The Reluctant Fiancee

Her only garment was a minuscule bikini, and yet the heat was still stifling. Glancing at her half-naked body, she hauled herself into a sitting position and idly picked up a bottle of sun lotion and began massaging it into her arms and legs, across her flat stomach. The trouble was, she thought wryly, it wasn’t so much the heat outside that was making her so restless, but the heat within her.

Last night had been wonderful. Leon had held a huge party and they had become officially engaged. A tiny smile pursed her lips as she twisted the magnificent diamond and sapphire ring on the third finger of her left hand. Every time she looked at it she got a lump in her throat, not just for its beauty, but for what it represented.

Her engagement party had been perfect; she had danced the night away in the arms of the man she loved, the man she was going to marry, and she had met all of Leon’s friends and his stepmother, Tany, who seemed a very nice lady. But Tany’s daughter by her first marriage, Amy, Bea was not so sure about, and Amy’s friend from America, Selina, Bea had certainly not taken to. The woman had given her the most peculiar look, and a positively evil smile. Still, all in all it had been a great party.

Bea sighed again, and lay back down. She only had one slight niggle—and she knew she was being stupid—but... After the guests had left, and the house guests had retired for the night, finally she and Leon had been alone. He had walked her to her bedroom door and taken her into his arms.

Her eyes fluttered closed—just for a moment—as she relived the sensations his kiss had aroused. Her lips had quivered beneath the light touch of his mouth, then he had lazily nibbled her bottom lip, his tongue exploring when her mouth opened to him. Her hands, of their own accord, had moved up his arms to cling to his broad shoulders, glorying in the strength of his taut muscles and the power of his broad frame. He’d deepened the kiss with an ease and sensuality that had made her whole body burn with a trembling need that reached the very core of her being.

She’d murmured his name: ‘Leon.’ At last they were engaged, and the bed was just behind the door. Her firm young body had arched into him, the power of his arousal against her pelvis making her ache with frustration.

‘No, Phoebe,’ he’d murmured against her lips. ‘Ten days is not too long to wait.’ He’d eased her away from him. ‘I want you to have a perfect wedding, and a perfect wedding night. You deserve it. And that means keeping my desire under control until then.’

Sighing for the third time, Bea rolled over onto her stomach on the lounger. It had been a noble sentiment on Leon’s part, but had done nothing for the frustration burning inside her... With her head resting on her folded arms, she dozed off...

She raised her head groggily and turned onto her back, not sure what had awakened her. The lounger, placed as it was near the house, was now in the shade. ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she muttered to herself, realising she could have been burned to a crisp. Then she heard it again. Her name being called from inside the villa.

Good, Leon was back. He had gone into Paphos to see someone on business earlier. She was just about to stand up and make her whereabouts known when another voice floated from the open window not three yards away.

‘Looking for your proposed child bride, Leon, darling?’ It was Selina, the American girl, who spoke. ‘I don’t think you’ll be in such a hurry to find her after you hear what I have to say.’

‘Selina, there is nothing you have to say that I want to hear.’

‘Leon, don’t be like this. This is me, Selina, you’re talking to. Your lover for the last three years. You can’t fool me.’ A shuffling sound followed.

Bea gasped and, raising her hand to her mouth, she bit hard on her knuckle to stifle her cry of pain.

‘Let go, Selina, you’re wasting your time. I told you it was over months ago. You career women are all the same. You say you are equal to a man in every way, and you willingly enter into an open relationship, quite clearly defined, mutual pleasure only. Then, as soon as you are told it is over, instead of acting like a man and walking away, you revert to sniffling feminine tricks.’

‘Please, Leon, you have to listen to me. I know you care for me—you can’t possibly love that schoolgirl. Even your stepmother said your engagement was more about cementing the business partnership firmly under your complete control than about any love on your part.’

‘My reasons are my own, Selina, and are not up for discussion. Now get out of my way and stay out of it.’

‘That might be hard to do. Especially in seven months’ time when our child is born.’

‘Impossible, and anyway I always use protection—mainly to prevent just this type of blackmail. Do yourself a favour and leave, before I have you thrown out.’

