Wild Jasmine

by Yvonne Whittal

  'He said he liked your style, and he's coming in tomorrow so that you can draw up a new contract with a couple of additions.' Her obvious surprise brought a strangely twisted smile to his otherwise stern mouth. 'Do you know something, Sarika? I kinda like your style too.'

  He strode out of her office and left her sitting there with the feeling that she was dangling somewhere between incredulity and anger, but there was also the niggling suspicion that Sean had not referred entirely to the way she had handled Mr Lockwood. Her cheeks went hot as humiliating memories crowded her mind, but she brushed them aside instantly and concentrated on her work.

  She did not see Sean again to find out whether his mood had altered at all, neither did she see him when she left the office shortly after five that evening. It took some time to get out of the city and on to the road to Malabar Hills, but when she was approaching the house she noticed Sean's Land Rover coming up swiftly behind her. Sarika garaged her car, but he left the Land Rover in the driveway, and she was surprised to see him waiting for her when she walked round the house to the main entrance.

  'I owe you an apology for slamming you this afternoon, and I think you deserve to be complimented,' he said, taking her arm as they mounted the steps to the front door, and he was smiling that odd, twisted smile again. 'I threw you in at the deep end last week, and you managed pretty well.'

  'Except for the Lockwood contract which I almost lost,' she added with a touch of cynicism.'

  'Except for the Lockwood contract,' Sean agreed mockingly, 'but that was quite understandable.'

  Sarika felt a little warmth intrude on the coldness which had invaded her heart a few nights ago, but there was still a hint of cynicism in her smile when she glanced up at him. 'I'm glad you see it that way.'

  'Let's have a drink before we go up and change for dinner,' Sean suggested when they entered the house, but Ayah came bustling towards them before Sarika could reply.

  'You have a visitor, Sean,' announced Ayah with a strange tightness about her mouth instead of her usual welcoming smile, and she turned to lead the way into the living-room.

  A woman of about Sean's age rose from the chair beside the tall brass ewer. Her auburn hair was cut and styled in a sleek cap about her classic features, and her pale blue, wide-sleeved dress was of a soft, clinging material that emphasised her perfectly proportioned body. She was, Sarika decided, one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen.

  'Elvira!' Sean exclaimed throatily. 'Elvira Duncan!'

  'Sean darling!' Crimson lips parted in a smile to display evenly spaced pearly teeth as she floated into Sean's arms and kissed him with an easy familiarity that suggested past intimacies, and the thought stabbed at Sarika. 'Surprised to see me?'

  'Not entirely,' smiled Sean, holding the woman a little away from him to look down into the limpid grey eyes. 'You have always had a habit of arriving unexpectedly in the oddest places, and at the oddest times.'

  Her smile deepened provocatively. 'Well, here I am again, darling, and I hope you're pleased to see me.'

  'I'm always pleased to see you, Elvira,' Sean replied smoothly, 'but I'd like to know what you're doing here without your husband.'

  'Jerry and I have been divorced for some months now, and I'm treating myself to a cruise around the world. The ship docked at noon today, and after a sightseeing trip around the city I came straight here.' Diamonds glittered about Elvira Duncan's throat and on her slender fingers as she raised her hand to caress Sean's rugged cheek with that familiarity which sent yet another stab of jealousy through Sarika. 'I wanted to see your face when you walked in this evening, so I told your maid here not to let you know I had arrived.'

  Sarika's back stiffened at Elvira's reference to Ayah as the maid, and she glanced swiftly at Ayah's tight features, but it was Sean who rectified the matter.

  'Ayah is the housekeeper, and she's been part of Sarika's family for many years.' He disengaged himself from Elvira Duncan and his fingers closed lightly about Sarika's arm as he drew her closer. 'Let me introduce you, Elvira. This is Sarika Maynesfield.'

  The grey eyes that met Sarika's had lost their warmth to become cold and calculating, and Sarika knew instinctively that this woman was her enemy.

  'So you're Sarika.' The crimson lips smiled, but the eyes remained cold. 'When the maid… er… housekeeper mentioned your name I had visions of Sean living with someone older and more mature, and knowing his taste in woman I'm surprised to see he's stooped to cradle-snatching.'

