Kitabı oku: «Valentine Vendetta»

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘FRAN—I’m at my wit’s end! She seems to be having some kind of mid-life crisis!’

‘But she’s only twenty-six,’ said Fran.

‘Exactly!’

The memory of that phone call still burned in Fran’s ears. A dramatic phone call, from a woman not given to dramatization.

‘Just go and see her, would you, Fran?’ Rosie’s mother had pleaded. ‘Something has happened to upset her and I can’t get any sense out of her. But I suppose you girls don’t tell your mothers anything.’

‘So you’ve no idea what’s wrong?’ Fran had probed, thinking that it was rather flattering to be called a girl at the ripe old age of twenty-six!

‘I think it has to do with some man—’

‘Oh,’ said Fran drily. ‘The usual story.’

‘And that life isn’t worth living any more.’

‘She said what?’ That had been the statement which had brought Fran up short and had her booking the next London-bound flight out of Dublin. Not that she believed for a minute that Rosie would do anything stupid—but she was normally such a happy-go-lucky person. For her mother to be this worried, things must be bad.

Now she could see for herself that they were worse than bad.

She had found Rosie curled up like a baby on the sofa of one very cold flat. And the conversation had gone round and round in a loop, consisting of Rosie saying, Oh, Fran. Fran! Fran!’ Followed by a renewed bout of shuddering tears.

‘Ssssh, now. It’s all right.’ Fran squeezed her friend’s shoulder tightly as the tears came thick and fast. ‘Why don’t you take a deep breath, calm down and tell me what’s wrong.’

Rosie made a sound like a cat who was trying to swallow a mouse in one. ‘C-c-can’t!’ she shuddered.

‘Off the top of my head, I’d say it’s a man?’ said Fran, thinking that it might be wise not to mention the worried phone call. Not just yet.

Rosie nodded.

‘So tell me about him.’

‘He’s….he’s…oh!’

‘He’s what?’ prompted Fran softly.

‘He’s a bastard—and I still love him!’

Fran nodded. So. As she had thought. The usual story. She’d heard women pour the same sorry tale out countless times before and the more cruel the man, the more they seemed to love him. She wondered if some women were so lacking in self-esteem that they chose someone who would walk all over them. But she wouldn’t have put Rosie in that category. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘No, you don’t, Fran!’ Rosie shook her head in frustration. ‘You say you do but you don’t! How could anyone see? You just sit there with that seen-it-all-before look on your face—’

‘I’ve never seen you like this before,’ Fran disagreed immediately. ‘And I’ve known you most of your life! And before you insult me much more, Rosie Nichols—I might just remind you that I’ve flown over at top speed from Dublin, in answer to an urgent request from your mother that I find out exactly what’s wrong with you.’

‘My mother asked you to come?’

‘She wasn’t interfering, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was just worried, and wanted me to see how you were.’

Rosie looked at her defiantly. ‘So now you know.’

Fran shook her head. ‘Oh, no,’ she corrected grimly. ‘I haven’t even started yet! All I know is that I walk into your flat which looks as though a major war has broken out—to find you sitting in a pathetic heap looking gaunt and tear-stained—sobbing bitterly about some mystery man whose name you can’t bring yourself to utter—’

‘Sam,’ sniffed Rosie. ‘His name is Sam.’

‘Sam!’ echoed Fran with a ghost of a smile. ‘That’s Sam whose paternity you questioned just a minute ago, is it? And does this Sam have a surname?’

‘It’s Lockhart.’ Rosie looked at her expectantly. ‘Sam Lockhart.’

‘Sam Lockhart.’ Fran considered this. ‘Cute name. Catchy.’

‘You haven’t heard of him?’

‘No. Should I have done?’

‘Maybe not. But he’s rich and gorgeous and those kind of attributes tend to get you known—especially among women.’

‘Tell me more.’

Rosie shrugged her shoulders morosely. ‘He’s a literary agent. The best. They say if Sam takes you on, you’re almost certain to end up living in tax-exile! He’s got an instinctive nose for a best seller!’

Fran tried not to look too disapproving. ‘And I suppose he’s married?’

