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‘That’s despicable.’ She thought it, yes, but she was still amazed when it popped out of her mouth, almost as though any connection between thought and action had been severed. She knew that she ought to apologise. Whatever he said about first names and appreciating honesty and trying to make his employees feel comfortable, he still owned the company she worked for.
But she found it difficult not to voice her objections. She had spent too many years witnessing the price of her mother’s silence.
‘Why didn’t you just tell the poor woman that you were tired of her?’
‘The poor woman?’ All trace of charm had disappeared from his face and he glowered at her. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about when you refer to Rachel as the poor woman, and I have no idea why I’m bothering to elaborate on any of this with you.’
‘Guilt?’ she suggested. ‘Guilt that I saw through your little manoeuvre? A basic sense of decency in realising that I need some kind of explanation? Even if I am only an employee? I wouldn’t suggest this normally, but you did say that you enjoyed the open forum.’
He shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair, then he shot her a frustrated, perplexed look from under his lashes. ‘So, I gather, do you,’ he commented, eyebrows raised, and she smiled serenely at him.
‘I’m not in the habit of being quite so outspoken—’
‘Not in the habit! God, I should think you send men running in the opposite direction as fast as their legs can take them the minute you confront them with your brand of open forum chit-chat!’
Jessica went bright red and stabbed a few of the vegetables on her plate with misdirected aggression.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she muttered, eating a mouthful of food that now tasted like sawdust. ‘All of this is beside the point. Whatever your reasons for getting me to your office, and whether I approve of them or not, the point of my being here is in my briefcase on the ground.’
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ he told her darkly. ‘You generated this topic of conversation, and we’ll finish it.’
‘Like you said, you don’t owe me an explanation...’
‘But we’ll be working together and I don’t intend to spend my time being treated like some kind of inhuman monster.’
‘Does it matter, just so long as we get the job done?’
‘Yes, I rather think it does.’
Jessica didn’t say anything. She concentrated on her food and waited for him to speak.
‘And would you like to know why? Because I wouldn’t want you to think that I spend my time chasing women. We’ll be working together, and I can’t have you feeling threatened, now, can I?’ Which, she thought, neatly put her in her place.
‘I feel so much better for that. Thank you for setting my anxious mind at rest.’
‘Where do you get it from?’
‘Get what from?’
‘That special talent you have for biting sarcasm? I can’t see Robert dealing all that well with that viperlike tongue of yours.’
‘Robert,’ Jessica informed him stoutly, ‘is a sweetie.’ And I’m not normally prone to biting sarcasm, she thought to herself, but then again the rest of the human race don’t provoke me quite like you do.
‘Oh, good grief.’ He closed his knife and fork and signalled for another bottle of wine.
Had they consumed one already? She had barely noticed what she had been drinking, and, looking down, she realised that she had done justice to her plate of food, also without noticing.
‘And just to clear the air,’ he informed her, ‘I don’t walk around treating women like second-rate citizens.’
‘I’m sure you don’t.’
‘That’s right, so you can wipe that supercilious expression off your face.’
‘Look, there’s really no need...’
‘Rachel, just for the record, started off as a bit of fun, but I discovered that she wasn’t as content as I thought just to have a good time. Pretty soon, she...she...’
‘Wanted more?’ Jessica said helpfully.
‘Oh, you’re aware of the phenomenon, are you?’
‘Not personally.’
‘Well...’ he shrugged and adopted a hangdog expression ‘...what can a man do?’
The blue eyes scoured her face with boyish bewilderment.
‘Oh, please!’ Jessica told him awkwardly, recognising that this was the essence of true charm. Bruno Carr, arrogant and self-confident that he was, would never veer into the arena of cruelty, because he genuinely liked women. His natural instincts were to persuade, even when seduction played no part in a hidden agenda. The ability to flirt was as inherent with him as the ability to breathe. He did it without thinking, which was why he was so adept at it
‘Women.’ He raised both shoulders expressively. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I understand them at all.’
‘Really. Now I wonder why I find that so hard to believe.’
‘Rachel started talking about the importance of families, of having children, the benefits of settling down.’
‘Poor, misguided girl,’ Jessica said without a trace of sympathy in her voice for him. ‘And what a dreadful predicament for you, I’m sure. One minute, you have a willing, vivacious partner, the next minute she’s gazing into jeweller shops and dropping hints about permanence.’
