‘Will he go to prison?’ Vicky was horrified.
‘I don’t know,’ Max said simply. ‘Fraud deserves punishment but, if he’s sacked, then that will be punishment enough as far as I’m concerned. He’ll be forced to take early retirement and his reputation within the computer industry will be over. Aside from that,’ he sighed, ‘he has a family. I’m godfather to one of his children!’ He sat back as food was brought to their table. Typically, there was lots of it, and it was clearly of restaurant standard, despite the fact that they were in the hotel bar. ‘It’s a bloody nightmare, but you understand why it was imperative that an external secretary was brought in to deal with what’s going on. It’s not a big company and tongues wag.’ They both dug into their salads. The prawns were as large as crabs and there was enough salad on the oversized plates to satisfy the most ravenous of appetites. ‘The fewer people who know about this, the more successful our damage limitation will be. In a field like this, shares could fall at the merest mention of wrong-doing.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Don’t tell me you would take the opinion of a lowly secretary seriously,’ she said in an attempt to defuse his mood, although his reply was unexpectedly serious.
‘I’m always ready to listen to suggestions.’ His tone of voice left no doubt as to his sincerity.
‘Well.’ She paused and considered what she had been told. ‘He would obviously have to leave immediately, and someone would have to ensure that his career would be effectively over. You’re right, fraud would be punishable by a long prison stretch. But if I knew this man’s family, I suppose I would be tempted to dismiss him with all the necessary warnings and look on it as a salutary experience.’
‘Very soft-hearted.’
‘Only when it comes to certain things,’ Vicky informed him briefly.
‘Care to tell me what brings out the hard edge in you?’
‘No.’ She could feel his eyes roving over her as she bent to concentrate on her salad. ‘What is the format for tomorrow?’ As a conversation-stopper it was obvious, but it worked. The remaining hour was spent discussing various aspects of the problem and what would be expected of her in terms of her work. By the time she left to head back up to her room, she felt exhausted. Her head was spinning from the permutations of the problem confronting them, and she was uneasily aware that with this trip to New York she was taking yet another step towards being enmeshed in a job she knew could not last.
The following two days were the most invigorating and exciting of her career. Fact had proved stranger than fiction, as it usually does. The man involved in the embezzlement was not quite the cold-blooded fraudster she had expected. When summoned into the boardroom before lawyers and two independent accountants, he quickly confessed everything.
Sitting in the background, her fingers flew over her notepad as she took down everything that was said in her impeccable shorthand—a dying skill for which she was now immeasurably grateful. Although he was speaking into a tape recorder, she didn’t think that she could bear to transcribe the emotional breakdown from a tape.
Harry Shoring wept—loud, wrenching sobs born of guilt, fear and remorse.
He had, he confessed, originally seen the embezzlement as a stop-gap measure. He had intended to pay back every penny of what he’d taken but the whole thing had snowballed. His daughter, it turned out, had been involved in a car accident and the insurance had gone only so far to covering the cost of the surgery and the hospitals, but more had needed doing. Much, much more, or else his child would have been left a cripple for the rest of her life. He’d faced the prospect of forking out for radical new treatment which might restore the use of her legs and, when his own money had run out, he’d turned to the company for what he had seen would be a loan. A loan no one else knew about.
Throughout the long hours spent listening to his account, Max sat in silence, asking only the briefest of questions, even though it was to him that Harry’s watery eyes most frequently turned. His face betrayed nothing whatsoever. He made no notes whatsoever, leaving that to the rest of the assembled crew, but she had no doubt that every single word spoken was being absorbed and dealt with by that sharp, clever mind of his.
By the end of the second day, and after some discussions with the accountant and the chief lawyer, Harry Shoring was told that he would not face the prospect of a prison sentence. Max would, he said himself, repay every penny of the debt from his own personal fortune, an offer which was met with a gasp of gratitude from the older man, but in return Harry would have to leave the firm immediately and his pension would be altered to compensate for the embezzlement.
‘What about Jessie?’ he asked tearfully. ‘She’s been coming along so well…my poor little baby…only fourteen…’
‘I’ll make sure that all health costs are covered until progress is complete.’
The solution was unbelievably generous and compassionate, Vicky thought two hours later as she sat in the hotel conference room putting the finishing touches to various bits of documentation that would require signatures.
Her mind played back Max’s words and expressions over those past two days and something strong and disturbing quivered inside her. A confusing and uninvited notion that her secrecy about Chloe was somehow an act of betrayal, that she should tell him about her daughter. Hadn’t she seen enough of him now to know that he wouldn’t abuse the knowledge? The thought hovered above her like a storm cloud filled with threat. The temptation to blurt it all out was very nearly irresistible, but something held her back. Thick, sluggish fear, lodged inside her like a vice, stilled the little voice, reasoned to her that any confession, in the short term, would ruin this important trip to New York, told her to keep her dangerous secret to herself. After all, her daughter played no part in her working life and never would. He would never find out, not if she remained careful. And wasn’t the old adage better safe than sorry the most priceless of advice? She ignored her gut feeling that her reasoning was built on very shaky foundations and stifled her inner protests.
