by Penny Jordan
Her throat was sore with unshed tears, and she smiled grimly to herself, remembering a much younger self who had cried herself to sleep night after night for weeks on end after overhearing Gareth’s conversation with his grandfather.
Well, she wasn’t going to fall into that trap this time. This time. This time she was a woman, not a child. This time no one would be allowed to guess what she was feeling, least of all the man responsible for those feelings.
What she needed, she decided fretfully, thumping her pillow and trying to get comfortable, was something to take her mind well and truly off Gareth Seymour.
CHAPTER SIX
IN THE morning Sybilla was forced to admit the veracity of the old saying about being careful about what you wished for in case you got it.
Her throat felt as though it had been scraped raw and was now on fire. Her head ached so badly that the pain made her want to scream—only that would have made her throat worse—and her body felt as though every muscle and piece of bone had turned to sponge overnight, and a sponge, moreover, filled with a hundred and one niggling aches and pains.
She would feel better once she was in the office and concentrating on her work, she assured herself grimly as she dosed herself with a couple of aspirin and a mug of coffee.
When she got to the office, Belinda took one look at her and told her forthrightly that by rights she ought to be at home and in bed.
‘But, knowing how stubborn you are, I suppose it’s no use my telling you that.’
‘None at all,’ Sybilla agreed. ‘I’m far too busy to be ill,’ she added jokingly, but in truth the last thing she wanted was to be at home on her own with time on her hands to think about Gareth.
For a while the aspirin she had taken first thing helped to alleviate her symptoms a little, and later, while they were quiet, she nipped out of the office and headed for a nearby chemist.
‘Got the bug, have you?’ the chemist asked her gloomily as she explained what she wanted. ‘None of this stuff can cure it, you know,’ he added, indicating the rows of preparations on the shelves behind him. ‘Flu is flu, and—’
‘I just want something to alleviate the symptoms,’ Sybilla interrupted him quickly.
Ten minutes later she emerged from the shop, carrying a bag containing something to ease her sore throat, something to relieve her aches and pains, and something for the congestion in her chest, but she knew, as the chemist had already pointed out to her, that none of them could offer her a cure and would only provide temporary relief from her symptoms.
If she could just keep going until after the silver wedding party. She had to go to that.
She had almost reached the office when she saw Gareth coming down the road towards her. He saw her almost at the same time as she saw him.
Both of them paused and exchanged brief, grim glances. Without waiting to see if he intended to acknowledge her, Sybilla turned on her heel and walked into an adjacent newsagents, where she bought a magazine she didn’t really want before emerging and finding to her shock that Gareth was standing on the pavement outside, almost as though he had been waiting for her.
‘Is this going to be a regular occurrence?’ he demanded angrily, putting out a hand to detain her when she would have walked past him. ‘Because if so—’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Sybilla told him untruthfully, and then sneezed so violently that she had to stop speaking.
Immediately Gareth’s frown deepened. ‘Are you completely crazy?’ he demanded bitingly. ‘You’re obviously not well. You—’
‘I’ve got a cold, that’s all,’ Sybilla snapped at him, ‘and if you’re worried about catching it then I suggest you let go of me.’
They were, she realised, attracting a good deal of attention from passers-by. It was only a small town, where virtually everyone knew everyone else, and she was uncomfortably aware that Gareth’s eyes hadn’t been the only ones to notice all those years ago how much she had idolised him. She had no wish to fuel fresh gossip and speculation. She had the business now to consider, after all, and its standing in the local community. It wouldn’t do her credibility as a businesswoman any good at all if people started believing she was still mooning around after Gareth.
Still holding on to her arm, Gareth told her, ‘I bumped into the Gittingses the other day. I hadn’t realised that they were celebrating their silver wedding this year. They were telling me that your parents will be at the party. It will be good to see them again.’
Sybilla’s heart sank. That meant that Gareth would be attending the silver wedding party. If only she could find an excuse not to go, but that was not only impossible, it was also something she simply could not do. Paul Gittings was her godfather. She had to be there.
She moved back automatically as a woman pushing a pram came towards them, and Gareth moved with her, somehow or other coming to stand much closer to Sybilla than he had been doing before.
‘Will you be going to the party on your own… or…?’ He paused and looked at her.
‘No, I won’t be going alone,’ she told him acidly.
It was, after all, quite true. She would be going with the rest of the family, but she knew quite well that that wasn’t what Gareth had meant. Would she be going with a man—that was what he had been asking her—a lover? Grimly she wondered how he would like it were she to pry into his private life in the same way, and then decided to risk his anger and give him a taste of his own medicine.
‘And you?’ she asked with a false smile. ‘I expect you’ll be taking your…attorney?’
‘Lois? Hardly. She flew back to Boston this morning. Once she realised that I intended to stay on here there was no point in her remaining. In reality she’s the company attorney. They sent her with me in the hope that she’d persuade me to stay on with them, but my contract was up for renewal anyway, and once I realised the state the company was in…’ He paused, and when she looked questioningly at him he explained tersely, ‘Gramps was an astute businessman in his time, but recently…well, let’s just say that the business couldn’t have been sold as a going concern, and to close it down would have meant putting too many people out of work. I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing, at least not from a purely businesslike point of view, but emotionally…’ He gave a brief shrug, while Sybilla stared at him in astonishment that he should be so open and frank with her.
