A Business Engagement

by Jessica Steele

  Ashlyn drove on automatic pilot for half an hour, barely aware of anything but the tingling sensation of Carter’s lips on her cheek.

  It didn’t mean anything, for goodness’ sake. Both Roland and Fraser had said goodnight in the same manner. So why should the feel of Carter’s kiss linger?

  Probably because as short a time ago as that afternoon she would have said it was inconceivable that Carter would say goodnight to her so, she decided.

  She remembered so many things about him on that drive home. His courtesy to one and all. The way he had treated her as an equal. His charm. His—his—everything.

  Ashlyn felt quite dreamy when she left her car and went indoors. Her parents had left lights on for her, and had gone to bed. But she knew from experience that one or the other would still be awake.

  ‘Goodnight,’ she called quietly as she passed their door.

  ‘Goodnight, dear,’ her mother answered.

  Ashlyn went along to her own room. She closed the door and looked at the telephone by her bed. Carter would be asleep long since. Surely he hadn’t meant it when he’d instructed her to ring him when she got home?

  She collected her diary from the handbag she had used at work that day. She had his phone number. No, it was silly; she couldn’t ring. He’d think she’d gone potty! Ashlyn dropped the diary down on her bed and went to her bathroom to wash and prepare for bed.

  But, on returning to her bedroom, that diary seemed to haunt her. She picked it up and, placing it on her bedside table, got into bed—and knew that with Carter, Carter, Carter for some unknown reason buzzing around in her head she was just not going to sleep a wink unless she did something about it.

  She picked up the diary and found his telephone number. So she’d call but if Carter didn’t answer by the time it had rung five times she was going to put the phone down.

  Almost as if he was sitting there with his hand on his phone, he answered straight away. She wasn’t ready for him—didn’t know what to say. ‘Home safe,’ was what she did eventually manage.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Carter murmured quietly.

  Ashlyn put her receiver back on its cradle and lay down. She felt a little confused—yet she felt happy. She closed her eyes. She had a smile on her face as sleep claimed her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE weekend seemed to drag by on leaden feet. Ashlyn went out with her friends on Saturday and Sunday, as fond of them as ever. But she was ready and eager to go to work when Monday dawned. ‘See you at the usual time, I expect,’ she remarked to her mother on leaving.

  ‘Unless you’re delayed on some business matter,’ her father chipped in.

  ‘Bye,’ she smiled, and drove to Hamilton Holdings feeling a touch anxious that both her parents seemed to have blown up her role out of all proportion. Though, on thinking about it, she didn’t suppose many of the chairman’s staff were invited into his home to act as hostess. But her parents didn’t know about that!

  Ashlyn entered her office wondering what the day would bring. Would Carter perhaps pop in to say hello? She felt that they were on better terms now than they had been.

  She heard the lift stop many times and each time masculine footsteps neared her door she felt flustered. Then she wondered—as those footsteps went straight on past and faded away—what she was getting flustered about.

  The only person she saw in that first hour was Ivy. ‘Are you all right for tea and coffee?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘Fine, thanks, Ivy. Have you time for a cup?’

  ‘Why not?’ Ivy answered, looking decidedly wicked. ‘They’ll never think of looking for me here!’

  Ashlyn laughed—and was laughing again later when Vezio Morini telephoned her from Italy. They fell to speaking in Italian straight away. She soon discovered that his call was not a business call; Vezio told her that he had thought of nothing but her since meeting her last Thursday. She had to smile.

  ‘It’s very kind of you to say so,’ she replied. If nothing else, Vezio was extremely good for the ego.

  ‘It’s true!’ he protested, sounding upset that she might not believe him. He was still going on at length when her office door opened—and Carter stood there. She felt her cheeks go pink and, as Carter came in and sat himself down, she wished that Vezio—who was just coming to the point of his call—would hang up. ‘Which is why, since my schedule has me tied up here for the next week, I ask if you would like to fly here for dinner tonight. I can arrange a plane for you,’ he stated, making her blink.

