The Final Seduction(15)

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-'