A Deeper Dimension (15 page)

“Dear God!” He spoke and she visibly jumped as she took in his unexpected nearness. She hadn’t been aware of his approach. He stood looking at her, his face very pale and his eyes darkly shadowed. His hands were clenched to his sides and the knuckles showed white against the dark hairs. He moved and she was being held very gently against his chest with his face in her hair. “Diana, I’m sorry. Never in my whole life have I done that to someone. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He stroked her hair over and over as he crooned the words. She moved her face for a moment, hiding in his broad, comforting shoulder. It was hard to comprehend just what she was feeling; pain of this sort was an entirely new experience. She wondered how she had ever existed without experiencing it before. Something inside her stiffened and she moved away from Alex sharply. She stared at him without expression, her eyes bitter and stony; she hated him for what he made her feel.

He drew his breath in sharply at what he read in her face and began to speak, but she cut him off. “Don’t be sorry, Alex.” She almost didn’t recognise her own voice, it sounded so strange. Her lips moved in an imitation of a smile. “I can take anything you dish out. It doesn’t matter to me.” She watched his face go blank as he took in her words, his eyes focused on her yet unseeing. She looked away and at her desk. “If you don’t mind, I’ll get back to work. After all, it’s what I’m being paid for.”

She pretended to concentrate on her opened briefcase in front of her when she sat down, and she didn’t look up when Alex left the room without explanation.

The rest of the day was spent in near silence. Alex was very remote, almost as if he didn’t recognise the presence of someone else in the room. Diana rarely looked up from her desk in an effort to totally immerse herself in what she was working on, but it didn’t work. She made more mistakes than she had ever made before in her life, and by the end of the afternoon was almost crying with frustration. She left the office without saying goodbye and hurried home to go straight to bed. The day had exhausted her so much that she fell immediately into a deep sleep and didn’t stir all night. In the morning, when she finally opened her eyes, she had the feeling of being drugged from too much sleep, and she was horrified to find out how late in the day it was. She jumped out of bed quickly. Even though it was Saturday, she still had a lot to do, for tomorrow she had promised to go and see Grace Bradshaw. There was a heavy load of work waiting for her: the apartment needed cleaning and groceries had to be bought. Diana threw herself into the day’s chores with something akin to desperation and did not stop until late in the evening when she was forced to stop from sheer exhaustion. Again, her night’s sleep was deep to the point of being dreamless and the morning found her listless and tired. She did not attempt to get dressed until it was time to go in the afternoon, spending the morning in an aimless fashion as she drank coffee and lazed over the Sunday paper.

Grace was happy to see her; Diana watched her face light up with pleasure when she answered the front door. Eagerly talking, Grace led her into a comfortable sitting room and took her light coat to hang up in the hall closet. Diana chose one of the big armchairs near a fireplace when she saw a tea set near one with fresh pastries on a tray.

Grace came back almost immediately, her face crinkled into a broad smile. “Oh, good,” she exclaimed. “You’ve made yourself comfortable. Now we can sit and have a really good talk. Aren’t these pastries nice? Here, have one. Mrs. Cummings is a very good cook, and we’re lucky to have her. How are you, my dear? You look so tired.”

“I’ve slept too much this weekend,” she smiled. “That’s as bad as not sleeping enough.”

Grace laughed. “Isn’t it, though? But tell me, how was the picnic last Sunday? Did you and Alex have a good time?” Grace was alarmed to see an expressionless mask drop over Diana’s face before she replied. Owen was telling things accurately when he had said that there had been an unusual amount of tension at the office lately, and Grace made a sudden shrewd guess as to why.

Diana said carefully, “We had lovely weather that day and Mrs. Mason packed a delicious lunch for us. It couldn’t have been any nicer.”

Grace paused, then asked diffidently, “So you had a nice time on Sunday?”

“The picnic was lovely,” Diana said truthfully, for indeed it had been, except for the end.

