Jessica studied her reflection in the mirror. Mm, not bad. Andrew had insisted on giving her money for a new dress, and the royal blue crushed velvet of the gown made her eyes appear an even deeper blue, her hair almost silver. She looked cool and confident, and she only hoped she could act that way. Andrew had worked for Sinclairs for two years now, in the Sales Department, but this year was the first time he had invited her to attend one of their annual summer dances. The previous year she had stayed at home to look after an ailing Penny, and Andrew had gone on his own. She doubted he had left the same way. Andrew attracted women like bees around honey, his dark good looks and teasing blue eyes being attractive to most women, his air of recklessness adding to his challenge.
He stood up as soon as she entered the lounge, and she could view dispassionately the way the navy blue suit emphasised the breadth of his shoulders, his tapered waist and muscled thighs. His dark hair was worn over-long, deliberately so, and his features were so perfect he was almost beautiful.
‘We'd better be going,’ he said tersely, moving his car keys impatiently from one hand to the other, looking older than his twenty-seven years.
‘You look wonderful, Jessica.’ Peg filled Andrew's omission, ‘Really lovely, doesn't she, Andrew?’ Her voice hardened over the last.
Jessica bit her lip. Peg wasn't fooled by Andrew's winning ways in the least. She had been their next-door neighbour for two years now, and she knew exactly what Andrew was like. In fact, Peg was always advising her to leave him, if only to teach him a lesson. Peg seemed convinced that this was the jolt Andrew needed to stop his affairs. There was no possibility of her ever leaving Andrew, not with what he knew about her.
Andrew gave her a cursory glance, more of a glower really. ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘Now are you ready?’
‘I just have to get my jacket——’
‘I'll get it.’ He strode off impatiently, scowling heavily.
Peg raised her eyebrows; she was an attractive brunette with twelve years of happy marriage behind her, and was obviously slightly bewildered by Jessica's own marriage. ‘Big night?’ she teased.
‘Andrew's just tense,’ Jessica excused his rudeness. ‘Getting on at Sinclairs means a lot to him. The Sales Manager is retiring at the end of the year, and Andrew would like his job.’
‘Isn't he a little young for that?’
She shrugged. ‘I suppose he could be, I don't really know.’ Andrew rarely discussed his work with her, in fact she felt sure he had only mentioned the Sales Manager's job to her because he wanted to be sure she made a good impression tonight. ‘He seems to think he can do it.’
‘Then he probably can,’ her friend laughed. ‘That young man can do anything he sets his mind to.’
Not quite anything, but she wasn't going to tell Peg that. The explanation would be too embarrassing to herself. ‘If Penny should come down——’
‘She will, you know she will,’ Peg chuckled.
‘Yes,’ Jessica smiled. ‘Well, I shouldn't worry about it too much. It's Friday, so she doesn't have school tomorrow.’
‘Whatever you say,’ the other woman accepted. ‘I'll be glad to have her company.’
‘Here,’ Andrew came back, handing Jessica's jacket to her. ‘Let's go,’ and he walked out to the car.
‘See you later,’ she told Peg breathlessly as she struggled into her jacket, hastily following Andrew.
He was already seated behind the wheel, having no intention of opening the car door for her. Jessica saw something glittering on the floor as she got in, and bent to pick it up. It was a woman's compact, and it looked expensive.
‘Lisa's?’ She held it up.
Andrew turned to her with a start, his attention momentarily diverted from his driving. ‘What did you say?’
She drew in a steadying breath, knowing it would do no good for her to lose her temper. ‘I wondered if this were Lisa's.’
His face darkened. ‘How the hell did you find out about her?’
‘Guess,’ she said bitterly.
‘Penny!’
‘Yes. Andrew, I won't have her involved in your affairs. If you want to——’
‘You won't have her involved?’ he repeated scornfully. ‘Who asked for your opinion?’
‘Can't you see that she'll very soon start to make the connection——’
‘So what if she does?’
She paled. ‘Andrew, you can't——’
‘Who says I can't?’ he scowled. ‘Who's going to stop me? You?’
Jessica flinched at the contempt in his voice. ‘I won't have her involved,’ she repeated firmly. ‘You won't take her out with one of your women again.’
An angry flush coloured his cheeks, a pulse beating erratically in his cheek. ‘And what are you going to do if I do? Deny me the pleasure of your bed?’ he mocked bitterly.
Jessica paled even more. She should be used to his insults by now, and yet she could still be hurt by them. And he knew it, deriving great pleasure from denting the shell she had bult up about her emotions.
‘But then it never was a pleasure, for either of us, was it?’ he added scathingly.
‘Andrew——’
‘Beautiful—and frigid,’ he continued sneeringly.
‘I'm not——’
‘When a woman hasn't slept with her husband, or had the inclination to, for over five years then there has to be something wrong with her. And don't try and put the blame on me again,’ he snapped. ‘None of the other women I've slept with have had the trouble you did.’
By ‘trouble’ she knew he meant inhibitions. When they had met eight years ago she had been so shy it had taken all her time to talk to him, overwhelmed as she was by the fact that such a handsome, popular boy should have been interested in her.
Brought up by a maiden aunt since she was five years old, she wasn't used to being the centre of attention, especially male attention. She had been happy with her parents until the car crash had taken them from her, and her aunt had been very strict, hadn't liked her talking to boys, not even at school, drumming into Jessica at an early age the infidelities of men.
Thinking about it now, in her own maturity, she thought her aunt had probably been very hurt by a man when she was younger, but that didn't excuse the way she had regimentally brought up Jessica, never showing her any love or affection, something that had come hard to her after the first happy five years of her life.
Consequently she had grown up a lonely child, with a craving to be loved that at the time she hadn't even recognised. In her last year of school she had taken a Saturday job working in a local café, much to her aunt's disgust. Andrew came in there a lot with his friends, or with a girl. He had been popular even then, and had seemed like a god to the awe-struck, lovesick Jessica.
When he had asked her out for the first time she had thought he hadn't really meant it, that he had done it as a joke, that he and his friends would have a laugh about it later. Her basic insecurity was such that she hadn't been able to acknowledge or recognise her own beauty—she still couldn't, but Andrew had been intrigued by that haunting beauty from the first.
He had started to come to the café alone after that, asking