Past Loving

by Penny Jordan

  Again that hesitation, that reluctance...that sense of knowing that he was hunting for the right words—for the right excuse, she reflected bitterly. But what possible excuse was there? None—at least not for her. For him it was different, he was a man, and as such...

  She could feel the heavy, aching press of tears at the back of her eyes and throat, the beginnings of a frantic panic, which, if she wasn’t careful, would get totally out of control. Feverishly she tried to remember just what she had done...just what she had said...just how much she might have betrayed.

  That they had made love, passionately, intensely, sensually, she could not deny; it was a knowledge from which she had no means of escape. All she could do now was to salvage what could be salvaged...to remind herself of just why Robert was standing looking at her with such remorse, such unease. It had been her fault and not his if she had recklessly and wantonly squandered on him the gift of the love he did not want...her fault if—if what? They had been lovers? Was that entirely her fault? She shivered, knowing that she could not remember, that she could only remember the sharp sweetness of waking up and finding him beside her, of that first moment when he had touched her, kissed her, after that... After that her only memories had nothing to do with reality and everything to do with such intangibles as feelings, emotions, needs and desires.

  ‘Holly...’

  She turned away from him, making her voice sound as crisp as she could as she lied self-protectingly, ‘There’s no need for you to say anything, Robert. Last night was something that was probably bound to happen—a catharsis, perhaps, for both of us...a final, if somewhat drastic way of finally drawing a line under the past.

  ‘Not long ago you accused me of wanting you. You were right...I did want you. But now...’ She took a deep breath and curled her fingers into her palms so that her nails bit into the tender flesh and she lied desperately, ‘But now I don’t want you any more. You see, I realised last night that I was simply clinging on to an idea—a foolish, teenage dream that bore no resemblance at all to reality. I don’t regret what happened. It’s finally freed me from the past...finally enabled me to do what I should have done years ago...finally freed me to find—to find someone else. So you see there’s no need for you to say anything, or to worry that I might misunderstand what happened. I’m a woman now...an adult. Last night was something that had to happen. But now that it has...’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now that it has, I think we’d both agree that it would be best if from now on we both went our separate ways.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  His voice was unexpectedly toneless and flat for a man who had just had the good fortune to be freed from all responsibility and guilt for his actions, Holly thought bitterly, but she didn’t turn round to look at him and so didn’t recognise his shock nor see the sudden savage shimmer of tears that moistened his eyes before he blinked them away.

  ‘That’s exactly what I want,’ she told him fiercely, keeping her voice tight in case he heard the emotion she was trying to control; in case he guessed the truth.

  She heard him walk towards the door, heard it open...heard his feet on the stairs and then the front door opening and closing. As she lay there, tense and hesitant, she heard him start up his car.

  She waited until she was sure he had driven away, until the last notes of the car engine had faded, before giving way to her emotions, and then she rolled over on to her stomach and lay there, dry-eyed, wanting to cry, aching for the release of tears and yet knowing that her pain went too deep for that release.

  How had she ever managed to delude herself that she no longer loved him? And how could he be so blind? Surely a fool could have read the signs, could have, would have known that no woman could ever respond to a man the way she had responded to him last night if she had not loved him so overwhelmingly, so totally that nothing else mattered.

  She told herself savagely that she ought to be pleased that he had not known, that she ought to have been pleased at this further evidence of his imperfections, of his flaws; but it made no difference. All she could cling to now was the relief of knowing that at least she had had the presence of mind, the pride to find a way of reclaiming her shattered self-respect by telling him that last night had simply been the means of drawing a line under the past, of separating herself from it.

  And thank God that he had believed her; but then he had every reason to, hadn’t he? She could well imagine the panic, the distaste, the dread that must have overwhelmed him when he woke up and found himself lying beside her, when he remembered... He must have been dreading her waking up and attempting to make some kind of emotional claim on him. Did he think she would have behaved as she had done as a girl; that she would cry and plead, that she would abandon her pride and her self-respect to beg him to tell her that he loved her, that he wanted her? Yes, he must have been relieved...more than relieved by her reaction. And yet he had not shown it, had not indicated that he was aware of how difficult she might be finding the situation.

  Her memories of last night were filled with the shimmering, taunting, haunting sense of having known great tenderness...of having been given such an outpouring of exquisite care that her mouth compressed as she taunted herself for her folly and self-deceit. What had happened between them had simply been sex, on his part at least. If she wanted to cloak that need in the flattering, dangerous robes of other non-existent emotions, then she would have to pay the price for that folly.

  Why torment herself? Why inflict that kind of pain on herself? Why not simply admit the truth—that last night, motivated by physical desire, Robert had once again been her lover and that in the chilling light of the new day he had instantly regretted that weakness?

  As she lay shivering, suddenly and repugnantly aware of how strongly the scent of both Robert and the night still clung to her skin and her bed, Holly clung gratefully to the knowledge that the intensity of the workload that lay ahead of her over the coming months was such that it would give her scant time to dwell on what had happened.

