She tapped herself angrily on the forehead. Fat chance! Who was she kidding? She had played all her cards as far as Garston’s was concerned. She had no business knowledge with which to call his bluff. So why was she going? She knew nothing at all about him, except that he was ruthless and he fancied her, and yet here she was, bathing in scented water and blow-drying her hair to an elegant, glossy finish, dabbing perfume on her pulsepoints and stepping into the most subtle of all the dresses in her wardrobe, and her hands were trembling and she was even now pouring herself a small sherry to steady her nerves. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why she was doing all these things.
Of course, when he arrived, looking devastating in a charcoal suit and a broad-striped lilac and white silk shirt, she knew exactly why. To her dismay he sought out her parents before they left.
‘Sidney…Wendy…good to see you again.’ And he offered his strong, brown hand to be shaken with an air of such good-humoured frankness that Jane wanted to scream.
She had deliberately not told her parents who her escort was to be—hoping to slip out unnoticed while they watched television. Now her blood curdled with shame as she watched her parents, stiff smiles in place, having to take the proffered hand. Her parents were far too nice and polite to upset the apple cart, but she was sure that it must be agony for them.
‘I’m taking Jane out to dinner. I’m afraid I gave her very little notice. I hope it hasn’t upset your plans for eating this evening?’
‘Not at all…not at all…’ muttered her father generously.
Jane swallowed. ‘We’d better get going,’ she said a little too loudly. Then, ‘Don’t wait up for me…’ And with that she pointedly made her way out into the hall. She heard Guy’s voice murmur a parting remark but didn’t pause to catch what he was saying. Instead she walked briskly to the front door, her heels clacking on the stone floor. He caught up with her at the door, reaching across her to open it, and taking her arm as he led her outside and handed her into the car.
‘What shall we talk about?’ he asked with that roughedged directness which so discomfited her.
‘Why should I care? You can choose the subject,’ she replied defensively.
He sighed. It was the first time she had heard him sigh, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. She felt insulted by it.
He said nothing more throughout the long drive. Jane turned her head time and again to glance at him. His eyes remained resolutely fixed on the road ahead. To her dismay she discovered she was more excited by his presence than she would have thought possible. Absence had not neutralised the chemicals. Far from it. His physical proximity proved the ultimate catalyst. She wanted to cry.
He took her to a very exclusive restaurant overlooking the Avon at Warwick. She shivered as he took her coat from her and flesh brushed tantalisingly against flesh.
When he admired her green halter-neck dress, claiming that it showed her shoulders and back to perfection, she was tremblingly relieved that she had worn something with a high neck.
‘The dress must have been designed for you,’ he said.
‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ she snapped back, frightened by the animal pleasure his approval was generating in her. ‘It’s pure serendipity. The dress came from a chain store.’
The waiter arrived with heavy, leather-bound menus. Jane hid behind hers.
‘What will you have?’ Guy asked eventually.
‘Um…I haven’t decided.’
‘Jane, you’ve been looking at that menu for ages. What’s the matter?’
She laid the menu down on the table in front of her. ‘I wish I hadn’t come,’ she said, her miserable face betraying her confusion. ‘I can’t concentrate on the menu. I just keep thinking that I wish I hadn’t come.’
‘Shall I order for you?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I think you’d better take me home. You didn’t give me much option about coming— and anyway, I seem to do what you tell me, whether I like it or not. Though I suppose I could just have refused to open the door. But I wouldn’t have wanted to cause a scene and attract my parents’ attention. Look, I…I didn’t want them to know I’d had anything to do with you since you came to dinner. It was a month ago, after all.’
She stopped for a moment, looking down at the white damask cloth and the heavy silverware in front of her. When she looked up Guy was watching her attentively.
‘I don’t know how you could have done it,’ she burst out wretchedly. ‘I don’t know how you could have marched into their sitting-room and made them shake hands with you and be polite to you, when all along you were wheeling and dealing behind their backs and planning to ruin their lives.’
Guy looked at her very steadily. ‘I had a very good reason for introducing myself to your parents tonight,’ he said evenly.
‘Yes. So that you could size up my father and see whether he’ll be worth keeping on—or whether you’ll need to force him out.’
Guy shook his head. ‘I’m not going to take over Garston’s.’
‘I don’t believe you. Why should I?’
‘Because I say so.’
‘Huh! You said you wouldn’t touch me without my say-so—and yet you did.’
‘Ah, that was different. I couldn’t resist you, Jane. I was overwhelmed by your attractions.’
‘Rot. Anyway, I thought ‘attraction” wasn’t a sufficiently explicit and accurate word for you?’
He laughed. ‘Well, OK. But usually I’m a man of my word. As long as the temptations aren’t too great.’
‘Oh, Guy, you must think I’m an infant! You’re a sharp businessman. I may not be very experienced but I do know that you don’t get to be as successful as you are without treading on a few toes.’
Guy shrugged. ‘You know nothing about me, Jane.’
‘You’ve never told me anything about yourself.’