This was the old Gareth. The Gareth she remembered with such aching nostalgia and pain. The Gareth who could never bear to inflict pain on others.
‘Sentiment is never a good basis on which to found a successful business,’ she told him, more crisply than she had intended because that was the only way she could hold at bay the emotion she was feeling inside.
Instantly he released her arm, so quickly that the loss of the warmth of the contact with his body actually made her give a small forlorn shiver, her body missing the bulk and comfort of his as he stepped away from her.
‘There speaks the successful businesswoman,’ he derided sardonically. ‘Funny how things change…how people change.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she agreed equally acidly, and then started to walk away from him without formally saying goodbye.
It was only when she reached her own office that she allowed herself to stop and turn round, to watch as he walked down the street away from her, her vision blurred by the tears she was fighting hard not to let fall.
Why couldn’t he leave her alone? Ignore her…pretend she just did not exist as he had done in those agonising months when she had first realised that he didn’t want her, when she had first decided to cut him out of her heart and her life?
Later that day, as she gave in to her aching body’s need for an early night, Sybilla reflected that the only good thing to come out of the day had been her interview with their prospective new temp. His skills and qualifications were excellent, and their only problem was going to be keeping him on their books as a temp. All too soon one of their clients would be bound to of
fer him a permanent position.
* * *
‘So you’re meeting your family there at the club?’
‘Well, it seemed the sensible thing to do,’ Sybilla informed Belinda. ‘They won’t be able to stay very long. Anthony will need to leave fairly early and, since Mum and Dad are travelling with them, it seemed silly for them to waste time by driving to my place first.’
‘What are you going to wear?’ Belinda asked her. ‘Something new?’
Sybilla shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t had time to buy anything. You know how busy we’ve been lately. I thought I’d wear the black dress I bought just before Christmas.’
The dress in question had been expensive; far more expensive than Sybilla had intended. She had bought it for the local Chamber of Commerce dinner-dance, having seen it in a small boutique on a visit to the city.
It was a designer model, the salesgirl had told her, and had been reduced because of its small size, but, even reduced, the price-ticket had made Sybilla gasp a little. However, once she had tried the dress on, she had been forced to admit that the luxurious matt-black jersey, the cut and style of the dress, the way it fitted and enhanced her slender frame, did put it in a class of its own. The only trouble was that she hadn’t been sure if she could actually afford that particular class. In the end she had closed her eyes and told herself that if she starved for the rest of the month and made do with last year’s black velvet pumps she could probably just about afford it.
‘Mm. You’ll look stunning. There’s something about the combination of a little black dress and a diminutive blonde…’
‘I am not diminutive and neither am I blonde,’ Sybilla retorted acerbically.
‘No,’ Belinda teased her with a grin. ‘Tell that to that husband of mine! A week after the Chamber of Commerce do he was still drooling.’
To her own embarrassment, Sybilla knew that she was blushing, which made Belinda’s grin widen even further.
‘Mind you, if you are planning to wear that dress, what you really need is a good accessory,’ Belinda mused.
‘Thanks, but furs and diamonds aren’t my style,’ Sybilla told her.
‘I wasn’t actually thinking of furs or diamonds, more along the lines of a tall, dark and handsome male escort,’ Belinda corrected her.
Her description came so close to fitting Gareth that immediately Sybilla over-reacted, almost snapping at her friend, ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I might be well into my mid-twenties, and I might not have a man in my life…a husband or lover…but that doesn’t mean that I’m not perfectly happy and contented with my life just the way it is. In fact—’
‘Hey, hang on! You’ve got the wrong end of the stick,’ Belinda interrupted her easily. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you needed a man in that sense. I was thinking more in the way of a bodyguard.’ She gave a rich laugh. ‘To judge from my normally very restrained husband’s reaction to that black dress, without one you’re going to spend most of your evening fending off the majority of the male guests.’ She paused and added more soberly, ‘Look, I’m sorry if I offended you. I never meant to suggest…’
Sybilla bit her lip. What on earth had possessed her to over-react in that silly way? Of course Belinda hadn’t meant anything by her comment and she ought to have known it. It was true that Belinda had a good sense of humour and liked to tease her occasionally, but her teasing was always kind and gentle and she never objected to being teased back in return.
‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry,’ Sybilla told her apologetically. ‘I don’t know what’s got into me today…it must be this cold. But I hope you’re wrong about the dress.’ She paused, and added uncertainly, ‘Perhaps I ought to wear something else.’
‘Don’t you dare. Think of how much it cost,’ Belinda added wickedly. ‘You can’t afford not to wear it really, can you?’
‘No, I suppose I can’t,’ Sybilla agreed drily, but a couple of hours later, standing in front of her bedroom mirror, surveying her appearance, she frowned as she wondered what on earth it was about the dress that was likely to provoke the male reaction threatened by her friend.
