storm of applause woke Clara out of her dream.
OK, maybe an entire high-flying career was a lot to get out of one conversation, but she was an optimist. Climb every mountain, and all that. It could happen and, at the very least, convincing Simon Valentine to take part would save her job and mean that Ted could stay in his flat.
There was the usual scrum to get out of the room to the drinks reception afterwards. The International Institute for Trade and Developing Economies was as stuffy as its name suggested. It was an imposing enough building, if you liked that kind of thing, with elaborately carved plaster ceilings, portraits of stern Edwardian economists lining the walls, and a grand staircase that Clara longed to dance down. It was just begging for a sparkly dress and a Ginger Rogers impersonation.
The reception was held in the library and by the time Clara got in there the glittering chandeliers were ringing with the rising babble of conversation. Grabbing a glass of white wine, she skulked around the edges of the crowd, trying to look as if she understood what everyone was talking about. She recognized several famous journalists and politicians, and the air was thick with talk of monetary policy frameworks, asset bubbles and exchange rate policies.
Oh, dear, if only she was a bit more knowledgeable. She would never be able to dazzle Simon Valentine at this rate. Clara was careful to avoid eye contact with anyone in case they asked her what she thought about the credit crisis or interest rate cuts. She didn’t want to be exposed as the imposter that she was.
The atmosphere was so intimidating that Clara was tempted to turn tail and go home before she was outed as utterly ignorant, but this might be her only chance to talk to Simon Valentine face to face. She couldn’t go until she had at least tried. It would be too shaming to go into work the next day and admit that she’d lost her nerve.
Humming under her breath to bolster her confidence, Clara scanned the crowds for her quarry and spotted him at last, looking so austere in a grey suit that everyone else seemed positively jolly in comparison. Several women in monochrome suits of various shades were clustered around him, nodding fervently at everything he said. Those must be his groupies, thought Clara disparagingly, unable to see what it was about Simon Valentine that made obviously intelligent women fawn over him.
Not that he seemed to be enjoying the experience, she had to concede. He had a definite air of being at bay, and she saw him steal surreptitious glances at his watch.
Seriously, the guy needed to relax a bit, Clara decided. He was holding a glass but not drinking from it and, as she watched, he put it back on a passing tray, offered a smile so brief it was barely more than a grimace to his disappointed fans and started to make his way out of the crush.
Terrified that he was leaving already, Clara drained her second glass for courage and headed after him. She couldn’t let him get away without at least trying to buttonhole him.
Pushing her way through the crowds, she followed him out into the cavernous entrance hall in time to see him striding purposefully towards the cloakrooms. He was going to get his coat and leave, and her chance would be gone. She would have sat through a lecture on economics for nothing!
It was now or never.
Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she hurried after him. ‘Dr Valentine?’ she called breathlessly.
Simon bit down on an expletive. His lecture had gone very well, but he would much prefer to have left immediately afterwards. Instead, he’d had to stand around and make small talk. He’d barely stepped into the library when a whole gaggle of women had descended on him. Ever since he had appeared on the news explaining the blindingly obvious about the financial situation, he had become a reluctant celebrity.
At first it had seemed an excellent idea. His firm was all for it, and Simon himself believed it was important for people to understand the economic realities of life. He had no problem with that, and the opportunity to bring new thinking about micro financing to global attention was too good to miss. He was delighted that the ensuing documentary had had such an impact, but had been totally unprepared for the effect of his television appearances on female viewers.
It was all very embarrassing, in fact, and the intent way some women had taken to hanging on his every word made him deeply uncomfortable. If they were that interested in economics, why didn’t they go away and read his articles instead?
And now, just when he’d managed to escape for a few minutes’ quiet, here was another one.
For a moment Simon considered pretending that he hadn’t heard her, but some of his so-called fans could be annoyingly persistent, and he wouldn’t put it past some of them to pursue him right into the Gents. So he paused, clenched his jaw, and fixed on his least welcoming expression.
But when he turned, the young woman coming after him didn’t look at all like one of his normal fans, most of whom tended to hide their silliness at being fans in the first place beneath a veneer of seriousness. There was nothing serious about this girl.
His first impression was of vivid colour, his second of a spectacular pair of legs. In spite of himself, Simon blinked. He doubted very much that the Institute had ever seen a skirt that short before, or shoes that frivolous.
He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the legs before he made himself look away from them. Just because Astrid had left, he didn’t have to start leering at the first pair of decent legs to come his way.
‘Yes?’ he said uninvitingly.
She offered him a friendly smile. ‘I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your talk very much,’ she said, still breathless from the effort of hurrying after him in those absurd shoes. ‘I thought you made some excellent points.’
Simon eyed her suspiciously. ‘Oh? Which particular points?’ he said. Maybe it was unfair to put her on the spot, but he didn’t feel like being helpful.
‘All of them,’ she said firmly, only to falter as her gaze met his. She had an extraordinarily transparent expression, and Simon could see her realising that as an answer it was less than impressive and dredging up something she remembered from the lecture.
Which turned out to be not very much.
‘What you said about qualitative easing was particularly interesting,’ she offered with an ingenuous smile.
‘Really? That’s strange, as I was talking about quantitative easing.’
‘That too,’ she said.
He had to give her points for trying. Most of his ‘fans’ did their homework in an attempt to impress him when they met. This one clearly hadn’t bothered.
‘You’re interested in the banks’ asset policies?’
‘Fascinated,’ she said, clearly lying, but meeting his eyes with such limpid innocence that Simon felt an unfamiliar tugging sensation at the corner of his mouth. It took a moment before he recognized it as amusement, and he pressed his lips together before he actually smiled.
Now that he looked at her properly, he could see that she wasn’t particularly pretty. Once you got past the animated expression, her features were really very ordinary, with ordinary brown hair falling in a very ordinary style to her shoulders. And yet she seemed to shimmer with a kind of suppressed energy, as if she were about to break into a run or fling her arms around, that made her not ordinary at all.
She
