A Business Engagement

by Jessica Steele

  She gave a small cough, but her voice was still husky when she mumbled nervously, ‘It’s still your prerogative.’

  ‘You want more?’ he asked, before conceding, ‘Who can blame you?’ Sending her brain haywire again, he gently, if briefly, placed his lips against hers. ‘Shall I tell you how much, in the weeks before the next board meeting, I had you on my mind? Or how, when I’d already asked Joseph to chair that board meeting because I was otherwise committed, I suddenly found I’d made free time to attend?’ She wanted to ask, Because of me? But that was too ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t because of her. ‘And what did I find when I arrived...?’

  ‘Me, holding hands with Geoff,’ she answered at once. She had never forgotten. ‘And you looked through me.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do? I’d warned you to leave him alone—and there you were enjoying some joke with him. I was starting to become irrational, and didn’t like it.’

  ‘Irrational?’

  ‘Geoff’s brilliant at his job, but a womaniser. He flirts as easily as he breathes. If fault there was, it certainly wasn’t yours.’

  ‘Now he tells me!’ she exclaimed. ‘But why, then, warn me to keep away from him?’

  ‘Didn’t I say I was growing irrational? It didn’t stop there. I was later certain that Geoff had asked you out to lunch.’

  ‘You’re clever,’ she agreed. ‘Actually, I’d already turned down his offer. But was that the reason you more or less insisted that I lunch with you and Osmund Kogstad?’

  Carter smiled ruefully. ‘That, and the fact that I didn’t much care for the arrogant way you’d been going to walk by with your nose in the air.’

  ‘Honestly!’ she gasped.

  ‘In case you’re not beginning to get the picture—although with your intelligence I’m sure you are,’ he asserted, ‘you, Ashlyn Ainsworth, were starting to get to me in a big way.’

  Her heart seemed to turn over. ‘Was that—er—why you phoned when Lorna had her accident? Was that why you asked me to come in and...?’

  ‘The job in itself was valid enough,’ Carter assured her in case she might feel she had been doing something worthless. ‘Even if it was a surprise to find out that most of the other directors had jumped on the bandwagon and had calls diverted your way too. I’d seen you charm both Bill Trevitt and Fitz Unger on the first day, remember, and Osmund Kogstad was delighted that not only could you chat away in Norwegian if need be, but that you had such natural warmth. Whether any of us knew it or not, there was a niche with your name on just waiting to be successfully filled.’

  That made her feel really good, really valued, and she just had to smile. ‘Why, thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ Carter answered. ‘The job was valid, as I’ve told you. Though I have to confess—and it’s only lately that I’ve confessed it to myself,’ he admitted, ‘I was more keen to have you come and work in this building because seeing you only once every four or five weeks was too long a gap to endure.’

  Her eyes shot wide. Oh, glory, oh heavens! ‘You—um—wanted to see me more—frequently?’

  ‘I did,’ he owned. ‘Even on that first day, when I came to your office and wondered what in thunder I was playing at by making some remark about your hairstyle, I had an urge to see you whenever I could.’

  ‘Oh?’ she queried. She wanted to ask a whole lot more, but with her emotions suddenly in such a jangled mess she was dreadfully afraid she might ask or say the wrong thing.

  ‘Oh, indeed, little Ashlyn,’ Carter murmured ruefully. ‘So why, when I wanted to see you more frequently, were you never there when I stopped by?’

  ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Am I? Out to lunch with this man, out to lunch with that one. Flowers arriving...’

  ‘You were—’ She broke off, flustered.

  ‘Were?’ he pressed.

  ‘I—um—was going to say you were—weren’t—er—jealous? But of course you weren’t,’ she added quickly, going very red and wanting to die.

  She nearly did when Carter, as nice as you please, replied, ‘My darling—jealous? Of course I was jealous! Even if I wasn’t admitting it at the time, I was as jealous as hell!’

  ‘No!’ she gasped, staring at him in wonder.

  ‘Aw, come here,’ Carter groaned, and, reaching for her, he took her into his arms. ‘I know I’ve barely begun to explain anything yet, but if you won’t allow me to just sit and hold you for a while, then I’m certain I’ll burst a blood vessel.’

