Carole Mortimer - Living Together

‘Lunch would be so much nicer. Get your coat,’ he ordered.

‘I will not! I—–’

‘Get it, Helen,’ he commanded softly. ‘You surely don’t want to cause a scene here?’

‘I’m not going to cause a scene.’

‘No,’ he smiled, ‘but I am.’

She raised her eyebrows derisively. ‘Over a little office girl?’

‘Over a very beautiful but stubborn woman,’ he corrected. ‘I think I could stand the publicity, can you?’

Helen gave him an angry glare before collecting her lightweight jacket, not looking at anyone as she left with him, embarrassed beyond words.

‘Why did you have to do that?’ she groaned once they were outside. ‘They’ll all be agog with curiosity when I get back.’

Leon took her elbow in a firm grasp. ‘Worry about that later.’

‘It’s all right for you to say that. You—–’ She stopped as she saw he was directing her towards a gold-coloured Porsche parked on a double yellow line. ‘Where are you taking me?’

He opened the car door for her. ‘I told you, lunch. Get in, Helen, there’s a good girl. There’s a menacing-looking policeman making his way over here.’

She gave him a sweet smile of sarcasm. ‘I’m sure you could manage to charm your way out of it.’

‘Maybe.’ He pushed her inside the car before going round the other side and getting in himself. ‘But I don’t intend wasting any time trying.’ He manoeuvred the car into the flow of traffic.

‘That remark you made just now,’ Helen said tentatively. ‘What did you mean by it?’

He gave her a fleeting glance. ‘Which remark?’

‘About the publicity.’

Leon shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘I don’t mind it being known I’m attracted to a very lovely lady.’

Helen sighed. ‘I didn’t mean you, I meant what did you mean by asking if I could stand the publicity?’ She gave him a searching look, but could tell nothing from his expression.

He frowned. ‘I thought may be you wouldn’t like me to cause trouble at your place of work.’

’Is that all?’ she probed suspiciously.

They were heading out of town now and Leon turned to look at her momentarily. ‘What else could I have meant?’

Helen evaded those searching tawny eyes. ‘You tell me.’

He shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’

‘You—you really don’t know?’

‘Know what, for God’s sake?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Do you have some murky secret in your past that you don’t want people to know about?’ he teased.

Helen drew a ragged breath. ‘Don’t joke about it, Leon.’

‘You mean you do have a secret?’

‘It wasn’t such a secret a couple of years ago, and I just couldn’t bear for it all to be raked up again.’

‘For what to be raked up? Come on, Helen, you might as well tell me now you’ve gone this far.’

Her hands twisted nervously together in her lap. ‘My—my husband was Michael West.’ She looked at him searchingly, watching for the recognition, for the disgust.

‘So? What does— Michael West?’ he queried softly.

She bowed her head. ‘Yes.’

‘Of West Hotels?’

‘That’s his father, actually.’

‘ You were married to Mike West?’ He sounded incredulous.

‘Yes,’ she admitted chokingly.

‘Then you must be—–’

‘I’m the girl who married him, lived with him for only two days before walking out, and was called a fortune-hunter by the press for weeks afterwards.’

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