His Temporary Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  This was a business deal. They were sitting here in this flash car, awkwardly joined together in a scheme in which neither wanted to participate but both were forced to, and she could do without her nervous system going into semi-permanent free fall.

  She needed to hang on to her composure, however much she disliked the man and however much she scorned his ethics.

  ‘I don’t,’ she told him evenly. ‘At least not often. Sometimes after work on a Friday night. I’m an art teacher. I haven’t got enough money to eat out in fancy restaurants.’ She wanted to burst out laughing because not only did they dislike each other, but they were from opposite sides of the spectrum. He was rich and powerful, she was...almost constantly counting her pennies or else saving and the only power she had was over her kids.

  Damien didn’t say anything. He had never gone out with a teacher. He leaned towards models, who moaned about not being paid enough...but usually it meant for the purchase of top end sports cars or cottages in the Cotswolds rather than fancy meals out. Most of them wouldn’t have been caught dead in cheap clothes or cheap restaurants. They earned big bucks for strutting their stuff on catwalks. In their heads, there was always a photographer lurking round the corner so getting snapped looking anything but gorgeous and being anywhere but cool was unacceptable.

  ‘When you say fancy...’ he encouraged.

  ‘What do you call fancy?’ she asked him, because why should she be the one under the spotlight all the time?

  He named a handful of Michelin-starred restaurants which she had heard of and she laughed with genuine amusement. ‘I’ve read about those places. I don’t think I’d make it to any of them, even for a special occasion.’

  ‘Really,’ Damien murmured. He altered the direction of his car.

  ‘Really. Your mother will be very curious to discover what we see in one another. How would we have met in the first place?’ For a few seconds she forgot how much she disliked him and focused on the incongruity of the two of them ever hitting it off. ‘I mean, did you just see me emerging from the school where I work and decide that you wanted to come over for a chat?’

  ‘Stranger things have been known to happen.’

  But not much, Violet thought. ‘Where are we going, anyway?’

  ‘Heard of Le Gavroche?’

  ‘We can’t!’

  ‘Why not? You said you’ve never eaten out at a fancy restaurant. Now’s your big opportunity.’

  ‘I’m not dressed for somewhere like that!’

  ‘Too late.’ He made a quick phone call and an attendant emerged from the restaurant to take the keys to his car. ‘I eat here a lot,’ Damien explained in an undertone. ‘I have an arrangement that someone parks my car and brings it back for me if I come without my driver. You can’t wear the coat for the duration of the meal. I’m sure what you’re wearing is perfectly adequate.’

  ‘No, it’s not!’ Violet was appalled. The surroundings weren’t intimidating. Indeed, there was a charm and old-fashioned elegance about the place that was comforting. Damien was greeted like an old friend. No one stared at her. And yet Violet couldn’t help but feel that she was out of her depth, that she just didn’t look the part. She had dressed for what she had thought was going to be a difficult interview. The clothes she wore to work were casual, cheap and comfortable. She wasn’t used to what she was now wearing—a stiff dress that had been chosen specifically because it was the comforting background colour of dark grey and because it was shapeless and therefore concealed what she fancied was a body that was plump and unfashionable.

  ‘Are you always so self-conscious about your appearance?’ was the first thing he asked as soon as they were seated at one of the tables in a quiet corner. He eyed her critically. He had never seen such an unflattering dress in his life. ‘In addition to allowing your sister to walk free, you’ll be pleased to hear that you’ll benefit from our deal as well. I’m going to open an account for you at Harrods. I have someone there who deals with me. I’ll give you her name, tell her to expect you. Choose whatever clothes you want. I would say a selection of outfits appropriate for visiting my mother while she’s in hospital.’ He looked at her horrified, outraged expression and raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m being realistic,’ he said. ‘I may be able to pull off the opposites attract explanation for our relationship, but there’s no way I can pull off a sudden attraction for someone who is completely disinterested in fashion.’

  ‘How dare you? How dare you be so rude?’

