Temporary Girlfriend

Elyss was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, like Nikki, and it had been dark when that crash had happened. They were about the same height, and both slender. So why, as the grey-eyed man silently studied her, did it not now seem so simple to make it appear that she and Nikki were one and the same person?

‘Good evening, Mr Pendleton.’ Elyss did her best, realising that she was supposed to know him, while she kept her fingers crossed that he was Saul Pendleton—if he wasn’t, she had fallen at the first hurdle.

‘Miss Harvey,’ he replied, with a look of toughness there in his eyes that suggested ‘Don’t tangle with me unless you’re up to it’. ‘Come in,’ he invited.

She crossed over his threshold and he closed the door. She waited and then followed him from a most elegant hall into his drawing room, which was the last word in elegance—and she’d thought the apartment she shared was smart!

‘Do you want to take your raincoat off?’ he enquired. She didn’t want to stay that long—but suddenly she was feeling hot.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and shrugged out of her coat, handing it to him. He draped it over a nearby chair.

‘Take a seat,’ he suggested when she stood in the middle of his plush carpet wishing she could remember just one sentence from any of the dozen or so she had been rehearsing for most of the day.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured again.

‘How did you get here—by taxi?’ he enquired as she settled herself on one sofa and he did likewise on one opposite.

‘A friend gave me a lift.’

‘Boyfriend?’ he enquired, but she could tell from the stern look of him that he wasn’t particularly interested in her answer.

‘No,’ she replied, and left it at that. She could see no reason to waste further time. ‘I’m very sorry about the accident,’ she began for starters.

He observed her silently for a few moments. Then coolly remarked, ‘It’s something that you admit liability, I suppose.’

Oh, heck—was she not supposed to do that? Not that it mattered; Nikki had said that it was all her fault. Elyss hesitated. The state Nikki was in, perhaps she’d got it a little wrong.

‘Are you saying that you’re a little to blame?’ Elyss enquired hopefully. Even if she had to pay only half it would be a tremendous relief.

‘I’m not saying anything of the sort!’ Saul Pendleton replied sharply. ‘As well you know—if you remember that right turn I endeavoured to make at the traffic lights last night.’

So much for tremendous relief, Elyss mused unhappily, not liking to have her head bitten off for her trouble. Though she took heart that, by the sound of it, he believed that she was the blonde who had crashed into him.

‘Who could forget a thing like that?’ she murmured. For some unknown reason she was feeling in need of an excuse. ‘You know how it is; when the lights changed to green, all I could think of was getting over them before they went to red again. Er—you weren’t hurt?’ she thought to enquire of this man who was fully in charge and didn’t appear to have a thing wrong with him.

‘I fared better than my car,’ he answered drily.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Elyss said. ‘About your car, I mean.’ And, getting a bit fed up with having to continually apologise—especially for something which she had not done—she enquired politely, ‘Have you been able to get an estimate for repairs?’ At last they were getting down to the nub of the whole issue.

‘Not yet,’ he replied, his eyes on her richly blue ones. ‘Though, as you’d expect, it will be in the region of at least two thousand pounds.’

Oh, no! Elyss wasn’t sure that she didn’t lose some of her colour. ‘As much as two?’ she asked faintly.

‘A minimum of two thousand, I’d say,’ he replied confidently.

The words trembled on her lips to ask him to get it done somewhere cheaper, but she realised from his clothes, his home, the very manner of him, that he never had anything done on the cheap. ‘When is it likely to be finished—repaired?’ she made herself enquire. With luck it would take all of a year to get the spare parts.

‘The car has been transferred to a specialised garage today. But it will depend on whether parts are available here or whether the garage will have to send to Italy for them. Then they’ll be fitting, painting—sorting out the electronics...’

Oh, heck, it was, she saw, going to cost all of two thousand pounds. By the sound of it, though, it could take quite a while—but nowhere near long enough for her to be able to scrape the money together.

