Читать книгу Lovestruck - CHARLOTTE LAMB - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

‘IS THIS your idea of a joke?’ Sam grimly asked, staring at her as if she had grown another head. ‘Because if it is I’m not amused.’

‘Like Queen Victoria,’ she murmured.

‘What?’ he snarled.

He was really furious, she realised, surprised. She had seen Sam angry before, but it had never been with her. He was far too possessed by his job, an energy-driven man, restless and obsessed. But all that fire went into his work, not his private life. With his women he was far more casual, very laid-back, making no commitments. He never seemed to take them seriously, and she knew none of his relationships lasted very long.

She had always been irritated by the way he treated his women, as if love was just a game. She suspected he thought of women as toys to pick up, play with and put down when you got bored. Natalie could never understand why women let him treat them that way. She wouldn’t; that was for sure. Sam had once or twice asked her out, but she had always refused coolly. She only dated men who took her very seriously.

‘She wasn’t amused, either,’ Natalie reminded him.

‘Who wasn’t?’

He seemed to be mentally challenged this morning, but that wasn’t surprising after last night.

Patiently she repeated, ‘Queen Victoria. Wasn’t amused, remember?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ he muttered.

Sam normally had a good sense of humour, but she let it pass, shrugging.

‘Give me my ring and stop trying to be funny!’ Sam stuck his hand out and she gazed at it without moving, opening her eyes as wide as she could.

‘But, Sam, we’re engaged to be married...’

He exploded, his voice going up several octaves. ‘We are nothing of the kind and you know it! Okay, maybe I was so drunk last night that I somehow or other said something or other about—’

He broke off, having lost whatever he had been going to say, or perhaps not wishing to admit he had ever proposed to her. So Natalie ended the sentence for him.

‘About marrying you? Yes, you did, Sam—in front of dozens of people. You proposed to me, on your...’

He loomed over her, smouldering. ‘Yes, okay, I don’t want to hear all that again. I was drunk. You know that! You know it wasn’t serious!’

Of course she knew, but she wasn’t ready to give up her game yet.

‘But you asked me to marry you!’ Her eyes opened wider than ever and he stared into the blueness of them for a few seconds, drawing a long, angry breath which he held as if he was counting to ten.

Then, in a very careful voice, he said, ‘For heaven’s sake, Natalie, we’ve never even had a date. Why should I suddenly propose out of the blue?’

‘You said I was the perfect woman,’ Natalie said in limpid tones. ‘Your dream woman, you said.’ She smiled mistily at him. ‘It was very romantic—especially when you went on your knees and begged me to marry you.’

Sam stared at her, dark red creeping up his face. Running a hand through his already dishevelled hair, he muttered, ‘You’re kidding! I’ve never been that drunk before.’

Oh, thanks! she thought. That’s really flattering.

Sam’s brow corrugated. He’s thinking at last! Natalie recognised. She hoped it hurt.

After a few seconds he groaned. ‘It just dawned on me—was Helen there when I...?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Natalie. In fact, she would never forget Helen West’s face at that moment—it still made a glow in her memory. She had never liked the woman; not many people at the radio station did. The only people the singer was friendly to were youngish and good-looking men in good jobs. If you were poorer or older than her, or female, or plain, Helen West used you as a doormat or was coldly arrogant when she spoke to you—which was how she had always treated Natalie, who obviously came into most categories of people she despised.

‘So that’s why I got the slap in the face?’ Sam fingered his jaw, grimacing. ‘It still hurts.’

‘Oh, poor Sam,’ Natalie sweetly said, hoping it hurt a lot, and he looked down at her, his eyes now stiletto-sharp.

‘You don’t mean that, do you? If you did you’d want to kiss it better. As we’re engaged!’

She blinked, startled. Why hadn’t it dawned on her that he might do something like that? It should have done. She knew very well what an opportunist Sam was, in his work as well as in his private life.

Natalie wasn’t the gambling type, but she took a gamble then, rather than abandon her little game with Sam, which she was enjoying too, much to give up yet—although maybe her sense of humour was leading her into dangerous territory.

Lowering her lashes and looking at him through them, she murmured dulcetly, ‘Bend down, then.’

She caught the flash of surprise in his eyes. He hadn’t expected her to agree. But he bent, watching her as if wondering how far she was going to go, and Natalie lifted her head and pressed her mouth firmly on his jaw, more or less where Helen’s slap had connected. His skin was cool and faintly prickly; he hadn’t shaved as closely as usual this morning. In a hurry, no doubt, or his hand not too steady after the night before.