‘Married? You’re kidding!’ Rosie shook her head so that wild curls spilled untidily around her face. ‘What do you take me for?’

Fran breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Well, he’s not completely bad, then,’ she said. ‘Married men who play away from home are the worst. And I should know!’ She flicked Rosie another look. ‘Has he ever been married?’

Rosie shook her head. ‘No, he’s single. Still single,’ she added, and stared down at her chewed fingernails as tears began to splash uninhibitedly onto her hands.

Fran gave Rosie’s shoulder another squeeze. ‘Want to tell me all about it?’

‘I guess,’ said Rosie listlessly.

‘How long since you’ve eaten?’

Rosie shrugged. ‘I had coffee for breakfast—but there’s nothing much in the flat.’

Resisting the urge to remark that judging by the general air of neglect any food would probably carry a health warning, Fran shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said gently. ‘I’m taking you out for dinner.’

Rosie momentarily brightened until she caught sight of herself in the mirror. ‘But I can’t go out looking like this!’

‘Too right—you can’t,’ agreed Fran calmly. ‘So go and do something to your hair, slap on some warpaint and for goodness sake, lose those hideous baggy trousers!’

An hour later, they were installed in a booth at ‘Jacko’s!’—a restaurant/bar which had just opened up on the water’s edge at one of London’s less fashionable riverside locations. It had the indefinable buzz of success about it. Fran smiled up at the waitress whose skirt barely covered her underwear and ordered two alien-sounding cocktails from the menu.

She stared across the table at Rosie whom she had known since they were both fat-faced three-year-olds toddling into school on their first day at Nursery, where Rosie had demonstrated her ability for attracting trouble by losing her teddy bear down the side of a bookcase. And Fran had slipped her small hand in and retrieved it.

It had set a pattern for their school years. Rosie got herself into a scrape and Fran got her out of it! Since Fran had moved to Dublin five years ago, their paths rarely crossed, but after a few minutes back in her old friend’s company, Fran felt as if they’d never been apart.

Well, maybe not quite.

Rosie seemed terribly distracted, jumpy even—but maybe in the circumstances that was understandable. Her face looked harder, too. But Fran told herself that people changed—she had changed herself. She had had to. That was all part of life’s rich tapestry. Or so they said….

‘Now tell me,’ she said firmly. ‘Just who Sam Lockhart is—and why you’ve fallen in love with him.’

‘Oh, everyone falls in love with him!’ Rosie gave a gloomy shrug. ‘You can’t help yourself.’

‘Then it’s a pity I can’t meet him,’ observed Fran. ‘Since that sounds like the sort of challenge it would give me great pleasure to resist!’

‘I’d like to see you try!’

Fran liberated a smooth strand of hair which had somehow become all twisted up in the string of pearls she wore and fixed her friend with a stern expression. ‘In my earlier life as an agony aunt on a well-known Dublin radio station,’ she said, ‘I soon learnt that the easiest way to forget a man is to start thinking of him as a mere mortal and not as a god. Debunk the myth, that’s what I say!’

Rosie screwed her nose up. ‘Come again?’

‘Stop making everything about him seem so wonderful and extraordinary—’

‘But it is!’

Fran shook her head. ‘That’s the wrong way to look at it. Try concentrating on all the bad things about him instead!’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, I don’t know the man, so I can’t really help you with that. But instead of describing him as, say, utterly unobtainable, tell yourself that he’s arrogant and distant and nobody in their right mind would want to live with him! Right?’

‘Er, right,’ said Rosie doubtfully.

Fran winced as a silver beaker of what looked and smelt like cough medicine was placed in front of her. She took a tentative sip through the straw and nearly shot off the edge of her seat before a dreamy kind of lethargy began to melt her bones. Still, some light an-aesthetic might be just what Rosie needed.

‘Drink up,’ she instructed and leaned forward eagerly as she began to slide the drink across the table towards Rosie. ‘And tell me what happened. Like—where did you meet him?’

Rosie took a quick slug of the cocktail. ‘Remember when I did that stint as a secretary for Gordon-Browne—that big firm of literary agents? Well, Sam was their star player and we got kind of, you know…involved.’

Fran nodded, thinking how unusually coy Rosie sounded. ‘So how long did it last?’

