The Final Seduction(6)

           



       

'And who the hell is Angie?' she demanded.

'She was just a girl I knew,' he answered quietly, ripping the card into tiny little pieces and tossing them into the bin.

She felt sick with jealousy at the thought of what he might have done  with Angie and others like her, and she couldn't understand his  reluctance to do the same with her.

'You're different,' he told her softly.

She was still smarting over Angie's postcard. 'You'll have to come up with something better than that!'

'Okay. Let me put it this way, then. I don't want you to get pregnant  before we're married. It would totally freak your mother out. Shelley,  she made me promise to take care of you-and I gave her my word that I  would.'

'There are such things as precautions, Drew. We both know that.'

'And they all have risks. We both know that, too. And I want to do  things properly with you. You're different,' he said again. 'I love you.  I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And the best things in  life are always worth waiting for. Trust me.'

But they argued and Shelley ended up feeling head-achy and out of sorts  and the very next day Marco walked into the showroom to buy a car. He  had come all the way from Italy looking for a certain model, and they  just happened to have the model he wanted in Milmouth …

Shelley was sitting at her desk, listlessly sorting out some paperwork,  when he walked in, looking as if he should be auditioning for the  romantic lead in an art film with subtitles.

His physical impact was outstanding-she couldn't deny that, not even to  herself. That luminous skin, that crisp black hair. His dark eyes  flicked over her casually, like a man used to looking at women. And  women not minding a bit.

'Well, hel-lo,' he murmured.

She was furious with her heart for beating so fast-furious with herself  for reacting. She was an engaged woman-she wasn't supposed to find other  men attractive. She put on her most repressive expression. 'Can I help  you?' she asked him primly.

'Well, that rather depends, doesn't it?' He smiled appreciatively and  Shelley was dazzled, flattered. She blushed and his smile curved.

She had never met anyone like him in her life. There was something  frighteningly potent about his lazy Latin allure. His was an instinctive  sensuality, sweet and seductive as sugar. He was the apple in her  Garden of Eden.

He pointed to a long, low silver model-the most expensive in the showroom. 'Will you take me for a drive in that, cara?'

'Me?' Shelley shook her head. 'Oh, no-I can't do that. I'll have to get Geoff for you. I'm afraid I don't drive.'

'Oh, yes, you do.' He smiled again. 'You must drive men crazy all the  time-with those aquamarine eyes, set in skin the colour of alabaster.'

She couldn't help blushing again at the outrageous compliment.  Afterwards she wondered why he had been attracted enough to flirt with  her. Her hair had been scraped back into a simple chignon and she wasn't  wearing a scrap of make-up. Later still she realised that it had been  her innocence which had ensnared him, just as it had ensnared Drew.

Unusually, he persuaded Geoff to let him take Shelley for a drive in the  car, but then Shelley thought that he probably could have persuaded the  tide to turn back, if he'd wanted it to. He was an art dealer-he had  his own gallery in Milan. He used extravagant words to describe the  paintings he bought and Shelley was fascinated. He told her she was as  pretty as a picture, and he would give her a job any time she wanted  one.

He bought the car-in cash-to Geoff's delight, and the following day sent  flowers to thank her for her help. A subtle, fragrant mass of sweet  peas, and she guiltily buried her nose in the bunched pink and mauve  blooms and breathed in their scent. But she left the flowers on her  office desk-she didn't dare take them home in case her mother quizzed  her about them-and by the next day they had wilted.

She was edgy. Drew had been working so hard that she had hardly seen  him. She was getting on for twenty-one and life seemed to stretch out in  front of her like a flat, straight road. So when Marco casually offered  to take her for a drink after work she found herself wavering. 'I'm not  sure.'

'You have a boyfriend?'

She held her left hand up. 'Fiancé,' she said pointedly.

'Maybe I should ask his permission?'

'Oh, no-don't do that!' said Shelley hastily.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'I'm going back to Italy next week,' he  explained. 'Maybe I'll call you next time I'm over. Can you get up to  London easily?'                       
       
           



       

It would be easier to get to Mars! She would never see him again. And he  was exciting, different, Italian. Drew had travelled the world and met  lots of interesting people like Marco. What, then-what harm could come  of a simple drink?

She had never drunk in the Westward Hotel before. It was on the other  side of the village and only the richer tourists could afford to go  there, even though the splendour of the place was gradually becoming  faded with time.

He led her to a table with a breathtaking view of the sea, and the smell  of old leather and the dazzling views and the iced champagne went to  her head and made her dizzy.

When Marco drove her home, he stopped a little way from her house and it  was like watching a film of someone else's life when he leaned over to  kiss her. Shelley told herself it was nothing more than curiosity which  made her open her lips beneath his. She'd only ever been kissed by Drew  before.

But the kiss was like chocolate; she couldn't stop at one. And it took  every bit of will-power she possessed to tear herself out of his arms  and run towards the house-with the sound of Fletcher barking madly in  her ears and guilt staining her cheeks.

And she hadn't seen the dark figure who stood watching from the shadows of the trees …



The memories dissolved like a dream, and Shelley glanced down at her  watch to see that she had been standing gazing at the empty beach for  almost an hour. So did that mean Drew really had been here, or had she  dreamed that up, too?

Slowly she made her way back along the sea-road to where she had left her car, feeling as flat as last night's champagne.

It was ironic, really. She had been thinking how much she had changed  and matured. But if that were the case, then how could she so badly have  underestimated the impact of seeing him again?

Had she thought she would be immune to him after all this time?  Or-worse-imagined that he would pull her into his arms and tell her that  he'd never forgotten her?

She slid into the driver's seat and started up the engine.

Time to go home.





CHAPTER FOUR




SHELLEY'S old house looked smaller than she remembered. And scruffier.  Paint was peeling from the window panes and the windows themselves were  so grubby that they looked like a 'before' shot on a detergent  commercial. But the small lawn at the front of the house had been kept  clipped and tidy, the borders all neat and weeded. Now who had been  responsible for that? she wondered as she unloaded the small box of  groceries from the car.

She let herself into the house, having to push the door hard to get it  open past the small heap of yellowing circulars which had piled up. She  shivered. It was cold-bitterly cold-with the smell of damp and disuse  penetrating her nostrils with a dank, chilly odour.

She went through the hall and into the tiny sitting room, where the  floral wallpaper was beginning to peel in parts, and looked around,  nostalgia creeping into her soul like an old friend. On almost every  surface stood a photograph-all of Shelley in various stages of growing  up.

There she was as a chubby baby, peering out from beneath a cotton bonnet  in her pram. There as a toddler on the beach, sucking her thumb and  screwing her eyes up at the camera. Another showed her in a too big  uniform, self-conscious and proud on her first day at school. And  there-a shot of her as an adolescent-leggy and gawky-a child on the  brink of womanhood.

But the photo she stared at longest showed her with Drew. It must have  been taken around the time they'd become engaged-because there was no  pretence or coyness about the way they really felt for one another. His  arm was placed lightly around her shoulders but they weren't looking at  the camera-just staring into each other's faces-giggling with happiness.

Biting her lip, she turned and abruptly left the room, and went upstairs to her old bedroom.

Nothing had changed there, either. Not a single thing. The frilly white  cover dotted with pink rosebuds still lay flounced on the small, single  bed. The boab nut that Drew had bought her still sat on the sill of the  window where she used to watch him walk home from work. She had even  kept the piece of tinsel he had tied around it, though it didn't glitter  as brightly any more.

She looked down at the small back garden which had been her mother's  pride and joy, and blinked in astonishment. Because, just like the  front, it had obviously been well looked after, its tidiness contrasting  with the general neglect inside the house.