A Past Revenge

by Carole Mortimer

  Six telephone calls from him on Friday convinced her how right she was! All of them asked her to return his call, giving her the telephone number to do so, but she ignored every one of them. For once Nick Andracas was going to have to do more than click his fingers to get a woman to fall into bed with him. This particular woman anyway!

  It was shortly before seven when someone pressed down impatiently on her doorbell and kept their finger there. Nick. She hadn’t expected him to call personally quite so soon, but she wasn’t worried by the visit, filled with a cool composure as she went to answer the door.

  ‘Why the hell haven’t you answered any of my calls?’ he demanded without preamble, his expression grim as he strode uninvited into her apartment.

  ‘Calls?’ she followed him, feigning innocence, but taking in the tailored brown suit and cream shirt he was wearing.

  ‘Yes,’ he rasped, turning to glower at her. ‘I’ve telephoned you half a dozen times today.’

  ‘I always leave my answering machine on while I’m working,’ she shrugged. ‘I haven’t got round to listening to my messages yet today.’

  ‘That isn’t very efficient if someone needs to reach you urgently,’ he said grimly.

  She looked unconcerned by his vehemence, secretly elated that he was so upset. ‘Most people call back,’ she shrugged.

  ‘I did,’ he ground out. ‘Five times!’

  ‘As I told you, I haven’t—’

  ‘I heard you,’ he cut in impatiently.

  Danielle met his gaze coolly. ‘Do you have new instructions for the portrait?’ she pretended innocence at his reason for wanting to talk to her, although in reality the first of the messages had clearly invited her out to dinner this evening.

  ‘Damn the portrait,’ he predictably swore, his anger barely held in check. ‘You know why I want to see you.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Danielle,’ his hands were clenched at his sides. ‘Especially these sort of games. I don’t participate very well.’

  ‘And I don’t like playing games,’ her voice sharpened with displeasure. ‘I thought we had settled this earlier in the week, Mr Andracas. Unless you wish to talk to me about the portrait or something pertaining to it I do not want to see you. Or hear from you,’ she added pointedly.

  He punched one clenched fist into the palm of the other hand. ‘Stop pushing me, Danielle.’

  ‘Pushing you?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘What you’re doing to me amounts to harassment.’

  ‘I want to see you, to be with you!’

  ‘To go to bed with me,’ she scorned hardly.

  ‘That too if things worked out between us,’ he acknowledged tautly.

  ‘Don’t treat me like an idiot, Nick,’ she snapped. ‘Bed is your prime objective.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing. If I were willing. But I’m not,’ she bit out with contempt.

  ‘Do you have something against sex—’

  ‘Don’t throw that one at me!’ she derided with a humourless laugh.

  ‘You’re driving me insane,’ he ground out. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’

  She didn’t reveal the surge of elation she felt at this further admission. ‘Talk to Miss McDonald about it, not me.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Does my relationship with Audra bother you?’ he asked slowly.

  She gave him a scornful look. ‘Only in so far as I feel sorry for her.’

  ‘You what?’ he said in a hushed voice.

  He was blazingly angry now, she could see that. And she was wary of it. Insulting him within the safety of other people was one thing, here they were too much alone, Nick too much of a threat. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, withdraw her statement. ‘You don’t love her, Nick,’ she derided. ‘You’re just using her until someone else comes along.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘Audra doesn’t love me either. We have a—convenient arrangement.’

  ‘And I’m trying to tell you that sort of arrangement wouldn’t suit me at all!’

  ‘You aren’t giving me a chance!’

  She almost choked at the injustice of that remark. He had had his chance with her seven years ago, he would never get another one. ‘No,’ she agreed tightly. ‘Because I know it wouldn’t work between us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going out in a few minutes.’

  ‘With Vaughn?’ he rasped.

  ‘No, not with Lewis,’ she met his gaze steadily, defying him to question her further.

  ‘Another man?’

