by Penny Jordan
‘Hello,’ she said as she picked up the telephone receiver.
‘Polly, it’s Phil here—Phil Bernstein,’ she heard her caller announcing, to her surprise. ‘Look, I realise this is probably going to sound a little bit pushy, in view of the brevity of our relationship, but I was wondering if you would do me a favour…’
‘A favour?’ Polly repeated uncertainly. ‘Well, I…It depends what it is,’ she answered warily.
‘I’m in negotiations to buy a hotel in London and I was wondering if I could borrow your expertise and ask you to cast your experienced eye over the place and give me your views on it.’
For a few seconds Polly was too surprised to answer.
‘Oh, goodness!’ she finally exclaimed weakly. ‘I’m no expert, Phil. You’re a hotel owner yourself, and I’m sure you’re more than capable of using your own judgement.’
‘Not in this instance. This hotel is nothing like the one I already own, and besides…’ He paused, and then told her quietly, ‘Look, I don’t want to go into too many details over the phone but I really would appreciate your input into this, Polly. I was very, very impressed with what you’ve done at Fraser House.’
‘It’s very kind of you to say that Phil,’ Polly said, ‘but—’
‘Look, all I’m asking is that you come down to London, have dinner with me; you can stay here at the hotel overnight—at my expense, of course—and…’
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,’ Polly protested immediately. ‘If I were to come down I’d prefer to make my own overnight arrangements.’
‘But you will come down and have dinner with me?’ Phil pounced immediately. ‘I mean it, Polly; I really do need your advice.’
Polly wavered. Phil was a flirt, and a very accomplished one, and she wasn’t so naive that she wasn’t aware that if she allowed him to do so he would be more than happy to take their acquaintanceship a stage further and to become personally involved with her. She simply wasn’t that type of woman, and had he merely been telephoning to invite her out to dinner…But his plea to her for her professional advice was a different matter, and Polly felt she would be less than human if she wasn’t just a little bit flattered.
‘Phil…’ she began cautiously just as she heard her office door opening. ‘Dinner would be lovely but…’
She froze as Marcus came into the room, immediately feeling oddly guilty as well as slightly breathless. ‘Phil, I have to go…’ she said. But before she could ring off Phil was telling her, ‘Look, don’t give me your answer now. Have a think about it and I’ll ring back later. I really do want your advice, Polly—as well as your company,’ he added in a softer, more meaningful voice before he hung up.
‘Who was that?’ Marcus demanded sharply as Polly replaced the receiver.
‘It was Phil Bernstein,’ Polly responded automatically, before adding challengingly, ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘What did he want?’ Marcus pressed her, ignoring the second half of her answer and the warning glint in her eyes.
‘What he wanted,’ Polly told him with quiet dignity, ‘was to ask me to go down to London to have dinner with him.’
‘What? You said no, of course.’
It was the ‘of course’ that did it—that and the high-handed way in which Marcus was behaving, as though she were a child and he somehow had the right to dictate what she did.
‘I haven’t given him my answer yet,’ she informed Marcus shortly. ‘He’s going to ring back, and when he does…’
‘When he does, you’ll tell him no,’ Marcus informed her sharply. ‘The man’s a womaniser, Polly, and you—’
They both tensed as her telephone rang, but when Polly went to pick it up she discovered that the call was for Marcus from the oil company. Leaving him to take it in private, she walked out of the room.
‘You’ll tell him no’ indeed…! Why should she? Why shouldn’t she accept Phil’s invitation if she wanted to? Why shouldn’t she live a little if she wanted to? If she wanted to. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She didn’t want to, at least not with Phil…
She waited until she was sure that Marcus had concluded his call before going back into her office. He was frowning and looking very preoccupied.
‘I’m rather busy, Marcus,’ she told him pointedly. ‘Was there something you wanted to see me about?’
She could tell from his expression that her cool, businesslike manner irked him. Well, let it. Let him have a taste of his own medicine.
Her unfamiliar stubbornness was surprising Polly a little, but it was also making her feel very strong and powerful.
Looking away from him, she started to busy herself with the papers on her desk, but it was obvious that Marcus was not impressed—or going to be put off. Placing his hands squarely on her desk, he leaned towards her and demanded, ‘Stop play-acting, Polly; it doesn’t work. What’s the idea of this?’ he added, reaching into his jacket and extracting an envelope.
Polly’s heart gave a little anxious skip as she recognised her own handwriting on it. She knew what it was, of course. It was the envelope she had sent to him enclosing the cheque to cover the cost of her new dress.
‘It’s for the dress,’ she told him as calmly as she could. ‘Briony told me how much it cost.’
She could see that he was frowning, giving her a searching look as his mouth hardened.
‘What exactly are you trying to do, Polly?’ he asked her irritably. ‘What point are you trying to make?’
‘I’m simply repaying the money you spent,’ Polly told him, trying to appear casual. ‘There’s no need for you to make an issue of it, Marcus.’
‘And if I say that I’m not going to accept this cheque?’ Marcus challenged her silkily.
