JACQUELINE BAIRD - The Reluctant Fiancee

CHAPTER THREE

BEA had been used, exploited by the first man she had ever let near her. Before Leon she had dated a few boys of her own age, and exchanged the odd fumbled kiss, but nothing like the passionate interludes Leon had introduced her to. She should have realised a sophisticated, sexually mature man like Leon couldn’t possibly be interested in a naive young girl such as herself unless he had an ulterior motive. But she had blindly agreed with everything Leon had said. She’d even put up with him calling her Phoebe, when she much preferred Bea...

Nausea clawed at her stomach; the sense of betrayal ate into her very being. That she could be so wrong about a man she had known almost all her life, a man she would have trusted with her life, made her burn with shame at her own gullibility.

She thumped the bed with her clenched fists and shouted out loud, ‘Fool, fool, fool!’ Then the tears came. Bea cried until she had no tears left, and her throat was raw and dry. Finally she slowly sat up. She had no idea how long she had been in the bedroom, but it was already getting dark. Confirmation, if she needed any more, of how little Leon actually thought of her.

On his return to the villa, his eager calling of her name had roused her from sleep. But since his conversation with Selina he certainly hadn’t bothered trying to find Bea again.

She heaved herself off the bed and walked into the bathroom. One look in the mirror, and if she could have cried again she would have. Red-rimmed, swollen eyes stared out of a face as white as a ghost’s. She had no idea how she was going to face Leon ever again.

Stripping off her bikini, she stepped into the shower and turned on the cold water. She stood beneath the freezing spray, praying it would numb her body and brain, but it was no good. The image of Leon and Selina together tortured her mind. Three years... They had been lovers for three years, and they were having a baby together. She heard again Leon’s furious outburst: ‘You did it deliberately.’ And that was what hurt most of all.

Leon hadn’t tried to deny the child was his. He was simply furious at being caught by the oldest trick in the book. Bea stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself and walked back into the bedroom. She stopped by the dressing table, pulled the diamond ring off her finger and dropped it on the polished surface. Her engagement ring. What a joke! While she had considered herself engaged since Easter, when Leon had asked her to marry him and she had said yes, he had obviously felt no such commitment. He had continued sleeping with his long-time lover.

It was not so surprising, really, she thought as mechanically she set about getting dressed. She had always known Leon was the Lothario type, but in her youthful naivety she had let herself believe she was the one person who could change him. A hollow laugh escaped her. She remembered last night and their impassioned kisses, and then his denial of what she had quite obviously been offering, his high moral stance. He wanted her to have the perfect wedding, and wedding night. What a lie!

Sadly Bea realised he probably didn’t even want her in a sexual way. No, what he wanted was control of her share of the company. With that thought her sorrow began to change, and by the time she was standing in front of the mirror once more, about to put on her make-up, she wasn’t sad but mad... Mad with a cold fury. Then it came to her—a way to escape with her pride intact and without revealing what she knew.

In the end it was simple. Bea walked into the dining room, not a scrap of make-up on her pale face, her long hair tied up in a childish ponytail and wearing the simple blue and white candy-striped dress she had included in her luggage, thinking it would come in useful if she were messing around. She knew she looked ridiculously young, but that was the idea.

Tany, Leon’s stepmother, Amy and Selina were elegantly gowned and already seated at the table. But Leon was standing near the door and crossed straight to Bea’s side. He bent his head to kiss her. She saw it coming and deliberately moved so that his lips brushed her cheek and not her mouth.

‘Something the matter, Phoebe?’ he asked solicitously.

Bea almost snapped back, Yes, you, you snake! But, biting her tongue, she simply turned her face up to his, giving him the full benefit of her red, swollen eyes. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Please sit down, you two. We want to eat,’ Tany commanded.

Leon cast Bea a worried. glance, but held out a chair for her and then slid into the one next to her.

It was Tany who noticed first. ‘Bea, where is your ring, child? You don’t want to lose it. Knowing Leon, it will have cost a fortune. And what has happened to your eyes?’

Dramatically Bea pushed back her chair and jumped to her feet, acting for all she was worth. The last thing she felt like doing was sharing a dinner with this group.

‘Please, you will have to excuse me. I’m not hungry.’ Glancing down at Leon’s upturned face, surprise and puzzlement evident in his expression, she added, ‘I really am terribly sorry but it has all been a mistake. I realised this afternoon. It is beautiful here, but I—I am h-homesick.’ She deliberately stuttered. ‘I miss my friends and Lil, and the cool English summer, and I don’t want to get married, not yet.’

A solitary tear rolled down her cheek, lending credit to her story, but in actual fact it was a tear of self-pity, an emotion she despised. Brushing her cheek with the back of her hand, she saw Leon’s dark eyes narrow assessingly on her pale face. Then slowly he got to his feet, and tried to put an arm around her shoulders.

‘Don’t be silly, Phoebe. It’s probably just bridal nerves.’ He smiled. ‘I promise everything will be fine.’

Patronising swine, she thought, and, twisting out from under his arm, she turned to face him.

‘It will not be all right because I do not want to marry you. I want to go home and get on with my studies, my life. I’m sorry. I think it was because of my father dying so recently. I needed a father figure, and so I latched onto you. But that is no reason to get married.’

It took every ounce of nerve and self-control Bea possessed to hold Leon’s now angry gaze and deliver her final comment. ‘I realise now I’m not ready for marriage or commitment. I’m only just eighteen, far too young, and you...well, you’re...’ She trailed off, not so subtly implying that Leon was too old for her.

It had been the reference to age that had clinched it, Bea mused, safely ensconced on the aeroplane back to England the next day. In her mind’s eye she could still see the look of frustrated fury on his darkly handsome face as Selina and Amy had had the temerity to laugh.

True, he had made another attempt to change her mind much later. He had walked into her bedroom and tried, with his sexual expertise, to kiss her into submission. But knowing his lover Selina was downstairs had given Bea the strength to remain cold in his arms. How long she could have continued doing so was anybody’s guess. Because she’d still wanted him, even as she’d hated herself for feeling that way. But the arrival of Tany to check that Bea was all right had stopped Leon cold. And, in Tany’s presence, Bea had given him back his ring.

Yawning widely, Bea turned over and curled up into a foetal position. She yawned again. Tomorrow was the first day of the rest of her life. The past was past. Leon was no threat to her peace of mind any more, she told herself groggily. As for her reaction to his kiss earlier, it was simply because she had drunk too much champagne and he had caught her off guard. It would never happen again. Only a fool made the same mistake twice, and at twenty-one, with a degree in her pocket, Bea was nobody’s fool...