SHOPPING for something specific, Roberta discovered the following day, was a completely different matter from browsing. In the past, her clothes shopping had been highly unadventurous. A few smart outfits but, generally speaking, mostly clothes that she could comfortably wear to work. Things that could survive finger paints and baked beans and be thrown in the wash without her suffering traumatic attacks wondering whether the delicate material would be damaged by water that was too hot.
Just out of sheer habit, she had initially been drawn to affordable items in muted colours, but Emily was having nothing of that.
She had launched herself into looking for something for herself with gusto, and she demanded that Roberta do likewise.
‘You look like an old maid in grey,’ she had said right from the start, and Roberta had grimaced.
‘I am an old maid,’ she had said, amused, which had only served to stoke Emily’s determination to find her something bright, adventurous and very haute couture.
They trailed from shop to shop, and it amazed Roberta that a teenager was more au fait with what was going on in the world of fashion than she was.
Did that say something about her, or about Emily? she wondered. Or maybe the simple truth was that being brought up with money did away with the constant need to compromise, which most people were forced to do.
It was hard to fight Emily’s determined enthusiasm, though, and after a while Roberta allowed herself to flow with the tide.
They finally arrived back at the house laden with bags, and Roberta noted with relief that Grant was not back yet. She had felt unbearably guilty charging the dress to his account, and she had a feeling that if he so much as cross-examined her she would have no hesitation in returning everything to the store and making do with what she had in her wardrobe.
They were not due to leave until seven-thirty, and at six-thirty promptly Emily hustled her off to the bedroom like a little girl, insisting that she couldn’t possibly get dressed, made up and perfumed in under an hour.
Roberta had never seen her so excited before. It was only an invitation to a dinner, but she was reacting as though she had been granted her dream of a lifetime. In a lot of ways it was rather sad. Had Grant so absented himself from his daughter’s life that his sudden presence there had such a staggering effect? In one way, it was heart-warming, but in another it was vaguely dangerous, because what would happen if for some reason this fragile truce was broken?
Children needed the continued support and interest of their parents. Did Grant realise that? She frowned and began applying her make up, taking much more care than was usual for her, accentuating her wide grey eyes, which she personally considered her best feature, with smoky black mascara.
When she finally inspected herself in the full-size mirror in the bedroom, she wondered whether she was looking at the same person. There was nothing discreet or understated about her appearance tonight at all.
The dress was seductively figure-hugging, designed to stir the imagination rather than state the obvious, and the high-heeled shoes made her look longer and slimmer than she had expected. She felt terribly glamorous. Emily’s expert approval, which Roberta found highly amusing considering her age, made her laugh, but she wasn’t laughing as they descended the staircase to where Grant was waiting for them both.
In fact she felt horribly shy and nervous, and it was an effort to compose her features into their usual unruffled expression.
He complimented Emily on her appearance, which made her blush even though she tried desperately to appear blasé, then he ran his eyes over Roberta, quickly at first, then more slowly, taking her in inch by leisurely inch until she felt her legs go wobbly at the lengthy inspection.
She immediately began asking him a series of questions about the venue, simply to take her mind off her self-consciousness, keeping up her prattle as they walked towards the car, trying not to react as he opened the door for her and she slipped inside, lightly brushing him in so doing.
The car glided through the streets, which had been meticulously cleared of snow, towards the hotel which was on the outskirts of the city centre.
It turned out not to be the grand, highly efficient but impersonal hotel that she was expecting, but a rather smaller place, more along the lines of some of the exquisite country inns to be found in England. There were a lot of cars parked outside, and as soon as they entered she felt herself relax in the throng of people.
Mr Ishikomo and his wife greeted them personally, and Grant introduced both of them to his colleagues, most of whom had brought their children, and after some hesitation Emily was drawn away by a girl of her own age, and vanished into the crowd.
‘Just remember, Emily,’ Grant said, as she was walking away. ‘No drink.’
Emily looked over her shoulder at him with a cryptic smile. ‘I told you, Dad, that’s not my scene. Getting drunk is very un-cool.’
