A Business Engagement

by Jessica Steele

  Carter rang the bell again. Ashlyn had no intention of answering it. He rang it a third and then a fourth time. Ashlyn stood immobile at the window. Carter came into her line of vision as he moved away from the door. She saw him stand there and look up at the windows. She was well to the side of the curtains, where she froze.

  If he was trying to gauge if she was there, and in which room, tough! She watched him, expecting him to return to his car. She felt a fluttery sensation in her insides when he walked not to his car but away from it. Where the dickens was he going? Surely he...?

  She leaned forward; he had walked out of her line of vision. Oh, no—suddenly she saw that he had gone to stand and look at her car. Oh, grief, she had been late in last night and had had too much on her mind to think to put it away. Oh, heavens, Carter knew it was her car; he had seen her into it last Friday after his dinner party. Did he suspect there was a very good chance that she was in?

  She watched him start to walk back to his own car then saw him look up. Hastily she pulled back—oh, drat, she’d disturbed the curtains! Had he seen? Her breath caught and she froze again. Then she was awash with relief. Albeit that there seemed something even more purposeful about him—there was determination in his every stride—Carter continued on to his car, got in and drove off.

  It took Ashlyn every minute of the time before her parents returned to get herself together again.

  Why in creation had Carter called? Why had he driven to her home when he should be at work? He should still be in Paris, shouldn’t he? Perhaps he’d come to apologise. Ashlyn tossed that idea out. Just because his ‘It’s over! Forget it!’ was seared for ever on her brain, it didn’t mean that he more than passingly remembered saying it. And, anyway, he could always write—not that she’d read his letter, she thought sniffily. Then she wondered what it was she thought he might apologise for. It was she who had done all the clinging. Oh, heck, when she thought of how she had fastened herself onto him!

  Her skin burned and she wanted to cry, to thump him, to be a million miles away. As it was, she stayed home, strove to keep calm, and tried to think up some excellent unarguable-with reason to explain to her father why she would not be attending another board meeting.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ her father declared at dinner. ‘Your mother is indefatigable.’ The subject of carpets occupied the mealtime.

  By morning, after yet another fractured night, Ashlyn knew that she was going to have to weather her father’s disappointment and tell him that she didn’t want to be a board member any more. Perhaps she could tell him that she’d had a personality clash with Carter—that was one name for what had happened!

  In an unhappy frame of mind she went down to breakfast, wishing that there were some easy way out. If there was, she couldn’t think of it.

  Her father was in the breakfast room, his head in his financial newspaper. ‘Hamilton Holdings are up again,’ he commented by way of a good morning. ‘I wonder if your uncle Edward still takes this paper now he’s retired?’

  Ashlyn gave an inner sigh. That pride again! He wanted Uncle Edward to see how well Hamilton Holdings were doing. ‘I expect he does,’ she said, taking her place at the table and still trying to find a painless way to convey to her father that not only would she not be going to Hamilton Holdings that morning, but that she was never going there again. A moment of courage arrived. ‘Dad?’ she attracted his attention. He looked up—there had been something a little strangled about her tone—and then Mrs North came into the breakfast room with the post.

  ‘He’s late this morning,’ she remarked, handing a bundle of letters to her employer.

  ‘I’ll bet he didn’t spend all yesterday looking at carpets,’ her father grumbled, inspecting the mail the housekeeper had brought in. ‘Ah, here’s one for you, Ashlyn—from Hamilton’s!’ he exclaimed, checking the Hamilton Holdings crest. ‘Now why would they be writing to you when you’ll be there with them in a little while?’

  Oh, grief, he was already sounding a little perturbed that something might be wrong. Her heart sank—how could she tell him? She couldn’t face it, not then, and, her courage gone for the moment, she invented, ‘Oh, I expect they thought they’d better write in case I wasn’t back from France in—er—time,’ and took the envelope he handed her.

  Her heart began to pump like crazy. Unusually, the envelope was handwritten—and in a hand she had seen on various documents. She just knew that it was Carter’s writing!