Alarm flared in Polly’s eyes. She knew that tone of his, but she wasn’t going to be browbeaten by him, nor turned into a pathetic bundle of female nerves.
‘If you don’t then you’ll leave me with no alternative but to return the dress to you,’ Polly told him determinedly.
‘But it was a gift,’ Marcus responded immediately.
‘I don’t want your gifts,’ Polly retaliated swiftly, only realising her mistake too late as she saw the way Marcus was smiling at her.
‘Not my gift, Polly,’ he corrected her. ‘Briony’s. If I were to buy you clothes—’
‘Yes, I know,’ she snapped, completely losing her cool. ‘You’d buy me something much more appropriate for a woman of my age.’
‘Oh, yes, it would be something very appropriate,’ Marcus taunted her softly. His voice became much harder as he shrugged and told her dismissively, ‘Do what you like with the dress, Polly. If you want to get at me so much that you’re prepared to trample all over Briony’s feelings to do so, then I can’t stop you…’
Ignoring her angry gasp of protest, he turned round and walked out of her office. How typical of him that he should have the last word, and such a pointed one, Polly recognised angrily.
And what made it worse was that he was right. Briony would be hurt if she returned the dress to him and refused to wear it again.
She was still seething with resentment over his behaviour an hour later, when Phil rang again.
‘Whatever it takes to get you to say yes and have dinner with me, you’ve got it,’ Phil promised extravagantly, his determination to get her consent making Polly laugh.
‘No, truthfully,’ she began, fully intending to tell him that she couldn’t—and then she stopped, remembering the way Marcus had spoken to her. What right did he have to tell her what she should and should not do, whom she should and should not see, especially when he himself…? She took a deep breath and, smothering the tiny voice that warned her to be careful, told Phil recklessly, ‘There’s no need. I’d love to see your hotel…’
‘And you’ll have dinner with me?’ Phil pressed. Polly hesitated.
‘Very well,’ she agreed somewhat reluctantly. ‘But I’ll make my own arrangements for my overnight accommodat
ion, Phil,’ she told him firmly.
‘I understand,’ he assured her.
What would Marcus have to say when he found out what she had done? she wondered a little nervously when they had concluded their call. And then, very quickly, she reminded herself that she had the right to do what she wanted when she wanted and with whom she wanted…hadn’t she?
CHAPTER FIVE
‘IT LOOKS wonderful on you.’
‘You don’t think that it might be a little bit too young?’ Polly asked the shop assistant uncertainly.
The girl raised her elegant eyebrows.
‘Certainly not,’ she assured Polly firmly. ‘In fact if anything…This designer is in her mid-thirties herself, and designs for her own age group, so if anything I should say it’s perhaps a little bit old for you.’ She gave Polly a ruefully conspiratorial smile as she told her, ‘She’s actually one of my favourite designers and I’ve promised myself one of her dresses as a thirtieth-birthday present.’
The salesgirl’s obvious belief that Polly was closer to her own age than the designer’s boosted Polly’s self-confidence so much that she found herself buying not just the dress but a pair of impossibly spindly-heeled shoes to go with it.
In a matt black thick jersey fabric, the dress had a cutaway semi-diamond-shaped neckline which did things for her décolletage and her arms and shoulders that Polly would have thought were impossible. In it she felt as soignée and feminine as any film star, and it was worth paying the outrageously extravagant price just for that feeling alone.
Marcus would have hated it on her, of course, no doubt believing that it was far too sensually alluring for her, but then Marcus was not going to see her in it, was he? Momentarily her eyes clouded, her pleasure dimming. She had bought the dress as a gesture of defiance—and to replace the one Marcus had paid for which she had mentally sworn she would never wear again. And besides, why shouldn’t she indulge herself a little? She could afford it, and it wasn’t often she got the chance to come to London to shop.
Fortunately she hadn’t seen Marcus since she had accepted Phil’s invitation, although she had been standing in the foyer when a call had come through for him from Suzi.
She shivered. She still went hot and cold every time she thought about how she had felt the other day when Marcus had kissed her the way he had.
It wasn’t just that she hadn’t been able to summon the will-power to stop him; it was the longing she had experienced, the overwhelming aching need for him that had swamped her, and was still making her feel hotly aware of her own vulnerability.
No, she hadn’t seen him, even though apparently he had called at the hotel a couple of times when she hadn’t been there. But she had dreamed about him, about it. Only in her dreams things had not been the way they had in reality. In her dreams the physical desire which had burned through her body had reached its natural conclusion and Marcus had…
Hot-faced, Polly reminded herself of where she was and the inappropriateness of her private thoughts.
Perhaps it had been too long since she had experienced a man’s touch. Perhaps she should think about…
About what?
She caught herself up swiftly. About having sex with someone…anyone…just to relieve her sexual tension? The revulsion that flooded her at the thought was both a reminder of the intensity of her feelings for Marcus and a relief. Little though she liked admitting how much she loved Marcus, she disliked even more having to think of herself as a woman driven by her sexual urges. Perhaps it was old-fashioned of her to feel this way, but then she was old-fashioned, and what was more she didn’t intend to make any apologies for being so. She was a little bit ashamed of the relief, though, and was thankful that Briony had not been there for her to have to make any explanations or excuses to when she had packed for her brief sojourn in London.
