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‘Go out and buy yourself something,’ Theo told her, fast losing interest. He had been looking forward to getting her into bed all evening, and had no intention of wasting time in a pointless female conversation about clothes.
He levered himself up so that he was looking down on her, and really the sight was one he could not get enough of.
He kissed her lingeringly, taking his time. Tonight he would take her to the limits, and then, when she had eventually climbed down, he would carry her there again. He trailed delicate feathery kisses across her neck, and as he bent to lose himself in the wonder of her breasts she tugged him gently by his hair,
‘You could come shopping with me…’
‘Mmm. Why not?’ Theo murmured, breaking his stride to give her one of those ravishing sexy smiles that could turn her limbs to water.
Heather sighed with pure pleasure and gave herself over to enjoying the night.
Theo awoke to find her staring at him intently from the other side of the bed, and he grinned. He had never known a woman so open in her sexual attraction, and it pleased him.
‘What time is it?’ He flung back the covers and Heather watched, fascinated as always by the sinewy strength of his body. Morning light lovingly showed every flex and movement of his limbs as he slung his legs over the side of the bed before lying back down and pulling her towards him.
‘Not quite late enough,’ Theo growled, as the covers slipped down, exposing rosy nipples just perfect for sucking.
‘Uh-uh.’ She primly yanked the covers back up, half tempted to dump the promised shopping expedition in exchange for an hour longer in bed with the man of her dreams. ‘Shopping. Remember?’
‘Remember what?’
‘You said that you would come shopping with me today. I haven’t got anything I could possibly wear to a company do, and I’m no good at shopping on my own. I always end up buying the wrong clothes.’
‘Did I promise to do that?’ Theo frowned, perplexed. ‘I honestly don’t remember.’ He drew back, hating himself for having to dash cold water over her but knowing that taking a day out to shop with a woman, however sexy that woman was, was just a bit too much. ‘Well, I’m sorry, Heather. I really can’t.’
Heather smiled. At least she tried very hard to. He didn’t even remember! He had been so caught up in the business of wanting her that he couldn’t even recall something he had said to her, something he had promised. She had gone to sleep wrapped up in the warm, comforting glow of thinking that the following day would bring him out with her, doing something normal couples did, maybe even having lunch out somewhere, and he had gone to sleep, sexually sated and without a thought of her in his head.
‘Okay. No problem.’ She rolled over, climbed out of bed, and walked self-consciously to the bathroom, her back towards him and tears gathering at a pace in her eyes.
She returned twenty minutes later to find him dressed and waiting for her.
For a heartbeat of a second she hoped that he had had a change of mind, even though she knew that nurturing such a hope was no more than yet another sign of her weakness. Instead he handed her a credit card and told her to go to Harrods, buy whatever she wanted, and put it on his account. He would phone ahead and let them know that she would be coming.
‘Right.’ Heather took the card, although she had no intention of using it. Hadn’t she enough money in her bank account, thanks to him?
‘Maybe I can meet you somewhere for lunch,’ Theo compromised. For once he was having a struggle with his conscience—although she seemed fine now. He had had an uncomfortable feeling earlier on that she was going to burst into tears, but fortunately he had been mistaken. Tears were not Theo’s thing.
‘No.’ Heather smiled brightly. ‘I’ll see if I can meet Beth for lunch. I’d like to take your mother, to shop for a few things before she goes back to Greece on Sunday, but I don’t think the crowds would do her any good.’
Litsa was going back and Heather wondered what was going to happen to them. Without having to keep up the pretense, would he expect her to return to her jack of all trades status? An hour earlier she would have denied any such possibility, but doubts were beginning to break through the rosy, unrealistic haze of her dreams.
She stood, willing him to try and talk her out of that, but instead he smiled and moved over to her so that he could kiss her on the mouth, and with a pathetic moan of surrender she tugged the lapels of his jacket, pulling him into her.
Satisfied, Theo smiled and wondered where that chill of unease had come from earlier on. He was as safe in the knowledge that she wanted him as much as any man could be safe about anything in this life.
