Man-Hater
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Kelly felt sick with shock and disbelief. It couldn’t be true. But it was true! She only had to look over the banister to see her Colin, her husband, with another woman in his arms, kissing her with a hunger he had never shown her, to know how true it was. Nausea welled up inside her and she rushed back into the bathroom. The pair downstairs were oblivious to everything but one another and never even heard her.
Did Colin actually intend to make love to her? Kelly wondered sickly when the bitter spasms were over. And Pat, how did she feel about sharing her lover with another woman? How could she herself permit Colin to touch her knowing what she now did?
‘KELLY? Darling, what are you doing up here?’
Kelly stared at Colin, wondering why she expected him to have changed.
He was still exactly as he had been before she discovered the truth; she was the one who had changed. She was no longer the foolish naïve child she had been then. Bitter fury welled up inside her.
‘What do you want, Colin?’ she challenged. ‘My signature to some more papers, is that it?’
She saw the colour drain out of his face.
‘Darling…’ he blustered, ‘I don’t know…’
‘I heard everything,’ Kelly cut in coolly, marvelling at her own control. ‘Everything, and if you think I’d allow you so much as touch me now I…’
‘Why, you sanctimonious little prude!’ Colin snarled, slamming the door and walked towards her. ‘Do you honestly believe I wanted to touch you? No way,’ he told her cruelly. ‘You’ve got nothing that appeals to me, Kelly. You can’t hold a candle to Pat, you’re frigid, or damn near, and…’
‘I do have one thing you want—apparently…’ Kelly interrupted acidly, hoping he wouldn’t guess at the pain that tore at her insides. ‘My money—well, you won’t get a penny of it, Colin. First thing tomorrow I’m having the marriage annulled!’
‘Annulled?’ He advanced to the bed, the cruelty in his eyes frightening her into rigid tension. ‘No way,’ he told her softly. ‘I might not want you, Kelly, but I sure as hell want that money, and there’s no way you’re going to cheat me of it now. So you think you’ll get an annulment, do you?’ He laughed softly in his throat and terror stalked her as he stared down at her, slowly removing his sweater and then his jeans.
She wanted to run, but fear held her rooted to the spot, cowering on the bed, wishing she had the courage to get up and flee. The silk wrap she had put on after her bath was ripped from neck to hem in the degrading scene that followed, pain and fear locking Kelly’s throat against the screams of terror building up there. Colin’s hands bruised her body, just as his callous words had bruised her heart.
‘Frigid bitch!’ he swore at her, when her body clenched protestingly against him, hurt and frightened beyond any possible arousal, and he flung himself off the bed to stare furiously down at her.
‘You’re not a woman, you’re an iceberg,’ he taunted her as he pulled on his jeans. ‘No one could make love to you—they’d freeze first!’
He was gone before she could speak, leaving her dry-eyed, her heart pounding with fear, her body aching with tension and the bruises and scratches Colin had inflicted upon it.
Frigid, frigid, frigid—the word danced jerkily through her mind as she lay there, unable to move, unable to cry, unable to properly comprehend. She heard the door slam as Colin left the house—going where—to Pat, who wasn’t an iceberg, who wouldn’t make him freeze? And then what? Would he come back and carry out his threat? Could she endure it if he did? Rape was an ugly word for an ugly deed, but that was what it would be if Colin consummated their marriage.
She was still lying there in the darkness when she heard the doorbell. She let it peal, until she realised that it wasn’t going to stop. It had to be Colin, and she dressed slowly, hoping he would go away, but he didn’t.
She unlocked the door, noticing that a false dawn was pearling the sky. She must have been lying there half-conscious for several hours, but it had seemed like only minutes since he left.
‘Mrs Langdon?’ She peered up at the policeman standing on the doorstep. ‘May I come in for a second?’
Somehow he had done and he was inside and asking where the kitchen was, saying something about a nice cup of tea. Kelly’s numbed mind couldn’t follow what he was saying, only that he was using a soothing tone, the sort one used on frightened animals—or children. Slowly, what he was saying sank in.
‘Now, come and sit down,’ he said gently, his own manner awkward and compassionate.
