LEO rang her father in Singapore to tell him that she and Simon were engaged. Gordon Groom’s reaction startled her.
‘At last.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘It’s taken you long enough. Still, he’s a good lad and I’m pleased.’
Why did it sound like the approval he used to dole out when she came home with a good school report?
‘Thank you for your good wishes,’ said Leo drily.
‘I’m going into a meeting. Tell Hartley I’ll call him tomorrow eight o’ clock UK time.’ He rang off.
‘Yes, I’m sure we’ll be very happy,’ Leo said to the buzzing phone. She flung it back onto its stand and attacked her In box as if it was a personal enemy.
Maybe her mother would react more normally, when they had their girls’ lunch, she thought.
But, unlike Gordon, Deborah disapproved and made no bones about it.
‘You can’t fool me,’ Deborah announced. She knocked back a gin and tonic as if it was medicine. ‘This is your father’s doing.’
Leo shook her head. ‘Pops hasn’t done anything. Simon asked me to marry him. I said yes. That’s all. I did think about it first, Ma.’
Deborah looked at her with tragic eyes. She had just come from a whole morning at her favourite Bond Street beautician and her exquisite make-up enhanced the tragic vulnerability. Leo’s feet felt like boats. Under the table, she shuffled them. Her mother took no notice.
‘Think,’ she said dramatically. ‘If you’re in love you don’t think. You just fly.’ Her gloved hands made a large gesture similar to a plant bursting into flower.
It was all too reminiscent of childhood dance classes. Leo looked over her shoulder to check that no passing waiter had had to dodge Deborah’s expressiveness.
‘Come on, Ma. Keep the music and movement down.’
Deborah blinked the long silky lashes which were the only feature she had bequeathed to her daughter.
‘You’re laughing at me. You don’t know how serious this is.’
‘I take getting married very seriously,’ Leo said stiffly.
Deborah ignored that. ‘Have you been to bed with him yet?’
‘Mother!’
‘I thought not,’ said Deborah, pleased with herself. ‘Don’t you think that’s odd? If he is in love with you, I mean.’
‘He’s not in love with me,’ Leo said quietly.
That stopped Deborah as nothing else would have done.
‘Oh, Leo. Oh, darling.’
‘Ma, you’re barking up the wrong tree.’ Leo leaned forward and spoke earnestly. ‘It really was my decision. Simon doesn’t love me and I don’t love him. But we have a lot in common. It will work out.’
Deborah looked as if she was going to cry.
Leo thought desperately for something to reassure her. ‘He tells me the truth.’
It did not have the effect she expected. Her mother sat bolt upright.
‘Tells you the truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘The truth about what?’
It was unexpected. Leo floundered. ‘Well who he is. What he feels. What he wants.’
Deborah put her head on one side. ‘So who doesn’t?’
Leo was scornful. ‘Oh come on, Ma. You know more about men than I do. You know they play games. Tie you up in knots. And not one damn thing they tell you is true.’
She stopped. She realised that Deborah’s eyes were uncomfortably shrewd.
‘Are we talking about the man who told you to grow your hair?’ her mother asked interestedly.
Leo could have thrown something. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve cut your hair like a space helmet for years. Then suddenly it’s on your shoulders. Looks good, too. So someone has been giving you style advice. Who is he?’
Leo tensed. ‘No one. You’re imagining it, Ma.’
She spoke more curtly than she meant to. Deborah’s eyebrows flew up. Leo was never curt with her.
‘He hurt you,’ she said on a note of discovery.
‘Nonsense.’
Deborah ignored that. ‘Darling, we all get hurt sometimes. Men,’ she said largely, ‘don’t think. That doesn’t mean…’
But Leo was not listening. She gave a harsh laugh.
‘Some of them think. Some of them think a whole lot. In fact, they have a tried and trusted plan of campaign ready for use on any woman they come across.’
Deborah stared. ‘But—’
‘Any woman,’ Leo said with emphasis.
‘Oh, darling,’ said Deborah with compunction, ‘you haven’t fallen for a Don Juan? Not you?’
‘I haven’t fallen for anyone,’ said Leo furiously. ‘And I’m not going to.’
‘Well, lucky old Simon,’ said Deborah.
None of which sent Leo back to the office any happier. She was still fuming when she sat down and applied herself to her e-mail. Almost at once she found a name that added fuel to the fire.