Natalie quickly moved away again. ‘There. All better,’ she mocked.

It might have been wiser not to say anything. She saw his grey eyes glint dangerously, then his hand shot out to capture her chin and hold it in position while his gaze roamed over her face with cool appraisal, as if he had never really noticed how she looked before. He probably hadn’t, either. He was always too busy with work, or other women. She was just part of his office furniture, a useful piece of living equipment he needed for his job. Natalie was aware that she didn’t come into the range of women Sam noticed sexually, and it had often annoyed her. Nobody liked being mistaken for a desk or a chair.

So, when he grabbed her chin and looked at her that way, she was ready to resent it—except that as she looked into his eyes pulses began to beat in her throat, at her wrist, a reaction that disturbed her. What was going on here? She had no designs on Sam, and she wasn’t fool enough to let herself fall for him. She had thought it would be fun to tease him a little, that was all; getting involved with him had definitely not been in her game plan. Maybe it was time to stop playing with him before he began playing with her?

Oh, yes, definitely, she thought in agitation as she saw his gaze lingering on her mouth.

‘Did I kiss you when I proposed?’ he murmured in a smoky, deliberately sensuous tone that seemed to turn her brains to scrambled egg.

She gazed back at him, swallowing convulsively and unable to get a word out.

‘I must have done,’ he added. ‘If I proposed. I must have kissed you, mustn’t I? Pity I don’t remember doing it. I’d like to remember that.’

His gaze was still riveted on her mouth. She felt her face growing hot and tried to say something, anything, to break the strange trance holding her rigid.

Sam bent. Slowly. Very slowly. Her mouth dry, Natalie stared up at his approaching face like a rabbit hypnotised by the dropping shadow of a bird of prey.

When his mouth touched her lips her body seemed to be set on fire; she was so stunned by her own feelings that she didn’t even try pushing him away. She just shook like a leaf, her legs giving under her, her head falling back as if her neck had lost every bone in it and could no longer keep her head upright.

Sam’s arms went round her waist as if to catch her; she clutched at him to keep herself standing on her own two feet. She had once been in an earthquake, in Turkey. This was just how it had felt: the same sense of helplessness, the feeling that you were no longer standing on ground you could trust, tremors running through you and shaking you to your roots.

His hands on the small of her back pushed her closer, closer, until she was lying against his bare chest, feeling the warmth of his skin through her own shirt and shivering at the intimacy of the contact, aware of every muscle in his body, every smooth, tanned inch of flesh. She was overwhelmed by a desire to bury her face in that beautiful male skin and was horrified by the impulse.

She must be out of her mind! What did she think she was doing, letting him do this to her? Pulling her head back from his kiss, she put her hands Hat on that strong, naked chest, and shoved him away.

‘Stop it!’

He looked down at her with half-hooded, drowsy eyes, as if waking up, and Natalie’s heart skidded a dangerous corner. So was that how he looked first thing in the morning, in bed?

What are you thinking? she asked herself, despairing of her own brain. You told him to stop it—you should have told yourself the same thing!

Then Sam grinned down at her, mockery glinting in his face. ‘But, Natalie, we’re engaged, aren’t we?’

‘Oh, you think you’re so funny!’ she muttered. Well, it was her own fault for starting this game—she should have remembered that he was a tricky opponent; if you played games with Sam you had to do so with your eyes wide open, and his kiss had tricked her into closing hers. Maybe that was why she had gone a little crazy? Next time she’d keep her eyes wide open.

What next time? she asked herself furiously. There was never going to be another time, thank you very much. Once burnt, twice shy. She wasn’t going within an inch of him in future. She had learnt something this morning that worried her.

Sam could get to her. If he got too close he could make her go crazy. Well, he wasn’t getting another chance to do that to her!

His ring was a little loose on her finger, anyway; her fingers were so much smaller, thinner than his—so it was time she gave it back to him, in case she lost it. She would hate to do that, even if he richly deserved it. She knew how much the ring meant to him and his family, and how valuable it was.

‘Here,’ she said, very flushed, pulling the ring off and handing it to him.

‘Jilting me so soon?’ he reproached, but she noticed he accepted the ring without a second’s hesitation and immediately slid it back onto his own finger with an audible sigh of relief.

