Читать книгу Marriage Make-Up - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 6

‘MUM…’

Abbie Howard frowned as her twenty-two-year-old daughter’s slightly hesitant voice interrupted her concentration on the accounts on which she was working. She had promised her accountants she would let them have them by the end of the week, but so much had happened since her daughter and her boyfriend had announced their engagement the previous weekend that she was now rather behind. Not that she minded Cathy interrupting her; the two of them had always had a very close relationship and everyone knew how much her daughter meant to her—too much, some people were occasionally inclined to say.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Cathy informed her, perching on the edge of her mother’s desk, swinging her long leg, which was still brown from her summer holidays.

People often remarked on how very dissimilar in looks mother and daughter were. Abbie was small, barely five feet two, and very fragile-looking, with delicate bones and an air of vulnerability about her that drew men to her like bees to honey—only for them to be both astonished and then huffily offended as she made it plain that playing the helpless little woman to their big strong man was the last thing she needed or wanted.

Her straight silky hair was naturally blonde, her eyes a deep and mesmerising blue-green, and at forty-three she could easily, had she wished to do so, have laid claim to being no older than a mere thirty-three and have been believed—not just by the male sex but by her own as well.

Not that she was likely to do any such thing. Abbie had no inhibitions about being open about her age, nor about the fact that she had a grown-up daughter.

Cathy, on the other hand, whilst she possessed her mother’s entrancing blue-green eyes, was tall, with long bones and a mane of wild, tumbling deep brunette curls. As a child she had been inclined to be clumsy, and had even gone through a stage of secretly wishing she were more like her mother, of almost hating her own taller, stronger body, until Abbie had guessed what was happening and very quickly put a stop to it, making sure that her daughter, instead of rejecting her body shape, came to appreciate it.

‘But I look just like Dad…you said so yourself when you showed me his photograph.’ She had said so, Abbie remembered, and she also remembered how upset she had been when Cathy had told her that she didn’t think she had ever had a daddy because she had never seen a picture of him. Abbie had shown her then the few photographs she had of Sam which she had not destroyed, hating having to look at them herself because of all the memories they brought back, all the pain.

Cathy had protested further. ‘And he was horrible and you hate him…’

‘But you aren’t horrible and I don’t hate you,’ Abbie had comforted her, hugging and kissing her. ‘I love you, and even though you have inherited your father’s bone structure and colouring you’re still your own person, Cathy, and I promise you that when you grow up you’re going to love being so tall and elegant.’

‘But at school they call me beanpole and beanie,’ Cathy had wept.

‘When I was at school they called me tiny,’ Abbie had told her. ‘But it doesn’t matter what other people say or think, my darling. What matters is what you think, and I promise you that when you grow up you are going to be very glad that you are you…’

And her mother had been right. Cathy was now the first person to acknowledge that. Just as she was always right…well, almost always. There were some things…

Hastily Cathy dismissed the disloyal thought she could feel forming. How was her mother going to take what she had to say to her? She had been marvellous when she and Stuart had told her about their engagement, insisting only that she be allowed to indulge herself as befitted the prospective mother of the bride.

Stuart had been more than willing to agree. He himself came from a large family and was comfortable with the idea of a large wedding.

And, despite the unhappiness and trauma of her own marriage, her mother had never tried to put her off getting married herself, Cathy acknowledged. Not that it would have done much good. She had fallen in love with Stuart virtually the moment she had seen him, and he with her, so he had told her later.

‘What’s wrong?’ Abbie asked her daughter, pushing away her papers and turning to look up at her.

‘I know you’re not going to believe this,’ Cathy responded nervously. ‘But…I think…I think…’ She looked down and started fidgeting with the laces on her boots. ‘I think I…’

‘Yes, go on…you think what?’ Abbie encouraged her wryly.

‘I think I saw Dad today…’

As she finished speaking she looked up warily to meet her mother’s eyes.

The shock was rather like believing you were crossing a completely empty road and then suddenly realising there was a ten-ton truck bearing down on you at high speed, Abbie recognised, and she felt her body’s adrenalin system surge to fight off the blow she had just been dealt.

