Acts of Love (29 page)

Ben was sitting in a chair next to the telephone, discussing with Arianne when she should do that, when it rang. Ben picked it up. Almost at once he realised that it was Ahmad. When Ahmad asked who was on the line, Ben answered, ‘Benjamin Johnson.’ Ben did not ask who was calling, he merely added, ‘I believe you would like to speak to Arianne. If you will hold the line I’ll go and get her.’

Chapter 19

‘Hello, Ahmad.’

He hadn’t seen her crossing the room because he was behind the
Financial Times
. Engrossed in an article, he had been too distracted to hear her arrival. Somehow, when he lowered the newspaper, he was not surprised to see that she had arrived for lunch with a male friend. Ahmad rose from the settee to greet Arianne and her companion. He stretched his hands out to take hers, leaned forward and kissed her. Claridge’s musicians were playing soothingly, and the large, elegant, comfortable room was busy with expensively turned-out men and women having pre-luncheon drinks. Ahmad extended his hand again, this time to shake Ben’s.

‘Hello.’ The big charming smile, the direct look into Ben’s eyes, a gesture: fingers to his temple, as if calling on his mind for an answer, ‘Ah, the man who answered the telephone yesterday morning?’

‘Quite right,’ Ben’s reply.

‘Arianne, how lovely you look.’

Arianne’s pleasure at seeing Ahmad was evident. She was beaming when she made introductions between the two men.

All three sat down and the waiter arrived with fresh glasses for Ahmad’s guests. He poured champagne. ‘You will, of course, stay to lunch with us, Ben,’ Ahmad offered graciously.

‘No, I won’t, actually. I have just enough time for a quick hello and a glass of wine, then I must be off to catch a plane. Another time. I hope there will be many other times for the three of us to dine together.’

Well, he’s quick to be staking his claim. Now this is interesting, thought Ahmad. Arianne has a lover, and a handsome, sexy one at that. He was actually amused, pleased that she had been audacious enough to bring him around for Ahmad to check
out. A candidate for a new
ménage à trois
? She never ceased to amaze him. It also excited Ahmad. This was the first man other than Jason and himself that Arianne had had since he had known her, if you excluded the men he or Jason had introduced into their orgies to amuse the three of them. He liked the look of Ben; to think of him sexually with Arianne was to imagine the three of them in sexual ecstasy.

He turned his attention back to Arianne. ‘I’ve brought you a memento.’

She accepted it with obvious delight. While she fussed with the silver wrapping-paper and red and purple, shiny silk ribbons, the two men talked about the business article Ahmad had been reading when they arrived – the beginning of a City scandal. Anyone in the room watching them might have noted that both men were busy sizing each other up.

The parcel, when unwrapped, revealed a large photograph of Ahmad and Arianne in a stunningly beautiful Fabergé picture-frame, taken on the
Osiris
sometime during the Nile race. The two were looking at each other. In the background, a line of lateen sails was billowing in the wind as they raced past them. They looked a happy and handsome couple. It wasn’t nearly as revealing as the other photographs in Arianne’s house, but there was something sensuous, romantic, erotic even, about the picture. Arianne showed only delight at having the picture ‘as a record of the thrilling, two-week race up the Nile’.

The three chatted amiably for several minutes. Ben found Ahmad attractive, an interesting man. ‘I take it you two have not seen each other since Christmas? That’s a lot of catching-up to do. Thanks for the drink, Ahmad. I’m really pleased to meet you.’ Ben rose from his chair and shook Ahmad’s hand. He kissed Arianne on the cheek, and then took his leave of them.

Ben had been curious about Ahmad – not overly, but definitely curious about the man whom he had seen in the photograph at Number 12, Three Kings Yard. He had not expected the charisma of the man, the seductive charm that emanated from him. He was something special. Ben could understand women finding him irresistible. But he did not feel threatened by Ahmad. Ben was so secure in Arianne’s love for him that he felt, if anything, sorry for Ahmad Salah Ali. The man had lost the most divine of women
to Ben. Ben guessed he would not take it very well. He had just had a drink with a man who was many things, but certainly not one of the world’s great losers.

