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Margaret stared at the lovely young face in front of her, and now her motherly instincts came to the fore as she said softly, ‘Holly, be careful, won’t you? Jacques Querruel is renowned as a love-’em-and-leave-’em type, and normally his partners are selected from women who think like him, if you know what I mean. They’re all beautiful and sophisticated and often holding high-powered jobs—real career women. They don’t want the ties of hearth and home any more than he does.’
Now it was Holly’s turn to stare at the other woman. ‘Margaret, he’s only asked me out to discuss some sort of work proposal,’ she said in astonishment. ‘I think he believed me about Jeff Roberts, although he never said so, and he’s probably feeling he owes me some sort of alternative job, that’s all.’ She could hardly believe Margaret was suggesting anything else. Jacques Querruel and a typist? It was laughable.
Margaret sniffed a very worldly-wise and maternal sniff. ‘Be that as it may,’ she said grimly. ‘You just remember what I’ve said, that’s all.’
‘He asked me in your hearing,’ Holly pointed out reasonably. ‘He wouldn’t do that if he wasn’t serious about a job, would he?’
Margaret just looked at her, her plump chin settled in her ample neck and her eyebrows raised in a way she didn’t mean to be comical but which struck Holly so.
‘I promise I’ll be careful,’ Holly said at last, biting back a smile. ‘OK? And I’ll tell you everything that transpires in the morning, although I’m sure you’re worrying unnecessarily. But thanks anyway,’ she added, reaching out a hand and patting the other woman’s arm.
She received a warm smile in return. ‘I know you think I’m a fussy old woman but, in spite of the fact we’ve only known each other a little while, I think of you as a friend,’ Margaret said earnestly. ‘And with you not having any family as such, I feel you’re a bit…’
‘Vulnerable?’ Holly proffered.
Margaret nodded unhappily.
‘Believe me, Margaret, vulnerable I’m not,’ Holly said firmly. ‘I learnt to look after myself from when I could toddle; I had to—no one else was going to. And, if nothing else, being pushed around by the establishment and having six foster homes before I was eighteen makes one resilient.’
‘You’re telling me you’re tough?’
The tone was so disbelieving Holly laughed out loud. ‘I’m not a push-over,’ she qualified. ‘And I haven’t met a man yet who could soft-soap me into doing something I didn’t want to do.’
‘Ah, but you hadn’t met Jacques Querruel before.’ Margaret gave a wise-owl nod of her head just as the telephone in her office began to ring, causing her to bustle back into the other room.
Dear Margaret. Holly sat for a moment, nipping at her lower lip with small white teeth. It was true, they had hit it off right away at the interview for the job, which Margaret herself had conducted, and she had enjoyed working with the other woman the last weeks. She’d thought she was really set up here; with Margaret backing her there had been no reason why she couldn’t have worked herself up to a prime position in a few years with a nice fat salary to boot. She wasn’t afraid of hard work—in fact, she thrived on it—and with no home commitments she could work as late as she liked when necessity commanded.
Margaret’s warning continued to whirl round in Holly’s head as she tidied her desk and turned off the word processor. She locked the filing cabinets—her last job of the day—with the spare set of keys Margaret had given her in her first week at Querruel International, before walking through into the other room.
This office was spacious, as befitted the managing director’s secretary, holding two easy chairs and a small coffee-table along with Margaret’s huge L-shaped desk. In one corner a bookcase held a selection of Querruel International brochures and magazines where their furniture had been advertised, and in another stood two filing cabinets holding material of a confidential nature. It was as different from Holly’s little cubby-hole as chalk from cheese.
Margaret was still talking on the telephone as Holly emerged, and in the same moment Jacques Querruel strode through the open doorway of the other office. ‘Ready?’ he asked abruptly, and as Holly nodded he took her arm, calling goodnight to Margaret as he whisked Holly out into the corridor, whereupon the lift doors opened immediately he touched the button.
They had never done that for her, Holly thought bemusedly. She normally had to wait for at least a minute or two before the lift graciously consented to answer her call.
Once inside the lift Holly found herself tongue-tied. She searched her mind feverishly for some light comment to relieve the tension but it was a blank. She blessed the years of harsh training when she had learnt to disguise her feelings and appear calm and collected, however she was feeling inside, as she glanced at her reflection in the mirrored wall of the lift.
It showed an averagely tall, slim young woman with cool blue eyes and a composed face; an image she had carefully cultivated and took pleasure in. It was her wall of safety, her security, and part of her distress this morning had been because first Jeff Roberts, and then Jacques Querruel—in quite a different way from the former—had broken through the deliberately constructed barrier.