Quickly she paged through the list of the day’s callers. He had called again. And again. And—
She buzzed Joanne.
‘I’m looking at my message list. Tell me about Sheikh el-Barbary. What did he want?’
Amer was in a cold rage.
‘Are you telling me she won’t take my call?’ he demanded.
Hari shrugged. He was puzzled by this excitement over a woman he had never heard of.
‘The secretary claims Miss Groom is not in the office.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
Hari started to shrug again. Then caught sight of Amer’s steely expression and thought better of it.
‘The switchboard operator said she has just announced her engagement. They have been swamped with calls of congratulation this morning, apparently,’ he offered placatingly.
‘I am not,’ said Amer between his teeth, ‘offering my congratulations. What the hell is she doing?’
‘Out choosing the ring, I expect,’ said Hari crisply.
He encountered a look that startled him.
‘Who is this woman?’ he demanded, shaken.
Amer picked up Major McDonald’s file and flung it at him. Hari picked it up and started to leaf through it curiously. Amer paced the floor, his shoulders hunched.
Hari finished reading and looked up. ‘Leonora Roberts? Your mystery lady in Cairo is the Groom heiress?’
‘Quite,’ snarled Amer.
‘Well, she sure didn’t behave like an heiress,’ said Hari, astonished.
Amer stopped pacing. ‘No, she didn’t did she?’ he said in an arrested voice. ‘I wonder—’ He made a decision. ‘Call the woman again.’
‘But she is out.’
‘Not Leonora Groom,’ said Amer impatiently. ‘The secretary. I want to know if she has read the Antika Project’s Celebrity Essays.’
Hari suddenly understood. ‘You sent her that?’ he gasped. ‘Twenty Ways to Catch a Woman by the last of the Ladykillers? You must be out of your mind. She’ll never speak to you again.’
Amer strode to the window. The cherry trees in the garden were coming to the end of their blossom. He stared at them unseeingly.
‘She will,’ he said in a low voice. ‘If I have to kidnap her and lock her up to do it, I’ll make her listen to me.’
Hari looked dubious but he made the call.
Amer rested his brow against the window-pane. His temples throbbed. He should never have let her get away that night in Cairo. She had been so nearly his. He was experienced enough to know that if he had just put out a hand and touched her she would have gone with him wherever he said. She was too unsophisticated to hide her feelings. Maybe even too inexperienced to recognise them. But Amer had recognised them all right. He could have done whatever he wanted with her that night.
But he had wanted—Well what had he wanted? He asked himself now, with bitter irony. Whatever it was, he had had six months to regret that he had not taken what was in his hands.
He was not, Amer promised himself, going to let that happen again. The next time he got his hands on Leonora Groom, she was not getting away until he got what he wanted. Whatever it was.
Hari put the phone down. ‘She has read it,’ he said in a voice of doom. ‘Her secretary was quite sure of that. Because it was immediately after she left Miss Groom reading it that she called Mr Hartley. That was when they got engaged.’
There was a disbelieving silence. Then Amer swore.
He had dared to call her! Leo’s first flare of rage turned into something more complicated. She was honest enough to admit that it was largely excitement.
What sort of person, am I? she thought, horrified. Engaged to one man, getting goose bumps when another man calls me!
She tried to talk to Simon. His office said he was visiting the Birmingham hotel.
‘Oh,’ said Leo disconcerted. She had expected to go on the Midlands trip. ‘Oh well, I suppose it isn’t urgent.’
But somehow it felt urgent. She moved about her office restlessly. There were three applications in her In box but she just could not concentrate.
Joanne buzzed.
‘The front hall rang up to say your car is ready when you are.’ There was a faint question mark in her tone.
Leo chuckled. ‘Conscience car. Simon knows he should have taken me to Birmingham, too.’
‘I expect he thought you had other things to do.’ To her surprise Joanne sounded uncomfortable. ‘Shall I lock up for you?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Leo, dissatisfied. ‘It’s been a messy day. Maybe I’ll do better if I take some work home.’
Fifteen minutes later she was running down the steps of the Groom building, a portfolio under one arm a substantial brief-case in the other and her handbag looped over one shoulder. She went straight to the parking space reserved for Board members. A uniformed man leaped out and opened the door for her.
‘Hi,’ said Leo, surprised. ‘Darren got the day off?’
