Romance 0f A Lifetime (Presents Plus) Read online

  ‘I haven’t been trying to be helpful,’ he drawled. ‘I know where you live now, so I can call on you again soon.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Beth,’ he derided softly, bending his head to hers, his arms firm as he moulded her body to his.

  Her lips flowered beneath his, the warmth flooding her body, her arms moving up involuntarily about his neck, the kiss deepening as his lips explored hers, his tongue gently probing.

  She was breathing hard when he at last raised his head, knowing her cheeks would be flushed, her lips red and slightly swollen from his kisses.

  Marcus touched one of her burning cheeks with light fingertips. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ he told her gruffly, and then he was gone.

  Beth just stood there for several seconds unable to move, and then she gave herself a mental shake. ‘Soon’ could mean any time in the future, and she had much more pressing matters to deal with.

  She was unprepared to find her mother waiting for her in her apartment!

  ‘Darling!’ She stood up gracefully from the chair in the lounge as soon as Beth stepped into the hallway, putting down the magazine she had been flicking through. ‘I got back late last night and when I called into the office this morning Kay gave me your message about returning today. I wasn’t sure what time it would be…’ She shrugged.

  Beth returned her mother’s hug. ‘You didn’t have to waste your day waiting for me.’ It began to dawn on her what a lucky escape she had had; if her mother had met Marcus she would never have heard the end of it!

  ‘It wasn’t wasted,’ her mother chided warmly. ‘Although I’m cross with you for returning at all.’ She sobered with a frown. ‘There was no reason to cut your holiday short like that, especially when it sounded as if you were having a good time.’

  ‘Martin is engaged to marry Brenda,’ she reminded pointedly.

  Her mother’s frown deepened, her beautiful face only slightly lined, her figure still slim and youthful—although she had confided in Beth that it wasn’t naturally so when she was unclothed!

  ‘You don’t still care for him, do you?’ her mother said incredulously.

  ‘Of course not,’ she scorned, putting her cases away in her bedroom. ‘But there’s Brenda to consider.’

  ‘Brenda?’ her mother repeated questioningly.

  Beth nodded. ‘You did say she and Martin are getting married?’

  ‘Yes…?’

  ‘She’s so young, Mummy,’ Beth sighed. ‘She can’t possibly know what she’s letting herself in for.’

  ‘She soon will,’ her mother grimaced.

  ‘Like I did?’ she said pointedly.

  ‘I did try to warn you, Beth,’ her mother reminded. ‘You didn’t thank me for it.’

  Because she had been too much in love to want to hear the truth. As Brenda probably was too; she knew better than anyone how convincing Martin could be.

  ‘I have to at least try, Mummy,’ she sighed.

  ‘For all the good it will do.’ Katherine made a face. ‘It won’t make you popular, you know. Martin won’t like it. Neither will your father, for that matter. I’m sure he feels he’s made the best business move of his career. He’s been trying to buy Sean out for years; now he won’t have to.’

  She knew all too well the advantages to her father from his point of view; that was one of the main reasons she was so worried by the match. The other one was Martin himself.

  ‘All the more reason for me to at least talk to Brenda,’ Beth said grimly.

  ‘I doubt she will thank you for it either,’ her mother sighed knowingly. ‘Young girls in love don’t, you know.’

  ‘At least my conscience will be clear,’ Beth frowned.

  ‘Your father and Martin don’t have consciences,’ her mother said hardly.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ she grated.

  ‘No, of course I don’t.’ Her mother squeezed her hand understandingly. ‘Anyway, enough about them,’ she dismissed with distaste. ‘Tell me about your holiday.’

  Marcus Craven…

  All the beautiful and wondrous things she had seen, and yet she knew what she would remember most about the holiday was meeting Marcus Craven.

  Her mother was watching her with narrowed eyes. ‘What happened to the man you met in Verona?’ she probed thoughtfully.

  Colour flared in Beth’s cheeks, and she avoided her mother’s gaze, knowing that would instantly look suspicious but unable to do anything else. ‘I expect he’s back home too now,’ she answered evasively.

