Cruel Venus Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Allyson

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Tessa

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Shelley

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Allyson Jaymes has it all – celebrity, power, and a glamorous marriage. Until her world is destroyed by the bitterest betrayal of all: her husband’s explosive affair with her nineteen-year-old assistant, Tessa Dukes.

  Tessa’s ambitions burn fiercely. Her chilling manipulation of fame and her steady destruction of so many dreams and ambitions lead all concerned into a fatal minefield of sexual obsession, psychotic jealousy and deadly treachery…

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-seven novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. Having resided in France for many years she now lives in Gloucestershire. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Susan is a supporter of the childhood bereavement charity, Winston's Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk and of the breast cancer charity, BUST: www.bustbristol.co.uk

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  Strange Allure

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  For Pat

  Acknowledgements

  I should like to express a huge thank you to Chiara Lima and the staff of the Palazzo Sasso, in Ravello, Italy. A superb hotel, with exceptional service and a wonderful location. Highly recommended.

  I should also like to thank Don Tate, a great friend and lawyer, for expertly guiding me through the trial in the book – any errors that remain are entirely mine.

  Love and thanks also go to Fanny Blackburne, Lesley Morgan, Denise Hastie, David Christian and Chris Witty.

  ALLYSON

  Chapter 1

  ‘IS IT TRUE? Are you sleeping with her?’

  The sound of him crunching into his toast followed her question. Then he turned a page of the newspaper to pick up the last part of a story in the sports section.

  She didn’t look up either, simply continued to gaze at the paper as though absorbed. The question hung in the air with the smell of coffee and the warmth of the heating. Her voice hadn’t sounded shrill, or panicked, not even accusatory. She wondered how many women knew what it was like to pick up a paper and read, along with the rest of the world, that your husband was having an affair. She imagined every woman knew exactly what she’d do, she’d always known too, until now.

  It was Sunday morning. The newspapers were piled up at the end of the kitchen table, and the autumn sunlight pinged off the china. In front of her was one of the more scurrilous tabloids bearing the front-page headline ‘Bob’s Secret Love’. Not a particularly imaginative headline, but it was a great picture. No surprise there, he was a good-looking man. He always photographed well. Had quite a fan club now, especially here, in the village, where they spent most weekends.

  Allyson wasn’t a lover of sports; couldn’t stand football, hated cricket, detested rugby and put up with tennis. It had never come between them though; he had his job as a freelance commentator on TV sports, she had hers, hosting Soirée, a nightly magazine show. Allyson and Bob Jaymes. They’d been together since their early twenties, had fervently supported each other’s careers, and now they were a pretty famous couple, though she was possibly more recognizable than he was, not only because of the programme’s high profile, but because of the embarrassing regularity with which she was honoured for her work with the underprivileged. They went to all the right parties, were invited to all the first nights, all the benefits, balls, weekend hunts, summer villas and winter ski trips. They entertained here, at their farmhouse, quite regularly, and at least twice a week at their London flat. Their lives could easily be described as blessed, though of course they weren’t without their problems, but whoever heard of anyone sailing through eighteen years of marriage without problems? Of course, not having children helped, but testing though they were to any relationship, children were by no means the only cause of marital unrest.

  To remain childless was a decision they’d made early on in their relationship, though lately they’d been talking about reversing it and taking the plunge into parenthood that so many of their friends were deliriously enjoying and bitterly regretting. Now she was getting used to the idea Allyson had to confess she wanted it much more than she’d realized, in fact secretly she was already sorry they’d waited this long.

  Her dark blue eyes scanned the story again, skimming fast over the words as though speed might render them benign. That Bob was being accused of having an affair with Tessa Dukes wasn’t something she could allow herself to take in. If she did, she’d have to accept it could be true, and she wasn’t going to do that when it was so patently absurd. No, the Sunday papers generally yielded up material worth pursuing for the show, which was why she read them, and it had to be said that this story definitely didn’t make the grade. The problem was, it was there, and false though it had to be, please God! it couldn’t be ignored.

  Putting the paper down she refilled her cup with lukewarm coffee. She loved this farmhouse kitchen with its handcrafted cabinets, rows of copper pots and arrangements of dried herbs. The view, down over the valley to the village, was spectacular today. The seasonal shift in colours spread over the hillside like a busy artist’s palette, and the sky was so clear, just one small mass of fluffy white cloud.

  ‘I think you heard my question,’ she said, feeling an odd reluctance in her legs as she got up to make more coffee. She’d left the paper so he could see it, so he couldn’t miss it.

  He glanced over at it, then laughed. ‘You’re taking that seriously?’ he said, his amazement sounding comfortingly genuine.

