Revenge

by Natalie Fox

  Slowly Alexia put down her coffee-cup on a side table. Her eyes were cold and impenetrable as she looked at him. 'Are you suggesting my father cheated his partner?' she said in a very small voice.

  'It was his intention, I'm afraid.'

  Anger and defence for her father swirled inside her. 'How dare you, how dare you make such an evil accusation?' Shakily she got to her feet.

  'Please, sit down, Alexia. You can't keep running from the truth. I told you this might be painful.'

  'But how can I believe you?' she cried. 'This might be a whole pack of lies!'

  'I have no reason to lie to you, none whatsoever, please believe that.' He said it so sincerely that Alexia sank back into the sofa.

  'Go on—there's more, isn't there?' she murmured weakly. She could always verify this with Daniel. She'd had no contact with him over the years but she could always call him. Though why did she need to verify it? Harry was right, he had no reason to lie to her. She remembered how her father and Daniel's relationship had cooled at that time and... and then everything had started to go wrong with her and Rex. Oh, God, surely this couldn't be true?

  'Your father and Daniel were good friends as well as partners,' Harry went on, 'and when this happened it caused a lot of strain between them. No one will ever know for sure what brought on your father's heart attack, certainly not me, but perhaps he realised what he had done to his friend—though it would be kinder to think that your father died simply because his time had come. As far as Rex is concerned, you probably know more about why you split up than I do.'

  Alexia shook her head and a curtain of hair fell across her face. She swept it impatiently aside. 'Rex worked for the company too. We didn't row or anything but he certainly cooled towards me. I just presumed they were all under pressure. I wasn't involved in the company then. I was working --'

  'For a marketing company,' Harry butted in.

  Her eyelashes flickered. 'You haven't missed much, have you?'

  He smiled. 'No, Alexia, I haven't.'

  She didn't ask why he thought it his business to delve so deeply into all of her life; she was hurting too badly inside. 'Yes, I was working in marketing and not really concerned with Stroben. Rex was working under his father and mine and after my father bought Daniel out everything seemed to fall apart. Rex left the company and left me.'

  'Probably because your father cheated his,' Harry suggested.

  Alexia covered her face with her hands. Oh, no, it all fitted. Rex was an only child and devoted to his father, but surely...

  'But, Alexia, if he really --'

  Her head jerked up when he broke off. 'Go on, why don't you say it?' she cried out rhetorically. 'If Rex really loved me it wouldn't have made any difference!'

  'I don't have to say it, Alexia, because you know it. Trouble is, you haven't been able to face reality all these years. You've blamed me instead of coming face to face with the truth. Your relationship failed because Rex Parton didn't care deeply enough for you --'

  'I don't have to listen to this!' She shot up from the sofa and strode towards the stairs.

  'Running away again, Alexia?'

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs. 'Yes,' she cried blindly, swinging to face him. 'And I'll keep on running till I hit my own brick wall, thank you. I don't need any help from you!'

  She ran up the stairs to her room, where she flung herself down on the four-poster bed and beat her fists on the sweet-smelling pillows. 'I hate you for that, Harry Masters!' she sobbed but later, much later, when she was curled up under the soft downy duvet and the bed seemed to fold around her to comfort her, she reasoned that she probably hated Rex Parton more.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The following morning the rain had stopped, the sun was shining and it looked very green out there.

  Alexia stood on the porch and breathed the warm sweet air.

  'I told you, didn't I?'

  Harry came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder and she drew in a small breath at the intimacy. She concentrated on the view: rolling hills of lush green bracken, fat sheep, blue, blue skies.

  'The view? Yes, it's beautiful. Are those the Brecons?'

  'Yes, impressive, aren't they? We'll go for a walk later.'

  'I won't be here.' It was out before he could say any more. She turned to him. 'I think it best that I leave.' She'd thought about it most of the night and it was the only way.

  'And I think it best that you stay,' he told her decisively as he turned back into the farmhouse. 'You can't run forever.'

  'So you keep telling me,' she said as she followed him to the kitchen, 'but it has nothing to do with what we talked about last night.'

