by Liz Fielding
So. He’d noticed that she wasn’t sticking to her usual routine. ‘You’re getting two for the price of one this month. Managing Director and PR Director. Of course it wouldn’t be necessary if your cousin hadn’t persuaded her to run away with him and…merge,’ she retaliated.
‘You know that’s what happened for a fact, do you?’ he enquired. ‘You don’t think it might have been the other way around?’
Which suggested he was as much in the dark about it as she was. ‘Are you telling me that he hasn’t called in? Made his report?’ She smiled, as if she knew the whole story, then, since she knew no more than he did, moved swiftly on before he could uncover her own uncertainties. ‘I was about to say that first thing tomorrow morning I have a meeting with the surveyor to check on the progress of the alterations, if you’d like to join me. It’s at eight o’clock.’
‘I’ll be there,’ he said, then gave the waiter their order. When the man had gone, he sat back. ‘What do you do when you’re not working?’
‘I’m sorry? I thought the purpose of eating together was so that I could brief you on what will be happening at Claibourne’s this month. And my plans for the store.’
‘Claibourne & Farraday. The store has two names,’ he reminded her. ‘Other people may refer to the store as Claibourne’s for convenience, or out of laziness. You should never dilute your own brand image.’
About to say that Claibourne’s was the brand image these days, she thought better of it. He was quite sharp enough to pick up the smallest clues from her voice without her putting up a target and inviting him to shoot it down. ‘Shall we get on? An hour isn’t long to explain what we’re doing. Less.’ She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘Fifty-two minutes.’
‘Leave it. I picked up a copy of the store programme for the next week. As for the alterations, that’ll be simpler if we go through it tomorrow, when we’re with the surveyor.’
‘That’s just the practical stuff. Aren’t you interested in my vision for the future?’ she asked.
‘I could probably tell you now, word for word, what you’re going to say. Expansion, modernisation, ordering online—’
‘That’s already in place.’
‘And yet you give the impression of being such a delightfully old-fashioned emporium.’
‘Only the service is old-fashioned.’
‘And the style of the store. You really should get those carpets ripped out. They’re very…yesterday.’
‘They’re what?’
‘Yesterday. It’s an expression much used by the interior designer who’s working on my offices at the moment.’
‘I see. Well, yes, he’s right. Polished floors are back in vogue, and much more in keeping with the arts and crafts interiors. The carpets are history.’
‘She.’
‘What?’
‘The interior designer is a woman. From the attention I’m getting I imagine she’s hoping I’ll let her loose on Claibourne & Farraday. When I take over.’ India was immediately assailed with a vision of some incredibly elegant young woman, tempting Jordan Farraday with exotic wood floors and anything else that took his fancy in return for the opportunity to remodel Claibourne’s. She gave herself a mental shaking. In return for nothing. Forget Claibourne’s. He wouldn’t have to offer inducements to have women wanting to be nice. He’d just have to lift the corner of his mouth in that come-and-get-me smile and he’d be fighting them off…
‘You won’t need a designer. The arts and crafts interiors are listed, as is the stained glass. They can’t be touched. And the original wood floors are still there, beneath the carpets, just waiting to be sanded, polished and sealed.’
‘I know that. She doesn’t. It’s keeping her very keen.’ And he used that smile on her. She might be a woman famously hard to impress, but hormones that had lain undisturbed for what seemed like years were suddenly wide awake and panting eagerly. ‘But I’ve had enough shop talk for tonight. Right now, India, I’m more interested in you. What you do with your spare time?’
She swallowed. Reminded herself that this was business and that what she did with her spare time was none of his. ‘That…Jordan…is none of your business,’ she said firmly.
‘I know.’ He sat forward. ‘That’s what makes it so interesting.’
‘Maybe so, but I think we should keep this on a purely business footing.’
Undeterred, he said, ‘I have press cuttings of you going back years—’
‘Years? How many years?’
‘I believe you were four years old on the first occasion you were trotted out for a publicity shot. And very sweet you looked, sitting on Santa’s knee.’
Oh, good grief. ‘You raided the newspaper archives for that?’
‘It wasn’t necessary. A cuttings agency have kept us up to date. You may not find us that interesting, but we find the Claibournes endlessly fascinating. Your father’s many marriages and affairs have never left us short of something sensational to read. However, there’s nothing—beyond the usual youthful nonsense—to suggest that you have much of a personal life these days. Not recently anyway.’
‘Not one that would interest the gossip columns,’ she admitted. ‘I’m much too busy for such nonsense.’
‘You must do something other than empire-build.’
India had thought she’d done her research on Jordan Farraday and his cousins. She’d needed to know what kind of men she was dealing with. But she’d confined her enquiries to the recent past. Their careers, their ambitions. She couldn’t compete with a lifetime’s obsession.
‘Must I?’ she asked. ‘What do you do in your spare time?’
‘I asked first,’ he pointed out. And he sat back in his chair and regarded her for a moment. When she didn’t volunteer an answer, he probed further. ‘Do you go to the theatre?’
