As her eyes met his, her mouth went dry and she felt giddy.
‘You know,’ he said thoughtfully, his voice husky, ‘in that dress you wore, you looked…sexy.’
The silence was deafening. In it she thought she could hear the rapid beat of her heart, could almost hear the racing of her pulses.
She couldn’t think of a thing to say. Her mind had gone completely blank and she stared back at him, her pupils wide and dilated. What was going on here? Was he flirting with her? It was a situation which had never arisen before, and because of that she had imagined herself immunised against his charm. Now she felt as though her head was stuffed with cotton-wool and it took a great deal of effort to reply with anything remotely resembling calm.
‘It was my engagement party,’ she said, her mouth aching. ‘You wouldn’t expect me to wear a suit, would you?’
‘I have no idea what I would have expected,’ he replied, staring down at her. His eyes weren’t quite black, but they were very dark. She could see the flecks of brown in them, the black circle of iris, the long, thick eyelashes. ‘But whatever it was, you surprised me. I’ll bet your mother disapproved.’
She went pink. ‘Of course not! Why on earth should she?’ She had, of course.
‘No reason. Just that she looks as though she might frown heavily upon her daughter in the role of sex siren.’
‘Hardly that.’ She managed what she hoped sounded like a laugh, but her body was screaming as though he had touched her intimately, even though he hadn’t laid a finger on her. He didn’t have to. He was one of those men who could touch with their eyes. She dragged her gaze away from him and swept the fall of hair from her face with an unsteady hand.
‘You’ll be late for your meeting.’ Her voice was almost inaudible, but she thought that she had done very well by simply managing to say anything at all.
‘So I might,’ he agreed in a low, lazy voice, then his finger touched her neck, tracing the delicate ridges of her collarbone, down to the neat white lacy collar of her shirt. No further, but enough to make her breasts ache with awful arousal. She pulled back sharply and he laughed under his breath.
‘Look after the fort,’ he murmured, and she could feel his eyes on her without having to look. ‘See you later.’ With that he was gone, and as soon as the outer door had closed behind him she fell back against the wall, her body trembling all over as if she had ague. Gradually the wheels of her brain began churning into life again, but it was a while before she made it to her chair, to the cosy comfort of her computer.
The shock of what had just happened, which, she uneasily told herself, was precisely nothing, began to wear off and anger took its place. Anger that he had dared lecture to her on her life, anger that he had done his best to provoke an answering reaction from her, anger that he had had the audacity to flirt with her simply for the hell of it. Wasn’t that why she could never be attracted to a man like him, even though she could look at him and understand why so many women were? He threatened with his very presence. He had managed to imply that Martin was dull, boring, tepid, but excitement was like living on the edge of a precipice, never knowing when you would go hurtling down to the rocks below. She was, she reflected, not an exciting person. She had never been an exciting person. A ‘quiet little thing’ was how her mother used to describe her to her friends, and what was wrong with that? Look at where so-called excitement had got her in the past. Oh, it hadn’t broken her heart, nothing so dramatic as that, but it had given her a very illuminating and not to be repeated confrontation with mortification.
Let other people play their dangerous games of love: she would settle for placidity and contentment. And Martin.
She spent the morning half concentrating on her work, half berating herself for being distracted when she found herself unable to concentrate, but it was helpful not having Ross around. It gave her time to collect herself together, and when he strode back into the office at two-thirty she could quite calmly look at him, hand him his messages, ask him how the meeting went, without revealing the slightest flicker of emotion.
After two days, she began to think that she had imagined everything. Had he really looked at her with that dark, mocking charm or had it been some kind of temporary illusion brought on by who knew what? She had been in a fragile state of mind after their conversation about Martin and she could understand how she might have over-reacted to some perfectly innocent compliment, some perfectly innocent gesture. She wasn’t his type any more than he was hers, and they both knew that. That was one of the reasons why they had managed to work in such harmony from the start: because there had never been any sexual innuendo between them. Flirting was second nature to him. He had an abundance of masculine charm and he used it almost without thinking, but the minute he had seen that she wasn’t interested he had backed off, because what he really wanted was a secretary who gave everything to her job, and, since that had been precisely what she had been looking for, they had found that strong common ground.
On the Tuesday afternoon, Martin phoned to tell her that he would collect her at her office next day instead of meeting her at her flat, because a meeting with one of his customers had cropped up at the last minute and couldn’t be avoided.
‘I shall have to work until at least six,’ he grumbled down the line. ‘Why can’t people arrange meetings for sensible times, like ten in the morning?’
‘We can always postpone it,’ Abigail said, absentmindedly re-reading what she had just typed on the screen in front of her. ‘The film won’t vanish for at least another month or so.’
‘No,’ Martin said a little aggressively. ‘Why should I ruin my evening because of some damned meeting? I shall make sure it’s wound up by six latest and I’ll see you at your office around six-thirty. That should give us time to have a bite before we go to the cinema.’
‘That sounds fine,’ she said hurriedly as Ross pushed open the door and walked into the room. He looked at the telephone, then at her and paused to stand by her desk, perching on the edge while she abruptly told Martin that she had to go.