But the man just smiled and took the portfolio and briefcase from her. She sank into the seat and stretched her legs out. It was a shock. Her feet came nowhere near the back of the seat in front. Even her father did not demand this degree of luxury.
She became aware of a still presence beside her just as the chauffeur started the engine.
‘Good evening, Leonora,’ said a voice out of her dreams.
Out of her dreams. Out of her nightmares. Out of her sleepless nights. Leo went hot, cold, then deathly still.
The limousine eased silently through the gates and out into the rush hour traffic.
Leo said, ‘What are you doing here?’ Her frozen lips barely moved.
‘Talking some sense into you before you do something neither of us will be able to put right,’ said Amer with commendable honesty but a certain lack of tact.
‘Let me out of this car.’
He gave a soft laugh. How she hated that laugh. It sounded gloating. It also made those goose bumps break out up and down her spine again.
‘You don’t mean that,’ he said confidently.
Leo pulled herself together. ‘You know I do. This is kidnapping,’ she pointed out.
He waved that aside. ‘There was no time for the courtesies. I needed to see you urgently.’
The car was gliding through the traffic at a fair speed. Leo discarded the thought of leaping out. So she did the next best thing. She crossed her legs, leaned back into the aromatic softness of leather and looked at Amer with all the mockery she could muster.
‘Really?’ she said politely. ‘Six months, is it? Seven? Urgent indeed.’
Amer’s mouth compressed. ‘You covered your tracks well.’
Leo bit back a smug smile. ‘I wasn’t aware I had covered my tracks at all,’ she said airily.
‘False name. Phoney job. No forwarding address. No continuing friendships. My enquiries met stone wall after stone wall.’
‘Enquiries?’ Leo slewed round in her seat, smugness evaporating. ‘Are you saying you put a private detective on to me?’
She was furious. But she felt oddly excited as well. So he had not just let her walk away without a thought. She had imagined Amer giving a philosophical shrug at the escape of one insignificant girl and turning to the next one.
Amer waved that aside as well. ‘I wanted to find you,’ he said as if that justified anything.
‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ said Leo affably. She was shaking with rage. And other things which she was not thinking about at the moment. ‘Whatever the Sheikh wants he gets, right? Never mind what anyone else wants.’
He smiled. ‘You’ve grown your hair.’
Leo was so angry she did not even blush. She drummed her clenched fists on her knees in frustration.
‘It suits you. I knew it would.’
‘Stop this car. Let me out at once.’
‘Don’t panic. I’m taking you home,’ he said soothingly.
‘I am not panicking,’ said Leo between her teeth. ‘And I don’t want to go home. I’m supposed to go to a reception at the National Gallery.’
‘You work too hard. Your secretary can apologise for you tomorrow.’
‘Ah. The Sheikh wants again, huh?’
He laughed suddenly. ‘Stop spitting at me, Leonora. What is one reception among so many? This is important. We have unfinished business and we both know it.’
‘I’m engaged,’ said Leo harshly.
She wished she had the ring on her finger to prove it. But she and Simon had not yet taken the time to choose one.
Amer smiled tolerantly. ‘Yes, that’s one of the things I want to talk about.’
Leo slewed round, her eyes wide with outrage. ‘Excuse me?’
He leaned back in his corner and gave her that slow, sexy smile. Why had she only remembered that it set her heart pounding and not that it annoyed her to screaming point?
‘It was very silly to get engaged just to spite me,’ he said indulgently.
‘What?’
‘You weren’t engaged before I hit town.’
‘Coincidence,’ said Leo curtly. Her heart was beating so hard she thought he must be able to hear it.
‘Was it coincidence that you read my piece in that charity book and got engaged immediately afterwards?’ he asked shrewdly.
‘How did you know—?’ Leo broke off. But it was too late. She bit her lip.
‘A very understandable reaction,’ Amer assured her kindly. ‘I have read the thing again and I admit I went over the top in a couple of places. But—’
‘Over the top?’ Leo glared at him. ‘Oh I wouldn’t say that. I think you got it all pretty accurately. At least from what I remember. But you should check with your other victims.’
‘Victims?’ That startled him, genuinely.
‘Targets then,’ said Leo, showing her teeth. ‘How does that sound?’
‘Calculating,’ Amer said slowly.
She gave him a wide, false smile. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
He said on a note of discovery, ‘Was that why you got engaged then? Because you thought I was playing games with you?’
