by Penny Jordan
‘Nicola!’
The sudden harshness in his voice shocked through her, bringing her back to reality. She tensed, stepping as far back from him as she could, her eyes widening in response to the unexpected sensation of the wall against her back.
‘I—I must go...the caterers...’
She heard herself babbling nervously, anxiety and fear tightening her body and her voice. Skirting him as carefully as though any kind of physical contact with him would be lethal to her, she edged past him and hurried towards the door. Behind her she could sense that he was moving, following her. Her mouth had gone dry, her muscles ached with tension.
‘No car today,’ Matt commented as he followed her outside.
She was forced to stop and turn round.
‘No,’ she told him jerkily. ‘It’s being serviced; Gordon is picking me up after work.’
She flushed, biting down hard on her bottom lip. Why had she brought Gordon into the conversation, like a teenager trying to deter an unwanted admirer with the clumsy subterfuge of introducing an existing boyfriend?
And it wasn’t even as though Matt had even tried to— Just because he had paid her one compliment, it didn’t mean...
‘I’d better go and get changed. I’ll have Alan back here for twelve-thirty.’
Was she imagining things or had Matt’s voice become harder, curter?
Later, in her office, she asked herself what it was she was really so afraid of... Matt obviously hadn’t recognised her and, even in the unlikely event of his actually being attracted to her, he obviously wasn’t the kind of man to persist once he knew a woman was involved with someone else. So why was she so afraid? Why did she turn into something resembling a lump of quivering jelly every time he came near her?
She already knew the answer, and it wasn’t one she welcomed. She closed her eyes, a weakening flood of shame and anguish pouring through her. Matt had been her first lover, her only lover, even if she could remember nothing of that time. That must be why she was so physically responsive to him, so physically aware of him. Her body must at some deep, atavistic level still be somehow aware of that long-ago intimacy with his.
* * *
THREE HOURS LATER, surveying the laughing, chattering mass of people centred in the shed, she reflected that Matt’s decision to insist on this party for Alan had been the right one.
Although at first he had seemed shocked, reluctant almost to allow himself to be drawn into the proceedings, Alan had quite obviously been touched by his employees’ wish to mark his retirement. There had been tears in his eyes when he was presented with the engraved goblet, and she had felt her admiration for Matt increase when, during his short speech, he had made a grave reference to the reason why Alan had taken the decision to sell the business. Many men and some women, too, would have shirked mentioning such a sensitive subject, too embarrassed by the potential emotional danger of it, to risk referring to it.
As she watched her fellow employees, Nicola found herself wishing that Matt was different...less likeable, more the man she had initially assumed him to be when they had first met.
Watching him now with the knowledge behind her of all she had recently learnt about him, she found it almost impossible to believe that this was the same man who had so casually picked her up and had sex with her; but, as she had reflected earlier, eight years was a long time, and the social climate had changed a great deal in those eight years.
At four o’clock people started to disperse, and Alan himself left. At four-thirty the caterers returned to start clearing up; most of her fellow employees had already left, following the traditional early closing down of the building trade on a Friday afternoon.
Gordon normally left his office at five o’clock, so Nicola knew it would be approaching five-thirty before he arrived to pick her up.
She had checked with the garage and knew that they didn’t close until six, which allowed them a reasonable margin of time to get there and collect her car.
She hadn’t seen Matt for some time, and had assumed that he, too, must have left, but when she walked into her office, intending to finish off some work she had started earlier, she was startled to discover that the communicating door between her office and the one which had been Alan’s, and which Matt was now using, was open, and that Matt himself, his jacket off, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, was seated behind the new desk, poring over a sheaf of papers.
He had obviously heard her come in, though, because he put them down and looked up at her.
‘Boyfriend not arrived yet?’
She shook her head, and then said huskily, ‘He won’t be here until about five-thirty, so I thought I’d just clear up a couple of things.’
As she spoke Matt stood up and moved away from his desk, stretching his body as he did so. She could hear the faint crack of his bones and closed her eyes, hating the wave of heat that burned through her as she became aware of his body, of the bulk and strength of it, of its lean, taut maleness...of the scent of his skin...the heat of his body.
‘I was just about to make myself a cup of coffee... Want one?’
Alan, for all his gentleness, all his formality, would never have made such an offer. Her mouth dropped a little, and Matt, obviously taking her silence for agreement, walked past her and into the outer office, casually plugging in the kettle.
Nicola went back to her own desk. It was uncomfortable, disconcerting, knowing that Matt was moving about behind her as he made their coffee. She tried to concentrate on what she was doing, but her awareness of him kept coming between her and her work.
Long before he had come to stand beside her and place the mug of coffee down beside her she had known he was walking towards her.
‘Going somewhere nice tonight—you and the boyfriend?’ he asked her casually as he stood beside her.
She frowned, unable for the moment to remember just exactly what they were doing, and then she recalled that it was Gordon’s mother’s monthly Friday for bridge, which meant that Gordon would have to take her and then pick her up, which meant that they would not be going out.