Bea could not believe her ears. This was a Leon she had never heard before: hard and totally ruthless. But worse was to follow.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Leon? Two months ago, at the Mackenzies’ house party in Newport? You flew in, partied half the night, and woke up in the morning in my bed. Protection was not something you bothered about. I know; I was there...’

For a long moment there was silence. Then, ‘You bitch, Selina. You did it deliberately. Didn’t you?’

Bea didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. She had heard enough. Staggering to her feet, she silently crept around the outside of the house and entered by the kitchen. She took the servants’ stairs to her room and once inside locked the door. She collapsed on the bed, but could not cry. She was too traumatised for tears. Instead she stared blankly at the white walls, asking herself over and over again, How could I have been such a fool?

CHAPTER THREE

BEA had been used, exploited by the first man she had ever let near her. Before Leon she had dated a few boys of her own age, and exchanged the odd fumbled kiss, but nothing like the passionate interludes Leon had introduced her to. She should have realised a sophisticated, sexually mature man like Leon couldn’t possibly be interested in a naive young girl such as herself unless he had an ulterior motive. But she had blindly agreed with everything Leon had said. She’d even put up with him calling her Phoebe, when she much preferred Bea...

Nausea clawed at her stomach; the sense of betrayal ate into her very being. That she could be so wrong about a man she had known almost all her life, a man she would have trusted with her life, made her burn with shame at her own gullibility.

She thumped the bed with her clenched fists and shouted out loud, ‘Fool, fool, fool!’ Then the tears came. Bea cried until she had no tears left, and her throat was raw and dry. Finally she slowly sat up. She had no idea how long she had been in the bedroom, but it was already getting dark. Confirmation, if she needed any more, of how little Leon actually thought of her.

On his return to the villa, his eager calling of her name had roused her from sleep. But since his conversation with Selina he certainly hadn’t bothered trying to find Bea again.

She heaved herself off the bed and walked into the bathroom. One look in the mirror, and if she could have cried again she would have. Red-rimmed, swollen eyes stared out of a face as white as a ghost’s. She had no idea how she was going to face Leon ever again.

Stripping off her bikini, she stepped into the shower and turned on the cold water. She stood beneath the freezing spray, praying it would numb her body and brain, but it was no good. The image of Leon and Selina together tortured her mind. Three years... They had been lovers for three years, and they were having a baby together. She heard again Leon’s furious outburst: ‘You did it deliberately.’ And that was what hurt most of all.

Leon hadn’t tried to deny the child was his. He was simply furious at being caught by the oldest trick in the book. Bea stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself and walked back into the bedroom. She stopped by the dressing table, pulled the diamond ring off her finger and dropped it on the polished surface. Her engagement ring. What a joke! While she had considered herself engaged since Easter, when Leon had asked her to marry him and she had said yes, he had obviously felt no such commitment. He had continued sleeping with his long-time lover.

It was not so surprising, really, she thought as mechanically she set about getting dressed. She had always known Leon was the Lothario type, but in her youthful naivety she had let herself believe she was the one person who could change him. A hollow laugh escaped her. She remembered last night and their impassioned kisses, and then his denial of what she had quite obviously been offering, his high moral stance. He wanted her to have the perfect wedding, and wedding night. What a lie!

Sadly Bea realised he probably didn’t even want her in a sexual way. No, what he wanted was control of her share of the company. With that thought her sorrow began to change, and by the time she was standing in front of the mirror once more, about to put on her make-up, she wasn’t sad but mad... Mad with a cold fury. Then it came to her—a way to escape with her pride intact and without revealing what she knew.

In the end it was simple. Bea walked into the dining room, not a scrap of make-up on her pale face, her long hair tied up in a childish ponytail and wearing the simple blue and white candy-striped dress she had included in her luggage, thinking it would come in useful if she were messing around. She knew she looked ridiculously young, but that was the idea.

Tany, Leon’s stepmother, Amy and Selina were elegantly gowned and already seated at the table. But Leon was standing near the door and crossed straight to Bea’s side. He bent his head to kiss her. She saw it coming and deliberately moved so that his lips brushed her cheek and not her mouth.

