Stranger Passing By
Lilian Peake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

AS THE dinner progressed, so the noise level rose. As a result, Crystal was finding it increasingly difficult to communicate with the guests immediately beside her, let alone the people seated on the other side of the long, narrow table.

‘I didn’t realise,’ Maureen Hilson was saying, leaning closer, ‘that the Ornamental You group employed so many people.’

Puzzled, Crystal frowned. ‘I thought you’d worked for them for years?’

‘I have, but I’ve never seen so many guests here before. They must have opened new stores by the dozen in the last decade.’ Maureen sounded worried. ‘I hope they knew what they were doing. Sometimes,’ she observed sagely, ‘I think it’s wiser to maintain the status quo, that is, not to expand, or, alternatively, to expand slowly and cautiously.’

‘You mean,’ Crystal commented, ‘that sometimes small really is beautiful?’ Maureen nodded, and Crystal went on, accepting a chocolate-coated mint sweet from the plate Maureen offered, ‘If there are so many prize-winners it seems to me that it might bring down the value of the awards.’

Maureen laughed. ‘These aren’t all prize-winners, dear.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘After all, there are the two of us, aren’t there? If every shop has two—and remember, as the manageress, I was offered another assistant in addition to you—’

‘Which means,’ Crystal put in, ‘that some Ornamental Yous probably have a staff of three?’

‘Right.’

‘All the same, I wish you’d collect the award, Maureen,’ Crystal urged. ‘You’re the more senior of the two of us.’ After a mouthful of coffee she groped agitatedly for her glass, taking a mouthful of wine, then wincing at the resulting incompatible taste.

Maureen laughed at her expression. ‘There’s no need to be nervous, Crystal. I think it’s better for the store’s image to have an attractive young woman go up there and accept the award.’

‘But—’

‘Look, dear, all you have to do is smile, take the prize prettily, shake the hand that’s held out to you and then it’s over. Anyway...’ they joined the assembled company, moving into the ballroom for an evening’s dancing ‘...the awards aren’t being made just yet, so for the moment you can forget your “ordeal”, as you seem determined to regard it.’

Music of a soothing, after-dinner variety came from a group positioned on a platform at the end of the long room. Guests drifted into circles and Maureen became deep in conversation with an old acquaintance. Feeling a little lost, Crystal found a seat near by.

‘Hi.’ A bright-faced young man seemed to welcome the fact that she had joined him. ‘You new?’

Crystal smiled. ‘Yes and no. I was beginning to appreciate the meaning of the expression “lost in a crowd”.’

The young man’s hand came out. ‘Roger Betts.’ His clasp was firm, his brown hair cut short, his upper lip showing signs of an attempt to cultivate a moustache.

‘Crystal Rose.’

Roger laughed. ‘I like that. I can just imagine a rose made of crystal. I bet you’re fragile.’

It was Crystal’s turn to laugh. ‘Sometimes, very.’

He looked at her with something more than interest. ‘Where’s your part of the world?’

‘These parts. It just happened that the firm chose this area for the awards ceremony. Or so my manageress told me.’ She looked at his round face, his slightly over-solid build, and guessed that he was tall. ‘Do you work for Ornamental You?’

Roger nodded. ‘But not in the retail side. I work at Head Office. I’m an assistant buyer—I help to select the goods you sell—plus I’m involved in looking for new sites for Ornamental. I’ve got ambitions beyond the retail trade, though. I’m taking a part-time university course in chemistry. I use my earnings to subsidise my studies.’

‘How do you tie in your course work with your job responsibilities?’

Maureen had finished her conversation, noted with a pleased smile that Crystal was well occupied and moved away, only to be caught by yet another old friend.

‘It’s not easy,’ Roger was saying. ‘I spend almost every evening surrounded by textbooks. I write until my hand nearly drops off—then I drop off!’

‘Wouldn’t a computer or a word-processor help?’

He shrugged. ‘It would, but I’d have to attend yet another course to learn how to use one. I must sound as if I come from the Ark—a bloke who’s let modern technology pass him by.’ His mouth went on a self-derogatory downward turn, but also, surprisingly, managed to smile at the same time. ‘I’m one of those guys,’ he went on, ‘whose thoughts flow better from their brains to the paper via their hands, if you get my meaning, rather than being channelled first through a keyboard. You—er—’ his eyes crinkled at the corners ‘—you haven’t got one, I suppose?’

‘A computer? I have, as a matter of fact. In my last job I worked with one, and when they updated they sold off their equipment cheap to their employees.’

‘Oh, joy,’ said Roger, brightening. ‘You couldn’t—um—wouldn’t—?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Forget it. Your boyfriend would have my guts for garters, if you’ll forgive the expression.’

‘He can’t,’ she returned, smiling, ‘because I haven’t.’

‘What, you—no boyfriend? I can’t believe—’

‘I did have, but—’

‘Roger, you so-and-so,’ an older man, shorter in stature and bespectacled, fisted him playfully on the arm, ‘how’re things?’

Roger clapped the newcomer on the back. ‘Haven’t met, have we, since the last Ornamental nosh-up? Meet my new friend Crystal—or,’ with a grin, ‘is it Rose?’

‘Both suit,’ said the other, shaking Crystal’s hand. ‘Hi,’ with an appreciative smile. ‘I’m Ted Field. Been with Ornamental long? Haven’t had the pleasure of seeing you before.’

‘Flatterer,’ Roger remarked, waving a playful fist. ‘I found her first.’

‘That’s OK, mate,’ said Ted. ‘I’m married, remember?’

‘I’ve worked for Worldview for just under a year,’ Crystal told him. ‘Are you collecting a prize?’

‘Nope,’ Ted answered. ‘Are you? Yes? What for?’

‘Highest sales.’ Roger nodded as if he knew.

‘That’s great!’ exclaimed Ted. ‘Ours have taken a—’ With his hand he sketched a dive.

‘Yeah, a lot of the other branches aren’t that good, either,’ Roger agreed, ‘but Ornamental’s got some way to go before we hit the rocks.’ He held up crossed fingers.

‘Roger, Ted...’ Their attention was distracted, and Crystal took the opportunity to melt into the crowd. Maureen was in the centre of a chattering group, so Crystal made for the ladies’ cloakroom to repair her make-up.

In front of the tinted mirror she pressed on a little powder, then smoothed the silky floral fabric of her skirt, straightening the belted matching top and fiddling with the chunky amber beads around her throat. Their colour, along with the amber earrings she wore, picked up one of the shades in her outfit and echoed the auburn warmth of her shoulder-length hair. This she combed, fluffing it out around her face.

‘Hi,’ a plump blonde young woman said to her reflection. ‘You new here?’

Crystal answered the familiar question.

‘That all?’ The young woman’s eyes dwelt enviously on Crystal’s heart-shaped face. ‘Wish I had your complexion. And your looks. They’re just great. Your hairstyle suits your face. It’s what’s called oval, isn’t it? And there’s nothing wrong with your nose at all.’ Ruefully she rubbed her own, which had a tiny turned-up tip. ‘In fact,’ she studied Crystal enviously, ‘everything in your face goes with everything else, if you know what I mean. Lucky you. Not like me. My nose is the wrong shape for my cheekbones, and my chin’s kind of quarrelled with my mouth.’

‘Thanks a lot for the compliments,’ Crystal answered, ‘but you look more than OK to me too.’

‘I do?’ The girl looked down at herself and sighed. ‘I keep dieting, but my extra inches must love me—they just won’t leave me,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she left. ‘My name’s Shirley, by the way, Shirley Brownley. What’s yours?’ Crystal told her. ‘Crystal—nice.’

Following her out, Crystal found herself in a secluded corner of a lobby that led back into the ballroom. The whole tempo of the evening had, it seemed from her quick glance into it, speeded up.

The music had evolved from the soothing to the lively, and was plainly designed to bring couples on to the floor. A glimpse of the roving multicoloured beams that swung across then alighted on the gyrating dancers told Crystal that it had succeeded.