‘Are you trying to tell me you weren’t playing games?’ Leo looked at him with ineffable scorn. ‘That heavily stage-managed incident in Cairo was all leading to love, marriage and a lifetime’s devotion, was it?’
Amer frowned. ‘I don’t know where it was leading,’ he said shortly. ‘You didn’t give us time to find out.’
‘But marriage was on the cards?’ pressed Leo, mocking.
There was a pause. Then, ‘No,’ Amer admitted heavily.
‘The truth at last,’ Leo said with contempt. ‘So face it and get out of my life.’ She leaned forward and tapped the chauffeur on the shoulder. ‘Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery Sainsbury wing. His Excellency made a mistake. I’ve got a reception to go to.’
The man looked in the driving mirror for instruction. Amer’s expression was masklike. He nodded.
Leo had a tough week. Her father and Simon seemed to be talking to each other but they only left one message a piece on her answering machine. Which left far too much time to think about Amer el-Barbary.
Especially as he did not call her. Of course she would not have talked to him, if he had, Leo assured herself. She read his outrageous essay again to remind herself exactly why. She read it several times.
After Simon’s message, an exclusive jeweller brought round a selection of engagement rings for her to try. Leo recognised the logo. It was a shop her father used regularly. Disturbed, she chose a ring almost at random.
If Amer had rung then, she would have talked to him. He did not. Just as well, Leo told herself.
Instead she had to give an interview to a magazine. Leo always shied away from personal publicity. But this time the journalist was a friend of Simon’s and he had asked her to do it as a favour.
So Anne Marie Dance of Finance Today came to interview her. Only she did not behave like a friend of anyone. She went on the attack at once.
‘How does it feel to work in your father’s shadow all the time?’
It was not the first time she had been asked that one, though the woman’s hostility was a shock.
After a moment she said in her driest tone, ‘Educational.’
Anne Marie nodded, as if a worthy opponent had scored a point. But not won the game. She leaned forward.
‘It won’t happen you know.’
Leo said blankly, ‘I’m sorry?’
‘You won’t take over Grooms. Has your father ever appointed a woman director? A senior manager, even? Why do you think he brought Simon Hartley on board?’
Leo gave her a tolerant smile. ‘Come on, Ms Dance. You know the rules. Happy to talk about the business. My private life is off limits.’
The journalist raised an eyebrow. ‘So what’s private about your life?’
Leo stiffened.
At once the woman said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Is it all right if I ask whether the el-Barbarys are going to take a stake in Grooms?’
For the first time in the interview, Leo lost her professional poker face and she knew it.
‘What makes you say that?’ she demanded, trying to recover.
Anne Marie Dance’s smile was faintly malicious.
‘Surely you know the el-Barbarys? Oil? Minerals? Race horses?’ The journalist was impatient. ‘Ever since the oil boom they’ve been buying up large chunks of western industry.’
Leo’s brain worked swiftly. Amer was using the company to get at her. Or he was using her to get at the company; a nasty thought that. Alternatively he was not interested in the company at all but he had been asking about her and the journalist misinterpreted.
‘What makes you think they are looking at Grooms?’ Leo asked carefully.
But the journalist just laughed. ‘You can’t expect me to tell you that, Ms Groom. Got to protect my sources. Let’s just say—they have been showing an interest.’
She snapped her notebook shut and got up to leave. Leo escorted her to the lift. As she held out her hand to say goodbye, the journalist looked down at it almost with compassion. Disconcerted, Leo looked down. And there it was, the characteristic ink stain, half-way down her middle finger. She stuffed her hand into her pocket but it was too late.
‘Goodbye, Ms Groom. Good luck.’ She almost sounded as if she meant it. It was disturbing.
Leo almost ran back to her office. Her secretary looked up surprised.
‘No rush. The reception doesn’t start until six. Plenty of time to get to the Science Museum.’ She added in sudden concern, ‘Have you hurt your hand?’
Reluctantly Leo brought it out of her pocket. She shrugged, mocking herself.
‘No. It’s just the ink stain on the right doesn’t really go with the rose diamond on the left.’
‘What you need,’ said Joanne comfortably, ‘is a shower. Thank God for a decent ladies’ room.’
‘I don’t think this is a very good idea.’ Hari was beginning to feel seriously alarmed. ‘I mean what’s she going to do? You know what women are. False pretences. Sexual harassment. They can get crazy.’
