A Business Engagement

by Jessica Steele

  Ashlyn was still staring at him in astonishment. ‘You—went to see him—before you came home on—Wednesday?’ Good grief, had Carter done that—for her? Surely not! No! Don’t be ridiculous.

  ‘I went to see him that night—Tuesday—after I’d left you,’ Carter corrected her.

  But Ashlyn, hurriedly getting herself together, decided she didn’t want him thinking—and certainly not talking—about Tuesday night.

  ‘Oh, well,’ she mumbled offhandedly—and found it a wasted effort, because Carter continued anyway.

  Though it was as if he was choosing his words very carefully when he stated, ‘I left you that night not because I wanted to, but because I had to.’

  ‘Pfff!’ she scoffed, putting in overtime on her offhand manner. ‘It’s of no consequence.’

  Carter didn’t like that, she could tell, though whether it was what she’d said or because of her uninterested manner she couldn’t decide. What she could sense—and it worried her—was that he was determined not to leave the events of Tuesday night alone. It seemed churlish—not to say too revealing—to let him know that she needed no reminding of anything. She was word- and memory-perfect about that night.

  ‘At the risk of seeming a trifle ungallant, Ashlyn,’ he went on, after a few moments of studying her and causing her to wish quite desperately that she knew what he was thinking, ‘I must contradict you. It is of consequence. And I think you’re lying when you deny—’ It was time to go. Ashlyn moved and Carter broke off, on his feet at the same time that she was on hers. He got to the door before her.

  ‘Let me by!’ she snapped.

  ‘After all the trouble I’ve had getting you here?’ He shook his head. ‘Not likely.’

  ‘You’re a lying toad!’

  ‘We’ve both done our share.’

  Ashlyn stared into dark grey eyes that had never looked more determined. ‘So we’ll call it quits—I’m off!’ She went to go round the side of him, and found as he turned that that way was blocked. Worse, he caught hold of her upper arms. Oh, goodness—just that, and her legs went like jelly. ‘Take your hands off me!’ she ordered.

  ‘I will if you’ll stay.’

  ‘Why should I?’ she offered belligerently.

  ‘Because...’ He seemed to hesitate, then went on,

  ‘Because I’ve something to say that—that’s important to me—and I hope to you too.’

  ‘You’re never going to offer me your job?’

  He smiled—she hadn’t even dented him. Though what he then said dented her! ‘What I want to say to you has nothing to do with work,’ he replied. ‘It’s personal, between you and me.’

  Oh, heavens—she couldn’t take this. But from where she was standing there did not seem to be another choice. ‘No doubt you’ve got a whole string of other lies lined up!’ was the best she could manage.

  ‘I promise you, Ashlyn, that I shall not lie to you ever again.’ Oh, grief, he sounded so deadly serious and she was so weak where he was concerned. But she mustn’t be weak. She had to be strong. ‘Will you in return promise not to lie to me again?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she lied.

  Whether he believed her or not she did not know, but he let go of one of her arms and led her back to the sofa. She supposed it was because of his weakening grip, coupled with the fact that she was already at sixes and sevens, that she allowed him to do it. Not that he had looked likely to let her from the room.

  Disturbingly, though, this time when Carter sat down it was not on the arm of the sofa as before, but next to her on the cushioned seat. To her mind, that was much too close.

  ‘So what’s so important that you had to lie to get me here in the first place?’ she challenged, starting to become aware that if she was to get out of this with any dignity, then she had better go on the attack. To go on the defensive would be much too weakening.

  ‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise,’ he excused. ‘You intended never to come here again.’

  She wanted to shrug, to scoff, but Carter was holding her eyes with his own. Frighteningly, though she had been prepared to lie her head off, if need be, she now discovered that she could not lie to him even about the smallest thing. ‘That’s right,’ she agreed, and did not like one tiny bit the helpless feeling that being compelled to tell him the truth gave her. ‘But we weren’t talking about me,’ she reminded him sharply.

  ‘It’s all connected,’ he answered, somewhat obscurely, and Ashlyn was suddenly too panicky to want to ask for an explanation.

