Abigail tried to smile politely and failed. ‘No,’ she said bluntly, ‘I cannot be more specific than that. Perhaps I could get him to call you when he returns.’
‘Yes, my dear, you most certainly could.’ She sat down on the chair opposite the desk and crossed her legs elegantly. She was wearing a pale blue silk suit and a thick, camel-coloured coat. ‘And could you call me a taxi? It’s absolutely tipping down outside and I can’t quite face standing out there trying to hail one.’ She inspected her nails, which were the same shade of scarlet as the lipstick.
This, Abigail felt very tempted to point out, is not part of my little secretarial duties, but she picked up the receiver and after a brief conversation managed to secure a taxi to arrive outside the building immediately.
‘Jolly good,’ Fiona said, standing up and brushing down her skirt. ‘And don’t forget to tell Ross that I dropped by and that I’ll see him tonight for the theatre.’ With that, she left the office, leaving behind her a waft of expensive perfume.
No wonder, Abigail thought, that he had had no hesitation in informing her that he would not be running late today. She gazed at the computer terminal and wondered at which stage this particular romance was. She had not heard mention of Fiona St Paul before but that didn’t mean that she hadn’t been on the scene for at least a couple of months. She certainly ran true to type as far as Ross’s women were concerned. Tall, elegant, self-assured. She switched on the computer terminal and thought of Martin.
‘Just your type,’ her mother had gushed when she had first met him four months ago.
‘Ordinary, you mean?’ she had asked drily, because her mother’s implied insults no longer drove her into paroxysms of self-conscious embarrassment the way they once had as a teenager.
‘Nice and stable,’ her mother had returned. ‘You don’t want to lose your head over a man you wouldn’t be able to keep. Remember that last fiasco of yours.’
It had been a mistake telling her mother about Ellis. She had immediately delivered a lecture on the impossibility of an ordinary girl handling someone like him. Never mind that she had never actually met Ellis Fitzmerton. That, according to her mother, had been a minor technical detail, and certainly not enough to stop her announcing her views on the subject.
Nice, stable Martin, Abigail thought now. She was very fond of him and when she had accepted his marriage proposal one week ago, she had done so safe in the knowledge that he would be a good husband, someone on whom she could rely. They had only been seeing each other for a matter of six months, but she knew that she felt relaxed and comfortable with him and that was what love was about, she was certain. He had been such a pleasant change from the suave, deceitful Ellis with his promises and declarations which had lasted all of six weeks, until the girlfriend she never knew he had returned from her glamour trip round the world, bronzed, beautiful and ready to resume where she had left off. Oh, the declarations had certainly gone by the board then, she thought bitterly. Love? Marriage? He had looked at her white face with wide-eyed incredulity. ‘You must have misread the signals, sweetie.’ He had shaken his head sadly, ruefully, pained at the thought that he might have given her the wrong ideas.
Martin was far too decent a human being ever to play games like that. She frowned and felt that little niggling worry which she immediately swept to the back of her mind.
It was after four when Ross swept back into the office. He paused by her desk and she reeled off his telephone messages, then she said, glancing down at the typed letters, ‘By the way, you had a visitor. A woman by the name of Fiona St Paul. She said that you’d know who she was.’
She thought of the other woman, that chic elegance wrapped up in expensive designer clothes, every nail manicured, every strand of hair firmly in place, and she felt an uncustomary jolt of jealousy. How ridiculous, she thought, with an uneasy inward laugh.
‘What did she want?’ Ross asked, slinging his coat over the spare chair and shrugging out of his jacket.
‘She expected to find you here,’ Abigail said. ‘She was disappointed that you weren’t in.’
‘Get her on the phone for me, would you?’ he said by way of response. ‘She works at Sotheby’s.’ He strode through to his office and Abigail looked at his retreating back with dislike. He rarely involved her in anything to do with his women. She knew of their existence because of the theatre tickets she booked for two, the intimate meals she reserved in expensive restaurants, the flowers she occasionally ordered, but beyond that they mostly remained a mystery. Several she had met in passing, and from them she had deduced that he was attracted to physical perfection. Now she got Fiona on the phone with a certain amount of unwarranted resentment and, as they connected, she heard his voice down the line, warm, full of sexy charm.
He certainly can turn it on, she thought, replacing the receiver softly. Even when he stormed through the office, subjecting her to his evil moods, she could tell that underneath that terseness lay the sort of lazy charm that most women would find hard to resist.
Ellis Fitzmerton might have been a bitter pill, but he had served his purpose. He had immunised her against folly, and that was why she had excelled in this job. Ross Anderson could not distract her.
Janet arrived for her meeting five minutes early, and spent the time chatting to Abigail while nervously contemplating the door.
‘He won’t eat you,’ Abigail said, following the line of her gaze.
‘No,’ Janet agreed, ‘but he still scares me half to death most of the time.’ And what could Abigail say to that when she fully understood the line of thought?
‘At least,’ Ross said to her one hour later, after Janet had left his office and was safely on her way back to peace on the sixth floor, with her own easy-going marketing boss, ‘she came prepared this time.’ He was getting ready to go, slipping on his jacket, looking at her absentmindedly as he did so.