It was long-sleeved, with an admittedly slightly décolletée neckline but only slightly. True, the matt-black jersey did mould her body as though it had been made to do so, but since it was also ruched and draped it could hardly be described as skin-tight or even mildly provocative. Could it?
Blind to her own feminine appeal, she couldn’t see the allure of the paleness of her skin highlighted by the density of the black jersey…just as she couldn’t see that the soft ruching with its delicate hinting of the curves it concealed was far, far more provocative and enticing than a more raunchily styled dress could ever have been. Nor did she realise that the way the neckline was styled so that it revealed virtually all of the soft sweep of her shoulders might incline a man to wonder just how much gentle pressure it would take to cause the soft fabric to slide free of her shoulder altogether—perhaps no more than the simple physical movement of taking her in his arms, thus leaving her silky skin open to the exploration of his hands…his mouth.
A man might see all these possibilities at a glance, but Sybilla was oblivious to them. Belinda must have been exaggerating, she decided frowningly as she studied herself from every angle, assuring herself that there was nothing remotely provocative in her appearance and that she needed not fear being castigated by the other guests for turning up dressed in something vulgar and unsuitable.
Perhaps it was because she wasn’t really used to wearing dresses that she felt so vulnerable in this one. Suits and separates were more her style, plain, unfussy businesslike clothes of a type that impressed their clients and reflected an aura of efficiency and practicality.
Certainly no one could ever describe her dress as practical, nor the sheer black silk tights she was wearing with it. Even her shoes had higher heels than she normally favoured.
She picked up her evening-bag and headed for the stairs. She was, as she had already told Belinda, meeting her family at the country club where the party was being held. They had all contributed to a joint present and so she had nothing to take with her. Giving her appearance one last fleeting look, she walked towards the door, hoping grimly that the medication she had just taken would see her through the evening.
She wasn’t really sure she was wise to be driving, but she promised herself that she would be very sparing in her alcoholic consumption in view of the drugs she was using, even while her conscience pricked her guiltily that she ought perhaps to leave her car and instead ring for a taxi.
Unfortunately it was too late for that now. The town’s single taxi firm would be fully booked for the evening, and if she was late her parents would start worrying.
She shivered a little as she stepped outside. It wasn’t particularly cold, but the evening air felt raw and damp, and a sudden fit of shivering struck her as she got into her car.
Tomorrow was Saturday, she reminded herself unsympathetically, and she would have the whole weekend ahead of her during which to indulge in the misery of her cold; for tonight she would just have to continue to fight it off.
Determined to maintain this uncompromising attitude, she started the car engine and reversed into the road.
* * *
The Gittingses had hired one of the private function-rooms at the club in which to celebrate their silver wedding, and as Sybilla walked across the car park towards it she could tell from the level of noise inside the room that she would be far from the first to arrive.
Her host and hostess welcomed her fondly as she walked in through the door, complimenting her appearance, her godfather remarking in an avuncular way that it didn’t seem five minutes since he was holding her over the font.
‘Your parents are over there with Anthony and Claire,’ he told her.
Thanking him, Sybilla made her way across the dimly lit room to the table in question.
‘Darling, how nice you look,’ her mother enthused as she kissed both her parents.
/> ‘Yes, very sexy,’ her brother teased her, grinning at her.
Even though she knew that Tony was only teasing her, a small frisson of doubt still quivered down her spine. Was there something about the dress which she just could not see, something that made it give onlookers a totally erroneous impression of her?
Reading the doubt in her eyes, her sister-in-law quickly reassured her.
‘Take no notice of him, Syb. You look terrific. You always look elegant and well-groomed, but this dress makes you look softer…more approachable—’
‘As I said, it’s sexy,’ Tony interrupted his wife irrepressibly. He added, ‘What would you like to drink, Syb? It’s my round, so…’
‘Just mineral water,’ she told him, quickly explaining, when he frowned, about her cold and the medication she had taken.
‘Darling, I’d no idea you weren’t feeling well,’ her mother told her. ‘I hope it is just a cold and not this dreadful flu that seems to be going around. It’s practically decimated the village, hasn’t it, Claire? Luckily, as yet we’ve all managed to keep clear of it.’
‘This isn’t flu, Mother,’ Sybilla told her firmly. ‘It’s just a boring dull old cold.’
‘Well, if you’re sure—’
‘Stop fussing, Ma. She’s all grown-up now,’ Tony interrupted, coming to her rescue as he got up to attract the attention of one of the circulating waiters.
‘Looks as if Rita and Paul have invited practically the whole town,’ he commented once he had ordered Sybilla’s mineral water, making Sybilla’s heart sink as he added, almost accusingly, ‘You never said anything about Gareth Seymour deciding to move back and take over the family business. I was speaking with him earlier. From the sound of it, he’s going to have quite a challenge ahead of him. He’s going to have to totally re-equip, and he wants to modernise—install the latest computer technology. Nice chap. I’ve always liked him,’ Tony added musingly. ‘Although you were always closer to him than I was.’
Sybilla felt her stomach muscles tightening with tension, but her brother had been away at university the summer she had made such a nuisance of herself, had humiliated herself so dreadfully, and so had never actually realised what had happened.