Feeling the extraordinary need to halt in her tracks, Crystal glanced around. Something, she felt with a curious shiver, was tugging at her, preventing her from joining the dancers. Her eyes were ensnared by two others, glinting pin-points of reflected light, owned, she saw, by a man who leant against a trellis-work threaded through with leafy sprays from a climbing plant.

On its way to his mouth, wrapped hygienically in a paper napkin, was a roast chicken leg, while beside him on a ledge was a pile of the same delicacy. Next to that was a partly empty bottle and a glass containing wine.

Crystal was only half aware of the man’s repast, which he was plainly enjoying, since most of her attention was riveted on the man himself. He was tall and broad and business-suited, a faintly mocking smile highlighting a handsome, if slightly arrogant face.

She found herself moving towards him as if he were playing a line and she was caught by the bait on the end. Little by little, he reeled her in. This can’t be happening to me, she thought, finding it quite impossible to free herself from his snare.

A few paces distant, she found herself pausing.

‘Yes?’ she heard herself whisper.

For heaven’s sake, her rational self lectured, you’ve never seen him before. What are you doing, talking to a complete stranger, and a man at that, when he hasn’t spoken a word to you?

He smiled, fully this time, and Crystal’s heart did a kangaroo leap. Holding her eyes, he reached for the plate of chicken drumsticks and held them out. She shook her head, so he felt behind him for another plate, of savouries this time, offering these to her.

‘I—I’ve eaten, thanks,’ she managed, her mouth peculiarly dry. The plate remained extended. They looked so inviting, those savouries, that the appetite she had scarcely indulged during dinner because of thinking about her ‘ordeal’ to come became rekindled, and she accepted one with a murmured, ‘Thank you, but—’

But what? she asked herself. He hadn’t so far uttered a word. She had done all the talking. Go back to the ballroom, her reason urged as she consumed the savoury. ‘Th-thanks,’ she added as he thoughtfully passed over a paper napkin. Extract yourself from this incredible situation and pretend it never happened, her reason was commanding, badgering her mercilessly.

‘Have another,’ the man offered, adding as she hesitated, ‘go on, spoil yourself.’ Like a lightning flash speeded up, his glance raked her, then was gone. ‘You have no need to worry about surplus weight.’

He had spoken at last! As if she had passed control of her reflexes over to the stranger, she took another, and he smiled, and once again she perceived that mockery was not far away.

‘Didn’t they feed you properly at dinner? You’ll have to complain to the management.’

‘I just wasn’t hungry.’ She frowned. ‘Weren’t you there?’

‘I arrived too late. I’ve just flown in from North America—Canada, to be exact.’

‘Ornamental You actually paid for you to take a trip to North America? I didn’t think they were that generous—or so I’ve heard.’

‘Excuse me.’ He selected another drumstick with a fresh paper napkin, and proceeded to demolish it with a series of quick bites. ‘I don’t eat airline food,’ he added between mouthfuls, afterwards adding a few savouries for good measure.

‘Which means you must be starving!’ she exclaimed.

His eyes did another quick, almost imperceptible reconnaissance of her person. ‘I am. And you are—?’

‘Crystal Rose.’ A quirk of his eyebrow forced her on to the defensive. ‘I have romantic parents.’

He laughed, and again Crystal’s heart leapt. Who was this man that he could affect her so much?

Taking a handful of paper napkins, he cleaned his fingers and picked up his glass. Then he put it down. A tray of drinks passed within sight. ‘You’re not a teetotaller?’ he asked. As Crystal shook her head he beckoned to the waitress. ‘Drink with me, Miss Rose,’ he said softly, lifting himself upright and moving towards her. With his glass he touched hers. ‘To the past. And to the future.’ He touched hers again. ‘May the two never meet.’

The wine was the same as that which she had drunk during the dinner, but it had miraculously transformed itself into nectar.

‘What did your toast mean?’ she heard herself asking as the wine decanted itself to every part of her. She finished every drop.

He put down his empty glass, taking hers. ‘Dance with me, Miss Rose.’

It was more an order than a question. ‘But I—’ ‘Don’t know you,’ she almost said, then contradicted her reason. I’ve known him all my life, she told it reproachfully.

Taking her hand, he led her into the ballroom and on to the dance-floor. The music had softened in quality, insinuating itself into the limbs, making them languid and flowing, the mind hazy. Yet Crystal found to her consternation that her heart was hammering, her skin jumping at the stranger’s touch.

The lights swooped and selected, rested, then moved on. ‘Why—?’ she began, her throat oddly parched. ‘Where—?’ She tried again. ‘Who—?’

His mouth took the law into its own possession, descending on hers, compressing, demanding, caressing, cutting off the question and momentarily robbing Crystal of breath.

Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Had there been a fleeting message in his dark gaze? Or something in his expression? Could it, she wondered, have been her subconscious mind linking with his, divining and intermingling with the thoughts that his contained? Or had it been someone passing and whispering to her? She didn’t know, but from somewhere came the words, He’s out of your reach... Crystal broke contact and looked around. There was no one near them.

‘You shouldn’t—’ she began, but those lips were back, tasting faintly of wine, playing with hers until they parted on an admonishing gasp, the arms around her having slipped to her waist. It was no use, she told herself helplessly, she was caught in this stranger’s magnetic field—hadn’t he used it to draw her to him?—and there seemed to be no way in which she could escape.

The music ceased, the dance ended. For a couple of seconds the lights were almost extinguished and only the dark outline of him remained. When they flashed on again he was gone.

* * *

The reappearance of food and drink put new life into the evening.

Maureen patted the seat beside her and Crystal joined her. ‘So pensive,’ Maureen remarked. ‘Won’t be long now, then you can relax. You found a dancing partner, then? The lights were so low that I couldn’t identify the man.’

‘I—what? Oh, yes.’ With a jerk Crystal returned to the present. The stranger’s arms still seemed to be holding her, the imprint of his mouth lingering alarmingly. ‘I enjoyed it,’ she added, quickly enough, she hoped, to avoid further questions, not wishing to talk about something that had become, quite foolishly, she realised, so precious to her.

A man materialised in front of her and her heart leapt, her eyes travelling upwards and bouncing disappointedly off the smiling face.

‘Hi,’ said Roger, holding out a plate and a glass of wine.

How could I have thought, Crystal reproached herself, that the stranger had come back to me? He hadn’t been real; she’d dreamt him up out of her subconscious, she told herself. Wasn’t she too old now to believe that dreams materialised, gained substance, came true?

‘Thanks a lot,’ she responded, accepting Roger’s offerings. ‘Just what I needed to boost my adrenalin for what’s to come.’

‘You won’t believe,’ said Maureen, ‘that this girl’s got butterflies because she’s going on the platform.’

‘I’m Roger Betts, by the way,’ he told Maureen. ‘There’s nothing to it, Crystal. All you need to do up there is—’

‘Shake hands,’ Crystal put in with a laugh, ‘and say thank you nicely. Maureen’s already told me.’

‘They’re assembling on the platform,’ Maureen commented, watching as various attractive-looking items were carried on and placed carefully on the long table behind which chairs had been placed.

Someone stepped to the front of the platform, hand raised for silence. After a few words of welcome and introduction he invited the prize-winners to assemble at the side of the platform. With Maureen’s and Roger’s encouragement ringing in her ears, Crystal followed the man’s instructions.

From where she stood, she heard but could not see the line of company executives filing on to the platform.

‘Know who all those guys are?’ a young man asked her.

Crystal shook her head. ‘I haven’t been with the firm long enough to know.’

‘Nor me,’ the young man answered.

Short speeches were made in voices she could not identify.

‘It is my pleasure to invite,’ the man was saying, ‘the chief executive of Worldview International, which is, as you all know, the parent company of Ornamental You nationwide, to present the prizes. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Brent Akerman.’

