Accidental Mistress

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‘No.’

‘I didn’t think so,’ he commented lazily. ‘Which is why I’ll hang onto them for the moment, if you don’t mind.’

She glared at him and he laughed again, this time a little louder.

‘What a range of expressions you have,’ he said, with the laughter still in his voice. ‘From nervousness to fear, to stubbornness, to anger. How old are you?’

She debated informing him that it was none of his business, reluctantly reminded herself that he was her host and was owed some show of good manners, even if he constantly managed to antagonize her, and said coolly, ‘Twenty-four.’

‘Caroline is nineteen but she seems decades older than you.’

‘I’m sorry, I have no idea who you’re talking about.’ And frankly, her voice implied, I’m not in the least interested, believe it or not.

‘The distant cousin.’

Lisa didn’t say anything, but her heart sank. The picture in her head was beginning to take shape. The powerful client with his pretentious wife and their precocious child, Caroline, with her well-bred sophistication, Angus, and herself.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked politely. ‘Don’t you need to see to your boat? Make sure that all the sails or ropes or whatever are all in the right place?’

‘I do hope that there’s no implied snub in that question?’ he queried with lazy amusement.

‘Nothing could be further from my mind.’

‘What a relief.’ His voice was exaggeratedly serious and she wondered whether the real reason he made her so nervous was that she loathed him. Intensely.

‘Actually,’ he said, sitting up with his legs crossed and staring down at her, ‘I wanted to find you to make sure that you were all right.’

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Lying flat on the towel with only her bikini for protection against those gleaming, brilliant eyes made her feel so vulnerable that she sat up as well and drew her knees up, clasping her arms around them.

‘You seemed shaken by the prospect of enforced captivity with the man-eating cannibals I’ve invited along as guests on this trip.’

‘Very funny.’

‘No, not terribly,’ he said, very seriously now. ‘I wanted to find you so that I could reassure you that they’re all very nice, perfectly likeable people before you had to confront them.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied awkwardly. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on his face, stupidly aware of his animal sex appeal. ‘I’m sorry I was so garbled last night; it’s just that I was taken aback.’

‘I realised,’ he said drily. ‘And I wish you’d stop apologising.’

‘Sorry,’ she said automatically, and then she smiled shyly, dipping her eyes and gazing out towards the horizon, where the sharp blue line of the sea met the clear blue sky. It was easy to understand why some people believed that to venture beyond that thin blue strip would be to fall off the edge of the earth.

‘Did you tell your boss that you were coming on this holiday?’ he asked idly, and she could tell that he was staring at her even though she wasn’t looking at him. She couldn’t tell, though, what he was thinking. Could anyone do that?

‘Not exactly,’ Lisa admitted. ‘I told him that I needed to have a break, that I was tired. Well,’ she continued defensively, ‘it was more or less the truth.’

‘Rather less than more,’ he said blandly. ‘Did you think that he wouldn’t understand?’

‘Something like that.’ He would have fallen down in shock, she thought with amusement. He knew how much she liked the safe regularity of her job, of her life; she had told him as much when he had first interviewed her years ago for the position.

‘I don’t want to take on someone who’s going to stick around for six months, get bored, and look for more glamorous horizons,’ he had said.

‘Not me,’ Lisa had replied. ‘There will be no urge to hurry away from this job to look for another one. I have my flat, my roots are here and my job will be for as long as you want me.’

Over the years he had come to know her well enough to realise that her most prized possession was her security. She had bought her small flat with the money which had been left to her on her parents’ death, from insurance policies which had secured her future, and there she had been happy to stay, content in her cocoon.

‘Because you’re not given to taking risks?’ Angus prompted now, casually, and she threw him a sharp glance before returning her gaze to the infinitely safer horizon.

‘I guess,’ she said in a guarded voice.

‘Have I invaded personal territory here?’ His tone was still light and casual, but she knew that he was probing. Probing to find out about her. It was probably second nature to him, and in her case his curiosity was most likely genuine, the curiosity of someone whose life was so far removed from her own that it really was as though she came from another planet.

‘Why are you so secretive?’ he asked. He reached out and tilted her face towards his and the brief brush of his fingers on her chin was like the sensation of sudden heat against ice. It was a feeling that was so unexpected that she wiped his touch away with the back of her hand.

‘I’m not.’

‘You should try listening to yourself some time,’ he remarked wryly. ‘You might change your mind.’

