Alex looked a little shocked at her plain-speaking, then resentful. ‘It’s not that bad. Sure, I’ve missed a few deadlines and been absent for a meeting or two. But Colin understands. He knows I’ll be back on track soon.’
‘You’ve forgotten the American.’ Tory hadn’t.
‘Ryecart.’ Alex shrugged at the name. ‘So, there’s a new chief exec. He’ll only be interested in the business side.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Tory decided not to pass on Ryecart’s comments about their last documentary but decided Alex still required a reality check. ‘There’s something you should know. He saw you yesterday morning, crashed on your office couch.’
‘Damn,’ Alex cursed aloud, before saying with some hope, ‘Maybe he thought I’d been working all night.’
Tory shook her head again. ‘This man’s not stupid, Alex. He knew you were sleeping it off… He wants to see you first thing Monday morning.’
‘Well, isn’t that civilised of him,’ Alex sneered, ‘not waking a sleeping man? Making me sweat till Monday morning before sacking me.’
That scenario had already occurred to Tory, but she said nothing.
‘He was probably too much a coward to do it on Saturday,’ Alex ran on speculatively. ‘Probably thought I’d turn round and punch his lights out for him.’
Tory sighed heavily. ‘Men are ridiculous.’
That deflated Alex somewhat. They both knew he was as likely to punch someone as become celibate.
‘All right, so I’m no fighter, but he wouldn’t know that.’
‘I doubt he’d care. He looks well able to take care of himself.’
‘Big?’ Alex deduced from her tone.
‘Huge.’ Tory reckoned the American was at least six inches taller than Alex.
‘Upwards or outwards?’
‘Both… Well, sort of. He’s not fat. He’s just…muscly, you might say,’ Tory described him with some reluctance.
Alex slanted her a curious look. ‘You don’t fancy him, do you, Tory?’
‘No, of course not!’ she protested immediately. ‘Whatever makes you say that?’
He shrugged, then smiled a fraction. ‘The blush on your face, I suppose. I’ve never seen you blush before.’
‘Rubbish. I’m always blushing. I’m like a Belisha beacon in hot weather,’ she declared extravagantly and turned the conversation back on him. ‘Anyway, we’re not talking about me. It’s you that has the problem. You’re going to have to make an effort on Monday, Alex, to impress him.’
‘Is there any point?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Why go in and give him the satisfaction of firing me?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Alex!’ She lost her patience. ‘Stop being such a wimp!’
For a moment Alex looked seriously indignant. He was her boss, after all. Then he remembered he’d just spent the night sleeping on her sofa, and had pretty much surrendered his right to deference by offloading his problems on her.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,’ Tory added as his face caved in, exposing his vulnerability.
‘No, it’s all right. It’s what Rita would have said to me. She couldn’t stand people wallowing in self-pity.’ He looked in admiration at Tory, and her heart sank. She didn’t need Alex transferring his emotional dependence onto her.
‘Well, it’s up to you, Alex. I’m not going to tell you what to do.’ She rose abruptly to collect their coffee-cups and take them through to the small kitchen adjoining.
He followed her and watched as she rinsed them out in the sink. ‘I could prepare a schedule of documentaries we propose to make in the coming months.’
Tory frowned. ‘What documentaries?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m sure we could come up with something.’
‘We?’ she echoed.
‘I thought, well, that you might—’
‘Give up my one day off?’
‘Well, if you’ve plans…’ He clearly believed she hadn’t.
‘You think my life is dull, too, don’t you?’ she accused, almost wiping the pattern off the saucer she was drying. ‘Good old Tory, with nothing better to do at the weekend.’
‘No, of course not,’ Alex disclaimed quickly, realising he’d touched a sore spot.
Tory scowled, but not at him. It was Lucas Ryecart’s comments that still rankled. She couldn’t seem to get the man out of her head.
‘I just know I’ll work better with you as a sounding-board,’ Alex added appeasingly.
Tory knew he wouldn’t work at all if she didn’t help him.