‘The taxi is waiting for us.’ She had been aware of his overt inspection as the lift swiftly took them downwards, but it wasn’t until the doors opened in Reception that he spoke. She turned her head and looked at him then as he added, ‘Your apartment is in Battersea, yes?’
‘Yes.’ How did he know that? Had he asked Margaret where she lived or had he checked out her personal file? The latter; she’d bet her boots on it.
‘And our restaurant, Lemaires, is in Chelsea, so that is most convenient, is it not?’
She didn’t know about that. The thought of Jacques Querruel sitting in the tiny bedsit which was her ‘apartment’ was an absolute no-go—there wasn’t room to swing a cat—and the thought of him waiting outside with a taxi clocking up every minute she took to get ready wasn’t an option either. As they stepped out of the smart, air-conditioned building into a pleasantly warm May evening Holly took a deep hidden breath and said steadily, ‘If you would like to go on ahead to the restaurant after you’ve dropped me off that would be fine, Mr Querruel. I’ll join you as soon as I can.’
‘This is the polite English way of stating what you would prefer, I think.’ The hand which was gripping her elbow felt as cool and hard through her thin cloth jacket as his voice, but as they crossed the pavement and he opened the taxi door for her he continued, ‘I will send the taxi back for you, Miss Stanton. Is that acceptable? And, please, take time to refresh yourself.’
Refresh herself! As Holly slid into the taxi she had to bite back the desire to laugh out loud. She would be rushing around like a whirling dervish!
She barely noticed the taxi pull away as she began a mental list of all her clothes, desperately trying to pull an outfit worthy of Lemaires from her limited wardrobe. She’d heard of Lemaires before, of course—it was one of the very ‘in’ places and frequented by clientele who never had to look at the prices on the menu—but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she’d set foot on such hallowed ground, and certainly not without at least a few hours’ grace to rush out and buy something fabulous.
‘…and take it from there?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Too late she had become aware Jacques Querruel had been speaking and she’d been miles away.
She turned to him quickly and saw he was frowning. ‘I am sorry to interrupt your thoughts, Miss Stanton,’ he said icily, ‘but I was just outlining the way I saw the evening progressing. I suggested we could enjoy a cocktail or two as I explain my proposal, which you could think over whilst we eat, and then we will take it from there.’
Touchy, touchy. Holly got the impression it wasn’t often Jacques Querruel didn’t have a woman’s full and undivided attention. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said quickly, becoming acutely aware of the close confines of the taxi for the first time as her anxiety about the clothes was put to one side for a few minutes.
He wasn’t touching her—in fact there was at least six inches of space between them—but never had she been so fiercely conscious of another human being’s body. She could feel the heat which had begun in the core of her spread to her throat and face as she met the amber eyes, and then, as his gaze became curiously intent, she forced herself to break the piercing hold and turned her head to look out of the window.
‘It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?’ she murmured quietly, managing a tone which was just offhand enough to appear genuine.
He didn’t reply for a moment, but now her senses were open the subtle and delicious smell of him teased her nerves before he said softly, ‘Indeed it is. Too beautiful to waste in the city streets. It is a night for breathing in the aroma of a thousand flowers as the sky slowly turns to silver. A night for watching the moonlight shimmering on a mother-of-pearl lake, and hearing the call of the wild swans as they marshal their newly fledged little ones to sleep.’
She was surprised into looking at him again, and he answered her quizzical gaze with a slow smile. ‘My château.’ He replied to the unspoken question very quietly. ‘It is very lovely on a night like this.’
There were enough panic buttons going off in Holly’s head to deafen the whole of London. ‘Is it?’ She smiled brightly. ‘Lucky you.’
‘You have been to France, Miss Stanton?’
She shook her head. She hadn’t been anywhere but she wasn’t about to tell him that. No doubt he was used to being in company where the merits of Switzerland or Monaco or the Caribbean were discussed with a wealth of experience.
‘It is a very diverse country,’ he said quietly. ‘I have an apartment in Paris, close to my offices, but my real home is my château, thirty miles south of the city. It is a place of peace, a place for recharging the batteries.’
Funny, but she couldn’t quite equate Jacques Querruel with peace and quiet. She kept her voice from betraying anything of what she was thinking as she said, ‘You spend a lot of time there?’
‘Not as much as I would like,’ he said a touch ruefully. ‘Part of this is my own fault, of course. I do not find it easy to delegate, Miss Stanton.’
Now, that she could believe without any trouble at all! Her face must have spoken for itself because he smiled drily. ‘I think we will change the subject.’
