CHAPTER SIX
THE weekend seemed to drag by on leaden feet. Ashlyn went out with her friends on Saturday and Sunday, as fond of them as ever. But she was ready and eager to go to work when Monday dawned. ‘See you at the usual time, I expect,’ she remarked to her mother on leaving.
‘Unless you’re delayed on some business matter,’ her father chipped in.
‘Bye,’ she smiled, and drove to Hamilton Holdings feeling a touch anxious that both her parents seemed to have blown up her role out of all proportion. Though, on thinking about it, she didn’t suppose many of the chairman’s staff were invited into his home to act as hostess. But her parents didn’t know about that!
Ashlyn entered her office wondering what the day would bring. Would Carter perhaps pop in to say hello? She felt that they were on better terms now than they had been.
She heard the lift stop many times and each time masculine footsteps neared her door she felt flustered. Then she wondered—as those footsteps went straight on past and faded away—what she was getting flustered about.
The only person she saw in that first hour was Ivy. ‘Are you all right for tea and coffee?’ she wanted to know.
‘Fine, thanks, Ivy. Have you time for a cup?’
‘Why not?’ Ivy answered, looking decidedly wicked. ‘They’ll never think of looking for me here!’
Ashlyn laughed—and was laughing again later when Vezio Morini telephoned her from Italy. They fell to speaking in Italian straight away. She soon discovered that his call was not a business call; Vezio told her that he had thought of nothing but her since meeting her last Thursday. She had to smile.
‘It’s very kind of you to say so,’ she replied. If nothing else, Vezio was extremely good for the ego.
‘It’s true!’ he protested, sounding upset that she might not believe him. He was still going on at length when her office door opened—and Carter stood there. She felt her cheeks go pink and, as Carter came in and sat himself down, she wished that Vezio—who was just coming to the point of his call—would hang up. ‘Which is why, since my schedule has me tied up here for the next week, I ask if you would like to fly here for dinner tonight. I can arrange a plane for you,’ he stated, making her blink.
Realising some comment from her was required, Ashlyn, not looking at Carter but aware that he was waiting his patient best for her to end her call, told Vezio that she didn’t think so. She caught a movement from Carter when he heard her speaking Italian and was certain he knew to whom she was talking. She confirmed it when, thanking her caller nicely, she ended, ‘Arrivederci, Vezio.’ Ashlyn’s heart was drumming wildly when she put down the phone. She glanced at Carter—and her spirits promptly nose-dived. Gone was the charm of Friday. Grim-faced, he stared at her. Ashlyn did not bother to ask why he had come to see her—she guessed she would have it fired at her, both barrels, soon enough.
‘I didn’t know Morini was in London!’ Carter barked—clearly put out about something.
Well, she didn’t have to take that from anybody. ‘He isn’t!’ she snapped. Goodness, she wanted her head looking at! She had been happy after spending an evening in his company! How crass could you get? ‘Vezio phoned from Italy.’
‘To speak to me?’
It was a legitimate question—she was, after all, there to take calls from people like Vezio when Carter wasn’t around. Carter didn’t have his briefcase with him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t only just arrived for the day.
‘No. To speak to me,’ she replied.
That didn’t appear to please Carter either. ‘What about?’ he snarled.
Damn him! ‘It was personal!’ she flared.
‘He’s never met you!’
That stopped her in her tracks. Quite obviously it hadn’t been Carter who had told Vezio where to find her last Thursday, as she had thought. ‘Correction—I met him last week.’ Sort that! she fumed.
He did! ‘He came here looking for you?’ Ashlyn stubbornly refused to answer—but that didn’t sweeten Carter any. ‘And on the strength of one meeting he’s making personal calls to you?’ he challenged.
Dammit, he made it sound as if she had a face like the back of a bus. This was no time for false modesty! ‘It happens!’ she erupted, sparks flashing in her eyes. Double dammit! ‘All the time!’ she added for good measure. Who did he think he was?
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Carter grated, now on his feet and looking ready to throttle her.
Good—she loved him too. ‘In this case, Vezio invited me to dine with him in Italy tonight.’ She was nowhere near to backing down. ‘Should I go, do you think?’ she asked, and had her breath catch the back of her throat at his answer.
‘Not if you want to come back a virgin!’ he snarled. With that, he was on his way out.
Ashlyn was so outraged at what he had just said that if she’d had a hatchet handy she’d have thrown it at his back. How dared he? How dared he say that to her?
