Ruthless Husband, Convenient Wife Read online

  ‘Come on, sweetie,’ Amanda said, worried by Penny’s dazed condition. ‘Let’s get you to a doctor.’

  Penny shut the phone without another word and switched it off.

  She never switched it on again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘WHAT happened to the van?’ Ariadne squealed.

  Memories of the past dissolved around Ariadne’s yelp of dismay, very much of the here and now. She looked at her friend. ‘I went through a hedge backwards,’ Penny said.

  ‘Oh, Penny! Were you hurt?’

  ‘Not a scratch,’ she replied, taking a huge bunch of sweet peas out of the back of the van.

  ‘But the poor van is all scraped and dented. The paintwork will need to be redone,’ Ariadne said. ‘It’ll cost a bomb. And what on earth are you going to do with all those sweet peas?’

  ‘Our new client will be paying for the bodywork,’ Penny said. ‘And also for the sweet peas.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Do you know how much sweet peas in winter cost?’

  Ariadne was halfway through taking off her coat. She froze in astonishment. ‘Which new client?’

  ‘Ryan Wolfe of Northcote Hall, dear. The accident happened while I was driving through the snow on business for him, so I think it’s fair he should pay. Don’t you?’

  ‘Ryan Wolfe? Are you serious? You changed your mind?’

  ‘We’re going to be doing flowers and décor for his parties from now on,’ Penny said. ‘I’m also going to be decorating his house.’

  ‘What?’ Ariadne gaped.

  ‘From top to bottom.’ Penny laid the fragrant bundles of sweet peas on the work bench. ‘And a little intimate dinner party for six tonight. They’ll be swimming in sweet peas. Very, very expensive sweet peas.’

  Ariadne’s green eyes were sparkling. ‘Penny, stop for a moment. How did all this happen? On Wednesday you said you would have nothing to do with the man!’

  ‘Let’s just say he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ Penny said, beginning to sort the sweet peas into bunches.

  ‘Let’s just say he took you to bed and you suddenly saw the light,’ Ariadne said, meaningfully. ‘You lucky little devil! No wonder you’re looking so smug. God, I’m green with envy! I think I’ll put poison in your coffee.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Oh? What was it like, then?’

  ‘I don’t want to go into details,’ Penny said.

  ‘Darling, the details would no doubt scorch these delicate ears of mine.’ Ariadne’s dark face was alight with a mixture of amusement and jealousy. ‘But please don’t spare me on any account. To those of us who don’t currently have a sex life, due to not finding any male who is not a total pig, a little salacious detail is meat and drink. Tell me what that beautiful brute did to you! What you did to him! Give me the whole picture or I’ll die of mortification!’

  Penny paused in her work, her violet eyes thoughtful. ‘He gave me control,’ she said simply.

  Ariadne clapped her hand to her mouth, her sparkling eyes wide. ‘No! You tied him to the bed!’

  ‘Oh, Ariadne, I don’t mean it in that sense,’ Penny sighed. ‘I mean, he gave me control of my feelings. He’s offered me an arrangement that lets me have space. He’s willing to let me have things on my own terms. And,’ she added meaningfully, ‘I mean to have them on my own terms! If he is foolish enough to let me call the tune, then call it I will. And let him see how he likes it.’

  Ariadne frowned. ‘That’s the deal?’

  ‘He says he is willing to listen to me and try to figure me out,’ Penny said with a smile.

  ‘Really?’ Ariadne said. ‘Both my husbands left in the early listening-and-figuring-out stages.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t really mean it,’ Penny said. ‘He’ll pretend to hear every word I say, but he’ll go his own sweet way, as he always does.’

  Ariadne’s eyes were suddenly serious. ‘Watch out for your heart, Penny.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that you’re probably deeper in love with him than you’ll ever know. You ran from him once before and he came to find you. If you push him away again, he might think you’re serious. Lose this one, and you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it, I promise you that!’

  Penny stared at Ariadne in surprise. Then the back door opened, interrupting them.

  ‘Good morning, earth people.’ Miles Clampett came into the workshop, grinning, as pleased as ever with himself. ‘How are my two favourite humanoids?’

