Read the book: «Guilty Love»

CHAPTER ONE

‘I‘M AFRAID I have to ask you to work late again tonight, Mrs York.’

Linzi had been so intent on her work that she hadn’t noticed her boss walk into her office, and his deep voice made her jump.

As she looked round at him, her fine silvery hair flicking back from her face, Ritchie Calhoun gave her one of his slow, sardonic smiles. ‘Your nerves are in a bad way! I didn’t mean to frighten you out of your wits!’

She gave him a wry look. Every time he came into a room he made her jump; he made most of the staff jump. He was that sort of man. Even now she knew him quite well she was never able to relax when he was around. The air seemed to crackle with electricity everywhere he went, he was curt and incisive, and those grey eyes seemed to see right through to the backbone, which was disconcerting. But she could hardly tell him any of that, so she simply said, ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away—what did you say, Mr Calhoun?’

‘I want you to work late tonight,’ he repeated, and Linzi’s teeth caught her lower lip, worrying it. Ritchie Calhoun watched the betraying little movement, his eyes shrewd. ‘Is that a problem?’

It was always a problem when he wanted her to work late because it upset Barty every time, but when she’d accepted the job Ritchie Calhoun had laid it on the line that she would have to be prepared to work flexible hours, rather than just nine to five, so how could she complain now? After all, he, himself, worked ferociously hard, putting in a twelve-hour day most days. He was usually there when she arrived in the morning and there when she left, unless he was away on some business trip, or working out in the field with one of his construction teams on a difficult project, when, she gathered, he worked even harder for longer hours. It was said that hardbitten construction workers had been known to turn pale at the sight of him bearing down on them if they weren’t working hard enough, or had made some stupid mistake. Everyone in the firm admired the man, but they all agreed—it was no easy job working for Ritchie Calhoun.

The good side was that she had plenty of free time on days when he didn’t need her and she was earning a lot more money than she ever had before. She and Barty were getting used to having that extra money every month. They had bought new furniture, new linen, curtains, a new dinner set—gradually their little flat was beginning to look the way Linzi wanted it to look and she could never earn this much anywhere else.

That was why Barty didn’t force her to give up the job, much as he resented the hours she had to work.

So Linzi shook her head, suppressing a sigh. ‘No, no problem. I can work tonight—do you have any idea when I shall get away, though? I have to cook my husband’s dinner.’

‘Isn’t it time he learnt to cook his own?’ Ritchie Calhoun drily enquired, his hard mouth twisting. ‘Or he could pick up a Chinese takeaway on his way home from work.’

Involuntarily, Linzi laughed at the idea. ‘Barty isn’t keen on takeaway food, he likes home cooking.’ He liked to find her waiting for him when he came home, too, and, if he didn’t he sometimes went out again, to a bar to drink his supper. Her laughter died; sadness filled her eyes.

Ritchie Calhoun lounged against her desk, watching her changing expressions. She had a mobile face which gave away too much of what was going on inside her. Her features were delicate: a small, finely moulded nose, high cheekbones, wide eyes the colour of the sea on a sunny day, a soft pink mouth which was generously full and yet sensitive, suggesting to Ritchie a sensual nature you would never suspect from anything else about Linzi York, he thought, eyes narrowing. Linzi looked up and caught him staring, and blushed as if picking up on his secret thoughts.

‘And I suppose you do all the housework, too, and wash and iron his clothes for him?’ he asked with a faint sarcasm that indicated disapproval.

‘It’s what Barty’s used to; his mother always did those things for him,’ she began, then stopped, frowning, angry with herself for sounding as if she was apologising for her husband. Her private life was none of Ritchie Calhoun’s business for one thing, and, for another, she loved Barty—it made her happy to take care of him.

‘You both work full-time, though,’ Ritchie Calhoun pointed out.

‘Yes, well...Barty wasn’t brought up to look after himself,’ she defensively said. ‘He was an only child, his mother was middle-aged when he was born, and so thrilled to have a child of her own that I’m afraid she waited on him hand and foot. It made her happy to spoil him.’

‘And you’ve gone on spoiling him?’

She didn’t answer that; he saw the flicker of resentment in her face, and her lids came down like shutters over her eyes, to hide her thoughts from him. Ritchie picked up on them all the same: obviously she wasn’t happy with all these questions, with the implied criticism of her husband; and of course she had every reason to feel that way. He had no right to interfere or even comment. Their marriage was their business. If she wanted to make a doormat of herself, why should he stop her? Doormats were useful—as he had often found. His mouth twitched with sudden amusement, yet he didn’t change the subject. He could never help trying to improve whatever he found and did not approve of.

