‘You should count your blessings.’ He scrutinised her face. The green eyes staring steadily back at him were curious but interested. What was it about this woman? She was a good listener, he thought with a jolt of unease. She must be—or why else would he be feeling this irrational urge to start pouring out details of his private life? And she was compassionate. He felt a sudden, weakening spurt of jealousy at all those countless people who commanded her time out there in the wilds of Panama.
‘My father and your uncle knew one another. Once. When they were both young men. Felt Pharmaceuticals began its life as a joint venture between two men who’d graduated from the same university. My father was the brains of the partnership but old Abe had the flair.’ The interruption of their food arriving was an irritation that suspended his tale for a few seconds but, now that he had begun, he found that he couldn’t stop the tide. She dipped into her food, tucking her sun-bleached hair behind her ears as she ate.
‘What happened?’ she asked, glancing at him, then back to her food.
‘Their little venture took off. They both had money and my father invested everything in the scientific side of the company. Everything seemed hunky dory for a while, then something happened. Or at least that’s the story my mother told me years afterwards. Your uncle changed. He became greedy. Greedy and bitter.’
‘You mean he had a fallout with your father?’
‘None that my mother was ever aware of. He just changed. He became bitter with the world and my father was the first to feel it. He had sunk everything he possessed in building the company, only to find that Abe began working against him, pulling the ground from under his feet. In the end, of course, the politics became too much and the company began to run into financial trouble. Three years after it started, it folded. My father was left with debts he could never hope to repay. He discovered later that some creative accounting had gone on. Abe retreated with a huge amount of cash scattered everywhere, cash that couldn’t be touched. He drove my father out of the business and then restarted it under his own name and never looked back. My father spent the rest of his days trying to repay debts that should have been shared. He died a broken man and my mother was left having to raise a child in virtual poverty.’ He dug into his food and felt all the old resentment weighing him down like an anchor.
‘You mean you’ve spent your life looking forward to the day when you could get your revenge?’
‘When I could get back what was rightfully mine.’
‘But all of that…was history. How could it motivate you for so long?’
‘I saw it as evening the scales of justice.’
‘And now I’m the one you want to hurt? Because of my uncle? How could that be right? I haven’t done anything.’
‘I don’t want to hurt you. But I want the company, which is why I’m prepared to pay over the odds for it.’
‘And was Stephanie all part of your revenge?’ she asked quietly. ‘Did you see her as one more step in making my uncle pay his dues?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘How did you meet her?’ Having done justice to her enormous plate of food, she closed her knife and fork and rested both elbows on the table, on either side of the plate.
Somehow the conversation had run away, and she was fully in control.
‘Why don’t we stop concentrating on me and start concentrating on you,’ he said, pushing his plate away and sitting back into his chair with his fingers resting lightly on the table.
‘Because my life isn’t as interesting as yours.’
‘Oh, please!’ He shot her a look of reproving disbelief.
‘Well, it’s not so full of complications and personal sagas.’ Which made his life sound, he thought, as if it had been lifted from a tawdry third-rate soap opera.
‘Because of course, everyone is brimming over with love and joy where you live.’
‘Because most of us don’t have the time to get embroiled in each other’s lives.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that.’ Now that she had managed to drag his confession out of him, he could feel himself growing resentful and defensive as he tried to claw back some of his self-assurance. What next? he thought. An outburst of weeping? Some ghastly cleansing of the soul? ‘You’re saying that all of you meander along in a saint-like fashion, smiling and thinking pure thoughts all the time?’ He glared savagely at her and she began to laugh. A maddening laugh which she tried to stifle. Tried and failed.
‘No, I’m not saying that at all,’ she said seriously, although the corners of her mouth were still twitching with repressed amusement. ‘We argue and get frustrated just like the next person.’
‘And what about the pure thoughts?’ he asked slyly. ‘Isn’t the heat supposed to up the libido?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Destiny said primly, flushing. She thought of Henri and wondered whether her libido had ever been active when she had been around him. They knew each other so well. A deep bond of trust and friendship that was half-cultivated by their circumstances. But desire? Lust? She had occasionally fancied that she loved him, and had certainly responded to his flirtation, but the temptation to take things one step further had never been there.
She looked surreptitiously at the man sitting opposite her. All dark, dangerous arrogance. Just the sort of man bemoaned by women’s magazines. Well, they certainly didn’t tell you how much men like that got under your skin and worked away there until just thinking about them was enough to send your pulses into overdrive, did they?
‘Oh, surely you must have had a quick kiss and a grope behind the bushes by the river…’
At any other time she would have told him to mind his own business, but the food and the wine had made her mellow. Even the way he was looking at her, with lazy, brooding interest, sent a little dart of excitement shooting around her body. She was beginning to understand any number of the little games that men and women played, games that had no part on their compound.
‘Behind the bushes by the river at night is the last place you would want to be, believe me.’ She drank some more wine, which was going down more smoothly and more quickly with each mouthful.
‘But it would just instil an element of danger, wouldn’t it?’ He swirled the liquid in his glass round and round and continued to stare at her with languid blue eyes.
