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Fran saw him give a brief, perplexed look, as though he didn’t quite recognise her. As if she was the last person in the world he had expected to appear. Which she probably was. But he appeared to hesitate only momentarily, shrugging his shoulders with a gracious smile as he rose to his feet to dance with her.
Maybe that would have been enough.
Maybe.
But one by one the four other women appeared from the shadows, each dressed up to the nines, glittering smiles pinned like tinsel to their shiny lips.
They surrounded the dancing couple, like wild animals circling just before the kill, and when Rosie moved away from him, another was ready to move into her place in Sam’s arms.
Fran started to feel nervous. People must have sensed that something out-of-the-ordinary was happening, because an odd, watchful silence had fallen over the guests.
And then Fran knew that she was in trouble, because Rosie had started staggering over to the discotheque, and had plucked the microphone out of the startled DJ’s hand.
‘Good evening, everyone! You have been watching,’ she said, with the false, toothy smile of the professional television presenter, ‘your host—the luscious Mr. Sam Lockhart—get his comeuppance at last!’ She gave him a glassy stare. ‘Because you can’t just take a woman’s virginity and dump her the following morning, and expect to get away with it, can you, honey?’
The deathly silence briefly rose into a murmur of confused question.
Rosie held up her hand for silence. ‘This is to show you, ladies and gentlemen—’ she hiccuped loudly and then gave an apologetic smile. ‘But especially all you gentlemen out there—that if you trample all over a woman’s heart and emotions as Sam has done—then you can expect to get paid back in full! We could have done a lot worse, but we decided that public humiliation was the best form of revenge for this particular snake!’
This part was totally unscripted! Fran shrank behind one of the ivy-covered pillars, hardly daring to breathe, wondering just how on earth he would react.
But Sam was nothing if not unexpected. His broad-shouldered shrug was more rueful than wrathful. Every eye in the place was on him as he lightly shook his silver-dressed partner away from him as if she were no more than a troublesome fly, and strolled across the dance floor to take the microphone from Rosie, who was beginning to look out of her
depth.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said smiling, and Fran could have heard a pin drop. ‘I shall not attempt to defend myself, other than to say that it appears I have loved not wisely but too well!’ There was laughter around the room at this, particularly from the men. ‘However, the unexpected…’ he shot a brief, hard glance around the marquee as if searching for someone, and Fran froze from her sanctuary behind the pillar. Had he seen her?
‘The unexpected arrival,’ he continued, ‘of these very glamorous ladies shall not be in vain. Be sure of that,’ he finished, on a note of soft threat. ‘Very sure.’
There was a buzz of excited chatter, but his face grew serious as he looked around the attentive marquee. ‘Tonight we are here not simply to have a good time, but to help with the enormous costs of running the cardiothoracic unit of our local paediatric hospital. Several of the surgeons and nurses from that unit are here with us tonight, and I know that you will join me in wishing them well.’
He smiled again as the involuntary applause subsided. ‘Each of these ladies will dance with whoever asks them. But at a cost. A generous cost.’ His eyes glittered as they scrutinised the audience. ‘And I’m here to take your offers. So who will open the bidding for the gorgeous creature in the gold-spangled dress?’
There was a roar of approval and excitement as three scarlet-faced men leapt to their feet, waving wads of money.
But Fran didn’t care what happened next. The ball had been a stupendous success—anyone could see that—and from the clamour around the marquee it was going from strength to strength. She would forgo being paid. Forgo anything. All she knew was that there was no way she was going to be able to face Sam Lockhart. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
Stealthily grabbing her bag and the satin-lined scarlet wrap which she had hired to match her ball gown, she crept out of the marquee and round to the side of the service tent, standing as still as a statue while she waited to see whether he had followed her.
But he hadn’t.
She picked up her skirts and began to run through the darkened garden towards the designated car-park, her breath puffing like clouds of smoke on the chill night air.
At Sam’s insistence, she had left a holdall with warm clothes inside the house. He had told her she should get changed before driving back to London, but she wasn’t risking going into the house to get them. What if Sam came looking, and what if he found her? What then?
Hands shaking with fear, she located her car, slithered into the front seat and started the engine. And only when she was moving did she expel a long, frozen breath of fear as she bumped her way across the cold, quiet lawn.
CHAPTER FIVE
FRAN focussed then refocussed her eyes, glancing down at the fax which had just come spilling angrily off her machine.
Another one!
And this one hadn’t even bothered to attempt to sound polite! Her eyes flicked over it. Drone, drone, drone…and then the explanatory and telling phrase, ‘we are sure you will understand our reluctance to continue with our agreement under the circumstances. Discretion is the byword for a small, family business such as ours and any bad publicity—’
Fran gave a howl of rage before crumpling it into a tiny ball and hurling it to the opposite side of the room where it bounced off the wall and joined two others on the carpet.
Why hadn’t she thought of this? Why hadn’t she even considered that organizing a stupid stunt like the one she had allowed Rosie and her cronies to play on Sam would be bound to misfire on her, and her alone?