As the applause died down names were called, and one by one the people in the group around Crystal ascended the short flight of steps to the platform. The long wait, she realised, only served to increase her apprehension.

‘Miss Crystal Rose.’ Her name rang out, and it was almost with relief that she trod upwards, reaching the platform at last.

In a daze, Crystal walked on, head high, heart racing, and lost her hand in the firm enveloping grip of the man standing at the side of the long table. A smile was ready on her face, the phrase ‘Thank you very much’ waiting to be spoken, but her lips failed to co-operate and the words were never uttered. She found herself staring directly into the eyes of her dancing-partner.

His lips moved and Crystal knew he was addressing her, and she forced herself to concentrate on his words.

‘Miss Rose,’ he was saying, ‘represents the branch of Ornamental You in this city. It is this branch that has achieved the highest sales of all. Miss Rose, we congratulate you and your manager, Miss Maureen Hilson, on your excellent achievement. You are both a credit to Ornamental You, not to mention Worldview International.’

With care he held aloft a crystal rose bowl, a beautiful object from which the light danced, refracting the colours of the spectrum. From all around there were sighs of admiration.

‘Never has there been,’ under cover of the sound came the words, to her and her alone, ‘a more appropriate prize, both in name and in beauty.’ Then the mask of detachment on Brent Akerman’s face was back in place, the smile neutral and totally professional.

As if from a million miles Crystal heard the applause. Descending the steps, she sank on to the seat between Maureen and Roger. Wonderingly she gazed up at the man from whom she had accepted the prize. Had she really discovered him behind the scenes, quite unselfconsciously devouring a scratch meal, which he’d offered to share with her? No, it just couldn’t have happened.

On the other hand, she thought, although she hadn’t invented the man himself, surely she had dreamed up everything else that had happened between them earlier that evening?

Yet, she pondered, if it had all been a dream, how was it that, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel the touch of his lips on hers, see the warmth of his smile and the moving lights reflected in his eyes? And in her mind experience all over again the incomparable sensation of dancing in his arms?

CHAPTER TWO

TWO weeks later Crystal arrived, as she always did, half an hour before Ornamental You was due to open. For once Maureen was there before her, reading a letter, a frown creasing her brow.

‘You’ve got one too, Crystal,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve been through this three times, but I still can’t work out what it’s all about.’

Crystal, experiencing an unaccountable feeling of foreboding, slit open the envelope that was addressed to her. Ever since Mick Temple’s letter had arrived out of the blue two years ago, telling her that their friendship was over because he’d found another girl, Crystal’s equilibrium had gone into the switchback mode every time an unexpected letter had come through her door.

But this wasn’t her door she had just closed behind her, it was the shop’s, which just had to mean that this official-looking communication in her hands meant business.

‘What do you make of it?’ Maureen asked, reading her missive yet again.

‘“Your presence is required—”’ Crystal read aloud ‘—note that word “required”, not “requested”—’ she pointed out ‘“—at a meeting of employees of the Ornamental You group of stores in Ye Olde Oak Tree Hotel, at seven-thirty p.m. on—”’ She counted on her fingers. ‘That’s only two days’ time. Too bad,’ she replaced the letter in its envelope, ‘if you’re booked for that evening. Are you going?’

‘Of course,’ Maureen answered. ‘It comes from Head Office. It’s like a royal command, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, dear,’ Crystal remarked, waving a feather duster over the varied stock displayed attractively around the shop.

‘Why are you assuming,’ Maureen returned, doing likewise, ‘it’s bad news? Might be the opposite.’

Crystal looked at the sparkling rose bowl that she and Maureen had won for highest sales. It stood in pride of place on a central revolving stand, the shop’s lights angled so as to glance with brilliant colour off its many facets. She couldn’t explain to Maureen, nor even to herself, why that letter they had each received seemed to bode ill rather than the opposite.

‘You mean, an announcement of an expansion of the business?’ Crystal asked. ‘But didn’t you tell me that they’d recently done that?’

‘That’s true. Oh, dear,’ Maureen added as she turned the ‘closed’ notice to ‘open’. The shop door pinged and two customers entered, wandering round.

* * *

‘STAFF MEETING ORNAMENTAL YOU‘, the blackboard in the hotel’s entrance foyer announced. ‘WOODLAND ROOM. THIS FLOOR.’

Maureen entered first, peering round the door. Voices welcomed her by name, smiles and nods greeting Crystal. Most of them Crystal recognised from the prize-giving dinner.

Roger Betts stood and beckoned to them.

‘You go,’ said Maureen. ‘I’ll have a word with some of the others.’

Seats were filling fast as Crystal took her place beside Roger. ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking of ringing you at work, but—well,’ he coloured a little, ‘I couldn’t quite summon up the necessary cheek to ask.’

‘Ask what?’ she enquired with an air of innocence. As he looked even more uncomfortable, she took pity on him. ‘Help you out with your notes, you mean?’

A brilliant smile lit his slightly sharp features. ‘You could? You mean, you’re willing...?’

She gave him an answering smile. ‘I don’t know, Roger. I’d have to think about it. OK?’

‘You wouldn’t be doing it for nothing,’ he declared. ‘I’d pay well—or as well as whatever’s left over from my salary, anyway.’

Crystal shook her head. ‘The money aspect doesn’t worry me. It’s—’

‘Hi, Roger, and—Crystal, isn’t it?’ Ted Field stopped beside their row. ‘Know what this,’ he indicated the expectant-looking audience, ‘is all about?’

‘Haven’t a clue,’ answered Roger. ‘Take-over bid for Ornamental? Who knows?’

‘Oh, I hope not,’ Crystal put in as Ted found a seat near by. Maureen bustled along to occupy the other seat beside Crystal, and quiet descended as the platform party made their entrance.

Crystal’s eyes opened wide, her breath becoming trapped in her lungs. A man, tall and broad-shouldered, moved into the central position—a man grown familiar through his persistent appearance in her dreams.

His keen gaze swept the hall, passed across her, zipped back, rested on her for less than a second, then returned to his notes. Had he been looking for her? Of course not, she told herself, heartbeats racing, he wouldn’t even remember her, would he?

So what if he had danced with her, kissed her under mixing, moving lights? She had been just another employee, someone who had appeared at exactly the right moment to act as undemanding subordinate while he had digested his meagre meal and coped with his jet lag.

Having disciplined her thoughts, she forced herself to concentrate on his brisk words of welcome. Listening to his voice, she found herself thinking how she liked its pitch, its tone, the melodious note that made her wonder if he possessed a good singing voice—or perhaps he had Welsh forebears?

‘He can’t mean it!’ Roger exploded beside her. ‘It can’t be true.’

‘What can’t?’ Crystal asked, hitting the earth with a bump.

‘For heaven’s sake, Crystal, haven’t you been listening? Ornamental You—Worldview are closing us down!’

‘Closing what—?’ Then the penny dropped. ‘It’s not true!’ she exclaimed. ‘It can’t be. Maureen and I—we’re doing well. You must have misheard.’

‘Misheard, my foot. They’re closing them—us, all of us, he said.’

There were mutterings all around, heads turning to others, bodies twisting toward the rows behind.

‘We, the management,’ the speaker went on, ‘very much regret the step we are having to take. We do realise that it will come as a severe shock to you all. We are extremely sorry,’ Brent Akerman was saying, ‘but I’m sure you will appreciate that, however much it might go against the grain, a loss-making chain, a non-profit-producing line of business, cannot indefinitely be allowed to go limping on by any parent company.’

‘What about selling us off?’ Ted Field shouted from the audience. ‘That’d be better than what you—well, Worldview—are intending to do.’

‘That was considered,’ Brent Akerman took him up. ‘We offered the chain of shops for sale, but, despite our great efforts, there were no takers.’

‘Why weren’t we warned?’ a young woman asked, plainly near to tears.

