today she had thought she had put it all behind her; that the past was the past and that she was safe from it. Now she knew she was wrong.
It had been at her own insistence that she had left home to work in the city and to share a flat with three other girls from college. Her parents had thought her too young, but had given way when she’d pointed out that at eighteen she was legally an adult.
She had found a job with a firm of City architects; she had been the youngest girl there. She had felt shy and out of place with the other girls, who were all in their twenties and who to her seemed so sophisticated and worldly... And then she had met Jonathon.
Jonathon was the son of the firm’s head partner. He was being groomed to take over his father’s position. He was twenty-six years old, tall, fair-haired, all smooth charm. She had been dazzled by him...awed and bemused, and of course she had fallen in love.
Naïvely she had believed he had fallen in love too, and then had come the fateful day she had overheard the conversation which had changed the whole course of her life.
Nicola closed her eyes and gave a deep shudder.
In front of her the peaceful view had faded, and once again she was standing in the small, dusty stationery-room at Mathieson and Hendry.
CHAPTER TWO
‘OF COURSE I’m not interested in her, sweetheart... How can you even think it?’
Nicola froze. She had recognised Jonathon’s voice instantly, and the shock of hearing him speaking to someone else in that soft, caressing voice she thought he kept specially for her, the shock of hearing him addressing someone else as ‘sweetheart’, held her rigid where she was, the copy paper the head of the typing pool had sent her to get clasped tensely in her arms as she stood rooted to the spot.
Jonathon was standing in the corridor, just outside the stationery-room. Obviously he had no idea she was in here, but Susan Hodges knew... She must have known because she had been there when Mrs Ellis told Nicola to come and get the copy paper.
‘Well, you’ve been taking her out,’ she heard Susan saying now.
‘Only because you weren’t available, my sweet. Oh, come on, honestly now. Can you really imagine that I’d be interested in someone as sexless and boring as that dull little prude? Heavens, she doesn’t even know how to kiss properly... Not like you!’
Nicola heard the sound of laughter, followed by the unmistakable sound of two people kissing.
She felt both sick and angry at the same time, so desperately unhappy that she had to clench her fists to stop herself from crying, and so furiously angry both with Jonathon and with herself that if she had had to confront him right now she would probably have hit him.
How stupid she had been to believe that Jonathon actually liked her, respected her, loved her, when in reality he and Susan Hodges... Susan Hodges, the office bimbo, the pretty, pouting blonde who always wore her clothes just that little bit too tight, who always seemed to giggle just that little bit too loudly and for too long.
If anyone had told her that Jonathon was involved with Susan she would have denied it instantly and immediately, claiming that Susan simply wasn’t Jonathon’s type.
How naïve she had been.
‘So you won’t be taking little Miss Prim and Proper to the party tonight, then, will you?’ she heard Susan saying to Jonathon.
He laughed.
‘Hardly. I bet you’ve got something spectacular to wear, haven’t you, Susie? Something stunning and sexy...?’
‘You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?’ Susie replied provocatively, adding, ‘Of course, you could always come round to my place and have a private view...’
They were both laughing as they moved off down the corridor. Inside the stationery-room, Nicola remained frozen with misery.
It was true that Jonathon had not specifically invited her to partner him at tonight’s party to celebrate his father’s birthday, but she had assumed...had believed... She had even bought herself a new dress for the occasion. She had bought it at the weekend, having enlisted the advice and support of her mother, anxiously determined that Jonathon shouldn’t be ashamed of her.
The dress in question was prettily understated, in dark blue velvet with a neat round collar and long sleeves, and suddenly, bitterly she knew that in it she would look just as sexless and boring as Jonathon had claimed she was. Tears blurred her eyes. She felt sick with shock and a bitter, burning rage, possessed by a need to show Jonathon—to show everyone—that she was not the dull, boring person they obviously all believed her to be, that she could be just as exciting...just as glamorous...just as desirable as the Susans of this world.
* * *
LATER she was to wonder if she had been overcome by some kind of mental instability to have reacted the way she had; certainly she had never done anything like it before, and nor was she likely to do so afterwards.
All she could think was that the pain of knowing what Jonathon really thought about her, the trauma of coming down off her cloud and crashing painfully hard back to reality, had mentally unhinged her in some sort of way.
The celebration of the fiftieth birthday of the firm’s main partner was a major event within the small City firm. A room had been hired at a very grand city-centre hotel for the occasion. There was to be a buffet meal followed by dancing and, although she had tried not to show it, Nicola had been nervously excited about the event ever since Jonathon had started taking her out.
Both his parents would be there, of course, and his sisters, and in her cloud-cuckoo dream-world she had somehow or other envisaged herself being introduced to them...sitting with them...being accepted by them as Jonathon’s girlfriend. Now abruptly she was realising how idiotic those daydreams had been and, in some sort of confused way, she didn’t know now whether she hated Jonathon or loved him. All she did know was that she was determined to show him just how wrong his cruel comments had been, just how desirable she could be... Much, much more desirable than the likes of Susan Hodges.
All the staff were being given the afternoon off in order to prepare for the party. It was almost lunchtime now and, just as soon as she was sure that Jonathon and Susan were out of earshot, Nicola emerged from the stationery-room and hurried back to the typing pool with the copy paper.
For what was left of the morning Nicola’s thoughts were very far from her work. She was mentally busy making plans, taking decisions and, just as soon as she was able to do so, she collected her coat and hurried out into the street.
The firm’s offices were right in the centre of the City, in the banking and business area, within easy walking distance of the shops.
Thanks to the prudent teachings of her parents, Nicola already had a healthy bank-account balance, and luckily when she’d come out this morning she had brought her cheque book with her.
There was a hot, burning sensation in her chest, a fiery, driving sense of determination motivating her, pushing her... Without giving herself time to hesitate, she rushed into the very modern hairdressing salon which had recently opened close to the office.
It wasn’t a bit like the hairdressers at home—no pink, no frills, the décor all stark
