an hour ago Lisa’s beauteous cousin had been sprawled on her hands and knees on a cold bathroom floor, her flawless complexion a putrid shade of green, her glamorous red hair dangling over the white china toilet bowl as she alternately retched and moaned, vile curses spewing from her pale lips as she vowed never to mix curry and cocktails again.
‘And so…this means Monsieur Derek asks for you to come in her place?’
Regan sucked in her cheeks, trying for that haughty, bored model look that she had seen Lisa practising endlessly in the mirror.
‘It was very much a last-minute kind of a thing—Cleo got sick and I was available,’ she said, adroitly avoiding an outright lie.
She hoped that he wasn’t going to suggest checking her story with Derek. But why should he bother? As Cleo had pointed out, there was nothing illegal involved, no need for fear on either side. Derek Clarke’s discreet little sideline, designed to ingratiate himself with potentially useful colleagues and clients, was successful precisely because it was so casual.
‘I see,’ he said slowly, relaxing his stance. ‘And you are…?’
‘Ev—’ She bit her lip. She had already decided that Regan was too distinctive a name, too easy to trace. She had intended to shelter behind her middle name, but now it occurred to her that Evangeline was just as singular as Regan. ‘I—It’s Eve,’ she corrected hurriedly. ‘My name is Eve.’
‘Mam’selle…Eve.’ His deliberate hesitation and wry intonation suggested he knew she was lying, and she flushed with guilt.
‘I am Pierre.’ He smiled suddenly—a splitting grin which rendered him uglier than ever. He turned sideways, inviting her inside with a broad, sweeping gesture of his arm.
‘Unfortunately, Monsieur is running rather late this evening,’ he said, his accent rolling off his tongue in an unmistakably genuine purr. ‘He has rung to say that he is held up in a business meeting and asked me to deliver his apologies. He says that he will be home as soon as possible. Fortunately, he informs me, the dinner you are to attend does not begin until a fashionably late hour. In the meantime he suggests that you relax and enjoy a drink, and make free of the apartment while you are waiting. Monsieur has an excellent home entertainment centre…’
‘Monsieur?’ Regan repeated faintly, the blood pounding in her ears as she realised how close she had come to making a fresh idiot of herself.
The blind date that she had hijacked from Cleo wasn’t with a wizened old gnome old enough to be her grandfather!
Pierre wasn’t the man she was supposed to flirt with, flatter and seduce.
Regan’s hopes soared as the evening ahead regained its tantalising promise…the wicked allure of pleasures previously denied her by her husband’s secret indifference—the perfect revenge for years of his perfunctory lovemaking! Her smile of euphoric relief was so dazzlingly different from the strained rictus that Regan had worn since the door opened that Pierre blinked.
‘You’re the butler,’ she guessed happily as she floated past his bandy figure into the apartment, mentally scolding herself for jumping to hasty conclusions. If he couldn’t even spare the time to pick up his own women, a wealthy workaholic businessman would scarcely be likely to be answering doors!
‘I don’t believe I have a title, as such,’ said Pierre. ‘I merely assist Monsieur with his domestic arrangements.’ The self-effacing comment was belied by the ring of pride in his voice as he preceded her down a short flight of stairs which wrapped around the curving wall of glass bricks screening the entranceway from the main body of the apartment.
‘I bet you do the lion’s share,’ Regan murmured drily, her heels sinking into thick white carpet that she imagined would require meticulous care.
‘Mais, non. Monsieur does not own such a pet,’ Pierre said blandly. ‘Except when the survival of the species is at stake, he does not approve of wild beasts being held in captivity…’
Regan swallowed a grin. ‘Is that why he’s not married?’ she shot back, her flippancy cloaking her urgent need to assure herself that the little information she did have was at least correct on that one, all-important point.
Pierre’s eyebrows twitched in acknowledgment of her riposte. ‘Monsieur is the most intelligent and civilised of men,’ he observed primly as he reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to watch her join him, ‘although a certain degree of wildness is only to be expected of healthy males in their prime.’ The fugitive gleam of mischief in the old eyes glowed even brighter. ‘He certainly does not yet regard himself as being on the endangered species list…’
So…Unmarried. Healthy. Intelligent. Prime…with a dash of wildness thrown in for good measure. Regan lowered her lashes to hide her surge of terrified elation.
No wonder Cleo had been so furious about having to cry off!
She had come hammering on the door of the flat a scant hour earlier, stridently upset when she’d discovered that her cousin wasn’t home and Regan had no idea of her whereabouts.
‘There was a message on the answer-machine when I got back from work to say that she was going out to some party and wouldn’t be here for dinner,’ Regan had said, still annoyed that Lisa had conveniently forgotten that it was her turn to cook.
‘But she can’t be out! I was sure she’d be here—I need Lisa now!’ Cleo wailed. ‘It’s a matter of life and death!’ She barged inside with none of her usual grace. ‘What about Saleena?’ she demanded raggedly. ‘Is she here?’
Regan fell back, shaking her head. ‘Evening aerobics classes.’ Saleena worked part-time at the local gym to supplement her student loan while she studied for a degree in Sport and Recreation. Like Lisa, she was extremely pretty and always game for a laugh, although—being two years older and a great deal more intelligent—her behaviour and attitudes were thankfully more mature.
Cleo screamed, a low, heart-felt shriek of frustration.
‘Can I help?’ Regan sighed, too accustomed to Cleo’s histrionics to be truly concerned. Perhaps she had run out of nail polish for her synthetic talons. Dressed to the glittering hilt, and made up to model-girl perfection, she was obviously on her way somewhere trendy and expensive.
‘You!’ Cleo uttered an insulting laugh that ended in a muffled choke as her exquisite face turned suddenly from honey-gold tan to swamp-green and she dashed towards the bathroom, clutching her concave belly.
When she tottered out and collapsed on the couch in the lounge without bothering to artistically drape her limbs for the best visual effect, Regan knew that she was genuinely at the end of her tether.
It turned out that what Cleo had convinced herself was merely a lingering all-day hangover had developed into something debilitatingly nasty at both ends, and she was frantic to find a substitute for some hot date that an ex-boyfriend, Derek, had fixed her up with for that night.
‘I’ve been trying to call Derek to tell him I didn’t think I could make it, but he’s not answering his stupid phone,’ Cleo shrilled, ‘and I haven’t been able to find anyone to fill in for me, not this late on a Friday night…
‘I thought I might manage it if I took a few pills, and they seemed to work for a while, but now I feel