  ‘Butt out, Miles,’ Ariadne said vigorously. ‘I was talking to Penny.’

  ‘Well, talk about this,’ he suggested, holding out an envelope. ‘My fee for fixing the door. I think you’ll be able to tell by the thickness of the envelope that I have charged handsomely for my extraterrestrial powers.’

  ‘You can take it away and add fifty per cent,’ Penny said.

  ‘What?’ Miles blinked. ‘Add fifty per cent? You mean cut fifty per cent.’

  ‘You heard me, Great Khan of the galaxy Rip-Off. Add a few more bags of nails and a new electric saw.’

  He gawped. ‘Surely you jest. You haven’t even read the total.’

  ‘Don’t need to. My principal will be paying it. He can read it.’

  Miles scratched his sawdust-covered head. ‘It’s no fun overcharging clients unless they struggle and fight.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ Penny said serenely, trimming the bunches of sweet peas.

  ‘But it shall be as you say. Earthlings are very strange,’ Miles concluded as he left. They heard him drive off.

  Ariadne shook her head. ‘He’s right. You’re acting very strangely. Are you really going to charge Miles’s bill to Ryan?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Penny was humming to herself. She had awoken this morning with the decision already taken. She would accept Ryan’s offer. After all, it was not often one got to turn the tables in life.

  Ryan had given her no choices while she’d been living with him in London. Now she was going to enjoy confronting him with the same take-it-or-leave-it lack of alternatives.

  He’d invited her to use him. Well, she would. On her own terms.

  And she might as well take his money, too. Sex and money were two things Ryan was very good at.

  If he insisted that he could not survive without her skills—when London was full of decorators and florists—then let him pay for the privilege.

  She would have Ryan on her own terms.

  And as for Ariadne’s warning—that she was deeper in love with Ryan than she would ever know, and that if she lost him she would regret it for the rest of her life—well, those things only happened to women who were not in control. She was in control now, and she would not lose that control for anything in the wide world!

  ‘The table’s going to be beautiful tonight,’ she said, tilting her head on one side to examine the flowers. ‘Chains of sweet peas going from each place setting to the next. A huge spray of arum lilies in the middle. Wreaths of ivy and posies of red and black hellebores. A nice autumnal touch, don’t you think?’

  ‘It sounds wonderful,’ Ariadne said.

  ‘I’ve ordered four silver candelabra from Legacy, the wedding place—huge ones, a dozen candles in each. And I ordered crystal and porcelain tableware from them, too. They’ve promised to get it all to Northcote by four this afternoon. And the prettiest damask table linen you ever saw.’

  ‘You rented all that for one party?’

  ‘Bought, darling, bought.’

  ‘Penny!’ Ariadne gasped. ‘It’s going to cost him a fortune.’

  ‘Your point being…?’

  ‘He’ll quickly get sick of this level of expenditure!’

  ‘Then he can go back to London,’ Penny said calmly, ‘and stop pretending things he doesn’t mean.’

  ‘Oh, Penny,’ Ariadne said, ‘don’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. And don’t chase him away—he’s too beautiful!’

  ‘He asked for it,’ was her reply. �
�He’ll get it.’

  ‘What about food? Are we going into catering, too?’

  ‘No. He says he has that covered.’

  ‘But the kitchen hasn’t even been set up at Northcote, has it? And he has no staff.’

  ‘No.’ Penny shrugged. ‘It’s his business. I’m just taking care of the presentation. For all I care, he can open a tin of beans. Beans and sweet peas,’ she hummed. ‘Very tasteful.’

  Ariadne giggled. ‘You’re terrible. And who is coming to this impromptu bash with the silver candelabra and the baked beans?’

  ‘Some movie people. And Cameron Ray and Lenka Manchester.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ Ariadne gasped. ‘Cameron Ray!’

  ‘It’s their third wedding anniversary. You know how dogs live seven years to each human year? It’s the same with Hollywood marriages. So this is actually their twenty-first wedding anniversary. A big occasion.’

  ‘Sneak me into the house,’ Ariadne begged. ‘I just want to breathe the same air as Cameron Ray!’