  Work, the eternal panacea—if there was a panacea for this kind of pain, this kind of wanting...this kind of angry self-loathing...this kind of helpless, hopeless longing for a man who she knew did not share her feelings.

  Somehow she managed to drag herself through the rest of the week, although not without both Alice and Paul asking her anxiously what was wrong.

  ‘I’m just a bit run-down,’ she told them both, not entirely untruthfully.

  She found that she was almost totally unable to eat, and dogged by a desire to simply curl up and go to sleep and let the rest of the world go on without her.

  She didn’t need anyone to tell her what she was suffering from; unrequited love was an almost risible malady in these modern times, and as she dragged herself miserably through yet another day she wondered how many of her fellow human beings were right at this moment suffering from the same despair, from something which was almost a taboo in these high-achieving, having-it-all nine-ties. That morning she had read a piece about the company in a magazine. The article had focused more on her than on the company, putting her forward as a thoroughly modern woman—a woman who had everything in her life that she wanted.

  Everything she wanted... She had nothing, nothing at all...not even the hope of having conceived Robert’s child. Until this morning she hadn’t known how much she had wanted to have that child. She shuddered a little, knowing that desire must be the ultimate form of folly; knowing that she had no right to inflict on a child the burden of being the sole focus of her emotions, to transfer to it the love Robert did not want.

  She ought to be glad that she had not conceived, but instead she had wept bitter, acid tears...the tears of corroding anguish and despair, the tears she had not cried that morning when Robert had finally walked away from her.

  In an attempt to force herself to try and get her life back to normal she agreed to accompany Paul to a mutual friend’s dinner party on Saturday evening.

  They arri
ved a little late, Paul having been delayed in picking her up by a telephone call, but their hostess, who had always had a soft spot for Holly’s brother, smilingly forgave them as Paul expressed his apologies and produced the flowers he had bought for her.

  ‘Go straight through to the drawing-room,’ Gemma instructed them. ‘Alan will get you both a drink, while I go and check on dinner. Everyone else has already arrived.

  The Baileys lived in an elegant Georgian house which had been painstakingly renovated and decorated; their drawing-room was a large, beautifully proportioned room, decorated in warm shades of muted apricot and gold—a little theatrical perhaps for Holly’s taste, but very, very elegant, and a perfect setting for the dinner-suited men and the women in their expensive designer outfits.

  The Baileys were more Paul’s friends than hers, but Alan Bailey greeted them both equally warmly as he came over to welcome them.

  Holly refused a drink, glancing round the room while Paul explained how he had been delayed. Her interest in her fellow guests was half-hearted and vague, but then suddenly she froze, her body going cold and then hot as it reacted to the shock of seeing Robert standing on the other side of the room.

  Fortunately he had his back to her, thus giving her time to make some attempt to get herself under control without his witnessing her puerile behaviour.

  ‘What is it, what’s wrong?’ Paul questioned her in concern as their host excused himself.

  ‘It’s nothing. I...I think I’ve got a cold coming on, that’s all,’ Holly lied wildly.

  ‘A cold?’ Paul’s eyebrows rose. ‘You looked as though you were about to pass out.’ He frowned. ‘You’re losing weight as well, Holly. Look, I know you’re not keen on all the publicity surrounding the launch of the new perfume range, and I know that while I’ve been away the responsibility for my side of things as well as your own has all been down to you. If it’s all getting too much for you...’

  Holly shook her head.

  ‘I’m just a bit run-down, that’s all,’ she told him once again. And, after all, it wasn’t a lie. No, her deceit was in allowing Paul to believe that the cause of her ill health lay with her work instead of with her emotions.

  Robert still hadn’t seen her and she longed desperately to be able to escape before he did, but how could she leave without dragging Paul away as well, without drawing people’s attention to her? No, she would just have to grit her teeth and somehow or other manage to get through the evening.

  She glanced round the room again, achingly trying not to focus on Robert and yet helpless to stop herself from focusing on him, from wondering whom he was with. Not Angela—there was no sign of her—and not all the other guests were familiar to her so that it was impossible to work out which of the elegantly dressed women was Robert’s partner.

  Gemma returned to announce that dinner was about to be served.

  The crimson dining-room with its antique furniture and heavy gilt-edged landscapes was an ideal setting to show off the Sèvres dinner service and the antique silver which the Baileys had recently acquired.

  As much as an investment as anything else, so Alan explained as several of the female guests admired the delicate intricacy of the service.

  As they all took their places, Holly discovered to her horror that Robert was seated opposite her. He gave her one piercing glance before sitting down. She felt her face grow hot. Her hands were shaking so much, she had to conceal them beneath the table. On her left Paul was talking to the woman seated next to him, oblivious of her distress.

  Robert wasn’t, though. In that one brief second before she had looked wildly away she had seen his mouth compress as though in anger and contempt.