She was too angry to stay seated. Too angry to stay where she was. Too angry to lift her phone to tell the switchboard where she was going. Ashlyn went and took herself off for a walk.
Diabolical swine! When had she ever thought that she and Carter were on better terms now than they had been? Just let him ask her to be his hostess a second time. Just let him! Hanging, drawing and quartering were too good for the vitriolic tyke!
It was half past eleven when Ashlyn returned to her office. She had been in two minds about returning at all. Then she’d remembered her parents, and their pride. Add to that how extremely upset and disappointed they would be even though they knew that the job was only temporary and to return to Hamilton Holdings seemed to be the better, if unpalatable, option.
She had been back barely a minute when her phone rang. Her fight was with Carter, not the company. Ashlyn donned her professional hat and picked up the phone.
‘Feeling better?’
It was him! His gall! She had never felt ill! ‘It must have been something disagreeable I came across,’ she replied, somehow managing to make her voice as cool as his.
‘Well, now that it’s out of your system...’ Was he asking for it! “The thing is, aware as I am of your many talents...’
Was he being funny? She gave him the benefit of the doubt, though why, when she knew what an out-and-out monster he could be, she couldn’t have said. ‘What do you mean exactly?’ she asked, ready to slam down the phone at the first word of insult.
‘Excellent hostess, trilingual—’ he began to enumerate—and Ashlyn could feel her crossness ebbing.
‘So I speak a few languages,’ she interrupted, inexplicably discovering a need to keep her feet firmly on the ground.
‘More than three?’ Carter enquired.
She had no idea where this conversation was leading. But it was fairly evident, for all his voice had lost its cool edge and was starting to sound quite pleasant, that he had not rung her to apologise for his earlier remarks.
‘Well—yes,’ she answered.
‘French?’
Ah. Light began to dawn—obviously he had some French guest he was entertaining to lunch and wanted her assistance. A feeling of excitement started to pulse through her veins and in an instant Ashlyn had forgotten every bit about not helping him entertain ever again.
‘Of course,’ she replied confidently. French was one of her best languages.
There was a pause at the other end, and she waited, ready to make a note of what time and where they would be eating. Therefore she was positively thunderstruck when Carter finally drawled, ‘Now isn’t that fortunate? I have to go to Paris this afternoon—you can come with me.’
‘Par—Me! B-but...’ Utterly stunned, she could barely take it in.
‘You have a problem with that?’ Carter asked curtly, and Ashlyn realised that, playing in a business field, she was acting less than professionally.
‘None at all!’ she answered equally curtly. ‘Just tell me what time, and for how long—and should I bring the family pearls?’
She thought she heard him smother a laugh, but knew she was mistaken when, still in the same curt tone, he stated, ‘I’ll see you at the airport at four-thirty. I’m not sure how long we’ll be there.’ He waited only to tell her, ‘You’d better cancel all your social engagements for this week.’ Then he put down his phone.
Ashlyn still didn’t know whether to believe it or not. Her phone still in her hand, she starred at the instrument. She was going to France—with Carter! All too plainly that was why he had called by earlier—to tell her about it in person. Only she had annoyed him with her prattle about should she go to Italy that night—on a personal matter—when he had plans for her to go to France on a business matter.
If only he’d said. Pride was the very devil, she realised. Quite clearly, when he’d asked her whether she spoke French, Carter had been saying that he could not. And, not wishing to own up to it, he and his pride had taken refuge in slamming into her.
Oh, Carter. As if it mattered that he could not speak French. Dear Carter... Suddenly Ashlyn felt tremendously alive. As if anything mattered! She was in love with him, loved him, loved him, loved him—and she was going to France with him.
Her next reaction was to feel overwhelmingly dazed. She loved him? She slowly put down the phone. She loved him? Was in love with him? She shook her head as if to deny it. But it was a fact! She had been in love with him last Friday, and that explained why she had gone to bed so happy. She had been in love with him and hadn’t known it—most probably, now she came to think of it, she had been in love with him before then.
Fifteen minutes later Ashlyn was still sitting coming to terms with her startling and unlooked-for discovery. It was just then that she realised that to race home, pack, get ready and be at the airport for four-thirty was impossible.
She did what any girl would do in the circumstances. She rang her mother. ‘You’ve only just caught me—I was on my way out!’ Katherine Ainsworth commented.
‘Were you going anywhere special?’ Ashlyn asked fearfully.
‘No—just taking a look at the shops.’
