Heart On Fire Part 9

"What differnee d~s it make?

Remember how he asked you to work for him and then made you stay in his suite all night and it is happening ~ over ag~n, but this time with ~s

father ' blI~AKI UIN blbLt~ ~5~) "His father?" Pierre interrupted,laughing."How old is he?""Oh, keep out of this!" Annette said, but Claudia answered him, her green eyes amused.

"Sixty-five... maybe seventy? Well, that's my guess." Claudia made alaughing face, and Pierre roared with amus.e.m.e.nt."But that's nothing! A spring chicken! Did he chase you around the desk?Pinch your pretty behind?""Neither," she said, looking at her sister."Oh, come on, Annette!The man is far too old. He is not the remotest threat to any woman.If you saw him! He is worn and tired, has grey hair, his face is like a cracked old map. and he's blind into the bargain! " "Maybe you're

right," Annette said sulkily.

"But he has two sons, and I don't like the sound of this flat business.

What it really means is that you will be living in that house with them!"

"No, not in the house. The flat is over a boathouse, and it has its own front door."

"Doors can be unlocked!" "But not if they're bolted from the inside, and I checked--there's a bolt at the top and bottom of the front door. I am going to be very safe in there, Annette. And, anyway, Ellis Lefevre is leaving for j.a.pan tonight. And the other brother, Stephen, is a p.u.s.s.ycat--you'vemet him, you know he's a darling, and no problem. So stop fussing."Annette threw up her hands.

"All right. All right. I won't say another word.""Not even "I told you so" , if anything does happen? " taunted Pierre,but she gave him a threatening glance.

"You be careful, or I'll take the rest of the day off and you'll be left alone to serve the customers and cook the meal."

Pierre put a hand over his mouth and turned back to his stove, but his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

Claudia pretended to laugh, but she did not sleep very well that night. She was too disturbed by those moments in Ellis Lefevre's arms. She kept tossing and turning in bed, too restless to relax, her body aching with aroused sensuality. What had he been doing, waiting for her out there? Why had he come to see her again? Had he meant to try to talk her into taking that job with him?

She had expected that he wouldn't come near her again, after she had poured that soup over his head. She gave a slightly hysterical giggle, remembering the way he had glared, with cuc.u.mber in his hair and cress on his cheek. He had stalked out looking as if he wanted to kill her, but he had come back, and that made her heart flip like a landed fish. He had been furious, but he had still come to find her again.

Well, OK, she argued with herself--he's persistent, but then you know that.

n.o.body runs a huge, worldwide business like his without the ability to keep coming back in spite of setbacks. Ellis Lefevre was a determined, tenacious man, who kept after what he wanted, and, for some reason, at the moment he seemed to want her.

A hot flush burned her cheeks and she closed her eyes, biting down on her lower lip. The very thought made her feel weak, and that was so stupid! It was no compliment that a man like Ellis Lefevre should feel a pa.s.sing fancy for her. He wasn't in love with her. It was something more basic he had on his mind.

He wanted to get her into bed, and then he would forget all about her.

Was that all he thought there was to it? A bargain, a deal, with the woman an object to be bought, acquired, made use of~. a new toy for him to enjoy until it bored him?

Because that was all she would mean to him if she ever let herself get involved with him ga toy, a plaything, to be discarded for something newer and more exciting one day.

She turned over again, beating the pillow with a clenched fist. He wasn't doing that to her. Never. He was never going to get an inch closer again; she was not going to let her stupid body betray her, after this, never again, not now she knew how vulnerable she was to him.

She was red-eyed and weary in the morning, but she felt calmer. She had made a clear-cut decision. She knew just how she felt and what she was going to do about it. It was some help to know that by now Ellis would probably be well on his way to j.a.pan and by the time he came back, in another month, if she was firm with herself, she would be immune to him.

