CHAPTER ONE
GRIMACING at the rain, Christa Bellingham hurried from the car park to the hotel forecourt, cursing the abrupt and unforecast change in the weather which meant that she had neither coat nor umbrella to protect her from the heavy downpour.
Up ahead of her a taxi was disgorging its two male passengers into the protection of the canopy above the hotel entrance as Christa ducked her head against the driving rain, mentally bewailing the vanity which had led to her deciding to wear her precious Armani. She was only calling in at the hotel to drop off some fabric samples and prices for John Richards, the hotel manager, on her way to the local Chamber of Commerce, where a talk was being given later in the evening on a subject in which she took a deep and antagonistic interest.
She had protested against the speaker’s being invited to address them right from the start, but Howard Findley, the new head of the chamber, had insisted that it was time they shed their old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud image and open themselves up to the possibilities of new theories and projects.
‘We might as well give a blank cheque to every charlatan who wants to come and cry his wares and get paid for it,’ Christa had protested bitterly.
‘Daniel Geshard doesn’t charge a speaker’s fee,’ John had told her mildly, but Christa had refused to be mollified. No matter how much John might have been impressed by the man, Christa knew exactly what type he was—and what he was up to. Deception was the name of the game for men like him, and they didn’t care how much pain or suffering they caused in achieving their ends, as she knew all too well…All too well.
Daniel Geshard was coming to talk to them for one purpose and one purpose only—so that he could sell himself and his spurious New Age theories to anyone gullible enough to buy them, and that included the council.
Her head full of angry thoughts, Christa closed her eyes briefly in despair. Howard Findley was a nice man, genuine and good-hearted, but he was no match for the likes of the Daniel Geshards of this world, and already, just on the strength of a telephone chat with the man, Howard was talking enthusiastically about persuading the council to fund several groups of key employees and officials through one of Daniel Geshard’s miracle courses.
‘He’s got this wonderful idea about being able to reach out to even the most disaffected members of our society and to help them get back in touch with themselves, with their real emotions and motivations,’ he had enthused.
Howard talked like that. Christa much preferred the plain straight facts and realities of life, rather than having them wrapped up in fancy words and theories…
‘Whoops!’
The amused male warning and the shock of her totally unexpected contact with the hard, warm body attached to it brought Christa’s head up sharply and her mind back to the present. The automatic brisk apology she had been about to give died on her lips as she found herself staring dazedly into a pair of pale grey, thickly lashed male eyes alight with warmth…warmth and something much…much more personal.
Yes. There was a lot more than mere good humour in the way their owner was studying her, just as there was a lot more than mere male good looks in the face they belonged to, Christa admitted as she suddenly found herself struggling slightly for breath while her heart flipped over inside her chest and her pulse-rate beat out an excited tattoo message of approval and attraction.
And he was attractive, Christa recognised, as she stood there half mesmerised, the pouring rain forgotten in her bemused concentration on the man standing in front of her. Tall and powerfully built, almost athletically so, if the speed and skill with which he had so adroitly prevented her from running full-tilt into him was anything to go by, with thick, dark, well-groomed hair and skin that smelled of fresh air and rain rather than some cloying, unpleasantly heavy aftershave.
The dark business suit was fashioned, Christa recognised with an expert eye, out of extremely good cloth and tailored here in this country, which meant that the slightly battered basic Rolex watch he was wearing had probably got that way through constant use on his part rather than being bought second-hand as the latest statussymbol fashion accessory.
This was not a man who needed to underline his masculinity with status symbols of any kind, Christa decided approvingly. This was a man who would have looked equally impressive in an old, worn pair of jeans-equally impressive and very, very male.
Just for a second her mouth curled upwards in delicious feminine fantasy as she momentarily exchanged his suit for those jeans and their present surroundings for a certain TV advertisement made very popular with female viewers by the actor Nick Kamen. As she smiled, the expression in the grey male eyes deepened slightly, intensifying as though he too was conscious of her physical attraction towards him—and shared it.
The strong physical and emotional pull she could feel was so completely unfamiliar to her that it had taken her completely off guard. She felt as though she had somehow stepped into a special and magical world, encompassed by his smile and the warm aura he had thrown almost protectively around her.
As he continued to watch her, the temptation to do something totally out of character and dangerously reckless almost had her taking that small but oh, so giveaway step towards him which he seemed to be silently encouraging and inviting; but then, from the hotel doorway, she heard the man with him calling out impatiently, ‘Come on, Daniel, let’s get booked in and then I’ll go and scout around the town and see if I can find two pretty and willing girls for us to enjoy ourselves with after this talk of yours is over and done with. You’ll be ready for a bit of light relief by then, and besides, I need a drink…’
‘I’ll be with you in a second, Dai.’