  She thought of her promise to go to her parents’ house tonight for her father’s birthday. ‘Yes,’ she nodded.

  ‘All right,’ Nick bit out forcefully. ‘If that’s the way you want it.’

  ‘It is,’ she confirmed abruptly.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you again,’ he warned harshly, his expression grim.

  ‘No,’ she acknowledged mockingly without any real conviction as to it being true.

  ‘I don’t go around chasing women like this,’ he added disgustedly, more to himself than to her.

  She was sure he didn’t, every woman he had ever wanted had been his for the choosing, even herself once. ‘That’s a welcome relief,’ she taunted.

  He looked more angry than ever. ‘I wish I knew what it was about you that haunts me,’ he muttered.

  Her eyes widened. ‘Haunts you?’ she repeated in a soft voice. Surely he didn’t recognise her as the girl he had once assumed was a prostitute and spent a few hours with?

  He nodded grimly. ‘You’re beautiful, and yet not breathtakingly so. And yet I can’t get the image of your corn-coloured hair and green eyes out of my mind. You’re destroying me, Danielle.’

  She knew her stubbornness in refusing to go out with him had angered him, but he was nowhere near being destroyed yet, because nothing penetrated the wall he had erected about his heart. And it was there that she wanted to reach him, wanted him to know the full pain of his own humiliation, as she had once done at his mercy.

  ‘You don’t give a damn, do you?’ he realised softly.

  She shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’ll get over it—probably when the next beautiful woman comes along.’

  He gave a defeated sigh at her stubbornness, something she felt sure didn’t happened to him very often. ‘I’d better go, then.’

  ‘Are you seeing Miss McDonald tonight?’

  ‘None of your damned business,’ he rasped.

  Her brows rose mockingly. ‘I just thought you might remind her of our two o’clock appointment tomorrow,’ she said with saccharine sweetness.

  ‘She’ll be here,’ he assured her arrogantly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she inclined her head in a mocking salute.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ his voice was harsh. ‘The portrait is part of Audra’s job.’

  Despite Nick’s arrogant assurance the actress was half an hour late the next day, and if her mood was anything to go by someone had already upset her today.

  ‘I can only stay half an hour at the most,’ she informed Danielle haughtily. ‘I have a hairdressing appointment at three-thirty.’

  Danielle shrugged her acceptance of the fact, not in a mood to be antagonised today. ‘That just means we will have to have one more sitting than planned,’ she said lightly. ‘Would you like to go and change now?’

  The actress seemed to take even longer doing that today too, leaving them only twenty minutes of the allotted half an hour. Not that Danielle minded, the less she had to do with the other woman the better.

  ‘Have you seen Nick lately?’

  Danielle took her time about answering the casually put question, knowing it was anything but, Audra’s mouth tight. ‘He called yesterday,’ she dismissed.

  The brown eyes glittered angrily. ‘I thought you weren’t interested in him!’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Could you please sit still, Miss McDonald?’ she requested with a sigh. ‘
We don’t have much time today as it is,’ she added pointedly.

  The other woman stood up to pace the room. ‘I suppose you think you’ve been very clever.’

  ‘I do?’ she sat back, realising that for now, at least, work was impossible.

  Audra glared at her. ‘I know you’ve been seeing Nick since Tuesday night,’ she snapped.

  She frowned, thinking the accusation through, not knowing what could have convinced the other woman of such a thing. ‘Why do you think that?’ she finally prompted.

  ‘I know it,’ the other woman’s eyes glittered furiously.

  ‘Then you know more than I do,’ she shrugged.

  Audra’s mouth twisted into an ugly smile. ‘I know the two of you had been doing more than talking out on that balcony Tuesday night. I know how Nick looks when he’s aroused.’

  ‘You and a hundred other women!’ Danielle heard herself make the bitchy comment as if in a dream.

  ‘Why you—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘There’s no point in the two of us resorting to insults. If you haven’t seen Nick since Tuesday it certainly hasn’t been because of me. He came here for about fifteen minutes last night, and you have to admit that isn’t long enough for him to have even showered, let alone for the two of us to go to bed together,’ she derided.

