Daphne Clair - Edge Of Deception

As she went in search of it, a warm male hand fell on her shoulder. ‘Tara! Chantelle said you were here! I’ve been looking for you.’

‘Andy—’ Tara turned with resignation. Andrew Paget towered over her, a wide grin showing perfect teeth that went with his over-long flaxen curls, guileless summer-sky gaze and carefully nurtured, brawny frame. A dazzling white T-shirt two sizes too small accentuated his sun-bed tan, and designer-label dress jeans lovingly hugged dramatically muscled thighs and calves.

She couldn’t help smiling back at him. Andy had that effect on women. There was not a lot between his surgically flattened ears to complement the magnificent body and the Greek-god face, but she’d known him when he was an undersized kid with unevenly mown sandy hair and a mouth full of brand-new dental braces. Behind the fragile self-assurance engendered by a late growth spurt and the correcting of his disastrous teeth and ears, followed by a determined regimen of body-building, lurked the child who had endured the nickname of ‘Wingnut’ from the day he started school.

Tara had always had a soft spot for him during the two years they’d both attended the same school, before her father sold his hardware business in a Waikato town to invest in a new business selling how-to books to supermarkets and garages, then later bought out a surplus goods firm in Auckland. When Andy turned up years afterwards working in a sporting goods store in the small suburban mall where Chantelle and Tara had their own shops, his metamorphosis had stunned and amused her.

The women his new image attracted had improved Andy’s confidence considerably, but that in no way changed the basic sweetness of his nature. Only, his conversational powers were extended by any discussion that ranged beyond football, pop songs, the innards of cars and the esoteric mysteries of body-building. He’d got his job less, she suspected, on any perceived sales ability than on the advertising value of his mere presence, kitted out from the store’s range of expensive sports clothing.

‘What did you want me for?’ she asked him.

His grin widened. One thing Andy had learned from the parade of women competing for his delighted attention was a rather obvious form of sexual banter. His gaze dropped innocently over the figure-hugging red dress that stopped well short of Tara’s knees and returned to her eyes, mischief dancing in his.

Before he could say anything, she told him crisply, ‘I need to eat. Put those muscles of yours to good use, will you, and carve me a path to the food?’ She’d glimpsed a couple of tables against the wall of the other room, laden with filled dishes.

Andy took her hand and did as she’d asked, fetching up before one of the tables with a look of triumph. Tempted to say, ‘Good boy,’ and pat him, she settled for, ‘Thank you.’ As she picked up a plate and began placing a selection of nibbles on it, she added, choosing her words more carefully this time, ‘Why were you looking for me?’

Shoving a sausage roll into his mouth, Andy apparently swallowed it whole. ‘Chantelle said you’re on your own.’

‘Yes, I am.’ She hadn’t brought anyone because she figured that would make it easier to slip off home early. These days parties tended to pall after a couple of hours, and she usually avoided them. Did Chantelle think she’d be lost without a partner?

Looking round idly, her gaze skittered away from Sholto and Averil, talking to Philip and another man. Chantelle didn’t know, did she? No, she told herself. If she had, she’d have warned me.

‘So’m I.’ An oyster patty followed the sausage roll, leaving a fragment of pastry on his lower lip.

‘What?’ Absently she reached up and removed the flaky crumb, dropping it onto the edge of her plate.

‘Alone,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know anyone.’

Light dawned. Andy was shy, and had made a beeline for the one person he knew well. Childhood insecurities died hard. ‘I don’t know many people, either. Shall we stick together?’ She smiled at him kindly, then bit into an asparagus roll, cool and bland.

Andy picked up another from the table and popped it into his mouth. ‘Chantelle introduced me to this woman,’ he muttered, furtively looking about the room. ‘Over there.’ Quickly he averted his eyes, and Tara’s curious glance over her shoulder failed to identify which woman he meant.

‘Didn’t you like her?’ she asked, finishing the roll and picking up a club sandwich. Andy was almost fatally friendly. She couldn’t imagine him taking an instant dislike to anyone, especially a woman. He was so overwhelmingly grateful for their interest that he practically fell over himself trying to please them.

‘Like her?’ He looked as though the concept was beyond him. ‘She—she’s a professor! At the university. ’ His expression was one of awe bordering on terror.

Tara bridled. What had the woman done—deliberately intimidated him? If so, she was both cruel and a snob. It wasn’t Andy’s fault that he’d not been blessed with an academic brain like some people. ‘What did she say to you?’

‘Say?’ He looked at her blankly. ‘Not much. “Hello,” and “What do you do?” is about all, really.’ He swallowed. ‘I g-got her a drink and then took off to find you.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Nothing. She doesn’t look like a professor. But how could I talk to her?’

‘Just the same way you talk to me.’ If the professor didn’t like football, cars or pop music, she could at least have pretended to. Maybe she’d learn something. But maybe Andy hadn’t given her the chance.

He shook his head. ‘She’s one of those intelligent women. What could I say to her?’

A smile lurking on her mouth, a pastry case filled with creamed corn poised in her hand, Tara raised her brows at him.

Andy looked at her silently, then blushed to the roots of his golden locks. ‘Sorry, Tara! I didn’t mean you aren’t—I just meant—I mean, she —’

Tara laughed aloud, placing a comforting hand on his bronzed arm and patting it. ‘Never mind, I know what you meant. I was teasing you.’

Relief washed over his superb features. ‘Oh—good. That’s all right, then. I wouldn’t want to offend you, Tara.’

‘You haven’t.’ She picked up her drink and hooked a casual hand into his arm. ‘Come on, let’s circulate.’

She didn’t particularly want to circulate, but she wasn’t intending to lurk in corners all night, either. Unable to stop her eyes from travelling to where she’d last seen Sholto, she found her gaze colliding with his dark stare. His eyes flicked to Andy and back to her face, a corner of his mouth momentarily curling in contempt before he looked away.

Shaken and hot with rage, she tightened her grip on Andy’s substantial arm.

‘Ow!’ he protested, looking down at her in surprise.

Hastily she loosened her fingers, horrified to see the curved indentations of her fingernails showing red against his hair-dusted tan. ‘ Andy! I’m sorry!’

Recovering, he grinned. ‘Just give me warning next time, huh? Women don’t usually mark me there! If you like I’ll show you—’

‘No, I don’t like,’ she said repressively. ‘Behave yourself or I’ll throw you to your professor and leave.’

‘Awp!’ He looked cowed. ‘I’ll behave, promise!’

Tara put on a friendly smile and without difficulty struck up several conversations, watching Andy regain some assurance as the women predictably reacted to his looks and diffident charm, and the men regarded him with covert envy.

He seemed to be getting on with a group of mainly young people who shared his musical taste, and she was murmuring an excuse to leave his side when he grabbed at her hand and said in lowered but panic-stricken tones, ‘Don’t go away!’