Sally Wentworth - A Typical Male (16 page)

They had made
love in the sea before, but this time Brett picked her up and carried her back
across the beach to the garden behind the cottage. There he laid her down among
the thick bed of foxgloves, their riotous colours lost in the moonlight. But
the scent of them filled the air as her body crushed the tender blooms. Tasha
gave a small sound of protest, but Brett caught hold of some of the flowers and
scattered the petals on her, letting them fall from his fingers onto the soft,
shadowed curves of her body.

They felt like butterflies'
wings on her skin, and where Brett's fingers had bruised them the perfume was
so strong, heady as any wine, filling her senses. He took her with controlled
passion, deliberately holding back to prolong her pleasure, making her cry out,
moan with frustrated desire. His own breathing ragged, Brett lifted himself on
his elbow and gripped her waist with his free hand. 'Look at me,' he commanded.
'Open your eyes. Look at me.'

Tasha did so with difficulty, it
was almost impossible when he was making her gasp like this, when he was giving
her so much pleasure.

'Do you want
to go back, Tasha?'

'N-no. I told you so.'

'Do you care about me, then? Do
you?' He rasped out the words, his voice rough with the effort it was taking to
control himself.

'You know I do.
You're…special.' He drew back a little and she put her hands on his
shoulders, feeling suddenly empty and desperate, yearning for him again.

His hand tightened convulsively
on her waist. 'Then say it.'

Her eyes opened wider and she
frowned. Brett was poised above her, his face all black and silver planes and
angles in the moonlight. She could see the intensity in his eyes and guessed
what he wanted. But she said, 'Brett?' on a questioning note.

'Say it,' he commanded again, his voice harsh with insistence.

She hesitated, feeling coerced, but suddenly felt unsure of herself all
over again. And right at that moment he was everything to her; she wanted his
closeness, didn't want it ever to end, so she said breathlessly, 'I—I love you.
I—yes, I know I love you.'

'My darling!' His voice filled with happiness.
He stooped to kiss her, and now he released his own pent up passion, thrusting
forward to lift them both to the heights of prolonged excitement.

Afterwards, he murmured happy words of endearment, kissed her and paid
her lavish compliments. Once Tasha would have rejected such flattery, but now
she found she liked it; it made her feel pleased that her body, at least,
wasn't a failure, that it could give such evident pleasure. And she was glad
that Brett seemed to want her to love him so badly. It made her feel needed and
gave her back some of her confidence, even though at the back of her mind she
sensed that by saying she loved him she was also giving away a great deal of
her independence.

Eventually they went back into the house and to bed, and early the next
morning were standing together in the shower when Brett said, 'I want you to
move in with me.'

Tasha
looked up, startled. 'You mean here?'

'I mean that I want you with me wherever I am. Either
here or in London.'

'Oh, sir, this is so sudden!' she prevaricated, putting on a mock coy
simper.

'No, it isn't.
You want to be with me, don't you?'

'Well, yes,
but—'

He put his finger over her lips,
then kissed her. 'No huts. As soon as you get to
London I want you to give up your flat and move your stuff into my place. I'll
give you a key so that you can start moving in straight away.'

'Aren't you
going to London?'

'No, I have to go away for a
week or so, to do some research on my book.'

Tasha had thought that he'd
already done as much research as he needed, but didn't question it. He had done
hardly any work during the last few days, having devoted himself entirely to
her, and she felt guilty about that. But she said, 'Brett, I don't know. I'm
not used to living with anyone, and—'

'If you love me, as you said,
then you'll want to live with me.' Picking up the soap, he began to lather her
back. 'Besides, I've an idea I'll go insane with lust unless I have this
gorgeous body of yours in my bed every night. Now that I know how wonderful
making love to you can be, I don't ever want to stop.'

'So I've noticed,' Tasha
laughed. 'Hey, you don't have to give me a demonstration… Brett, I have to
get back to London…Brett!'

Later, when they were dressed,
he gave her a key to his house. 'I'll expect to find you waiting for me there
when I get back.'