She gave in. ‘You go wash, I’ll make the coffee, then we’ll get started.’
‘Tory, you’re a brick.’
Tory pulled a face as he went from the kitchen to the hall and the bathroom off it. She heard the shower running shortly afterwards and, above it, the sound of him singing. She pulled another face. What did he have to sing about?
Men were unbelievable. One moment Alex was confessing his undying love for his wife and his devastation at her loss, the next he was singing a selection of top-twenty hits from the seventies.
Compartmentalisation. That was the key to the male psyche. Everything kept in separate little cubicles. Love of wife and children. Work and ambition. Fun and sex. Duty and religion. Nip into one cubicle, pull the curtain and forget the rest. Then nip out and onto the next. Never mind tidying up what you’ve left behind on the floor.
Not all men, of course, but the majority. She thought of Lucas Ryecart. Another compartmentaliser. One moment she was a woman and he was making it damn plain he fancied her. The next she was one of his employees and he clearly had no problems treating her as such. Then he was gone, and no doubt she’d been forgotten the second he’d climbed into his car.
So very different from women. Women stood at windows, watching cars pull away while they sorted out what they felt and why. Women carried their emotional baggage between cubicles until they were bowed with the weight.
There were exceptions, of course. Her own mother was one. Maura Lloyd had a simple approach to life. Create what havoc you liked, then shut the door on it and move on. It had worked for her—if not for the people round her.
Tory had been Maura’s only child. She’d had her at eighteen. Tory’s father had been a married lecturer at art college. At least that was one of the stories Maura had told her, but at times he’d also been a famous painter, a cartoonist in a popular daily paper, and an illustrator for children’s story-books. Tory was never sure whether these were total fantasy or a selection of different men who might have sired her or the same multi-talented many-careered individual. Whichever, Maura had consistently avoided naming the man throughout Tory’s twenty-six years, and, having met some of Maura’s later partners, Tory had decided to leave well alone.
At any rate, Maura had decided to keep her. After a fashion, anyway, as Tory had spent her childhood shuttling back and forth between gentle, unassuming grandparents who lived in a semi in the suburbs to various flats her mother had occupied with various men.
The contrast couldn’t have been sharper, order versus chaos, routine versus excitement, respectability versus an extravagantly Bohemian lifestyle. Tory had never felt neglected, just torn and divided.
She loved her mother because she was warm and funny and affectionate, but, in truth, she preferred living with her grandparents. When she’d become sick as a child, her mother hadn’t pretended to cope. Grandmother Jean had been the one to take her to chemotherapy and hold her hand and promise her her beautiful curls would grow back.
It wasn’t that Maura hadn’t cared. Tory didn’t believe that. But it had been a selfish sort of caring. When Tory had needed calm, Maura would be playing the tragic figure, weeping so extravagantly a ten-year-old Tory had become hysterical, imagining she must be dying.
She hadn’t died, of course, and the childhood leukaemia was now a distant memory, although, in some respects, it still shaped her life. She supposed everything in childhood did.
She l
ooked round her kitchen—everything in its place and a place for everything. Grandmother Jean’s influence, although she’d been dead ten years and her grandfather for longer.
There was no visible sign of her mother but Tory knew she carried some of her inside. She just kept it locked up tight.
‘Tory?’ A voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Sure. I’ve made coffee.’ She loaded a tray with the cafetère and cups and a plate of croissants.
Alex followed her through and, after a slow start, they began to trawl up some ideas for future programmes.
They worked all day, with only the briefest break for a sandwich lunch, and as Alex got into his stride the man who had won awards re-emerged. Tory remembered why she had wanted to work for him in the first place. When he wasn’t bed-hopping or pub-crawling, Alex Simpson was a fairly talented programme-maker.
In the end they came up with four firm proposals for future programmes and a promising outline of another. Alex sat back, looking pleased with himself, as well he might, while Tory had some satisfaction in imagining Lucas Ryecart’s reaction.
