Judith gave a softly sensual laugh. ‘I must say if he was photographing me it wouldn’t take him long to coax me out of my clothes and into his arms. He’s all man,’ she said it admiringly, ‘and an extremely experienced one at that, if the gossip’s anything to go by. Why the interest?’ she asked, adding tauntingly, ‘Surely you aren’t entertaining hopes in that direction yourself? You wouldn’t stand a chance, he’s been besieged by beautiful women ever since he got here, and even now that his current girlfriend’s gone back to London with the rest of the models, he hasn’t shown any interest in anyone else. And he’d certainly never show any in a frightened little innocent like you,’ she finished derisively, glancing up and down Somer’s slender body. ‘You just haven’t got what it takes, Somer, and I doubt you ever will have. No girl who’s hung on to her virginity as long as you have will ever make a man a satisfactory bed partner.’
‘Andrew wants me.’
Later Somer was to ask herself what had prompted her into such a rash speech. Surely it wasn’t a desire to score off on Judith; to turn the tables and make her pride sting a little.
‘Does he?’ Judith’s smile taunted her. ‘Are you sure about that, Somer? Couldn’t he wait to take you in his arms the moment you got here? Are you spending tonight in his bed? Does he want you so much that he can’t hide his desire for you every time he sees you. Is that how it is between the two of you?’
Her contemptuous laughter followed Somer as she fled towards the lift, each cruel word a barb biting deep into her heart. How could Judith so easily unearth her own secret fears and doubts; how could she have known of her own disquiet that Andrew had not appeared more eager to be with her; to touch her and kiss her as she was longing for him to do? Andrew respected her innocence and inexperience, she told herself, trying to calm her uneasy nerves as she headed for her room. Of course his self-control must put a strain on him; that same strain she had sensed when he walked into her room. Of course the reason he hadn’t kissed her as she had wanted him to do was that he was concerned that their lovemaking might get out of control. Andrew was only acting out of concern for her, and it was both foolish and childish of her to wish that he would sweep her off her feet and into his bed and that he would tell her that it was impossible for him to resist the enticement of her body; that his love and desire for her were so great that he must possess her.
Thoroughly confused by her own feelings Somer opened the door of her room, locking it firmly behind her before going on to her small balcony, trying to will away the self-pitying loneliness that swept her. In Aberdeen her father would be dining with business associates as he so often did during the week. At the weekend he was going to stay with an old friend. They would spend it fishing, her father’s favourite sport. She sighed, half wishing that her father would marry again. She would have enjoyed having brothers and sisters, and her father would be lonely once she was married, but when she had broached the subject he had told her that he had loved her mother too much to contemplate putting someone else in her place. She hadn’t doubted that he spoke the truth, and she flushed a little remembering her impassioned cry after she had first met Andrew, that her father didn’t understand how she felt.
‘I understand all too well, lassie,’ he had told her grimly. ‘I can remember what it feels like to fall in love, and how impetuous girls of eighteen can be. Your mother was that age when I first met her, and although you were born ten months after our marriage, you could easily have arrived very much earlier. Some things never change,’ he had concluded wryly, ‘and human desire is one of them. You may think because I’m your father that I don’t understand how you feel. It’s because I do that I’m so worried for you, but I doubt that you’ll heed me any more than Catriona and I heeded her father, although these days, things being what they are, I suppose I needn’t concern myself too much with the possibility of an unexpected grandchild.’
That assumption on her father’s part as well as driving the rich colour to her face had brought a stumbled protest to her lips that Somer realised with the benefit of hindsight, had been half surprised. Had her father really believed that she and Andrew were already lovers? From his frank statements to her about his relationship with her mother it seemed plain that they had not waited for marriage before consummating their love.
Thoroughly dissatisfied with the train of her thoughts Somer decided impulsively that she had to speak to Andrew. Not now tonight when she knew he was in conference with the hotel management, but first thing tomorrow morning before his working day started. She knew where his room was, and although staff quarters were forbidden to the guests, she knew she could find her way there unnoticed. Half hidden by the clutter of thoughts milling in her brain was the hope that by taking such action she might precipitate the intimacy Andrew had previously been at pains to avoid and that seeing her in his room might urge him to forget caution and only remember their love. Her blood heated to fever pitch at the thought, her body eagerly yearning for the close proximity of his, sensations as yet only half understood coursing through her veins.
Andrew! His name was on her lips when sleep finally claimed her, but inexplicably her dreams held not Andrew’s fair attractiveness, but the dark compulsion of a far different man. A man who shared Judith’s contempt of her, who laughed at her and called her a silly child, even while his green eyes told her that he found nothing childish in the soft curves of her body and if he wished it he could easily take her beyond childhood and into womanhood. ‘No…’ She moaned the denial in her sleep, moving restlessly beneath the light quilt, trying to escape from her dreams and the threat they seemed to hold.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE was awake in plenty of time to put the previous night’s plan into action. From past experience she knew that Andrew would be on duty at seven, stopping to have breakfast later in the staff dining-room, once his working day had swung into action. It was just after quarter to six when she left her room, using the stairs in preference to the lift, knowing that there were unlikely to be any other guests using them at this time of the morning and also that if she went through the fire door on the third floor it led on to the stairs to the staff bedrooms.
As she had hoped she met no one en route to Andrew’s room, and even better his door was slightly ajar, a used tray of tea outside, suggesting that he had put it there and then forgotten to close his door.
Pushing it open gently, Somer tiptoed inside. Although much less attractively furnished than her own room, Andrew’s room was pleasantly large and as she knew, doubled as a bedroom-cum-sitting room, one wall covered in units that held his books and stereo system, as well as the pull-down desk-top he used to work on, and a small portable television.
Privately she had always considered the room rather bleak, lacking a woman’s touch, but as she hovered in the small hallway, her presence concealed by the door to the small bathroom, she became aware that Andrew was not alone. Her body froze as she recognised Judith’s voice, husky and faintly lazy as though she were still half asleep, the small protesting sound that accompanied it quite unmistakably coming from the springs of Andrew’s bed, her drawled, ‘Umm, darling that was lovely,’ leaving Somer in no doubt as to the intimacy she had interrupted. But worse was to come. While she hesitated like a wooden puppet, still trying to absorb the enormity of what was happening, Somer heard Judith say, ‘Will you think about me while you’re making love to little miss goody two-shoes?’
‘Hardly.’ She barely recognised Andrew’s voice rich with self-satisfaction, replete with sexual pleasure, far different from the voice in which he spoke to her. ‘If anything I’ll think of daddy’s money and the future it’s going to buy for you and me one day. That’s always supposing I can bring myself to make love to her.’
‘Well, I think you’re going to have to take the plunge pretty soon, my darling, otherwise she’s going to get pretty suspicious. Virgin she might be, but she isn’t so innocent that she doesn’t know what she’s
