Deception and Desire Read online

  He ignored the innuendo. ‘I have no intention of telling her any such thing. Why should I?’

  ‘Because I am asking you to, darling.’

  He almost laughed – almost, but not quite. There was something vaguely disquieting about her totally confident manner.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jayne, but you don’t call the shots around here.’

  ‘Oh darling, I think I do – now.’ She smiled again, coming across to lay a hand that was strangely possessive on his shoulder.

  Steve felt a slight sweat breaking out on the palms of his hands.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘As I said to you yesterday, we all have something to hide, don’t we? I’m an industrial spy, and you are … Well, we both know what you are, don’t we? But it would be such a pity if Dinah were to find out. She wouldn’t like it at all if she knew how you had deceived her. So you see, darling, I don’t think you can afford not to do what I want. After all, you have a great deal more to lose than I do.’

  A great icy wave washed over Steve. It wasn’t bluff – she knew. How the hell she had found out he could not imagine, but he no longer had any doubts that she really did know the truth. As always in moments of crisis he became immensely calm, his brain working overtime, every sense and instinct as sharply alert as an animal at bay and fighting for its life.

  ‘Are you trying to blackmail me, Jayne?’ he asked, playing for time.

  She laughed, a chuckle low in her throat.

  ‘Don’t let’s call it blackmail! No, we are a mutual protection society, aren’t we? You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours. Only I really think we should talk about it over a bottle of champagne and …’ Her fingers trailed up to his neck, running tantalisingly through the hair that grew down over the collar of his shirt, ‘… other things …’

  ‘Champagne!’ he said, ignoring those teasing fingers that only a few short hours ago would have driven him wild with lust. ‘Well that sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.’

  ‘I knew you’d see it my way, darling. Shall I organise it – usual place?’

  ‘No,’ he said smoothly. ‘I’ve got a better idea. Didn’t Drew say yesterday that he was going to London today? That means there is no one at your house – and one place we have never made love is your bed. Wouldn’t that be fun? Don’t worry about the champagne – I have some on ice and it should still be cold by the time we get there.’

  She hesitated. It wasn’t quite what she had had in mind, but then again there was something deliriously titillating about the idea.

  ‘Will we go together?’

  ‘Better not. Take the rest of the morning off, Jayne, go home and … get things ready. I’ll join you when I’ve finished off here – and squared it with Dinah.’

  ‘All right.’ Her lips curved. ‘I’m so glad you see it my way. But then I knew you would.’ She moved to the door, slinky as a well-fed cat. ‘See you later, lover.’

  ‘Yes.’ He managed a smile back but as the door closed after her it fell away like a mask. He got up and paced to the window, working and formulating the plan that had occurred to him, instinctively almost, the moment he had realised she not only knew but intended to use her knowledge against him. It would be easy – so long as he covered his tracks properly. Already he had swung things his way and lulled Jayne into a false sense of security. She really thought, the silly bitch, that he would allow her to maintain a hold over him. It only went to prove she really did not know him at all.

  After a few moments he buzzed through to Dinah’s office.

  ‘Dinah, look, I’m sorry, but something has just come up and I’m going to be a bit late for lunch. I’ll see you there, right?’

  ‘All right. Look, we’ll leave it altogether if it’s not convenient. I don’t mind, honestly.’

  ‘No – I’ll be there,’ Steve said. ‘In fact you can go on and order for me if you like. I’ll have sirloin steak and all the trimmings.’

  ‘If you’re sure …’

  ‘Yes, sure.’

  He replaced the receiver and fetched the bottle of champagne from his office refrigerator, wrapping it in a big brown envelope so that it would not be too glaringly obvious to anyone he passed on the way out. Then he went to the small cloakroom that was en suite with his office, combed his hair, washed his hands, and went through the pockets of the jackets that hung there looking for something. When he found it he drew it out, looking at it thoughtfully. A fine silk scarf – perfect. He twisted it experimentally around his hands, then pushed it into his pocket. It was going to be risky, of course, something of this kind always was, but he didn’t see that he had any choice, and in any case, risks were something Steve had never shied away from. He lived dangerously and so far the rewards had been high. For years now Steve had had a motto, a maxim to live by: ‘ I take no prisoners.’ Never, it seemed to him, had it been more apt.