‘He wouldn’t have felt a thing,’ he told her. ‘Killed straight off…’ He didn’t add that his sergeant had said—and so he deserved to be, driving like a maniac on the wrong side of the road, with too much drink inside him.
Colin was dead! Why didn’t she feel something? Anything? She couldn’t. All she felt was numb. She watched the young policeman with a curious sense of detachment. He seemed more concerned than her. He drank the tea he had made quickly and asked her if she had any family.
She shook her head and heard herself saying clearly, ‘It’s all right, I shall be perfectly all right. Please don’t worry…’
‘Rum do,’ the constable told the sergeant at the station later. ‘Didn’t so much as turn a hair.’
‘Takes all sorts,’ the sergeant commented, ‘and news like that takes ’em all in different ways. Don’t worry about it too much, lad,’ he comforted the younger man—it was only his second ‘fatal’ and it was always hard to have to be the one to break the news.
ALONE IN THE HUGE Victorian house, Kelly’s own emotion was one of thankfulness. Of relief. Her love for Colin had gone, destroyed by the discovery that he had simply been using her. Her body ached from his cruelty, and her mind felt blunted and bruised. All she wanted to do was sleep. But there was one thing she must never do, and that was that she must never again be foolish enough to allow any man to deceive her as Colin had done. She must remember always that she was rich, that she was undesirable apart from her money and that she must always, always be on her guard. Always…
‘ALWAYS…’ With a start, Kelly realised that she had said the word aloud. Grimacing, she shrugged. She had come a long way from the girl she had been at eighteen. She was, after all, eight years older, eight years wiser. She glanced down at her hand where Colin’s rings still glittered.
She wore them as a reminder; just as she used her married name. Since Colin’s death she had learned that she was attractive to men, but she had never stopped wondering cynically why, and she thought she knew the answer. Those who were married simply wanted a few brief hours of escapism and thought they could use her body to achieve it, and those who weren’t wanted to secure their future through her wealth and weren’t averse to making love to her if by doing so they could achieve that object. She despised them all with equal fervour.
‘A man-hater,’ one of them had once called her, but didn’t she have good reason to be? And hadn’t Jeremy just confirmed that she was right?
CHAPTER TWO
SHE worried about the weekend when she should have been thinking about her work. There had been something in Jeremy’s manner which suggested that he might be contemplating forcing the issue. A visit to her bedroom uninvited, perhaps? It had happened before—albeit not with Jeremy. And if she refused the invitation, how would Sue feel? Sue who had lost her longed-for baby before it was even born.
Kelly fretted over the problem for most of the day and left the office feeling jaded and tense.
She was half-way down a tube escalator when the advertisement caught her eye: ‘Need a companion? An escort?’ it asked. ‘Phone us—we can provide either, male or female—to accompany you to that special function which you simply can’t attend alone.’
Was it genuine, or was she being naïve? What was the matter with her? she asked herself as she hurried on to the tube. Surely she wasn’t considering hiring an escort? But why not? It would be one way of keeping Jeremy at bay; and without the complications taking any other escort with her might involve. She had many male acquaintances, but there wasn’t one of them who wouldn’t leap immediately to the wrong conclusion if she suggested they spend the weekend with her.
She toyed with the idea all evening, alternately dismissing and re-assessing it. It was ridiculous, farcical, but wasn’t it also the ideal solution? There was nothing to be lost in simply making enquiries.
She dug out a telephone directory and searched through it. The agency had a surprisingly good address, a fairly new office block that Kelly knew quite well. She had contemplated taking a suite in it herself until she had received the offer from the insurance company for her present offices. Chewing her lip, she contemplated her alternatives. She could either go alone to Sue’s and risk being proved right about Jeremy’s attentions, or she could try and avert any unpleasantness by making enquiries at the agency and, if everything went well, employing one of their staff to accompany her.
Simple! So why should she be so wary and full of doubt? Was it because the idea of actually paying someone to accompany her smacked of a lack of femininity and—even worse—an admission that she could only attract male attention by paying for it? What did it matter? No one other than herself and the agency need know. Her motives were quite legitimate, and surely it was worth sinking her pride if it meant saving Sue pain and herself possible embarrassment. She had nothing to lose by simply calling at the agency and enquiring, had she?