Stephen picked her and her luggage up that afternoon, and drove her out to his father's house, cheerfully inviting Aianette and Pierre to come and visit her one day, whenever they had some time off. The invitation rea.s.sured them gas no doubt, it was meant to. Stephen had picked up the silent undertones of her sister's mood, her worried expression.

"Ring us every day!" Annette urged, all the same, her eyes full of warnings and forebodings.

"Yes, OK," Claudia promised, her own eyes wry. How old did Annette think she was? Anyone would think she was setting out on a trip to the Amazon 88 jungle instead of driving thirty miles out of London to stay with a very old man in a peaceful house by the river.

"Your sister is anxious about you?" Stephen guessed as they drove away, and she laughed, nodding. "She thinks you might be a white slaver."

He grinned.

"What a wonderful idea. Why didn't it occur to me?" Then he sobered.

"They must come and visit you, it will show them that they have no need to worry."

"Annette always worries," she a.s.sured him.

"She is much older than you?"

"Not so very much, but she grew up first, and still feels I'm just a kid.

Didn't you have the same problem with your brother?"

Stephen grimaced.

"Oh, yes! Ellis has always thought that he knew how I should run my life!

But then he thinks he should run everything. It is usually too tiring, trying to argue with him; it is easier to agree."

She pretended to laugh, then very casually, she asked: "Did you say he had gone to j.a.pan?"

Stephen nodded.

"I expect he's there by now. I haven't heard otherwise, but then Ellis and [ aren't what you might call close. We don't talk to each other every day. We haven't quarrelled, the way he and my father have--but we don't have that much in common. He's a businessman, and I'm a scientist--and there's quite a gulf between the two."

"I suppose there must be," she said vaguely, without real interest, staring out at the crowded London streets through which they drove.

She would miss the city. Or would she? A few weeks in the countryside would be very peaceful, and might help her to forget she had ever met Ellis.

O~.

The little flat looked as immaculate as it had before, but today there were vases of russet and white chrysanthemums everywhere, giving the rooms even more colour and a lovely, smoky fragrance.

"How lovely!" Claudia admired, bending her face to breathe in the scent.

"Celeste thought some flowers would make you feel more at home,"

Stephen said.

"She's tough, but very kind-hearted, by the way; try to make friends with her. She's important to my father, she has worked for him for years. She is French, but her husband was Swiss, a wonderful chef--he worked for my 'father, too, until he died fifteen years ago. Celeste has worn mourning ever since."

"So she moved here with your father from Switzerland? You lived there, too?

Don't you miss it?" Claudia asked as he set her cases down.

"Now and then," he admitted.

"Not so much the city as the mountains--I love winters there, the whiteness of the snow, the blue skies, the sting of cold air on the face. I feel more alive there than I ever do anywhere else."

"Did you come to England to be near your father?" Stephen laughed.

"No, it was the other way round. I came to do this research at Cambridge, and my father came to be near me. Also, there are some excellent eye specialists in Britain, and he hoped one of them might be able to work miracles." He gave her a wry smile, but there was pain in his eyes.

"Of course, none of them could."

"I'm sorry," she said gently, liking him more than ever.

Stephen shrugged.

"There's nothing we can do but try to help him. get used to the truth.

hope you will be able to help him, Claudia. You have such a sympathetic personality..."

She wondered if Ellis would agree, but didn't say so, merely smiled back at Stephen, and said she would do what she could.

"I know you will." He tried to shake off the bleak mood, looking around the sitting-room with a determined smile.

"And I hope you'll soon feel at home here."

"I'm sure I shall," she said.

"As soon as I've arranged a few of my own things around the place." She opened the smaller of her cases, and began to unpack and set out some of her favourite possessions--family photographs in silver frames, which she had inherited from her grandfather, a travelling alarm clock, some books, some audio tapes. Stephen watched her with interest, occasionally picking something up and admiring it, studying the photos closely.

"You and your sister don't look alike, do you?" he said, and she laughed.

"No, any more than you look like your brother!"

He grimaced, nodding.

