The Exciting Life by Karen Mason Page A

hands
through his thick, dark hair. He was probably the vainest man Iris
had ever encountered.
    ‘ Why don’t you come down to Cannes with me next week?’ he
suggested.
    ‘ Cannes?’
    ‘ Yes. Gideon Banks has invited me down to stay on his yacht.’
He turned and looked at Iris, smiling. ‘You’ll love Gideon’s crowd.
Anything goes. Any sort of debauchery is allowed.’
    ‘ What would I say to Patrick?’
    ‘ Couldn’t you say you were staying with friends?’
    ‘ I haven’t got any friends. Well, none Pat knows about. There
are plenty of girls I know from back in my working days. But these
days Ralf’s probably the only friend I’ve got.’
    ‘ He’d cover for you wouldn’t he? Little queers like him love a
good scandal.’
    ‘ I doubt if her ladyship would let me have a week off anyway,’
Iris said, daring to roll onto her back and wincing as her tender
skin met the crumpled sheets.
    ‘ Why don’t you stop working for her?’ Leo said, getting up and
sitting on the send of the bed so he could put on his shoes. ‘Let
me keep you.’
    ‘ What do you mean? Keep me?’
    He lay
back on the bed and looked up at her, a devillish smile on his
face.
    ‘ Be my plaything Iris. I’ll give you as much money as you need.
All you have to do is be a beautiful accessory on my arm; do
whatever I want you to do in bed, and turn a blind eye if I should
stray. I’m worth millions Iris. You’d never want for
anything.’
    While it
was a very tempting offer, there was a big obstacle that stopped
her accepting, and that was Patrick. While he didn’t excite her
like Leo - she found the sex they had, boring and she didn’t like
the way he took Annie more seriously than her, the truth was, she
loved him. He was the only man who’d ever treated her like a lady.
He knew nothing of her past, and never asked her about it. She
couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again; just to be the
plaything of a man who would never be serious about her.
    ‘ Let’s keep things how they are,’ she said to Leo, stroking his
wavy hair. ‘What we have is so delicious, it would spoil things if
we were together all the time.’
    ‘ Have it your way,’ he sighed, sitting up. ‘You’re a tough nut
to crack Iris Lindholm. But I’ll get there eventually.’
     
    Iris
went home to Streatham and had a long, hot bath, soothing away all
the aches and pains after her time with Leo. She was going to
dinner with Patrick that night and she wanted to wash Leo away
before she saw him. As she lay in the silence, with just the sound
of the water lapping against the side of the bath, she thought
about Leo’s offer. The old Iris would have accepted it without
thinking; but what Leo offered her wasn’t as thrilling as the
thought of making Annie Holland’s life a misery. Of seeing that
sour little face wince every time Iris touched or kissed Patrick.
Knowing that it stuck in Annie’s throat whenever Iris met up with
Kenneth to discuss ideas for fundraising for Tanner Beresford. She
could tell it angered Annie that after the fashion show,
commissions had started to come in for Ralf Silver, whereas orders
for her shoes were dripping in slowly. And most of all to go with
Leo would mean giving up Patrick. She’d never go to Bruno’s again,
and Leo definitely wouldn’t tolerate her working for Annie. She’d
only recently given up all her clients; if she accepted Leo’s offer
she would just become a glorified whore again. She’d been
prostituting herself since she was thirteen years old, she never
wanted to do it again.
    She
dressed for dinner in a dress that Ralf had made exclusively for
her. It was an emerald green, silk evening gown with white flowers
stitched all the way down the side. She put her hair up and applied
subtle make up. The only evidence of her time with Leo was a bruise
around her right wrist, which she covered up with a silver cuff
bracelet. She looked the picture of elegance and sophistication and
that was the new