‘You couldn’t do me a ginormous favour, could you?’ Ashlyn asked.
‘I’ll try. What is it?’
Ashlyn could see no way of hiding that she might not be home for a week, nor where she was going, particularly since she was enlisting her mother’s help.
‘The thing is, it’s just been dropped on me that I’m flying to France later today—and I just can’t—’
‘You’re going to France!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘On business?’ she questioned, and was nearly ecstatic when she heard who with. Then, efficiency being her middle name, she shared Ashlyn’s problem and was soon making light of it.
Ashlyn replaced her phone knowing that at around two-thirty, or before, traffic permitting, her mother would arrive with her passport and a suitcase packed with everything she would need for the next few days. If that swine Carter, that dear swine Carter, thought he had given her something of a stiff initiative test, then, thanks to her mother, she would come through with flying colours.
Geoff stopped by and she gave him a cup of coffee. ‘Lunch with me tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘Sorry,’ she smiled. ‘Prior engagement.’ Last Friday she would have told him that she was going to Paris, but today she found that she could not. For all it was business, it somehow came under that ‘private’ heading, as it had on Friday evening when she had been unable to tell her mother and father where she was going.
‘I can see I’ll have to book lunch with you weeks in advance at this rate,’ he grumbled, but smiled, as he usually did.
At one o’clock her phone rang. It was Carter, and her heart jumped, then plummeted. Was he ringing to tell her the French trip was off?
He wasn’t, apparently, but his tone was back to being curt—Lord knew why she loved the brute. ‘I thought you’d have left to throw a few things in a case ages ago!’ he said.
Throw a few things in a case—for Paris? The man had no idea! ‘Oh, I can buy anything I haven’t got with me when I get there,’ she floated back at him airily. ‘Though, while you’re on the line, it might be an idea if I know which airport to drive to.’
Carter told her, then questioned, ‘You’re going straight from the office?’
‘I thought I would.’
‘I’ll drive you in my car.’
Lovely thought! But Ashlyn counselled herself to be steady. ‘I’ll need my car to drive home when we get back,’ she stated. Carter hadn’t said when that would be. Hamilton Holdings might have closed down for the day, her car shut up in a locked car park, for all she knew.
He put down the phone. Spleenish toad! she thought crossly. But because she loved him she was able to laugh. He might be the one in charge now, but she was the one who was going to translate French into English.
At two o’clock she went down to Reception to wait for her mother. Katherine Ainsworth—a thrilled Katherine Ainsworth, it had to be said—arrived at ten past two, wheeling a very large suitcase. She was also carrying a plastic suit carrier.
‘You’re a gem.’ Ashlyn gave her mother a kiss as she relieved her of the suitcase. ‘Would you like to come up and see where I work?’
‘Would I ever!’ On the way up in the lift her mother explained the plastic carrier. ‘I thought I remembered you wearing that grey suit this morning. Really not good enough for Paris,’ her smart mother went on. ‘So I brought that green two-piece that suits you so well.’
‘Did I say you were a gem?’ Ashlyn smiled, and once they were in her office she changed into the green two-piece while her mother made a cup of coffee.
‘That’s much better. Now here’s your passport. Your father’s over the moon about how well you’re getting on.’
‘It is only temporary.’ Ashlyn thought she should mention it, hating the thought more than her mother. Dear heaven, Ashlyn felt desolate at just the thought of never seeing Carter again. But she had this time with him in Paris to look forward to, and she wasn’t going to think of anything so awful as what would happen when Lorna Stokes returned and everything was back to normal in his office again.
‘Now, I’m not going to hold you up, but I insist on knowing all the non-confidential bits and pieces when you come home,’ Katherine Ainsworth stated once she had finished her coffee. And Ashlyn, remembering how confusing she had found the corridors until she had got used to who worked where, went down in the lift with her mother to see her off.
She went down in the lift again with her suitcase a little while later. No way was she going to leave it until the last minute to get to the airport. Carter would just love that, wouldn’t he? Plane ready to take off and no French-speaking Director of Senior Communications!
That thought made her laugh, and she wondered if being in love had made her feather-headed. But, feather-headed or not, she arrived at the airport in good time, and was there, ready and waiting, when Carter, suitcase and briefcase in his hands, strode in.
He spotted her straight away, though whether because of where she had positioned herself or because he was the sort of man who missed nothing she was hard put to tell.