  Sarika did not need to be reminded of Sean's preferences where women were concerned, but Elvira's insinuation that Sarika was sharing Sean's bed was like a declaration of war. Elvira had launched the first attack, but Sarika parried it with a cool smile.

  'I think a youthful partner adds spice to a relationship to make it last much longer, whereas with a woman of your age, Mrs Duncan, a relationship could peter out and become staid much sooner.'

  Sean appeared to find the situation as well as Sarika's statement amusing, but the atmosphere between Sarika and Elvira Duncan was explosive as they stood assessing each other for a second bout.

  'Are you staying to dinner, Mrs Duncan?' Ayah intruded tactfully, easing the situation a fraction.

  'If I'm invited.' Elvira turned from Sarika to smile up at Sean provocatively, and the hand she placed on his arm was possessive. 'Am I, darling?'

  'Naturally you're invited,' Sean agreed, escorting Elvira to the chair she had vacated on their arrival. 'We haven't seen each other for years, and we have a lot to catch up on.'

  Sarika's fingers tightened spasmodically on the handle of her briefcase. 'If you'll excuse me, I'd like to go up and change.'

  'Aren't you joining us for a drink, Sarika?' asked Sean, turning to face her with a sardonic lift to his eyebrow while Elvira's hand still rested in his.

  'Not this time,' she declined, forcing a smile to her stiff lips. 'Since you have so much to catch up on I know I'd simply be in the way.'

  Sarika followed Ayah from the living-room, and the smile on her lips faded to leave her features tense and drawn as she hurried up the stairs to her room. Elvira Duncan's tinkling laughter drifted up the stairs, and Sarika closed her bedroom door firmly to shut out the sound.

  Her thoughts and emotions were in a turmoil when she ran her bath water and stripped off her clothes. Sean had once said that he had known many beautiful women, and Elvira Duncan was certainly one of them. She also wasn't a virgin! Sarika winced visibly. Why did she have to torture herself like this? Her thoughts returned to the woman downstairs in the living-room with Sean. Elvira Duncan's manner had clearly indicated that they had once been lovers, and now that she was free of her husband she was obviously hoping to pick up their relationship where they had left off.

  Sarika groaned inwardly, and lowered her tense body into the hot, scented water. It was not very difficult for Sarika to imagine Elvira Duncan's beautiful body caught up in a passionate embrace with Sean, and the mere thought of it sent a searing stab of jealousy through Sarika.

  'Oh, God!' she breathed in an anguished voice. 'Why do I have to feel this way about a man who doesn't want me?'

  She tried desperately to relax, but when she stepped out of the bath half an hour later she was still as tense as she had been before. She had succeeded, though, in controlling her thoughts, and she dressed with considerable care that evening for dinner.

  The dress she chose was her favourite, with off-the-shoulder gypsy sleeves reaching down to her slender wrists, and a close-fitting bodice that accentuated her small breasts and narrow waist. The skirt flared out to below her knees, and the soft, white material made her smooth skin seem more tanned than it actually was. She fastened a gold chain about her throat which had been a gift from her parents on her eighteenth birthday, and when she stepped back from the dressing table to study herself in the full-length mirror she looked calm and composed despite the fact that her insides felt as if they had been twisted into a million knots. She had left her hair free of the
confining knot she preferred when she went to the office, and it hung in a heavy, silken mass down to below her shoulders. Her make-up was applied with a subtleness that enhanced the beauty of her eyes, and her soft pink lipstick added the required touch to her full, sensitive mouth.

  Sarika felt satisfied with herself when she left her room and went downstairs, but she was not looking forward to Elvira Duncan's company at the dinner table. The heels of her white high-heeled sandals clicked loudly on the marble floor as she crossed the hall, and the sound of that lilting voice in the living-room made Sarika square her shoulders before she went in.

  Sean had somehow had sufficient time to shower and change into brown corded pants and a cream shirt, and as always, the impact he made on Sarika had the power to quicken her pulse rate. He poured a sherry for Sarika, and she was aware of his dark glance lingering like fire on her bare shoulders and small breasts when he handed her her glass. He had made her feel naked, as if she was trying to tempt him with her body, and she regretted suddenly that she had chosen to wear that particular dress. Sean turned away from her to give his attention to Elvira, but instead of feeling relieved.

