Sweet Vixen

by Susan Napier

  CHAPTER ONE

  'Come on, Sarah, get a move on! The plane was due in fifteen minutes ago.' Julie Somerville gave her assistant a harried look over the top of her typewriter.

  'Don't panic, it'll only take me twenty minutes to get out there. They won't even have got through Customs. You know how notorious Auckland airport is at process­ing jumbos,' Sarah Carter replied calmly from the oppo­site desk.

  She hated being rushed. To rush was to risk being unprepared and in her job-that was tantamount to a crime. As editorial assistant on the monthly fashion maga­zine Rags & Riches she was constantly meeting new people —writers, models, advertising executives—and all ex­pected her to know instantly what they wanted and why, and what Sarah was supposed to be doing about it. Usually she did, thanks to the overstuffed green filing cabinet squatting within arm's reach of her chair.

  'Don't say "don't panic" in that maddening way, I think I've earned a good panic!' Julie declared. "While you've been lolling about the city's beaches for three weeks I've been working at shriek pitch. Not only running this mad-house, but also trying to fend off the rumours that Wilde Publications has bought us out with the aim of rationalising their Australasian operations ... by dump­ing Rags.'

  'Well, from today you'll be able to let them do the fending,' Sarah soothed.

  'If they don't spend their whole visit stranded at the airport, yes.' Julie jabbed viciously at the keys of her machine. 'I had everything nicely laid on for Thursday. This is going to completely derail my timetable. I nearly had a nervous breakdown when Janey brought in that telex first thing this morning. Damn!' The dark blonde head bent as Julie back-spaced and X-ed out an error in her copy.

  Sarah grinned. Julie's nerves were an in-house joke, never in danger of being bent, let alone broken. She loved it when things went awry and she was called on to extract order from chaos, completely confident of her abilities. She was a good journalist and an excellent editor; ambi­tious, hard-headed, yet possessed of all the elegant femin­inity expected of a woman who edited a fashion maga­zine.

  'Stop grinning and start moving.' Julie looked up again as she heard the rumble of a filing cabinet drawer. 'What are you up to now?'

  'Looking for the file on Wilde's. I'd better know who I'm supposed to be meeting.'

  'It's not there—I've got it. Anyway you haven't got time. Indulge your fetish for facts later, all you're doing is greeting them, not entering Mastermind’. Max Wilde you must know, Tom Forest is a fellow director—financial expert.'

  'But—'

  'Oh my God!’ Julie sat suddenly upright in her swivel chair, china-blue eyes focusing properly on Sarah for the first time.

  'What's the matter?' The crack in the clear soprano voice was unnerving.

  'Grape! You had to wear the dreaded Grape, on today of all days.'

  Sarah looked down at her dress, a short-sleeved shirt-waister with a matching belt. It had been the first thing to hand in her wardrobe, so she had put it on.

  'I had vain hopes you might have done some shopping during your holiday.’ Julie rolled her eyes. 'What kind of impression do you thing the Grape is going to make? If only I didn't have this meeting. . . what's the weather like outside?'

  'I am not wearing a coat. Not in Auckland. In Febru­ary,' said Sarah firmly.

  'This is the son and heir of a world-famous couturier we're trying to impress here,' Julie wailed. 'He'll be expecting style . . . panache . . .'

  'He'll be expecting you,' came the mild reply. 'And we can't all look as good as you do.'

  Julie was in her late thirties but with her rippling shoulder-length blonde hair, glowing, peachy skin and lithe figure she could have been ten years younger.

  'You don't even try, Sarah. Why don't you—'

  The phone on Sarah's desk rang and she snatched it up. Once Julie started on the subject of clothes she could go on for hours.

  'It's Keith.' She hugged the receiver to her chest. 'He wants to know if the panic's still on and whether you want to see the paste-ups now?' Keith Moore was their art director. It was the triumvirate of him, Julie, and photog­rapher Mike Stone who were responsible for creating Rags' distinctive, successful, identity.

  'Yes and yes. I may as well see them, I seem to be suffering from terminal writer's block here.' She tore the paper out of her typewriter and screwed it up in disgust.