  'So you haven't hit that brick wall yet? Well, let me know when you do. I'd like to be around to pick up the pieces.'

  'I'll put myself together when it happens, thanks.'

  He looked at her darkly. 'Soften up, Alexia. The world doesn't owe you.'

  'Nor do you, so leave it alone, will you?'

  'You're very brittle this morning. What's up, didn't you sleep well?' He filled the kettle for tea.

  'I slept very badly as it happens and please don't make any obvious comments on that.'

  'I can't resist it,' he grinned. 'It's a bed meant for two.'

  She felt hot again and wished she didn't lead herself into these traps.

  'Forget it. I never sleep well in a strange bed.'

  'And is that bed strange? I wouldn't know, I've never slept in it.' He took eggs from the fridge.

  'You surprise me,' she cut back, unable to resist it. 'I would have thought with your lifestyle it was well thrashed.'

  He took that on the chin. 'But that bed is special, Alexia, sweetheart. It's a loving bed.'

  'And yet you chose to put me in it?' She smiled cynically. 'Am I supposed to be flattered again?'

  'Would you be if I told you I anticipated "thrashing" you in it last night? I'm scrambling eggs; how many?'

  'Two. You mean "thrashing" as in to defeat one thoroughly?'

  'I meant it the same way you did, Alexia, so don't get smart. How many slices of toast?'

  'Two. In that case, no, I'm not flattered. Men with egos your size I can live without. Now if you don't mind I'd like to drop the subject. I really don't see any point in my staying here this weekend. We aren't achieving anything.'

  'On the contrary. I think we've come a helluva long way in a very short space of time and with any luck we should reach a very satisfactory conclusion before the weekend is over.' He cracked and beat four eggs in a bowl.

  She wasn't sure how to take that as there was no double meaning to his tone. Perhaps it would be possible to stay and get this sale sorted out, if he kept his mind on business rather than trying to put her down every two minutes.

  She watched him peel off slices of bacon from a pack and put them under the grill. She stepped forward to rescue the toast from the toaster and thought that glossy magazine of April's should see their eligible City high-flyer now, cooking breakfast in a sunny farmhouse in worn jeans and an equally worn 'Panda WWF' T-shirt.

  'Do you contribute to the World Wide Fund for Nature?' she asked for want of a change of topic.

  He looked down at his T-shirt as if he wasn't sure what he'd put on that morning. 'Everyone should. Do you want a lecture?'

  'No, thanks. I contribute too.'

  'You surprise me. I thought you were --'

  'Spoilt and rich and uncaring?'

  'Something like that.'

  She was inexplicably hurt by that, but after all she had put the words in his mouth. 'Just because I have money and wear decent clothes, it doesn't mean I'm all of those things you think I am.'

  'And because I lead a high-profile life it doesn't mean I kill old men and squash romantic relationships to get what I want.'

  'I'm sorry --' They both said it at once and smiled and that smile of his did something very odd to Alexia's heart. It pulled so hard that she felt it as a physical pain.

  At
Harry's suggestion they carried their breakfast plates outside, to a wooden table and chairs by the front door.

  Harry went back for the tea and Alexia waited, turning her face up to the sun. It was so relaxing here that she wished...

  'Truce,' he said as he put a mug of tea down next to her plate.

  'Agreed,' Alexia murmured. 'Let's not mention my father and my ex-lover --'

  'Not that truce,' he smiled. 'I was about to suggest that as I cooked most of the breakfast you should load the dishwasher and tidy up while I do something about getting your car out of the mire.'

  Alexia knifed a thick chunk of butter on to her toast. 'You are impossible!'

  She did it, though. Later, when he got into that dilapidated old jeep and juddered down the hill to a cluster of farm cottages, she cleared the kitchen and then ran upstairs to make her bed—that bed. As she smoothed the sheets she wondered. He'd said it was special and yet he had said he'd intended to make love to her in it. That was a contradiction in itself. She was nothing special in his life. And when she found a cleaner's bag hanging in the wardrobe with her carefully pressed black shantung suit and her underwear with it she understood what it was all about. Harry Masters was a teaser par excellence! He hadn't had her knickers in his pocket at the hotel and he didn't intend loving her in that exquisite bed. He was all bluff. She frowned at those conclusions.