‘Something the matter, Phoebe?’ he asked solicitously.

Bea almost snapped back, Yes, you, you snake! But, biting her tongue, she simply turned her face up to his, giving him the full benefit of her red, swollen eyes. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Please sit down, you two. We want to eat,’ Tany commanded.

Leon cast Bea a worried. glance, but held out a chair for her and then slid into the one next to her.

It was Tany who noticed first. ‘Bea, where is your ring, child? You don’t want to lose it. Knowing Leon, it will have cost a fortune. And what has happened to your eyes?’

Dramatically Bea pushed back her chair and jumped to her feet, acting for all she was worth. The last thing she felt like doing was sharing a dinner with this group.

‘Please, you will have to excuse me. I’m not hungry.’ Glancing down at Leon’s upturned face, surprise and puzzlement evident in his expression, she added, ‘I really am terribly sorry but it has all been a mistake. I realised this afternoon. It is beautiful here, but I—I am h-homesick.’ She deliberately stuttered. ‘I miss my friends and Lil, and the cool English summer, and I don’t want to get married, not yet.’

A solitary tear rolled down her cheek, lending credit to her story, but in actual fact it was a tear of self-pity, an emotion she despised. Brushing her cheek with the back of her hand, she saw Leon’s dark eyes narrow assessingly on her pale face. Then slowly he got to his feet, and tried to put an arm around her shoulders.

‘Don’t be silly, Phoebe. It’s probably just bridal nerves.’ He smiled. ‘I promise everything will be fine.’

Patronising swine, she thought, and, twisting out from under his arm, she turned to face him.

‘It will not be all right because I do not want to marry you. I want to go home and get on with my studies, my life. I’m sorry. I think it was because of my father dying so recently. I needed a father figure, and so I latched onto you. But that is no reason to get married.’

It took every ounce of nerve and self-control Bea possessed to hold Leon’s now angry gaze and deliver her final comment. ‘I realise now I’m not ready for marriage or commitment. I’m only just eighteen, far too young, and you...well, you’re...’ She trailed off, not so subtly implying that Leon was too old for her.

It had been the reference to age that had clinched it, Bea mused, safely ensconced on the aeroplane back to England the next day. In her mind’s eye she could still see the look of frustrated fury on his darkly handsome face as Selina and Amy had had the temerity to laugh.

True, he had made another attempt to change her mind much later. He had walked into her bedroom and tried, with his sexual expertise, to kiss her into submission. But knowing his lover Selina was downstairs had given Bea the strength to remain cold in his arms. How long she could have continued doing so was anybody’s guess. Because she’d still wanted him, even as she’d hated herself for feeling that way. But the arrival of Tany to check that Bea was all right had stopped Leon cold. And, in Tany’s presence, Bea had given him back his ring.

Yawning widely, Bea turned over and curled up into a foetal position. She yawned again. Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of her life. The past was past. Leon was no threat to her peace of mind any more, she told herself groggily. As for her reaction to his kiss earlier, it was simply because she had drunk too much champagne and he had caught her off guard. It would never happen again. Only a fool made the same mistake twice, and at twenty-one, with a degree in her pocket, Bea was nobody’s fool...

The drive down to London was not as bad as Bea had expected. The Sunday traffic was light, and she arrived at the underground car park of the mansion block that housed her late father’s apartment at five in the evening. It was a simple matter to transfer her two suitcases to the lift, and moments later she was plonking them on the bed in the only bedroom.

Her father had originally had his office in Newcastle, but after the death of Nick Gregoris, and Leon taking the place of his father, the firm had expanded rapidly. The English headquarters had been moved to London, at Leon’s instigation. Bea had been twelve when her father had begun travelling to London on a Monday and staying two or three days, safe in the knowledge that Bea was at school all day and Lil was there to look after her.

Glancing around the familiar bedroom, Bea thought fondly of the times in the school holidays when her dad had taken her to London with him occasionally. With a shake of her fair head, she told herself not to get sentimental, and set about unpacking her belongings.

