The Morning After

‘Who?’ Todd demanded. ‘What’s his name?’

‘No one you know,’ she dismissed, realising with a start that she hadn’t even bothered to ask his name!

Crazy. You really are going crazy, Annie!

‘A male model,’ she said, forcing her mind back to Todd’s question. ‘I met him on that promo I did for Cable last year. Who told you I was kissing him?’ she demanded with commendable affront, to throw him off the track.

There was a short pause before his deriding, ‘Guess,’ came down the line at her.

‘Susie,’ she sighed. She should have known.

‘She took great delight in telling me how she’d seen you lost in a heated clinch with another man before you walked off and left me,’ he related grimly. ‘Then had the bloody gall to suggest I see her home instead!’

‘To which you replied?’ she prompted.

‘Guess again, darling,’ he drawled. ‘I’m still here at this wretched melee if that gives you a clue.’

Yes, it gave her a big clue, and Annie’s heart ached for him.

‘If she thought she could walk up to me and start slandering you in one breath then expect me to fall back into her arms in the next then she soon learned otherwise,’ he went on tightly. ‘She eventually left with that guy from the Rouez Sands Group.’

‘And made sure you saw her leave with him, of course.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he sighed.

‘You OK?’ she asked him gently.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’ll live.’

Annie smothered a sigh, wishing that she could ease the pain she knew he was suffering right now. But only Susie could do that, and the foolish woman was too jealous of Annie to see that by blackening Annie to Todd she was only making things worse for herself.

In all fairness Annie didn’t completely blame Susie for being suspicious about their relationship. It did look suspicious to anyone looking in on it. But even though she’d urged Todd often enough to tell Susie the truth he’d refused, going all stiff and adamant in a way that told her that Susie’s suspicions offended his pride. ‘It cuts both ways,’ was all he ever said. ‘If she can’t trust my word that there is nothing intimate between you and me, then why should I trust her with the full truth about us?’

Stalemate, and likely to stay that way while both of them remained so pig-headed about it all.

‘Give me a call soon,’ he murmured as a conclusion to the conversation, then added as an afterthought, ‘But not during the rest of this week, because I’ll be in Madrid trying to whip up that extra injection of cash I need to secure Cliché Europe’s safe launch.’

Annie frowned, having forgotten all about that. Todd had told her about it only this evening—the surprising and worrying fact that he was taking a big risk publishing a new glossy in the present economic climate. ‘The trouble is,’ he’d explained ruefully, ‘I stagnate if I don’t and stand to lose everything if I do.’

‘What I need,’ he murmured thoughtfully now, ‘is something really exclusive to front the first issue—something that will guarantee sales and therefore appeal to my backers. I just haven’t come up with what that exclusive something is yet.’

‘You will,’ she stated, with soft confidence in his ability. ‘And if all else fails I could always pose nude,’ she suggested. ‘That’ll be a world first and guarantee you a complete sell-out.’

‘You’d do it too, wouldn’t you?’ he murmured curiously, hearing the note of seriousness threading through her lighter tone.

‘For you?’ she said. ‘I would sell my very soul for you, my darling, and that’s the truth. But I would much rather not,’ she then added. ‘So try to come up with something less—sensational for me, will you?’ she pleaded.

‘I promise,’ he laughed. ‘Not that the idea of you posing nude does not appeal,’ he teased. ‘But I think I should be able to come up with something more—subtle. So take care, and be good while I’m away.’

When am I ever anything else? Annie thought as she replaced the receiver and grimaced at the dark sense of dissatisfaction that began niggling at her nerves.

And all because a stranger managed to get beneath that protective skin you wear? she mocked herself.

‘Goodness me, Annie,’ she muttered aloud, and then thought, You must be feeling starved of affection to have one small incident affect you as much as you’re allowing this to do.

Bed, she decided. Bed before you become even more maudlin than you already are!

But she didn’t sleep well, her dreams seeming haunted by a tall dark figure who kept insisting on kissing her, his warm mouth constantly closing over her own every time she tried to speak! But, worse than that, she didn’t try to fight him but always, always welcomed him—helplessly, eagerly! Then she ended up waking in a breathless state of shock at her own wanton imagination.