‘Does his mother live near by? Couldn’t he have dinner with her?’ he suggested, always looking for the practical solution to a problem. That was what made him so good at his business: he knew how to make things work, machinery, money, people.

‘His mother’s dead,’ Linzi said gravely.

Ritchie sobered, pushing back his thick, dark hair with an impatient hand. ‘Oh. Sorry to hear that. I’ve lost both my parents; I know what a gap that makes. Having a family gives you your own support system, doesn’t it? Well, then, couldn’t he take his father out to dinner?’

‘His father died when Barty was a boy.’ There was that look of sadness about her again. It turned her blue eyes a strange colour, like slate in the rain, thought Ritchie Calhoun, observing the phenomenon closely. She was endlessly fascinating to watch: never the same two minutes running. Lately he had found himself watching her all the time, and he frowned suddenly, the admission taking him by surprise. He had spent years trying to stop his secretaries getting too interested in him; it would be stupid to fall into the same trap himself.

Yet he was still curious enough to ask, ‘When did his mother die?’ He moved away from her slightly, however; settled himself on the edge of her desk, his lean body at ease, the long legs crossed and his foot swinging.

‘Two years ago.’ Linzi was rather perplexed—why was he so interested in Barty’s family? She had got used to Ritchie Calhoun’s offhand manner at work, his drive and sarcasm. She had never seen him in a mood like this.

‘So he has no family now, except you?’ Ritchie thought aloud slowly, his eyes thoughtful. Was that why she had gone on spoiling her husband, to comfort him, make up for the loss of his mother?

‘No,’ she said, her voice low and husky. ‘He has nobody but me.’

There was something touching about the way she said it. She had only been working for him for six months and they had never exchanged any personal confidences before. He didn’t know why he was asking questions about her private life now; indeed, one part of him protested about the wisdom of showing so much interest in her. Yet he kept on watching her, his grey eyes glimmering, brilliant with curiosity. What was she thinking? What did that look in her eyes mean?

There was something faintly childlike about her, with her long, straight silvery hair and those wide, large-pupilled blue eyes, yet he had begun to sense that there were secrets buried behind her open gaze, and his curiosity, once aroused, wasn’t easy to smother. Most of the women he met were so obvious, such simple equations; they didn’t hold his interest longer than it took for him to find out what lay behind their smooth, glossy façdes.

At first sight he had thought Linzi York was even simpler than usual; she was as calm as milk, as ordinary as bread and butter. It had taken him months to find out his mistake, and even now he didn’t really have a clue what she was hiding, only that she was hiding something.

Ritchie Calhoun was determined to get to the bottom of her mystery, however long it took.

‘How long have you been married?’ he lazily enquired, and she gave him a faintly exasperated glance.

‘Four years, ten months.’

It was Ritchie’s turn to be startled. ‘I’d no idea you’d been married that long!’ She didn’t look old enough. ‘I assumed you had just got married when you joined us.’ He remembered their first interview suddenly, with a faint surprise because he saw her differently now.

It had been a cold November morning. She had been wearing a carnation-pink dress and had glowed with warmth in the grey light, yet she had seemed so young. All the same, she had had impressive office skills, good references from her last boss, who had only parted with her because he was moving his firm to another part of the country, and, most important of all, she was married. Ritchie’s previous secretary had fallen in love with him, without any encouragement, and had made his life impossible with jealous scenes and weeping in the office. He had had to fire her; it made him shudder just to remember that scene and he hadn’t wanted it to happen again, so he had only short-listed married applicants for the job.

He had intended to choose a safe, middle-aged woman, but then Linzi York had walked into the office, and for some inexplicable reason he had found himself offering her the job.

He had rationalised his decision, afterwards, by telling himself that she had a gentle manner, which he knew he would find restful in the office after the hassle he got out on the construction sites; also she was both very capable, and very young—a combination which meant that he would have no difficulty moulding her into the sort of secretary he wanted. And, then, the fact that she was married made her safe to have around.

In fact he admitted to himself now that he really had not known what crazy impulse had made him offer her the job. He still didn’t. He was glad he had, though.

