by Penny Jordan
‘Is Alan in?’ he asked her briefly.
She shook her head.
Alan had had to go out and visit a client who was complaining that they were behind schedule with their work. Loyalty to him made her keep back this particular piece of information as she explained where he had gone, but to her consternation Matthew’s mouth hardened a fraction and he said immediately,
‘I hope we’re not on a penalty clause with that contract. We’re already too far behind. Which reminds me...the foreman...Jackson...I want to have a word with him some time—’
‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr Hunt?’ Evie broke in.
The smile Matthew gave her made something wrench painfully inside Nicola. It was the indulgent, appreciative smile of an adult for a pretty child, and it struck her sharply that no man ever had, and now ever would, look at her like that.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself sharply. She wasn’t a child, she was an adult, an equal to any man, and wanted to be treated accordingly...not humoured and indulged as though she were dim-witted.
‘Matthew, please, Evie,’ he corrected her, reminding her that he had already told everyone that they were to address him by his Christian name.
‘So when will Alan be back?’ he asked Nicola.
‘I’m not sure. Before lunch.’
‘Mmm. Well, while I’m waiting for him, I’ll go through the work in progress sheets—if you could just get them for me, Nicola...’ He paused suddenly and gave her another sharp look before walking through into Alan’s office and closing the door behind him.
Once she had the appropriate sheets, Nicola took the coffee from Evie, knocked on the door, and walked in.
Matthew wasn’t seated behind Alan’s desk. Instead he was standing by the window looking out into the yard. Without turning his head he told her, ‘Sit down, please, Nicola. There’s something I want to discuss with you. Oh, and close the door, would you, please?’
Her heart started to pound with frantic fear. He had remembered her, after all, and now he was going to tell her so...to remind her of what she had done...of how she had behaved, and tell her that in the circumstances he could hardly have her working for him. She knew it.
Shakily she did as he had told her and sat down, hoping that her body wasn’t trembling visibly, betraying the intensity of the nervousness she could feel inside.
She could feel sweat starting to break out on her skin, physical evidence of her inward panic. She gritted her teeth and curled her hands into tense fists as she willed herself not to lose complete control.
‘It’s about Alan,’ Matthew told her without turning around. ‘Nothing seems to have been arranged to formally mark his retirement...’
For a moment Nicola was too stunned to speak. He hadn’t remembered her at all, she recognised in shaky relief. He wanted to talk about Alan’s departure from the firm, not hers.
‘Are you all right?’
She hadn’t seen him turn round and walk towards her, but now, as she saw him coming towards her, she shrank back in her chair, causing him to pause and frown while she stammered frantically.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just...’ She shook her head, trying to clear her head, to fight her way back to normality, to dismiss her shock and deal with his query.
‘Alan—Alan wanted to leave without any fuss. You’ll know about his son... In the circum-stances—’
‘In the circumstances, some acknowledgement at least of the years he has run the firm is called for, even if it’s only an apparently informal collection among the staff to buy him some memento and present him with it.’
From the tone of his voice, Nicola suspected that he was criticising her for not already having instituted something along these lines, and her fear receded, professionalism coming to her rescue as she tilted her chin and said firmly, ‘Something along those lines has been organised.’
As soon as she had known that Alan was leaving, she had organised an impromptu collection, and with the money she had arranged that they would buy Alan a presentation hand-cut goblet with the dates of the years he had owned the company and its name inscribed on it.
All she hadn’t done was arrange a time when the goblet could be presented to Alan, and as she explained all this to Matthew she added tentatively, ‘Of course, I’ll have to have a word with our new manager. I had thought perhaps Friday afternoon.’
‘I don’t see any problem with that,’ Matthew assured her, ‘and some kind of informal buffet meal could be organised, if it isn’t too late. By the way,’ he added picking up his coffee, ‘there isn’t going to be a new manager...at least not for the time being... The man I had in mind is having to take some sick leave.’
‘So who will run the company?’ Nicola asked him with concern.
He put down his cup and studied her calmly.
‘I shall.’
Nicola was glad that she was already sitting down, otherwise she felt she might have betrayed herself completely.
‘I think you and I will work very well together, Nicola,’ she heard him adding quietly, confounding her completely as he added, ‘I like your initiative, and your awareness...your compassion for your fellow human beings. Those are very valuable and necessary assets in business today, and unfortunately they are not assets which the male sex is very strong on.’
He was smiling at her now. Not the same kind of smile as he had given Evie, but it was a smile of warmth and approval, none the less, and she was shocked by the sudden burgeoning of warmth in her own heart that it gave her.
It was because he had shocked her with his concern for Alan...a concern she had never expected him to display, that was all, she told herself shakily. Yes, that odd feeling of warmth was caused by that...that and the relief of knowing he had not, after all, recognised her.
Later, as she informed Evie of what was going to happen, she told herself that, if she was going to ensure that Matthew did not recognise her, then she was going to have to stop behaving so irrationally every time he spoke to her.