‘Er, not as long as I would have liked.’

‘And when did it end?’

‘Oh, ages ago now,’ gulped Rosie vaguely. ‘Months and months. Longer, even. Over two years,’ she admitted at last.

‘Two years?’ Fran blinked. ‘But surely you should be getting over it by now?’

‘Why?’ Rosie sniffed. ‘How long did it take you to get over the breakup of your marriage to Sholto?’

‘Oh, no.’ Fran shook her head. ‘We’re here to talk about you, not me. Surely you haven’t been like this since it ended?’

Rosie shook her head. ‘No, of course I haven’t—but my life has never been the same since Sam. He brought me bad luck. I haven’t been able to settle into another job or another relationship. And now I’ve heard….’ Her voice tailed off into silence.

Fran hoped to high heaven that this man Sam hadn’t done something like announcing his engagement to someone else. That would be hard. Though maybe a brutal demonstration of his love for someone else might be just the cure that Rosie actually needed. ‘Heard what?’ she asked.

‘He’s planning to throw a ball. Which is totally out of character!’

Which immediately told Fran that he must be rich. And well connected. ‘And?’

‘It’s a Valentine’s Day Ball. And I want to be invited,’ said Rosie fiercely.

‘Well, you might be. Don’t you think?’

‘No, I don’t. But I would, wouldn’t I—if you were organizing it! You’d make sure of that!’ Rosie’s eyes took on a hopeful gleam.

Fran shook her head as she saw which way the conversation was heading. ‘Oh, no!’

‘Fran, it’s your job! That’s what you do for a living, you plan people’s parties for them.’

‘Yes, you’re right, I do. But it’s also my livelihood, Rosie, and I have my reputation to think of. Huge, high-profile society balls aren’t really my thing. And I don’t just go around using these events to settle grudges for friends—however much I love them. Staging some kind of Valentine vendetta! Which I presume is what you want me to do. Or is it just an invitation you’re after? You want to dress to kill and then knock his socks off, is that it?’

‘Maybe.’

Fran gave a wistful smile. ‘It won’t work, you know. It never does. If this man Sam has fallen out of love with you—then nothing you can say or do will bring him back. Nothing,’ she emphasised flatly. ‘That’s life, I’m afraid.’

Rosie bit down on her lip. ‘But he never was in love with me.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ Fran’s eyes softened. ‘Well, in that case I’m very sorry, hon,’ she said gently. ‘What can I say?’

Rosie took a mouthful of Fran’s discarded cocktail, then looked up, her eyes two fierce burning stars in her face. ‘I was just another virgin for Sam to seduce,’ she said dully. ‘To pick up and discard once he’d had what he wanted!’

Something primitive cracked like an old bone inside Fran’s head. She remembered their schoolgirl dreams about men and rice and white dresses and knew she should not be shocked at what Rosie had just told her—certainly not in this day and age, and yet she was shocked. Deeply. ‘He took your virginity?’ she said slowly. ‘Did he know?’

‘Yes, of course he knew.’ Rosie gave a cynical laugh. ‘I saved it, Fran. I saved my virginity for the man I loved.’

But he didn’t love you back, Fran thought, flexing her hands on the table, unconsciously mirroring the movement of a fat, ginger cat who lay sprawled across one corner of the bar. ‘And in spite of not loving you—he took the most precious thing you had to offer?’

‘That’s right,’ sniffed Rosie. ‘And I wasn’t the only one!’

‘You mean there were others?’

‘Hundreds!’

‘Hundreds?’

‘Well, tens anyway. Loads!’ Rosie spat the word out. ‘Women who adored him. Women he didn’t give tup-pence for! Women who were all too easy to trick into his bed!’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘I wish I was!’

Fran stared down at the silver gleam of the high-tech table, and thought of rich Sam Lockhart luring decent, hard-working girls like Rosie into his bed. A powerful man abusing that power to seduce innocent young women.

When she eventually lifted her golden-brown head to meet her friend’s eyes, her own were deadly serious. She remembered the scrapes that Rosie had managed to land herself in at school, scrapes that Fran had somehow always got her out of. But this was different. Was it her place to help, even if she could?

