Unguarded Moment (18 page)

'Oh God,' she said savagely, raking at her hair with shaking fingers, then trying to force her recalcitrant blouse back into her skirt.

'You'll tear it if you aren't careful.' He actually sounded almost amused. 'Let me…'

'You won't touch me.' She could hear sounds of movement from the inner room, so kept her voice low. 'You'll never touch me again, do you hear? I must have been mad!'

'No,' he said. 'Not mad, only too human. She's still there, isn't she, Alix—that vibrant, passionate girl I saw on the stairs that day—and occasionally she escapes from behind that Puritanical shield you've built round her—God only knows why.'

'Perhaps to keep her safe from—from womanisers like you. What are you looking for, Liam? More sensational copy for your next book? 'Aunt and niece—I had them both,' by an expert.'

'You little bitch,' he said slowly. 'If I thought you meant that I'd shake you until your teeth rattled.'

'Well; I do mean it.' She risked another look in the mirror, and saw with relief that she seemed to have reverted to an approximation of her usual neatness. She could only hope that Bianca wouldn't look too closely at her. 'I'm here to work, and I don't regard being pawed by you as a bonus. Is that understood?'

There was a brief silence, and she waited through it, her teeth sunk painfully in her lower lip, terrified that he might carry out his threat, because she knew that if he touched her again, even in anger, she would break into tiny pieces.

When he spoke his voice was clipped. 'Clearly understood. But if you're waiting for me to apologise, you'll wait for ever.'

Alix moved her shoulders wearily. 'I don't want an apology. It was my fault too.'

'My God, what an admission,' lie mocked. 'You actually have feelings. Break out of your self-imposed chrysalis before it's too late, Alix.. You might even enjoy being a woman.'

Feeling defeated, she walked over to the desk and sank down on the chair, glad of its support. She opened her pad and wrote the date, amazed to find it was even legible.

'Darlings!' Bianca said gaily from her bedroom doorway. 'Have I kept you waiting? I'm so sorry.'

She was wearing a black silk caftan, embroidered in panels down the front with a myriad tiny flowers in pastel Colour, and her dark hair was piled on top of her head, and secured by a circlet of matching flowers. It was what she called her geisha look, and it gave her an incredibly fragile appearance. In one hand she was clutching a thick bundle of typescript, which Alix eyed with misgiving.

'Yes,' Bianca nodded at her. 'Carlo sent me the amended script along this morning. It's marvellous— miraculous! I can't wait for everything to be settled. It will be the best thing I've ever done—wait and see.'

Alix felt sick. She couldn't look at Bianca suddenly, turning away to fiddle with her pad. She felt she hated Carlo Veronese. This was a piece of calculated cruelty, inviting her here like this—making her think the role was as good as hers when all the time…

And this was why Liam was here, she thought bitterly. It wasn't a biography he was going to write, but an obituary. The final disintegration of a great star, the end of a legend. Bianca was programmed to self-destruction and he wouldn't lift a finger to stop her. He might be sleeping with her, but there was no love, no respect for her in him, or he couldn't let it happen.

Bianca was seating herself on a chaise-longue, fussing with the cushions, while Liam made some last-minute adjustments to his recorder.

She said, 'You know what I want, Alix—a full note of everything that's said—just to keep the record straight.' She smiled charmingly at Liam, crossing her legs, smoothing down the folds of the caftan. 'Not that I anticipate any problems,' she added softly, her tone teasing and intimate.

Alix wanted to scream. She stared rigidly down at the page of her book until the symbols blurred.

'Then we'll make a start,' Liam said calmly.

As the interview progressed Alix had to admit albeit unwillingly that he knew his job. He was getting Bianca to talk about her early days on the stage, her first job as an assistant stage manager in rep, drawing anecdotes out of her that Alix could swear she'd forgotten until that moment—like the leading man who had obstinately worn his wig backwards for an entire fortnight's run of a Jacobean tragedy because he had disagreed with the producer's interpretation of the play, and the ageing actress who had substituted neat gin for the carafe of water she was supposed to sip from, and had been legless before the third act even began. She was animated and laughing as she reminisced, Liam encouraging her by an occasional question, sometimes just a word or an inflection.

