‘HAVE you lost weight?’
Elaine’s accusing question made Holly sigh a little as she fibbed, ‘No, I don’t think so. Did you have a good journey?’
‘You know British Rail,’ Elaine responded wryly. ‘Although I have to admit they do their best; instead of leaving everyone in silence and ignorance when the train stops for no apparent reason, they give you a second-by-second description of why nothing is happening. I don’t know which experience is the more infuriating,’ she added with a grin.
Both of them laughed.
‘Thanks for coming to pick me up, by the way. I’m sorry to land myself on you at such short notice, but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. One of the things I wanted to discuss with you was a link-up between you and another of our clients—a young designer who’s basing her collection on the use of natural and, where possible, recycled materials. I’ve seen some of her stuff, and I thought what an impact it could make if we combined a photograph of you wearing some of her designs with the launch of the new perfume, focusing heavily on the natural, environmental-friendly aspect of both of you.’
Holly pulled a face.
‘OK, OK, I know...but think about it,’ Elaine suggested, as she followed Holly out of the hotel foyer and into the car park.
‘I mean, from the media point of view it’s a terrifically newsworthy angle. She’s designed this suit from natural unbleached wool, and over it she drapes a length of tartan, a genuine plaid that she bought at a flea market. The effect is stunning—’
‘She needn’t have bothered buying one,’ Holly interrupted her drily. ‘I think we’ve still got the tartan blanket that used to go in the dog’s basket, complete with authentic dog hairs.’
Elaine paused and looked at her.
‘You really don’t like the idea?’
‘You know how I feel about being photographed and used as media hype,’ Holly told her evasively, seeing her disappointment. ‘If there were some way you could use her stuff without my having to wear it...’
‘Well, I suppose we could try, but it wouldn’t be anything like as effective. Where are we going, by the way?’ she asked as Holly started the car. ‘We could have eaten at the hotel.’
‘I thought you might like to try this new wine-bar-cum-restaurant that’s opened locally. It’s very good. The food’s very simple, very plain, very...’
‘Organic and healthy?’ Elaine supplied for her. ‘OK. I give in.’
‘It’s housed in a medieval barn, with the kitchens open to view,’ Holly told her, ignoring her comment. ‘There’s just something about it. I thought it might make a good background for the advertising campaign for the perfume.’
‘I thought we’d already decided on some outdoorsy shots in Wales, all damp hillsides and mists.’
‘Mmm...but the perfume is a winter scent; this place had open fires, exposed beams, a natural roughness that somehow blends in with all that I want the perfume to convey.’
‘You mean, instead of suggesting that it will make the wearer smell of wet sheep, it will suggest they smell of damp wood,’ Elaine teased her, immediately apologising, but Holly had a good sense of humour and couldn’t help laughing, even while she was defending her new product.
It wasn’t far to the restaurant. They parked outside in the gravelled car park. The floodlights used stored natural daylight as a light source, Holly explained to Elaine as they picked their way across the car park, and the gravel was being recycled, having been taken from a silted-up gravel pit locally which had now been turned into a lake.
‘Recycled or not, it’s still ruining my heels,’ Elaine grumbled, although Holly noticed that she stopped grumbling the moment they stepped inside the barn, falling silent as she stared around at her surroundings.
‘You’re right,’ she agreed after a few seconds. ‘It is different. And do you know, I think you could be right...about using it in the ad campaign. Would the owners be agreeable, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t got that far. I’m not sure who the owners actually are. I do know the chef. He’s a local lad who’s been backed by someone—I’m not sure who.
‘Would you like a drink or shall we go straight to our table?’ she asked Elaine.
‘Oh, let’s eat. I’m starving and, besides, we can talk more comfortably across a table.’
A smiling waiter showed them to their table, handing them their menus and then leaving them to study them.
‘I was thinking,’ Elaine began once they had ordered. ‘It might be a good idea if you could come up to London for a few days. You’ll need extra clothes for the launch and—’
‘I’m not sure if I can,’ Holly interrupted her. ‘With Paul away—’
‘Oh, but he’ll be back before the launch, won’t he?’
‘Yes,’ Holly agreed reluctantly. ‘But I’m still not sure...’
‘Well, we can afford to leave it for a little while—’ Elaine broke off as their food arrived, sampling her meal and then saying approvingly, ‘Mm...very nice. Your chef certainly knows his stuff.’
‘He isn’t my chef,’ Holly told her drily.
‘My goodness, he’s attractive,’ Elaine commented, staring discreetly over Holly’s shoulder in the direction of the entrance. ‘And he’s on his own. Wow, that’s what I call a man.’
‘Sexist,’ Holly chided her.
‘Don’t turn round now,’ Elaine warned her. ‘He’s looking right at us. Or rather right at you. Just my luck. Heavens, he’s coming over!’
Warned by some sixth sense, Holly tensed, abruptly jerking round just in time to see Robert less than three feet away from them and quite obviously heading for their table.
‘Holly...I thought it was you.’