‘You’re right,’ she agreed flatly, when she thought she had her voice under control. ‘I don’t believe you. Cathy, It’s impossible for your father to be here,’ she added more gently, when she saw her daughter turn her head away and bite her lip. ‘Your father is in Australia. He emigrated there just after…just after you were born, and there’s no reason—’ She stopped.

But Cathy picked up her unfinished sentence for her and supplied harshly, ‘There’s no reason for what? No reason for him to come back? No reason for him to want to see me…to know me…?’

Abbie could feel the lump forming in her throat. It hurt her unbearably that she who had learned to be so tough and protective of her child, who had thought she had done so well in making herself independent, in supporting them both, in giving her precious little girl all the love and security she could, had still somehow failed her.

She knew what it was, of course. Now that Cathy and Stuart were planning to get married, now that she had seen at first hand how Stuart’s happily married parents related to one another, now that she was no doubt thinking of the future, and the children she would have herself, her natural curiosity about her father had risen to the surface of her consciousness. It was making her more curious about him, making her want to know more about him and no doubt making her wish that he felt the same way about her.

When Cathy had still been a small baby, Abbie had made a vow that she would always be honest with her about her father, that she would never lie to her about him or what he had done, but that at the same time she would do her best to protect her from the hurt she was bound to suffer once she was old enough to understand the truth.

And she had stuck by that vow, even though at times it had been very hard, and of course the older Cathy had got, the more aware, the harder it had been to protect her from what Abbie knew her daughter’s own intelligence and emotions must tell her about her father.

How could she…how could anyone protect a child from the pain of knowing that its father didn’t want it? She had done her best to make it up to Cathy, and she had been so proud when people commented on how well adjusted, how happy her daughter always seemed, but now she was wondering if she had congratulated herself too soon.

Because of that, because of her fear that she might not have been enough, that Cathy might still yearn for the father she had never had, she was less understanding and gentle with her than she might otherwise have been, telling her almost harshly, ‘Forget about your father, Cathy. He doesn’t have any place in your life. He never has had. I understand how you feel, but—’

‘No, you don’t. How can you?’ Cathy interrupted her passionately. ‘How can you understand?’ she repeated, tears filling her eyes. ‘Gran and Gramps love you. Gramps never, ever turned round and told Gran that you weren’t his child, that he didn’t want you… You never went to school and listened to all the other children talking about their fathers. You didn’t have to walk down the aisle without—’ Cathy broke off and whispered apologetically, ‘I’m sorry, Mum…I didn’t mean…I know it’s not your fault…it’s just…’

Abbie slid off her chair. With Cathy perched on her desk and her standing on her feet they were almost the same height. She wrapped her arms around her daughter, holding her close, comforting her just as she had done when she was a little girl, and for what felt like the hundred-millionth time she silently cursed the man who had brought them so much unhappiness.

Sam come back…? He wouldn’t dare…Not after what he had done. She had made it more than plain to him the last time she’d seen him that henceforward she wanted nothing more to do with him, that he could keep his name, his money, his house and every other damn thing he had ever given her…except for his child. The child he had refused to accept could be his, the child she was claiming for herself and whom she would never, ever allow him to see again.

He had accused her of having sex with someone else, of conceiving her child with another man; had even had the gall to blame poor Lloyd. Lloyd, who would never…

He had started to say something else to her but she hadn’t let him finish, pushing past him and preparing to walk out of the house she had shared with him for such a brief period of time.

That had been just after she had learnt she was pregnant, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Abbie gave a pleased smile as she totted up the final column of figures some time later and closed the account book, placing it on top of the pile of other papers she had prepared for her accountants.

She knew how dubious several of her friends had been all those years ago—ten years ago—when she had announced that she was going to set up her own employment agency, but after fifteen years of experience of working in the hotel and catering trade, doing everything from waitressing and chambermaiding right through to being asked to take responsibility for organising a conference, she had learned enough to take such a big step and, more importantly, in her mind at least, she had the contacts on both sides of the business to succeed.

And she had been proved right; some of the staff who had been with her at the very start were still on her books. Her reputation had been passed by word of mouth to others. Along with her honesty and her loyalty to her staff, she was known never to supply staff to anyone she felt would abuse their position of authority over them in any way.

