cheques start to bounce, who's to blame? So don't talk to me about support.'
Candy winced. But she said spiritedly, 'Always got to be someone else's fault, Pops?'
`Maybe she did it deliberately,' he returned.
`Don't be stupid. Of course she didn't. Why should she?'
`Attention-seeking,' said Sir Leslie, shrewdly. 'But, by God, she didn't have to give it to Richmond's paper. It couldn't have happened at a worse time.'
Candy said recklessly, 'What if I persuaded him not to publish?'
There was a fulminating silence at the other end of the telephone.
`Ridiculous. Of course he'll publish. It's just what he needs. He's fighting my bid every step of the way. It's an absolute gift to have a story that my wife can't meet her debts.'
`Then pay them.'
`It's too late for that. And it's about time Judith started taking the consequences of the damned stupid things she does.'
`If I persuade him not to publish, will you pay them?' The quality of the silence was different this time. Then Sir Leslie said slowly. `If you can persuade Justin
Richmond to throw away an advantage like that, I'll pay
any damned bill you put in front of me.'
`Done,' said Candy.
And put the phone down before either of them could change his or her mind.
The Richmond building was a tall glass arched edifice, more like a giant conservatory than the headquarters of a multi-national company, Candy thought. Alighting from the taxi, she looked up at it. Despite her determination not to be overawed, she could not help contrasting it with the workmanlike brick and steel that
housed her father's offices. It could not have been plainer that the Richmond family had more taste, more style and a great deal more money to spend on fixed assets than Neilson Media. No wonder, Candy thought suddenly, that her father wanted that merger.
She went into the atrium, where fountains played and a young birch tree grew out of a well. Under it, daffodils and bluebells waved in the breeze made by the air-conditioning.
`Very sylvan,' Candy said to the immaculate receptionist. 'I want to see Justin Richmond, please.'
The pleasant expression did not change.
`Have you an appointment?'
`No. My name's Neilson. Candida Neilson.'
The immaculate eyebrows rose just a little. Candy began to feel nervous. But—to her inner astonishment—within minutes she was ushered into the executive lift.
Justin Richmond's secretary was a grey-haired woman of imposing aspect. She was also puzzlingly warm.
`Mr Richmond is on the telephone just at the moment,' Alison James told her kindly. 'But he knows you're here.' There was just the faintest hint of amusement in her voice. `So nice of you to surprise him '
Candy bit her lip. 'Er—yes,' she said, bewildered. `Ah, he's free. Please come this way.'
Candy began to feel like a prisoner for interrogation. Almost before she was in the door of the big, airy office, the excuses were tumbling over themselves.
`I didn't mean to interrupt... I mean, I know I should have rung first, but I didn't think. I'll only be a minute...'
Justin stood up. He looked very tall and slim in his immaculate dark suit. His dark hair was just slightly disarranged, as if he ran his hands through it while he worked.
He did not answer her at first. Instead, he looked her over, a long, cool appraisal which was only just not in-
suiting. It had Candy gritting her teeth and remembering hard that she had come to ask a favour. But she would have liked to scream—preferably while throwing things at him.
`Hello,' he said at last in that husky, amused voice which had lulled her to sleep last night.
His perfect secretary closed the door between their offices very gently.
Justin strolled round the desk and took her jacket. His fingers were cool at the back of her neck, though his touch was quite impersonal. Candy was furious with herself for shivering at that brush of his hand at her nape.
`This is fun,' he told her softly. 'I get so few surprises these days.'
Candy swallowed hard. He was taller than she remembered. Today he was in dark grey, immaculately tailored. It made him look about fourteen times more imposing than Candy had remembered. And what she remembered was bad enough. He towered over her so that she had to look up.
He smiled down at her—that smile that made you feel as if you were under a sun-lamp, Candy thought uneasily. He took her hand. For a wild moment she thought he was going to kiss it, and her whole instinct was to run. But he merely stroked his long fingers over her own, surveying her with a distinctly quizzical air.
`Take all the time you want,' he said. His shoulders shook slightly. 'I'm intrigued.'
Candy tossed back her loosened hair and stepped away from him. She felt more composed with some distance between them. He watched her confusion with appreciation. But he gestured her to a huge black leather sofa, straight-faced.
Reluctantly, Candy sank down. Justin sat on an upright chair and watched her for a moment. She looked away.
Candy could feel her face growing hot. Again she did not know what was happening to her. The glimpse she had had of those steady, world-weary eyes, however, gave her the nasty feeling that Justin knew all too well. She bit her lip and did not know what to say.
`It's charming of you to drop in,' Justin Richmond said at last. 'Why?'
It was almost a relief. At least he was not looking at her in that unnerving silence any more.
Candy looked down at her hands. Her tone was rueful. `It's not all that easy to explain. I—I realised that in the taxi coming here. I want you to do something—and I don't know what to offer in return.'
Justin's eyebrows flew up. 'You're very frank. So you came here to bargain with me.' He looked at her as if he could see through to the back of her head, she thought. 'Interesting. And your father was on the phone this morning, too, Alison says. Could there be a connection?'