  ‘Oh, we can’t have that,’ Ashlyn murmured. It was as if she was dreaming, and never wanted to awaken; to be in Carter’s arms was utter bliss.

  ‘My love,’ he breathed, and, turning her, he looked into her eyes. Then, gently, he kissed her. She did not argue. And when that beautiful kiss ended he looked tenderly into her eyes again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised softly, ‘but I really needed that.’

  ‘You’re—um—forgiven.’

  ‘You know you’re driving me nuts?’

  She laughed, but needed to hear more, so much more. ‘You were saying?’ she questioned. He held her tightly for a moment as a thank-you for the invitation.

  ‘I was saying that I was growing greener and greener about just about every man you came into contact with,’ Carter took up.

  ‘But you weren’t admitting it at the time.’

  ‘Certainly not! Did I care who you lunched with? Did it bother me that I should bump into you at the lift with your arms full of flowers? Of course it did,’ he smiled.

  ‘The flowers were from Henry for lunching with Donald Yates on his behalf.’ Ashlyn saw no reason not to tell him and, fair being fair, she added, ‘Um—if it’s any consolation, I was certain you’d had lunch—er—a long lunch—with some female.’ She could barely believe the look of delight that came to Carter’s face.

  ‘You were jealous!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Since when has jealously been a solely male right?’ she asked.

  She nearly dropped when, in his delight and obviously hardly realising what he was saying, he breathed, ‘Oh, Ashlyn, dear Ashlyn, I do love you so.’ They both halted stock-still. Carter seemed shaken; Ashlyn certainly was. Yet she was the first to find her voice, a poor thing though it was.

  ‘Did you just say—what I thought you said?’ she asked croakily.

  She still could not believe it when he answered, ‘That wasn’t the way I’d rehearsed it!’

  ‘You rehearsed...’

  ‘Ever since early Wednesday morning, even before I knew you’d left, I’ve been rehearsing how it would go. If you said this, I’d say that. And if you said... then I’d... But never did I consider for one moment blurting it out like that. See what you do to me, woman?’ he growled.

  ‘I’m—er—glad that I do,’ she confessed shyly.

  ‘Oh, sweet love, does that mean what I think it means? What my logical and illogical thoughts—Why would Ashlyn do that if...? and, Surely to have... it must mean... Tell me? Am I going completely insane, or do you have some small regard for me?’

  He looked strained and she couldn’t bear it. ‘Oh, Carter, I was all churned up about you before I’d ever met you,’ she confessed. ‘Then I met you and you made me so angry, and I knew I’d never meet anyone again who could get to me so much emotionally.’

  ‘Don’t, for God’s sake, leave it there,’ he begged.

  Ashlyn saw that he seriously needed to be told how it was with her, and willingly went on, ‘I was disturbed by you from our very first meeting. Then I started work here, and it got so that the weekends—er—when I stood no chance of seeing you—were very dull indeed.’

  ‘You were missing me—as I missed you!’ he pounced, seeming very much cheered.

  ‘I wasn’t admitting it.’

  ‘Of course you weren’t,’ he agreed solemnly. And, still in that same tone, he asked, ‘When did you know that you loved me?’

  ‘Oh, I knew that when—Oh-h-h!’ she exclaimed She hadn’t meant...<
br />
  But Carter had heard and, having led her unwarily into telling him what he was most avid to know, he gave a roar of joy and pulled her closer. ‘You do love me!’ he cried exultantly. ‘You do! Darling, darling Ashlyn. Oh, wonderful, wonderful darling,’ he breathed. For long, silent moments, not saying another word, he just sat and held her close up against his heart. ‘Oh, love, oh, love,’ he murmured finally as he pulled back so he could see into her eyes. ‘I do so love you,’ he breathed. ‘Let me hear you say how you feel.’

  She felt shaky, nervous, near to tears. Carter loved her; he loved her. ‘Oh, I love you, oh, I do,’ she whispered. And then Carter kissed her.

  It was a heavenly kiss, a tender kiss, and it seemed like a seal, a goodbye to past hurts. Carter looked as shaken as she felt when at last they drew back.

