Mark agreed with her; she could not envisage and did not want to envisage their relationship ending, but neither at the moment could she imagine herself settling into cosy domestic motherhood.
It had surprised her at first that the city should boast such a busy, thriving accountancy practice, but Mark had explained to her that the business had originally sprung up to service those clerics attached to the cathedral who had independent means, growing steadily from that to embrace the engineering industries developing in the nearby towns. As the industries had prospered, so too had the practice.
The neat lines and pretty demureness of the building gave Deborah pleasure. Not for the world would she have admitted this to anyone else; that almost sentimental romantic streak in her nature was a part of herself she preferred to keep private.
She could just imagine Ryan’s reaction, for instance, if he ever caught her gazing dreamily at the building. He had been complaining only the previous month about how difficult it was to house modern technology inside such an old-fashioned shell.
It was no secret that he had tried to persuade the other partners to sell and move to a modern purpose-built office block on the outskirts of the city. They had not been of a mind to move, however, and Deborah suspected that Ryan’s wife, Alice, had influenced their decision. She might not be an active partner in the business, but her father was still held in such great respect that her views were always listened to.
Ryan had been furious about it, virtually flaunting his relationship with his current lover in front of everyone in retaliation for his wife’s refusal to do as he wished.
She had to know about his affairs, Deborah reflected, so why did she stay with him? Was it because she simply didn’t care what he did? Some women were like that, but not her; if she ever discovered that Mark had been unfaithful to her…
It wouldn’t be her pride that drove her to leave him if she did, nor even her self-respect; it would simply be the knowledge that something was broken… destroyed… that he… that their relationship was not, after all, all that she had thought.
The meeting at the factory had been far more difficult than she had envisaged—not because of the technical questions she had been asked, but because of the awareness of what her announcement was going to mean to the men who heard it.
She had already been unsettled by her interview with the widow, she admitted to herself as she walked into the building. She wondered what kind of man Andrew had been, to have left his wife so ill-prepared for the problems she was going to have to face.
She had heard one of the men at the factory commenting bitterly that he bet that Andrew had secreted enough money away so that his family wouldn’t have to worry, and for a second her sympathy for Philippa Ryecart had almost overwhelmed her professionalism and she had been tempted to tell him how wrong he was.
She had done no such thing, of course.
She grimaced to herself, imagining Ryan’s reaction to the news that she had allowed her emotions to get in the way of her professionalism. Mark would have understood, though. Mark! As she got into the lift she glanced at her watch, wondering if she had time to see him before her meeting with Ryan.
‘Don’t you trust me?’ she had challenged Ryan when he had told her that he wanted her to report back to him after she had visited the factory.
‘I do,’ he had assured her. ‘But you know how it is with some of the old brigade here.’
‘You mean they don’t think I’m up to handling this on my own?’
‘They’re an old-fashioned bunch. Some of them don’t think that liquidation and receivership is a woman’s field. How does Mark feel about your imminent promotion, by the way?’ he added conversationally.
‘He’s very pleased for me,’ Deborah had told him.
‘Mmm, well, it takes all sorts, I suppose,’ Ryan had told her, adding outrageously, ‘Personally, I don’t think I’d care too much for the thought of my woman overtaking me professionally. I like to be on top… Out of bed, although not necessarily in it.’
Deborah had known that she ought to make at least some sort of protest against his remark, even if it was only to point out to him that she was not Mark’s ‘woman’, his possession, but his equal partner in their relationship; but equally she had also known that to do so was to allow herself to be drawn into the sexually flirtatious verbal conflict that Ryan loved and excelled at, and that, once having allowed him to draw her into that arena, she could potentially be leaving the door open for him to try to take things a stage further.
She had no illusions about his motives. Ryan would seduce her if he could and for no better reason than that it would amuse him to do so. She was heartily grateful for the fact that he was quite simply not her type. He was a very, very dangerous man, and, even recognising what he was and what he was doing, she was still aware that there was a tiny perverse and very feminine part of her that was very keenly aware of how easy it would be to fall into the trap of wanting to challenge so much openly chauvinistic masculinity and sexuality, to make him acknowledge the power of her femininity.
‘Nothing to say?’ he had teased her softly as she’d fought down an irritating inclination to drop her gaze from his.
‘Sorry…’ she apologised vaguely. ‘What were you saying…?’
He had laughed then with one of those mercurial changes of temperament which made him so fascinating and so dangerous, but that night in bed with Mark, when he had switched their positions so that she was kneeling astride him, she had had a momentary and totally unwanted vision of Ryan. Even in allowing a woman the position which was supposed to establish her right of control, he would still demonstrate his need to dominate the situation; his hands, unlike Mark’s, would not guide her gently on to his body, giving her the freedom to orchestrate her own pleasure, but would instead hold her captive to the exhibition of his own desire while he pretended to let her take control.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mark had asked when she’d lifted herself away from him.
‘Nothing,’ she had told him as she’d lowered herself to take him in her mouth—out of guilt for thinking about another man at such an intimate moment, or out of the more prosaic realisation that on this occasion she was simply not likely to reach orgasm?
She wanted to be with Mark now, she admitted as she got out of the lift; she wanted to unburden herself to him, to let down her defences with him in a way she never could with Ryan and admit how much what she had had to do today had upset her.
However, Ryan was already walking down the corridor towards her.
‘Good, you’re back,’ he announced. ‘Come into my office and we’ll run through everything.’
‘A debriefing session?’ Deborah asked him drily.