by Susan Napier
She widened her grey eyes. ‘I thought I wasn’t allowed to use your phone lines to talk to Stephen,’ she said piously.
‘Well, I can’t let you just stand him up, can I? The poor guy deserves to know why his romantic evening has crashed and burned. Go ahead—I won’t listen,’ he offered magnanimously, when they both knew that his ears would be madly flapping to catch every single syllable.
‘Actually we had no arrangements for tonight,’ she said, dashing his hopes with gentle relish. ‘Stephen is having a quiet dinner with his mother, at her place.’
‘Oh, Madeline…’ Duncan rolled his eyes in perfect understanding. ‘The Queen Bee—or do I mean Bore? What’s the matter, weren’t you invited?’
She gave him a haughty look that failed to quell his curiosity, or his unfortunate powers of perception. He grinned. ‘Ah-ha, so you were invited and you managed to wriggle out of it.’ His eyes danced with mischief. ‘I don’t blame you; I never got on with Madeline, either. She thought I was a bad influence on her angelic little darling—a swarthy sinner beside his shining blond purity—hence I was always the one who took the blame for his wrongdoings. Plus ça change and all that, huh?’
‘Madeline and I get on perfectly well,’ countered Kalera, grateful that the truth was obligingly elastic.
‘As long as you don’t transgress her stuffy rules of polite conversation,’ guessed Duncan, revealing a shrewd knowledge of his subject. ‘Even then she’d probably grin and bear it—after all, you were chosen by her son, who can do no wrong. Has she shown you all her home videos, yet, of Stephen’s boyish accomplishments and manly achievements? Ah, I see by your glazed expression that she has, and Madeline being Madeline she probably made you sit through the wedding one, as well, just so she could point out all her pedigreed friends.
‘So how did you avoid the jaw-cracking prospect of a comfortable coze with Mumsie? Is that why old Steve was pestering you on the phone earlier?’ he figured slyly. ‘What did you do—trot out the hoary old line about working late at the office?’ He hooted gleefully at her betraying wince.
‘Since it happens to be the truth it’s hardly a line,’ Kalera said, clinging to her dignity.
‘No wonder you didn’t raise a whimper of protest about my slave-driving,’ he grinned. ‘It’s saved you from a fate worse than death. Now you won’t have to lie if Steve gets suspicious and checks up on your story.’
She drew in a sharp breath. ‘He wouldn’t do that. There’s no reason for him to be suspicious!’
Duncan’s shrug was one of wry cynicism. ‘That’s never stopped him before.’
He paused before saying with a quiet lack of emphasis, ‘I bet whenever you say you’re going out somewhere without him he always rings you at home later to see what time you’re back home…’
‘That’s because he’s such a gentleman,’ she said, wondering why she should suddenly feel so defensive over Stephen’s flattering attentiveness. ‘He worries about my living alone and just likes to reassure himself that I’ve got back safely.’
‘And I bet he sometimes leaves messages for you at the places you say you’re planning to be.’
Kalera tipped up her small chin. ‘Most women find it romantic to know that a man is thinking about her when she’s not around. It works both ways, you know. Stephen always lets me know where he’ll be and what he’s doing…’
‘Has he given you one of those incredibly handy pocket planners, yet—so you can carry around all your friends’ addresses and phone numbers, and a written diary of all your appointments and things to do, so that whenever he wants to compare schedules you can do it on the spot?’
Kalera thought of the handsome, top-of-the line, leather-bound organiser stamped with her initials which had been Stephen’s first gift. She had been touched that he had obviously noticed that she carried a cheap spiral notebook in her handbag as a memory-jogger, tearing off the pages as she went, though was slightly embarrassed at the expensiveness of the gift so early in their relationship.
‘Yes, and it’s been very useful,’ she said, choosing to forget the uncomfortable sense of obligation which had led her firmly to refuse the clothes and jewellery that Stephen had tried to shower her with during the remainder of their courtship, instead restricting him to the traditional tokens of flowers and food.