* * *
AS THE WEEK progressed and she worked more closely with Matthew, Nicola found herself discovering aspects of him she would never have guessed existed. Far from being the callous business type she had first imagined, she discovered that he was a very aware and concerned employer, even if he was not a man to allow anyone to take advantage of him.
He was already aware of those members of the firm who worked hard and those who did not and, although he had said nothing specific to her, Nicola suspected that it wouldn’t be long before the foreman was replaced.
She liked the way he made use of her own experience and expertise, questioning her closely about their existing contracts, and listening carefully to her answers, consulting her about his proposals for expanding their customer base and discussing with her various aspects of his business as a whole so that she felt her opinions and views were valued.
In fact, if it had not been for her constantly recurring dread that he might one day remember her, she had to admit that she would have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of working with him, and even perhaps have been regretting the fact that it was only temporary.
He had, he had told her, a very able deputy who was more than capable of taking over the day-to-day overall control of his empire while he got his new business on its feet.
‘In fact it will do both Giles and me good. I’m thinking of offering him a partnership eventually. He’s engaged to my youngest sister,’ he added with a smile. ‘Although that isn’t why I want him as a partner... There comes a point where running a business like this single-handed becomes a way of life, rather than a part of one’s life. I enjoy my work, but I don’t want it to become my whole life. One day, hopefully, I shall marry and have children, and when I do... Well, let’s just say I don’t intend to be an absentee husband and father.
‘Have you any plans to get married, Nicola?’
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. It was just as well she had the past t
o hold as a barrier between them, otherwise she suspected she might come dangerously close to falling into the classic trap and allow herself to become too vulnerable to his very evident appeal. By falling in love with him? Surely even without the past she was far too sensible to commit that kind of folly, even if her heart did beat ridiculously fast when she happened to look up from her work and find him watching her.
If she was ever foolish enough to imagine that the way he was regarding her meant that he was attracted to her, she only had to recall the past to realise how stupid she was being.
Of course it was possible that, following the mores of the times, his own outlook on life had undergone a change, and that he now shunned brief sexual encounters. He wouldn’t be on his own in doing so, after all, but she still found it hard to reconcile the man who had so casually taken her home with him, stripped her of her clothes and then made love to her, not once but, according to him, several times, and all without her being able to remember a thing about it, with the same concerned, compassionate man who was now her employer.
* * *
ALAN WAS spending his last week with the firm going round making his farewells to some of his old customers, more at Matthew’s behest than at his own instigation.
‘It will keep his mind off the trauma of what’s happening,’ Matthew had told Nicola. ‘And it will also give us time to organise the buffet luncheon for Friday. I have asked Alan to stay on in an advisory capacity. This firm has been his life, and I suspect he’s going to find it very difficult to adjust to life without it.’
‘He and Mary are leaving the area; they’ve bought a bungalow on the coast...’
‘Yes, I know, and I hope it isn’t something he’s going to regret—moving away from an area where they’ve lived all their lives...from their friends.’
‘They have a married daughter and they’re moving to be closer to her and their grandchildren,’ Nicola informed them. ‘I think they’re both hoping that being with their grandchildren will help to take their minds off the tragedy...’
For a moment both of them were silent, and then Matthew said slowly, ‘I’ve often thought that must be one of life’s hardest burdens to bear—the death of a child. Now, about this presentation...I take it there aren’t going to be any formal speeches? You did say that Alan had said specifically that he didn’t want any fuss. Do you think he would prefer it if I wasn’t here...?’
His sensitivity amazed Nicola. Gordon would never have behaved like that, and he, for all his devotion to and fear of his mother, would never have dreamed of asking the advice of a woman whom he deemed to occupy an inferior professional position.
* * *
THAT EVENING, when her mother remarked how much more cheerful she had begun to look since she started working for her new boss, Nicola coloured up defensively, biting her bottom lip.
‘I’ve heard he’s very good-looking,’ her mother added, apparently oblivious to her confusion.
‘Very,’ Nicola agreed huskily.
‘And single...’ her mother pressed.
‘Yes,’ Nicola agreed tautly, and then changed the subject, asking, ‘Has Gordon phoned? We were supposed to be playing tennis this evening.’
‘Not as far as I know, although I have been out for most of the afternoon.’
She was halfway towards the telephone when she stopped suddenly and turned round again. Why should she be the one to ring Gordon when he was the one who had made arrangements for them to play tennis? As she sat down again and poured herself a second cup of tea, she realised how often she was the one who had to get in touch with Gordon, instead of the other way round. Rebelliously she decided that this time she was going to leave it up to him.
It was eight o’clock before Gordon rang her, half an hour after he had arranged to pick her up.
As always these days when he spoke to her, his voice was edgy and defensive.
After she had accepted his explanation that he had been delayed at work, and his apology for neglecting to ring her, she reminded him, ‘You won’t forget that you’re picking me up from work on Friday evening will you, Gordon?’
