The Bedroom Assignment

Some of it was her own fault, Zoe knew. New Year was six months ago. There must have been chances to tell Suze. She had just run away from them. And, most damning of all, she had just unloaded her third escort of the year.

She said slowly, ‘Okay. The truth it is. Simon’s a great guy. It wasn’t anything he did—’

Suze laughed wickedly. ‘Okay. What was it that he didn’t do?’ And she leered with mock lasciviousness.

At once Zoe was wincing internally. But outside she was laughing back.

‘Nothing to complain about. He made all the right moves. It wasn’t him, honestly. It was me.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that. It’s always you.’ Suze pursed her lips. ‘A complete split personality, that’s what you are.’

‘What?’ said Zoe, arrested.

‘If you ask me, you don’t know what you want. You unload a swinger like Alastair because he doesn’t want to play house with your barmy family. Then you hitch up with Simon who’s so domestic he comes with a matching Labrador. And he can’t keep you interested, either.’

Zoe shifted. ‘It isn’t quite like that.’

Suze was too intrigued by her own analysis to take any notice of Zoe’s uncomfortable murmur.

‘Don’t you see a pattern? You only want what you haven’t got at the moment.’

Zoe’s heart sank. ‘Suze, listen to me—’ she began urgently.

But there was ring from the little telephone clipped to Suze’s belt. She pressed a button and raised her eyebrows at the number displayed.

‘Jay Christopher? What does he want?’ She pressed another button and put the thing to her ear. ‘Hi, Jay. What can I do for you?’

Zoe looked away across the garden. She could have kicked herself. Another ideal opportunity wasted. Again.

What is wrong with me? thought Zoe, despairing.

Meanwhile Suze had gone into crisp business mode. She even stood up to talk, prowling around the lawn as if she were patrolling her office. She snapped out questions like an interrogator, but most of the time she listened attentively.

‘So that’s more than a filing clerk,’ she was saying when Zoe tuned in again. ‘You need someone who can handle research. And work on their own initiative. And you want them by Monday. You don’t ask much, do you?’

The telephone said something flattering.

Suze laughed, undeceived. ‘And you know that nobody else would even think of trying. Okay, Jay, I’ll do what I can. But I need the paperwork tonight and I’m not in the office. If you’re serious about this, you’ll have to drop it off here.’ She spelled out Zoe’s address.

The telephone said something else.

‘Am I an online map service?’ asked Suze sweetly. ‘Look in the A to Z. The good news is it doesn’t matter how late you get here. We’re having a party.’

It was all the reminder that Zoe needed. She jumped to her feet. ‘Time to get on,’ she mouthed at Suze, and ran down the last set of steps to the patio and into the kitchen, command centre of Operation Party.

She began to attack the remaining two thirds of the big refectory table with energy.

Eventually Suze finished her phone call and followed. ‘Interesting,’ she said. She stood in the doorway, sucking her teeth. ‘Er—Zo? About your jobs next week…’

‘What?’ said Zoe, scrubbing hard.

‘I know you don’t want to sign on with me permanently. But—what about a one-off? Two weeks, maybe four. A really stimulating job, too. Lots of initiative required, and you get to use your brain, too.’

Zoe knew her best friend well. Suze had not got to be a twenty-four-year-old phenomenon by focusing on the disadvantages of the employers who used her agency. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing. Honest. It’s a brilliant job.’

‘Then why haven’t you already got someone on your books who can do it?’

Suze sighed. ‘I have. Well, a couple. But they’ve already got jobs for next week. And this is not a job that just anyone can do. They have to have that little bit extra.’ She came and stood beside Zoe, nudging her companionably. ‘Well, a lot extra, actually. You’d have been my first choice anyway.’

‘You’re wheedling,’ said Zoe dispassionately. ‘You always wheedle when there’s something wrong. ‘Fess up. What’s the downside?’

‘Well, it’s in the West End,’ admitted Suze.

‘Uh-oh. You mean I’d have to leave the house before Harry goes to school.’ She shook her head. ‘No way. His exams are coming up.’

‘If I can persuade them to let you arrive later? Say ten-thirty? That would mean you missed the rush hour on the tube as well.’ Suze slipped an arm round her. ‘Oh, come on, Zo. You know you need the money. And it’d be fun. We could have lunch together.’