‘You know we weren’t really engaged!’ Natalie told him crossly, resenting his eagerness to get his ring back. ‘I didn’t take you seriously last night; I knew you were out of your head. I only kept your ring because I thought you might lose it if I didn’t take care of it. You obviously had no idea what you were doing! I just hope it has taught you a lesson. Maybe next time you go to a party you won’t drink so much.’

He eyed her coldly. ‘Yes, Miss—thank you, Miss!’ Then he grimaced. ‘No, you’re right—I can assure you, I will make sure I never drink that much again. I have the worst headache of my life today.’

‘You deserve it,’ she muttered, moving away.

He looked sharply at her, and then, his voice holding soft threat, said, ‘Be careful, Natalie. Don’t push it too far. Remember, I’m your boss. Now, would you be good enough to finish doing up my shirt?’

The last thing she wanted to do was go any closer to him again, but after being reminded that he was her employer she was wary of refusing point-blank—especially as those hard eyes of his were daring her to argue.

Also, if she refused she would betray something to him. He would realise she was afraid to come near him and he would start thinking about that and jumping to conclusions she didn’t want him to jump to——conclu— sions she had only just begun to suspect herself and needed time to think through.

So without a word she did what he wanted, trying to avoid contact with any part of his body, gingerly pushing the buttons through the buttonholes without touching the bare skin under his shirt. She had to stand far too close to him for comfort, but she kept her eyes lowered all the time to avoid meeting his watchful gaze. Through her lashes she could see Sam’s face, though, his eyes far too probing and thoughtful.

What was he thinking? Don’t even wonder! she told herself. Better not to know. For her own peace of mind!

As soon as the last button was done up she quickly moved away, aware that her face was very pink and her throat beating with awareness. She was going to have to watch herself in future, whenever Sam was around. Since when had he had this effect on her, and why hadn’t she noticed it until now?

You know why, she thought. This is the first time he’s come so close, the first time he’s made any sort of serious pass. He had once or twice tried to date her, when they’d first started working together, but she had turned him down cold and he had accepted that, had perhaps even been relieved—especially once they had worked together for a few weeks and Sam had realised she was so useful to him. Far too useful, in fact, for Sam to risk upsetting their working relationship by trying to seduce her.

That was why she hadn’t been exposed to his particular brand of masculinity before—and, judging by the women she had seen him date over the three years since she’d begun working at the radio station, he was sexual dynamite. So why was she surprised that she had gone down with such worrying symptoms? She should have expected it. Why on earth had she run the risk of playing with fire?

Maybe if she kept her head and never got too close again she would get over this weird, dizzy weakness every time she looked at him—if she could do that, she might even be immunised for life.

‘Shall we do some work now?’ she asked him. ‘We’ve got all these letters to deal with, and you have some calls to make.’

‘Tell me, when did I start working for you?’ Sam coldly enquired, lifting one black eyebrow. ‘I had the distinct impression it was the other way around.’

She had had enough of playing games, so she shrugged casually. ‘Oh, well, if you don’t need me I might as well take my coffee break now.’ In fact, she was relieved at the thought of getting away from him for a while.

She turned to walk to his office door but Sam moved into her path, dauntingly big and determined, obviously, to be very difficult.

‘I’ve only just got here! We have a lot to do this morning. You’re not taking any coffee breaks until I say so.’

‘I thought you had decided not to work today!’

‘I didn’t say that—I told you I was your boss, you weren’t mine. I decide what work we do. Before we deal with the mail I want to see last month’s ratings, so would you ring AR and ask if they’re ready?’

They had arrived that morning, from the audience research team, and she had known he would want to see them at once so she had put them on his desk along with the opened letters. Leaning over, she picked up the red folder and silently offered it to him.

Sam shot her a look like a knife that went right through her and came out in her back. ‘Has anyone ever told you how irritating you can be?’

‘Yes, you, Mr Ersk ine—at least once a day since I started working for you.’ She gave him another of her sweet, reasonable smiles. ‘But you don’t offend me, don’t worry.’ He could insult her all he liked while she was being paid so well to put up with him. ‘It comes with the job,’ she said. ‘Like having to answer abusive phone calls from the listeners.’