‘You’ve never asked. Of course, it’s true that the business world has its own value system…But everyone in it knows the score. As it happens, I rarely need to tread on toes. I usually take over companies when they’re doing badly and threatening to fold. I get them cheap and I put them back on their feet. It’s my speciality. Sure, there are sometimes people who don’t like what I’m doing. But usually they’re very grateful to be saved from bankruptcy. I don’t need to specialise in telling lies for the sort of trading I do.’
‘Garston’s is profitable,’ muttered Jane accusingly, waving aside the desire to believe implicitly every word he said.
‘I told you. I’m not planning a take-over at present.’
‘You have been buying shares, though?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well!’
‘Well nothing. I don’t have enough to have a controlling interest. At present I’m no more than a shareholder.’
‘A fairly major one, I’ve no doubt,’ she returned scathingly.
‘Yes.’
‘So it’s only a question of time?’
He shook his head. ‘Jane, can you just take my word for it that I’m not going to go on buying at present?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because this is a very good restaurant and I want us to enjoy our meal.’
She folded her arms defiantly. ‘I don’t feel like eating,’ she said with a scowl.
And then he reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a navy leather box. ‘Then if not for the sake of the food, for this…’ he said curtly, laying the box on the table and opening it. Inside was a beautiful diamond solitaire. He pushed it towards her.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, aghast, though it was perfectly obvious what it was.
‘It’s an engagement ring. Yours. I’ve brought you out tonight to ask you to marry me.’
Jane’s lips blanched with shock. She sat very still, staring stupefied at the ring, her brow furrowed into a bewildered frown.
‘That’s just crazy…’ she said, at last.
‘I happen to think it’s a very good idea.’
Jane let out a weak laugh of disbelief. ‘But you don’t know me.’
‘And you most certainly do not know me,’ he agreed.
‘Then why on earth do you want to marry me? You can’t. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Doesn’t it?’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘Of course not!’ she cried scornfully. ‘You’re supposed to love the person you marry. You’re supposed to be good friends with them and like them more than anyone else in the whole wide world, and want to share your innermost secrets with them and be with them for every moment of the rest of your life.’
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, looking directly into her eyes. A sardonic smile played around the corners of his mouth. ‘I guess we could work on all that. But I’ll admit we have a way to go yet.’
‘You mean you want to go on…go on courting me and if all that stuff comes true we’ll get engaged?’ she queried doubtfully.
‘No. I want to marry you. Very soon.’
She found herself looking from side to side as if seeking an escape. This was like a particularly peculiar dream. She shook her head and said nothing. It was horribly bizarre.
She looked across at him. He was watching her carefully. There was no trace of anxiety in his eyes. He did not look like a man who had just asked the most important question of his life and was waiting for his answer. He looked like an astute businessman, laying out a daring proposition before his accountants, and in- trigued by the response. What game was he playing with her now? Suddenly she brought one hand up and covered her eyes. Her lower lip was quivering and her chin was puckering ominously.
‘I know I’m only twenty-one,’ she said in a voice clogged with gathering tears, ‘and I must seem very young and foolish to you. And I know I must have sounded ridiculous in that car park, shouting at you about the firm. But this is just cruel. I didn’t know that such cruelty existed…’ And then big, hot tears began to spill down her face.
‘Jane,’ he said softly, ‘don’t cry. Try not to get too emotional. Look at this dispassionately.’
She sniffed hard, and swallowed back a sob. ‘Try not to get too emotional?’ she echoed incredulously. ‘You ask me to marry you in the most cold-blooded manner imaginable, and you don’t think it’s something to get emotional about?’
His hand came across the table and covered hers. She snatched hers away, and nursed it to her as if scalded.
‘I agree that it’s all very cold-blooded. But I mean the question seriously, you know? It’s not a nasty trick designed to make you feel bad. I really do want you to marry me.’
‘Why?’
He handed her a freshly laundered handkerchief. ‘Here. Blow your nose. You’ll feel better. And let me at least order us an aperitif.’
‘So now you want to get me drunk? You’ve got your seduction routine back to front, Guy. You’re supposed to get the lady pie-eyed before you pop the question, not after.’
Guy gave a low chuckle. Damn him. There he was, being human again. Astute, assertive, self-controlled and way, way beyond her comprehension. She could tell that he really did want to marry her for what he considered to be very good reasons, but she was far to naive to even guess what those reasons might be. She buried her face in the square of fine white linen while he beckoned over the wine waiter and ordered them a dry martini apiece.
‘It’ll cheer you up. And give you an appetite,’ he promised, as she folded the mascara-smudged hanky.
‘I couldn’t possibly eat a meal with you after that,’ she sighed heavily. ‘Do I look a mess? Have I got eye make-up all over my face?’
He shook his head. ‘The handkerchief took the brunt. You look very beautiful even with red eyes, as it happens.’
The disgust must have shown in her eyes, because he pulled a wry face and added, ‘At least you know I’m not lying when I tell you you’re beautiful, don’t you?’
She gave him a withering, if rather shaky look. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been flattered too often about my appearance to be susceptible on that score. Anyway, I didn’t ask you whether I was beautiful. Simply whether I looked a mess.’
‘You look fine,’ he said reassuringly.
‘Take me home,’ she said tiredly, as the martinis arrived.