As luck would have it, she had an appointment that took her in the vicinity of the agency’s offices. She emerged on to the pavement from the impressively externally-mirrored building that housed the latest addition to their client list, sufficiently buoyed up with the success of obtaining a new and prestigious client to pluck up the courage to cross the busy street and walk purposefully into the marble foyer of the building opposite. There was no commissionaire in evidence, but a quick glance at the nameplates by the lift confirmed that the agency was on the third floor. Feeling considerably more nervous than she had done at her previous interview, Kelly waited for the lift, smoothing the skirt of her new Jaeger suit anxiously. The suit wasn’t something she would normally have chosen. Maisie, her assistant, had persuaded her into it for the meeting this morning. In a rich amethyst velvet, the skirt fell in soft gathers from a neat waistband. The jacket was faintly mediaeval, with a cropped close-fitting collarless bodice and slim slightly puffed sleeves, quilted with gold thread.
She was wearing a new blouse with it, cream silk with a large collar worn outside the jacket, and an amethyst velvet ribbon tied in a bow at her throat.
Somehow the outfit made her look faintly vulnerable rather than efficient; it even seemed to rob her chignon of something of its normal formality. Wisps of hair had escaped to curl round her temples, and Kelly toyed nervously with her pearl earrings as she sent the lift to the third floor.
She saw the entrance to the agency the moment she stepped out of the lift. The door to the foyer was open and there was a man with his back to her bending over a desk.
He straightened up as she knocked and walked in, turning to study her with lazy appreciation. Much to her chagrin, Kelly felt herself flushing with anger as his glance slid potently over the length of her legs in the sheer amethyst stockings that matched her outfit, pausing almost thoughtfully before moving upwards, assessing the slenderness of her waist encased in a broad suede belt, the full curves of her breasts beneath the velvet jacket, coming to rest with amused comprehension on her taut and angrily flushed face.
‘My apologies,’ he drawled in a voice that, Kelly told herself unpleasantly, sounded like all the very worst television commercials, and was very obviously less than sincere.
‘Don’t apologise if you don’t mean it,’ she snapped. ‘Insulting me once was enough!’
‘Oh? And how did I do that?’ The husky voice hadn’t changed, but Kelly had the disconcerting feeling that somehow she had angered him.
‘By looking at me as though I were a piece of merchandise you were considering buying. That was your first insult,’ Kelly told him scathingly. ‘Your second was expecting me to be deceived by your less-than-sincere apology.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t apologising for looking,’ she was told softly. ‘What I was apologising for was embarrassing you.’
‘Embarrassing me!’ Kelly stared at him in fury. Did he actually think she had been embarrassed by his insulting scrutiny? ‘You didn’t embarrass me in the slightest,’ she told him coldly, ‘you merely annoyed me. How would men like it if women stared at them as though…’
‘As though they were pieces of merchandise they were considering buying?’ he quoted mockingly. ‘I don’t know what brings you here, Miss…’
‘Mrs Langdon,’ Kelly supplied for him coldly, watching his eyes narrow as he glanced at her left hand as though seeking confirmation of her statement. ‘I’m here for the very simple reason that I wish to avail myself of the services of this agency,’ she went on tautly. Now that she was here, confronting this arrogant specimen of manhood, she was beginning to have grave doubts about her intentions.
‘The agency?’ He glanced at the door, frowned, tapping thoughtfully on the desk, while he subjected her to a provokingly intense study. ‘You mean the escort agency, I take it?’
‘Is there any other?’ Kelly snapped, her patience worn thin by his manner and his scrutiny. He was completely unlike the species of male she had grown accustomed to over the years; they, well primed as to her reputation and her wealth, were normally either obsequious or respectful; sometimes flirtatious, but never, never did they regard her with the cool disdain of this man, whose grey eyes seemed to take her apart muscle by muscle, assessing each and every part of her as he did so. His hair was dark and brushed the collar of his jacket—too long, she thought scornfully, but doubtless there were some women who found him attractive. As far as she was concerned, he was far too chocolate-boxy to appeal; he looked like one of the actors one saw on television, driving lorries and eating bars of chocolate, or performing death-defying acts on skis to deliver them. Some of her contempt showed in the withering glance she gave him, determined not to let his manner overset her.
