Read Escape Me Never for Free Online Page A

hungry. I'm getting over 'flu, and I haven't felt like eating a great deal over the weekend.'
    His face lit up. 'Does that mean I have company?'
    'I'm afraid so,' she returned gaily, refusing to feel guilty at his obvious pleasure. If the consensus of opinion was that she needed a man in her life, then she would have one, she decided coldly and clinically. Someone nice and inoffensive like this Lloyd, whom she could keep at arm's length when it mattered. She wanted someone to be seen with; someone to convince Rohan Grant that he was wasting his time.
    It might not be fair to Lloyd, she thought with compunction, but it wouldn't do him any lasting damage either.
    In the event, she found him good company, with a ready sense of humour. When he mentioned a new West End comedy, and said he was thinking of getting tickets, it was no hardship at all to agree to go with him.
    They arrived back at the agency together, and she guessed that the news would spread rapidly. At one time she would have found this painful, but there were worse threats hovering over her now than a little office gossip.
    When she got to her own office, Roger was there, just replacing the telephone receiver.
    He said. 'McDowell's been on from
Eve
.' He paused. 'He wanted to know if we'd definitely signed Tracey Kent for the perfume commercial.'
    'Why did he want to know that?' Cass frowned slightly. 'Both he and Handson thought she was perfect.'
    Roger sighed. 'Orders from above,' he said laconically. 'Apparently the big boss wants Serena Vance to do the launch.'
    'And does he know we haven't an icicle's chance in hell of getting Serena Vance?' Cass asked crisply.
    Roger shrugged. 'He thinks we have. Apparently he and Miss Vance—know each other very well, and she will be happy to star in the
Eve
commercial as a favour to him.' He leered. 'Makes you wonder, doesn't it, just what he did for her?'
    Cass said with distaste, 'I'd prefer not to.' She managed a little laugh. 'So—we're stuck with the Randy Sid syndrome all over again.'
    'Well, hardly,' Roger objected. 'At least Serena Vance can act. But we'll have to re-jig her script. The words that would have been acceptable from someone who looked as dewily innocent as Tracey would be ludicrous spoken by Miss Vance.'
    Cass fiddled with her pen. 'Of course, we don't really know if she'll do it,' she pointed out. 'Perhaps Rohan Grant is just—shooting a line.'
    'Perhaps, but I don't think so,' Roger said drily. 'What would be the point? No, I bet when shooting starts, the camera will be lingering over Miss Vance's deservedly famous attributes, instead of Tracey's innocent charms.' He sighed enviously. 'What a thing it is to have power, as well as good looks and charisma. I wish Serena Vance owed me a favour,' he added disconsolately.
    When she got home that night, Cass went through a pile of old colour supplements which she had put out for collection by the dustmen, until she found the one, dated a few months earlier, which she wanted. Serena Vance's challenging beauty stared up from the cover beneath the legend—'Serena Vance—sex symbol or serious actress?' Cass couldn't remember what, if any, conclusion the article inside had come to, but she did recall the other full page photograph which had accompanied it, showing the actress naked except for a few discreetly placed folds of an opulent wild mink cloak. A present, the caption had stated, from an admirer.
    'I wonder who that was!' Cass muttered to herself, thrusting the magazine back into the pile.
    It had come, she told herself, as no great surprise to learn that Rohan Grant had been the lover of someone like the voluptuous Serena. Nevertheless it made his subsequent behaviour towards herself all the more baffling and ridiculous. Unless, of course, he was just amusing himself at her expense—tormenting her to see how she would react. A young widow with a reputation as a loner would seem easy game for a man used to finding his pleasures with sophisticated