‘Meanwhile, I’ve been able to hire a car until—’

‘You’ve hired a car?’ she cut in in a rush, a note of strain in her voice. This was something she just hadn’t thought of. Oh, her stars! The cost of hiring a car would be down to her—she just knew it! She prayed he had hired a small, everyday run-about. But, even as she asked, ‘Er—a Ferrari, I suppose?’ she knew the answer.

‘You suppose correctly, Miss Harvey.’

She started to feel light-headed. Her mind just would not cope with how much it must cost to hire a Ferrari—and the length of time Saul Pendleton was going to need to keep it.

She fought to pull herself together and to hide that she was in panic mode. ‘The th-thing is,’ she began stiltedly. She was here now; there was no point in going away and worrying herself silly. She must try to get something said, sorted out, and settled here and now.

‘Yes?’ he enquired politely when she had got no further.

At that point Elyss started to actively dislike this man. She had a feeling that he knew she was in one very big mess—but was he saying one word to try and help? Was he, blazes!

She swallowed hard. Be fair. He had been driving along minding his business before her car had sideswiped him. ‘The thing is,’ she got started again. ‘I was—er—wondering if you would—um—consider—’ She broke off. He must have the central heating on—she was all of a lather. ‘Consider giving me time to pay.’ Hells bells, at thirty pounds a month—the very maximum she could scrape together—it would take seven years plus to reimburse him.

He smiled. She liked his smile. It made her feel better. It seemed he might be prepared to consider her request anyhow. She smiled back. His dark eyes went from her blue eyes down to her gently curving mouth.

Then his eyes were back to holding hers, when he remarked pleasantly, ‘Oh, there’s no need for that, Miss Harvey.’ Her smile widened—he must have come up with some answer. She was still smiling when, smoothly, he added, ‘Your insurance company will settle everything, I’m sure.’ Abruptly her smile faded, and she started to dislike him again. ‘You are insured?’ he enquired silkily.

Elyss knew then that he knew that she was not insured. She didn’t know how he knew, she just instinctively felt it. The knowledge that he was just playing with her rattled her. ‘You know damn well I’m not!’ she flew. She instantly wanted those words back. Oh, grief, this man missed not a thing. His eyes were on her, taking in, reading. She lowered her gaze to her lap. ‘I thought I was,’ she felt compelled to confess, her tone quieter, not angry. ‘I gave—’ She broke off, took a shaky breath and raised her head to look at him once more. She found his eyes were still steady on her. He was waiting. From where she was sitting Elyss realised that she couldn’t get into any more trouble, having owned up to not being insured. ‘A friend was going to drop my cheque into my insurance company a couple of months ago—only she— forgot.’ Oh, dammit, that sounded so unlikely she was sure he wouldn’t believe her.

‘You should have checked!’ Saul Pendleton stated curtly—and that annoyed her. She knew she should have checked! She didn’t need him to remind her.

‘You obviously did!’ she snapped—and got a very grim, unsmiling look for her trouble.

‘You think I shouldn’t have? After your phone call this morning...’ He let that go to change tack, to abruptly question, ‘This friend—the one who forgot to drop your cheque off—is she the same friend who was driving your car last night?’

It was unexpected. ‘You know?’ she gasped. ‘You know it wasn’t me?’

‘Of course I know!’ he rapped. ‘The woman I spoke with on the phone this morning sounded nothing like the hysterical female I had to deal with last night.’

‘She could have calmed down by this morning,’ Elyss argued, even though she realised she might fare better if she were placatory rather than argumentative. Yet she didn’t seem able to act in a way in which she did not feel. This man, she realised, effortlessly rattled her normally even temperament.

‘Not to that extent, she couldn’t,’ Saul Pendleton gritted concisely. He was right, of course. Nikki had still been in a state this morning. ‘Though she might well have remembered that neither car was anywhere near a set of traffic lights when she attempted to demolish my car.’

Elyss gasped in astonishment. Talk about ‘Walk into my parlour’! Not minutes ago she had agreed their vehicles had been in collision at some traffic lights!

‘You tricked me!” she exploded angrily.