  'What paste-ups?' asked Sarah, replacing the receiver.

  'We've done a mock-up of the April issue,' Julie ex­plained. 'New ideas for new publishers. We were going to get a dummy printed, but we won't have time now.'

  'Isn't that assuming rather a lot? Wilde's may not want to make any changes.'

  'We're a little on the staid side, sweetie, you must admit and Wilde Publications isn't noted for its conservatism —nor is Max Wilde. Since I don't think he's coming all this way just for his health it stands to reason he has plans. There's a memo of mine about it somewhere—Janey, don't you ever walk into a room?'

  'Sorry.' Julie's young, freckle-faced secretary looked anxiously at Sarah. 'I just rang to check for you about whether the flight from London was on time. It wasn't.'

  'There, I told you not to panic, Julie. How late is it?'

  'Not late,' yelped Janey. 'Half an hour early! Tailwinds or something.' Her voice rose to follow the blur that was Sarah.

  So much for not rushing. Fleeing for the stairs, Sarah cursed the fact that they were on the fourth floor of an old building. There were only two lifts and they always seemed to be rattling up when you wanted to go down.

  She was still panting as she manoeuvred the bright orange office Chevette through the streets of the inner city. It was all the fault of the grape dress, really. If Julie hadn't started on that she might have left before the phone rang, and not learned that the plane was early, and not be chauffeuring a stomach-load of butterflies around now. It was always worse having to anticipate disaster.

  She knew, however, that none of her clothes would have met with Julie's unqualified approval. The easy, comfort­able blouse and skirt combinations were 'boring', the suits 'too severe', the dresses 'wallpaper clothes'. The root of the problem, according to Julie, was that Sarah lacked the prime motivation to dress fashionably: the desire to attract men.

  As she swung out to pass a slow-moving container truck the tiny diamonds that studded her wedding ring caught the light and points of white fire blazed briefly, mocking her thoughts.

  When she had first joined Rags & Riches as a nervous, inexperienced secretary Sarah had been grateful for Julie's help and advice. In fact she had spent her first few weeks' wages buying clothes, most of which, though dated, she still wore. Simon had made it clear that he resented the idea of her drawing money out of their joint account to buy clothes for a job he didn't want her to take, another petty attempt to make her feel guilty about wanting some independence. Yet when she had gone ahead and used her own earnings it had provided him with a fresh grievance…now she was trying to make him feel guilty and inadequate. Most of his complaints had been similarly confused and contradictory but at the time she had been too involved to see it and had suffered agonies of self-doubt as a result.

  Her husband's death had come only four months after she had started her job and the resulting gradual ingrowth hadn't been a conscious process, but an instinctive reac­tion to inward and outward pressures.

  A plane roared-low overhead as Sarah turned into the airport approach road, reminding her of her mission, and she wished again that she knew something about the people she was to meet. Perhaps she could try some logical deductions.

  She knew that Sir Richard Wilde was about 70, very rich and very famous. Therefore his son must be about 40, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, attending the best schools, gaining entrée to all the best p
laces by virtue of his name. He would be sleek and well fed, impeccably dressed, of course, and probably rather aloof, as befitted his wealth and position. His companion would be much the same, perhaps the junior of the two.

  There—they couldn't be too difficult to pick out of a crowd, thought Sarah smugly, especially as most of the flights from England at this time of the year were filled by families returning from Christmas reunions. And she had made her trip in record time—fifteen minutes.

  Time is relative. To Max Wilde it seemed that he had been waiting an awfully long time and he found himself becoming increasingly irritated with each passing minute. Surely they would be met as arranged, in spite of the last minute change of plan? It was common courtesy, not to mention good public relations. He would allow the tardy Mrs. Somerville another ten minutes.