Three hours later Heather left the apartment, and ran full-tilt into the full-blown storm of Beth’s misgivings.
‘It’ll end in tears,’ she warned, which was just the thing Heather didn’t want to hear. ‘If you’d had any sense at all you would never have gone into any ridiculous pretend relationship with the man. He’s bad news.’
‘It’s not a pretend relationship now,’ Heather defended herself half-heartedly. ‘I love him, and I know he feels something for me…’
‘Because you were stupid enough to sleep with him?’ Beth laughed, but not unkindly. ‘Look, Heather, you’ve got to come back down to Planet Earth and realise that what you have is no more real than any of the other relationships he’s had in the past, with all those glamorous women you lost sleep over. Do you remember them? The ones with legs to their armpits and IQs roughly on a par with their ages? Remember them? You should, you know. You bought the goodbye bunches of roses for most of them.’
‘Yes, I know, but…’ But she was different—wasn’t she? She spent nights with him in his bed, in his apartment…she had met his mother…didn’t that count for anything? She remembered the way he had dismissed her earlier on, and the burgeoning doubts pushed a little harder against the romantic dreams she had so optimistically and hopefully spun in her head.
‘I’m just saying that you’ve got to be realistic, Heather,’ Beth said, determined that she would carry the torch for realism even if her friend was reluctant to. Heather was sweetly and endearingly disingenuous, but Beth had had sufficient experience of men like Theo to know that they could be seriously hazardous to a woman’s health.
Beth’s version of reality was to drop all stupid notions about for ever after with Theo, and living in his big country house—which, she reminded Heather, she had never been invited to visit—with the happy sounds of kiddies’ footsteps clattering across the floors. Reality was to stop spinning fantasies and to start thinking ahead, and the way forward was to include the probability that once Litsa had gone her role with Theo would be effectively over.
‘You make him sound like a monster,’ Heather cried, appalled because she knew that the man she had fallen in love with could be tremendously funny and thoughtful when he chose to be. She wished that she hadn’t bothered to enlist Beth’s help in choosing her outfit. She had hoped for some sound advice about colours and styles, maybe a bit of shared excitement that she was going somewhere with Theo—somewhere that involved the people he worked with. She had hoped to find support for her theory that it meant something. Instead, she had opened up by confessing that Theo had reneged on his promise to accompany her and it had been downhill ever since.
Beth had taken the afternoon off to help her out, which was very good of her because her lifestyle was frantic, and, having committed to the gesture, she now seemed determined to control the time booked as efficiently as possible.
Heather would have got annoyed, but annoyance was something she only ever attained when pushed to the absolute limit and she knew that her friend was just rooting for her.
So, once lunch and the sermons were over, she greeted the afternoon’s shopping spree with a little sigh of resignation.
‘First off,’ Beth said, after insisting on paying the bill—presumably, Heather thought, in advance sympathy for the chucking out and inevitable poverty which was due to come to her shortly, ‘you tell me what sort of clothes you have in mind, and then I’ll tell you what I have in mind.’
Heather gave the matter careful thought. A dark colour, she decided, would be right for her figure. Something elegant and straight, so that she didn’t stand out. She would be meeting people she didn’t know from Adam, and her take on the situation was to blend effortlessly into the background, which she had usually found the safest place to be. She voiced her suggestions hesitantly, making sure to qualify each suggestion with a foolproof reason.
‘Wrong, wrong—all wrong,’ Beth said with satisfaction, making Heather feel as though she had been unwittingly led into a trap.
Right, right, all right turned out to be a cunning selection of clothes that Heather quailed at the thought of trying on, never mind actually wearing. Shoes would be purchased for style and wow factor, not for comfort. Her hair was going to be tamed, possibly even trimmed, and make-up was going to make a statement—and that statement did not include the concept of looking as though none had been applied. In other words, Heather heard with a sinking heart, a total makeover was on the cards.