  Sarika felt oddly as if she had been shut out. Elvira's glance met Sarika's a moment later, and the look in those cold grey eyes said clearly, 'He's mine! I want him! And I intend to have him!'

  Sarika had no defence against that. Sean would never belong entirely to any woman, least of all to someone like herself, and she withdrew quietly behind that mental flag of defeat.

  Ayah came in a moment later to announce that dinner would be served, but she did not join them at the dinner table that evening. Sean frowned his displeasure at her absence, but Elvira captured his attention, and he left the matter there.

  Sarika had no appetite for the tastefully prepared food, and every mouthful seemed to lodge uncomfortably in her throat before she succeeded in swallowing it down. Elvira, however, seemed to sparkle at the dinner table, and her lilting voice and witty remarks brought a smile to Sean's lips which Sarika had never seen before. It softened his rugged features until she could almost call him handsome, and a pain lodged somewhere in her chest at the knowledge that Elvira Duncan had the ability to make him look like that.

  'I've persuaded Elvira to stay over a few days,' Sean told Sarika when they lingered at the table over coffee, and Sarika sat there feeling as if he had dropped a live bomb in her lap. 'She can always take a flight from here to join the cruise again at a different port of call.'

  There was a hint of triumph in Elvira's smile as she directed her gaze at Sarika. 'I hope you don't mind?'

  'As if I have the right to mind!' Sarika thought dismally, but her voice was cool and polite when she said: 'Not at all.'

  Elvira turned her attention back to Sean. 'We'll have to collect some of my things off the ship.'

  'We can do that later this evening,' suggested Sean, helping himself to a second cup of coffee.

  'Oh, it's so wonderful to see you again, Sean.' Elvira's American accent was suddenly very pronounced, and Sarika had difficulty in tearing her glance away from that slender, possessive hand caressing Sean's tanned forearm when Elvira turned to speak to her. 'We've known each other for many years, and there was a time when I believed we might get married, but Sean has an aversion to marriage which is unshakable. We argued, and to spite him I married Jerry Duncan instead.' She turned her sleek head to gaze at Sean, and the look that passed between them excluded Sarika. 'It was a foolish thing to do, but I don't intend to make the same mistake again, darling.'

  Sarika felt her insides quiver and tighten up into one aching knot. Elvira Duncan was out to get Sean. Since marriage seemed to be out, she would get him into her bed, and, judging by the smile that creased Sean's rugged features, Elvira's task was not going to be a difficult one.

  The telephone rang in the hall, jarring Sarika's nerves, and she rose instantly from her chair. 'I'll take it.'

  It was a relief to get out of the dining-room and away from Elvira Duncan's scintillating presence. It was a relief also not to see the way Sean seemed incapable of taking his eyes off the woman, and there was an unaccustomed brittleness in her voice when she lifted the receiver to her ear. 'Sarika Maynesfield speaking.'

  'Sarika, this is Melissa,' a bright, youthful voice announced. 'Craig and I are going to venture out in Daddy's yacht this coming Saturday. We're bringing a friend of Craig's along, and I was hoping you would come with us to make a fourth. We've got the yacht for the whole day, so please say you'll come?'

  'I'm not sure, Melissa, I—' The memory of how her parents had died was still too fresh in Sarika's mind, and she could not decide what to do. 'Could I let you know later?'

  'I'll call you again on Friday.' There was a brief silence before Melissa added: 'Please, Sarika, I really do wish you'd come. We haven't seen you for simply ages, and it would be like old times.'

  Sarika did not commit herself, but she promised to give it some thought before Melissa telephoned again, and they ended the conversation a few seconds later.

  'Who was that?'

  Sarika spun round nervously to find Sean standing no more than a pace away from her, and she avoided his probing glance by staring almost fixedly at the small medallion nestling among the dark chest hair where he had left his shirt unbuttoned.

