Читать книгу Sweet Sinner - Diana Hamilton - Страница 6

‘TAKE your hands off me!’ Zoe twisted her legs away from the driver and endeavoured to cover the expanse of her fishnet-covered thighs with the skirt of the coat she wore flung casually over her shoulders just as the souped-up Mini took a corner on two wheels, the dipped headlights revealing yet another narrow London back street, a figure, gender unguessable-at, leaning against a darkened, vandalised lamp-post.

‘Off, I said!’ Small though she was, Zoe could shout vhen she had to. She pushed at the groping hand. She couldn’t remember his name, but he had to be drunk, or mad. She ground her teeth with rage as she heard him say thickly, ‘Quit foolin’ around. You’re after a bit of fun and I’m equipped to provide it. What the hell else do you think we’re doing here?’

She was not going to answer that. And yelled instead, ‘Stop the car!’ And much to her surprise, and deep relief, he did, brakes screeching, rubber burning on to tarmac.

Scrabbling to unfasten her seat-belt, reaching for the door release, her fingers all panic-stricken thumbs, she felt herself helped out with a violent shove of his hands, heaving her on to the pavement—which was now miraculously fully illuminated—her handbag following and landing on top of her inelegantly sprawling form, his voice slating as he shouted, ‘Little cheat!’ before shooting away with a roar of protesting horsepower.

Her breath sobbing between her teeth, Zoe got shakily to her feet, pushed the wildly curling mane of bright blonde hair out of her eyes and bent to retrieve the scattered contents of her handbag. Her coat fell away from her shoulders, pooling on the ground as she hauled herself upright again, only now recognising the source of that sudden illumination. The long, slinky lines of a stationary vehicle were just discernible behind the glare of headlights.

For a moment she was too petrified to move, her heart thumping as if it would beat its way right out of her chest. And her knees were grazed where they’d taken the brunt of her ignominious landing. She couldn’t have run if someone had paid her.

Out of the frying pan…All alone and no one in sight…Even the lamp-post-leaner had disappeared. No taxis cruising this area. No one came to these mean streets in one of the least salubrious parts of London unless they lived here or were driving through, taking a short cut.

Someone exited the car. She heard the expensive clunk of metal and saw the impressive height, the intimidating breadth of the man as his shadowed form moved forward into the beam of the lights.

Green eyes widened between thickly mascaraed lashes and stayed that way as she fought to compress the trembling of her lush scarlet mouth. For the first time in her twenty-five years she was frightened witless. Back in the car, with that nameless creep, she had been angry and outraged. But this was different. And she was too terrified to take her eyes from the menace of his measured approach to retrieve her coat to cover herself…

One small hand tugged ineffectively at the narrow tube of tacky black satin that barely covered the crotch of her fishnet tights while the other flew to cover the cleavage afforded by her black, sequinned top. Heavy gilt bracelets jangled and she swayed on her spindly scarlet heels and desperately wished she had secreted a hat-pin about her scantily clad person.

‘Were you hurt?’ The dark, gravelly voice was abrasive and she took a small, defensive backward step, shaking her head, just wanting him to go away, shivering uncontrollably now despite the heavy warmth of the June night air. ‘There have to be better ways of earning a crust.’ The wide slash of his mouth indented cynically. ‘Don’t you understand the risks you’re running?’

Mutely staring at him, Zoe tried to find a tart streetwise comment to throw in his face. She failed, her quick wits deserting her, hysteria threatening as immediate fear receded just a little.

She would never forget his face. Never. Thrown into harsh relief by the lights, his features were too austere to be handsome in the popular sense. Arrogant selfassurance rode on slanting cheekbones, on the long straight line of his nose, the determined sweep of his jaw, while the incisive moulding of his mouth was an essay in cruel sensuality and the gleam of his eyes was pure, unadulterated cynicism.

Wide shoulders swooped as he bent to pick up her coat, flinging it at her, dark hair gleaming in the lights.

‘Cover yourself. If you’ve got a shred of sense you’ll get back home, out of harm’s way. How old are you, anyway? Fifteen?’ He didn’t wait for an answer; his sort never did, she thought as she clutched the edges of her coat tightly together and heard him ask, ‘Where do you live?’