  ‘And?’

  She frowned at her mother. ‘And he found the opera as moving as I did.’ She shrugged her puzzlement with the question.

  God, if her mother ever learnt he had followed her to Venice and then escorted her back to England…! Her mother would be asking him his intentions by now if he had come into the flat with her!

  ‘Is that all he found moving?’ Her mother looked disappointed. ‘Didn’t you see him again after that?’

  ‘Well… yes.’ She was reluctant to lie when asked a direct question. ‘But holiday friendships never come to anything, do they?’

  ‘A “friendship”, hmm?’ Her mother settled down comfortably in a chair. ‘What sort of friendship was it?’

  ‘Purely platonic, Mother, I can assure you.’ She deliberately stopped herself thinking of those nerve-shattering kisses they had shared, several of them only minutes ago.

  ‘Oh.’ Her mother looked disappointed. ‘So you aren’t going to see him again?’

  ‘I don’t even know where he lives,’ Beth evaded truthfully.

  ‘What a waste,’ her mother reproved. ‘And he was—interesting, you said?’

  ‘Reasonably.’ She deliberately played it low-key. ‘But he isn’t important now, Mummy. As I said, I doubt I will ever see him again. The main thing now is to see Brenda as soon as possible.’

  ‘Darling, you can’t just walk up to the girl and tell her she’s marrying the wrong man,’ she was warned.

  ‘It’s what I feel like doing!’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘It would just look like sour grapes on your part.’

  ‘She’s welcome to him!’ Beth said vehemently.

  ‘You see,’ her mother grimaced. ‘You sound like “a woman scorned”.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘As the ex-wife you’re bound to be viewed with suspicion, anyway,’ her mother reasoned. ‘Brenda will just assume you’re still in love with Martin and feel jealous of their engagement.’

  Beth swallowed hard, feeling ill at the thought of that; the last thing she felt about this engagement was jealous. Just the thought of the fate in store for Brenda was enough to make her feel… ‘I don’t care what she thinks,’ she said fiercely. ‘If I can’t make her see sense then I’ll talk to Sean. He may be a businessman, like Charles, but there the similarity ends. And he was always very kind to me when we did meet.’

  ‘He could afford to be then, Beth,’ her mother pointed out gently. ‘You didn’t pose any threat to his daughter’s happiness.’

  It was starting to sound more and more as if this was going to be more complicated than she had envisaged. But she wasn’t going to just leave it, no matter how nasty it might become.

  * * *

  ‘The Trents are having a party on Saturday. I’ve already checked that Martin and Brenda will be there, and I’ve organised an invitation for both of us too,’ her mother announced triumphantly.

  Beth hadn’t been in long from work when she received the telephone call. Much to her mother’s disgust she had insisted on returning to work in the London boutique, which she now managed for her mother again, the day after she returned from her holiday.

  She hadn’t expected her mother to get back to her quite so soon!

  ‘Saturday?’ she repeated with a yawn, having instantly tensed at the thought of seeing Martin again, something she had deliberately avoided doing. But she had one more day to get used to the idea. ‘You don’t have to go too if y
ou don’t want to,’ she assured her mother. ‘I won’t be staying long.’

  ‘You hope,’ her mother returned drily. ‘And I have no intention of letting you, figuratively speaking, walk into the lion’s den alone. I let you do it once before—’

  ‘And we both know what happened that time,’ Beth finished roughly. ‘But Barbara and Alec are hardly lions, and I doubt Martin would dare to make a scene at their home.’

  ‘I never put anything beyond that man,’ her mother said grimly. ‘I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock on Saturday.’

  It was easier to just give in when her mother sounded this stubborn, and in truth Beth would rather not go to the party alone. She wasn’t frightened of Martin, or anything else he might try to do to her, but it was a long time since she had mixed with those other people on a social level. Then she had been Charles’s daughter and Martin’s wife, and now she was neither of those things. Now she was her own person—at least, trying to be.

