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Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alan coming out of his office. Evie beamed enthusiastically at Matthew Hunt, who gave her a surprisingly warm smile.
A sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced before seemed to pierce right through Nicola. It was like being stabbed, and she almost gasped out loud with the shock of it. To her disbelief she realised that the obstruction clogging her throat felt like a hard ball of tears... Tears, when she hadn’t cried since—since she was eighteen years old... Evie’s age. But at Evie’s age she hadn’t had one tenth of her confidence, her belief in herself as a woman...a person, even.
She turned away, blinking rapidly, clenching her hands and gritting her teeth as she willed herself to control her stupid reaction.
Tears because a man treated her with coolness and uninterest while smiling warmly and appreciatively on Evie... Why, for heaven’s sake? Especially when the man in question was this man. Hadn’t she learnt anything from the past? Hadn’t all these years of living with the burden of her own guilt taught her anything—anything at all?
‘It’s almost ten o’clock. I believe we have a meeting to attend... I want to keep it as short as possible. There’s a good deal of work to be done, and I’ve got a meeting in the City this afternoon...’
Silently Nicola walked towards the door. Her legs felt horribly weak, her head as though it were stuffed with cotton wool. As she reached the door, Matthew Hunt opened it for her. She made to walk past him, her body tensing, the fine hairs on her skin standing up on end as she drew closer to him. He was watching her closely. She could feel tiny beads of perspiration breaking out on her skin, but she refused to give in to the dangerous urge to turn her head and look back at him just to make sure that she was right that he hadn’t realised... recognised... And then mercifully she was through the door, with Evie behind her, Evie’s high heels clattering on the wooden floor.
All through the meeting she found it impossible to concentrate on what was going on.
Matthew Hunt, their new boss!
Even now she could hardly take it in. Matthew Hunt, their new boss, was the same man who...
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Evie pressed her. ‘You still look dreadfully pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ Nicola lied hollowly. ‘Just fine...’
* * *
SHE SAID MUCH the same thing to her mother later in the day when she returned home from work and was asked how her first meeting with her new boss had gone.
It wasn’t true, of course. All day she had been desperately conscious of the fact that Matthew Hunt was watching her, assessing her. She felt anything but fine. She suspected, from the questions he had subjected her to during the day, that he believed she had taken far too much of the day-to-day running of the firm on to her own shoulders, and he had given her the impression that under his control the company would be very, very differently run.
She could have explained to him that it had not been any desire for self-glorification or self-importance that had motivated her; that she had acted simply out of compassion and concern—but pride had kept her silent. Pride and a certain bitter stubbornness... He had misjudged her once before, and now he was doing the same thing again, and it made not one bit of difference that on both occasions, for different reasons, she was really the one who had been responsible for his misconceptions.
A new manager would be appointed to take over the running of the company by the end of the week, he had told her; until then, Alan would remain in charge in an advisory capacity.
Matthew had only stayed a handful of hours but, by the time he had left, Nicola had felt as wrung out and exhausted as though she had worked intensively and without sleep for a full week.
There was no doubt that professionally he was both dynamic and very, very well-informed. She could understand after listening to him just why he was so successful, but his success, his dynamism, weren’t the root cause of her tension.
And she could hardly tell her mother just what it was about him that disturbed her so much.
‘Oh, by the way, Gordon rang. He said to tell you that he had to cancel tonight. Apparently his mother isn’t feeling too well.’
Heroically her mother managed to keep her voice light and uncritical, but Nicola already knew her parents’ opinion of Gordon and her relationship with him. They had been going to play tennis this evening, but she was not sorry their date was cancelled.
‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ she told her mother wanly. ‘I feel rather tired.’
‘A good long walk would do you more good than an early night... Too much sleep can cause depression,’ her mother told her firmly.
Nicola managed a weak smile. Her mother was always forthright and open in her comments—unlike Gordon’s mother, who was exactly the opposite.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ she agreed.
‘I am, and what’s more you can take that fat, lazy dog with you,’ she told Nicola.
Both of them looked at the placid labrador warming herself in front of the Aga.
Nicola laughed again.
‘I see. It’s not me who needs the walk, it’s Honey...’
‘It will do you both good,’ her mother reiterated firmly.
* * *
A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, leaning on a gate studying the pastoral view in front of her, Nicola reflected that, while physically the walk might have done her good, mentally... She glanced down to where Honey was lying at her feet.
Until today she had thought she had put it all behind her; that the past was the past and that she was safe from it. Now she knew she was wrong.
It had been at her own insistence that she had left home to work in the city and to share a flat with three other girls from college. Her parents had thought her too young, but had given way when she’d pointed out that at eighteen she was legally an adult.
She had found a job with a firm of City architects; she had been the youngest girl there. She had felt shy and out of place with the other girls, who were all in their twenties and who to her seemed so sophisticated and worldly... And then she had met Jonathon.
Jonathon was the son of the firm’s head partner. He was being groomed to take over his father’s position. He was twenty-six years old, tall, fair-haired, all smooth charm. She had been dazzled by him...awed and bemused, and of course she had fallen in love.
