'I—er——- '
'I've known Alex since I was nine and he was twenty- three. Our mothers were best friends, and when my parents were killed in a road accident, his family adopted me. I was ready to marry him when I was eighteen, but Alex felt I should see more of the world first, meet other men…'
'And did you?' Marly couldn't help asking.
'Masses. But none could hold a candle to him. That's why I'm here—to tell him I'll never love anyone else, and to set our wedding date. Once we have, I'll fly home and put the arrangements in hand. Do you have any idea when he'll be back?'
'I'm not quite sure. A few days, I think.'
'That's not too bad. If it were longer, I'd join him.' The girl stood up. 'I think I'll unpack and go down for a swim. See you later.'
'Miss Danziger?'
The girl swung round. 'Yes?'
Marly moistened lips that had suddenly grown dry. She longed to tell Fiona exactly the sort of man her future husband was, yet staring into the guileless face she realised she would be wasting her time.
'I—er—just wondered if I could get you anything?' she mumbled.
'No, thanks. The Hamilton hotels are home away from home for me, and I have everything I want.'
Including the son and heir, Marly thought bitterly when Fiona had gone, and sank on to the nearest chair. The perfidy of the man! He obviously intended marrying Fiona at some stage, but meanwhile was not letting it cramp his love-life. She could almost pity the girl for the marriage she would have, for no way could she see him as faithful.
Yet why feel superior to Fiona when she had been equally naive—and with far less reason, for Andrea had warned her the sort of man he was? Yet one glance into his smoky grey irises and she had fallen under his spell like a lovesick schoolgirl. Remembering that an hour ago she had argued with Nan in his favour, she was filled with shame. It permeated every cell of her being and she writhed with the agony of it.
'No!' she cried suddenly, jumping to her feet. 'I won't let him get away with it. He was definitely falling for me, and that makes him vulnerable.'
She relished the knowledge, determined that as soon as Fiona returned to England she would use his vulnerability to pay him back for the heartache he had caused. Thank goodness she had not had a chance to confess her charade to him.
Returning to her office, she locked her desk, picked up her bag and headed for the lift. Punching the button, and wishing it were Alex's well shaped nose, she stepped inside and went down to the lower ground floor and the hotel shopping centre to buy a swimsuit and cotton robe. But even as she riffled through the excellent selection, she was filled with disgust for him. The emotion disturbed her, for she was afraid it might destroy her judgement, and when it came to dealing with this two- timing Lothario, she needed all the judgement she possessed.
As usual, the lush green lawns abutting the vast swimming-pool were dotted with sunbeds, the majority shaded by palms. Those that were ranged around the pool itself were shaded by pink and yellow umbrellas, giving the scene a festive air that in no way matched her mood, which was grey, bordering on black!
But it was difficult to remain despondent when surrounded by holiday-makers all intent on having a good time, though she was glad that for the most part they did it quietly, due in no small measure to the staff, whose duty it was to see that transistors were played low and children kept under control. Not that there were many children present, for they had their own pool on the lower terrace.
She had already had a swim and was lounging on a sunbed when Kevin appeared, skin flushed, hair tousled and damp from the shower after his squash game. A thin terry robe was loosely belted round his waist, and as he dropped it down on the sunbed next to her, she saw he was more ruggedly built than he appeared when fully dressed. It made her wonder whether Alex would be the opposite. Muscular and magnificent in clothes, was he puny and pale in the nude? Who was she kidding? He'd be sensational.
'I'm glad you could see me,' Kevin said, sitting down with a contented sigh. 'There's nothing like a beautiful woman for giving meaning to a beautiful day.'
'I bet you have a beautiful bedside manner too!' Marly forced a smile to her lips, not wishing to spoil Kevin's mood.
'I try my best, and with you it requires no effort.' He slid her a quizzical glance. 'What's eating you? When I spoke to you an hour ago, you were happy as a sandboy. Is it anything to do with boss man?'