  Restlessly he shifted position in the cushioned chair. He felt flat, drained of energy. He shot an envious look at the man sitting next to him. Tom looked perfectly comfort­able, quietly finishing off a cigarette, not at all depressed by the functional lifelessness of the terminal. The bulky body was relaxed, the heavy head tilted back, thinning grey hair fluffing out from behind large ears. He looked like a big, amiable teddy bear, but the simile was only apt in the physical sense. Tom's refined manners were any­thing but bearish and his brain, when it came to debits and credits and the ins and outs of tax laws, was the equivalent of a sophisticated computer. At the moment the computer was switched off, and Tom seemed to be very much looking forward to a few weeks of semi-relaxation in a Southern hemisphere summer. Max was not.

  He only had himself to blame, of course. If he hadn't been so over-confident as to risk flying in marginal weather last April he wouldn't be facing exile now. It had been a needless risk and one that had very nearly ended in his death. And for what? For temporary gratification. For a woman whose body he enjoyed no more and no less than he had enjoyed others, and whose mind had begun to bore him utterly.

  Max's social life had figured briefly in that last, blazing row he had had with his father before his rapid exit from London. Their relationship, always precarious, had suf­fered one of its recurrent blow-ups and this time-Max, usually able to ignore his father's frequent provocative moods, hadn't even tried to avoid it.

  He had arrived home from a particularly grinding session with the executives of a company that Wilde's was in the process of buying out. A number of problems had cropped up unexpectedly and it was nearing ten o'clock by the time he got into his car. Ice on the road had made driving a chore and negotiating his route Max regretted the impulse that had led him to agree to the meeting at the other company's offices. If it had been held at Wilde House he would have been only an elevator ride away from home.

  By the time he reached the door of his penthouse apartment all he wanted was food, drink, sleep... not necessarily in that order. But he was greeted by Brandon, his butler, who apologetically informed him that his father was waiting in the study.

  'Oh God, what has he come visiting for at this time of night?'

  'He has been waiting some time, sir.'

  'Lying in wait you mean. Bring me in a large brandy, will you? Nothing for Sir Richard, we don't want him to settle in.'

  The study was his retreat, jealously guarded. Sir Richard had instructed that the apartment be designed as a showcase for Wilde Interiors and since Max spent so little time at home he made no demur. But he had put his foot down over the study and the quiet, understated elegance of the room contrasted with the dramatic bril­liance of the living areas. Booklined walls and a long ebony desk warmed the deep-pile cream carpet and the cream velvet chesterfield. The wall behind his desk dis­played a few favourites from Max's extensive art collec­tion.

  Sir Richard Wilde did not possess the kind of personal­ity that complemented the room. Even seated at the desk, absorbed in some papers, he managed to radiate a volatile aura.

  'You've been avoiding me for weeks, Max. I want to know why,' he announced, taking up the conversation as though they were already in the middle of an argument.

  'Hello, father.' Max refrained from mentioning that he had been out of the country for most of that time. His father was well aware of the fact. Besides, it was true.

  He walked over and twitched a paper out of his father's hand. 'Well, what is it that's so pressing it can't wait? Other than your enduring, endearing interest in my paperwork.' He flicked a sarcastic finger at the untidy pile on the desk.

  His father squared off the papers with pale, neat hands while Max watched objectively. For the first time he noticed the thin black cane leaning against the edge of the desk and stifled a sigh. That meant his father was role­playing again. The aged parent, he supposed. It would be laughable if it were not so tiresome. Max was in no mood to play games.

  'You're my son, my only child, of course I'm interested. I'm worried about you.' The quavery note was nicely balanced by an injured air.

  'Well stop worrying,' Max said callously. 'I'm thirty-five not fifteen. I've been running my own life quite satisfactorily for a long time now. And if it wasn't for you I'd be running Wilde's the same way.' He turned and took the amber glass from a silent Brandon, approving the large measure with a dismissive nod.

  He took a gulp, expecting a sour look from his father, but instead he got a quiet smile and the younger man's eyes narrowed. Usually a remark like that produced an explosion and usually Sir Richard, who only drank cham­pagne, made some pointed remark about Max's drinking.

  'That's exactly why I've come to see you. I can't put it off any longer, I wanted to tell you my decision right away.' He paused dramatically for effect. 'I'm getting on—sixty-eight at the end of next month—too old to be taking on a lot of unnecessary work.'