When the call had come through from Ahmad that he was going to be in London and wanted to take Arianne to lunch, both Ben and Arianne were relieved that Ahmad had surfaced at last. Arianne wanted very much that Ahmad should know she was marrying again, and how happy she was. Ben and she had actually made plans for Arianne to go to see Ahmad sometime in the very week he had called. Ben and his polo team were flying off to a sale of polo ponies. Arianne would have been at a loose end without him for a few days. They had agreed that would be the perfect time for her to spend with Ahmad. Now, as Ben walked from Claridge’s, he was pleased that the timing had worked out for them. But, having met the man, he doubted that Arianne would have her few days with him. He might have played second best once, but was Ahmad going to assume an even lesser role second time around? And anyway, that was not an option open to him. But friendship was. That was between Arianne and Ahmad. He had every faith in Arianne that she would work things out.

‘He’s very pleasant,’ Ahmad told Arianne as they watched Ben walking away.

‘Yes, he is. I feel very lucky to have him.’

‘As a friend?’

‘Yes, as a friend.’

‘And a lover …’

Arianne took a long drink of champagne from the glass that had now been refilled for the third time since she had sat down. Ahmad ordered another bottle. ‘Yes, as a lover,’ she answered.

‘Is he a good lover, Arianne? He looks like he could be.’ Arianne should have expected a question like that from Ahmad. But somehow she hadn’t. She felt very private about her intimate life with Ben. But she knew Ahmad. The easiest way out would be to answer him truthfully.

‘Yes, a very good lover. He makes me happy, Ahmad.’

‘Good. That’s all that matters.’ He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He held on to it and stroked it.

‘I’m so glad you feel that way,’ she told him. Arianne was not
just saying that; she really meant it. On hearing that he was pleased for her, she gave an inward sigh of relief, and relaxed. It was only then that she realised she had been anxious about this meeting and how Ahmad would take to Ben, and his seeing her with another man.

Arianne hadn’t realised how difficult it was going to be to tell him she was remarrying. She had not reckoned that she would still be so physically attracted to Ahmad now that Ben had come into her life and she had fallen in love. But she was. That old erotic magic was still very much there. There it might be, but she felt no conflict in giving up erotic love and sex with Ahmad. Love had chosen for her, and that had sealed Ahmad’s and Arianne’s fate. It was as simple as that. That was the moment she chose to tell Ahmad about her impending marriage. But she was not quick enough. Ahmad snatched the moment from her when he suggested:

‘I’ve booked a table in the dining room. But I have a better idea. Why don’t we have lunch in my suite? I have the Art Deco one. Remember? The one with the massive bathroom that you like so much and that lovely, large sitting room. I have had it filled with vases of spring flowers and orchids. We can have a nice leisurely lunch there at a table set in front of the fireplace, and I can catch up on all your news.’

‘Oh, yes, a lovely idea. You always have lovely ideas, Ahmad.’ Arianne was very pleased at the change of plan. It seemed far more natural to her to be alone with Ahmad in a more intimate place than Claridge’s dining room to talk about the monumental changes she was making in her life.

Ahmad watched her while she was studying the menu. She looked different, completely happy and stunningly sensuous in the Jean Muir dress she was wearing. The black silk jersey liked her body: it wrapped itself around her and showed her off to best advantage. The silk jersey plunged dangerously loose between her breasts to form a V-neckline that went nearly to her waist, yet it hugged the full, rounded breasts and showed the faintest shadow of nipple. She knew how much he liked that dress. She wore very high-heeled black crocodile shoes and cream-coloured stockings so sheer as to seem almost not there at all. She wore also the ruby ring he had given her on their trip up the Nile. She
had dressed to please him. And she was right to do so: it made him happy that she could still obey her instincts towards him, new lover or not.

They lingered over the bottle of champagne. Ahmad charmed Arianne with risqué stories of his escapades with the women he had been involved with since they had been together. There was nothing unusual about that: sex and women had always been the first equation in his life. He had a Don Juanesque way of telling his stories. It could excite women to want to be part of this erotic world he dwelt in. Slowly he was drawing her back into his world, a world she had lived in and enjoyed to the full. Here was familiar ground she was treading with an unimaginably exciting, handsome man, a lover few women could resist.

He gathered up her handbag and the short, enchanting jacket of rag – strips of black silk of various weights, tattered and knotted – then the framed photograph. Taking her by the elbow, he escorted her from the room to the lift.