Naïvely she had believed he had fallen in love too, and then had come the fateful day she had overheard the conversation which had changed the whole course of her life.
Nicola closed her eyes and gave a deep shudder.
In front of her the peaceful view had faded, and once again she was standing in the small, dusty stationery-room at Mathieson and Hendry.
CHAPTER TWO
‘OF COURSE I’m not interested in her, sweetheart... How can you even think it?’
Nicola froze. She had recognised Jonathon’s voice instantly, and the shock of hearing him speaking to someone else in that soft, caressing voice she thought he kept specially for her, the shock of hearing him addressing someone else as ‘sweetheart’, held her rigid where she was, the copy paper the head of the typing pool had sent her to get clasped tensely in her arms as she stood rooted to the spot.
Jonathon was standing in the corridor, just outside the stationery-room. Obviously he had no idea she was in here, but Susan Hodges knew... She must have known because she had been there when Mrs Ellis told Nicola to come and get the copy paper.
‘Well, you’ve been taking her out,’ she heard Susan saying now.
‘Only because you weren’t available, my sweet. Oh, come on, honestly now. Can you really imagine that I’d be interested in someone as sexless and boring as that dull little prude? Heavens, she doesn’t even know how to kiss properly... Not like you!’
Nicola heard the sound of laughter, followed by the unmistakable sound of two people kissing.
She felt both sick and angry at the same time, so desperately unhappy that she had to clench her fists to stop herself from crying, and so furiously angry both with Jonathon and with herself that if she had had to confront him right now she would probably have hit him.
How stupid she had been to believe that Jonathon actually liked her, respected her, loved her, when in reality he and Susan Hodges... Susan Hodges, the office bimbo, the pretty, pouting blonde who always wore her clothes just that little bit too tight, who always seemed to giggle just that little bit too loudly and for too long.
If anyone had told her that Jonathon was involved with Susan she would have denied it instantly and immediately, claiming that Susan simply wasn’t Jonathon’s type.
How naïve she had been.
‘So you won’t be taking little Miss Prim and Proper to the party tonight, then, will you?’ she heard Susan saying to Jonathon.
He laughed.
‘Hardly. I bet you’ve got something spectacular to wear, haven’t you, Susie? Something stunning and sexy...?’
‘You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?’ Susie replied provocatively, adding, ‘Of course, you could always come round to my place and have a private view...’
They were both laughing as they moved off down the corridor. Inside the stationery-room, Nicola remained frozen with misery.
It was true that Jonathon had not specifically invited her to partner him at tonight’s party to celebrate his father’s birthday, but she had assumed...had believed... She had even bought herself a new dress for the occasion. She had bought it at the weekend, having enlisted the advice and support of her mother, anxiously determined that Jonathon shouldn’t be ashamed of her.
The dress in question was prettily understated, in dark blue velvet with a neat round collar and long sleeves, and suddenly, bitterly she knew that in it she would look just as sexless and boring as Jonathon had claimed she was. Tears blurred her eyes. She felt sick with shock and a bitter, burning rage, possessed by a need to show Jonathon—to show everyone—that she was not the dull, boring person they obviously all believed her to be, that she could be just as exciting...just as glamorous...just as desirable as the Susans of this world.
* * *
LATER she was to wonder if she had been overcome by some kind of mental instability to have reacted the way she had; certainly she had never done anything like it before, and nor was she likely to do so afterwards.
All she could think was that the pain of knowing what Jonathon really thought about her, the trauma of coming down off her cloud and crashing painfully hard back to reality, had mentally unhinged her in some sort of way.
The celebration of the fiftieth birthday of the firm’s main partner was a major event within the small City firm. A room had been hired at a very grand city-centre hotel for the occasion. There was to be a buffet meal followed by dancing and, although she had tried not to show it, Nicola had been nervously excited about the event ever since Jonathon had started taking her out.
Both his parents would be there, of course, and his sisters, and in her cloud-cuckoo dream-world she had somehow or other envisaged herself being introduced to them...sitting with them...being accepted by them as Jonathon’s girlfriend. Now abruptly she was realising how idiotic those daydreams had been and, in some sort of confused way, she didn’t know now whether she hated Jonathon or loved him. All she did know was that she was determined to show him just how wrong his cruel comments had been, just how desirable she could be... Much, much more desirable than the likes of Susan Hodges.
All the staff were being given the afternoon off in order to prepare for the party. It was almost lunchtime now and, just as soon as she was sure that Jonathon and Susan were out of earshot, Nicola emerged from the stationery-room and hurried back to the typing pool with the copy paper.
For what was left of the morning Nicola’s thoughts were very far from her work. She was mentally busy making plans, taking decisions and, just as soon as she was able to do so, she collected her coat and hurried out into the street.
The firm’s offices were right in the centre of the City, in the banking and business area, within easy walking distance of the shops.
Thanks to the prudent teachings of her parents, Nicola already had a healthy bank-account balance, and luckily when she’d come out this morning she had brought her cheque book with her.
There was a hot, burning sensation in her chest, a fiery, driving sense of determination motivating her, pushing her... Without giving herself time to hesitate, she rushed into the very modern hairdressing salon which had recently opened close to the office.
