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Dutifully Courage took the document from him, reading it as quickly as she could. She had just got to the bottom of the penultimate page when she stopped abruptly, lifting her head in astonishment.
‘What’s this?’ she demanded uncertainly. ‘You didn’t say anything about making me a loan of ten thousand pounds when you interviewed me.’
‘I didn’t think about it until after you’d gone,’ Gideon told her dismissively. ‘In fact, it wasn’t until I was drawing up the contract that it occurred to me that by advancing you a part of your salary it would enable you to arrange for your grandmother’s operation.’
‘Advancing part of my salary?’ Courage protested. ‘But…’
‘If you read on you’ll see that the contract covers a two-year period with five thousand being deducted from each year’s salary to repay the loan, which will be interest-free as it is as much in my interest as it is your own.’
‘As much in your interest?’ Courage’s forehead creased, pleated in a small frown. ‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand how…’
‘As you’ll soon discover, once you start working for me, I demand one hundred and twenty per cent concentration all day, every day from my employees… That’s what I pay them for. I do not want their minds wandering to personal matters while they’re supposed to be concentrating on their work. Therefore, it makes sense to do all that I can to ensure that their minds do not have cause to wander. It’s obvious from what you told me that you are extremely concerned about your grandmother’s health—to the point, I suspect, where there could be occasions when your concern for her could have a detrimental effect on your work. And that is something I do not want.’
‘But you said nothing about offering me a loan when you offered me the job,’ Courage protested, still not totally able to take in what she had just read.
‘Simply because at the time it hadn’t occurred to me. However, if you feel you’d prefer not to take it, I can…’
‘No, no, of course not… I…I’m very grateful to you for… It has come as such a shock… I wasn’t expecting…’
To Courage’s embarrassment she could feel her eyes suddenly starting to fill with tears as her throat closed up with emotion.
It was just beginning to dawn on her what Gideon Reynold’s offer of a loan would mean. Her grand-mother could have her operation; her life would no longer be in jeopardy. And she would have to remain here working for Gideon Reynolds for the next two years.
Courage frowned. Why should that knowledge daunt her? She knew she was up to the job—more than up to it… So what was it that bothered her? And something did, she knew that from the small sinking feeling which had followed her initial sense of stunned relief. Was it the man himself, Gideon Reynolds who daunted her? But why? Why should he?
She had come across powerful, egocentric men before—plenty of them. She had come across sexually magnetic men before, as well. Yes, but none of them had been quite so… None of them had been… None of them had caused that small, shocking quiver of sexual sensation which had raced through her when she had seen Gideon Reynolds looking at her legs. Was that what she was trying to tell herself?
Oh, come on, she derided herself mentally. He caught you off-guard, that’s all. He looked, you responded—that’s all. It doesn’t mean anything. Not to you and certainly not to him.
She could see Gideon flicking back his cuff and glancing frowningly at his watch, a none too subtle reminder to her that he was in a hurry.
She looked back down at the contract. Ten thousand pounds. It would be enough to cover the cost of Gran’s operation, and with the rest of her salary there would be something to provide for her recuperation. She’d been a complete idiot even to think of not accepting. For Gran’s sake, as well as her own.
It was just that it had come as such a shock and she had been so unprepared, she decided ten minutes later as she handed her signed contract back to Gideon. That was why, instead of feeling euphoric and overjoyed, she felt oddly tense and anxious.
She didn’t like having surprises sprung upon her, even pleasant ones. Just as she didn’t like being in situations over which she did not have at least some control. No doubt an analyst would tell her that her apprehension, her fear, sprang from the time of her mother’s second marriage.
‘Good. I’ve got the cheque here for you.’
Shakily Courage focused on Gideon Reynolds’ face as he reached into a drawer at the side of his desk and removed a cheque.
Three things struck her as he handed it to her, all of them slightly disturbing. The first was that the cheque was drawn on his personal account, the second that he had obviously been sure enough of her acceptance to have had it made out already, and the third that there was something almost gloating in the unexpectedly brilliant gleam of his eyes as he handed the cheque over to her.