Candy sighed. 'I'm afraid so.'
`Ah,' he said.
There was one of the now familiar silences as Candy tried and failed to find a way of broaching the subject. `It's my mother,' she blurted at last.
Justin made a small movement as if she had astonished him, but was immediately still again.
`One of your—' she sought for an appropriate word—scandal sheets wouldn't do, nor would filthy rags —papers has got a story about her. My—my father is...' She found she could not go on.
His eyes narrowed. He looked at her, but she thought he did not really see her. The clever brain was at work, sifting and discarding until he came to the truth.
`I can imagine,' Justin said eventually. `So you want me to lean on the editor?'
Candy flushed. 'It sounds bad, put like that.'
Justin stood up and walked away from her. He stood looking down into the courtyard twenty storeys below. When he spoke his voice was hard.
`It is bad,' he assured her. 'Unlike your father, I believe in editorial independence.'
So did Candy in theory. She hesitated, torn. He saw
it.
`Why don't you try telling me the lot?' Justin Richmond invited softly.
And, to her surprise, she did. She told him everything, including her father's infidelities, her mother's debts—even her own contribution with her recent absences. When she had finished, he was silent.
`Scandal—that sort of scandal—would finish her. Especially now. And she's sure Pops will leave her.'
His eyes were shrewd. 'You don't agree?'
Candy shook her head. 'He's been on the brink of it for years, if you believe him.'
She tried to sound cool, but her voice broke. The brown eyes narrowed. For a moment she felt as if he could see the tears, the fights, with Candy carrying messages and desperately trying to placate both sides; it was as if she were a film he could run forward or backward at will.
She shook herself. No one was that perceptive. Especially not someone y
ou had only just met.
`I don't know, and I don't suppose he does. I don't care any more.' She realised with a little shock how cold and hard she sounded.
Justin heard it too. He put his head on one side, his eyes bright with interest. 'You're very cynical for one so young.'
`The child is the father of the man. Or, in this case, woman,' Candy replied, not meeting his eyes.
`Or, in this case, schoolgirl,' he corrected gently. She lifted her eyes at that, indignant. 'I'm not. I'm twenty-two. I told you last night.'
His eyes flickered. At once she wondered if she was not supposed to mention last night. Perhaps he thought of it as some sort of shameful aberration that he was already regretting.
`I mean—'
But he interrupted. `No one,' he said calmly, 'would believe it.'
There was no sign of shame or any other emotion there. Candy saw it with mixed feelings. Had last night meant so little, then? In the sophisticated round of his days, she had to suppose it was probably nothing very memorable. She prepared to be very, very cool.
`I'm not a child. I know the way the world works,' she said. 'With parents like mine, it'd be hard not to.'
`A bit of the world, maybe,' he allowed. He sat back in his chair, playing with his fountain-pen, watching her. `The bit that buys and deals and bargains. You were going to offer me a bargain, weren't you?'
`Er—yes.'
She pushed her hands through her hair, embarrassed. She could feel the warmth in her cheeks, and was perfectly certain that he had noticed.
`What were you going to offer?' he asked softly. 'Your influence with your father to make him withdraw his offer for my company? Your shares in Neilson Media, so I could make a counter-bid?'
Her father would be furious. Candy swallowed. `Is that what you want?'
His eyes were very steady. `No, I don't think it is.' She gave a long sigh. 'And you must have more than enough money already, so that's no good.'
`More than enough,' he agreed, amused.
`You wouldn't settle for my undying gratitude, I suppose?' she said, trying for a lightness she did not feel.
His eyes rested on her thoughtfully.
`That would rather depend on how it was expressed.'
There was a long, screaming silence in which Candy felt as if she were being slowly stretched until she snapped.
She said huskily, 'I don't believe you said that.' He leaned back in the chair, laughing. 'Believe it.' She sprang to her feet, suddenly gloriously angry.
`It's crazy. It's medieval. You're not some ancient
movie mogul with a casting couch, for heaven's sake.' Justin seemed even more amused. 'I was thinking,' he
explained gently, 'of marriage.'
Candy felt her jaw drop.
`What do you think of the idea?' he asked, with a gleam in his eye that was pure mockery.
Candy swallowed hard, and said with as much coolness as she could muster in the circumstances, 'Ridiculous.' Justin grinned. `Not polite,' he murmured.
She ignored that.
`You don't want to marry,' she said.
The smile grew. 'Who told you that?' And before she could answer, 'Anyway, nor do you. It would give us something in common.'
She groaned. 'This is no time to be making bad jokes.' You're old enough ... that is, you're quite old enough to be married already if you wanted to be.'
`No, I am not old enough to be your father,' he said calmly, diagnosing what she had been going to say. 'And I have been married. Marianne and I divorced several years ago, and I've never felt that the experiment bore repeating. Until now.'
He didn't say he could get all the female companionship he needed without offering marriage. It was written all over him.
Candy asked, 'So why change now?'
Justin took so long to answer that she thought he was not going to. When he did, he seemed to have stopped laughing.
