"No..." He straightened and stood back from the taxi and just for a moment, an insane moment, he seemed vulnerable and strangely alone among the crowds thronging the terminal, his eyes bleak and uncertain as they held hers. She felt herself leaning forward instinctively but then the taxi moved off and the moment was lost. She sank back against the upholstered seat that smelt vaguely of leather and smoke as her heart thudded its beat violently against her chest. She really must be losing her reason. If the taxi hadn't chosen that second to move away she would have made the most colossal foot of herself for the second time in twenty-four hours. What would she have said to him? She didn't know. What she did know was that her hand had been moving to reach out to his. She shut her eyes tightly. He would probably have ignored it with that icy-cold disdain he
was so good at or, worse, made a cool cynical remark that would have cut her in two.
She had to leave him. No. She corrected herself firmly. She had to leave
Strade Engineering's employ, that was all it meant. That was all it had to mean.
She dropped her suitcase off at home before continuing in the taxi to the office, where she worked furiously until just on five, when she left on the dot. She wasn't normally time-conscious, just the opposite in fact, but the thought of being around when Wolf returned fresh from Elda's arms was too much. OK, so she had been wrong about Sue, she told herself bleakly as the tube carried her swiftly homewards, but Elda still remained. And it was worse, somehow, that Elda was so inoffensive--likeable even. If she had been another Sue, hard and patently selfish, Lydia could have dismissed her as
just another jet-setter out for kicks, but Elda was nice. And Wolf displayed a gentleness with her that seemed to belie his earlier comments on his attitude to his women. But perhaps this appointment had nothing to do with Elda? The hope died as quickly as it was born.
Somehow a primitive instinct that was irrefragable told her it had.
Hannah's welcome was ecstatic, and for an hour or so the ache in her heart eased as she played with her daughter before getting tea. The trip had been hectic and not conducive to shopping, but she had found the perfect present in the airport shop, a delicate gold chain with a tiny little engraved locket that she knew Hannah would love. Matthew had bought Lydia a similar, much larger one on her eighteenth birthday, which had always held untold fascination for her daughter, and now Hannah insisted on keeping hers on as they went upstairs for her evening bath. As she soaped the tiny wriggling body, responding to a long, involved story Hannah was telling her about an incident at nursery, the phone began to ring downstairs.
"Oh, Mummeee..." Hannah's pouting lower lip and disappointed face as she made to lift her out of the bath halted her in her tracks. The phone continued relentlessly. What if it was Wolf? Her stomach lurched helplessly. Well, what if it was? She turned back to Hannah with a reassuring smile.
"Five more minutes and that's all." If it was Wolf, if, he could always phone back later, and why would it be him, anyway? She was beginning to get into the realms of fantasy with this thing, she thought testily. All that had happened, the bare unadulterated fact, was that he had been tempted to indulge in a brief convenient affair with his temporary secretary, and when she had refused _had accepted the rebuff with the minimum of emotion. He was probably quite relieved, her mind ground on ruthlessly. Once the initial passion had been sated she would have become the proverbial millstone round his neck. He knew, and she knew, that she just wasn't his type. Naive, inexperienced, unsophisticated? Probably, she thought grimly. But if there was a choice of remaining as she was or becoming like one of the women he usually enjoyed, she knew she had had no alternative but to act as she had.
To do otherwise would have been emotional suicide.
She had just settled herself in front of the television later that evening.
Tiger a warm bundle of purring fur on her lap, when the telephone rang again.
"Lydia?" Ridiculous, stupid, but at the sound of his deep, silky voice her oxygen-level took a nosedive.
"Is this a good moment?" the dark voice asked carefully.
"A good moment?" She tried valiantly to pull herself together and act like a responsible, mature adult.
"I wanted to talk to you." There was a brief pause, and just for a moment she felt he was finding this conversation as nerve-racking as she was, but that was crazy.
"I'd prefer it be somewhere private, not the office." This time the pause was longer.
"Are you free now if I come round?"
"But--' She stopped abruptly and took a long, deep shuddering breath.
What did he want to come round for? The answer registered in every nerve of her body and scared her half to death. She wanted him to come round, to make love to her. "Can you give me some idea of what it's about?" she asked faintly.
Did he think that her rage over Sue had indicated she was jealous?
That she wanted him? That her 'no' had been a subtle come-on? Perhaps he wasn't _used to being refused, and that apparent calm and cold acceptance of her rebuff had merely hidden a ruthless determination to get his own way?
"You know," he said quietly.
"This attraction between us."
"Oh." His very control was intimidating. He was so much in command of every situation, the master of his own emotions and everyone else's.
Suddenly she had to ask, and she knew she wouldn't be able to do it if he stood before her in the flesh.
"That appointment tonight?" She shut her eyes tightly.
"Was it with Elda?" she asked bleakly.
"How did you know?" He sounded surprised, nothing more. No guilt. No shame.