Desire Never Changes. PENNY JORDAN

Judith didn’t look quite as glamorous in the dawn light as she did in her full make-up, and in another half-dozen years she would begin to look blowsy, Somer decided with savage satisfaction, but it wasn’t the future that concerned her now, it was the present.

      ‘Somer!’ Andrew’s voice was startled and urgent, but Somer ignored it.

      ‘Don’t say a word,’ she warned him bitterly, ‘I’ve already heard enough. If I were you I’d concentrate on satisfying your…’ her lip curled derisively, ‘friend’s “needs”, that is if she still wants you now that I’m not going to provide the pair of you with a meal ticket for life. You’d got it all planned, hadn’t you, but you made one vital miscalculation. I’m obviously not as frigid as you assumed, Andrew, although it’s just as well I discovered the truth the way I did. I imagine it would have been very embarrassing for us both if I’d found you alone this morning. I came here hoping you would make love to me.’ God how it hurt to drag out that admission, but she was going to make herself face up to just how pitiful and contemptible she had been. ‘But it seems you have other prefer-ences…’ She let her eyes slide dismissively over Judith’s naked shoulders, watching the rage simmer in the other woman’s eyes. ‘I just hope you don’t find them too expensive,’ she added softly with a final flourish as she turned towards the door.

      Andrew had gone a sickly pale colour while she spoke, but Judith was on the point of exploding with barely concealed anger. No doubt she had looked forward to a lifetime of luxury at her expense, Somer decided. She herself must be growing up quickly because it was easy to see that knowing she was cheating Somer must have added a decided fillip to her affair with Andrew. Now that fillip was gone, Judith just might turn her eyes in other directions; she even found herself hoping that she might, and that Andrew, who was plainly besotted with her, would suffer as she was now suffering.

      Somer thought she would die with the mortification of it. Was there something wrong with her? Some vital element lacking? something that made her less feminine than other women, some deep female core that was simply missing from her make up. ‘No!’ The denial was torn from her throat and prompted her headlong flight from the scene of her humiliation. All her fierce MacDonald pride rose up inside her, a look in her eyes that her father would have recognised, her wild untamed Highland blood crying out for vengeance, for balm to soothe her aching pride. She had loved and tasted the bitter dregs of betrayal, she would never touch either again. But first she had to make good her initial promise to herself.

      Not stopping to analyse her reaction to the scene she had just experienced Somer hurried on, knowing only that to remain still was to open herself to the same pain which had overwhelmed her in Andrew’s bedroom. Her first instinct to flee, to simply leave the hotel and go home, was lost beneath the tidal swell of a need to prove Andrew and Judith’s cruel comments wrong. She would find a man who wanted her and she would find him before her holiday was over.

      Down in the foyer she saw that Judith was just about to take over the reception desk. Another girl, a stranger to Somer, was talking to one of the hotel guests, his broad shoulders bent towards her. Somer felt her heartbeat accelerate as she recognised the male outline of him. A real man, Judith had called Chase Lorimer; a very sensual man Somer would have called him; a man who would not think twice about taking what he wanted from life, a man who would teach her in one lesson far more about the game of love than a thousand fumbling encounters with boys as inexperienced as she was herself. Half a dozen steps away from the desk Somer halted. She could hear him asking the way to a small little-known local cove. The girl behind the reception desk frowned.

      ‘I’m sorry, Mr Lorimer,’ Somer heard her apologise, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know where it is, but if you’ll just bear with me for a moment I’ll try to find out.’ She glanced round to Judith who was deep in conversation with Andrew and Somer reacted blindly, urged on by the same fierce MacDonald pride which had buoyed her up earlier.

      A little to her own surprise she heard herself saying coolly, ‘I know where the cove is.’ She saw Andrew’s head jerk up in recognition of her voice. ‘In fact…’ Chase Lorimer had turned round and was surveying her with that same lazy scrutiny she recognised from the previous day. ‘In fact I was planning to go there myself today. Perhaps we could travel there together? Do you have a car?’

      ‘Yes, how long will it take us to get there?’

      Somer breathed shakily, unaware of how tense she had been until she heard him speak. There was only the cool anonymity of his voice to go on, and that did not give her any clues as to his reaction to her invitation. ‘Half an hour,’ she responded nervously.

      Of course in the world he inhabited it was probably quite normal for women to issue the invitations; certainly he didn’t seem shocked or surprised that she had done so, his lounging stance by the reception desk barely altered as he turned to glance at her.

      ‘Can you be ready in an hour?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I normally have a swim before breakfast, and then we can meet down here when you’re ready.’

      Out of the corner of her eye Somer could see Judith’s stunned, almost bitter expression, but she kept her own features unreadable as she acquiesced. So Chase Lorimer swam every morning; no doubt that explained what he was doing in the foyer so early, well before any of the other guests had put in an appearance.

      Confirming their arrangements, Somer headed back to her own room to change her clothes and pack a bag to take with her, a fierce elation filling her. For once the fates seemed disposed to be on her side, and she derived a considerable amount of satisfaction from the looks she had seen on Andrew’s and Judith’s faces when Chase Lorimer accepted her invitation. She had just reached the lift when Judith slipped up behind her, tapping her contemptuously on the arm.

      ‘It won’t work, you know,’ she hissed tauntingly. ‘Oh, you might have forced Chase Lorimer to accept your company for a couple of hours but he’ll never take you to bed, not once he discovers the truth about you. Men like him don’t go for virgins, especially not plain, uninteresting ones like you. He’s a photographer, and rumour has it that every time he makes love to a woman he takes her photograph—for his own private collection.’

      Somer battled against a sudden feeling of revulsion which pierced her newly won armour long enough for her to regret the impetuosity of what she had done, but with the next breath Judith swept aside her doubts, her voice mocking as she drawled, ‘Anyway, even if you did get him to take you to bed, it won’t make any difference to the way Andrew feels about you. It won’t make him jealous if that’s what you’re thinking. Andrew loves me.’

      ‘Does he?’ Somer was amazed at the cool control of her voice. ‘Funny, I had the impression that his first love was money, and as for making him jealous, I wouldn’t bother wasting my time. In fact seeing the two of you together has made it all much easier for me. I think I realised I’d made a mistake about Andrew, the moment I…’

      ‘Set eyes on Chase Lorimer?’ Judith suggested sneeringly. ‘For such an innocent you certainly know how to recognise quality goods when you see them, but Chase Lorimer won’t be interested in daddy’s money. He’s got a wealthy uncle of his own, and Chase is his sole heir.’

      ‘You seem to know a great deal about him. Did you have designs on him yourself?’

      The lift door opened just as Judith raised her hand, and Somer stepped smartly into it, leaving the other girl outside. As she pressed the button for her floor she sank back against the metal wall, trying to compose herself. Her legs felt as weak as jelly, her breathing uneven. She had never in her life participated in the kind of row she had just had with Judith and it left a sour taste in her mouth. So Chase Lorimer photographed the women he made love to, did he? She shivered suddenly, stumbling out of the lift when it reached her floor. It isn’t too late to turn back, a tiny inner voice urged her, but to turn back meant admitting that every humiliating insult Judith and Andrew had thrown at her was true; that she didn’t have what it took to be a real woman, and she was determined to prove them wrong.

      In her room she riffled through her suitcase until she found what she was looking for, a bikini she had bought in the south of France the previous