Her rates of pay were good and she explained firmly to anyone who quibbled about the amount she charged that she supplied the best and paid them accordingly. Abbie could supply catering staff right across the range, from a butler to lend gravitas to a formal private affair to a French chef to step in at the last minute and provide a buffet for five hundred people at an important convention, and everything in between.

Cathy, just as soon as she herself had been old enough, had been encouraged to earn her own extra pocket money by waiting at tables and serving behind a bar, just as her mother had once done. It didn’t matter that once her daughter was at university Abbie could quite easily have afforded to supplement her grant very generously indeed; she’d wanted Cathy to have the independence and pride of knowing she could earn something for herself—just so long as her part-time work didn’t detract from her studies, of course.

Abbie’s own parents had offered to help her when her marriage had fallen apart, and had even begged her to move back home with them, but she had stubbornly insisted on supporting herself and now she was glad that she had done so, that she had made an independent life for herself here in this middle-sized, middle England town, where Sam had brought her as a new bride. Then they had both planned to make their future here—Sam as a university lecturer, with plans to become a writer one day, and Abbie also working at the university, in the archive department.

She glanced at her watch. Abbie had promised a friend who had become an aficionado of car-boot sales that she would go through her attic and see if she could find anything she wanted to dispose of. She had just enough time, if she was quick, to do so before her evening appointment with the manager of the new luxurious conference centre which had recently been opened as an extension of a local hotel.

Abbie herself had actually been approached to see if she would be interested in taking up the appointment as manager of the centre, but she had declined. She preferred being her own boss, being in charge of her own life. It might sometimes be lonelier that way, but it was also much safer—and safety when it came to her relationships, be they professional or personal, was something that was very, very important to her.

Not even her closest women-friends were allowed to get too close to her, just in case they might hurt her in some way, and as for men…

It wasn’t that she was a man-hater, she denied as she made her way up the narrow flight of steps that gave her access to the attic space, no matter what some men might think. It was just that having been hurt very badly once, having been called a liar and worse, she was not about to give any man the opportunity to do so a second time. Why should she? She would be a fool if she did. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been times…men who had tempted her, but the memory of the pain Sam had caused her had always held her back. He had told her he loved her, that he would always love her, that he would never hurt her, but he had lied to her and she had believed him. How could she allow herself to trust another man after that? And not just for her own sake, for her own protection, but for Cathy’s as well. Letting herself be hurt was one thing—she was an adult capable of making her own choices and of paying the price for them—but Cathy was more at risk. Cathy needed love and security.

Abbie pushed open the loft door, wrinkling her nose against the smell of stale air and dust. She hadn’t been up here since just after Cathy had left home for university.

That was where Cathy had met Stuart, who had been taking a postgraduate course, and for a while, during the early stages of their relationship, Abbie had been worried that history was going to repeat itself.

It had been Fran, one of her oldest friends, who had warned her that she was in danger of alienating Cathy and damaging their relationship by becoming almost fixated on the belief that Stuart would hurt Cathy as Sam had hurt her.

‘Stuart isn’t the same,’ Fran had told her, ignoring Abbie’s refusal to discuss the subject with her. ‘And even if he was,’ she had added hardly, ‘it’s Cathy’s right to make her own mistakes and her own choices. Sometimes the hardest thing about being a parent is letting go,’ she had added wisely. ‘I understand how you feel about Cathy, we all do, but she’s an adult now, Abbie, and she’s in love—’

‘She thinks she’s in love,’ Abbie had interrupted angrily. ‘She’s only known him a matter of months, and already she’s talking about moving in with him and—’

‘Give her a chance,’ Fran had counselled her. ‘Give them a chance.’

‘It’s all right for you,’ Abbie had grumbled. ‘Your two are still only teenagers…’

‘And you think that makes things easier?’ Fran had rolled her eyes theatrically.

‘Lloyd and Susie haven’t been speaking all week. Lloyd caught her in a passionate embrace on the front doorstep the other night, and, predictably, he’s suddenly turned into a protective, outraged father. And, of course, Susie’s just at that age where she thinks she’s old enough to make her own decisions—even though she isn’t—and then she had to go and make matters worse by telling Lloyd that she was the one who snogged Luke, and not the other way round.’

‘Hmm…’ Momentarily Abbie had been diverted from her own problems.

