Temporary Girlfriend

‘I’d better go and shower, or I’ll be late,’ Louise commented and went off to the bathroom, while Elyss went to the sitting room to collect the phone.

‘Pendleton,’ a clear concise voice answered.

‘Oh, good morning. I’m sorry to contact you so early, but I thought you might have a busy day ahead.’

‘Did you, now?’ Cool, polite, waiting.

‘My name’s Elyss Harvey.’ She quickly got herself together. The pause that followed was almost tangible. He was still waiting. If he was clever enough to be in line for the chairmanship of Oak International, then he was clever enough to remember the name Nikki had given him last night, Elyss thought sniffily. ‘My car was in collision with yours last night,’ she felt obliged to remind him when he still hadn’t said anything.

That did bring forth some response, and his reply sounded every bit as tough as Louise had promised, albeit delivered in silky tones. ‘I trust you’re not ringing to suggest the mess your vehicle made of mine was my fault.’

‘I—er—my vehicle wasn’t looking too clever either,’ she stated stiffly, something in Saul Pendleton’s tone needling her.

‘True,’ he agreed. ‘According to the mechanic who came out, it could be a few days before it’s drivable again.’

Her heart leapt. Her car wasn’t the write-off Nikki had said it was! Elyss busily tried to estimate the cost of repairs while at the same time frantically searching for some tactful way to let him know that she had neither insurance nor money for her own car repairs—let alone his.

Then she found that her tact, for the moment at any rate, would not be needed. Because clearly Saul Pendleton was not a man with a lot of time to spare to be cluttered up with incidentals. ‘I’ve an appointment shortly,’ he stated. ‘You’d better come and see me tonight.’ He was also a man to whom nobody said ‘no’, apparently. ‘I’ll see you at eight.’

With that the line went dead and Elyss was left staring at the phone—stunned! It wasn’t eight o’clock in the morning yet—and he had an appointment! Whew—that was life in the fast lane, if you pleased!

She didn’t know how she felt about having to meet him that night, at his home presumably, but didn’t see that she had very much choice. It would be pointless asking Nikki to go with her. Nikki was in pieces now; she’d fold completely if she had to stand in front of that tough-sounding man and, on top of everything else, had to confess that last night she had lied to him when she had given her name as Elyss Harvey.

Elyss sat on her bed deep in thought for some minutes. It would be wrong to go and meet Saul Pendleton and to pretend that she was the one who had crashed into him last night. She knew that. But it seemed to her that whichever one of them had been driving, the outcome was going to be the same. Elyss had never done anything dishonest in her life, but with Nikki feeling so low and, Elyss judged, unable to take much more pressure—might it not be such a bad idea to keep her out of it completely?

CHAPTER TWO

LOUISE was ready to go to her office by the time Elyss had got herself a little together and emerged from her room. ‘How did it go?’ Louise asked.

‘I’m to go to his home tonight,’ Elyss answered.

‘He didn’t wish to discuss it over the phone?’

‘He’s busy—unfortunately I’m not in a position to say no.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Louise commiserated. ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer to go with you, but...’

‘That’s all right,’ Elyss smiled, aware that Louise was seeing her ex-husband that evening about a financial matter. She realised, too, that Louise seemed, like her, to know that it was out of the question for Nikki to go. ‘I’d better get the Yellow Pages out and start ringing round the all-night recovery services. Apparently my vehicle isn’t the write-off Nikki thought. Saul Pendleton called a mechanic out.’

‘You could ring and ask him which garage,’ Louise suggested.

Elyss recalled the no-nonsense tones of Saul Pendleton. Somehow, given that the Ferrari’s owner was somewhere fulfilling his appointment, she felt she would much prefer to hunt through the business section of the telephone directory.

First, however, she went and got ready for her day. That done, she again picked up the phone and found, in actual fact, that it took less time than she would have thought to track down the correct garage. Prompt Motor Services sounded a very efficient company—and expensive. She asked for a rough estimate of how much it would cost to repair her car—and was quoted a figure that made her eyes water.

‘Er—could you give me an estimate for just making it mechanically sound, without dealing with the—er—dents.’

‘Dents! You’ll need a whole new wing—plus. Aren’t you claiming on your insurance?’

‘I—er—haven’t decided yet,’ Elyss replied—and felt just as winded by the lesser and very approximate estimate the garage man gave her. Even that figure seemed impossible to find!