Instead, she finished her stack of typing and breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow she would be catching the day flight back to Heathrow and would be in time to collect Chloe from school. They had spoken twice a day and she’d been amused to discover that her daughter had not spent hours sobbing over her mother’s absence. Chloe, she thought, was growing up. She’d missed her daughter, but Vicky had to admit that the past two days had been rather wonderful. The fleeting window of freedom had made her see how difficult her life had been as a single-parent family. She’d forgotten what it was like to have a night of undisturbed sleep and to awaken in the morning without having to plunge into insistent childish conversation. For a few seconds, she thought how wonderful it must be to have help in the form of a partner. In her own head, Vicky had equated partnership with the likes of Shaun, but now she thought that four hands, two heads and the security of sharing must be rather nice.
She wondered what kind of father Max would make and, in the solitude of the enormous conference room, she flushed and glanced around her, as though afraid that unseen eyes might pick a hole in her head and yank out the wayward thought.
She was so consumed by the uninvited image that when she heard his voice from the door, she imagined, for a couple of seconds, that she must be dreaming, but when she turned around he was lounging in the doorframe, casually dressed in a pair of olive-green trousers and a short-sleeved shirt that emphasised his superb build.
‘I’ve just finished,’ Vicky said, in case he’d come to find out why she was taking so long. There had been a lot more to type out than she had first expected.
‘Good. In that case you can run along and have a bath, get on your glad rags and join me for dinner.’ He smiled slowly at her and raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Unless you have other plans?’
‘No other plans,’ Vicky mumbled, switching off the computer and making a big deal of rust
ling her bits of paper to hide her confusion. He continued to lounge oppressively by the door, watching her antics, which made her feel like a gerbil pointlessly gadding about on a wheel in a cage.
‘I’ll meet you in the bar in—’ he glanced down at his watch ‘—forty minutes, and we’ll take a cab to the restaurant.’
‘With everyone else?’
‘Everyone else has a family to go home to,’ Max said drily, ‘and after the hours they’ve put in over the past few days, they’ll be only too glad to get back to a bit of normality. Just you and me to celebrate the best outcome that could have been achieved, given the circumstances.’
At which he gave her a mocking half salute and departed, leaving Vicky to hastily gather her paperwork, dash up to her bedroom, have a quick bath and then devote the remainder of the time left to surveying her wardrobe, which was scantily inadequate.
She finally appeared in the hotel bar ten minutes late in a pair of black trousers, the other half of her one and only trouser suit, and a beige long-sleeved woollen top which had been flung in her case as an afterthought, and for which she was now grateful as the other three tops she had brought with her were suitable for work only. They were businesslike shirts, smartly tailored and ludicrously inappropriate for doing anything apart from sitting in front of a computer or taking notes at meetings.
Max was waiting for her in the bar. He saw her before she saw him and had a few seconds during which he appreciatively took in the trousers, her slim hips and waist and the top which fitted like a glove. He still found it incredible that she could do this to him, make him feel like a teenager all over again, but he was accepting it in the manner of someone accepting the inexplicable but unavoidable. He was even, he realised, becoming tuned in to her thoughts from the changing expressions on her face. Over the past two days he had found himself watching her, knowing when she agreed with what was being said and when she didn’t. More amazingly, he had begun unconsciously looking to her for approval of some of his decisions, although he wasn’t about to heed the advice of any woman or be swayed in his thoughts simply because of the way Vicky’s eyes shifted to him, or the way her mouth tightened in unspoken disagreement.
He could feel that shadow of anxiety hovering around her as they left the hotel bar and headed for the restaurant. It was one of his favourites. Upbeat and stylish with classy food but without the accompanying atmosphere of snobbish elitism that so many restaurants liked to cultivate. Unlike all the women he had dated in the past, she would not be impressed by a stuffy, expensive, snobbish place. She would wrinkle that small, perfect nose in mild distaste even though she wouldn’t make any comment. And why not admit it, he thought, he wanted to impress her. He wanted to show her what a well-travelled, worldly-wise, sophisticated yet unpretentious kind of guy he was.
Which meant putting her at ease. Which meant, he thought with the usual frustration he felt when he was alone with her, talking about work. Which was no problem, and over the superb starters they chatted about the outcome of the fraud fiasco. Harry Shoring, spared the prospect of prison, had been weak with gratitude, and had agreed to leave the company immediately with his reputation intact although only so long as he took early retirement and remained retired. Any hint of his recommencing work in another company and, Max had said, he would have no alternative but to spill the beans.
‘Are you pleased?’ Vicky asked, finishing her cold white wine and allowing her glass to be refilled.
‘We couldn’t have been more understanding,’ Max said bluntly.
‘You couldn’t have been more understanding. After all, you will be virtually taking over as his financial backbone until medical treatment on his daughter can’t go any further.’
