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Simon was left a little red-faced, muttering, ‘Well, you’re the boss.’
‘Quite,’ Ryecart agreed succinctly, but didn’t labour the point as he offered a conciliatory smile and hand to Simon.
Simon—the creep—accepted both.
It was Colin Mathieson who directed at them, ‘Do you know where we might find Alex? He isn’t in his office.’
‘He never is,’ muttered Simon in an undertone designed to be just audible.
Tory shot him a silencing look before saying, ‘I think he’s checking out locations for a programme.’
‘Which programme?’ Colin enquired. ‘The one on ward closures? I thought we’d abandoned it.’
‘Um…no.’ Tory decided to keep the lies general. ‘It’s something at the conception stage, about…’ She paused for inspiration and flushed as she felt the American’s eyes on her once more.
‘Alcoholism and the effects on work performance,’ Simon volunteered for her.
She could have been grateful. She wasn’t. She understood it for what it was—a snide reference to Alex’s drinking.
Colin didn’t seem to pick up on it, but Tory wasn’t so sure about Lucas Ryecart. His glance switched to the mocking smile on Simon’s face, then back to hers. He read the suppressed anger that made her mouth a tight line, but refrained from comment.
‘Well, get Alex to give me a bell when he gets in.’ Colin turned towards the door, ready to continue the guided tour.
Ryecart lingered, his eyes resting on Tory. ‘Have we met before?’
Tory frowned. Where could they have met? They were unlikely to move in the same social circles.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied at length.
He seemed unconvinced but then shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. We probably haven’t. I’m sure I would have remembered you.’
He smiled a hundred-watt smile, just for her, and the word handsome didn’t cover it.
Tory’s heart did an odd sort of somersault thing.
‘I—I…’ Normally so articulate, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
It was at least better than saying anything foolish.
He smiled again, a flash of white in his tanned face, then he was gone.
Tory took a deep, steadying breath and sat back down on her chair. Men like that should carry around a Government Health Warning.
“‘I’m sure I would have remembered you.’” Simon mimicked the American’s words. ‘My God, where does he get his lines? B movies from the thirties? Still, good news for you, ducks.’
‘What?’ Tory looked blank.
‘Come on, darling—’ Simon thought she was being purposely obtuse ‘—you and the big chief. Has he got the hots for you or what?’
‘You’re being ridiculous!’ she snapped in reply.
‘Am I?’ Simon gave her a mocking smile. ‘Talk about long, lingering looks. And not just from our transatlantic cousin. Me think the Ice Maiden melteth.’
Tory clenched her teeth at this attempt at humour and confined herself to a glare. It seemed wiser than protesting, especially when she could recall staring overlong at the American.
Of course it hadn’t lasted, the impact of his looks. The moment he had talked—or patronised might be closer to the mark—she had recovered rapidly.
‘Well, who’s to blame you?’ Simon ran on. ‘He has at least one irresistible quality: he’s rich. As in hugely, obscenely, embarrassingly—’
‘Shut up, Simon,’ she cut in, exasperated. ‘Even if I was interested in his money, which I’m not, he definitely isn’t my type.’
‘If you say so.’ He was clearly unconvinced. ‘Probably as well. Rumour has it that he’s still carrying a torch for his wife.’
‘Wife?’ she echoed. ‘He’s married?’
‘Was,’ he corrected. ‘Wife died in a car accident a few years ago. Collided with a tanker lorry. Seemingly, she was pregnant at the time.’
The details struck a chord with Tory, and her stomach hit the floor. She shook her head in denial. No, it couldn’t be.
Or could it?
Lucas could shorten to Luc. He was American. He did work in the media, albeit a quite different area.
‘Was he ever a foreign correspondent?’
She willed Simon to ridicule the idea.
Instead he looked at her in surprise. ‘As a matter of fact, yes, my sources tell me he worked for Reuters in the Middle East for several years before marrying into money. I can’t remember the name of the family but they’ve Fleet Street connections.’