  ‘Unless there’s someone else you would rather go with?’ her mother asked almost coyly.

  Marcus… Her mother had to mean Marcus. He was the only man she had mentioned to her during the whole of the last year.

  But of course she hadn’t heard from him yet; it was only a day since they had arrived back from Venice. And he was the last person she would want to meet Martin!

  ‘No,’ she answered drily. ‘Nine o’clock on Saturday it is.’

  ‘Beth—’

  ‘Mummy, I’ve just walked in the door. My feet ache, and I’m hungry, and—’

  ‘And you don’t want to sit there talking to me any longer,’ her mother finished wryly.

  Especially if it was about Marcus Craven. She was trying not to even think about him, and it was proving more difficult than she had imagined. ‘Saturday, Mummy.’ She rang off quickly before her mother could question her any further.

  She almost fell off the chair when the telephone began to ring again the instant she put down the receiver, snatching it up again. ‘Yes?’ she barked irritably. Really, after the hectic day she had had, all she wanted to do was put her feet up and eat a leisurely meal.

  ‘Beth?’

  All thoughts of relaxing this evening left her at the sound of Marcus’s voice so soon after she had been made to think of him yet again!

  How had he got her telephone number? What could he want?

  ‘Yes?’ Her voice sounded stilted now in her surprise.

  ‘Have I caught you at a bad moment?’ The amusement could be heard in his voice.

  Any moment would be a bad moment; she was never quite prepared for him. ‘I’ve just got in from work,’ she admitted impatiently.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes—alone,’ she snapped irritably. ‘I work alone, I live alone—’

  ‘Sounds as if you could do with some company, in that case,’ he drawled, as usual unaffected by her curt manner. ‘Would you like to go out to dinner?’

  ‘Tonight?’ she frowned; all she wanted to do tonight was soak in a hot bath for an hour or so and then curl up in bed with a book that didn’t take too much concentration.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Marcus derided, easily picking up on her mood. ‘How about tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow is my late night at the shop,’ she refused, gently easing her shoes off, at once feeling a little less irritable. In just those few days away she had got out of the habit of being on her feet all day; strolling along at her leisure hardly constituted the same thing, especially when there had been numerous outside cafés she could relax in when she felt like a rest!

  ‘Saturday, then?’ he persisted.

  She had just made alternative arrangements for Saturday, and she had no intention of breaking them, despite the curiosity she felt about whether or not Marcus would seem as attractive now they were back in London, or whether it really had just been a ‘holiday romance’.

  ‘I’m going to a party,’ she had to refuse.

  ‘I could go with you,’ he instantly offered—as she should have realised he might.

  ‘Er—no, I don’t think so,’ she grimaced. She was dreading the party enough already, without that.

  ‘I see,’ Marcus drawled knowingly, obviously completely misunderstanding the situation. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I telephoned you on Sunday some time and we could go through the list of your engagements for next week?’

  He was annoyed by her evasiveness, she could tell that. But perhaps Sunday would be a better day for them to talk; the unpleasant task ahead of her should be over by then, and maybe she could start to think of herself and the attraction she felt towards Marcus.

  ‘As far as I’m aware, I don’t have any engagements for next week,’ she replied coolly. ‘So a telephone call on Sunday sounds perfect.’

  ‘But not too early, hmm?’ he taunted.

  ‘Sunday is the traditional day for lying in.’ She deliberately didn’t rise to the bait of his mockery.

  ‘I’m not going to state the obvious,’ he rasped. ‘I’ll speak to you again on Sunday.’ He rang off with his usual curtness.

  Beth put the receiver down more slowly this time, still a little stunned that Marcus had attained her telephone number and called her at all. He had meant it about seeing her again soon!

  She wanted to see him again; she admitted it, to herself at least.