Brows raised, Brent Akerman had his answer ready. ‘This is your warning, which we considered was the gentlest method possible of informing you of the fate of the chain you work for.’

‘What’s gentle about this?’ Ted Field queried.

Plainly impatient now, Brent Akerman replied, ‘Would each of you have preferred to have received through your letter-boxes an impersonal note of dismissal? Or a cold-blooded few words in your pay packets—“Your employment is terminated as from today”? At least we’ve laid on drinks and a buffet.’

‘Thanks a lot for that,’ Roger half rose, ‘but we’d rather have our jobs.’ There was a general murmur of agreement.

‘We at Worldview,’ Brent Akerman went on, ‘are giving you far longer notice of the termination of your employment than other firms, who merely announce their intentions to the media, or maybe take the trouble to gather together their staff on site and say, “Right, this is the end”.’

He paused. His audience hung on his every word. A born orator, Crystal found herself thinking, at first with a curious kind of pride, then, as she caught up on her own thoughts, with a twist of resentment.

‘The branch closures,’ the speaker continued, ‘will take place simultaneously one month from now. A generous redundancy payment will be made to every staff member,’ with a fleeting glance in Crystal’s direction, ‘regardless of the length of their service.’

‘I’m duly grateful for that,’ Crystal heard herself saying, discovering, to her utter astonishment, that she was on her feet, ‘but what I can’t understand is why you’re closing down all of us when, for instance, Maureen Hilson and I are doing so well at our particular branch.’

‘Hush, dear,’ whispered Maureen anxiously.

Crystal did not heed the warning. ‘You...’ she looked around, seeing faces as surprised by her outspokenness as she was, then swung her gaze back to the man she was addressing, recoiling a little at his irritated expression ‘...you know that our branch achieved highest sales, because it was you who presented me with the prize. So couldn’t you just—just—’ her bravado, which she had never even known she had, was running out ‘—just be selective in your closures?’

‘You mean,’ he responded, his tone just this side of cutting, ‘allow Miss Crystal Rose to keep her job, and fire all the rest?’

Her cheeks burned at his calculated sarcasm, even as her mind registered amazement that he had actually remembered her name.

‘No, of course I don’t mean that, Mr Akerman.’ Was it really she, Crystal Rose, addressing the top man in that tone? ‘I mean, couldn’t you give some of us another chance, let us try to push up our sales before you shut down the whole chain?’

‘It’s an interesting idea, Miss Rose,’ came the drawling reply, ‘but the world of big business, of which you doubtless know only a minimal amount, doesn’t make decisions based simply on hope rather than the distinctly disappointing, if not to say dismal, sets of figures put in front of it by their accountants.’

‘Nor does it allow,’ she retaliated, sweeping together the crumbs of her courage, ‘for the human factor. I love my job, as I’m sure we all do here, otherwise this crowd,’ she flapped her hand over their heads, ‘wouldn’t have bothered to show up. After all, the letter we received gave no indication of what the meeting was about.’

‘I guessed,’ said someone in the front row. ‘Our sales have taken a shocking dive lately.’

‘Ours, too,’ said another man.

Crystal’s heart sank. They all seemed intent on letting her down, yet if they were all speaking the truth... She would have to fight even harder, the employees as well as the management.

‘So why have ours—Maureen’s and mine—been so good?’ she asked the meeting in general.

There was indulgent male laughter. ‘Must have been a magnet somewhere in your shop that drew ‘em in,’ was one young man’s comment, and he turned his head to get a good look at the lady speaker. ‘A “hidden persuader”, I think they’re sometimes called in the trade.’

‘In the form of a good-looking lady assistant,’ another man qualified, ‘who’s got what it takes.’

On the platform Brent had taken the central seat, sitting back, arms folded, legs crossed, a smile lurking, seeming content to watch and wait, while his two colleagues appeared to share his barely veiled amusement.

Crystal shook her head, her auburn hair swirling around her shoulders. ‘You’re on the wrong track. Our stock appeals to young women—beads, bangles, headscarves, perfumes.’

‘And what about the men?’ Ted Field turned in his seat. ‘Don’t you get a single male in your shop?’

‘Well, yes. Boyfriends, husbands...’

‘All looking for gifts for the women in their lives. There you are, then. They see a pretty girl assistant and in they go.’

Crystal shook her head, bemused by the banter. ‘But I’m—’ I’m not that attractive, she had been about to say. She rounded on the members of the audience. ‘I don’t know how you can take it all so calmly. It’s your livelihoods you’re being deprived of, yours and mine. What about your families, your way of life? They,’ she indicated the platform party, shutting her eyes to the increasingly darkening features of the chairman of the meeting, ‘are threatening to take away your jobs, make you all unemployed—’

Roger’s agitated hand tugged at Crystal’s. ‘Leave it,’ he urged. ‘You’ve said enough.’

‘Yes,’ whispered Maureen, ‘he’s right. Please, Crystal, sit down. It won’t do us, or you, any good at all.’

Brent Akerman got to his feet. ‘Not threatening, Miss Rose,’ he grated, ‘intending. Thank you for your intervention. I think your colleagues have provided the answers to your queries.’

Crystal was on her feet again. ‘A management buy-out,’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s what we want!’

‘It’s the management, Miss Crystal,’ Brent Akerman clipped, with a mocking curve to his lips, ‘who intend to close the chain. Don’t you mean an employee buy-out?’

If his words had been intended as a put-down, he had succeeded. Cheeks hot, hand shaking a little as she smoothed back her hair, Crystal subsided, not completely sure as to just what had come over her. It must have been a side to her character that had been lurking below the surface for years, undisturbed and unprovoked, completely unknown even to herself, until that man, the man who stood on that platform so confidently, had prodded it awake.

More, she thought with dismay, he had prodded awake feelings within herself which she hadn’t been aware of before and which, even as she gazed up at him, were making themselves felt only too plainly.

Maureen nudged her gently. ‘That’s good, that’s very thoughtful,’ she murmured.

‘What is?’ Crystal asked, coming, a little bewildered, out of her dream.

‘Aren’t you listening, dear? You really should be. They’re giving us six weeks’ pay over and above our notice, so that we can keep paying our bills and try and find other employment at the same time. And,’ Maureen paused for effect even as Brent Akerman talked, ‘they’re giving us a very generous sum as redundancy pay.’

‘In addition,’ the chief executive concluded, ‘we will do our best at Worldview to absorb back into the company, or into one of its subsidiaries, as much of the workforce as we can.’

‘How’s that for consideration?’ Roger whispered in her ear. ‘If they can find me only part-time work it’ll help to fund my studies.’

Brent Akerman’s hand waved to the long, laden tables that stretched down one side of the room. ‘Having completed the unpleasant part of this meeting, I invite you all to help yourselves to the food provided.’

The platform party of three filed off, and as they did so Brent Akerman put his hand to his mouth to cover a wide, shuddering yawn. So he’s bored to his core, is he? Crystal thought resentfully, following the others as they beat a path to the consumables. A small bar had been provided as a thoughtful postscript by the regretful, if unrelenting, Worldview management.

Crystal discovered that she was hungry, having had no time even for a scratch meal before leaving home. As she filled a plate and forked the delicious savouries into her mouth, others, doing likewise, joined her.

Maureen picked at the food on her plate, her mind plainly on other things. ‘However will I manage without a regular wage coming in?’ she asked the company in general.

‘Find another job?’ Crystal asked gently. She, like all the others, knew about Maureen’s semi-invalid mother, who lived with her.

‘At my age? And within cycling reach of my home, the way the shop is?’ Maureen shook her head.

‘Heaven knows,’ Ted Field commented worriedly, ‘how I’ll manage to keep going financially. What did you have in mind,’ he turned to Crystal, ‘when you suggested a buy-out?’

‘Yes,’ a rounded fair-haired young woman took him up, ‘have you got access to a gold-mine or something?’

Crystal recognised her as the girl who had spoken to her in the cloakroom after the prize-giving dinner a fortnight or so back. Shirley Brownley, she recalled, was the young woman’s name.