Zoe hesitated. It was true; they needed the money. The plumbing had more leaks than she was able to keep up with, and a damp patch that she kept trying not to think about had appeared in the top bedroom ceiling. To have enough in her bank account to be able to call a plumber and hang the consequences sounded like heaven.

‘If I could leave the house after I’ve seen Harry off…’ she mused aloud.

‘You’re a sweetheart,’ said Suze. She put on rubber gloves and took the scouring pad away from Zoe. ‘I’ll finish that.’

‘I didn’t say I would do it,’ Zoe said hurriedly. ‘I’ll think about it. That’s all.’

‘You’re a mate,’ said Suze. ‘That’s all I ask. Thanks.’

Zoe did a rapid assessment of the contents of the fridge and shifted food around to make room for bottles of white wine.

Suze considered her thoughtfully. ‘It is okay, me asking this guy tonight?’

Zoe was surprised. ‘It’s half your party. You ask anyone you want.’

‘He’s a client, but he’s cool,’ Suze assured her. ‘In fact he’s gorgeous.’

Zoe shrugged. ‘Even if he isn’t I can live with it. Lauren’s bringing Boring Accountant Man, after all.’

They both groaned.

Suze said delicately, ‘Speaking of cool—is your mum coming?’

The big house was theoretically the Brown family home. But Zoe’s mother had lived a sort of semi-detached existence from her three children ever since her husband left. These days the house ran like a shared tenancy between four adults. And if anyone cooked family meals or did a major shop for the house it was Zoe, not Deborah Brown.

Zoe said without any delicacy at all, ‘Not a chance. Any sign of a party and she heads for the hills.’

They were both silent, remembering. Philip Brown had walked out during Zoe’s sixteenth birthday party. All the neighbours knew it. Suze’s mother had been there with hot meals and a shoulder to lean on until Deborah had finally repelled her. Zoe and her siblings had been grateful for the hot meals, though. They’d stayed grateful until Zoe had taken charge and made sure that the house ran properly again.

‘Shame.’ Suze had gone through school envying Zoe her anti-authoritarian mother. She still had a lot of time for Deborah, though she thought the woman’s withdrawal into her own world was hard on Zoe. ‘She’s still on Planet Potty, then?’

‘Yes,’ said Zoe briefly.

The doorbell rang. It was the drink for the party. Zoe and Suze helped carry in the cases. There was wine and bottled water and vodka and mixers and beer. And then four dozen wine glasses in their divided cardboard boxes.

‘Sign here,’ said the friendly delivery man. ‘Glasses back clean by Monday. You pay for breakages. Have a good one!’

After that they were too busy for more confidences. Zoe did not know whether she was frustrated or relieved. Either way, it didn’t matter.

‘Help,’ Zoe said as she and Suze formed themselves into a production line to unpack glasses. ‘In less than three hours the house will be full of people expecting to be fed and entertained. So far only the garden is ready for them.’

But she and Suze worked well together. They were both practical and unflappable, and they had done this before. The food was set out, the drawing room disco was operational, and a bedroom full of the valuable and fragile was locked, with half an hour to spare.

Zoe showered and washed her hair quickly. She dried it fast, watching it spring into its corkscrew curls with resignation. ‘Oh, well, there’s nothing I can do about it. Curls are my curse.’

‘Some curse.’ Suze had extracted the tiniest possible slip of a dress from her briefcase. She climbed into it, then occupied Zoe’s dressing table. She was peering in the mirror, outlining her eyelids carefully.

Zoe pinned her hair carelessly on top of her head and began to scrabble in her wardrobe.

‘Why do I always forget how much effort it takes to organise a big party?’ said Suze between clenched teeth.

‘Because we’re good at it.’ Zoe debated between a white crop top and a black net shirt that was perfectly plain except that you could see through it. She opted for advice. ‘Which do you think?’

Suze put her eye make up on hold for moment, swivelled round and considered gravely.

‘Not white,’ she decided. ‘No tan yet.’

Zoe nodded, flung the white top back in the wardrobe and dug black satin underwear out of a drawer. Having decided, she dressed quickly, teaming the chiffon top with deep purple leather trousers, soft and clingy as gloves. Leaving Suze at the dressing table, she went into her en suite shower room and attacked the still damp curls with a comb. Soon they were falling into turbulent waves of gold and brown and chestnut, and even a hint of auburn.

