by Liz Fielding
She really wanted Niall to see what she saw. To feel what she felt. Not because it was likely to make a difference to the outcome of the dispute. But simply because she suspected that it had been a long time since he’d felt anything very much at all.
Niall remained where he was for a moment, taking a few moments to gather his thoughts, recover from the temptation of a kiss that had seemed to make promises he’d forgotten ever existed. To remind him of the person he once was. Demonstrate just how far his viewpoint had shifted in twenty-four hours. Towards that of Romana Claibourne.
He’d allowed his mind to wander today, forgotten why he was tagging along at the heels of a candyfloss blonde. Distracted by her long legs, the transparently wet cloth clinging to her breasts and the soft warmth of her sugar-pink mouth.
He needed to remember that she’d got wet wrestling with the plumbing—getting on with it instead of shouting for the nearest man. He’d seen for himself that she was a dedicated, hard-working professional. But his mind was stubbornly refusing to move on from his first impression of her. It had bought the illusion—one he suspected she’d gone out of her way to foster—and as a result he hadn’t been taking her seriously enough.
The candyfloss blonde, meanwhile, had remained focused on her goal and never once taken her eye off the ball. Well, maybe just once. In the warmth of his kitchen, the comfort of his saggy old sofa, when she’d kicked off her high heels and curled up with her hand beneath her cheek. She’d slept like a baby. Innocent, defenceless.
Louise used to do that.
She’d work on the house all day. He’d walk over from the City at the end of his day and find her there. He’d wake her and they’d make love and then make plans for the rest of their life while they had a late supper. He’d had nearly a year of that…
He’d anticipated spending the rest of life doing that.
That was the only reason it had been in his head when he’d woken Romana, why taking her to bed had seemed such a great idea. The memories. It wasn’t personal. It couldn’t be personal. Yet just remembering the moment was enough to stir confused guilt-engendering longings, and he raised the back of his hand to his mouth in an attempt to cool it.
He’d come within a heartbeat of kissing her. She’d sat beside him in the car, looked at him with her lips softly parted, waiting for him to kiss her.
With the heat of her lips still on his, he found himself wishing he had.
A woman wearing the burgundy and gold uniform of a store employee paused on her way out. ‘That’s a private lift. It’s just for the offices,’ she said helpfully. ‘You’ll find the store lifts around the corner.’
He nodded his thanks and dragged his mind back into line. Romana was not Louise. Nothing like her. Never would be. And this wasn’t a social event; something she seemed to have little difficulty in remembering. Unlike him. But then she had a lot to lose, which tended to concentrate the mind.
Under normal circumstances the enormity of the prize would have kept his own mind fully focused. But this wasn’t normal by any standards. It certainly wasn’t the way he was accustomed to doing business. He usually conducted business at a distance.
He’d just have to make good use of his time. No business was perfect; he’d find the weak spots and use it against the Claibourne sisters if it came to a court battle.
He didn’t need magic for that. He needed facts. He wasn’t interested in romance these days. Only profits. And Romana might sleep like a baby, but she wasn’t one. No matter how soft her skin, her hair. She was a smart woman with an agenda. Well, he had an agenda of his own, and he was grateful to her for reminding him of his priorities.
He punched in the code to summon the lift. Romana hadn’t thought to cloak it behind her hand and it was second nature to him to notice the smallest details. You just never knew when they’d be useful.
Romana kicked off her loafers, then bent to check them for water damage. They were her favourite pair, but they seemed to have survived their inundation. Unlike her trousers, which would never be the same again. Carrying her shoes, she walked barefoot across the thick carpet to her desk and checked for messages. There were dozens, neatly listed by her secretary in order of urgency.
They were going to have to wait. She took a sharp little black suit from her clothes cupboard and spent a sinful five minutes under a hot shower, blasting away the morning, enjoying the luxury of washing her short hair and blowing it dry in minutes.
