by Penny Jordan
Carey’s was her company, its employees her responsibility, and she was not going to abdicate that responsibility as her father and her husband had done.
She removed the suit from its protective wrapper and held it against her.
Inappropriate. Ridiculous … yes. But it was her choice and to hell with what anyone else expected. As she put it on she thought that somewhere she could hear the echo of Matt’s approving laughter.
She reached the bank at five to nine. Giles was already there, and as she parked her car he got out of his and came across to her. She saw the way his jaw dropped a little as he saw her suit, but she ignored his quick frown, giving him a serene and apparently unaware smile.
Philip Taylor’s secretary, who eyed Davina’s suit with awe and appreciation as well as disbelief, announced that Mr Taylor was waiting for them.
When they were shown into his office Philip Taylor was alone. He gave Davina a brief look and then a second startled, unnerved one as he took in the appearance.
‘Mr Jardine isn’t here yet, so I thought we could run through one or two points first.’
‘Yes. Who exactly are the proposed purchasers?’ Giles asked before Davina could speak.
‘Why do they want Carey’s?’ Davina asked more quietly but very firmly.
‘Those are both questions I think I’ll leave to Jardine himself to answer. I must say, it’s a real stroke of good fortune that this has happened. I thought we were going to have real problems in finding any kind of buyer—’
‘I hope you haven’t told him that,’ Davina interrupted dulcetly.
He flushed a little and fiddled with the papers on his desk. ‘The company’s problems are no secret,’ he said quickly. ‘And naturally Jardine has done his homework. I think you’ll find, though, that the terms are … reasonable … given the circumstances.’
‘Let’s hope that he finds my terms as … favourable as you seem to find his,’ Davina murmured sweetly.
‘Your terms?’ Philip Taylor gave her an uncertain look. ‘My dear Davina, I’m not sure that you understand the position,’ he began.
‘Of course I understand it, Philip,’ Davina corrected him. ‘You want your loans repaid. This Mr Jardine wants Carey’s … and I want guaranteed security for my employees.’
‘Jardine will never agree to that,’ Giles protested.
Davina gave him a thoughtful look. ‘That depends, doesn’t it?’
‘On what?’ Giles asked her.
‘On how important it is to him to acquire Carey’s.’
There was a small silence, and then Philip Taylor said uncomfortably, ‘Davina, I really think it would be better if you let Giles and me handle the negotiations. I know that technically you are the main shareholder … I know you mean well, my dear, but when it comes to business—’
Ignoring his patronising “my dear”, Davina smiled pleasantly. ‘Oh, but I couldn’t do that, Philip. I think I’ve let others shoulder my responsibilities for me for too long. No, as you say, I am the main shareholder and—’
She broke off as the secretary reappeared to announce that Mr Jardine had arrived.
‘Show him in, please, Sylvia—oh, and bring us some coffee as well, will you?’
Davina was not seated facing the door, and without turning round, which she did not intend to do, she knew she would have no opportunity to assess or study Saul Jardine until he was close enough to her for him to be equally able to judge her reactions.
As Philip Taylor pushed back his chair and extended his hand, saying warmly, ‘Saul,’ she too stood up, her face composed and calm; another trick she had learned while living with her father.
He had drawn level with her now and she was at liberty to look directly at him.
In the shock of recognising him there was an unguarded split-second when her feelings showed on her face. She registered the brief mockery in his eyes as he glanced at her and her stomach churned with anger.
Why hadn’t she guessed … realised … put two and two together?
Philip was introducing her. Instead of shaking hands she inclined her head and stepped back from him. She had herself back under control now, her brief study of him assessing and measuring.
He was obviously a man who liked playing games, who enjoyed deceit and intrigue. She could guess how much pleasure his quick-thinking lie that he was a walker must have given him the night she had surprised him outside the office.
What had he really been doing there? Taking a chance on the site’s being unprotected, on being able to make an unauthorised inspection of the place? If so, he had been taking a risk. For all he had known, the premises could have been protected by guard dogs or alarmed. Was he, then, a man who liked taking risks, who enjoyed a challenge?
‘Davina has been running the company since her husband’s death,’ Philip Taylor was explaining.
‘Mrs James and I have already met. I called to see her the other day, hoping we might have an informal discussion, but she was—er—otherwise occupied …’
Giles, who had also recognised him, had gone a dark guilty red. Davina held on to her own temper … just.
‘You should have made your purpose known, Mr Jardine. I would have been pleased to discuss your proposals with you. Oh, I’m sorry, they’re not your proposals, are they?’ she added sweetly. ‘Philip did explain to me that you were acting on behalf of someone else.’
‘Yes, that’s correct.’ His voice was more steely now, and the look he gave her was sharply clinical.
Davina refused to be quelled. ‘And that someone else would be—er—a business associate … or your employer?’ She watched as his mouth thinned.
‘My employer, as it happens,’ he told her tersely.
‘And are we allowed to know the identity of this employer?’ Davina pressed gently. She could see both Giles and Philip frowning, and for a moment she thought Saul Jardine intended to refuse her request.
‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t know, although you’ll understand that Sir Alex Davidson wishes his interest in Carey’s to be treated as confidential.’
‘In case his interest inspires a similar interest in others?’ Davina suggested shrewdly.
Saul looked at her. She was shrewder than he had expected, different as well. He wondered what had prompted her to wear such an unsuitable outfit. It was the kind of thing a sophisticated, a very sophisticated and clever woman might wear for lunch with her lover; the kind of woman with the self-confidence and the sexuality to perhaps choose to wear it over a body that was otherwise naked, and to find some subtle way of allowing her lover to know it.
Davina James simply wasn’t that kind of woman. Or was she? He frowned as he gave her another quick look, deriding himself for even momentarily doubting his own judgement as he saw the pale shadow of the bra she was wearing beneath the fine fabric.
‘Where Sir Alex leads, others do sometimes tend to follow,’ he agreed suavely. ‘However, I’m afraid, not always with his skill at avoiding hidden pitfalls.’ He gave her a brief smile, the kind of smile that Davina recognised was designed to dismiss her comments as mere badinage, and his response to them chivalrous male indulgence.
‘Let’s be frank with one another, shall we? Your company is on the verge of bankruptcy, and, while my employer …’ he smiled again as he stressed the word, as though to indicate that he had not been offended by her pointed remark, but Davina knew otherwise ‘… would like to acquire the business, he has, naturally, to take market forces into account.’
‘If you’re trying to warn me that your employer expects to get Carey’s for next to nothing, you aren’t telling me anything I haven’t been able to work out for myself, Mr Jardine,’ Davina told him crisply.
She stood up, ignoring the tension she could see in both Philip’s and Giles’s faces.
‘Let me be frank with you. I am not interested in gaining any financial benefit for myself from the sale of the company. Naturally there are the outstanding loans to be taken into accou
nt, but I am sure I don’t need to go into these with you. Philip will have supplied you with all the details if you needed them.’
She gave the bank manager a brief look, recognising his irritation and confusion.
‘What is much more important to me is what your employer intends to do with Carey’s.’
‘To do?’ Saul questioned, his eyebrows lifting slightly as though he found her question a puzzling one.
‘Yes,’ Davina asserted. ‘For what purpose does your employer want Carey’s?’
‘I’m afraid Sir Alex does not always confide wholly in me,’ he told her smoothly. ‘As you yourself remarked earlier, I am merely an employee.’
‘I see.’
The look she gave him was unpleasantly assessing. He had, he realised with a sudden shaft of sharp perception, walked on to treacherous ground. Or been skilfully coerced on to it? The thought made his eyes narrow on her face, but Davina remained calm.
‘Well, then, it seems that the wisest course for me is to discuss with you the terms on which I am prepared to sell Carey’s, so that you can transmit them to Sir Alex.
‘I have prepared a schedule. I think the best thing would be for you to study it and then perhaps we could arrange a further meeting. Preferably after you have consulted your employer.’ As she finished speaking she extracted some neatly typed papers from the small case on the desk in front of her, and handed them to him.
‘Davina … what …?’ It was the lover who spoke to her … first.
‘It’s all right, Giles,’ Davina smiled firmly. ‘There’s no point in wasting Mr Jardine’s time, is there?’ She handed him a copy of the schedule she had given to Saul and then gave one to Philip Taylor.
‘When was this prepared?’ Giles asked her in a dazed voice.
‘Last night,’ Davina told him gently. ‘My father believed that every dutiful daughter should learn to type, Mr Jardine,’ she told Saul quietly. ‘Perhaps he was right.’
Was she actually telling him that she was well aware of why she had not been informed of this morning’s early appointment until so very late in the afternoon, or was he simply imagining things?
‘Davina … you never said anything about wanting to prepare a schedule of sale terms,’ Philip Taylor was saying uncomfortably.
Davina turned to smile gently at him.
‘Didn’t I, Philip?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LUCY was upstairs when the men arrived with the tree, half the contents of her wardrobes strewn around the room, evidence of the furious burst of temper that had driven her.
Now it was exhausted. Like Giles’s patience with her; his love for her? Her eyes blurred with tears. Why should she care about Giles, about what he felt—or, rather, about what he no longer felt for her? She could soon find another man. Her expression grew bitter. She had said no to enough of them during the years she and Giles had been married.
Giles had always been slightly naïve in that regard, never seeming to realise that the colleagues he introduced her to with such pride were, under the social smiles and compliments, assessing their chances of getting her into bed. She had been proud of her fidelity to Giles, to their marriage, and of the way she had denied herself the pleasure of allowing them to coax and flatter her. She had taken it as a mark of her maturity, an indication of the depth of her love for Giles; a symbol of its purity and rightness.
If either one of them had been going to be unfaithful to their marriage she had never expected it would be Giles. And with Davina James, of all people. Davina, whose own husband had made no secret of the fact that he despised his wife; who had flirted with Lucy and told her how much he would enjoy taking her to bed; how much they would both enjoy it.
Refusing Gregory James had been easy. She moved restlessly around the room, ignoring the clothes she had pulled out of the wardrobes in her furious despair.
