by Anne Mather
Or so he had fondly imagined. But, once again, he should have known better than to think he could anticipate anything she might do. She must have just been waiting for some show of weakness on his part, and when he drew away from her she took her chance.
Afterwards, Matthew realised, she had only succeeded because he’d let her. If he had been on his guard, she would never have been able to push him off balance. But he wasn’t, and she did, and he was still reeling against a potted palm when she fled out of the door. He heard Mrs Mackay utter a startled cry as a waste-paper bin was overturned, but the slamming of the outer door revealed she hadn’t faltered. Which left him with the ignominious task of explaining to his assistant why Miss Maxwell had left in such a hurry and tamping down his own frustration at the inept way he had handled the situation.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘BUT I don’t understand. Why haven’t you reported it to the police?’
‘Because I haven’t.’ Samantha’s head was aching, and she wished her mother would stop looking at her as if she had done something dreadful. ‘It’s only a leather portfolio, Mum. Nothing to get steamed up about.’
‘I shouldn’t have to remind you that your dad and I bought you that portfolio,’ retorted her mother shortly. ‘And you say you dropped it on the Tube, and you haven’t even mentioned it to the authorities!’
Samantha took off her suit jacket, and draped it over a chair. ‘I’ve told you: I didn’t realise it was missing until I was walking up from the station.’ She glanced round the café, which was empty except for a couple of teenagers, sitting at the table in the window. ‘Anyway, thanks for covering for me. Has it been busy?’
‘It was busy at lunchtime.’ Mrs Maxwell was offhand. ‘I must say, I thought you’d have been back before this. It’s nearly five!’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Samantha had prepared herself for this while she was tramping round the streets of London. ‘But you know what it’s like. The buses are all full, and you can’t get a taxi.’
‘For three hours!’ Mrs Maxwell wasn’t convinced. ‘I expected you back about two o’clock. Three, at the latest. What on earth have you been doing all this time? Did you arrange the booking?’
‘Well—no.’ Samantha knew there was no point in pretending otherwise. Her mother would find out soon enough. ‘I—they wanted an ethnic meal. Japanese food; sushi, stuff like that. I couldn’t do it.’
Mrs Maxwell stared at her. ‘And didn’t they tell you that when they arranged the interview?’
‘Obviously not.’ But Samantha could feel the colour invading her cheeks as she spoke. God, how she hated all this subterfuge! She was no good at lying. No good at anything, except getting herself into trouble.
Her mother sniffed. ‘And it took you six hours to find that out?’
‘The journey took the better part of three hours,’ protested Samantha, able to be honest about that, at least. ‘You know what the traffic is like in town. That’s why I didn’t take the car.’
‘Even so …’
‘Well—–’ Samantha licked her lips, and discovered they were still bare of lipstick. Damn, she should have found time to renew her make-up. But she had been walking around in a daze ever since she left Matthew Putnam’s office. And it had taken her some time to find out where she was. ‘I had to wait,’ she offered feebly. ‘And then we had coffee, and talked about—about other things.’
‘What other things?’
‘This and that.’ Samantha shrugged, and jabbed a button on the till, pretending to be examining the takings. ‘Just—just the usual sort of things, Mum. How cold it’s been. How pretty the blossom is in the park. What sort of summer we’re going to have.’
‘Huh.’ Her mother still sounded sceptical. ‘It seems to me you’ve just been wasting your time. And mine, too, I might add. Well, I hope this isn’t going to happen too often.’
‘It won’t.’ Samantha closed the till with a snap that brought Debbie out of the small office, ostensibly to see what was going on. But Samantha didn’t doubt she had heard everything that had been said. There was no privacy in the café.
Mrs Maxwell arched her sandy brows now. ‘No?’
‘No,’ said Samantha, giving Debbie a look that revealed she knew exactly what the girl had been doing. ‘I’ve decided not to continue with the outside catering. As you said, Mum, I don’t have the experience, or the expertise.’
Her mother looked surprised. ‘But—I thought—don’t you already have some bookings?’
‘I have one,’ agreed Samantha heavily, realising she was going to have to take some aspirin. Her head was really thumping now. ‘A formal dinner on Saturday night. It was someone who attended Jenny’s dinner party, and got my number from her. But after that I’m not accepting any more bookings. It’s too—time-consuming. And I don’t think I want the responsibility.’
Paul was delighted when he found out, and Mrs Maxwell couldn’t wait to tell him. When he called round at the house later that evening, he had hardly got his coat off before she had spilled the news. Samantha, still nursing her headache, was in no mood to cope with his instant jubilation. She shouldn’t have made that announcement, she thought wearily. She should have just stopped accepting bookings, and let them find out for themselves. Instead, she had to listen to Paul and her mother congratulating each other on knowing better all along. And pretend that she was happy, when what she really felt was sick.
Still, the combined effects of their delight and her headache did give her an excuse to say little in her own defence. And it also enabled her to refuse Paul’s invitation to go for a drink at the pub, without arousing any animosity. She wanted to be alone with him, she told herself. Of course she did. But right now she felt too ashamed of what had happened earlier in the day to enjoy Paul’s unalloyed affection. She felt as if she had betrayed him, and herself, and it would take some time to reconcile her actions.