  ‘We haven’t got time to beat around the bush, Violet. My mother won’t care what you wear but she will smell a rat if I show up with someone who doesn’t seem to care about her appearance.’

  ‘I do care about my appearance!’ Violet was calm by nature but she could feel herself on the verge of snapping.

  ‘You have a sister who’s spent her life turning heads and you’ve reacted by blending into the background. I don’t have to have a degree in psychology to work that one out, but you’re going to have to step into the limelight for a little while and you’ll need the right wardrobe to pull it off.’

  ‘I don’t need this!’

  ‘Are you going to leave?’

  Violet hesitated.

  ‘Thought not. So relax.’ He pushed the menu towards her. ‘You teach art at a school...where?’ He sat back, inclined his head to one side and listened while she told him about her job. He was taking everything in. Every small detail. The more she talked, the more she relaxed. He listened to her anecdotes about some of her pupils. He made encouraging noises when she described her colleagues. She seemed to do a great deal of work for precious little financial reward. The picture painted was of a hard-working, diligent girl who had put the time and effort in while her pretty, flighty sister had taken the shortcuts.

  Violet realised that she had been talking for what seemed like hours when their starters were placed in front of them. Having anticipated a meal comprised of pregnant pauses, hostile undertones and simmering, thinly veiled accusations and counter accusations, she could only think that he must be a very good listener. She had forgotten his offensive observation that she didn’t take care of herself, that she had no sense of style, that she needed a new wardrobe to meet his requirements. She wanted to defensively point out that wearing designer clothes was no compensation for having personality. She was tempted to pour scorn on women who defined themselves according to what they wore or what jewellery they possessed. It took a lot of effort to rein back the impulses and tell herself that none of that mattered because none of this was real. They weren’t embarking on a process of discovery about each other. They were skimming the surface, gleaning a few facts, just enough to pull off a charade for the sake of his mother. That being the case, she didn’t need to defend herself to him, nor should she take offence at anything he said. His request that she buy herself a new wardrobe was no different from being told, on applying for a job working for an airline, that there would be a uniform involved.

  ‘What sort of clothes would your mother expect me to show up in?’ Once more in charge of her wits, Violet paid some attention to the food that had been placed in front of her. Ornate, as beautifully arranged as a piece of artwork, and yet mouth-wateringly delicious. ‘I don’t own many dresses. I have lots of jeans and jumpers and trousers.’

  ‘Simple but classy might be good...’

  ‘And how long would I be obliged to play this part?’

  Damien pushed aside his plate to lean forward and look at her thoughtfully. Down to business. Although he had to admit that hearing about her school days had been entertaining. It made a change to sit in a restaurant with a woman who wasn’t interested in playing footsie with him under the table or casting lingering looks designed to indicate what game would be played when the footsie was over. He wondered whether she had ever played footsie with a man, which made him speculate on what body was hidden un
der her charmless dress. It was impossible to tell.

  ‘There will be a series of tests spanning a week. Maybe a bit longer until treatment can be transferred to Devon.’

  ‘I expect your mother will be anxious to get back to her home... Can I ask who is looking after your brother at the moment?’

  ‘We have a team of carers in place. But that’s not your concern. You will be around while she is in London. As soon as she leaves for Devon, your part will be done. I will return with her and, during that time, I will eventually break the news that we are no longer a going concern. At that point, I intend to demonstrate that she has nothing to be worried about...’ He looked at her flushed heart-shaped face and his eyes involuntarily wandered down to the swell of full breasts straining against the unforgiving lines of the severe dress she had chosen to wear.

  Violet sensed the shift of his attention from his unemotional checklist of facts to her body. She didn’t know how she was aware of that because his face was so unreadable, the depth of his deep blue eyes revealing nothing at all, and yet she just knew and she was appalled when her body reacted with a surge of intense excitement that shocked and bewildered her.

