She slid down the tree, grazing her palms and not caring about it. She moved into the light. Just for a moment it blinded her. She stood there, blinking, wanting to run into his arms.
And Philip turned his back on her.
Kit could not believe it.
Now her eyes had adjusted, she saw that he had brought out the little mobile phone. He flicked it open and pressed buttons. Someone answered.
‘Hardesty here.’
In spite of the name she would now never forget, he did not sound like her Philip. He sounded crisp and efficient and about as remote as the stars out there in the brilliant sky beyond his shoulder.
‘No,’ he said into the phone. ‘No problem. General Rafek and I have got together after all. Could you meet us? There’s an elevator that goes up to the viewing platform for the big waterfall. You’ll find three of his men already there. We’ll be coming down in a few minutes.’
They could not hear what the man at the other end of the phone said but Philip smiled.
‘No, that’s not a problem either.’
He’s talking about me, thought Kit. She felt chilled to the bone. So that was the extent of her importance, was it? Not a problem! And only ten minutes ago she had all but invited him back to her cottage. The sheer exposure of it made her shake convulsively. She felt naked. Worse than naked.
He glanced up and met her eyes. The light in the clearing was uneven but Kit had no doubt about his expression: total blankness. You would have thought he’d never seen her before.
This was more terrible than anything that Johnny had done to her, Kit thought numbly. This felt like total betrayal. How could she have been such a stupid, stupid idiot?
‘I’ve never really been good at anything…’ ‘…a pale copy of Lisa…’ ‘I followed him round like a puppy…’ Was there anything she hadn’t told him? She had stripped herself so he should know her properly and now—
And now he was looking at her with complete indifference. It burned like ice, that indifference.
And I thought he was lonely!
She could have laughed aloud if she had not been afraid it would turn into tears.
Give me Lisa’s playacting powers, she prayed. Just until I can get away from him.
He finished his call and snapped the telephone shut. ‘Let’s go.’
All the way down in the rickety cage Philip talked in a quiet voice to Rafek. Kit stood huddled next to the waiter, as far away from Philip as she could get. She did not look at him once. She kept her eyes wide, so they should not fill up with tears, and concentrated on the brass tray with its untouched coffee pot. As soon as they came to rest, she slid out of the cage.
Philip did look at her then. He broke off his conversation with Rafek to do so. Rather impatiently, she thought.
‘I’ll find someone to take you to find your sister.’
‘No,’ said Kit sharply. The chill was growing. ‘No, I’m fine, thank you, Mr Hardesty.’
He stiffened and his eyes narrowed. ‘But—’
‘It’s enough that one of us has been scared out of her wits,’ said Kit, converting her hurt to anger and lashing out. ‘I don’t want to alarm Lisa as well.’
He was not listening to her. ‘I’m afraid I must insist.’ He was looking round for his assistant. ‘Fernando will find someone to go with you.’
Kit gave him a glittering smile. ‘I’ve got a few scratches that need attention. I’ll go back to my cottage and break out the antiseptic cream. Why should I need anyone to go with me?’
‘I would prefer it,’ said Philip coolly. As if that ought to deal with all her objections.
Kit could have danced with fury.
Fernando was deep in conversation with the man she had seen with Philip before, the one in combat trousers with gold teeth. He responded to his chief’s beckoning finger with a nod and began detaching himself.
Philip took her by the elbow and walked her away from Rafek.
‘Please go with Fernando.’
Kit said blazingly, ‘You’re not a naturalist, are you?’
Philip folded his lips together. He hesitated.
Then he said curtly, ‘No.’
‘Was anything you told me up there the truth?’
He looked momentarily stricken. Then that control shut down all expression. ‘You’ll have to be the judge of that yourself.’
Kit was shaking with rage. ‘Great. I’ll have to work really hard on that one,’ she said sarcastically.
She thought for a moment that she had hit home. It almost seemed as if he winced. But then he turned to the approaching Fernando and she could not be sure.
