Escape Me Never

His tone flicked her on the raw. ‘I do seem to recognise it,’ she said coolly. ‘But I’m afraid I have other plans.’

‘Change them,’ he suggested. His voice was pleasant, but the note of command was implicit, and unmistakable.

‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Cass said, her voice shaking a little. ‘Incredible as it may seem, Mr Grant, I have no wish to have dinner with you tonight, or any other evening. And if the Eve account is conditional on my agreement, you’d better say so now. I think Barney might have something to say about a member of his staff being—sexually harrassed even by an important client like you.’

She paused. ‘And in case you hadn’t noticed, I happen to be married.’

He gave her a long, hard look. She’d made him, she thought detachedly, very angry.

‘I’d like to meet your husband,’ he said silkily at last. ‘He must have the guts of Genghis Khan to get to first base with you, you little fire eater. The invitation, as it happens, was to dinner, not to bed. Christ, woman, I thought the next round of discussions could take place in slightly more congenial surroundings, that’s all. A table is often more conducive to agreement being reached than a desk, or haven’t you noticed?’

She said, ‘I find our present surroundings quite congenial enough, Mr Grant, and I work office hours.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘You disappoint me, Ms Linton. I’d begun to think you were the real thing, for a change, but you’re just another married lady playing at career woman. Pity,’ he added with a shrug, and walked away.

She watched him go with sudden apprehension. She might be the blue-eyed girl where Barney was concerned, but if Rohan Grant relayed the gist of their conversation to him, then she would be in deep trouble.

Perhaps she even deserved to be. She seemed to have misconstrued his motives pretty thoroughly. But it was far better for him to write off her conduct as boorish, than to know the truth—that even the prospect of sharing a conventional tête à tête dinner with him frightened her half to death. She did not want to be alone with him, ever, or on any terms of intimacy. She wanted all future dealings with Eve to be with Mr McDowell and Mr Handson. She wished Rohan Grant had stayed in Paris and rubber-stamped his approval of that campaign from a distance.

What’s happening to me, she asked herself desperately, with a little shiver. She was beginning to feel positively light-headed. Perhaps in reality the radio alarm had never gone off that morning, and she was still in bed, having some nightmare.

Somebody from the accounts department came over to her. ‘Barney says don’t forget to let us have the bill for that dress,’ he said in an undertone.

She said, ‘I’d prefer to pay for it myself. That way, I can give it to a jumble sale with a clear conscience.’

He gasped at her. ‘Cassie, are you mad? It looks terrific on you. I’d hardly have known you.’

‘I hardly know myself,’ Cass said hardily, ‘And I don’t like it. Back to reality tomorrow.’ She made her way towards Barney. He was not, she noted with relief, talking to Rohan Grant, or anywhere near him. She touched his arm. ‘Would it be all right if I went home now. I have a slight headache.’

He was all concern. ‘I hope you’re not coming down with the same damned thing as Roger.’ He peered at her frowning. ‘You’re very pale,’ he added accusingly. ‘You’d better take a taxi. Charge it to expenses.’

Cass nodded wanly, and made her way to the cloakroom. Her clothes were there, in the boutique carrier, but she felt disinclined to change. It could wait till she got home, she decided.

And the headache hadn’t been just an excuse. It turned into a real one on the journey, most of which Cass spent with her eyes closed.

‘Good party?’ the driver asked cheerfully as she paid him.

‘The best,’ she said.

Mrs Barrett’s brows climbed almost into her hair when she answered her bell. ‘My goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘What a transformation.’ Then she caught herself guiltily. ‘Not that you don’t always look nice, Mrs Linton.’

Cass smiled at her wearily. ‘Is Jodie all right?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make the open day, but …’ she spread her hands helplessly.

‘Well, she was naturally disappointed,’ Mrs Barrett admitted. ‘But I think she’s over it now. I made some of that flapjack she likes for tea, and she’s watching television. She’ll be thrilled you’re home early.’

‘You look different,’ was Jodie’s instant greeting.

Cass kissed her. ‘Different better, or different worse,’ she asked teasingly.

‘I don’t know.’ Jodie wriggled free. ‘You didn’t come,’ she accused.

