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But she leapt over the stile like a gazelle and he stood watching the last sight of her—her hair almost completely free of its confinement now, and it danced like crazy black snakes which gleamed in the light of the moon—while his heart pounded like a piston in his chest.
CHAPTER THREE
LISI ran and ran without turning back, as if he were chasing her heels—and wasn’t there part of her which wished that he were?
But once she was safely out onto the village street and she realised that Philip was not intent on pursuing her, she slowed her pace down to a fast walk. She didn’t want to alarm anyone by looking as though the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels.
Her cottage was tucked up a little incline, three streets away from the shops, and she fumbled her key into the brightly painted blue front door, closing it firmly behind her, safe at last.
The place was small, but it was cosy and it was home and it suited the two of them just fine. Lisi had bought it once her mother’s big house had been sold—a big, rambling old place which would have cost a fortune to run and maintain.
She drew the curtains and went round the room switching on the lamps and creating a warm, homely glow. Later, once she had collected Tim, she would light the fire and they would toast crumpets and play together—her son completelyoblivious of the knowledge of whom she had just seen.
While down in the village his father would spend the evening doing God only knew what while she kept her momentous secret to herself.
Lisi shook her head. She felt like pouring herself a large drink and then another, but she wasn’t going to start doing that. Instead she put on an extra sweater and made herself a cup of tea, then curled up on the sofa with her fingers curled around the steaming mug.
She looked at Tim’s advent calendar which hung next to the fireplace. Only seven days lay unopened. Seven days until Christmas and only one until his birthday tomorrow.
Had fate made Philip turn up at the time of such a milestone in Tim’s life? Or a cruel and bitter irony?
She remembered the birth as difficult—partly because she had gone through it all on her own. Lisi’s fingers tightened around the mug. Just thinking about the long and painful labour cut through her carefully built defences, and the memories of Philip which she had kept at bay for so long came flooding out, as if her mind had just burst its banks, like a river.
It had started innocently enough—though afterwards she thought about whether there was ever complete innocence between a man and a woman. When and how did simple friendship become transmuted into lust?
The first few times he saw her he completely ignored her, his cool green eyes flicking over her with a disappointing lack of interest.
She knew exactly who he was, of course—everyone in the office did. Rich, clever, enigmatic Philip Caprice who owned a huge estate agency in North London.
He was something of a scout, too—because people seeking discretion and a home in the country flocked to him to find them the perfect place. Rich—fabulously rich—clients who had no desire for the world and his wife to know which property they were in the process of buying. According to Jonathon, he handled house sales for film stars and moguls and just plain old-fashioned aristocracy.
He always dealt with Jonathon. In fact, Lisi was the office junior, only six months into the job, and eager to learn. Jonathon had let her handle a couple of accounts—but terraced cottages and houses on the new estate on the outskirts of Langley were not in Philip Caprice’s league!
And then he walked in one lunchtime, on the day after her twenty-second birthday. She had been left on her own in the office for the first time. Jonathon was at lunch and Saul Miller, her other colleague, was out valuing a property which was coming onto the market shortly.
The phones were quiet and all her work up to date and Lisi felt contented with life. She was wearing her birthday sweater—a dream of a garment in soft blue cashmere which her mother had bought—and her hair was tied back in a ribbon of exactly the same shade.
On her desk were the remains of her birthday cake and she was just wondering whether to throw it away or stick a piece of cling-film round it and put it in the fridge. Jonathon seemed to have hollow legs, and it did seem a shame to waste it.
The door to the office clanged and in came Philip and her heart gave its customary leap. His hair was thick and nut-brown, ruffled by the breeze, and he wore an exquisitely cut suit which immediately marked him out as a Londoner.
For a moment, words deserted her. He seemed to dwarf the room with his presence—it was a little like having a Hollywood film star walk into a small-town estate agency!
She swallowed. ‘Good morning, Mr Caprice.’
He gave a curt nod. ‘Jonathon not around?’
‘He’s not back yet. He, er—’ she glanced down nervously at her watch, and then lifted her eyes to him ‘—he shouldn’t be long. You’re—er—you’re a bit earlier than expected.’
‘The roads were clear,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ll wait. No problem.’
He didn’t look as though he meant it and Lisi thought that his face looked bleak, as if he had had a long, hard morning—no, make that a long, hard month. There was a restless, edgy quality about him, as if he hadn’t slept properly for a long time. She said the first, impulsive thing which came into her head and pointed to her desk. ‘Would you like some birthday cake?’
He narrowed his eyes as if she had just offered him something vaguely obscene. ‘Birthday cake?’ He frowned. ‘Whose? Yours?’
Lisi nodded. ‘That’s right. It’s really quite nice—a bit sickly, perhaps, but birthday cakes should be sickly, I always think, don’t you?’ She was aware that she was babbling but something in the slightly askance question in his eyes made her babble on. ‘Won’t you have some?’
There was something sweet and guileless about her eager chatter which completely disarmed him. Nor was he completely oblivious to the slenderly curved figure and the white skin and black hair which made her look like some kind of home-spun Snow White. But with the ease of practice he dismissed her physical attractions and stared at the cake instead.