  Unlike her sister, Violet’s history with men could have been condensed to fit on the back of a postage stamp. One fairly serious relationship three years previously, which had ended amicably after a year and a half. They had started as friends and no one could accuse them of not having tried to take it a step further, but, despite the fact that, on paper at least, it made sense, it had fizzled out. Back into the friendship from whence it had sprung. They kept in touch and since then he had married and was living the fairy tale in Yorkshire. Violet was happy for him. She harboured the dream that she too would discover her fairy tale life with someone. She was certain that she would know that special someone the second he stepped into her life. In the meantime she kept her head down, went out with her friends and enjoyed the company of the guys she met in a group. She didn’t expect to be thrown unwillingly into the company of a man of whom she didn’t approve and feel anything for him bar dislike. Certainly not the dark, forbidden excitement that suddenly coursed through her body. It was a reaction she angrily rejected.

  ‘You will agree that you’ll be profiting immensely from your side of this deal...’ More food was brought for them although his eyes never left her face. She had amazing skin. Clear and satiny-smooth and bare of make-up, aside from some remnants of lipgloss which he suspected she had applied in a hurry.

  ‘You still haven’t told me where we’re supposed to have met.’ Violet looked down and focused on yet more artfully arranged food on her plate, although her normally robust appetite appeared to have deserted her. She was too conscious of his eyes on her. Having given house room to the unwelcome realisation that there was something exciting about being in his presence, that that excitement swirled inside her with a dark persuasive force that she didn’t want, not at all, she now found that she had to claw her way back to the level of composure she needed and wanted.

  ‘At your school. It seems the least convoluted of solutions.’

  ‘Why would you be in a school in Earl’s Court, Mr Carver? Sorry, Damien...’

  ‘I know a lot of people, Violet. Including a certain celebrity chef who is currently working on a programme of food in schools. Since I’ve set up a small unit to oversee the opening of three restaurants, all of which will be staffed by school leavers who have studied Home Economics or whatever it happens to be called these days, then it makes perfect sense that I might be in your building.’

  ‘You haven’t really, have you?’ Violet was unwillingly impressed that he might be more than an electronics guru. ‘I mean become involved in a set-up like that...’

  ‘Why do you find that so hard to believe?’ He shrugged. Did he want to tell her how satisfying he found this slice of semi charity work? Because certainly he didn’t expect to see much by way of profit from the exercise. Did he want to explain that he knew what it felt like to have someone close who would never hold down a job? He was almost tempted to tell her about his long-reaching plan to source IT projects within his company for a department that would be fitted out to accommodate the disabled because he knew from experience how many of them were capable and enthusiastic but betrayed by bodies that refused to cooperate.

  ‘Don’t bother to answer that—’ he brushed aside any inclination to deviate from the point ‘—this isn’t a soul-searching exercise. Nor do we have the time to get into too much background detail. Like I said. You smile and leave the rest to me. Before you know it, you’ll be on your merry way and everyone will be happy.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘BUT HOW? HOW did you manage to do it? I know I keep going on about it, but it’s just so...incredible!’

  Phillipa was sitting across the kitchen table from Violet. In front of her inroads had already been made into a bottle of white wine. She had greeted the news of Damien Carver’s unexpected leniency yesterday with stunned disbelief, incredulity, anger that Violet might be stringing her along and, finally, she had taken it on board, although Violet could tell that her vague explanations hadn’t quite passed muster.

  ‘I begged and pleaded,’ Violet said for the umpteenth time. ‘When did you start drinking? It’s only five-thirty!’

  ‘You’d be drinking too if you were in my position,’ Phillipa said sulkily, unwinding her long legs, which had been tucked under her, and standing up to stretch in a lazy, languorous movement like a cat. Stress had not affected Phillipa the way it would other people. She still managed to look amazing. Although it wasn’t hot inside the house because the thermostat was rigidly controlled to save money, she was wearing a thin silky vest and a matching pair of silky culottes. Violet assumed that they had been one of the many presents she had received from Craig as he had manoeuvred to get her on board with his plan.