Alix was covering pages of her notebook, but although her hand was beginning to ache, she didn't want to ask for a break. She was too fascinated by the glimpse of the girl Bianca had been, doing the myriad tasks that were needed in a small impecunious repertory company, begging props from a reluctant antique shop owner, who always tried to pinch her bottom, having to fight for the chance of playing a maid occasionally, or a small character part.

She had had to fight when she started, Alix thought, oddly moved. There was no overnight success. She had always fought, only now the battle was over and she didn't know it yet.

Her eyes filled with sudden tears and she drove her pencil into the page so hard that the point broke.

Liam said sharply, 'Alix—what is it?' . 'It's nothing.' She licked a scalding salt tear from the side of her mouth. 'I—I have a bit of a headache. Too much sun this morning, I expect. I'm sorry.'

'You're as white as a sheet!' Bianca came over in a rustle of silk and leaned over her. Alix could smell the subtle fragrance of Cal
è
che emanating from her clothes and hair, and had to fight an impulse to turn and put her head against Bianca and weep all down that beautiful caftan. 'We'll call it a day. If you feel better after dinner, you could type what there is so far, but only if you're sure you're well enough.' She turned her head. 'Liam darling, see that she gets to her room will you.'

'No—really,' Alix managed as she got to her feet. She picked up her notebook and headed for the door, but when she got into the corridor, she found Liam was beside her. 'I tell you I'm all right! I don't need you.'

'I think we've already established that,' he said, his eyes cold. 'I'm here to make sure you get to your room without collapsing, and making me feel a bigger bastard than I do already.'

'It's nothing to do with you—with what happened,' she said in a low voice.

'No?' He glanced at her. 'Then what is it? I don't fall for the 'too much sun' routine.'

'It's just so awful!' she burst out. 'Listening to her— seeing her so happy—looking forward to the film—when all the time…'

'So you know?'

'Of course I do! Leon told me. Everyone knows except Bianca, that's what's so awful.' She ended on a little sob.

Liam said almost gently, 'Perhaps it isn't as bad—as cruel as you think.'

'Oh, I know Carlo Veronese is a friend of yours. You'd be bound to support him. He should never have got her to come here. He should have told Leon in London that she wasn't going to get the part. Doing it this way is a calculated insult, and she doesn't deserve it.'

'Don't let your loyalty run away with you, Alix,' he said drily. 'Bianca has handed it out to producers, directors, fellow-actors, husbands, lovers—even secretaries. She has to be able to take it too. Just don't go spilling the beans to her out of a mistaken sense of kindness. It may well turn out better than you think.'

'For you, undoubtedly,' she said wretchedly. 'Do you have a camera too? Her face when, she hears the news will probably be the picture of the century.'

There was a long taut silence, then he said, 'My God, you have an amazing opinion of me! You sound as if you imagine I set this whole thing up, just to sell a few more copies.'

'Didn't you?' she bit at him.

'No, I didn't.' His response was fierce and immediate. 'The book's going to be a bestseller anyway. I don't need to manufacture situations. Enough exist already. Her relations with your side of the family for starters. Why won't she talk about that? I've tried half a dozen times already to get her to talk about her childhood, and it's like running into a brick wall. Why?'

'You're not trapping me into giving information that she wants to withhold,' said Alix. 'But as a matter of fact, I don't know either.'

'How did you start working for her?' he asked. 'I'm entitled to ask that, perhaps.'

'It's no secret. She needed a new secretary—and we'd met—and I think Lester persuaded her to give me a trial.' Her face warmed as she thought of him.

'You liked Lester Marchant—liked him better than the others?'

'I didn't meet the others,' she said without thinking, then scowled. 'Yes, I did like Lester. He was a warm, lovely man, and we got on well together.'

'Then you'll no doubt be surprised to hear that it was Lester who applied the pressure to ensure that Bianca didn't play Francesca,' he said.

'No,' she said. 'Someone else told me the same thing, but I don't believe it. He wouldn't do such a thing.'

'No? You'd better ask him yourself. He'll be here in a few days.' His voice was angry. 'He's a very lucky man. You gave him the benefit of the doubt immediately.'

'He knows Bianca's here?' Alix was incredulous.

