The Final Seduction

‘What, that old place?’ Shelley elongated her mouth into a grimace. ‘I’m not surprised! They probably can’t give it away. You’d need to virtually knock it down and start again to make it habitable!’

‘But I can do that,’ he shrugged modestly. ‘That’s what I’m training for. That and making you happy.’

‘You do,’ she pouted, so that he would kiss her.

And when he’d kissed her so that she could barely catch her breath he grinned and said, ‘Want to get married?’

‘Oh, yes, please!’

‘Soon?’

‘How soon?’

‘Very soon!’ he groaned.

He even asked her mother’s permission, and Shelley couldn’t ever remember seeing her mother look so happy and relieved. Glad that Shelley would have the emotional security she had always longed for.

He bought her a tiny diamond ring which twinkled discreetly on her finger when she held it up to the light.

‘It’s very small,’ someone remarked nastily.

‘No, it’s perfect,’ she disagreed fiercely. ‘And you’re just jealous!’

They decided that they would get married just as soon as they had saved up enough money to buy the coastguard’s cottage and everything was nearly perfect.

But they never made love. Not all the way.

Behind the wooden huts on the windswept beach, their kisses grew wilder, their caresses more frantic—but Drew always calmed things down, made them stop. Shelley felt churned up and bewildered.

She knew that there had been women on his travels. Nothing he’d said, but little things he’d let slip. Sometimes a letter would arrive from some far-off destination and he would scour the envelope and toss it into the bin unread. Once, she saw a postcard from a woman called Angie, the contents of which were graphic enough to make her feel sick.

‘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.

Carefully clipped herb bushes lined the gravel path and two bay trees stood in white boxes on either side of the back door. While at the end, contrasting beautifully against the dark wooden fence, stood the misty mauve blur of Michaelmas daisies. For a moment it was like being transported back in time. Shelley swallowed and tore her over-bright eyes away—thinking that she might faint if she didn’t have a cup of tea soon.

She went into the kitchen, noting how old-fashioned the free-standing units looked, and how dingy the paint was. How dingy everything was, really—when she compared it to the homes she had shared with Marco. Then she turned the tap on.

Nothing.

Shelley blinked at it in consternation. Then tried the tap again.

Still nothing.

Horror at her own stupidity flared up inside her as she clicked on the light switch, knowing even as she did it that it would prove useless.

She stood there in silence, not noticing the dark shape which had loomed up outside the plastic insert of the front door until a loud rapping made her start.

The sheer height of the man registered on her subconscious as she pulled the door open. But that didn’t stop her heart from beating like crazy when she saw it was Drew—still in navy sweater and jeans, but with no sign of the dog.

She looked into his face. It wasn’t a friendly face, but it was a face she knew and had once loved. And when you were feeling as vulnerable as Shelley was, feeling that familiarity was a potent and dangerous quality.

‘Hello, Drew,’ she gulped. ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting you to be my first caller.’

His mouth flattened into a grim sort of smile. ‘Believe me, I wasn’t planning on being your first visitor.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Curiosity, mainly,’ he answered slowly. ‘And a phone call from my sister. She insisted I come.’

‘Which sister?’

‘Jennie.’

‘Oh.’ Shelley wondered if the regret showed in her face. Because she and Jennie had been the best friends in the world. Until the Marco incident—when, naturally enough, she had taken her brother’s side. They hadn’t seen one another or spoken a word since. ‘How did she know I was here?’

‘She’s your neighbour. She lives in our old house. And that’s next door, in case you’ve forgotten.’

‘Jennie lives next door?’

Was this the same Jennie who had called Milmouth a fading seaside dump with no soul? Who had called their small houses rabbit hutches and couldn’t wait to get as far away as possible? Shelley’s eyes widened with surprise. ‘You mean, with your parents?’

‘No, no.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘They retired to the Isle of Wight. And Cathy’s living in London.’

‘So how’s Jennie?’ she dared ask.

‘Well, probably more pleased than I am that you’ve come crawling back—’

‘No, not crawling, Drew. With my head held very high.’

‘If you say so.’ But his eyes glittered as though he didn’t quite believe her.

She took a deep breath. ‘Drew?’

He threw her a mocking look. ‘Shelley?’

‘Do you know who has been responsible for doing the garden?’

There was a pause. ‘My sister.’

‘Your sister?’ Shelley frowned. ‘Jennie must have changed quite a bit if she’s into gardening.’

He laughed. ‘She doesn’t do it herself. She gets someone in for a few hours a week and asked them to keep yours tidy at the same time.’ He turned the corners of his mouth down. ‘Otherwise it made the place look overgrown and derelict.’

‘It looks gorgeous,’ she said wistfully.

He didn’t respond to that, just fixed her with that dazzling blue stare. ‘So where’s lover-boy?’

‘I do wish you wouldn’t keep calling him names!’ she told him crossly, then sighed. There was no point in lying. Not to Drew. You only made that kind of mistake once in a lifetime. ‘He isn’t here.’

