The Guardian's Forbidden Mistress

‘You own The New You?’

Derek gave her a startled look. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know that either.’

‘No.’

He smiled, showing flashing white teeth. ‘Talk about tunnel vision.’

‘Sorry,’ Sarah apologised. ‘I can be like that. I’m a bit of a loner, if you haven’t noticed,’ she added with a wry smile. ‘I don’t make friends easily. Guess it comes from being an only child.’

‘I’m an only child too,’ he confessed. ‘Which makes my being gay especially hard on my parents. No grand-kids to look forward to. I only told them a couple of years ago when Mum’s pressuring me to get married got a bit much. Dad hasn’t talked to me since,’ Derek added, the muscles in his neck stiffening.

‘That’s sad,’ Sarah said. ‘What about your mum?’

‘She rings me. But won’t let me come home, not even for Christmas.’

‘Oh, dear. Maybe they’ll come round in time.’

‘Maybe. But I’m not holding my breath. Dad is a very proud and stubborn man. Once he says something, he won’t back down on it. But back to you, sweetie. You’re simply crazy about this Nick fellow, aren’t you?’

Sarah’s heart lurched. ‘Crazy describes my feelings for Nick very well. When I’m around him, I just can’t stop wanting him. But he doesn’t want me back. And he never will. It’s time I accepted that.’

‘But surely not till you’ve had one last crack at him.’

‘What?’

‘You haven’t been working your butt off because some anorexic model said you were fat, sweetie. It’s Nick you’re out to impress, and attract.’

Sarah didn’t want to openly admit it. But of course Derek was right. She’d do anything to have Nick look at her with desire. Just once.

No, not once. Again. Because she was pretty sure she’d spotted desire in his eyes one Christmas, when she’d been sixteen and she’d come down to the pool wearing an itsy-bitsy bikini that she’d bought with Nick in mind.

But maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe she was just desperate to believe he’d fancied her a little that day, despite his actions to the contrary. Teenage girls were prone to flights of fantasy, as were twenty-four-year-olds, she thought ruefully. Which was why she’d spent all week buying the kind of summer wardrobe that would stir an octogenarian’s hormones.

The trouble was Nick wasn’t an octogenarian. He was only thirty-six, and he kept his male hormones well and truly catered to. Sarah already knew that the actress girlfriend had gone by the board, replaced by an advertising executive with a penchant for power-dressing.

Sarah might not have been home personally for several months, but she rang home every week to talk to Flora, who always gave her a full update on Nick’s comings and goings before passing the call over to Nick. If he was home, that was. Often he was out, being a social animal with a wide range of friends. Or contacts, as he preferred to call them.

‘I presume you spend the Christmas holidays back at home?’ Derek asked, cutting into her thoughts.

‘Yes,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I usually go home as soon as school breaks up. But I haven’t this year. Still, I’ll have to make an appearance tomorrow. I always decorate the Christmas tree. If I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. Then I help Flora prepare things for the following day. The lunch is partially catered for, but Flora likes to cook some hot food as well. Flora is the housekeeper,’ she added when she saw Derek frown at the name. ‘She’s been with the family for forever.’

‘I have to confess I couldn’t see your Nick with a girlfriend named Flora.’

‘You’d be right there. Nick’s girlfriends always have names like Jasmine, or Sapphire, or Chloe.’ That was what the latest one was called: Chloe.

‘Not only that,’ Sarah went on waspishly, ‘they never help. They always just swan downstairs at the last minute, with their fingernails perfect and their minuscule appetites on hold. It gets my goat when they sit there, sipping mineral water whilst they eat absolutely nothing.’

‘Mmm,’ Derek said.

Sarah pulled a face at him. ‘I suppose you think I’m going to get all upset and make a pig of myself again.’

‘It’s highly possible, by the sounds of things. But what I was actually thinking was that you need someone by your side at this Christmas lunch. A boyfriend of your own.’

‘Huh! I’ve brought boyfriends to Christmas lunch before,’ Sarah informed Derek drily. ‘In no time, Nick makes them look like fools, or fortune-hunters.’

‘And maybe they were. But possibly they were too young, and totally overawed by the occasion. What you need is someone older, someone with looks and style, someone successful and sophisticated who won’t be fazed by anything your playboy guardian says and does. Someone, in short, who’s going to make the object of your desire sit up and take notice. Of you.’

‘I like the idea, Derek. In theory. But even with my improved looks, I don’t think I’m going to be able to snaffle up the type of boyfriend you’ve just described at this late stage. Christmas is two days away.’

‘In that case let me help you out. Because I know just such an individual who doesn’t have anywhere to go on Christmas Day and would be happy to come to your aid.’

‘You do? Who?’

‘You’re looking at him.’

Sarah blinked, then laughed. ‘You have to be kidding. How can you be my boyfriend, Derek? You’re gay!’

‘You didn’t know that till I told you,’ he reminded her. ‘Your Nick won’t know it, either, especially if I’m introduced as your boyfriend. People believe what they’re told, on the whole.’

Sarah stared at Derek. He was right. Why would Nick—or anyone else at lunch—suspect that Derek was gay? He didn’t look it. Or act it.

‘So what do you think?’ Derek said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. ‘Trust me when I say that nothing stimulates a man’s interest in a woman as well as another man’s undivided attention in her.’

Sarah still hesitated.

‘What are you afraid of?’ Derek demanded to know. ‘Success?’

‘Absolutely not!’

‘Then what have you got to lose?’

Nothing at all, Sarah realised with a sudden rush of adrenalin. At the very least she would not feel alone, as she often did at Christmas, especially during that dreaded lunch.

This year she would not only be looking her best, but she would also have a very good-looking man by her side.

‘All right,’ Sarah said, a quiver of unexpected excitement rippling down her spine. ‘You’re on.’

CHAPTER TWO

SARAH’S positive attitude towards Christmas lasted till she pulled her white car into the driveway the following morning and saw Nick’s bright red sporty number parked outside the garages.

‘Darn it,’ she muttered as she pressed the remote to open the electronic gates.

She’d presumed Nick would be out playing golf, as he always did every Saturday, come rain, hail or shine. Come Christmas Eve as well!

If she’d imagined for one moment that Nick would be home, she’d have put on one of her sexy new sun-dresses this morning—probably the black and white halter-necked one that showed off her slender shoulders and nicely toned arms. Instead, she was sporting a pair of faded jeans and a striped yellow tank-top. Suitable clothes in which to decorate a Christmas tree. But not to impress a man, especially one who had a penchant for women who always looked as if they’d just stepped out of a beauty salon.

Still, with a bit of luck, she might be able to sneak up to her bedroom and make some changes before running into Nick. The house was, after all, huge.