‘You really seem to have had an effect on her,’ he said, turning to Roberta and handing her a glass of champagne from the tray being passed around by the waiter. ‘She seems far more settled than she was a few months ago. Mother,’ he said drily, ‘tries her best, but I think she finds Emily rather daunting at times.’
If she finds Emily daunting, Roberta thought, then lord knows how she finds you.
‘Grandparents are in an awkward position,’ she said non-committally. ‘They sometimes find it difficult to lay down the law with their grandchildren. The bond is usually too much of a sympathetic one.’
He was listening to her, his head cocked slightly to one side.
‘You could be right,’ he agreed, staring down at her intently. ‘I suppose you have quite a bit of experience of seeing that sort of thing firsthand in your job.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’
‘And tell me,’ he continued lazily, ‘what do you think of single-parent families?’ He twirled the stem of his champagne glass and then took a deep mouthful, not taking his eyes off hers.
Roberta sipped nervously from her glass. ‘It’s a broad subject,’ she said, wondering where exactly this line of questioning was leading.
‘What do you think of Vanessa?’ he asked, his swift change of subject taking her by surprise.
‘I barely know the woman,’ Roberta said, bewildered. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I had lunch with her today. She seems eager to fill the role of my late wife, and now I think that perhaps Emily would benefit from having a mother-figure around, don’t you?’
Roberta stiffened. ‘I have no idea. I haven’t got my crystal ball with me at the moment, so I couldn’t possibly hazard a guess at how Emily would turn out if you married Vanessa.’ She almost found herself choking on the words.
‘But what do you think? You have got some thoughts on the matter, I take it. You seem to on every other matter.’
Roberta looked away, aware of her fingers unsteadily clutching the stem of her glass. ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled. ‘If you’re in love with her and the feeling is mutual, then—’
‘Love?’ His eyes held a cynical glint. ‘Who’s talking about love? You don’t believe in all that claptrap, do you?’
Her eyes flashed angrily at him. She had thought that she was in love with Brian, had sworn afterwards that she would never love anyone again, that she would never put herself in the position of being at the mercy of someone else, but now that the question had been asked she found that, oddly enough, when she considered it, yes, she still did believe in love.
The mere acknowledgement of that scared her because she knew that she shouldn’t. Love was capricious, unpredictable; it caused pain. She hadn’t even loved Brian, and look at how the memory of him could still stir her to feel sullied. So what if she truly loved a man and was disappointed in her love?
Even so, for some reason, the thought of life without it suddenly seemed hollow.
‘I don’t know what’s made you so cynical,’ she responded tightly, ‘but I really don’t see the point of a relationship if it’s to be conducted like a business affair.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he mused thoughtfully. ‘Business affairs are far less taxing on the nerves than emotional flights of fancy.’
‘If you say so,’ Roberta responded in a clipped voice.
She didn’t want to pursue this conversation. She looked around the room, inordinately relieved when some of his business colleagues approached them, and even more relieved when one of them said jokingly, ‘It’s not fair for you to hog the prettiest girl in the room,’ and led her away towards the bar. He was a young man, with a boyish, friendly face. His wife, he told her, was mulling about somewhere in the room talking girls’ talk with a friend. He hated girls’ talk, he confided, and he was sick of shop talk. So he asked her all about London, and Roberta obligingly made all the right responses, but her thoughts were a thousand miles away.
Still dwelling, in fact, on her conversation with Grant. Was he really planning on marrying Vanessa? He had hardly seemed besotted with her but then, as he had pointed out, that was not a necessity when it came to marriage. In fact, it was a drawback.
A while ago, he had not wanted to give the other woman any scope for setting her sights higher than a romp in bed with him, but he was beginning to see what Roberta had seen all along, and that was that Emily needed a maternal hand in her life.
Roberta finished her glass of champagne and absent-mindedly accepted a refill.
There was no point in thinking too long or too hard on what Grant Adams decided to do with his life. That wasn’t her problem. In under two weeks she would be on a plane bound for Heathrow. She would be leaving all this behind, and not a minute too soon.
She tried very hard to concentrate on what Brad was saying to her. Across the room, her eyes rested on Grant, who was indolently dominating the conversation among a group of businessmen who appeared to be hanging on to his every word, and a few women who were eyeing him with blatant interest.
