Gradually the group dispersed and he whispered into her ear, ‘Very neat. Very serious.’
‘What is?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘Your outfit.’
She went red and he grinned at her with ironic amusement. She had worn one of her old stand-bys, a black suit with an aquamarine silk blouse and a string of pearls.
‘I didn’t think that the occasion called for anything flamboyant,’ she said tartly, and his grin broadened.
‘No. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for giving anyone here a coronary, would you?’
‘I hardly think I could do that,’ Abigail said, smiling and sipping from her glass of excellent champagne. She wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were flitting across the crowded room, idly picking out faces that she recognised.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ His voice was low and lazy. ‘You underestimate yourself. You also overestimate some of the old duffers here. Look at old Sir Wilcox——’ he inclined slightly so that his voice was a murmur in her ear ‘—ninety if a day. If he saw you in what you were wearing at that engagement party of yours, he would choke on his gin and tonic.’
There was a sudden thread of electricity between them and she wondered whether she was imagining it. It wasn’t the first time that they had been to one of these affairs together and joked good-humouredly about the people there, but never before quite in this vein. She decided to ignore imagination.
‘Old Sir Wilcox,’ she responded drily, ‘is hardly ninety and he happens to be married.’
‘Which hardly says anything.’
‘Very cynical.’ She took another sip of champagne, caught someone’s eye across the room and smiled in recognition.
Ross laughed. ‘Cynicism is what separates fools from wise men.’
This time Abigail looked at him. ‘And I gather you classify yourself as one of the wise men?’
He shrugged and slanted her a sideways look. ‘Now it would be very immodest for me to say yes to that question, wouldn’t it?’
‘And of course, you’re nothing if not modest,’ she murmured seriously, relaxing as the champagne bubbled its merry way down her throat and dispelled some of the anxieties that had been tugging away at her for the past few days. Wonderful stuff, champagne, she decided.
Two lawyers joined them and they stood there chatting. Abigail listened while her mind drifted away, back to Martin.
‘Look at all the things we have in common,’ he had argued persuasively. ‘We both like the quiet life, we’re neither of us nightclubbers, we enjoy going to the cinema. We even like the same movies!’
She had frowned, hesitant, confused. Wasn’t he right? Wasn’t that love? The pull of attraction, what was that? Lust, and lust never lasted. It fed, and when its appetite was sated, it died.
‘We’re friends, aren’t we?’ he had asked. ‘Well, what about we see each other as friends? No strings attached. What would you have to lose?’
So they had parted outside her block of apartments like the friends Martin had insisted they now were. A brief peck on the cheek, nothing threatening.
‘You’re daydreaming,’ Ross said into her ear, and she jumped guiltily.
‘I wasn’t. I was listening to every word that Gerry and Robert were saying.’
‘Really.’ His voice was amused and sceptical. ‘I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but I want to have a word with Lord Palfry over there about that takeover that’s in the pipeline, so make sure that the little grey cells are alert and in full working order.’
Ross could function perfectly well without her, she knew, but he liked having her there by his side, mentally taking notes, and this time she listened to every word that Lord Palfry was saying. The business world was a complex one. Little snippets of information exchanged at company affairs such as these had to be filed away because they could be useful at a later date.
Ross had told her that the very first time she had accompanied him to a client gathering, and she had obediently filed throwaway remarks into the storage area of her brain, amused to find at a later date that he had been right. The strangest things could sometimes have the most meaningful consequences. She could remember, ten months ago, telling Ross lightly that a certain company director was having an affair with his personal assistant, an attractive, bespectacled girl from Arkansas. It had been a flash of insight on her part, a female intuition that stemmed from the way they didn’t look at each other, rather than the way they did. Ross had called off a bid to buy the company, and sure enough, a few weeks later, the company director announced his decision to marry his assistant, move to America, and resigned. Shares plummeted and Ross acquired the firm at a fraction of what he would have originally paid for it. Abigail would never have placed that amount of importance on that love-affair but, as Ross had later explained, company shares were a sensitive beast and it sometimes paid to listen to intuition.
Lord Palfry was a wily old fox and an astute financier. When there was a brief pause in the conversation, he turned to her and said, ‘Now, my dear, I hope you’re doing your duty and filing away everything I’m saying.’
Abigail gave him a startled look.
‘I know the way this young lad works,’ he said with a hearty chuckle. ‘I trained him.’
‘A long time ago,’ Ross agreed smoothly, with amusement in his voice. ‘Lord Palfry lectured occasionally at the university where I studied. He became something of a mentor for me.’
‘Tried to get him to come and work at one of my companies, but he refused.’ His eyes were bright and shrewd. ‘Just as well, in a way. Sharks are difficult to control.’ He turned to her. ‘How do you manage it?’
‘I didn’t think I did,’ Abigail replied, smiling and he chuckled again.
‘That’s what my secretary would say, but dammit, I’d be lost if she ever upped and moved on.’ He gave a bellow of laughter and gave them a brief nod before edging away.
‘Nice man,’ Abigail murmured, looking at his departing back, and Ross drained the remainder of his drink and stared at her with one hand in his pocket.
‘Don’t be deceived by that easy banter. That old dog is as ruthless as they come and I can’t see him being kept in line by his secretary, whatever he says.’
‘No,’ she agreed easily.
‘Very few people in this life are indispensable.’
‘Of course,’ she agreed again, and he frowned at her.
‘The problem with women is that they think they sometimes are,’ he whispered softly into her ear, and she stiffened.
‘Are you referring to me?’
‘I am referring to the female species in general.’
‘How kind of you to share that thought with me,’ she said, and he gave a low laugh.
‘Fiona tells me that she happened to mention casually to you that we were serious about one another and you implied that any relationship she and I had could not compare to the relationship you and I have because no one could possibly know me as well as you do.’
Abigail looked at him in stunned surprise but his expression was veiled.
‘I never said any such thing,’ she muttered.
‘Oh, good.’ His lips twisted into a smile. ‘Because I’m not Lord Palfry and no one controls me.’
‘I never said that I did.’
‘Not to me at any rate.’
‘Nor to your girlfriend.’ She could see what Fiona was trying to do: she was trying to drive a wedge between Ross and herself. For some reason she felt threatened by their working relationship and she was reacting by attacking first and thinking later.
‘As a matter of fact,’ she said in a honeyed voice, ‘I happen to think that you two are very well suited.’
‘Oh, do you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ You’re both as manipulative as each other, she added to herself, accepting another glass of champagne from the waitress walking past with a full tray precariously balanced on one palm.
‘That must be irksome for you,’ he said casually, and she looked straight into his black, assessing eyes.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because you’re attracted to me. Aren’t you?’ He trailed his finger along her spine and her body went rigid with tension. She fought desperately to control the expression on her face.
‘I have more sense than to be attracted to you.’
‘What has sense got to do with it?’ There was an odd look flickering in the depth of his eyes, but he smiled.
‘Everything,’ she informed him calmly. He had stuck his hand back into his pocket, but her spine still tingled from his touch.
Everyone was beginning to file towards the dining-room. Over one hundred people, all in their sober city suits, faces blending easily into one another, a dark mass with only the odd bright flash of colour from a woman’s dress.
They moved to join the crowd, and although her feet were behaving, carrying her along, her head felt hot and feverish.
She realised with some horror that Ross Anderson knew precisely what effect he had on her, and his little speech earlier on had been to warn her not to let her attraction get the better of her sense of judgement. He must, she thought bitterly, be the most arrogant man on the face of the earth.