Daniel…Christa felt her whole body turn to ice as she stared at the man in front of her in sick disbelief.
‘What is it—what’s wrong?’ he was asking her in apparent concern, taking that small step towards her himself now and, in doing so, narrowing the distance between them to one of close intimacy, the distance of lovers…of seducers.
Daniel. Christa’s throat felt as though it had been scraped raw with sandpaper and then doused with acid.
‘That wouldn’t be Daniel Geshard, would it?’ she asked him gnttily, her hands balling into small, tight fists.
He was frowning now, his expression puzzled. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact it would. But…’
Christa didn’t wait to hear any more. Her face flushing with anger and mortification, she immediately stepped away from him, ignoring the hand he was reaching out to detain her, her voice icy with distaste and harsh with angry disgust.
‘Is that normally how you see your business meetings, Mr Geshard…as a boring preliminary to the real enjoyment? Had
n’t you better go?’ she added pointedly. ‘Your friend appears to be getting impatient.’
Before he could say anything to her, she turned on her heel and left. John would have to wait for his samples and his quotes. If she followed Daniel Geshard into the hotel foyer now, there was no way she could trust herself not to tell him exactly what she thought of him and all men of his type.
But as she hurried back to her car it wasn’t just anger she could feel. So much for her belief in her ability to judge someone’s character! How could she have been so stupid? Why hadn’t she guessed who he was…what type he was? How could she have been so gullible…she of all people?
Seething inwardly, she got into her car and drove home. She had just enough time to change out of her now damp clothes before the Chamber of Commerce meeting began. There was no way she was going to miss attending it now…no way she intended not to make quite plain her views, her views on the subject of Daniel Geshard’s speech…And on the speaker himself?
As soon as she got home, Christa dialled the number of the hotel and explained to the manager that she had been unable to call with his samples but that she would drop them off another time. Then she hurried into her bedroom, where she stripped off her clothes, grimacing in distaste at their clamminess; then she quickly dried and rebrushed her long, thick chestnut hair, confining it with a simple headband after she had put on fresh clothes.
Small and curvaceous, with widely spaced, almost aquamarine-coloured eyes in a pretty heart-shaped face, Christa had had to work hard to banish other people’s image of her as a pretty woman with no real head for business. Firmly refusing to compromise or alter the way she looked, or make herself conform to a stereotypical and often male idea of what a businesswoman should look like, hadn’t always been easy, especially in the early days when she had taken over the business from her great-aunt. She knew that there were still those locally who thought she had fallen on her feet in inheriting her aunt’s textile import business, but in the years before her death her great-aunt had let the business become very run-down.
Christa had been brought up by her great-aunt after her own parents’ deaths, and before going to university and training as a designer she had frequently travelled abroad with her relative, visiting the various suppliers from whom she bought her cloth.
It had been cheaper and more practical for the older woman to take her great-niece with her during the school holidays, rather than try to find someone else to look after her, and out of loyalty and love for her great-aunt Christa had kept silent about the way in which she had lost her grip on the business.
It had saddened Christa to discover how much her great-aunt had lost her old skills of running ahead of the market and picking the right fabrics, and to see how some of her suppliers had started to fob her off with inferior cloths.
Christa had had to work hard to reverse all that. Sometimes she had had to behave more ruthlessly than was really in her nature to do, but at least the business was beginning to pick up again. Her training and flair as a designer had helped her, of course, and the bank manager was just beginning to stop frowning every time he saw her.
‘You’re so damned self-possessed,’ a would-be boyfriend had once complained to her. ‘Sometimes I wonder just what the hell it would take to break down that barrier of yours. Whatever it is, whoever it is, it isn’t me…What is it you’re waiting for, Christa?’ he had demanded angrily. ‘A prince?’
‘I’m not waiting for anyone…any man,’ Christa had told him truthfully.
And yet earlier this evening, just for a moment…Angrily she picked up her jacket.
Thank God she had realised just who Daniel Geshard was before…before what?
Nothing would really have happened. She just mustn’t allow her feelings, her emotions, however powerful they might be, to control her. She had seen all too clearly the disastrous consequences that could result from a woman believing she was in love and loved in turn by the kind of man who earned his living through deceit…Like Piers Philips.
Quickly she closed her eyes. Even now, after all these years, it still hurt her to think of Laura. To remember…
She and Laura had been at university together, and they had both been in their final year when Laura had met and fallen for Piers Philips, a New Age selfacclaimed philosopher and guru with whom Laura had become so besotted that she had dropped out of the course before taking her finals and married him.