But she would have to accept. To have a car was essential, if she was to get to the area where she worked. Also she had promised her father she would go down to Devon in five weeks’ time for his birthday. Her father would meet her at the station, if need be, but train fares were not cheap.

‘Would you go ahead with just the essential repairs, please?’ she requested, and ended the call. Then she rang Howard Butler to tell him that she would be very late in.

Her next assignment was to present herself at an insurance company where she personally saw to it that her vehicle was insured. Of necessity, she took out the cheaper third party insurance in preference to her normal fully comprehensive cover. But at least she was legally insured to drive. It was a pity that for the moment she did not have a vehicle to drive. Then she visited Prompt Motor Services—and was horrified at the damage to her car! No wonder Nikki had been in shock. It was a miracle she had got out of it alive!

Elyss was still feeling shaken herself when, by a most circuitous route, involving changing transport several times, she made her way to her place of employment. At the end of her working day, she took a similarly tortuous route back home again.

She was late getting in, but was pleased to see that Nikki, though still puffy-eyed, seemed a lot calmer. Elyss saw no point in causing her to get into a state again by revealing that she was shortly going to see Mr Saul Pendleton.

Truth to tell, Elyss was feeling in something of a state herself as she hurriedly showered and changed into an elegant dress of deep blue. As rain was pouring down outside, she topped it with her full-length raincoat.

She was certain it must be the wettest May on record, and it was cold with it. She did not want to arrive at Saul Pendleton’s house looking like a drowned rat, and left her room seriously considering the expense of a taxi when Victoria chirruped that she was going out herself. ‘Want a lift?’ she volunteered.

Louise had already told Victoria about her appointment with Saul Pendleton, Elyss discovered, and they discussed the accident and the state Nikki was in on the way.

‘If it goes on like this much longer, we’re going to have to persuade her to see Dr. Lowe. Perhaps he’ll prescribe something to calm her down,’ Victoria said. ‘I’d like to get my hands on that Dave!’ She pulled up at the smart address Elyss had given her. ‘How the other half live!’ she exclaimed admiringly as Elyss got out. ‘Best of luck!’

‘Thanks. And thanks, too, for the lift.’

Elyss squared her shoulders and pushed a smart, glass-panelled door open—and discovered she was going nowhere until she had given the uniformed security man behind a desk in the foyer her name and that of the person she was there to see.

She told him she was Elyss Harvey, and she had come to see Mr Saul Pendleton, and waited while he went to the phone and relayed the information. Then he put the phone down to tell her pleasantly, ‘Mr Pendleton is expecting you, Miss Harvey. If you’d like to...’

He saw her over to the lift and was already on the way back to his post as the lift doors closed. Saul Pendleton knew she had arrived!

Elyss had eaten very little that day, a fact she was now glad of as her insides churned, and she wished the next fifteen minutes over. The lift stopped. She got out and at once found the door she was looking for.

She swallowed hard, squared her shoulders again and rang the bell. After a short while the door opened and a dark-haired, grey-eyed bachelor in his mid-thirties stood there.

Elyss was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, like Nikki, and it had been dark when that crash had happened. They were about the same height, and both slender. So why, as the grey-eyed man silently studied her, did it not now seem so simple to make it appear that she and Nikki were one and the same person?

‘Good evening, Mr Pendleton.’ Elyss did her best, realising that she was supposed to know him, while she kept her fingers crossed that he was Saul Pendleton—if he wasn’t, she had fallen at the first hurdle.

‘Miss Harvey,’ he replied, with a look of toughness there in his eyes that suggested ‘Don’t tangle with me unless you’re up to it’. ‘Come in,’ he invited.

She crossed over his threshold and he closed the door. She waited and then followed him from a most elegant hall into his drawing room, which was the last word in elegance—and she’d thought the apartment she shared was smart!

‘Do you want to take your raincoat off?’ he enquired. She didn’t want to stay that long—but suddenly she was feeling hot.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and shrugged out of her coat, handing it to him. He draped it over a nearby chair.

‘Take a seat,’ he suggested when she stood in the middle of his plush carpet wishing she could remember just one sentence from any of the dozen or so she had been rehearsing for most of the day.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured again.

‘How did you get here—by taxi?’ he enquired as she settled herself on one sofa and he did likewise on one opposite.