‘Where’s your nearest take-away?’ Alex asked, consulting his watch to find it after six.
‘There’s a Chinese a couple of streets away,’ she replied. ‘I have a menu list somewhere. We can phone in an order, then I’ll collect it.’
She went to a notice-board in the kitchen and found the menu list for the Lucky Dragon. They made their selection and she did the calling.
Alex followed her through to the hall, saying, ‘I should go,’ as he watched her sling on a lightweight jacket.
‘You don’t know where it is.’ Tory slipped out the door before he could argue.
The Lucky Dragon was, in fact, easy to find. The problem was one had to pass The Brown Cow pub on the way, and Tory wasn’t sure whether Alex would manage to pass it.
She went on foot and the food was ready by the time she arrived. She walked back quickly so it wouldn’t go cold. She didn’t notice the Range Rover parked on the other side of the street or its owner, crossing to trail her up the steps to her front door.
‘I’ll do that,’ he offered just as she put the take-away on the doorstep so she could use her key.
Tory recognised the voice immediately and wheeled round.
Lucas Ryecart took a step back at her alarmed look. ‘Sorry if I startled you.’
Tory felt a confusion of things. As usual, there was the physical impact of him, tall, muscular and utterly male. That caused a first rush of excitement, hastily suppressed, closely followed by the set-your-teeth-on-edge factor as she realised a series of things. He had her address. Her address was on a file. He had her file. He owned her file. He owned Eastwich.
He just didn’t own her, Tory reminded both of them as a frown made it plain he wasn’t welcome.
‘I wanted to speak to you,’ he pursued. ‘I decided it might be better outside work hours… Can I come in?’
‘I…no!’ Tory was horrified by the idea. She wanted no one, especially not this particular one, to find out Alex was using her flat as a base.
‘You have company?’ he surmised.
‘What makes you say that?’ Her tone denied it.
He glanced down at the plastic bags from which the smell of food was emanating. ‘Well, either that, or you have a very healthy appetite.’
Sherlock Holmes lives, Tory thought in irritation and lied quite happily. ‘I have a friend round for tea.’
‘And I’m intruding,’ he concluded for himself. ‘No problem, this won’t take long. I just wanted to say sorry.’
‘Sorry? For what?’
‘Yesterday morning. I was way out of line. Wrong time, wrong place, and I was moving too fast.’
Tory was unsure how to react to what seemed a genuine apology.
‘I—I…this really isn’t necessary,’ she finally replied. ‘We both said things. I’d prefer just to forget the whole incident.’
‘Fine. Let’s shake on that.’ He offered her his hand.
‘Right.’ Tory took it with some reservations.
His grip was firm and strong and it jolted her, as if his touch were electric. Warmth spread through her like a slow fire.
Quite alarming. To be turned on by a handshake. Even the thought brought a flush to her pale cheeks.
He noticed it and smiled. Did he know?
‘You’re very young,’ he said, out of nowhere.
She shook her head. ‘I’m twenty-six.’
‘That’s young.’ He smiled without mockery. ‘I’m forty-one.’
Tory’s eyes widened, betraying her surprise. He didn’t look it.
‘Too old, I reckon,’ he added, shaking his head.
‘For what?’ Tory asked rather naively.
‘For girls young enough to be my daughter,’ he concluded, laughing at himself now.
No, you’re not. Tory almost said the words aloud. But why, when she wanted rid of him? Didn’t she?
She looked down. They were still holding hands. She slipped from his grip. The warmth between them remained.
‘Colin Mathieson told me you were in your thirties,’ he recalled next.
Tory’s heart sank a little. Colin believed she was in her thirties. It was a wrong impression fostered by Alex when he’d employed her for the job.
‘Perhaps he was thinking of someone else,’ Tory suggested weakly.
‘Perhaps,’ he echoed. ‘Anyway, if I’d known your real age, I wouldn’t have asked you out.’
It was Tory’s turn to frown. Did he have some religious objection to women under thirty? Or did he imagine her too immature to interest him?
