The Final Seduction(4)

       
           



       

'That's not only coarse, it's also inaccurate. Marco has never been a snob!'

'No? Well, then it must be you who has the image problem, mustn't it,  Shelley? Because you never brought him back to Milmouth, did you? Not  once!' he accused. 'Not even-' and he drew a deep breath '-to your  mother's funeral!'

Should she tell him that it hadn't seemed right to do so? That her  mother had hated Marco nearly as much as she had adored Drew? It would  have seemed disrespectful to her mother's memory to bring along the man  she had never stopped blaming for the disintegration of her dreams.

For in Veronica Turner's mind Shelley and Drew would still have been  engaged if Marco had not happened along. For a long time Shelley would  have agreed with her, but now she recognised that Marco had probably  done her a big favour.

Shelley herself had been sick with grief and regret. In fact she had  barely been able to function. But apparently that was the normal  reaction to sudden death. It had seemed the easier option to handle  things on her own. To avoid situations which might create ugly scenes …

'Oh, what's the point in trying to explain?' she questioned tiredly.  'You'll only believe what you want to believe. And I know how much you  hate me, Drew.'

'Hate you?' He looked at first surprised and then very slightly  perplexed, as if she were being hysterical. 'Hating you would imply that  you have some significance in my life, Shelley. And you don't. None at  all. Not any more. Duke!' The dog came loping over. 'Come on, time to  go.'

And he strode off without a word, or even a glance of farewell. Just like that.

She watched him walking away from her across the pebbles and a great  tidal wave of sadness rocked her, overwhelming her with its force.  Because she had lost everything that once existed between her and Drew,  and that was the brutal reality.

The water on the western side of the shore was a deeper shade of blue  than the washed-out sky and in his navy sweater and faded jeans Drew  seemed to blur and blend into the landscape itself. Shelley watched him  and felt a sudden wrench as she remembered the way he had been able to  make her laugh.

Remembered the way he had always looked at her-as though someone had  just given him a wonderful present. Compare that, she thought, as she  swallowed back the memories, with the icy disapproval she had seen on  his face just now.

They had been friends, she realised-really good friends. And she had  thrown it all away. With one irrevocable gesture she had sacrificed that  friendship and everything that went with it.

She had made her choices willingly-no one had held a gun to her head.  But the reality of what those choices had done to her life invaded  Shelley's memory like a dark, stormy cloud.





CHAPTER THREE




SHELLEY had known Drew Glover for as long as she remembered, and she must have known him before that as well.

They had grown up next door to each other in the small, boxy houses  which were clustered on the poorer side of Milmouth-a million light  years away from the imposing Edwardian villas which overlooked the sea  on the western side of the village. She was almost eight years younger  than him, and the same age as his youngest sister, Jennie.

Shelley had been brought to Milmouth as a baby, an unsettled, grizzly  child whose nature had been forged by uncertainty and insecurity.  According to her mother, Drew would bend and pick up the toys she hurled  out of her pram and solemnly hand them back to her. But then he had two  younger sisters of his own.

'He was such a sweet-natured boy,' Veronica Turner had told her daughter  with a beaming smile, the day Shelley and Drew decided to get married.  'And he still is.'

Shelley remembered his curiosity. His protectiveness. He had been the  first person who had ever stood up for her-when he overheard one of the  other children taunting her.

'So why haven't you got a father, Shelley Turner?'

She had been about seven at the time, an age when she'd desperately  wanted to be like everyone else. And Milmouth was so small and  provincial. Everyone else had two parents.

Her face had started working and her mouth had wobbled and she didn't  know what she would have answered when Drew had appeared from out of  nowhere-tall and tough and teenaged-and had announced scornfully, 'Of  course she's got a father! Everyone's got a father-hers just doesn't  live with her, that's all.'

'Where does he live, then?' one of the others had been bold enough to ask.

