Edge of Paradise

by Dorothy Vernon

  ‘Cleopatra!’ Catherine gasped in gentle remonstrance.

  ‘I knows. Knows my place. My place is to unpack your things and get back to my kitchen.’ She was still muttering to herself as she turned and waddled back into the room.

  Catherine didn’t want her clothes unpacked. Even though it was partly her fault, she had no intention of sharing a room with Paul. But she didn’t follow Cleopatra to tell her so because she didn’t think it was fair to involve the housekeeper in their private battle, and it wouldn’t take her long to push her things back into her suitcase once the woman had departed. Also, if she were truthful, she was just a little bit scared of Cleopatra’s candid tongue. It had certainly reduced her to size. That, coupled with the way Cleopatra had looked at her, had made her feel guilty when she had nothing to feel guilty about.

  ‘All done, Miss Catherine,’ Cleopatra said, once again popping her head ’round the balcony door.

  ‘Thank you, Cleopatra.’

  Now that she’d gone, Catherine went back into the room. On cue, Paul came out of the bathroom, a towel secured ’round his middle. He’d washed his hair. He raised a hand to push back its dripping wetness from his forehead.

  ‘I’ll dry off in here. You’d better take your shower. We’re going to be late for dinner. Informality is the rule for the daytime only. Gus likes punctuality at his dinner table and for his guests to pay him the courtesy of dressing up. Bear in mind what I said to you this morning. Wear something special. I want you to be a knockout.’

  ‘I won’t be displayed as though I’m part of your personal effects. I’m neither a trophy nor a chattel, and I won’t be treated as such.’

  ‘You will,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘That’s little enough to ask.’

  She fumed, knowing that Paul’s check had been exceptionally generous expressly to cover the cost of a new wardrobe to suit the climate and conditions. At the time there had been an unspoken agreement between them that she would do him proud. Now, though, she objected most strongly to the crude connotation of his words. While he was in the bathroom she had considered the possibility of having to put in an appearance downstairs, and had mentally selected the floating chiffon in shades of blue—the one Ally had convinced her to buy. But instead she reached into the long fitted cupboard where Cleopatra had hung her clothes and defiantly stopped at another gown, still pretty but more subdued, lacking the impact of her first choice.

  Paul’s hand stretched imperiously in front of her. ‘Wear this,’ he commanded, holding her original choice, the blue chiffon dress, out to her.

  Her eyes blazed into his. ‘I will not be dictated to. We’re going to have to talk this out.’

  ‘I agree. You’re not getting off this easily. But it will have to wait until later. You are not going to embarrass me by causing a spectacle in my friend’s house. You will put on this dress and we will go down to dinner and make pleasant and inconsequential conversation, and then we will come back up here for a serious discussion.’

  The last thing she wanted was to cause a scene. In embarrassing him, she would also embarrass herself. Furthermore, she had eaten very little lunch and she was hungry now. And since Cleopatra was in sympathy with him, the girl who supposedly hadn’t had her bottom smacked often enough as a child wouldn’t have her supper sent up to her room on a tray, but would be made to go without as punishment. It would be foolhardy to continue the battle on an empty stomach. So she accepted the dress from him and stormed into the bathroom with it.

  She knew that it suited her and she was glad that Ally had talked her into the extravagance of buying it. Its subtlety did not stop at the clever merging of blues, but also lay in its creation of a sensuous yet romantic image. It left her shoulders, throat, back, and quite a lot of her front bare, caressing her full breasts, scooping in to her tiny waist and drifting out ’round her hips as she moved. Up-to-the-minute stylish, yet hauntingly old-fashioned. Her color-matched evening sandals picked out two of the shades of blue and were sensationally high; she would need to walk carefully, but decided that the extra caution would be a small price to pay for the additional height she achieved. She applied her make-up with care, eye-shadow for a touch of mystery, lipgloss for shiny sensuality. In her present heated mood she didn’t need blusher. As she stared critically at her appearance she knew that she couldn’t do better, yet at the same time there was about her an underlying diffidence that gave her an appealing air of modesty and charm.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she called out to Paul, who was on the balcony.

  As he came toward her she wouldn’t have been a woman not to look for his response. It was favorable, but not in a way she could accept.

