by Penny Jordan
No. The only person to profit from what he claimed he had to offer would be him, Christa decided contemptuously.
The head of the Chamber of Commerce was asking if anyone wanted to ask any questions.
Immediately, Christa got to her feet.
The manufactured pleasure in Daniel Geshard’s grey eyes as they studied her made her lip curl in disdain. Oh, yes, she had seen the way he had reacted when he’d spotted her in his audience, the quick, oh, so false smile of warm pleasure—followed by a small questioning frown as she turned her head away, refusing to acknowledge his recognition of her.
But then, of course, it was in his interests to deceive her into believing that he found her attractive. Grimly she wondered how many female executives had succumbed to that heart-twisting grey-eyed message of interest and attraction, only to discover that what he really wanted was their signature on a form enticing their employees to take part in one of his ridiculous courses.
‘Er—yes, Christa…?’
She could hear the chairman clearing his throat nervously as he acknowledged her intention to speak. Unlike her foe, he would, of course, know exactly what was coming. She had never made any secret of her views when the subject of inviting this man to speak to them had first been mooted.
And nor, she reassured herself firmly, did her intention to demolish the very smooth and polished persuasiveness he had just used to attempt to sell them his New Age theories have anything to do with her personal feelings about him as a man—nor with her potentially humiliating misreading of his body-language and the look of warm male interest she had mistakenly thought she’d seen in his eyes when she had not known his identity.
Fortunately, she had discovered who he was in time!
No matter what other people’s views might be, she was not taken in by his pseudo-psychological expertise—she knew a fake when she saw one.
What real proof had he offered them, after all, that this centre he owned and ran in the Welsh mountains really benefited the people who attended his courses?
‘What I would like to ask the Chair is what actual proof Mr Geshard can offer us that his courses, his centre do improve the profitability of the companies sending their executives to him.’
He was a good actor, Christa acknowledged grimly, as his expression betrayed neither discomfort nor surprise at her question.
‘Very little.’
His prompt ‘very little’ made Christa’s eyebrows snap together in amazement.
‘You don’t feel there is any need to keep such records, then?’ she questioned him mock sweetly. ‘Unusual, especially in an age where even the most obvious of fake wonder-cures insist on producing reality-defying “before and after” test results.’
Although she had not taken her eyes off his face, Christa was still aware of the faint ripple of disapproval that ran through the chamber. Disapproval which she knew was directed at her and not the speaker—but then she was not a man, was she, not part of the unofficial ‘club’ which ran such organisations?
‘Perhaps, but since we’ve only been open less than a year, and since none of the companies who have used our services has yet produced a full year’s accounts, we do not as yet have access to such figures. However, it seems as though I may have inadvertently given the wrong impression with my speech. Our aim is not specifically to increase our client’s profits, but rather to improve and enhance the quality of their employees’ lives, both at work and away from it.’
‘By forcing them to play games?’ Christa demanded, maintaining eye-contact with him.
‘It’s a well-known and accepted fact now that children who are deprived of the opportunity for play are far more likely to grow into maladjusted adults. What we are about is teaching people to work harmoniously together, teaching them how to combat the stresses of modern living.’
‘But you admit that you cannot back up your claims with hard facts,’ Christa persisted doggedly, refusing to be quelled by the cool grey-eyed stare he was giving her, so very different from the warm male interest with which he had regarded her earlier that day—correction: the warm male interest with which she had thought he had regarded her; just like his claims this evening, that warmth, that interest had been completely spurious.
‘Was it an admission? I rather thought I was merely correcting your—er—inaccurate interpretation of my speech.’
The male laughter which greeted his comment made Christa’s face burn, but she wasn’t going to be bullied into backing down, and she certainly wasn’t going to be stupid enough to fall for that false look of brief sympathy which had flashed in his eyes.
‘You have no real proof that what you are doing, the courses you offer, have any kind of genuine benefit, other than to your cash-flow.’
Now she had got under his skin, she realised triumphantly as she saw the way his mouth and eyes hardened.
‘Not perhaps in balance-sheet terms—either my own or anyone else’s—but I certainly believe in the benefits of what we are doing, and I can tell you this: if you were to undergo one of our courses yourself, I promise you it would completely change the way you view your life.’
His voice had dropped slightly as he spoke and for some reason Christa felt her face start to burn again, her thoughts winging back to that small, betraying moment that afternoon when he had looked at her, and yet she had been drawn towards him, the deepest feminine core of her instinctively responding to him and to the message he had seemed to be giving to her.
When her heartbeat accelerated now, though, it was with anger and not attraction, her eyes darkening as she challenged him. ‘Impossible.’
‘On the contrary, I can categorically promise you and everyone else here that after, say, a month at the centre, your views on life, the focus of your life will have changed—and I’ll go even further. I’ll add that you yourself will be happy to admit to those changes, to acknowledge them and want to share them with others…’
‘Never!’ Christa denied.
‘Let me prove it to you.’