Emily was nowhere to be seen, though she did make a reappearance when dinner was served, a casual but elaborately concocted cold buffet meal, with everything from smoked salmon and tiger prawns to salads of every description. And, in the centre of the long table, an ice figure of two swans, their necks entwined, dominated the spread.
‘Seems a shame that it’s destined to become a huge puddle of water, doesn’t it?’ she commented to Brad and his wife, and they laughed.
It was after midnight before the party began disbanding. Roberta thought with amusement that you could always tell when people were thinking of leaving. They always began complaining about the weather and wondering aloud how long their journey home would take.
She was murmuring her goodbyes to Brad and his wife, assuring them that yes, she would take them up on their invitation to visit their sprawling house in the surburbs just whenever she wanted, really, when she heard Grant’s voice from behind her and she swung around to face him.
‘We seemed to have rather missed each other this evening,’ he drawled, watching her.
‘Don’t we?’ Roberta answered. ‘Are you ready to leave? If so, I’ll just go and get my coat. And Emily, wherever she is.’
‘Come with me,’ he said, taking her by the hand, and she felt her skin begin to tingle again. ‘Let’s have a few words with Mr Ishikomo and his wife before we go.’
Roberta nodded. She had spoken briefly to both of them in the course of the evening, but there had been too many people to hold any kind of conversation, and besides, as the hosts, they were obliged to mingle.
Emily had drifted out from one of the adjoining rooms and she now tagged along, still rather bright-eyed, and Roberta made a cryptic comment about sticking to soft drinks next time she went out, since champagne was definitely soporific.
‘You old timers,’ Emily teased. ‘In a year’s time you won’t be up to going out at all. You’ll just want to spend your evening whiling away your time in front of cups of cocoa.’
‘Does that scenario appeal?’ Grant murmured lazily in her ear.
‘I can think of worse,’ Roberta said lightly. ‘What about you?’
‘Depends who I’m whiling away my time with.’
Roberta flashed him a polite, expressionless smile. If he planned on marrying Vanessa, it didn’t take a great deal of imagination to work out exactly what nature of whiling away they would be doing, and she doubted that it would involve cups of cocoa.
She tried to imagine what she would be doing in a year’s time, and drew a blank.
One thing was for certain: whatever she would be doing, she would be doing it on her own. That thought, which previously had filled her with a light-headed feeling of freedom after Brian, now filled her with a vague painful numbness, and she remembered what she had said to Emily earlier on about being an old maid. Didn’t it have a dreadfully lonely ring to it?
It struck her that she didn’t want to end up embittered and alone. She wanted companionship, but she wanted excitement as well and, as far as she could see, the two were not compatible. Excitement, she thought, was the forte of people like Grant Adams, men that she should run from as fast as her legs would take her.
She thought back to that night in the cabin, the warmth and hunger of his caresses. Heady excitement. She felt her body squirm.
Emily was prattling on to Mr Ishikomo and his wife, talking quickly until they told her laughingly that she had to slow down if they were to understand a word of what she was saying.
‘Our English,’ Mrs Ishikomo said, her delicate features rueful, ‘is still not so very good.’
Roberta smiled. ‘It’s a whole lot better than my Japanese,’ she said, to which Mr Ishikomo replied,
‘You must get Mr Adams here to teach you it, then!’
‘I had no idea that you spoke Japanese,’ she said spontaneously, turning to him, momentarily distracted from what she had been about to say, which was that he would need to be a very good teacher if he could teach her Japanese in under two weeks. Not, she thought, that he would make a very good teacher anyway. His patience wouldn’t run to it.
‘There are quite a few things you don’t know about me,’ he said, amused.
‘But time enough to find out,’ Mr Ishikomo said, his face beaming as he looked at them from behind his spectacles.
Roberta opened her mouth to explain that a fortnight was really not a very long time, not that she wanted to find out anyway, but he continued with evident pleasure.
‘I hear about your adventure in the log cabin,’ he said, still smiling. ‘My wife thinks that it is all very romantic.’