‘Philip?’ said the assistant.
‘Will you take Miss Romaine back to her room, Fernando? She rather got caught up in our games, through no fault of her own. See her safe home for me?’
As if she were a parcel, thought Kit, fuming. She planted herself squarely in front of him.
‘Are you telling me I’m a target?’ she threw at him.
Philip flicked a glance at Rafek’s men. Then he looked back at her. Just for a moment his face twisted.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘No, you’re quite safe as long as you keep away from me.’
The chill went right through to her heart, as if she had been stabbed with a stiletto of ice. She wrapped her arms round herself protectively.
‘Well, that’s not a problem, then, is it?’ said Kit with a wide false smile. ‘I don’t need an escort, thank you. I’ll see you around. Goodnight.’
She did not break into a run until she was out sight.
Damn. Philip was furious with himself. He had hurt her. But until he was certain that Rafek did not have other men posted around the island, what could he do? If they thought she meant anything to him these guerrillas were quite capable of kidnapping her and trying to use her to sway his decision in the peace process. Pretending indifference was the only way he could think of to keep her safe.
But he could not expect her to see that. She did not even know what his job was, after all. She could not begin to appreciate how dirty some of the warring parties would get in their attempt to get the upper hand.
She just thought that he was rejecting her. Worse, she thought he had led her on to confide in him with cynical indifference.
And there was not one damned thing he could do to put it right. Not until the peace was signed, sealed and delivered, anyway.
He hated hurting her. He hated feeling helpless even more. He knew how sensitive she was now. She had tried to hide it but he saw how deep the hurt had gone. Just for a couple of hours he had had a chance with her. And now it was gone. She would not trust him again.
He would try. Of course he would. He would see her. Explain. But later. And later might be too late.
Face it, Philip! This evening could be the end of everything.
Damn, damn and double damn.
‘Come with General Rafek,’ he said between his teeth. ‘You and I have a lot to talk about. And, by God, it had better be worth it.’
Kit got under the shower. It made her cuts tingle unpleasantly but that couldn’t be helped. She needed to wash away the feelings.
What a fool she had made of herself! What a fool!
All those childish confidences. I felt disgusting. I get so scared. She had told him every last thing that she hated about herself.
And as for, I wanted to be a children’s librarian! That just added a final touch of farce. She couldn’t even manage a decent ambition like being a supermodel or an astronaut. What a prat he had to think she was.
Well, he had almost said it, hadn’t he? Very kindly, of course. But even so, he had not pretended. The great tragedy of your life is ordinary.
‘AAAARRRGH!’ shouted Kit under the shower.
Well, let’s just hope that I don’t come face to face with him again, she thought. She did not think she could take the shame.
In the end it was an all-night session. Philip’s minder stopped being the laid-back b
odyguard and went onto full military alert. He talked into his short-wave radio and soon the hotel grounds were alive with silent men in combat gear.
Rafek was impressed enough to stop swaggering and set out his demands with comparative clarity. Philip took him through the agreement reached so far. Then released him to a suite that the hotel had rapidly made up.
Then Philip went back to the conference room. He knew there was no point in going to bed. He would not sleep. And he was all too likely to find himself sidetracked into planning how he could make it up to Kit.
When the delegates filed back in the next morning they found him heavy-eyed but in control. He had shaved and changed and his tie was straight but he still, if you knew him, had that indefinable jaded air that betrayed that he had been up all night. And he kept putting up his hand to his left eye.
The delegates were not interested in Philip’s physical demeanour, though. What interested them was his companion.
‘Gentlemen, I think you know General Rafek,’ Philip said coolly. ‘I am glad to say he has decided to join us. I think this marks a new stage in our discussions. Let us take it as a good omen.’
The talks moved onto a new plane. They got louder. Noisier. Violence threatened and Philip calmed it. Stubborn silence fell and Philip reminded them quietly of how much they had already achieved.