'Unfortunately, yes.' Careful not to disclose her personal hurt, Marly told him about Fiona, and had the pleasure of seeing his jaw drop incredulously.
'It's hard to believe the guy is such a louse!' he exclaimed. 'It puts his behaviour to your friend Andrea in a worse light than you thought.'
Marly nodded. 'And look how strongly he's been coming on to me. He had the nerve to invite me to go with him to Hong Kong!'
'What do you intend doing now that his fiancee is on the scene?'
'She won't be staying long, and once she's gone I'm sure he'll pretend he's going to break with her, and I'll pretend to believe him.'
'Be careful you don't get your fingers burnt.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' Marly asked, knowing full well that, like Nan, he was warning her not to lose her heart to Alex.
As Kevin went to reply, his mouth dropped open and his eyes glazed over.
Curious to know why he was looking pole-axed, Marly glanced round and saw Fiona sauntering along the path. She was dressed in a hyacinth-blue bikini that showed off her creamy skin and other more voluptuous attributes, and Kevin's eyes weren't the only male ones to follow her.
'That's Alex's fiancee,' Marly muttered as Fiona, passing by on her way to secure a lounging chair, saw her and hesitated.
Before she could move on, Kevin jumped to his feet and extended his hand, leaving Marly no option but to introduce him. Before she knew what was happening, he had settled Fiona in a chair beside them and ordered fresh pineapple juice all round.
'All I need is Alex here and it would be perfect.' Fiona sipped her drink and stretched out her long, shapely legs on the foot-rest.
'Alex?' Kevin asked, playing dumb.
'Alex Hamilton, my future husband.'
In her soft, breathless manner, she repeated the story she had told Marly, and Kevin listened as though hearing it for the first time.
'You need a swim to cheer you up,' he suggested when she came to the end. 'I'm sure your fiance wouldn't want you to be miserable while you're waiting for him to return.'
As he finished speaking, Fiona gracefully rose and padded across to the shimmering water. 'Race you to the end!' she cried, and dived in, Kevin hard on her heels.
He beat her by a yard, but Marly recognised she was an excellent swimmer. She was probably good at all sport, just the kind of woman Alex would go for. Well, she herself was no mean sportswoman either, though her lack of inches and delicate build was against her when it came to tennis or squash.
She watched the two of them cavorting together, splashing, laughing, and throwing water over each other. The girl's fly-away blonde hair lay wet and limp on her shoulders, and liquid droplets sparkled on her thick- fringed lashes. Unlike most other women who, when soaked, looked their worst, Fiona was more stunning than ever, for it served to emphasise the naturalness of her beauty: glowing skin, baby-blue eyes sparkling, perfectly proportioned body vibrant with vitality.
Quickly Marly lay back and shut her eyes to the scene, but instead the tableau changed to Fiona and Alex, his dark head bent to her blonde one, their naked bodies entwined. Jealousy, sharp as a dagger, brought her upright, and she saw Kevin and Fiona somersaulting together in the water—a far more suitable couple, she decided!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Marly managed to avoid seeing Fiona in the next few days, for, bumping into her in the corridor on her way to her office the morning after their swim, she had stopped her from coming in for a chat by the simple expedient of saying she had to complete her software program for the hotel by a specific date, and was already behind
schedule.
But her main reason was that the girl irritated her with her constant references to Alex, and how much they loved each other. Not that Marly gave a damn! Far from it. It was simply that she found the subject boring—the subject of their love, of course, not the man himself. That would be impossible!
Three days later he walked into her office. Marly, engrossed in her work, did not hear him come in, and only when a shadow fell across her desk and computer screen did she glance round.
'Alex!'
She jumped up and backed away from him, then stopped, angry with herself for the confusion she displayed. But then it was normal to be confused when one's boss walked in unexpectedly, looking like every woman's dream in a tropical-weight cream suit that heightened the bronze of his skin and threw his silver-grey eyes into relief.
'Why are you startled?' he smiled.
'You're back sooner than I thought.'