Roberta’s face had gone bright red. ‘It was all an accident,’ she stammered. ‘We... Grant...he had some work to do, he needed the journey up to finish it, so I drove him up, except the snow...we were marooned; it really wasn’t planned at all.’ Instead of sounding clear and articulate she heard her voice dwindling pathetically into silence, and wondered why Grant wasn’t saying something. After all, the whole damned episode had been entirely his fault.
‘In my country,’ Mr Ishikomo said, ‘courtships are not conducted in quite this manner but, of course, you westerners, you do things differently.’
Mrs Ishikomo was nodding her agreement and Roberta looked at them, at a loss for words.
She darted a glance at Emily, who was grinning, enjoying the spectacle of an adult in an embarrassing position.
‘I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding here.’ Roberta cleared her throat, deciding that she might as well say something since Grant was maintaining an infuriating silence.
‘Darling,’ she heard him whisper in her ear, ‘how can you say that?’ He looked at his Japanese hosts and smiled, circling Roberta with his arm and pulling her lightly towards him. ‘As Roberta said, it wasn’t planned. Not even I could time the weather so beautifully.’ There was some amused laughter at this point, and Roberta gritted her teeth together, wondering what the hell was going on. ‘But we did enjoy our little sojourn there, didn’t we?’
Emily was wearing a pleased smile, as though she had somehow manoeuvred the whole thing.
‘We did?’ Roberta asked weakly.
‘We certainly did.’ Grant’s voice was firm and his fingers tightened on her arm.
Mr Ishikomo adjusted his spectacles. ‘Well, we are here for two weeks more before we return to Japan. We would be honoured if you would be our guests at a friend’s house. It is on a lake, and very charming.’
‘We’d love to,’ Grant accepted, his fingers tightening a little more on her arm.
‘I fix a date with you when I see you tomorrow.’
As soon as they were back in the car Emily began with a tirade of questions, none of which Roberta answered. She had a feeling that if she attempted any form of speech just yet, the result would be an unintelligible croak.
She stared out of the window, listening to Grant’s smooth, persuasive voice, and as soon as they got home she said to Emily in as normal a voice as she could muster, ‘You must be off to bed now. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘But...’ Emily protested, then her face creased into an impulsive smile. ‘I guess I’ll have to listen to you from now on.’
Roberta said something inoffensive and vague, and as soon as Emily had vanished out of sight she turned to Grant fiercely.
‘I want a word with you,’ she hissed. ‘Now!’
Grant looked anything but daunted by her tone of voice. If anything, there was amusement in his eyes, and that only infuriated her further.
She stalked off towards the lounge and sat down on one of the chairs, her lips pursed as he strolled into the room without any apparent haste.
‘What’s going on?’ she burst out furiously. ‘How could you let Mr Ishikomo and his wife think that we...that we...’ Her words ended in spluttered incoherence.
‘You’re in quite a state,’ he said lazily, standing up. ‘Would you care for a drink? It might soothe your nerves.’
He walked across to the bar and poured himself a glass of brandy, taking his time, standing by the bar and looking at her over the rim of his glass as he took a mouthful of the liquid.
‘I am not in a state!’ Roberta said in a high voice. ‘And I do not want a drink. What I want is an explanation. Why didn’t you tell Mr Ishikomo that he was on the wrong track? Why didn’t you tell him that there’s nothing between us?’
‘There is, though, isn’t there?’ Grant returned silkily. ‘Some very good sex, for one thing.’
‘We’ve been through that,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ve told you that it was a mistake. In fact,’ she lied, ‘I’d completely forgotten about it.’
Grant looked at her disbelievingly, and Roberta felt the blood rush to her head. The arrogance of the man, the conceit! He must be damned certain of his sexual charisma to stand there and tell her that he had made any kind of lasting impression on her. The fact that he had made her even angrier.
‘This is all beside the point!’ she shouted. ‘You still haven’t answered my question!’
He prowled around the room for a moment and Roberta followed him with her eyes, angry at his behaviour and at the fact that even now, at the very height of her rage, his body was still sending out messages that her own found it impossible to ignore.
He had shed his dinner-jacket in the hall, and his crisp white shirt moulded the broad width of his shoulders, reminding her with sickening clarity of that hard, bronzed torso that had sent her senses swimming.
