Fear Of Love. Carole Mortimer

recorded his weekly current affairs programme.

      ‘It’s because I’m grown up that I’m here,’ she said finally, her cheeks still aflame.

      ‘Really?’ he drawled. ‘Have you come over for some private tuition?’

      Her mouth tightened. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! If I required that sort of tuition I certainly wouldn’t come to you for it. I have a boy-friend who can supply me with all the experience I need.’

      Those grey eyes narrowed. ‘Roger Young.’ His top lip curled back contmptuously.

      ‘Yes! And he’s the reason I’ve come over here.’

      ‘He is? Well, I’m not about to give him any tuition,’ he taunted. ‘It wouldn’t be half as much fun.’

      ‘Ooh, you’re such a conceited swine!’ Alexandra stamped her foot in childish temper. ‘Just because you’ve slept with more women than you can remember the names of you think you know it all! I happen to believe that making love is more than just sex between two people, it should be something private between man and wife.’

      The contempt was still there in his face and it was directed at her now. ‘I’ve tried being married. Believe me, it isn’t all it’s supposed to be.’

      ‘You were married for exactly a year, hardly long enough to be able to pass comment on it. You treated your wife shamefully.’

      ‘Did I now?’ he mused. ‘And what would you know about it? You would have been five at the time, and as we didn’t even know you then I don’t consider you in a position to judge how I treated my wife.’

      ‘I didn’t need to know you when you were married to know it was all your fault that the marriage failed. I know for a fact that you weren’t even in the same country six months out of the twelve.’

      Dominic looked angry now. ‘Like I said, you aren’t in a position to judge.’

      ‘I am when it affects my life,’ she told him crossly.

      ‘What does my marriage have to do with your life?’

      ‘Gail told me this morning that it was mainly due to your disapproval of the idea that they refused to give their consent to my marriage to Roger.’

      ‘I see,’ he nodded his head, his look thoughtful. ‘Gail told you that, did she?’

      She flushed. ‘With a little persuasion, yes.’

      Dominic’s mouth twisted. ‘I can imagine what type of persuasion. You’re a bully, Alexandra. And you’re spoilt too. Poor Gail doesn’t stand a chance when you have one of your tantrums.’

      ‘I do not have tantrums!’

      ‘Oh yes, you do, and Gail isn’t strong enough to say no to you, neither is Trevor for that matter. You’re wilful and utterly selfish and not grown up enough to marry anyone, let alone a kid like Roger Young. He’s just as spoilt as you are.’

      ‘You have a nerve!’ she exclaimed furiously.

      ‘Not really,’ he answered calmly. ‘I just thought it better to stop you becoming just another statistic in the divorce figures.’

      ‘And you’re arrogant too,’ she continued. ‘You have no way of knowing whether my marriage to Roger will succeed or not.’

      ‘I can take a pretty accurate guess,’ he drawled. ‘I’ll also make another guess, that by the time you reach your eighteenth birthday in a few months’ time you’ll have changed your mind about marrying him.’

      ‘I will not,’ she said indignantly. ‘I love him.’

      He smiled at her outburst. ‘You say you do now, I wonder if you’ll feel the same in six months’ time. I doubt it. You’re at an age when you fall in and out of love every month.’

      ‘Like your wife did?’ she taunted bitterly.

      ‘Exactly as Marianne did,’ he agreed tautly.

      Alerandra realised that perhaps she had gone too far this time. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shamefaced. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

      ‘Oh, don’t start apologising now, Alexandra. We’ve gone way past the stage of not being able to speak our minds to each other.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

      He smiled. ‘I know so. Look, Alex—Alexandra,’ he amended. ‘I’m older than you, exactly twice your age, and I can see the pitfalls of marrying at your age. Marianne was no older than you when we married, and look how disastrously that turned out. We were divorced before she reached nineteen.’

      ‘You can’t compare me with her—or my intended husband with you.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      She didn’t flinch from his icy grey eyes. ‘Meaning that there is no way Roger can be compared with you. He doesn’t have to keep proving his sexual prowess, whereas you—well, it’s pretty obvious that your guest didn’t sleep in any other bedroom but your own. Is she your latest mistress?’

      Dominic raised his eyebrows. ‘What does that have to do with you?’

      She shrugged. ‘I was just curious.’ She flicked back her long black hair, long sooty lashes surrounding her deep blue eyes. ‘Is she?’

      ‘Yes,’ he answered with violence.

      ‘But you don’t intend marrying her?’ Alexandra’s curiosity had got the better of her now.

      ‘I don’t intend marrying ever again.’

      ‘Does she know that?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ he smiled. ‘Sabrina knows exactly what I feel for her.’

      ‘I’ll bet she does,’ her mouth turned back with distaste. ‘But I still maintain that you had no right to interfere in my life. I love Roger and I want to marry him.’

      ‘I didn’t stop you. I merely told Gail and Trevor that I—–’

      ‘Didn’t think it a good idea,’ she snapped. ‘It was nothing to do with you, nothing at all.’

      ‘I’m sure that what I said meant little to either of them, they’d already made up their minds about it.’

      She shook her head. ‘I don’t agree. I think what you had to say had everything to do with their decision. They hardly dare breathe without your permission. I’m well aware of the fact that you’ve helped them out a lot since they married, but I don’t want to be included in that care. I want you to just stay out of my life.’

      ‘A little late for that, isn’t it?’

      She looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

      He shrugged. ‘It isn’t important. Let’s just accept that I’m the villain of the piece and forget it.’

      Alexandra’s mouth set angrily. ‘I don’t want to forget it. I want to know what you meant just now. What else have you had a hand in that I know nothing about?’

      ‘I said it isn’t important.’ He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘I have to leave now, I’m much later than the twenty minutes I said I would be.’

      ‘Dominic,’ she held his arm. ‘Please tell me.’ Her look was pleading.

      He looked down pointedly at her hand on his tanned forearm and she snatched it away hurriedly. ‘There’s nothing to tell. Let’s go,’ he pulled her out of the house. ‘We can talk some other time.’

      She wrenched out of his grasp. ‘We’ll talk now! I—–’

      Charles, the butler, appeared in the open doorway. ‘Telephone for you, sir. It’s Mr Trevor,’ he added.

      ‘Tell him I’m on my way, Charles,’