Tin merely surprised that you decided to take a holiday when the world of big business is out there, no doubt struggling without you at the helm.'
Emma saw his mouth tighten with anger and was inexplicably ashamed of her sarcasm.
'You obviously have over-inflated ideas about my influence.'
Emma was silent for a while. 'I just thought that you were joking when you said you would be coming to stay with Alistair,' she finally admitted.
'I rarely say something unless I mean it.' Conrad's voice was smooth and razor-sharp. 'The world is already too full of people shooting their mouths off for no reason other than that they like the sound of their own voices. Alistair at least avoids that particular vice. When he speaks, he has something to say, something worth listening to.'
'Definitely,' Emma agreed.
She hoped that he would go away. Lying prone, she felt too conscious of his eyes on her and couldn't relax.
'Island life agrees with you,' Conrad said lazily. She felt his finger brush against her thigh and pulled away sharply.
'What are you doing?'
'There was a sandfly on your leg,' he said, with an expression of mock innocence. 'Do you normally jump a mile high when someone touches you?'
Emma glared at him. The spot where his finger had rested still burned as though he had ignited a tiny flame underneath her skin. She looked at his fingers with disdain.
'Do you normally inflict your company on other people, when they clearly would rather be alone?' she asked coldly, ignoring his question.
'Most people don't view my company as a burden,' he said in a matter-of-fact voice, fixing his azure eyes on hers until Emma felt as though she was being mesmerised by a snake charmer.
Her heart was thumping in her chest and her mouth fell dry. What on earth is the matter with me? she thought. Could it be the heat? She didn't think she had been sitting in the sun for that long.
'Especially those of the opposite sex,' he continued, with a hint of lazy amusement in his voice.
'Well, there's no accounting for taste,' Emma bit out. His words had evoked an erotic picture of Conrad's lean, bronzed body and she tried to sweep it out of her mind like so much unwelcome dust under a carpet. Were there no limits to this man's ego? She was tempted to tell him that power and good looks had clearly gone to his head, but she resisted.
Instead she threw him a look of scorn, noticing that it did not diminish the half-languid smile playing on his lips.
'How about you?' he asked, lying on his side to face her, so closely that she was embarrassingly aware of his warm breath on her face.
'How about me?'
'You've told me that you're not interested in the bright lights. Is there some quiet, retiring young man patiently waiting back in England for you?'
'You already asked me that.'
'I know. You never answered.'
'Yes, I did. I told you that my private life is none of your business!' Emma faced him. Up close, she saw that the blue of his eyes was speckled with very dark grey. She felt unsteady for the briefest of moments, and looked away.
'I suppose that means that there is some forlorn fool awaiting your return. If I were your boyfriend, I'd make sure that you didn't stray too far. With a tongue like yours, you could land yourself in all sorts of trouble.'
'Well, you're not, and for your information there's no forlorn fool waiting for me either in England, or anywhere. Now could you find another spot on the beach to sit on?'
Conrad looked at her curiously, as though she were some new and different species of life which he had not run into before.
'How do you occupy your time when you're not working with Alistair?' he asked, changing the conversation, much to Emma's relief.
'I type,' she said abruptly. 'Alistair persuaded me to forget about work this afternoon and come down here instead.'
'Did he, now?' Conrad said thoughtfully. He stretched back on his towel, his hands clasped behind his head, and contemplated the sky. 'Alistair's always been fond of his games,' he muttered.
'I beg your pardon?'
'Nothing. Absolutely nothing.' He stood up, flexing his legs. 'I think I'll go up to the house now. Coming?'
'No. I'll stay down here for a while longer.' She looked at him pointedly. 'I might be able to enjoy the peace and quiet.'
'Suit yourself.' He looked down at her, his eyes casually running the length of her body. 'Be careful of the sun, though. Too much and you'll end up looking like something that's crawled out from the bottom of the sea.'
Emma sat up angrily as he turned and began walking off towards the rocky path that led back up to the gardens.
Dammit! Didn't that man have anything pleasant to say? True, he had only said what she herself had thought
only a short while before, but nevertheless she resented his tone of voice. It was far too smug for her liking.
She hoped that he would trip over some of the rocks and come crashing back down to the beach. Nothing serious, just enough to wipe that clever, arrogant smile from his lips.
She followed his figure and saw him clamber lithely over the rocks and vanish towards the house.
Her serene enjoyment of the beach had evaporated. She lay on her towel for another fifteen minutes, her mind treacherously playing back images of Conrad and her own defensive, irrational response to him.
She fervently hoped that his little holiday on the island would be limited to a few days. She might be able to keep her temper in check for a few days, but, if he stayed much longer, then she would be bound to give way sooner or later. Something about him rubbed her up the wrong way, and, she acknowledged frankly, it had nothing to do with the fact that he probably still suspected her motives for being here in the first place.
No. It was something more fundamental than that. Everything about him nettled her.
Still, she thought with a twist of amusement, it must be quite a shock to his system to find that not every available female with twenty-twenty vision swooned at his feet.