‘Don’t get on your high horse that I tricked you!’ he rapped. ‘No one does me down, Miss Harvey! From the way I was hearing it, you were out to have a damned good try.’

She hadn’t a leg to stand on. It hurt to back down, but... She drew a shaky breath. ‘It wasn’t like...’ she halted. To tell him how it really was she would have to tell him all about Nikki, and she wasn’t ready to do that. ‘So—er—after my phone call, you checked with the insurance company. Nikki—’ She broke off. She hadn’t been going to mention Nikki’s name! ‘And they told you I wasn’t insured.’

‘Not with them you weren’t. Nor did they know you at the address I was given. You do live there?’ he demanded.

‘I moved in five months ago—I forgot to give the insurers my change of address.’

She received a grunt for her oversight. There was no point in her explaining that she’d been so busy at work she hadn’t had time to think much about anything else—much less to remember to tell people she dealt with only once a year that she had moved.

‘You forgot a lot of things by the sound of it.’ I wish I could forget you! she thought. The gloves, it seemed, were off. ‘You are Elyss Harvey?’ he questioned toughly. ‘Should I decide to sue, will I be confronted by yet another blonde-haired, blue-eyed Elyss Harvey in court?’

Court! Oh, heavens, her parents would be most perturbed. Why couldn’t he drive a Metro? ‘My name is Elyss Harvey,’ she confirmed unhappily.

‘And your friend?’

‘Her name isn’t important,’ Elyss told him quickly.

‘Not important!’ He seemed astounded. ‘Driving without due care and attention, giving a false name, to itemise but two misdemeanours. We haven’t come yet to the criminal act of driving while not insured. Add—’

‘She’s not well,’ Elyss interrupted quickly, having heard quite enough to be going on with. ‘She’s having boyfriend trouble. She’s...’

‘She’s in a whole heap of trouble!’ Saul pronounced curtly. ‘And so, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, are you.’

Elyss stared at him. This interview wasn’t going anywhere near as well as she had hoped. ‘Will you not give me time to pay what I’ll owe you?’ She repeated the question she had asked earlier. The impossible question.

‘You work?’ he asked bluntly.

‘Yes.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I work, mainly in administration, in a wholesalers.’

‘Who?’

She did not like his questions. She did not want to tell him who she worked for. But, she realised, she didn’t have a choice. ‘Howard Butler and Company,’ she reluctantly answered.

‘How much do you make?’ Cheeky devil! It was none of his business! Though... She stopped short. Of course it was his business. If he was considering allowing her to settle her debt by instalments—which meant he would have to pay the garage bill out of his own pocket—then she supposed he had every right to assess whether she was likely to default on those payments. She told him how much she earned. She hadn’t expected him to be impressed. He wasn’t.

‘I’ve only been there a short while,’ she defended.

‘And Mr Butler was so kind in offering me the job, I don’t like to ask for more.’

His look said, More fool you, but he refrained from making such a comment. He enquired instead, ‘Is that your sole income?’

She felt embarrassed. Saul Pendleton was quick. He’d have worked out by now that she’d still be in his debt years from now. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled.

‘You live in a smart area,’ he stated. ‘Pay rent?’

Heavens above! Louise hadn’t been joking when she’d said he was a tough operator. Straight, resolute—and you did try to put one over on him at your peril! Elyss gave a shaky sigh. ‘Yes,’ she replied. She should never have come. Though what other way was there open to her? ‘But there are four of us,’ she added. ‘We each contribute a—’

‘All women?’ he cut in abruptly. What had that got to do with anything?

‘Of course!’ Elyss answered, a shade primly she had to own—but his tone nettled her.

‘And how long, even assuming I’m prepared to condone your criminal act,’ he inserted, ‘do you think you’ll be in my debt?’

He knew the answer to that as well as she. She gave him a defeated look. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘What do you think I should do?’ he tossed back, but did not wait for her to reply. He concisely stripped the whole issue down to one sentence. ‘You’re criminally uninsured and are ultimately responsible for damage to my vehicle to the tune of at least two thousand pounds. You’re not seriously suggesting, the criminal aspect apart, that I do nothing?’