"I take after our mother. She died when I was in my teens."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Claudia said, and he smiled at her. "It was a long time ago, now. I still miss her occasionally, but I'm used to not having her here now.

I think Ellis misses her more--they were very close, although I actually looked more like her. It was Ellis who was her favourite, I knew that. That is odd, isn't it? Ellis resembles our father, yet the two of them fight like cat and dog. " "Have they always quarrelled a great deal?"

"Always, but it has been worse since my father's sight went and he had to give up control of the business. He didn't want to do it, of course, and he resents Ellis because of itmhe's jealous, I suppose. He still tries to keep in close touch with what is going on, but it is difficult to run a multinational corporation when you are ill. There is too much pressure, too many people trying to lobby you or even s.n.a.t.c.h control away from you."

Claudia made a disgusted face.

"How appalling! I would have thought he would be glad to get away from that sort of ha.s.sle."

Stephen's mouth was crooked, and he laughed shortly.

"When you have been used to holding the reins of power, it isn't easy to let go of them. It had to happen, it made sense to let Ellis take over, but Father didn't like having to do it."

"It wasn't Ellis's fault, though!" Claudia said involuntarily, then bit her lip, wondering why on earth it should matter to her. She didn't like him, so why should it upset her to know that his father resented him, was hostile to him? She hoped Stephen hadn't noticed, and gave him a secret, sideways glance, but he was frowning at the floor; he was quite unaware of her, absorbed in his own thoughts.

"No, of course not," he agreed.

"But when you're ill and afraid, you stop being rational."

She was to remember that next day, when she greeted his father cheerfully, "Good morning!" and got a snarled reply.

"What's good about it?"

"Well, at least the sun is s.h.i.+ning and the river is a lovely bright silver!"

she said, without thinking, and got her head bitten off.

"As I can't see it, I'll have to take your word for it. Now, will you eat your breakfast and let me eat mine? And in future, Miss Thorburn, don't talk to me while I'm eating! It gives me indigestion."

She was flushed with horror at her own lack of tact and didn't dare say another word. As her sister always said, a hungry man was an angry man. She hoped he would be less touchy once he had eaten. He wasn't. If anything, he got worse as the day went on, and she had to keep biting her lip to stop herself snapping back at him. She kept reminding herself that he was a man under tremendous strain, she fought to stay calm and patient, but it was an uphill fight. Several times that first day, she almost handed in her notice and walked out, but she kept remembering Stephen's faith in her, and what he had said about his father being ill and afraid, and not very rational, and so she stayed. Perhaps once he got used to her he would be easier to deal with?

Next day she faced him with trepidation, and he was just as morose and difficult as he had been the first day.

It was some consolation that what he was dictating to her 'was so fascinating. When he wasn't shouting or snapping at her, she could lose herself in the text she was keying into her word processor.

Quentin Lefevre seemed to have total recall, and his memories of his childhood in Switzerland were both sad and idyllic. He had lived in a s.h.i.+mmering white landscape, gone to school on skis, skated over the frozen lakes and rivers near his home. It was a fairy-tale setting for a child--and yet at the heart of that childhood was a tragedy.

His mother had died when he was six, and Claudia felt tears sting her eyes as she tapped out what the old man said about the effect that death had on him.

"Read that back to me," he barked when she had finished, and she read, her voice husky and a little shaky.

"Have you got a cold?" he demanded, scowling.

"I don't want you near me if you aren't a hundred per cent fit!"

,~ She Swallowed, cleared her throat, and said she was fine, and they went on with the reading. Working for him was a permanent struggle for self-control.

He was moody, surly, irritable; she lent to recognise the signs of impending explosion, but it was never possible to avert it because Quentin's rage was not with her but with fate for having made him blind, and there was simply nothing to be done about that. Even her patience with him infuriated him.

"Don't humour me, girl!" he lashed out one day, towards the end of an exhausting afternoon.

"Stop agreeing with everything I say!"