Amer shrugged.
‘Think of the scandal,’ moaned Hari. ‘After all the trouble you took to set up a meeting with the disaffected tribes. It’s a risk we don’t need.’
Amer’s mouth set. ‘I must see her. I am going to see her.’
‘I don’t know what’s happened to you. I’ve never seen you like this.’
The dark grey eyes were suddenly, startlingly, intense.
‘Maybe you’ve never seen me a hundred per cent alive before.’
Hari gave up.
Leo took her toilet bag and cocktail dress and went along to change. A couple of women were already there, repairing their make-up and chatting about their love lives.
‘Clever men are hell, aren’t they?’ one of them told the mirror. She arched a friendly eyebrow, including Leo in the conversation.
Leo smiled but her voice was resigned when she said ‘Try me on corporate recognition. Better still, high season occupancy rates. I’m the bees’ knees at that. Men—clever or not—are a closed book to me.’
The pretty painted face in the mirror looked almost pitying for a moment. ‘Join the club.’
She’s sorry for me, thought Leo. That makes the second woman this afternoon. What a complete disaster I must be. And they only have to look at me to see it. It was a shocking thought.
The others left and she went into the tiny shower room. Leo slid out of her clothes and turned on the shower. She felt numb. Automatically she applied her favourite shower gel. It was her one extravagance, specially imported from Japan. It made her skin soft as silk under her fingers and perfumed her whole body with the faint but lingering scent of spring blossom. Slowly, slowly, she began to feel again.
What she felt was anger. And suddenly, blessedly, ready to fight back.
How dared her father treat her like a cipher? Stick her in a nonjob and then stop speaking to her altogether as soon as she got engaged to the man of his choice! How dared Simon send her a mail-order engagement ring?
Above all, how dared Amer el-Barbary virtually kidnap her in his blasted limousine and then leave her without a word for over a week?
By the time Leo was dressed in designer black, with her newly washed hair piled on top of her head, she was glittering with the hunger for battle.
She glared at herself in the mirror and said violently, ‘Bloody men.’
The stunned look had gone but she was still too pale. Leo shook herself. This would never do. She had just got engaged, for Heaven’s sake. Until she took charge of her own life and dealt with the men who had sewn her up she had to look radiant.
She made an inventory of her attractions. There were not many of them. But at least you could not see her big feet in the waist-high mirror, Leo thought wryly. Otherwise there was her porcelain skin, her embarrassingly voluptuous figure and a very expensive dress. That was it.
It was why all these men thought they could push her around to fit in with their plans. If she had been attractive, they would have thought about what was good for her. What she wanted; listened to her. As it was—Leo ground her teeth.
It made a mess of her make-up. She had to wipe off her lipstick and start again. That did not do much for her mood, either.
‘Now calm down,’ she said to herself. ‘You can do makeup.’
At Christmas Deborah had given her a voucher for a whole day’s beauty treatment. Leo had bought most of the cosmetics the make-up artist pressed on her, out of sheer self-defence. Now, she thought with acute self-mockery, all she had to do was remember which colour went where.
She remembered. Ten minutes later she hardly recognised the face that looked back at her. Slumberous eyes, startlingly long lashes, provocative mouth…At least no one is going to feel sorry for me tonight, Leo thought with a flare of savage satisfaction.
And as for her dress—she considered it clinically. It was low-cut and very plain, designed to show off her creamy shoulders. Well that was all right but—Leo wriggled it down further to accentuate the effect. Only that deepened the décolletage. Oh well, thought Leo, valiant with fury, why not?
She threw a brilliant embroidered shawl over her dress and stalked down to the car. On the way she noticed her right hand. Despite the shower the shadow of the ink stain on the middle finger was still visible.
‘Damn,’ spat Leo.
She dabbed at her finger with a tissue. And felt the spring which controlled her temper tighten another notch.
It did not show when she arrived at the Museum. She stepped out as haughtily as a queen. Or so thought Hari, who had been left on watch for her.
‘Whoops,’ he said under his breath.
He had only seen Leo once before and she had changed beyond belief. But he knew the signs. This was not a woman in the mood for romantic abduction. This was a woman who was in a mood to kill.
He went to warn Amer.