Then she made-up carefully—she wouldn’t have time to do more than retouch her lipstick before the auction started—and put on her designer suit like a knight donning body armour before a battle.
People reacted to the way you looked. If you looked as if you were in control, most people bought it.
When Niall came up to the office, she wanted to be in total control of herself and her surroundings. No more girly nonsense. No more getting soaked through like some girl in a wet T-shirt competition. She was a professional woman and this was her world. Hers. It wasn’t Claibourne versus Farraday any more. It was personal. And Niall Macaulay was going to have to work damned hard to wrest it from her.
As she fastened her watch to her wrist, she noted that his half-hour was almost up. When he rang through from the store—always assuming he hadn’t just gone back to his office—she was going to be sitting at her desk, dealing with those messages. She smiled at her reflection. He could sit and watch her. Like a good little shadow. Right?
Wrong.
As she opened the bathroom door she discovered that Niall had beaten her to it. He was back in full banker mode. Chalk-stripe suit, white shirt, perfectly knotted tie, his hair gleaming damply from a very recent shower. And he was using her desk. The only thing he hadn’t taken over was her phone. He was using a mobile. But she knew that concession was simply to prevent her checking up on his calls. He was making a statement, too. He was saying, In three months from now, this will all be mine.
He looked up as she froze on the threshold. ‘At last. I thought you’d drowned in there,’ he said, flipping his phone shut.
She refused to show her anger, although the smile took real effort. ‘What’s your problem? I obviously wasn’t holding you up. Did you pick the lock on India’s bathroom, just to prove a point?’
‘There was no need. Your sister took pity on me.’
‘India?’ That seemed unlikely.
‘No, the other one. Flora? I met her as I got out of the lift. She was in a hurry but she still took a moment to show me your office. And then, since you were still in the shower, she offered me the use of hers. She’s a nice girl,’ he said. ‘Very open. No hidden agenda.’
Oh, good grief! What on earth had Flora been saying to the man? ‘She’s not a girl. She’s a woman. A very clever one,’ Romana responded. ‘And none of us have a hidden agenda.’ Except you, she thought. She just knew he’d got plans for this place that didn’t include expanding the customer base. But she kept her suspicions to herself and said, ‘I didn’t realise she was in the office today.’
‘She just came to pick up some notes that were being typed up by her secretary. She said she doesn’t spend a lot of time here.’
Oh, great! ‘She doesn’t need to. She’s not an administrator. She contributes in other ways.’ Damn, that sounded so defensive.
‘Yet she has an office here. Secretarial help. The use of all the facilities. Her own private bathroom, even.’ He made his objections sound so reasonable. Before he went in for the kill. ‘How much does office space cost in this part of town? Per square foot?’
She was quite certain that, like a good lawyer cross-examining a witness, Niall Macaulay never asked a question to which he didn’t already know the answer. ‘Too much. And there’s never enough of it. We’re always looking for extra selling space.’
‘Then maybe you should stop indulging yourself in luxury. You don’t need all this,’ he said, indicating her spacious office with a sweeping gesture. ‘Or personal bathrooms. You could bring the cus
tomer accounts section up here and give yourself room downstairs for a whole new department.’
Romana’s skin goosed as she went cold all over. The best ideas were the simple ones. But if it was so simple why had none of them thought of it? Okay, there were security considerations, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome. For the first time since this business began she wondered if, less emotionally involved, the Farradays might be able to see things more clearly. Or were they just plain smarter?
Not necessarily. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this how the Farradays laid out the top floor when they were last in control?’
‘That was more than thirty years ago,’ he pointed out. ‘Times have changed. With space at a premium, I’ll be recommending that Jordan close the book department, too.’
‘We’ve cut it back already.’
‘That just makes a bad situation worse.’
She swallowed. She’d underestimated him. ‘Have you any other suggestions?’ she asked. There was nothing to stop her taking advantage of his smart ideas. She wasn’t that stupid.
