Living Together

‘Why, yes.’ She sounded surprised. ‘How did you know?’

‘I was invited.’

‘And I suppose my being here stopped you accepting,’ Helen said almost tearfully.

‘Don’t be so damned—’

‘Or is that where you’re really going?’ she interrupted shrilly. ‘I don’t suppose you’re working at all, are you? You’re going to this party,’ she accused heatedly.

‘Helen—’

‘Don’t take that patronising tone with me!’ She was almost hysterical now, the thought of the intimate dinner for two she had been going to prepare like a barb in her thigh. Especially with the way she had decided the evening would end. ‘If you want to go to a party then just say so. But don’t lie to me, Leon, don’t ever lie to me.’

‘Will you—’

‘I know you think I’ve taken you away from all your friends,’ she continued. ‘But the two of us living together was your idea. You’re at liberty to back out any time you want to. I won’t—’

‘Have you been drinking?’ Leon snapped suspiciously.

‘No, of course I haven’t!’ she replied indignantly.

‘Well, it damn well sounds like it to me. I’m working, Helen, not going to a party. And if you don’t believe me come down here and see for yourself.’

She swallowed hard, her anger starting to fade. ‘You really aren’t going to Suzanne’s party?’

’If I were I’d tell you. Are you jealous, Helen?’ he queried softly, almost tentatively.

‘No, of course—Yes!’ she admitted in a choked voice. ‘Yes, I’m jealous, Leon,’ she spoke so softly he must hardly have been able to hear her. ‘I—I want you to come home.’

He drew a ragged breath. ‘Just exactly what does that mean?’

‘You know, Leon!’

‘I want to hear you say it.’

‘I want— No! I can’t, Leon, I can’t say it!’ she cried her anguish.

‘Then I have work to do,’ he told her coldly before slamming down the receiver.

Helen did the same. Swine! Dirty, rotten, lousy—He was doing this on purpose! He wouldn’t ask her, she would have to ask him, and he was tormenting her with her own desire. She hated him, damn him!

She went into the kitchen, taking the duck out of the oven and pushing the tin uninterestedly on to a work top. Another half an hour and the meal would have been cooked to perfection, tender duck served on a bed of rice followed by lemon soufflé. Now it was all ruined, the whole evening ruined. She sat down on one of the bar stools and sobbed her heart out, feeling as if the frustration of the last weeks would never fade.

She hurriedly wiped the tears away as she heard the key in the lock, smoothing down her hair before going out to greet Leon. She would act cool, show him he didn’t matter to her.

It wasn’t until she saw the beautiful blonde woman letting herself into the apartment with a key that she actually realised Leon couldn’t possibly have got back from the studio so quickly, not even if he had left immediately on replacing the receiver, which wasn’t very likely, the mood he had been in.

The two women eyed each other silently for several long seconds. Blue eyes clashed with violet and there was challenge in both. Helen recognised the woman as the female star in Leon’s last film, Sharon Melcliffe. She was tall and beautiful and totally sure of herself, making Helen feel drab and inconspicuous. She was still in cream corduroys and blouse, her face bare of make-up, just on her way to get ready, when Leon’s call had interrupted her. It hadn’t seemed worth the effort when he had said he wouldn’t be coming home, but Helen wished now she had taken the trouble to smarten herself up, especially as Sharon Melcliffe looked so chic in a daring black silk dress, the clinging material revealing that she wore little beneath.

‘Who are you?’ the woman drawled in a bored voice.

Helen’s hackles rose. ‘I was just about to ask you the same question,’ she lied, knowing perfectly well who this woman was. But why did she have a key to Leon’s apartment? The answer seemed all too obvious.

The actress moved forward with a catlike grace, smiling as she looked about the lounge. ‘Everything is just as I remember it,’ she purred, her sharp blue eyes turning to look at Helen. ‘Except you,’ she snapped. ‘You certainly weren’t here the last time I was here with Leon.’

‘I should hope not,’ Helen said dryly. So much for Leon’s assertion that no other woman had lived here with him!

‘I don’t suppose you could be a replacement for Max?’ She arched one plucked blonde eyebrow.