a few sets with her at the tennis club from time to time. But a twenty-year-old young man didn’t want to be seen by his contemporaries in public with a ten-year-old he’d nicknamed ‘urchin’; he met girls of his own age and went around with them, fancied himself in love and gained some useful experience.
When he came home from Botswana he was twenty-eight. His face was tanned now, his features almost as lean, but his body had filled out, become that of a man instead of a boy. He had found strength, not only physical strength but mental self-assurance, too. He had been in charge of an important project and a great many men, and it had given him an authority which showed.
Alix, too, had met a lot of boys and young men, had gone out with some she liked, but there had been no question of any romance; she was just as in love with Rhys as that first day and had no interest in anyone else. When Rhys came home, soon after her eighteenth birthday, she was starry-eyed, convinced that he would immediately be bowled over when he saw her, that they would be officially engaged at once and be married in no time at all. Her mother did her best to dissuade her, but Alix merely laughed and said, ‘You’ll see.’
When Rhys saw her, grown tall and slender, wearing a very feminine dress and her face made-up, his eyebrows did in fact rise—but he laughed as he said, ‘Good grief! It can’t be my little Alix all grown-up.’
She gave him a shy, yet breathlessly eager look, expecting him to treat her like an adult, like his girl, but he was only amused, just the same as he’d always been.
He took her out a few times, escorting her to dances, often when their parents came along, too, and Alix was again in seventh heaven, but even she realised that his manner was merely casually affectionate. On the few occasions when she got him alone, Alix tried to tempt him to make love to her. He obliged with a few light kisses, which she found most unsatisfactory. ‘Kiss me properly,’ she commanded. ‘After all, we are going to be married.’
‘Married?’ Rhys burst into laughter. ‘You crazy little idiot! You’re not still on about that, are you?’ He tweaked her hair. ‘You know, urchin, you’re really good for my ego.’
Pleased, she said eagerly, ‘So when will we get married?’
He kissed the end of her nose. ‘Ask me again when you’re an adult.’
‘I am an adult!’
‘OK, when you’re not a teenager, then.’
‘So when I’m twenty will we get married?’
Rhys glanced at her, laughter in his eyes, but then the laughter died as his gaze lingered on her face, on the long dark lashes and brows that were such a contrast to her fair hair, on her high cheek bones and straight nose that gave her ageless beauty, but mostly on her eyes, as blue as sapphires and full now of loving eagerness. Lifting a finger he traced the tip along the soft, full curve of her lips. ‘Maybe I might at that,’ he said almost under his breath, so softly that only her alertness let her hear it. But then he spoiled it all by sitting back, giving a twisted smile, and saying, ‘You’ve got a lot of living to do yet, urchin, before you even think of settling down.’ A gleam came into his eyes and the grin broadened. ‘And so, for that matter, have I.’
Rhys had made such a success of the Botswana project that he was promoted and was centred more on his company’s office in London, where he rented a flat. He still went abroad a lot but not for such long periods now, acting more as head of an estimating team for contracts, and also as a kind of trouble-shooter, ready to fly anywhere in the world where he was needed. He was, according to his proud parents, his boss’s blue-eyed boy and was heading for a directorship before too long.
As for Alix, she got over her disappointment almost at once, and was happy in the knowledge that in only two years she would be twenty, when Rhys had told her to ask again. And she hugged that murmured ‘I might at that’ to her like a talisman, knowing that for a moment at least he had looked at her as a woman. She went to college to take a two-year business studies course, refusing to take an additional year that would have given her a higher qualification, because Rhys had said twenty, not twenty-one.
As Rhys was living in London and she was away at college, Alix didn’t see him for those two years. His visits home never seemed to coincide with hers, not even at Christmas, because he was away both years and his mother and father flew out to be with him.
By now both sets of parents were the firmest friends; neither had had more children, and they were fast coming to the opinion that Rhys and Alix were absolutely right for each other. Not that they pushed at all; with Alix it wasn’t necessary, and Rhys’s parents knew that he had a mind of his own. But when the time came for Alix to leave college and get a job, Rhys’s father, who had got to know several people in his son’s company, found out that there was a vacancy in the London office. She applied and, probably because she wanted the job so badly, survived several interviews to win the position. ‘Don’t let’s tell Rhys. Let’s all keep it as a surprise,’ his father suggested.
Alix grinned, and kissed him. ‘It’s our secret, Uncle David.’
Rhys was away in South America when Alix went to work for his company as a secretary. She soon made friends there, her open, animated character making her popular with both sexes. But she wasn’t open about knowing Rhys; that she kept to herself. There were a great many unattached men working for the company and several of them asked her for a date—some of the attached ones, too—but she confidently told them that she was already seeing someone and expected to be engaged very soon, so they left her alone.
There was one girl in her office, Kathy, with whom Alix became especially friendly, and who would pass on all the office gossip over lunch. One day they were sitting in the window of a café not far from the office building when Kathy pointed out a girl walking by. ‘You see her? That’s Donna Temple. She’s Todd Weston’s personal assistant when he’s in London.’
‘Todd Weston? He’s one of the Canadian directors, isn’t he?’
‘That’s right. And not only a director but the son of George Weston, the company president, who started the firm and still more or less owns it. They say Todd is in the running to inherit the company.’
‘And is Donna interested in Todd?’ Alix asked, watching the tall, dark-haired girl as she waited to cross the road.
Kathy shook her head. ‘He’s already married and has a family. No, Donna is putting out her hooks for the man who’s next in line to take over from Todd when his father retires and he goes back to Canada.’
‘Oh? Who’s that?’
‘His name is Rhys Stirling, and he is absolutely gorgeous. You wait till you see him.’
Alix’s stomach turned over and she had to swallow hard before she could say, ‘What do you mean—putting out hooks for him?’
‘Well, they’re a number whenever he’s in England—he’s away a lot, you see—and everyone’s pretty certain that they’re having a hot affair.’
‘You mean—you mean they’re in love?’ Alix managed to ask, every word a cut to her heart.
‘Oh, no, I’m not saying that. Just that Donna is out to catch him.’ Kathy chuckled. ‘Although she’ll have to be very clever if she does; from what I’ve heard about Rhys, he has women falling for him wherever he goes. And he hasn’t been caught yet.’
That last sentence gave Alix a little comfort, but she said,