Leo accepted a glass of champagne from one of the Foundation’s officials and allowed herself to be guided through a rather dull display of the Foundation’s recent achievements. They all looked taken aback at this dramatic new Leo. Even Professor Lane stumbled in his monologue and one or two of the students looked as nervous as they were admiring.
Good, she thought savagely. She downed her first glass and took another one.
She circulated grimly, skirting an early sewing machine, and pointing out crisply to Antika’s Project Director that his business plan needed to be completely rewritten. He was sweating faintly by the time she turned away to inspect a large steam train.
‘Whew,’ said the Project Director, wiping his brow.
He went to look for reinforcements.
Leo hid a smile. At least that was one man who would take her seriously from now on. Feeling better and better, she took a third glass of champagne from a passing waiter. And then, from behind the huge engine, came a voice she thought she recognised.
‘Tell her,’ it said urgently. ‘Tell her now.’
Leo’s brow creased. Someone from work? No. Yet someone she had talked to today. A business contact? No. Then, suddenly, she had it—the unfriendly journalist. That was who it was. What was her name?
A man’s voice muttered a reply. Indistinguishable.
‘You can’t do it,’ said the journalist. She sounded on the edge of hysteria. ‘It’s crazy. Your whole life.’
‘Anne Marie, don’t. Not here. Please.’
Anne Marie Dance. Of course. And the man sounded desperate. Leo was about to back away tactfully when she heard the thing that stopped her dead in her tracks.
‘Simon, you can’t do this.’
Simon?
Simon?
She put her untasted glass down on the priceless exhibit and walked quite deliberately round the steam engine. Simon Hartley was standing there, holding Anne Marie Dance at arm’s length. Leo stopped dead, all her bright triumph draining out of her. At arm’s length, yes. But what intimacy there was in their closeness. They had obviously been closer than this many many times.
Anne Marie saw her over Simon’s shoulder. Her face changed. Simon turned round. When he saw Leo he looked blank, then horribly sick.
‘Oh God,’ he said.
Anne Marie Dance, on the other hand, seemed almost relieved. Quite suddenly Leo realised why there had been that inexplicable hostility in the interview this afternoon.
‘So now you know,’ she said.
She put a possessive hand on Simon’s arm. After a moment his hand covered hers protectively. As if he had made that gesture a hundred times before.
Leo felt as if a knife had gone into her heart, straight and true. Not because she wanted Simon, but because no one was ever going to touch her with that instinctive protectiveness. She blinked hard.
‘Leo, I’m so sorry,’ he said wretchedly.
‘I’m not,’ said Anne Marie in a quick panting voice. ‘It’s time someone showed your father there are things he can’t buy. Like a son-in-law.’
Simon dropped her hand as if it burned him.
‘Stop it, Anne Marie,’ he said, suddenly taking charge. ‘Leo, we can’t talk here.’
‘Why not?’ said Anne Marie loudly. She shouldered her way round him and stuck her face close to Leo’s. ‘Your father told Simon to propose to you. He said you wanted to marry and couldn’t get a man of your own.’
Leo felt as if she were in a nightmare. All the lovely defiance had evaporated. She felt cold and alone. Anne Marie’s hostility hurt. But at least it was better than the pity that had followed it last time.
She said in a voice like crashing icebergs, ‘He was wrong.’
She tugged at the newly acquired rose diamond with clumsy fingers. Even though she had put it on so recently it was difficult to prize off.
‘Not here,’ implored Simon, looking round anxiously.
But they were out of sight of most other people in the gallery. Leo set her teeth and hauled. Her finger turned white, then red. But in the end the thing came off. She dropped it into his top pocket.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell Gordon I changed my mind,’ she told him, still in that frighteningly icy voice.
She knew she should be devastated by Simon’s betrayal. No doubt she would be when she had time to think about it. But for the moment she still felt blessedly numb. The worst thing was the humiliation. And if she kept a hold on herself and got out fast, she could even handle that, Leo told herself.
‘He won’t sack you if he thinks it’s my fault.’
Simon flinched. That was faintly satisfying. She gathered herself to leave them.
‘I’ll send a cancellation notice to the papers tomorrow.’
Simon flushed. Leo thought—how could I have imagined it would work? How could I have trusted him? He’s as bad as Amer el-Barbary.
She said with absolute finality, ‘Goodbye.’
Out of the shelter of the great locomotive, Leo felt suddenly exposed. She went through the galleries as fast as she could without actually appearing to be running. All she wanted to do now was get home.