All the same, he had encouraged her to keep a distance between them, and he didn’t know why he was trying to bridge the gulf now. He would probably regret it tomorrow, but at this moment he found himself intensely curious about her; he wanted to know what sort of life she led, away from the office, what sort of man she had married, and whether the two of them were happy. In the six months they had worked together they had rarely talked about anything but work; he had no idea about her private life.

‘What exactly does your husband do?’ he asked, and saw her faint bewilderment, the blue gleam of her perfectly shaped eyes as she stared at him, frowning.

Obviously she was surprised by his sudden interest. He would have to be careful she didn’t get any wrong ideas and start being afraid he fancied her. He certainly didn’t want that.

He lowered his lids but watched her though his black lashes. She was lovely. No question about it. Except that he didn’t go for the delicate, faintly ethereal type. All that long, pale hair, the big blue eyes...he preferred his women sophisticated, experienced, exciting. Yet he kept on watching her, listening to the cool sound of her voice. What would she look like if that dreamy, cool look dissolved? What did she look like when she made love? he wondered, then frowned at his own wandering thoughts.

What on earth was wrong with him, thinking like that? She was married, for one thing, and, for another, the last thing he needed was any more disruption in the office! Stop it! he told himself.

‘He’s a computer programmer with an electronics firm,’ she slowly said. ‘Matthews and Cuthlow.’

He knew them and nodded, quite impressed. ‘Excellent firm. Computer programming is a job that demands a lot of patience, very complicated stuff usually—does he like it? Is he good at it? I suppose he must be or he wouldn’t be doing it.’

‘He’s always been clever with machines of any kind.’ Actually, Barty found the job boring. He had preferred being a mechanic with a garage that specialised in customising luxury cars and motorbikes. Barty had loved that job, it had broken his heart to give it up, but two years ago he had crashed on his own motorbike and been badly injured. For a while it had looked as if he might die. Linzi had terrible memories of that time. She had been down to hell and back in a few short days; she preferred to forget all about what happened during that week of her life.

Barty had had devoted nursing and good doctors, and he had pulled through, after months of operations and illness, because his body was fit and young and healthy. But the man who came back to her had not been the Barty she had loved and married.

That man had gone forever; perhaps she was the only one in the world who remembered that Barty, now that his mother was dead. He had been full of fun, light-hearted and loving, as much her friend as her lover because they had known each other all their lives. They’d had a few friends, but none of them had ever been very close; and since the accident they hadn’t seen much of any of them. They had come round, at first, to visit him, but they were mostly other mechanics, and Barty hadn’t wanted to see them, and he’d made that plain.

Barty could no longer stand the strain of hard physical work; it was out of the question for him to go back to his job at the garage, but an old family friend was a top executive in an electronics firm, and had suggested he take up a job as a computer programmer.

Computers had been his hobby for years; Barty had only needed to do a specialist course at a technical college for a year to bring his skills up to the right standard, and the pay was certainly very good. But the programming he was doing was often tedious, and he still suffered from headaches and eye-strain, one of the lasting effects of his accident. Barty would so much rather be doing his old job.

‘What are you thinking?’ Ritchie Calhoun abruptly broke into her thoughts and Linzi started visibly, gave him one of her wide-eyed looks.

‘Oh, just that...I’d better ring my husband right away and warn him I’ll be late home. What time do you think I’ll get away?’

‘No idea,’ Ritchie said curtly, turning away with a frown, as if tiring of their conversation. He walked to the door and left without a backward glance, and Linzi watched the back of his dark head with a wry smile.

He was back to normal, was he? She wondered why he had suddenly become so curious, asked all those personal questions. It wasn’t at all like him, but Linzi wasn’t really interested in Ritchie Calhoun. As the door shut behind him she picked up the phone to ring her husband. Her lips were dry, she moistened them with her tongue-tip, swallowing. Please don’t be furious, Barty! she thought as she dialled.

He was, though. ‘Tell him no!’ he snarled at the other end of the line after she had broken the news to him in a soft, placating voice.

‘I can’t very well—’ she began, and Barty interrupted angrily.

‘Oh, yes, you can! Tell him you can’t work late. You’ve been at that office since nine o’clock this morning, for heaven’s sake! Nobody should have to work longer than an eight-hour day! You stop working at five-thirty!’

‘But, Barty—’

He overrode her, his voice loud and aggressive. ‘At five-thirty you just get up and walk out, Linzi! Do you hear me? He can’t make you stay. Just tell him you’re sorry, but you have to get home to cook your husband’s dinner. Tell him to ring me if he wants an argument, and I’ll tell him what he can do with his job.’