Not that what she was doing was in any way wrong. No, positively not. After all, she wasn’t even planning to stay in the same hotel as Phil, and even if she had been…No, what she was doing was perfectly acceptable. Heavens, if she couldn’t have dinner with a man without…
It was Marcus’s fault that she was feeling like this, she decided crossly. It was Marcus who had insinuated that she…that Phil…
The girl had wrapped up her dress and shoes, and as she handed the bag to Polly she told her warmly, ‘Enjoy wearing it.’
‘I shall,’ Polly assured her with a smile as she headed for the door.
As she left the shop Polly glanced at her watch. It was almost four o’clock; she was meeting Phil at seven—she had declined his offer to pick her up at her hotel and had suggested instead that she meet him in the lobby of the hotel where they were having dinner and where she presumed he was staying.
Now she just had time to get to her own hotel and book in, treat herself to afternoon tea, which she knew they did very well, and then get ready for her date.
Her date…A little wryly she smiled to herself as she hailed a passing taxi.
Her dinner with Phil was a purely business arrangement, she reminded herself. All he wanted from her was her professional opinion on the hotel. Well, maybe not quite all, she admitted honestly to herself as she saw the taxi driver giving her a quick approving look as she got into the cab and gave him her destination.
The hotel she had booked into was, whilst small, well patronised by the cognoscenti of the travelling world. What it lacked in modern, large complex facilities it more than made up for in the warmth of its service—and its food—so Polly wasn’t totally surprised to discover, as she walked in, that the foyer was a hive of activity, with the receptionist trying to deal with several new arrivals plus some queries from an existing guest who was anxious to know how she might best get to the British Museum.
Patiently Polly waited, using her time on the other side of the counter to work on where they might make improvements to their own service, but at length the receptionist was free to deal with her.
Smiling, Polly gave her name at the receptionist’s request and confirmed her address.
‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,’ the girl apologised as she handed Polly her door pass and gave her her room number.
Thanking her, Polly made her way through the foyer to the lifts. Her room was on the third floor, one of six opening off an elegant hallway decorated in the grand London house style.
After several failed attempts to let herself into her room with the pass card, Polly was just about to return to the foyer when the porter came past with some luggage.
Stopping him, Polly explained her problem and, having checked that she had the right room, the porter obligingly opened the door for her.
The hotel was just off one of London’s prettier and little-known private squares, part of a terrace of similar Nash buildings, its windows like those of the property on the opposite side of the road which Polly faced: ornate, with subtly elegant window boxes.
The room itself was large enough to accommodate not just the king-sized bed but also the pair of armchairs placed at either side of the fireplace and the table in between them, as well as a pretty writing desk set between the room’s two tall, narrow windows.
The bathroom, to Polly’s approval, was the very thing that a hotel bathroom should be. Its marble walls and floor would make it easy to keep hygienically clean, the bath was huge, claw-footed and very much in keeping with the era of the house, whilst the shower looked promisingly as though it could deliver a real blast of water.
The toiletries supplied had the discreet logo of a very up-market supplier and were, in fact, Polly was pleased to note, the same ones she bought for Fraser House. But she was equally pleased to see that this hotel, unlike her own, did not supply its guests with the additional luxury of a choice of aromatherapy oils—and candles.
All their bathrooms could be candlelit if their guests required it, and Polly knew from the frequency with which she had to replace the candles in their specially designed safety-glass pots that most of them did. Nor did this ho
tel have the floating bath pillows which she knew from their comments that her female guests adored.
She unpacked, which didn’t take her long—it was simply a matter of hanging her new dress in one side of the large double wardrobe along with her change of clothes for her return journey in the morning. Then, stowing her overnight bag on the floor beneath them, Polly locked the wardrobe door with the small key provided and put it safely in her purse.
Locking wardrobe doors was a nice touch, which she made a mental note to remember. The hotel would have duplicate keys, of course, but nevertheless it would give guests an extra sense of security.
After her afternoon tea, which was everything she had anticipated, Polly went upstairs to change for the evening.
Once on, her new dress was also everything it had promised to be when she had first tried it on. Picking up her bag, she opened her bedroom door just as the maid was about to knock. Seeing that she was carrying a pile of clean, soft white towels, Polly smiled approvingly at her before leaving her to get on with her work.
The hotel Phil was negotiating to buy was on the opposite side of the city, but fortunately, when Polly got into her taxi, the traffic had thinned out enough for their journey to be completed without too many delays.
As she stepped into the foyer of her destination Phil was waiting to greet her. He came towards her and took the hand she offered him to shake in between both of his and then pulled her gently but firmly towards him, so that instead of shaking it he could kiss her briefly instead.
Polly gave him an old-fashioned look which he had the grace to acknowledge with a rueful smile.
‘It’s your fault if I’m having a problem keeping my eyes and hands off you,’ he teased, and then unexpectedly the laughter died out of his eyes and he told her more seriously, ‘I mean it, Polly; there’s something about you that…’