Sam’s teeth snapped tightly, as if he was biting off some furious comment, and she took a step back from him, not liking the glitter in his eyes. But luckily at that moment the office door crashed open and they both jumped and looked round, startled to see Johnny Linklater posing in the doorway, silver-lensed sunglasses hiding his eyes, his corn-coloured hair flopping carelessly over his temples. He had probably spent half an hour to get it to fall just like that. His image was his life’s work. He left nothing to chance, even the fall of a lock of hair.

‘Pinch me—see if you can find a pulse,’ he said with dramatic melancholy as he strolled elegantly over to sink into the nearest chair. ‘Am I alive or not? I can’t quite decide.’

‘Black coffee coming up,’ Natalie said, picking up her cue and immediately going off to her own office to make it.

‘You read my mind! Angel, darling heart, I love you,’ Johnny called after her, and she smiled warmly at him.

He had arrived at precisely the right time and she was grateful to him for that. He had rescued her from what might have become a real problem with Sam, and it didn’t help to acknowledge that it was her own fault. She had put ideas into Sam’s head, ideas she did not want there, but how was she going to make him forget them?

She came back with the coffee a few moments later to find Johnny totally relaxed, lying back in his chair, propping his silver cowboy boots on Sam’s desk, those long legs of his tightly encased in his usual black leather jeans. Johnny lived his own legend; he was never seen except dressed as if for a photo opportunity and he made sure he was usually surrounded by adoring fans, all of them female, most of them half his age, as if the proximity of the young might rub off on him, give him the illusion of youth for a few more years.

Natalie put the strong black coffee down on the desk, at his elbow, and he gave her a lazy smile, brushing back that soft flop of blond hair in a way that made it fall back precisely into place a second later.

‘Thanks, honey. Did you enjoy my party? There were so many people there I didn’t get to dance with you, and I’d promised myself I would, but things got so hectic. It was one of the best parties I’ve ever had, I thought.’ There was a slight anxiety in his eyes, a question mark; under Johnny’s apparent carelessness there was always this uncertainty, the melancholy of a man whose whole life depended upon his looks, which he knew to be finite.

‘Everyone had a wonderful time, Johnny,’ Natalie quickly assured him. ‘I know I did; thank you for inviting me.’

‘My pleasure, sweetheart.’ Johnny’s hooded eyes wandered down over her trim figure approvingly, then his face changed and, swinging his feet down from Sam’s desk, he said, ‘Hey, I just remembered. You could have knocked me down with a feather when you proposed, Sam—and I’ll never forgive you for stealing the girl I had my eye on!’ Bending his long, slim body, he lightly kissed Natalie on the cheek. ‘I wish you every happiness, honey, and if he doesn’t make you happy, give me a buzz and I’ll come round and beat him up. Just say the word.’

Natalie slid a glance sideways at Sam, who was scowling. Let him explain to Johnny that there was no engagement! Why should she?

Cheerfully Johnny asked, ‘When’s the wedding? Better make it soon. The autumn schedules are pretty heavy—Sam’s going to be very busy once we hit August. Hey, can I be best man? After all, you got engaged at my party?’

Sam said coldly, ‘Thanks for the congratulations, but we aren’t engaged, Johnny. It was just a joke.’

Johnny’s jaw dropped. He looked into Sam’s face, frowning, then at Natalie. ‘Just a joke? Whose joke? Yours, Sam?’ He was watching Natalie intently, his eyes searching her face. ‘Did you know it was just a joke, honey?’

She was touched by the serious look in his face—Johnny might give the impression to most people that he was a playboy, flippant and shallow, but there was a serious side to him, hidden away.

‘You don’t honestly imagine I would ever consider marrying Sam?’ She lightly shrugged, pretending to laugh. ‘Of course I didn’t take him seriously. I know he’s not the marrying type, and even if he was, he’s not my type.’

Johnny roared with laughter.

Sam was not so amused. In fact, when she risked a brief, sideways look at him, his face was icily blank—a fact which did not escape Johnny, either.

‘This girl’s smart; she’s really got you figured out,’ Johnny told him with a certain enjoyment. There had always been an element of friendly competition between the two men where women were concerned. Johnny put his arm round Natalie’s waist. ‘So I’m still in there with a chance, sweetheart?’

She let his arm stay where he had put it, and smiled at him without answering.

Sam said curtly, ‘Have you noticed the time, Johnny? You should be in the studio getting your discs set up for the show by now, shouldn’t you? Panic bells will be ringing in the control room if you don’t show up soon.’

