No More Lonely Nights

He opened his mouth, then shut it. A moment later Sian was bolting across the pavement to her flat, and Cass was driving away with a roar of power, his tail lights vanishing, although she didn't look back to watch. She went straight to bed in a state of deep depression. That was the last time she would ever see Cass!

CHAPTER SIX

Sian was optimistic. After a very bad night, she was eating her muesli and keeping an eye on the clock because she still had to do her make-up before she left for work, when the doorbell went. Sian had no premonition. She thought it must be the girl next door, wanting to borrow milk for her cornflakes, or the postman with a parcel he couldn't slip through the letterbox. At that hour of the morning she wasn't expecting Cass, and when she saw him on the doorstep she stared in surprise.

He was clutching a newspaper and he was in one of his rages; his eyes glittered at her and he was breathing like a bull about to charge.

'And I was stupid enough to tell myself I could trust you!' he said, waving the paper at her. 'How could you do it? Don't you have any decency?'

Sian looked at the newspaper; it was her own. She had forgotten writing the colour piece and flushed.

'Look, I'm sorry…'

'Don't say it,' he bit out. 'Last night you told me you didn't want to hear any more apologies— well, that goes for me, too. You wrote about my private life, my family, my home! And then you called me a user! What the hell are you?'

A door opened across the landing and Sian took hold of his shirt front and pulled him into her flat. Slamming the door, she hissed at him, 'If I hadn't agreed to write that, my editor would have got someone else to do a far more personal piece. He wanted something along the lines of the stories in the other papers.' She stared pointedly at him. 'If you get my meaning!'

Cass ran a hand uncertainly through his dark hair, still scowling. 'Oh, I see. Well… you're so damn plausible, that's the trouble. I'm never sure where I am with you, or if you're telling me the truth.'

'I am,' she said indignantly.

'Maybe you are, but I keep finding myself telling you things I certainly wouldn't like to read in the morning paper, and it bothers me the way you ferret things out of me.'

'I don't ferret anything!' Sian said, glowering back. 'If you read that piece carefully, you'll see what pains I went to not to write anything a good reporter couldn't find out from a cuttings library.'

'You described the interior of my home!' he snapped. 'Where could you find out details like that, except from being there?'

Eyeing him scornfully, Sian asked, 'Do you remember allowing an interior design magazine to use your home for a big double-page feature?'

His face changed. 'Oh.'

'Yes, oh,' she repeated, eyes cold.

'I'd forgotten that.'

'Well, maybe next time you'll check your information before you come accusing people of double-crossing you,' said Sian, opening the front door again. 'Goodbye, Mr Cassidy.'

He leaned on the door and forced it shut again. 'Sian, I'm sorry.'

'I thought we agreed we were both sick of apologies? Would you mind going? I was eating a peaceful breakfast when you arrived.'

'I was e

ating a peaceful breakfast until I saw this and promptly got indigestion.' He glanced into the kitchen. 'I would love a cup of coffee, and maybe a slice of toast and marmalade.'

'Go away,' said Sian.

'You look pale,' he suddenly commented, staring, then said, 'Oh, no—I see what it is, you aren't wearing any make-up. What pale skin you have naturally—your eyelids look almost transparent.'

'Don't stand so close,' she said huskily, and bolted into the kitchen because having him merely inches away was nerve-racking.

He followed and coolly sat down at the table. 'I'm hungry again. Reading that article made me lose my appetite.'

She poured him coffee and made him toast in grim silence, then sat down and finished her muesli.

Cass ate his toast while she pretended to read the morning paper he had brought with him. 'I suppose you have to read all the papers to keep abreast of what the opposition is doing,' he said and she made a vague, agreeing noise behind the paper.

'But you haven't seen the other papers this morning?' he continued, and she made an equally vague noise that meant no, she had not.