During the rest of the twenty-minute ride to her bedsit Holly was on tenterhooks. Not that Jacques was anything but coolly polite and amusing, and seemingly at ease. He sat one leg crossed casually over the other, his whole body suggesting a relaxed composure that Holly envied with all her heart. He didn’t seem to be aware of the atmosphere within the car, which was strange, she thought, when she wouldn’t have been surprised if the air had started to crackle with electricity. But then she obviously registered on him with as much force as a bowl of cold rice pudding.
The street in which her bedsit was located was not the best in the world, and as they drew up outside the terraced three-storey house that was identical to a hundred others she saw Mrs Gibson’s cats had been having a field-day with the dustbins again and most of their contents were scattered all over the minute paved front garden and the pavement.
Holly liked Mrs Gibson, who occupied the basement bedsit and had bright orange hair despite being eighty years old if a day, and she didn’t even mind the three cats, who had a disconcerting habit of vomiting up their trophies from the dustbins at the most inopportune moments, but she could have done without them today. Of course, they had gathered en masse on the crumbling steps to the front door. It was that sort of day.
The big ginger tom had just begun to lead the way in a Mexican wave of retching as Holly leapt out of the taxi, and she positioned herself straight in front of the car window as she said briskly, ‘You really needn’t send the taxi back, Mr. Querruel. I can ring for one myself once I’m ready.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it.’ He had leant forward slightly as he spoke, his attention directed somewhere behind Holly’s left shoulder, and now he said a little bemusedly, ‘There is an elderly lady with a tea cosy on her head waving to you.’
It figured. Holly glanced behind her, waving back to Mrs Gibson before she said, ‘That’s Mrs Gibson. She is a friend of mine,’ her tone defiant. ‘I’ll see you in a little while, then.’
‘I will look forward to it.’ The answer was polite but distracted. One of the cats had just gone for a gold medal in the realm of projectile vomiting, breaking all previous records, and Mrs Gibson was doing a kind of soft-shoe shuffle as she tried to prevent all three felines diving into the hall. Jacques looked fascinated.
As the taxi drew away Holly turned round, her tone resigned as she said, ‘I’ll get a bucket of water and some disinfectant and clear all this up, Mrs Gibson.’
‘Would you, Holly? There’s a dear. Mr Bateman, the silly old fool, has gone and put kippers in the dustbins again. I told him Tigger would have the lids off before you could blink, but would he listen? The man’s an idiot.’
‘Mrs Gibson, why are you wearing a tea cosy on your head?’ Holly asked matter-of-factly.
‘Am I, dear? Well, there’s a thing!’ Mrs Gibson blinked at her as she removed the offending article from her sparse bright hair and then giggled like a schoolgirl. ‘I’ve been wondering where this was for a few days. I must have put it on the coat stand instead of my woolly hat when I washed them both. I wonder what I’ve done with the hat, because it isn’t on the teapot.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Holly said, smiling into the pert little face which was as wrinkled and lined as a pink prune. ‘It’ll turn up.’
By the time Holly had cleared up after the cats and weighed down the dustbins with two bricks apiece, kept specially for the purpose but rarely used by anyone but herself, she’d lost ten minutes of valuable time.
She dashed up to her bedsit on the first floor, stripping off her clothes and flinging on her robe before hurtling along to the bathroom at the end of her landing. A quick two-minute shower in cold water—the water heater was playing up again—ensured a bracing if teeth-chattering pick-me-up, and then she was back to the bedsit, pulling off her shower cap and standing in front of her wardrobe as she surveyed her sum total of clothes.
She had one or two really nice things, she thought despairingly, but were they suitable for somewhere like Lemaires? She doubted it, but nevertheless the black and blue ruched and printed bandeau dress and vertiginous high heels she had bought to celebrate securing the job at Querruel International would have to do. If nothing else the shoes would give her an extra few inches, which wouldn’t go amiss considering Jacques Querruel had seemed to tower over her in the lift, and her black wrap—the bargain of the year twelve months before, when she’d spied the beautiful Versace wrap in a charity shop for a fraction of its original price—would dress up the whole outfit.
She peeped out of the window before she went to work with her make-up and the taxi was already back and waiting. No time to put her hair up, then. She contented herself with eyeshadow and mascara, along with a careful application of her lipstick pencil, finishing her toilette with a dab of perfume on her wrists. Silver studs in her ears and a silver bangle on one wrist and she was ready. She stood in front of the mirror, breathing deeply in and out for a moment or two. She had never felt so scared in all her life.
‘Look at it this way,’ she said to the wide-eyed, dark-haired girl staring back at her from out of the mirror. ‘You have got nothing to lose and everything to gain from hearing what he has to say. You’d already decided you wouldn’t be able to stay at Querruel International, not working for Margaret anyway. He might, he just might make you an offer you can’t refuse.’
