Beverley Travers, however, was reacting exactly as Kirsty had anticipated, her face flushed with anger as she looked from Drew Chalmers’ impassive face to Kirsty’s tear-stained and pleading one.
‘I don’t pretend to know exactly what’s going on here, Drew,’ she said tightly, picking up her handbag and glaring at Kirsty, ‘but next time you invite someone to share a rendezvous with you can I suggest that you check with your diary to make sure you haven’t double booked. Oh, and by the way.…’ she paused in the doorway, her eyes slating Kirsty, before they turned, bitter and icy, to Drew Chalmers, relaxed and apparently totally unmoved by what was happening. ‘As they say in the movies, don’t call me. As for you…’ her mouth tightened as she glanced contemptuously at Kirsty, ‘I presume you’re some casual pick-up Drew made on the way down here. You look the type. Really, Drew,’ she added coldly as she prepared to sweep out of the suite, ‘you ought to be more careful, especially in these permissive times—these little tarts pick up the most obnoxious social diseases, you know.’
Kirsty winced beneath the venom of her words, unaware of the shocked disbelief in her own eyes as they widened slightly in acknowledgement of the thrust. Events had taken a turn she hadn’t expected.
The silence following Beverley Travers’ furious exit, and her bitter slamming of the door, was a tangible, nerve-aching void, and it took every ounce of courage Kirsty possessed for her to shake her hair nonchalantly over her shoulder and force a blithe smile as she headed for the door.
‘Just a moment.’
She hadn’t expected him to simply let her go, of course. Nor had she wanted him to do so. The whole purpose of the exercise was to prove to him that his judgment of her had been wrong, but even so Kirsty had a craven desire to turn tail and flee.
‘Who the hell are you, and what do you think you’re playing at? Blackmail? If so.…’
He was advancing on her with purposeful menace, and for one appalling moment Kirsty’s mind went completely blank. The clever little speech she had practised until she was word-perfect eluded her completely and she was left scrabbling humiliatingly for words.
‘No… no, it was nothing like that,’ she managed jerkily, and something in her voice must have convinced him, because he stopped advancing on her and instead lounged back against one of the chairs, his expression intent and searching as he demanded tersely,
‘Then what was it like? Some kind of sick joke? Some.…’
To her relief she managed to pull herself together for long enough to get her handbag open and remove the small newspaper clipping she always carried around with her.
‘Remember this?’ she demanded, gathering enough composure to sound almost as terse as he had done himself.
He read the article in silence, handing it back to her.
‘That actress,’ she said unsteadily ‘the one you said would make an excellent typist—that was her first role, my first role,’ she threw at him with bitter passion. ‘And I lost it, because of that review, because of you.…’
He listened to her in complete and unmoving silence, unnerving her with his cool scrutiny, his apparent ability to remain unaffected by what had happened.
‘And so?’
‘And so I decided to prove to you just how convincing an actress I could be,’ she told him triumphantly. ‘Certainly convincing enough for your mistress!’
‘By relying on circumstances rather than ability,’ he told her cruelly. ‘Effective, but by no means convincing.’ His eyes narrowed as he studied her, slowly assessing the tumbled curls and gamine features. ‘I still stand by what I said—you weren’t right for that part, and you didn’t have the ability to make yourself right for it.’
His calm words astounded Kirsty. She had expected him to be furious with her, to rant and rave while she remained cool and aloof, and yet somehow he seemed to have turned the tables on her, by reminding her that she had used circumstances rather than ability to convince Beverley Travers that they were lovers. Impotent anger prompted her to demand rashly, ‘Do you get some sort of kick out of destroying people, out of ruining their lives…?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ The emotionless words silenced her. ‘I’m a critic, doing my job, not some sort of a crank on an ego trip. I leave that to the acting profession,’ he jibed mockingly. ‘Thank God they don’t all have your vengeful tendencies! You’ve been reading too much Shakespeare.’ His expression changed suddenly, thick dark lashes veiling his eyes from Kirsty, as he frowned, apparently deep in thought. Now was her chance to leave, Kirsty decided, inching towards the door. She had almost reached it when he moved, reaching it before her to lean against it, his expression cruelly mocking and infinitely dangerous as he asked softly, ‘Going somewhere?’