She must have been in cloud-cuckoo-land to have ever accepted his invitation to come here tonight, Elyss realised. ‘I suppose not,’ she mumbled unhappily, aware that she had achieved nothing other than to discover that she was, financially, in far deeper trouble than she had estimated. That thought panicked her again. ‘I don’t suppose you could claim off your insurance company, could you?’ she asked in a rush.

Saul Pendleton studied her eager expression silently for a moment. Hope grew—and was knocked flat again when he replied, ‘I could. But, since I’d have to give them full details of the accident, I’m fairly certain they’d take you to court for the recovery of their money.’ Oh, Lord. She was in a mess whatever he chose to do. If he didn’t prosecute her then his insurance company would. He stood up, reaching for her raincoat. The interview, it was plain—with no conclusion reached—was over. ‘Leave it with me,’ Saul Pendleton decreed, holding her raincoat out for her to put it on. ‘I’ll think about it, and be in touch.’

Her spirits lifted. She turned, buttoning her coat, looking at him. Was there a chance? ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, afraid to say more, afraid that he might change his mind, and that any small hope that they could come to some sort of an agreement would be gone. She turned towards the door, and he went with her into the hall. ‘You have my address?’ she thought to enquire, and wished she hadn’t. He’d think her stupid. Of course he had her address—he had commented on it being in a smart area. ‘Oh!’ she suddenly exclaimed as they reached the hall door.

‘Oh?’ he queried as she stopped dead and looked up at him.

‘C-could I ask you not to call at the flat?’ she asked anxiously, in no position to ask favours but...

‘I doubt I was proposing to do that,’ Saul Pendleton drawled. How was it that she could feel ready to beg while, at the same time, she also felt sorely inclined to stamp her foot down hard on his? He confused her; there was just something about him that affected her oddly. ‘But,’ he resumed, ‘if you’d rather I didn’t.’

Sarcastic swine. ‘Nikki.’ She didn’t want to explain—but who held all the aces? Certainly not her. ‘She’s—er—not coping very well at the moment,’ she elaborated. ‘She’s a bundle of nerves. It would take little more to...’

‘Hmm,’ he butted in, and did nothing to raise himself in Elyss’ popularity stakes when he grunted, ‘In which case you should never have let her have your car!’ This was a lecture she didn’t need! He opened the door and walked her to the lift. ‘I’ll contact you when I’ve given your problem some thought,’ he pronounced. And that was that.

Elyss made her way back to the flat in a disconsolate frame of mind. Saul Pendleton was treating the matter as her problem rather than his. Which, since he wasn’t the one with the threat of court action hanging over him, it was, she supposed dejectedly. But, given that he’d said he would give her problem some thought, the nearer she got to her flat, the more she realised that, as clever as he was, he would not be able to come up with any solution. Nikki might have been the one who crashed into him, but it was her car, and it was she, Elyss Harvey, who hadn’t had that car covered by insurance.

The rest of the week dragged by, with Elyss camped near the telephone every evening, ready to snatch it up should it ring. It rang on Tuesday for Victoria, on Wednesday for Louise and on Thursday Elyss’s mother telephoned for a chat.

‘Everything all right?’ her mother asked.

‘Couldn’t be better,’ Elyss replied—there were just some things you didn’t worry your parents with.

On Friday evening she and Louise went with Nikki who had a doctor’s appointment. Dr Lowe had been her GP for years, and Nikki was in his surgery for some while. She seemed a little better for having a chat with him, and was keen to start taking the medication he had prescribed.

The weekend dragged by, with Victoria out most of the time and either Elyss and Nikki, or Louise and Nikki, or sometimes all three of them, walking and talking together.

Elyss rang her parents on Sunday, but that was the only time she touched the telephone that weekend. It rang, but the calls were never for her.