  From what Violet had gathered, he had disassociated himself from Phillipa and denied all knowledge of what she had done. Nevertheless, he was, she had been told only an hour before by her clearly gleeful sister, who had recovered well from her devastation, out of a job and planning on leaving the country. He hadn’t deleted her fast enough from his Facebook account to prevent her from maliciously charting his progress but he had as soon as she had posted a message informing the world that he was a crook and a bastard and that if anyone bought that phoney crap about better opportunities abroad then they were idiots.

  ‘I don’t suppose you managed to persuade him to let them give me a reference, did you?’ Phillipa asked hopefully and Violet stifled a groan of pure despair. ‘Okay, okay, okay. I get the picture. But...thanks, sis...’

  ‘You don’t have to keep thanking me every two seconds.’

  ‘I know I can be a nightmare.’ She hesitated, thought about pouring herself another glass of wine and instead reached for a bottle of water from the case on the ground next to her. ‘But I’ve really had time to think about...everything...and I’ve been in touch with Andy... So I may have used him just a teeny bit in getting me that job, but he’s a good guy...’

  A good guy who hadn’t been thinking with the right part of his body when he fudged you a dodgy reference, Violet thought.

  ‘And he’s been given the sack,’ Phillipa continued glumly.

  ‘Was he very angry with you?’ She shook her head, reluctantly amused at the half smile tugging the corners of her sister’s mouth.

  ‘He adores me.’

  ‘Even after the whole Craig Edwards fiasco?’

  ‘I explained that I just hadn’t been thinking straight at the time... Well, we all make mistakes, don’t we? Anyway, seeing that we’re both out of a job...we’ve decided to pool our resources...’

  ‘And do what, Pip?’

  ‘Don’t be cross, but he has a good friend out in Ibiza and we’re going to take our chances there. Bar work. Some DJing...loads o
f opportunities... I hocked all that stuff that creep gave me; well, why should I return any of it? When he nearly got me behind bars?’

  Violet sat down heavily and looked at her sister. Like a married couple, they had been hitched together for better or for worse ever since their parents had died. She was twenty-six years old and had never known what it might be like to live on her own, without having to accommodate anyone else, without having to compromise, without having to tailor her needs around her sister’s. Phillipa had always done her thing and Violet had picked up whatever pieces had needed picking up. She had been the shoulder to cry on, the stern voice of discipline, the nagging quasi parent, the worried other half.

  ‘When would you go?’

  ‘I’m heading up to Leeds in the morning and then we’ll take it from there. Andy’s got to sort out the lease on his flat...get his act together... You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘I think it’s a brilliant idea.’ Already her mind was leaping ahead to the following afternoon, when she would be meeting Damien’s mother in hospital for the first time. She realised that she had been holding a deep breath, worrying about the possibility of Phillipa asking questions, demanding to know where she was going... Stuck at home, still smarting from losing her job under ignominious circumstances, Phillipa was bored and restless...a lethal combination given the fact that she, Violet, would be trying hard to keep a secret. If Violet was clued up to her sister’s foibles, then her sister was no less talented at spotting hers, and an inability to keep a secret was high on the list of her weaknesses. Now, at least, there would be one less thing to stress about.

  And perhaps this was a rut... Wasn’t there always a point in time when apron strings needed to be cut?

  She thought of Damien’s casually dismissive remarks about her relationship with her sister and gritted her teeth to block out the mental images of him that seemed to proliferate at speed and without warning. She couldn’t think of anyone else, ever, who had managed to infiltrate her head the way he had. From the minute they had parted company, half her waking time had been occupied with thoughts of him and it infuriated her that not all of them were as virulently negative as she would have liked. She harked back to the cold, arrogant words leaving his mouth and then she recalled what a sexy mouth it was...she thought of that hard slashing gesture he had made with his hand when he had condemned Phillipa to jail and then, in a heartbeat, she couldn’t help but recall what strong forearms he had and how the dark hair had curled around the dull silver matt of his watch...