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked at last.

Rosie didn’t even have to think about it. ‘Nothing too major,’ she shrugged. ‘I’m not asking you to break any laws for me, Fran.’

‘What then?’

‘Just pay him back.’

CHAPTER TWO

FRAN’S fingers hovered uncertainly over the push-button telephone and she smiled at the irony of her situation. She was actually shaking. Shaking. She who was frightened of no man or no thing, was trembling like a schoolgirl at the thought of ringing Sam Lockhart.

Five minutes earlier she had already tapped the numbers out before hanging up immediately in a panic. Then thought how absolutely stupid that was! What if he had one of those sophisticated telephones which told him exactly who had called? He was probably used to lovesick women dialling the number and then changing their minds and hanging up. Did she want to arouse his suspicions by doing the same?

She punched the numbers out again, and listened to the ringing tone, certain that some minion would answer his mobile phone for him.

‘Hel-lo?’ The deep, velvety voice ringing down the line was as unexpected as it was irresistible. It had to be him—minions didn’t sound like sex gods—and Fran had to frown with concentration to keep her voice steady.

‘Sam Lockhart?’ she said.

‘Speaking.’

She drew a deep breath. ‘Mr. Lockhart, you don’t know me—’

‘Not unless you decide to tell me your name, I don’t,’ he agreed softly.

Mistake number one. Ring someone up to try and drum up their business, and then manage to sound as unprofessional as possible! ‘It’s Fran,’ she said quickly. ‘Fran Fisher.’

She could practically hear his mind flipping through its backlog of female names and coming up with a definite blank. But he was either too polite or too cautious to say so. Maybe he thought she was another in the long line of willing virgins offering herself up for pleasurable sacrifice!

‘Are you a writer?’ he asked in the wary and weary tone of someone who got more than their fair share of calls from would-be authors.

‘No, I’m not.’

A sigh of relief. ‘Thank God for that!’ A note of caution returned to the deep voice. ‘So what exactly can I do for you, Fran Fisher?’

‘Actually, it’s more a case of what I can do for you, Mr. Lockhart.’

‘Oh?’

In that one word Fran heard resignation—as if he was gearing himself up to withstand a crude attempt at flirtation. Which, according to Rosie—was an occupational hazard when you happened to be Sam Lockhart.

And which meant there was nothing to be gained by playing for time. That would irritate a man like this, not intrigue him. She tried her most businesslike approach. ‘Mr. Lockhart, I understand you’re planning to hold a ball on Valentine’s Day—’

‘Are you a journalist?’ he snapped.

‘No, I’m not!’

‘Who are you, then?’

‘I told you—’

‘I don’t need you to tell me your name again! I’ve never met you before, have I?’

Well, it had taken him long enough to decide that and he still didn’t sound one hundred per cent certain! She wondered how he would react if she adopted a sultry accent and purred, ‘Are you sure?’ ‘No,’ she said stiffly. ‘You’ve never met me.’

‘Yet you know the number of my mobile?’

She was tempted to mention that he was stating the obvious, but resisted. ‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Er, your agency gave me the number.’

‘Well, they shouldn’t have!’ he snapped. ‘Certainly not to a complete stranger!’ There was silence down the line for a moment. ‘You’ve never met me and you’re not a writer,’ he mused. ‘So what exactly is your angle, Fran Fisher?’

If it hadn’t been for Rosie she probably would have hung up on him there and then. How absolutely ridiculous he sounded! Quizzing her as though she were some sort of second-rate spy and he the valuable prize within her sights! ‘My “angle”,’ she said sweetly, ‘is that I’m a professional party-planner—’

‘But unsuccessful?’ he suggested drawlingly.

‘On the contrary!’ she defended. ‘I’m extremely successful!’

‘So successful, in fact,’ he continued, ‘that you need to spend your time making cold calls to strangers in order to drum up a little business? I thought that your line of work relied solely on word-of-mouth recommendation?’