There were no breaks. Food was brought in. Messages were sent out continuously—for briefing, for instructions, for supplies. The delegates remained behind their closed doors.
Journalists began to drift back into the hotel over the afternoon. The grapevine had started to hum. Agreement was a possibility…was close…was a technicality away. Even the relaxed hotel staff seemed to catch some of the excitement.
In their cottage Lisa and Nikolai were being guardedly polite to each other as Nikolai’s group awaited the results of the peace negotiations. Kit should have been glad. But she hardly noticed. She was too preoccupied with her own concerns.
The great tragedy of your life is ordinary.
Now that she had the time to think about it, that was quite encouraging. If it was not a tragedy then there had to be a chance that she would get over what Johnny had done, hadn’t there? And if she could get over Johnny, who had taken six months of her life, she could get over a man who had taken less than six hours. Couldn’t she?
Lisa, demanding an explanation of her cuts and abrasions, wormed the secret out of her.
‘This is the man you met the first night?’ she said gropingly. ‘The sexy one?’
They were sitting under a palm tree on Kit’s stretch of beach. It was late afternoon and they had lazed and swum and lazed again all day. Lisa had not said a word about Nikolai not wanting her any more. In fact, Lisa had been going off into little reveries with an expression on her face which made Kit suspect that her sister and brother-in-law were now comprehensively reconciled.
It was not something she wanted to ask about. Especially not with Lisa interrogating her about sexy men.
‘Yes,’ said Kit, going pink and furious about it.
Lisa pulled a face. ‘Well, he seems to have handled it very well.’
‘Oh, yes, he handled me brilliantly,’ said Kit with bitterness. ‘Let me talk like a twerp and then patronised me.’
‘That’s because he didn’t lay a hand on you,’ said Lisa sapiently.
Kit was indignant. ‘Of course it wasn’t.’
Lisa’s eyebrows rose. ‘So he did lay a hand on you?’
‘Not in the way that you mean, no.’
‘In what way, then?’
‘Stop interrogating me,’ yelled Kit, driven beyond endurance.
Lisa gave a small, cat-like smile. ‘Welcome to the world, sister. It’s about time.’
Kit would have retorted in kind but Nikolai came jogging along the beach to them. His hair was all over the place and he looked gleeful.
‘Hardesty’s put out a notice. Press conference in twenty minutes. They must have signed,’ he said.
He flung himself down on the sand beside Lisa and gave her an intimate smile. ‘You get me all to yourself from here on in, mon amour.’
Kit felt suddenly as if she was intruding. The physical affection between them was like a furnace. She found she was instinctively moving a little away from Lisa, away from their magic circle.
And then she heard what he’d said.
‘Hardesty?’
Nikolai was taking Lisa’s hand and carrying it to his lips. He said indifferently, ‘The chief negotiator.’
‘The chief—!’
Oh, no, thought Kit. So she had not only made a fool of herself. She had to go and make a fool of herself with the Head Honcho. She bit her lip so hard, she exclaimed with pain.
Lisa looked at her curiously.
Nikolai said, ‘You won’t have seen him. He’s been locked up all week with the local brigands. But give the guy his due. He seems to have brokered a peace. And he’s got us some agreement to monitor the primate populations. As long as we pay up, of course. But still, at least there’s a chance of stopping the decline now.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Lisa, quite as if she had not been ready to wipe out personally every one of his beloved primates for most of the holiday.
He linked his fingers with hers. ‘The conservation group have asked him to drinks tonight. He won’t have time for anything else. But we want to say a formal thank-you.’ He swung their linked hands gently. ‘Will you come?’
Lisa smiled at him in a way which did not need words to convey acceptance.
‘Great.’ He stopped looking at his wife for long enough to say, ‘Kit?’
‘No,’ she said in a hollow voice.
She couldn’t face him. She couldn’t. How could she have been such an idiot? She had even asked him if she should have heard of him. Why hadn’t she dug deeper? Instead of prattling about herself like a self-absorbed teenager. Embarrassment crippled her!