Instantly agitated, Johnny looked at his watch. ‘God, you’re right! I must run. See you both.’ Carrying his mug of black coffee in one hand, he rushed out, letting the office door slam shut. Sam walked round his desk and sat down, tapping his long fingers on the wooden surface.

Giving Natalie a long, hard stare, he said, ‘If you have any sense at all you won’t start dating Johnny. He isn’t your type, you know.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that!’ Natalie couldn’t agree more, in fact. She liked Johnny very much, but she wasn’t sexually attracted to him. All the same, she wasn’t having Sam dictating her private life. Give the man an inch and he was the type to take a mile—a real little office Napoleon. Either his mother had brought him up believing he was God’s gift to the female sex, or he had an over-abundance of testosterone.

‘Women have no judgement whatever where men are concerned!’ Sam informed her.

She looked at him drily. ‘Oh, I have a pretty shrewd idea what makes you tick.’

‘Do you indeed?’ he drawled, his mouth ironic. ‘I doubt it. But I wasn’t talking about myself. You know what I meant. Johnny Linklater is a great guy, and a buddy of mine, but I wouldn’t trust him with one of my sisters.’

Natalie smiled at that, believing him. She knew Sam worried about his two younger sisters; it was one of his more endearing qualities. She knew, too, that his mother hen attitude drove both of them mad. They had confided in her one day a few months back, asking her how they could get him to stop trying to run their lives for them. Natalie had advised them that their wisest course was not to tell Sam anything they thought he might not like, although she couldn’t help thinking that they should be more grateful for the care and concern Sam had always given them both.

Sam had been standing in for their dead father for years and he had got the habit, hadn’t yet realised that Jeanie and Marie had grown up. They were both over twenty now; they had a right to make their own decisions, choose their own boyfriends, live their own lives.

‘Just watch it with Linklater. The man’s chronically unfaithful and completely irresponsible,’ Sam said tersely.

‘I’ve been looking after myself since I was sixteen,’ said Natalie. ‘I can manage Johnny, don’t worry.’

Sam laughed angrily. ‘Famous last words! A lot of other women have thought they could manage Johnny, but they all failed. Oh, well, if you want to make a fool of yourself I can’t stop you—let’s get down to work.’ He reached for the audience research figures, his face set like concrete.

Natalie sighed—now he was going to be in a sulky mood all day, was he? Why were men so childish?

They spent half an hour going through the figures, then they moved on to skim through the mail; Sam dictated a few letters in reply, before starting on a memo to be sent to all the production offices on keeping costs down and using studios more economically and efficiently. It was one he sent out every few months. At first people were very careful, but slowly standards would slip and back would creep all the bad habits into which big organisations slid if nobody kept an eye on them.

He was halfway through dictating his memo when the phone rang and he picked it up. ‘Hello? Yes, speaking.’ He looked startled. ‘Oh, hello, Jeanie—anything wrong? What? No, I haven’t seen any of this morning’s papers.’ His voice shot up to a roar, making Natalie jump. ‘What? Said what?’ he yelled into the phone.

There was a silence while he listened, his face darkening, his eyes glittering with temper, then he said, ‘No, it isn’t! Of course not. She what? Oh, my God. Well, tell her it was all just a joke. No, you tell her. If I ring her she’ll keep asking me stupid questions and probing like a dentist... Well, I know she worries about me, she’s always telling me she does, but... No, I won’t ring her. I want you to do it. Are you listening, Jeanie? Hello? Jeanie?’

He slammed the phone down and stared at it as if it were a snake. ‘Damn. She hung up on me.’

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Natalie.

He looked at her with grim eyes. ‘They’ve heard about last night. It’s all your fault!’

The injustice took her breath away. When she got it back she burst out in a muddled flood of words. ‘It wasn’t me who got drunk and proposed to me! It wasn’t me who gave me his signet ring and insisted I wear it!’

‘It’s your job to keep me out of trouble. That’s what I pay you for!’ he snapped at her, like a piranha lunging for a meal.

She snapped right back at him. ‘Oh, and all this time I thought I was hired as your secretary, not your keeper! Silly me. Remind me to change the job description when I advertise for my successor tomorrow!’

‘What?’ He looked taken aback, his brows jerking together in a scowl.