  Realising some comment from her was required, Ashlyn, not looking at Carter but aware that he was waiting his patient best for her to end her call, told Vezio that she didn’t think so. She caught a movement from Carter when he heard her speaking Italian and was certain he knew to whom she was talking. She confirmed it when, thanking her caller nicely, she ended, ‘Arrivederci, Vezio.’ Ashlyn’s heart was drumming wildly when she put down the phone. She glanced at Carter—and her spirits promptly nose-dived. Gone was the charm of Friday. Grim-faced, he stared at her. Ashlyn did not bother to ask why he had come to see her—she guessed she would have it fired at her, both barrels, soon enough.

  ‘I didn’t know Morini was in London!’ Carter barked—clearly put out about something.

  Well, she didn’t have to take that from anybody. ‘He isn’t!’ she snapped. Goodness, she wanted her head looking at! She had been happy after spending an evening in his company! How crass could you get? ‘Vezio phoned from Italy.’

  ‘To speak to me?’

  It was a legitimate question—she was, after all, there to take calls from people like Vezio when Carter wasn’t around. Carter didn’t have his briefcase with him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t only just arrived for the day.

  ‘No. To speak to me,’ she replied.

  That didn’t appear to please Carter either. ‘What about?’ he snarled.

  Damn him! ‘It was personal!’ she flared.

  ‘He’s never met you!’

  That stopped her in her tracks. Quite obviously it hadn’t been Carter who had told Vezio where to find her last Thursday, as she had thought. ‘Correction—I met him last week.’ Sort that! she fumed.

  He did! ‘He came here looking for you?’ Ashlyn stubbornly refused to answer—but that didn’t sweeten Carter any. ‘And on the strength of one meeting he’s making personal calls to you?’ he challenged.

  Dammit, he made it sound as if she had a face like the back of a bus. This was no time for false modesty! ‘It happens!’ she erupted, sparks flashing in her eyes. Double dammit! ‘All the time!’ she added for good measure. Who did he think he was?

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Carter grated, now on his feet and looking ready to throttle her.

  Good—she loved him too. ‘In this case, Vezio invited me to dine with him in Italy tonight.’ She was nowhere near to backing down. ‘Should I go, do you think?’ she asked, and had her breath catch the back of her throat at his answer.

  ‘Not if you want to come back a virgin!’ he snarled. With that, he was on his way out.

  Ashlyn was so outraged at what he had just said that if she’d had a hatchet handy she’d have thrown it at his back. How dared he? How dared he say that to her?

  She was too angry to stay seated. Too angry to stay where she was. Too angry to lift her phone to tell the switchboard where she was going. Ashlyn went and took herself off for a walk.

  Diabolical swine! When had she ever thought that she and Carter were on better terms now than they had been? Just let him ask her to be his hostess a second time. Just let him! Hanging, drawing and quartering were too good for the vitriolic tyke!

  It was half past eleven when Ashlyn returned to her office. She had been in two minds about returning at all. Then she’d remembered her parents, and their pride. Add to that how extremely upset and disappointed they would be even though they knew that the job was only temporary and to return to Hamilton Holdings seemed to be the better, if unpalatable, option.

  She ha
d been back barely a minute when her phone rang. Her fight was with Carter, not the company. Ashlyn donned her professional hat and picked up the phone.

  ‘Feeling better?’

  It was him! His gall! She had never felt ill! ‘It must have been something disagreeable I came across,’ she replied, somehow managing to make her voice as cool as his.

  ‘Well, now that it’s out of your system...’ Was he asking for it! “The thing is, aware as I am of your many talents...’

  Was he being funny? She gave him the benefit of the doubt, though why, when she knew what an out-and-out monster he could be, she couldn’t have said. ‘What do you mean exactly?’ she asked, ready to slam down the phone at the first word of insult.

  ‘Excellent hostess, trilingual—’ he began to enumerate—and Ashlyn could feel her crossness ebbing.

  ‘So I speak a few languages,’ she interrupted, inexplicably discovering a need to keep her feet firmly on the ground.