'I missed you too much to stay away longer.'
Unfortunately it was a sentiment she endorsed, but she was not going to admit it. If truth be told, she was furious to find she still had any feelings for him whatsoever.
'I have a surprise for you,' she said quietly.
'You have?' He spoke softly too, his expression telling her he was only half listening, his eyes too busy devouring her.
Marly was wearing her butterfly-wing cheong-sam, and with her hair sculptured away from her face she could have stepped straight from Puccini's opera. But there all resemblance to Madam Butterfly ended, for she was no innocent girl taken in by a callous lover, but a liberated lady intent on bringing a womaniser to heel.
'What kind of surprise?' he went on.
'Your fiancee is here.'
'My whol'
What a marvellous actor he was! His confusion appeared completely genuine.
'Miss Danziger,' Marly stated.
'Fiona? I don't believe it!'
'You should.'
'When did she get here?' he grated.
"The day you left for Hong Kong. She came—and I quote—to inform you she's ready to set the date for your wedding.'
Alex's mouth thinned to a grim line, and his eyes darkened to deep, smoky grey. Little wonder he was taking the news badly; so would any Casanova on learning his fiancee had arrived to clip his wings.
'I'd better go and talk to her,' he said curtly. 'I'll see you later.'
Alone again, Marly returned to her computer. Alex had looked less than delighted to learn of Fiona's arrival, and she could not help feeling sympathy for her. Yet surely the girl must have known that someone as charismatic as Alex Hamilton wasn't going to spend his nights going to bed with a book! But obviously Fiona trusted him, just as Andrea had, and probably all the other women in his complicated life.
With an effort Marly tried to concentrate on the software she was creating, but the letters were a jumble and she finally turned her back on the screen. How would Alex explain away Fiona? If he had been here when she arrived, he might have tried to keep her identity secret, but now his only option was to brazen it out. And knowing him, brazen it out he would!
Bitterness swamped her as she admitted he had only been amusing himself with her, and her belief that he might have genuinely fallen in love with her was just an illusion. Like the cuckoo he would go his selfish way, stealing and plundering whatever took his fancy, with no regard for the pain and damage he left behind him.
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was time to go home. Switching off her computer and slinging her bag over her shoulder, she was at the door when the telephone rang. Automatically she reached for it, tensing as she heard Alex's secretary say he wished to see her in his office.
'It's past six and I'm leaving—I have another appointment,' Marly protested, deciding she'd had enough of acquiescing to his lordship's beck and call.
'Mr Hamilton sounded very—er—positive,' the woman stated, 'positive', as Marly very well knew, being a euphemism for brooking no argument.
'Very well, I'll be with him right away,' she answered, and knew from his secretary's expression as she walked into the outer office a few moments later that she had made the correct decision.
This was confirmed when she stood facing Alex across his desk, for he looked distinctly bad-tempered.
'You wanted to see me, Mr Hamilton?'
'Yes. We have things to talk over. Personal things.'
Ostentatiously she glanced at her watch, and the tightening of his mouth told her he hadn't missed the gesture.
'I realise it's after office hours,' he drawled, 'but that's the best time to discuss the personal, don't you think?'
Remembering her role, she lowered her head. 'I can't imagine what you have to say to me that's personal.'
'Give you the date of my wedding perhaps? How would you feel about that?'
Marly's heart missed a beat, then raced alarmingly. 'I'd be very happy for you.'
'Indeed?' He rose and came round the side of his desk, stopping so close to her that she was enveloped by the musky scent of him. 'If you told me you were going to be married, I'd be devastated.'
'I'd never leave without completing my contract,' she said swiftly, deliberately misunderstanding him.
'I don't give a damn for your contract, and you know it! Be honest with me. When you learned who Fiona was, weren't you even a little upset to think I'd taken you out and not mentioned I had a fiancee?'
Marly's slender shoulders rose in a shrug, allowing him to think what he liked.
'Except it isn't true,' he continued. 'I am not and never have been engaged to her.'