‘Umm…you’re attractive enough, I suppose,’ he ventured calmly, ‘but I scarcely think your manner is likely to win you friends or influence people. If you really want a job I would suggest that…’
‘I want a job?’ Kelly broke in furiously, two hectic spots of colour burning in her preciously pale face. ‘I haven’t come here for a job, I’ve come here for an escort!’
‘An escort?’ If he was as stunned as he had sounded, he covered it up very quickly. ‘I see, and just what sort of escort do you require, Mrs Langdon?’ he asked smoothly, sitting down in the leather chair behind the desk, and pulling open a drawer. ‘You must understand that this is a highly reputable agency, we don’t…’
Kelly’s furious gasp reached him as he straightened up, staring coldly at her. ‘You’re a married woman,’ he pointed out.
‘I’m a widow,’ Kelly contradicted him, ‘and I want to see the manager.’ She threw the last comment at him through gritted teeth.
‘By all means,’ he agreed suavely, ‘but you’ll have to come back next week. He’s on holiday at the moment.’
Next week! That would be far too late!
‘Look, suppose you tell me your requirements… Do you need an escort for some official function?’
‘Not exactly,’ Kelly replied hesitantly, strangely reluctant to admit to this infuriating man exactly what she did want.
‘I see. Well, perhaps if you were to tell me exactly what you do want…’ He removed what looked like an application form from the desk and bent his head over it. His hair was thick and dark and possessed a glossy, healthy sheen, Kelly noticed absently. Why on earth had she come here? She longed to turn tail and run out, but simply didn’t dare. His face was perfectly composed and polite, and yet Kelly had the suspicion that inwardly he was laughing at her. Well, let him laugh, she thought angrily, she didn’t care what he thought.
Quickly she told him an edited version of her story.
‘I see,’ he said slowly, when she had finished. ‘You wish to hire an escort to accompany you to a friend’s home for the weekend. Your friend is married and you feel that a threesome might be awkward?’
That was what Kelly had told him, and she had no intention of saying any more.
‘And you don’t have any male friends who could accompany you?’
‘Sue, my friend, is inclined to matchmake,’ Kelly told him quickly, not without some truth. ‘I thought it best if I took a complete stranger—to avoid complications later.’
‘I see.’ His expression told her quite plainly that he did not, but Kelly had no intention of enlightening him. However, several minutes later she realised that she had underestimated him when he said softly, ‘This escort wouldn’t be more of a bodyguard by any chance, would he?’
‘Bodyguard?’ Kelly looked at him sharply. ‘Look, if you don’t want my business, just say so.’ She was beginning to lose her temper. Something about this man unleashed a powerful wave of antagonism she hadn’t experienced in years. It must be something to do with the sexual magnetism that almost oozed from him—part of his stock and trade, she reminded herself scathingly, wondering what part he played in the agency.
‘Not at all,’ he responded smoothly, ‘I was merely trying to discover exactly what you had in mind. You must appreciate that a legitimate agency such as ours sometimes receives enquiries it isn’t equipped to handle.’
Kelly went brick red as the meaning of his carefully chosen words sank in.
‘All I want is a male escort for the weekend,’ she ground out with loathing. ‘Nothing else!’
‘Well, in that case, Mrs Langdon,’ he continued with a briskness that belied his earlier words, ‘if you will simply give me the details I’m sure we’ll be able to sort out something.’
Coolly and concisely, Kelly told him. She thought she saw him hesitate when she gave him her address, and wondered cynically if he was mentally adding another nought to the bill she would be presented with. If so, he was in for a rude awakening.
‘Will you require a car?’ he said formally.
‘I have my own,’ Kelly told him shortly. ‘Can you provide someone?’
She was filled with distaste for what she was doing, but she had come too far to back down now, and she faced him with dogged determination, trying to ignore the embarrassment and anger she was experiencing.
He studied her for a moment, then said slowly, ‘How important is it to you that we do?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that it wasn’t important at all, but somehow she found herself saying huskily instead, ‘Very important.’
‘Yes.’ The grey eyes held hers intently. ‘Yes, I thought it must be. Now, what time do you want our man to be at your apartment?’