Duncan wisely accepted her clipped comment as a warning that the subject was closed, but left her with one final dig.
‘Given the business he’s in, I’m surprised he didn’t give you an electronic organiser, but I guess on those things it’s too easy to erase entries without a trace. A handwritten diary is usually much more revealing, not to mention accessible, to the casual browser…’
She fulminated over the unsubtle slur, but held her tongue as they worked steadily on through the latter part of the afternoon and through the disruptive clatter of people departing for the day.
As the exodus dwindled to a trickle, Duncan went out to investigate a noisy game of slam-dunk waste-paper basketball going on in the hall.
‘What’s the matter with you people?’ she heard him bellow. ‘What is this, a sports stadium? Don’t you folks have homes to go to?’
‘Yeah, but we don’t get paid to play basketball there,’ Kalera heard an irreverent voice respond.
‘Since it’s after five you’re not getting paid here, either. No team in the world would hire that lame aiming arm of yours anyway, Digby. Go find somewhere else to humiliate yourself. There’re still people trying to get work done around here.’
‘Try harder,’ said someone else, to great guffaws, for it was a standard phrase of Duncan’s if anyone complained that something couldn’t be done.
‘Aw, c’mon Mr Royal; woncha let Duncan come out to play?’ another voice whined.
‘Leave the little tyke alone. He’s probably still sore that he missed the final free throw the last time he played and lost his team the game…’
Kalera sighed as the challenge lingered in the air, and sure enough there followed a long series of scuffling sounds and numerous muffled thumps and shouts and then a whooping sound of victory. She hid a smile when Duncan returned, slicking back his ruffled black mane, a faint sheen of perspiration on his brow, his chest heaving slightly under his T-shirt.
‘I thought you went out there to break it up, not to encourage their unruliness,’ she said, handing him another rejection letter to sign.
He met her chiding gaze with a rueful grin. ‘If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em,’ he said, signing with an extravagant flourish.
‘One day you’re going to be goaded into a challenge you can’t win,’ she told him.
‘I’m as gracious in defeat as I am in victory,’ he said, and laughed at her incredulous look. ‘All right, so I rage and sulk and throw things…but I’m quick to get over it.’
And so he was, she mused. His tantrums were always brief because there was invariably another idea bubbling up from the depths of his genius to seize hold of his imagination and divert his boundless energies into setting himself a fresh challenge.
The broad band of blue sky outside the tinted window had turned to rose and then to red-gold and then deep indigo before Duncan finally looked at his watch and threw down his pen. ‘Goodness, is it that time already?’
‘How time flies when you’re having fun,’ said Kalera drily as she placed the last of the—to her, incomprehensible—‘Janet and John’ files for Bryan Eastman into the safe-quality lockable drawer in Duncan’s desk and handed him the key.
As far as she could see, most of what they had done tonight could have easily waited until the next morning and once Duncan had found out that she didn’t have a date with Stephen for him to ruin it had only been his stubborn refusal to admit to his ulterior motive that made him insist that they work this late. At least she felt she had gained some kind of victory in their subtle battle of wills by pretending to be oblivious to the passage of time, forcing him to be the first to cry a halt, but now her rumbling stomach
betrayed the fact that it was well past her usual dinner time.
‘Hungry?’
In view of her audible digestive system a reply was unnecessary, she thought grumpily, so she countered with a wary question of her own. ‘Are we finished?’ she queried, in case he merely intended suggesting a break to send out to his favourite restaurant to deliver them a gourmet meal.
Although she had accepted the perk as no less than her due whenever they had worked long hours in her pre-engagement days, now the idea of sharing an exquisitely prepared culinary experience for two in the hushed confines of the deserted office suddenly seemed dangerously intimate. Although there were doubtless still a few other night owls scattered through Labyrinth’s network of offices working their own form of glide time, she felt very much alone with Duncan—on his turf and his terms.