Ten minutes later she stared in amazement at the kitchen table. Someone had anticipated her arrival. A huge vase full of red roses was at the centre, and propped against it was an envelope. Picking it up, she quickly slit it open and withdrew a sheet of notepaper. She recognised the bold, sloping writing immediately. It was from Leon—a rather childish poem.

Enjoy the roses while you may

Tomorrow is a working day.

The fridge is stocked, the larder too

Behave yourself until I’m with you.

A small smile twitched her full lips; she had forgotten. Almost every time she had seen Leon when she was a child he had made up a stupid rhyme for her. She racked her brain, trying to remember the first one.

The lovely lady fair

Almost lost her hair

By playing near a willow

When she should have been asleep on her pillow

Bea’s grin broadened. Leon had been good fun as an uncle figure. Pity their relationship had not stayed that way. The smile faded from her face to be replaced with a frown.

What did he mean, until I’m with you? The note fell unnoticed from her hand and quickly she turned around. Bea opened the refrigerator door and was not surprised to see it stocked full, including a bottle of white wine. The cupboard was the same. Uneasily she walked into the living room and glanced around. Had Leon been here? And, more importantly, how the hell had he got in? She had the only key. Anyway, he was supposed to be in America.

Suddenly the safety of her apartment seemed threatened, and she didn’t like it, not one bit... Think, woman, think, she told herself. Of course! A sigh of relief escaped her and she sank down on the sofa. The caretaker had a master key. Leon must have sent the note and instructions to provide the goodies to the caretaker.

Relieved to have the mystery settled, she made full use of the food provided to make herself an omelette and salad, washed down with a glass of wine, then she went to bed.

‘Ready to go yet, Bea?’

Bea glanced up and smiled at the tall red-headed girl asking the question. Actually, Margot was a woman in every sense of the word, about thirty-eight years old. As personal assistant to Tom Jordan, she knew everything about the business.

‘I thought, if you have nothing special to do tonight, we could stop off for a pizza and a glass of wine or two on the way home.’

‘Oh, sorry, Margot, I forgot to mention—I’ve arranged to meet a boyfriend for dinner and I’m going straight from here.’

‘Ah, a heavy date with the male of the species—and you with only two weeks of living in the city. How do you do it?’

Bea grinned. ‘His name is Jack, I’ve known him for years, and he comes from my home town.’

‘Interesting, is he?’ Margot queried, with a suggestive flicker of her eyebrows.

‘Well, he did once tie me up.’

‘Bondage... This I must hear. If you get back before eleven pop in and tell me all about him. It’s about the only way I get a thrill nowadays. Vicariously.’

‘Liar,’ Bea chuckled. ‘I’ve heard you on the telephone to a certain financial advisor in the office three floors above us.’

Margot winked. ‘Enough said. Tom left half an hour ago, so I’m off. Enjoy yourself.’ And, closing the door behind her as she left, Bea heard her shout, ‘Don’t forget to lock the outer door.’

A lingering smile played around Bea’s lips. She could still hear a mumble coming from next door—probably Margot talking to herself. She was prone to speaking her thoughts out loud.

Though Bea hated to admit that Leon could be right about anything, he had been right about Margot becoming a friend. Over the past two weeks the two women had developed a good working relationship, and had also become firm pals.

The offices of Stephen-Gregoris occupied the first floor of a prestigious block in the heart of the city, and, arriving for work on her first day, Bea had naturally felt nervous. A rather superior blonde girl had shown her to what was to be her office, but in fact was a small partitioned section of Margot’s much larger one, which in turn led straight to the manager’s. Then Margot had walked out of Tom Jordan’s office, apologised for not being there to greet her, and had immediately taken Bea under her wing.

Only Tom Jordan and Margot knew Bea owned part of the company, but Margot showed no resentment at the fact. She had taken Bea on a tour of the office, and introduced her to all the staff with the explanation that Bea was the new graduate trainee who was to work in each department for a few weeks to get the feel of the operation and would probably end up in the finance section.