  ‘Did anyone ever tell you about your power to drive men crazy?’ Carter murmured, kissing her face, his lips doing incredible things to her right ear.

  ‘Not—er—recently,’ she answered chokily. Carter loved her and she was still having a hard time taking it in. ‘Um—if it’s not too much trouble, I wouldn’t mind hearing about it,’ she whispered, sorely needing to have her feet back down upon the ground. Though with Carter having declared that he loved her she was quite happy floating where she was.

  ‘Remind me to tell you of the times you repeatedly came between me and my concentration,’ he suggested. Her hair was dressed loose and he buried his face in its luxuriant red-gold.

  Ashlyn clutched onto him, not caring any longer that he might think her clinging. ‘When, for instance?’ she laughed joyously, her head back as he transferred his lips to the arch of her throat.

  ‘For instance, that day when you’d lunched with that crook, Corbett. You and I ended up having a spat and you slammed out. Knowing I’d upset you, I just couldn’t settle.’

  Ashlyn had instant recall. Carter had called it a ‘spat’ but she had been fuming. ‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘You were upset that I was upset?’

  Carter nodded. ‘I came to see you later, intending to try and make things better—only to find you weren’t upset at all but were laughing on the phone with some Todd bloke. All my intentions to say something pleasant went up in smoke!’

  ‘You were jealous of Todd! I’ve known him donkey’s years. He’s more old chum than boyfriend,’ Ashlyn assured him swiftly.

  ‘Now you tell me!’

  ‘Ah.’ Something suddenly occurred to her. ‘You deliberately made me go to Joseph Fulford’s home so I shouldn’t keep my date with Todd?’ she accused lovingly.

  ‘Not that it did me much good—you told me the next morning that he’d waited for you.’

  ‘I lied.’

  ‘You...’ Carter looked at her, laughed with her. ‘Oh, I adore you, Ashlyn Ainsworth,’ he said.

  And Ashlyn basked in this new-found love and, by degrees, started to grow more confident. So much so that, given she had been at such pains to hide her jealousy, she found that she could say, ‘Hmm, you had a heavy date that particular night too, as I recall.’

  ‘You’re marvellous,’ he beamed. ‘I lied.’

  ‘You lied too!’

  ‘Why should you have all the fun?’ he grinned. But, perhaps in case she was still feeling a little jealous, he added, ‘I confess, my lovely, that I haven’t had what I’d call a serious date since that Tuesday when I first cast my eyes on you.’

  Ashlyn stared at him. ‘Oh, how wonderful,’ she sighed, then confessed, ‘I thought your business appointment in Paris on Tuesday evening was with the female you’d spent most of that lunchtime in conversation with.’

  Carter shook his head. ‘My lovely darling, at precisely twelve-thirty that day I’d been delivered the body-blow of knowing that I was in love with you.’

  ‘Oh,’ she sighed softly.

  He lightly kissed her, resuming, ‘My thinking was shattered as I introduced you around, while at the same time I was growing more and more jealous as you charmed the socks off every male in the room.’

  ‘Oh, Carter,’ she murmured.

  ‘Believe me, I felt I was going completely off my head, and had to deliberately distance myself from you. Then of course I didn’t like it that clearly you’d forgotten my existence.’

  ‘I hadn’t at all,’ Ashlyn defended gently. ‘I was having a jealous battle of my own. You seemed to be hanging onto your lunchtime companion’s every word.’

  ‘When what I wanted to do was come and sit beside you. You, I might mention, were sitting between two Frenchmen, and each time I looked—which was more frequently than I could help—you seemed to be thoroughly enjoying yourself—’ He broke off, a dark look coming to him. ‘God, when I think of Boirel so much as laying a finger on you—’

  ‘I love you,’ Ashlyn cut in urgently.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ Carter groaned, and held her safe to him. ‘I’d never have taken you to Paris had I dreamed you would come to such harm.’

  ‘Why did you—take me to Paris, I mean?’ He hadn’t needed her knowledge of the French language, she knew.

  ‘Promise you’re not going to hate me?’

  ‘As if I could.’

