As soon as she saw his face she knew that her prayers had not been answered. It was dark and demonic, condemning and cruel-and her own crumpled in response.
'Yes,' he jeered softly. 'Infidelity. It's written all over your face as clearly as if you'd marked it with an indelible pen.'
'I can explain-'
'Explain what?' he demanded coldly. 'Explain that you went off with your fancy Italian playboy?'
'Drew-'
'Went drinking with him? Flaunting yourself at the Westward with him?'
'It wasn't like that-'
'Like what? Like what everybody told me?'
Shelley gave a silent sigh of relief. So he hadn't seen her for himself. Oh, thank God. It was bad enough, but at least it could be rectified.
'And that he bought you champagne and fed you olives with his fingers? And that you sat there, giggling like a girl of fifteen-'
'Instead of an old woman of nearly twenty-one, you mean?' she flared back at him, stung at the loathing which had hardened his face. 'Whose fiancé keeps her on a leash?'
He carried on as if she hadn't spoken, and by losing some of its fire his voice had become even more dangerous, even more destructive. 'And then he drove you back here in that monstrous-looking car of his-'
'You're just jealous!'
'Of his car? I don't think so. A man usually buys a car like that to compensate for certain … how shall I put it … inadequacies. You know what they say-big car, small … ' He let the unsaid word hang on the air, insultingly. 'But you would know about that, wouldn't you, Shelley?'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'Oh, come on! Please don't insult my intelligence by trying to play the innocent with me! I saw you! Okay?' His voice shook. 'Saw you with my own eyes!'
'You … saw me?' she stumbled in frozen disbelief.
'Yes. Saw the way he was kissing you. I was standing watching, and it's burned on my memory, kitten-'
'Then you will also have seen that I jumped out of the car,' she defended. 'Won't you?'
'Oh, sure,' he agreed. 'Because I don't think that even you would be so brazen as to have sex in the car in full view of your mother's and your fiancé's house!'
'You're mad! Completely mad!'
'Yes, I think I must have been,' he agreed evenly, only now there was something unrecognisable in his eyes which made her heart lurch with fear. And excitement.
'Drew,' she said warningly, only she could not work out what the danger was.
'What?' he answered softly. 'What is it?'
He pulled her into his arms and drove his mouth down onto hers in something which could never be described as a kiss. Not if a kiss was supposed to be a gesture of mutual desire and caring. Oh, the desire was there, all right-but nothing in the way of caring.
'Drew!' she gasped, through the hot anger of his breath.
'What?' He ground his mouth down harder and pushed his hand up underneath her sweater to roughly cup her breast, running his thumb across the nub with a fire and a fury that made her body cry out for his possession. And Shelley was appalled to feel her knees sag.
'God, you're really turned on, aren't you?' he breathed. 'Did he get you all hot for me, kitten?'
She opened her mouth to object but he had pushed her up against the wall, kissing her little moans of protest away until they became tiny yelps of pleasure. And then his fingers were trembling at her denim skirt, buttons flying open, and his hand was splayed hotly on her thigh as he pressed against her urgently. Desire soaked her as she felt him hook her panties with an impatient finger, and then suddenly he made a choking kind of sound, and tore himself away from her, his breathing sounding like someone who had been starved of air for more than three minutes. Someone who was nearly dead.
And something had died.
She knew straight away what it was. The love which had always glittered in his eyes when he looked at her. And Shelley could have fallen to her knees and wept.
He couldn't speak for a moment and when he did he destroyed the last, lingering trace of hope.
'You sicken me,' he managed at last. 'You sicken me beyond belief. Go to your rich lover, Shelley. Go give him what he wants. What you seem to want more than anything. Certainly more than decency and respect-' And he turned on his heel and left as abruptly as he had arrived …
Shelley looked at him now, through the candlelight which danced on the table before them. 'You were so harsh and unforgiving, Drew. Don't you know that I had to summon up every bit of nerve to come round to see you the next day? To make my peace?'
'You had wounded my pride,' he said simply. 'Incapacitated me with your lies. I was afraid of my temper, afraid of what I might say, what I might do … '
Jennie had come to the door, her face sour with disapproval.
'Can I see him, Jennie? Please? To explain?'
Jennie shook her head, struggling to come to terms with what she had obviously just been told about her best friend. 'He won't see you, Shelley. He's made his mind up. He says he won't ever see you again.'
'Here-' Tearfully Shelley began to tug the thin gold band with the tiny diamond from her finger. She wrenched it off. 'You'd better give him his ring back!'
'He won't want it.'
'Then tell him to melt it down! Or to keep it-to remind him of what a lucky escape he had!'
Word filtered out around the village, and even her mother found it difficult to speak to her without looking as though she was going to be ill. She was whispered and talked about on the streets and several of the bolder youths from the housing estate made it very clear that her reputation had gone before her.
Even Geoff, who had sold Marco the car at a substantial profit, was disapproving, but then he liked Drew. That was the trouble. Everyone did.
Shelley felt isolated and marginalised and at the end of her tether. In despair she fished out the heavy ivory card which Marco had given her. He had written a London phone number on the back.
'If you want to see me,' he had purred, 'then give me a ring.'
She took the train up to London, feeling lost and very small in the noisy, bustling capital. And feeling very out of place in her cheap clothes when she met Marco in a hotel which was the last word in luxury.
They sat together in the foyer and he seemed to notice her uneasiness as she stared indifferently at the bone-china cup of tea which stood cooling before her.
'Let's go for a drive,' he said suddenly.
He drove her out of town and parked the car by the river, and she told him everything that had happened. Afterwards they sat there in silence.
'So what do you want to do?' he asked eventually.
'I don't know.' Was that disorientated little voice really hers?
'And you say it's definitely over? Between you and this Drew?'
'Definitely,' she said flatly. 'He saw us.'
He said something in Italian and Shelley didn't speak a word of the language at the time, but even she could work out that he was swearing.
'Would it help if I spoke to him? If I took responsibility? Told him that things got a little out of hand, but that it was nothing more than that?'
'Only if you want to get your face beaten in.'
He put his hands on the steering wheel. He wore leather driving gloves which were as soft as skin. Gloves which probably cost as much as Drew's entire week's salary.
'And you are a virgin.' It was more of a statement than a question.
'Yes. Yes, I am.'
A sigh escaped from his mouth. She saw his hands grip and tighten around the steering wheel, saw the brief nodding of his head as he seemed to come to some sort of decision.
'Let me tell you a little about myself,' he said softly. 'And afterwards you must decide whether you want to come to Italy with me.' He turned, and gave her a blinding smile. 'Mustn't you?'
To a young and mixed-up girl, it had seemed the only solution.
'Madam?'
Shelley looked up. The waiter had arrived with their first course. She kept her gaze fixed on the swirl of cream and chopped herbs which topped the soup, and it was seconds before she could find the courage to lift her face and look directly at Drew.
Did he see her pain? Her regret? Was that why he was studying her so intently, as if uncertain of what she would do next?
'It hurts to remember,' he observed.
'Of course it does.'
'Didn't you realise,' he questioned softly, 'that coming back to Milmouth would bring all those memories back? What did you think it was going to be like, Shelley?'
'I don't know. I didn't stop to think. But even if I had I think I would have come anyway. I can't keep running away from the repercussions of what I did. It's time I faced up to them and let them go. Maybe it's time to bury the past, Drew-once and for all.'
'And how are you going to do that?'
'By accepting that I probably hastened my mother's death … ' Her breath caught in her throat. 'She was heart-broken by what I did-'