“I don’t know exactly, I haven’t had time to think. But when the amalgamation takes place—if it does—they’ll be asking for voluntary redundancies. I’ll make Matt put my name forward. God alone knows, he owes me at least that much.”
“What do you mean, if the amalgamation goes ahead? I thought it was all but a done deal.”
“It was. It is, but we’ve got a few problems. Three iffy death claims in as many months.”
“You’re a life assurance company.” Sandy shrugged. “Of course you get death claims.”
“Yes, but not disputed ones, and certainly not three on top of each other. We usually get perhaps one a year. Now we have three.” Ashley sighed. “Matt had just told me about the third one when Eve arrived. The families of the first two are threatening to go to the ombudsman. If they get wind of this third one, they’ll probably all band together and—”
“I can’t believe you’re still beating yourself up over work problems after what Matt’s done to you.”
“I only am because I care about Interactive. It will do our image no good at all if this leaks out. It might even mean that Stevenson’s get the upper hand in the negotiations.”
“Why should you care? You just said that you plan to get out. What will you do instead?”
“I’ll get a decent redundancy pay out, so I’ll be able to please myself. Do whatever I like, without worrying about money. I could take a part-time job, pulling pints in the local perhaps, and concentrate on training Lucius for advanced dressage and one-day events.”
“Ashley, don’t do anything hasty. Give yourself time to get over this. You can’t go from being the office manager for a large company to working in a pub. You’d be bored out of your skull within a month. And you spend all your spare time on horseback, anyway. There’s only so much more you can do to prepare Lucius.”
Ashley shrugged. “I’ve tried being the high-flying executive, obediently toeing the company line, and look where it’s landed me. Perhaps it’s time to be an underachiever instead. There’s plenty of room at the bottom and, who knows, maybe I’ll prefer a life with no responsibility.”
Sandy groaned. “Why couldn’t Mr. Matt-bloody-Templeton have stayed safely tucked away in Southampton. This never would have happened then. You were quite happy with your life before he came on the scene.”
It was true. Until two years ago, the head office of Interactive Assurance had been in Southampton and Matt had been an infrequent visitor to their branch office in Reigate, run by Ashley. Interactive owned the entire Reigate building, renting most of it out. When the other tenants decided not to renew their lease, Matt and his fellow directors took advantage of the empty space in such a prime location and moved their centre of operations to the market town. From supervising fifty employees, Ashley suddenly found herself in overall charge of more than two hundred.
Simultaneously, she was thrown into a close working relationship with Matt. Separated from his family and friends, he appeared to take pleasure in her company. Ashley soon discovered that they had much more in common that just Interactive. They shared the same sense of humour, liked the same quirky films, enjoyed jazz, appreciated good wines, and read books by similar authors that they discussed at length. Most importantly of all, they were both dedicated equestrians.
Over the long working days, and subsequent working dinners, Ashley sensed a gradual shift in the bedrock of their relationship. She learned more about Matt’s personal life—notably that his marriage was unsatisfactory but that he stayed for the sake of his two teenage sons, both of whom were currently at boarding school. He relished the prospect of moving to Reigate since it provided the perfect opportunity to make a clean break of it. Eve would stay in Southampton. Although Matt would still have to spend some time in their office there, he’d mostly be in Reigate, or staying with his mother in nearby Lingfield, where his horse was still kept.
Ashley had at first thought he was simply spinning an all too familiar line. “My wife doesn’t understand me” surely went out with the dark ages? Did he really expect her to fall for that? But when he didn’t make a move on her, seeming instead to value her friendship, she started questioning her cynical view. He openly praised her intelligence and professional approach toward her job, her no-nonsense take on emotive staff issues, and her innovative plans for the new organisation. But nothing more than that.
It was six months into his time in Reigate before they finally ended up in Ashley’s bed. By that time, she was so desperate for their light flirtation to develop into something physical that she was unsure who made the first move. Probably her, she was honest enough to concede, for she was already a little in love with him. For the first time ever, when he dropped her at home after one of their working dinners, she invited him in for coffee. She knew what she was really offering him, and so evidently did he. He looked her squarely in the eye and asked her if she was sure. When she nodded, he expelled a long breath and then flashed a smile that could have melted stone.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her with a hunger that it left her feeling completely boneless. And that was before they’d even left his car.
Having taken that monumental step, Ashley was lost to all reason. Matt was a considerate and accomplished lover, and Ashley, who’d had little experience of such matters since the death of her husband ten years previously, came truly alive again beneath his skilful hands. There would be no turning back for her now, she realized, and from that point on, she gave herself to him unreservedly. He awoke in her an inexorable need she’d been unaware she possessed, heightening her perceptions and robbing her of the ability to think of anything except his marauding hands as they drifted seductively across her sensitized skin. Sometimes, in a meeting, their eyes would clash, and she was ashamed of her acute awareness of him. Her feelings for him sent everything else out of her mind. She had total faith in him and would have followed him to the ends of the earth.
