Out of the corner of her eye Storm caught sight of Madeleine, clinging sexily to Jago’s shoulders as her body moulded itself against him. Nausea churned in the pit of her stomach, the headache which had been threatening all day suddenly transforming into a throbbing pain, pounding in her temples.
‘Are you okay?’ Pete asked anxiously when she stumbled for the second time. ‘Look, let me get you a drink.’
Storm tried to tell him that she didn’t want one, but he insisted on her drinking the full tumbler of liquid he brought back with him. It burned her throat like fire, leaving a faint residue of taste that was vaguely familiar.
‘Vodka,’ Pete told her with a grin. ‘Guaranteed to beat any headache!’
Storm gasped as the raw spirit hit her stomach, her eyes widening, as she realised that Pete had barely diluted it.
A Dr Hook tape echoed sexily round the room, the blatant message in the words causing Storm to tremble with the longing the words evoked, and search the darkness for Jago’s dark head.
With a sick certainty she saw that he was missing, and so was Madeleine. So they hadn’t even bothered to wait until everyone else had left. No doubt she didn’t stubbornly claim to be in love with anyone else while his hands caressed her, and Storm knew that it would be Jago’s name on her lips at the ultimate moment of possession.
Sickness crept over her. The Madeleines of this world were well suited to the Jagos—a mutual exchange of passion without the unnecessary complications of love. Storm bit her lip, suddenly convinced that she was going to be sick, and stumbled out of the room on legs that suddenly refused to support her.
A dim light illuminated the square hall and she pushed open the first door, which proved to be a study. The room was in darkness and at first she thought it unoccupied, and then she heard the unmistakable slither of fabric as someone moved. Her eyes pierced the darkness to find the leather chesterfield she hadn’t noticed on entry, and, the blood stormed into her face as Madeleine’s blonde head lifted from Jago’s shoulder to eye her contemptuously, the girl’s skin gleaming like the inside of a shell in the darkness.
‘For God’s sake, darling,’ she drawled to Jago, ‘I told you we should have gone upstairs. Now we’ve shocked your little advertising controller!’
As storm stumbled through the door, she thought she heard Jago’s voice, but whatever he said was drowned by Madeleine’s tinkling laughter.
Closing the door silently behind her, Storm walked blindly into the kitchen. Sickness rose inside her, and she was unaware of Valeria calling her name, until the other woman touched her shoulder, her eyes concerned as she looked into her pale face.
‘Storm, whatever’s wrong?’
Not even to Valeria could she confide the scene she had unwittingly interrupted. Her tongue felt swollen and clumsy, her lips stiff as she tried to form words.
‘It’s only a headache,’ she managed to mumble. ‘I think I’ll go home…’
‘You can’t!’ Valeria protested. ‘It’s nearly a mile—Jago told me. Let me find him, he can drive you…’
‘No!’ The word was sharply painful, as her eyes clouded with the memory of Madeleine’s exposed shoulders, her white arms twined round Jago’s neck. ‘No, there’s no need. I’ll be all right…’
‘Well, you certainly aren’t all right at the moment,’ Valeria said roundly. ‘Look, I’ve got some headache tablets with me. They’re really good. Take a couple and go and lie down for a while. If you don’t I shall go and find Jago,’ she threatened.
Unwillingly Storm allowed herself to be persuaded upstairs to a bedroom luxuriously furnished in blues and greys, and yet somehow impersonal.
‘Lie down,’ Valeria commanded, disappearing into the en suite bathroom and returning with a glass of water and two pink capsules. ‘Migraleve,’ she explained when Storm looked at them doubtfully. ‘They really are good. Just swallow them and have a sip of water, and then try to rest.’
‘You won’t tell anyone that I’m here?’ Storm begged.
Valeria understood. ‘I shan’t tell a soul. Just stay here until you’re feeling a bit better.’
The pills enveloped her in a hazy lassitude. She felt as though she were floating, she thought dreamily, as though somehow she had escaped the confines of her pain-racked body and were hovering above it. She moved rest
lessly, turning on to her side, her cheek pillowed against her hand, and let her thoughts drift as consciousness slowly left her.
Downstairs the party continued, but Storm was oblivious. She hadn’t thought it necessary to tell Valeria about the large glass of vodka Pete had given her, and the alcohol combined with the strong tablets kept her deeply asleep.
She didn’t know what woke her. At first she didn’t realise where she was, and was confused by the odd angle of the moonlight through the window. Her headache had gone, but she was stiff. She slid off the bed, trying to find her shoes and accidentally knocking a book off the bedside cabinet. It fell to the floor with a thud and the bedroom door was suddenly thrust open, the light blinding her.
‘What the… Storm?’
Jago was standing in the oblong of light, his hair tousled, his legs bare beneath the hem of his robe.
Storm stared at him, a bitter acid taste in her mouth. Had he and Madeleine decided to move upstairs after all?
‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ she said stiffly. ‘I fell asleep.’