  ‘I’m sure,’ she muttered. She forced herself to go on the attack again. ‘So if Matthieu Boirel is such a “favoured associate”, why go and thump him?’

  ‘You think I should have allowed him to get away with what he tried on you?’

  My stars, he sounded protective! She liked it—and must not like it. ‘I’m asking the questions here!’ she retorted, and was little short of amazed that Carter let her get away with that.

  He added to her amazement when he replied evenly, ‘And I’m prepared to answer every one of those questions, Ashlyn.’ She just looked at him, speechless. ‘I left you that night, as I said, because I had to,’ he continued.

  ‘Go on,’ she pressed hurriedly—the sooner they drew a veil over that the better.

  ‘I admit I wasn’t thinking very clearly once I got out on the street. All I knew for certain was that I wanted with everything I had in me to come back to you. But my head told me that I must not.’

  ‘Oh?’ Ashlyn tried to sound offhand again, only this time it didn’t quite come off, and her voice came out sounding all husky, and nothing at all like the way she wanted it. Carter, hearing her, seemed to be encouraged. Though why he should feel the need for encouragement she wasn’t sure.

  ‘I sorely needed to get my head together,’ he revealed, with a trace of a smile. ‘I purposely made myself pound the pavements and stay away from you—I just couldn’t think straight while I was in the same apartment with you,’ he confessed.

  Ashlyn’s mouth fell open a fraction. ‘Oh,’ she murmured again. She was so shaken by what he had just said that she sat there riveted, totally forgetting that she had wanted to leave. ‘Er—did you get your head straight—on your walk, I mean?’

  ‘Only in so far as I went back over everything that had taken place that night.’ Ashlyn suddenly decided that she wanted him to stop right there. Then she discovered that she had no need to get agitated, because Carter had traced events back to the time before she had asked him to kiss her. ‘That was when I started to be furiously angry with Matthieu Boirel. That was when I grew so outraged because he had caused your tears. There was nothing I could do then but go and find him.’

  ‘You knew where he lived?’ Ashlyn put in, her heart drumming. She told herself that Carter was a gentleman, so it was quite natural he’d be outraged that some oaf had caused a woman to cry; the fact that she was that woman had nothing in particular to do with it.

  ‘By then I did. I’d finished my business in record time.’ So he had been out on business as he’d said. ‘I’d thought you and I might go and have a look at the Paris nightlife,’ Carter revealed ruefully. ‘Which just showed me where I got off. You weren’t waiting around, I discovered, but were already out sampling it.’

  ‘You knew where I was?’

  Carter shook his head. ‘I’d no idea. All I had to go on, as I prowled around that apartment looking for clues, were a couple of cards you’d left by the telephone. I tried both numbers before putting the cards in my pocket. Both men were out. But later, when the need to flatten Boirel became more than I could withstand, I at least had his address.’

  ‘Was he—er—surprised to see you?’

  ‘Unfortunately he didn’t know much about it.’

  ‘You punched him one?’

  ‘Twice. One for me and one for you. He didn’t get up the second time.’

  ‘And—um—you felt better for doing it, you said.’

  ‘Much better. Though it so
lved nothing, and I returned to the apartment—’

  ‘Did you?’ she exclaimed, and quite without thinking she went on, ‘I thought you were so keen to get away from me that you’d gone and booked into a hotel for the night.’

  ‘You thought that?’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, love.’ He seemed not to know he had used that small endearment, but was infinitely understanding. ‘No wonder you weren’t there when I got back. You were hurt and feeling far more humiliated than I realised.’

  But that put them into territory which Ashlyn was far too nervous to explore. ‘When did you know that I’d gone home?’ she asked quickly. He’d called her ‘love’ before, she remembered, and it had meant nothing to him then. ‘That night?’

  ‘Not until the morning,’ Carter corrected her. ‘I’d come back in the early hours and listened at your door in case you were having screaming nightmares over Boirel’s assault on you. I didn’t know then that you weren’t there. I went quietly to my room to have an hour’s rest. That was as much as I got, but by the time I was up, shaved and showered everything was clearer in my mind. I came to your room, cup of tea in hand, hoping to start the day right so that, hopefully, I might later have a talk with you—the talk,’ he added deliberately, ‘we’re having here and now.’