Arianne was just that little bit light-headed from an excess of wine, being too much in love, and feeling happy at being with Ahmad again. It felt so good, being back in the world again and feeling so intense about life. She found it quite extraordinary that, when she and Ahmad were apart, she hardly ever missed him. But once with him, she became instantly aware that she had. In his presence she was always made to feel that he was sweeping her into his life, that she belonged, and could breathe better there than anywhere else in the world.

In the lift she giggled to herself: how many women, had, over the years, come to her in tears to tell her those exact same things? He had the ability to make all women feel they were vital to his life. She turned to face Ahmad. As they were alone in the lift, she leaned against him and kissed him briefly on the lips.

‘Ah, and why do I deserve that?’

‘Because I love you so much and I’m so happy to see you.’ A reply to please any man.

He found her very sexy, extremely provocative – more like his Arianne than she had been since Jason had vanished from her life. He sensed it there in the lift. Ben was no mere sexual interlude. She loved him, and exactly as she had loved Jason. He wasn’t having that. He dismissed the thought before he allowed it to take
hold. He had not come this far with Arianne not to win her undivided love. He would see to it that, whatever Ben was beyond a sexual interlude, he would be it no longer before this day ended.

Ahmad placed an arm around Arianne’s waist as they walked from the lift down the corridor towards the suite of rooms she had known so well in the past. To see the wide, handsome corridor with its tables adorned, some with beautiful, period Chinese ceramics, others with vases of fresh flowers; the cosy seating-area, settees and tapestry-covered French chairs; and the soft light cast from under silk shades on to opulent lamp-bases of stunningly beautiful Chinese Imari porcelain; was to remember some of the best days of her life when Ahmad, Jason and she had walked down that same corridor together. How the three of them had relished their jaunts to London. The Art Deco suite at Claridge’s had always been one of their homes from home. To walk the corridor now with Ahmad was to step back in time for a moment, and to be grateful for the exciting life she had had when she had been married to Jason.

She felt Ahmad slide his hand from her waist to the side of her breast. His caress was light and teasing. He well knew how sensitive she was to being caressed there – the motion of his hands cupping the side, jiggling her breast ever so lightly in his palm, the scarcely perceptible pressure circling the sensitive nimbus through her dress. It all felt so good, so natural and right: his touch, the familiar corridor, her being there.

Ahmad rang the bell of the suite. In the few seconds before it was answered, she looked up and gazed into his eyes. His lust for her shone in them. She was naked to them. He was imagining the carnal ravaging of her. He moved his hand from her breast to around her slender neck, and ran a feathery touch up and down, using occasionally some pressure of his fingers. Slipping his hand beneath the black silk jersey of her dress, he squeezed her shoulder and smiled at her before removing his hand and taking her hand in his.

It was going to be far more difficult than she had imagined to tell him that it was over for them. Not so much because she was still reacting to him sexually as she always had since he had first taken possession of her, but because there was something more
than lust in his eyes, something dangerous, inexplicable. It was not the first time she had seen that look, but never before had she sensed that, whatever it meant, it was directed at her. Strangely, she was not frightened, merely uncomfortable with that realisation. And, as was usual with Arianne, to be uncomfortable made her act very calm.

Muhammad opened the door, and Ahmad and Arianne handed her things over to him, after a friendly greeting between Arianne and Ahmad’s man. They walked from the entrance hall of the suite into the drawing room. Arianne smiled. She did so like this room. She turned to face Ahmad. ‘I always imagine Noel Coward walking in here from the bedroom. In my mind I keep hearing his songs, and Gertrude Lawrence singing them.’

Ahmad laughed. ‘You always say that, every time we come here.’

‘Yes, I guess I do. Though it has changed through the years, it has not changed all that much. I always like the crisp whiteness of this room, broken by the Art Deco curves and angles,’ said Arianne, then adding, ‘look at those orchids in that vase. Perfectly wonderful. And the Casablanca lilies – my favourites, yours too.’ She left his side to go and sit on the sofa and rub her hands across the hammered silk covering on it. ‘How very in keeping with the period this pale amethyst fabric is.’ Then, showing an even greater delight, she said wistfully, ‘It’s still here, the nude ivory figure on its bronze base with its scarf of bronze held above the head. The prancing, dancing lady.’ She ran her fingers over one of the sculpture’s raised legs, caressed the breast, its tiny but perfectly formed, seductive nipple. Ahmad watched her, never took his eyes from her. He sat down next to her and passed his hand up her own leg, caressingly, eased it towards the inner side of her thigh. She felt so warm and soft and good in his hands.