CHAPTER ONE
‘OH, do come, Helen,’ Jenny encouraged, her long blonde hair framing a beautiful face that owed nothing to artifice, her green eyes glowing with an inner beauty. ‘I can’t turn up there on my own, it would look too obvious.’
Helen sighed. ‘I don’t want to go, Jen. I’ve been telling you all week that I’m not going.’
Her cousin pouted, a beguiling gesture that usually got her what she wanted. ‘But I’ve been counting on you. No one turns up at one of these parties alone, everyone would know I was on the look-out for a man.’
Helen’s mouth quirked with humour. ‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am, but he doesn’t have to know that. Men like to think they’ve done the running, not the other way around.’
‘I’m just not in the mood for a party,’ sighed Helen. ‘Besides, my hair is a mess and I have nothing to wear.’
Jenny gave her a considering look, noting that her young cousin’s face was far too thin, the cheekbones too prominent, the violet eyes shadowed, and her full sweet mouth hardly ever smiled nowadays. Helen was beautiful, fragilely beautiful, with her shoulder-length wavy black hair, her huge violet eyes that tempted men to guess her inner secrets, her small body perfectly curved if a little on the slender side, and yet no man was allowed to break through her cool façade, her manner always polite but stilted. It had been this way since the accident two years ago, since Michael. But it couldn’t be allowed to continue!
She pulled the reluctant Helen to her feet, marching her into the bedroom they shared. ‘You have plenty to wear if you look—or you could borrow something of mine.’
‘No, thanks,’ Helen derided. ‘Most of your clothes are positively indecent.’
Jenny grinned. ‘Aren’t they? I feel really wicked in most of my evening dresses.’ She stood in front of Helen’s wardrobe and began sorting through the dresses there. She wrinkled her nose at them all. ‘You can’t wear any of them,’ she said disgustedly. ‘Not to one of these parties.’
Helen sat on the bed watching her uninterestedly. They had shared this flat for the last two years, the cheerful Jenny usually managing to jolly her out of any bouts of depression that could suddenly wash over her.
Jenny, the elder by five years at twenty-seven, managed her shamefully, organising her life for her, even down to getting her the job with the travel agency. If it had been left to Helen she would have stayed at home, she could afford to with the money she had from Michael, but Jenny had told her that it just wasn’t ‘done’ nowadays; even the rich worked. And so she worked nine until five, five days a week, deriving a certain satisfaction from the job, but knowing she wouldn’t miss it if she had to leave tomorrow.
‘You make it sound like an orgy,’ she remarked dryly.
Jenny’s grin deepened. ‘It probably will be some time towards morning, but I intend to have left long before then—preferably with Matt.’
‘Matthew Jarvis!’ Helen scorned. ‘I don’t know what you see in him.’
‘He’s incredibly sexy,’ Jenny replied instantly.
‘Ah, sex,’ Helen nodded.
‘I didn’t say sex, I said sexy,’ Jenny corrected. ‘And what’s wrong with sex, anyway? It’s very good for you.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Helen remarked stiffly.
Jenny blushed. ‘Well, it is. Ah, now this is the one for you,’ she pulled out a dress from her own wardrobe, holding it up against Helen. ‘Mm, it’s just perfect against the darkness of your hair.’
Helen looked down at the shimmering gown, mentally agreeing that the gold silk was a perfect foil for her hair. But she shook her head in refusal. ‘You know I can never wear anything of yours, it’s always too tight across the bust.’
Her cousin looked ruefully from her own lesser curves to Helen’s full bust. Helen was more slender on the waist and hips than she was, but however thin she was elsewhere her bust always stayed the same, made to look even fuller by her slenderness elsewhere. ‘This material has a lot of give to it,’ she encouraged.
‘What’s wrong with my own dresses?’
Again Jenny wrinkled her nose. ‘Much too stuffy. So, will you come?’ she asked eagerly.
Helen put up a hand to her hair, feeling herself weakening. ‘I look a mess,’ she repeated.
‘You can soon wash and dry your hair, we have a couple of hours before we have to leave.’
‘I’d really rather not go, Jenny.’
‘Well, you’re going,’ she was told firmly. ‘Now go and wash your hair. No arguments,’ Jenny said as she went to protest. ‘You’re going and that’s that.’
‘And what happens to me when you go off with Matthew Jarvis?’
‘I haven’t “gone off” with him yet.’
‘You will,’ Helen said with certainty. ‘What happens to me then? I’m certainly not staying for the orgy.’
Jenny giggled, standing just inside the bathroom as she watched Helen wash her hair. ‘I didn’t think you would be. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you to the wolves.’
Helen grimaced, wrapping a towel about her wet hair. ‘They wouldn’t get very far even if you did. Most of those men know to leave me alone now.’
‘There’ll be a lot of new faces tonight. I’ve never been to a Leon Masters party before.’
‘Leon Masters! The Leon Masters?’
‘Is there another one? I thought I’d mentioned who was giving the party,’ Jenny said innocently.
‘No, you hadn’t! And I know why you didn’t. The man’s a rake, an out-and-out rake!’
‘Mm, I know,’ her cousin agreed dreamily. ‘Isn’t it marvellous? I can’t wait to meet him.’
‘Are you sure this party isn’t going to be an orgy from start to finish? I’ve heard his parties can be pretty wild.’
‘So have I,’ Jenny grinned. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it all week.’
‘You’re incorrigible!’ Helen scolded. ‘I don’t know why you ever got involved with this mad crowd.’
Her cousin shrugged. ‘Brent introduced me to them.’ Brent Shaw was her television producer boss. It was also through him that she had met Matthew Jarvis, another television producer.