Rival Attractions

‘Well, if we can’t be friends…’ he began musingly.

‘We must be enemies. That suits me fine,’ Charlotte told him grimly, and not entirely truthfully. There was something about him that warned her that he would be a formidable foe, but she had her principles and she did not intend to deviate from them. If that eventually meant that she lost so much business that her agency had to close, then so be it. She had her training to fall back on. She could always get a job in London, unappealing though that thought now was. She had her health, a very respectable bank balance, her own home…

Giving him a thin smile, she said curtly, ‘I must be leaving. I’d better go and find Vanessa.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

She stared at him, and then flushed uncomfortably. For a moment she had thought he was suggesting that they leave together, when of course he had meant nothing of the sort. Angry with herself for the sudden and totally unexpected sensation churning her stomach, she turned away from him and looked for Vanessa.

Her hostess was plainly not particularly sorry to see her leave. Charlotte hated the insincere way Vanessa insisted on aiming a pouting kiss in the direction of her cheek.

Oliver Tennant was standing directly behind her, and when she stepped back to avoid Vanessa’s embrace it was a shock to her senses to suddenly come up against the hard male warmth of him. She hadn’t realised how close to her he was standing, and, when instinctively she tensed and turned to look over her shoulder, she was stunned to discover that only centimetres separated their faces. She could see the rough male texture of his skin, darkening already with the shadow of his beard. The eyes, which at a distance seemed uniformly dark blue, on closer inspection proved to have a lighter, almost metallic outer rim.

As she had stepped back, he had reached out automatically to steady her, and she was burningly conscious of the warm pressure of his hand on her arm, his fingers firm against her skin. She saw the way Vanessa focused on that point of contact between them, her mouth tightening, and wondered why on earth he hadn’t simply stepped back from her.

‘Oliver, surely you’re not leaving? I wanted to have a word with you about putting this place on the market,’ Vanessa pouted, darting a malicious glance at Charlotte.

‘Another time, Vanessa, if you don’t mind.’

He was still holding on to Charlotte’s arm, and, as Vanessa started to say eagerly that perhaps he would like to call round in the morning, his grip relaxed slightly, and to Charlotte’s shock his fingers moved almost absently against her skin, rather as though he were stroking the fur of a very ruffled cat, she recognised.

‘Not tomorrow, I’m afraid. I’m still staying at the Bull at the moment, and I need to concentrate on finding myself some more permanent lodgings. However, I’ll get my secretary to give you a ring.’

Charlotte could see that Vanessa was furious, but Oliver Tennant was either unaware of the other woman’s feelings or indifferent to them, because he gave Vanessa a cordial smile and, without allowing Charlotte to say a word, almost guided her to the front door. And he had still not released her.

She waited until they were outside before pulling away from him and saying frigidly, ‘Thank you, but I am capable of walking unaided.’

The smile he gave her made her heart somersault abruptly.

‘I’m sorry about that, but it seemed a good way of escaping from Vanessa. It’s always a problem, isn’t it, when one has to deal with a client who is potentially looking for more than a purely business relationship? I expect it’s something that’s even harder for a woman to deal with than a man.’

Charlotte stared at him. There had been occasions when she had had to tactfully let the odd male client know that their relationship could only be based on business but, given Vanessa’s cruel taunting of her lack of sexual appeal, she had hardly expected Oliver Tennant to assume that she would be the object of any man’s desire, no matter how fleeting or implausible.

Neither had she expected him to make such a casual reference to Vanessa’s rather obvious tactics to interest him in her sexually, and her mouth fell open a little as she contemplated this sudden and unexpected glimpse of a personality which seemed to be far more complex than she had initially assumed.

She had looked at him and dismissed him as a handsome, clever man more or less completely without principles or morals, used to trading on his sexual appeal when and where necessary, but he was making it plain to her that he did nothing of the sort.

Why? she wondered rawly. Was he doing it to get her off guard…to make her think that they were allies rather than enemies, and, if so, why? Did it amuse him perhaps to imagine that he could reduce her to the same competitive femininity he had so obviously aroused in Vanessa?

