The Bedroom Assignment. Sophie Weston

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      ‘Yes,’ said Zoe briefly.

      The doorbell rang. It was the drink for the party. Zoe and Suze helped carry in the cases. There was wine and bottled water and vodka and mixers and beer. And then four dozen wine glasses in their divided cardboard boxes.

      ‘Sign here,’ said the friendly delivery man. ‘Glasses back clean by Monday. You pay for breakages. Have a good one!’

      After that they were too busy for more confidences. Zoe did not know whether she was frustrated or relieved. Either way, it didn’t matter.

      ‘Help,’ Zoe said as she and Suze formed themselves into a production line to unpack glasses. ‘In less than three hours the house will be full of people expecting to be fed and entertained. So far only the garden is ready for them.’

      But she and Suze worked well together. They were both practical and unflappable, and they had done this before. The food was set out, the drawing room disco was operational, and a bedroom full of the valuable and fragile was locked, with half an hour to spare.

      Zoe showered and washed her hair quickly. She dried it fast, watching it spring into its corkscrew curls with resignation. ‘Oh, well, there’s nothing I can do about it. Curls are my curse.’

      ‘Some curse.’ Suze had extracted the tiniest possible slip of a dress from her briefcase. She climbed into it, then occupied Zoe’s dressing table. She was peering in the mirror, outlining her eyelids carefully.

      Zoe pinned her hair carelessly on top of her head and began to scrabble in her wardrobe.

      ‘Why do I always forget how much effort it takes to organise a big party?’ said Suze between clenched teeth.

      ‘Because we’re good at it.’ Zoe debated between a white crop top and a black net shirt that was perfectly plain except that you could see through it. She opted for advice. ‘Which do you think?’

      Suze put her eye make up on hold for moment, swivelled round and considered gravely.

      ‘Not white,’ she decided. ‘No tan yet.’

      Zoe nodded, flung the white top back in the wardrobe and dug black satin underwear out of a drawer. Having decided, she dressed quickly, teaming the chiffon top with deep purple leather trousers, soft and clingy as gloves. Leaving Suze at the dressing table, she went into her en suite shower room and attacked the still damp curls with a comb. Soon they were falling into turbulent waves of gold and brown and chestnut, and even a hint of auburn.

      She came out. ‘What do you think?’

      Suze had finished her eyes. She turned. ‘Very Pre-Raphaelite,’ she approved.

      ‘Not as if I’ve just got out of bed?’

      ‘Of course not.’

      ‘So men aren’t going to think I’m willing to jump right back if they ask nicely?’

      Suze chuckled. ‘Well, you know men. They live in hope.’

      Zoe clutched her temples in mock despair.

      ‘Never mind,’ Suze consoled her. ‘You can always dance with Boring Accountant Man. He doesn’t back women into bed. Lauren told me he’s holding out for a virgin.’

      Her tone said it all, thought Zoe. He might just as well have been holding out for a tyrannosaurus rex as far as Suze was concerned.

      ‘Really?’ she said in a constrained voice.

      ‘I don’t know what Lauren sees in her weirdos. She must be on a mission to bring the twenty-first century to the unenlightened.’

      Zoe bent and fluffed up her hair unnecessarily. ‘I suppose so.’ She sounded depressed.

      Suze put an arm round her shoulders and hugged her quickly.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I know you’re the saviour of the world’s party outcasts, but Boring Accountant Man isn’t going to be looking in your direction. Never seen anyone less virginal in my life.’

      Zoe gave a hollow laugh. ‘I’m glad about that.’

      Suze chuckled. ‘I don’t believe there’s a twenty-three-year-old virgin left in the northern hemisphere.’

      Zoe winced. Only Suze did not see it, and the mask clicked into place, as it always did, without fail.

      But bright, deceptive, popular Performance Zoe said naughtily, ‘Definitely dead as a dodo.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      JAY CHRISTOPHER drove into the tree-lined street at half past midnight. The party house was not difficult to identify. Someone had tied balloons all along the iron railings and it blazed with lights.

      He inserted the Jaguar into the tightest possible parking place with one smooth movement and switched off the engine. For a moment he sat there in the friendly dark, savouring the solitude. It had been a heavy week in every way.

      ‘People!’ he said aloud, with fierce self-mockery. ‘Doncha just love them?’

      He looked at the balloon-fringed house with reluctance bordering on dislike. But this was work, he reminded himself. He could deal with people when it was work.

      He flicked open the slim briefcase on the passenger seat and found the big white envelope he was looking for. Then he flung the briefcase on the floor, out of sight of any potential car breaker. There was no point in bothering with a jacket. The night was too warm and he didn’t think Suze Manoir’s friends would welcome a fellow in a City suit. Anyway, he had already left his tie at Carla’s.

      At the thought of Carla his slim dark brows locked together. She had not contributed to the emotional horrors of this week. But he knew that she was not happy. It would have to end soon, Jay thought. It could not go on, not if he was making her unhappy. No matter how bravely she denied it.

      He shook his head. It was so easy to know when women were getting in too deep. They stopped asking questions in case they couldn’t deal with the answers.

      Take tonight, for example. He had said, without thinking, that he was going to have to drive through a part of London he did not know. That he was going to a party. Carla could so easily have asked, Whose party? Where? Could she come, too…? But she hadn’t. Jay even knew why. In case he wouldn’t take her. In case the party-giver was her successor.

      So she had just sat opposite him in the restaurant and smiled and asked intelligent questions about his business and looked forward to seeing him on Sunday. And all the time there had been that terrible fear at the back of her eyes. And her voice had been calm and even. And she hadn’t asked questions.

      Yes, he was definitely going to have to end it. She was too nice a woman to do anything else. He could not let her start to hope that there might be any future for them. It would be completely false. He had made that plain when they started. Carla had said she understood that. But women had that habit of forgetting the rules when they fell in love.

      Especially when they fell in love with men СКАЧАТЬ