Deceit. [COMPLETED.]

Chapter17

"An intimate feeling"
[KIRK ATTWOOD]

How long I had been on my own I couldn't say but Neil Diamond had given way to Barry White. The revellers were still there making a noise; I recognised one of them. He had been at the party and at the moment he was with another man talking to two women. They were all laughing and seem to be having a good time.

I watched discreetly for a while as I supped my beer. I had such high expectations for the last few days and it pained to have seen it all go wrong.

I was about to finish my beer when I saw her come round the corner. She eye balled me and slowly approached.

'May I sit down?'

Her face looked tired and concerned.

I pointed to an empty chair. 'Be my guest.'    

'No Cheryl then?'

I scowled. 'What do you think?'

I doubt she needed that and I was sorry for lashing out so readily.

The scent of her perfume caressed my face. I breathed it in slowly down to the depths of my lungs. I said nothing. I don't know why but I half expected her to be here. I suppose it was because of all the unanswered questions still burning inside of me.

I noticed the barman arrive. He had two beers in his hand. I nodded my thanks and both of us waited until he was gone.

'I brought back a few guests,' Max said. 'We always have a few rooms booked here. My guests needed to leave and I thought I would escort them here. I was about to leave when I saw you and, well, you looked lonely and so I just wanted to know how you were.'

I shrugged a shoulder.   'I've had better days.'

The barman returned to apologise that he was going to have to close but Max took out her purse and handed him a fifty-pound note. He took it and smiled then slipped it into his back pocket.

'A nice man,' she said watching him leave. 'He'll stay open now until we go.'  

'So why all the disguise?' I just had to know. 

There was a brief pause. The music was mellow. It undulated in and out of my mind in a slow pulsating manner.

'Sometimes,' said Max, her face tilting to one side leaving it half in the shadows and half out making her features look even more alluring, 'we don't always like who we are. Sometimes it's just nice to be someone else.'

There were no airs or graces to this woman, no arrogance and in the soft light all I could see was her immense beauty. 

'So where do you really live then?'   Definitely not in the house I took her too in my car.

'Nowhere and everywhere,' she said modestly. 'Daddy's got a yacht moored outside Monaco and we've another anchored off Greece. We have a house in the South of France, one in St Lucia, a villa in Florida and a few more scattered about here and there.'

It didn't surprise me.

'But what about you.' I said, taking a sip of my beer.

'Oh, I have an apartment here in London. It's not too far away. Just a single bedroom, a small lounge, a kitchen. It's nice and I use whenever I'm in England but mostly I'm in hotels or at one of my father's houses.'   

I asked about the denim shorts and cropped T-shirt and then let slip that if I was her boyfriend, what she was wearing tonight would be how she should always look, beautiful, elegant, demurring.