  ‘Enchanting! Adorable!’ His eyes were gloating as they traveled over her; his breath was expelled with self-satisfaction and insufferable smugness. ‘I’ve never seen you look lovelier than you are now. A certain party, accustomed to having the limelight all to herself, won’t be disposed to welcome such formidable competition. The others are going to look at you and envy me.’

  ‘That is the most pompous and ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,’ she said, giving vent to her feelings. ‘No one’s going to envy you a thing. They’ll look at my temper-flushed cheeks and know we’ve been quarreling.’

  ‘On the contrary, precious heart,’ he drawled in amusement. ‘They’ll look at the sparkle in your eyes, couple it with your passion-flushed cheeks, and think we’ve been making love.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Despite that disturbing observation, she got through the evening without finding it too much of an ordeal, her thoughts frequently absconding to sift and resift every word that had passed between her and Paul in an effort to make some kind of sense of his attitude toward her. She didn’t like the way he made her feel that she was doing wrong by not letting him do what she knew wasn’t right.

  He had enough going for him in the way of looks, wealth and fame to have been spoiled by a certain kind of woman into thinking that all women would be willing to leap straight into bed with him, and he was piqued at her for resisting. But it wasn’t only that. If it had been, she could have hardened herself, albeit with great difficulty, against the charm he was pouring on, which she knew was for the benefit of the others ’round the table. But she had a strange, persistent, uneasy feeling—a presentiment almost—that there was more to it than that, something she still had to uncover.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said when Jeremy had to repeat something he’d said to her for a third time because of her inattentiveness.

  ‘Too bad, Jeremy,’ Gus cut in. ‘This girl only has eyes for Paul.’ His distinctive, hearty laugh marked his appreciation of this rare occurrence. ‘Jeremy Cain, superstar, having to fight for a girl’s attention!’

  True, she had kept looking at Paul, but only in inquiry, to try to work out what this was all about and not because—well, not totally because—she found him distractingly handsome in formal clothes. The men all wore dinner jackets. Gus and Jeremy had opted for frills and embroidery in their choice of shirts with velvet cummerbunds, but Paul’s more sober selection served him equally elegantly. In fact—

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she had to say yet again, bringing her wandering concentration back to Jeremy, ‘I didn’t quite catch that.’

  ‘You’re a difficult girl to compliment, an unusual one, too. Until this moment I’ve always found that a sure-fire way of making a girl hang on to your every word is to tell her how charming she looks. Did you realize that there’s one shade of blue in your dress which exactly matches your eyes?’ Jeremy said, looking into them with barely a trace of rebuke.

  ‘Oh, come on now!’ Zoe interjected sourly. ‘That’s clever feminine strategy. You didn’t really think it was coincidental, did you?’

  ‘Is someone’s delectable nose feeling slightly out of joint?’ was Jeremy’s wry comeback.

  ‘Now, children,’ Gus intervened. ‘I won’t have bickering at my table. You look charming, too, Zoe.’

  If that was
an attempt to placate the actress it failed abysmally, highlighting as it did Zoe’s pettishness because another girl was getting noticed. Zoe had no cause to be jealous of the attention Jeremy was paying to her, Catherine thought. Anyone with a scrap of intelligence could see that he was only being kind to the stranger in their midst. No one could outshine Zoe, who was dramatically beautiful anytime, but who took one’s breath away that evening in a pure white dress that complemented her golden suntan and black hair.

  The meal over, Gus suggested they have their coffee and brandy or liqueurs on the terrace. ‘You four go ahead. I’ll see what’s keeping the coffee.’

  Jeremy rose to pull Catherine’s chair back for her, but Paul got there first, his fingers pleasantly proprietorial on her arm as he led her out to the moon-draped terrace. Gus, or someone, had put on a record and the strains of music to dance to followed them out.

  Without asking her preference, Paul guided her past the tables and chairs. ‘Can you dance?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘In the old-fashioned way?’ he asked, sliding her fully into his arms.

  ‘Is there any other way?’ she asked recklessly, not knowing what had got into her.

  ‘You’re like the cat who swallowed the cream,’ he observed. ‘Perhaps I should amend that to the kitten who swallowed the cream,’ he added after a pause.