She came out. ‘What do you think?’

Suze had finished her eyes. She turned. ‘Very Pre-Raphaelite,’ she approved.

‘Not as if I’ve just got out of bed?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So men aren’t going to think I’m willing to jump right back if they ask nicely?’

Suze chuckled. ‘Well, you know men. They live in hope.’

Zoe clutched her temples in mock despair.

‘Never mind,’ Suze consoled her. ‘You can always dance with Boring Accountant Man. He doesn’t back women into bed. Lauren told me he’s holding out for a virgin.’

Her tone said it all, thought Zoe. He might just as well have been holding out for a tyrannosaurus rex as far as Suze was concerned.

‘Really?’ she said in a constrained voice.

‘I don’t know what Lauren sees in her weirdos. She must be on a mission to bring the twenty-first century to the unenlightened.’

Zoe bent and fluffed up her hair unnecessarily. ‘I suppose so.’ She sounded depressed.

Suze put an arm round her shoulders and hugged her quickly.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I know you’re the saviour of the world’s party outcasts, but Boring Accountant Man isn’t going to be looking in your direction. Never seen anyone less virginal in my life.’

Zoe gave a hollow laugh. ‘I’m glad about that.’

Suze chuckled. ‘I don’t believe there’s a twenty-three-year-old virgin left in the northern hemisphere.’

Zoe winced. Only Suze did not see it, and the mask clicked into place, as it always did, without fail.

But bright, deceptive, popular Performance Zoe said naughtily, ‘Definitely dead as a dodo.’

CHAPTER TWO

JAY CHRISTOPHER drove into the tree-lined street at half past midnight. The party house was not difficult to identify. Someone had tied balloons all along the iron railings and it blazed with lights.

He inserted the Jaguar into the tightest possible parking place with one smooth movement and switched off the engine. For a moment he sat there in the friendly dark, savouring the solitude. It had been a heavy week in every way.

‘People!’ he said aloud, with fierce self-mockery. ‘Doncha just love them?’

He looked at the balloon-fringed house with reluctance bordering on dislike. But this was work, he reminded himself. He could deal with people when it was work.

He flicked open the slim briefcase on the passenger seat and found the big white envelope he was looking for. Then he flung the briefcase on the floor, out of sight of any potential car breaker. There was no point in bothering with a jacket. The night was too warm and he didn’t think Suze Manoir’s friends would welcome a fellow in a City suit. Anyway, he had already left his tie at Carla’s.

At the thought of Carla his slim dark brows locked together. She had not contributed to the emotional horrors of this week. But he knew that she was not happy. It would have to end soon, Jay thought. It could not go on, not if he was making her unhappy. No matter how bravely she denied it.

He shook his head. It was so easy to know when women were getting in too deep. They stopped asking questions in case they couldn’t deal with the answers.

Take tonight, for example. He had said, without thinking, that he was going to have to drive through a part of London he did not know. That he was going to a party. Carla could so easily have asked, Whose party? Where? Could she come, too…? But she hadn’t. Jay even knew why. In case he wouldn’t take her. In case the party-giver was her successor.

So she had just sat opposite him in the restaurant and smiled and asked intelligent questions about his business and looked forward to seeing him on Sunday. And all the time there had been that terrible fear at the back of her eyes. And her voice had been calm and even. And she hadn’t asked questions.

Yes, he was definitely going to have to end it. She was too nice a woman to do anything else. He could not let her start to hope that there might be any future for them. It would be completely false. He had made that plain when they started. Carla had said she understood that. But women had that habit of forgetting the rules when they fell in love.

Especially when they fell in love with men who did not understand love.

I might not understand love, thought Jay. But I’ve seen the harm it does. Oh, Carla, why can’t you settle for honest sex and friendship?

But he knew she would not. His heart twisted with pity for her. Yet even as he winced at the thought of her distress he could not wait to get away. It suffocated him, all this terrible, exhausting emotion. It made him want to go out on the moors and run and run and run until he couldn’t think, could barely breathe—and still keep on running.

Well, at least there would be no emotion at Suze Manoir’s party. Jay laughed aloud at the thought. He got out of the car, stuffed the envelope under his arm and crossed the street.

It took him time to get into the house. Once in, though, it was relatively easy to find Suze. He tracked her down to a room with rotating disco lights and loud seventies music. She was dancing energetically to Abba, but as soon as he arrived she dropped her partner’s hand and rushed across to him.

