you,’ he told her, his mouth curling fastidiously. ‘I can understand that you want a man in your life—after all, you’re a very sensual woman—but Chas Saunders of all people! God, have you no pride? Don’t you mind sharing his bed with every little model girl who catches his eye?’

  ‘In this house the bed is mine,’ Tara pointed out with syrupy sweetness, controlling her growing fury, ‘so the question doesn’t really arise.’

  ‘Then perhaps it ought to,’ James gritted at her. ‘Perhaps it’s time you gave him a taste of his own medicine. I can’t believe you’ve become spineless enough to let him flaunt his little affairs in front of you… God knows he makes them public enough!’

  ‘Thanks for the concern!’ Tara felt a rush of bitter anger. How dared he stand there and lecture her, criticise Chas, when he… ‘Or is it really as altruistic as it seems?’

  The look of murderous anger in his eyes made Tara realise she had gone too far. She stepped backwards, suppressing a small cry of fright as James’s hands tightened round the frail bones of her shoulders.

  ‘What are you trying to suggest?’ he asked softly. ‘That I want to share your bed myself? Why not? It would be an interesting exercise if nothing else—a study in comparisons; the girl you were and the woman you’ve become. Although I suppose you’re going to tell me that if your husband hadn’t died you’d never have got involved with a man like Saunders. Strange how women always blame the man!’

  Tara tried to respond, but her mouth had gone dry. Tiny beads of perspiration gathered on her skin, fear coiling sickly through her stomach, a fear that was shot through with a peculiar sort of excitement. Nauseous disgust rose up inside her. What was the matter with her? Did she really find the thought of James making love to her arousing? She shivered beneath the crushing grip of his hands, wanting to find the words which would break the spell which seemed to hold her in thrall and yet somehow unable to find them, and then with a tiny inarticulate cry she pulled free of him and ran headlong up the stairs, a petrified creature in flight, unaware of where she was going, only knowing that she must at all costs escape from the menace of her pursuer.

  Her bedroom offered frail sanctuary. The champagne glass she had brought upstairs with her and emptied while she was taking her bath—with a ridiculous feeling of depravity—was empty on the bedside table. She stared at it blindly, gasping with shock as she heard the soft footfall behind her and the ominous click of the door. She swung round, eyes widening in outrage. James leaned laconically against the closed door. He had discarded his jacket and his skin gleamed silkily bronze in the vee-necked opening of his shirt. Her eyes slid helplessly from broad shoulders down to a narrow waist and lean hips, stopping short in burning confusion.

  ‘What are you doing up here?’ she managed in
a husky voice. ‘Please go…’

  ‘You ran, I followed,’ James interrupted smoothly. ‘That’s the way the game goes, isn’t it?’ His glance sharpened suddenly and he crossed the room, lifting the glass, his lips curling back from his teeth.

  ‘Very romantic,’ he sneered. ‘A glass of champagne shared in the aftermath of love—or to give it its proper name—lust!’

  ‘Something you’re an expert on!’ Tara flung at him, all caution leaving her as her anger welled up inside her, her protests silenced by the swift capture of her arms; the lethal menace in eyes no longer blue but dark, deep pools of rage.

  ‘What are you trying to do, Tara?’ James mouthed softly against her ear. ‘Provoke me, or arouse me?’

  ‘Neither,’ Tara denied, trying to pull away from him, hating the weak, draining sensation spreading through her body; the overwhelming longing to melt against the male form behind her, to be lifted in James’s arms and…

  A deep shudder ran through her, and as though her thoughts were crystal clear to him James turned her slowly in his arms, threading his fingers through the newly washed softness of her hair, his lips a mere breath away as he murmured almost to himself, ‘Why not… why the hell not?’ and then his lips were brushing hers, lightly, almost tentatively, playing on her quivering flesh like an expert on a finely tuned instrument, knowing where and how to draw the most exquisite pleasure from it. Shudder after shudder exhausted her; a mindless, powerful pleasure sweeping over her, her body overturning her will, responding to a mastery it recognised and craved.

  Thoughts, half formed and wildly unreasonable, fluttered in her mind like so many moths beating their wings uselessly.

  ‘Tara.’

  Her name was a whispered sigh, felt rather than heard, her lips quivering beneath the sensual brush of skin against skin. James’s fingers slid from her hair to her throat, stroking sensuously, wild pulses leaping to life in flesh that traitorously rejoiced in his touch.

  ‘Tara, Tara, you’re a witch, you bewitch me,’ James groaned against her throat, tugging impatiently at her sweat-shirt. ‘Seven years…’ Beneath the fleecy fabric of her shirt his palm shaped her breast, dragging a reluctant groan from her throat.

  Somehow her hands were inside his shirt, trembling against the musky warmth of his body, shaping the taut bones of his shoulders, her body trembling as his teeth nibbled erotically at the tender flesh of her neck.

  A tinge of colour darkened James’s skin. It seemed to burn to Tara’s touch. She felt his hand on the waistband of her jeans, and common sense told her she ought to protest, but the hard muscularity of his body against hers, the heated pressure of his thighs, all combined to overrule her innate caution and the sensuous writhing of her body against the tautly male contours covering it brought a jerked protest from James’s lips before they were buried against hers, tasting the inner sweetness of her mouth.

  Her jeans and shirt fell disregarded to the floor, the hardness of James’s hands as he moulded her lissom femininity against the fierce heat of his thighs burning into her like a brand, his dark head bending to the creamy hollow between her breasts.

  His muttered, ‘God, Tara,’ sent tiny, explosive waves of response shuddering through her, her body pliant in his arms as he dropped on to her bed, taking her with him.