Even now Shelley remembered looking into Drew's eyes-so deep and blue  and encouraging-and knowing that she should never be ashamed of the  truth. If only she had remembered that … 'He lives in America,' she'd told  the child steadily. 'He's a dentist.'                       
       
           



       

These two impressive facts had kept the other children quiet for a  while, but Shelley had remained an outsider. Veronica Turner had taught  her daughter to keep her head down and not make waves. Not to invite  people back to the house unless she was really certain that she liked  them, and, more importantly, that they liked her. It was better to be  considered cold than to risk rejection.

But then, Shelley's mother had known all about rejection. It was a force  that had shaped her whole life-a dark, shameful secret she'd kept  hidden away. Only Drew knew the full story and Shelley still remembered  the day she had told him.

She had been counting cars, sitting on a low wall which separated their  little group of houses from the big main road which brought all the  holiday-makers into Milmouth during the summer months.

A red car had whizzed by and Shelley had stuck her tongue out between her lips and wrote it down in her notebook.

Drew had been on his way home from the boatyard, where he worked after  school, drinking from a can of cola. He'd peered over her shoulder as he  passed, then paused.

'What are you doing?'

Shelley shrugged. 'Counting cars.'

He grinned. 'Oh? Make a habit of that, do you?'

'It's for my maths,' she explained. 'Averages and probability.'

He pulled a face and came to perch beside her. 'Who's winning?'

'Blue,' she said. 'I've counted eleven, so far.'

'Oh.' He offered her the can. 'Fancy a slug?'

Shelley shook her head. Money was tight in the Turner household. Never  take what you can't repay-her mother had drummed that in to her time and  time again. 'No, thanks.'

He stared at her serious little profile. 'Why do you never see your father?' he asked suddenly.

Shelley shrugged. If it had been anyone other than Drew who had asked  it, she might have told them to mind their own business. But Drew was  Drew.

'I saw him once,' she explained. 'When I was a baby.'

'Just the once?'

'That's right. I was three weeks old.'

'And didn't he want to see you again?'

Shelley blinked furiously as she ticked off another black car in her column. 'That's seven black,' she gulped.

'I'm sorry,' he said instantly. 'I didn't mean to pry.'

She shook her head. 'It's all right for you!' she said, her voice wobbling. 'You've got a mother and a father, and two sisters!'

He laughed cynically. 'Oh, yeah-it's all right for me! When there are  five of us crammed into a house you can't swing a cat in. And my parents  are always arguing. So are my sisters! I'll tell you something,  Shelley-sometimes I just want to smash my way out of there and never  come back!' His blue gaze was piercing. 'Do you really think that  everyone's life is so perfect except your own?'

Shelley shook her head in amazement. Drew felt like that inside? 'Of course I don't!'

'I won't ask you about your father again,' he told her gently. 'It isn't important.'

But it was important. He had taken her into his confidence and she  wanted to tell him. Secrets could become unbearable burdens if you  didn't share them.

'My father was … is a dentist. My mother used to work for him-she was his  nurse. They had, like, a big romance. Well, my mum thought it was a big  romance,' Shelley shrugged. 'She'd come down from Scotland and she  didn't know very much about men.'

Drew nodded thoughtfully, but he didn't say anything.

'Then she found out she was pregnant with me, so she told him … she told  him … and he got really mad with her. Said that it had all been a big  mistake. And that there was no point in her trying to trap him into  marriage-because he already had a wife and children, and they were his  "real" children-'

Drew scowled. 'And your mother didn't know that?'

Shelley rounded on him. 'Of course she didn't know that! If she had done  she would never have got involved with him in the first place! What  sort of woman do you think she is?'

'I didn't mean to insult your mother, Shelley,' he told her, with  dignity. 'It just makes me mad when men treat women that way.' He  brushed dark, untidy hair back from his face. 'So what happened?'

'Oh, he went back to America with his wife and "real" children and Mum  brought me here to live. That was the last she ever saw of him.'