For a few seconds Polly was too surprised to answer.
‘Oh, goodness!’ she finally exclaimed weakly. ‘I’m no expert, Phil. You’re a hotel owner yourself, and I’m sure you’re more than capable of using your own judgement.’
‘Not in this instance. This hotel is nothing like the one I already own, and besides…’ He paused, and then told her quietly, ‘Look, I don’t want to go into too many details over the phone but I really would appreciate your input into this, Polly. I was very, very impressed with what you’ve done at Fraser House.’
‘It’s very kind of you to say that Phil,’ Polly said, ‘but—’
‘Look, all I’m asking is that you come down to London, have dinner with me; you can stay here at the hotel overnight—at my expense, of course—and…’
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t do that,’ Polly protested immediately. ‘If I were to come down I’d prefer to make my own overnight arrangements.’
‘But you will come down and have dinner with me?’ Phil pounced immediately. ‘I mean it, Polly; I really do need your advice.’
Polly wavered. Phil was a flirt, and a very accomplished one, and she wasn’t so naive that she wasn’t aware that if she allowed him to do so he would be more than happy to take their acquaintanceship a stage further and to become personally involved with her. She simply wasn’t that type of woman, and had he merely been telephoning to invite her out to dinner…But his plea to her for her professional advice was a different matter, and Polly felt she would be less than human if she wasn’t just a little bit flattered.
‘Phil…’ she began cautiously just as she heard her office door opening. ‘Dinner would be lovely but…’
She froze as Marcus came into the room, immediately feeling oddly guilty as well as slightly breathless. ‘Phil, I have to go…’ she said. But before she could ring off Phil was telling her, ‘Look, don’t give me your answer now. Have a think about it and I’ll ring back later. I really do want your advice, Polly—as well as your company,’ he added in a softer, more meaningful voice before he hung up.
‘Who was that?’ Marcus demanded sharply as Polly replaced the receiver.
‘It was Phil Bernstein,’ Polly responded automatically, before adding challengingly, ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘What did he want?’ Marcus pressed her, ignoring the second half of her answer and the warning glint in her eyes.
‘What he wanted,’ Polly told him with quiet dignity, ‘was to ask me to go down to London to have dinner with him.’
‘What? You said no, of course.’
It was the ‘of course’ that did it—that and the high-handed way in which Marcus was behaving, as though she were a child and he somehow had the right to dictate what she did.
‘I haven’t given him my answer yet,’ she informed Marcus shortly. ‘He’s going to ring back, and when he does…’
‘When he does, you’ll tell him no,’ Marcus informed her sharply. ‘The man’s a womaniser, Polly, and you—’
They both tensed as her telephone rang, but when Polly went to pick it up she discovered that the call was for Marcus from the oil company. Leaving him to take it in private, she walked out of the room.
‘You’ll tell him no’ indeed…! Why should she? Why shouldn’t she accept Phil’s invitation if she wanted to? Why shouldn’t she live a little if she wanted to? If she wanted to. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She didn’t want to, at least not with Phil…
She waited until she was sure that Marcus had concluded his call before going back into her office. He was frowning and looking very preoccupied.
‘I’m rather busy, Marcus,’ she told him pointedly. ‘Was there something you wanted to see me about?’
She could tell from his expression that her cool, businesslike manner irked him. Well, let it. Let him have a taste of his own medicine.
Her unfamiliar stubbornness was surprising Polly a little, but it was also making her feel very strong and powerful.
Looking away from him, she started to busy herself with the papers on her desk, but it was obvious that Marcus was not impressed—or going to be put off. Placing his hands squarely on her desk, he leaned towards her and demanded, ‘Stop play-acting, Polly; it doesn’t work. What’s the idea of this?’ he added, reaching into his jacket and extracting an envelope.
Polly’s heart gave a little anxious skip as she recognised her own handwriting on it. She knew what it was, of course. It was the envelope she had sent to him enclosing the cheque to cover the cost of her new dress.