Practised Deceiver. SUSANNE MCCARTHY
do be a dear and put the kettle on,’ Mrs Fordham-Jones requested sweetly. ‘I’m afraid it’s my housekeeper’s day off today,’ she added to Nigel, leading the way through to the drawing-room, ‘so we’re having to muddle through by ourselves. But I think there’s still some of Cook’s cherry-cake, if you’d like to try it? I don’t care what people say, you really can’t beat home-made.’
The poor young man had stood transfixed by Alysha from the moment he had stepped through the door, and now he was blushing a deep shade of scarlet at the thought of this goddess being despatched to make him a cup of tea. She took pity on him, smiling with friendly warmth.
‘Good afternoon, Nigel,’ she greeted him. ‘Why don’t you go and sit down, and I’ll bring the tea through in a minute?’
‘Oh... Yes... Thank you...’ he choked out inarticulately. ‘I... Thank you.’
Alysha slipped off to the kitchen, where a moment later her brother joined her. ‘How’s it going, then?’ he enquired, giving her shoulders an affectionate squeeze. ‘Sorry we were late—the old jalopy started over-heating on the A40, and we had to keep stopping and letting her cool down. Has she been driving you batty?’ He nodded his head in the general direction of the sitting-room.
She laughed softly, shaking her head. ‘No more than usual. She can’t help it—it’s been very difficult for her these past few years.’
Ollie snorted in derision. ‘All that housekeeper and cook stuff—you’d think she’d realise she doesn’t fool anyone for a minute. Is that the “home-made” cake?’ he added teasingly as Alysha peeled off the shop-wrapper and put the cake on a plate.
‘Uh-huh. Does your friend take milk and sugar?’
‘Yup—two sugars.’ He chuckled richly to himself. ‘Poor old Nige—he’s been absolutely dying to meet you, you know—all the chaps are. You’ve been voted the official pin-up of first year med.’
‘How flattering!’ she observed drily. ‘How’s the course going? Are you enjoying it?’
‘It’s great!’ His eyes, the same amber-brown as her own, lit up. ‘Very hard work, but I expected that.’ The smile was replaced just as swiftly by a frown. ‘The only thing is, I feel bad about taking an allowance from you. Now I’ve left school, I should be helping you out, not making it more difficult for you.’
‘You’re not making it difficult,’ she insisted firmly, shifting him aside so that she could reach the drawer that held the cake-knife. ‘Besides, this is the reason I wanted you to stay on at school and take your A-levels. If you packed it in now, it would all have been wasted. Anyway, if it makes you feel better, you can look on it as a loan. When you’re a world-famous surgeon you can pay me back.’
‘That’s a promise,’ he asserted, snatching a crumb from the plate as she sliced the cake and getting his hand slapped away for his pains. ‘Shouldn’t that be on one of those doily things?’
‘Oh, yes—I forgot. Get one out for me, Ollie—I think she keeps them in the second drawer.’
‘What do you think of her latest kick?’ he enquired as he went to do as she had asked.
‘The tennis?’ She laughed. ‘Well, as she says, it’s good for her, and it gets her out of the house. I don’t like to let her sit around moping.’
‘Well, she could have found something a little cheaper to take up,’ he remarked caustically. ‘The membership fees alone for a swanky club like that must cost a fortune, let alone hiring the courts, and taking lessons. And she just expects you to fork out the cash to pay for it all. It’s not fair.’
Alysha smiled wryly. ‘Oh, I don’t mind. Besides, money’s not going to be so tight any more. I’ve...just been offered a big contract by one of the top cosmetic houses. It should pay pretty well.’
‘Really? That’s great!’ Her brother beamed in genuine delight.
She shrugged her slim shoulders. ‘Oh, well... It’s no big deal,’ she murmured diffidently. ‘It’s only modelling, after all. Although there’s going to be a bit of television work in it, too.’
Ollie’s mouth pulled a grim line. ‘This isn’t really what you wanted out of life, is it, Sis?’ he queried with gentle sympathy. ‘Modelling, I mean. Look, when I’m finished med school, why don’t you go back and finish your veterinary degree? It wouldn’t be too late.’
She shook her head, laughing it off. ‘I’m afraid it would. My brain’s turned to mush through lack of use these past couple of years—I don’t think I’d ever be able to go back to the sort of studying I’d need to do to be a vet. Anyway, I’m not so sure I’d want to now. I think I’d like to try something different—maybe even get into television. This contract could be my big chance.’
‘Does the Mater know about it?’ he enquired with a quirky grin. ‘I wouldn’t tell her if I were you—if she thinks there’s going to be more money around, she’ll only go out and spend it.’
‘I mentioned it to her.’ Alysha smiled in sardonic humour. ‘I’m afraid she wasn’t nearly so impressed as she was by your first two weeks as a budding doctor.’
He snorted. ‘That’s only because she wants to be able to say “my son, the doctor”. The fact that it’s your job that’s making it possible tends to escape her. But it doesn’t escape me,’ he added, his voice low and sincere. ‘I really do appreciate it, Sis. I don’t think you really know how much.’
‘Oh, go on with you,’ she protested, chuckling. ‘Here, take the cake and go back in the drawing-room and rescue your poor friend. You’ve left him alone with her all this time—she’ll be driving him potty.’
‘Lord—poor Nige! I forgot him.’ He took up the plate, vanishing swiftly down the passage.
Alysha leaned back against the kitchen table with a sigh. The contract with Ross Elliot was signed; she had sold her soul to him for enough money to keep her family in security for the foreseeable future. Well, strictly speaking, not her soul but her body, she amended, her mouth a little dry. But she couldn’t help feeling it rather amounted to the same thing.
CHAPTER THREE
‘ALYSHA, this way.’
‘Over here, Alysha.’
‘Give us a big smile, Alysha.’
‘Miss Jones, do you use Lozier products yourself?’
‘Of course she does,’ Ross cut in before she could frame her own reply to the reporter’s question. ‘As a model whose career depends on her looks, what else would you expect her to use?’
Alysha kept smiling, though it was taking every ounce of professionalism she possessed. Perched up on a tiny dais with a giant-size mock-up of the Lozier perfume bottle, in front of the gathered media and senior executives of the Lozier company, she felt like a puppet—with Ross Elliot pulling the strings.
Oh, there was no denying that it was a sensational outfit—what little there was of it. Of floating silk chiffon, in a vivid shade of flamingo-pink shot through with gold thread, the top consisted of no more than a wrap of fabric tied halter-style around her neck and across her breasts and knotted behind her back, the two ends drifting to the floor; the palazzo pants were of the same sheer fabric, giving the impression almost of transparency, and they were slung daringly low around her slender hips, leaving most of the peach-smooth curve of her stomach bare—offering a very provocative glimpse of her dainty navel.
But it was in her contract that she had to wear whatever he dictated for her appearances as the Lozier Girl—as he hadn’t hesitated to remind her when she had protested. It said a great deal about the way he saw her, she reflected bitterly: a body, and a face, and twenty-four inches of glossy black hair, that existed solely for the purpose of selling