No More Lonely Nights

His voice sounded far too familiar and her knees went weak. 'Oh, hello,' she said, swallowing and checking hurriedly on her reflection in the window nearby, as if he could actually see her. She had spent some time after getting back from work in making herself look good. Just in case he came round, she had thought defiantly in excuse, because she wasn't planning on going out and had no real reason for dressing carefully, but Cass wasn't catching her unprepared again, so she had put on a pale green linen dress which gave her a cool, contained air. At least if he did appear she would be ready to deal with him.

'How are you?' he asked, as if they hadn't met for weeks, and strangely enough she felt that, too. It seemed a long, long time since breakfast.

'Fine,' she said without betraying that, because he was capable of using the knowledge against her, and Sian did not intend to let him guess he had any effect on her at all. 'What do you want now?' she added crisply.

'Are you in one of your aggressive moods again?' he asked, and laughed, as though she amused him. 'A pity I can't be there to deal with you.'

'Deal with me?' she repeated irately, and he laughed again.

'But I've had to go to Glasgow.' Sian immediately felt depressed. 'Oh,' she said when he paused for comment, and he went on, his tone wry.

'Business will keep me up here until Friday at the earliest, but I'm going to get to my aunt's place for the weekend if I have to move heaven and earth. You'll be there, won't you?'

Glumly, she said she didn't know, she wasn't sure.

'Promise me!' he said, and she scowled, although he wouldn't see that, either.

'Just so that you can keep the gossip columns happy? Why should I?'

'Why are you so cross?' he asked, his voice hardening, too. 'What's happened?'

She didn't want him to start guessing, to work out that for some peculiar reason she was feeling low because he had gone away.

'Nothing's happened,' she said, forcing a brightness into her voice. 'I'm not cross, not at all. But I do have a life of my own, you know, and you and your insistence on a romantic smokescreen aren't making my life too easy at the moment.'

There was a silence, then he asked tersely, 'Is this all about that guy?'

'Guy? What guy?' She was bewildered.

'The one we ran into in the restaurant.'

'Oh, Louis!' She was at once embarrassed and it sounded in her voice. 'No, of course not.'

'Hmm,' said Cass. 'Sure about that?'

His pressure made her snap. 'What's it to do with you, anyway—even if it was Louis that I was thinking about? I've helped you out to distract the other papers and stop t

hem writing about Annette, but there is a limit. I have a right to a private life of my own.'

'Very well,' Cass said shortly. 'I accept that, but will it hurt to spend a weekend with my aunt? One more favour, then I promise I won't ask again.'

She sighed audibly. 'Oh, all right.'

'Thank you. I'll see you at the weekend, then. Goodnight.'

The click made her start; she put the phone down herself and stood at the window looking at the darkening sky, feeling melancholy, and angry with herself because there was no reason why she should feel that way. A week ago, she hadn't known a thing about William Cassidy; she had been busy every waking hour out on the water down at Poole, sailing and enjoying the sun and wind. Her mind had been carefree. She had put behind her all the anger, uncertainty and confusion she had gone through when she and Louis had split up. She hadn't been in love, of course, but breaking up had been painful, all the same, and once she was over it she had told herself it would be a long, long time before she got tangled up with another man. She had been so sure that she had learnt her lesson, yet here she was in just a few days swinging wildly between inexplicable highs and lows, and all because of a man she hardly knew!

She had never thought of herself as weak-willed or man-mad. In fact, until now, she had always been able to put her career first—why else had she quarrelled with Louis? He had known he came a poor second and he had resented it—but where William Cassidy was concerned it was always her job that seemed to be running second and Cass who got his way, and Sian was baffled and bewildered.

What's the matter with you? she asked herself, prowling around her shadowy flat and feeling more lonely than she had ever felt in her life.

He snaps his fingers and you come running— why? He asks you to let yourself be used as a smokescreen to fool your own colleagues—and you meekly do it. He rings to say he's at the other end of the country and you sink into a black depression.

Glowering into the mirror, she asked her reflection, 'What's wrong with you lately? How does he talk you into it? What hold has he got over you?'

But her green eyes evaded their own reflection, slid aside guiltily, because she didn't need to ask the questions, she knew the answer in her heart, even if she wished she didn't.

It was very late before she fell asleep, and she dreamed all night; in the morning she was shadowy-eyed and her head ached. Worse, she remembered dreams, and her face was hot whenever she thought about them.