  ‘Tara…’ His voice was hoarse, forcing apart her closing eyelids, making her focus on the darkly aroused face. ‘Undress me,’ he commanded huskily. ‘Before, you were too shy, too… unknowing, so nervous in my arms that I was terrified of hurting you, but now we meet as equals, capable of giving equal pleasure.’ His hand reached for the brief laciness of her bra, unclipping it to expose the creamy contours of her breast with their rosy aureole, his quick, sharp breath shivering across her already aroused flesh. When he bent his head to touch his lips to first one hardening nipple and then the other pleasure surged through her in a wave that was almost painful in its intensity; almost too much to endure as he repeated the caresses with growing urgency, his body hardening against her in unashamed arousal.

  Lean fingers stroked softly over the gentle swell of her stomach and painful emotion shivered through her.

  ‘Tara, I want you… don’t make me wait too long,’ James muttered against her skin. ‘You’re a woman now, not a girl, and…’

  ‘And that means you can take what you want from me?’ Tara demanded bitterly as his words sank in. Anger and remorse filled her. What a fool she had been, to be so easily beguiled by the desires of her own flesh—no, not simply her flesh, she admitted with a sinking heart, but her mind and heart as well. Her reaction to James hadn’t changed at all, nor the reason for it. Brought face to face with that knowledge, she was forced to admit to herself why she had rebuffed all the men who had approached her; why she had refused to allow any other man into her life—she still loved James. Loved him and resented him for his callous desertion of her, and now he was back, making it plain that while he despised her, he wasn’t immune to her body. She would be a fool if she fell into that trap again.

  He felt her body stiffen and raised himself on his elbows, staring into her eyes, desire giving way to biting contempt as he enunciated with icy cynicism, ‘So that’s the kind of game you like to play, is it? I think I preferred you as you were…’

  He was up on his feet, his back to her as he tucked his shirt into his jeans, turning swiftly as she reached for her sweat-shirt, disdainful eyes raking the slender vulnerability of her body.

  ‘Why did you encourage me to follow you up here? So that you could turn me down? You needn’t have bothered,’ he told her insultingly. ‘Sooner or later I’d have remembered that taking you means taking something that’s been had by God knows how many others before me—and desirable though you are, I’ve discovered a certain fastidiousness that prevents me from fully enjoying your undoubted charms.’

  His lips curled back from his teeth as he watched her, lying stricken like a wounded doe, unable to take in the enormity of his insults. He had reached the door before she recovered her voice, her bitter, ‘A very recent fastidiousness, I would venture to suggest—it certainly didn’t worry you when you married Sue’s mother…’ ‘Why, you…’

  For a moment Tara thought he was actually going to strike her and cowered back, fear mirrored in her eyes, but with an almost superhuman effort he seemed to gather himself together to thrust out of the room, leaving her alone as she listened to his footsteps descending the stairs, and the harsh slam of the front door, followed within seconds by the soft purr of the Rolls.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SPRING had given way to summer; in his newly relaxed mood Chas had made no demur when Tara had asked him for time off to be with the twins during the holidays. Today he was in a particularly good mood, she reflected as she heard him whistling in the other studio and wondered now much his benign humour had to do with his growing relationship with Nina, the petite dark-haired model.

  He had brought her round to see Tara only the previous weekend, grinning as foolishly as any teenager, and Tara had a strong suspicion that his bachelor days were numbered. At Nina’s insistence he had brought the twins a present each; a complicated building kit for Simon and a nurse’s outfit for Mandy. As always the twins had been cool towards Chas, although they had both taken Nina to their hearts.

  ‘Doing anything special tonight?’ Chas enquired as she went into the studio to tell him that she was on the point of leaving. When she shook her head he muttered something to the effect that he might call round later, although he didn’t say why.

  Tara had planned to spend some of the summer holiday with her family, but when she reached home there was a letter waiting for her from her aunt telling her that their plans had had to be cancelled owing to the fact that her uncle had suffered a minor heart attack.

  A brief phone call to her aunt assured Tara that her uncle’s condition was not too serious, but of course it was out of the question to visit him with two boisterous children, and her heart sank as she replaced
the receiver.

  She was still feeling depressed when Chas arrived, grinning from ear to ear as she let him into the house.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded as she made him a cup of tea. ‘You look as though you’ve lost a tenner and found ten pence.’

  Briefly Tara explained. ‘The children get bored cooped up here all through the long summer holiday, and Simon in particular enjoys staying in the country.’

  ‘Can’t you wangle another few days with that friend of yours?’ Chas suggested, eyeing her thoughtfully when she shook her head with vehemence. Tara felt sure that Sue would generously welcome a visit from them, but there was no way she wanted to stay with her friend again as long as there was the slightest chance that she might see James. Her face burned as she remembered their last confrontation. And to make matters worse the twins never tired of singing his praises.

  ‘Hmm, well, perhaps this has arrived just in the nick of time,’ Chas suggested, handing her a plain thick, white envelope with her name scrawled across the front.

  Puzzled, Tara took it from him, putting down her mug of tea as she turned the envelope experimentally in her hands.

  ‘Come on, open it,’ Chas demanded impatiently. ‘It won’t bite!’

  Slowly she did as he instructed. Inside the envelope was a piece of matching notepaper folded in half. A cheque fluttered out as she opened it and fell to the floor.

  Totally bemused, Tara bent down and picked it up, her eyes widening as she saw the amount and her own name inscribed on it.

  ‘Before you say a word, it’s a bonus you’ve well and truly earned,’ Chas told her firmly. ‘Some of those shots you suggested for that last Vogue assignment were pure inspiration, and the commissions resulting from it ought to make me feel ashamed that that cheque isn’t twice the size it is.’

  ‘Chas…’ Words formed a tight lump in her throat and she spread her hands despairingly, knowing that tears weren’t far away.