‘Robert...’ He had reached them now and she had no alternative but to introduce him to Elaine, who seemed not to pick up on the silent message she was trying to give her that she wanted Robert’s stay to be as brief as possible and was instead flirting quite outrageously with him, ignoring her meal in favour of engaging him in conversation.
To her relief Holly heard Robert saying with concern, ‘I’m keeping you from your meal. I’d better—’
‘No, no of course you aren’t. We were just between courses and I feel so full I’d prefer to wait a little while before tackling my main meal,’ Elaine corrected him outrageously, patting her flat stomach and giving him a wide-eyed look as she drew her attention to her slender body.
‘Are you waiting for friends?’ she heard Elaine asking.
‘No, I’m dining here alone this evening. A friend recommended this place and I thought I’d give it a try.’
‘Alone? What a shame, you could have joined us, couldn’t he, Holly?’
What could she say? She summoned a sick grimace and pointed out as airily as she could, ‘We’re halfway through our meal and—’
‘Oh, I don’t mind waiting for my main course,’ Elaine interrupted her, adding coyly, ‘Unless of course you prefer to eat alone, Robert...’
Holly waited, her stomach muscles tensing as she prayed that he would ignore Elaine’s light-hearted flirtation and walk away, but to her dismay he said easily, ‘Hardly. I’d be delighted to join you.’
As though by magic a waiter appeared, and then so did another place-setting and another chair and Robert solved the problem of delaying the serving of their main meal by announcing that he would forgo a starter so that they could all eat together.
Ten minutes later, stoically trying to force down the food she no longer wanted, Holly listened in an increasingly brooding and resentful silence as Elaine expertly flattered and questioned Robert.
‘So you’re now basing your business in this country. Won’t that be a tremendous adjustment to make after New York?’
‘Not really. I’ve been planning to come back for a long time.’
Holly’s hand faltered, her fork halfway to her mouth, her expression betraying her surprise. But then why should she be surprised? Just because she had assumed when he left that he had gone for good? Just as she had not known about his desire to own the Hall, so he might have kept other plans, other ambitions from her. After all, why should he ever have wanted to share them with her? She had meant nothing to him...nothing at all.
The tears that suddenly stung her eyes took her off guard. She put down her fork, blinking rapidly, quickly turning her head away from him, praying that he wouldn’t have seen the betraying sheen in her eyes.
She could sense him turning his head in her direction. Panic overwhelmed her. She blinked frantically.
By now Elaine had noticed her distress and to forestall the anxious question she could see she was about to ask Holly told her huskily, ‘It’s all right...it’s just an eyelash. It’s gone now.’
‘They’re a nuisance, aren’t they?’ Elaine said sympathetically, dropping her flirtatious bantering with Robert to commiserate with her. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times one has ruined my carefully applied eye make-up.’
As she delved in her handbag for a handkerchief, quickly blowing her nose, Holly heard Robert saying, ‘I’m glad I’ve bumped into you like this, Holly. I wanted to fix a firm date for you to come over and see the garden.’
With Elaine listening and watching with curious expectancy, Holly felt obliged to explain to her that Robert wanted her advice on the replanning of his garden, which of course led on to a discussion about the house itself.
‘It sounds fantastic,’ Elaine enthused. ‘Just the kind of place we’re looking for as a background for the magazine ads for Holly’s new perfume, isn’t it, Holly?’
‘I thought you’d already decided that this place was ideal for that purpose,’ Holly reminded her. Was Elaine seriously trying to attract Robert’s attention? She had initially thought that the other woman was simply engaging in a little light-hearted flirting that meant nothing, but now, abruptly and painfully, she wasn’t quite so sure.
The sharp shift in her emotions from acceptance to resentment startled her. She liked Elaine and had always got on well with her, but now suddenly she found herself almost on the verge of disliking her.
‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t use more than one background,’ Elaine told her easily.
‘I’m afraid the house is in no condition to be photographed at present. Parts of it aren’t even safe,’ Robert intervened.
‘But you’re living there...’
‘I’m living in a cottage in the grounds,’ he corrected her, ‘and very basic the accommodation is, too, but I want to be on hand when the contractors start work.’
‘Do you intend to use the place as a workplace as well as your home?’ Elaine was asking him.
‘Yes, that’s the plan. I’m cutting down on my client base, so that I can handle the workload with a couple of PAs and a secretary. As I discovered when I was living in New York, there’s far more to life than making money, although you don’t always realise it until it’s too late.’
‘No, most successful men don’t seem to be able to cut back on their work until they’re forced to do so for health reasons,’ Elaine agreed, adding, ‘I must say I do admire you. I don’t know if I’d have the moral fibre to give up a fast-track New York life to come back to Britain and live out in the country.’
While Holly looked on in a mixture of outrage and anger at Elaine’s blatant flattery, Robert seemed impervious to it all, shrugging his shoulders and commenting only, ‘I’d always intended to come back here, but there were...reasons why it was impossible for me to make such a move earlier.’
Reasons... Did he mean there had been a woman—a special woman who had kept him in New York? If so, why wasn’t she here with him now? Who was she? What did she do? What was more important to her than being with Robert? While her imagination seethed with questions and their answers, she momentarily lost track of the conversation.