  ‘Hadn’t you better open it?’ her father suggested, when she just sat staring at the envelope, stunned. ‘If it’s so important that they have to let you know something before you get to the office on Monday...’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she mumbled. She didn’t want to open it—not here. But her father was waiting, proudly, expectantly.

  She took a knife from the table, trying desperately hard to hide the fact that her fingers were shaking. Even by post, the swine could do that to her. She glanced at her father; perhaps he’d lost interest. He hadn’t! His own mail ignored, he was watching and waiting for anything he might be able to pass on.

  Ashlyn withdrew the single sheet of paper from its envelope, her head in a whirl. Why was Carter writing to her? Had he written to apologise? Surely not!

  He had not, she discovered when she started to read; not was the operative word! Though first she checked the signature. As she had thought, it was from Carter. But not the Carter as in ‘Oh, little darling’, when in that Paris apartment she had cried all over him, but as in Rat with a capital R. This was a more formal Carter, a very much more formal Carter. In fact a downright cold, icy Carter, who in this instance signed himself, ‘C. Hamilton’.

  She raised her eyes to the start of his letter. ‘Dear Miss Ainsworth,’ he had begun. Miss Ainsworth! Ashlyn carried on reading, pink searing her skin. She didn’t believe it—couldn’t believe it—and read it over again.

  Dear Miss Ainsworth,

  I have tried several times, and without success, to tell you in person of the extraordinary meeting of the Hamilton Holdings board which I have called for this Friday at 11 a.m. The purpose of this meeting is to have you removed from the board for bringing the good name of the company into ill repute.

  It is my intention to put to the board your disgraceful conduct while on company business in France. You must be aware that your causing deliberate, physical harm to one of our most favoured French associates cannot be tolerated. Regrettably, I shall also have to reveal how I personally experienced a certain forwardness in your behaviour. You were advised on your first day with us that we would not countenance a scandal of any kind.

  I have to tell you that, rather than have a member of this board damage the reputation of Hamilton Holdings, I have no alternative but to call for your dismissal.

  You may, of course, attend the meeting to state your case if you wish. I would warn you, however, that in the event that the chairman’s vote is required to have you removed from the board, then I will have no hesitation in casting it.

  Yours sincerely,

  C. Hamilton

  Sincerely! She’d kill him! How dared he? How dared he do this to her? His nerve! His unmitigated gall! Her disgraceful conduct! What about his conduct? Scandal!

  Of course she’d deliberately set about Matthieu Boirel! Of course she’d bitten him—it was the only way she could get free of that foul octopod. What was she supposed to have done?

  So, OK, apart from telling Carter she had bitten the oaf, she hadn’t been able to talk about it at the time. But Carter knew why she had bitten him. He had understood, been kind, been...

  And now, because she had responded to that rat’s kindness... True, she had asked him to kiss her, but she had thought he knew why—so she could try and banish from her thoughts the hateful memory of Matthieu Boirel’s mouth. And now Carter had the outrageous nerve to tell the whole board just how ardently she had responded. Him and his ‘a certain forwardness in your behaviour’! Glory, he wanted chopping up in
to little pieces and feeding to the sharks—though why poison the sharks?

  ‘It looks to be serious, dear?’

  Oh, grief, she’d forgotten her father. Serious! That was a mild term for what it was! It was one thing to want to be off the board of Hamilton Holdings, but quite another to be thrown off and in this way!

  She looked at her father over the top of her letter. And suddenly the whole welter of implications that her dismissal from the board would arouse began to assault her, and she knew that she had to protect him. Even while she was still choking on the fact that Carter was about to tell the fourteen other male members of the board about ‘a certain forwardness in her behaviour’, Ashlyn knew she just couldn’t sit still and take it!

  Oh, Lord, someone, some female, would be there at that meeting this morning to take down the minutes. Minutes! Minutes that would have to be typed up. Minutes which, since Carter’s trusted Lorna Stokes was still away, could be read by anyone in that PA’s office. Ashlyn swallowed as she realised that those minutes would have to be put on file so that an auditor—or just about anybody—could have access to them. Heavens above, they were bound to get leaked to the newspapers. They’d love to know about someone being thrown off the Hamilton Holdings board—and why.