The trouble was, she couldn’t get what had happened out of her mind. Which wasn’t surprising, really, she decided firmly. After all, women often required counselling after suffering an attempted rape. Only it hadn’t been an attempted rape, she amended ruefully. An assault? Yes, definitely an assault. But she hadn’t been in any real danger. Not of losing her virginity, or anything catastrophic like that. Dear God, if he had suspected she was still a virgin, he probably wouldn’t have touched her with a barge-pole. That he hadn’t was probably her bad luck.
Probably?
Her nails curled into her palms. That was the trouble. She was too ambivalent about the whole affair. And it was her response to what he had done that disturbed her most. Oh, she had consoled herself with the knowledge that, as soon as he had given her half a chance, she had been out of there. She had flown out of that office as if half the demons in hell had been at her heels. Goodness knew what his secretary must have thought. Overturning the waste-bin like that, and not even stopping to say sorry. So much for her role as a female executive. When it came right down to it, she had made a pig’s ear out of the whole thing.
She sighed. It was no use. She could dodge about the issue as much as she liked, but when it came down to basics it was what had happened before she had made such an ignominious retreat that was causing her so much heartache. Even now, hours after the event, she could still feel the imprint of his body against hers, still taste the sensual invasion of his tongue. She had taken a shower earlier, and afterwards she had stood in front of her dressing-table mirror, wondering why she suddenly felt such an awareness of her own sexuality. Paul had never made her feel that way, and until now she had assumed it was something that came from knowing someone else completely; knowing as in the Biblical sense of the word, that was. But it wasn’t true. When she had kissed Matthew Putnam—and in spite of her initial resistance that was what she had done—she had felt a kind of sliding abandonment; and the flame that had leapt between them had left no room for second thoughts. She had found herself in the totally unfamiliar position of wanting him to go on, of wa
nting him to touch her, and caress her, and do all those things she had always stopped Paul from doing. Dear God, with his mouth on hers she had been helpless, at the mercy of every mindless hunger in her body. There had even been a moment when she wouldn’t have cared if he’d pushed her down on to the floor and …
She shivered, violently, and immediately Paul was beside her, perching on the arm of her chair and slipping his arm about her shoulders. ‘Hey, it looks as if you’re getting a cold!’ he exclaimed solicitously, giving her a hug. ‘That’s probably why you’ve got a headache, too. There’s a lot of flu about.’
Samantha looked up at him tensely, wondering if he had any idea what was going through her head at this moment. What would he say, she wondered, if she told him what she was thinking? How would he react to the knowledge that, instead of welcoming his embrace, she was wishing it were another man’s arm about her shoulders? That, when she looked at his pale hand, with its fleshy fingers and liberal covering of sun-bleached hair, resting just above her breast, she was comparing it with another man’s hand. A hand that was dark-skinned and virtually hairless, with fingers that were long and hard, and possessive, yet which had looked so right against the lace-trimmed material of her blouse …
She felt a sickening wave of self-contempt. God, how could she even think such a thing? She was disgusting; shameless! And completely crazy, she acknowledged harshly. For heaven’s sake, a man had virtually forced her to make love with him, and she was sitting here, mooning about what had happened as if what he had done had been perfectly acceptable. Was actually comparing that—that—bastard—with her fiancé; with Paul. If it weren’t so squalid, it would be laughable. There was no comparison between Matthew Putnam and Paul. And she deserved a thrashing for even entertaining such an idea.
Nevertheless, she was inordinately grateful when Paul decided to cut the evening short. She didn’t look well, he said. She should get to bed; have an early night. He’d see her tomorrow.
But, although Samantha did do as he had suggested, sleep was not something she found it easy to attain. She tossed and turned for hours, alternately too hot or too cold, depending on what direction her thoughts took her. It was useless to pretend that any self-flagellation could control the workings of her mind. She might not want to think about Matthew Putnam, but she didn’t seem capable of stopping herself. And when she eventually achieved her objective her unconscious mind was prey to every treacherous emotion she possessed.
The next few days passed without incident. Samantha, who had half expected Matthew to appear at the café again, didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed. She knew how she ought to feel, but when did life ever imitate ideology? Instead, she lived in a kind of limbo, mid-way between anticipation and apprehension. At the end of each day she was glad that she hadn’t had to face her own ambivalence, but that didn’t stop her from waking every morning to the same state of awareness. She would be better once that final dinner party was behind her, she decided. With that hanging over her head, how could she get on with the rest of her life?
But, when the night of the dinner party came, the affair passed off without a hitch. It was at the home of a friend of Jennifer Spellman’s, and the eight members of the party were very complimentary of Samantha’s efforts. So much so that she half wished she had not made such a hasty decision about refusing any future commissions. She could have accepted at least half a dozen more that evening, and she knew they were curious to know why she had decided to give it up.