Duncan was looking at her with that slightly dreamy, absorbed look of concentration that made her scalp tingle and her skin feel too tight for her body. A look that shared secrets and probed beneath the calm, practical façade which she had adopted to protect herself from an unpredictable world. It beckoned to rebel elements in her nature which she’d thought she had safely subdued but which were showing a nasty tendency to slip their leash and make a mockery of her efforts to embark on a serene life of placid contentment with the man of her choice.
‘I guess so—as far as work is concerned, anyway.’ Now his deep, gravelly voice seemed to have developed the ability to insinuate itself into her pores and set up a sympathetic vibration along her nerves that made her quiver like a tuning fork.
He stood up and switched off the desk lamp which had augmented the overhead lighting. ‘Come on.’ He hooked up the battered black leather bomber jacket from the back of his chair with a casual finger and slung it over his shoulder. ‘You must be tired as well as hungry by now. I’ll take you out for a bite to eat before you drive home—it’s the least I can do when you’ve been such a trooper. I can ring the brasserie across the road for a reservation—’
‘Oh, no.’ She shook her head so violently that a hairpin dislodged from the sleek French twist and a feather-fine wisp of slippery gold hair drifted down over her breast. She hurriedly scooped it up and repositioned the pin. She was feeling light-headed but she had an inkling that it wasn’t from hunger! Murky suspicion swam up from the depths of her brain as she mentally pictured the small, trendy restaurant with its romantic, candlelit tables—mostly for two. No one could expect to get in there on Friday night…unless he already had a reservation. ‘Really, it’s not necessary.’
‘Actually, it is. Under union rules I have to provide you with a meal when your working hours are extended beyond twelve without at least twenty-four hours’ notice.’
Kalera, who hadn’t even known that she belonged to a union, regarded him with thinly veiled disbelief.
‘I really don’t feel like eating out.’
‘Neither do I,’ he said, swiftly conquering a flare of impatience. He had waited this long; he could endure the torment of her wilful ignorance a little longer. ‘But we both need food, preferably with something more nourishing than a snack or greasy take-away, and I certainly don’t feel like scratching around in the kitchen at this hour…’
‘Well, I do,’ she said contrarily. ‘I’ve got a well-stocked fridge and once I get home it won’t take me long to whip up something hot and filling—’
‘Mmm, that sounds like a wonderful idea!’ said Duncan, seizing on her words with frank delight. ‘I can’t remember the last time anyone offered me any genuine home cooking—the jaded café society set seems to prefer eating out. Why don’t you leave first, and I’ll follow you home in my car…?’
Astounded by his audacity, Kalera opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t been issuing an invitation.
‘Harry used to boast about what a good cook you were,’ he continued confidingly. ‘Did you know that your recipes were part of his golf-coaching technique? When I was rampaging through the rough and tearing my way from bunker to bunker Harry used to try and calm me down between shots by telling me about the exotic dishes you’d cooked up from some new book or other. He used to get quite poetic about it. Harry certainly loved his food.’
Kalera smiled at the amusing glimpse into their singular friendship. ‘He did, didn’t he?’ Her defences slipped another notch. ‘He always bought me a cookbook on our anniversary,’ she remembered.
‘Your Harry was a very subtle man.’
‘Do you think so?’ She felt a little jolt of surprise at his undoubted admiration. As far as she was concerned Harry, although quiet and thoughtful, had always been a very straightforward person. ‘He gave me cookbooks because he knew I enjoyed trying new recipes; what’s so subtle about that?’
‘He gave you cookbooks because he liked to eat exotic foods and didn’t like to cook.’ Duncan grinned. ‘Dear, unassuming Harry was one of the most astute judges of people I’ve ever met—I take my hat off to his magnificent ability to quietly get his own way while keeping everyone else around him happily preoccupied with their lesser lot!’
Thirty minutes later Kalera was looking at Duncan making himself comfortably at home in her kitchen and wondering how on earth she had been persuaded to change her mind. Or had she changed her mind?
Talk about people who were astute at getting their own way!
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IT’LL have to be something quick and simple,’ she reiterated for the third time in as many minutes, opening the fridge and removing an air-tight container of cooked pasta shells and a packet of bacon.