‘I wish I had, Shirley,’ Crystal responded, drinking a mouthful of wine. ‘But we could raise a loan, couldn’t we?’

‘Anyone around here,’ said Roger, grinning, ‘got a friendly bank manager?’

‘Or a rich daddy?’ asked Ted. ‘And I do mean father—nothing else,’ he added as the others laughed.

‘Mine’s with my mother in Denmark,’ Crystal declared, ‘staying with old friends of the family. Anyway, he took early retirement and he’s anything but rich.’

‘Oh, dear. So that’s that idea knocked on the head,’ said Shirley.

‘Let’s try again,’ Crystal urged. ‘What about savings? Couldn’t we all pool them and—?’

‘Mine are non-existent,’ said Ted.

‘Mine are sacrosanct,’ Roger averred. ‘They’ve got to tide me over financially until I get my degree. Especially as I’m now about to get the push.’

Most of the others seemed to be entirely in agreement with him.

‘Mr Akerman did promise,’ Crystal ventured, ‘that those who weren’t offered positions in the company’s other subsidiaries would receive good redundancy pay. How about—?’

‘Using that?’ An older man shook his head. ‘I’ll need mine to help pay the mortgage and keep the bailiffs at bay.’

‘Me, too,’ chorused many of the others.

There the conversation tailed off, the group dispersing to help themselves to more of the food and fill their glasses with the surprisingly good-quality wine. This last, Crystal calculated, with unaccustomed cynicism, Worldview had surely provided not only to soften the blow of dismissal, but also to keep reality from bursting in before the doomed employees reached home.

Hunger appeased, she wandered somewhat despondently away from the crowd, finding herself in the open air and standing at the edge of a softly illuminated paved area set about with wrought-iron tables and chairs.

Other guests sat under the evening sky, some alone, others in cosy twosomes, plainly at one with the world, secure in their jobs and their ways of life. Unlike, Crystal reflected, herself and her colleagues, who had just been informed of their impending loss of employment and plunge into near-poverty, if not actual destitution.

Losing the job she loved and the salary that went with it was a double blow. It was money she needed to enable her not only to eat but also to pay the rent of the old but cosy two-bedroomed end-of-terrace cottage she lived in.

‘Miss Rose.’ Her name wafted, a mere whisper, on the cool evening air. ‘Over here, Miss Rose.’ Crystal swung towards a shaded corner of the wide patio from which the voice had come.

A figure half reclined against a plinth that supported the statue of a somewhat scantily robed woman rising with dignity and proud beauty towards the darkening sky.

The height of the man, the width of his shoulders, the elegant suit, not to mention the fine shape of his head and slightly indolent pose, told Crystal at once who he was. But should she go at his bidding? Her feet made the decision for her.

‘Yes?’ was her whispered answer as her closer proximity to him allowed her to survey the features she had come to know so well through their constant appearance in her dreams.

He seemed to have no answer to offer, except to hold out the dish of savouries he had selected from an assortment of edibles that rested on the statue’s standing area. It was so reminiscent of the first time they had met that laughter tugged at Crystal’s throat, and a brilliant grey-eyed smile echoed her amusement.

‘I’m full, thanks,’ she answered his gesture, but, as before, the dish was proffered again, so she accepted, and wondered at the strange improvement in the taste of the titbit on that of those she had eaten inside. It wasn’t that the quality was better, she was sure of that. It was...what was it? The time, the place and the man standing there that had imbued the savoury with the flavour of nectar?

Should I, she found herself wondering, in view of the unhappy circumstances that now prevailed, really be on such—well, friendly terms with the top man? Wasn’t she in danger of letting her colleagues down?

‘You—you haven’t just returned from a trip abroad, I suppose?’ she queried, accepting—as before—the paper napkin he offered.

He nodded, consuming another portion of the mini-meal as if he could not appease his hunger fast enough.

‘I thought I recognised the signs,’ she commented with a smile, which he returned, with a devastating effect on her pulse-rate. ‘Your dislike of airline food?’

‘Full marks for an excellent memory.’ A sliver of salmon atop a bed of lettuce on a finger of toast was demolished by a crunch of formidable white teeth.

‘Where—where from this time?’

He swallowed, licking his fingers then using a paper napkin, looking vaguely round for a waste-bin. Crystal took the scrunched paper from him, depositing it on a plate.

‘Japan,’ he just got out before another colossal yawn enveloped him. For a couple of seconds his eyes closed. Allowing himself a mere moment for recovery—his stamina, Crystal found herself thinking, must be remarkable—he reached across the plinth for a wine bottle.

Having secured it, he realised that, with the other hand holding a savoury, he had no hand free with which to pick up the glass that perched precariously on the stone base.

It took Crystal a mere second to react, seizing the glass by its stem just before it toppled. Taking the bottle, she poured him a generous supply. This he gratefully accepted, raising the glass in a salute and drinking deeply, his eyes reflectively on her as he imbibed.

Then they narrowed and she heard him ask, ‘Who taught you to anticipate a man’s needs so promptly and so skilfully?’ The wine bottle was almost empty now.

‘Instinct, intuition. Maybe my genes?’

A smile flirted with his expressive mouth at her playful reply.

‘I,’ he straightened, hands in pockets, ‘would put my money on a demanding boyfriend.’

‘Then, Mr Akerman, you’d be throwing your money away.’ She didn’t want to talk about Mick. It hurt even now, just thinking about him.

A reflective pause, then ‘So keep off. I can hear it in your voice. OK, I won’t trespass on private grief.’

‘No, no, it’s not like that!’ And strangely, incredibly, it wasn’t. Out of the blue, she discovered that she just didn’t care any more about Mick Temple and the heartless way he’d thrown her over for another girl.

‘So tell me, then,’ he asked, ignoring her outburst, ‘who taught you to be so belligerent and bellicose?’

Crystal’s mouth fell open. ‘You can’t be talking about me?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Carefully he recorked the empty bottle. ‘Who jumped to her feet this evening at every opportunity and challenged the platform?’

‘Who—?’ How could she tell him she had been as surprised as he was? ‘Oh. I’m—er—sorry about that.’ A pause, then, tossing her head, ‘No, I’m not. What I said came from the heart.’

‘Crys—tal? Hey, Crystal! So this is where you’ve got to.’ Roger came round a corner and stopped dead, looking from one to the other, frowning uncomfortably. ‘Sorry to butt in, but Crystal, I—er—we missed you. Thought you might have gone home without telling us.’ With an apologetic lift of the hand, he made to leave, but checked himself. ‘About that other matter, Crystal—could I call you, reference what we discussed?’

‘Why not? Any time.’

Roger seemed pleased, and Crystal hoped he had not read more into her invitation than her agreement to do some office work for him.

‘You’d better go, Miss Rose,’ came the dry remark, Brent Akerman having plainly made his own—wrong—interpretation. ‘Betts is missing you.’

Brent Akerman, the chief executive of the group known as Worldview International, actually remembered Roger’s surname?

‘The others, too,’ he waved his hand vaguely, ‘are missing their leader, their spokesman.’ He folded his arms and leaned against the plinth, smiling mockingly. ‘Oh, dear. Womankind will be after my—’ an eyebrow darted upward ‘—be after me. I’d better feminise that word fast—spokeswoman. And,’ his head went back to rest on the statue’s hard bare thighs, ‘do let the management know, won’t you, if there’s going to be a strike, or a sit-in? Or even a march in the town. You must inform the police about that, did you know? The management would hate to see the lovely Crystal Rose thrown into gaol through ignorance of the law.’

Annoyed by his cynicism, she was about to retaliate when she saw that his eyes had closed. ‘Mr Akerman,’ she whispered.

‘Yes?’ without lifting his head.

‘Shouldn’t you go home? I’m sure your wife will be anxious. Could I—shall I use the hotel phone and tell her you’ll soon be on your way?’

