CHAPTER THREE

      SHE couldn’t leave. Thinking back about it, and God knew she had thought about it all a million times over the past few months, she could see that she should have done. She should have nipped her growing love for him in the bud, and then she might have been able to retreat from the relationship with her dignity and emotional stability relatively intact.

      But she stayed, and for a while things settled down into an uneasy pattern. James was hardly around, and when he was she knew that he was avoiding her. The few times they bumped into each other, he was scrupulously polite to her, and she in turn tried to hide the lovesick longing in her eyes.

      She still hadn’t breathed a word of what was happening to either her parents, who would have been appalled by the whole thing, or to Jackie, who would have laughed and insisted that it was all a girlish crush, the result of having led such a retiring, introverted life as far as the opposite sex were concerned.

      Then, the unthinkable happened. She went for an interview at a small but fast-expanding local advertising firm who were looking for someone to work in their creative department.

      ‘I expect you won’t have to give any notice at this cleaning job that you’re doing,’ her prospective boss said, reading through her application form and tapping his fingers on the desk as though he had more pressing things to do and really wanted the interview to conclude as quickly and painlessly as possible.

      Claire looked at the downbent head miserably. She had already been shown around the company, met some of the people she would be working with, if she managed to land the job, and had been introduced to some of the types of work that she would be expected to do, and it was all exactly what she had had in mind when she had first moved to Reading from London.

      So there was no way that she could blow her chances away by trying to juggle Frilton Manor and the job, and there was also no way that she could maintain any sort of part-time work at the Manor in the evenings because Tony, now looking at her impatiently and waiting for her answer, had told her from the start that overtime was unpaid and expected when the situation demanded, take it or leave it.

      ‘Well?’ he asked. He had a high, slightly effeminate voice and was good looking in a very blond, vaguely limpid way. He was her idea of what Adonis must have looked like. She had a suspicion that he probably never travelled without a comb in the breast pocket of his jacket and was addicted to looking at himself in mirrors. But she knew that all that concealed a fairly sharp brain because she had seen some examples of his work and they were brilliant.

      ‘Yes. I mean no. I mean,’ she said, gathering her thoughts together with effort, ‘I won’t have to give any notice. Perhaps a couple of days or so.’

      ‘Good.’ He looked at his watch and issued her with his first smile since she had arrived two hours ago. ‘In that case, you can start next Monday. Eight-thirty sharp. Sandra will take care of you until you find your feet, and Personnel will send you your contract through the post later today. You should have it by tomorrow, or day after latest.’

      Claire’s mouth sagged open.

      ‘I can see you’re thrilled,’ Tony said smugly. ‘I needn’t tell you that you were one of thirty who applied for the job. We had a much bigger response than we had expected.’ He stood up and she followed suit hurriedly. ‘I must dash now,’ he said, moving or rather gliding towards the door and opening it for her. ‘Meetings call.’

      She was still in a daze by the time she made it to Frilton Manor and she spent the remainder of the day viciously dusting and cleaning. She was wiping the row of books in the study when the door opened and she turned around to see James standing framed in the doorway, looking at her as though she had taken leave of her senses.

      They stared at each other in silence for a while then he moved towards the desk and said drily,

      ‘You look murderous. I didn’t think that dusting a few books could do that to anyone.’ He began pressing buttons on the small computer on the desk, with his back to her, and she wondered whether he had forgotten about her being there at all.

      ‘I’ve got a job,’ she informed him bluntly, and he stopped what he was doing and turned around to face her.

      It was obvious that he had just come from work, from the looks of it to continue working from the study. His jacket had been discarded, and the sleeves of his shirt were carelessly rolled back to the elbows, but he was still wearing his suit trousers, and his tie, deep burgundy silk, which had been tugged down so that the top button of his shirt could be undone. Did he know how devastatingly sexy he looked, standing there, watching her with those disconcerting green eyes?

      ‘Congratulations,’ he said politely. ‘Well done. Where is it?’

      She told him, taking a masochistic delight in dwelling on the attractive package that had been offered her, even though she knew that her voice sounded far removed from enthusiastic.

      ‘I suppose you’re relieved,’ she finished, looking at him defiantly.

      ‘Why should I be?’

      ‘Because,’ Claire continued relentlessly, ‘you won’t have to dodge my childish infatuation with you any longer.’ What did she have to lose by saying all this? she asked herself fiercely. It made her feel good getting it all off her chest, anyway.

      ‘Your childish infatuation was very flattering to an old man like myself,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘For the first time I began to understand why some older men can’t resist the lure of a much younger woman.’

      Ah. He had called her a woman. That felt good. She stood with her hands behind her back and lifted her chin.

      ‘You act as though you’re a hundred. How old are you?’

      ‘Do you have to be so outspoken?’ he asked with the ghost of a smile.

      ‘You know it’s the way I am,’ Claire said very coolly, considering her throat felt like sandpaper.

      ‘I’m thirty-four.’

      ‘Is that all?’

      ‘You mean I look older?’ He laughed. ‘Watch it, I might start getting a complex.’

      This was the first time since their uneasy pact of silence that they were speaking to each other without reservation, and she felt herself relax and open up. He was the only man she had ever met who could do that to her, make her feel confident enough to speak her mind without thinking too much about the consequences.

      ‘I mean,’ she explained, ‘that’s awfully young to own all this.’ She made a broad sweeping gesture. ‘Did you inherit it?’

      ‘Not exactly. Would you like a drink? Anything but gin and tonic.’

      Claire shook her head, blushing at the glint that flitted through his eyes when he said that.

      He turned and poured himself a drink