  ‘More than three?’ Carter enquired.

  She had no idea where this conversation was leading. But it was fairly evident, for all his voice had lost its cool edge and was starting to sound quite pleasant, that he had not rung her to apologise for his earlier remarks.

  ‘Well—yes,’ she answered.

  ‘French?’

  Ah. Light began to dawn—obviously he had some French guest he was entertaining to lunch and wanted her assistance. A feeling of excitement started to pulse through her veins and in an instant Ashlyn had forgotten every bit about not helping him entertain ever again.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied confidently. French was one of her best languages.

  There was a pause at the other end, and she waited, ready to make a note of what time and where they would be eating. Therefore she was positively thunderstruck when Carter finally drawled, ‘Now isn’t that fortunate? I have to go to Paris this afternoon—you can come with me.’

  ‘Par—Me! B-but...’ Utterly stunned, she could barely take it in.

  ‘You have a problem with that?’ Carter asked curtly, and Ashlyn realised that, playing in a business field, she was acting less than professionally.

  ‘None at all!’ she answered equally curtly. ‘Just tell me what time, and for how long—and should I bring the family pearls?’

  She thought she heard him smother a laugh, but knew she was mistaken when, still in the same curt tone, he stated, ‘I’ll see you at the airport at four-thirty. I’m not sure how long we’ll be there.’ He waited only to tell her, ‘You’d better cancel all your social engagements for this week.’ Then he put down his phone.

  Ashlyn still didn’t know whether to believe it or not. Her phone still in her hand, she starred at the instrument. She was going to France—with Carter! All too plainly that was why he had called by earlier—to tell her about it in person. Only she had annoyed him with her prattle about should she go to Italy that night—on a personal matter—when he had plans for her to go to France on a business matter.

  If only he’d said. Pride was the very devil, she realised. Quite clearly, when he’d asked her whether she spoke French, Carter had been saying that he could not. And, not wishing to own up to it, he and his pride had taken refuge in slamming into her.

  Oh, Carter. As if it mattered that he could not speak French. Dear Carter... Suddenly Ashlyn felt tremendously alive. As if anything mattered! She was in love with him, loved him, loved him, loved him—and she was going to France with him.

  Her next reaction was to feel overwhelmingly dazed. She loved him? She slowly put down the phone. She loved him? Was in love with him? She shook her head as if to deny it. But it was a fact! She had been in love with him last Friday, and that explained why she had gone to bed so happy. She had been in love with him and hadn’t known it—most probably, now she came to think of it, she had been in love with him before then.

  Fifteen minutes later Ashlyn was still sitting coming to terms with her startling and unlooked-for discovery. It was just then that she realised that to race home, pack, get ready and be at the airport for four-thirty was impossible.

  She did what any girl would do in the circumstances. She rang her mother. ‘You’ve only just caught me—I was on my way out!’ Katherine Ainsworth commented.

  ‘Were you going anywhere special?’ Ashlyn asked fearfully.

  ‘No—just taking a look at the shops.’

  ‘You couldn’t do me a ginormous favour, could you?’ Ashlyn asked.

  ‘I’ll try. What is it?’

  Ashlyn could see no way of hiding that she might not be home for a week, nor where she was going, particularly since she was enlisting her mother’s help.

  ‘The thing is, it’s just been dropped on me that I’m flying to France later today—and I just can’t—’

  ‘You’re going to France!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘On business?’ she questioned, and was nearly ecstatic when she heard who with. Then, efficiency being her middle name, she shared Ashlyn’s problem and was soon making light of it.

  Ashlyn replaced her phone knowing that at around two-thirty, or before, traffic permitting, her mother would arrive with her passport and a suitcase packed with everything she would need for the next few days. If that swine Carter, that dear swine Carter, thought he had given her something of a stiff initiative test, then, thanks to her mother, she would come through with flying colours.