‘Call my place, by all means,’ came from him harshly, ‘but there’ll be no answer. I have no wife, no clinging little woman waiting for me.’ The bitterness was almost tangible.

‘No one there?’ Crystal asked, astonished that such a man, such a masculine man, had no woman in his life.

‘No one,’ he repeated, eyes still closed. ‘I had my fill long ago of the “two hearts that beat as one” myth, of “devotion”, and declarations of life-long love. There’s a heart where a man’s heart usually is, Miss Rose, but mine is ice right through.’

‘It sounds,’ Crystal offered into the taut silence, her own spirits unaccountably having taken a dive, ‘as if you’ve been hurt very badly.’

‘Does it?’ he responded indifferently.

Eyes fluttering open, he pulled himself upright, swaying just a little. Crystal’s hand on his arm steadied him and he looked down at it as if wondering how it had got there.

‘I think, Mr Akerman,’ she offered gently, ‘that you might be just a little bit—intoxicated.’

‘Think again, Miss Rose. The wine bottle was half full when I accepted it at the bar counter. One of the residents said he didn’t want it and kindly offered it to me.’

‘But you drank most of it on an empty stomach.’

‘True. So?’ The faint shrug and the light in his eyes convinced Crystal that most of his faculties were alive and well, if not entirely under his command. Then he swayed again. He swore under his breath and commented, ‘I’m tired, Miss Rose, deadly tired.’

Crystal, hoping to humour him, tried reassurance. ‘Jet lag probably, Mr Akerman.’

‘Plus three late nights—or should I say early mornings?—in a row.’

‘Are you going to drive yourself home?’

‘Nope. I came here by taxi straight from the airport. If you’d call another for me, Miss Rose, I’ll be eternally grateful.’ His head was back against the statue, eyes closed again.

‘Taxi, love?’ the barman said. ‘This time of night they’re almost impossible to get hereabouts.’ He indicated the wall telephone. ‘But you’re welcome to try.’

Someone was using the phone, which would mean a wait. So...she would take him home, in the car she had borrowed for the evening. Returning, she found him as she had left him, leaning, as still as the statue he rested against. Was he asleep on his feet?

‘Mr Akerman,’ her hand resumed its perch on his arm, ‘this is the way outside. Will you come with me?’

With his eyes still closed he said softly, ‘To the end of the rainbow, Miss Rose.’

His eyes opened and he looked straight into hers. It was like a bright light being switched on after intense darkness, and she found herself wanting to shield her own.

His gaze for once held no mockery, no warmth, yet no coldness either, but there was definitely a hint of something that sent tingles racing up and down her spine. Then his glance slanted down again at her hand. Maybe it was a presumptuous gesture, in view of who he was, but she had to get him outside somehow.

She had discovered a rear entrance that led on to the car park. Helping him into the front passenger-seat of the small car, she heard him mumble an address. Let him think it was a taxi driver he was addressing. He was too far gone, anyway, she reflected, pulling out into the road, to care whether his conveyance was a cab or a private car. She had caught enough of the address to let her know in which direction to point the car.

Rumour had it that he lived only a few miles from her own home town, so she drove in the general direction of the countryside but, dark as it was, with winding roads and hedges looming each side, and without his wide-awake directions, she felt as bemused as if she were lost in a maze.

Pulling in beside a farm gate, she called his name. He didn’t stir.

‘Mr Akerman!’ louder this time, but she received the same response. Her hand once again found its way to his arm and she repeated his name, panicking just a little now. Her fingers walked down to his wrist, pressing the back of it. His hand turned over and captured hers.

‘No, no!’ she exclaimed, trying to shake free. ‘Just tell me where you live, Mr Akerman. I need directions. Please, Mr Akerman.’

A long sigh issued from his lungs and he lifted her hand to his cheek. Oh, no, she thought, who does he think I am? His lady-love? There just has to be a woman in this man’s life! She tried sliding her hand free, to no avail, so she changed tactics and jerked it away, hoping to wake him up. Her hand was relinquished, but to her dismay he settled into an even deeper sleep.

With a sigh of exasperation she turned the car and made for the town, pulling up at the rear of her little house, thrusting down her foot and braking sharply, but in vain. He stayed profoundly asleep.

CHAPTER THREE

THERE was no doubt about it: Crystal couldn’t let Brent sleep in the car all night, so she took the only course available to her. Opening the door, she placed her hands on his shoulders and pulled. It was a miracle, but it worked: he did not resist. Instead, he moved towards her. Encouraged, she lifted his feet to the ground and managed somehow to manoeuvre him out, leaning him against the car. Diving round to lock it, she raced back, catching him as he began to slide sideways.

Lifting his arm across her shoulders and with her own arms around his waist, she urged him on beside her, he in a kind of waking sleep, she sagging a little under the weight of him. She was afraid that he might trip over the back doorstep, but he seemed to know by instinct that he should lift first one foot, then the other.

The sofa complained noisily as, hands on his hips, she guided him down. It was shabby, its springs almost flattened by years of wear, but its feather-filled cushions gave softly as she pushed them under his head, his shoulders and his calves. His height didn’t help, his feet dangling over the raised arm, but it was the best she could do in the circumstances.

Looking down at him, she hoped he wouldn’t be in too bad a shape when he awoke in the morning.

‘If only,’ she whispered, ‘you’d been able to direct me to your own home, by now you’d be tucked up in your own comfortable bed.’ There was no response, but then, she hadn’t expected any.

It came two hours later in the form of the sound of furniture crashing and an unsmothered curse. The words, ‘Where am I, for God’s sake?’ penetrated the ceiling of the living-room to her bedroom directly above.

Even if she had been sleeping heavily, which she hadn’t, being subconsciously aware all the time of the presence of a stranger—and such a stranger!—in her small, normally quiet world, she would have heard him.

Swinging out of bed and tugging on a wrap, she tiptoed barefoot down the stairs and opened the living-room door, to find Brent standing, jacketless, bewildered and angry, beside the unfortunate table that had taken the brunt of his outflung, light-switch-seeking hand.

Diving to right the table and switch on the table lamp, she straightened to meet the furious grey eyes.

‘What’s this?’ he growled, pulling at his tie as if it choked him. ‘A plot among Ornamental’s redundant employees to kidnap the chief executive with a view to working on him to change his mind and reinstate them?’

His gaze swept around, skimming over the tiny dining area, the spoof antiques, the badly worn carpet, plainly not liking very much what he saw, then tossed his discarded tie on to a bow-legged coffee-table from whose shiny surface it slipped to the floor. ‘Where the hell am I?’ he repeated.

‘In my house, Mr Akerman. And if you’d let me explain—’

‘So you—’ he looked her up and down with as much pleasure in his eyes as when, moments ago, he had inspected his surroundings ‘—you, Crystal Rose, are their self-appointed spokesman, yet again?’ His lips thinned. ‘I might have known, should have guessed. Not only that, but also, because of your qualities of leadership, your persuasiveness—’

In vain, Crystal shook her head. Didn’t he understand that that outcry on behalf of her colleagues had taken even her by surprise? That never in her life before had she sprung to her feet in the course of a meeting and addressed even the back of a person’s head, let alone the platform?

‘—they appointed you,’ he was saying, ‘kidnapper, abductor, hostage-taker in chief?’

This time her madly shaking head, the auburn lights of her mop of hair thrown around by the mock-crystal chandelier of which the cottage’s owner was so proud, brought his accusations to a halt.

‘If you’d just let me explain.’ This time he heeded the appeal in her voice.

Having heard her out, he sank back to rest against the sofa. ‘OK, I believe you,’ was his weary response. ‘This hangover is evidence enough. It was good of you to give me a lift. I see now that you had no alternative but to bring me here.’

‘Jet lag,’ she put in, ‘not hangover.’

His eyes opened slowly, his gaze mocking. ‘So many sides to the beautiful Crystal Rose. Chauffeur, minder, good Samaritan, political agitator—’

‘No!’

