Jayne Bauling - Trust Too Much

‘Not so many really. I generally prefer small, curvy women myself.’

‘But not because they make you feel protective,’ she guessed acidly.

‘Hell, no,’ he confirmed, drawling slightly. ‘I like a woman who can take care of herself, stand up for herself, and the sassy little ones usually can.’

He would. Fee supposed that was partly why he had never appealed to her personally. She knew it wasn’t fashionable, but she dreamed of the sort of man who would take care of her while refraining from the sort of babying that people like Babs and Charles offered her—not that she couldn’t look after herself generally, of course, despite the self-doubt she had suffered since misreading Vance Sheldon’s intentions.

‘So you’re able to feel superior without having to be protective at the same time,’ she mocked.

‘Everyone is the same height in bed.’ Simon was dismissive. ‘Out of it, your height would have made you ideal for ramp work, especially now that that incredible grace has replaced your clumsiness, so how come you never considered modelling?’

‘Mainly because I don’t like a lot of people looking at me,’ she vouchsafed shortly.

‘Why not?’ His eyes were bright with interest.

‘I once had an unpleasant experience,’ she began pointedly, and saw his face harden.

‘You’ve had all the apology you’re getting, Fee, so don’t go on about it,’ he advised her ruthlessly, before smiling. ‘All the same it’s a pity…Nice legs too. You can wear shorts and miniskirts. Usually the women who do definitely shouldn’t…Here’s Babs.’

He stood up to go and help Babs who had appeared on the patio with a tray of drinks, leaving Fee blushing and confused. His manner had begun to perplex her, nowhere near as boredly indifferent, occasionally teasing and sometimes rude as it had been in her teens, for which she was grateful; but his odd, brief forays into the realm of what might loosely be termed flirtation were disconcerting, mainly because they were so inconsistent. She had to suppose that they arose out of mere habit, simply because he was such a chronic flirt, programmed to a certain automatic pattern of behaviour in female company, whether the women concerned interested him or not. He probably didn’t even realise he was doing it, and would be startled if she ever flirted back, she reflected wryly.

She glanced down at her denim shorts and pretty white cotton top and found confirmation of her suspicion; despite the air of sophistication she had managed to acquire over the years, but which she frequently tended to forget she possessed simply because she still felt so unsophisticated, she was sure she was devoid of the sort of glamour common to the women who attracted Simon.

Mercifully, her face had cooled by the time he and Babs arrived on the pool-deck, although Simon threw her an amused look as if he had discerned the trend of her recent thoughts. Fee prevented herself fidgeting self-consciously and managed to keep her expression composed, relieved when he seemed disinclined to make any further personal comments.

Charles arrived home from work a few minutes later and came out to join them, but Simon stood up to leave as soon as he had finished his drink.

‘A date?’ Charles enquired interestedly.

‘Work.’

Charles shook his head incredulously. ‘When are you ever going to ease up, man?’

Simon shrugged. ‘It’s my choice, Charles.’

‘On a Friday night? And with the lovely Loren no doubt waiting for you!’

Lovely, but limited intellectually, Fee reflected sardonically. She must frequently bore him, but, as he had acknowledged, Rhodes Properties never did.

He was so full of contradictions, absorbed in his work and highly regarded as an employer, she knew, and yet simultaneously a social animal with an overt appreciation of the opposite sex, and superficial and inconsistent in his romantic attachments. But the fact that he and Charles were still friendly argued that he was at least capable of a degree of consistency in his friendships, even if he would never accept the responsibilities and curbs of marriage.

She was doing it again, Fee realised, disconcerted—looking for depths when she knew perfectly well that, as charming and physically perfect as he was, Simon was essentially a shallow man.

‘Don’t forget to phone on Monday,’ Simon addressed Fee, ignoring Charles’s challenge, and she nodded, conscious of depression settling on her, which it had tended to do ever since the Australian fiasco, as she watched him stroll away, a beautiful, truly golden man.

‘Hell, it’s hot. Where are my swimming-trunks, darling?’ Charles gave Fee a teasing grin. ‘Since Babs tells me skinny-dipping is out now that we’ve got you with us.’

‘Find them yourself. Don’t let him embarrass you, Fee, darling,’ Babs adjured as he went bounding up the stairs. ‘What did Simon want? He said something about a job when he arrived.’

‘Yes, he said he might have a position for me at Rhodes Properties.’

‘Take it,’ Babs advised her promptly. ‘Mercifully I don’t have to work any more, but if I did Rhodes Properties would be high on my list, although I don’t suppose I’d even feature on theirs. What job exactly?’

‘I’m not sure. I have to ring the head of Personnel on Monday and presumably she’ll decide if I qualify for whatever it is.’ Fee looked at her stepsister a little uncertainly. ‘It should be all right, shouldn’t it, Babs? To accept if I’m offered a position, I mean? Simon did make it clear that he wasn’t just being kind because I’m Charles’s sister-in-law, although I gather Charles did speak to him about it. Anyway, I know he simply isn’t a kind man.’

‘No, so what are you worrying about?’ Babs urged. ‘I remember he used to tease you occasionally when you were a kid, but he doesn’t mess around where Rhodes Properties is concerned.’

‘I know. It’s strange that he should have such a reputation for integrity where that side of his life is concerned, when you consider how he behaves in other areas,’ Fee commented, regarding Babs with sudden curiosity. ‘All those women—’

‘Don’t look at me like that; I wasn’t one,’ Babs laughed, able to read her thoughts now that she had discarded the more worldly persona she adopted for strangers. ‘It was one of those lucky things. I was already falling in love with old Charlie when he introduced us, and, to my immense relief, nothing changed. To give him his due, I think Simon was equally relieved as Charles is one of the few people he genuinely likes. I know you’ve always loathed him—I remember you used to call him “that horrible man”—because of the teasing, not forgetting that time he lost his temper with you so abominably, but he’s not as unscrupulous as he’s made out to be, you know. Oh, he’s a playboy of the first order but, for instance, he never gets involved with a married woman.’

‘He hardly needs to when he must have a queue of single ones all lined up waiting their turn to be flavour of the month,’ Fee suggested sardonically before shrugging dismissively. ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I do accept that where Rhodes Properties is concerned he’s a different man, and if I am offered whatever job it is and whoever my immediate boss is going to be seems all right I’ll probably take it.’

Babs and Charles went out a little later, urging Fee to join them, but she declined, spending a quiet evening on her own, and she was in bed by the time she heard them return soon after midnight. She had slept extra soundly for two nights running now, compensating for the weeks of fitful, shallow slumber in Australia when she had kept waking, hot with shame or often disorientated by fatigue and nightmare, thinking she was back in that hotel room in Perth, or facing a baying pack of reporters again, or listening to Vance Sheldon’s demands on the phone.