No, she hadn’t phrased that quite right, Holly thought agitatedly as the mental image of a tall, dark and extremely handsome Frenchman sent the juices flowing. What she’d meant was, she might find she didn’t have to start the dismal rounds of searching out the right kind of job again.
She would hear him out, weigh up the pros and cons of what he said and then make an informed decision. Simple. No big deal, not really, not unless she made it one. OK, so he was taking her to dinner, but he’d been pretty nonchalant about it. He clearly hadn’t been over-bothered one way or the other. And that was fine. Great. Perfect. The last thing she needed was for him to get any sort of ideas.
She gathered up her small black purse and the wrap, and squared her slim shoulders as though she was going into battle instead of to dinner. But that was what it felt like…
Jacques saw her the moment she walked through the doors of Lemaires; he had been watching the entrance intently ever since he had sat down at the secluded little table for two. He rose immediately and raised his hand, and as the waiter guided her over to him he said quietly, ‘Thank you, Claude. And perhaps you would bring one of your delicious champagne cocktails for Miss Stanton?’
Once she was seated, Holly said a little breathlessly, ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long, Mr Querruel.’
‘Not at all,’ Jacques said pleasantly. He had settled back in his seat once she was comfortable, his eyes unreadable and his big body relaxed.
Holly envied him. She felt as taut as piano wire. Whether her tenseness communicated itself to him she didn’t know, but he took the wind out of her sails completely in the next moment when he leant forward and said quietly, ‘In view of the surroundings I think we could be less formal, don’t you? Loosen up a little—is that the phrase? My name is Jacques and yours is Holly, I understand? An unusual name, even for someone born at the end of December.’
So he had looked up her file. Holly felt horribly flustered even as she told herself she’d known it all along. Jacques Querruel was the type of man who would want every fact at his fingertips before he talked about a job offer. But there were a hundred and one things one could never learn from the anonymous black print of a personnel file.
And this was borne out when Jacques continued, ‘Your mother’s choice of name or your father’s?’
‘Neither.’ She purposely didn’t elaborate, hoping he would take the hint and accept a change of subject when she continued, ‘It’s very kind of you to buy me dinner, Mr Querruel, but it really wasn’t necessary.’
The amber eyes moved over her face very slowly before he said, ‘Yes, it was. And the name’s Jacques.’ His gaze intensified, the thick black lashes adding to the piercing quality. ‘And if it was not your parents who gave you your name, then who did?’ he persisted softly.
‘The sister in charge of the maternity unit where I was taken after being abandoned.’ She didn’t try to soften the statement. “‘The Holly and the Ivy” was playing on the radio when they brought me in.’
He didn’t come back with any of the comments she might have expected and had experienced in the past on the rare occasions the circumstances of her birth had become known, but then she should have known he wouldn’t. He was not a flock animal. He merely expelled a silent breath before saying, ‘Tough start. Very tough.’
She nodded tightly. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘Did they find the woman who had given birth to you?’
She was glad he hadn’t called Angela Stanton her mother, because for a long time now she had understood the biological ability to produce did not make a mother. She nodded again. ‘At the point she gave birth to me she’d already got three children, all by different fathers; she didn’t want a fourth,’ she said evenly. ‘After she was traced she visited me once or twice, I understand, but that’s all. I contacted her when I was twenty-one and we met briefly; she was happy to tell me anything I wanted to know. My father was a married man she’d had a short affair with. She didn’t tell me his name and I didn’t ask. All her other children were put in care at some point and are in various parts of the country. There were two more after me.’
Her mouth was unyielding and set in a controlled line. Ridiculously he wanted to kiss the warm fullness back. The strength of his feeling shocked him and his mouth was dry when he said, ‘I am truly sorry, Holly.’
She shrugged, and he realised the gesture went hand in hand with the closed expression on her face. Both were too old for a young woman of twenty-five. ‘It happens,’ she said dismissively. ‘And lots of people suffer worse every day.’
The waiter arrived with two long fluted glasses filled to the brim with sparkling, effervescent liquid, and Jacques watched her face change as she looked up at the balding, middle-aged man, smiling her thanks. She hadn’t liked talking about herself. She hadn’t liked it at all. And she didn’t like him. He felt his pulse quicken and didn’t know if the feeling coursing through him was desire, pique, excitement or curiosity, or maybe a mixture of them all.
He took control of himself and the situation, raising his glass and touching hers in a toast as he said lightly, ‘To an excellent meal and a good bottle of wine when it comes.’