The Wainwrights. Tory knew it, though she could scarcely believe it. He’d been married to Jessica Wainwright. Tory knew this because she’d almost married into the same family.
How had she not recognised him immediately? She’d seen a photograph. It had pride of place on the grand piano—Jessica radiant in white marrying her handsome war reporter. Of course, it had been taken more than a decade earlier.
‘Do you know him from some place, then?’ Simon didn’t hide his curiosity.
Tory shook her head. Telling Simon would be like telling the world.
‘I remember reading about him in a magazine.’ She hoped to kill the subject dead.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked, watching her pick up her handbag and jacket.
‘Lunch,’ she snapped back.
‘It’s not noon yet,’ he pointed out, suddenly the model employee.
‘It’s either that or stay and murder you,’ Tory retorted darkly.
‘In that case,’ Simon did his best to look contrite, ‘bon appetit!’
It deflated some of Tory’s anger, but she still departed, needing fresh air and her own company. She made for the back staircase, expecting to meet no one on it. Most people used the lift.
Taking the stairs two at a time, she cannoned right into a motionless figure on the landing, bounced back off and, with a quick, ‘Sorry,’ would have kept on moving if a hand hadn’t detained her. She looked up to find Lucas Ryecart staring down at her. Two meetings in half an hour was too much!
The American, however, didn’t seem to think so. His face creased into a smile, transforming hard lines into undeniable charm. ‘We meet again…Tory, isn’t it?’
‘I—I…yes.’ Tory was reduced to monosyllables once more.
‘Is everything all right?’ He noted her agitation. He could hardly miss it. She must resemble a nervous rabbit caught in headlights.
She gathered her wits together, fast. ‘Yes. Fine. I’m just going to the…dentist,’ she lied unnecessarily. She could have easily said she was going to do some research.
‘Well, at least it’s not me,’ he drawled in response.
Tory blinked. ‘What’s not?’
‘Giving you that mildly terrified look,’ he explained and slanted her a slow, amused smile.
Tory’s brain went to mush again. ‘I…no.’
‘Check-up, filling or extraction?’
‘Extraction.’
Tory decided an extraction might account for her flaky behaviour.
‘I’ll be back later,’ she added, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl.
‘Don’t bother,’ Lucas Ryecart dismissed. ‘I’m sure Colin won’t mind if you take the rest of the day off.’
He said this as Colin Mathieson appeared on the stairwell, holding up a file. ‘Sorry I was so long, but it took some finding.’
‘Good…Colin, Tory has to go to the dentist.’ The American made a show of consulting him. ‘Do you think we could manage without her this afternoon?’
Colin recognised the question for what it was—a token gesture. Lucas Ryecart called the shots now.
‘Certainly, if she’s under the weather,’ Colin conceded, but he wasn’t happy about it.
There were deadlines to be met and Alex was seldom around these days to meet them. Colin was well aware Tory and Simon were taking up the slack.
‘I’ll come in tomorrow,’ she assured him quietly.
He gave her a grateful smile.
‘Tory is a real workaholic,’ he claimed, catching the frown settling between Lucas Ryecart’s dark brows.
‘Well, better than the other variety, I guess.’ The American’s eyes rested on Tory. He had a very direct, intense way of looking at a person.
Tory felt herself blush again. Could he possibly know why they were covering for Alex?
‘I have to go.’ She didn’t wait for permission but took to her heels, flying down the stairs to exit Eastwich’s impressive glass façade.
Having no dental appointment, she went straight back to her flat to hide out. It was on the ground floor of a large Victorian house on the outskirts of Norwich. She’d decided to rent rather than buy, as any career move would dictate a physical move. Maybe it would be sooner rather than later now Lucas Ryecart had descended on Eastwich.
Tory took out an album of old photographs and found one from five years ago. She felt relief, sure she’d changed almost out of recognition, her face thinner, her hair shorter, and her make-up considerably more sophisticated. She was no longer that dreamy-eyed girl who’d thought herself in love with Charlie Wainwright.
