who looked back at her, with black shiny hair that curved inwards just below her dainty chin. She used little make-up, and did not need to. She wore an immaculate trouser suit of a shade of green that brought out to perfection the green of her eyes.
Phelix gave a small nod of approval to the female she had become. There was nothing about her now—outwardly, at any rate—of the shy, long hair all over the place, gauche apology for a woman she had been eight years ago. And she was glad of it—it had been a hard road.
Having hired a car in Zurich and driven to Davos, she opted to walk to the conference centre, and left her hotel quietly seething that her father so wanted an ‘in’ with Dawson and Cross that he was fully prepared to make full use of Ross Dawson’s interest in, not to say pursuit of her to that end. He was obviously hoping that by spending a week in close proximity of each other, with limited chance of her avoiding Ross, something might come of it!
She wouldn’t put it past her father to even have telephoned in the first instance on some business pretext, and then casually let Ross, a director of Dawson and Cross, know that his daughter would be in Davos for a whole week.
She felt hurt as well as angry that her father, having sold her once, cared so little for her he was fully prepared to do it again. Over her dead body!
But, thanks to Henry having got wind of what was going on, he had been able to forewarn her, and at least do a little something to limit the time she had to spend with Ross. Not that she didn’t like Ross. She did. She just had an extreme aversion to being manipulated. And, in the light of past events, who could blame her?
She knew that her father had been having a liaison with his PA, Anna Fry, for years. She wished he would concentrate his attentions more on Anna, and leave his daughter out of his scheming.
As Phelix neared the Kongresszentrum she saw other smartly dressed representatives making their way towards the entrance. She would be glad to see Chris and Duncan, she realised, and hoped nobody else would wonder, as she had before Henry had tipped her off, what possible reason she could have for being there. At least she had been spared the surprise of seeing Ross Dawson unexpectedly.
She made her way inside the building, hoping there were no other unexpected surprises waiting for her on this trip.
‘Where did you get to?’ She turned to find that Duncan Ward and Chris Watson had spotted her coming in and had come over to her. ‘We looked high and low for you last night. Reception said you hadn’t checked in.’
It was gratifying to know that they had been concerned about her. ‘I should have let you know,’ she apologised. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I’d prefer a hotel a bit further away.’
‘As in I might have to put up with you two talking shop during the day, but I want some rest from it in the evenings?’ Chris grinned.
‘Not at all.’ She laughed, and did not have a chance to say anything else because someone was calling her name.
‘Phelix!’ She looked over to where Ross Dawson was making his way over to her. ‘Phelix Bradbury!’ he exclaimed as he reached her.
‘Hello, Ross,’ she replied, and was about to make some comment with regard to his act of being surprised to see her there when, even as Ross kissed her on both cheeks, she caught a glimpse of a tall, dark-haired man standing with a blonde woman and another man. But it was the dark-haired man that held Phelix riveted. She felt a deafening silent thunder in her ears, but even as she tried to deny that he was here after all, it took everything she had to keep her expression composed. She glanced casually away, but not before she noticed that he had been looking at nowhere but her!
Her insides were all of a jangle. She had not seen him in eight years, and only twice before then, but she would know him anywhere! She had been just eighteen then, he twenty-eight. That would make him thirty-six now.
Phelix began to get herself more of one piece when she realised that, thankfully, he could not possibly have recognised her. She was nothing remotely like the awkward and, in her view, late-developing teenager she had been then. But that was it—she was out of here!
But, having grown a veneer of sophistication, even if her insides were now feeling like just so much jelly, Phelix knew she could not just simply cut and run. But she wasn’t staying, that was for sure! As soon as she possibly could, she would tell either Chris or Duncan that she had forgotten something, had a headache, a migraine, athlete’s foot—she didn’t care what—and was going back to her hotel. From there she would make arrangements to fly back to England.
Hoping against hope that he was a figment of her imagination, she found she was irresistibly drawn to glance over to him again. It was him! He was tall, but even so would have stood out from the crowd of people milling around.
She slid her glance from him to the other man standing with him, and on to the close to six feet tall glamorous blonde woman. His girlfriend? Certainly not his wife.
Oh, heavens, he was looking her way again. Phelix flicked her glance from him. She was not unused to men giving her a second look, so knew his second glance was no more than passing interest. But, apart from his female companion, herself and several other women, the conference seemed to be a predominantly male affair.
She tried to tune in to what Ross and the other two were babbling on about, but when she felt as much as surreptitiously glimpsed the man leaving his companions, so her wits seemed to desert her.
But—oh, help—he seemed to be making his way in her direction! Dying a thousand deaths, Phelix prayed that he was making his way elsewhere, or that if he was perhaps coming over to say hello to Ross, that Ross would not think he had to introduce them; the name Phelix was a dead give-away.
He halted as he reached them and her mouth dried and her heart raced like a wild thing. ‘Ross,’ she heard him greet Ross Dawson, and saw him nod to Duncan and Chris. And then he turned his cool grey eyes on her. How she remained outwardly calm as, for the longest second of her life, he studied her, she never knew. And then casually, every bit as if he had seen her every day of his life for the past eight years, ‘How are you, Phelix?’ he asked.
Her throat was so dry she didn’t think she would be able to utter a word. But the poise she had learned since she had last seen him stood her in good stead. ‘Fine, Nathan,’ she murmured. ‘You?’
‘You know each other?’ Ross asked.
‘From way back,’ Nathan Mallory drawled, his eyes still on her. She guessed he couldn’t believe the evidence of his vision; the change in her from the frightened timid mouse she had been eight years previously to the cool, collected and polished woman who stood before him now.
‘You’re here for the conference?’ she enquired, and could have bitten out her tongue for having asked so obvious a question.
‘One of our speakers had to drop out. As I intended coming this way, I thought I might as well come early and fill in for him.’
She smiled, nodded—she knew darn well his name had not been down on the programme as one of the speakers. She, knowing he was likely to be in Davos next week with the other heads of businesses, had scrutinised the list of speakers very thoroughly before at last bowing to her father’s insistence that she come this week as part of the Edward Bradbury Systems entourage.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she managed, striving with all she had to hold down the dreadful feelings of anxiety that were trying to get a hold—she hadn’t felt like