  ‘I take no prisoners.’ He never had and this time he certainly would not. The stakes were far too high.

  Dinah walked down the corridor to Don Kennedy’s office. He looked up from his desk as she entered, smiling the pleasure he never failed to experience when seeing her unexpectedly, even after all these years.

  ‘Good news, Dinah, I think I’ve sorted out the finance for your new venture.’

  ‘Wonderful! I knew you’d do it. You always do. But that’s not why I’m here, believe it or not. I’ve come to ask if you’d like to have lunch with Steve and me – well, with me, at any rate. Steve was supposed to be taking me out but he’s going to be late and I don’t fancy being there on my own. Will you escort me?’

  A slight pink flush coloured Don’s baby-smooth cheeks. Dear God, he thought, she can make me feel like a teenager again whenever she looks at me with those beautiful eyes of hers. Aloud he said: ‘I’ll be honoured, Dinah. You know you don’t need to ask.’

  She smiled at him. ‘ I know, Don. And it is wonderful to feel that in this wickedly uncertain world there is someone like you I can rely on. Will you drive me?’

  ‘Give me ten minutes, Dinah, and I’ll be with you.’

  As Dinah emerged from Don’s office she saw Steve disappearing down the stairs, off to whatever urgent business had claimed him, obviously. She raised a hand expectantly to wave to him but he did not turn around and he did not see her.

  Jayne was in the bedroom when she heard Steve’s car draw up outside. She glanced out of the window, watching him park well out of sight of the road, then walk around to the back door, and a satisfied smile curved her lips. She hadn’t expected him for another ten minutes or so – he must have virtually dropped everything and come straight over. Whether his haste was because he couldn’t wait to be with her, drinking champagne and making love, or whether it was because he was anxious to find out exactly how much she knew she could not be sure, but she hardly cared any more. The advantage in the power-struggle games they always played had swung around to her and she could not imagine losing it again. What she knew was too big, too important. The fact that he was here now proved that – if she had had any doubt about it.

  Jayne paused for a moment in front of the mirror, retying the sash of her black satin négligé and settling it more smoothly around her shoulders. Beneath it she was wearing a black basque; the whaleboning pushed up her ample breasts to give a tantalising cleavage at the open neck of the négligee Steve had once said he liked her in black and she wanted to look good for him. Power through knowledge of him was all very well, but she did not want to lose that other power she exerted with such proficiency – the power of sex. Satisfied with her attire, she touched her lips with a scarlet lipstick – black could so easily drain the colour from her creamy-complexioned face – and went downstairs to let him in.

  ‘I see you got the champagne,’ she said, glancing at the bottle which he had taken out of its wrapping in the car.

  ‘And I see you are ready and waiting for me.’

  She smiled at him, a secret, knowing smile, then fetched two flu
tes.

  ‘I think we should drink a toast to our new arrangement, don’t you?’

  ‘And I think we should drink it in bed.’

  ‘Eager, aren’t we?’ she teased.

  ‘Why not? Life is too short to waste precious time, especially when you are looking so very delectable.’

  ‘All right. We’ll do it your way – this time.’

  She led the way up the curving open-plan staircase to her bedroom, a gloriously extravagant room decorated all in white – frilled white lace on the four-poster bed, white painted walls, ankle-deep white carpet. She went to the bed, turning back the beau-duvet and plumping up the pillows before arranging herself in a seductive pose.

  Steve took off his jacket and laid it carefully across a chair beside the bed, then opened the bottle of champagne, poured some into each of the two flutes and handed one to Jayne.