‘I’m not the marrying sort,’ he said. ‘Some men are and some men aren’t.’
‘You mean it’s all in the genes?’
‘Whereas all women are. Eventually.’
‘Ah. I see.’ She nodded slowly. In a strange, masochistic way, and even though she still resented his high-handed behaviour and was appalled by his train of thought, she found that she was enjoying this conversation. She must be mad.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘you come across as being the archetypal career woman, but, if you were to be brutally honest with yourself, wouldn’t you agree that when you see the odd pram being pushed you get a certain pang?’
‘What kind of pang?’
‘A pang of longing. Something to do with a biological clock, I gather.’ He poured another glass of wine for them both.
‘Well, not that I’ve ever recognised, but I suppose if your theory’s true then I must subconsciously have that pang lurking in there somewhere.’ How come the conversation was suddenly featuring her in the starring role? Her mind was feeling a little unreliable from the wine.
‘And you don’t?’
Jessica shook her head and frowned. ‘I thought we were talking about you,’ she said, thinking furiously.
‘We were, but then somehow we’ve ended up talking about you. I think it’s important to have some insight into the people who work with me.’
‘You mean you enjoy prying into their lives?’
He grinned, and then laughed, and she gave him a wry smile in return.
This was beginning to feel just a little too dangerous for her liking, although she had no idea why. They were simply, at least for the moment, getting along. She got along with lots of people. Most of the human race, in fact. So why did this make her feel uneasy? When he raised the bottle to her glass, she shook her head and covered it with the palm of her hand.
‘I’ve drunk enough already,’ she told him honestly. ‘Any more and I’ll be fit for nothing in the morning. I don’t have much of a head for alcohol.’
‘Lack of practice?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You mean you don’t spend the occasional night seeing the dawn rise with a glass of champagne in your hand?’
‘Not routinely, no,’ she said. Her hand slipped from round the rim of the glass to the stern, and she curled her fingers lightly around it, not meeting his eye.
Did he do that sort of thing on a regular basis? The blonde bombshell looked like the sort of woman who appreciated overblown gestures along those lines, and presumably she was merely an indication of the type of female he went out with.
‘Actually,’ she said, looking at him, ‘I thought people only did that sort of thing in third-rate movies.’
His mouth twitched, but at least he didn’t burst into laughter. She had a sneaking suspicion that if he had her remark would somehow have backfired in her face, making her appear dull and unadventurous.
‘I take it you don’t approve...?’
‘Does it matter what I think or not? Oh, I forgot, you like to have insight into your employees. Well, as a matter of fact, I neither approve nor disapprove. I just think that it’s not my style.’
‘And what is your style?’
His voice was a low murmur and his eyes on her were suddenly intense. She felt her skin break out in a faint film of perspiration. It was the wine, of course. Between them, they had managed to drink the better part of two bottles, and that simply was not something she was accustomed to doing. One glass, yes. But virtually a bottle? She was surprised that all she saw on his face was a look of curious interest. She should rightfully be seeing three faces, all blurry, and all with different expressions.
‘Work!’ she told him, plucking the word from out of the blue.
‘Work,’ he repeated obligingly. ‘I take it that my limited time on getting insight has been exhausted?’
Jessica looked at her watch and realised that they had been at the restaurant far longer than she had imagined.
‘I must be getting back!’ she exclaimed.
‘Before the carriage turns into a pumpkin?’ he asked with dry amusement.
‘I don’t have a carriage,’ she answered, choosing to ignore any possible innuendo. ‘In fact, I shall have to take a taxi back to my place. I only hope I can find one.’
‘Why don’t you walk back with me to the office, and I can give you a lift home?’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ A lift home? She thought not. Whether it was the drink or not, the night seemed to have taken her onto unfamiliar ground. She had no desire to prolong the experience. Unfamiliar ground was territory she felt should be better left unexplored. She bad never been able to control her background. She had watched in helpless silence as her parents had waged their unremitting cold war and as soon as she had been able to she had left, first to university, then to London. She had learned to exercise control over her life and that had always suited her.
Bruno Carr, however, was not a man who slotted easily into any sort of category she could handle.
As she reached for her briefcase and her bag she realised that the conversation between them had had all the elements of a free fall. How had that happened?