‘Sweetheart, I couldn’t.’ Cass stroked her hair, grieving inwardly. She should have been with her daughter that afternoon, not dressed up like a Christmas tree, trying to make an impression on a man who combined too much money, and too much power, with infinitely too much sex appeal.

She shivered again. Well, at least now she’d admitted why he frightened her so. It was easy to armour oneself, when there was no temptation to break out of its protection, she thought sombrely.

After Brett, it had been easy to swear her private vow of total celibacy. Easy to keep it too. Now, in the course of one afternoon, everything had changed. Nothing was simple any more, and might never be so again, and if she didn’t take some aspirin soon and lie down, her head would probably burst.

She listened to Jodie’s excited account of the open day activities, sampled the flapjack, and accepted gratefully Mrs Barrett’s carefully written account of everything Jodie’s teacher had said about her brightness and promise. After the dark beginning to her child’s life, it was the kind of thing she needed to hear.

She made herself a drink with fresh lemons, when she was in her own flat, and took the promised aspirin, but when she opened her eyes the next morning, everything was infinitely worse, and she closed them again groaning.

She ached everywhere fiercely, and would have burned up, if she hadn’t felt so cold all the time. But she dragged herself out of bed, and made Jodie’s breakfast.

When Mrs Barrett arrived to collect Jodie, she took one horrified look at Cass’s grey face and shivering body, and ordered her back to bed.

‘It’s this forty-eight hour thing that’s going round,’ she said portentously. ‘They say the doctors won’t even come out for it—just tell you to keep warm, and drink plenty. I’ll keep Jodie with me for a couple of days, while you sleep it off.’

Cass thanked her hoarsely, and tottered back to bed. After which life became a blur for several hours. She was vaguely conscious of Mrs Barrett bringing jugs of squash, and telling her she had ’phoned the agency to warn them she wouldn’t be in. She tried to say something grateful in return, but it came out as a croak.

‘Poor little soul,’ Mrs Barrett said, perhaps then, or maybe much later. ‘Not much more than a kid herself.’

Cass wondered why Mrs Barrett should be talking about her to her in that odd way, and fell almost at once into a profound and dreamless sleep.

Or thought she did. But the next time she opened her eyes, it seemed that Rohan Grant was there, sitting in the old armchair by the window, and she turned over, burying her flushed face in the pillow to dispel him, and muttering peevishly to herself.

Wasn’t having ’flu bad enough? Did it have to be accompanied by more nightmares?

The next time she woke, he had gone, and she breathed a sigh of relief, stretching out aching limbs and muscles, and discovering wonderingly that she actually felt a little better, and might be persuaded to live, after all.

And when Mrs Barrett appeared, with a tray holding a cup of home-made vegetable soup, and a few wafer thin slices of brown bread and butter, Cass began to think that living might even be enjoyable again. She drank the soup to the last drop, while Mrs Barrett beamed at her.

‘Slept the clock round, you have, dear,’ she said. She looked slightly roguish. ‘I don’t think you even woke up for your visitor.’

Cass put down the bowl. ‘Visitor?’ she asked, trying to sound casual, but aware that her heart was hammering uncomfortably.

‘From your work.’ Mrs Barrett gave an unmistakable wink. ‘Said they were worried about you, so I let him in for a while, although I kept popping in, just in case,’ she added. ‘I hope I did right, dear?’

Cass tried to assemble coherent thought. ‘What was he like?’ she enquired apprehensively.

Mrs Barrett’s smile widened. ‘Tall,’ she said wistfully. ‘A real dish.’ She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘And sexy with it. Made me wish I was thirty years younger, I can tell you.’

‘How odd,’ Cass said pallidly. ‘He makes me wish I was thirty years older.’

Mrs Barrett didn’t seem to hear her. ‘I thought to myself—well that explains the pretty dress, and the way of doing your hair, and I was so pleased for you. Jodie liked him too,’ she added.

‘She met him?’ Cass’s head felt hollow.

‘When I came up—to make sure everything was all right—she came with me, and they had a nice little chat.’ Mrs Barrett gave her an anxious look. ‘It was all right, wasn’t it, Mrs Linton? When I looked in, he was sitting in that chair over there, and he said you’d been restless so he’d given you a drink, and made your pillows more comfortable. I’m sure no one could have been more concerned, that’s why I thought …’ her voice tailed off lamely.