It wasn’t a bit like the hairdressers at home—no pink, no frills, the décor all stark greys and blacks, the walls adorned with huge, blown-up, unrecognisable photographs which she presumed were of hairstyles.
The receptionist behind the desk had very short, very shocking pink hair, and a supercilious stare.
Before she could change her mind, Nicola told her what she wanted. Ten minutes later she was confronting the stylist, who was asking her thoughtfully, ‘You are really sure about this...?’
Nicola could feel herself starting to bristle, sensitively knowing what he was really saying—that he couldn’t see someone as dull and boring as her sporting such a modern, innovative hairstyle...
‘If you can’t do it...’ she challenged.
He frowned at her.
‘Oh, I can do it, it’s just that it is a radical change.’ He gave her an odd look, and said quietly, ‘Look, it’s none of my business...but you really do have very pretty hair. A little bit old-fashioned maybe—straight hair isn’t really in right now—but to have it all permed...’
Nicola gritted her teeth. She knew exactly what she wanted and she was determined to have it. She remembered seeing the photograph in the salon window on her way to work a few days ago. In it the model, dark-haired like herself, had sported a mass of tumbled, wild curls that had given her—even to Nicola’s innocent eyes—a sexuality that virtually hit the onlooker between the eyes. No girl...no woman with that kind of hairstyle could ever, ever be described as dull, boring...and certainly not as sexless.
‘I want it,’ she told the stylist desperately.
Three hours later, staring at her transformed reflection in the mirror, she felt her heart sink. She scarcely recognised herself, and as for what her parents would say... Was her face really so tiny, so small that it looked swamped by the heavy mass of her hair, its volume virtually trebled by the intensity of the perm?
The stylist was watching her gravely, but she refused to let him see how shocked and dismayed she felt.
Gravely she studied her reflection, ignoring the pallor of her face and the hugeness of her eyes.
Equally gravely she paid the bill and collected her coat.
Once out in the street she felt oddly queasy and light-headed, but she ignored this feeling, heading for one of the nearby department stores.
The girl in charge of the trendy make-up counter she headed for pursed her lips and studied her critically when she told her what she wanted.
‘Red lipstick...yes, definitely red lipstick...with your mouth it will look terrific. The look this year is for pale skin, so you’re in luck, but we’ll have to do something to bring out your eyes.’
Half an hour later, Nicola emerged from her hands and fought against the impulse to run her tongue over her lips and lick off the gooey lipstick that felt as though it was plastered on them inches thick.
As she caught sight of herself in a nearby mirror, she did a double-take, barely recognising the wild-haired creature with the dark eyes and glossy, pouting mouth as herself.
Sexless was she? she asked herself grimly as she took the escalator up to the clothes department.
Firmly she ignored the section where she would normally have shopped, heading instead for the store’s more ‘way-out’ clothes.
‘Minis are back in,’ the assistant told her when she explained she wanted a dress for a party. And she was lucky enough to have the legs to take them...and the figure to wear the stretchy, clingy number in eye-popping purple crêpe, which she assured Nicola was an absolute must for any girl hoping to be taken seriously as socially acceptable among her peers.
It was the same angry wave of bitterness and pain that had carried her into the hairdressers that carried her back to the flat armed with her new purchases and her new image, determined to prove to Jonathon just how wrong about her he was.
When she got back she discovered that she had the flat to herself.
Her shopping had taken rather longer than she had anticipated, and all she had time for now was a very quick shower and a bite of food.
Despite all her care, the bath seemed to leave her hair looking even more wild and tangled than it had done when she’d first left the salon.
She eyed it uncertainly, wondering if perhaps the perm hadn’t been just a little bit too much of a change, and then sternly forced herself to remember Jonathan’s cruel condemnation of her. No one looking at her now would consider her sexless, would they? She looked...and looked... A little uncomfortably, she decided she wasn’t quite sure what she looked like, other than it wasn’t really herself...
It took her a good hour and several unsuccessful attempts before she managed to reproduce something approaching the sales girl’s artistically applied make-up. The blue kohl pencil certainly did make her eyes appear an extraordinary colour, but she still wasn’t sure that quite so much lipstick—
Sternly reminding herself of what this was all about, she ignored her own feelings of discomfort and struggled into her new dress.
It was odd how something so insubstantial could make her slender body appear positively voluptuous, even if she wasn’t quite sure that purple really was her colour.
There, she was ready.
Even the driver of the taxi she had booked to take her to the party did a double-take when she opened the door. She lifted her head a little higher and gave him what she hoped was a cool stare.
Just wait until Jonathon saw her. So he thought she was dull, did he? Dull and boring and sexless... Well, tonight she was going to make him regret every single one of those unkind criticisms.
It was only when she was paying off the taxi driver outside the hotel and seeing her fellow employees arrive in groups, even worse, couples, that she realised that the very best way to show Jonathon just how wrong he was about her would be for her to turn up at the party with another man... But the problem was that she didn’t know any other men—not here in the city—and certainly none of her male friends at home could hold a candle physically to Jonathon.