She was so nearly out of the door when she heard her name called that she could have screamed.
‘Leonora!’
She whirled round. Sheikh Amer el-Barbary strolled forward. A scream, she decided, did not begin to cover what she felt.
‘Hello to the end of a perfect day,’ she said.
He was heart-stoppingly handsome, with his golden tan that she remembered—and lazy eyes which she had tried so hard to forget. Tonight they looked almost silver. In the flesh he was incredibly sexy. How had she managed to get by last week without reacting to it? She looked at him with acute dislike.
‘What do you want?’
Amer’s eyebrows flew up at her abrupt tone.
‘How many of those have you had?’ he asked, nodding at the champagne.
Leo ignored the question. ‘I have not come here to talk to you. Go away.’
She waved her glass to emphasis her point. Some of the wine spilled over his immaculate grey suit. She ignored that, too.
‘I see,’ he said gravely.
He took her by the arm and steered her to a corner of the room. Hari hovered. Amer waved him away. He went.
Leo’s dislike of Sheikh Amer el-Barbary intensified. She did not attempt to disguise it.
‘And you needn’t think you can order me around, either,’ she said pugnaciously. ‘That little man may be paid to hit the ceiling when you say jump. I’m not.’
‘Quite right,’ said Amer hugely entertained. ‘But I really do have something to discuss with you. Business,’ he added, as her eyes flashed.
‘What business?’ demanded Leo, suspicious.
‘Antika’s research. I gather you don’t like the application.’
Leo pulled herself together and told him succinctly exactly what was wrong with the application. Amer blinked.
‘No wonder you frightened the poor guy to death,’ he murmured. ‘Now, how can I resolve your criticisms?’
‘What has it got to do with you?’ Leo said, bristling.
‘We are co-funding it.’ He was smoothness itself. ‘Professor Lane has asked me to see what I can do.’
His voice was like a caress. The faint accent and overprecise English added to the illusion. Many women, thought Leo wisely, would have melted into a warm puddle at his feet when he stroked them with that voice. On the Nile, she had nearly done exactly that herself.
She glared. Amer gave her a wide smile that showed perfect teeth and an indentation in one cheek that many women would have found irresistible. Leo thanked God she was not many women. She took a gulp of champagne.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.
He was amused. ‘How do I convince you?’
Leo eyed him over the top of her champagne glass. She was shaking with temper and more than temper. Suddenly a crazy stratagem presented itself. It would make him mad but it was irresistible. Anyway, Leo wasn’t going to resist, not in the mood she was in tonight.
She gave him a wide smile and said with profoundly phoney calm, ‘Okay. You believe in Antika’s research. I don’t. So carry on. Pitch.’
He was taken aback. Leo saw it. She savoured it. It did not make up for the humiliations of the day, of course. but it helped. It helped.
The caressing note faltered. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Pitch,’ she said. She clicked her fingers impatiently. ‘Give me your line.’
It was insulting. Amer stiffened. She eyed him with mockery.
‘You have got a line, haven’t you?’
‘I don’t think—’
Leo interrupted. ‘No line? Fine.’ She turned away. ‘I’ll be going. If you’ll call my car—’
Amer stepped swiftly in front of her.
‘I’ll think of a line,’ he said rapidly. ‘Just give me a second.’
A hint of a caress now, Leo thought with satisfaction. Quite suddenly the Sheikh seemed to have dropped out of seduction mode and was prepared to do business. She began to feel triumphant at last.
Vaingloriously she drained her glass. Amer eyed the empty flute uneasily.
‘How many have you had?’
‘Enough,’ said Leo.
He laughed suddenly. ‘You’re not at all what I thought you were in Cairo, you know.’
Leo blinked. ‘What?’
He made a graceful gesture. He had beautiful hands, she saw. Like a musician. Or a dancer. Or—the thought flipped into her brain like an acrobat—a snake charmer.
‘What?’ she said again, challenging him.
‘Jack Lane got you wrong, too. He said you were a nice, quiet lady.’ He sounded rueful. ‘Not a fire eater in traffic light silks.’
Leo hugged the maligned shawl round her. ‘You want to do business, I’ll do business,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Excellent. Then maybe we could have dinner,’ he said, smooth as cream. ‘Then I can take you through the proposal.’
‘I’ve been through the proposal,’ said Leo, standing her ground. ‘It’s tosh.’