‘Suggestions?’ he repeated, and smiled as if he knew just what she was thinking—which he almost certainly did. Knew it before she’d thought it, in all probability. ‘I’m just here to watch and learn,’ he said. ‘You’re the experts.’
Oh, very cute.
‘I’m glad you realise that,’ she said. And, shrugging off any suggestion of concern, she moved towards her desk, picked up the list of calls she had to make. ‘When you’ve finished trying my chair for size, Niall, I have work to do.’ Then she frowned as her brain caught up with something he’d said earlier. ‘Flora showed you to my office? Why wasn’t Molly or my secretary waiting for you?’ Her frown deepened. ‘And what happened to your walk around the store?’
‘I walked around the store yesterday. Once was quite enough, and since it seemed pointless bothering your secretary when all I had to do was use the same code as you to summon the lift, I did that.’
Once again words failed her. It was happening a damn sight too often for comfort.
He got up. ‘Thanks for the use of your desk.’
‘Checking up to make sure things are running smoothly in your absence?’
‘They wouldn’t dare do anything else. Your chair, however, is on the small size for me.’ His smile was perfunctory. ‘Tell me more about this auction.’
‘You really don’t want to come to the auction, Niall. Go back to your bank and your big chair and make some big fat deal. It’ll make you a lot happier than watching people throw away excessive amounts of money on trivia.’
‘You keep telling me what I don’t want to do.’
‘Have I been wrong so far?’
‘I thought this morning had some notable highlights.’
She didn’t ask him to elaborate. She had a pretty good idea of the highlights he had in mind. Instead she glanced at him, giving his chalk-stripe suit the once over before settling herself in a chair that had never seemed too small to her. And was still warm from his body. ‘Well, come if you insist,’ she said. ‘But in that suit everyone will assume you’re a dealer.’
‘Without a floppy silk handkerchief in my top pocket? I don’t think so.’ Deep lines were curving into his cheeks as his smile unexpectedly deepened. When she didn’t respond, he said, ‘Don’t be sore because I’m winning, Romana. You’re doing really well, but I’ve been playing these games a lot longer than you have.’
‘This isn’t a game, Niall. It’s real life.’ Then, since reminding him of her recent vivid demonstration of ‘real life’ hadn’t been such a good idea, she picked up her phone and began returning calls. But try as she might she was unable to shake off the goosebumps—a sudden fear that she and her sisters were out of their depth and the clever Farraday men would sweep them out of the boardroom without raising a sweat.
Niall had used Romana’s desk simply to annoy her, but discovered it hadn’t been such a great experience. He’d seen her laughing, genuinely amused, enjoying herself. The frown didn’t come close.
She was bent over her desk, phone clamped to her ear as she searched through her desk for something. Her delicate jaw was more than compensated for by the stubborn set of her chin, he thought, as she tucked a stray curl behind her ear. The softness of her lips was counteracted by the crispness of her voice as she passed on the information sought, made a note and moved on to the next message. Completely focused on what she was doing.
She was very easy to watch, he decided. One minute she was catching at her bottom lip with her teeth. The next smiling and nodding as if the person on the other end of the line could see her. She laughed and frowned easily, was quick to reach a decision and wasted no time.
But he didn’t want her to look up and catch him watching her, so he followed her example and made use of the time to shift a couple of meetings to the early morning, so that he could spend more time at the store. Then, because she still hadn’t finished, he picked up a copy of the glossy burgundy and gold catalogue for the celebrity auction. It was crazy stuff. A football signed by all the members of a premier club. Handwritten recipes of the famous. Original cartoons. Celebrity clothes.
It must have taken an enormous effort to assemble such a collection. And the kind of contacts most PR firms would die for. But, considering the media coverage it would engender, undoubtedly very worthwhile.
She was right about one thing, he realised. He could never do her job. But then it was unlikely anyone could. She was unique. A highly visible social creature everyone seemed to want to know, and yet she was totally dedicated to the store. She’d be tough to replace.