Holly laughed; she couldn’t help it. ‘That’s a little self-indulgent, isn’t it?’ she commented just as lightly.
‘Perhaps.’ He smiled at her, a social, easy smile. ‘But it’s to your benefit too.’
‘True.’ She considered, her head slightly tilted to one side. ‘All right, then. To the meal and the wine.’
The cocktail was delicious but she could feel the bubbles going straight to her head, and too late Holly told herself she should have eaten something earlier. She hadn’t had a bite since lunch and even then she had only nibbled at a sandwich, the events of the morning ruining her appetite. She took a firm hold on herself, putting the glass down and fixing the dark, handsome face opposite with what she hoped was an efficient, matter-of-fact expression as she said, ‘You mentioned a job proposition?’ She would have liked to add ‘Mr Querruel’ but he had insisted she call him Jacques earlier, and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t bring herself to do that. Consequently the question just trailed to a finish.
‘Later. You need to unwind.’
Did she? She didn’t think she did. In fact she thought it imperative she didn’t ‘unwind’, as he put it. She needed to have all her wits about her tonight. But he was the big boss and she couldn’t very well argue. She wriggled her bottom nervously; she was out of her depth here. Margaret was right; she shouldn’t have accepted this ridiculous invitation to dinner.
‘And stop looking at me as though you are little Red Riding Hood and I am the big bad wolf,’ Jacques said softly, his accent lending a resonance to the words that sent a little shiver right down her spine. ‘Tell me about Mrs Gibson instead, and your apartment. Are any of your other neighbours so colourful?’
‘It’s not an apartment, it’s a bedsit,’ said Holly after a fortifying sip of champagne. ‘There’s a big difference there, you know. And Mrs Gibson is just a dear old lady who’s marvellous for her age and a trifle eccentric. Perhaps more than a trifle.’
She slipped the wrap from her shoulders as she spoke and saw his eyes follow the movement, their light resting on the creamy skin before moving downwards to where the soft swell of her breasts were just visible above the bodice of the dress. And then he raised his eyes back to her hot face, not even trying to pretend he wasn’t looking as he said, ‘You look very beautiful, Holly.’
Perhaps it was his French accent, or the incredible lush surroundings and glittering occupants of the restaurant, or just the fact she was trying to hide how overwhelmed she felt, but Holly felt a nervous giggle escape before she could bite it back. This was so utterly, completely silver-screen material!
‘I have amused you?’ It was frosty and his expression had changed to one of chilled hauteur.
Oh, help. Holly took a deep breath. ‘Of course not.’
‘But something has.’
She stared at him across the small table covered in thick cream linen, a single white rose in a silver vase perfuming the air, and for no reason at all that she could name Holly suddenly rebelled against his autocracy. ‘It’s all this,’ she said before she had a chance to think too hard about what she was going to say. ‘It’s not real life, is it? Of course, it’s very nice…’ Her voice trailed away.
‘Oh, thank you.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm.
‘No, really, it is very lovely as a treat.’ She was making this worse, she realised helplessly. Much worse. And when all was said and done he had brought her out to this fabulous restaurant where everything was so gorgeous and special. It was just that everyone seemed to take themselves so seriously, she supposed. And she’d been fighting taking herself seriously—or anyone else for that matter—all her life. She didn’t like this last thought and so she filed it away to look at again later.
Silence had fallen. Jacques was sitting with his glass held loosely between his fingers as it rested on the table, his eyes on her flushed face.
Holly nerved herself to meet the amber gaze, which she was sure would be as coldly sarcastic as his voice, but as their eyes caught and held she felt the weird electrical current she’d sensed in the taxi. Her heartbeat went haywire, and suddenly the whole world was narrowed down to one small table and two pairs of eyes.
‘So you are not a woman who expects to be wined and dined and spoilt?’ he asked very, very softly. ‘In spite of being so beautiful. What is the matter with your English men, ma chérie?’
Holly’s eyes widened and for a full ten seconds she found herself speechless. He was flirting with her—Jacques Querruel? Jacques Querruel. And nothing in her past had prepared her for how to handle this. It had always been one of her rigid rules to keep her distance—literally—from men. To avoid their touch, their invasion into her air space. Which was why Jeff Roberts had annoyed her so much. She loathed men like him who thought they had some preordained right to make advances to any female they liked, to touch and maul and manhandle. And so it had been easier to keep the whole pack of them at arm’s length; that way no one had any excuse for getting the wrong idea.
She grabbed her glass and tossed back the last of the champagne cocktail. Its fortifying effects enabled her to say, fairly evenly, ‘Nothing is the matter with English men as far as I know,’ before following up with a bright, artificial smile.