Coupled with a different name—Charlie had always preferred Victoria or Vicki to the Tory friends had called her—it was not surprising Lucas Ryecart had failed to make the connection. Chances were that all he’d seen of her was a snapshot, leaving the vaguest of memories, and all he’d heard was about a girl called Vicki who was at college with Charlie. Nobody special. A nice ordinary girl.
She could imagine Charlie’s elegant mother using those exact words. Then, afterwards, Vicki had probably undergone a personality change from ordinary to common, and from nice to not very nice at all. What else, when the girl had broken her son’s heart?
It was what Charlie had claimed at the time. Forget the fact that it had been his decision to end the engagement.
She took out another photograph, this one of Charlie’s handsome, boyish face. She didn’t know why she kept it. If she’d ever loved him, she certainly didn’t now. It had all gone. Not even pain left.
Life had moved on. Charlie had the family he’d wanted and she had her career. She still had the occasional relationship but strictly on her terms with her in control.
She pulled a slight face. Well, normally. But where had been that control when she’d met Lucas Ryecart that morning? Lagging way behind the rest of her, that was where.
It had been like a scent, bypassing the brain and going straight for the senses. For a few moments it had been almost overpowering, as if she were drowning and had forgotten how to swim.
It hadn’t lasted, of course. She’d surfaced pretty damn quickly when he’d begun to talk. She still bristled at his criticism on the single mothers documentary, regardless of whether it might be fair, and regardless of the fact that he’d bought Eastwich and along with it the right to express such opinions. She just had to recall what he’d said in that deep American drawl and she should be safe enough.
The question floated into her head. ‘Safe from what?’
Tory, however, resolutely ignored it. Some things were better left well alone.
CHAPTER TWO
BY MORNING Tory had rationalised away any threat presented by Lucas Ryecart.
It could have been a simple chat-up line when he’d asked if they’d met before. Even if he’d seen a photograph of her, it would have left only the vaguest of impressions. And why should he make the connection between a girl student named Vicki and the Tory Lloyd who worked for him? She hadn’t between Luc and Lucas until Simon had talked about his past and no one in Eastwich really knew about hers.
No, chances were he’d already forgotten her. He’d be like all the other chief executives before him—remote and faceless to someone in her junior position.
Reassured, Tory did as promised and went in to work, dressed casually in white T-shirt and cotton chinos. As it was Saturday, there were no calls to answer and, within an hour, she had dealt with most outstanding correspondence on her desk. The rest she took down the corridor for her boss’s personal attention.
She didn’t expect to find Alex Simpson there, not on a Saturday, and was initially pleased when she did. She imagined he’d come in to catch up on his own work.
That was before she noticed his appearance. There was several days’ growth of beard on his chin and his eyes were bleary with sleep. His clothes were equally dishevelled and a quilt was draped along what he called his ‘thinking’ sofa, transforming it into a bed.
At thirty Alex Simpson had been hailed as a dynamic young programme-maker, destined for the highest awards. He had gone on to win several. Now he was pushing forty and, somewhere along the way, he had lost it.
‘It’s not how it looks.’ He grimaced but was obviously relieved it was Tory and no one else. ‘It’s just that Sue’s husband is home on leave and I’ve had no time to make other arrangements.’
Tory held in a sigh but she couldn’t do anything about the disapproving look on her face. Officially Alex was lodging with Sue Baxter, a secretary at Eastwich, while he fixed himself up with more permanent accommodation. Unofficially he was sleeping with her while her Naval Engineer husband was on tour of duty. Tory knew this because indiscretion was Sue Baxter’s middle name.
She was a shallow, slightly vacuous woman, and what attraction Sue held for Alex was hard to fathom, but Tory kept her opinion to herself. Alex seemed intent on pushing his own self-destruct button and Tory felt ill-qualified to prevent him.
‘You won’t say anything, will you?’ He smiled a little boyishly at Tory, already knowing the answer.