For the first time since becoming widowed, Ashley was prepared to commit to another man. That he was a married man with children troubled her conscience, but there was simply no help for it. She was desperately in love and believed that her feelings were reciprocated, accepting as gospel all that he told her about the unsatisfactory state of his marriage. That he had never openly criticized his wife and was less than forthcoming about the reasons for the failure of his marriage was something that hadn’t, until now, troubled Ashley’s mind.
Ashley and Sandy continued to discuss her predicament in a desultory, progressively drunken manner. The vodka had taken the edge off the worst of Ashley’s pain. It would probably take the rest of the bottle to expunge it completely. Whatever. She no longer card.
“At least he’ll be in Southampton for the rest of the week so I won’t have to face him again until Monday,” Ashley muttered.
“That’ll give you a little breathing room.”
“He called her “Evie.” Ashley appeared determined to subject every excruciating second of that disastrous meeting to microscopic attention. “How sweet is that?”
“Yes, very cosy, but—” The doorbell rang. “That’ll be Kitty’s mum returning Callie,” Sandy said, the grin that sprang to her lips lending a lie to her martyred expression.
Sandy headed for her front door, preceded by Freckles. But it wasn’t Kitty’s mum. Ashley’s stomach lurched when Matt’s dulcet tones penetrated her vodka-sodden brain. She could hear Freckles squealing with excitement and knew he’d be jumping all over his friend Matt. She’d deal with her traitorous dog later, but first, unable to pretend detached indifference, she eavesdropped blatantly.
“If she here, Sandy?”
“Do you think I’d tell you if she was?” Sandy asked, belligerently.
“She wouldn’t answer the phone at work, when I ring the flat all I get is her answer-phone, and her mobile’s switched off.”
“Well, that ought to tell you something.”
“I know what she
must be thinking, but she’s wrong.”
“Oh, of course she is. What a little idiot she is.”
“I don’t expect you to understand, but—”
“Good, because I don’t. All I know is that you’ve destroyed her, and if I had my way you’d—”
“Just let me talk to her for five minutes. That’s all I ask.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
“But she must. I need to explain.”
“I doubt there’s anything you can say that she’d care to hear right now. You’ve done enough damage.”
“Please, Sandy, I’m begging you.”
“Matt, it won’t do any good.” Sandy’s voice had lost its hard edge. “But don’t worry. At least she still has a conscience. She won’t leave you in the lurch until the takeover’s a done deal.”
“Is that all you think I care about?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Right now I couldn’t give a shit about the business. All I care about is Ashley.”
Ashley sprang to her feet, hope flaring and as quickly receding. He sounded so genuine. Perhaps there really was an explanation, some way out of this mess for both of them.
A moment’s reflection and she fell back into her seat, defeated. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let herself be played for a fool ever again.
“Too little, too late, Matt.”
“Oh, God, what have I done to her?” He sighed loud enough for Ashley to hear. “Tell her I was here, Sandy. Tell her I love her and that nothing’s changed.”
He sounded choked. Ashley could imagine him running his hand through his thick hair, pushing it back from his face, just as he always did whenever he was preoccupied. She ached to do it for him. In spite of everything, she still ached, simply for him. Something that had felt so right couldn’t possibly be wrong. Could it?
“Get a grip,” she muttered, disgusted with her lack of self-respect.
Had it been anything else, she might have listened to him, given him a chance to explain, but how could he explain away that pregnancy? It was the worst kind of deceit, especially since he knew how much Ashley would have loved a child of her own. Not only had he misled her about his relationship with his wife, he’d also flaunted Eve’s pregnancy in front of her. He may not have intended for her to find out that way. She’d seen just how shocked he’d been when Eve arrived at the office, but perhaps that had been because he was aware the game was up and he could no longer have both of them.
“Just go, Matt,” Sandy said.
When Sandy returned to her living room, Ashley was curled up in a foetal ball in the corner of the settee, sobbing her heart out.
Chapter Three
“Oh, Freckles, will you look at the state of me?”
Ashley’s dog cocked his head to one side, regarding his mistress from beneath his shaggy fringe as he licked her hand and wagged. It was the morning of her thirty-fifth birthday. Hungover and broken-hearted, she examined her face in the mirror, groaning aloud at the sight that greeted her. She ruffled Freckles’s head, continuing her one-sided conversation with him.
“You’re biased,” she said affectionately, glad of his uncomplicated, unconditional devotion. “So I guess I can’t expect an honest opinion from you.”
She returned her attention to the disaster that was her face. Unnaturally pale, her features were drawn, and there were heavy circles under her eyes. She wasn’t sure what else she could have expected. A largely sleepless night had played host to regular bouts of tears, frustrated pillow thumping, and futile railings against men in general, Matt Templeton in particular.
With a heavy sigh, she repaired the damage as best she could with concealing makeup. In no mood to even acknowledge her birthday, much less celebrate it, she ignored the pile of birthday cards on her doormat and prepared to leave for work. The phone rang for the sixth time since she’d got up, but she ignored that, too.
Unfortunately, the colleagues who’d worked with her since before the influx of staff from Southampton all knew it was her birthday, and her cubbyhole had been decked out with garish decorations. A large “Happy Birthday” banner draped over the door made it necessary for her to duck her head to reach her desk. She smiled and thanked everyone for the cards and presents, made a passable attempt at looking both surprised and pleased, and agreed to buy them all a drink at lunchtime.