'I don't know how long it will
take to get my place sorted out.' Tasha sighed. 'And I'll have to put in a lot
of time at the office—that's if I still have a job after what's happened.'

'Don't worry,' Brett told her as
she packed. 'You're too good to get the sack. Just point out
that the company would have been sued into bankruptcy if you'd gone ahead.
Sell your boss another idea, tell him you've been working on it.'

'I wish you were coming with
me.' For Tasha to say such a thing was unlike her, and was convincing proof of
her growing dependence on him, of the fact that she had become so insecure.

'I wish I could. But I have to
do that research for my book. I'll be back in London as soon as I can.'

He kissed her goodbye and waited
at the door until the little yellow car was out of sight, then
Brett went into the sitting-room and opened the drawer where he had locked away
Tasha's notes. Taking them out, he selected those that referred to her
interview with the air stewardess and put them into his briefcase, then ran
upstairs to pack a case and within half an hour was heading for the nearest
airport.

Tasha got into a row with her
boss, but accepted his anger so meekly that he was completely thrown and merely
told her to come up with something else— fast! Going back to her flat, Tasha
went through her files looking for inspiration but found that she was strangely
unsure of herself. Where formerly she would have been fired up with enthusiasm
for a project, now she felt reluctant and doubtful. Taking out the videos of
the previous programmes she'd made, she watched them
again, looking at them with new eyes, wondering if she'd exploited people to
make those, too. What if she made another mistake? She wished Brett was there
so she could discuss it with him, but he would be deep in the research for his
book. Feeling deeply depressed, she rang Sarah, who was equally low.

'I take it you
haven't got back with Clyde?'

'No, and I
don't want to now. I'm going to sell this place and find myself somewhere new
to live. Where have you been? I rang you several times while I was staying with
my parents.'

'I went down to Cornwall for a
few days.'

'Tell you
what; why don't we doll ourselves up and go and find ourselves a couple of
men?' Sarah suggested.

'I don't need
a man. But I would like to talk. How about dinner?'

They met late
at a Soho bistro and began to discuss Sarah's
decision to sell her flat. 'I've decided it's best to make a clean break,' she
told Tasha. 'To completely cut Clyde out of my life and start over. I've thrown
out everything he left behind, burnt his photographs, donated all the presents
he gave me to Ox- fam. There's nothing left of him in
my life now.'

'Except
memories. They aren't so easy to lose.'

'No—but I'm
trying.' Sarah looked up. 'How about you? How are you
getting along with the writer? What was his name?'

'Brett King.
OK. It was his place I went to in Cornwall. He has a cottage by the sea.'

'You stayed
with him? You must be getting serious about him, then?'

A troubled
look came into Tasha's eyes. 'He's special, yes. And he's great in bed. But…I
don't know. He wants me to move in with him and I suppose I agreed. I care
about him. I really do care, but…' Her voice trailed off.

'You don't
sound very certain. Usually you're so sure of your own feelings.'

'Yes, I
suppose so. But something happened down in Cornwall. I was working on a
programme about sexual exploitation, was perfectly happy about it, but Brett
made me see that what I was doing was all wrong. It's shaken me. I seem to have
lost all my confidence.' She told Sarah about some of the women she'd
interviewed, of the air stewardess that she felt really bad about.

'It sounds as
if he was right. You could have been playing with fire. But if you're going to
move in with him you must be really keen on him. Are you in love with him?'

Slowly,
exploring her feelings, Tasha said, 'I feel that I want to be with him,
especially since this happened. I'm worried in case I choose a project that's
going to work out badly again. I feel I need his advice.'

'But that's
work. How do you feel about him as a man?' Sarah persisted.

Tasha shook
her head. 'I told him I loved him. He seemed to want me to so much. And I owe
him a lot. But I just don't know. Telling someone you love them is really
committing yourself.'

'Don't I know
it. Clyde was always wanting
me to tell him I loved him, but look what he did to me!'