‘I’m handing in my notice!’ she said, reckless enough at that moment to jump off the top of the building. She didn’t want to leave, of course; she certainly hadn’t planned to go. She loved her job, loved working at the radio station—her work was so various and stimulating, she never knew what she would be doing each morning when she came into work. She hated to admit it but she even loved working with Sam, except when he was in a bad mood; he was a good boss, he trusted her, left her with plenty of responsibility. She liked that, enjoyed the equality they usually shared. He let her speak her mind; he listened. They had a good relationship.

But since last night everything was different. He had changed the atmosphere between them—or had she? No, it was down to both of them. Last night it had been Sam who’d behaved badly, but she had been stupid to take the game so far this morning. She should just have given him back his ring and let the matter drop. Why had she been so stupid? Now everything had become too personal, too charged, and Natalie couldn’t cope with it. She wanted to get away.

Sam glowered at her. ‘We’ve had enough bad jokes for one day, Natalie!’

‘I’m not joking. I’m resigning. As of today,’ she told him, and got up to walk out. But Sam got up too, uncoiling that long, powerful body and making her back away. There was a sense of threat about him when he looked at you like that. Anyone with any sense got out of his way.

‘You’re doing nothing of the kind!’ he said through his teeth. ‘I need you.’

Her heart flipped at the words—what did he mean by that? Was he admitting that...? But then Sam went on talking, and her heart slowed again.

‘You’ve got to talk to my mother!’ he told her fiercely. ‘According to Jeanie, she’s planning some big party to celebrate our engagement. She’s even working out where we should get married, and when, and how many guests we ought to have. You must ring her at once and put a stop to it.’

Natalie was aghast. ‘How on earth did your mother find out about last night?’

‘Jeanie says it was in a gossip column. Somebody at the party must have rung a paper. If I ever find out who did it...’

“There were some press people at the party.’ Natalie groaned, her heart sinking. ‘I’d forgotten them. They were mostly columnists, too. Entertainment reporters and gossip columnists. Oh, why did you have to drink so much?’

‘I’m turning teetotal, don’t worry!’ Sam curtly said. ‘But never mind that now—I want you to ring my mother at once.’

‘Why me? It isn’t my problem. She’s your mother—you ring her.’ Natalie was indignant; he had made this muddle, it was up to him to get himself out of it. It certainly wasn’t her fault and she did not see why she should have to do his dirty work for him.

He made a face. ‘She’ll blame me and—’

‘You are to blame!’

He didn’t like the reminder, she saw that from his eyes—Sam had a low threshold where blame was concerned—but he used a soothing voice, trying to placate her, anything to get her to do what he asked. ‘I know, I know, but she’s going to get upset, and I can’t cope with my mother when she’s upset. She’ll start worrying about you—have I hurt your feelings? How could I do that to a nice girl like you? I should be ashamed of myself—’ He broke off, seeing her expression, and gave her a sulky look. ‘All right, all right. I admit she could have a point. I’ve apologised once, Natalie—how many more times do I have to do it?’

‘I didn’t notice you doing any apologising. You seemed to think it was my fault, not yours.’

‘Well, I apologise now. How’s that? I’m sorry. Okay? Now, please ring my mother—if you talk to her she’ll realise you haven’t got a broken heart. If you tell her it was all just a joke and you never for a second thought it was serious, you knew it was just fun and the Press got it all wrong, she’ll believe you. Especially if you’re cheerful and keep laughing.’ He looked at her through those thick black lashes. ‘And, after all, you said yourself you knew it was a joke and you never took it seriously. Didn’t you? So it won’t be a problem for you—you’ll only be telling the truth, won’t you?’

She gave him a dry look. He never missed a trick, did he? That was what made him such a brilliant organiser. That was why the radio station ticked along like a well-made clock. ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘I’ll ring her.’

‘Now, please,’ he said—before she could change her mind, he meant!

Natalie had his mother’s number in her computer. She dialled at once, wishing Sam wouldn’t hover like that; she could feel his agitation without looking at him. The phone rang and rang without anyone picking it up. ‘Nobody in,’ she said at last, hanging up.

‘I wonder where on earth she can be?’ Sam rhetorically asked her. His mouth turned down at the edges. ‘And what she’s up to! Once my mother gets an idea in her head she wastes no time. She loves organising parties. If we don’t stop her in time she’ll have sent out dozens of invitations and spent a fortune, and it will be expensive and embarrassing putting a stop to it.’

Natalie watched him without saying, this time, what she was thinking. She had told him it served him right several times already—no point in rubbing it in. Poor Sam. He wouldn’t forget Johnny’s party in a hurry, would he?