‘You terrify her,’ Abigail said bluntly, and he stopped what he was doing and looked at her, surprised.
‘Do I? Why?’
‘Why do you think? You’re unpredictable.’
His black brows met in a frown. ‘I’m not sure I like that description of myself.’ He sat on the edge of her desk and began rolling down his sleeves, buttoning them at the wrists. ‘I don’t terrify you,’ he observed.
‘I’m accustomed to you, perhaps.’
This was beginning to veer off their normal routine conversation and she felt suddenly awkward.
‘You’ve grown accustomed to my face?’ he murmured, sensing her mood with amusement. ‘Something like that?’
‘Something like that, I suppose,’ she replied, not looking at him, walking across to collect her coat from the stand in the corner of the room. She turned to find him staring at her, his dark eyes unreadable.
‘I suppose I’ve grown quite accustomed to yours as well,’ he murmured, making no move to leave so that she was forced to stand by him, hovering, her hands stuck into the pockets of her coat. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I know you any the better.’
She didn’t care for the way his eyes were boring into her and she certainly didn’t know what sort of response to make to that, so she remained where she was, silent.
When the silence eventually became unbearable, she said, in a burst of discomfort, ‘What play are you going to see tonight?’
‘Changing the subject?’ Ross asked, eyeing her. ‘Why are you so cagey about your personal life?’
‘I’m not cagey about my personal life,’ she said, horrified to find that her mouth was dry and her brain felt as though it was seizing up. She was used to dealing with him when he was in a filthy temper, so why was she feeling like this when he was being nice? Because, a little voice told her, nice is dangerous when it comes to a man like Ross Anderson.
‘No? Then how is it that you never let on that you were seeing a man? Not even in passing?’
‘Because…’ she stammered, going red.
‘Because it’s none of my business?�
�� He stood up and slipped on his jacket.
‘I never really gave it much thought,’ she said with an attempt to be casual. ‘Gosh, is that the time? I must get going.’
‘Dinner date?’
‘Something like that,’ she said and he bit out angrily,
‘There you go. Dodging a simple question, acting as though the minute you say anything revealing about yourself you’ll find yourself in the firing line.’
She shot him a placating smile which was supposed to remind him that she was, after all, just his personal assistant, and he gave her a long, sardonic stare. ‘Careful you don’t fall, Abby,’ he murmured, and she looked at him, bewildered. ‘You’re backtracking so quickly that you might just lose your balance.’
He moved towards the door and held it open to her.
‘Musical,’ he said succinctly into her ear. ‘A much safer topic, isn’t it? Fiona and I are going to see a musical in the West End and then we shall probably have dinner somewhere.’ He pressed the button on the lift and turned his attention back to her. ‘What about you? Where is your boyfriend taking you to dinner?’
Was it her imagination or was there laughter in his voice every time he mentioned Martin?
‘Actually,’ she offered with reluctance, ‘we’re having dinner at my place tonight.’ She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and then said, because he would find out sooner or later anyway, ‘It’s something of an engagement party, as a matter of fact. Just relatives and a few friends.’
Ross stared at her as though she had suddenly sprouted three heads and announced that she was from another planet.
‘Well,’ she said defensively, ‘I would have told you! It’s not some great secret. I just never thought that you’d be interested.’
The lift arrived and she stepped in with a feeling of relief. She had her head averted, but she was acutely aware that he was still staring at her. What right did he have to make her feel guilty simply because she happened to be a very private person, who preferred keeping things to herself? Nonetheless, she felt a slow flush creeping up her cheeks.
‘So you’re getting engaged to this Martin person,’ he mused. ‘You don’t seem to be overjoyed and excited at the prospect.’
The lift doors opened on to the ground floor and she stepped out. With some surprise she realised that she was perspiring slightly.
‘Of course I am,’ she said more hotly than his remark warranted. ‘I’m very excited about the whole thing.’
‘What’s he like?’
They were walking across the huge reception hall now, but not fast enough as far as she was concerned. Ross Anderson, she knew from experience, was the persistent sort. She had seen it in everything he did. He grappled with problems until they were sorted out to his satisfaction, and he could be ruthlessly single-minded in pursuing his targets. It was one of the reasons why his company, in times of recession, had continued to do well, to expand. Publishing was a volatile beast at the best of times. She knew, as everyone in the company did, that he had inherited an ailing firm from his father, and had then proceeded to drag it kicking and screaming into the twentieth century, until it was now one of the largest in the country, with branches operating throughout Europe. Quite simply, Ross Anderson had taken the company by the throat and had brought it to heel.
He hadn’t achieved that by being a sensitive flower. She eyed the approaching glass doors with zeal.
She had managed to ignore his question and was about to launch herself through the revolving doors, to freedom, when she felt the warm pressure of his hand on her elbow, and she sprang back, alarmed.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, and he said very softly into her ear,
‘From your reaction, not what you think.’
‘Very funny,’ she muttered between her teeth.
‘I was simply going to ask you whether you had time for a quick drink. To celebrate your engagement.’
‘No.’ She tired to water down the abruptness of her answer with a smile. ‘I really must get home so that I can prepare some food for tonight.’