Susie, Lloyd and Fran’s elder daughter, was her godchild and back then had been a formidably feisty fourteen-year-old.

Along with Michelle, Fran and Lloyd’s younger daughter, she had inherited her father’s striking red hair and there was certainly no way that there was any remote resemblance between Lloyd’s two daughters and her own, Cathy; if Sam had stayed around long enough he would very quickly have been forced to withdraw his accusation that Lloyd was Cathy’s father.

Poor Lloyd. He hadn’t met Fran when she and Sam had split up, and he had been wonderfully supportive in the early months when she had first been on her own, even hesitantly suggesting that perhaps they should marry. She had refused him, of course. She had known that she didn’t love him, nor he her, even if everyone else had considered them to be a pair before Sam had appeared in her life.

Gingerly kneeling down in the only space she could find in the piles of stuff heaped all over the loft floor, Abbie started moving things out of the way so that she could get to the boxes of bits and pieces she knew were stored up there, and which she intended to hand on to her friend for her car-booting sorties.

As she did so she knocked over a pile of children’s books. She paused to straighten them up, her eyes misting unexpectedly with tears as she recognised Cathy’s first proper reading books.

How well she remembered the thrill of wonder and excitement she had felt when Cathy read her first proper word, her first full sentence. How proud she had been, how sure that her daughter was the cleverest, prettiest little girl there ever was, how humbled by the knowledge that she had given birth to this special, magical little person—the same special, magical, perfect child who had refused to eat her supper and later thrown a tantrum in the supermarket of blush-making proportions!

Abbie’s smile faded as she also remembered how it had felt to have no one to share the special moments with, to have to wait until she could telephone her parents to tell them of Cathy’s wondrous achievement.

Firmly she resisted the temptation to indulge in nostalgia. She was a busy career woman with a full diary and very little time; the daydreamer who went soft-eyed and emotional over every small incident in her life had been firmly suppressed and controlled. Another Abbie had had to develop and take shape. An Abbie whom people respected and sometimes even found slightly formidable, an Abbie who had learned to deal with life and all its small and manifold problems by and for herself…An Abbie who could and would, if necessary, fight like a tigress to protect her child, an Abbie who had no need of sentiment or regrets about the past, and who had certainly no need for a man in her life to mistrust her and hurt her.

She crawled across the floor to where she thought the boxes were stored, cursing as the dust made her cough and then cursing again and trying to ignore the ominous pattering and scuffling sounds she could hear in the rafters above her. Birds, that was all…nothing to worry about.

She reached the boxes and pulled the first one out, reaching for the one behind it. Only it wouldn’t move; it appeared to be wedged against something. Gritting her teeth, Abbie felt behind it and then froze as her fingers curled round a piece of net fabric.

She knew immediately what it was, but, even though caution warned her to leave well alone and ignore it, for some reason she didn’t.

Instead…Instead, her fingers trembled as she tugged harder on the fabric, clenching her teeth as she heard it rip slightly and the balled-up grey-white bundle of fabric finally came free of the small space she had jammed it into.

Once it had been pristine white, the tiny crystals sewn onto it glittering just as much as the diamonds in her engagement ring as she’d pirouetted around the fitting room, turning this way and that, her face flushed a delicate, happy pink as she waited for her mother to admire it.

She had been a fairy-tale bride, or so the report in the local paper had said, her wedding dress every little girl’s dream and most big girls’ as well—at least in those days. She had felt like a princess—a queen—as she’d walked proudly down the aisle on her father’s arm. And when Sam had finally raised her veil after the vicar had married them, and she had seen the look in his eyes, she had felt as if…as though…She had felt immortal, she remembered. Adored, cherished…loved…And it had never even occurred to her that there might come a day when she would feel any different, when Sam wouldn’t continue to look at her with that mixture of adoration and desire.

How naive she had been…How…how stupid.

Her mother, her parents, had tried to warn her that she was rushing into marriage, that she and Sam barely knew one another, but she wouldn’t listen to them. They were old; they had forgotten what it was like to be in love, how it felt to be wanted, to want to be with that one special person so much that you actually hurt when they weren’t there.

She and Sam had met by accident…literally…She had been riding her bicycle illegally through a part of the university campus which was prohibited to students, taking a short cut to a lecture.