  While she waited for him to come back she made a coffee and sat outside in the sun. The farmhouse was on rising ground and she could clearly see her car stuck in the mud down the track and Harry and some men towing it out with the jeep. When it was free she would be too but she knew she wouldn't go. She needed these negotiations and it was the only reason she was staying.

  She shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand as the jeep shuddered back up the hill.

  'It's going beautifully,' he grinned as he leapt out of the driving seat.

  'How can it be? I've got the keys.'

  'Not your car, I'm afraid. We broke off the exhaust as we jolted it out of the mud. It'll need a new one. The farm workers will tow it down to the local garage for a replacement. So you're stuck here whether you like it or not.'

  She didn't tell him she'd decided to stay anyway. 'So what's going so beautifully?' She smiled as she realised. 'Oh, the jeep, of course.'

  He was just a big kid really. She put Rex in his place and the smile slid from her face. Rex and his pretensions—he would hate this place, this pretty farmhouse, that jeep, and yet here was Harry Masters, Mr Huge Success, acting like an eager outward-bounder. Perhaps that was the secret of his success: he knew how to relax when it was necessary.

  'Do you want to go for that walk or shall we get straight down to it?' he asked, standing in front of her, blocking out the sun.

  Her heart missed a beat and then she remembered he was all bluff and innuendoes. She could match him any time of the day.

  'Let's get straight down to it,' she said, standing up. 'Business,' she emphasised, 'is what I'm good at.'

  'You're good at other things too. Like kissing, for instance. Are you good in bed as well?'

  Alexia refused to let that one get to her. 'You'll have to ask the Newport Male Voice Choir—all of them.'

  He laughed. 'I thought you didn't like Wales?'

  'I don't; the men aren't bad, though.'

  He suddenly pulled her to him and held her shoulders, 'That isn't particularly funny, you know.'

  Her whole body steeled under his touch but she held his penetrating gaze. 'Nor was asking me if I was good in bed.'

  'Did it offend you?'

  'Hardly; I wouldn't have made a joke at my own expense if it had.'

  She tried to pull away from his grasp but his hands tightened and she knew his intention. She didn't have time to open her mouth and argue, he took charge of her lips as if they were his own property to do what he pleased with. Alexia knew she should struggle and push him away but his mouth was so persuasive. Why was she letting this happen when she didn't like him? Such contradiction; she was beginning to...

  He drew his lips from hers. 'I want to make love to you,' he murmured against her. 'Here, in the open, under the sun.'

  His blatant honesty shocked her as deeply as the location of the suggestion. She'd never made love under the sun. Rex hadn't been like that...

  Her body tensed and he felt it and caressed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. 'You haven't lived, have you, Alexia?'

  It was as if he knew her every thought.

  'Sex under the sun is living, is it?' she retorted. 'What a shallow life you lead, Harry.'

  He grinned down at her, still holding her by the shoulders but gentler and therefore far more dangerous. 'It can be fun in the shallows, Alexia. You should try it some time. Life is for living, not for dragging your morals around with you like a ball and chain.'

  'Yes, I have morals,' she told him tightly. 'And thank God I do.'

  'Why—tempted, are you?'

  She opened her mouth in denial but the truth flooded through her. She was tempted and that was a shock to her senses. Sexual attraction to a man she had despised for so many years? She thought she knew herself better than that.

  'I'm tempted to call for a taxi and get myself out of here,' she told him drily, 'because you have one thing on your mind this weekend and it isn't the same as mine.'

  He raised a dark brow and increased the pressure on her shoulders, his thumbs circling over the silky fabric of her shirt. She wished he would stop that; it reminded her of when he had caressed her breasts on the night they had met.