  ‘Here’s to us, darling.’ She raised the flute, smiling at him across the room.

  ‘Here’s to success in all our enterprises.’ But he barely tasted his, putting his glass down on the dressing table whilst he undressed swiftly and joined her on the bed.

  ‘Steve! I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this!’ she murmured as he took the glass from her hand and began kissing her.

  ‘Don’t you, darling?’ He was easing the négligé from her shoulders and his eyes upon her smooth white throat were speculative, but Jayne did not notice. She was too pleased with herself and too excited by the prospect of the imminent encounter. She saw his gaze only as admiring and lustful.

  He took her quickly, never for one moment, on this occasion, allowing her to gain the upper hand. Then he raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her.

  ‘How did you come to find out, Jayne?’

  The question took her by surprise; in the frantic activity of the last few minutes she had quite forgotten his secret. She stretched languorously and reached for her glass of champagne.

  ‘I think that’s my secret, don’t you? Suffice it to say I did find out. And I’m very glad I did. I think we shall make a formidable team, don’t you? It’s ironic really when you come to think of it – neither of us being what we seem to be. Perhaps that’s what drew us together – birds of a feather and all that. That – and, of course, our mutual liking for a love nest …’ She laughed, low in her throat. She was enjoying herself.

  Steve made no response and she set down her glass of champagne, reclining against his shoulder.

  ‘Talk to me, darling.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Well, I know you are not Dinah’s son,’ she said. ‘But what I would like you to tell me is who you really are.’

  He reached out a hand, lazy but purposeful, taking the silk scarf from the pocket of his jacket where it lay within easy reach of the bed.

  ‘That, my sweet,’ he said softly, is something you will never know.’

  Steve

  Steve had been born in Vermont, New England, in a small town just south of the Canadian border. He was the third in a family of six children, his father was a mill-hand and they lived in a rundown street of small and badly kept houses that were all occupied by mill-workers.

  As a small boy Steve was not unhappy with his lot. The woods at the edge of the town were his playground, in summer he swam naked in the nearby lake; in winter, when it was frozen over, he skated and slid or tobogganed on the steep slopes of the hills that surrounded the town. He did not care, then, that his trousers were a size too big, hand-me-downs that he had not yet grown into, or that his feet often hung out of the soles of his shoes. He had plenty to eat, his mother was a good, if plain, cook who made the most of the produce that came to hand, and it did not bother him in the least that supper was at five thirty instead of seven thirty or eight, the time more refined folks ate. In those far-off days, when happiness was a weekend or a long vacation in which he could do as he liked instead of being incarcerated in the hideous grade-school building where the children of the town had been educated since the turn of the century, it never occurred to him to look with envy at the families who lived in the pleasant tree-lined streets of the better neighbourhoods where the houses were painted so perfectly and uniformly white that they were almost hurtful to the eye when the bright summer sun blazed down on them, and the imposing red-brick houses with their wide manicured lawns which were the homes of the elite of the town might have belonged to another world. Ambition meant nothing to him then, unless it was the ambition to captain the football team or beat the other boys in the impromptu swimming races across the lake, and both of these ambitions were easily achieved. Steve was tall for his age and well built, and he had the co-ordination needed to make him good at every sport he tried. His prowess brought him the envy and adulation of his peers and Steve basked in it, accepting it as his due and spurring himself on to even greater efforts.

  It was only when he entered his teens that he began to be aware that there were other areas of life where he might be found wanting. As he moved up the grades, status symbols began to matter more – the shoes, the leather jackets, the car the old man drove – and Steve began to resent the fact that his family could afford none of them.

  ‘Be grateful we don’t have to go to the Poor Board for handouts,’ his mother said when he complained that he needed new jeans – had needed them for months. ‘Be grateful for what you have.’ But Steve was not grateful, not even for the fact that his old jeans had become so tight on him that the girls in his grade, beginning to be gigglingly aware of the male sex, were giving him curious – and often admiring – looks. The jeans might flatter him in an almost indecent way but they were also evidence of the fact that his family was poor, too poor to replace worn-out items of clothing, let alone follow the latest fashion craze.