  ‘You can help me set things up this afternoon,’ Penny promised, ‘and maybe you’ll get a glimpse of His Cameronship—though I warn you, you may be disappointed. Now, let’s get to work!’

  Ariadne was not only breathing the same air as Cameron Ray by nine o’clock that evening, but she was also blissfully inhaling his cigar-smoke.

  The young Californian heartthrob, with his thatch of tow-coloured hair artfully disarranged as always, was puffing contentedly at a cheroot between courses. His lovely wife, Lenka, was in animated discussion with Ryan.

  Penny had to admit that everything looked wonderful. She and Ariadne had worked hard. The table was glorious.

  The formal dining room, though bare of anything except the table and chairs, was such a stately setting, with its magnificent moulded ceilings and imposing Adam fireplace. The four huge silver candelabra glowed warmly, illuminating the laughing faces of the guests. A fire burned brightly in the hearth. Apart from that, the room was empty, and dancing shadows took the place of the rich furnishings that would one day be arranged here.

  The house seemed to be coming to life in some strange way, even before she began her work. Ryan was working his magic with it, too.

  She had agreed to stay for the guests’ arrival so that Ariadne could see the Rays. But as they had all arrived in their taxis and limos there had been a chorus of greetings for her from each one, and with the warm embraces and kisses her heart had lifted. Though she’d planned to be out of the house as soon as her work was done, she had ended up staying for dinner, and the enchanted Ariadne had been invited, too.

  She took in the faces around the table now. There were two well-known British actors, one with her handsome new American husband, the other with his male partner of many years, an Italian producer couple who had been involved in some of Ryan’s projects, and finally the Rays, genuine Hollywood royalty.

  ‘Have you been on a world cruise, Pen?’ Cameron grinned. Ryan had seated Penny, somewhat to her dismay, at the head of the table, as though she were the hostess. ‘Or locked away in some convent?’

  ‘I’ve been on sabbatical, working,’ she said awkwardly.

  ‘Seems to have done you good,’ he told her, giving her the benefit of his bedroom eyes. ‘You look sweet enough to eat.’ His wild ways were legendary, but privately Penny thought that his sex-appeal was nothing compared to Ryan’s.

  Flavia Pollini, one of the Italian producers, leaned forward. ‘This table setting is exquisite, Penny,’ she said. ‘It’s like a fairy princess’s wedding.’

  ‘You do things so beautifully,’ her husband agreed. ‘It is so good to see you and Ryan together again.’

  She smiled and murmured some innocuous reply. How many times was she going to have to field that remark?

  And how was Ryan planning to feed all these people in such a bare—though imposing—house?

  Resourceful as ever, Ryan had compensated for his lack of staff by hiring in one of the mobile catering companies who provided food for crews and actors on location. No beans for him.

  Though Ryan had placed her in the position of hostess, there was nothing she needed to do but join in the fun.

  The menu was Cantonese. A supply of scrumptious Chinese dishes in cartons flowed from the kitchen and everybody dipped in with abandon, with the happy high spirits Penny remembered from so many film sets.

  Apart from Cameron Ray’s crack about the convent, as though by common consent, nobody was tactless enough to ask Penny where she had been for the past year.

  ‘It’s good to have you back,’ Roland Quincy murmured, patting her hand. ‘I miss your gentleness.’ On screen, he was one of the funniest men in the movies, but his off-screen presence was more introspective. Penny knew that he suffered from depression, and she was always especially sensitive with him, something he appreciated in a world where he was expected to always be the clown.

  Welcomed among them all, with a glass of champagne in her hand, Penny realised how much she had missed occasions like this one. It was amusing to watch Ariadne, who was positively starry-eyed, drinking it all in. She recalled herself when Ryan had first brought her into this world, how new it had all seemed.

  Familiar though she was with it, it was still wonderfully stimulating to be among creative people again, people who achieved big things. She listened carefully, trying to pick up what they had all been doing since she had fled the London scene a year earlier.

  The talk, indeed, was animated movie talk. Ryan, she quickly realised, was lining Cameron Ray up to play the lead opposite Lucinda Strong’s Tamara in The Other Side. Cameron had played a string of action comedies lately, and was interested in doing something more serious. But he was initially derisive of this role.