  Audra looked uncertain. ‘If you’re lying to me. …’

  ‘I’m not,’ she answered steadily, although she wasn’t sure she couldn’t be the reason Nick hadn’t seen his mistress since Tuesday. Maybe he really wanted her so much he could no longer feel any desire for the beautiful Audra? The thought filled her with triumph. Not too much longer now and he should be ripe for her revenge. Then she would see how the arrogantly cruel Nick Andracas liked his own humiliation.

  She telephoned her mother once Audra had left, the two of them going shopping for an hour, her mother coming back to the apartment for a cup of tea before driving home.

  ‘Your father has been a little concerned about you, dear,’ she looked at Danielle anxiously.

  She gave her a surprised look. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured her. ‘You know I am.’

  ‘You have been looking a little pale lately, a little like you did after—’

  ‘Wrong time of the month,’ she dismissed evasively, pouring their tea.

  ‘But you looked pale last week too, Ellie,’ her mother said concernedly, an older version of Danielle, the two of them having a wonderful rapport. Which wasn’t always a good thing, especially at a time like this; it meant her mother knew her too well. ‘You aren’t working too hard?’

  ‘Probably,’ she smiled. ‘But I’m definitely taking a holiday once this one is completed.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ her mother asked eagerly, both of her parents very proud of her work.

  ‘Of course,’ she took her mother through to the studio, a second bedroom that had been converted, one wall completely windows, as was most of the ceiling.

  ‘It’s marvellous, darling,’ her mother enthused over the half-completed portrait. ‘She’s a very beautiful woman, isn’t she?’

  She had somehow managed to convey the other woman’s outward beauty, the eyes, the mirrors of the soul, partly concealed by lowered lashes. It was the compromise Lewis had said she would find. ‘Very beautiful,’ she nodded.

  ‘Doesn’t she go out with that marvellous looking Greek man?’ her mother asked vaguely as they returned to the lounge.

  Danielle stiffened that her mother should mention Nick, although neither of her parents were aware of her involvement with him seven years ago. ‘Nicholas Andracas,’ she confirmed stiltedly. ‘And he’s more American than Greek.’

  ‘You’ve met him, dear?’

  ‘Briefly,’ she evaded. ‘As you said, he’s a friend of Miss McDonald’s.’

  Her mother gave a coy smile. ‘Rumour has it they’re a little more than that.’

  ‘Mother,’ she chided mockingly. ‘And I never knew you were a gossip.’

  ‘I’m not, Ellie,’ she defended. ‘But the man is notorious for his affairs.’

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged dully.

  Her mother gave her a sharp look. ‘You aren’t attracted to him, darling?’ she looked troubled by the thought.

  She could understand her mother’s worry if she were interested in Nick. Although her parents had never known the identity of her lover seven years ago they had both been aware of the way he had hurt her. ‘No,’ she answered with complete honesty, her feelings towards him completely opposite to attraction.

  ‘You know we’re only concerned for you, Ellie,’ her mother explained gently. ‘Nicholas Andracas is not the man for you. Now Lewis is a different matter …?’

  She gave a throaty chuckle at her mother’s attempt at matchmaking, both her parents having met and approved of Lewis. ‘Actually he called this morning and invited me to a party,’ she decided to give her mother this satisfaction if she couldn’t give her anything else.

  ‘And are you going?’

  She laughed again at her mother’s attempt not to look too enthusiastic about the news. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s nice, dear.’

  ‘Nice?’ she teased.

  ‘Lewis is a good man,’ her mother defended her matchmaking. ‘Steady and reliable.’

  A shadow crossed over her face, leaving her eyes dark. ‘He’s very nice—’

  ‘But boring,’ her mother joked. ‘I know. Still, the party will make a pleasant change for you, won’t it?’