Max, seeing the frank and open admiration on her face, didn’t know whether to feel flattered or impatient. The generous gesture had been made without thinking. His father’s friend, whatever he had done, had a sick child and was broke. Max had money—not helping Harry was not an alternative. No, he didn’t want her admiration for his altruistic gesture. He wanted much, much more than that, and right now he was a million miles away from it. But at least she had shed that air of nervous suspicion, even if, he suspected with wry self-irony, it was the wine rather than his witty, seamless conversation that was responsible.
‘It was nothing,’ Max said with a dismissive shrug of his broad shoulders.
‘Oh, but it is,’ she insisted, watching as he topped up her glass. ‘It may be nothing to you, but lots of men would have just turned their backs and walked away from the situation without feeling any sense of responsibility.’
Adulation for a simple act of humanity, he wanted to tell her, was not what he was after. Her cheeks were beginning to look a little flushed, and he saw, with some surprise, that most of the second bottle of wine he had ordered had gone and she was now toying with the food on her plate. She had shoved the few remaining bits of vegetables into a face-like shape, which made him grin to himself, because there was something endearingly childlike about it when her approach to life was always so coolly efficient and businesslike.
‘Nice face,’ he remarked gravely. ‘Anyone in particular?’ He tilted his head to one side in a question and tried not to burst out laughing when she went bright red and hurriedly closed her knife and fork, looking around her to see whether anyone had been observing her little activity.
‘Perhaps we ought to leave,’ he suggested. ‘And don’t look so tortured.’ He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, ‘No one was watching you. It’s not that kind of place.’ When she smiled sheepishly back at him, he felt his heart do something odd and his breathing thickened slightly.
They had to get out of here. She was driving him crazy. He couldn’t wait to pay the bill, leaving an outrageously generous tip because he couldn’t wait for the head waiter to find him some change, and he was so excruciatingly aware of her sitting next to him in the cab that he could almost feel his skin tingling. She’d had too much to drink and the effect was devastating to his senses.
‘Oh, walk with me to my room,’ she sighed, supporting herself on his arm when he attempted to point her in the direction of the elevator, mumbling something about having one last drink on his own at the bar before retiring. She’d braided her hair into a French plait and she played with it as it hung over one shoulder.
‘Okay,’ he said reluctantly, ‘but you should get a good night’s sleep. You must be exhausted.’
Her eyes danced. ‘Never felt livelier.’ Her hand, he noticed as they rode the elevator to her floor in silence, was still on his arm, a slight but insistent pressure that was having a noticeable effect on his body parts, one in particular.
He virtually pulled her to her room, watching as she fumbled with the credit card-style key and finally removing it from her and opening the door himself, then he stood politely back so that she could enter. Enter and turn to face him.
‘I had a fantastic evening,’ she breathed, looking at him then walking through into the small sitting room of the bedroom suite so that he inevitably followed. She turned abruptly and approached him. ‘Did you?’
‘Fantastic.’ He cleared his voice.
‘Then why do you look so edgy?’ she teased.
Her lips were still curved into a smile when he bent his head and covered them with his own. It was like tasting nectar for the first time and after a moment’s pause, she returned his kiss. Returned it with all the passion he was feeling himself, arching her body into his, pressing so that she could be in no doubt as to the urgency of his response.
He groaned hoarsely. Somehow they found themselves to the sofa. Her breasts. He had to see them, taste them, lick them. He wanted to touch every inch of the body that had filled his mind for longer than he cared to think.
When she pulled up her jumper, exposing her small, ripe breasts with their erotic lace covering, he drew his breath in sharply. Through the lace, he could see the pink, protruding tip of her nipple and he licked it, but the delicacy of
this was too much for him. He felt as though he couldn’t wait.
With urgent hands, he tugged the bra down so that her breasts spilled out, small, firm breasts with big nipples that were dark and engorged.
With a moan, she pushed his head down and he could feel her body shudder as he suckled at one, then the other, taking as much of her into his mouth as he could while his feverish hands prised open her legs and massaged her thighs.
Another time, he thought, and there would be another, he would take his time, turn lovemaking into a work of art. But for now, he was too explosively hungry for her to wait.
CHAPTER SIX
VICKY made very sure that she was out of her office when Max returned to work after New York. She knew that he would be coming in to the office at nine-thirty because of the e-mail he’d sent her the previous day. Nevertheless, from the cowardly sanctuary of the Ladies, she could still feel her heart thumping at a mile a minute.
She would give him fifteen minutes, a never-ending stretch of time during which she pointlessly stared at her reflection in the mirror and attempted to look busy with a make-up compact, just in case someone else entered the large, plush cloakroom and wondered what small, red-haired Vicky Lockhart was doing there, her cheeks flushed with colour, her eyes over-bright. It was a relatively small, friendly company, and during the short space of time that she’d been working there she could say with reasonable accuracy that she was on nodding acquaintance with most of the staff. If anyone came upon her now, staring sightlessly in the mirror, hands shaking, lips dry and an expression of gut-wrenching dread on her face, they would rush her to the nearest hospital. Or, at any rate, the nearest Sanatorium. At the very least, they would ask lots of concerned, prying questions for which she had no answers.
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