‘Jay! You got here.’

‘I even got in,’ he said dryly. ‘Who on earth have you got on the door? Murder Incorporated?’

‘Oh that’s Harry Brown and his friends. He’s Zoe’s brother.’

‘Zoe?’

‘She lives here. It’s half her party.’

‘Well, she certainly gives a great bouncer service,’ he said. ‘The guys out there have a technique that makes your average killer shark look like Miss Hospitality.’

‘She’s very efficient,’ said Suze demurely. ‘In fact—well, never mind. Have you got my contract?’

‘Have you got my research assistant?’ he countered.

‘Maybe.’

She was looking naughty, he thought. Or it could be a trick of the whirling light.

He said, ‘This isn’t a game, Susan. I’ve got a major speech to give at the Communications Conference in Venice next month. And there isn’t a single note or reference to build on.’

‘Come and let me find you a drink,’ Suze said soothingly. ‘And you can tell me how you let it get away from you.’

‘Something soft. I’m driving,’ he said absently. ‘It happened because I delegated, and the wretched girl hasn’t done a thing.’

Suze opened the fridge. ‘Juice or water?’

‘Water, please.’

He wandered round the kitchen. The lighting was better than in the drawing room disco, but it was still clearly a room decked out for a party. There were candles and trailing greenery everywhere, and someone had sprayed ‘Sixteen Again’ on the mirror in gold paint.

‘How old is your friend?’ Jay asked, recoiling.

Suze poured water into a big wine glass for him.

‘Twenty-three. But she says everyone should be sixteen at a party.’

‘Original!’

Suze laughed and gave him the glass.

‘She’s not as daft as she sounds. She has her reasons. Now, let me have a look at that contract.’

He gave her the envelope.

‘It’s a long shot, I know. If you can’t help, then I’ll call the bigger agencies on Monday.’

Suze was running her eyes down the job description. ‘Hmm? You know the other agencies aren’t as creative as I am.’

‘No, but they have more people on their books.’

She looked up. ‘You don’t want more, Jay. You want the right one. And I may just have her for you.’

He was intrigued. ‘May just? That doesn’t sound like you.’

Suze grinned. ‘Well, she’s thinking about it. I need you to help me convince her.’

Jay sighed. ‘And how do I do that?’

‘Do I need to tell the great PR guru?’ mocked Suze. ‘Charm her. Challenge her.’ She added kindly, ‘You can do it!’

There was a pregnant silence. ‘The bigger agencies are so much easier,’ said Jay plaintively.

She laughed aloud. ‘But not nearly so much fun. Now, listen, we’ll need to do a double act…’

Zoe had been going upstairs when she heard the altercation at the front door. She had turned, intending to go and see if she needed to intervene. Harry and his friends could sometimes take their bouncer duties a bit too seriously, she knew.

So she had been halfway down the stairs when she saw him.

He was wearing dark trousers of some sort, and a wonderful shirt in sunset colours. Silk, she was sure. You would not have got that purity of colour in any other material. Zoe could not afford silk, but that did not stop her dreaming over it in the shops. She knew the way the material moved on the body, catching the light in a thousand different ways. As the man had stood there, arguing with Harry and his suspicious mates, she’d been almost dazzled by that sheen, that hint of gold, those little wasp stings of tangerine and apricot and purple among the principal colour.

What sort of man came to a suburban party in flame-coloured silk?

And then she’d looked at his face.

And stopped dead. Her heart had seemed to contract in her breast.

He hadn’t been looking at her. He had not even seen her. If he had, he wouldn’t have known her. But somehow—she knew him. She always had. Though she did not know his name.

She knew the face, though. The proud carriage of the head, like a Mogul Prince. The deep, deep eyes. The sculpted ascetic mouth, with its eloquent self-discipline and its alluring hint of passion suppressed. The energy. The fire. Banked now, certainly, but fire nonetheless. Oh, yes, she knew that face all right.

Zoe had retreated a step, backing round the corner into the shadows. She’d felt cold and very serious, as if she had just come face to face with her future.

Oh, wow! That’s all I need.

It was ridiculous, of course. Nobody believed in love at first sight. It was an adolescent fantasy. A myth.

A myth like the twenty-three-year-old virgin? said a voice in her head ironically.

