Dangerous Deceiver

‘Dearie me—I’m so sorry,’ she said with utterly false contrition. ‘How could I be so clumsy? Here, let me clean you up!’ And she started to dab at him with the napkin she had over one arm.

But he took her wrist and restored her hand to her, murmuring, ‘Thank you but I’d rather you didn’t—it’s a bit public here for the kind of message you’re trying to get across, and anyway, perhaps we ought to have dinner first?’

‘Dinner?’ Martha stared at him. ‘First?’

‘Before we go to bed,’ he said patiently. ‘It might just give us the opportunity to exchange names—first,’ he added with a grave, totally mocking little smile.

‘I...’ Martha tossed her head, and her mother or father might have recognised the glint in her blue eyes. ‘OK, I’ll get my coat!’

‘Don’t you think you should finish up here before we——?’

‘No way! After last week and now this I’m bound to get the sack,’ she said prosaically. ‘Not that I mind,’ she hastened to assure him, and smiled dazzlingly up at him. ‘I’ve got the feeling I’m on to bigger and brighter things. Let’s go, mister!’

They went, Martha collecting the sack at the same time as she collected her coat, but she was too angry to care.

They went to a small Italian restaurant that was not, as she’d expected, cheap and nasty, but chic and tasteful. She hid her surprise and made a big thing of discarding her coat and smoothing the low-cut neck of her dress, refreshing her lipstick and combing her hair—things she would normally never have dreamt of doing at a dinnertable.

‘What is your name, then?’ she said brightly when she’d arranged herself to her satisfaction, and was confident that a number of other diners were looking at her with either amused curiosity or raised eyebrows.

‘Simon,’ he said.

‘Pleased to meet you, Simon. I’m Martha.’ She stood up and extended her hand. ‘You know, I’m not too sure if you’re a hotel executive or—well, whatever the hell you are is fine with me.’ And she sat down, having shaken his hand vigorously and made her comments audible to all.

‘You should be on the stage, Martha,’ he replied with a considering look that took in the golden glints in her long fair hair, her deep blue eyes, the curves of her figure—a purely male summing up of a member of the opposite sex that was at the same time quite relaxed.

‘Believe me, Simon——’ she sat forward with her elbows propped on the table, her cleavage more exposed than it had ever been in her life, and that tell-tale little glint in her eyes again ‘—I’m sure I could be. It’s only a matter of being noticed. But you haven’t told me what you are.’

He said nothing for a long moment and she just knew he was laughing at her, which incensed her all the more. So that when he did start to tell her she oohed and aahed, appeared suitably impressed, even quite dazzled. And she kept up a flow of bubbling, suggestive chatter throughout the meal until her teeth started to feel on edge.

Then the bill came and he said, ‘Well, Martha, would you like another cup of coffee or should we go somewhere more private?’

Whereupon she gazed at him narrowly, laughed harshly and said in a way that she hoped was both world-weary and incredibly common, ‘Oh, no, you don’t, mister. It takes a bit more than some pasta to get me to bed!’ And she stood up and folded herself into her coat with a flourish.

He made no move to rise; he appeared to be amused if anything and he said only, ‘How old are you, Martha?’

‘Nineteen—what’s that got to do with it?’

‘Nothing, necessarily,’ he drawled. ‘Goodnight, then.’

She glared at him and swung out of the restaurant.

Two days later she opened the door of the dingy bedsitter she rented to find him on the doorstep. And she didn’t have to simulate surprise and annoyance; she was in fact quite stunned, then furious, because two days had been ample time to discover how ashamed she felt of herself. Conversely, she was prepared to admit it to no one, least of all Simon Macquarie.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said rudely. ‘And how did you find me?’

His lips twisted. ‘It was quite simple. Don’t tell me it didn’t occur to you, Martha, that all I had to do was make enquiries from the catering company that used to employ you?’

That did it. ‘Hey!’ She rearranged her features into a cheeky smile. ‘You are a bright boy, Simon! Not that I really doubted it. It’s just that you’ve caught me with my hair down.’ She had in fact just washed her hair. ‘But never mind—come in. And you can tell me,’ she added, with a wink, ‘what you’ve thought up now to get me to sleep with you.’

He took his time answering. He looked around the depressing room and then looked her over thoroughly. She was wearing faded jeans and an unexceptional white cotton top and had a towel slung round her neck with which she’d been drying her hair. And at last he said, with a faint quizzical smile touching his lips, ‘Before we go into that, can I buy you lunch? I know, I know,’ he said wryly, coming to stand right in front her, ‘that the price of a meal is not going to do it—I think I might have learnt that lesson.’

