'Isn't that wonderful? I'm so glad—are you pleased? Is he giving you a good deal, or aren't you happy with his offer?'
'He's being more than handsome,' Stephen told her in a slightly dry tone. 'I'd be an ungrateful fool if I wasn't relieved and delighted. Nobody loses their job, the firm stays nominally mine and Alice won't have to leave her house. I couldn't in my wildest dreams have hoped for anything like Daniel's offer.' He talked about the details for a while, then said: 'Thanks, Lindsay,' and she protested: 'What for, what did I do? I had nothing to do with it.'
'Pull the other one,' Stephen said bluntly. 'Daniel Randall isn't the quixotic type, he and I were never that close, he wouldn't do this for me. There's only one person who could get him to play Sir Galahad. He was always nuts about you.'
When she had rung off Lindsay slowly went into her bedroom and sat down on the bed, staring at her own reflection with searching eyes.
Her skin had a betraying pallor, her green eyes looked too large, too bright, their lids flickering nervously as she stared at herself and saw in the mirror those hints of emotional turmoil which she did not want anyone else to glimpse. She ran a shaky hand through her hair and it flamed in the lamplight, soft, gleaming red curls which clung to her pale fingers. She thought of Daniel, and involuntarily, her eyes shut, she breathed faster, hating herself but wanting him. If only she knew how he felt about her—did he hate her? She knew he desired her, but how much of that desire was hatred?
It's so easy, she thought, to hate and love at one and the same time, the piercing emotional intensity of both can be mistaken for the other.
She undressed and slipped into bed, turned out the light and tried to sleep. She was very tired, sleep should have come quickly, but it evaded her. It was some time before she felt her body relaxing and then just as she was falling asleep the phone rang. Groggily, she groped for it in the dark and the bedside lamp almost crashed to the floor. She lifted the phone and mumbled: 'Mmm…' Even as she muttered that she was waking up and guessing that Aston had rung, her face wary as she finally managed to find the lamp switch and turn on the light.
'Lindsay?' The voice was hard and cool and it wasn't Aston's—it was Daniel, sounding distinctly harsh.
'What on earth…' She looked at her bedside clock in disbelief. 'Do you know what time it is? It's midnight.' Then fear made her voice rise. 'What's wrong?' Her mind leapt to the obvious. 'Stephen…'
'Is fine, as far as I know,' said Daniel. 'I was ringing to make sure you were okay.'
'You were what? You wake me up to… I don't believe my ears!'
'I just saw Hill,' he said tersely.
Lindsay froze. 'What? Aston? Where? What did…'
'We didn't speak,' Daniel said. 'He was drunk. It was the most incredible thing—I was with a party of Swedes over here on a buying expedition, we'd been having dinner and went on to a club. Hill was going out as we went in—he saw me, gave me one look and hit me.'
Lindsay's breathing seemed to stop. She gripped the phone tighter.
'Luckily he was too drunk to connect,' Daniel told her. 'I was his fist coming, side-stepped, and he fell fiat on his face.'
'Oh, no!' Lindsay gasped. 'Poor Aston… is he hurt?'
'Providence looks after drunks,' said Daniel without apparent sympathy. 'He passed out, but I didn't see any injuries, and luckily my Swedish friends took it as a joke, they thought he'd taken an instant dislike to me because he was stoned.'
'Where is he now?'
'Home, I'd imagine—I called my driver over and sent him home in my car.' He paused. 'Then I rang you to make sure you were safely home. You told him, I presume?'
'Yes,' she said very quietly.
'Took it badly, did he?'
'Damn you,' Lindsay muttered, her voice shaking. 'Mind your own business!'
'Was there a scene?' Daniel asked. 'He didn't hurt you, did he?' He sounded icily harsh, and she hated him.
'Go to hell,' she said, and hung up. She crawled down into the bed and pulled the sheet over her head, but although she kept her eyes tightly shut she could not shut out the pictures Daniel had conjured up for her. Poor Aston! She hated herself, she hated Daniel, and most of all she hated knowing that she had hurt Aston so much that he had gone off to drink himself insensible; She knew how he felt, she wished she could do the same, but she would only be sick if she tried to drink enough to stop her mind from working.
She closed her hands around her head, rocking to and fro in the bed on her knees, like a demented woman. Her mind was her real problem, it wouldn't stop working, telling her home truths she didn't want to hear. Her body was always on Daniel's side—if her mind would only stop interfering, she could forget pain, give in to the heated necessity in her flesh and be oblivious of everything else. She felt like banging her head on a wall until her mind gave up.
Over the next few days she was grateful for the fact that she was too busy to have time to think. The office was hectic, Chris even did some work himself, but he did so with more vigour when the managing director was around. Charles rarely appeared on their floor, he normally summoned Chris to his own much plushier suite, but he was taking a great interest in their campaign to find 'The Face'. Chris's original brainwave had been enlarged—they were launching their new range at the same time as their highly publicised competition to find the perfect girl to represent Vivons, and both newspaper and television advertisements would feature a large cut-out silhouette of a girl's head without features, only a question mark and the words: Are You The Face?
'Clever,' said Charles, nodding approval. He looked at Lindsay. 'He's a genius, isn't he?'
'A genius,' Lindsay agreed, but when he had gone she eyed Chris with wry amusement. 'Stop preening, you look like a half-witted peacock!'
He laughed, then looked at her hard. 'And you look like a ghost—not sleeping? You haven't looked too good all week. Does Daniel Randall keep you awake all night? All play and no work, remember.'