‘The simple things in life are always the best,’ quoted the man who epitomised the dictionary definition of complexity.
His aura of fatigue had been shed along with his well-used bomber jacket the moment he stepped over her threshold and now he looked disturbingly lively as his enquiring mind conducted an inventory of her possessions, investigating the contents of the set of pottery canisters on the counter and unashamedly perusing the stack of mail she had collected from the letter-box as they’d come in.
He paused in his snooping, his eyes flicking over her high-waisted green skirt and the yellow cotton shirt which had started the day so crisp and smart but which now felt as limp and clammy as warm lettuce against her skin. The weather had been very muggy and the house felt uncomfortably hot and stuffy after being shut up all day.
Kalera usually let down her hair as soon as she got home from work, both literally and figuratively, and changed into something loose and casual, but it would definitely be sending the wrong message if she excused herself with that old cliché about slipping into something more comfortable! She would just have to suffer the discomfort of her prim office armour until he had gone, she thought as she put a pan on the stove to heat and assembled the rest of her ingredients.
‘Anything I can do to help?’
‘No—yes.’ She changed her mind at the thought of him being free to hover about and stare at her in that distracting fashion. Better to give him an occupation—something that would keep his eyes and hands busy.
‘You can dice the onion and the rasher of bacon while I do the red pepper and tomatoes,’ she ordered, handing him a chopping board and a knife.
He didn’t turn a hair at being given the unpleasant half of the job. ‘With pleasure, ma’am,’ he said, joining her at the bench instead of retreating to the kitchen table, which was what she had intended.
Unexpectedly, the pleasure proved to be hers as she watched him from the corner of her eye, and noted the slightly clumsy way he handled the weighty chef’s knife. She responded to his humorous patter and pestering of questions about what they were doing with a faint air of superiority. So there was something at which Mr Genius wasn’t automatically brilliant, she thought smugly.
‘I take it you don’t do a lot of cooking yourself,’ she murmured, when he swore roundly at the bits of bacon which were balling into a sticky clump on the stainless-steel blade.
‘I can cook a superb
steak,’ he defended himself, peeling off the streaky mess. ‘And I’ve been told that my salad is to die for!’
She could just imagine one of his wafer-thin models batting her false eyelashes at him and massaging his ego with her simpering flattery. ‘I wouldn’t place any credence on the opinions of any of your Date-Me Barbies. They all look as if a stick of celery is their idea of culinary excellence.’
It was his turn to be smug. ‘Do I take it you don’t approve of my consorting with beautiful dollybirds?’
‘You can date anyone you like,’ she said, chopping furiously.
‘No; I can’t—that’s the problem,’ he murmured. He shifted his stance as he reached for the onion and his bare arm brushed against her shoulder. He cast her a sidelong glance as she edged away. ‘Don’t worry, Kalera, I do know the difference between a Barbie doll and a real woman.’
‘I’m so glad!’
He grinned at her sarcasm. ‘Barbie dolls are for playing—real women are for serious loving…’
Like Terri Prior? Was she his definition of a real woman? Kalera brooded. Their loving certainly had been serious enough to break up one marriage, even if it had failed to lead to another.
Maybe it had turned out that the illicit thrill of a secret affair had generated most of the excitement in their relationship, or maybe the burden of their collective guilt had made it impossible to start a new life together. Or maybe Duncan was so gun-shy of commitment that un-attainability was his chief defining quality of a ‘real woman’…
‘Hell and damnation, that stings!’
The onion had taken its acid toll and Duncan scrubbed his streaming eyes with the bottom edge of his T-shirt, unselfconsciously flashing a tanned strip of hard belly neatly bisected by the silky streak of black hair between his navel and the top of his button-fly jeans.
‘You’re just grinding it in deeper; you should let the tears do their proper job,’ Kalera advised, trying not to notice the ripple of satiny skin across his corrugated abdominal muscles as he rubbed the white cotton across his face.