‘Snakes? Reptiles? Nasty slippery things that wouldn’t hesitate to attach themselves to your ankle if you weren’t looking out for them? You’re telling me that all that adds up to an exciting element of danger?’ She made a face and he smiled slowly at her. Conversation with Henri was never like this. He teased her, but his banter was harmless. This didn’t feel harmless. In fact, it felt strangely erotic. She blushed with sudden guilty awareness, and reassured herself that it was all in her imagination. Sophisticated men and women, living in big cities, spoke like this to one another, she decided naively.
‘Would you care to see the dessert menu?’ The waiter was somehow standing by them. She hadn’t even seen him approaching.
‘Yes, please.’
‘You’re going to have dessert?’ He made it sound as though she had committed an unforgivable crime and her outstretched hand paused.
‘Shouldn’t I?’
‘Of course you should. It’s just that the women I’ve dated in the past have avoided dessert like the plague.’
‘Why?’ She took the menu and looked at it, trying not to salivate at the descriptions of things done with chocolate and fruits and cream.
‘Obsession with their figures,’ he said drily.
‘I have a big frame,’ Destiny said defensively. Come to think of it, she had noticed the way Stephanie had refrained from piling food onto her plate. Unlike her. Stephanie had taken minuscule amounts, eaten very slowly and declined seconds. Unlike, come to think of it, her. ‘And anyway,’ she continued, after having ordered tiramisu with lots of cream, ‘I don’t get to eat food like this. It’s a novelty.’ Besides, she told herself, eating less wasn’t g
oing to reduce her height, was it? It would just turn her into one of those skinny women she saw in the magazines who seemed to have not much of anything.
‘So,’ she said, when the tiramisu was in front of her, ‘I’m not going to feel guilty about this.’
‘You shouldn’t. It’s very refreshing to meet a woman with a hearty appetite.’
‘Would you like some?’ She held out the spoon, feeling very relaxed and daring, and he leaned forward. At the very moment that his mouth circled the spoon their eyes met, blue tangling with green, and she felt a rush of blood invade her system, burning like a sudden high fever.
‘It’s very good.’ His eyes never left her face, even after he had sat back and was sipping his cup of coffee. He just continued to stare at her over the rim of the cup.
‘I have a proposal for you,’ he said slowly. He reached forward before she could say anything and his finger brushed the side of her mouth. ‘Cream just there,’ he said.
‘What kind of proposal?’ Just where he had touched felt inflamed. What would it be like to have those fingers travel the length and breadth of her body? She felt another hot wave of guilt wash over her. The man was engaged to her stepcousin! He had done nothing inappropriate, so why was her body disobeying her head and behaving as though he had? She pushed the remainder of the dessert away from her and sternly told herself to buckle down and get her act together.
‘First of all, tell me why you’re so intent on hanging on to the company. I’ve told you my dark secret, so what’s yours?’
‘I don’t have any dark secrets.’ She eyed the near completed two bottles of wine and realised that she’d drunk far more than she had imagined. Oh, blessed relief. The wine was the culprit behind her sordid thoughts! ‘The truth is that if I hang on to the company, I can help my father with his research. Derek says—’
‘Stop referring to Derek as though he’s a guru,’ Callum inserted irritably.
‘Well, my father’s working on a cure for certain tropical illnesses using plant products. You’d be surprised how many cures can come from the trees and the leaves of certain plants. We have routine inoculations for the local people against certain diseases, but they still practise an awful lot of home remedies and the majority of them work, if not all. Felt Pharmaceuticals has the technology to help with further research. If I sell the company to you, I won’t have access to their specialised equipment, which would be very useful for my father.’
‘So we have the insoluble dilemma.’ He signalled to the waiter for the bill and settled it with a platinum credit card, barely looking at it in the process. ‘Sell to me and lose that possible source of aid or hang on to the company and go down sinking. You’ve seen the figures. Either way, you’re on a loser. But, as I said, I have a proposal…’
‘Which is?’
‘Has the guru Derek elaborated on everything you’ve inherited?’
‘Well, I have the details in the house somewhere… So far, I haven’t had much of an opportunity to look at them,’ she admitted, ‘I’ve been so wrapped up with the company problems.’
‘Well, in addition to the house in London, Abe had a country estate. Some of the contents he willed to his various past dependants…’
‘How do you know about that?’ Destiny interrupted, frowning and recalling some mention of a place in the country.
‘Because Stephanie is one of the heirs. The point is this—the actual manor was willed to you, as were the lands.’
‘Manor? Lands?’
‘Didn’t Derek the guru explain any of this to you?’ Callum asked incredulously.
‘Stop calling him “the guru,” and yes, he did mention that there was a house somewhere outside London. I didn’t pay much attention. I just assumed that it was, you know, a normal little house…’ Her voice drifted away as his expression changed from incredulity to amusement.
‘You mean, something small and detached with a pristine square of grass around it? A hedge or two, perhaps? Maybe a tree?’
‘Something like that,’ she agreed.
‘How right you were when you said you knew nothing of your dear uncle. Abe was always fond of making sure that everyone knew exactly how wealthy he was. He had a mansion in Berkshire, surrounded by twenty acres of land, quite of bit of it cultivated.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘I gather you’re less than impressed.’