  'That was Melissa Armstrong,' she told him in a stilted voice. 'She's invited me to accompany Craig and herself and a friend on a day trip in her father's yacht this coming Saturday.'

  There was an ominous silence before he asked: 'Are you going?'

  'I haven't decided yet.'

  'How experienced are they?'

  'Craig and Melissa are both fairly experienced, but I'm not sure about the friend Craig is bringing along.'

  'I wouldn't go if I were you.'

  Sarika's head shot up defiantly, and resentment sparkled in her eyes when they met his. 'I'm perfectly capable of making my own decisions, thank you.'

  'Don't do anything idiotic, Sarika,' he warned, and, turning on his heel, he strode back to the dining-room where Elvira was waiting for him.

  Sarika did not follow him. She turned instead and went up to her room. If Elvira Duncan was going to be a guest in this house, then she wanted to see as little of her as possible.

  It was a hot, balmy night, and Sarika opened her windows wider to let in more air when she went to bed. She did not sleep very well that night for various other reasons, and neither did she get much sleep during the days that followed.

  Sean did not come to the office during Elvira's visit. They met at the breakfast table each morning, Sarika forced herself to be polite to both Sean and Elvira, then they did not see each other again until breakfast the following day. She knew that Sean and Elvira left the house shortly after she had left for the office, and she knew also that they did not return until late at night. What they did, and where they went, she did not know, neither did she want to, but her mind conjured up visions of shared intimacies that seemed to want to drive her to the point of insanity. If they had been lovers before, her cruel mind pointed out, then they could be lovers again, and she felt the savage thrust of anguish and jealousy like a dagger piercing her breast.

  She somehow managed to get through her work at the office, but she dreaded going home at night, despite that fact that Ayah tried to cheer her up by preparing her favourite dishes, and she was at her lowest ebb when Melissa telephoned on the Friday evening. She was incapable of thinking rationally. The only thought that pounded through her mind was the knowledge that she had to get out of that house while Elvira was still there as Sean's guest, and it was with this thought in mind that she answered Melissa's query.

  'I'll come with you.'

  'Good!' Melissa exclaimed over the telephone. 'Meet us at the yacht at seven-thirty tomorrow morning.'

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sarika was awake an hour before the alarm went off the following morning. She got up, washed and dressed herself in white shorts and a sleeveless yellow knitted to
p, then she packed her bikini and suntan lotion into a small tog bag. She scribbled a short note to Ayah to let her know where she was going, but it was still too early to leave the house. She drew aside the curtains to stare out beyond the garden towards the city in the distance, and a slight frown appeared between her arched brows. The sky was overcast, predicting rain, but Sarika was in a foolishly optimistic mood. The weather would have cleared by the time she reached the harbour, and it was with this thought in mind that she left the house a half hour later.

  The engine of the Mercedes sports purred like a kitten when she turned the key in the ignition, then she was speeding down the drive and away from the house. The streets were still free of traffic at that time of the morning, and it did not take her long to reach the harbour where Melissa and Craig awaited her. Craig's friend, Paul Tanner, arrived some minutes later, and of the three Sarika found him the most serious-minded and mature for his youthful age.

  They took their things on board the gleaming white yacht, and only when Sarika felt it rolling beneath her did common sense prevail. She glanced up at the grey sky with the dark clouds looming in the distance, and logic warned that it would be unsafe to go out in the yacht that morning.

  'I think we should postpone this trip for some other time when the weather looks more promising,' Sarika proffered her advice to Melissa and Craig. 'It looks like we're in for a storm.'

  'I think I agree with you,' Paul added his opinion to that of Sarika's. 'Let's leave it for another time.'

  'Oh, don't be silly, you two!' laughed Melissa carelessly. 'There are still a few weeks left to enjoy ourselves before the monsoon period begins, so stop being so pessimistic, and let's get going.'

  The Sea Nymph heaved and sagged beneath Sarika, and her logical mind warned again that they were making a grave mistake, but the thought of returning home made her cast aside her wariness. She did not want to spend the day alone at home with Ayah, neither did she fancy accompanying Sean and Elvira to wherever they might care to go. Only one choice remained, and that was to go with Melissa, Craig, and the dubious-looking Paul.