‘You mean, you’re not beautiful?’ Deliberately misunderstanding, Brent lifted his arms, resting his head on them. With an eyebrow arched, long legs stretched out, appreciation glinted in the faintly lustful gaze as it sketched her outline, which her thin cotton belted wrap did little to hide.

‘No—I mean, yes. What I mean is—’ An exasperated sigh came from the depths of her. ‘Will you please stop referring to my defence of my colleagues’ jobs this evening as evidence that I’m a revolutionary at heart? All I wanted was to safeguard their means of livelihood—people like Maureen Hilson, who’s got an invalid mother to look after.’

‘Caring as well as compassionate. I must look out your private file and make sure all these attributes are noted down.’

‘What use will that be, Mr Akerman, when in a few weeks, along with all the others, I’ll be an ex-employee of yours?’

‘Mm.’ Those dark eyes sketched a more intimate outline, shading in the curves and inlets like an artist sketching a particularly attractive piece of coastline. ‘Play your cards right, Miss Rose, and—’

‘Goodnight, Mr Akerman.’ She swung to the door. ‘Better luck with sleeping for the time that’s left.’

He was on his feet and grabbing her before she had finished the sentence, and she hit the sofa beside him with a bump.

‘I’m a stranger in a strange land, Miss Rose,’ he declared softly. ‘I’m shy.’ His eyes held as many glints as the chandelier. ‘I need reassurance—yours, as my hostess.’ Laughter lurked as he whispered against her ear, making it tingle unbearably, ‘I need my hand held, Crystal Rose.’

He took hers in a caressing hold, but loosely, so that all her hand needed to do was slip away from his. But it didn’t. Perversely it stayed right there, liking so much the feel of his palm against its back, the strength of the long fingers that pushed their way between its own.

He then proceeded to unfasten his shirt buttons, placing her hand against his chest.

‘Feel the way my heart’s fluttering, Miss Rose,’ he said huskily, ‘it’s jumping with sheer nerves at finding itself in the middle of the night in a stranger’s house.’

There was the roughness of chest hair softening the hard breadth and sinew of him, but no sign of a quivering beat, only the vigorous hammering of the healthy heart of a jungle hunter in hot pursuit of its prey. The intimate contact of her hand against his flesh was electric, making her own heart flutter and dance in the most disconcerting way.

Her eyes collided with his, and to her consternation they could not tear themselves free. Laughter persisted in that grey gaze, mixed in with a predatory gleam, and a hint of very masculine desire. Not a sign of the shyness he professed to feel, but how could she have even begun to believe his outrageous statement?

‘If I really believed you meant what you said about being shy, Mr Akerman,’ she commented, ‘I’d believe anything.’

She had meant it to come out with scorn laced with sarcasm, but she heard the catch in her throat, the quick intake of her own breath. He was having the same mind-blowing effect on her as he’d had from the moment she had set eyes on him.

Holding her gaze, he slid his hands to her shoulders, and before she was aware of his intention he had pulled her round and into his arms. Every particle of her knew she shouldn’t be there, but her cheek had ignored all the warning signals and had taken the liberty of nestling cosily against the wall of his chest.

His arms held her loosely, but Crystal was certain that if she tried to escape they would clamp her to him without mercy.

‘That’s better, Miss Rose,’ he sighed against her hair, ‘much better. You’re doing a great job of reassuring this timid guest of yours that his hostess won’t bite him.’

Crystal laughed, then pulled back her head and searched his face. His mouth twitched and, flushing deeply, she disentangled herself from him. Yes, she had been right about the intended double meaning.

‘That’s not my way, Mr Akerman,’ she declared, winding her wrap more closely around her.

He closed his eyes, legs outstretched, arms folded. Crystal gathered up the scattered cushions and placed them in a pile.

A shiver caught up with her, telling her how cool a night it was. She switched on the imitation coal fire that stood in the grate, then crept out to find a blanket, gently spreading it over him. Crouching down, she eyed his shoes. Dared she unlace them and ease them off? With her hand light as a butterfly on his knee, she scanned his features, and her heart turned over at the intensely unhappy expression on his handsome face.

She wanted to throw her arms round him to comfort him, easing the pain he was undoubtedly feeling. She wanted to offer him sympathy, ease away his sadness, soothe him with her warmth, her love...

Horrified by her thoughts, she made to rise, when a hand rested on hers on his knee. Mortified that he had known all along that her hand was there, she began to snatch hers away, when his hold tightened and he pulled her round and on to the sofa again.

His arm settled around her, and although she knew she should move away not a single nerve or bone in her body tensed to follow her mind’s instructions.

His fingers tipped her chin and the glow from the electric fire lit her features, while his, to her chagrin, remained in shadow.

‘When you looked at me, what were your thoughts?’ he queried huskily.

So he’d seen her looking at him! And she had thought the light was so subdued and his eyes closed so tightly that her scrutiny of his face would have been a total secret.

‘You looked so unhappy, Mr Akerman,’ she answered softly, straining without success to read his expression, ‘that I—’

‘You wanted to apply first aid?’ He shook his head. ‘My emotions, my feelings—they’re beyond repair. Forget them. I follow my male instincts these days; my emotions, where the act of love is concerned, are in cold store, and there they’ll stay.’ Why, Crystal wondered, had her heart just sunk like a stone? ‘And you, Miss Rose,’ his slow kiss was a mere tantalising brush of the lips, ‘look pale and tired and in need of sleep. Put your arm across my shoulders.’

Too weary now to disobey, she did as he had told her. His arm enclosed her and her cheek found itself nestling once more against soft masculine fuzz, while a rhythmic drum beat reassuringly beneath her ear.

As her eyes closed she told herself that OK, so she shouldn’t really be there, that she should remind herself of who he was and draw away, but for once she disregarded her powerful conscience and nestled even closer to the man in whose arms she was drifting into a beautiful sleep.

* * *

She found the note next morning. Sunlight shining in through her bedroom window surprised her awake.

That’s strange, she thought, I must have forgotten to close the curtains last night. Then it all came back. No strong arms held her, no gently breathing chest supported her head. She was back in her own bed.

Since she remembered nothing about climbing the stairs, and she wasn’t given to sleep-walking, there was only one way she could have got there, and that was in the arms of the person who had pulled the cover over her.

Brent Akerman, removing her wrap and—she looked down at herself—seeing far more than her outline beneath the lightweight fabric of her nightdress? She blushed at the thought. But maybe she had dreamed that Brent had held her close in the small hours?

Words, whispered in a beautiful speaking voice that she had heard but hadn’t understood, came hazily back. She strained to make sense out of them, but they were just as mysterious now as they had been in the darkness. And the touch of lips on her forehead, the stroking disturbance of her hair—they, too, just had to be part of her dreams, because they’d never really happened. How could they?

Those murmured words...they still wouldn’t let her alone. The way they had been spoken—hadn’t there been a note of sadness, and yes, even of regret? Yet, if there had been, how could she have known when she had been sleeping so deeply?

The note was propped against a flower vase on a table near the main door. It said,

Crystal, thank you for your thoughtfulness in bringing me here. Thanks also for your hospitality.

And, almost as if in his mind he had whispered it,

Thank you for your warmth.

Brent.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘HAVE you noticed?’ Maureen Hilson commented that afternoon. ‘Customers have been coming in in their droves.’ She smoothed back her greying hair. ‘I’ve hardly had time to breathe, let alone comb these beautiful locks of mine.’

‘I noticed. What’s more,’ Crystal added happily, ‘not only have people come in and looked around, they’ve also actually bought things.’

Maureen smiled, glancing at the rose bowl glinting attractively on a pink-tinted glass stand. ‘I suppose you could say that we didn’t get the prize for the highest sales for nothing.’ She sighed. ‘If only the company wasn’t insisting on closing all the shops down. The chief executive—what did they say his name was?’