Grace was reluctant to leave it at that, but she was in the end very tactful. Instead she asked Diana how she found her work and if she was finding everything within her ability to understand and to cope. Diana relaxed a little and was able to respond with a more natural reply. They were able to talk about most things without any uncomfortable snags and the time passed very pleasantly, until car doors were heard slamming outside and Grace stood up. “That must be Owen!” she exclaimed as she hurried to the front door. “He’d met Alex at the office to go over a few problems and was supposed to be back about a half hour ago.”

Diana idly listened to the voices coming from the front door and suddenly sat up straight. A deep voice was talking back to Grace, the words unintelligible, but the tone unmistakable. Alex had come back with Owen. She made a deliberate attempt to relax and settle back in her chair, only to look down at her hands and start with surprise at her clenched fists. She loosened them as footsteps sounded near in the hall.

Alex was the first in the room, with Grace and Owen following. He slowed abruptly when he saw Diana in the armchair, and his nostrils flared as his head drew back. Then everything was almost too normal with Alex being too polite, and Diana, knowing it all to be a front, almost didn’t bother to respond. It really was a bit ridiculous, she thought, looking around. Everybody knew something was wrong, but everybody was trying their very best not to show that they knew it. She met Alex’s gaze, and they stared at one another for a long moment. She quickly stood up. “Grace, I really must be going,” she said with a smile. “The afternoon is almost gone and I hardly know where it went! Thank you for a lovely talk, and I promise to come again soon.” She turned to Alex and if her eyes didn’t quite meet his, nobody else could tell. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Alex.”

His tone was sarcastic. “So long, Diana.” He made no attempt to move his long legs and she had to step over them on the way to the doorway.

“Oh, Diana,” Grace called, “don’t go! You need your coat.”

Alex was on his feet very quickly. “Sit down, Grace, I’ll get it for her. Is it in the front closet?” Diana turned reluctantly; she didn’t want to be alone with Alex, even for a few minutes in the hall. Alex brushed ahead of her and out to the hall and she followed, feet dragging.

He opened the closet door and looked in it briefly. Pulling out a coat, he held it up. “Yours?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Alex held open the coat and she turned to put her arms through the sleeves. There was a brief moment when his hands rested lightly on her shoulders, and then he was stepping back from her. She turned to thank him and her words faltered at the cold blaze in his eyes. He shook his head sharply when she had begun to speak.

“Don’t bother,” he said abruptly. “We both know that you didn’t need the help.”

Diana closed her eyes. “Dammit, why don’t you just leave me alone?” she whispered. “Why can’t you just shut up and leave me alone?”

He stared at her a minute, a dark flush on the line of his cheekbone. He took her face in his two hands. “I can’t,” he hissed between his clenched teeth. “The waste of any human being is a terrible thing to see.”

“But then, to listen to you, I’m not human, am I?” she said cynically. His hands dropped; he stepped away.

“That’s right. You’re not human.” He moved to the door. “I have to move my car so you can pull out. No sense in wasting time—come on.”

Diana followed him out of the house, stumbling over the doorstep a little as his words echoed in her mind. “No sense in wasting time.” He regarded her as a waste of time. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Nobody matters. Repeat it again, Diana. He doesn’t matter.

She was in her car and driving away, the words still echoing in her mind. “It doesn’t matter,” she gritted between her teeth.

Diana spent the evening at home in a very depressed mood. She tried to force herself to relax, but she couldn’t. She tried to concentrate on a book, and then some work in her briefcase, but she couldn’t. She tried to keep her mind off of Alex, but she couldn’t.

It had been such a brief encounter with him today, but it had upset her very much. She couldn’t help but think of the coming week when she was supposed to spend most of the day with him. “I can’t handle this,” she told her tired face in the mirror. “I really can’t handle this.” She wondered if she should ask for a transfer to somewhere else, but rejected the idea as soon as she had thought it. Alex would ask why, or worse, he would know why, and she couldn’t take that. No, she would have to stick it out. After all, as she had told him, she could take anything he could dish out. She ignored the little voice in her head that called her a liar, and climbed into bed. There was little rest for her that night.

Chapter Seven

“Alicia Payne is here!” Carrie hissed at Diana when she walked into the office the next morning. The door was closed leading to the inner room and Diana eyed it doubtfully.