Just for a moment Courage had the oddest impulse to hand it back to him, to tell him that she had changed her mind. What if their working relationship didn’t work out and she was committed to a two-year contract and no way of paying the loan back? But she found herself accepting the cheque, smiling her thanks and pushing her worries to the back of her mind.
‘I shall be leaving shortly, but Chris will show you round the house so that you can familiarise yourself with its lay-out. I shall be returning from California on Wednesday, if all goes to plan. On Thursday evening I shall be holding a dinner party for twenty or so guests, some of whom will be staying overnight. Chris will fill you in with all the details. Oh, and I’ve also given him instructions to arrange for a couple of cars to be delivered for you to test-drive.’
Without realising she had been doing so, Courage had been playing with the chain on the small seed-pearl locket which hung around her neck. Her father had given it to her mother as an engagement present, and when she had gone to live with her grandmother her mother had given it to her. Courage wore it all the time and a small, distressed protest left her lips as the chain suddenly snapped under the pressure of her nervous fingers, the locket spinning across the desk towards Gideon Reynolds.
Courage reached out to retrieve it, but Gideon moved faster, covering it, stopping its escape with his hands just seconds ahead of her, so that it was impossible for her to stop the downward movement of her own fingers which brought them on top of his.
Immediately she was aware of the male warmth of his flesh. It made her own skin tingle in shocked awareness of the tremendous physical power in the lean strength of his fingers. Her own hand looked tiny against his, her flesh so much paler and softer. The tingle became a hot, fast burn.
A pulse suddenly started to beat very rapidly in her throat, her face flushing in a sudden surge of sexual heat so shocking and unexpected that it was several betraying seconds before she could respond to it and snatch her fingers from his, breaking the magnetic contact. She had not felt so physically aware of a man since—
Fresh colour burned her face—caused by embarrassment this time—as she recognised what she was feeling and immediately tried to suppress it. Such an instant and overwhelming physical reaction to a man was totally out of character for her. She was normally very cautious, even wary with men in the sexual sense. Her libido was something she had never previously had any problem whatsoever in controlling. And Gideon Reynolds wasn’t even her kind of man, really. He was far too sexy, far too potently male; that raw, sexual energy he possessed was something she would have expected to repel her, reminding her as it did of her past and all the pain it held.
Discomfort scorched her face as she tried to avoid looking directly at him. Thank heavens she still had her jacket on and he couldn’t see the betraying thrust of her breasts beneath it. It was crazy for her body to start reacting to him like this, impossible… She barely knew him… Didn’t like him… Had never been attracted to power, in any of its forms, and…
‘A gift from a man?’ she heard him questioning as he reached over to her to hand the locket back to her. ‘A man’, he had said, but ‘a lover’ was what he had meant, Courage recognised.
‘It… belonged to my mother… My father gave it to her…’ she told him jerkily, too dismayed by her reaction to him to preserve her normal reticence.
‘Well, it looks like you’re going to need a new chain for it… I doubt that this one can be repaired.’
Courage flinched, and totally unexpectedly he reached out and touched the broken chain. She could feel his knuckles brushing against her throat, his thumb resting against the frantic pulse that raced there. Panic flooded through her. He was looking right at her, straight into her eyes, and there was no way that she could look away from him.
Slowly his gaze dropped to her mouth and stayed there. The flesh of her lips felt unbearably hot, and so dry that she longed to touch them with her tongue, to soften and moisten them. She was breathing far too shallowly, panting almost, and beneath the fabric of her top she could feel the hard thrust of her nipples where the silk rasped as delicately against them as the tip of a lover’s tongue.