At first when she had cannoned into Sam, almost running him down, she had assumed he was a fellow student—although she hadn’t recognised him from her own political history course—albeit rather older than her. And, whilst she had laughed and flushed as she’d apologised, her embarrassment had been caused not by the fact that she had nearly run him down, and certainly not by the fact that she was doing something prohibited, but by the way he had made her feel, by the way her body and her emotions were already reacting to him, by the sudden rush of sensation flooding her mind and her body.

She had later admitted to him that if he had taken her there and then, in the middle of the quadrangle on the short, sweet grass, she doubted that she would have made any move to stop him. That was the kind of effect he had had on her, even though at the time she had still been a virgin and her experience of the opposite sex had been limited to Lloyd’s chastely explorative kisses and attempts at a bit of mild petting.

When she had discovered that Sam was not, as she had assumed, a fellow student, but a newly appointed junior classics lecturer, who had just completed his doctorate at Harvard, she had been completely mortified and shocked.

He had read her a mild lecture about riding her bicycle through a prohibited area and then sent her on her way, and she had not expected to see him again.

Only two days later he had turned up at her lodgings, carrying a book which had fallen out of the basket of her bike. She could remember how embarrassed she had been about the fact that he had discovered her almost in tears over a newspaper story she had been reading.

The article had been accompanied by heart-and conscience-rending photographs of grave-eyed starving children in the Third World, which had made Abbie exclaim passionately to Sam, once he had discovered the reason for her tears, that she could never bring a child into a world where so many, many children were so desperately in need.

‘I expect you think I’m being over-emotional, don’t you?’ she had asked him self-consciously when she had herself back under control, but he had shaken his head.

‘No, I don’t,’ he’d told her sombrely. ‘As a matter of fact…’

He had never finished what he had been about to say because one of Abbie’s fellow lodgers had returned, bounding into her room to request Abbie’s assistance in the search for a borrowed book she had misplaced.

Sam had refused her offer of a cup of coffee, but it had been close to the beginning of the summer recess at the time, and to her astonishment, two weeks later, when she was lying in the garden of her parents’ home sunbathing, he had turned up and invited her out.

He had explained later that he hadn’t felt he was in a position to ask her out before, bearing in mind the fact that she was a student and he a lecturer. When he had explained that he’d felt uncomfortable about being thought of as the kind of lecturer who took advantage of his position to coerce young female students into sexual relationships with him, she had fallen even more deeply in love with him. He was so straightforward, so honest, so moral…Too moral on occasions…like the time he had refused to take her back to his rooms with him and make love to her.

‘You don’t want me,’ she’d accused him tearfully.

In reply he had taken hold of her hand and placed it on his body. The strength and size of his erection beneath her hand had both shocked and excited her, and when he had seen the way her face flushed and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes he had laughed and then sighed, gently lifting her hand away as he’d told her softly, ‘You see, it’s too soon and you’re—’

‘Don’t you dare tell me I’m too young,’ she had interrupted him passionately. ‘I’m twenty…almost…’

‘And I’m twenty-six…almost,’ he had told her.

‘That’s only a difference of six years,’ she had protested.

‘You’re a virgin still, and I’m not,’ he had told her implacably. ‘You’re still playing in the shallows, whereas I—’

‘I can learn. You can teach me…’ she had told him fiercely. ‘You…’

He had closed his eyes then and taken her in his arms.

‘Oh, God, don’t tempt me like that,’ he had whispered to her, and his voice had been shaking—not with laughter, as she had first suspected, but with a mixture of emotions so potentially awesome and mind-blowing that she had trembled with excitement merely to think about them.

She had trembled as well when he had kissed her properly the first time, and for many, many times after that.

But it hadn’t just been sex…desire between them…

Abbie closed her eyes as the still painful memories engulfed her.

The first time Sam had kissed her properly had been on their second date. She had happened to mention that she wanted to go and see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was being performed traditionally at Stratford, not intending to hint and certainly not expecting him to offer to take her there. The play had simply been extremely well reviewed and she had semi-hoped that her parents might offer to take her as a special treat.

