His Pretend Wife

She redoubled her efforts to escape, but he simply lifted her off the floor and left her kicking helplessly as he pushed Pete aside and strode on. Her head was swimming from the cider and her limbs were growing heavy, but through the gathering mist of tipsiness she could see her friends sniggering at her plight.

But then-relief! Johnny appeared, also trying to block their path.

‘Put her down,’ he said. ‘She’s my girl.’

‘Another one?’ Andrew said ironically. ‘Listen, Johnny, I’ll deal with you later. Just now I’m taking Ellie home where she’ll be safe. What’s her address, by the way?’

‘Don’t tell him,’ she raged.

But Johnny had seen his elder brother’s face and decided on discretion. He gave Andrew the information with a meekness that made Ellie disgusted with him. Before she could tell him so she found she was being carried out of the room. As the door swung to she was sure she could hear a burst of laughter, and it increased her rage.

Outside the house stood the most disgusting old van she’d ever seen. She couldn’t believe he actually meant her to travel in that, but he was opening the door and shovelling her into the passenger seat. Shovelling was the only word for it. She immediately tried to break out and he slammed the door shut again.

‘We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,’ he said through the half-open window. ‘The easy way is for you to sit here quietly. The hard way is for me to chuck you in the back, lock the rear doors and keep you there until we reach the other end.’

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

He grinned. ‘Even you’re not stupid enough to believe that.’

‘Whaddaya mean? Even me?’

‘Work it out.’

As he went around to the driver’s seat she sat in sullen silence, partly because she knew he meant what he said, and partly because it was becoming hard to move. She leant her head against the back of the seat, just for a moment.

CHAPTER TWO

‘ARE you all right, darling?’ Mrs Foster’s face came into focus.

‘Mum? What-?’

Somehow the van had turned into her own bed in her own room. Her head was throbbing and her mother was smiling at her anxiously.

‘How did I-? Oh, goodness!’

She bounded out of bed and just reached the bathroom before the storm broke. When it was over and she was feeling a little better she noticed something for the first time.

She was wearing only a bra and panties. They were peach-coloured, flimsy lace, and might as well not have existed for all they concealed. Her golden dress and her tights had been removed.

When? Where? How?

She made her way carefully back to her room, and mercifully her mother was there with strong tea.

‘Did you have too much to drink last night, dear? Andrew said you’d come over faint and asked him to bring you home, but I couldn’t help wondering-well, not to worry. I could see he’s a really nice young man.’

Oh, sure, he’s a nice young man. He stripped me almost naked while I was unconscious. And he had the unspeakable nerve to hang my dress up neatly on a hanger.

It was there, on the wardrobe, hung and straightened by skilled hands. Its very perfection was an outrage.

‘What did he tell you?’ she mumbled into her tea.

‘He brought you home, and when you got here you went straight to bed, and he sat downstairs waiting for us so that he could explain that you were already here, and we needn’t wait up.’

‘He’s Johnny’s elder brother.’

‘He told us. Apparently he’s a doctor. I always thought you liked young men to be a bit more colourful than that.’

‘He’s not a boyfriend. I only met him last night.’

‘But he’s the one you turned to when you needed help, so he must have made a big impression on you.’

‘He did that, all right,’ she muttered.

‘It’s nice to know that you’re getting so discerning now you’re growing up.’

That was the final insult. ‘Mum!’

‘What, dear?’

‘I’m seventeen. It’ll be years before I’m interested in a boring doctor. He just happened to have a car.’

‘You mean that revolting van? You must be really smitten if you liked him for that.’

‘I’m not feeling well,’ she said hastily. ‘I think I’ll go back to sleep.’

Her mother tactfully left her and Ellie snuggled down, feeling like a wrung-out rag. As she drifted off she remembered the stranger who’d tried to drag her away. She might have passed out with him instead of with Andrew, and instinct told her that he wouldn’t have simply brought her home and put her to bed.

Try as she might she couldn’t recall Andrew removing her clothes and putting her to bed. He was rude and insufferable, but he’d saved her from a nasty fate. What was more, he’d seen her almost naked, which none of her boyfriends had. It was maddening to think that he might have looked at her with admiration, and she hadn’t known.

But as the waves of sleep came over her again, she began to dream. She was in a moving vehicle that stopped suddenly. The door beside her opened and she was pulled out so that she fell against a man who picked her up in his arms as easily as if she’d weighed nothing.

He was carrying her-there was the click of the front door, then the feel of climbing. It felt good to rest against him-safe and warm. Somehow her arm had found its way around his neck, her face was buried against him, and she could hear the soft thunder of his heartbeat.

They were in her room and she was being lowered gently onto the bed. His face swam in and out of her consciousness, lean, serious, the mobile features full of expression-if only she could read it.

But then the darkness obscured everything, and she was sinking down, down into deep sleep, leaving the dream and its mysteries for another time.

Her very first hangover was a grim experience, but by late afternoon she’d rejoined the human race. Soon Andrew would drop by to see how she was. Their eyes would meet, and each would see in the other’s the memory of last night.

She dressed plainly in trousers and top, and applied only the very slightest make-up. This elegant restraint would make him forget the juvenile who’d aroused his scorn. He would be intrigued. They would talk and he would discover that she had a brain and a personality as well as a beautiful shape. He would become her willing slave, and that would serve him right for dismissing her as a kid.

But it wasn’t Andrew who called. Only Johnny.

Rats!

‘Hallo, Johnny,’ she said, trying not to sound as disappointed as she felt.

‘You better now? You were looking pretty green when I last saw you.’

‘I wonder why,’ she said pointedly.

‘Yeah, right,’ he mumbled. ‘It was my fault. No need to keep on. I’ve had it all from Andrew.’

‘Oh?’ she said carelessly. ‘What did he say?’

‘What didn’t he say?’ Johnny struck a declamatory attitude. “‘Pouring cider down the throat of a silly girl who hasn’t got two brain cells to rub together-”’

‘Who’s he calling silly?’ she demanded indignantly. This scene wasn’t going to plan, but how could it when the leading man was missing?

‘Why don’t we go back to your home now?’ she suggested casually. ‘Then I can thank him.’

‘He’s not there. This morning he took off to visit his girlfriend.’

‘What? How long for?’