He did not like that. His eyes lost some of their laziness. After a moment he said kindly, ‘It’s probably a little difficult for a nonspecialist to follow. I would be happy to talk you through—I’m sorry?’
‘I said, garbage,’ explained Leo.
His eyes flashed. ‘It is a visionary project—’
‘So it may be,’ said Leo, interrupting. ‘It’s a damned sloppy presentation.’ She took a step towards him and prodded him in the chest with one finger to emphasise her point. ‘I may not be a scientist with half a dozen degrees but I know how to read a business plan. That one stinks.’
Amer looked down at her as if he could not believe his ears. Well, he probably could not. She was vaguely aware that he would not be used to women prodding him in the chest. At least not in anger.
I am probably the only person in the world who sees him for what he is, Leo thought, somewhat muzzily. A snake charmer who thinks he can get anything he wants by mesmerising people. She prodded him in the chest again.
‘Facts,’ she said. ‘You want me to give these guys a sponsorship deal? Give me facts.’
Amer sighed. ‘If they had any facts, the research would be over and they wouldn’t need a grant.’
Leo frowned, thinking about it. To her annoyance, it sounded reasonable. Even spitting mad, she was fair minded enough to admit it.
‘Okay. Hypotherase—’ It got lost somehow. Leo tried again. ‘Hypathetho—’
‘Hypothesise,’ he suggested helpfully.
Leo nodded. She raised her hand. Quick as an arrow, Amer caught her prodding finger before she could spear him for the third time. He was laughing, not lazily at all.
‘No, please, not again. I will tell them to do as you suggest.’
‘Good,’ said Leo.
She found he was still holding her hand. She looked down at it, frowning in bewilderment.
‘So now can we talk about us please?’ he murmured.
He turned her hand over, studying it. That damned ink stain was still there. Leo swore and tugged her hand away. Without success.
‘What do you mean—us?’ she said nastily.
A long finger traced the ink stain thoughtfully.
‘There is still that unfinished business.’
He looked up, provocatively. The dark eyes were teasing. But they were also surprisingly intense. Leo blinked.
‘Isn’t there?’ he said softly.
And then he raised her hand to his mouth. He did not kiss it but held it where he could savour the feel and scent of her skin. He closed his eyes in appreciation.
As if, thought Leo wrathfully, her hand was a good cigar. She wrenched it out of his hold. He laughed, as if she had delighted him.
There was a nasty pause while Leo reminded herself that she was being played by a master. She controlled herself. It was an effort. Not helped by the fact that Amer was waiting for her next move with patent amusement.
At last she drew a long, shaky breath.
‘Probably for the best,’ said that hatefully appreciative voice.
Leo glared. ‘What is?’
‘Postponing our fight. You can’t get up a really good head of steam when you’re liable to be interrupted at any moment.’
‘Our—’ She choked. ‘I do not,’ she said with precision, ‘fight.’
‘Yes that’s what I heard.’ He sounded puzzled.
‘And you’re the last person in the world I would fight with if I did,’ she raged.
That seemed to puzzle him even more.
‘I’m sure you underrate yourself,’ he said kindly.
For a wild moment Leo thought she was going to hit him. No, she thought. I won’t. If I lose control, who knows where it will end?
She gathered her shawl around her and drew herself up to her full height.
‘Good night.’
Amer interposed his shoulder, blocking her path. He smiled down at her.
‘Why don’t I take you out to dinner?’
Leo folded her lips together tightly before she could scream or burst into tears. She whipped round him, making for the front steps. To her consternation he followed.
‘Surely we can negotiate.’
Leo increased her pace.
‘I never negotiate.’
Even that did not put him off. ‘But I do,’ he said softly.
They were at the entrance. Leo stopped dead. She turned, head high.
‘Okay,’ she said in a goaded under voice. ‘You want a deal? I’ll give you a deal.’
She knew what she was going to say before it came out. It was crazy. Her better self did not want to have anything to do with this dark coda to the nightmare of the evening. But her better self was on hold, waiting for a cup of cocoa and a good cry in front of a blazing fire.
Her worse self was tired of being pushed around. Her worse self looked at his man and heard him admit that he pursued her cynically, knowing that marriage was not on the cards. Her worse self wanted revenge on the whole male sex.
Leo heard her worse self say in a hard voice, ‘Marry me and I’ll authorise that damned grant.’