Laura’s father was an extremely wealthy industrialist, and Laura herself had inherited a considerable amount of money from her grandmother. She and Piers intended to use this, she told Christa enthusiastically, to buy a large country house where Piers would open a counselling and stress clinic.
Christa had to admit that even she had been taken in by Piers’ enthusiasm and ideals. She had been so very gullible and innocent then, even half envying Laura her charismatic husband and the wonderful life they were going to build together.
But, once Laura and Piers were married, things very quickly started to go wrong. Laura complained then that she suspected that Piers was being unfaithful to her; that he neglected her.
Christa would never forgive herself for the fact that she had allowed Piers to convince her Laura was suffering from some kind of hormonal depression brought on by her pregnancy, and that the affair she was accusing him of was completely imaginary, so that, instead of supporting Laura, she had urged her to put aside her doubts and concentrate on the future, to think of her marriage and her coming baby.
Piers had taken her out to dinner to thank her for her support. ‘Laura couldn’t have a better friend,’ he had told her.
A better friend…Christa’s throat tightened in remembered grief and pain.
The only excuse she could give herself was that she had been young and naive and that, even then, Piers had been an arch manipulator, enjoying the game he was playing with both of them, enjoying deceiving them.
Three months after their baby, a little girl, was born, Piers had left Laura amid a storm of gossip. The girl he had left Laura for came from an aristocratic and very rich family. Laura’s money, the money she had inherited from her grandmother, had all gone; all she had had left was the mountain of debts Piers had run out on.
‘Some of his clients have even threatened to sue for malpractice,’ Laura had sobbed when Christa had tried to comfort her.
‘You’ll get over him,’ Christa had told her comfortingly.
‘No, I won’t…I’ll never get over him,’ Laura had told her bleakly. ‘How can I?’
Six weeks later she was dead. An overdose taken while she was in the grip of post-natal depression had been the official verdict, but Christa suspected otherwise…It was her relationship with Piers, and his systematic and cold-hearted deceit of her, that had killed her, she was sure, and Christa had vowed that never, ever again would she allow herself, or anyone else, to be taken in by that kind of man; she would do everything and anything she could to reveal and to expose what they really were.
As she intended to do this evening with Daniel Geshard.
She looked at herself bleakly in the mirror before she went downstairs. It had shocked and disturbed her that she would have so easily fallen victim to his apparent charm. Was she in some way particularly flawed, in that she seemed destined not to be immediately able to recognise his type? Well, Daniel Geshard was one con-man she was not going to be taken in by, and she intended to make sure that he knew it.
* * *
‘And now, on behalf of us all, I would just like to thank our speaker for his most informative and…’
Informative rubbish. Christa fumed; everything she had heard tonight only confirmed and strengthened her belief that the kind of role-changing games advocated by this supposed guru of the latest business fad were, in real business terms, completely worthless.
And as for the speaker himself…anger deepened the warm peach-coloured skin of Christa’s face as she contemplated the man standing behind the podium with glittering aquamar
ine eyes.
For some reason she had anticipated that Daniel Geshard, their speaker, would have cultivated a slightly more green and politically correct appearance, choosing to wear, instead of his immaculate suit—a suit which she had already observed at close hand and knew to be extremely expensive—something more disarming and ‘friendly’…battered cords, perhaps, and a thick handknitted sweater…or jeans and…
No, not the fantasy of the jeans again! The angry glitter of her eyes became even more pronounced, the self-derisory curl of her mouth even stronger, and she reflected on her own idiotic folly in actually imagining that she could possibly have found such a man physically attractive, that her heart had actually skipped that betraying beat, that she had actually felt that small dangerous thrill of sensual excitement.
He was a poseur, a charlatan…a con-man bent on coaxing the foolish and unwary to part with their money in return for some unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable claim that he could somehow turn their supposedly tired and stressed employees into people with so much enthusiasm for their work that they would doubtless enable their employers to recoup the cost of sending them on his courses by their astonishing diligence and delight in their work.
No. The only person to profit from what he claimed he had to offer would be him, Christa decided contemptuously.
The head of the Chamber of Commerce was asking if anyone wanted to ask any questions.
Immediately, Christa got to her feet.
The manufactured pleasure in Daniel Geshard’s grey eyes as they studied her made her lip curl in disdain. Oh, yes, she had seen the way he had reacted when he’d spotted her in his audience, the quick, oh, so false smile of warm pleasure—followed by a small questioning frown as she turned her head away, refusing to acknowledge his recognition of her.
But then, of course, it was in his interests to deceive her into believing that he found her attractive. Grimly she wondered how many female executives had succumbed to that heart-twisting grey-eyed message of interest and attraction, only to discover that what he really wanted was their signature on a form enticing their employees to take part in one of his ridiculous courses.