Her face brightened as she said with a hopefulness evident in her voice, “Maybe Alex wants to talk to her alone and I should make myself scarce for a while.” But Carrie was shaking her head.

“Alex told me to tell you to go right on in whenever you arrived. He’ll want to introduce you to her. I think she’s here to try to convince him that she had nothing to do with that little fiasco a little while ago. The nerve of that girl! She’ll lie through her teeth, and always with the most innocent look in those baby blue eyes. At least Alex knows what she’s like. He can’t possibly be fooled by her now,” Carrie finished speaking with a grim smile of satisfaction.

Diana tapped on the door lightly before walking in. The little scene that she walked into left her a bit more doubtful than Carrie. A slightly built woman was half perched on the side of Alex’s big desk, her beautifully proportioned body posed to show the delightful curves to the fullest advantage. Her hair was a rare shade of reddish blonde that gave off rosy tints in the light. Her eyes, which turned briefly to the door, were indeed a very large and very limpid blue. Her face was heart-shaped and delicately boned, giving her an air of fragility that would arouse the most insensitive of men to a feeling of protectiveness. All in all, Diana thought wryly, she’s a vision of angelical innocence.

Alicia had her small hands up to the tie at Alex’s throat and was smoothing it into place with an intimacy that caused Diana’s eyebrows and mouth to start to twitch. The female cat was establishing her claim to a territory in front of a strange adversary. Alex was watching Alicia with an enigmatic smile on his face. Diana watched the two of them and wished she was somewhere else.

Then Alicia was twisting off of the desk with a graceful move, and coming towards Diana with a warm smile. “You’ve got to be Diana,” she said lightly. “I’m Alicia Payne. You look every bit as pretty as I’ve heard everyone say.”

Diana smiled down at the charming face. “Hello, Alicia. It’s nice to meet you.” She looked up at Alex who had left his desk and had come around to stand by the two girls. “Should I come back a little bit later?”

Alicia protested. “Oh, don’t go, Diana! I wouldn’t want to be the one to send you out of your own office.” Now just what’s that supposed to mean? she wondered. “I was leaving soon anyway. I mainly wanted to come and invite you to a dinner party that I’m giving at the end of the week, Alex.” She turned to Diana. “You, of course, are invited too. It will be fairly small, but formal, and everyone is expected around seven for cocktails.” She looked from one to the other with a pleading smile on her face. “Oh, Diana, please say you’ll come! Alex? You wouldn’t let Diana go to a strange party all by herself, would you?”

He said lazily, “That’s blackmail, Alicia.” She gave a pretty pout. He turned to Diana, who raised her eyebrows enquiringly, but made no comment, leaving the decision to him. He asked Alicia, “What day is the party?”

“Saturday. That way nobody will have to leave early because of work the next day,” she grinned.

“Well, if Diana would like to go, then I’ll go, too.” Alex was watching her face.

“It sounds like fun,” she said, smiling and thinking no such thing. Alex’s mouth twitched slightly. She knew he guessed what she was thinking.

“Good,” said Alicia with satisfaction, and Diana suddenly felt uneasy at the smile she gave. It looked like a cat who had got away with something it shouldn’t have, and she wondered just what Alicia had planned for Saturday night. The girl was so charming that Diana had actually forgotten to keep up a wary guard around her. She watched Alicia talk to Alex excitedly about the party, and she made such a pretty and harmlessly friendly picture that Diana felt she was looking at a split personality. Alicia, when faced, was an enigma of contrasts. Diana felt a sudden revulsion towards the girl, almost as if she had been a snake.

She started to walk to her desk to set her briefcase down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alicia reach up with one hand to caress the side of Alex’s face gently. Diana felt a very strong urge to slap the hand away with a snarl, but managed to walk steadily to her desk and pretend to ignore it. She was amazed at herself; such a feeling of anger over something like that was new. She had never been possessive of anything or anyone in her life. She had always been the first to share or to give in school, and if someone had needed a loan of money, she never questioned, but gave what she could. To feel such a sudden wave of aggressive hostility towards someone else was startling to say the least.