When Sam had rung and said that he had got two tickets, and asked if she would like to go with him, she had been too breathless with excitement at the thought of seeing him again to co-ordinate her thoughts and ask any kind of logical or practical questions. So when he had arrived to collect her, fortunately a little early, dressed in all the formal elegance of a dinner suit, her mouth had parted in a soft ‘oh’ of surprised shock whilst her eyes had registered her shy but very wholehearted and feminine approval of his sensually male elegance.

‘I thought we could go somewhere and have some supper after the play,’ he had suggested, as much to her parents as to her, Abbie had recognised, watching as her mother beamed her approval and her father coughed and muttered something about being sure he could trust Sam to get her home at a decent time.

Fortunately, long, floaty cotton dresses had been ‘in’ that year, and worn for everything from casual pub drinks to far more formal affairs. Hers had been new, the soft mixture of greens setting off her fair skin and blonde hair and matching her eyes quite spectacularly—or so the sales girl in the shop had told her. It had had a little high round neck, with cut-away sleeves and a keyhole cut out at the back, the soft cotton falling into a floaty A-line skirt.

The pretty white silk wrap her mother had rushed upstairs to lend her had given the dress a more formal and elegant air, and Abbie remembered how she had blushed to the tips of her ears and curled her toes in her shoes as she’d felt her body’s dangerous reaction to the way Sam had glanced oh, so briefly at her body, in such a way that it made her feel sure that he knew just how, beneath the thin cotton of her dress, her breasts were bare, her nipples tightening and pushing wantonly against the fine fabric…

It was over an hour’s drive to Stratford, and for the first half of the journey Abbie had sat in blissful silence, too excited and overwhelmed by Sam’s presence to make any attempt at conversation.

Later, she had managed to relax enough to comment that it had been a lovely day, and Sam had replied, equally gravely, that, yes, it had and that the rest of the week promised to be equally fine. Had she been sunbathing? he had asked her casually.

‘Yes,’ she had agreed, adding that she had to be rather careful about going out in the sun because her skin was very fair and sensitive. She would never, she had admitted ruefully, have the wonderful golden tan that other girls seemed to get so easily and which was so fashionable.

They had been on a quiet stretch of road at the time, and Sam had turned his head and looked gravely at her before reducing the car’s speed and reaching out to gently run his fingertips the full length of her bare arm. It was a gesture that had had her trembling with pleasure even before he had encircled her wrist and lifted it to his lips to caress the sensitive area where her pulse thudded visibly just beneath the surface.

‘Your skin, like you, is perfect as it is,’ he had told her huskily, and as his gaze had once again moved briefly to her breasts she had had a shockingly vivid mental image of his dark head bent over their nakedness whilst his mouth suckled first one sensitive tip and then the other.

Hurriedly she had looked away from him, half afraid that if he looked into her eyes he might actually read her thoughts.

The intensity of her own desire for him was still something she had not wholly come to terms with. By mutual consent she and Lloyd had agreed that, whilst they wanted to remain friends, friends was all they wanted to be; they still went out together occasionally, and they still enjoyed one another’s company, but she had needed no proof that she had made the right decision in admitting to herself that, much as she liked Lloyd as a person, for them to have become lovers would have trapped them both in a relationship which could never go anywhere. She had found that out in the way she felt about Sam. Nothing had prepared her for physically reacting so intensely to a man, or her own growing emotional dependence on him.

She was already half afraid that she was in danger of falling in love with him. What else could explain her immediate and overwhelming attraction to him?

It had been a perfect summer’s evening, the air sweet and balmy, the feel of Sam’s dinner-suited arm against her bare skin as he helped her with her wrap and they walked away from the car towards the theatre deliciously exciting and sensual.

Very much aware of the interested and appreciative looks Sam was attracting from the female halves of other couples heading in the direction of the theatre, Abbie had felt proud and elated that he had chosen her as his date, as well as just a little bit wary that some other woman might try to take him away from her. He was, after all, a very compellingly attractive and male man: tall, broad-shouldered, with just a hint of muscle beneath his well-tailored suit, his dark hair thick and shiny, his eyes a bright, laughing blue and not cold at all, but rich and warm and full of silent messages she was half afraid to interpret.

The discovery that he had booked a private box for them had made Abbie stare at him in stunned delight.