They talked on, finding some comfort in sharing their problems, and both
went home to their lonely beds.

Finally
making up her mind, Tasha began to work on a new project and started looking
round for someone to take over her flat and to pack some of her things. But she
didn't do so with any great urgency. Brett had rung her several times and had
said he wouldn't be home for at least another couple of weeks.

Towards the end of this period,
when Tasha was at the office one morning, Sarah rang her. 'Have you seen
today's New Millennium?' she asked, naming a national newspaper.

'No.
Why?'

'You remember what you were telling me about the stewardess who was
being sexually exploited by a Middle Eastern potentate? Well, there's an
article in this morning's paper that sounds exactly like the situation. Tell
you what, I'll fax you a copy.'

Tasha waited by the fax machine and eagerly tore off the sheet, then
stood spellbound as she started to read. There could be no doubt that it was
about the same girl. Although it didn't give Anne's name, all the facts were
the same, and there was a photo of the bedroom on the plane. The New Millennium
was a quality newspaper and it had treated the subject in a serious way, but
the article was a scathing accusation against the magnate. It pointed out that
he was supposed to be a philanthropist, and was involved with many charities,
and yet he had no compunction in exploiting a woman who was dependent on him
for a livelihood. Once she'd read it through, Tasha's eyes ran over the
article, eagerly looking for the reporter's name, but it just said, 'By our
Middle Eastern correspondent'.

Tasha had contacted the
stewardess to tell her she wouldn't be going ahead with the programme as soon
as she got back from Cornwall, so it looked as if the woman had gone to another
reporter with her story. Tasha hoped fervently that Anne—and the reporter— knew
what they were doing. She went through the article again, more slowly, and
stopped, puzzled. She recognised a phrase in the text, not as something she'd
been told, but as an observation she herself had written when she'd been
interviewing the girl. But that was impossible. Unless… Tasha became very
still, her mind racing. Only one other person could have seen what she'd
written and that was Brett. And he had stopped her from destroying her notes,
had them all locked away down in Cornwall.

Sitting down
at her desk, Tasha gazed into space for a while, then checked her watch and put
a call through to Hong Kong. When she got through she said, 'Guy, how are you?
It seems ages since your farewell party.' They talked a little and then she
said, 'Your friend Brett King—you remember he was at the party? I'm looking for
a reporter for a programme I'm doing, and I seem to remember he said he was a
journalist. Do I have that right?' She listened, then
said, 'Oh, I see. He used to be a journalist. Which paper? The
New Millennium. Thanks, Guy, I expect I'll be able to contact him there.
When are you coming over?'

Her face was
very tense, very cold when she put down the receiver. Tasha then flipped
through her file of contacts and found the name of a girl she knew who worked
for the newspaper and called her. She talked very persuasively for a few
minutes and the girl promised to call her back. Gripping her fists, Tasha
waited. At last the call came. 'You're right,' the girl told her. 'The name of
the reporter who wrote the piece was definitely Brett King.'

CHAPTER SEVEN

It
was another week before Brett returned to London. In that time he rang Tasha
several times but she didn't take the calls, merely listening to the messages
on the answering machines. Brett's voice came over as warm, intimate, full of
confidence in his possession of her. He spoke of when they would be together
again, how he couldn't wait to take her to bed. His tone was rich with sexual
need and also the sure knowledge that she shared it, that it would soon be
satisfied. The later messages asked whether she had moved into his house yet,
said that as she hadn't answered the calls to her flat he hoped to find her
waiting for him there. But there was still no uncertainty in his voice; he was
still very sure of her.

Tasha listened to the last message along with Sarah, who was at the
flat with her.

'What are you going to do about him?' Sarah asked when the answering
machine clicked off. 'Ditch him?'

'Oh, definitely.' Tasha was coldly decisive.
'But he used me, and I don't intend to just let him get away with it.'

'That
might be difficult. He sounds clever.'

'Oh, he is. But he thinks that he's brainwashed me into letting him take
control. Which is where he's wrong,' Tasha added venomously.