She had come up here in a white-hot heat of temper after Giles had gone to work. Caution, control, moving slowly and carefully—these things were not for her, and now the months of indecision, of waiting for things to reach some sort of crisis point and the release of the inevitable explosion that would follow, had finally got the better of her.
Why should she wait around any longer for Giles to make up his mind which one of them he really wanted? Her mouth curled scornfully. Did he really think that Davina would give him the same kind of sexual stimulation and satisfaction that she did? Hadn’t he already proved to both of them that secretly he knew she couldn’t, by making love to her?
And yet when she looked in her mirror Lucy saw that, despite the scornful, triumphant curve of her mouth, her eyes were haunted with misery and self-doubt. What if other things, which Davina could give him, were more important, more necessary to him?
The fear that had always been there within her shocked through her, taking her over to the window. The sight of the two men digging a hole in the middle of Giles’s immaculate lawn briefly drove Davina out of her thoughts.
She hurried downstairs and opened the kitchen door. The appreciative looks the two men gave her barely touched her. That lawn was Giles’s pride and joy, and somewhere deep inside her the fear lurked, sharp and jagged as treacherous rocks hidden by a deceptive tide, that it might just be that Giles had already detached himself from her so much that he would no longer care about the desecration of his lawn.
Yes, they were sure they had got the right house, the two men assured her when she questioned them.
‘It’s all right, Lucy. I ordered the tree.’
The unexpected sound of Giles’s voice from behind her caused her to tense and turn round quickly.
‘Giles … What are you doing home?’ A sharp tiny thrill of fear spiked through her, intensified by the white, tense expression on Giles’s face. He had come home to tell her he had made up his mind and that he was leaving her. The protective veils she had wrapped around herself were suddenly ripped aside. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything other than stare at him with stricken eyes.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she heard him saying.
He reached out and touched her arm, but she wrenched away from him, unable to bear the thought of being touched by him, knowing that where once there had been love and need and desire there was now only a distant kind of pity and distaste.
Despite the sun pouring in through the windows, the kitchen felt cold. Lucy hugged her arms around herself as she watched the way Giles looked round the room.
What was he doing? she wondered painfully as she tried to visualise the room through his eyes. Was he comparing its untidiness, the breakfast things still on the table, this morning’s mail still unopened, the untidy clutter of her possessions spread on every surface, with the immaculate, almost antiseptic neatness of Davina’s kitchen?
The tidiness of Davina’s house had always faintly repelled Lucy. She had taken her some flowers once and had watched while Davina touched the petals, something close to pain in her eyes as she thanked her for them. When she had gone back the following day there had been no sign of the flowers. Flushing, Davina had explained that Gregory did not approve of them unless they were in a classic arrangement for a dinner party.
Was that really the kind of home, the kind of life that Giles wanted, where everything was restrained, controlled … stifled?
She watched remotely now as he paced the kitchen; already the anaesthetising effect of dread and fear were beginning to take effect, distancing her from the pain she knew was to come.
‘I can’t believe what’s happened this morning,’ she heard Giles saying angrily. ‘And Davina, of all people. I know she can’t fully understand the ramifications of the situation, but to interfere like that … to virtually sabotage the only chance we’re likely to get of selling Carey’s … To even think she could get away with making those kind of demands … and without consulting me … without consulting anyone.’
Lucy stared at him. His face was flushed with temper … anger. An anger that wasn’t d
irected at her, but at Davina. While she was still trying to take this in he stopped pacing and turned towards her.
‘I still can’t take it in. That Davina could have behaved like that. She was … she was like a different person,’ he told her, and his voice betrayed not only his confusion and shock, but also his anger and disapproval. ‘And attending the meeting dressed like that when she must have known.’
‘Dressed like what?’ Lucy questioned him. Her fear was receding now and something else was taking its place, a new realisation, a determination, an awareness that she was not yet fully prepared to put a name to, but that she knew now was there. Even so, his comment had aroused her curiosity enough for her to question it.
‘Some pale-coloured thing … a suit …’ Giles told her vaguely. ‘It was totally inappropriate for a business meeting. It had words round the waist … in gold.’ His disapproval and the confusion and shock he had experienced with it were more obvious now. Lucy knew exactly what Davina must have been wearing and for a second she allowed herself to remember that beneath her apparent reserve and the image of the rather dull and very dutiful wife she projected there was another Davina. One who had a mischievous sense of humour, one whose kindness came from the experience of her own pain; one who could gently poke fun at herself rather than use her wit to hurt others … one who had promised to be one of the few genuine female friends she, Lucy, had ever had.
One who had stolen Lucy’s husband. Only it wasn’t that Davina Giles had wanted; it was the other Davina … the respectable, worthy and dull woman who never seemed to have an opinion or thought of her own; the woman who had been the perfect wife, quietly ignoring her husband’s infidelities … quietly ignoring everything in life that was unpleasant or uncomfortable, the one who had thrown away a friend’s gift of flowers rather than risk the ire of the man to whom she was married. That was the Davina Giles had wanted.