Lisi could see him wavering. She remembered how much her father had loved cake when he’d been alive. What did her mother always say? ‘Show me a man who says he doesn’t like cake, and I’ll show you a liar!’
‘Oh, go on!’ she urged softly. ‘Have some—I was only going to throw it away!’
‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse!’ He laughed, and he realised how alien his own laughter sounded to his ears. When had he last laughed so uninhibitedly? He couldn’t remember. ‘Sure,’ he said, because he hadn’t eaten much since yesterday. ‘Why not?’
She was aware of his green eyes on her as she cut him a hefty portion and piled it onto one of the paper plates she had brought in with her. ‘The last of Minnie Mouse.’ She smiled, as she handed it to him. ‘See? You’ve got her spotty skirt!’
‘So I see,’ he murmured. ‘Aren’t you a little old for Minnie Mouse?’
‘Twenty-two,’ she said, in answer to a question he hadn’t asked, and when he frowned rather repressively she added inconsequentially, ‘I love Disney characters—I always have!’
He took the plate from her and sat down in the chair opposite her desk, and bit into the cake. She had been right. Too sweet. Too sickly. Bloody delicious. He tried and failed to remember the last time he had eaten birthday cake. Or celebrated a birthday. Or celebrated anything. But there hadn’t been a whole lot to celebrate lately, had there?
Lisi watched him, pleased to see him eating it with such obvious appetite. She thought how fined-down his face seemed, and wondered when was the last time he had eaten properly. She struggled against the instinct to offer to take him home and to have her mother cook a decent meal of meat and two veg with a vast portion of apple pie afterwards.
What was she thinking of? The man was a client! And a very well-heeled client, too—not the kind of man who would thank her for trying to mother him!
She licked her lips unconsciously as she looked at his long fingers breaking off another piece. Maybe mothering was the wrong word to use. There were probably a lot more satisfying things a woman would feel like doing to Philip Caprice than mothering, she realised, shocked by her wayward thoughts.
She watched him finish every crumb on his plate and decided to show him how efficient she could be. ‘Right then, Mr Caprice—let me find these properties for you to have a look at—Jonathon has sorted them all out for you.’
She bent her head as she began flicking through an old-fashioned filing box, and Philip felt an uncomfortable and unwanted fluttering of awareness as he looked at the ebony sheen of her hair and the long, elegant line of her neck.
Out of necessity, he had schooled himself not to be tempted by women, and certainly not women who were such a devastating combination of the innocent and the sensual, but for once he felt his resolve waver.
‘Here we are.’ Lisi found the last of what she was looking for, and held them out to him.
He noticed the way that the tip of her tongue protruded from between her teeth when she was concentrating. Tiny and pink. Shiny. He swallowed. ‘Thanks.’ He leaned across the desk and took the sheaf of house details from her.
‘Jonathon should be back any minute, unless—’ she gave him her most hopeful smile ‘—you’d like me to show you round?’ She would have to leave the office unattended for a while, but Jonathon would be back from lunch any minute. She saw him frown and hoped that hadn’t sounded like some sort of come-on. She blushed. ‘I know I’m relatively inexperienced, but I’d be more than happy to.’
She seemed sweet and uncomplicated, and he couldn’t deny that he wasn’t tempted, but he steeled his heart against temptation.
‘Listen, Jonathon knows me pretty well. He knows the kind of thing I like.’ He saw her face fall, as if he’d struck her a blow, and he felt the sweet remains of the birthday cake in his mouth and sighed. ‘Maybe next time, perhaps?’
This cheered Lisi up considerably, and later, when Jonathon had come back from the viewings and Philip had gone, she began to quiz him in a very casual way.
‘He seems nice,’ she offered.
Jonathon was busy writing up the offer which Philip Caprice had just made on some sprawling mid-Victorian mansion. ‘Nice? Huh! Ruthless would be a better description! He’s just got himself a terrific property at a knockdown price—beats me how he does it!’
‘Maybe he’s just a good businessman?’ suggested Lisi serenely.
Jonathon scowled. ‘Meaning I’m not, I suppose?’
‘No, of course not—that wasn’t what I meant at all!’ Lisi glanced over his shoulder. ‘Anyway—that isn’t far off the asking price, is it?’
‘True.’ Jonathon sighed. ‘If only he hadn’t managed to wheedle out of the owner that they were desperate for a quick sale we might have held out for the full price.’
‘I thought we were supposed to tell the vendor to keep out of negotiations with the purchaser, wherever possible?’
‘I did,’ said Jonathon glumly, then added, ‘Only it was a woman. She took one look at him and decided to give him a gushingly guided tour of the place—only unfortunately it backfired. After that, he had her eating out of his hand and she’s several thousand pounds out of pocket as a result.’
So was that ruthless, or just good business-sense? Whatever it was, it wasn’t really surprising—Lisi thought that he could probably have any woman eating out of his hand.
‘What’s he like?’ she asked. ‘As a person?’