For some reason she felt reluctant to explain this to Matt, and so she fibbed as airily as she could. ‘No, not really. Just out for something to eat, I expect, and then...’
‘Back to his place,’ Matt supplied drily.
His assumption that she and Gordon were lovers made her face burn, although she knew it was a natural enough assumption. She wasn’t a young girl, she and Gordon were in an established relationship.
‘Gordon lives with his mother,’ she told him stiffly.
There was a long pause, during which she didn’t look at him, but attempted instead to concentrate on what was in front of her. It was a hopeless task. She was so very aware of Matt standing beside her that there wasn’t room in her consciousness for anything else.
When at last the tension in the silence was something she couldn’t bear any longer, she asked him quickly, ‘And you—are you going out tonight?’
Immediately she wished the question unasked. After all, what business of hers was it what he did in his private life? The thought that he might think she was asking out of a personal interest in that private life dismayed her.
‘I’m going to see my parents. They live just outside Brighton. They moved there several years ago when my father retired, primarily because one of my sisters lives in that area and my parents wanted to be close to their grandchildren. My second sister and her husband live in Canada.
‘Do you have any siblings?’
‘No, I’m an only one...’ She frowned as she looked across the room at the wall-clock and saw that it was almost a quarter to six.
‘Something wrong?’ Matt asked her.
She shook her head, but obviously he wasn’t convinced because he asked shrewdly, ‘Boyfriend late?’
When her only response was to bite her lip, he said casually, ‘You’d better give him a ring. Didn’t you say he was taking you to collect your car?’
&nbs
p; Tactfully he returned to his own office while she picked up the receiver and then telephoned the number of Gordon’s office.
As she had half expected, no one answered.
She waited another five minutes, all the time anxiously aware that she was now going to be unable to reach the garage before it closed, and then rather grimly dialled Gordon’s home telephone number.
He answered the telephone himself, his voice sharply defensive when she reminded him that he was supposed to have picked her up.
‘Mother isn’t very well,’ he told her. ‘I had to come home early from the office, and I just haven’t been able to leave her. It’s one of her bilious attacks, and you know how badly they affect her.’
Nicola certainly did. Gordon’s mother’s bilious attacks had been the cause of more outings being cancelled than she cared to remember.
‘You might have rung me and let me know, Gordon,’ she commented a little sharply. ‘I’m not going to be able to get to the garage in time to collect my car now.’
‘Well, you can collect it in the morning, can’t you? I mean, you won’t need it tonight, and your father can run you into town in the morning.’
‘I still have to get home tonight,’ Nicola reminded him crossly, trying not to react too angrily to his complete lack of regard for her and their arrangements.
‘I’m sorry, Nicola,’ he told her, sounding anything but. ‘But with poor Mother feeling so very unwell...’
It was only by reminding herself that she was twenty-six and not sixteen that Nicola managed to refrain from slamming down the receiver on him.
She was just dialling the number of a local taxi firm when Matt emerged from his office.
‘Something wrong?’ he questioned her.
She put down the receiver and explained tersely, ‘Gordon isn’t going to be able to pick me up after all. I was just ringing for a taxi to take me home.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Matt told her easily. ‘I’ll run you back.’
Immediately hot colour stormed her face. ‘Oh, no. There’s no need for that,’ she began to object, worried that he might think she had been angling for the offer of a lift; but he brushed aside her protestations, telling her mildly,
‘It really isn’t any problem. I have to virtually go past your gate, anyway.’
Nicola gave him a startled look. She hadn’t realised he even knew where she lived and, as though he were reading her mind, he informed her casually, ‘Evie happened to mention where you live. Are you ready to go now or—?’
‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she confirmed.
As they were walking out to the Land Rover, he commented almost disapprovingly, ‘It’s a pity your boyfriend didn’t think to ring you earlier, then you could have made other arrangements to collect your car.’
Immediately, and for no good reason that she could think of, Nicola discovered that she was lying to protect Gordon as she protested untruthfully, ‘Oh, he did ring earlier to leave a message, but he couldn’t get through...’
When she turned her head, driven by some impulse she couldn’t control, she discovered that Matt had stopped walking, and that he was regarding her with a grim, almost bitter expression in his eyes.
‘You’re very loyal, aren’t you, Nicola? I wonder if he is equally loyal to you.’
The gibe made her flush a little, partly because she knew just how luke-warm Gordon’s feelings for her were, and partly because she felt that she herself was guilty of allowing Matt to think that her relationship with Gordon was far more emotionally intense than it actually was.
Reluctantly she followed Matt, who was standing waiting for her.
* * *
OF COURSE BOTH her parents would have to be in the front garden when Matt turned the Land Rover into the drive, and of course Matt would have to accept when her mother asked if he had time to join them for a cup of tea.
In the end he stayed for over an hour, and as far as Nicola was concerned it put the final, irritating thorn in her day when, after he had gone, her mother asked innocently,
‘I thought that Gordon was picking you up and taking you to the garage? Not that I didn’t enjoy meeting Matt. He’s an extremely attractive and intelligent man—’
‘Gordon’s mother isn’t well,’ Nicola said shortly, valiantly trying to ignore the look in her mother’s eyes.