Well, all right, maybe it wasn’t exactly a myth. Maybe it was pheromones. Maybe it was the party. They had a habit of lowering your inhibitions, parties! It was not important, anyway. It was not a feeling you could rely on.

It still gave you a hell of shock, thought Zoe ruefully. She felt as if she had walked into a wall.

Who on earth was he?

You don’t want to know, said that voice in her head. There was a distinct warning note in it.

And it was right. Of course it was right. If she had to come face to face with the man she’d probably be as tongue-tied as a new teen with a pop idol whose poster she had had on her wall for years. That was about the level of substance to her feelings.

She did not want to have to deal with fantasies she should have outgrown ten years ago, Zoe told herself. She wanted to have a good time. That was what tonight was all about. Forget her money worries! Forget her non-existent career and her life on hold! Dance and have fun!

She would dance and have fun if it killed her, she resolved grimly.

So she had resumed her journey to her bathroom. And before she’d come downstairs again, she’d splashed water on her face so vigorously that she’d had to rebuild her makeup from scratch.

Suze took Jay back to the drawing room. Now that he’d had time to adjust, he saw it ran the depth of the house, from the street to the garden. At the far end the French windows were open to the night air. He moved towards them gratefully, picking up the rhythm of the dance as he went. Beside him Suze gyrated, a lot less rhythmically.

‘She’ll be here somewhere. When last seen she was listening to a man in a checked shirt talk about megabytes.’

Jay bent his head to her. ‘Why?’ he said simply.

‘Zoe takes being a hostess seriously. She does ten minutes per no-hoper.’

Suze was twining herself round him sinuously as they walked. It would have been sexy if she hadn’t been scanning the room all the time and talking nineteen to the dozen. Jay smiled at her with affection. God bless Susan, who didn’t fancy the pants off him and wasn’t going to break her heart over him.

‘You’re a star,’ he said, taking her hand and dancing her powerfully through a little knot of wild arms and bouncing shoulders.

‘Love it when you butter me up,’ said Suze, unmoved by his touch.

They got to the windows.

‘Maybe she’s in the garden,’ said Jay, with a longing look at the tall shadows of trees and laurel hedges.

‘Maybe.’ But Suze was not looking outside. He felt her jump under his hand. ‘Ah, there she is.’ She raised her arm above her head and waved vigorously. ‘Zo! Over here!’

He looked into the shot darkness, with its shifting shadows of dancing bodies, and at first he saw nothing. Then the woman started to come towards them through the bopping crowd and he held his breath.

She was tall and graceful as a willow. As she got closer he saw she had a cloud of wild hair. He had no idea what colour. He could not tear his eyes away from her mouth. Her lips would have been voluptuous anyway, but she had painted them what looked like a dark purple. It was an aggressive colour, anyway. The whole image was aggressive. But he looked and looked, and saw vulnerability behind the image. More, there was a quivering sensitivity that their owner was trying hard to deny.

He found that he was not surprised she spent ten minutes with every no-hoper under her roof.

‘Gorgeous,’ he said, almost to himself.

Suze certainly didn’t hear.

The woman’s skin was milk-pale beneath an outrageously revealing black chiffon shirt. Under it, he could see a black bra in some shiny material. One thin strap was falling off her shoulder under the transparent sleeve. It was somehow more seductive than nakedness would have been. He felt as if he had been doused in ice water.

That graceful walk, that skin, that mouth…

Hell. Sixteen again, with a vengeance. Sixteen again, and hungry as a male animal for his conquest.

‘Down boy,’ said Jay grimly.

Suze had heard that, all right. ‘What?’ she said, startled.

‘That is your candidate for my research assistant?’ said Jay in disbelief.

‘My friend Zoe. Yes. So?’

‘Your friend?’ This got worse and worse.

‘Yes.’ Suze faced him. ‘And she really needs this job, too, though she may not want to admit it. So go carefully, right? You could be the answer to the maiden’s prayer.’

Jay groaned. ‘Have you even heard of political correctness?’ he said. He was racked by his baser instincts. The only possible solution was to laugh. ‘Maiden’s prayer, for heaven’s sake!’

‘I’m a traditionalist,’ said Suze, unmoved. She reached out an arm and hauled her friend between them. ‘Zoe, this is the man you’ve just got to meet.’