Red Rose For Love

At the end of the week she could go back to Norfolk and be just the nonentity Eve Meredith, could go back to her houseboat and live a normal life again. Derek had promised her a holiday after this week of concerts, and she could hardly wait to get back to Norfolk. Maybe she wasn’t really cut out for stardom, although this was a hell of a time to discover it, and Derek felt sure that she could make it right to the top. Still, much as she valued him as a friend, she still knew that fifteen per cent of nothing was nothing.

She turned over in the bed. Heavens, she was an ungrateful bitch tonight! Everything was sure to look brighter in the morning.

It did. She felt revitalised by her long sleep, her usual energy back in evidence. The reviews were good but guarded, speculating as to whether her dazzling performance could be maintained throughout the week.

‘I’ll show them!’ she told Derek, throwing the newspapers down in disgust.

He smiled. ‘That’s my girl!’

Rehearsals went perfectly, any minor adjustments that needed to be made being quickly ironed out. After a couple of hours of this she was ready to go back to the apartment and rest. She was delicately made, very slender, and she would need all the energy she could muster for the gruelling evening ahead of her. Maybe the critics were right after all, maybe she didn’t have the stamina for this sort of life.

When she arrived back at the flat it was to find the biggest bouquet of red roses she had ever seen in her life lying on the doorstep; both Judy and Derek were out. She recoiled just at the sight of them, her expression darkening as she read the card that went with them. It was signed simply ‘Bart’.

The roses went straight into the dustbin, the card along with them. God, that man was really pushing his luck! Bart, indeed! Only his so-called ‘friends’ called him that!

She was so steamed up she must have paced the apartment for half an hour or more, sleep completely forgotten. She was so angry that she sent him a telegram in the end; it read, ‘Received and discarded, Eve Meredith’. She sent it to his bank, knowing that something as important as a telegram would reach him wherever he was.

That would show him what she thought of him and his roses!

It was when she woke up that the uncertainty set in. Much as she disliked Bartholomew Jordan and everything he represented, he really wasn’t a man she should antagonise. And the telegram had been a childish gesture. It should have been enough that she knew she had destroyed the roses. This way she was inviting retribution.

But it seemed not. A second bouquet of roses appeared at the theatre that evening, this time signed ‘Bartholomew Jordan’. He had to have received her telegram by now. Unless he had placed the order for these roses before he had received it? But that didn’t make sense, not when he had signed the second card so formally.

He certainly was a persistent man, surprisingly so, although it was doubtful that he needed to be this persistent normally; most women would be falling over themselves just to be associated with him.

Derek’s eyebrows rose as he saw the roses still lying in their cellophane on the table where Eve had thrown them. ‘An admirer?’ he asked curiously, obviously looking for the card she had put away in her handbag.

‘One with more money than sense,’ she nodded. Her cat-suit was a deep red this evening, her hair long and crinkled from the tight plaits she had bound it in after washing it this afternoon. Her make-up was just as dramatic, her mouth a deep slash of red to match the suit.

‘Here,’ Derek broke off one of the roses and pushed it into her hair over her ear. It gave her the look of a wild gypsy. ‘Perfect,’ he nodded his approval.

Eve pulled the rose out of her hair, throwing it in the bin. ‘It would wilt before the end of the performance,’ she said stiffly as she saw Derek’s shocked face.

‘You could have replaced it during the break,’ he said practically.

Her head went back. ‘I’d rather not.’

He frowned. ‘Who are they from?’

‘Guess,’ she invited dryly, hoping he would put her dislike of the deep red blooms down to their sender.

His face brightened. ‘Not Bart Jordan?’

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Not Bart Jordan.’

‘Don’t tease, Eve,’ he said seriously.

She turned angrily to face him. ‘What is it about this man? Why is he so special? I’ve had men like him interested in me before, but you never tried to tell me how to behave with them.’

He flushed. ‘I’m not telling you how to behave with Jordan either. I just don’t think it would do us any good for you to upset him. He has a lot of influence, he could make things very uncomfortable for us if he chose to.’

‘And do you think he might?’ She remembered the threat in Bartholomew Jordan’s voice.

‘I think he could do,’ Derek nodded.

‘And what do you suggest I do about it?’ she asked tartly. ‘Sleep with him just to make sure he stays sweet?’

Derek flushed. ‘I didn’t say that——’

‘I’m so sorry,’ her voice dripped sarcasm. ‘Maybe it just sounded that way to me.’

He gave an impatient sigh. ‘You’re impossible in this mood, Eve. It wouldn’t do you any harm to be nice to him.’

She stood up. ‘He doesn’t want me to be nice to him, he wants to go to bed with me!’

‘I’ll admit he’s attracted to you, but——’

‘He told me what he wants, Derek,’ she interrupted firmly. ‘He wants me, in his bed. And he isn’t getting me!’

‘Eve——’

‘The answer is no, Derek.’

He sighed. ‘I don’t have the time to argue with you right now, you have to be on stage in a few minutes. And for what it’s worth, Eve,’ he added almost gently, ‘whoever he was, he isn’t worth it.’

She froze. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded tautly.

‘You know what I mean. I’ve known you almost five years now, and you’ve never let a man near you——’

‘I’ve been out on dates!’

‘Date, in the singular. You never go out with the same man twice.’

She gave a tight smile. ‘Maybe I just like variety.’

Derek shook his head. ‘That isn’t true and you know it. No man lasts with you because he isn’t allowed to get near you, either physically or emotionally.’

Eve flushed. ‘You’re near me.’

‘Only as a friend, and only as near as you’ll let me. Eve, you——’

‘I have to go, Derek,’ she interrupted abruptly. ‘But I’ve never interfered in your private life, and I don’t expect you to interfere in mine.’

‘Eve——’

‘I have to go.’ She hurried out of the room as the music began to play.

It was perhaps unfortunate that the first person she saw was Bart Jordan. He was sitting in the front row of the audience, in an end seat, his blond hair very distinctive.