  All right, so she was behaving stupidly, showing for anyone who cared to look her lack of self-control and emotional vulnerability, but it had never occurred to her that Robert would be here. If it had...if it had, she would never have agreed to come. She was still far too emotionally unstable to handle seeing him in the flesh...still too acutely aware of him in all the ways that a woman was aware of a man whom she loved and who had been her lover.

  Just knowing he was there now released such a flood of sensation inside her that she felt physically sick with the strain of suppressing it.

  She couldn’t allow herself to look at him again, dared not do so, and yet as though she were some helpless creature unable to control her own reactions she found that she was lifting her head and looking across the table at him.

  He was speaking to the woman seated next to him, an incredibly chic brunette with an American accent, who, Holly realised as she heard them talking, was Robert’s partner for the evening.

  Jealousy stabbed her with red-hot knives of agonising pain, emotions she had never expected to experience, emotions so primeval that they shocked and distressed her, tormenting her on a rack of frantic anguish.

  Were they lovers, Robert and this chic New Yorker? Had Robert’s pursuit of her simply been fuelled by his desire for this woman who was now seated beside him, who from their conversation had obviously flown over from New York expressly to see him? Lovers, of course they were lovers. She was a fool if she allowed herself to think anything else.

  Now it was more important than ever that she saw the meal through, that she smiled and talked, that she did not allow anyone—but most especially Robert and his lover—to guess just what she was feeling.

  By the time they had reached their main course, Holly’s head felt as though it were about to burst. Each mouthful of food threatened to choke her and when Robert’s woman companion leaned across the table and smiled warmly at her, exclaiming, ‘I’ve heard so much about you! Can I say how much I admire you and all that you’ve achieved?’ Holly could only respond with an attempt at a polite smile and a disjointed response. Candice was so patently confident of her position in Robert’s life, her manner was so frank and open, so charming and warm that in any other circumstances Holly knew she must have liked her and been drawn towards her.

  As it was, she was conscious of a sick despair in the knowledge that she was even being denied the panacea of disliking the woman that Robert had chosen as his lover, mingled with guilt and self-contempt at her own behaviour. If she had known that there was another woman in Robert’s life, a woman who believed that she had the exclusive right to his desire, she would never had allowed her own emotions to get so dangerously out of control, would never have allowed herself to make love with Robert.

  Everyone else had finished their main course. Gemma frowned a little as she removed Holly’s half-full plate.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gemma,’ Holly apologised huskily. ‘It was lovely but I...I just don’t seem to have much of an appetite these days.’

  As she turned back to the table, she was suddenly aware that Robert was watching her intently, and that he had been listening to her murmured apology to Gemma.

  He was frowning now as he studied her, no doubt wondering why on earth he had ever felt the slightest degree of physical desire for her, Holly reflected miserably. She only had to compare herself with Candice...to see the other woman’s glowing air of vitality and confidence, to see herself, Holly, as Robert must be seeing her, her skin too pale, from tension and nervous stress, her body lacking Candice’s voluptuous curves, her conversation lacking Candice’s wit. And yet for all her envy she could not dislike the American, who was as charming to her fellow female guests as she was to the men.

  Paul was obviously completely smitten with her, flirting so outrageously with her that Holly was amazed at Robert’s forbearance, as he sat quietly watching Paul flirt with Candice without appearing in the least disturbed by it.

  After dinner everyone returned to the drawing-room. Paul made an immediate bee-line for Candice, who was the centre of a small group of admiring males.

  Lost in her study of the American woman, Holly only realised that Robert was walking towards her when he said her name.

  Immediately she froze, panic clawing at her. What was Robert going to say to
her? Was he going to ask her not to betray him to Candice, not to reveal what had happened between them? Did he really think she was capable of that kind of cruelty?

  Another step and he would be standing right next to her. Already her body was quivering with shock and despair; ignoring him completely, she turned on her heel and blundered out of the room.

  Upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Was it just the lights in the bedroom that made her skin look so pale and her eyes so full of misery?

  She looked like someone with the cares of the world on her shoulders, a pale wraith of a woman who had lost a little too much weight a little too quickly.

  Compared with Candice’s obvious and abundant energy and health she looked like a convalescent. Holly gave a small, sharp shudder. If she had known about Candice before... She bit her lip, but she had not known and now it was too late to berate herself for allowing Robert to use her as a means of release from his physical desire for another woman.

  He should be the one at whom she was directing her contempt, she tried to tell herself, but telling herself that did nothing to remove the burden of acute self-dislike from her shoulders.

  It was late when she and Paul eventually left. Once they were in the car, all Paul could talk about was Candice. Holly bit her lip, too drained to remind him that Candice was Robert’s lover and that Robert was his friend.

  ‘You were very quiet this evening,’ he commented just before he dropped her off. ‘Robert commented on it—asked me if you’d been overdoing things.’

  Holly turned her head away from him, unable to make any response. Her eyes, she discovered, were blurred with tears. She didn’t know which was now the stronger, her love for Robert or her hatred for herself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘HI. I‘M sorry to disturb you but Paul said it would be OK for me to come round. This sure is a lovely old place you have here.’