Courage shuddered visibly, her eyes unwittingly betraying her, shocked at her own thoughts. She couldn’t move, say or do anything as she felt Gideon’s finger brush delicately against her skin, as though he was going to slide his hand against her throat. His thumbtip stroked the sensitive flesh behind her ear as he angled her head backwards, as if he would kiss her—his lips sensitising her mouth in the same way that his fingertips were sensitising her skin, his tongue-tip stroking over them, his lips then probing them, his teeth taking hungry, fierce lover’s bites at her mouth, devouring her, while his hands…
‘Your chain. If you leave it dangling there like that you’ll lose it…’
Courage froze as she felt him move away from her and saw the golden glitter of her broken chain as he slid it through his fingers. Humiliation washed over her in a scarlet tide. What on earth had she been thinking? Had she totally taken leave of her senses?
Thank God Gideon Reynolds couldn’t read her mind, see what she had been thinking and feeling. She felt almost sick with shock and disbelief. She had never been guilty of that kind of sexual fantasising before—not even about an imaginary lover, never mind a man who was all too real and very, very much too male for her cautious taste.
It must be the shock of him offering her the loan; something to do with the relief of not having to worry so much about her grandmother any longer. Some kind of peculiar mental and physical reaction to the release of stress and anxiety. Hastily Courage seized on this explanation for her behaviour with shaky relief.
Yes, that was it. Her body was just reacting to the release of all the recent tension and fear. That was all. That was all… And that would be all, she told herself firmly as Gideon Reynolds walked over to the door and held it open for her.
‘Until next week, then, and, in the interim, if there should be any problem Chris will—’
‘There won’t be any problems,’ Courage assured him firmly, determined to dispel any impression she might just have given him that she couldn’t be trusted to behave either professionally or competently.
‘I hope not.’
Dulcet though his voice was, there was no mistaking his warning.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN she had made that statement she had reckoned without a chef who had given his immediate notice and walked out within hours of her taking up her new post, Courage admitted grimly as the irate Italian refused to allow her to placate him and departed to pack his bags.
The cause of his dissatisfaction was apparently a mixture of things, chief of which, so far as Courage could discern, was hurt pride at Gideon Reynolds’ apparent uninterest in allowing him to show off his culinary talents by never providing a sufficiently appreciative number of dinner guests.
‘I am master chef, but not once have I been allowed to show this. It is all single dinners, working lunches, healthy breakfasts. That is not what I spend ten years training for.’
‘But Alfonso, all that is going to change…’
‘It is too late,’ Alfonso had told her angrily. ‘I do not cook healthy breakfasts… working lunches… single dinners,’ he had recited with a contemptuous curl of his lips. ‘I am a chef… I create meals which are a work of art—a delight to the connoisseur’s taste-buds, a feast for the discerning.’
Courage knew when she was fighting a losing battle.
‘No luck with Alfonso?’ Chris commiserated. ‘The boss isn’t going to be too pleased to come back and find him gone.’
Courage had already decided that on a personal note she was never going to like Gideon’s PA, but professionally it was just as much her job to ensure that they could work well together as it was to find a replacement for Alfonso. And so she ignored the malicious pleasure which accompanied his comment.
‘You know why he’s bought this place, don’t you?’ Chris continued cynically, ignoring the fact that Courage had returned her attention to her own work and quite plainly did not wish to discuss the subject.
‘It’s obvious what he’s up to,’ Chris added contemptuously, when Courage refused to make any response. ‘They’re all the same, these self-made millionaire types. They all try to do it, don’t they, one way or another? Use their wealth to try and buy themselves a place in society. First the country house, then the attempts to buy or bribe their way into local society, followed by marriage to a suitably upper class and impoverished bride. It’s the classic way to do it, isn’t it? The final touch to their success, their entry ticket into the otherwise closed ranks of the upper classes. Not that it ever works. Oh, they think they’ve succeeded, but they are never properly accepted… not really.’
As she heard the contemptuous satisfaction in his voice Courage’s resolve not to be drawn into conversation with him deserted her, and her eyes flashed angrily as she asked him coldly, ‘Don’t you think that sort of attitude is rather out of date these days—and out of place? Gideon is, after all, our employer.’