‘Peckham Rye,’ she managed squeakily, because this time it seemed he did expect an answer and if he thought she would accept his offer to take her there then he would have to think again. She’d rather take her chances and walk. She had never felt so demeaned in the whole of her life.

The offer, however, failed to materialise. He told her instead, ‘I’ll get you a taxi. I take it you’ve earned enough to cover the fare.’

He strode away and, her cheeks burning beneath her heavy make-up, she teetered after him, her mental faculties regrouping at long last. She was going to tell him a thing or two! What gave him the all-fired right to sit in judgement?

But he was feeding terse directions into the handset of his car phone and when he had finished she spluttered out, ‘The way I earn my living is nothing to do with you! And anyway, you’ve got everything wrong. I’m—’

‘Save the justifications. I don’t want to know. A taxi should be here in a matter of minutes. I’ll wait until it gets here.’ He left the car again, towering above her, his features a mask of bored indifference now as he told her, ‘Next time you let yourself get into the kind of trouble you were in tonight just remember that the odds against someone happening by to pick up the pieces are extremely long. A million to one, at a guess.’

He looked as if he deeply regretted the impulse to stop and investigate, to make sure that the tarty object he’d witnessed being hurled out of a barely stationary car hadn’t sustained any incapacitating injuries.

Zoe turned huffily away, uncomfortably aware that the few words he’d allowed her to get out must have reinforoed his definition of her morals. Non-existent. She was not going to thank him for finding her a taxi. Why should she? The opening to lecture and moralise, jump up on his high horse, was all the recompense he could look for. She was far too sore in mind and body to look at the situation from his point of view.

Too drained by events to argue further, she waited in defeated silence until the black cab arrived, gave the driver her home address and climbed into the back with her nose at a haughty angle, not looking at her pious knight-errant because she knew she would die of embarrassment if she did. And sat in the back devising a hundred and one ways of doing Gary Fletcher to death.

‘When I agreed to rent part of your house I didn’t know I’d be sharing with a low-down, rotten, treacherous fink!’ Zoe limped into the kitchen, her mane of blonde hair still wet from the shower and thankfully free of last night’s riotous curls.

‘And good morning to you, too.’ Gary was deep in the morning edition of the tabloid he worked on and his bluntly good looking features wore a beatific expression as he hitched it down and smiled at her over the top. ‘Breakfast?’

‘An abject apology would be preferable,’ Zoe grumbled. She hadn’t slept, she’d been too embarrassed by recent events, and just to pile on the agony she was sore all over this morning. ‘But if that’s too much to expect from a hard-nosed reporter I’ll settle for coffee. Fresh, black and strong.’ She swivelled back towards the door. ‘In ten minutes.’ Adding darkly, ‘I’m due at the office by ten, but I’ll speak to you later!’

‘But you don’t work on Saturdays,’ Gary objected, patting a vacant stool at the breakfast bar. ‘Come and tell me what’s put vinegar in your pretty mouth this morning.’

‘But I am today,’ she countered with heavy, forced patience. ‘Special clients get special concessions. Which was one of the too-numerous-to-mention reasons why I didn’t want to go to that dreadful party last night.’ Which he had conveniently forgotten. He only remembered what he wanted to, and what he had forgotten he made up. Which was what made him such a good reporter, she supposed, earning him his byline with a tabloid which was openly derided and universally read.

‘But it was a beautiful party, sweetheart.’ Gary’s grin threatened to split his face. ‘Hannah’s agreed to give it another go. We’re back together again and—even better—she’s going to move in with me. If it works out we’re going to make it legal.’

‘That’s wonderful!’ Zoe’s small, triangular face warmed into a lovely smile. She had forgotten to be cross. She was generously pleased for him, despite what he had put her through.

During the three years they’d shared this house she had watched the arrivals and departures of Gary’s girlfriends with a fairly impartial eye. But Hannah had been special, she had been able to tell that by the way he looked at her, the way he never stopped talking about her. And then there had been the row, the big one. Zoe had never learned the reason, but the upshot had been an abrupt break-off of the relationship. And the upshot of that had been Gary’s long face and heartrending sighs, his sudden lack of interest in anything.