  ‘Are you telling me I don’t need to?’ she responded, watching the water stream into the jug.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ally,’ he said, reaching for the Telegraph, ‘you know what the tabloids are like. They’ll print anything they think’ll make a story. Look what they did to Gascoigne and his missus.’

  Allyson turned round. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was in an untidy knot at the top of her head, her blue fleecy pyjamas fell loosely around her small, slender figure. Considering the kind of issue they were facing she could have wished she looked a little more attractive. ‘Paul Gascoigne deserved most of the publicity he got,’ she reminded him. ‘Maybe you’d like to try anoth
er example.’

  Bob’s round grey eyes grew large with surprise. ‘Ally, it’s the News of the World, for God’s sake. No-one ever believes the News of the World, so why don’t we just let this go?’

  ‘So you don’t care what they’re printing about you? Or about Tessa Dukes, my nineteen-year-old-assistant?’

  ‘Why the hell would I care what they’re printing about her? I barely even know the girl.’

  ‘So how come they’ve got a shot of you coming out of her flat?’

  Bob turned the paper round and frowned as he looked at the front page. ‘You know where that is,’ he said, finally. ‘It’s the building Danny Jacobs just moved into. He’s one of the producers at the Beeb, in case you’d forgotten. His flat’s on the second floor, or maybe it’s the third. You can check easily enough.’

  ‘I know who he is,’ Allyson responded. Though she snapped, relief was starting to release the tension inside her. How desperately she wanted to believe him. It was pathetic really, but she didn’t even want to think about what it would mean if any of this were true. So why not believe it? The tabloids were well known to fabricate scandal in order to increase sales, and she and Bob were nothing if not prime targets. Indeed, all that was really surprising about this was that they had never been targeted before.

  He really was handsome, she was thinking, with his large grey eyes, round, rugged face and quirky mouth. He might not be in quite as good shape now as when they’d first met, but who was, twenty years down the line? In Bob’s case he’d managed to maintain his sportsman’s physique until just a couple of years ago, when the first signs of middle-age spread and too much partying had started to show. But Allyson couldn’t imagine any amount of passing years, or addiction to the high life, diminishing the incredible warmth of his character, or the magical intensity of his laughter-lined eyes. Funny, when you’d been married a long time, how you forgot to notice those things. They were just there, like the monthly bills and pile-up of laundry. More diverting of course, but just as constant and rarely much change – except for the times when crises hit, but those times weren’t often and when compared to the disasters and catastrophes some couples suffered, Bob’s occasional problem with drink and erratic struggles with self-esteem were really very minor and generally swiftly overcome. Less so lately, it was true, for these past few months he’d started getting into self-pity in a pretty big way, and she had to confess that it stretched her patience no end to know that so much of his resentment was directed at her. It was because she came from an established and wealthy family, and had had many of the advantages that weren’t available to someone like him. Which was nonsense, of course, because his working-class origins had done nothing to stunt his education, had, if anything, broadened his social skills to a degree many people from her kind of background never got to achieve, and had propelled him into an extremely prominent and highly paid career. It was true his job didn’t provide him with the kind of security he craved, but no freelance job ever did, and if he weren’t allowing that chip on his shoulder to get so out of hand, as he seemed to be lately, then he might not be putting so many employers’ backs up and finding himself overlooked for some of the plummer assignments.

  However, it wasn’t often that cracks appeared in the famous Bob Jaymes charm, and though he sometimes complained that she made him feel inferior with her fabulous connections, public adulation, and irritatingly saintly image, she was never backward in reminding him that his inferiority was a product of his own addled mind, and if he weren’t so prone to feeling hard done by he might get a glimpse of how incredibly fortunate, and talented, he actually was. And while they were at it, this sense of entitlement he seemed to be whipping up into some sort of frenzy lately was starting to become more than a little tiresome, because no-one was entitled to anything, and as he could easily be deemed one of life’s achievers it might be a good idea for him to recognize that he’d earned his privileged place in the world, which was much more admirable than having it handed to him the way she had.

  Pushing aside the criticisms and swallowing the irritation she knew she was stirring up as some kind of defence, she thought about what a deeply caring and sensitive man he could be, with enormous dash and charisma, and the kind of allure that was extremely appealing to the opposite sex, especially those who were impressed by fame – and plenty were. However, Allyson had long since overcome her insecurity where other women were concerned, for though Bob could be an outrageous flirt and was quite capable of giving some poor girls the wrong impression, their marriage had never suffered anything even approaching a crisis on that front, which was maybe, perversely, what was making her so nervous now.

  Feeling the relief of moments ago start to evaporate she said, ‘So why are they saying you’re coming out of Tessa’s place?’