  To compensate for the deprivation he was beginning to feel Steve redoubled his efforts to be the best at every sport and even began to put some extra energy into his school work. He had a quick, lively intelligence which, until now, had allowed him to keep up with class lessons without really trying at all. Now he found that if he applied himself he could easily make the top half-dozen in every subject. For a little while the success was enough to satisfy him, but not for long. At fifteen Steve suffered a humiliation that reminded him all too sharply that in small-town Vermont it was not what one did that mattered, but who one was.

  The humiliation came in the shape of a girl. Her name was Lisa-Marie Ford and she was, all the boys agreed, the prettiest girl in town, a petite blonde with a cute turned-up nose and shoulder-length hair that flicked at the ends. In spite of being small she was very well developed, with a tiny waist and breasts that swelled so invitingly above it that the boys’ eyes stood out on stalks when she passed.

  Like all the other boys Steve feasted his eyes on Lisa-Marie and imagined what he would like to do to her if he got her alone. But it was a while before he got up the courage to do anything about it. In spite of being delectably pretty Lisa-Marie had a reputation for being a little stuck-up. She delivered cutting put-downs to all those boys who dared to ask her for a date, and Steve knew that both his reputation and his ego would suffer a serious dent if he laid them on the line by making a move and being rejected.

  Then one day he had seen Lisa-Marie looking at him and he had recognised in her eyes the same kind of emotion that he felt when he looked at her – the dreaming and the wanting – and it had given him the spur he needed.

  It was high summer and they were down at the lake, a crowd of them, swimming and fooling in the water that was always ice-cold, even when the sun beat down on it, and lying on the shingle beach to dry off in the sunshine. As usual he had raced with the other boys to an old pontoon moored half a mile out and beaten them there and back again. He came out of the water dripping, his fair hair plastered wetly to his head, looked back to see the closest of his rivals at least twenty metres behind him, and laughed, standing there with his hands on his narrow hips and the sun turning the water droplets on his golden-tanned body
to a rash of tiny diamonds. Then he had turned and walked back towards the cluster of girls who were watching him admiringly. Only Lisa-Marie was not looking, rubbing sun-oil into her arms and pretending not to notice. But when he reached them she looked up and it was there in her eyes, that unmistakable expression that needed no explanation. Steve felt a quiver of excitement dart deep inside, quickly followed by a rush of exhilaration. He returned Lisa-Marie’s look, his eyes holding hers until a faint colour came up in her cheeks and she looked away. He threw himself down on the shingle then ignoring her. But he knew, with a confidence that made him impregnable, that if he asked her for a date now she would not refuse.

  Towards the end of the afternoon when they all packed their belongings together and started on the trek home he fell into step beside her. She glanced at him, that same look, half shy, half coquettish, and he came straight out with it.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

  Her pert little mouth curved up. ‘Same as today, I guess. Swimming. Sunbathing.’

  ‘But we don’t have to do it with the others, do we? Why don’t we go somewhere on our own?’

  ‘Where? They’ll be at the beach, won’t they?’

  Not for the first time Steve wished he had a car. But he hadn’t and he wasn’t likely to get one. He worked weekends at Ray Mallaheu’s garage, washing cars and, more recently, lending a hand with simple mechanics, but on what he earned he would never be able to save enough for such a luxury. One day … one day … But for now he’d just have to do the best he could.

  ‘I know another bay. Further round …’ His throat felt tight now. He was less sure of himself than he had been.

  She kept him waiting a full thirty seconds for her reply. Lisa-Marie might, as she had told her best friend Helen Maybury, be in love, but she had no intention of appearing easy game. Then, just as he was about to shrug and turn away in an attempt to salvage the remnants of his pride, she said: ‘ OK.’