‘You didn’t,’ she pointed out.
‘Didn’t I?’ He arched a brow before admitting, ‘Well, it had been my game plan. I guess I didn’t get round to it.’
Now she was too young or inexperienced or whatever for him to bother, Tory surmised with some anger, surely irrational.
‘It was Colin who gave me your address,’ he went on. ‘I told him I wanted to talk to you about Simpson.’
Alex? For a moment or two Tory had forgotten about Alex.
She could tell the American, of course. She could invite him in so he could meet a sober, industrious Alex. Did it matter if he jumped to the wrong conclusions about him being there?
Tory found it did matter, so she said nothing.
‘Did you manage to locate him, by the way?’ Lucas enquired directly.
She nodded.
‘He’s looking forward to meeting you,’ she fabricated. ‘I believe he has some future projects he wishes to discuss.’
Lucas Ryecart looked mildly surprised but didn’t challenge it.
‘Good.’ He then began to say, ‘I guess I’d better leave you to your meal—’ when the door opened behind Tory.
She turned to see Alex and this time her heart plummeted. He was holding his jacket, obviously on his way out. On seeing her, his face clouded with guilt.
Tory was quick to realise where he’d been going. Tired of waiting for the meal, he’d been off in search of liquid refreshment.
‘There you are.’ Alex recovered quickly. ‘I was worried you’d got lost and was coming to look for you.’
‘No, I…’ She glanced between the two men but made no effort to introduce them.
Lucas Ryecart, of course, knew exactly who Alex was. His eyes briefly registered the other man, then slid back to Tory and didn’t leave her. Dark blue eyes, cold with anger.
‘Sorry—’ Alex picked up on the sudden drop in temperature ‘—I can see I’m in the way. Would you like me to disappear for an hour or two? Let you have the flat to yourself?’
Tory could have groaned aloud. Alex made it sound as if they were sharing the place.
‘I…no, don’t do that, Alex.’ She’d spent all day getting his mind back on work. She wasn’t giving him a chance to go AWOL on her.
It was the wrong answer as far as Lucas Ryecart was concerned.
/> ‘No, don’t do that, Alex,’ he mimicked her anxious tone, reading too much—far too much—into it. ‘Miss Lloyd and I have finished any business between us for now.’
Having said his piece, he turned and walked away.
‘Damn!’ Tory swore in frustration.
Alex, having registered an American accent, began, ‘Was that—?’
‘Yes!’ Tory confirmed and, half tripping over the Chinese take-away, picked the bags up and shoved them at Alex. ‘Carry these in!’
Then she raced down the steps and across the street in time to catch Lucas Ryecart opening the door of the Range Rover.
‘Wait, please,’ she appealed before he could climb behind the steering wheel.
He stopped and turned. His expression was now remote, as if he’d already dismissed her from his mind, but, after a moment’s deliberation, he closed the car door and leaned against it.
‘Okay, I’m waiting.’ He folded muscular sinewy arms across a broad chest.
Tory saw tension and anger beneath the apparently casual gesture. ‘I…um…just wanted to clear up any possible misunderstanding. About Alex being there, I mean. You see…well, it’s not—’
‘How it seems?’ he cut across her ramblings with a mocking lift of one dark brow.
‘Yes, ‘ she confirmed, ‘I mean, no, it isn’t.’
‘So that wasn’t Alex Simpson,’ he drawled on, ‘and you aren’t about to share an evening meal with him and he isn’t currently staying at your flat and you haven’t lied to me about your involvement with him.’
Tory saw from his face that she would be wasting her time, telling the truth. Any inclination on his part to kiss and make up had departed with Alex’s appearance at the door.
‘There’s no point in this,’ she muttered to herself and would have walked away if a hand hadn’t shot out to keep her there.
She tried to pull her arm free. When she couldn’t, she lifted her other hand, intending to push him away. He was too quick for her. He grabbed both her wrists and dragged her round until he had her backed against his car.
He did it with the minimum of force. Only her pride was really hurt.
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