‘Drink that first,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘What for?’
‘Because I want you to give me an hour or so of your company before you give me your answer. I want you to understand why I think we’ll be good together. I want you just to relax and enjoy yourself for a couple of hours.’
She eyed him coldly, then picked up the glass and drained it swiftly, gasping as the fierce liquid bit at her throat. She coughed a little then said. ‘OK. I’ve drunk it. I don’t feel any different. I still don’t want to eat with you—or relax and enjoy your company. And I can’t be- lieve you don’t already know what my answer is. Now take me home.’
Guy leaned back in his chair and smiled. Then he picked up his own glass and downed it in one.
Jane got to her feet. ‘Right,’ she said heavily. ‘Time to go.’
But Guy remained sitting where he was. ‘Sorry,’ he said coolly. ‘I daren’t drive after drinking that on an empty stomach. I was planning to sip it slowly while I ate a hearty meal—an entirely different proposition.’
Jane glowered at him, and then slumped reluctantly back into her chair. She only had a couple of pounds in cash on her, and had neither cheque-book nor credit cards in her slender evening purse. She was a long way from home. She doubted very much she could persuade a taxi driver to take her all the way without showing him the colour of her money first.
Minutes ticked by. She was going to have to stay. She cupped her chin in her hands and sat very still. At last she said, ‘I’ll have melon to start—that doesn’t need cooking, so it shouldn’t take long. And salmon in aspic with a green salad and potatoes lyonnaise—that should be quick too. I’d advise you to have the same.’
Guy smiled, and then summoned the waiter to take his order. He studied the menu again at length and then ordered chicken en croute with stilton and roast walnuts. Undoubtedly in a place like this they would cook it from scratch. It was bound to take ages.
CHAPTER FIVE
JANE sat in silence, eyeing Guy sourly for a while before looking away. The trouble was, the sight of him, far from fuelling her disgust, was dissolving it in honey. He was so good to look at. He was relaxed in his chair, his eyes hooded, half watching her watch him, half veiled with contemplation. He was smiling a little, too, his strong white teeth dimly apparent behind his parted lips, and hinting almost provocatively at the moist, dark interior of the mouth beyond.
At last he moved. He brought one tanned, broad hand towards her face, and drew the edge of his thumb from her temple down to her jaw. The seductive gentleness of his touch startled her badly. She clapped her own neatly made hands to her cheeks, and brushed his fingers away.
‘Don’t do that,’ she bit out.
He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Jane, you can sit here and fume all evening if you want. It’s up to you. And then you can go home and refuse ever to see me again. It would, of course, be a pointless vanity, but none the less it’s an option you are perfectly at liberty to exercise.’
‘A vanity?’
‘Yes. Your pride has been stung tonight. You wouldn’t have objected to my proposing marriage at all if only I’d wined and dined you a sufficient number of times, and kissed you on the requisite number of occasions, and asked for your hand in the appropriate manner— preferably alone, by moonlight and beside a lake.’
‘You are so arrogant!’
‘Ah, but I’m not. You see, I’m not suggesting that you necessarily would have accepted me. Merely that you would not have found my request offensive under those circumstances. But I’ve chosen to do this, as I do most other things, in my own way. Nevertheless, it is a perfectly serious suggestion, and one which I think you’d be a fool to dismiss out of hand simply because yo
ur pride has been dented. There’ll be ample opportunity for all the wining and dining you could ever want—after we’re married.’
She glowered at the tablecloth. ‘You’re assuming that I’d have let you wine and dine and kiss me the requisite number of times…’ she returned stiffly.
‘You would have,’ he said calmly. ‘You know perfectly well that you would have. After all, you came tonight, didn’t you? My interest in Garston’s is the only real objection you’ve voiced so far.’
Her dark eyes darted up to meet his. ‘I’ve just accused you of arrogance. And…and I remember complaining once that you seemed to know everything without being told. Don’t those objections count?’
He laughed, a slow, resonant laugh. ‘Not at all,’ he said, narrowing his slaty blue eyes. ‘Those are merely observations—not objections. And I’m quite ready to concede that I’m not perfect. Who in this world is?’
Jane gave a baffled sigh. He certainly didn’t think that she was. ‘I still don’t understand why you even made the suggestion. I mean you don’t even know me, so you can’t possibly be in love with me or anything.’
‘I know a lot more about you than you might think,’ he countered acidly.
‘You’re not trying to tell me that you are in love with me after all?’ she returned, wide-eyed and scornful.
He paused briefly. ‘No. Not that,’ he said flatly. ‘But I do think we could be very, very good together. We can each give exactly what the other needs. I’m very wealthy. You’re very beautiful, and quite capable of handling the sort of life I’m offering with a degree of panache. So just think about it, Jane…’
She shook her head despairingly. ‘I can’t even think about it,’ she said honestly. ‘I’m just not…not cold-blooded enough for that.’
He studied her for a while longer, watching her unfold her napkin and embark upon her melon. She would get through the meal as best she could because she had no choice. But all she really wanted to do was to go home and close her own bedroom door, and stay there for as long as it took to get this man out of her system. If she could stand spending years on end in her bedroom, that was.
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