‘Then what?’ she said before she could stop herself.

‘You might have to tell me that, Martha. In the meantime, it’s a nice day, there are some nice beaches on Sydney Harbour—why don’t you bring a swimming costume? We could have a dip before lunch.’

He drove her to Watson’s Bay and they did just that—had a swim before a fine seafood lunch at Doyles. And Martha worked conscientiously on her tart act, setting her teeth on edge again but aware that this man aroused two things in her—a troublesome attraction and a deep sense of hostility. But he didn’t attempt to touch her and he delivered her home without making any arrangements to see her again.

Suits me, she thought, and for the next few days applied herself diligently to getting another job. The trouble was, she couldn’t get Simon Macquarie out of her mind. She kept thinking of his tall body slicing through the water beside her, thinking of the fact that for an Englishman—well, a Scot in fact, as she now knew—he wasn’t all pink and lily-white but lightly tanned, and there was something quite beautiful about the strong, lean lines of him that tended to take her breath away. Thinking how adult he was, how obviously cultured and sophisticated, how it would be a pleasure to drop her act and just be herself, wondering what he’d make of her true nineteen-year-old self. But when he reappeared on her doorstep five days later she was furious with herself because of it.

‘Oh, it’s you again,’ she said flatly. It was a chill evening, her feet were sore from walking to half a dozen job interviews, none of which held out much hope, and what lay ahead was an evening alone, making herself toasted cheese. ‘Come up with anything new but lunch or dinner?’

‘Yes, this,’ he said quietly, and took the door-handle out of her hand, closed it and took her in his arms. ‘Let’s see how we enjoy kissing each other, Martha,’ he said, barely audibly and with soul-searing little glints of amusement in his grey-green eyes.

Shock held her suspended for a long moment. Shock and the feel of him against her body, the way it made her heart start to pound suddenly, how she shivered involuntarily at the feel of her breasts against the hard wall of his chest. Shock as she wondered whether she was not much better than the role she was trying to play anyway...

It was this thought that made her toss her head and say, ‘OK—let’s see what you can do, mister! But only a kiss, mind.’

‘Whatever you say, Martha,’ he murmured. And then, quite a few minutes later, ‘How did I do?’

She had to swallow as she stared up into his eyes, swallow and desperately try to compose herself. Because what she’d been determined should be a light-hearted, shallow, give-nothing-away experience had been anything but. Instead, the feel of his fingers on the skin of her throat and the curve of her cheek before his mouth met hers had produced a kind of rapture she’d not before experienced. And the feel of his arms around her had evoked a consciousness of her body that had been quite stunning. And the way she’d melted against him as he’d kissed her had been anything but shallow and light-hearted...

‘You did OK,’ she said with an effort. ‘But hey, I learnt a long time ago not to get too carried away doing this. Could you let me go? My feet are killing me and I’m as hungry as a hound!’

What she saw in his eyes, though, startled her because it appeared to her to be sheer, wicked enjoyment. And he said gravely, ‘Of course. I too learnt long ago not to get carried away doing this. Can I say just one thing before I do?’

Martha opened her mouth, closed it then said, ‘Fire away, mister, but I haven’t got all night.’

He lifted a wry eyebrow. ‘My apologies. I was merely going to say that you’re...beautiful.’

‘Thanks, mate!’ But she tore herself away from him before she added, ‘You’re not so bad yourself. Mind you, I generally go in for Latin types—don’t know why; there must be something about dark hair and eyes that turns me on. Care for some toasted cheese? It’s about all I’ve got.’

‘No, thank you, Martha. I have a dinner appointment shortly, but perhaps I can help out in the matter of toasted cheese.’ And he pulled a fifty-dollar note from his pocket and before she was aware of his intentions opened a gap between the buttons of her cardigan and tucked it into her bra. ‘For services rendered,’ he said gently, and left.

Martha took a deep, furious breath, plucked the note out and tore it up.

‘I don’t know why you keep popping up like this,’ she said coolly, the next time he called, a Saturday lunchtime.

‘Is that your way of saying, Make me an offer I can’t refuse or go away?’ he queried with a dry little smile.

‘Probably. Fifty bucks doesn’t go far,’ she retorted, and stuck her hands on her hips. ‘So what’s it to be today?’

He studied her rather pretty floral skirt, thin white jumper and the simple knot she’d tied her hair back in. ‘We could go to the races.’

Despite herself a spark of interest lit her eyes, something he obviously noted because he said, ‘Do you like the horses?’

‘They’re OK,’ she conceded. ‘But I’m not dressed to kill.’

‘As a matter of fact I prefer you when you’re not,’ he said wryly.