The fact that Margot’s apartment was in the same block as Bea’s was an added bonus. They’d quickly decided to travel to work together, and had shared the occasional meal or a gossip over coffee.

Stretching, Bea glanced at her watch: it was after six. She was meeting Jack at Covent Garden, a short taxi ride away. Jack had done extremely well for himself; he’d gained a first at Oxford and for the past two years had held a high-profile job with a top merchant bank in London. It would be good fun to catch up on all his news.

With a contented sigh at the completion of the last spreadsheet, Bea switched off her computer terminal and stood up. It was very quiet, but then the building usually emptied early on a Friday.

Bea reckoned she had just enough time for a wash and brush-up, and, with a quick glance around the room, she picked up her bag from the desk, checked she had the office key, and left.

Crossing Margot’s office, Bea hesitated. What was that sound she’d heard? She turned and looked around. That’s funny, she thought, the door to Tom Jordan’s office is half open. It’s unlike Margot to forget to lock it.

She waited a moment longer, but everything was quiet, and so, with a shrug of her shoulders, she crossed to where she knew Margot kept a spare key in her desk drawer. And got another surprise. The key was not in the drawer, but lying on the desktop. The woman’s mind was slipping; Bea would tease her about it tomorrow.

A couple of seconds later and Bea had closed and locked Tom’s door, and the outer one behind her.

Singing softly to herself—she was looking forward to tonight—Bea headed for the ladies’ room. Stephen-Gregoris provided excellent facilities for the female staff. A pleasant restroom with a locker provided for everyone, two shower cubicles and the usual accompaniments. Opening her locker, she withdrew a towel and toilet bag and crossed to the row of vanity basins occupying one wall.

She was not going to change; the smart blue suit, with its double-breasted short-sleeved jacket and short straight skirt, which she had worn all day with a high-necked white blouse, would do for the evening—minus the blouse. Bea removed her jacket and the blouse and hung them on the back of a chair, and then quickly washed and redid her make-up. Slipping the jacket back on, she fastened the buttons and checked her image in the mirror.

She pursed her lips; the deep vee of the jacket lapels maybe revealed a little too much cleavage. She would have to remember not to bend forward and reveal the lace of her bra—or maybe she could remove the bra! What the hell? she told herself. You’re in the city now... And she did. Then, rashly, she unpinned her hair from its rather severe chignon and let it fall loose about her shoulders.

Her jacket back in place, she stopped in the act of picking up her hairbrush. Was that someone hurrying down the corridor? Must be Security... Tipping her head forward, she brushed her hair until it crackled with life and then swung it back. The effect was rather good, even if she did say so herself. Having been pinned up all day, her usually straight silver-blonde hair had developed a rather nice bouncy curl around the ends.

A quick spray of her favourite perfume, and she was ready. Quickly she replaced her toiletries in the locker, with her discarded bra and blouse, and with a last look at her reflection she made for the door.

Bea stepped out into the hall. Just at that moment the office door she had so recently locked was flung open. She expected to see a security man, but what she actually saw stopped her in her tracks.

‘You—you crazy little bitch. I might have guessed,’ Leon Gregoris roared, and came barrelling towards her, a security man hard on his heels, apologising madly.

‘Leave it—and us. I will deal with this,’ Leon snarled at the poor man, and Bea watched in open-mouthed amazement as the security man disappeared at a run. She turned back just in time to have Leon grab her by the arm. ‘I suppose you thought that was funny—a stupid, childish practical joke. My God! Are you never going to grow up?’

Bea shook her head. It was a dream—it had to be. One minute she was in an empty office building, preparing for a date, the next Leon had appeared out of nowhere, breathing fire and brimstone. She hadn’t been far wrong when she’d thought he looked like a warlock. She glanced curiously up into his red, furious face; the devil himself might be nearer the mark.

‘Well, woman, what have you to say for yourself?’

‘I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about,’ she offered, with another shake of her head. He was dressed in a dark blue suit and white silk shirt, with a maroon silk tie half undone around his neck. The white of his shirt only served to emphasise his darkly flushed features. ‘Where did you come from?’ she asked in obvious puzzlement.