baggy over tight and buttoned up over revealing because to be caught up in trying to dress to impress was superficial and counter-productive. So when had that changed?
Everything they said in that room and every fleeting show of affection was purely engineered for the sake of his mother and yet she found that she could recall each time he had touched her. She no longer started when his hand slid to the back of her neck. A couple of days ago he had casually tucked some of her hair behind her ear and she had caught herself staring at him, mouth half open, transfixed by a rush of violent confusing awareness, as if they had suddenly been locked inside a bubble while the rest of the world faded away. His mother had snapped her out of the momentary spell but it was dawning on her that lines were being crossed. She just didn’t know what to do about it. She would have to find out just how long the charade was destined to continue. Yes, she had made a deal but that didn’t mean that she could be kept in ignorance of when the deal would come to an end. Her life was on hold while she pretended to be his girlfriend. She needed to find out when she would be able to step back to reality.
‘Aren’t we all?’ she snapped, taking a step back and bumping into someone behind her. Flustered, she muttered apologies and then looked straight into Damien’s amused blue eyes. Usually he came straight to the hospital from work. Today was an exception. He wasn’t in his suit but in a pair of black jeans and a thick cream jumper. She couldn’t peel her eyes away from him.
‘My apologies. Shall I buy the magazine for you?’
Violet discovered that she was still clutching the magazine and she wondered why because she had had no intention of getting it. ‘Thank you, but there’s no need. I was just about to buy it myself.’
‘Please. Allow me.’ He made an elaborate show of studying the cover of the magazine. ‘I dated her,’ he mused, but his interest stopped short of flicking through the magazine to look further.
If that passing remark was intended to bring her back down to earth, it certainly succeeded and Violet was infuriated with herself for the time she had taken choosing which pair of jeans to wear and which jumper. Ever since he had made that revealing remark about her body, and even if it had been meant for the benefit of his mother, she had chosen her snuggest jumpers to wear, the ones that did the most for a figure like hers. Now she was reminded of just the sort of body he looked at and it wasn’t one like hers.
‘What’s her name?’ Violet wondered if it was the mysterious Annalise his mother had dropped into the conversation on that first evening.
‘Jessica. At the time, she was on the brink of making it to the catwalk. Seems she got there.’ He paid for the magazine and handed it over to her.
‘I’m not surprised. She’s very beautiful.’
And once upon a time, Damien thought, she would have encompassed pretty much everything he sought in a woman. Compliant, ornamental and inevitably disposable.
He looked down at the argumentative blonde staring up at him with flushed cheeks and a defiantly cool expression and felt that familiar kick in his loins. The complication which he had been determined to sideline was proving difficult to master. He wondered whether it was because denial was not something he had ever had the need to practice when it came to the opposite sex. When he had concocted this plan, he had had no idea that he might find himself at the mercy of a wayward libido. He had looked at the earnest, pleading woman slumped despairingly in the chair in his office and had seen her as a possible solution to the problem that had been nagging away at him. Nothing about her could possibly have been construed as challenging. There had not been a single iota of doubt in his mind that she might prove to be less amenable than her exterior had suggested.
While it was hardly his fault that his initial judgement had a few holes, he still knew that the boundaries to what they were doing had to be kept in place, although it was proving more challenging than expected. Every time he touched her, with one of those passing gestures designed to mimic love and affection, he could feel a sizzle race up his arm like an electric current. Those brief lapses of self-control were unsettling. Now, as they began moving out of the hospital shop, he stopped her before they could head for the lift.
‘We need to have a chat before we go up.’
‘Okay.’ This would be an update on how long their little game would continue. Perhaps he had had word back from the consultant on the line of treatment they intended to pursue. When she thought of this routine coming to an end, her mind went blank and she had to remind herself that it couldn’t stop soon enough.
‘We could go the cafeteria but I suggest somewhere away from the hospital compound. Walking distance. There’s a café on the next street. I’ve told my mother that we might be a bit later than usual today.’
‘There haven’t been any setbacks, have there?’ Violet asked worriedly, falling into step beside him. ‘A couple of days ago your mother said that they were all pleased with how things were coming along, that it seems as though the cancer was caught in time, despite concerns that she might have left it too late...’
‘No setbacks, although my mother would be thrilled if she knew that you were concerned...are you really? Because there’s just the two of us here. No need for you to say anything you don’t want to. No false impressions to make.’
‘Of course I’m concerned!’ She stopped him in his tracks with a hand on his arm. ‘I may have agreed to go through this charade because my sister’s future was at stake, but your mother’s a wonderful woman and of course I would never fake concern!’
Damien recognised the shine of one hundred per cent pure sincerity in her eyes. For a second, something very much like guilt flared through him. He had ripped her out of her comfort zone and compelled her to do something that went against the very fabric of her moral values because it had suited him. He had thrown back the curtain and revealed a world where people used other people to get what they wanted. It wasn’t a world she inhabited. He knew that because she had told him all about her friends in and out of school. Listening to her had been like lifting a chapter from an Enid Blyton book, one where good mates sat around drinking cheap boxed wine and discussing nothing more innocuous than the fate of the world and how best it could be changed.
Still, everything in life was a learning curve and being introduced to an alternate view would stand her in good stead.
‘How is your sister faring in Ibiza?’ he asked, an opportune reminder of why they were both here.
Violet smiled. ‘Good,’ she confided. ‘Remember I told you about that job she wanted? The one at the tapas restaurant on the beach?’ Despite the artificiality of their situation, she had found herself chatting to Damien a lot more than she had thought she might. Taking the lift down after visiting his mother, wandering out of the hospital together, he in search of a black cab, she in the direction of the underground...conversation was always so much less awkward than silence. And he was a good listener. He never interrupted and, when he did, his remarks were always intelligent and informative. He had listened to her ramble on about her colleagues at work without sneering at them or the lives they led. He had come up with some really useful advice about one of them who was having difficulties with a disorderly class. And he had cautioned her about worrying too much about Phillipa, had told her that she needed to break out of the rut she had spent years constructing and the only way to do that would be to walk away from over-involvement in what her sister was getting up to. If Phillipa felt she had no cushion on which to fall back, then she would quickly learn how to remain upright.
Had she mentioned Phillipa and the job at the bar? Damien thought. Yes. Yes, she had. Well, they saw each other every day. The periods of time spent in each other’s company might have
