double doors that opened automatically at her approach, she promised that she would not. This time, she knew, she could hold her head high against any female she was compared with.
True, some might prefer petite brunettes or voluptuous, flashy redheads to her lean, chic blondeness, but of her style—if you liked that style—she was perfect.
Soignée. That was what her mother would have called it, approvingly.
Emotion clutched at Rachel’s heart. She subdued it instantly. Feelings of any kind would be fatal in this encounter. If she had any hope of succeeding she must be calm, confident and totally composed.
She was here to do business. Nothing more.
Absently, as she started to walk across the huge, echoing entrance lobby, she heard the automatic doors hiss softly shut behind her.
As if she were a prisoner.
A tiny prickle of apprehension snaked down her spine. She subdued it.
She was not a prisoner. She was not even a hostage.
She was here to propose a transaction, nothing more, which would have a favourable outcome for both parties.
Perfectly straightforward. So much so that no emotion whatsoever would be required of either of the participating parties.
She went on walking across the vast marbled floor, up to the huge semicircular reception floor in the middle, behind which towered another cleverly designed water feature: a wall of water so smooth it hardly seemed to be flowing at all.
Cool air wafted from the wall of water, freshening the artifice of air-conditioning that eased around the whole building.
She halted in front of the smartly dressed receptionist, who looked at her with polite enquiry.
‘I am here to see Mr Farneste,’ said Rachel.
She spoke in a composed voice, placing her clutch handbag on the wide reception desk surface that acted like a barricade around the woman she had just spoken to.
‘Your name, please?’ replied the receptionist, reaching for an appointment book.
‘Rachel Vaile,’ she answered, her voice unwavering.
The receptionist frowned.
‘I’m sorry, Ms Vaile, there doesn’t seem to be an entry for you.’
Rachel was undismayed. ‘If you phone his office and give my name, you will find he will see me,’ she said, with calm assurance.
The receptionist looked at her uncertainly. Rachel knew why, and gave an inward, caustic smile.
You think I’m one of his mistresses, don’t you? And you don’t know what to do if I am. Am I on his current list? Or will he have given his PA orders not to put me through if I phone or, even worse, show up in person?
The caustic smile turned bitter. She knew the routine. Oh, yes, she certainly knew the routine.
‘One moment, please,’ said the receptionist, and picked up the phone.
Rachel’s lips pressed together. She would be checking with his PA, as a good Farneste employee would always do.
‘Mrs Walters? I have a Ms Rachel Vaile in Reception. I’m afraid I can’t see an appointment in the book.’
There was a moment’s silence.
Then, ‘Very well. Thank you, Mrs Walters.’ From the expression on her face Rachel could tell what she had been instructed to do—dispose of her.
She was about to put the phone down. Calmly, Rachel intercepted the movement and took the receiver from her. The receptionist made a startled objection, but Rachel paid her no attention.
‘Mrs Walters? This is Rachel Vaile. Please inform Mr Farneste that I am in Reception. Tell him…’ she paused only for a hair’s breadth of time ‘…that I am in a position to offer him something that he considers very precious to him. Thank you so much. Oh, and Mrs Walters? You should tell him straight away. In three minutes’ time I will be out of the building, and the offer will be withdrawn. Good day.’
She handed the receiver back to the receptionist, who was looking at her speechlessly.
‘I’ll wait over there,’ she told the woman coolly. She glanced at her watch, picked up her clutch handbag, and went across to the island of white leather sofas surrounding a huge circular table on which the day’s papers were arranged with punishing neatness.
She picked up a copy of The Times and started to read the front page.
Precisely two minutes and fifty seconds after she had handed the phone back to the receptionist, a phone at the desk rang. Rachel turned the page of the newspaper and continued to read.
Thirty seconds later the receptionist was standing beside her.
‘Mrs Walters will meet you on the Executive Floor, Ms Vaile,’ she told Rachel.
There was a note in her voice that Rachel would have been deaf not to recognise.
Astonishment.
The lift glided her upwards. Bronzed walls reflected her in infinite regression, increasingly shadowy. As the doors opened a neatly dressed middle-aged woman stepped forward. Her face was bland.
‘Ms Vaile?’
Rachel nodded, face expressionless.
‘If you would come this way please…’
She led the way forward along a wide expanse of space, carpeted in cream and interspersed with pieces of large, abstract statuary. It was imposing, impressive. Designed to be intimidating. Intimidating to impudent interlopers such as herself, who had no business being here.
But Rachel was here to do business.
Nothing more.
And nothing less.
As they gained the far side of the atrial space she could see another reception desk, with two young women working there, both exceptionally beautiful. Rachel’s mouth tightened, but her expression did not alter. She was led past the two receptionists, aware of them looking at her as she walked by, and then past the office that was clearly Mrs Walters’s own. She was taken straight up to a large pair of chestnut wood double doors.
Mrs Walters knocked discreetly, and opened one of them.
‘Ms Vaile, Mr Farneste,’ she announced.
Rachel walked in.
Not a trace of emotion was in her face.
He was exactly the same. Seven years had not altered him. He was, as he would remain all his days, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
Beauty, she thought absently. Such a strange word to apply to a man. Yet it was the only one that fitted Vito Farneste.
The