He’d have encouraged Jordan to ask her to join them, but he knew it was a waste of time even approaching her. Presumably she’d use her talents to start her own company. Or maybe she wouldn’t bother. She didn’t have to do anything. Yet she still put in long hours, worked unbelievably hard.
Which should be telling him something.
‘Anything you’re likely to make a bid for?’
He looked up, realised that she had finished her calls and was now watching him with a look just short of exasperation. As if she couldn’t quite believe he was still there.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Oh, no. If you’re coming I insist you enter into the spirit of thing. Maybe there’s something you could buy for…’ She shrugged, as if she couldn’t imagine who he might want to buy an extravagant gift for. ‘Your mother? You do have a mother?’ She sounded doubtful.
‘I have the full set,’ he said. ‘Mother, father, two married sisters and an assortment of nephews and nieces.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re right. I’ll try very hard to be extravagant in a good cause.’
‘Then let’s go. You can bring that catalogue with you.’
‘I’m surprised you’re not already down there briefing the newsmen.’
‘Molly’s doing that. I’m the auctioneer.’
‘You’ve done it before?’
‘Nothing this big.’ She pulled a face, walked through the door he held for her. ‘I will be so glad when this week is over.’
‘What will you do? Take a week off to recover?’
‘You’re kidding, right?’ She ignored the lift and took the stairs, glancing at him as this time she held the door for him. ‘How would you put it in your report to Jordan Farraday?’ She pitched her voice into BBC announcer mode. “‘Miss Romana Claibourne spent week one co-ordinating a number of charity functions with some success, but then, apparently exhausted by the effort involved, used week two for R&R in the South of France”.’
‘The South of France?’ he repeated, to cover the fact that his brain was freewheeling at the thought of Romana Claibourne lying on a sunbed on the deck of a private yacht—he just knew it would be a private yacht—in a bikini.
‘Where else at this time of year?’ she asked. What was it about Romana Claibourne? His mind hadn’t been his own since she’d flung a cup of coffee over him. He forced himself to concentrate on possib
le holiday resorts for late spring. He’d taken Louise to one of the Greek islands. Tried to get her interested in diving. The sudden urge to rediscover himself, move on, warred with his guilt. ‘I’d want to get to the sun with the minimum of travel,’ she insisted.
‘What? Oh, then go. I won’t tell.’
Romana lifted her brows in undisguised disbelief.
‘Honest,’ he said.
‘And I believe you,’ she replied. ‘Not.’ Then, indicating a door, ‘We’re here.’
Niall opened the staff door to the main restaurant. The largest open space in the store, it was regularly used for lunch-time fashion shows but it had been cleared for the auction, the chairs set out in rows. Not that he could see many chairs. Most were already taken. There were people standing five deep along the walls and the central aisle was bristling with representatives of the media, with their television cameras and Nikons focused on the celebrities who’d come along for free publicity. And the noise was like a solid wall.
‘Good grief.’
She looked up at him, apparently sensing that he’d spoken. She couldn’t possibly have heard. And then she stood on tiptoe and put her hand to his ear. With her mouth an inch from his cheek she said, ‘It’s still not too late to make a run for it, Niall.’
She was so close that he could feel her breath whisper warmly against his cheek. See the tiny lines that bracketed the corners of her mouth, lines that lifted her smile into something special. She wasn’t smiling now. Despite her cool demeanour, he realised, she was as nervous as a kitten. This was the bungee-jump all over again. Facing her fear and cracking jokes while she did it. Why would she put herself through that? What was she trying to prove?
Whatever the reason, he wasn’t going to make it worse this time. And he reached up, took her hand, held it.
‘I’m your shadow, Romana. Where you go, I go.’
And then, because he wanted to let her know that faced with the scrum in the restaurant he was on her side, in her corner, a supporter rather than a critic, he bent to kiss her cheek.