‘Oh, so that’s the way the wind’s blowing, is it?’ Chris countered mockingly. ‘Well, you’re wasting your time entertaining any hopes in that direction. Oh, you might make it as far as his bed,’ he told Courage nastily, ‘but if you were thinking of something more permanent-like a wedding-ring on your finger—you don’t stand a chance. You haven’t got the right background, don’t you see? Now if, for instance, you had a father or an uncle who was a member of the landed gentry or, even better, a member of the aristocracy, you might be in with a chance…’
The venom in his voice shocked Courage a little. Some of it, she knew, was directed against her, but most of it was not for her but for Gideon Reynolds. She could well understand a man like this being a little envious of him—he was, after all, a hugely successful and rich man, and men were notorious for their competitiveness and jealousy in such arenas—but that still didn’t explain why she instinctively felt compelled to defend their absent employer.
She said quietly, ‘I’m sure you’re wrong. After all, if Gideon wanted a title with his wealth I’m sure he could find a way of buying himself one.’
‘Oh, no doubt. A charity peerage. But you see those are ten a penny, and that would not open the kind of doors he wants to have opened, no matter how much it might impress the peasantry. Why do you think he bought this place? Not just because it will make a con venient showplace for his clients. Oh, no, it’s what they all do, you see… First the millions, then the stately pile and the aristocratic wife, then the mongrel brats who’ll have their names put down for all the best schools. Of course, once they are there they’ll soon end up despising their father and—’
‘Since you obviously dislike him so much I’m surprised you go on working for him,’ Courage interrupted him. She was beginning to get angry now, her eyes flashing her feelings.
‘I don’t have any option—you see my father wasn’t rich. Do you know what old Gideon was before he became a millionaire? He was a labourer, paid by the day.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ Courage told him fiercely. She could remember her stepfather voicing very much the same views, his voice soft with cruel contempt.
‘My dear Courage, you should be grateful to me for providing you with such a beautiful home,’ he had told her. ‘Unlike your late father. He, I understand, was never very good with money. However, it seems you are not grateful. In fact, you are becoming extremely disruptive, upsetting my daughter and your mother. I’ve been having a word with your mother and we both feel that a year or so at boarding-school will probably help you to be more appreciative.’
Courage had said nothing, simply standing there, white-faced and sick with misery.
‘You’ll be sorry,’ Laney had warned her viciously after their quarrel. ‘I’m going to get my father to send you away—to boarding-school.’
‘You can’t… My mother won’t let you,’ Courage had protested. But she had been wrong.
In the end, though, as she had discovered, there were far worse things in life than boarding-school, and in fact, once she had got over missing her mother, she had actually begun to enjoy the relative peace and quiet of a life with no Laney in it.
‘No? Oh, I see, you’re the type who gets turned on by the thought of a bit of rough trade, are you? You like the idea of being mauled about by some beefy labourer with grimy hands and broken nails, the kind who—’
Anger flashed fiercely in Courage’s eyes as she interrupted Chris again.
‘Your prejudices and your views on our mutual employer are your own affair, and nothing to do with me. I’m here to work—we both are—so if you’ll excuse me, that is exactly what I am going to do.’
She would have liked to say more, but there was no point in deliberately antagonising the man. What she couldn’t understand was why on earth Gideon Reynolds employed him. Surely he must be aware of what kind of person he was, or of what kind of views he held—he was far, far too intelligent not to be. Still, that was Gideon’s problem and not hers—thankfully.
So Gideon would only marry a society woman, Courage mused half an hour later as she searched through her personal organiser for the telephone number she wanted—a London-based employment agency which specialised in supplying catering staff.
Over the years Courage had built up her own private store of such numbers—contacts she could rely on, agencies all over the world who she knew from personal experience were the best in their field. It was part of her job to have that kind of knowledge, those kinds of contacts at her fingertips; it was one of the things which had made her into the professional that she now was. She had known, without vanity, that when her Swiss employers had protested that they did not want to lose her they had been speaking the truth.