  Ye gods, Uncle Edward would know about it, and Uncle Richard—not to mention the rest of the family. What about her father’s pride then?

  That instant Ashlyn was on her feet. ‘Sorry, Dad, can’t stop,’ she said, waving her letter for his benefit. ‘I’ve some urgent business to conduct.’ With that, pausing only to pick up her bag and car keys, she was on her way.

  She had known from the start that Carter planned to get her out as soon as he could, and on whatever pretext. Oh, how could she ever have lost sight of that?

  CHAPTER NINE

  ASHLYN was still furious when she parked her car at Hamilton Holdings. Getting out, she strove for calm by taking a short walk around the parking area. But only for her fury to turn to outrage when she spotted the car that had been briefly parked on her drive yesterday. Right! The scheming, despotic toad was in!

  Marching straight over to the lift, she stabbed at the top-floor button. Calm—no chance! If he thought she would quietly stand by and let him do that to her father did he have another think coming!

  Ashlyn went charging from the lift to Carter Hamilton’s office. She had been there once before. That time she had knocked. This time—forget that! She went storming in.

  He was there behind his desk, giving some instruction to a PA she knew, who was busy with a notepad. Ashlyn’s resolve faltered a trifle. She had thought she would never be able to look him in the face again—it wasn’t easy. Then he looked up to see who had entered his domain so unceremoniously. Their eyes met, and she thought he looked about to smile. But he was a treacherous rat—and her resolve came back full force. Laugh at her, would he?

  ‘I want a word with you, Hamilton!’ she snapped. That took the smile off his face!

  He was cool, though—she’d give him that. Totally unflurried, unflustered, he instructed the startled PA, ‘If you’d get on with this and. . .’ his glance went back to Ashlyn ‘. . .see to it that I’m not disturbed for. . .’ he paused ‘...an hour.’ An hour! This wasn’t going to take that long!

  ‘Yes, Mr Hamilton,’ the woman replied dutifully, and went quickly out.

  ‘So you finally did it!’ Ashlyn went on the attack, barely waiting for the door to close.

  ‘Did what?’ Carter was on his feet, moving over to her.

  ‘You know damn well what!’ she raged, wanting so desperately to be as cool as he was. But, as he came closer, she felt herself growing more agitated than ever.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he suggested, ignoring the upright one by the desk and indicating one of the ‘visitor’s’ sofas.

  ‘I’ve no intention of making myself comfortable. I’m not staying that long!’ she exploded pithily, backing away from him a little. Though of course she wasn’t in the least bit afraid of him, of his touch—oh, damn! She made herself think of her father. ‘You’ve wanted me out from day one!’ she challenged hotly. ‘You’ve just been waiting for your chance since then!’ She was gathering up a fine head of steam. ‘Whatever flimsy pretext presented itself, you were prepared to use. You—’

  ‘Flimsy pretext?’ he echoed. Oh, Lord, clearly he didn’t think the way she had clung onto him was flimsy! In truth, neither did she. But then, to her utter amazement, he added, ‘You call the fact that bastard assaulted you flimsy?’

  Ashlyn’s jaw dropped. ‘Just a minute!’ she halted him. She needed time; she’d got something wrong here. So, OK, take it steady. She had been thinking of the way she and Carter...the way she had... But Carter—in very aggressive terms, she would have said—was referring to Matthieu Boirel’s attack on her. Some of the heat went from her anger. ‘What’s going on?’ she was forced to ask.

  Carter’s look softened at her obvious bewilderment. ‘What’s going on is that I desp—um—I needed to see you, but when you refused to speak to me over the phone—see me or come down from your bedroom to answer the door yesterday—’ oh, grief, he had seen the curtains movie ‘—I realised I was going to have to take some drastic action.’

  ‘I...I’m not...’ She couldn’t fathom it.

  ‘You’ve heard about Mohammed?’

  ‘And his mountain,’ she agreed.