Christa opened her mouth to vehemently refuse his challenge and then realised abruptly that she had backed herself into a very imprisoning corner.
‘I think that’s a very generous offer, and an excellent idea,’ the chairman was saying warmly to the audience, taking advantage of Christa’s momentary silence. ‘We shall all be most interested to see the results of Christa’s visit to your centre…’
‘No, I can’t,’ Christa started to protest breathlessly. ‘My business doesn’t generate the kind of profits for—’
‘There won’t be any charge.’
Christa gulped in air. What had she done? If she refused now, she would not only make herself look a complete idiot, she would also be allowing him to gain the advantage. To win. She could see already how impressed the others were by his confidence, his belief in himself.
‘You can’t back out now, Christa,’ the chairman was warning her jovially, but Christa could see his resentment of her in his eyes. ‘Otherwise we’ll begin to think that you’re the one who doesn’t have the courage of her convictions.’
‘I had no intention of backing out,’ Christa denied stiffly. ‘I shall need a week to organise my business affairs,’ she told her opponent without looking directly at him.
‘Yes, of course…’
How smooth he was…how assured…how confident of victory; but the war wasn’t over yet, and it would take more than charm and confidence to change her mind. Much, much more…In fact, Christa decided, recovering slightly from the shock of the way he had turned the tables on her, he was the one who would ultimately lose out, not her, because there was nothing, nothing that he could say or do that would convince her.
‘Our speaker outmanoeuvred you very neatly tonight, didn’t he?’
Christa frowned, increasing her speed as the man addressing her fell into step beside her. She had never particularly liked Paul Thompson. He had an unctuous, almost oily manner which did nothing to hide the blatant sexual
curiosity Christa had seen in his eyes whenever he looked at a woman. She had had to rebuff the heavyhanded attempts at flirting with her on more than one occasion, and, although she had no doubt that he would be quite happy to go to bed with her, she knew that he also resented her, and she suspected that he was one of those men who secretly did not really like women at all.
She felt very sorry for his wife, and avoided him as much as she could.
‘You’ll have to be careful,’ he warned her, mock solicitously. ‘Our speaker is going to pull out all the stops now to make sure he gets you to back down. He can’t afford to do anything else. Not having gone so public, so to speak.’
‘I’m not the kind of person who is easily persuaded to change her mind once she’s made it up,’ Christa told him shortly. ‘You should know that, Paul.’
‘You’re a woman, though,’ he retorted, plainly nettled by her comment, ‘and by the looks of him he’s the kind of man who…’
‘Who what?’ Christa demanded acidly.
‘The kind of man who thinks he can persuade and seduce a woman into changing her mind…her principles.’
‘Well, if that’s the case, he’ll be wasting his time with me—I’m not so easily persuadable and certainly not seducible!’ Perhaps, a small inner voice warned her, but if she had not realised in time just who he was…But she had realised, she reassured herself firmly, and having done so—well, if Daniel Geshard was thinking for one moment along the lines that Paul was so mockingly suggesting, he was going to be in for one hell of a big surprise, she told herself with grim pleasure. Let him just dare to try it—let him just dare.
CHAPTER TWO
CHRISTA frowned as she heard her front doorbell ring. From her attic workroom it was three flights down to the front door of the large Victorian semi which had been her home ever since she had come to live here with her aunt, after her parents’ death.
Whoever was ringing her doorbell had no right to be doing so anyway; everyone knew that her working hours were sacrosanct and that she was not to be interrupted.
Her aunt had preferred to work in the small office attached to the warehouse where they stored their cloth, but Christa, with her training as a designer, loved the large north-lit attic-room, where she could work in peace without any interruptions.
Where she could normally work in peace without any interruptions, she corrected herself, as the doorbell continued to ring.
Well, she wasn’t going to answer it, so whoever was there would just have to go away. Before she left for Wales tonight she wanted to finish the project she was working on. People outside the business always expressed astonishment when they learned how far ahead she worked. The fabric samples she was studying now would not be on the market until the summer season after next, and the design council, along with the fashion industry, were even further ahead, working on the colours and styles that people would be wearing two winters from now.
Designers were obviously much taken with the theme of the new century and of the change in the stellar constellations which would bring in the new age of Aquarius. The samples she was studying now featured all manner of such symbols: stars, suns, moons, along with various interpretations of the sign of Aquarius and its link to water.
The colours, too, reflected that same watery element, blues and greens, highlighted with a range of sand colours from palest beige right through to glittering gold.
Thoughtfully she fingered a piece of deep blue damask, gazing at the neat piles of samples on the table in front of her until she found what she was looking for. The old-gold brocade looked good with the damaskgood but slightly dull, she acknowledged, thinking ahead to how the various combinations of the fabrics she would choose would feature in advertising displays. The aqua fabric with the gold suns on it, while not to everyone’s taste, provided a dramatic contrast to the two plainer fabrics.