She knew they had valued her professionalism and her loyalty, just as she valued the training and support they had given her. But, as she had explained to them, when it came to making a choice between her career and her grandmother, there really was no contest.
Her frown deepened, her hand hovering over the telephone. Why should the talk about Gideon Reynolds getting married, becoming the property of another woman, disturb her so much? It ought to make her feel just the opposite. Previously she had always preferred to work for and with men who were obviously and openly happily married. So much so in fact, that the other girls she had worked with had often teased her about it. There had been, after all, no point in her trying to explain that she felt happier that way…safer…
By the end of the afternoon she had managed to solve one of her problems. The agency had managed to find her a replacement chef—a woman who had trained under the Roux brothers and who was currently between jobs. Courage arranged to travel to London to interview her.
The other major problem, which had been on her mind for most of the day, would not be quite so easily solved, she acknowledged as she replaced the telephone receiver.
Her grandmother, far from passively accepting her announcement that Courage wanted to use her ‘savings’ to pay for her grandmother to have her operation done privately, had instantly and suspiciously demanded to know why Courage was so anxious to bundle her into hospital for an operation which would cost the earth when, if she waited a couple of years, she could have it done anyway.
‘Two years is the minimum waiting time,’ Courage had argued craftily. ‘It could be longer, and you know that Dr Howard says you’ve got to take things easy until you’ve had it done.’
Both Courage and Dr Howard were agreed that her grandmother should not be worried or frightened by being told how very serious her condition was.
‘You mean, if I haven’t had it done by the time I’m seventy then I could be judged too old to have it done at all?’ her grandmother had suggested.
‘Well, it does happen,’ Courage had pointed out, but she had had to bite her lip and turn away so that her grandmother couldn’t see the look in her eyes and guess how very real was the possibility of her not being able to live long enough to have her operation.
‘Well, that’s as maybe,’ her grandmother had countered, changing tack, ‘but I am not having you wasting your savings on me… And besides—’ she had started to frown ‘—I do know how much this operation will cost, you know. You haven’t got that kind of money, Courage.’
‘Yes, I have,’ Courage had told her, willing the betraying colour not to run up under her skin as she fibbed. ‘I… There was some money after… after mother died. I… I never mentioned it at the time…’
‘Some money… Whose money?’ her grandmother had demanded suspiciously. ‘Your mother didn’t have any money, and if you think I’m going to let you pay for that operation with that man’s money, then…’
She had looked gravely at her grandmother. ‘Do you think I could ever bring myself to touch a penny of his?’ Tears had filled Courage’s eyes and her grandmother had reached out and patted her hand.
‘I’m sorry, love… It’s just… Well, it’s just my silly pride, I suppose. It seems all wrong, somehow, you having to spend your money on me.’
‘Who better to spend it on? You’re all I’ve got, Gran.’
‘Well, yes. And that’s another thing—you should be married, Courage… You should have children of your own to worry about…’
‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m on the shelf and past it?’ Courage had teased, trying to lighten the emotional atmosphere.
‘What I’m trying to tell you is that life can be lonely without someone of your own to share it with. I loved your grandfather very much. When he was killed during the war… Well, I had your father to think of, and then you, but we all need someone to love, Courage, and someone to be loved by.’
Courage fully agreed. The problem for her was finding that special someone—and they would have to be special. Her mother’s second marriage had left Courage wary. She liked men as friends, enjoyed their company and their conversation, but when it came to anything more intimate, Courage recognised uncomfortably now, as she dipped her head and started to twiddle with her hair, how very betraying her body language was.
She wasn’t just unhappy about the reality of total and emotional intimacy with a man, she was ill at ease even thinking about it. Not because she found the thought of sex unappealing, or frightening in any way. No, it wasn’t that that made her want to close her mind against her own thoughts, to shut them out and ignore them—in the same way that she had been fiercely trying to ignore the effect which Gideon’s touch had had on her ever since that small incident in his study—it was…