She remembered how Vanessa had described her as a man-hater, and wondered if he was one of those men to whom the challenge of sexual conquest mattered far more than any real emotional bonding with another human being. An inborn wariness warned her to tread carefully. He had released her now, and she moved away from him slowly. Every instinct she possessed warned her that it would be wise to keep this man at a distance. Already he had disturbed her far too much…made her aware of a certain illuminating lack in her life. Abruptly she turned round without answering him.

When she got in her car she was trembling inside. What was the matter with her? One look from an undeniably handsome and very male man and she was suddenly reduced to quivering awareness of her deepest feminine feelings. It was ridiculous. Even when she had been engaged, sexual desire had never strongly motivated her. In possible marriage to Gordon she had looked for companionship, children, shared interests and aims. She had never experienced that pulsing, urgent sensation of heat, coupled with an aching awareness of a deep inner emptiness that was afflicting her now.

It must be her age, she told herself briskly as she drove home. Nature’s way of reminding her that she had still not fulfilled that most feminine biological drive: the need to create new life.

Yes, that was it, she decided, relaxing a little. She had always wanted children; her body had no awareness of the fact that her single status made such a situation impossible and, growing impatient with her refusal to listen to its urgings, it was stepping up its determination to remind her of what she was denying herself.

It was only later, when she was safely in bed, that she allowed herself to admit that the sensation that had pierced her had had nothing at all in common with the soft warmth that invaded her whenever she held a friend’s baby, or played with a toddler. Determinedly she dismissed it. It had been a difficult day; her hormones were probably over-reacting in compensation. Tomorrow she would be able to laugh at herself for the way she was feeling right now.

CHAPTER THREE

CHARLOTTE was up early. She told herself that her restless night and inability to sleep had nothing whatsoever to do with the previous evening’s disturbing run in with Oliver Tennant, but somehow or other her vigorous arguments remained unconvincing.

Perhaps it was the sharp spring sunshine pouring into the kitchen and highlighting the dinginess of the paintwork and units that was making her peer unusually closely into her most personal feelings and emotions as she was doing at her home, and with equally dissatisfying results, she admitted wryly.

The trouble was that, over the years of her father’s illness, looking after him, running the business and trying to keep their often turbulent relationship on an even footing had left her with no time for soul-searching…or redecorating.

She had never particularly thought of herself as the home-building type, and certainly she had no desire for a house which emulated the glossy magazine perfection of Adam’s and Vanessa’s.

But somewhere between the unwelcoming starkness of this house and the over-luxurious fussiness of Vanessa’s there must be a happy medium.

Mrs Higham, who came in twice a week, kept the house reasonably clean, and every now and again when she could find the energy she herself spent the odd weekend thoroughly cleaning those rooms which were not in use. Mentally contrasting her large kitchen’s lack of visual appeal and warmth with the comfortable cosiness of Sophy’s tiny terraced-house kitchen, she acknowledged that something would have to be done.

Whether she stayed in the house or not, it was idiotic not to make any attempt to make it more welcoming. During her father’s illness she had never had the time to spare for studying her surroundings with a critical eye, but now that she had…Yellow would be a good colour for this room, she decided musingly—a soft, sunny yellow to welcome the bright spring sunshine.

Another minute and she’d be rushing off to town to buy paint and brushes, Charlotte acknowledged ruefully. What was coming over her? She had never felt this almost nest-building urge to improve her home before. It must be the unexpected balminess of the spring sunshine, she told herself, firmly refusing to give in to her sudden desire to get to work on the kitchen almost immediately.

She had work to do. There would be time to spare for redecorating later in the year. If Oliver Tennant succeeded in taking her business away from her, she’d have plenty of time for playing with colour schemes and pots of paint.

When her father had originally opened his office in the local town, he had bought a small three-storeyed Tudor building, sandwiched in between its fellows down one of the old cobbled streets that ran off from the market square.