`Because this bid is turning into a serious pain. I want your father and his minions off my back. If we had a co-operation agreement—cemented by a dynastic marriage—it could stave off a full merger. And I could go back to running the business without my shareholders ringing me up every ten seconds.'
Candy stared. 'And for that you'd sacrifice your freedom? Is that enough?'
There was a little pause.
`You're shrewder than you look,' Justin said. He did not sound entirely pleased. 'No, of course it's not enough.'
A pulse began to beat violently at the base of her throat. Candy felt as if she would choke. But she forced herself to ask calmly, 'Then what?'
Justin hesitated. The lids dropped over the deep-set eyes so that he looked like a judge—or an emperor deciding on a whim whether a slave would live or die, thought Candy. She shivered. She was not usually so fanciful.
Justin said, 'When we talked—I was impressed.' He looked at her straight. 'You take marriage seriously. I like that.'
`But we don't know each other.' It was almost a wail. He nodded. 'It would be a gamble, of course.' There was another longer pause.
Then he said, amazingly, 'I like that too. I've always been a gambler.'
Candy's pulse was slamming so hard that she felt it would shake her apart. She gritted her teeth.
`You mean the whole works? Sex and children and everything?'
His teeth gleamed in a tiger's smile. He was laughing at her.
`The Book of Common Prayer puts it more gracefully, but that's about the size of it,' he agreed. 'It should be fun.'
Fun!'
`Oh, yes, I think so. Don't you?'
The look he gave her was calculated to bring any woman to her knees, Candy saw. The fact that all it did for her was make her shake with fright seemed unfair. The brown eyes with their hint of laughter drifted down the primrose shirt and up again to where the pulse was beating so frantically.
Instinctively Candy put up both hands and drew the points of the starched collar together. It was a revealing little gesture, and she knew it too late. Without it, there was just a chance that he might not have noticed her agitation. Although she didn't think there was really much that he had missed in their discussion.
She said in a voice that croaked, `I—don't know.' `No,' he agreed. `No, I can see that. Would it help if
I said we could take things slowly? At your own pace?' Candy was shaken. 'I never meant to marry. I've
always—' She broke off.
Justin nodded. 'Very understandable, given your role models. But you're really too young to take a negative decision like that.' He smiled at her almost tenderly. `You're only scared, you know. And we can do something about that.'
`You sound almost as if you want to marry me,' Candy said slowly.
Justin was enigmatic. 'But I do. Haven't I just proposed to you?'
`Yes, but ...'
She could feel the force of his will-power like a tangible thing, as if he had reached out and looped a hawser round her. She felt almost physically dragged towards him—and those warm, laughing eyes were fiercely determined.
Candy did not understand it. She looked away, not wanting to understand it. She felt threatened. On the brink. Terrified.
There was only one thing to do in an extremity: tell the truth. No one believed you, Candy reminded herself.
`You're right,' she said. She drew a long breath, and did the only thing she could. 'I don't know why, but the very idea terrifies me. I must be more juvenile than I thought.'
He didn't say anything at all. Candy held her breath. Then, meeting his eyes, she realised that her tactic had failed. Because Justin Richmond did believe her. Her last defence was gone.
`Damn,' she said, feeling rather foolish.
She waited for him to protest, persuade, maybe to taunt her. But he did nothing. For a moment of pure embarrassment she wondered whether he would reply at all.
But eventually he drew a long breath. Then he said, `We'll talk about it later.'
`Later? But..:
He gave her a sweet smil
e. 'I still have to find out what my editors have on your mum's indiscretions. And, although I don't dictate what they print, I can sometimes ask a pointed question or two. Like how much libel damages we're risking.'
Candy's eyes widened. He laughed and, leaning forward, kissed her very lightly on the lips.
She went rigid. It was a casual contact, barely a caress, but it spoke of possession. He had made her feel like that before. Without appearing to notice it. Did he make every woman he touched feel like that too?
`I'll see where we stand. And I'll call you later,' he told her lightly. 'Think about it, though, will you?'
CHAPTER THREE
CANDY could never afterwards remember clearly what she did after she left the Richmond building. She thought she walked. She remembered cold streets and a flurry of wind when she turned corners. But she did not register anything until she arrived at the Homeless Centre.
All she could think of was the cool voice with its occasional flashes of treacherous warmth; of the level gaze; of the humour that seemed occasionally to be at something she could not see. And of that last casual kiss that had set some sort of seal on their unagreed bargain.
She must have looked like a ghost. Helen looked up from her typewriter when Candy walked in, and sprang immediately to her feet.
`You're frozen. Coffee,' she stated, the moment her hand touched Candy's. 'What's been happening to you?'
Candy shook her head dazedly. 'I'm not sure.'
Justin had happened. Candy shivered. She did not understand him. She sensed that he wanted her in some obscure way that left her half flattered, half afraid. But she did not really know what had happened to her in that interview. Except that she felt as if it had swept all the hard-won rock from under her feet and flung her back in the quicksand of emotion and demand.
She accepted the steaming mug.
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