In the middle of dolling out the obligatory cream cakes, Ashley was interrupted by a commissionaire clutching two-dozen red roses, wrapped in cellophane and adorned with a huge ribbon. Ribald comments and lively speculation greeted this delivery, the overall opinion being that it was high time Ashley got herself a life. Her heart lurched at the sight of the flowers, even as she pretended ignorance as to the identity of her admirer.
“Open the card, then,” one of her colleagues urged. “Don’t you want to know?”
“I certainly don’t want you lot to,” she said, trying for a casual tone.
“No surer way to kill off a romance than to share the gory details with your colleagues,” Martine said, holding Ashley’s gaze like he knew more about her turmoil than he was letting on.
The crowd lingered, making a poor pretence at concealing their collective curiosity. Their presence prevented Ashley from letting rip with the choice words that sprang to mind regarding this flamboyant and very public gesture on Matt’s part. Calmly, she asked the commissionaire if he could rustle up a vase large enough to contain the flowers, but still refused to open the card in front of anyone else. Eventually they got the message and let the subject drop.
Still gathered round her desk, literally making a meal of the cream cakes and squabbling over the leftovers, the conversation drifted toward the unexpected appearance of Matt’s pretty wife in the office the previous day. As Eve had doubtless intended, her arrival caused quite a stir, especially since Matt hadn’t told anyone that he was to be a father again. Those that had transferred from Southampton, and who knew Eve reasonably well, found that situation particularly tantalizing.
Ashley heard it all in a state of detached misery, assuring her colleagues it was news to her, too, trying to appear as interested as they were. She caught Martin’s concerned gaze. She worked as closely with him as she did with Matt and, from his actions today, was now convinced that he’d guessed the truth about her relationship with their boss.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
She shrugged. “I’ve had better days.”
He touched her shoulder and said nothing more, for which she was grateful. She was holding herself together on willpower alone. The slightest kind word or gesture was probably all it would take to tip her over the edge.
Ashley was determined to tear up the card that accompanied the flowers and consign it, unopened, to the bin. The last of her friends had hardly left her desk before she ripped it open, curiosity winning out over good sense. Her resolve wobbled when she recognized, not the impersonal hand of a florist, but Matt’s own distinctive script. Instead of spending two minutes phoning his order through, he’d obviously taken the trouble to visit a florist in person. Ashley told herself that it didn’t change anything and steeled herself to read his words.
Ashley, I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know for ruining your day, darling. Unlikely as it might seem, there is an explanation, and you’ll hear it when I get back to Reigate. Trust me on that. Nothing’s changed. I loved you as much as ever.
The card was signed simply with a flourishing, M.
Nothing had changed! Ashley’s face heated at his downright nerve. Even so, the card never did make it to the bin and finished up securely zipped into her bag.
The day seemed never-ending, but Ashley, calling upon reserves of strength she didn’t know she possessed, got through it without revealing to anyone the depths of her despondency. Matt, she noticed dispassionately, gave up easily. Not once had he attempted to ring her from Southampton. Not that she would have taken his call—she’d been screening her incoming ones suspiciously all day for th
at very purpose—but that wasn’t the point.
When she returned home she was cheered by the sight of little Callie, leaping up and down in excitement, Freckles at her side, wagging up a storm.
“Come on, Auntie Ashley,” she said impatiently. “We’ve been waiting for you for ages! Mummy’s got a surprise for you. It’s a birthday cake and a present,” she confided in a theatrical whisper. “Can I help you blow out your candles?”
“Of course you can, sweetheart.” Ashley kissed her on top of her silky head and took her hand. “There must be lots of candles, so I’ll need your help. Can you blow really hard?”
“Yes, of course.” She sucked in a massive breath, pursed her lips, and let it out in an exaggerated whoosh. “See?”
“That should do it,” Ashley said, smiling.
“Are you very old, Auntie Ashley?”
“Ancient, darling, at least a hundred.”
“A hundred!” The child’s eyes grew as large as saucers. “Wow, that really is old.”
It was the only part of the day that Ashley really enjoyed. Callie was a typically energetic, well-adjusted four-year-old, full of questions and apt to take the answers she received literally. Thus, Ashley was obliged to give her full attention to the little girl. She actually laughed at Callie’s perspicacity, not to mention her devious attempts to distract her mother’s attention whilst she snaffled a third slice of cake. For the first time that day, Ashley could dismiss the image that had thus far haunted her every conscious moment—one of piercing silver-gray eyes concentrated disarmingly on her face—and the surging tide of emotions that vision induced.
Ashley spent the evening at the stables, which she and Freckles could reach by walking across the fields behind their house. She was training Lucius, her eight-year-old Irish Draft gelding, in advanced dressage. There was a competition in a week’s time that she needed to prepare for. And so she celebrated her birthday alone, losing herself in the only pursuit guaranteed to dismiss Matt from her mind. She practised the seven-minute routine in the indoor school, with only Freckles for company, and managed to concentrate every part of her mind exclusively on the job in hand.
Soliman, Wendy - The Name of the Game (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 3