‘Yes, of course it does! Normally…’ She pulled a hideous face as she imagined him standing in the room with her. She wanted to dislike him, for Rosie’s sake—and the way he was speaking to her meant that she didn’t have to try very hard. But her dilemma lay in disliking him too much. Because if that happened, it would undoubtedly show in her attitude towards him, and then he certainly wouldn’t give her the job! ‘But I have to help things on their way. I’ve been working in Ireland, you see—’

He sounded weary. Like a man used to being bombarded with ambition. ‘And now you want to break into the market over here?’

‘Er…yes,’ she stumbled, caught off guard. No need to tell him that this was going to be a one-off! ‘Yes, I do. Actually, I’m quite well-known in Dublin. Ask anyone. And I’ve organised lots of fund-raisers—’

‘Have you really?’ he questioned, clearly not believing a word she said.

Fran bristled. ‘I expect that if I mentioned some of my clients, their names would be instantly recognizable—even to you, Mr. Lockhart,’ she told him stiffly.

‘For example?’ he shot back.

‘I did some corporate work for the Irish Film Festival a couple of years ago, and on the back of that I got quite a few private functions. Cormack Casey, the screenwriter—he recommended me—’

‘Cormack?’ he interrupted, in surprise. ‘You know him?’

‘Well, not intimately,’ she said, then wished she hadn’t because it was obvious from the faint and disapproving intake of breath that he had misinterpreted her words. ‘I organised the catering for the baptism of his first child.’

‘Did you indeed?’ asked Sam, in surprise. He’d been invited to that very same baptism, but a book tour in the States by one of his best-selling authors had put paid to that. ‘And if I rang Cormack—he’d vouch for you, would he?’

‘I certainly hope so. Triss—that’s his wife—’

‘I know who Triss is. I’ve known Cormack for years.’

‘Oh. Well, she told me they’d be happy to help with references.’ Fran suspected that the handsome Irish writer and his model wife had felt sorry for her. At the time she had been thinking about filing for a divorce from Sholto, and the baptism had been the only joyous thing in her life. She had poured her heart and soul into making the party match the moving ceremony of baptism, and she had been inundated with work ever since….

‘Did she?’ Sam Lockhart sounded impressed.

Fran cleared her throat, sensing that this was just the right time to appeal to his greed. ‘The thing is, Mr. Lockhart—if you hire me to organise your ball for you, then I guarantee we will raise more money than you ever dreamed of.’

‘That’s fighting talk,’ Sam commented drily, then added, ‘Who told you about it, by the way?’

‘You mean the ball?’

‘No, Man landing on the moon!’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘Yes, of course I mean the ball!’

This might have been tricky if she hadn’t anticipated the question. But Rosie had said that he was vain enough and realistic enough to know that everyone in his circle and beyond, would be clamouring for an invitation.

‘Oh, no one in particular,’ she said vaguely. ‘You know what it’s like. People talk. Particularly before an event has been organised—it gives them a certain cachet if they know about a highly desirable party before it’s officially been advertised.’ She drew a deep breath and added shamelessly, ‘And believe me, Mr. Lockhart—from what I understand—this is going to be the hottest ticket in town.’

‘I hope so,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Well, I already have someone in mind for the job, I’m afraid. Several women have already offered—’

She could imagine! ‘Amateurs?’ asked Fran sharply. ‘Or professionals?’

‘Well, all of them have organised similar functions before—’

‘You know exactly where you are with a professional,’ put in Fran smoothly.

‘Really?’ He sounded unconvinced.

It was time for a little feminine desperation. To see whether a breathy, heartfelt plea would get through to the man Rosie had described as a ‘virile robot.’ ‘Won’t you at least see me, Mr. Lockhart?’ she questioned.

‘I’m a busy man.’

‘Well, of course you are!’ She used the soothing tone of a children’s nanny, then added a little flattery for good measure. ‘Successful men always are. But could you forgive yourself if your hectic schedule meant that your ball didn’t fulfill all your expectations, simply because you wouldn’t make time to see me?’

He actually laughed at this—a bubbling, honeyed chuckle—and it was such a warm and sexy sound that Fran found herself gripping the receiver as though it might fly out of her fingers.

‘Determination is a quality I admire almost as much as self-belief,’ he mused. ‘Provided it is backed up by talent—’

‘Oh, it is!’