  That was just how she felt. Even if Zoe was looking daggers at her it was nice to be made to feel important and fussed over by three such attractive men, because even though Gus was playing a minor part when compared with the other two, he had still made her feel very welcome at his table.

  However, modesty insisted that she take the cliché literally. ‘I am. That Crème Brulée was out of this world. And I’ve never tasted steak as delicious, although perhaps there was too much wine for my poor spinning head in the red wine sauce.’

  ‘Entrecôte Marchand de Vins is one of Piers’ specialties.

  ‘Piers? I thought I should compliment Cleopatra.’

  ‘Don’t be fooled by all that “back to the kitchen” talk. She may be a good housekeeper, with an attractive and amiable disposition, but she can’t boil an egg.’

  Catherine pondered on that for a moment and then said, ‘If you heard Cleopatra say anything to me about getting back to her kitchen, you also overheard something else.’

  The devil himself was in Paul’s smile. ‘You mean about Cleopatra scolding you for not treating me right? The island women have a wonderfully uncomplicated attitude toward sex and pleasing their menfolk. The man is the master and a woman should be grateful for the high regard he pays her by fancying her.’

  ‘And no doubt you agree with that?’ she said, sarcasm and disapproval mingling in her tone.

  ‘I do, most decidedly. Cleopatra talks a lot of sense.’ Again that smile. ‘You would have benefited by having your bottom smacked when you were a child. I have my own theory to add to that. It’s never too late to repair a fault.’

  ‘Just you try!’

  ‘Is that an invitation?’

  ‘Get lost!’

  ‘That’s not a very nice way to show your appreciation for making it right for those two scoundrels, Piers and Jock, as you asked me to.’

  Her chin came up. ‘About that . . . it would be interesting to know exactly what you did say to Gus. How did you make it sound credible?’

  ‘All that matters is that I did; I didn’t exactly want to look a fool. A guy needs his wits about him to keep up with you. You are aware, I take it, that Gus and party were my intended guests this evening?’

  ‘I thought they might be.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d tell me just how you proposed to get back to New Providence to be at the hotel in time for dinner? You knew I wanted you to be there. I said no tricks, remember? Did you go off to get back at me?’

  ‘No. I didn’t think there would be any question of my not being back in ample time. Deirdre, Piers and Jock led me to believe we would only be out at sea for the day. I didn’t expect them to stop off here. If a trick was pulled, it was on me, not by me.’

  ‘I’d like to have been there to see the expressions on their faces when they saw the helicopter, put two and two together, and realized their little game had been scotched. I bet they got quite a shock.’

  She giggled. It hadn’t been funny at the time, but she could look back and see the hilarity of the situation. ‘They did, as a matter of fact. I’ve felt sorry for Jock all along, because it’s obvious that he’s easily led, but I’m beginning to have a sneaking sympathy for Piers, as well. I caught a glimpse of him earlier on, as we came down to dinner. He didn’t know where to look. He can’t seem to take it in that I’m staying here as a guest.’

  ‘I think Piers will be more prudent in future,’ said Paul. ‘I’m not saying that he won’t ever bring another girl over when Gus is out of the way, but next time he’ll be more cautious in his selection. I could beat the living daylights out of him when I think about it. And I’m not too pleased with you, either.’

  ‘I know. Thank you for not telling me off in front of Deirdre when we came upon you at the waterfall, though. And thank you for smoothing things over for Piers and Jock.’

  ‘It was the least I could do, considering that I was the one who botched things up for them.’

  ‘You?’

  His eyebrows lifted in incredulity. ‘You didn’t honestly think my being here was a coincidence, did you?’

  She nodded in embarrassment. ‘I must be even dumber than I thought, because yes, I did. I thought you turning up here was pure good fortune. Is that what you meant when you said one person’s quick-thinking can be another’s bad luck?’

  ‘What else? When Joseph told me he’d seen you getting into Gus’s launch, I knew that it would be most unlikely for me to see you back at the hotel in time for dinner. Having already told everyone about you, I wasn’t going to be stood up. I had to do something fast.’

  ‘Joseph told you!’ she said, frowning heavily. She remembered seeing the Bahamian porter and wondering if he would say anything to Paul, but she had decided that he wouldn’t stoop to telling tales.