  ‘How do I know? Where does she live?’

  ‘Peckham.’

  ‘There you are. Danny’s place is in Peckham. Could be they’re in the same building, or same street. Most of those houses look the same.’

  Allyson switched on the percolator and went back to the table. As she sat down she was watching him, once again engrossed in the paper, and apparently not in the least bit bothered by his own personal appearance in the headlines. So why should she be? After all, it did stretch credibility somewhat, him and Tessa Dukes, especially when he was such a dedicated social climber – not something Tessa could give him a leg up with. On the other hand, he was in his mid-forties now and there was never any telling what a man might do when struggling with the encroaching horrors of middle age and mortality. And with all the self-doubt and insecurity he’d been exhibiting lately, along with some sudden outbursts of impatience with her, she was pretty certain he was limbering up for a nasty first few rounds in the arena of midlife unrest. It unnerved her to think of it, for enough of their friends were experiencing it for her to know how damaging, even devastating, it could be. Just thank God she and Bob had such a rock solid relationship, and that she loved him enough to go the course with him, and know that when her time came he would go it with her. She wished she could say that for more of their friends, for it was amazing how many of them, when sucked into the emotional holocaust of midlife crisis, had come out the other end with an overriding hatred of a spouse they’d spent the past ten or fifteen years, if not adoring, then certainly fondly enduring.

  But she couldn’t see that happening to them. They were too much a part of each other now to be easily torn apart, and she didn’t feel anywhere near the kind of exasperation with him that some of her friends felt with their irritating bedmates. In fact, she could go as far as to say that he hardly got on her nerves at all, except maybe when he started whingeing about how infrequently they had sex. That usually happened when they’d somehow spilled into a third consecutive week of non-conjugal bliss, which was increasingly how she saw it, for she had to admit that she’d become just a teensy bit bored, sleeping with the same partner all these years. Not that he didn’t do it for her any more, he just didn’t do it quite so often, or quite so explosively, as he had during the early years. But a wickedly obscene fantasy entailing lots of tarty behaviour with men in hard hats usually took care of that, and, of course, at the end she was always relieved it was Bob she was with, for she truly didn’t harbour any secret desire to engage in real sex with anyone else.

  Maybe real sex would be a good idea now, she thought. If nothing else it might dispel some of the horrible anxieties gathering inside her, anxieties she’d very much like to destroy before they had chance to take root. She could start by sliding her feet nonchalantly on to his lap, the way she often did when they read the Sunday papers. Sometimes he’d massage them, which would very occasionally lead on to other things. The problem was, she didn’t know if she wanted to go through with it after such a shock. In truth she didn’t think she could.

  As though sensing some of the turmoil going on in her head, he looked up. For a long moment his eyes locked with hers, then leaning forward he cupped her
chin in his hand and kissed her softly on the lips. ‘It’s not true,’ he said gently.

  She forced a smile, and waited for a renewed buoyancy in her spirits. After all, what was wrong with believing him? She’d never had any reason to disbelieve him before, so why start now?

  He sat back, still looking at her, then lifting her feet onto his lap he began to massage them. After a while he turned back to the paper, though he continued to toy with her toes. She watched his hands and wondered if they were hands that had recently caressed the teenage Tessa? The question lodged with immense weight in her heart, seeming to depress the beat.

  Reaching for the Observer she laid it on top of the News of the World and started to read about the upcoming American Presidential elections. She wondered how many of the candidates had had oral sex with an underling. Then hearing the crunch of Sid Carter’s milk float on the gravel outside she wondered if he’d ever had oral sex. Smiling inwardly she went to get her coat, then padded down the hall to the front door.

  ‘Hello Sid,’ she called, her breath visible in the crisp morning air, her skin goosing as she pulled her coat tighter around her.

  ‘Hello,’ he said gloomily. Sid was always gloomy. Maybe a spot of oral sex would cheer him up. She wasn’t volunteering. ‘How many pints today?’

  ‘Two, same as usual,’ she said. ‘And three sliced wholemeal loaves. We’ve got the kids from Hobert Hall coming over this afternoon for the cricket match.’

  ‘Your husband there then, is he?’ Sid asked, in his gruff west country burr.

  ‘Of course he is,’ Allyson replied. ‘Where did you expect him to be?’

  It wasn’t in Sid to look uncomfortable. ‘Well, after what we read in the paper this morning,’ he said bluntly, ‘Elsie reckoned you’d have kicked the bugger out.’

  ‘Come on Sid,’ she chided, ‘you know better than to believe what you read in the papers, especially that kind of paper.’

  ‘No smoke without fire, is what I say,’ he muttered. ‘How many loaves was that?’