Carter halted by her, his dark gaze raking over her smart two-piece, and she realised that, unbelievably, he remembered she had been wearing something different that morning. His glance then went down to the large case by her side, and she could just feel a laugh bubbling up inside her.
‘A girl’s best friend is her mother,’ she murmured, and just loved it when, after a moment of staring down at her in stony silence, suddenly he laughed too.
He was serious, though, when a moment later he transferred his glance to her suitcase. ‘Can you manage that?’ he enquired.
With him beside her, in laughing mood, she could have managed ten of them. ‘No problem,’ she assured him, and, tucking his briefcase under the arm that held his suitcase, he took her by the elbow with the other and guided her, as she wheeled her own luggage, in the direction of the check-in desk.
They seemed to be airborne before she knew it, and she half expected Carter to take out some work and get on with it. But, to her pleasant surprise, he seemed content to relax and to while away the hour in either desultory conversation or a sort of companionable silence.
There were questions she would have liked to ask. Questions about what sort of business they were going to be doing in Paris. But, with Carter seeming disinclined to talk business, and realising how hard he worked, Ashlyn felt that to let him relax while he could might be a much better idea.
She felt relaxed too, she had to own, though she began to feel a little tense when Carter thought to refer to the fact that her mother must have packed her a case and delivered it to the office, asking, ‘Your parents don’t mind you flying off at short notice?’
‘It’s not something I do every day,’ she answered, realising that they were getting close to the way she had intimated she might fly that evening to Italy and have dinner with Vezio. She just couldn’t bear to have another spat with Carter. Which left her, in her efforts to take the conversation away from anything that might cause an upset, diving into another area which she did not particularly want to discuss either. But she stated quite openly, ‘To be honest, my parents are enormously pleased that—’ She broke off.
‘Don’t leave it there,’ Carter encouraged, and added, with a smile that caused her heart to tilt, ‘I have every admiration for honesty.’
She guessed that in business honesty was his watchword. And, encouraged by him to go on, she found herself telling him, ‘Well, to start at the beginning, my father decided way back that he didn’t want to go into the family business, Ainsworth Engineering. So, with some financial help from my grandfather, he set up Ainsworth Cables.’ A week ago she’d have told him none of this. But a week ago she hadn’t known that she was in love with him. And now, especially when he was so encouraging, she didn’t seem able to stop talking. ‘Anyhow, it soon became a matter of enormous pride to him that as Ainsworth Engineering went from strength to strength Ainsworth Cables did too. He worked so hard, but...’ She faltered.
‘But hard wasn’t good enough when his plans and investments went awry,’ Carter took up quietly. It was plain to her then that he knew far more about her father’s business than she did.
So she agreed, and added, ‘And you came along and bought him out.’
‘Does that bother you?’ Carter asked, turning so he could see her face.
She shook her head. ‘I think now that it’s the best thing that could have happened to him. He’s not looking anywhere near as worn as he once did. Though...’ she hesitated.
‘Though?’ Carter prompted.
‘Well, the thing is...’ Ashlyn felt compelled to go on ‘... my father’s pride was very badly dented because he had to let the firm go.’ Suddenly she realised that they were sailing close to another dangerous area—that of her father holding out for a seat on the board for her— and she hurried on, ‘So he—er—needed something else he could be proud of to his brothers and their families.’
‘He found it in you,’ Carter stated intuitively.
‘I’m afraid so,’ she acknowledged, and, since Carter appreciated honesty so much, she found herself confessing, ‘He’s told them that I’m now an executive director with Hamilton Holdings.’ She looked into his dark grey eyes. He didn’t seem to have taken exception to the title her father had pinned on her. ‘It’s his pride, you see,’ she ended quietly.
She was totally charmed when, with a gentle smile for her, he commented, ‘You’ve a whole lot of pride too, Ashlyn Ainsworth.’
She turned to look out of the window, her heart racing. She could not remember just then why or how it had come about that Carter had witnessed her pride. But she felt a warm glow at what had sounded like a compliment. That glow stayed with her long after their plane had landed.
They went by taxi from the airport and Ashlyn realised that Carter must have stayed at the same hotel before, because he was able to tell the driver where to take them. When they arrived at a large and well-lit building, she guessed Carter must have read the fare on the meter, for, as he paid the driver and received a cordial, ‘Merci beaucoup, monsieur,’ at the size of his tip, he had no need of her French-speaking services.
He had a smattering of French, she observed; he was able to briefly greet the concierge on duty. But there her observations ended because, all at once, it came to her that this was not a hotel but an apartment block!