‘Why would he want two houses?’
‘Lots of people in London enjoy having a bolt-hole in the country,’ he explained a little too patiently for her liking. ‘Abe just liked having a very large bolt-hole. Ready to go?’ He stood up and she hurriedly scrambled to her feet, tugging down the dress self-consciously while he watched with an inscrutable expression.
‘So here’s what I propose. In exchange for Abe’s country retreat, I’ll work with you. I’ll plough as much money into the company as I need to so that it’s up and running. Of course, I shall have to take a number of your shares from you, but you’ll be the head of the company and entitled to your share of whatever profits it makes—which, with the right management, could be considerable. Your father would also have privileged access, naturally, to whatever medical facilities he needs in our own research centres.’
‘Would you say that that’s a good deal?’ she asked dubiously, trying to work out the pros and cons and failing. At the moment, she felt as though trying to do anything logical with her mind was a bit like trying to build a house of cards in a high wind.
‘I’d say you should give it very careful thought,’ he told her, as they drove slowly back to her house.
‘Why would you want a country house?’ she asked.
‘Why do you ask so many questions?’
‘Because it’s the way I am. Oh, I think I understand. Is it so that you have somewhere in the country for you and Stephanie, when you begin to have children?’ She would have liked children. Of course, she was only young and had all the time in the world, but time had a nasty habit of slipping away when you weren’t looking.
‘No, that’s not the reason,’ he was saying impatiently. ‘Naturally, you’d have to see the house. I wouldn’t want you to consider anything until you’re in full possession of all the facts.’
‘Naturally.’ Sooner than expected, the car was pulling up to the front of her pristine house. Strangely, the place was beginning to feel a bit like home, even though she still had an instinctive aversion to the English preoccupation with ordered greenery. She slung open her door and preceded him to her front door. It was much cooler now. She unlocked the door, pushed it open and then turned to face him. His face was all angles and his hair was raked back so that there was no relief from the chiselled perfection of his features. He was also standing too close to her. Claustrophobically close.
‘Thank you for dinner,’ she told him politely, eyes skirting any possible clash with his by focusing on the terraced row of houses visible over his right shoulder. ‘Do you want me to take the files with me and have a proper read?’
‘So I suggest this weekend. I’ll pick you up on Saturday morning and we can return on Sunday night. That should give you long enough to have a look around.’
‘Pick me up?’ she stammered, confused by this alarmingly swift turn of events. Ever since Derek Wilson had stumbled his way to the compound, her life seemed to have adopted a galloping speed that was quickly turning into a sprint.
‘You do want to see your country place, don’t you? See whether you want my proposal to go ahead?’
‘Yes, of course, but…’
‘Don’t tell me you have plans for the weekend.’
‘No, b-but…’
‘Then why are you stuttering and acting as though you’ve been pushed into a corner?’
‘It’s all a bit sudden, that’s all.’
‘I’m a great believer in the saying that there’s no time like the present.’
That, she thought, was glaringly obvious. But a weekend? Alone with him? It wouldn’t do. She couldn’
t face down what the man did to her and she had no intention of being in his company without remission for days on end. She didn’t understand what she was feeling, but she knew that it was all wrong. Mild-mannered Henri with his easy ways and his light-hearted flirting was something she could handle. But Callum unleashed different, frightening things in her. A weekend being frightened was not on her agenda.
‘I’d like Stephanie to come,’ she said bluntly.
‘I intended to ask her along,’ he lied. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday. Around nine.’ He looked away, showing her his profile. ‘We can all get to know one another a little better.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE following day, Stephanie asked Destiny to lunch. A gorgeous little wine bar in Chelsea. You’ll adore it.
What was the dress code, she wondered, for gorgeous little wine bars in Chelsea? The flowered dress which she’d bought on her shopping trip made her feel frivolous. It was added to the list of new emotions which she had been accumulating ever since she’d set foot on British soil. Sometimes she felt as though the perfect bliss she had achieved for all those years in Panama had been an illusion. Back there, she’d operated on one level only. She had been calm, useful, productive and down to earth. Devoting her life to other people had left no room for anything else.
Now, it was as if the small world she had busily and happily occupied had grown and swelled into a complex network of different facets. She no longer felt nauseated and overwhelmed by the crowds. She was becoming accustomed to the buildings that rose around her like the tall, lush trees that encroached upon the compound and to the pace of life that left no time to be alone with the privacy of your thoughts for company. She hadn’t read a book since she had arrived! In Panama, she had read voraciously every evening, all manner of books, which she stocked up on in quantity whenever a trip to the city was made and, of course, her father’s medical journals, which she had started reading for interest from the age of fourteen.
And men had always been her equals. Aside from Henri, who had worked alongside her for two years and whose gallantry rescued her from total asexuality, she’d had no experience of being aware of them in a sexual manner. She discussed problems with them, joined in their conversations, worked with them—but those peculiar antennae that were so finely tuned to their masculinity had never really got going with her. Callum had been the one to bring that side of her to life. It was a good thing that she was going to see Stephanie. Her stepcousin would put a bit of necessary perspective on what was going on in her head.
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