‘The store sponsored a charity gala a couple of months ago. Your cousin Niall was there. It was the day he began shadowing Romana,’ she said. It was scarcely subtle as a reminder of what had happened to Niall Farraday Macaulay when he’d stopped talking shop.
Jordan acknowledged her response with the slightest lift of his brows, but didn’t pursue it. ‘Do you enjoy sports?’ He seemed determined to uncover her private life.
‘We sponsored a pro-am golf tournament last year,’ she replied coolly, equally determined to keep the conversation on a purely business level, confident that she could keep this up all night. ‘I presented the prizes. Does that count?’ she asked, picking up her glass and filling her mouth with ice-cold water.
‘What about sex? Do you manage to find time for that?’ The water exploded down her nose. Jordan calmly handed her a handkerchief. ‘Or do you sponsor someone else to do that while you watch too?’
‘Bastard,’ she said, then as she blew her nose realised what she’d said and groaned. But when she finally emerged from behind the handkerchief he was laughing.
‘I do believe we’re getting somewhere at last,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…’
He raised his hand to stop her apology. ‘Please… It was worth it to see you blush.’
‘Blush? Oh, come on. I don’t blush.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ And he did that thing with his eyebrows again. The you-should-be-where-I’m-sitting thing. He did have the most amazingly expressive eyebrows.
‘And the answer to your question is no,’ she finished.
‘No time? Or no, you don’t sponsor someone else to do it for you?’
This time the blush was undeniably fierce enough to heat her cheeks, but she wasn’t going to allow him to win this round on points. ‘It’s been three years, two months and six days.’ That fixed the eyebrows. ‘In answer to the “Do I have time?” question. He was the most charming man. We’d known one another for years. But three years, two months and six days ago he asked me to marry him.’
‘That would have been James Cawston.’ He hadn’t been kidding about the cuttings agency. James had squired he
r about the place for a long time, and it was inevitable that they would have been photographed together, their relationship noted, speculated upon. ‘And obviously you said no.’
‘Not as such. I’d just been made a director of the store and I had other things on my mind. When I asked him to wait he said he wouldn’t waste his time since it was clear that I was already married to the store.’ When Jordan didn’t comment, she risked another, careful sip of water. ‘Well?’ she asked, finally unnerved by his thoughtful expression. His apparently endless silence as he considered what she’d told him indicated that he was clearly reading far more into her revelation than she’d ever intended. She’d enjoyed James’s friendship, had missed him being there whenever she’d needed a man at her side. But the fact that she’d let him walk away without doing a thing to prevent it had left her in no doubt that he’d been right. Maybe she was more like her father than she’d like to admit. Forced to choose between her mother and the store, he’d chosen the store—and he was nowhere near as passionate about it as she was. ‘Was that interesting enough for you?’
‘Three years, two months and six days?’
She realised that her precision had suggested she was brooding about it, heartbroken. ‘I don’t get that many marriage proposals,’ she said. ‘The date is fixed in my mind. You’ll notice I wasn’t counting the hours and minutes.’
‘Are you suggesting it wasn’t that serious?’
‘Not for me. But it occurred to me that James was probably right, and I didn’t want anyone else to be as hurt as he obviously was at the time. Hence the lack of a social life these days.’
‘Three years is a long time. Too long.’
‘Really? Are you speaking from personal experience, here?’ He didn’t leap to answer, and, because she’d said more than enough about her personal life, she turned the spotlight on him. ‘What about you, Jordan?’
‘What about me?’
‘What do you do when you aren’t busy making money? Are you a supporter of the arts? Do you enjoy sport?’ She raised her hand in a gesture that invited him to fill the gaps. Then, after an epic pause, ‘And what about sex?’ she added.
‘What about it?’
‘Are you a participant or a spectator?’
CHAPTER FOUR
INDIA instantly wished the words unsaid. Jordan had been tempting her along this path for the last ten minutes or so. First he’d turned the conversation to her family and then he’d concentrated on her, drawing her out, probing her defences with sympathy, with humour, with such skill that she’d forgotten all about sticking to business. Keeping it impersonal. And stepped right off the cliff edge.
Now she had two choices. Opt for safety: laugh, change the subject. And give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d caught her out. Won. Or take him over the edge with her.
There was no contest.
‘Well?’ she prompted, raising her eyebrows, inviting Jordan to lay his own life bare. ‘I occasionally get to the theatre,’ he admitted. ‘Or a concert. Not as often as I’d like.’
‘Why?’ He hadn’t been reserved about asking her questions, after all. She was certainly entitled to know everything about the man who intended to take her life’s work away from her.
‘Finding the time, a companion with similar tastes…’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t stand twittering women.’
Serious theatre, serious music, then. And she felt a certain empathy with his plight. ‘I feel just the same way about twittering men,’ she assured him, but crisply. She 59 didn’t want the fellow feeling to show. ‘The ones who will insist on telling you about the tough day they’ve had at the Stock Exchange while all you want is a quiet moment to contemplate the incredible performance you’ve just heard.’
He greeted this with a half smile of recognition. ‘And yet without someone to share the pleasure…’ He left the sentiment unfinished, as if inviting her to agree with him, and his words found an answering echo in her own life. She understood the emptiness, the need to reach out for the hand of someone who understood exactly what you were feeling without the need for words.