‘How many people have you invited?’ he asked blandly, his hand still disconcertingly on her elbow.
‘Not many. I would have asked you along,’ she explained, ‘but…’
‘But you’re a firm believer in not mixing business with pleasure. I know. I got the message three days after you joined the company.’
She looked at him, startled.
‘Surprised I remember?’ he asked, and she shrugged.
‘Not when I think about it. You have the memory of an elephant. Sometimes I think you must have the entire collection of the Encyclopedia Britannica up there, roving about in your head.’
‘Shall I take it as a compliment?’
‘If you like.’ Her voice was casual, distracted even though her heart was doing some pretty odd things inside her and she couldn’t for the life of her imagine what had prompted that observation.
‘You know, sometimes I think I almost prefer Mrs Fulbright, your predecessor, whose lifelong ambition was to reveal the maximum about herself in the minimum amount of time.’
That hurt. ‘You could always ask me to resign,’ she said, her grey eyes angry.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he snapped impatiently, ‘I’m not asking you to do anything of the sort. I’m merely trying to make a point.’
‘I can’t help the way that I am, Mr Anderson,’ Abigail said inaudibly, ‘I…’
‘Yes?’ Their eyes met and the breath caught in her throat.
‘Nothing. Look, I really must be dashing off.’ She took a step backwards, knowing from his grim expression that the subconscious retreat had registered with him. ‘Do have a nice time at the play tonight,’ she said, while he continued to stare at her tersely. ‘I shall be in bright and early in the morning.’ She was running out of friendly parting words and it suddenly occurred to her that she was under no obligation to make excuses for her personality. She was his employee, and one who did a damn good job. She was conscientious, hardworking and trustworthy and that was all that mattered, wasn’t it?
She turned away abruptly and walked through the revolving doors, and the sudden cold winter air outside was like a balm.
As luck would have it, she had missed her bus again, but this time she hardly noticed the press of bodies on the Underground. Her mind was too busy sorting through the extraordinary atmosphere that had sprung up between herself and Ross. She had never felt so uncomfortable with him before. True, from time to time in the past she had caught him looking at her, but this was the first time that she had felt so entirely the target of his overwhelming personality, and it had alarmed her.
It wouldn’t do to forget Ellis and the way he had ignored her the minute his girlfriend had reappeared on the scene. She had so nearly given in to him, slept with him, she had been so caught up in the frenzy of never before experienced desire.
She thought of Ross, and for a moment the image that sprang back at her of his implacable, hard good looks was so sexual that she sucked in her breath with shock. Had she actually wondered what it would be like to have those strong hands on her body? No, she told herself uneasily. He had just managed to creep under her skin a little with his damn inquisition, but that was all.
The train disgorged her at her stop and she walked the remainder of the distance back to her flat, feeling calmer as she began to look at things in perspective. He had unnerved her. She was not accustomed to being unnerved. After eighteen years of living with her mother, she had learnt how to maintain a steady, unshakeable front, and the fact that that front had been rattled, for once, had taken her aback.
It would never have happened, she decided, letting herself into her flat and immediately heading for the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee, if she wasn’t already in a fragile frame of mind. She had spent most of the night awake, thinking about Martin’s proposal, about the engagement party which would formally seal it, wondering whether she had done the right thing. She
had convinced herself that her head was right when it said yes, and if her heart was being a bit belligerent, then that would settle in time. It just so happened that Ross had decided to cross-examine her when she was mentally not up to it.
She looked at her watch, gulped down the remainder of the coffee, and then spent that next hour putting the finishing touches to the food which she had prepared over the weekend and stored in the freezer.
She found herself hurriedly taking a shower, then changing into a slim-fitting silk dress in blues and purples, which she had bought months ago but had never got around to wearing because whenever she tried it on all she could see was the revealing depth of the neckline, and that immediately made her wonder what on earth had possessed her to buy it in the first place.
After thirty minutes of rapid dressing, she stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom and looked at her reflection with a critical eye.
Not bad, she decided. No abundance of voluptuous curves, but a neat figure nevertheless. She had applied some blusher to her cheeks, so her skin did not look as pale as it was wont to do, and her eye-shadow made the most of her eyes, which she personally considered to be her best feature.
When the doorbell rang, she drew in her breath, crossed her fingers that her mother wouldn’t do anything to antagonise Martin’s parents and that the handful of friends they had invited would get along, and went to answer the door.
CHAPTER TWO
‘ALL right. Out with it. What’s eating you?’
‘Nothing’s eating me.’ Abigail stared down at her notepad and thought that something was eating her all right, and whatever it was it was making a great meal of it ever since the evening before when Ross and Fiona, unexpected, uninvited and unwanted, had shown up at what was supposed to be a small, intimate celebration party.
Everything had been going just fine until they turned up. There had been no embarrassing pauses in the conversation, no snide remarks from anyone, lots of congratulations, lots of food, and her mother had been on best behaviour, even if Martin’s parents, a rather timid couple, had seemed occasionally overwhelmed by her presence. That had been expected. Her mother had a tendency to be overwhelming at the best of times.
Beyond All Reason Page 2