‘I hope I haven’t interrupted an important personal call,’ he said in a barbed voice, and she sighed.
‘No, of course not.’
‘Boyfriend?’
This was the first mention of Martin for days and she looked at him warily.
‘Yes.’ She began printing the letter on the word processor, hoping that the irritating noise would encourage him to leave, but it didn’t. He stayed right where he was, eyeing her while she busied herself collating the letter, and she eventually met his stare with reluctance.
His black hair was combed back, making the lines of his face appear harsher, more arrogant, and his eyes were lazy but watchful.
‘Going somewhere?’ he asked, and she thought she heard amusement in his tone.
‘To the movies. Tomorrow evening. We usually go once a fortnight.’
‘Creatures of habit,’ he mused, and she clamped her teeth firmly together, determined not to let him get under her skin this time. ‘I’ll be out all day tomorrow,’ he said briskly, standing up, taking the letter which she handed him and glancing quickly through it.
‘Where?’ She frowned, not recalling any all-day meetings in her diary, and he slid a sidelong look at her.
‘Do I have to report all my actions to you?’
‘I like to know where you are in case someone wants to get in touch with you.’
‘How efficient. In that case, I’ll be at home until around lunchtime, then at a private viewing at the Tate
Gallery from three onwards. In other words——’ he
leaned towards her with his hands on her desk ‘—I shall be taking the day off for reasons of pleasure and not business.’ He grinned and added, ‘Do think twice about interrupting me at home. There’s nothing worse for lovemaking than the sound of a telephone.’
He strode into his office, whistling, and Abigail glared at his vanishing back. Creatures of habit. The description r
ankled at the back of her mind for the remainder of the day and the following morning she woke up with a feeling bf relief that Ross wasn’t going to be around. She was tired of defending Martin to him and to herself. The worst thing was that she couldn’t jump right in and wage a heated war in his defence, because that would have been precisely what he wanted, so she had to content herself with being as cool as she could, while inside she felt hopelessly impotent.
At six-thirty precisely next day, Martin arrived for her. She had carried a change of clothes to work and had slipped out of her neat suit into a comfortable pair of jeans, a clinging long-sleeved polo-necked top in pale gold and a loose-fitting tan-coloured jumper with a motto of cream angel fish shot through in a line around it. Martin looked at her appreciatively, while chatting about the outcome of the meeting which, he informed her, he had hurried along so that he could get to her in time.
‘You really shouldn’t have,’ she said, moving to unhook her coat. She turned to smile at him just as the door opened and Ross walked in. She was so taken aback that she paused in mid-air to stare at him.
He was dressed formally, in a white shirt and a black dinner-jacket, with a black bow tie, and an ivory-coloured silk scarf carelessly around his neck. She could see Martin’s features freeze with unspoken resentment and she hurried into speech, asking him what he was doing here.
‘Have those faxes arrived?’ he asked, and she nodded, immediately knowing what he was referring to. He nodded and gave her an insolent, stripping glance, then smiled lazily.
‘Have a good time at the movies,’ he said, nodding in Martin’s direction, the first indication that he had even noticed him, and Martin returned with a tight smile.
‘I don’t think I like that boss of yours one bit,’ he said to Abigail, as they took the elevator down to the ground floor. ‘Acts as though he owns the damn world! And I don’t care for the way he treats you either.’
‘What do you mean?’
They walked out of the building and the cold night air felt like a slap on her face. Martin had his hand at her elbow and she could feel the tension in his body. She could understand it. Ross Anderson could have that effect on people, make them tense and defensive. Seeing them together had been a bit like watching a rabbit next to a jungle predator, and it was no wonder that Martin’s reactions were ones of angry discomfort.
‘I mean,’ he said with exaggerated patience which she found slightly irritating, ‘he acts as though he owns you.’
Abigail flushed deeply and did a double-take. ‘You’re being over-imaginative!’ she protested, and he threw her a grim look.
‘He acts as though your whole existence is to be at his beck and call. Do you think I didn’t notice the way he looked at you when he walked in?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, remembering the cursory flick of those dark eyes on her, making her skin burn.
‘He doesn’t like me,’ Martin said in a tone that bordered on the petulant. ‘I could tell at that engagement party. He was polite enough, but underneath it was like talking to a wall of cold, calculating ice. Still, I gave him my opinion on arrogant snobs like him.’
‘That’s just the way he is,’ she murmured soothingly, not caring for this unexpected side to him, and he burst out,
‘Don’t make excuses for him! The sooner you clear out of there the better, as far as I’m concerned.’
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and felt a sharp twinge of anger.
‘There’s no point in discussing this,’ she muttered.
‘I want us to set a date for our wedding,’ he persisted stubbornly, ‘and I want it to be soon. Within the next six months, then we can start a family and you can tell that boss of yours what he can do with his job.’
He caught her arm and her eyes evaded his.
‘Sooner or later, he’s going to start trying to turn you against me,’ Martin said, with a depth of insight that took her by surprise. ‘He strikes me as the sort who would like to run other people’s lives for them and that includes yours!’
