Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

Was that why she had always felt so inferior and vulnerable with other men—because she expected them to reflect her father’s disappointment in her?

It was a disturbing thought, and one she did not want to pursue. It was too late to go back now, looking for motives, for reasons to explain away her lack of appeal for the male sex. She had long ago come to accept that she was the way she was. Too late now to look back and wonder if perhaps things could have been different.

Gordon had after all laid it on the line for her when they had broken their engagement. He did not find her desirable, he had told her; he liked her as a person, but as a woman… Those words were still buried inside her, sharp slivers of steel that still ached and hurt, that had left a wound long after she had got over the loss of Gordon himself.

When she finally steeled herself to walk into her father’s rooms she was disconcerted by her lack of emotional reaction. They were simply rooms, furnished with heavy but good furniture, their décor dull and uninspiring, although her father’s desk and the comfortable armchair behind it gave one room a certain austere masculinity.

She tried to picture Oliver Tennant sitting behind that desk, holding her breath tensely, relieved when she found it impossible to conjure up his image and superimpose it on to her father’s chair. In the morning she would insist on Sheila’s telephoning him and telling him that it was impossible for him to lodge with her.

Her mind firmly made up, she went back downstairs. She had some paperwork to do, which would fill her time far more profitably than mooching about the house the way she was doing at the moment.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE next morning the Volvo refused to start once again. This time Charlotte had to call out the local garage, and only arrived at the office after the mechanic had spent over half an hour coaxing the reluctant engine to fire.

In consequence she was both out of temper and out of patience when she eventually hurried across the square and opened the office door, and the last person she wanted to see standing there, somehow looking far taller than she remembered, was Oliver Tennant.

He had his back towards her as he studied their property brochure displays, but as she walked in he swung round, his eyes crinkling a smile that made her stomach somersault dangerously.

‘Mr Tennant.’ She said his name in as crisply professional a manner as she could. He was holding an envelope in his hand and her heart sank. This must be the tenancy agreement. He hadn’t wasted any time, but, in all fairness to him, she had to acknowledge that the chance of his finding somewhere else to rent at this time of the year was very small.

‘Miss Spencer,’ he acknowledged formally, and then frowned, asking far more personally, ‘Is everything all right?’

Charlotte stared at him, conscious of the fact that Sheila was watching them both.

‘Yes, of course it is. Why shouldn’t it be?’ she demanded aggressively, and was stunned as he casually stretched out one hand and brushed his fingers over her cheekbone in something that was so like a caress that she drew in her breath, shocked by the sensations evoked by his touch.

Her eyes must have registered her feelings because for a breathless second his own darkened, and then he said evenly, ‘You’ve got oil on your face. I wondered if your car had broken down.’

Oil on her face. Damn that mechanic. No wonder he’d been grinning when he drove away. Why hadn’t he said something? Charlotte fumed, resisting the impulse to rush to the nearest mirror and see how much of an idiot she looked.

‘It’s got a starting problem,’ she admitted through gritted teeth.

Behind her she heard the door open as someone came in, but before she could turn round Oliver Tennant was saying easily, ‘Well, perhaps, once I’ve moved into your place, I can repay your kindness by giving you a lift into town…at least until you’ve got your car fixed.’

Charlotte was furious; she opened her mouth to disabuse him of his idea that he would be ‘moving in’, as he termed it, but before she could say a word a familiar and decidedly shrill female voice cut in acidly.

‘You’re moving in with Charlotte, Oliver? Good heavens…why?’

Vanessa! Charlotte closed her eyes on a wave of disbelief. Of all people to have overheard Oliver’s comment, Vanessa was the very last one she would have chosen.

‘Charlotte has kindly offered to take me on as a lodger until I find a house of my own,’ she heard Oliver say smoothly to Vanessa.

‘But why? I told you we have a spare room. Heavens, Oliver, what can you be thinking of? Have you seen Charlie’s house? You’ll be very uncomfortable there.’