'I believe Carlo's invitation to her was his idea.'

'It just isn't possible. He loved her. You couldn't do a thing like that to someone you loved.'

'Stirring words,' he drawled. 'I may remind you of them one day.'

She brushed his words aside, frowning distractedly. 'I must tell her—warn her.'

'You won't do anything of the kind,' he said. 'Let the whole situation work itself through, I tell you—it may not be as bad as you think.'

'I don't know what to think.' Her voice was wretched. 'I don't understand anything that's going on.'

'In that case, stay back and wait until things become clearer.' There was a sudden harshness in his tone. 'You're far too fond of leaping to conclusions, usually the wrong ones.'

Alix lifted her chin. 'I suppose you're talking about yourself.'

'You're damned right I am! From the very first, you had me written off as a predator—some kind of literary vulture—and why? Because I let one woman, whose stupidity only equalled her conceit, condemn herself out of her own mouth. You assumed I was going to do a similar job on Bianca, so you leapt to her defence like a female St George against the dragon.'

'And do you blame me?' she defended herself. 'You behaved like an adversary the first time we met—and ever since.'

His mouth twisted slightly. 'We haven't always been adversaries, you and I, Alix—so don't fool yourself. We have a lot going for us—and your body knows it, even if that hostile little mind of yours keeps rejecting the fact.'

'I don't deny that you can make me want you,' she said in a low voice. 'How could I deny it? But I'm not proud of it. You make me despise myself…' Her voice trailed away uncertainly as she saw the anger in his face—anger, and another less easily defined emotion.

'Do I now?' he grated. 'Then add this to your burden of shame, secretary bird.'

His hands were merciless as he pulled her to him, and his mouth savaged hers with ruthless intensity. She couldn't breathe, she could barely think, aware only of a surge of passionate emotion which had her clinging to him helplessly, her fingers digging into the muscular firmness of his shoulders.

The door of her room was just behind them. She wanted to be alone with him in that room, the door closed against the world. The longing consumed her like a fire. It was impossible, she thought dazedly, for her to feel like this and him not be aware of it. The total surrender of her response, the movements of her body against his all evinced the agony of desire which tore her with sharp talons.

At last he put her away from him, detaching her clinging arms from round his neck as he might remove a burr from his jacket. Under his tan, he was very pale.

'I think we'll leave the demonstration there,' he said huskily. 'If it's any consolation to you, Alix, I also despise myself.'

He turned and walked away down the passage, leaving her staring after him, one hand pressed convulsively to her bruised mouth.

After a while, the days began to take on a kind of pattern, Alix discovered. The scene with Liam had left her shattered, and she was glad to have the excuse of work to keep in her room for the rest of the day. And after that it was easy enough to spend her mornings by the pool, usually with Paola, before going to Bianca's suite, timing her arrival to ensure that she never again en-countered Liam there alone. She would dine downstairs with everyone else, then go up to her room to transcribe the day's notes, on the portable typewriter which travelled everywhere with her. Then she would fall into bed and try to sleep, only to find hours later that she was still lying, staring at the ceiling, a terrible aching emptiness inside her.

The afternoons were torture for her. The rapport between Liam and Bianca seemed total, indicating a deeper and different intimacy during the hours when they were not working on the book. Alix tried not to notice, tried to concentrate on the notes she was taking, and thought she was succeeding, until the long hours of the night made her know better.

Liam was there in her mind, behind her eyelids, like a fixed image, and she had total recall of every gesture, every movement of his lean body, every nuance as he spoke. The events of each afternoon paraded themselves like a constant nightmare.

And the worst part of it was that she was the outsider. He rose when she entered the suite and seated herself at the desk, and apart from the odd brusque enquiry if she was able to keep up, ignored her completely thereafter.

But What else did she expect? she asked herself with a kind of desperation.

She had thought again about her idea of asking Carlo to find her another job. He was ebullient, charming and talented, but he could not be trusted. She didn't want his help.

Besides, she felt she couldn't just walk out and leave Bianca in the lurch when at any moment a bombshell was going to explode in her life. When she returned to London, she thought, she would apply to one of the agencies that specialised in temporary work while she decided what path she wanted her life to take.