She tore her gaze away from him and reminded him coldly that she was still waiting for his answer.
Finally he sat down on the chair opposite hers, stretching out his long legs on the coffee-table in front of him.
‘It was convenient,’ he said succinctly, and she stared at him in complete bewilderment.
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Mr Ishikomo, as I said, is unused to our western customs— ‘
‘Your western customs,’ she corrected, knowing exactly to what he was referring.
He shrugged as if the distinction didn’t really matter, and swallowed some more of his drink. ‘Whatever. The fact is that he incorrectly assumed that we were slightly more involved than we are.’
‘Slightly more involved? Isn’t that a bit of an understatement?’
‘So it is,’ Grant agreed. ‘I must be picking that up from you.’
‘You could have put him straight,’ Roberta informed him, more in control of herself now and determined not to give in to another explosive burst of anger. ‘You could have told him the truth.’
‘That we made love?’
‘No!’ she snapped. ‘All I’m saying is that you didn’t have to encourage him in his bizarre ideas about us.’
‘I told you, it was convenient. There are still a few more signatures needed on that deal.’
‘I see,’ Roberta said tightly. ‘You didn’t want him to renege on it because he found your behaviour offensive to his principles.’
‘Something like that.’
‘That’s despicable. And what about Emily? How are you going to explain all this to her?’
Grant stared at her blankly, as though he didn’t foresee any problems there at all. ‘She’ll understand,’ he said at last. ‘She’s a big girl now.’
Roberta sighed impatiently. ‘I don’t appreciate being used,’ she said with considerable restraint. ‘What you did was unnecessary. I’m sure Mr Ishikomo would have signed whatever he needed to sign without your committing me to some stupid, phoney relationship. Besides, what about your marriage plans to Vanessa?’ she threw in as an afterthought. ‘I thought you were slotting her in the role of surrogate mother for Emily?’
‘That was hypothetical,’ Grant said, averting his eyes. ‘She wouldn’t fit the bill at all, as a matter of fact.’ A dull red flush darkened his cheeks, and Roberta stared at him with dawning comprehension.
‘I was convenient in more than one way, wasn’t I?’ she asked. ‘You wanted an excuse for getting Vanessa off your back, and what better than to inform her that you and I were involved in a relationship?’
He didn’t deny it, and she could have thrown something at him.
‘Well, I’m not in the market for exploitation!’ She stood up, shaking with anger, but before she could leave the room he had crossed the space between them, his dark eyebrows meeting in a frown.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, and when she turned away he forced her back to look at him, holding her chin in between his fingers so that she had no option but to meet his eyes.
‘I didn’t think that you would react so violently. I have to admit that I acted without thinking.’ It was as much of an apology as she was ever likely to get out of him, but it wasn’t enough.
That’s the problem with you, she thought, you just don’t think. He had made love to her at the cabin, initially because she brought back to him memories of the woman he had loved, and then to satisfy his passing curiosity. He would quite happily have a two-week relationship with her, if only to meet what he considered the challenge of making her abandon her high-sounding principles.
He didn’t care about her. She was a world apart from his life, as foreign to him as if she lived on another planet instead of in another country.
It didn’t cross his mind that he had the power to hurt her. It was the first time she had admitted as much without sugar-coating it in a jumble of reasons why that couldn’t possibly happen. The raw truth of it was, she now realised, that, in spite of everything, she had allowed herself to be put in a situation from which she could emerge a catastrophic loser.
She felt the tears of self-pity stinging her eyelids and she blinked rapidly. This was so different, wasn’t it? Nothing like Brian. Because she hadn’t loved Brian, had she? Infatuation for a while, yes. But never love. She knew now, because this was love. This irrational, intense feeling she had for Grant Adams was love. She was hopelessly, stupidly in love with him.
‘I thought you would see it as a harmless and temporary bit of subterfuge.’
‘I hate you, Grant Adams.’
A frown of displeasure crossed his handsome face.
‘You’re self-centred and arrogant, and you have no idea how to treat people!’ There was a lot more she could say on the subject, but the words refused to come out. They remained locked inside her head.