Quickly Kelly told him, only too glad to escape from the office ten minutes later, filling her lungs with steadily deep breaths as she stepped outside on to the pavement, only too glad to have the ordeal behind her. What was the matter with her? She had faced formidable Boards of Directors without flinching, and yet in front of that one man she had been reduced to a shivering, trembling wreck. Why?
For the rest of the day she found it difficult to concentrate. She had told Maisie that she intended to be away for the weekend.
‘Take a couple of extra days off,’ Maisie urged. ‘You could do with the break. Go out and buy yourself a new dress.’
‘I don’t need one,’ Kelly told her briefly, only somehow she found herself leaving the office earlier than usual, and as it just happened to be a late shopping night, she found herself wandering through the Knightsbridge stores; something that she hadn’t done in ages.
She saw a dress that caught her eye on one of the racks. In crêpe satin by Calvin Klein, it was a deceptively simple wrap-round dress in a brilliant shade of pink.
Somehow she found herself in the changing room with it over her arm, discarding her velvet suit in order to try it on. The neckline plunged almost to the waist, the long tight sleeves hugging her arms in much the same way as the satin hugged her body, the fabric caught up in a knot just above the waist. It was hideously expensive and not the sort of thing she wore at all, and yet somehow she found herself buying it, even though she told herself that she was mad and it was simply not the sort of thing to wear for a quiet dinner in the country.
Sue rang her while she was still recovering from the shock of her spending spree.
‘You are still coming, aren’t you, Kelly?’ she pleaded. ‘I’m so looking forward to seeing you. I’ve been so miserable!’
Kelly could tell that tears weren’t far away, and hastened to assure her friend that she would indeed be there.
‘Jeremy will be glad too. I sometimes think lately that he finds my company very boring,’ she heard Sue saying wistfully. ‘Since the baby I’ve felt so down, and Jeremy always enjoyed the company of lovely women. I feel such a failure, Kelly… Here I am and I can’t even produce a baby, and you…you have a fantastic career, the whole world at your feet…
‘Sue, you’re not to think like that,’ Kelly told her.
‘I know—pathetic, aren’t I? But I just can’t help it. I feel so alone, Kelly, so frightened somehow. When do you plan to arrive?’
‘Well, actually, it isn’t just me,’ Kelly told her hesitantly. ‘Is it okay if I bring a friend?’
For a moment there was silence and then Sue asked excitedly, ‘A man? Kelly darling, tell me all about him!’
Kelly laughed. ‘Wait and see.’ Well, she could hardly describe a man she hadn’t yet met, could she?
Her information seemed to have had a dramatic effect on Sue’s mood, she bubbled and chattered in a way that reminded Kelly of a much younger Sue, and by the time she had rung off, Kelly was convinced that she had made the right decision, no matter what the cost to her own pride. She only hoped that the agency managed to produce someone presentable. She was a fool really, she ought to have asked to see a photograph and some background details, but she had been too flustered and angrily aware of her companion to do so.
Saturday morning came round all too quickly. The arrangement was that her ‘escort’ would present himself at her apartment on Saturday morning at nine o’clock. Kelly was dressed and packed by eight-thirty, her stomach fizzing with a nervous dread she hadn’t experienced since…since Colin, really.
She inspected her reflection in the mirror once again. She was wearing her velvet suit, but this time her hair was caught back in a pretty gold-threaded velvet snood she had found in Liberty’s and which added to the mediaeval effect of her outfit. It also had a softening effect on the severity of her hairstyle, and Kelly was frowning slightly over this when she heard her doorbell.
Picking up her case and bag and checking that she had her keys, she headed for the hall, opening the door and coming to a full stop, her mouth opening in a round ‘Oh’ of surprise as she recognized the man leaning indolently against the wall.
‘You!’
He smiled as he took her case from her slackened grip and locked the door for her with the keys she had dropped in her agitation.
‘What are you doing here?’ Kelly demanded acidly, furious with herself for letting him take the initiative and treat her like a demented child.
‘You wanted an “escort” for the weekend—here I am.’ He shrugged casually and glanced at his watch, completely impervious to her anger. ‘Shall we go? We’ll make better time if we miss the morning traffic. The roads are practically empty at the moment. Are these your car keys?’ He extracted them from the ring, handing her back her door keys with another smile, deftly pocketing the keys for her car as he motioned her towards the lift.