Startled, she looked to Carter, but he and the concierge were busy holding open the lift doors and manhandling their two cases inside.
Trying to keep her mind a blank—she didn’t know how she was going to feel if she was to share an apartment with him—she stepped into the lift and she and Carter sailed upwards.
She loved him and the idea of being constantly in his company was little short of wonderful. But, because of her love for him, and because of that pride he had spoken of, it was of the utmost importance that Carter, with his quick mind and eyes, did not see in such close and continued confines so much as a glimpse of her love.
By the time they had stepped out of the lift and he had unlocked the door of his apartment, Ashlyn was feeling on very shaky ground. She’d just die if he knew how she felt about him.
‘It’s an apartment!’ she stated flatly as they went in.
‘You’re quick—I’ll give you that!’ he mocked, and Ashlyn was glad of his mockery; it annoyed her, and she needed to be annoyed.
‘I’m to sleep here?’ she questioned tautly, and saw his good humour abruptly vanish.
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ he answered shortly.
‘But—’ she went to object.
‘Forgive me,’ he cut in, not looking sorry at all. ‘This apartment belongs to the company and it’s where we on the board make our base when we’re here on company business.’ His dark eyes bored into her, and she felt like a worm on the end of a pin. ‘Forgive me,’ he apologised again, ‘for looking on you merely as another board member.’
Ashlyn turned from him, feeling about as big as tuppence. She’d had a dressing down, and she guessed she deserved it. But—and oh, what a contradictory creature love had made of her—she didn’t want him to see her ‘merely as another board member’. Mixed-up she might be in worrying about sharing an apartment with him, but she didn’t want him to see her as one of the men; she wanted him to see her as a woman.
‘Which room are you having?’ she questioned snappily, looking around the stylishly furnished sitting room at the many doors leading off.
‘The best one, naturally!’ he returned without pause, and she just had to laugh. His mouth twitched when he saw that she was over her cross-patch moment, and as quickly as it had come all enmity was over. ‘I’ll take your case in,’ he commented. Ashlyn hung back.
She watched as he picked up her case and noted to which room he took it, as well as noticing his chivalry—he hadn’t left it to her to struggle with it over the thickly piled carpet.
She needed a moment by herself, she realised. They were friends again—well, of a sort, she qualified. But she still felt a little tense somehow, and instinctively wandered in the opposite direction. She was in the kitchen when she heard Carter come and join her.
‘Someone’s stocked up the fridge,’ she remarked off the top of her head.
‘As per instructions,’ he replied easily.
‘I’d better go and unpack,’ she returned. Carter seemed taller, more dominant than ever in the close confines of the kitchen.
‘You’d better take this with you,’ he stayed her, and gave her a bulky envelope.
‘What is it?’ she asked, innocently expecting it to be instructions or an itinerary for the next few days.
‘Local currency,’ he answered, and she was immediately up in arms.
‘I don’t want it!’ she exclaimed furiously, pushing it back at him.
‘Oh, for G—’ He broke off, exasperated. ‘Stow your pride for a minute and be realistic!’ he rapped. ‘You’re in France and you’ll need—’
‘I can get my own currency tomorrow. From a bank—anywhere.’
‘You don’t have to. I—’
‘I don’t want your money,’ she insisted.
‘Then look on it as business expenses,’ he thundered. ‘I collected it for you from Finance on my way out. If you really insist, I’ll instruct them when we get back to deduct what you’ve spent out of your salary cheque. Now go and—’
‘Salary cheque?’ she queried.
And as suddenly as the storm had blown in it was again over. ‘I just don’t believe there’s a woman like you!’ Carter declared, tilting his head and studying her. ‘Had you no idea that a salary cheque was paid into your bank account at the end of last month?’
Witlessly she stared at him. ‘Honestly?’ she exclaimed. ‘What for?’ she asked, only for her world to spin crazily when Carter, after a split second of just looking at her, stretched out his hands to her arms.
And, as if he couldn’t prevent himself, he pulled her a little closer. ‘For doing what you do so brilliantly,’ he smiled, and dropped a gossamer-light kiss upon her cheek. Then, swiftly, he pushed her away. ‘Now go and get ready; we’re dining with friends of mine in an hour.’
Ashlyn felt too choked to argue. She went quickly, glad that her bedroom had its own bathroom. She needed to shower and to change and she was such a dither inside she didn’t know when she would ever be ready to see Carter again.