  ‘It wasn’t like that. Joseph didn’t come racing to find me with a spicy piece of gossip. He came to tell me because he was worried and he didn’t know what else to do. All the locals know what Piers and Jock get up to and he was concerned for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry I misjudged Joseph.’ She paused, then said, ‘You still haven’t explained how you worked things out. Does Gus know how stupid I’ve been?’

  ‘No. I concocted a tale about wanting to come here to get one aspect of the film fixed firmly in my mind before the crew arrives. Gus applauds dedication to duty and fell in with the change of plan. He’s also a man of the world, so he wouldn’t expect me to give up my comfort because of it. What more natural than for me to send Piers across in the launch for you? I explained Deirdre’s presence by saying she just happened to be with you and came along for the ride. Satisfied?’

  ‘Apart from being referred to as your comfort, yes. I wouldn’t like Gus to know what a brainless idiot I’ve been. Looking back, I can’t understand why I was so foolish. It wasn’t a conscious decision, more like drifting into something without knowing what was happening. I’m sure that could never happen to you,’ she said with positive emphasis.

  ‘At one time I would have agreed with you,’ he replied, frowning heavily, as if at a discovery he’d made, one he didn’t much care for, but using a certain wistfulness of tone that created considerable pleasure in her heart.

  On the whole, she thought, she’d come off rather well, even if it had been a bit like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. At this precise moment, the fire was decidedly cozy.

  During the latter part of the conversation their feet had stopped moving in time to the music, but he’d kept his arms ’round her. Suddenly one hand lifted to the back of her neck; the other slid down her spine, coaxing from her a smoldering response that came as a revelation.
Flames burst inside her, igniting a sensuality she had been unaware of possessing. Her mind blanked out in shock; her body instinctively arched itself to his, promoting a closeness between them that she had never before known with any man, giving her intimate knowledge of the fact that she was not the only one awash with fire.

  ‘You do pick your moments,’ he said groggily, bending his head to take her eagerly given lips, drawing hungrily of their sweetness as the hand on the small of her back pressed harder, making his whispered, ‘How much I want you!’ superfluous. She had been trembling with the awareness of that before he murmured a single word.

  ‘We’ll have to join the others,’ he said in a smothered voice.

  She was glad that one of them had remembered where they were in time, and also grateful for the patch of shade which Paul had thoughtfully drawn her into, even though it was no doubt obvious why he’d taken her aside.

  She nodded tremulously, a throbbing alertness to every nerve and sensation in her body taking the power from her legs. Without his arm ’round her waist, assisting her progress, she never would have made it back.

  ‘I was just going to shout “cut,”’ Gus said when they rejoined the others. ‘Your coffee’s getting cold.’

  Catherine declined the brandy which Gus tried to press on her. She was tingling from head to foot as it was, and feeling quite good, she decided. Scared out of her mind, but good.

  This would certainly rate as an evening to remember. At lunchtime, Deirdre’s presence had done much to neutralize the undercurrents. Impressions were sharper in her absence. Deirdre had been de trop, not one of the essential characters. There she went again, Catherine thought, likening the situation that was unfolding around her to a stage play. But that was exactly how it seemed to her. Everyone knew their lines except her; she was the only one stumbling along, although not totally without direction. The feeling that she was being manipulated by Paul still persisted. Gus, she thought, wasn’t a principal character, but he was necessary just the same. He was the audience the other characters needed to play off, a hugely appreciative audience, one who was finding it all highly entertaining. Zoe and Jeremy were the lovers—lovers in dissent, she gathered. Had they tired of each other, or was one simply retaliating to signs of boredom in the other? Jeremy had gone out of his way to be kind to her, had flirted with her. Perhaps it had been a form of self-protection, because he suspected that Zoe was reverting to type and getting ready to treat him as shabbily as she had her director boyfriend. Did he think he was soon to be cast aside in favor of some new distraction? Had she turned her thoughts to Paul? She had a way of looking at him, guardedly, from under lowered lids. Catherine knew from Paul’s secretive smile that he was aware of it, even if, so far, he wasn’t doing anything about it. Was it because he was astute enough to see through her? Did he know there wasn’t one drop of sincerity in Zoe’s entire system and that she was as false as the eyelashes she kept lowering at him, but in such a captivating way that Catherine wondered how long he would hold out?