She gathered up her belongings and headed for the house. Neither Alistair nor Conrad were to be seen. Alistair might possibly still be resting, but Conrad? Probably lurking around somewhere. He didn't seem the sort to be happy sitting still for too long.
Rather than take her usual shower, Emma ran a bath, copiously squirting bubble bath into the tub, and sank into the water with a sigh of bliss.
She was not looking forward to dinner in the evening. Normally she dined simply with Alistair, and they spent an hour or so afterwards conversing about ground that
they had covered during the day, or whatever else came into their heads.
So far no mention had been made of her mother, and Emma was content to let the subject ride until the appropriate opportunity arose.
With Conrad now on the scene, she seriously doubted that such an opportunity was likely to arise, and that irritated her yet further.
She took her time dressing, slipping into an apricot sleeveless dress and her flat leather sandals. She had acquired the first golden shimmer of a tan and, against her pale gold colour and the apricot dress, her hair seemed startlingly blonde.
If blondes, she thought, staring at her reflection in the mirror, were supposed to be vivacious and giggly, then she certainly disproved the theory. Inside, she felt, was a brunette struggling to get out.
Her mother had been dark, her hair tinged with red, the colour of chestnut, and she had jokingly banned her daughter from ever taking a bottle of dye to her hair. A natural blonde, she had told Emma, was a rare species, and she should be thankful.
Emma wondered whether Conrad would have been so accusatory towards her if she had had dark hair. Maybe not. He might just have taken her more seriously from the start, or never even suspected her of anything in the first place.
She forced her thoughts away from him, and made her way slowly towards the living-room area, where a glass of sherry would be awaiting her. It had become a routine which she enjoyed.
&nbs
p; Alistair was sitting in his usual position by the french doors which opened out on to the huge expanse of the garden.
Conrad, with his back to her, looked around as she walked in, meeting her stony glance with an ironic smile.
He was dressed in a pair of beige trousers and a short- sleeved grey-blue shirt which did very little to hide the broad width of his shoulders and his long, muscular legs.
'I see you took my advice about overstaying your welcome in the sun,' he remarked casually, inspecting her with the sort of slow thoroughness which had made Emma bristle on the very first day they had met.
'Actually, I had arrived at the same conclusion myself,' Emma said politely. 'It doesn't take a genius to work out that too much sun isn't a good idea.'
'Slowly but surely does it,' Alistair chipped in, his shrewd eyes glancing between them. 'You've acquired just the right shade of pale brown. You look quite fabulous. Doesn't she look fabulous, Conrad?' He looked ingenuously at Conrad, who seemed about to say something, only to have second thoughts.
'Fabulous,' he repeated drily, then switched his attention to Alistair, resuming the conversation which Emma supposed they had been having before she walked in.
Oh, charming, she thought, wondering why on earth she was disappointed to be excluded when to be excluded was better than to be subjected to a barrage of barely veiled criticisms.
She picked up her glass of sherry and sat on the sofa next to Alistair, listening to them and gradually becoming enthralled at their discussions.
When Conrad spoke, it was with a vigour and a command of knowledge which somehow came as no surprise. He discussed worldwide market trends, and their effect on Alistair's holdings, with a perception and shrewdness which she assumed had made him such a force in business.
Over the meal, a West Indian speciality of cooking bananas, Creole rice and fish stewed in coconut, the conversation switched to more general topics, and Emma found herself joining in.
Neither Conrad nor Alistair had been to London for several months, and they quizzed her about the theatres and the operas. Emma animatedly described as much as she could, from, she admitted, reviews and information gleaned from the newspapers rather than first-hand experience.
'The theatre I go to as often as I can,' she confessed, 'but the opera—well, that's quite a different matter. The prices tend to be way out of my league. I was invited a couple of times and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but I have yet to make it on my own.'
'Who did you go with?' Conrad asked casually. 'An opera buff?'
'Oh, a friend,' Emma replied smoothly, steering the conversation away from herself and into less personal waters. Two glasses of sherry and a glass of port might have relaxed her a little, but certainly not enough to let slip anything revealing about herself.
She had always been careful about sharing confidences, preferring to keep her life to herself. Now it had become almost second nature, a habit to which she adhered almost without thinking.
Perhaps it was a character trait which she had somehow gleaned from her mother. When her mother had settled first in Coventry, then in London, she had always managed to keep her private life to herself, confessing to none of her friends anything about her background.
'They can take me as they find me,' she had once told Emma. 'My privacy is the one thing I cherish above all else.' She had laughed. 'Apart from you, my darling.'
Perhaps her obsession with privacy had stemmed first from her desire to conceal her whereabouts from her father.
There was no doubt that, as far as Alistair went, she had sunk without a trace.
Emma wondered whether he had ever tried to find her mother and thought not. Anger would have stopped him to start with, and then after that pride would have stepped in. Although, she thought honestly, her mother's pride, from what she had gleaned from Alistair's occasional throwaway remarks, had been far fiercer and deeper than his had ever been.
