she instructed her secretary on the way through to her own office, feeling at ease among the comfortable opulence of the solid oak desk, cream leather suite, dark brown carpet, several of her favourite paintings on the walls. She had made several small changes since she took over, but not many, having helped with the original design of the office.
Rocharlle Allenby-Hart. Was she really the ‘rich bitch’ Aaron Grantley had accused her of being? It was true that her parents were already very rich by the time she was born, and she, a late addition to their lives, had wanted for nothing. It was also true that James had been extremely rich when she married him. But whoever had quipped ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ had known what he was talking about! She was richer now than her parents or James had ever been, had made even more of a success of the company since she took over, but her parents were gone, and so was James. And she certainly wasn’t happy.
She picked up the receiver on the second ring, having been lost in thought as she stared out of the window. ‘Yes, Sarah?’ she prompted briskly.
‘Mr Anderson is on line one,’ her secretary informed her lightly.
For a moment she had forgotten her request for Sarah to call him. ‘Put him through,’ she instructed softly.
‘Charly, now lovely to hear from you.’ The man who had been her father’s lawyer before hers, greeted her cheerfully. ‘I was going to call you myself later.’
‘Ian,’ she returned abruptly, able to visualise the senior partner of Anderson, Anderson, and McCloed in his book-lined office, the decor comfortable to say the least, not at all musty and dusty the way most people imagined a lawyer’s office to be. Ian was another advocate of her father’s rule, his offices were the epitome of elegance and comfort. ‘I’m not sure you’ll still be pleased to hear from me at the end of this conversation,’ she added ruefully.
‘Oh?’ he prompted guardedly.
Charly smiled; Ian had a lawyer’s usual reserve, despite knowing her for years. And this time perhaps he had reason to have; she was very displeased about the turn her negotiations for Shevton House had taken. ‘Aaron Grantley knows the identity of his competitor in the Shevton House deal,’ she came straight to the point.
‘Are you sure?’ The frown could be heard in his tone of voice.
‘I spoke to the man myself yesterday,’ she revealed with a sigh. ‘Or rather, he spoke to me,’ she amended ruefully, remembering the conversation—vividly. No one had ever made the assumption before—erroneous or otherwise—that she was any man’s mistress, not even James’. ‘He left me in no doubt that he was well aware I was the other party interested in the deal. I told you I wanted my involvement kept strictly private,’ she reminded hardly, having been completely shaken the evening before when Aaron Grantley had so casually mentioned her interest in a deal she had considered not to be public knowledge. Years of hiding her true feelings had enabled her to hide her shock, but nevertheless it had greatly disturbed her.
‘I’ve done exactly as you instructed, Charly,’ Ian sounded concerned. ‘You don’t suppose Shevton himself would have—–’
‘He would have if he knew I was behind the second offer he received—did he?’
‘Well, I may have mentioned—–’
‘Ian, I told you not to reveal my identity,’ she cut in angrily.
‘I know,’ he soothed. ‘But the man was proving difficult, and I thought he would keep the information to himself. He wanted to make sure the house that’s been in his family for centuries wasn’t going to be knocked down and the estate built on. I had to tell him who you were to convince him you didn’t have anything like that in mind, that’s why I was going to call you later. I had no idea Grantley would actually confront you with the offer. I also have to tell you Shevton leans more towards you, he doesn’t particularly want the place to be turned into a hotel.’
‘You told him my plans for the house?’ she demanded sharply.
‘Of course not,’ Ian denied. ‘But he knows the way you do business.’
Charly sighed. ‘He now also knows who the two bidders are and can play one off against the other.’
‘I had to stall him in a hurry,’ Ian defended. ‘Otherwise he would have let the deal go directly to Grantley; he wasn’t much in favour of letting it go to an anonymous party for mysterious reasons.’
‘Very well, Ian, I can see you didn’t have any choice,’ she accepted heavily. ‘But I’m not happy about the situation.’
‘I can understand that,’ he acknowledged ruefully. ‘But I knew this was one deal you wouldn’t want to lose, and I couldn’t contact you last night when I called your apartment.’
‘I’ve been staying at a friend’s,’ she explained in a preoccupied voice.
‘I’m really sorry about all this, I had no idea Shevton would tell Grantley who you were.’
‘It’s done now,’ she dismissed abruptly. ‘Keep me informed on your progress—or lack of it,’ she added flatly, knowing they were in for a long haul.
‘I will. And, Charly, I really am sorry,’ he sighed.
‘No harm done,’ she assured him with more confidence than she felt. Richard Shevton would have had to have been told of her identity eventually, she knew that, just as she couldn’t dictate what he did with that information. He must be more of a businessman than she had realised, she decided. The congenial owner of Shevton House and its surrounding thousand acres didn’t come over as being shrewd when it came to business, but Charly knew better than anyone how deceptive appearances could be.
‘Sarah.’ She looked up with a smile as her secretary came in answer to her call. ‘I have a feeling a Mr Aaron Grantley will either be telephoning or coming here in person some time today; I want you to make sure he knows I’m unavailable,’ she frowned. She had no doubt that when Matt told the other man she was Rocharlle Hart he would demand an explanation from her. She would have given him one last night if he had given her the opportunity to do so. Now she didn’t feel that she owed him anything, after all he was the one who had jumped to conclusions.
‘Yes, Mrs Hart,’ Sarah looked puzzled by the request.
Charly gave a rueful smile. ‘He’s been making a nuisance of himself.’ That wasn’t exactly a lie, he was a nuisance, and she also knew Sarah would be even more determined to keep Aaron Grantley at bay if she thought he was one of the numerous men who believed it would be nice to marry her money. She had met a lot of them the last year.
‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you,’ Sarah told her firmly.
She didn’t normally need help to deter the sort of man she had implied Aaron Grantley to be, had been brought up as Rocharlle Allenby, had cut her adult teeth on fortune-hunters. One of the pluses in becoming James’s wife was that he had been even richer than she. But of course he had wanted something from her far more important to him than money, and marrying her had instantly given him that.
By late afternoon she had begun to think she had been wrong about Aaron Grantley’s next move; there had been no contact from him. Then just after four she heard raised voices in the outer office. Aaron Grantley didn’t sound as if he were accepting Sarah’s claim that she wasn’t