Striving hard to be practical—Carter had kissed her, be it only on her cheek, be it a kiss that meant precisely nothing—she went to unpack her suitcase.
Her mother had gone a little demented, she saw: not only had she packed the clothes Ashlyn had said she thought might be suitable, but she had also packed two dresses which she had not mentioned. One was plain black, finished just above the knee and was classic; the other, which Ashlyn just couldn’t see herself wearing this trip, was a narrow-strapped, fitted dress of deep gold. With it came a matching stole.
Carter had said that they were dining with friends of his in an hour—she’d better get a move on.
Her thoughts as she got ready centred mainly on Carter. She realised that she had better stop taking exception to the least little thing he said, if she didn’t want him to think her tiresome. Or, worse, supposing he started looking beneath the surface for a reason? Not that the bundle of French francs he’d given her came under the heading of ‘least little thing’, she mused. She started to smile as she recalled Carter’s flattering ‘doing what you do so brilliantly’. Fancy—and she got paid for it! She vaguely recalled someone from Finance wanting details of her bank account but she had thought that was so they could bank her cheque for attending the board meeting direct.
By the time she had her hair neatly dressed in its usual thick coil at the back of her head, Ashlyn was beginning to feel apprehensive again. She had opted to wear the black dress her mother had thought to put in, and she knew that she was looking good. But nerves were playing havoc with her insides.
Knowing that if she didn’t go soon Carter would come knocking at her door, wanting to know what the holdup was, she picked up her dainty black evening purse, straightened her shoulders, and opened her bedroom door.
‘Good, you’re re—’ Carter broke off, his eyes going over her from the tip of her head, skimming her shape, and on down to her toes. ‘Did anybody ever tell you you’ve got the most sensational legs?’ he enquired, his eyes on her warm green ones.
‘Er—’ Her heart was drumming like blazes; she couldn’t handle it. ‘You don’t have to take me with you!’ she said in a rush.
‘Just because I said you’ve got good legs?’ he teased.
And she loved him. Oh, how she loved him. ‘You said you were dining with friends,’ she reminded him. If they were friends of his, then they would speak English, which made her role as interpreter redundant. ‘I can knock something together out of the fridge.’
‘Not in that get-up, you can’t.’ He smiled a gentle smile, and she loved him some more. Then he was all bracing and matter-of-fact. ‘Come on, woman,’ he said, his tone brooking no argument, ‘I’m starving, and the concierge has a taxi waiting.’
Solène Ducret was an elegant woman of about thirty. Luc, her charming husband, was the same age as Carter. The friends greeted each other warmly and when Carter introduced her Ashlyn was made to feel most welcome.
She took to the French couple straight away, and, as she had surmised they would, everyone spoke in English. Ashlyn felt all the signs were good for an excellent evening.
Indeed, things were going along splendidly, everyone relaxed and at ease as they moved to their table in the restaurant. Ashlyn had thought her services might be required to translate the menu for Carter, but an English translation was already given, so she concentrated on her own selection.
‘Do you have a career as well as your board duties, Ashlyn?’ Solène enquired as their first course arrived.
‘I’m—working temporarily full-time for the company.’ Ashlyn had hesitated over the word ‘working’. It did not seem at all like work.
‘Ashlyn’s an executive in her own right,’ Carter put in, and Ashlyn felt slightly jolted. Was he being funny—or was he being serious? Having only that day discovered she loved him, she was so highly sensitive to anything he said or did that her judgement had become unsure.
‘And enjoying it,’ she smiled, and thought it time to take the conversation elsewhere. ‘Do you follow a career, Solène?’ she enquired, and heard that Solène was a scientist.
Ashlyn thought Solène’s career most interesting and, while being careful to give the others space, formed a queue of questions to ask. The evening progressed so easily that it was time to leave almost before Ashlyn knew it.
‘Are you in Paris for long?’ Solène asked as they stood on the pavement saying goodnight. ‘Perhaps we could meet again...’
‘We’re here until the end of the week,’ Carter answered for Ashlyn, and Ashlyn’s feeling of well-being surged. They were there, she and Carter, for a whole week! Well, nearly a whole week! Oh, joy, oh, bliss.
Carter was saying something about how he would arrange something with Luc, then they said their goodnights and turned to get into the waiting taxi. Ashlyn felt as if she was dreaming and she never wanted to wake up.