She’d booked her own car in for a service earlier in the week, and Gordon had offered to pick her up and run her to the garage to collect it.
‘Of course not,’ he responded in an injured voice.
After she had replaced the receiver, Nicola admitted that it was probably time their relationship was brought to an end. She certainly derived very little pleasure from his company these days, and she was beginning to suspect that he felt the same way. The very staid and not altogether enjoyable kisses they had once shared had degenerated into a perfunctory peck on the cheek, if she was lucky and, while it had been useful to have a comfortable male partner to escort her at various social functions, she was suddenly becoming aware of how very sterile and depressing she found the time she spent with Gordon.
A little bleakly she found herself comparing Gordon to Matthew... His dates, she was quite sure, were not fobbed off with excuses about the health of his mother, and arid pecks on the cheek at the end of the evening. His dates would not need to fall back on the company of girlfriends to have someone to talk to and laugh with. His dates—
Abruptly she tried to stem her dangerous thoughts. What on earth was she thinking...doing? She started to tremble, a small ache erupting deep within her body—a yearning, despairing need... emotions she had sworn she could never, would never allow herself to feel suddenly exploding inside her.
Emotions which she discovered were refusing to go away or be subdued.
* * *
THAT MORNING, she arrived at work to discover Matt frowningly standing beside her desk.
‘I’m sorry. Am I late?’ she began, as she walked in.
Immediately his face cleared.
‘Did you think I was glowering at you? If so, I obviously haven’t made a very good impression on you... No, I was just a little concerned about a telephone call I’ve had from one of our clients. It seems that Jackson has been pilfering some of the supplies from the job, or so this chap thinks.’
Ian Jackson was the foreman in charge of the men, and Nicola’s heart sank. She wasn’t surprised by the client’s complaint, only that they did not receive more. For a long time she had had a strong suspicion that Ian Jackson was involved in the theft of supplies which she knew must be taking place, even though Alan never seemed concerned about it.
‘I need to go down to the site and find out what’s going on,’ Matthew told her, adding, ‘Are you busy here, or would you like to come with me?’
Nicola stared at him, her face flushing a little.
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to,’ Matthew told her drily. ‘I just thought you might like a change from sorting through dead files...’
His reference to all the extra work she had been doing to streamline their paperwork surprised her. She hadn’t known he had been aware of all the extra time she had been putting in, and his thoughtfulness now made her warm to him even more, especially when she remembered how initially, when he had first taken over the business, she had thought he was antagonistic to her. Now she suspected that that fear had sprung from her own dread of being recognised by him.
‘Well, if you’re sure I won’t be a nuisance,’ she said hesitantly.
He was looking at some papers on the desk, but now suddenly he straightened up and turned round to look at her, giving her a look which made her heart turn over and hammer against her ribs.
‘I doubt that any man would ever consider you to be a nuisance, Nicola,’ he told her gravely, ‘and I most certainly do not.’
From another man she would have considered the remark to be flirtatious, but it seemed so impossible that Matthew could be flirting with her that she could say nothing, only swallow hard, and then say huskily, ‘I’ll just get my jacket.’
* * *
TODAY HE WAS driving the Land Rover, and Nicola was glad that her pleated skirt allowed her to scramble up into it without having
to rely on him for assistance, even though the fact that he stood politely by the passenger door to ensure that she made it safely into the seat made her feel acutely self-conscious.
She was just about to close the door when he stopped her, one hand touching her arm lightly as he leaned forward and tucked the hem of her skirt out of the way of the door.
‘You’ve got incredibly delicate wrists and ankles,’ he told her easily as he smiled into her eyes. ‘There’s something about that kind of fragility in a woman that makes a man feel immensely protective...’
His hand was still resting lightly against her arm, the heat of his skin burning through the fine fabric of her jacket and her blouse. Suddenly she had a shockingly clear memory of how he had held her that night at the party—of how his fingers had gripped her wrist then, of how strong she had realised he was, of how vulnerable he had made her feel, of how—
Without realising what she was doing, she flinched back from him, the colour leaving her face.
Immediately he frowned and released her, closing the door and walking round to his own side of the Land Rover.
He drove to the site in silence, while Nicola tried to control her sick trembling.
Just for a moment before, she had forgotten the past...forgotten everything but the feeling filling her as he had looked at her.
Why was she reacting to him like that? She knew he was a very attractive man, mentally as well as physically, but she had met attractive men before without her emotions and hormones going haywire.
Or was the cause deeper and more personal? Was it because her body instinctively recognised and remembered his? Because her senses, her femininity knew him? That she...? But no. If she couldn’t remember what had happened between them, then surely her subconscious would not remember either, and certainly not to such an extent that it was responsible for the way she was feeling right now?
It dismayed her that, after years of believing that sexually she was in full control of herself, she should suddenly start reacting like this and to this man of all men—the very man she ought not to be responding to at all.