The Bedroom Assignment. Sophie Weston

with lights.

      He inserted the Jaguar into the tightest possible parking place with one smooth movement and switched off the engine. For a moment he sat there in the friendly dark, savouring the solitude. It had been a heavy week in every way.

      ‘People!’ he said aloud, with fierce self-mockery. ‘Doncha just love them?’

      He looked at the balloon-fringed house with reluctance bordering on dislike. But this was work, he reminded himself. He could deal with people when it was work.

      He flicked open the slim briefcase on the passenger seat and found the big white envelope he was looking for. Then he flung the briefcase on the floor, out of sight of any potential car breaker. There was no point in bothering with a jacket. The night was too warm and he didn’t think Suze Manoir’s friends would welcome a fellow in a City suit. Anyway, he had already left his tie at Carla’s.

      At the thought of Carla his slim dark brows locked together. She had not contributed to the emotional horrors of this week. But he knew that she was not happy. It would have to end soon, Jay thought. It could not go on, not if he was making her unhappy. No matter how bravely she denied it.

      He shook his head. It was so easy to know when women were getting in too deep. They stopped asking questions in case they couldn’t deal with the answers.

      Take tonight, for example. He had said, without thinking, that he was going to have to drive through a part of London he did not know. That he was going to a party. Carla could so easily have asked, Whose party? Where? Could she come, too…? But she hadn’t. Jay even knew why. In case he wouldn’t take her. In case the party-giver was her successor.

      So she had just sat opposite him in the restaurant and smiled and asked intelligent questions about his business and looked forward to seeing him on Sunday. And all the time there had been that terrible fear at the back of her eyes. And her voice had been calm and even. And she hadn’t asked questions.

      Yes, he was definitely going to have to end it. She was too nice a woman to do anything else. He could not let her start to hope that there might be any future for them. It would be completely false. He had made that plain when they started. Carla had said she understood that. But women had that habit of forgetting the rules when they fell in love.

      Especially when they fell in love with men who did not understand love.

      I might not understand love, thought Jay. But I’ve seen the harm it does. Oh, Carla, why can’t you settle for honest sex and friendship?

      But he knew she would not. His heart twisted with pity for her. Yet even as he winced at the thought of her distress he could not wait to get away. It suffocated him, all this terrible, exhausting emotion. It made him want to go out on the moors and run and run and run until he couldn’t think, could barely breathe—and still keep on running.

      Well, at least there would be no emotion at Suze Manoir’s party. Jay laughed aloud at the thought. He got out of the car, stuffed the envelope under his arm and crossed the street.

      It took him time to get into the house. Once in, though, it was relatively easy to find Suze. He tracked her down to a room with rotating disco lights and loud seventies music. She was dancing energetically to Abba, but as soon as he arrived she dropped her partner’s hand and rushed across to him.

      ‘Jay! You got here.’

      ‘I even got in,’ he said dryly. ‘Who on earth have you got on the door? Murder Incorporated?’

      ‘Oh that’s Harry Brown and his friends. He’s Zoe’s brother.’

      ‘Zoe?’

      ‘She lives here. It’s half her party.’

      ‘Well, she certainly gives a great bouncer service,’ he said. ‘The guys out there have a technique that makes your average killer shark look like Miss Hospitality.’

      ‘She’s very efficient,’ said Suze demurely. ‘In fact—well, never mind. Have you got my contract?’

      ‘Have you got my research assistant?’ he countered.

      ‘Maybe.’

      She was looking naughty, he thought. Or it could be a trick of the whirling light.

      He said, ‘This isn’t a game, Susan. I’ve got a major speech to give at the Communications Conference in Venice next month. And there isn’t a single note or reference to build on.’

      ‘Come and let me find you a drink,’ Suze said soothingly. ‘And you can tell me how you let it get away from you.’

      ‘Something soft. I’m driving,’ he said absently. ‘It happened because I delegated, and the wretched girl hasn’t done a thing.’

      Suze opened the fridge. ‘Juice or water?’

      ‘Water, please.’

      He wandered round the kitchen. The lighting was better than in the drawing room disco, but it was still clearly a room decked out for a party. There were candles and trailing greenery everywhere, and someone had sprayed ‘Sixteen Again’ on the mirror in gold paint.

      ‘How old is your friend?’ Jay asked, recoiling.

      Suze poured water into a big wine glass for him.

      ‘Twenty-three. But she says everyone should be sixteen at a party.’

      ‘Original!’

      Suze laughed and gave him the glass.

      ‘She’s not as daft as she sounds. She has her reasons. Now, let me have a look at that contract.’

      He gave her the envelope.

      ‘It’s a long shot, I know. If you can’t help, then I’ll call the bigger agencies on Monday.’

      Suze was running her eyes down the job description. ‘Hmm? You know the other agencies aren’t as creative as I am.’

      ‘No, but they have more people on their books.’

      She looked up. ‘You don’t want more, Jay. You want the right one. And I may just have her for you.’

      He was intrigued. ‘May just? That doesn’t sound like you.’

      Suze grinned. ‘Well, she’s thinking about it. I need you to help me convince her.’

      Jay sighed. ‘And how do I do that?’

      ‘Do I need to tell the great PR guru?’ mocked Suze. ‘Charm her. Challenge her.’ She added kindly, ‘You can do it!’

      There was a pregnant silence. ‘The bigger agencies are so much easier,’ said Jay plaintively.

      She laughed aloud. ‘But not nearly so much fun. Now, listen, we’ll need to do a double act…’

      Zoe had been going upstairs when she heard the altercation at the front door. She had turned, intending to go and see if she needed to intervene. Harry and his friends could sometimes take their bouncer duties a bit too seriously, she knew.

      So she had been halfway down the stairs when she saw him.

      He was wearing dark trousers of some sort, and a wonderful shirt in sunset colours. Silk, she was sure. You would not have got that purity of colour in any other material. Zoe could not afford silk, but that did not stop her dreaming over it in the shops. She knew the way the material moved on the body, catching the light in a thousand different ways. As the man had stood there, arguing with Harry and his suspicious mates, she’d been almost dazzled by that sheen, that hint of gold, those little wasp stings of tangerine and apricot and purple among the principal colour.

      What sort of man came to a suburban party in flame-coloured silk?

      And then she’d looked at his face.

      And stopped dead. Her heart had seemed to contract in her breast.

      He hadn’t been looking at her. He had not even seen her. If