  After the disaster the evening had turned out to be the last time, she had felt she owed Lewis this date, had readily agreed when he telephoned and invited her out. Life was turning out to be a little complicated lately, the normality of Lewis’s company was exactly what she needed.

  It was quite late by the time her mother left, and after a hurried salad dinner she went into her bedroom to shower and change. She didn’t know what it was that caught her attention about the green onyx jewellery box, but something told her it didn’t look quite right, that it had been disturbed in some way. Her face paled as she moved towards it, her hands trembling slightly as she lifted the lid.

  The two hundred pounds looked to be in the same position as usual, but it wasn’t to that she went, putting it dismissively to one side to look at the miniature that lay beneath. As she had known it would be, it had been moved, was lying in a different position than the one she had left it in this morning. It was a likeness she had painted several years ago, was something that she looked at at the start of each day and again before she went to bed every night. The identity of the subject was unmistakable. And there could be only one person who could have looked in the jewellery box, only one person who would have such a devious interest in her things. What would Audra McDonald do with the knowledge she now had?

  Lewis was as punctual as usual when he called for her later that evening, his gaze appreciative as he saw how beautiful she looked in the white gown, its halter-necked style suiting her tall elegance, her hair secured in a casual bun on top of her head, several tendrils falling loosely about her nape and ears.

  ‘You look lovely,’ he told her enthusiastically.

  ‘So do you,’ she smiled, liking his navy blue suit and lighter blue shirt.

  He looked abashed, one of those men who felt uncomfortable taking compliments himself. ‘Are you ready to leave?’

  ‘Unless you want a drink first?’ she offered.

  ‘Not for me,’ he refused.

  ‘Then lead on MacDuff,’ she instructed lightly, following him down to his car, determined that she wasn’t going to worry for this one evening, especially after the shock she had received earlier. She had always felt uncomfortable about the other woman using her bedroom to change, although it hadn’t occurred to her that Audra would actually invade her privacy in that way. ‘There are two ground rules for tonight,’ she told Lewis brittly.

  ‘Oh?’ he looked disappointed.

  ‘Not those sort of rules,’ she chided teasin
gly. ‘Really, Lewis, I’m surprised at you.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why,’ he grinned. ‘I’ve made my feelings about you obvious since the first time we met.’

  That was true, and she had been making it just as obvious ever since that she liked him only as a friend. ‘All right, you can include no flirting with me too.’ She laughed at his woebegone expression. ‘You introduced the subject, Lewis,’ she reminded.

  ‘That’s the trouble with me, I never know when to keep my mouth shut,’ he grimaced. ‘So what are these two rules?’

  ‘Number one, I don’t want to talk about work.’

  ‘Neither do I, so that’s easily settled.’ He looked at her curiously as he waited for the second rule.

  ‘Number two, I don’t want to talk about Nick Andracas or anything remotely related to him. Also agreed?’ she raised shaped brows over luminous green eyes.

  ‘Well. …’

  ‘Lewis!’

  He grimaced. ‘That might be a little more difficult,’ he finally admitted ruefully.

  ‘Why?’ she demanded sharply.

  ‘Well. … You see, I—’

  He didn’t need to explain any further, not any more. Danielle recognised the house in the exclusive part of London that he was parking the BMW outside, even though she had only seen it once before. The Andracas house!

  ‘Lewis, who invited you to this party?’ she turned to him stiltedly.

  He looked evasive. J didn’t think you would mind,’ he almost pleaded. ‘And I’ve heard he gives really good parties. I thought you would enjoy yourself. We don’t have to stay long if you—’

  ‘When did he invite you, Lewis?’ she queried in a softly patient voice.

  ‘He telephoned me this morning, just before I called you and asked you to come with me,’ he told her reluctantly.

  That’s what she had thought! Well if Nick thought he had outwitted her he was mistaken. Forewarned is forearmed, and she was now fully armed. ‘We had better go inside, then, hadn’t we?’ she said brightly, getting out of the car.