‘I can’t do that, Barty,’ she said, pleading with him. ‘You know I agreed to work flexible hours—’

‘You didn’t agree to be a slave!’ Barty’s voice hardened. ‘Or did you?’

She tried to talk him out of his mounting temper. ‘You know, I don’t work that hard, in actual hours. If you average out the time I have off, during the week, and the overtime I work, it comes out more or less right, and the money is good. If I want to keep this job I have to accept odd working hours to fit in with Ritchie—’

‘Ritchie now, is it?’ Barty’s voice snapped like a whip and she tensed, turning paler. This was what she had been afraid of, had been hoping to avoid, arousing his irrational jealousy. ‘How long have you been on first-name terms with him?’

‘I’m not,’ she anxiously denied. ‘I was going to use his surname as usual, but you interrupted!’

‘Don’t try and wriggle out of it! I knew there was something going on, all these late nights, the lame excuses about flexi time and having to fit in with his working hours, not to mention the way you suddenly started earning twice as much as you ever have before—oh, it’s obvious what you’ve been up to, you little—’

‘Barty!’ she broke out, shaking and holding the phone so tightly that her knuckles showed white. ‘Don’t!’

His voice sank into bitterness. ‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Lin? I suppose you think you’re justified! I can’t give you what you need so you feel entitled to get it somewhere else!’

‘No,’ she whispered, the tears falling down her face. ‘That isn’t true, Barty, how can you say these things to me? You know I love you, I’ve always loved you, I haven’t changed.’

‘But I have!’ he snarled. ‘Is that what you’re saying? It’s all my fault for having that crash and not dying afterwards.’

‘No, darling! Don’t, please, don’t. I hate it when you talk like that.’

‘You’ve never liked facing facts, Lin,’ he said in a low, harsh voice that was even worse than the angry snarling he had been doing. ‘The truth is I shouldn’t have gone on living. The way I am, I’ve no right to life. I’m just a useless piece of machinery that doesn’t work any more, I belong on the scrap heap.’

She put a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob wrenched out of her, and desperately tried to think of something to say. If only she was there, with him, she could fling her arms round him and hold on, as she had so many times before, when he suffered like this; she wasn’t always able to think of anything to say that he wouldn’t shoot down in flames a second later, it was hard to say anything that he hadn’t heard before and couldn’t dismiss with derisive scorn, but she could always reach him by holding him, convincing him wordlessly that she loved him.

Bleakly, Barty went on, ‘At least if I’d died in that crash I could have been recycled—the bits of me that did work could have saved someone else’s life! I could have been some use to somebody. My kidneys were fine, my heart works OK, and I have pretty good eyesight, even if my liver isn’t up to much any more—’

Her voice trembled as she hurriedly broke in, ‘Barty, you know that’s not true, you aren’t useless, and I’d have wanted to die, too, if you’d died!’

He was silent then for a long moment, and she waited, hardly daring to breathe, praying that she had reached him, calmed him, got to that part buried deep inside him which was still the Barty she had loved all her life.

They had grown up in the same street; he had been literally the boy next door, just a couple of years older than her, and her hero from the minute she could toddle after him calling his name, begging him to wait for her. He had waited, she had caught up with him, they had married very young, and had had such a short time of happiness before tragedy hit them.

Sometimes she thought they had been far too young when they got married, but then if they had waited they might never have married at all. She realised now that Barty wouldn’t have married her after his accident. As it was he had urged her to leave him, to divorce him, but she had refused.

‘I love you, Barty,’ she whispered into the silence, and heard him sigh.

‘It would have been better for you, kid, if I had died, though,’ he said flatly, and she let out a shaky sigh of her own, careful not to let him hear it.

‘No, darling, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t—I need you,’ she said quickly, and he almost laughed, the sound a low grunt, bitterly humorous.

‘God knows what for!’ Then his voice changed, was offhand but softer. ‘But thanks, honey. You know I need you. Always have, always will. I got the best of the bargain when we made our wedding vows. I’m afraid you didn’t have the same luck. I’m sorry I blew my top, I never mean to, the black dog just bites and...’

‘I know,’ she said gently. ‘I know, Barty. It doesn’t matter.’

‘It damned well does,’ he said in another brief spurt of rage. ‘I hate myself for what I put you through. Look, I’ll work late myself, and eat sandwiches at my bench.’