A billowing wave of joy surged through Marly, leaving no room for any other emotion. She forgot his callous treatment of her friend, forgot his reputation as a Lothario, forgot everything except the bliss of hearing what he had just told her. Yet as swiftly as logic left her, it returned, and so did her common sense.
'If what you say is true, why does Fiona carry on like this?'
'Because she believes that if she says it often enough, it will happen.'
Marly found this hard to accept. Admittedly the girl had struck her as naive, but she wasn't stupid.
'I'm speaking the truth,' Alex reiterated, correctly reading the emotions chasing themselves across the face in front of him, and taking her hands in his warm, strong ones, lowered his hps to them.
Her heart turned over at sight of the thick, fringed lashes forming shadows on his cheekbones, and the way a tawny lock of hair fell forward on his forehead. She longed to accept what he had said, but was still scared of being duped by his sexual magnetism.
'Fiona's had a crush on me since she was a child,' he explained, and went on to repeat what the girl had told her about his parents taking her into their home when hers had died. 'To me, she was like a younger sister, and I treated her as such.'
'Not in her mind.'
'Lord knows why,' he said heavily. 'I've told her often enough. Trouble is we all spoiled her when she first came to hve with us, and it became a habit. Perhaps if I'd been tougher with her when she started to hero-worship me, I might have scotched it on the head, but she was so gentle and vulnerable—like you in a way—that I found it impossible to hurt her. I just hoped my being away from home for most of the past three years would give her a chance to fall for someone else, but it doesn't seem she has.'
'Your charm is obviously too strong to be forgotten,' Marly said, still unsure whether Alex was being totally truthful. Were it not for his past behaviour she might have given him the benefit of the doubt, but as it was… 'You probably led her on without realising it,' she added.
'Definitely not.' Alex was incisive. 'I've played the field in my time—I won't deny it—but it's always with women who know the score, not young girls in the first flush of love. And one thing I've never done is mess with people's emotions.'
Oh, no? Marly longed to throw his words back in his face. What about Andrea? she cried silently. Don't you think that was messing with a person's emotions? With an enormous effor
t she said nothing, but all her previous antagonism towards him flared anew, determining her to carry on with her original plan. She could hardly wait for the day of reckoning when she could discard him as easily as he had discarded her friend.
'So how have you finally made Fiona accept the truth?' she forced herself to ask.
'I haven't.'
'Haven't?'
'I haven't yet told her.'
'You mean you're going to let her set a wedding date?'
'No matter what date she sets, I've no intention of marrying her.'
'Why can't you tell her so and clear the air?'
Alex's hesitation was palpable, then he sighed, as if coming to some conclusion. 'When Fiona came to live with us she never mentioned her parents or the accident that had killed them. The doctors said she had blocked out the entire event, and advised us not to refer to it until she did.'
'Which was when?'
'Years later, on her fifteenth birthday. She suddenly started talking of it and didn't stop—couldn't stop. It was painful to listen to her. She was like a person possessed. Eventually she had to go into a nursing home; it was a complete breakdown. It was afterwards, when she recovered and returned home, that she developed a crush on me. I tried to tease her out of it and hoped it would die the death as she grew older, but…' The broad shoulders lifted. 'And now she pitches up here with this incredible story of hers. In the normal course of events
I'd be blunt and brutal, but given her history I have to be careful.'
Marly found it in her heart to pity Fiona who, in the midst of finally facing up to the agonising loss of her parents, had seen in Alex a strong, stalwart lover to protect and cherish her forever.
'You have a problem on your hands,' she observed.
'But I think I've found a way of dealing with it. No matter what she says or does, I'll behave like a brother to her. I'll show her around but I won't take her out alone, only in a foursome—with you as one of the four!' For the first time since he had learned of the girl's arrival, Alex smiled. 'All we have to do is find some amiable young man who'll agree to make a play for her.'
'I can't see her playing back!'
Roberta Leigh - Give A Man A Bad Name Page 7