‘I’ve ordered us some champagne,’ Sam whispered to her as they were shown to their seats. ‘I hope you like it…’

‘I love it,’ Abbie fibbed, not wanting to admit that the only time she had really tasted it was at weddings, and then only the odd half-glass.

Her parents had been rather uneasy at first when, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she had got herself a job working in a local hotel serving at the tables in the restaurant, but Abbie had insisted that she wanted the independence of feeling she was contributing towards her own upkeep, even though she knew they were more than willing, as well as able, to support her through university.

Once she had left home for university she had not told them at first that she had got herself a part-time job working in a small local pub, sensing that they would be concerned.

They knew now, though, but knew also that Abbie still avoided drinking alcohol herself. It was too expensive for one thing, and for another she didn’t seem to have much of a head for it. But she would rather have died than confess to Sam that the champagne with which he had filled her glass just before the curtain went up tasted far too dry to her uneducated palate, and was already making her head swim slightly.

During the interval he took hold of her hand and asked her if she was enjoying herself and then added semi-harshly, ‘I shouldn’t be doing this. You do realise that, don’t you?’

She wasn’t really sure what he meant until he explained.

‘You weren’t meant to arrive in my life like this, not now…It’s too soon and I’m not prepared, although how the hell can anyone ever be prepared for…? You’re such a baby still,’ he groaned as he removed the champagne glass from her trembling hand and took her in his arms. ‘And the last thing I need is the kind of havoc that falling in love with you is going to cause in my life.

‘I had everything so carefully planned,’ he whispered against her lips as he caressed them gently with his own mouth, teasing them with light, delicate butterfly kisses which for some reason caused a dark flush to run up under his own skin, and his grip on her wrists as he held her away from his body tightened so much that it almost hurt.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ he whispered remorsefully to her as he raised each wrist to his mouth in turn and kissed it gently. ‘It’s all your fault that I’m feeling like this…behaving like this,’ he told her rawly. ‘I’ve always thought of myself as sensible and level-headed, too cautious and logical to get involved in…You’ve made me realise that I hardly knew myself at all.’

‘You can’t be in love with me,’ she had protested shakily, but her eyes had given away her real feelings and she had seen the way his own reflected that knowledge.

‘No, I can’t, can I…?’ he drawled self-derogatorily. ‘After all, I hardly know you…you hardly know me, and we haven’t even been to bed together yet…How can I possibly be in love…?’

As she looked at him, her inhibitions relaxed by the cocktail of the champagne she had drunk and her own emotions, she told him bravely, ‘I…I haven’t been to bed with anyone. But…but I know I want to go to bed with you, Sam…I want it to be you who…I want it to be you,’ she had finished in a soft, quavery little voice, and that was when he had kissed her properly for the first time in the darkened shadows of their box. Kissed her with his arms wrapped tightly around her, his body pressed against hers as his hands caressed her, his mouth hard and hot on hers, his tongue stroking her lips, coaxing them apart whilst she shivered with emotion and arousal, willing to give him anything, everything, if only he never took his mouth away from hers again.

She couldn’t remember sitting through the rest of the play, but they must have done, and she couldn’t remember much about the meal they’d had afterwards either. All she could remember was how much she had wanted to be alone with Sam, how much she had ached and yearned for him; how she had felt as he’d gently coaxed her to eat some of the dessert she had ordered and then felt unable to eat, lifting the spoon to her mouth, watching her whilst her lips parted and her face flooded with colour as her body and her senses recognised the sensuality, the sexuality of what he was doing, even whilst mentally she was still a stranger to such intense intimacy.

He had taken her straight home that evening, and on the evenings that had followed, but then, one Thursday, he had asked her how she and her parents would feel if he asked her to go away with him for a weekend…

‘When?’ had been her single, breathless response.

‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning,’ he had told her.

Downstairs the telephone rang, but although she heard it she was still lost in the past. Abbie made no attempt to go and answer it. She didn’t want to remember all this, she told herself frantically. She didn’t want to relive it all again…to experience the pain of it all again. Not even from the safe distance of the years and the knowledge that separated her from it. But it was too late to hold back the memories, too late to stem the rushing tide sweeping down over her.

Please, no, she protested silently, but she knew it was no use. She had already allowed herself to remember too much, and she would now have to endure what she herself had set in motion. Her body trembling, she closed her eyes and gave in.