‘You’re imagining things. And we’re getting in everyone’s way.’ She began walking and he continued his diatribe. Why, she thought, had Ross Anderson ever gone to that engagement party? Why couldn’t he have left well alone?
‘I am not imagining things!’ Martin erupted. ‘He doesn’t approve of me for whatever reason and he’s going to poison your mind against me.’
He saw the flicker of a shadow cross her face, and said in a so-I’m-right voice, ‘Has he said anything at all?’
‘No,’ she lied feebly, ‘not much, anyway. He just thinks that we’re creatures of habit. I think he finds that amusing, if anything.’
‘I’ll bet,’ Martin said aggressively.
They had been walking briskly in the cold air towards the Italian restaurant which was only minutes away from the cinema, and he pulled her against him and said huskily, ‘Do you think that I’m a creature of habit?’ and she looked up into those wide, normally unchallenging, eyes which weren’t quite so placid now, with a sigh.
‘Is that such a bad thing?’ she asked, avoiding the question.
‘No,’ he conceded grudgingly, ‘I suppose not.’
They were regulars at this particular restaurant, and the manager smiled at them as they entered, showing them to the nicest table in the place, in a discreet corner, close to the window yet shielded from casual eyes by a scattering of climbing plants on the window-ledge.
Martin allowed the conversation to drop, but it was still on his mind. She could tell from his distracted manner for the rest of the evening. It was stupid, she wanted to say, to let Ross Anderson influence the way he behaved, but on the other hand she knew that it was stupid of Martin to allow it to. He was nice and reliable and easygoing, but he was essentially weak, and this was something which she was only now beginning to realise. He went with the flow, let himself drift along the currents of life, and avoided anything that promised an uphill struggle. Wasn’t that why he had stuck it out in his job for so long? It wasn’t invigorating, but it was undemanding, and the option of actually wading his way back into the job market was a task that wasn’t, as far as he was concerned, worth the effort.
She had no idea whether this realisation had crept up on her slowly or whether it had advanced in one easy stride when she was least expecting it, when she had thought her life to be safely tied up with string, but now that it had reared its head, it worried away at the back of her mind, and they parted company, for the first time, without any of the warmth that they normally did.
She arrived at work the following morning to find that Ross was late. Unusual for him, and at nine-thirty her telephone rang. It was Fiona.
‘Ross doesn’t know I’m calling you,’ she breathed down the line, and Abigail had no difficulty in conjuring up that feline, white-blonde beauty that could be as hard as nails or as malleable as putty, depending on the company, ‘but I know what an efficient little thing you are, so I thought I’d call to let you know that he’ll be a little late this morning. We’re at my place and——’ she laughed throatily ‘—I’m afraid time just seemed to run away with us. You understand.’
‘Of course,’ Abigail said stiffly. Why are you telling me this? she wondered. ‘When can I expect Mr Anderson?’ she asked, and Fiona replied with a low, conspiratorial gurgle,
‘Soon, my dear. He’s in the bathroom right now. We had an awfully late night, I’m afraid. It seems to be something of a habit with us lately. Anyway, please don’t tell him that I called you. He can be terribly dramatic over the silliest of things. You know men.’
‘I’ll take your word for it, Miss St Paul.’
‘How, incidentally, is that super fiancé of yours?’
‘Fine,’ Abigail said abruptly, ‘thank you.’
‘Have you set a date for the wedding as yet?’
‘No.’ She began doodling on a piece of paper in front of her, fierce little designs.
‘You ought to, you know.
Time flies so quickly. One minute you’re over the moon with an engagement, and the next minute you’re looking at five wasted years and wondering when that little gold band will ever get on your finger!’
‘I don’t think that would be a problem for me.’
‘No,’ Fiona agreed, ‘he did look desperately keen on you. So absolutely touching.’
Abigail stopped the hectic doodling. Actually, she meant something quite different. She meant that the five years would not really bother her very much, and that thought made her frown heavily. Surely she should be dying to tie the knot? She knew people who had practically booked the church even before they announced their engagements.
‘Actually, and this is positively between the two of us——’ Fiona’s voice was low and hurried and a little embarrassed ‘—I may soon be in the same position as you! Ross and I, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if this man were the one to finally coerce me into marriage. I’ve had more than my fair share of suitors, my dear, but not tempting enough. Until now.’
Abigail’s mouth felt stiff, and she said politely, ‘Oh, really? How interesting. Well, I really must get back to work now, if you’ll excuse me. Thank you for calling to let me know that Mr Anderson will be in later.’
‘Of course.’
There was a click as the receiver was replaced at the other end.
So that was the reason for the telephone call. Never mind an act of courtesy in letting her know that Ross would be late. Fiona had made that phone call to let it be known that Ross had spent the night with her, that, presumably, he spent most nights with her, and that if the wedding bells weren’t chiming loud and clear at the moment, then they very soon would be.
Abigail glowered at the word processor and tried to concentrate on what she had to do, but the phone call had thrown her off balance. She stared down at her pile of work and immediately her mind began to drift along all sorts of stupid, unreasonable lines.
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