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She knew the moment she opened he eyes that she wasn’t in her own bed. But it was several seconds before she realised just whose bed she was in—or rather whose bedroom, since the room she was in was obviously a guest room. Marcus’s guest room. In Marcus’s Wendover Square house.
She gave a small despairing groan as the events of the previous afternoon and evening formed images inside her head—images she was forced to view without the protection of her earlier adrenaline-induced armour.
What on earth had possessed her to behave like that? Granted, she loved Marcus, and always would love him, but last night she had…She swallowed uncomfortably whilst her whole body burned in the flames of her own shocking memories.
She looked at her watch. Ten a.m.
She shot upright in the bed. It couldn’t possibly be! She’d always woken up at seven at the very latest—always. Even on her honeymoon.
But last night with Marcus she’d had the kind of sex, the quality of sex that she most definitely had not had with Nick—either on her honeymoon or at any other time.
Marcus? Where was he? She hauled up the duvet, holding it to cover her naked breasts, even though some sixth sense told her that the house was a Marcus-free zone. Her clothes, which she could blush-makingly remember abandoning all over the place, had been thoughtfully retrieved and neatly folded—although she couldn’t see her knickers—and there was an envelope propped up on the tallboy with her name written across it in Marcus’s imperious hand. Keeping the duvet wrapped around herself, she got out of bed and padded over to the tallboy. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper on which Marcus had written economically.
Your underwear is in the dryer. Don’t leave without having some breakfast—coffee, fruit, cereal, etc, in cupboards and fridge. Will be in touch this p.m. re visit to Beatrice.
Her knickers were in the dryer! How domestic, how authoritarian—how Marcus.
And how lovely to know they would be clean. If she had one tiny little hang-up, it was that she was almost too neat and tidy—and everything that went with that, Lucy admitted as she hurried into the bathroom. But then boarding school did that to a person, she reflected, as she stood beneath the refreshing sting of the shower, lathering her skin and her hair.
The décor in Marcus’s house might be slightly old-fashioned, but the guest bathroom was well stocked with everything that an overnight visitor minus her sponge bag might need. Lucy smiled approvingly when she found a new toothbrush as well as toothpaste in the basket beside the basin, along with a new comb, a small unopened jar of face cream and even deodorant.
Fortunately her hair was naturally straight, so she had no need to do anything other than wash and comb it, knowing that by the time she reached her office it would have dried. And even more fortunately, given the time and the fact that she had a considerable amount of paperwork to attend to, she could go straight there and change into a pair of jeans once she got there. She always kept several changes of clothes there, just in case.
Her head had begun to ache unpleasantly—a combination of anxiety about what Marcus might be likely to say to her about last night and lack of caffeine, Lucy decided as she made her way downstairs in her silk dress but minus her stiletto shoes.
Marcus’s kitchen was, of course, immaculate. Having retrieved her underwear from the laundry room and quickly put it on—no matter how saucy it might be, she simply was not a ‘no knickers’ girl, Lucy decided firmly—she hurried into the kitchen, desperately in need of a very strong cup of coffee.
Ten minutes later, after going through every cupboard and finding only decaf, she was forced to admit that there was an unbridgeable gap between her idea of what constituted a proper breakfast drink and Marcus’s.
Decaf. She screwed up her nose in distaste as she made herself a cup and munched half-heartedly on a banana.
Those butterflies in her stomach weren’t there just because she needed her caffeine fix. They were there because last night she had seduced Marcus. Because she had thrown herself at him—and onto him. Her face started to burn, and not just with the guilty embarrassment she ought to be feeling. Her mental self might feel guilt and shame and be dreading having to face Marcus, but her physical self was positively crowing with delight, reliving with relish every single intimate caress and kiss. It certainly had no intention of feeling any kind of shame whatsoever.
But what about her emotional self? Lucy wondered sadly as she let herself out of the house, carefully checking that the door had locked behind her before setting off to walk the short distance to her Sloane Street office. Her emotional self was caught between the two opposing forces of her mind and her body. Her emotional self loved Marcus and yearned for him to love her back. Her mental self said that it was simply not possible, and warned her of the pain and humiliation she was courting. Her physical self, on the other hand, was still wallowing in the triumphant afterglow of sex with a lover who had elevated the experience to a plane hitherto unknown to her other than via fevered fantasies and lustful daydreams.
Add to all of that the fact that the thought of seeing Marcus again was making her feel physically sick with apprehension, and it was no wonder her head was pounding, Lucy decided as she hurried into the coffee shop she regularly used to obtain her daytime caffeine fix. To her relief she was the only customer.
‘Your usual?’ the girl behind the counter asked cheerfully.
‘Please, Sarah—no, make that two,’ Lucy told her. ‘And a couple of chocolate brownies as well.’
Sarah gave her a wicked grin.
‘Caffeine and carbs? It must have been a good night last night.’
‘The best—at least what I can remember of it,’ Lucy agreed, rolling her eyes and grinning back. But the truth was that the first bit of her light-hearted response to Sarah’s teasing was exactly that—the truth. It had been the best—and was likely to remain so, she reminded herself grimly as she gathered up her double espressos and her brownies and stepped back into the late-morning sunshine.
Marcus would certainly not want a rerun, and now that she had had her fantasies come to life—now that she knew just how far short they had fallen of the reality of the heaven of Marcus’s arms around her, Marcus’s mouth on hers, Marcus’s lovemaking—she was going to have to spend the rest of her life not just knowing she could never love anyone else but also knowing that she was never going to want to have sex with anyone else.
It was a miserable thing to have to admit to herself as she hurried into th
e building that housed Prêt a Party’s offices, pausing to exchange smiles with Harry the doorman as she did so.
Once, Prêt a Party’s offices had been filled with the busy hum of telephones ringing, clients calling, the laughter of her two best friends and partners. But now they were empty and silent. Kicking the door closed as she balanced her coffee, Lucy fought the temptation not to think about how Marcus had kicked the bedroom door open last night—and what had happened after he had.
Five minutes later, her dress exchanged for a tee shirt and a pair of jeans, and her French knickers carefully parcelled up to be rewashed and kept as a very personal souvenir, Lucy savoured the last delicious gulp of coffee whilst she scrolled down her e-mails.
No new requests for Prêt a Party’s services, she saw gloomily. The only commission she had pending was the sportswear manufacturer’s launch of a new football boot, which was to be held at a very trendy nightclub of the type favoured by TV celebs, models, premier league footballers and the like.
Everything was already in place for the launch, but while she drank her second coffee Lucy brought up the worksheets for it to check them over.
She had based the whole event on the manufacturer’s logo and colours, playing on a ‘team event’ theme, since they were launching a football boot. Cheerleaders dressed in a highly-sexed version of a football strip would provide the main entertainment by chanting the client’s name, a new cocktail was going to be served, and Lucy had decided that the food was going to be miniature portions of that favourite laddish treat—curry and chips in a plastic carton.
When her telephone suddenly rang she stared at it apprehensively. Marcus. It had to be! She picked up the receiver and flicked her tongue nervously over her dry lips.
‘May I speak to the Honourable Lucy Blayne, please?’
How was it possible for her heart to sink with relief? Lucy wondered, as she corrected her caller discreetly by responding, ‘Lucy Cardrew speaking.’