But she did wake up—with a very big bump. For Luc had stepped forward hurriedly and, in the urgency of the moment, forgot to speak English. ‘Carter—où nous retrouverons-nous demain?’
‘Je viendrai vous prendre à votre hôtel à huit heures,’ Carter answered.
The taxi pulled away from the kerb and Ashlyn settled back. Carter and Luc obviously had some business to do first thing in the morning. Carter had told him that he’d pick him up at his hotel at eight. Suddenly, she froze!
In slow motion she played back Luc’s ‘Carter—where shall we meet tomorrow?’ and Carter’s ‘I’ll pick you up at your hotel at eight’. Carter had replied in perfect French, with not a falter, not a stumble! Not only had he instantly understood Luc’s question but, without having to think about it, he had replied in the same tongue! Carter was as fluent in French as she was!
So where did that leave her? What in blue blazes was she doing there, since it was blatantly obvious that Carter needed neither interpreter nor translator?
‘Is something the matter, Ashlyn?’
You could say that! He was quick—she’d give him that. He must have picked up, either from the stiff way she was sitting or from some other means, the fact that her happy mood of a few minutes ago had changed. Well, bubbles to him—she needed to think.
‘No!’ she answered shortly, and did not thank him that he chose not to pursue the matter.
Swine! She tried hard to remember what he had said when he had roped her into going to Paris with him, but she just could not remember. Not word for word anyhow, because seconds later she had realised that she was in love with him—and nothing after that had made sense in her head for a little while.
Well, it was for sure he didn’t need her for her languages, and it was for sure that since they had been entertained that evening he didn’t need her there to help him and... Oh, heavens, Solène and Luc were sophisticated people. What in creation were they thinking? Carter had introduced her as a member of his board—but did they really believe that?
Her face flamed scarlet. Surely they didn’t believe ...? Carter would never... Well, he had kissed her cheek earlier that evening, but it hadn’t meant anything. She might still be a little wet behind the ears about that sort of thing but she just knew that Carter wasn’t like that. That his kiss meant nothing.
And she hated him for that too. Because she loved him, felt mixed-up and confused. And he was clever, and she knew he must have some motive in bringing her to Paris with him, but she’d be darned if she could fathom out what it—
‘Do you want to go around again?’
Carter’s curt tones cut into her thoughts, and made her aware that the taxi had stopped and that he had got out and was waiting for her to join him—they had arrived back at the apartment.
Without a word she got out of the taxi, and, her chin tilted a proud fraction, without a word she preceded him into the building. Mute, she walked into the lift. She felt humiliated and embarrassed that because he must feel responsible for her he hadn’t been able to leave her behind in the apartment. She loved him and hated the fact that he must have felt obliged to take her with him. How could he? As the lift sailed upwards, she felt like hitting him.
The lift stopped and she walked in front to the door of the apartment. Stiff-backed, wooden-expressioned, she wouldn’t look at him. He opened the door; she marched in. Indeed, she was halfway across the sitting-room floor when a hand clamped over her wrist and stopped her.
He stopped her and turned her, and Ashlyn came the closest she had come yet to hitting him. ‘Let go of me!’ she ordered angrily.
As she might have expected, he ignored her order. ‘So what did I do?’ he demanded. There was a look of determination to get to the bottom of this on his face.
‘You know what you did!’ she erupted.
‘I took you to dine with some friends. Up until fifteen minutes ago I’d have said you enjoyed it,’ he answered toughly.
‘It’s never pleasant to be taken for a fool!’ she spat.
‘Who took you for a fool?’
‘Let go of my wrist!’
‘Answer me!’ Carter insisted sharply.
‘You understand and speak French fluently!’ she charged.
‘When did I say that I couldn’t?’ he counter-charged.
That stopped her dead. Oh, how she wished that she could remember. ‘You intimated—’ She broke off when his right eyebrow rose a fraction. ‘Well, you led me to believe...’
‘I did nothing of the kind!’ he retorted. ‘If your imagination has taken over, there’s nothing I can do about it. My memory of our conversation is that I asked you if you could speak French, you said you could, and I asked you to come to Paris with me.’
Given that her memory of the conversation was hazy, she was positive there had been no asking about it. The arrogant swine had ordered her to go with him.
‘Why?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Since I’ve heard for myself that you can speak the language every bit as well as me, why? Why me?’ That had him, she was sure of it! He certainly looked at her askance—as if surprised she should take issue over it.
