the semi-circular padded chairs dotted about the room, facing the fanned-out city. Away to one end, a few more steps led up to a raised dining area with a huge oval wooden table, and beyond that, presumably, to the kitchen. At the other end of the room was a curving corridor whose even subtler lighting suggested…the bedrooms?
Regan hastily turned her head, forcing herself to concentrate on the main room.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she murmured, and then was annoyed with herself for sounding awed. A sophisticated woman of the world would take such beauty for granted. Knowing Cleo, the first thing she would have done was demand an ashtray! ‘Monsieur has impeccable taste,’ she added, with a suggestion of dry mockery.
‘Merci.’ Pierre shifted his bandy legs, clicking his polished black heels and inclining his head. ‘This is a corporate apartment, used by many executives, so it must fulfil many functions. It was I who hired the interior designer and advised on and approved her designs, as well as supervising the physical decorating work.’
‘You!’ This time her jaw did drop at the idea of this ugly little man helping create such beauty.
‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ he replied modestly, unoffended.
Tell me about it! thought Regan evilly, her hand spasming on her purse as another spurt of anger shot through her veins. Michael had been blessed with sunny good looks—blond hair, boyish features, guileless blue eyes, and a white smile that predicated a charmingly frank and open manner.
Who would have believed that behind that golden façade had been a lying tongue and a cheating black heart—a man without honour? Not Regan. Right up to the night that Michael had wrapped his precious BMW status symbol around a tree she had believed that they had a secure and happy marriage, with only minor problems to cloud their shared contentment. She had admired her husband’s dedication to work and respected his ambition to succeed. Only after he had died and the huge, unexpected bills had started to roll in had she begun to re-examine her former contentment, and come to realise that her willingness to overlook the flaws in their relationship had played right into Michael’s cheating hands.
Over the following months, as the mess his lies had created had grown to staggering proportions, she had gradually been forced to the painful conclusion that, to all intents and purposes, she had been sleeping with a stranger for the four years of their marriage!
So what she was going to do tonight was not so very different after all, she thought bitterly, as she watched Pierre begin to put his personal orders into action.
He moved across to open the curved doors of a teak cabinet, revealing a wide-screen television and the most complex stereo system that Regan had ever seen. Concealed in a false support pillar next to the cabinet were racks of video tapes and CDs, arranged with alphabetical precision. Pierre settled her on one of the demi-couches with the remote controls and furnished her with a vodka and tonic with a twist of lime in a chilled crystal glass, setting it down on a round side-table on top of a deftly folded cocktail napkin. He told her that the bathroom was down the curving corridor to her right and if she had a question, or required a refill for her drink, she could summon Pierre merely by pressing one of the hidden buttons strategically placed around the room, or she could help herself from the superlatively stocked bar which opened out from yet another mock-pillar.
Left alone, Regan drank her vodka quickly, in the hope that it might help her to relax. Except for warming the pit of her belly it didn’t seem to have any appreciable effect, so she guiltily fixed herself another, embarrassed at the idea of summoning Pierre back so soon…he might think he had a rampant alcoholic on his hands!
Sipping more slowly, she ignored the television and chose a CD of smoky ballads from the wonderfully eclectic selection of music, and after a bit of clumsy experimentation managed to get the remote control to set the volume and balance at the perfect level for her position in the room. As she lounged back on the feather-soft couch in her splendid isolation she reflected that she could get used to being ultra-rich!
The most difficult part about flatting was the lack of privacy. As an only child Regan had been closely monitored by her over-strict mother, but Michael had worked such long hours—or at least, he had said that he was working—that during her marriage she had got used to the quiet freedom of having the whole house to herself for hours on end. In the flat there seemed to be a constant flow of visitors and phone calls and emotional upheavals, accompanied by the loud, head-banging music that Lisa adored.
However, all the activity did serve as a welcome distractionfrom her own weighty problems, Regan acknowledged. And although Lisa and Saleena outstripped her in street-smarts, Regan was the one they turned to when they wanted down-to-earth advice on practical matters—like how to get a pizza stain out of a silk camisole or how to fill in their tax returns. Because she had studied law, she was a valuable source of information for friends who had disputes with their landlords or whose sleazy boyfriends had stashed a joint in their handbags. It didn’t matter to them that Regan had dropped out of her degree the previous semester, a year before she was due to graduate, it only mattered that her informed opinion was free. To Regan what mattered was that she felt valued, something that her shredded confidence had badly needed.
Pierre drifted back with more murmured apologies for the elusive Monsieur and offered her a small plate of delectable canapés and a glass of champagne. Thinking that it would be unwise to mix her drinks, Regan declined the latter and hungrily consumed the former.
Her stomach gurgled in gratitude. Lunch had been a hurried sandwich at her desk and breakfast had been a mere kick-start from a cup of espresso. In the last few weeks her normally healthy appetite had dwindled to almost nothing, but now she found herself suddenly utterly ravenous.
She pressed the button concealed under a side-table, and when Pierre appeared with startling speed and stealth she sheepishly asked if there were any more canapés.
‘They really were delicious,’ she added, to excuse her greed. ‘You must have a splendid cook.’
‘But that is me.’ After a couple of vodkas, his ugliness of grin seemed actually endearing. ‘I am, after all, a Frenchman, and we excel at such things. I am pleased that you enjoy them.’
The ballads drifted to an end, and Regan realised that she had been waiting in the apartment for over an hour. Somehow, it hadn’t seemed that long. She put on some moody jazz, and turned up the volume.
Placing her empty glass on the bar, she yielded to nervous curiosity and practical necessity and wandered down the hall to find the bathroom. It was as luxurious as the rest of the apartment, boasting a multi-head shower and an oval sunken bath almost twice the size of the entire bathroom back at the flat. Big, fluffy towels warmed on a heated towel-rail, and to Regan’s amusement the toilet seat was also kept at a cosy temperature! Every conceivable toiletry a guest could require was thoughtfully provided, including—she discovered when she opened one of the drawers—a selection of various brands of tampons and condoms, nestled side by side in ironic juxtaposition.
She couldn’t resist peeping into the half-open doors further down the hall to discover an office, two huge single bedrooms and, at the far end, an even bigger room with a sprawling king-sized bed which looked, to Regan’s magnified awareness, as if it would sleep an army.
Most definitely the master bedroom, she decided, backing out…but not before she had noticed the black silk sheets, the tubular wooden slats on the teak bed-head and ends, unnervingly reminiscent of prison bars, and the vast mirror on the wall opposite the bed.
At least it wasn’t fixed on the ceiling! she thought as she hurried back to the bar, wondering what she would do if ‘Monsieur’ turned out to be seriously kinky.
She diluted another icy vodka with a splash of tonic. She still wasn’t entirely confident that she could handle a normal man’s basic requirements, let alone satisfy one who demanded a performance artist in bed. But Pierre had said that the apartment was designed for use by a number of corporate executives, she reminded herself, in which case the master bedroom was generic, and not the personalised domain of the current occupant.
In