There was a pause. ‘Very well, Miss Fisher—I’ll give you exactly ten minutes to convince me that I’d be a fool not to employ you.’

Thank God! ‘You won’t regret it, Mr. Lockhart,’ she enthused, hoping that her voice carried no trace of insincerity. ‘Tell me where and tell me when and I’ll be there!’

‘Okay. How about this afternoon?’

‘You mean today?’

‘Well, I certainly don’t mean tomorrow,’ he purred. ‘I’m flying to Europe with one of my authors later on this evening. I can see you at home—briefly—before I leave.’

He managed to make it sound as though he was making an appointment for her at the dentist—and come to think of it, her adrenalin levels were as high as they might have been if he were a dentist! ‘In London?’ she guessed hopefully, since Rosie had already informed her that he had a flat in town and a house somewhere in the country.

‘No, in Cambridge,’ he stated.

‘Cambridge,’ she repeated faintly, her heart sinking as she thought of travelling to the flat, ploughed fields of the fens on a filthy cold November afternoon. Maybe on a fool’s mission.

‘Is getting to Cambridge going to be a problem for you, Miss Fisher?’ he questioned. ‘It’s hardly on the other side of the world, you know!’

Rule number one: a party-planner must be prepared for any eventuality! ‘Problem? None whatsoever!’ she lied cheerfully. ‘Just give me a few easy-to-understand directions and I’ll be there in time for tea!’

‘I can hardly wait,’ he said, and Fran could have sworn that he was laughing at her.

The light was already fading from the sky when the train pulled into Eversford station and the bleak, unwelcoming platform made Fran feel as though she was on the film-set of an old-fashioned murder mystery.

She knotted her scarf tightly around her neck and looked around. Sam Lockhart had told her where she could get a cab and she walked out of the station into the dreary afternoon, where a fine mist of grey rain clogged the air and slicked onto the roofs of the cars like grease.

There was no one else in the queue and the driver looked at her with interest as she told him the name of the house.

‘Sam Lockhart’s place,’ he commented, as he switched on his meter and pulled out of the station forecourt.

‘You know it?’

‘Should do. He brings us plenty of work. Thought that’s where you’d be headed,’ he said, smiling.

Fran, who was hunting around in her handbag for a mirror, paused, mid-search. ‘Oh?’ She smiled back. ‘Can you guess where all your passengers are headed, then?’

‘No. Just his.’ The driver stopped at some red lights and grinned at her in his rear mirror. ‘If it’s someone glamorous getting off the London train, then the odds are that she wants to go out to Sam Lockhart’s place!’

Fran bristled as the driver’s giveaway remark reminded her why she was here in the first place. Poor Rosie! ‘Oh?’ She thought how indignant she sounded! ‘He has a whole stream of women arriving here, does he?’

The driver shook his head hastily. ‘Oh, no! Never more than one at a time!’ he joked. ‘And we only notice because nothing much happens around here. It’s a pretty isolated place.’

‘So I see.’ Fran looked out of the window as the buildings and lights of the town began to get more sparse and the landscape began to acquire the vast, untouched emptiness of perfectly flat countryside. It could have been boring, but she thought that it had a stark, distinctive beauty all of its own. Even so, its very bleakness did not fit in with her idea of where a sex god would live. Why had he chosen to settle out here, she wondered, when he could be raving it up in London? ‘Is it very far?’

‘Another couple of miles,’ he answered, slowing the car right down as the lane narrowed. ‘Writer, are you?’

‘Not me, I’m afraid!’ she told him cheerfully, and picked up her hand mirror to see what sort of face Sam Lockhart would be greeted by.

Unexciting was the word which immediately sprang to mind.

Her skin looked too pale, but then it always did—and the green-gold eyes could have done with a little more mascara to make the best of them. But apart from the fact that she had left in a hurry, Fran had deliberately played safe, unwilling to look as though she’d spent hours in front of the mirror in an effort to impress Sam Lockhart. Apart from the fact that it just wasn’t her style—sex gods were used to women slapping on the entire contents of their make-up bags. She knew that from living with her husband. So she would be different. Because there was one other thing she knew about that particular breed of man…they were easily bored and something different always intrigued them.