  But she certainly wasn’t prepared to see him only seconds after she had entered Barbara and Alec Trent’s home on Saturday evening!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AS PROMISED, Beth’s mother picked her up at nine o’clock on Saturday evening, approving the black cocktail dress Beth had chosen to wear with her hair falling loosely to her shoulders as usual, her make-up attractive, although she had applied more rouge than usual, her cheeks very pale as she dreaded the ordeal ahead of her. Martin could be one of the most unpleasant people she had ever known when thwarted.

  ‘You look wonderful, darling,’ her mother assured at her nervousness as they went down to the car, looking very attractive herself in a red sheath of a dress that complemented the tan she had acquired on her travels.

  ‘Ready to take on anything?’ Beth derided ruefully.

  ‘You don’t have to face him alone,’ her mother told her grimly. ‘It would give me great pleasure to reduce him to the worm that he is.’

  ‘People like him and Charles bounce back stronger than ever,’ Beth sighed, resting back in her car seat with her eyes closed on the drive to the Trents’ home.

  She had no sooner got in the door to the house, given her jacket to the butler, engaged in polite conversation with Barbara about some trivial matter—although she would guess that her hostess would much rather have questioned her about the divorce and Martin’s new engagement—when she saw Marcus across the elegant lounge in conversation with their host!

  His devastating good looks in the black dinner suit and snowy white shirt, his air of quiet authority, would have drawn attention to him no matter where he might be, and Beth could see several of the women in the room eye him speculatively, their interest obvious.

  But Beth knew she would have seen him instantly anyway, her own attraction towards him undeniable.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Beth had been so intent on Marcus that she hadn’t even noticed Martin’s approach until he rasped those angry words in her ear, turning to him with as much control as she could muster given the circumstances. ‘Good evening, Martin,’ she greeted coolly, looking up at his too-handsome face with the over-charming smile, his body elegantly slender rather than powerful. She couldn’t help wondering, after looking so recently at Marcus, how she could have fallen for Martin in the first place!

  There were several years’ difference in the two men’s ages, Martin thirty to Marcus’s mid-thirties, and yet it owed nothing to this difference in ages that in comparison with the other man Martin looked weak and affected. Beth knew to her cost that Martin was weak where money was in question.

  ‘I asked what you’
re doing here?’ he bit out forcefully, fury glittering in his blue eyes.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Well, hello, Martin.’ Katherine joined them, her eyes hard with warning as she looked at him.

  Martin never had been quite sure how to behave with Katherine. After all, she was still Charles’s wife, even if the older couple had been separated for years. And as usual he obviously felt caught between what he would really like to say to her and what he felt he could in the circumstances. ‘Katherine,’ he nodded an abrupt greeting.

  Green eyes glittered Katherine’s contempt for him; she was well aware of his discomfort, and pleased by the situation he found himself in. ‘I believe congratulations are in order for you,’ she drawled contemptuously. ‘And condolences for Brenda, of course,’ she added hardly.

  ‘I believe one extends felicitations for the future bride,’ Martin ground out tautly.

  ‘Really?’ Katherine seemed to consider the suggestion for a few moments, and then she shook her head. ‘No, I believe I was right the first time,’ she said coldly, giving him a slow scathing look. ‘Where is the poor unfortunate girl?’

  ‘Powdering her nose,’ he grated. ‘But I don’t want you—’

  ‘Don’t try your little threatening games with me, Martin,’ she warned him in a dangerously soft voice. ‘I’ve been dealing with an expert for years, and you aren’t in his league!’

  ‘Yet,’ he challenged, in no doubt whom she alluded to.

  Katherine looked him over slowly, and Beth could only stand back and admire her mother’s control; caught off guard as she had been, after seeing Marcus so unexpectedly, she hadn’t been ready for Martin’s appearance. Her mother had sensed her disconcertion, although she couldn’t guess the reason for it, and had taken over the conversation—very successfully, Beth acknowledged with amusement.

  ‘Ever,’ Katherine told him tauntingly. ‘Oh, I’ll admit you’re well on your way to being a first-class bastard like he is, but you simply don’t have what it takes to really be able to step into Charles’s shoes. Your success depends on too many other people; Charles succeeded in spite of other people!’