The Mistress Contract

Too late she remembered he had said to James he would call a taxi to take him home; she should have offered the use of her phone at least. He would think her so boorish.

Without even thinking about it she called after him, ‘The taxi! Do you want to come up for a minute and call a taxi?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got my mobile with me.’ He patted the big pocket of his overcoat as he spoke, but his stride didn’t falter or check in any way and neither did he turn round.

And then he had reached the corner of the road and disappeared from view, still without looking back, and she was suddenly alone. And she felt alone, desperately alone.

She stood in the shadow of Jerry’s shop doorway for a full minute without moving as a dark, consuming heaviness fell over her like a blanket. She felt bitterly disappointed and tired and drained—exhausted with too many emotions she couldn’t handle or even define. But all connected with Conrad Quentin.

She had fought her own battles and overcome her own problems for years, and she knew that was what she had to keep on doing, that her stand against Conrad was right, but just at this precise moment she would have given the world for it all to be different. For him to be different.

But he wasn’t. She raised her head and stared up into the sky just as a scudding cloud revealed a brief glimpse of the white ethereal beauty of the crescent moon.

And tonight had told her one thing. She had to leave Quentin Dynamics, and soon, because if she didn’t, if she allowed him into her life and ultimately her body, he would destroy her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SEPHY was awoken early the next morning—after a night of continuous tossing and turning and weird, disturbing dreams—by the sound of the buzzer to her flat being pressed repeatedly.

She stumbled into the little hall, fastening the belt of her robe as she went, and spoke into the intercom in a voice still thick with sleep. ‘Yes, who is it?’

‘Delivery for Miss Vincent.’ The female voice was young and bright and impossibly cheery for this early on a Saturday morning.

She was too dazed and drowsy to wonder what the delivery could be as she opened the flat door and stumbled down the stairs to the outer door into the street, but when she opened it and the most enormous bouquet was placed in her hands by a smiling, chirpy delivery girl it acted in the same way as a bucket of cold water straight in her sleepy face and suddenly she was wide awake.

‘Have a nice day.’ The pretty young face was openly envious as the girl glanced once more at the dozens of red roses and fragile baby’s breath the Cellophane held. ‘And, whoever he is, he’s sure no cheapskate,’ she added perkily over her shoulder as she turned towards the florist’s van parked at the edge of the kerb.

‘It’s serious, then?’

Sephy came out of her mesmerised state to find Jerry peering at her as the van drove off into the mounting morning traffic, and when he indicated the flowers she felt her face turn as red as the roses. Jerry had a way of always being around at the wrong time.

‘It’s not like that, really,’ she said quickly.

‘Oh, Sephy.’ He shook his head at her, his nice face deeply troubled. ‘I saw the way he looked at you.’

After the foul weather of the night before the January morning was crisp and bright but bitterly cold, and as its icy chill quickly penetrated her thick towelling robe she shivered before saying, her voice flat, ‘He’s the original love ’em and leave ’em type, Jerry, and I don’t go in for emotional suicide, besides which I don’t work for him any more—his old secretary’s back

, and I’m thinking of leaving the firm.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Sounds sensible,’ he said quietly, ‘and Maisie will be glad to hear you might be around a bit more. We’ve missed you.’ He smiled at her, his face open and friendly.

There was an inflexion in the ‘we’ that made her ask, ‘You two are getting on well, then?’

‘Very well.’ It was warm and said far more than just the mere words indicated. ‘We might even make it permanent.’

‘I’m glad.’ She smiled at him and his smile widened, but as she stepped inside and closed the door she suddenly felt painfully alone in a way she hadn’t done for years. Which was stupid—really, really stupid, she told herself bracingly as she hurried up the stairs to the snug warmth of the flat, because nothing had changed. And she and Jerry would never have worked in a million years.

She laid the flowers on the breakfast bar and then, as a thought occurred to her, she reached for the little envelope attached to the Cellophane. She, along with Jerry, had assumed the flowers had come from Conrad, but they might not have. Although she couldn’t think of another person on the whole earth who would send her flowers—and so extravagantly!

‘They are soft and beautiful and sweetly perfumed, just like you,’ he had written. ‘But the thorns warn one to handle with respect, just like… C.’

Handle with respect! How could he be so manipulative and machiavellian and…and hypocritical? she asked herself furiously, before bursting into tears.

She felt better after a good cry, and once the roses were in water—all five dozen of them—she soaked in a hot bath for over an hour without letting her mind consider the future once.

She had just dried her hair into soft thick waves about her face, and was considering getting dressed, when the buzzer sounded again. It was going to be one of those mornings!

Maisie. It had to be Maisie. No doubt Jerry had related the latest and she had popped round to get the ‘i’s dotted and the ‘t’s crossed, as was Maisie’s wont, Sephy thought patiently. She flicked the switch on the intercom and said flatly, ‘Okay, Maisie, a coffee and a croissant, right?’ Whenever Maisie did this she always arrived with half a dozen croissants and a sweetly entreating smile and never failed to gain admittance.