And that was why, after a great deal of persuasion, she’d agreed to go to that party. Because he’d begged. It was an annual thing, a fancy dress thrash for the members—and their guests—of the tennis club he’d recently joined because Hannah was a staunch member herself and where she was, Gary needed to be. And if Hannah could see him with another woman—a gorgeous woman—she might just be jealous. And if she was jealous he could work on it, persuade her to come back to him. That had been the theory.

The theme of Tarts and Vicars hadn’t appealed, though. Zoe was something of a blue-stocking and not ashamed of it, and she’d spent most of her life being sensible and responsible. So she’d said, ‘It won’t work. Hannah knows me. I’m your tenant, that’s all.’ But Gary had had an answer for that.

‘Don’t you believe it! Hannah never did like the idea of my sharing a pad with two gorgeous females. She was always the teeniest bit miffed by the intimacies she imagined we shared.’

‘I suppose I could always go as a Vicar,’ Zoe had offered, not seeing herself as the other, and Gary had scorned,

‘If you think Hannah will see you as sexy competition dressed up as a clerical gent, you’re off your trolley.’

And Jenna, the third inhabitant of the tall, early Victorian brown-brick terraced house, had echoed his scorn.

‘You’d defeat the object of the exercise. I’d go myself if I didn’t already have a heavy date. It’ll be fun, and I’ll help you. Make-up, hair, clothes—leave it to me.’ As an aspiring actress with her first TV part firmly in her pocket, Jenna exuded the type of confidence that was enough to persuade anyone to do anything.

So Zoe had agreed to go, for the sake of Gary’s love-life. He’d been impossible since Hannah had given him the elbow. And even though she’d hated the way Jenna had made her look, she’d decided it might be fun as long as she forgot she was Zoe Kilgerran, one of the junior partners in a firm of big city accountants, responsible, sensible and—let’s face it—a tiny bit dull.

‘So you’ll understand if I ask if you’d share the basement with Jenna? Starting as of today.’ Gary put a steaming mug of black coffee into her hands, his face very bland. ‘Hannah and I want the house to ourselves. You know how it is…We want to be able to run around naked if we feel like it, make love on the kitchen table…Anyway, did you get home OK last night?’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Zoe grouched, memories of what had happened to her flooding back. And knowing she was expected to move into the basement flat today didn’t help to make her feel any sunnier.

She fully understood Gary’s and Hannah’s need to have their own space—it looked as if this was the real thing. But Dad was bringing the twins round this afternoon, leaving them with her for the weekend, and the basement flat was small and she’d never get her stuff shifted before they arrived—not with the meeting she had this morning.

Her lower lip jutted pugnaciously.

‘I understood why you couldn’t escort me home from that party—you’d got it together with Hannah and couldn’t give a damn what happened to me——’

‘Hang on!’ Gary shot her a hurt look which somehow didn’t ring true. ‘I fixed you a ride home, didn’t I?’

‘So you did, silly me!’ Sarcasm dripped off her tongue. ‘With a sex maniac who ended up throwing me out of the car in some godforsaken back street, where I got lectured by some passing do-gooder on the foolhardiness of my trade! So much better, of course, than my own idea of taking a cab home! And don’t you dare laugh!’ she shrieked as she saw his mouth twitch. And proceeded to fill him in on the details, which sobered him and enabled her blood-pressure to slide back from danger point.

‘I’ll kill the creep!’ her landlord announced darkly, coming quickly to her side, hugging her. ‘He must have had more to drink than I realised. Sober, Dan’s OK—a bit big in the ego department, but fine if you don’t try to cut him down to size. But once he gets a couple of drinks over the odds inside him he believes he’s God’s gift to womankind, or so I’m told. I’ve never seen that side of him myself and he seemed sober as a judge when he told me driving you home wouldn’t take him far out of his way, since he lives in Greenwich. If I’d thought for one——’

‘Forget it. Maybe I’ll forgive you in time.’ She gave him a weak smile. The memory of what that whatever his name was—Dan?—had put her through last night still made her feel sick inside and she was running late already. She moved out of his embrace and rallied enough to toss over her shoulder as she left the room, ‘If I move into the basement I’ll expect a rent reduction, and you can do my share of the cleaning for a month to make up—partly, mind—for what you let me in for last night!’