‘Don’t give yourself a headache. You know it isn’t good for you to spend too long in front of your VDU.’

‘Yes, Mummy, and the same to you,’ he said, trying to be funny. ‘And don’t let that bastard Calhoun keep you slaving in front of a hot computer all evening. See you when you do get home. I’ll be waiting up with some hot cocoa.’

She blew him a kiss, her mouth tremulous. ‘Love you.’

‘I don’t deserve you, but I do love you,’ he said, his voice raw with feeling, then he hung up.

Linzi put the phone down and put her head down on her desk, shaking. That had been a bad moment. For a minute she had thought she wasn’t going to be able to stop him going over the edge.

She would have given notice and left this job if she had thought it would make any difference, but by the time she started to work here she’d already known the score. Barty was seeing various specialists, who had all told Linzi the same thing—nothing she did was really triggering Barty’s abnormal reactions. It wouldn’t help if she stopped working here, except for a day or two. Then he would find something else to blame her for. His dangerous swings of mood were all the result of what had happened to him during the accident, and afterwards. No matter how she tried to please and placate him those mood swings would occur, and during the bad times he would blame her and resent her.

The most she could do to help him was be patient, deal with each moment as it hit her, and if Barty did become violent try to persuade him to take the medication his doctors provided, before he lost control altogether.

So far she had always been able to do that. She hoped to God they never reached that stage. His doctors didn’t seem too sure whether he would improve or deteriorate. Sometimes Linzi felt so tired that she no longer cared, but she had to care. Barty needed her to care. Once he had been the strong one, taking care of her. Now it was her turn to take care of Barty.

She lifted her head and sniffed, fumbled for a tissue from the box she kept in one of the desk drawers, wiped her face, her wet eyes, blew her nose.

The door leading into Ritchie Calhoun’s office opened suddenly, and he strode in, stopping dead as he saw her face before she could avert it and hide the tearstains.

He frowned across the room at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, I’m fine. I think I’m starting a cold!’ she evaded, tossing the used tissue into her waste-paper basket.

He stood there watching her, unconvinced; his black brows drawn together over those piercing grey eyes of his which saw too clearly.

‘What did your husband say when you told him you were working late?’ he asked, his tone making it obvious that he had put two and two together very accurately and didn’t like the answer. She wished he would mind his own business—he always had, until now. He had never asked so many questions before. Why was he doing it now?

‘He’s going to get himself a sandwich.’

His mouth twisted. ‘Sure he can manage that?’

‘Don’t be sarcastic!’

He gave her a surprised look and Linzi looked back, bristling, yet surprised by herself. She couldn’t remember ever snapping at him before.

Drily Ritchie Calhoun said, ‘My mother brought me up to take care of myself, and anyone else who happens to come along! She used to say to me that one day my wife would thank her, but as it turned out I never got around to matrimony before she died, so she never got her thank-you. But I suppose that’s why men who expect their wives to wait on them hand and foot annoy me.’

‘Was your mother anything like you?’ Linzi asked curiously, and he gave her a sudden blindingly vivid smile, which astonished her. This really was a day for firsts! He had never given her a smile like that, any more than he had ever asked so many questions about her private life before.

‘I’d like to be able to say yes,’ he murmured with wry amusement. ‘But to be honest I don’t think so. I gather I take after my father’s side of the family. My mother was a small woman, with very straight, fine fair hair and...’ His voice breaking off, he stared at Linzi fixedly for a moment while she stared back, her blue eyes wide in puzzlement.

‘Yes?’ she prompted.

‘She looked something like you,’ Ritchie said slowly. ‘It didn’t dawn on me until just now, but it’s true. She had your build and colouring.’

Maybe that was why had had decided on impulse to pick Linzi for his secretary although his common sense had told him that she was too young and too attractive? he thought. She had fitted some subterranean blueprint in his mind.

Linzi was startled. ‘Really?’ Rather flattered, she smiled, her small face lighting up, and Ritchie blinked.

‘When you smile you look quite different,’ he said and she looked up at him, her blue eyes wide open.

He smiled down at her, the hardness of his features softening into charm, and she said slowly, ‘So do you.’ And then an icy shiver ran down her back.

Ritchie immediately picked up on her abrupt change of mood. ‘What is it now?’ he asked with a touch of his usual impatience.

‘Nothing,’ she said huskily. ‘Just a ghost walking over my grave.’