Privately she suspected that Gordon was beginning to find their relationship as onerous as she did herself, and, if it weren’t for Matt she knew now for sure that she would have been tempted to suggest to Gordon that they simply stopped seeing one another.
CHAPTER SIX
‘IT’S tonight that you and Gordon are having dinner with Christine and Mike, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Nicola agreed in answer to her mother’s question. She had been working with Matt for over a fortnight now, and the office work had settled into an efficient and orderly routine. She only wished it were equally easy to rule her chaotic emotions.
It was impossible now for her to deny to herself that Matt had a very powerful and disruptive effect upon her emotionally and physically, but just so long as she was the only person who knew that...just so long as she managed to conceal it from everyone else she might manage to make it safely through the next few weeks until the new manager was able to take over from Matt.
She was feeling increasingly out of charity with Gordon. He had broken several of their dates with a variety of weak excuses, and she had promised herself that if he dared to break tonight’s then she was going to tell him that she no longer wanted to see him.
At half-past seven when the telephone rang and she answered it to learn from Gordon that he was not going to be able to join her that evening, she gritted her teeth and told him acidly that in that case she saw no point in their seeing one another again at all.
Although he protested a little, she could tell that really he was relieved by her decision.
‘Was that Gordon?’ her mother enquired, when she replaced the receiver.
‘Yes,’ Nicola told her, adding emotionlessly, ‘He can’t make it tonight. His mother isn’t well again. I’ve told him that I don’t think there’s any point in our continuing to see one another—at least not on a one-to-one basis.’
It was her mother’s softly commiserating, ‘Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,’ that made her eyes sting a little.
‘You needn’t be. It isn’t like that,’ she assured her. ‘After all, it was hardly the relationship of the century. I expect I shall miss him, but I’m not exactly heartbroken.’
‘Well, he is rather dull, and I must admit I could never understand what you saw in him. I’m afraid dull, worthy men have never really appealed to me. Now Matt, for instance...’
Nicola felt her heart jerk as though it were held on strings. Her voice was sharper than she realised when she said fiercely, ‘Matt is my boss, Mum, nothing more. He won’t be here for much longer, anyway, and—’
Realising that she was perhaps over-protesting, she stopped speaking. It was too late now to ring Christine and cancel, but fortunately she knew her friend well enough to know that she wouldn’t mind her turning up on her own.
Christine had mentioned that she had invited some business acquaintances of Mike’s, but that the dinner was an informal rather than a formal affair.
Nicola had been virtually ready when Gordon telephoned. Her dress wasn’t new, being a simple affair in navy silk which she had bought the previous summer. It had a neat round neckline and long sleeves, and was, so she thought, eminently suitable for a woman who preferred not to catch the male eye.
What she did not realise was that the softness of the silk married to the willow slimness of her figure gave her dress an understated sensuality that was far, far more enticing than something more figure-hugging and eye-catching would have been. It was the sort of dress that made a man look once and then look again, his attention drawn by the feminine movement of her body beneath its demure sheath of silk.
With it she was wearing sheer
navy tights and plain navy pumps. Some spirit of defiance made her add a slightly darker lip-gloss than normal, although once it was on she was tempted to rub it off as she unwillingly remembered the scarlet lipstick she had once worn. As she hesitated, she realised that if she delayed much longer she might not be the first to arrive, which would mean that she wouldn’t have an opportunity to explain what had happened with Gordon to her friend in private.
When Christine opened the door to her half an hour later, as Nicola had known she would, she raised her eyebrows and asked, ‘Where’s Gordon?’
‘Not coming,’ Nicola told her grimly, and went on to relay recent events.
‘Well, it’s about time you got rid of him,’ Christine told her forthrightly.
‘I don’t think I so much got rid of him, as let him off the hook and put him out of his misery,’ Nicola told her drily, adding, ‘Look, if my being here on my own is going to mess up your numbers—’
‘Don’t be an idiot. As a matter of fact, it will actually even them out. Mike invited a business associate, who doesn’t have a wife or, apparently, a current girlfriend...’
When she saw Nicola’s face she laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not trying to matchmake. I haven’t even met him yet.’
She went on to explain that the other two guests were also business associates of her husband’s. Nicola knew them vaguely, as they had recently moved into the area.
‘Anything I can do to help?’ she offered.
‘Go upstairs and read Peter a story. He knows you’re coming and he’s been pestering me all day about it. Now there’s a man for you...if you can wait twenty odd years for him to grow up,’ she teased, while Nicola pulled a face at her before heading for the stairs.
Half an hour later, when she heard male feet coming upstairs and stopping just inside the bedroom door, she said softly without turning her head, ‘Hello, Mike. He’s just dropped off...’
Only when she turned her head to smile at her friend’s husband she discovered that it wasn’t Mike who was standing there, but Matt.