She’d tried going to concerts on her own but it had seemed a hollow experience.
Her mind, though, was swift to fill in a picture of the same experience shared with Jordan Farraday, and she found herself wishing he were not the enemy. So powerful was the image that she caught her lower lip between her teeth, as if to prevent the words from spilling out.
There was too much common ground between them already. They both wanted the same thing. But she was going to have to work ten times as hard as he was to get it.
When she didn’t respond, take the lead he’d offered, he let it go.
‘As for sport,’ he went on, ‘I play cricket for a City team a couple of times a year. Does that count?’
‘Twice a year? Oh, that’s serious,’ she said, gently mocking him as she grabbed at the opportunity to retreat from the sudden searing intensity of discovering shared feelings, the same empty spaces in their busy lives.
‘Deadly serious,’ he assured her, and despite her teasing she didn’t doubt it. She thought that he probably did everything that way. Except smile. His smile was a lazy thing. It started at the right-hand corner of his mouth and rarely got much further. But that was far enough for most purposes. More than enough to make a woman want to smile back. ‘We only play a couple of matches a year, but we play to win.’ Then, the smile deepening slightly, ‘The losers buy drinks on the house at the local hostelry all Saturday night.’
‘Oh, I see. It’s just a serious excuse for a party.’
‘It’s a weekend in the country. A chance to get together outside of the City and let off a little steam. No shop talk allowed. And we raise money for charity, too, although we don’t use it as a PR exercise to advertise ourselves,’ he added. An insult so subtle that it took a moment to sink in. At which point she wished she hadn’t been so fast to respond to that smile. He waited to see if she had anything more to say on the subject, then, ‘We’re playing this weekend, as a matter of fact. I thought that for once I might have to give it a miss because of work-shadowing you.’
‘Weekends would become a thing of the past if—’ She stopped. Even to suggest that he might win was to tempt fate.
‘Then I shall make the most of it while I have the opportunity. Maybe you’d like to come along?’
‘And shadow you instead?’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘A small courtesy in return for all the time I’m giving you?’
‘I thought having dinner with you was compensating for that. And you really don’t have to stick to me through every working hour.’ She tucked her hair behind her ear, offering him a smile of her own. The cool, you’re-not-getting-away-with-this smile. ‘You were quick enough to make your excuses and leave this morning, when my celebrity author fixed you in her sights. She wasn’t deterred by your swift departure, by the way. She phoned and left a message with Sally inviting you to dinner. Sally made your excuses, said you had a business dinner—’
‘She’s got a great future ahead of her.’
‘She had no idea it was true. So I’m repaying you twice.’ He didn’t deny it. ‘You can take the weekend off just as easily. Go and have fun with your friends. I won’t tell.’
‘Who is there to tell?’ he asked. And he reached out, took her hand, held it between his. ‘This is between the two of us, India.’ There was an intensity about his expression, the slow precision of his words. ‘No one else.’ For a moment she thought he was talking about more than the store. Then the corner of his mouth lifted a fraction higher, acknowledging the fact that she’d love to have him out of her hair for a couple of days. ‘I’ve dedicated this month one hundred per cent to Claibourne & Farraday and to you. Where you go, I go.’ Her hand in his suggested that was the way it would always be. ‘Do you have any plans for this weekend?’ he asked.
She blinked, and suddenly the moment was over. She retrieved her hand. �
��Other than work?’ she asked. ‘Nothing exciting.’ Far from it. This weekend was dedicated to reading and re-reading through those old files Sally had found. There might be something that would help her. Something to explain why her father had never told her about the golden share. She wasn’t about to tell Jordan Farraday that. ‘Nothing that you’d have to stay in London for,’ she assured him instead. ‘And it would be unkind to make you miss your rare sporting weekend.’
‘Does that mean you’ll come?’
Of course it didn’t. It meant he could go. Without her.
She envied him. It was months since she’d had even a day off. Maybe that was part of the problem. She was stale, her mind fogged with the endless meetings with lawyers. Quite unable to switch off, forget it even in her sleep.
A little fresh air in a work-free zone might be just what she needed to give her a fresh perspective on her problems. But not with Jordan Farraday tagging along as a constant reminder of the ticking clock.
‘It doesn’t mean anything of the sort. I said that you could go. What would I do at a cricket match?’
‘Make the tea?’
‘Very funny.’ She tried to read his face, feel what he was thinking, but he was giving nothing away. Not a man to second-guess or play poker with—always supposing she knew how.
He shrugged. ‘It’s your choice.’
‘Just like it was my choice to have dinner with you?’
‘If my company is that onerous,’ he replied, his voice as expressionless as his face, ‘you could surrender the store right now and save yourself a month of misery.’
Surrender? A tremor of alarm swept through her. Was he that confident? ‘Dream on,’ she said, doing her level best to match his lack of emotion.
‘Your decision. The Farradays are a patient lot. We’ve waited thirty years. We can wait another four weeks.’ Thirty years? She caught a glimmer of something… ‘But I’ll be sorry if you decide not to join us,’ he said, distracting her.