She could feel his eyes on her, and she refused to look at him, at least until she had managed to get some of her thoughts in order.
‘It’ll be a damned sight more convenient if I give you a lift home,’ he said.
‘No, thank you. Honestly.’ Why was she in such a panic at the suggestion? It made sense. ‘Perhaps I ought to telephone for a taxi.’ She looked around her, searching for inspiration.
‘Come on,’ he said, signing his credit-card slip, tearing off his copy, and then standing up. ‘Before you collapse in distress at the thought of getting into a car with me.’
She heard the amusement in his voice with a sinking heart. What must he think of her? Another hysterical woman, overreacting at something utterly insignificant. Hardly professional behaviour, was it?
She took a few deep breaths to steady herself.
‘I must appear quite ridiculous,’ she said in a calmer voice, rooting around for something sensible to say, ‘but I had no idea that the evening would be this late, and...’ Inspiration! ‘I completely forgot that my mum was supposed to call tonight...’
‘Ah. Important call, was it?’
‘My sister-in-law was due to have her baby today...’ Or around now, anyway. ‘Mum lives in Australia with my brother and his wife,’ she explained. True enough. Three weeks after her father had died, her mum, faced with sudden freedom, had taken flight to the most distant shores possible and was having a wonderful time out there. ‘She’ll be terribly disappointed that I wasn’t at home. Anyway, the sooner I get back the better, so if you don’t mind I’ll just jump in a taxi and tell him to go as quickly as he can...’ She knew that she was beginning to ramble, so she stopped talking and smiled brightly at him. What a pathetic excuse.
‘Of course. At times like these, every second counts.’ He ushered her out of the restaurant, and as luck would have it hailed a cab within seconds.
‘There now,’ he said, opening the door for her and peering in as she settled in the back. ‘Feel better?’
She felt a complete fool, but she smiled and nodded and tried to inject an expression of relief on her face.
‘Tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘My office. Eight-thirty.’ He stood back slightly with his hand on the door. ‘Make sure you bring your brain with you. You’ve got important work ahead of you. Can’t have your head addled with thoughts of babies.’ With which he slammed the door behind him, and Jessica ground her teeth together in sheer frustration and watched as he strode off along the pavement in the direction of his building.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I SHALL have to look at a drawing of the part in question. Is there any chance at all that it could have been made slightly askew? Grooves in the wrong place? Too many grooves? Too few? Anything at all that might have caused that car to malfunction?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Jessica sighed and looked across the table to where Bruno was sitting, his chair pushed back, his legs loosely crossed, with a stack of papers on his lap.
The boardroom was enormous, but he had insisted from the start that it was the only place that could guarantee his uninterrupted time. She still felt dwarfed by its vastness, however, and their voices had that hollow quality peculiar to when people spoke in cavernous surroundings.
‘You’ll be asked that in the witness box,’ she said calmly, ‘and I don’t think that the answer you just gave me is going to do.’ They had been working closely together for three weeks and this was not the first time that she had had to remind him that his answers would have to be laboriously intricate, leaving nothing to the imagination. He had a tendency to bypass all those tedious details, which he assumed everyone should know without having to be told.
‘Why not?’
Jessica sighed again, this time a little louder. It was late, her eyes were stinging and she was in no mood to launch into a debate on the whys and wherefores of what could and couldn’t be said on the stand. He tapped his fountain pen idly on the stack of papers and continued to look at her through narrowed eyes.
She was certain that he knew precisely how to make her feel uncomfortable. He knew that she was fine just so long as they stuck to their brief, but an errant gesture or a look that hovered just a fraction too long was enough to make her feel hot and bothered. She never showed it, but he could sense her change in mood and was not averse to preying on it for a bit of fun.
‘You’re being difficult,’ she said at last. ‘It’s late. Perhaps we should wrap it up for the day.’ She stood up and he followed her with his eyes, leaning back and clasping his hands together at the back of his head.
She had thought, initially, that she would become immune to his overwhelming personality and those dark, striking good looks, but she hadn’t. In the middle of a question, or as he swivelled to one side when he spoke on the telephone, or even at the end of a long day, when he stretched so that his taut, muscular body flexed beneath the well-tailored suit, she could feel her eyes travel the length of his body, she could feel her mouth become suddenly dry.
Now, she dealt with her own treacherous and aggravating response to him by doing her utmost to avoid eye contact.