She cleared her throat. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘That would be a shame,’ said Nikolai, who plainly didn’t give two hoots as long as Lisa was looking at him like that.
But Lisa was a different matter. She swung round on Kit, frowning.
‘Why on earth not?’
Kit wasn’t prepared for that. She hadn’t got an answer ready. So she fell back on the old one, the feeble one.
‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’
‘Yes, you have,’ said Lisa triumphantly. ‘I know Tatiana made you bring her black and silver job because you told me so. You can borrow my cascade earrings and I’ll put your hair up and hey presto. You’ll be the prettiest girl at the ball, Cinderella.’
Kit wriggled. But it was hopeless. Lisa had made up her mind.
‘Anyway,’ she said in Kit’s ear as she pinned long golden swathes on top of Kit’s head later that evening, ‘you’ll almost certainly meet Mr First Night there.’
Kit gave a grim smile at the mirror. ‘Why should I want to do that?’
‘Because you noticed he was sexy,’ said Lisa frankly. ‘Gives him a head start over anyone else I’ve ever heard you talk about.’
Kit set her teeth and did not answer. Nikolai put his head round the door. He flapped a piece of typing paper.
‘Here you are. Hot off the press. One of the journalists must have had a profile ready to go.’
Lisa took it. ‘What’s this?’
‘Our guest of honour. Philip Hardesty, saviour of the rainforest,’ said Nikolai and went off to the shower, whistling.
Lisa and Kit pored over it.
Sir Philip Hardesty is an aristocrat of the old school. An ancestor fought at Agincourt. Another was with Drake when he saw off the Spanish Armada. ‘Half Europe has reason to hate my family,’ this very twenty-first century gentleman says ruefully.
Kit let the paper fall. ‘Sir,’ she said blankly.
No wonder he had looked so blank when she called him Mr Hardesty. She had thought—hoped—that he had noticed her rejection and was
hurt by it. But it was simpler than that. She had just called him by the wrong name.
Lisa did not notice that she had lost Kit’s attention. She was reading selected comments aloud.
“‘New breed—talented operator—”’
‘I’ll say,’ muttered Kit.
Lisa did not notice. “‘First rose to prominence in Tetlakhan when his boss had a heart attack,”’ she read. “‘Possible academic career—universities are lining up to offer him a Chair in Conflict Resolution Studies—private life—”’
Kit leaned over Lisa’s shoulder again, suddenly breathless.
Meanwhile, there’s his private life. Ashbarrow, the Hardesty family pile in England, is a jewel of mediaeval architecture. And he hasn’t been spending a lot of time there recently. New York-based friend, Soralaya Khan, says she wouldn’t be surprised if he made some major changes in the coming months. Maybe it’s back to Ashbarrow and the life of a country squire for this year’s Mr Peace.
Kit gave a small moan. A stately home as well! No wonder he’d had all those nannies. It was the last straw.
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Lisa, not understanding. ‘It’s not his fault he was born with a title. From the sound of it, he’s a perfectly decent guy doing a first-class job. Just like Nikolai. I forbid you to get snobbish and prickly.’
Kit looked mulish.
‘Anyway, he’s the guest of honour. The ape-fanciers will be three deep. We won’t get anywhere near him,’ said Lisa blithely.
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Kit with real feeling.
But, of course, she wasn’t.
To begin with, Kit thought it was going to be all right. She slid into the room behind Lisa, doing her best to disappear behind pillars and tall men. Lisa accepted her excuse that she was uncomfortable in her borrowed dress. Up to this last week, it would even have been true.
But tonight she barely noticed how the stretchy stuff clung to her, outlining the curve of her breasts lovingly. Kit was way beyond self-consciousness about her body. Lisa’s crystal earrings swung gently against her bare neck, reminding Kit constantly of the low neck of the dress. She was taller than Tatiana and the skirt revealed yards of bare leg, tanned to pale honey by the week’s sun. And Kit was almost unaware of it.
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