  'Don't tell me you've decided to give up designing?'

  He received a rigid stare. 'Don't be ridiculous. I'm an artist, artists never give up their work. Millions of women depend on me to dress them in a style to which they are unaccustomed.' His father's jokes were always execrable. 'No, I'm talking about the business side of things. I've decided it's time you took over the chairmanship of the Group.' He sat back with the air of a magician who has just pulled a rabbit out of a hat, but the response was disappointing. Max refused to applaud.

  'Indeed?' He walked over to the chesterfield and sat down, nursing his drink, contemplating his father. Tall and lean, like himself, Sir Richard was health personified. The desk lighting was flattering, but even in broad day­light his father didn't look his age. His face was lined, but they were the strong lines of character, and his hair, though white, was still the thick leonine mane it had been in his youth. His mind was as clear as a bell and he was still a powerhouse of energy.

  He had talked about retiring before, but never seri­ously. In fact he had fought tooth and nail to retain his control, firmly resisting any efforts to dislodge him.

  'And what are the strings?' inquired Max pleasantly.

  'Strings?' Innocently. 'What strings? You're my son.'

  'I've never known you offer anything without condi­tions. Perhaps you want me to merge with a textile heiress.'

  'Don't be facetious, Max,' Sir Richard snapped, then stopped. 'Have you got someone in mind?' 'No, I have not.'

  'Well, you should think about it anyway,' plunging down a sidetrack for a moment. 'A chairman should have a solid home background, the shareholders like it. Wench­ing is fine in your youth and I've no objection to the press you've been getting, but when you get to your age people begin to wonder if there's instability. You've got to start thinking about heirs, you know.'

  'I don't have to do anything,' Max interrupted. 'I'm not marrying the first available candidate simply to provide you with grandchildren. In my considerable experience it's an overrated institution. Certainly you and mother were no blissful advertisement for the delights of matri­mony.'

  True to form his father waved the unpalatable away with an elegant gesture. 'Your mother was a very beauti­ful and intelligent woman but she could
be very wilful.'

  'As wilful as you.'

  Sir Richard frowned. 'We're digressing. We're sup­posed to be talking about you. The fact is . . .'he reached for his cane and made a play of using it to haul himself up. Here it comes, thought Max, cynically. 'The fact is that my age is beginning to creep up on me. I can't be bothered with all these new angles your whizz kids are dreaming up . . . new companies, new directions. It's distracting and these days I need all my energy and concentration for my real work—designing. I had hopes, of course, that yon would follow in my footsteps, but no matter, you've chosen other fields. Talent has many guises and I respect yours. You have a rational yet intuitive sense for business, you're demanding but fair, you have experience and all the qualities of leadership that would make you a good chairman.'

  'Why do I get the feeling this is a funeral oration?'

  'You have all these things,' his father continued inexor­ably, 'and yet, I hesitate. Why? Why do I now feel some doubt that you're ready for it?'

  That brought Max up sharp. He set his half-empty glass down on the black coffee table beside him with a sharp click.

  'What in the hell do you mean by that?'

  'Just what I say. Something's not right, and I think you should tell me what it is. I should like to know, both as your father and as present chairman of Wilde's. For the past few months you've been like a cat on hot bricks, working like there's no tomorrow.'

  'I've always worked hard. Dammit, you wouldn't want me as a director if I didn't pull my weight.' Max stood up abruptly, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

  ‘I agree. But there is a difference between working hard and over-working. You're driving yourself close to the brink, physically and mentally.'

  'Which one of your tame executives has been keeping tabs on me this time?' Max enquired caustically, aware that this was a rare reversal—he was losing control while his temperamental father remained cool. The thought only angered him more.

  'It's not a matter of telling tales, Max, and if you were reacting less defensively you'd see that. If your health is in jeopardy, naturally that affects the companies you control and the people you employ. And this is not just a straight­forward case of overwork. It's been going on ever since that crash. I can't put my finger on it exactly but you seem to have lost your sense of proportion. What you're doing doesn't seem to satisfy you any more and that worries me. What are you trying to prove, and to whom?'