  'I think that by the time this weekend ends, Alexia, our minds will be very much as one.' He lowered his dark head and the kiss she knew was coming wasn't the type she anticipated. It was warm and sensual, just like the one in the bed, and, as then, she didn't want it to end and the confusion that tore through her spoilt it all. If only she didn't have reason to despise him so, if only they weren't here for business, if only they had met in different circumstances...

  She drew back from the kiss and pressed her lips together. She didn't want him to do that again, not ever again.

  'I'll give you one last chance,' she murmured softly yet firmly. 'Do we talk business or do I go for the phone to call a taxi?'

  He let out an exaggerated sigh. 'You really do drive a hard bargain, sweetheart.' He took his hands from her shoulders and she knew the danger was over. Whatever he might say, they were both here for one purpose and one alone. She was suddenly aware of the warm sun on the top of her head, of the sweet smell of rain evaporating on green grass, and for a moment she felt a strange sorrow akin to sharp loneliness. She turned away from him then and reached to pick up her coffee-cup to take it back into the house, and by the time she had deposited it in the kitchen sink her fingers weren't shaking any more. She was in control again.

  They spent the next hour going over the file Alexia had prepared in advance of this meeting. They sat inside, at the dining table, and Alexia was getting more and more uncomfortable as Harry's face tensed at what he was reading.

  'It's worse than I thought,' he uttered at last.

  'Don't try that one, Harry. You know the worth of Stroben.'

  He leaned back in his chair and studied her. 'Why the sudden decision to sell, Alexia?'

  'I think the time is right,' she told him cautiously. 'I want to do other things with my life.'

  'Such as?'

  She honestly hadn't given it much thought. Her main aim was for him to take over and inject his time and money into saving jobs. 'I just might retire graciously and swan around the Caribbean for a century or two.'

  He smiled and flicked at the last page of her figures with the end of his pen. 'You'll just about be able to swan around the Serpentine by the time I've whittled that ridiculous asking price down. You should have sold to me three years ago, because now it's going to cost me dearly if I take over your ailing company.'

  She didn't like the way he had laid emphasis on the if. Of course she understood his
caution but she wasn't a fool. He wanted the company, otherwise they wouldn't be here now, but settling the terms wasn't going to be easy.

  'You realise, of course, that I can't give you a decision straight away.'

  Alexia's eyes blazed. 'And why not? I thought that this was what the weekend was all about!'

  'Come on, Alexia, you're bright enough to know it isn't that easy. I need to study those figures, look the factory over --'

  'You know all you need to,' she argued fervently. 'Don't tell me you haven't delved deeply into my company before coming this far. You're just trying to drag this out for your own aids.'

  His eyes met her across the table. 'And what ends do you think they are, Alexia?' he quizzed smoothly.

  'I don't know!' She looked away. She hated it when he looked at her so deeply. She couldn't read anything in his eyes, anything she understood. Surely he wouldn't drag this out till... till he got what he had suggested, her simpering compliance in that devilish bed upstairs?

  'I hate the way you operate,' she breathed venomously.

  'You don't know the way I operate,' he returned, gathering up the papers and sliding them back into the file. 'I'm sure you'd change your mind if you did.'

  Alexia stared at the papers he was dismissing by packing them away. Was it down to this? Her body for her company?

  'You obviously don't want to continue these discussions,' she suggested quietly. She had the overwhelming feeling he didn't, the overwhelming feeling she had lost.

  'Not at the moment. I need time to think.'

  Alexia let out a shuddering breath and Harry looked up from the file he was closing. His eyes narrowed. 'What was that ragged breath for?'

  Slowly she looked up at him. 'I... I expected to get this resolved.'

  'Because your company is in trouble?'

  She let out another sigh and got up. She picked up the file and went to put it back into her briefcase. Harry reached out for it.

  'I haven't finished with it yet.'

  She let it slide from her fingers and snapped shut her briefcase. So all wasn't lost, yet.

  'Don't look so reproachful, Alexia,' he told her.

  'I can't help it! I expected to get all this sorted out this weekend!' Her feeling of failure was reflected in the bitterness of her tone.