‘Who knows?’ Jonathon shrugged. ‘He keeps his cards very close to his chest. I’ve dealt with him on and off for ages and I know next to nothing about him—’
Other than the very obvious attributes of being rich and gorgeous and irresistible to women, thought Lisi and put him out of her mind.
Until next time he came in.
Jonathon had gone to do some photocopying in the back room, and Lisi looked up to see the strikingly tall figure standing in the doorway and her heart gave a queer lurch. She frowned, shocked by the deep lines of strain which were etched onto his face.
Now there, she thought, is a man who is driving himself much too hard.
Philip glanced across the room to see the Birthday Girl sitting at her desk and smiling at him, and realised that he didn’t even know her name.
‘Hello, Mr Caprice!’ she said cheerfully.
Reluctantly he smiled back—but there was something about her which made him want to smile. ‘I think the trade-off for your delicious cake was that we should be on first-ame terms, don’t you? Except that I don’t know yours.’
‘It’s Lisi—short for Elisabeth. Lisi Vaughan.’
Pretty name, he thought, and the question seemed to come out of nowhere. ‘So are you going to show me around today, Lisi Vaughan?’
Lisi gulped, her heart banging excitedly in her chest. ‘Are you sure you want me to?’
‘Only if you’re confident you can.’
She knew that confidence was the name of the game—particularly in selling—and why on earth should her confidencedesert her just because she was about to accompany the most delicious man she had ever seen? She gave him her most assured smile. ‘Oh, yes. I’m confident! That’s if Jonathon doesn’t mind.’
‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t,’ he said easily.
Jonathon knew better than to argue with his most prestigious client. ‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘Let’s throw her in at the deep end!’
The viewing was unsuccessful—at least from a buying point of view. Philip tore the places to pieces in his car as he drove her back to the office afterwards.
‘Overpriced!’ he scorned. ‘I don’t know how people can ask that much—not when you consider how run-down the property is! And when you look what they’ve done to the garden—that garage they’ve built is nothing short of monstrous!’
‘You didn’t like it, then?’ asked Lisi meekly.
He swiftly turned his head and, seeing her expression, laughed. ‘Oh, very perceptive,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘You were good, Lisi,’ he added unexpectedly.
‘Was I?’
‘Very good.’ She had diplomatically left the monstrous garage until last and drawn his attention to all the good points in the house, but not in an in-your-face kind of way. She was chatty, but not intrusive, beautiful yet not flirtatious. In other words, she was a little like a glass of water—refreshing, but without any pernicious undertaste.
He sighed. Most of the women he met these days were nurses, and then only in a grimly professional capacity. Not that he wanted to meet women, of course he didn’t—not with Carla lying so…so…
He flinched and changed gear more aggressively than he had intended to.
‘It’s a shame there’s nothing else you’re interested in,’ Lisi was saying. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for your dream house!’
He threw her a rather mocking look. ‘Do you think there is such a thing?’
Lisi thought of her mother’s house and gave a slow smile. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said in a soft voice, and smiled. ‘Very, very definitely.’
He smiled back, but the smile died on his lips as he forced himself to look away from the slender outline of her legs, relieved when Langley High Street came into view and he was able to draw up outside her office.
‘Thanks very much,’ she said as she began to push open the door. ‘I enjoyed that!’
‘No, thank you,’ he said gravely, but as soon as she had slammed the door closed behind her, he made the car pull away. He didn’t want to watch her confident young stride as she walked to the office, or the way her firm young breasts pushed against her soft, clinging sweater.
Lisi saw Philip seven, maybe eight times after that—on a purely professional basis. Sometimes Jonathon would accompany him on the viewings, but mostly it was her. For some reason she grew to know his tastes better than Jonathon. Often she would mentally reject a house once she had skimmed through the details, then phone him and suggest that he might like to see it.
‘Do you like it?’ he would demand.
She hesitated.
‘Do you, Lisi?’
‘I don’t think it’s quite what you’re looking for.’
‘Then I won’t waste my time coming to see it.’
Leaving her wondering why she had been so foolish! Why hadn’t she said that it was the most gorgeous place she had ever set eyes on?
Because then he wouldn’t trust her judgement, and the fact that a man like Philip did meant more to her than it should have done.
She adored him, despite his emotional distance, but she kept it hidden from everyone—from Jonathon, from Saul Miller, even from her mother. And, especially, from Philip himself. Maybe she was aware that to fall for Philip Caprice would be batting right out of her league. And besides, it would be strictly unprofessional.
But she looked forward to his visits and they became the highlight of her life. Casually, she used to scour the diary to see when he was coming next, and—although she didn’t make it look too obvious—she always felt her best on those days. Her hair always newly washed, and a subtle touching of fragrance behind her ears and at her wrists.
And then one glorious spring afternoon Philip walked into the office without his customary, flinty expression. He had loosened his tie and he seemed lighter in his mood, Lisi thought, though she wouldn’t have dreamed of asking him why. That was not the way their relationship worked. They talked houses. Interest rates. Business trends.
‘Hello, Philip.’ She smiled.