‘You’ve one hell of a nerve, Miss Ainsworth,’ he told her coolly, his dark eyes fixed on her. ‘But, given that I’m unused to explaining myself to anyone...’ oh; grief, she was in for another put-down, she could tell! ‘...permit me to tell you that, your fluency in the French language apart, I needed a board member with me on this trip. And you, believe it or not,’ he added silkily, ‘are the only member of the board who isn’t up to his ears in work.’
One of these days she was going to take the greatest delight in boxing his ears, and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was treating her like one of the men again.
‘Nice to know I have my uses!’ she flared. ‘So why take me with you tonight? That wasn’t business.’
‘You’d deny me the pleasure of dining with friends?’
‘No—but...’ Those dark eyes didn’t seem so cold now. They were disconcerting, off-putting, ‘But you didn’t have to take me with you,’ she managed to finish.
‘Would you have my friend Luc have the opinion that only French women are beautiful?’ Carter charmed the heart out of her.
Was he saying that he thought her beautiful? It was almost enough to go to bed on. ‘You’re—er—um—still holding...’ Her voice was suddenly too husky to be heard. Ashlyn gave a small cough, and her voice was a little stronger when she asked, ‘C-can I have my wrist back, please?’
‘Of course,’ he murmured, but instead of letting go he brought her hand up, bent his head, and kissed the back of it. Her legs went like jelly. ‘Forgive me?’ he asked softly, his look suddenly warm.
‘Of course,’ she borrowed his words, too far gone now to remember what, if anything, she had to forgive him for. But, just to show she really did forgive, she somehow felt compelled to stretch up on tiptoe and, as he had to her earlier that evening, lean forward and kiss his cheek. Immediately her lips came into contact with his skin, however, she drew back. ‘I’m sorry...’ her colour flared ‘... I shouldn’t have d—’
‘Oh, but I’m glad you did,’ he smiled, and, purely to make her feel better about what she had done, she was sure, he bent down, and lightly placed his mouth over her own.
It was meant to be a light kiss, Ashlyn knew that, and she was sure that Carter knew that as well. But, having made a minuscule movement towards him, she felt too paralysed to move away. His mouth, his sensational mouth, was over hers, and it was wonderful.
Her hands went to his waist, perhaps to steady herself—she was never afterwards sure. But she guessed that Carter must have read her action as encouragement, for he did not back away, but gently took her in his arms. That light kiss gave way to a warm embrace.
It was sheer and perfect heaven to be in his arms. Ashlyn wrapped herself around him and held on tightly. The pressure of his lips against hers increased, and she was learning, being teased, her mouth tormented.
Somehow, hardly aware that either of them had moved, she felt his body hard up against her own, and felt an insane desire to be closer still to him. It had never happened before.
Carter kissed her again, and the fire that had begun in her started to bum brightly. She kissed him back, instinctively moulding her body against his.
She heard a sound leave him. Did he desire her? She knew she was going out of control. Yet she loved him, loved him. Did it matter?
Their lips met again; she wanted more. She felt his wonderful sensitive fingers in her hair. Suddenly felt her long, red-gold tresses fall about her shoulders as Carter released them from their pins.
‘Even more beautiful than I imagined,’ he breathed, standing back, looking at her. And a moment later he was burying his head in the clouds of her sweet-smelling hair.
Then he was kissing her again, the tempo of his kisses suddenly changing. The next time he moulded her to him, she knew that she was losing all sense of reality. Losing all sense...
But she did not care. And yet... Quickly, while she still could, she jerked back, her breath catching in her throat. ‘You’re nervous?’ he asked, his tone gentle, not demanding.
She swallowed, but told him honestly, ‘I like kissing you. Only...’ She faltered, almost told him about this fire of awareness that had flickered into life in her and was now starting to scorch her. This dangerous fire of awareness that made it a nonsense for her to be jerking away when she wanted to be closer, even closer...
‘Only?’ he teased, planting the tenderest of kisses on one corner of her mouth.
‘Only I think I’m getting a little out of my depth,’ she answered, and stretched up to kiss a corner of his mouth. She wanted, wanted oh, so badly, to move her mouth along until their lips met again. But from somewhere she found the strength to pull all the way out of his arms. ‘And,’ she said on a gulp of breath, and with the lightest laugh she could manage, aware that she wanted him, aware that Carter desired her, ‘I’m not sure that I want to do more than paddle in the shallows.’
With that, she left him. She went to her room. She went quickly. Went before she gave in to her love, and her need to be held, caressed and made love to by the man she loved.