She had lived with the scars of her own mistakes, and had found it as impossible to forgive her father as she had to forgive herself. She would have erected enough barriers around her to have repelled the most insistent searcher.
Or maybe, she thought with a flash of intuition, Alistair had searched, and had found her, but had chosen not to intrude. In which case, he would have known about the existence of a granddaughter.
Did he? No, she convinced herself, although... although he treated her with the warmth of someone who delighted in her company far more than if she were merely his assistant. He could easily have checked her identity if he knew what he was looking for...
But no, she was just being over-imaginative. She frowned at him and brushed aside the thought, flicking it to the back of her mind like an irritating intrusion.
When she dragged herself back to the present, it was to find Alistair looking at her.
'Penny for your thoughts, my dear. We seemed to lose you there for a moment.'
Emma looked at him seriously. 'They're not worth a penny,' she said.
'What about a pound?' Conrad was staring at her, and Emma could almost see his brain clicking, trying to work out her secrets, trying to out-think her.
'Not much use on an island where dollars are the currency, is there?' She laughed awkwardly, suddenly feeling as though she were treading on quicksand.
The uncomfortable moment passed and Alistair was ringing his bell for Esther to take him to his bedroom.
I'll leave you two to carry on,' he said, moving towards the door. 'Esther, bring through some more coffee for Emma and Conrad after you've taken me up.' He could already see Emma beginning to protest and waved aside her objections. 'You two have much more in common than you think,' he observed with a gesture. 'You should get to know each other better.'
'Alistair...' Conrad said in a warning voice, 'You're getting too old to play games.'
'Games? Son, I don't know what you're talking about. I merely feel obliged, as your host, to see that you get along and are enjoying yourselves.'
As he left the room, Emma heard him call over his shoulder, 'Besides, Conrad, I'm sure you'll want to tell Emma all about your fiancee. After all, they'll be thrown together soon enough, won't they?'
CHAPTER THREE
'Your fiancee?' Emma repeated incredulously. Why, she thought, was she so surprised, for heaven's sake? Wouldn't it be much more unusual if he didn't have a fiancee? She had read often enough about all those women who swarmed around him. A fiancee was the logical conclusion. In fact, it was surprising he wasn't married off by now.
Still, she felt a stab of pain and immediately composed her features into polite interest. She didn't like the man, wasn't interested in him at all apart from as a potential threat; she surely couldn't really give a damn if he was engaged, married, or widowed with ten children?
He was looking at her closely, his lips tightened into a grim line.
'Alistair has a knack of being indiscreet when he chooses.'
'Indiscreet? Why? Surely it's no big secret? I mean, isn't an engagement a cause for celebration?' She stared through the window behind him, not allowing a ripple of emotion to cross her face.
'For the moment, it's very much something of a secret. The newspapers would love to get their grubby little hands on a story like this, and that's the last thing I want.'
He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair, then sat heavily on the sofa, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
Emma tried not to look at him at all. She still had that funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, as though
she had suddenly dropped one thousand feet in mid air, only to find herself safely on terra firma after all.
She wondered what his fiancee looked like, and the rush of jealousy that struck her almost left her gaping in surprise.
Of course, a shocked inner voice told her, it's not jealousy, simply the suddenness of the revelation.
'Alistair doesn't like her,' Conrad was saying. 'He thinks she's shallow and he thinks that I'm planning to marry her for t
otally the wrong reason.'
'And are you?' Emma felt compelled to ask, heartily wishing she could simply drop the subject rather than pursuing it with such tenacious interest.
'Well, I'm marrying her because it suits me to do so. It's more of a business arrangement. It's a matter of opinion as to whether or not that constitutes the wrong reason.'
He did not elaborate on what kind of business arrangement, and Emma allowed the words to sink in.
Fascinated, she watched as he clasped his hands behind his head, wondering how it would feel to have them caress her. She shook her head to get rid of the thought. What was happening to her? She had always been so level-headed.
'A business arrangement? You make it sound like some sort of company merger. And how does your fiancee feel about this?'
'Believe me, it's mutual. She thinks that marriage would enhance her career, and that I would provide the passport to all the right places. Which, of course, I would.'
'Of course,' Emma agreed cynically. 'A match made in heaven. You provide the passport and she provides the businesses. I'm surprised everyone doesn't jump on the bandwagon and start getting married for all those practical reasons. It would certainly do away with the candlelit dinners and courtship.'
Conrad was looking at her intently. 'I wouldn't have thought you were a firm believer in love at first sight and thunderbolts from the skies with violin music in the background.' His lips twisted cynically. 'Isn't that only the stuff of movies?'
'I wouldn't know,' Emma replied coolly.
'Meaning that you haven't been swept off your feet as yet?'
'Meaning nothing.' She felt a slow flush creep over her. It was beyond her why she was arguing the point with him. She had always thought that marriage could quite happily exist as a business arrangement. 'I simply think that you can't treat something as emotional as love and marriage with such detachment. As though you're going out to buy a car.'
'Love? Who ever mentioned love? Though she is very beautiful.'
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