Trust Too Much. Jayne Bauling

Simon laughed. ‘You’ve obviously benefited from the experience, and we all have to sow a few wild oats, if I may be utterly trite.’

      ‘They’re hardly still wild oats at your age,’ she retaliated, grasping eagerly at the chance to change the subject.

      ‘I’m not quite ready for a retirement resort yet. Thirty-three,’ he drawled lazily.

      ‘As I said, at your age,’ Fee emphasised sweetly, and added, ‘Loren is nice.’

      ‘Beautiful,’ Simon agreed, infuriatingly relaxed. ‘But none too bright.’

      ‘Bright enough to have noticed your roving eye,’ she asserted waspishly.

      ‘I’m not in any need of advice about my love life, thanks, Fee.’ Abruptly there was a slight but audible edge to his voice, cool and sharp.

      ‘What has love got to do with it?’ she wondered innocently.

      ‘Everything. I love women.’

      The statement, so outrageous and so simple, silenced Fee for several seconds. It was the absolute, unadorned truth, she realised, and any further explanation of his playboy habits would be superfluous. Simon loved women, so much that he was incapable of loving just one for any length of time, if in fact he ever actually loved them as individuals.

      ‘You never used to state the obvious,’ she taunted softly.

      ‘You seemed in some doubt,’ Simon countered derisively. ‘But as I’ve said, it’s your love life that intrigues me right now. Tell me about Sheldon. Were you his personal assistant?’

      ‘I hadn’t risen quite that high yet. I was assistant to his real assistant, but the position was supposed to lead to promotion eventually.’

      Her bright, tender mouth drooped as she recalled the trouble Miss Betancourt had taken, grooming her to be her replacement when she retired in a few years’ time. All for nothing—

      ‘You must have counted it worth sacrificing since you were prepared to incur Sheldon’s anger by making the thing public knowledge,’ Simon cut into her reflections unsympathetically.

      She hadn’t had any choice, unless she had been prepared to let Vance Sheldon rape her, since the Press, so much more cynically suspicious than she, had been on the spot, ready and waiting, eager for drama.

      She flung Simon an angrily resentful look as she picked up her glass from beside her on the step and took a sip of mineral water.

      ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she stated tautly. ‘As everyone knows, he fired me or I resigned, depending on which version of the story you believe, so I’ve got more important things to think about, like finding myself another job, and somewhere to live, and a car.’

      ‘Here in Hong Kong?’ he probed.

      ‘I think so, yes.’ She couldn’t face going back, although she wasn’t about to reveal her vulnerability by admitting it. ‘Hong Kong is my home. I belong here.’

      Simon sent her a glance sparkling with mockery. ‘And you’ll be able to behave as badly as you like within a circle where no one will judge you and make a scandal of it as they seem to have done in Australia, since we all behaved equally badly most of the time. It’s just strange, or perhaps ironic, that you had to go away to become one of us. I like the change, but what happened to the old Fee? Is there any of her left there inside the sophisticated packaging?’

      ‘There’s hardly likely to be, is there? I’m twenty-two, but on her behalf, since she could never stand up for herself or answer back…Yes, you do all behave badly, especially at these parties, I remember, so why shouldn’t I?’ As she spoke, Fee stood up, still holding her glass, looking down into it for a moment before pouring the remainder of its contents into his lap. ‘Last time was an accident, Simon. This was deliberate, in case you’re in any doubt. Sorry it had to be in the region of both your intellect and your emotions.’

      Simon swore, following it with such absolute silence that she couldn’t resist the temptation to look back as she gained the patio. His shoulders shook, and then she heard his laughter.

      ‘Oh, you were right, you truly do belong here.’ His amused voice drifted up to her. ‘You’re one of our own. Welcome home, Fee.’

      Fleetingly, it gave rise to apprehension which subsided when he made no move to detain her.

      She hadn’t felt this good in weeks, Fee realised. The only disconcerting thing about it was that it should be Simon Rhodes, of all people, who had revived her fighting spirit.

       CHAPTER TWO

      SIGHING, Fee let the newspaper fall to the ground beside the sun-lounger on which she was reclining. None of the positions advertised was exactly inspiring, and likely to add to her difficulties was her intention to be scrupulously discriminating in her choice of boss this time around. She wasn’t risking another Vance Sheldon—never again! On the whole, she was inclined to think that putting her name down with an employment agency might be her best bet. For safety’s sake, she might even opt for temping, she decided, unless she found the perfect boss.

      The sun had set but darkness had yet to fall, and it was one of those sultry, gently steaming July evenings she remembered so well from years gone by, the stillness of the air giving all Hong Kong’s island side a dreaming aspect, and yet down in town among the gracefully rearing spires the movement and noise would be as vibrant as ever, equally so over on Kowloonside. But not up here, high above Repulse Bay, blue-white jewel set amid gentle emerald slopes. It was silent here, and soothing.

      Her mood of exhilaration hadn’t lasted long after she had tipped her drink into Simon’s lap two evenings ago. She had locked herself into her bedroom, ignoring the people who came and knocked at intervals and eventually falling into the first truly dreamless sleep she had been granted in weeks, despite the sounds of carousing downstairs—because Loren Kincaid had been right. She felt safe here.

      She had no idea how or if Simon had explained the state of his elegant trousers to anyone, and she hadn’t enquired, beginning to be embarrassed by her behaviour since such a confrontational attitude was alien to her nature.

      A sound from the high patio above her made her withdraw her gaze from the sparkling clarity of the swimming-pool, and there was the subject of her thoughts, Simon Rhodes, carrying his jacket and coming down the stairs towards her. A pang of purely aesthetic appreciation assailed her as she watched him. He moved with such grace and leashed power, and was so beautifully formed, so truly physically perfect in every way that she could only be profoundly grateful that she would never be one of the legion of women who loved him, because how did anyone ever get over such a man?

      ‘Charles isn’t home yet,’ she informed him casually, resolutely deciding to ignore the fact that the mere sight of him made her feel challenged in some obscure way. ‘But Babs is somewhere inside.’

      ‘Thank you, she sent me out to join you.’ Simon stood beside her sun-lounger, looking down at her and then at the pool on her other side, a wicked gleam appearing in his eyes. ‘I am so tempted, Fee, after the drenching I received at your hands the other night.’

      ‘Don’t you dare! And you’re exaggerating…I’m sorry I threw my drink over you, Simon.’ But although she had begun to be ashamed of herself, Fee’s eyes still sparkled at the memory, and her voice refused to emerge as demurely as she wanted it to, a quiver betraying her as she added, ‘I don’t usually behave like that. I don’t know what got into me.’

      ‘A devil, of course, and it’s looking out of your eyes right now, so I suppose I ought to keep my distance. But all right, I’ll forgive you since it was probably due,’ he conceded magnanimously, ignoring the advice he had just given himself and pulling a matching chair closer to her lounger before seating himself. ‘I shouldn’t have bawled you out in front of everyone