‘Holly...come back.’
The unexpected sensation of Robert touching her arm jerked her back to reality, her eyes widening as she instinctively drew back from him.
She was wearing a simple and very plain evening dress, but her arms were bare, and just for a second the touch of his fingers against her skin had re-activated her senses to such an extent that her body had almost mistaken his touch for a caress...and, even worse, had virtually responded to it as a caress, so that in pulling away from him she was behaving in direct contradiction to the way her senses wanted her to behave. They wanted her not to pull away but to move closer to him, to invite a more sensual, slower, more deliberate caress...the kind of caress which in the past might have been the prelude to their lovemaking.
‘Poor Holly, you were miles away, weren’t you?’ Elaine teased her. ‘What were you thinking about? The new perfume?’
‘Or a certain medical administrator?’ Robert suggested cynically.
Uncomfortably aware of Elaine’s speculative look, Holly shook her head and told them, ‘Neither, as it happens. Paul rang this afternoon. He’s hoping to get back soon.’
As she had hoped, the introduction of her brother’s name changed the focus of the conversation, Elaine announcing once again that she hoped that Paul had not forgotten his obligations to the launch of the new perfume.
‘No, he’ll be back well in time for that,’ Holly assured her. They had all finished eating now and she ached to be free of the tension of Robert’s presence. She didn’t know which was worse, sitting here next to him, dreading doing or saying something which might focus his attention on her, or sitting here listening to Elaine flirting with him.
‘I don’t want to rush you, Elaine,’ she said now. ‘But you did say you were booked on an early train in the morning...’
‘Yes, I know. There are still some things we need to discuss, but we can do that back at the hotel, if you don’t mind.’
Shaking her head, Holly started to push back her chair but almost immediately Robert stopped her.
‘We still haven’t fixed a date for you to come and look over the garden,’ he reminded her. ‘I was wondering if you might be free on Saturday?’
She ached to be able to refuse but she had never been the least adept at lying and so, instead of inventing some fictitious engagement which would have enabled her to reject his suggestion, she found that she was saying uncertainly, ‘I really think it might be best if, as Angela suggested, you approached the professionals—’
‘Oh, no, Holly,’ Elaine interrupted her, telling Robert, ‘You mustn’t listen to her. She really is far too modest; her garden at the farm is wonderful.’
Her heart sinking, Holly acknowledged that there really was no way she could escape now without being openly aggressive and offensive.
Forcing a wan smile, she responded unenthusiastically, ‘Well, if you’re sure...’
‘I’m sure,’ Robert confirmed, getting up to stand beside her and help her out of her chair before performing the same polite office for Elaine.
Later, as Holly drove Elaine back to her hotel, the latter commented, ‘That Robert really is something, isn’t he? I didn’t think men like him existed any more...masculine, sexy, successful—and single. Mm...I’d even bet that he’s fantastic in bed as well—the kind of man who enjoys giving a woman pleasure.’
Holly couldn’t help it. She could feel first her face and then her body starting to burn, and was thankful that the dark interior of the car prevented Elaine from seeing her.
‘No comment?’ Elaine questioned her, surprising her.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Should there be?’
‘Perhaps not, but I couldn’t help noticing that, for all my determined and over-the-top efforts to flirt with him, you were the one he was interested in.’
‘No!’ The panic in the denial reached even her own ears, warning her that she was over-reacting. ‘That is, I’m sure you’re wrong. I’ve known him forever. He and Paul were schoolfriends.’
‘So, that doesn’t stop him fancying you, does it?’
‘You’re imagining things,’ Holly told her flatly.
‘If you say so,’ Elaine concurred cheerfully, changing back to demand, ‘Who’s this medical administrator, by the way?’
By the time Holly had explained her relationship with John, they had reached the hotel.
It was another two hours before they had gone through all the points Elaine had wanted to raise.
Tired, Holly left her and made her way back to the car. If only they hadn’t bumped into Robert tonight and if only she had not been stupid enough to agree to look over his garden. Had it been anyone but Robert who had asked for her help, she would have been interested as well as flattered. The restoration of old gardens was a subject which fascinated her.
She had no idea why Robert was being so insistent about her viewing the garden. After all, he could hardly want her company, and as for her opinions... So what was he doing? What was his purpose in insisting on seeing her?
‘He fancies you,’ Elaine had teased her. If only she knew just how wrong she was. Smothering a bitter smile, Holly turned into her own drive. When she got in she was going straight to bed, she promised herself, and in the morning she was most definitely not going to oversleep.
Neither was she going to waste her time in pointless dreams and memories of how it had felt to be held in Robert’s arms; to lie against him, skin to skin, to touch and caress him with all the awkward shyness and ardour of a young girl with her first lover, to pour out on him all her yearning adoration and love.
She was trembling when she went inside, locking the door with unsteady fingers and then leaning on it while tears burned under her tightly closed eyelids. What was she doing to herself? Had she no sense, no pride? Oh, God, why did he have to come back and disrupt her life like this?