‘You’re over-reacting,’ he muttered.
‘I am not over-reacting. I don’t suppose anyone has ever told you this before, but you don’t think twice about taking advantage of women, do you? You go through life using people to suit your own ends. You men are all the bloody same!’
He was wearing an unreadable expression when he looked at her. ‘That’s a bit of a generalisation, isn’t it?’ he murmured softly, his green eyes piercing into hers intently, and she burst out in a rush,
‘Is it? Is it really? Not from what I can see! You wanted to know about Brian. Well, I’ll tell you, he used me.’ There was self-disgust and bitterness in her voice. ‘He made wild promises of love; he would have promised the moon if it had been within his grasp, but of course it was all a ploy. He wanted something from me all right, but it wasn’t love and friendship.’
‘Carry on,’ Grant said urgently.
‘So that you can have a good laugh at my expense?’ Roberta jeered, her jaw aching from the effort of withholding her tears.
‘That’s one sin I’m not guilty of,’ he said roughly, forcing her to look at him when all she wanted to do was to look away.
Now that she had started, she had a burning, compulsive desire to get it all off her chest. Confession cleansed, and there was no one she had spoken to before about Brian. When her friends in London had asked, she had assumed a smiling, rueful demeanour and shrugged her shoulders philosophically.
‘He... My mother had recently died, you see. We were very close, just the opposite of you and Emily.’ She took a deep breath and ventured a smile. ‘I was a bit of an emotional wreck at the time, and he came along. Compliments, flowers and good wine. The sort of stuff that bowls girls over, but I had always thought that I would never be caught by that trap. But I was. He was good-looking, and I guess he picked me up when I was down and I clung to him, totally blind to what was really going on. Pathetic, isn’t it?’
Grant didn’t answer, and she wondered what he was thinking. If he was laughing at her, then he certainly didn’t show it.
‘I had been left some money by Mum. Not a massive amount, but enough to keep me going for quite a while if I invested it properly.’ Her voice was calm now, not hysterical at all. ‘He knew that from the very start. It was no secret. Who knows, maybe he was genuinely attracted to me to begin with, before he decided that I was better suited as a meal-ticket than a prospective wife.’
Grant knew what was coming. She could see it on his face.
‘Need I carry on?’ she asked him unsteadily. ‘He persuaded me out of my money and I stupidly let him. So, you see, I’m not just a prim school-ma’am type, I’m a foolish prim school-ma’am type.’
Grant clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘My description of you was out of line. And untrue, anyway.’
She couldn’t bear his sympathy. Sympathy always rubbed shoulders with pity, and pity was something she could do without.
She fidgeted to escape his grip and his fingers tightened on her arms.
‘I’m not like him,’ he said tightly. ‘Look at me! Do you see me as being cast in the same mould?’
Roberta looked at him, and her heart gave a little uncomfortable leap. There was a depth and intelligence to him, a sense of humour, that had all been absent from Brian, but there was no way that she was going to admit as much. There was no way that she was going to let him know how vulnerable she was to him.
He was incapable of love, just like Brian had been. The unbidden thought surged through her and she felt a quiver of panic.
Wasn’t that the crux of it? She wanted his love, however fiercely she had tried to deny it to herself. Not safety, control over her life. She could do without those. What she needed was his love, and that was the one thing he could never give her, or anyone else. He was locked in his past and she, for one, did not possess the key to release him.
She jerked out of his grip and took a shaky step backwards.
‘I’m going up to bed now,’ she muttered, more sharply than she had intended.
‘Stay down here. Talk to me,’ he said harshly, and she shook her head.
‘What else is there to talk about? I just don’t like being used. If I over-reacted, as you put it, then I’m sorry, but I don’t approve of men who exploit women and, as you can see, I speak from experience.’
She turned away abruptly and walked towards the door, half expecting him to try and stop her, but he didn’t. He remained where he was, and as soon as she was out of the room Roberta ran all the way up to her bedroom and locked the door.
All sorts of thoughts were running through her head, all sorts of agonising questions, and she didn’t want to address any of them. It was all pointless, anyway.
Time would answer them; time would cure this painful, confused ache in her heart.