The site had advantages and disadvantages. The street had now been designated a conservation area, which gave it an appealing visual charm, an old-worldliness that suggested that within the building might be found the kind of thatched-roofed, rose-smothered country cottage of people’s dreams. The street was also a draw to tourists and visitors who came to the town, which meant that there always seemed to be someone standing outside the old-fashioned mullioned windows staring in at the details of properties for sale. Against that, the cobbled street outside was now a pedestrian-only thoroughfare, with handsome black and gold painted bollards at either end of it to deter any driver tempted to use it as a short cut. This meant that any would-be clients had to make their way to the office on foot. In the past, when they had been the only estate agency in the area, this had not mattered, but now, with Oliver Tennant opening up…

His offices were on the outskirts of the town, not centrally placed like hers, but they were housed in the very large and popular shopping complex, purpose-built to accommodate the needs of the modern shopper and his or her car.

Charlotte was frowning as she parked her own car on the municipal car park on waste ground behind the Town Hall. Today was market day, which meant that the market square would be closed to parkers.

Sheila Walsh, who had been her father’s secretary-cum-office-manager and who had been with them for ten years, welcomed her into the office above the reception area with a smile and a cup of coffee. Sheila was a married woman in her late forties with two grown-up children and a husband in the police force. She was a sensible, attractive woman to whom tact and discretion were second nature. Charlotte had found her help invaluable when she had first returned home to take up the reins of the business. She might have the qualifications, she had acknowledged, but Sheila had something far more valuable. She had experience and a way of dealing with people that Charlotte envied.

It had been at Charlotte’s insistence that her father had agreed that Sheila should be promoted to ‘office manager’ and be given a salary and a percentage of their profits commensurate with the amount of work she did for them.

Without Sheila there was no way she could run the business as successfully as she did, Charlotte recognised, thanking her, and sitting down so that they could both go through the post.

‘The new place opens up officially today,’ Sheila commented. ‘I wonder what he’s like…the new man,’ she mused.

Unwillingly Charlotte told her, ‘I met him last night at Adam’s and Vanessa’s dinner party.’

It was part of Sheila’s skill that she never probed. She waited now in silence, her eyebrows slightly raised.

She liked working with Charlotte. Initially, on hearing that her boss’s daughter was coming home to take over the business, she had been uncertain as to whether or not she would stay on, but once she had realised how much Charlotte genuinely valued her, and how soft-hearted she really was beneath her rather austere exterior, she had put all her reservations to one side, and, as she told people quite genuinely now, her work brought her immense pleasure and satisfaction.

It saddened her that so many people misjudged Charlotte. Even her own husband had remarked, after first meeting her, that she was rather formidable. Sheila often wondered compassionately how it was that, while a woman could so easily see through another woman’s armour to her vulnerability, a man was completely deceived by outward appearances and manners. Men were like children really, she often though scornfully; they always went for the gooey, heavily iced cake, not realising that once the icing was gone all they were going to be left with was stodgy and often unappetising sponge. Women were far more enterprising, far more aware; they knew that the very best things in life were often concealed by the most unappealing of exteriors.

Sheila Walsh was a traditionalist and made no apology for it. She loved her work and found it stimulating and rewarding, but it was her marriage and her family that formed the bedrock of her life. Without Rob to go home to at night, to talk over the events of the day with, to fight with and love, her life would be very arid.

Although Charlotte was older than her own daughter, Sheila acknowledged that she was inclined to feel a motherly protectiveness towards her. She was constantly urging her to buy new clothes, to go out and enjoy herself. Charlotte was such an attractive-looking girl in reality, but she tended to put men off with her brisk put-down manner. And yet one only had to see Charlotte with the children of her friends to realise what kind of woman hid behind her rather formidable exterior.

Sheila had got to know Charlotte very well over the last six years, and now, seeing the faint flush that stained her skin and the way she shifted her gaze, as though not wanting Sheila to look too penetratingly at her, Sheila became extremely curious about Oliver Tennant.

She had more intelligence than to ask too many questions, though, simply listening while Charlotte told her almost hesitantly about the dinner party.

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