  Ryan was explaining the concept to Lenka, who was looking enthusiastic at the prospect of Cameron playing opposite a leading lady who, for once, was not the sex goddess of the moment. Involving Lenka was a shrewd move—she was one of the few people who had any influence over her wayward but box-office-pleasing husband.

  ‘The film starts out in New York,’ Ryan was saying, ‘after the war. The costumes and sets are so elegant. Tamara is a very wealthy, very lonely woman in her fifties, and Christopher is a penniless young ex-serviceman. She leads him on a journey of sexual and emotional discovery. They travel to Europe on a grand tour. They revisit his battlefields and she heals his emotional wounds. It’s a very erotic, but very poignant story.’

  ‘It sounds perfect for Cameron,’ Lenka said, running Penny’s sweet-pea chains through her fingers.

  ‘And if old Lucinda looks too gruesome in a lacy nightie,’ Cameron grinned, ‘we can always slap a pot of Vaseline on the lens, can’t we, Ryan?’

  Cameron was the only one who laughed at his own humour. Penny could not help wincing at the slighting reference to Lucinda. Cameron Ray was a rough diamond, to put it charitably, but Penny knew that, when the film was cut into its final version, his performance would project only the charismatic sensitivity that his public loved so much. Such was the magic of the movies.

  Flavia Pollini touched Penny’s arm, drawing her attention away from the young star. ‘This house is so beautiful. I adore it. But I’m surprised Ryan is planning to buy it—and moving out of London. I’m sure all of this is your idea.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Penny replied, taken aback by the suggestion. ‘It’s his idea, I assure you. He says he’s tired of the Knightsbridge flat.’

  ‘Perhaps I put that badly,’ Flavia smiled. ‘I should have said, this is your influence.’

  ‘I have no influence with Ryan Wolfe,’ Penny laughed.

  Flavia shook her glossy head. ‘We both know that’s not true. And this house is clearly conceived as a perfect showcase for you. A garden for an English rose to bloom in.’

  ‘No, Flavia, you’re wrong.’

  ‘Ryan was telling me earlier that he has handed over all the decorating and furnishing to you?’

  ‘Yes, but—’
/>   ‘He wants you to fit into this house perfectly.’ Flavia’s brown eyes were wise. ‘You, and the children you will bring him.’

  Cameron made some fresh joke. Among the laughter, the pretty girls from the catering company brought in freshly steaming cartons. Cameron Ray turned his handsome face to Penny, his lips curling around the cheroot clenched between his whiter-than-white teeth.

  ‘Penny, can you really see me romping between the sheets with a woman old enough to be my mother?’ he scoffed.

  Penny, her mind still whirring around the things Flavia had been saying to her, retorted without thinking. ‘You should be grateful to even be considered to play opposite an actress of Lucinda’s calibre.’

  She saw Cameron’s eyes widen in surprise, and there was a sudden silence round the table.

  Coming to her senses, she did her best to repair any damage she might have done. ‘Lucinda’s experience will make a perfect foil for your huge talent, Cameron,’ she said earnestly. ‘Playing opposite Hollywood beauties, you always have to share the limelight. But Lucinda is such a wonderful supporting actress—she knows how to make the star look good. You’ll be the only one on the screen. I think you’d be unforgettable in the role.’

  Cameron’s frown eased. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she assured him. ‘And if you don’t take the part, one of your rivals will jump at it—and you won’t be the one walking up on stage to claim your Oscar next year!’

  There was more laughter. Cameron turned to Ryan, looking thoughtful, and started asking questions in a serious undertone.

  Ryan dropped her an almost imperceptible wink over Cameron Ray’s shoulder. Suddenly, Penny had such a powerful sense of déjà vu that she had to catch her breath. Ryan had manoeuvred her so cleverly tonight! She had fallen into his trap without even noticing!

  She had slipped, without even thinking, into the role he had planned for her. Playing gracious hostess to his party, using her beauty and charm to achieve his aims, working in harmony with him to give his friends a happy time, and yet also achieve his goals.

  Damn him! How was it that he always managed to get his own way?