  ‘I’m certain there were many times you came close,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’m never going to lie to you again,’ she answered, and he smiled, and went on to answer her question.

  ‘I hadn’t, at that time, fully acknowledged what my feelings for you were,’ he confessed. ‘I knew, of course, that you were a splendid hostess. Henry Whitmore has never stopped singing your praises since you helped him entertain a couple of people to lunch.’

  ‘That’s very kind of him.’

  ‘Not kind—fact!’ Carter stated. ‘As I myself discovered more fully a week ago when you hostessed for me at my place. Not that I’d intended asking you to do that when I came looking for you,’ he admitted.

  ‘You didn’t intend to...?’ she gasped.

  Carter kissed her cheek, and, liking the feel of her skin, seemed compelled to kiss the other one, before he pulled back to explain, ‘I’d been to your office earlier—for nothing specific other than I just felt a need to see you—only you weren’t there. So I called back, and it seemed to me then that everyone else was enjoying your company bar me.’

  ‘And that’s why you invited me to hostess for you?’

  ‘From the reports I was getting, not to mention my own observations when I’d lunched in your company, I knew you’d make an excellent job of it. What I didn’t reckon with was how my heart would start to pound when I opened my front door and there you were—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.’

  ‘Oh, Carter!’ she whispered.

  They kissed; it seemed the most natural thing to do. They kissed again, and held onto each other, and when that kiss broke Carter held her firmly to him, murmuring endearments in her hair, and telling her of his love for her.

  ‘You’re so sweet, shy, sharp, angry—I love all your moods,’ he breathed, moving a stray strand of hair gently back from her face.

  ‘I don’t think I particularly had moods before I met you,’ she laughed.

  ‘Forgive me, villain that I am.’ He took all the blame upon himself. ‘Though, if it’s any consolation, you’ve had me doing too many times things that I would have believed alien to me.’

  ‘Give me an instance,’ she laughed in delight.

  ‘Did I once say you were a minx?’ But he went on, ‘I was as astonished as you must have been, at the end of that dinner a week ago, to hear myself offering you one of the spare rooms for the night.’

  ‘Oh, I knew you didn’t mean anything—er—naughty by it.’

  Carter grinned at the adjective she chose, but agreed, ‘I didn’t. I realised later, though, that it was just that I wanted—needed—to spend more time near you, alone with you.’

  ‘Oh,’ she sighed.

  ‘Which then made it a nonsense that, after having been unable to rest when you’d gone until you rang to tell me you were home safe, th
e following Monday, I found I was resisting the urge to duck in to see you when I was passing on my way in. I had to give in and come and see you in the end, of course.’

  Ashlyn had never forgotten. ‘I was on the phone to Vezio.’

  ‘And I was as mad as blazes. You were actually daring to think in terms of flying to Italy to be with him that night.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have g—’ She broke off, a startling thought hitting her. ‘That wasn’t why... Did you really need a board member with you? No, I don’t bel—’

  ‘Neither did I.’ Carter, to her amazement, was right on her wavelength. ‘To start with I’m sure I only rang you on the intercom to check that, after our fight—and knowing I’d be in France for three or four days—you were all right. But the next thing I knew, even as we were talking, was that I was suddenly starting to think, to hell with you going to Italy that night, albeit I couldn’t at that moment come up with any business reason; and I decided you’d fly to Paris with me instead.’

  ‘It was a lovely flight,’ she remembered dreamily.

  ‘But you took exception to our sharing the same apartment.’

  ‘It wasn’t that exactly,’ she quickly owned. ‘It was more that being together, living so close together, I was afraid you might get a hint of how I truly felt about you.’

  ‘You knew you were in love with me then?’ Carter picked up with the quickness she had always associated with him.

  ‘Ooops,’ she smiled, but since he knew now how she felt about him anyway she continued, ‘It was all so new to me. It was only that day, when I put the phone down after you’d told me you’d see me at the airport, that—it was there. I just knew that I was in love with you.’

  ‘My sweet darling,’ Carter breathed, kissing her hair, kissing her face.

  ‘You kissed my cheek then—in that apartment—when we arrived.’