He stood up abruptly, shook the sand out of his towel and slung it back over his shoulder. Mission accomplished, she thought, except there was a vaguely unsettling taste in her mouth, the taste of something begun and not quite finished.

‘Sure you know how to get to the yacht?’ he asked, and she nodded.

‘So, I shall see you around twelve-thirty.’

‘Yes,’ she murmured obediently, collecting a handful of sand in the palm of her hand and then watching it trail through her fingers.

‘And you won’t take flight in the interim?’ He raised one eyebrow questioningly and then nodded to himself, as though she had answered his question without having spoken. ‘No, of course you won’t, because, whatever you say, you’re as curious now as you are reluctant, aren’t you, Lisa?’ He stared right down at her and she felt his eyes blazing a way to the core of her. ‘This is a new experience for you. You won’t regret it. Trust me.’

Then he was gone. She watched him walking slowly away, his lithe body unhurried, and she thought, Are you so sure? Because I’m not.

CHAPTER THREE

WOULD she have been different if she had led a normal kind of life? It was a question Lisa had asked herself over the years and she had never come up with a satisfactory answer.

She was very self-contained, she knew that, just as she knew that most people found her aloof and far too composed for the sort of superficial small talk that made the world go round. Very few had glimpsed the lack of self-confidence behind the composure.

Looking back now, she was old enough and mature enough to realise that this was the real disservice which her parents had unwittingly done her. They had given her variety but her only point of stability had been them, when in fact, at the age of eight or twelve or fourteen, she had needed much more than that. She had needed the stability of a circle of friends, people with whom she could try out her developing personality, learn to laugh without the ridiculous fear of somehow getting it wrong, discover trust without the limits of time cutting it short before it had had time to take root.

When she found herself thinking like that, she never blamed her parents. She accepted it as a fait accompli. She had never lacked love; it had not been their fault that she had not been able to fall in with their never-ending travels from one place to another with the same thrill of possible adventure lurking just around the corner.

Her father, a biologist, had been consumed with a seemingly never-ending supply of curiosity. Nature, in all its shapes and guises, had fascinated him. He would take on a job as gamekeeper to acres of wilderness simply for the satisfaction of exploring the minutiae of the forest life.

Once, for eighteen months, he had worked on the bleak Scottish coastline and had indulged in a brief fling with marine biology, a love which had lived with him until he had died.

That, she thought now, had been the worst time. She could remember having to catch the bus to school in weather that never seemed to brighten. She could remember the smallness of the class, the suspicion of the other children who had treated her with the unconscious cruelty of long-standing village occupants towards the outsider. It had been hard then keeping her chin up but in the end she had made some friends.

Now she could see that it had done nothing for her social self-confidence.

She walked towards the yacht and she could feel the muscles in her stomach tighten just as they had done all those years ago, every time she had walked through the doors of yet another school building.

Everyone else had arrived. She could glimpse the shapes on the boat, the movement, and she hurried a bit more. Someone must have called out something to Angus, because he appeared from nowhere, half-naked, and came down to the jetty to greet her.

The air of restless vitality that seemed to cling to him swept over her and she licked her lips nervously.

‘I hope I’m not late,’ she began, and he reached out and took the suitcase from her, smiling with that mixture of dry irony and knowing amusement that made her feel so gauche and awkward because it always seemed to imply that he was somehow; somewhere, laughing at her.

‘We have a timetable of sorts,’ he drawled, ‘but we’re under no obligation to stick to it. One of the great advantages of a holiday like this. We would have waited for you.’

He turned towards the yacht and she followed him as he threw polite remarks over his shoulder and she made obliging noises in return.

Her legs were feeling heavy and uncooperative, but she took a deep breath and clambered aboard the yacht behind him, allowing him to help her up but then withdrawing her hand as soon as she was there.

From behind the relative protection of her sunglasses, she saw the small circle of people—his guests.

The whole situation inspired the same churning, sinking feeling she had had as a child when she had had to stand up in class, the newcomer, and introduce herself. She made a show of smiling and was swept along on a tide of introductions.

Liz, Gerry, their nine-year-old daughter Sarah, Caroline. They were relaxed, stretched out on loungers on the deck of the yacht, wearing their swimsuits and sipping drinks.

‘Now,’ Angus said, in that slightly amused, very assured voice of his, ‘I shall show Lisa to her cabin.’ He turned to her. ‘What would you like to drink? We thought we’d have a few drinks here and some lunch before we leave.’