can clear the backlog in a matter of a day or two,’ Victor said slowly, as though talking to someone mentally deficient. ‘And Sam’s handled some of the overdue accounts. I made sure that she brought them up to date. Any more excuses?’
‘I really would rather not be on this particular job,’ Alice confessed flatly, when she couldn’t think of another excuse to give him. It made no difference anyway. She recognised that glint in his eye. She could throw a million excuses at him and short of her taking to her bed with a broken leg he would simply demolish them one by one until he had got what he wanted. Namely, her presence there.
‘Why not?’
‘I’d rather not go into it, if you don’t mind. I’m only asking you to respect my request.’
‘And I’d rather you did go into it, if you don’t mind. When I hear what you’ve got to say, then I’ll tell you whether I shall respect your request or not.’
Typical, she thought with helpless, frustrated despair. Typical, typical, typical. Anyone else would have simply nodded and let the matter rest. Anyone else with even an ounce of sympathy would have trusted that her reasons were valid, and would have acquiesced to her request. But not Victor Temple, oh, no. If he saw a Keep Out sign, then his immediate response was to try and get in. And he wouldn’t be content to try and find the easiest entrance. He would simply take the quickest route and would use whatever methods he had at his disposal. The man was a shark.
How could this have happened? How could the one man in the world she wanted to have nothing to do with, with the one stately house in the world she would rather never have re-entered, have chosen the one advertising company in the country she worked at to promote his wretched place?
She knew how, of course. Victor Temple ran the tightest ship. His advertising firm was highly respected because it was highly successful.
But, she reasoned, she need not divulge any of her private affairs to him. She nodded, defeated. ‘All right. I’ll come with you. Perhaps you could give me the precise date so that I can enter it into the diary?’
‘Dates. We’ll be there for a total of three days.’
Could it get worse?
‘And do you mind telling me why,’ Victor said casually, before they moved on to other things, ‘you’ve changed your mind?’
‘Yes. Actually, I do.’
The shrewd grey eyes looked at her carefully, as though he was seeing her for the first time.
‘What a day of revelations this is turning out to be,’ he said dryly. ‘First your little display of temper, and now some deep, dark secret. I’m beginning to wonder what other surprises you have in store for me.’
‘It’s no deep, dark secret,’ Alice told him, and she punctuated the lie with a light laugh. ‘And I don’t have any surprises in store for you, or anyone else for that matter.’
‘Well. I suppose we shall just have to wait and see.’ He returned her laugh with one of his own, but she could tell from the expression in his eyes that his curiosity had been aroused, and she contemplated the prospect of three days at Highfield House with sick trepidation.
They said that you could never really leave your past behind. Sooner or later it caught up with you.
Now her past was catching up. All she could do was ensure that it didn’t sink its claws into her.
CHAPTER TWO
THE following week was a nightmare. The pace at work was frantic. It seemed as though hundreds of clients had all decided to descend upon them at precisely the same time. The phone hardly stopped ringing, and the meetings were endless. Victor could exist indefinitely on a diet of no sleep—his stamina was amazing—but Alice could feel her nerves shredding as she trudged to meeting after meeting, taking notes, writing up minutes and in between catching up on everything else.
Portugal and sunshine seemed like months ago. And it didn’t help matters that Highfield House hung over her head like a dark cloud, full of the promise of thunder.
Her capacity to remember amazed her. All those years ago, and still she could recall entire conversations with James Claydon, as though they had taken place the day before. And it seemed as though each passing hour added another little snippet of recollection, another small, bitter memory of the past she had spent four years trying to forget.
On the morning they were due to travel up, her nerves had reached such a point that she felt physically ill when she went to answer the door to Victor.
He had decided against having his chauffeur drive them and as she pulled open the door she saw, immediately, that he had not dressed for work. No suit. In its place, dark green trousers, a striped shirt and a thick cream woollen jumper over it. Alice looked at him, taken aback by his casual appearance, and after a few seconds of complete silence he said sarcastically, ‘I do possess the odd change of clothes.’
‘Sorry.’ She bent to pick up her holdall, which he insisted on taking from her, and then followed him out to his car—a black convertible Jaguar which breathed opulence.
‘There really was no need for you to wear a suit,’ he said as she settled into the passenger seat. ‘This is supposed to be a relaxing three-day break. We’ll stroll round the grounds—’ he started the engine and slowly manoeuvred the car out ‘—have an informal, guided tour of the house so that we know which rooms will lend themselves to the most flattering photographs, discuss the history of the place.’ He shot her a quick, sidelong look. ‘No power meetings. I’ll expect you to make some notes along the way, naturally, but that’s about it.’
‘I didn’t think,’ Alice said, glancing down at her navy blue outfit, the straight-cut skirt and waist-length jacket, and the crisp white shirt underneath. The sort of clothing that was guaranteed to make the most glamorous woman totally asexual. She had chosen the ensemble deliberately. She supposed that she would meet James at some point during their stay, very likely as soon as they pulled up, and she needed the sort of working gear that would put her in a frame of mind that would enable her to cope with the encounter.
With any luck, he might well not recognise her at all, though it was highly unlikely. She had changed during the past four years, had cut her hair, lost a fair amount of weight, but most of the changes had been inside her. Disillusionment had altered her personality for ever, but physically she had remained more or less the same.
She tried to picture him, after all this time and with so much muddy water stretching between them, and her mind shut down completely.
‘I hope you’ve brought something slightly less formal than what you’re wearing,’ Victor told her. ‘We don’t want to intimidate the client. Which reminds me. There’s a file on the back seat Read it. It contains all the background information you need on him. Might find it useful.’
Alice hesitated. She had debated whether she should tell Victor that she knew James, or at least had known him at one point in time. After all, how would she explain it if he greeted her with recognition, as he almost inevitably would? On the other hand, she had no desire to open that particular door because Victor would edge in before she could shut it, and then subject her to a barrage of questions, none of which she would be inclined to answer.
In the end, she’d decided that she