  Geoff stopped by and she gave him a cup of coffee. ‘Lunch with me tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ she smiled. ‘Prior engagement.’ Last Friday she would have told him that she was going to Paris, but today she found that she could not. For all it was business, it somehow came under that ‘private’ heading, as it had on Friday evening when she had been unable to tell her mother and father where she was going.

  ‘I can see I’ll have to book lunch with you weeks in advance at this rate,’ he grumbled, but smiled, as he usually did.

  At one o’clock her phone rang. It was Carter, and her heart jumped, then plummeted. Was he ringing to tell her the French trip was off?

  He wasn’t, apparently, but his tone was back to being curt—Lord knew why she loved the brute. ‘I thought you’d have left to throw a few things in a case ages ago!’ he said.

  Throw a few things in a case—for Paris? The man had no idea! ‘Oh, I can buy anything I haven’t got with me when I get there,’ she floated back at him airily. ‘Though, while you’re on the line, it might be an idea if I know which airport to drive to.’

  Carter told her, then questioned, ‘You’re going straight from the office?’

  ‘I thought I would.’

  ‘I’ll drive you in my car.’

  Lovely thought! But Ashlyn counselled herself to be steady. ‘I’ll need my car to drive home when we get back,’ she stated. Carter hadn’t said when that would be. Hamilton Holdings might have closed down for the day, her car shut up in a locked car park, for all she knew.

  He put down the phone. Spleenish toad! she thought crossly. But because she loved him she was able to laugh. He might be the one in charge now, but she was the one who was going to translate French into English.

  At two o’clock she went down to Reception to wait for her mother. Katherine Ainsworth—a thrilled Katherine Ainsworth, it had to be said—arrived at ten past two, wheeling a very large suitcase. She was also carrying a plastic suit carrier.

  ‘You’re a gem.’ Ashlyn gave her mother a kiss as she relieved her of the suitcase. ‘Would you like to come up and see where I work?’

  ‘Would I ever!’ On the way up in the lift her mother explained the plastic carrier. ‘I thought I remembered you wearing that grey suit this morning. Really not good enough for Paris,’ her smart mother went on. ‘So I brought that green two-piece that suits you so well.’

  ‘Did I say you were a gem?’ Ashlyn smiled, and once they were in her office she changed into the green two-piece while her mother made a cup of coffee.

  ‘That’s much better. Now here’s your passport. Your father
’s over the moon about how well you’re getting on.’

  ‘It is only temporary.’ Ashlyn thought she should mention it, hating the thought more than her mother. Dear heaven, Ashlyn felt desolate at just the thought of never seeing Carter again. But she had this time with him in Paris to look forward to, and she wasn’t going to think of anything so awful as what would happen when Lorna Stokes returned and everything was back to normal in his office again.

  ‘Now, I’m not going to hold you up, but I insist on knowing all the non-confidential bits and pieces when you come home,’ Katherine Ainsworth stated once she had finished her coffee. And Ashlyn, remembering how confusing she had found the corridors until she had got used to who worked where, went down in the lift with her mother to see her off.

  She went down in the lift again with her suitcase a little while later. No way was she going to leave it until the last minute to get to the airport. Carter would just love that, wouldn’t he? Plane ready to take off and no French-speaking Director of Senior Communications!

  That thought made her laugh, and she wondered if being in love had made her feather-headed. But, feather-headed or not, she arrived at the airport in good time, and was there, ready and waiting, when Carter, suitcase and briefcase in his hands, strode in.

  He spotted her straight away, though whether because of where she had positioned herself or because he was the sort of man who missed nothing she was hard put to tell.

  Carter halted by her, his dark gaze raking over her smart two-piece, and she realised that, unbelievably, he remembered she had been wearing something different that morning. His glance then went down to the large case by her side, and she could just feel a laugh bubbling up inside her.

  ‘A girl’s best friend is her mother,’ she murmured, and just loved it when, after a moment of staring down at her in stony silence, suddenly he laughed too.

  He was serious, though, when a moment later he transferred his glance to her suitcase. ‘Can you manage that?’ he enquired.