She went to work on Monday morning realising that she was going to have to get an additional job. She couldn’t do evening work because she never knew how late she was going to have to work at the office. But, except once every five or six weeks, when she travelled down to Devon, her weekends were free.

She had been at her desk for an hour, getting deep into some work and putting to the back of her mind her plans to hopefully find work as a barmaid, a cleaner, a chauffeuse—she was ready to do anything—when the phone on her desk rang.

‘You’re through,’ she heard Peggy the switchboard operator say—then there was silence.

‘Hello?’ Elyss enquired.

‘Pendleton,’ replied the voice she had been hearing in her sleep.

She was shaken. She had been waiting for his call. For a week she had been waiting for his call. But not for a moment had she thought he would ring her at her place of work! It threw her. ‘What are you ringing me here for?’ she asked without thinking.

‘You’d prefer that I didn’t?’ he enquired silkily.

She took a steadying breath. Circumstances decreed that she swallowed her ire. ‘No, no,’ she denied. ‘It’s just that I rather supposed you’d ring me at home when you’d—er—er—come to...’ Her voice petered out as her throat went dry. He must have decided what he was going to do!

‘I had an idea your flat was out of bounds,’ he drawled.

‘You’ve—um—got a point there,’ she agreed evenly, though he wasn’t to know that if Nikki was about, then, the moment Elyss knew it was Saul Pendleton calling, she had planned to take the phone to her room and have her conversation with him in private. Louise and Victoria, however, were acquainted with the fact that she was awaiting this particular phone call. ‘You’ve-er...’ Oh, what on earth was she hesitating about? There could be only one reason why he had phoned. ‘You’ve reached a decision?’ she asked, and clutched hard onto the phone receiver as she waited to hear what was to be her fate.

She was no further forward after—being nowhere near as shy as she was when it came to blunt talking—he abruptly told her, ‘I don’t intend to discuss it over the phone. We’ll have dinner tonight.’

Oh, will we? Oh, what a man he was for rattling her! Just like that: ‘We’ll have dinner’, and he expected her to jump at the chance! She was about to tell him that she was very fussy about whom she deigned to dine with—why should he think he’d cornered the market on blunt talking?—when it very quickly dawned on her that he was right. If he said jump, then she jolly well had to jump.

‘Very well,’ she accepted politely, as any well brought up young lady might.

‘I gather you’d rather I didn’t come to your flat to collect you?’ Clearly he had never doubted but that she would accept.

‘You gather correctly,’ she replied evenly.

‘I’ll send a taxi. Be ready at eight.’

He was gone. End of conversation. ‘Be ready’—end of story, no debate. What was it about this man that made her go from controlled to confused, from hot and anxious to cross and ready to stamp on his foot? Never had she met a man who could so easily raise her hackles. But then, she wasn’t used to being bossed around—it was hard to take. However, she faced it: she was just not in any position to do anything about it.

Elyss made a point of leaving work on time that night. All three of her flatmates were home when she arrived. Nikki was looking a little better than she had last Monday, Elyss was glad to note.

‘Do you want to share in the Spanish omelette and salad I’m conjuring up?’ Victoria asked cheerfully.

Her Spanish omelettes were most adventurous, Elyss had discovered, consisting mainly of anything left over and cooked inside beaten eggs. ‘Thanks, but no. I’m—er—having dinner out tonight,’ Elyss declined, and knew she had gone red when three pairs of eyes stared at her.

‘You’re blushing!’ Victoria teased. ‘You’ve got a date! You’ve actually accepted...’

‘Leave her alone, Victoria, there’s a love.’ This came quietly from Louise.

Elyss looked over to her. Louise was clearer thinking than either Victoria or Nikki. Elyss was fairly certain that Louise had twigged that for ‘date’ she should read ‘second interview with Saul Pendleton’.

‘Anyone want a cup of tea?’ Elyss asked, her ‘date’ not up for discussion.

‘I’ll make it,’ Victoria volunteered sunnily. ‘You go and shower and make yourself stunning for Mr Mystery.’

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