‘He wouldn’t be put off.’ Helen pushed the food about her plate. ‘I thought telling him I was Michael’s wife might do it.’
‘But it didn’t?’
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘He didn’t believe me at first, and when I finally managed to convince him he said he didn’t believe me capable of doing something like that.’
‘A sensible man at last!’ declared Jenny. ‘If I wasn’t sure about my approval of him before I am now.’
‘Well, I’m not. He expects me to tell him the whole story tonight, and I can’t. I can’t talk about it!’
‘Still?’
‘Still,’ Helen nodded. Jenny knew more than anyone about the break-up of her marriage, but even she didn’t know it all. Helen had never found it easy to talk of her brief marriage to Michael West, which made it all the harder to believe she had told Leon Masters anything about it.
Jenny looked puzzled. ‘But you’ve told Leon that you’ll tell him everything?’
‘Yes,’ Helen sighed. ‘When I’m with him I don’t seem to be able to control what I say. But I can’t tell anyone about—about Michael,’ she said chokingly.
‘You’ve told Leon quite a lot already, more than I’ve ever known you tell anyone else. That’s quite a step.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said impatiently. ‘But even if he still wanted to see me after he knows everything, which I very much doubt, I couldn’t do it. Maybe if he was just an ordinary man, someone out of the limelight, it might be different. But you know how famous he is.’ She shuddered. ‘I couldn’t let the newspapers hound me again.’
‘That you can even contemplate going out with Leon seems like a miracle to me,’ commented Jenny.
‘I’m not contemplating it at all, he isn’t’ giving me a choice. He’s very domineering.’
Jenny cleared away the dinner things, Helen’s plate still untouched. Her appetite seemed to have deserted her. ‘Perhaps he’s the sort of man you need, the sort of man who won’t give you time to think.’
‘I don’t need any man,’ Helen denied hotly. ‘And especially one with his reputation.’
‘If he can induce any sort of emotion in you at all, and he obviously can, he has my vote,’ Jenny said happily. ‘I’ve never seen you as animated as you’ve been this last week.’
Helen grimaced. ‘I’d have to be a masochist to go out with him. He’s the same type, don’t you see? The same type!’
‘As Michael?’ Her cousin shook her head. ‘You have to be joking! Leon is a mature man, a man who knows what he wants. Michael was like a little boy, one minute so grown up, the next running back to Mummy.’
‘Leon said—’ Helen broke off.
‘Yes?’
Helen bit her lip. ‘Leon said something similar. He said Michael was like a spoilt child.’
Jenny raised an eyebrow. ‘He knew him?’
‘Oh, I don’t think he actually knew him, he just met him.’
Jenny grimaced. ‘I should think that was enough.’
Helen sighed. ‘I wish I hadn’t been blinded by his surface charm, maybe then I wouldn’t have made such a mess of my life.’
‘It doesn’t have to be a mess,’ said Jenny, ‘you’re young enough to make a fresh start.’
‘With someone like Leon?’ she scorned.
‘With anyone who can make you happy,’ Jenny corrected.
‘Then it won’t be Leon,’ Helen said firmly.
‘How can you be so sure?’