The buyer from the designei shops had been flatteringly complimentary about her present range of fabrics, even if the order he had given her had been smaller than she could have hoped.
‘Nice, but very expensive,’ had been his comments about one of the damasks she had shown him in rich jewel colours.
‘Because of the quality of the fabric,’ Christa had told him. ‘In ten years’ time this fabric will just be starting to develop the elegant shabby patina you see in fabrics in old houses, where something cheaper will merely be wearing away.’
‘Mmm…In my business we don’t always encourage our clients to think long-term,’ he had responded drily.
The doorbell had stopped ringing. Christa smiled in satisfaction, and then frowned as it suddenly started to ring again.
Whoever it was was plainly not going to go away.
Thoroughly angry, she put down the samples she had been studying and headed for the stairs.
By the time she reached the front door Christa was not only out of temper, she was out of breath as well. Flipping her hair back off her face, she pushed it out of the way with one hand as she opened the door.
‘Look,’ she began irritably, ‘I’m working and…’
Her voice died away as she gazed in shock at her unexpected visitor.
Daniel Geshard. What was he doing here? Had he come perhaps to tell her that he had changed his mind, that he was withdrawing his challenge to her?
The amusement in his eyes as he studied her didn’t seem to suggest that he was a man who had come cap in hand seeking favours, and Christa flushed as she recognised that part of his amusement seemed to be caused by the fact that she was barefoot.
It was a habit of hers to spread her samples on the floor and kick off her shoes when she knelt down to study them. She had never in the past thought of her feet as a particularly provocative part of her body, but now, for some reason, she could feel her face starting to flush as she fought down the urge to curl her toes into the carpet in an effort to conceal them from him.
He looked so much taller than she had remembered, so much more…more male. He was wearing jeans, a warm-looking blue shirt tucked into the waistband, and Christa felt her hot colour deepen slightly as she remembered how she had fantasised about seeing him wearing just such clothing.
Her imagination had not done him justice, she acknowledged unwillingly. No man had any right to have such long legs, such powerful thighs.
She tensed as, without asking her, he edged through the door and into the hallway, affording her a sideways view of his very male profile and his tautly firm…Christa swallowed quickly. Trust him to catch her at such a disadvantage, wearing an old, comfortable top and a pair of leggings, her face free of make-up, her hair loose and all over the place. Where had he got her address from? she wondered as she studied him surreptitiously. He was a very good-looking man, a very virile-looking man, she had to give him that. She shivered slightly, hastily looking…‘What do you want?’ she demanded, trying to control the situation again as he paused to study a collage of fabrics she had made while she was at college and which her aunt had proudly insisted on hanging in the hallway.
She should have taken it down, Christa reflected as he withdrew his gaze from her collage and focused it on her.
‘What do I want?’ he repeated. ‘Well…’
Something in the way he was looking at her made Christa feel as though she had unexpectedly stepped on to a patch of sheet ice and found herself dangerously, physically, out of control because of it.
‘I meant, what are you doing here?’ she corrected herself swiftly.
‘Ah.’
A rueful smile curled his mouth. Determinedly, Christa hardened her heart. In any other man his apparent sense of humour would have delighted her, but with this man nothing could be taken at face value, as she already had good cause to know.
It was in his interests, after all, to win her over to his side—part of the softening-up process he undoubtedly intended to use on her to get her to change her mind about his precious centre.
‘I’ve come to collect you,’ Christa heard him saying in
response to her question. ‘The centre isn’t that easy to find…”
‘To collect me? I’m not a parcel!’ she said, adding acidly, ‘And in view of the fact that I’ve so far managed to find my way to some extremely obscure parts of the world, I doubt very much that finding my way to Wales should prove too much of a problem.’
‘You do still intend to take the course, then?’
Christa shot him an angry look. Did he honestly think she was going to back out; that she could back out?
‘Of course I intend to take it,’ she confirmed fiercely.
‘Good.’
‘But the course doesn’t start until tomorrow morning at ten and I still have work to finish, so if you will excuse me—’ Christa began pointedly.
The dark eyebrows rose. ‘The last train from our nearest main-line station to our local one leaves at four in the afternoon. You’ll be cutting things pretty fine.’
Train? Christa stared at him.
‘I don’t intend…I’m not travelling by train; I’m taking my car.’
‘Ah…I’m afraid not. People attending our courses are not allowed to bring their own transport,’ he told her firmly.
‘What? I don’t believe it…you…’
‘It’s in our brochure,’ he told her unapologetically. ‘I did send you a copy.’
Yes, he had, and she had promptly thrown it away without bothering to read it, so angry had she been at the way she had allowed herself to be manipulated into such a time-wasting situation.
‘That’s why I thought you might appreciate a lift…’ Suspiciously Christa watched him through narrowed eyes. What was the real purpose of his visit? Not to do her any favours, she was sure of it. If she didn’t arrive on time for the commencement of her course, would he gloatingly proclaim that she had backed out of their arrangement and seize this as evidence that she was afraid of losing?