Infatuation

‘That's okay, Janice,' Judith said reassuringly.

'He seemed to be angry about something,' Janice added, lingering.

‘Obviously something has gone wrong,' said Judith, getting up. ‘I'd better go and find out. Stay and drink your coffee, Robert. I'll get Janice to ring Aldridge and tell him you're in the building and will be up soon.'

'Free for dinner tonight?' Robert asked as she walked to the door, and she turned with a polite smile, shaking her head.

‘Sorry. I'm so busy…'

'Another time, then,' said Robert, and she nodded. She was shaking as she walked along the corridor to Luke's office; she paused outside, breathing deeply to calm herself, then tapped and at his brusque: 'Come in,' opened the door.

He was standing by the window with his back to her. 'Close the door. ' he said without turning, and she knew he was perfectly well aware that it was her. 'What was Gordon doing in your office? What was going on?' Luke demanded, and as she hesitated for an answer turned to face her, his grey eyes filled with icy hostility.

'I know you've been dating him, but I don't like the idea of having him snooping around your office and taking a look at all the private documents lying around on your desk. You're not to have the man there again, is that understood? You have a very confidential job, I would have thought it was obvious that someone like Gordon shouldn't be running loose around the office.'

'He only came in for a cup of coffee; he didn't look at any of the papers.'

'What was he doing when I came in? You both jumped about six feet in the air—I've never seen such guilty expressions!' He was biting out the words between his teeth, a dark red colour in his face. Judith shrank from the anger in those grey eyes; there was violence in the air, distaste in the way he spoke.

'We were startled, that's all.'

'Startled? It looked to me as if you were in his arms until I opened the door.'

Her own temper flared. 'If I had been that wouldn't be any of your business! My private life is my own affair. I'll make sure Robert never sees any confidential papers, but...'

Luke moved abruptly and she shrank, fumbling with the door handle. He stood right in front of her, looking

down at her. 'For God's sake, Judith…'

'Don't!' she broke out as he caught her shoulders.

'I was jealous,' he said huskily, his fingers tightening on the slender bones he held.

'You had no right…'

'That makes it worse—I couldn't even punch his face for him, I had to pretend to be polite.'

'That I didn't notice!' said Judith with a spurt of angry laughter. Was that what he called pretending to be polite? Looking at poor, bewildered Robert as though he was a slug he had just discovered in his lettuce?

'I suddenly realised you could see him, let him kiss you, and there as nothing I could do about it,' Luke said in a thick, harsh voice. 'I want to tell the world you're mine, I don't want to have to stand back and watch you with other men, that would drive me slowly round the bend…'

'I'd better leave then,' said Judith through what seemed to be a mouthful of broken glass. Every syllable hurt, but she said them, feeling Luke's fingers bite into her as he heard the words. He was white now, she saw lines around his eyes and mouth as he struggled for control.

'You can't,' he said. 'I couldn't bear it, I'd miss you so much I wouldn't want to live.' He bent his head and she felt his lips against her throat. His voice whispered beneath her ear. 'I want to be with you all day; you aren't smiling at me, any more; I thought when I got back to London it would be enough just to talk to you, work with you, watch that smile in your eyes—but everything is going wrong; you're not with me, you're so distant. I tried to see you all day yesterday and you were never here and today you've been avoiding me— tell me the truth, darling. Is it all on my side? Don't you care, after all? I thought you did, I thought it was the same for you as me; was I fooling myself?'

She closed her eyes and ached with a pain deeper than she had ever known. 'I can't, Luke.' Why had he met Baba first. Why had he asked her to marry him when he didn't love her?

He was rigid, she couldn't see his face, it was buried against her neck, but his lips were icy and his breathing now was shallow and jerky.

'You don't love me?' he asked, and she tried to lie to him, to tell him she didn't, but she could not force the words between her lips. Her heart would not let her lie to him.

Luke lifted his head after a long moment and looked into her eyes. Judith tore herself away, walked into the centre of the room with her back to him. 'It won't work if you don't stay away from me,' she said. 'I'll have to leave if this sort of thing happens again.'

Luke walked round his desk and sat down. He put his dark head between his hands and sat in silence and after a moment Judith left. There was nothing they could say to each other.

The incident didn't make it any easier to work with him. Luke kept his distance now, he stayed strictly on the business level, but it was torture for Judith to be in the same room day after day and to feel Luke's awareness of her at every minute. Even though he didn't try to touch her again, or mention anything but work, there were unavoidable moments when their hands brushed or they stood next to each other in a lift or were alone in an office for an hour. Judith felt each second of those moments; she was conscious of her own hidden emotions and could guess at his, she watched the deft movement of his long-fingered hands as he flicked over a page, observed the tension of his cheekbones when he looked down, the unsteadiness of his mouth as he looked up again and caught her watching him, heard the husky note in his voice with a constricted heart. Once his knee touched her own and she took a quick breath. Luke looked at her sideways, a fever in his eyes. Dry-mouthed, she bent her head and pretended to read the paper in front of her. She had often pushed herself to the limit as far as work was concerned, that was nothing new to her—but now she was pushing both of them beyond the limits of human endurance and each day the sensual torture seemed to intensify. It almost seemed to have become an exquisite pleasure; the higher the barriers between them the more achingly she longed to cross them, and the more she wanted to touch Luke, feel his mouth on hers, the higher the screw of pain was turned until it passed the level at which pain was pleasure. She only became aware of that when she realised how closely she was flirting with danger; she was now deliberately seeing him alone, watching him, letting their hands touch. The more it hurt the more she enjoyed it. Neither she nor Luke ever mentioned what was happening, but she strongly suspected Luke was going through the same process. She knew he watched her, she knew he stood behind her chair in the board room and bent over to look at one of the folders in front of her, his cheek an inch from hers, she was well aware that he went out of his way to put a hand on her shoulder or her arm, give her a cup of coffee, brush a buzzing wasp away from her neck. If any other man had done any of those things she would barely have noticed. They were both using intimate, familiar moments like weapons to hurt each other because they could not reach each other any other way.

During her fourth week with Doulton-Klein she rang Ruth to ask when Baba was coming back, and Ruth said in surprise: 'Didn't Luke tell you? She should be back on Saturday. She's had her tests and now she's waiting to hear for certain whether or not she's got the pan. She rang me a few nights ago. She was terribly excited. Apparently she's staying with the director at his house—Baba says he has a fabulous swimming pool and there are fifteen rooms in the house and three of them are bathrooms. He has a Jacuzzi and a solarium and an enormous barbecue patio. Baba says he has parties every single night.'