But she was back to feeling draggy as she scrambled as quickly as her sore knees and shins would allow into one of her severely styled grey business suits and pulled back her abundant hair into the no-nonsense knot that made her look older than the teenager her lack of height, slight build and piquant features sometimes led her to be taken for.

That man, last night, had formed the impression that she was a fifteen-year-old prostitute, she remembered, her pale skin taking fiery embarrassment on board. Her encounter with him had been even worse than the in-car scuffle with the creep who had offered to drive her home! It would be a long time before she forgot his scathing lecture, the scornful way he had looked her over as she’d stood in the full glare of his headlights wearing all that degrading tat!

And even when she’d partially recovered from the combination of shocked outrage and fright he hadn’t given her a chance to tell him the truth. He was obviously the sort who formed an opinion and stuck to it, no matter what, because it was his—unable, ever, to concede that he might be wrong!

She ground her teeth as she pushed her feet into the plain black shoes that gave her two extra inches, applied the soft pink lipstick which was all the make-up she usually wore, apart from moisturiser which was a must in the dusty city, and made for the door, determined to put last night’s highly embarrassing happenings right out of her mind.

But she should have thanked him, she fretted, as the bus that took her to the centre of the capital jolted through traffic. Heaven only knew what might have happened if he hadn’t phoned for transport. She might have had to walk for miles in those silly scarlet heels before she’d found a cruising taxi, and walking through the warren of run-down streets, in that particular area, was not a sensible thing for a lone female to do. Not many men would have stopped to see if she was all right, taking the way she’d been dressed as evidence of her profession and leaving her to get out of a mess which was patently of her own making.

So she should have swallowed her pride and thanked him. But she hadn’t, she told herself crossly, and that was the end of it. She would never set eyes on him again and, as from this very moment, she would forget all about the horrible incident. Chewing it over in her mind was a pointless waste of mental energy.

She was later than she’d feared and felt panic squeeze her lungs as she waited for the lift that would take her to the fifth floor of the tower block—all glittering glass and muted silence—to the rooms occupied by Halraike Hopkins. She was never late, she never panicked, and this was an important occasion. As soon as her sister, Petra, took up her new and well-paid job she, Zoe, would be able to afford to move nearer the centre, take a mortgage out on a decent flat of her own and not have to face the awful bus journey from Peckham each morning. She couldn’t wait!

But that was in the future and her immediate boss, Luke Taylor, one of the senior partners, would never forgive her if she gave a bad impression—like being unpunctual, hobbling because her scrapes and grazes were giving her gyp, and compounding it all by looking panicky. If he could add the Wright and Grantham account to his portfolio he would be a happy and proud man.

Wright and Grantham, she had no need to remind herself, was a hugely successful drug company and their chief executive, no less, was meeting informally with them this morning to discuss the handling of their accounts. Already she was a full fifteen minutes late.

She was beginning to sweat as the lift arrived and she shot into the metal box and punched the button for the fifth floor. She would have had her secretary sit in on the meeting but Luke had stressed that he’d wanted this meeting to be fairly informal. Zoe could make discreet notes herself. He wanted everything nice and smooth and relaxed.

Light years away from feeling anywhere near smooth and relaxed, she limped out of the lift and had to force herself to stand still and try to haul herself together.

Taking slow, deep breaths, she closed her eyes and mentally absorbed the quiet, understated elegance of the vast reception area, the Saturday morning silence broken only by the muted hum of the air-conditioning.

She was good at her job, knew how to handle her team—with firmness but good humour, bringing out the best from them—and was, she knew, a respected employee on a salary many would envy. So she would walk in there and make a serene apology, refer briefly to horrendous traffic conditions, and leave it at that.

Trying to ignore the painful twinges in her legs, she pinned a cool smile on her lips and walked into Luke’s office. And nearly died.