Driving home later, she had to admit she had been rather foolish. But, deep down, she had secretly expected Matthew to turn up at this dinner party as well, and she had wanted the dubious satisfaction of telling him her decision. It would have been a small satisfaction, it was true, but she hoped it would have shown him what she thought of him and his friends.
It was only now that she realised how unrealistic that had been. She had placed far too much importance on what had been for him just a game. She had accused him of as much, and he hadn’t denied it. So how could she have imagined he might want to pursue the connection, particularly after that embarrassing scene in his office? If it was his office. And what did it matter anyway?
She had no answers to give herself. Her mind was in turmoil, and there seemed no escape from the duplicity of her thoughts. Matthew had no intention of seeking her out again. And she should be grateful. Without the tenuous connection her catering had provided, there wasn’t the faintest likelihood that their paths might cross.
Which was why she got such a shock when she came out of the café the following Monday evening and found him waiting for her. At long last the weather had changed, and the sun was still quite warm on her shoulders as she secured the front door. It made her wish she hadn’t bothered to pull on the chunky thigh-length sweater over her working clothes. But she was meeting Paul after she’d been to the wholesaler’s, and she expected it would be cooler later.
She hardly noticed the man leaning against the wall between the café and the newsagent’s next door. People were often hanging about when she left the café. There was a bus-stop further along the High Street, and with the car park opposite it was a popular meeting place. It was only when he straightened and came towards her that she permitted him a passing glance. Then her lips parted helplessly as the breath left her lungs.
‘Hello,’ he said, one hand pushed deep into the pocket of a navy blue cord jacket, and the other gripping the portfolio she had dropped in his office a week ago.
Samantha struggled to find her voice. It surfaced at last, but her answering, ‘Hello,’ held none of the aggression she had been nurturing towards him. She tried again, this time with more success. ‘What do you want?’
Matthew shrugged. ‘I came to see you, obviously.’ He lifted the portfolio. ‘And to return this, of course.’
‘You took your time.’ Samantha was ungracious, but she couldn’t help it. She held out her hand. ‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure.’ He glanced round. ‘Are you on your own?’
Samantha held up her head. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘The girl—what was it she said she called herself—–?’
‘Do you mean Debbie?’
‘Yes. That’s right. Debbie. Isn’t she with you?’
‘Obviously not.’ Samantha stiffened. ‘She goes early to catch her bus.’ She hesitated. ‘Why? What do you want with Debbie?’
A lazy smile deepened the lines that fanned out from his eyes. ‘Jealous?’ he queried, with stomach-wrenching accuracy, and Samantha swung abruptly away. He was not going to make a fool of her a second time, she thought, despising herself for even giving him the chance. Whatever he was doing here, she wanted no part of it.
‘Hey, Sam—–’
But his protest went unheeded as she stood at the kerb, waiting for a gap in the traffic so that she could cross. She couldn’t wait to put the width of the street between them, and it was just her luck that the traffic lights had changed against her.
‘Sam,’ he said, coming after her, and taking hold of her arm. ‘We have to talk.’
‘No, we don’t.’ She tried to shake him off without success, and her jaw jutted frustratedly. ‘You know, it did cross my mind that you might have come to apologise, but you didn’t, did you?’
‘Apologise?’ Clearly, the idea had never even occurred to him. ‘Well—OK. If that’s what you want.’ He grimaced. ‘I apologise.’
Samantha seethed. ‘You don’t mean that!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re only saying it to pacify me!’
‘Whatever it takes,’ he agreed infuriatingly. And then his eyes dropped to her mouth. ‘Don’t go.’
Samamtha’s breathing felt suddenly constricted. ‘I—I have to,’ she stammered, but he only applied a little more pressure to her arm, and drew her back until her shoulder nudged his chest. His jacket was unbuttoned, and the heat of his body was palpable through the thin cotton shirt he was wearing.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said, hi
s warm breath lifting the hairs on her forehead. ‘Come on, Sam. I’ve thought about little else but you for the past six days. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about me—just a little, hmm?’
Samantha caught her breath. ‘Will you let me go?’
‘Will you not run away if I do?’
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, then she nodded her head, and to her relief he released her. It enabled her to widen the gap between them, and she inhaled several times before saying, ‘You shouldn’t have come here. You’re wasting your time!’
‘I know.’ His lips twitched. ‘You don’t do ethnic food!’
Samantha gasped. ‘Can’t you ever be serious?’
His eyes darkened. ‘I’d like to be.’
‘Oh, God!’ She dragged her eyes away from his, and looked about her. That wasn’t what she had meant, and he knew it. ‘Mr Putnam—–’
‘Matt.’
‘Mr Putnam!’ She shook her head. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘Let’s go somewhere, and I’ll tell you.’
‘No!’ She was scandalised. ‘This—this has got to stop.’
‘Has it?’
‘Yes.’ She took a steadying breath, and looked at him again. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
Samantha made a helpless sound. This was going on too long. Cars were passing them all the time, and any one of them could be Paul’s, or someone else’s who knew her. And who was she going to say was talking to her?
‘Don’t you have any moral feelings at all?’ she demanded, and he made an indifferent movement of his shoulders.