  ‘So I had to employ it—in reverse.’

  ‘You came to me, but I wouldn’t see you,’ Ashlyn worked out slowly. ‘So you decided that...’ She looked at him, startled. ‘You decided that I should come to you?’

  He nodded. ‘And you did. I knew in Paris that I’d hurt you,’ he went on, and Ashlyn started to get seriously worried. ‘But how the hell was I to make you feel any better if you wouldn’t see me?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered your condescending head about it!’ she tossed at him loftily.

  ‘Condescending? My G—’ He broke off. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he told her curtly.

  ‘Good, let’s have a row!’ she fired, and could have murdered him when, after a startled moment, he began to laugh.

  ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you again,’ he groaned, and for one dreadfully weak moment she almost thought he meant it.

  Backbone arrived, and how she needed it! ‘That’s why you intended having me thrown off the board, is it?’

  ‘I’d need a far more watertight reason to have you dismissed than the one I wrote in my letter.’

  ‘You...’ Her voice faded. She was having a hard time taking in everything. ‘I’ll admit I’m growing a bit confused—but are you seriously telling me now that I’m here that you don’t, after all, intend to get me thrown off?’

  Carter looked at her steadily, not a glimmer of a laugh or so much as a smile about him now. ‘You’re here, as you’ve just said,’ was his only comment.

  But she wasn’t going to leave it there. ‘We’re back to Mohammed and his mountain again?’

  ‘I drove away from your home furious with you, frustrated beyond bearing,’ he revealed. ‘In my fury, my frustration, not to mention the fact that I was determined to see you sooner rather than later, I went over everything you and I had ever said to each other.’

  Oh, heavens! ‘Thorough!’ she threw in, starting to feel totally mixed-up, rather than merely confused. She hadn’t quite told him that she loved him but she reckoned that, by her actions, she had come pretty jolly close. She began to wish she had never come. Never left her safe home and come here.

  He bore her hostility well. ‘Thoroughness paid off, didn’t it?’

  Clever devil! She supposed by that he meant because his letter had infuriated her so much she had raced here to give him a piece of her mind. She had lost sight of that. She opened her mouth to get started, only Carter beat her to it.

  ‘I remembered what you’d said about your father’s pride in your being an executive director. Pride, obviously, in your being a member of
the board. I remembered your pride too, remembered the way you stood up to me whenever you felt the need. I had to find some way to get you here. Believe me, Ashlyn, had there been another way, I’d have taken it.’

  ‘Too kind!’ she retorted, utterly foxed and wanting to know where this was leading.

  ‘But, as I saw it yesterday,’ he went on, ignoring her acid, ‘I had few options. Should I try this, should I try that? How about if I dismissed you from the board—or threatened to? I had to dream up a set of diabolical reasons that you, with your quick intelligence, would soon realise the Press might get hold of. Things you’d fear your father might see. From what I knew of you, I knew you’d fight—if not for yourself, then for your father.’

  Ashlyn stared at him, her eyes going wide, not only because of what he had said, but also because of the accuracy of his thoughts about her. Oh, heavens, if he knew that much about her, about how she felt about her father, did he know how she felt about him?

  ‘You look rather shaken,’ Carter went on kindly. ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘I’m not in the least shaken,’ she lied haughtily. She dithered about whether to go or stay. But when Carter took another step closer, effectively blocking her way to the door—and she took a step back and felt a sofa against her legs—it seemed a good idea to sit down. ‘So tell me about it!’ she invited waspishly, watching him warily when he came and sat down on the arm of the sofa. ‘So I’m here, apparently not to be thrown off the board because I deliberately physically harmed Matthieu Boirel. So w—?’

  ‘I can hardly have you dismissed from the board for that reason,’ Carter stated, and very nearly floored her when he added, ‘Especially when I afterwards took pleasure in harming him myself.’

  Ashlyn’s eyes went saucer-wide. ‘You hit him?’ she gasped.

  Carter shrugged. ‘It didn’t solve anything, but it certainly made me feel a whole lot better.’