  Ashlyn swallowed, and was suddenly too stewed up inside to be able to cope with the here and now. ‘You rang my home—before I got there,’ she said in a rush.

  ‘Your case had gone, the wardrobe was empty, and the concierge told me you’d taken a taxi to the airport.’ Carter explained, making her realise he must truly have been concerned about her. ‘It was still a tremendous relief, though, when I flew back and rang you again—and heard your lovely voice. I knew your spirit was back when you told me you were going out; there was no sign of any lingering trauma after your experience with Boirel. I realised then, and with the utmost relief, that not only were you safe, but that you would be able to cope.’

  ‘You—er—seem to have thought about me—um—a lot,’ Ashlyn said in a strangled voice.

  Carter looked at her steadily and she refused to look away. Even if her insides were playing havoc, she just could not look away. And then her insides didn’t merely play havoc, but gave her the very devil, when quietly Carter revealed, ‘My dear, I’ve thought of little else but you since half past twelve last Tuesday when you walked into that French hotel and stood in the doorway. You were completely unaware that all eyes were upon you.’

  ‘Really!’ she choked, admonishing herself to keep her head. His ‘My dear’ belonged in the same stable as ‘Oh, love’, and neither endearment, nor what Carter had just said, amounted to very much. He wanted her out—she must remember that. But this was personal, he’d said. She was confused and didn’t know what to think any more!

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured softly, his tone threatening to melt her bones. ‘I had, of course, had you on my mind before that day.’

  ‘Of course,’ she choked.

  ‘But that was the day, that was the time, when I knew why.’

  Desperately she wanted to ask why. But she was afraid. Carter’s look was gentle, his tone was gentle—but she had to remember that his aim was to get her out!

  ‘You want me out!’ she said quickly before she could allow herself to think of anything else, and attach any other significance to what he was saying. ‘From the first, you’ve never wanted me on the board!’ As soon as the words were out, she wanted them back. Carter’s gentle look had gone, and changed from surprised to stern.

  Then he took what seemed to her to be a steadying kind of breath, and he looked at her. ‘I bad hoped that—’ he began, and broke off. ‘I thought if I explained, if I—’ He broke off again—and she had the oddest feeling that Carter was feeling a little unsure of his ground. Which just showed her how crazy her thinking had become since she had fallen in love with him, because Carter was always supremely sure about everything. ‘Forgive me, Ashlyn. And you’re right, of course. I suppose I am rather putting the cart before the horse. But I’m so anxious to—’ Again he broke off, and again Ashlyn had the feeling that he was not as one hundred per cent certain as he always was. ‘So, to start at the very beginning—if you insist,’ he commented, with a trace of a smile that charmed the heart of her, ‘I was very much anti Miss Ashlyn Ainsworth before I met you.’

  ‘I love it when you speak the truth!’

  ‘It must be the truth only between you and me, Ashlyn, agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ she accepted. This time she knew that she would not lie to him again. He caught hold of one of her hands and gave it a light squeeze, and her heart turned over. Carter seemed to forget that he still had her hand in his, for he held it when looking into her eyes, and he continued,

  ‘Hamilton Holdings were desperate that no other company should purchase your father’s company. The site it stood on was crucial to our future expansion plans. And, though I objected strongly to having some lightweight female on the board—forgive me, but I’d discovered you hadn’t a scrap of business background or training—it was a part of the deal that I was forced to accept to get what I wanted.’

  ‘You accepted, intending to get me out?’

  ‘I accepted taking you with the land—for however long you’d last.’

  ‘You thought I’d soon get fed up with sitting there listening to you men drone on about something far above my head?’

  ‘Something like that,’ he admitted. ‘But then I met you. I came into the boardroom two and a half months ago—and there you were.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed me,’ she confessed.

  ‘Not notice you? Good God, have you looked in your mirror lately?’ Ashlyn had not meant to smile, but she just didn’t seem able to help it. Carter seemed heartened, for he smiled back, a bone-melting smile, and went on, ‘Apart from the fact that I knew exactly where you’d be sitting, one glance your way told me something I just hadn’t been prepared for.’