‘To my room.’ She had intended to sound calmly serene, but even to her own ears her voice had a distinct wobble.
‘After depriving me of the company of my—er—mistress, was the rather antiquated term you used, I believe? Oh no, my dear,’ he drawled with a soft menace that drove the colour from Kirsty’s face. ‘In view of what you’ve just done, I think it’s only fair that you make some sort of reparation, don’t you?’
He looked so calm and controlled, standing there, flint-grey eyes surveying her mockingly, hands in the pockets of the immaculately cut dark trousers, a leashed power about him that warned her that this was no idle threat, despite the enormity of his words. She licked her lips nervously, trying to meet his ironic gaze with a look equally cool and failing miserably, her protesting, ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ sounding more fearful than firm.
‘No? You’re lying—but,’ he told her in an exceedingly dry tone, ‘I’m beginning to think you’re right—you are a better actress than I supposed. Come on,’ he told her in a hard voice. ‘You know exactly what I mean. You’ve deprived me of a bed partner for the night, to put the matter in its crudest terms, and that being the case I think it only fair that you take her place.’
He was mad! Kirsty thought, searching desperately for some means of escaping the suite that didn’t necessitate getting any closer than she already was to that lean, coiled, masculine body, taut with a suppressed violence she was only now beginning to become aware of, so easily had he masked it with his laconic stance and coolly controlled face.
‘You can’t mean that!’ she protested piteously, knowing even as she spoke that it was useless. He had meant it. The sharp flintiness of his glance told her that, the hard implacability of his mouth, and the way it lifted mockingly as he stared down into her flushed and frightened features.
‘Amazing!’ he taunted at last. ‘What a pity I’m your sole audience. That was almost worthy of an Oscar; pity there aren’t any parts for distracted innocents any more, you’d fill the bill to a T.’
‘Please…’ Kirsty had gone beyond reasoning, the dark urgency in her eyes unknowingly piteous as she stared up at him.
‘Please what?’ Drew mocked. ‘Throw a crust to the starving orphan? No way,’ he added in a much harder voice. ‘No one asked you to force your way in here, or act that cute little number you just played. How old are you?’ he demanded curtly. ‘Eighteen—nineteen? As spoiled as they come; used to widening those big brown eyes and having men drown in them, I don’t doubt. Well, it takes more than limpid eyes and a few tears to fool me! If you learn nothing else from this episode, at least you’ll learn not to start what you can’t finish.’
‘You can’t mean this!’ Kirsty protested, her throat closing in horrified realisation that he did, and that all the pleas in the world weren’t going to move him. He was made of solid granite, completely unfeeling, as cold as Arctic ice, impregnable. He must be to even contemplate taking her in place of Beverley Travers. She shuddered, shock taking the last remnants of colour from her face, her mouth drooping, as she sought desperately for some way of convincing him to change his mind. ‘You don’t even know me.…’ she managed at last, hating herself for the childish protest, when he laughed—an unexpectedly warm sound, his mouth curling upwards, tiny creases fanning out from his eyes.
‘Since when has that been a bar to physical satisfaction?’ he asked her coolly. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of instant attraction—love at first sight?’
He was taunting her now, and she hated him for it, her hands curling impotently into her palms as she searched for some stinging retort, something cutting enough to get him away from that door long enough for her to get through it. Too late now to regret her impulsive action, and wish she had never set eyes on him. Too late by far, she acknowledged as the look in his eyes told her he had read her mind and had no intention of letting her get within a yard of the suite door.
‘You can’t want me,’ she burst out childishly at last. ‘You love Beverley Travers!’
‘But because of you she walked out of here,’ he reminded her cruelly, ‘and as for not wanting you.…’