Crystal looked up from feather-dustering necklaces and picture frames. Did Maureen really not know? ‘Akerman,’ she informed her. ‘Brent Akerman.’ She rolled the names around her tongue, as they had been rolling around in her head almost every minute of every hour since she had slept in his arms. ‘Brent’, he’d signed himself in that note—and ‘Crystal’, he’d called her. She had put the slip of paper, which he had obviously torn from his notebook, in a drawer among her most treasured possessions.

‘Mr Akerman—that’s right,’ said Maureen, mopping up some spilt liquid from the ‘make up your own perfume’ section. ‘You—er—’ She looked askance at Crystal. ‘You wouldn’t—er—have any influence with that very handsome male, would you, dear?’

Crystal swung around, duster held aloft. ‘What do you mean?’ Had she been seen ushering him, her hand on his elbow, through the rear entrance and helping him into her car? Had there been spies watching her house to note the time Brent had left?

Mentally she shook herself, telling herself not to think such melodramatic thoughts about a completely innocent situation.

‘Well,’ Maureen qualified a little defensively, ‘Roger told us that when he looked for you yesterday evening he found you and Mr Akerman in a cosy twosome in a corner of the hotel garden.’

‘Twosome? Myself and the chief executive of Worldview International?’ Relief made Crystal smile. ‘Roger’s got to be joking!’ She added truthfully, ‘Mr Akerman was telling me how jet lagged he was, that’s all, and how often he—well, commuted on business to other parts of the world.’

Maureen nodded. ‘Ah. I thought Roger was making too much of it. Crystal, dear, I think he’s jealous. I’m sure our Roger fancies you.’

‘Oh, no,’ Crystal returned, dismayed. ‘It’d spoil our business relationship if he does.’ Seeing Maureen’s puzzlement, she explained, ‘He’s a nice bloke, but if he tries to get more than friendly I won’t be able to keep my promise to help him out with his written work.’

‘What’s wrong with him, Crystal? A lot of girls would love to have him around.’

‘Yes, well, I’m not one of them. I’ve had enough of the opposite sex for a long time to come. The man I thought for months was the one for me called me on the day he’d promised to buy me a ring and told me he’d found someone else. It’ll take me a long time to trust another man the way I trusted Mick Temple.’

‘I understand how you feel,’ Maureen sympathised. ‘I met him once, remember, when he called to take you to a meal.’ She shook her head. ‘I could sense that underneath that smooth talk he was a no-gooder.’

After a reflective pause Crystal went on, ‘Anyway, even if I’d had any influence with the chief executive, what good would it have done?’

‘It’s just that I was going to suggest you might ask him to make an exception of our branch of Ornamental You. Especially as our sales figures outdid everyone else’s.’

‘You mean, ask him to allow this branch to continue to trade, but close all the others down?’ Crystal shook her head. ‘I don’t think it would be practicable. And I don’t think for a minute that he’d even consider it. You’d realise what a hard man he really was if you’d heard him talk as he talked to—’ She pulled herself up sharply. ‘Talked to me last night about his private feelings,’ she had been going to say.

‘Of course,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘you did hear him speak, didn’t you? At the meeting yesterday evening. Well, there was no “give” in the man, was there? Only the tired old “this hurts me more than it hurts you” routine.’

‘Ah, well.’ Maureen shrugged disappointedly. ‘It was just a thought. Although how I’m going to provide for my mother as well as myself when I lose this job, I just don’t know. As a semi-invalid, she needs so many little extras to help her. Also, jobs don’t exactly grow on trees these days.’ She sighed. ‘All the same, you’d think it would count, wouldn’t you? After all, you and I—we did—’

‘Achieve the highest sales,’ Crystal took her up sympathetically. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to be able to pay my rent, but, unlike you, I’ve only got myself to worry about.’

A group of young women entered, asking each other’s advice as to what to buy. Then they consulted Crystal and Maureen. As they left with their purchases one of them said, ‘We saw a report in the local paper that all the Ornamental You shops are closing. Is it true? Because if it is it’ll be a real blow.’

‘It’s true, I’m afraid,’ said Crystal sadly.

‘Well, we’re at college, and dozens of us come here to buy birthday and Christmas presents because your prices are so reasonable compared with other stores.’

‘Hey,’ said another, ‘let’s get together, girls, and try and scrape up enough cash to buy this shop.’

Filing through the door, they laughingly agreed it was a good idea, although one commented, ‘Count me out. I’ve hardly got a big enough grant to keep myself in food and textbooks, let alone going into the red through trying to move into big business!’

‘Now that’s an idea,’ declared Maureen when they had gone. ‘If you and I pooled our savings... No?’ as Crystal shook her head. ‘No, I guess not. But the idea’s a good one.’

Other customers drifted in, and by the end of the day Crystal and Maureen were delighted to discover that their takings were higher than ever.

That evening, tucking her aching feet beneath her, Crystal curled up on the sofa she had shared with Brent and for the twentieth time read the note he had left for her.

What if she took his words at face value? It then became a straightforward thank-you note, which she supposed was perfectly reasonable in the circumstances.

On the other hand, if she allowed herself to read not only between the lines, but also between the words, especially that last sentence, the slip of paper acquired a glow, the note itself becoming heavy with hidden meaning, with unspoken declarations of love...

Admonishing herself for her sentimentality, for sheer stupidity in embroidering the facts until they became the stuff of fiction, Crystal put the note aside. Then she took it up again and held it in case it blew away in some errant draught.

Head back, she felt her wayward thoughts conjure up the feel of Brent’s arms around her, the brush of his lips across hers... Her common sense brought her sharply back to the present and she began to wonder...

Would Maureen’s idea of her making a last-minute appeal to Brent Akerman have any effect? Would their more than close encounter last night make him more willing to listen to her and perhaps put him on their side? After all, sleeping in a man’s arms, even though she had only been seated beside him on a sofa, must surely count for something more than if she’d merely been on nodding terms with him?

She seized a cushion from behind her and hugged it close. ‘Mr Akerman,’ she could say, ‘it’s been suggested to me by Maureen Hilson, my colleague—and I thought it was a very good idea—that you might allow...the company might allow...’

Yes, that should be OK, but how to contact him? By post? Or maybe she could fax a letter? The father of one of her friends had a machine in his home for business purposes. No, sending a letter that way would be too risky. If someone saw the faxed copy and discovered what she was trying to persuade Brent Akerman to do—save one shop from extinction, even though all the others were closed down—it might well stir up trouble and also damage her case immeasurably.

Should she ring Head Office and ask for him personally, taking the risk of being snubbed by his secretary? Or should she go and see him?

See Brent Akerman again? Her heart leapt, then dived. The chief executive of Worldview International wouldn’t even consider setting aside two minutes, let alone half an hour of his time to discuss what would be to him such a trivial matter.

Plumping up the cushion, she turned to replace it when her eye caught a glimpse of a piece of patterned material that seemed to have partly hidden itself beneath the sofa.

Crystal extracted it with care, holding it up.

Before her startled eyes the tie Brent had been wearing the evening before unfolded itself. He had, she remembered, removed it in the course of those hours they had spent together, the thought of which even now made her pulse-rate accelerate. After dropping the tie he must have accidentally pushed it under the sofa.

Now she had a reason for seeing him again. So what if it might be simpler to push it into an envelope and post it to him? But that was something she couldn’t do, because she didn’t know where he lived. Nor could she send it by post to his office. She imagined the expression on his secretary’s face as she opened an envelope addressed to her boss, only to find that it contained a folded tie that belonged to him. And that it had come courtesy of one of the firm’s lady employees!

Crystal picked up the phone next morning. ‘Maureen, I’m going to take up your suggestion. About Worldview making an exception of our shop.’ The fact that she would also be returning Brent’s tie was a secret she would keep forever. ‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘I’m going to try to storm the bastion—Head Office—and fight my way through to the boss of bosses—’

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