  ‘Oh—what was that?’ she asked impulsively.

  ‘That you were beautiful—a quite stunning female.’

  ‘If you thought that, it never showed.’ Ashlyn thought she had better say something before he saw how his compliment had thrown her all over the place.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to. But I was aware of you through the whole of that meeting—that is,’ he qualified, ‘the whole time you were there.’

  ‘You—er—noticed I left early,’ she murmured, and loved it when he laughed.

  ‘Poor love, you were scarlet—and dripping with water.’

  That ‘Poor love’ was another weakener she could well have done without, though she had hardly expected that he’d have forgotten how she’d drenched the boardroom table, and herself. ‘You—um—got up and opened the door for me,’ she remembered, her voice going husky again.

  ‘How could I leave you to cope alone? You were a distraction in more ways than one, Miss Ainsworth,’ he englightened her.

  ‘How?’ The question just popped out.

  ‘Well, for a start, I’m just not used to members of the board nodding off while an important meeting is going on.’

  ‘I found I understood much more of the next meeting,’ she felt obliged to tell him.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he answered, and actually grinned. He went on before she had time to pull herself back together again after the devastating effect of that grin, ‘But then, at that first meeting, there you were, sailing out, damp, pink-cheeked and mortified—but oh, so proud at the same time. Is it any wonder that I—?’ He broke off, and Ashlyn looked at him expectantly. ‘That I,’ he resumed, ‘should start to feel the first stirrings of something which at that time I was unable to give name to?’

  Her lips parted. He was looking at her gently again. Her heart thundered. ‘Did you—er—was it you who sent Ivy looking for me?’ she asked, a great discord of confusion tugging her all ways, making it impossible for her to ask the one question which she wanted so badly to ask: what were those stirrings all about? />
  ‘I instructed Lorna to send her,’ he owned. ‘The next time I saw you was in that crowded lift, and the perfume from your glorious red hair took my mind off business. I had to remind myself that you were a woman I would prefer not to see again.’

  Ashlyn stared at him, having no trouble at all remembering how in that lift she had stepped back against him and how she had found it unsettling. Was he saying that he had been very much aware of her too?

  ‘A pity I accepted Geoff Rogers’ invitation to join you for lunch,’ was the shaky best she could find to say. ‘You must have thought you’d never get rid of me.’ Suddenly she was remembering something else. ‘You had the nerve to warn me off Geoff!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘For my sins I thought you were going to let fly with your fists!’ It had been a near thing, and she had to smile. She just didn’t know where she was when Carter caught hold of her other hand and all of a sudden exclaimed, ‘Dammit, Ashlyn, tell me you like me a little—at least!’

  Her green eyes went huge. If she hadn’t known better she’d have said he sounded frustrated beyond belief, and, yes, tense in the extreme too.

  ‘I disliked you very much—at first,’ she quickly owned, seeing no harm in telling him that much.

  ‘With every justification,’ he agreed. In fact she had never known him to agree with her so much. ‘But that “at first” gives me heart,’ he added, and that worried her.

  ‘Well...’ She tried an offhand shrug. ‘You know how these things are.’

  ‘I’m hoping you’re going to tell me.’

  He still had a hold of her hands; she tried to pull free, but he would not let go. Ashlyn started to get more seriously worried. Yet her brain seemed to have seized up; she couldn’t think of any alternative comment to make. For certain, there was no way she was going to tell him how her dislike of him had changed—barely without she herself knowing—to like and then to love.

  It was from pure fear that she trotted out, ‘Surely that’s your prerogative?’

  Carter looked a mite taken aback. But, after a moment, he smiled that smile that made her pulses race. Then he promptly sent her world spinning when, looking deep into her eyes, he said softly, ‘I’m longing to tell you how much I like you, Ashlyn.’ As pink seeped into her skin, he stretched up a hand to gently stroke her pinkened cheek. ‘Your emotional colour tells me that you’re not totally immune to me, my dear.’ Ashlyn swallowed, struck dumb. ‘Are you?’ he questioned.