‘I know. Do you really think I would have come around if he was lurking around upstairs waiting for you?’

‘How could you possibly know that?’

‘My sister said there was only one person in the car.’

‘So Jennie couldn’t wait to bad-mouth my arrival?’

He shook his head. ‘Actually, no. She saw your car—only she didn’t realise that it was your car—and rang me, just in case—’

‘In case of what?’ Shelley interrupted angrily. ‘In case someone in a car happened to be visiting a house? Gosh, I’d forgotten all about how effective the Milmouth mafia could be!’

This seemed to amuse him. ‘It depends on how you look at it, surely? Either you find it a repressive, small-town mentality—in which case I wonder why you came back at all—or you appreciate the fact that someone is there looking out for you. If you were a woman, living on her own…as Jennie is…’ he paused thoughtfully ‘…and a car you didn’t recognise stopped outside a house which had been empty for the last two years—then you’d be pretty dumb not to investigate, wouldn’t you? Particularly if—’ and his eyes narrowed with something very like distaste as he half turned his head in the direction of the gleaming grey car which stood outside ‘—the car in question looked glaringly out of place.’

‘And what’s wrong with the car?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with it,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s just a bit of a cliché, isn’t it?’

She knitted her carefully plucked brows at him. ‘You’re calling one of the most aerodynamically superior vehicles in the world a cliché?’

‘It’s nothing but an executive toy,’ he said damningly. ‘It reeks of flash and cash, but without much substance. So what was it, Shelley? The pay-off?’

The most galling thing was that he had shrewdly hit on a nerve. ‘Mind your own business!’

‘Is it all over between you?’ he persisted softly. ‘Why isn’t he here with you?’

Well, she supposed that it was going to come out sooner or later. ‘He isn’t here because, yes, it’s over.’

‘You won’t be going back?’

‘No.’ The word fell heavily, like a stone into a pond.

‘So what happened?’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t have to answer that.’

‘No, you’re right.’ His eyes glittered. ‘You don’t. But you might want to answer this—which is whether you were intending to come back to a house that hadn’t been aired for years, with no running water or electricity. You can’t have a bath. You can’t flush the loo. You can’t even heat yourself a can of soup.’ He gave her a look of cool mockery. ‘That wasn’t very clever of you, was it, Shelley?’

‘I left Italy in a…hurry.’

‘So I see.’ His eyes flicked over the crumpled linen suit. ‘Kicked you out, did he?’

She turned away, but not before he had seen the tears well up in her eyes. Tears of fatigue which made her feel like some sad, foolish little cast-off. She swallowed them down. ‘Why are you here, Drew—just to insult me? To rile me? Because I can do without it at the moment, if you don’t mind.’

‘I’ll tell you exactly why I’m here,’ he told her quietly. ‘Because not only is it Sunday, it is also late October. Now, you may have pushed all memories of Milmouth away during your three-year absence, so allow me to remind you that the weather isn’t particularly welcoming by the sea at this time of year. There’s no way you can stay here tonight. You’ll freeze. And you won’t get water and electricity connected until tomorrow at the very earliest.’

His cool logic made her want to scream at him—mainly because he was right. ‘If you’re expecting me to fall to my knees in front of you and beg you for help then I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

His eyebrows disappeared into the honey-tipped hair. ‘Fall to your knees in front of me any time you like, kitten,’ he said deliberately. ‘You don’t even have to beg!’

Her cheeks flared at the sexual insinuation, but she still managed to meet his gaze with defiance. ‘I’ll find myself a hotel room for the night!’

‘Have you booked?’

‘Oh, yeah, sure!’ she smiled sarcastically. ‘I just came here first to go through the whole pantomime of pretending to turn the lights and the water on, while all the time I knew that I had a lovely, warm hotel room waiting for me!’

‘You sarcastic little bitch,’ he whispered softly. ‘I don’t know why I came over here with some outdated idea of responsibility. Maybe I should just leave you here on your own.’

‘Well, why don’t you?’ she challenged.

‘Because, Shelley—unlike your previous lover—I happen to have a few values, that’s why! And not only would I steer clear of muscling in on another man’s fiancé—I’d kind of have a problem sleeping easily if I knew that a woman was spending the night alone in a cold and inhospitable house. Even if that woman was you.’

Ouch! ‘Don’t tell me—you’re offering me a bed for the night?’

At her words he stilled, and his eyes glittered with dazzling blue light. ‘Oh,’ he murmured. ‘Is that what you’d like, then, Shelley? A little body warmth, huh? A little skin on skin? Maybe create a little friction together—though I wasn’t thinking of the boy scout version of rubbing sticks together—’

‘You’ve been reading too many pornographic magazines!’ she suggested tartly.

‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured, his eyes flickering over her in a way which appalled her. ‘I never got my kicks that way, kitten.’

‘Don’t look at me like that, Drew. I don’t like it.’

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