Sharon Kendrick - Potent As Poison

Jenny shook her head. ‘I don’t mind sticking around. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind seeing if the man matches the movie-star voice!’

Elizabeth cleared her throat with the dry cough which was the legacy of last week’s bout of flu, and laughed. ‘Hardly! This is real life, remember? Just leave me his file, would you, Jenny? Thanks.’

Elizabeth watched as Jenny retreated and closed the office door behind her, and then she picked up the résumé on Rick Masterton.

Unusual that Jenny should have been so impressed by a client, thought Elizabeth, although as she scanned the closely typewritten pages she tended to agree with her—for who in their right mind could fail to be impressed by what read like a composite of a Boys’ Own hero?

Her lips curved into a wry smile as she re-read the file.

Rick Masterton, aged thirty-four. Born Boston. Educated Exeter and Harvard, first class honours in law. Picked for USA Olympic skiing team, but unable to take up place due to injury to fist obtained from performing a citizen’s arrest on a mugger in New York City.

Here Elizabeth smiled again, because whoever had compiled the report on Rick Masterton bad written in the margin, ‘This guy cannot be for real !’

No, indeed, thought Elizabeth, as she briefly perused the rest of the report, noting the awards, the merits, the reputation, even—and here she shook her head a little in mild disbelief—even a philanthropist at such a relatively tender age. No less than the wing of a children’s hospital donated by him. No, she had to agree with the author of the report—he could not be for real!

There would have to be something wrong with him, and Elizabeth amused herself with imagining just what . He might be short, with a short man’s insecurities. Or fat. He could—and here she shook her head—be both . But skiers in Olympic teams tended to have a sleek physique, not be roly-polys. She would have to wait and see for herself whether Jenny was to be disappointed.

She glanced at the discreetly expensive timepiece which gleamed on her slim wrist. Ten minutes before he was due to arrive, and she would wager that he would be punctual, as all busy and powerful men always seemed to be. Not for them the reputation-damaging mismanagement of time; not in her experience, anyhow.

She’d better go and freshen up before he arrived.

She walked into her ultra-luxurious washroom. Ridiculously luxurious, she thought, as she gazed at the sumptuous fittings, remembering how she had protested to her boss about such preferential treatment. In vain. For in Paul Meredith’s eyes she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He had shaken his blond head energetically. ‘Elizabeth, you got the washroom—you keep it! You’re the best and, what’s more—you deserve the best.’

Thus she had her own private bathroom. And the amazing thing was that none of her colleagues in Paul’s accountancy firm seemed to object. Elizabeth suspected that this was because she was the only woman accountant among a large band of men, and from the outset she seemed to have inspired a collective protection from them all. Which was sweet. She sighed. And uncomplicated. Just the way she wanted it. And, according to the male colleagues—and that included Paul—who had tried, and failed, to take the working relationship into more personal realms—she apparently gave off very strong vibes which said quite clearly ‘don’t touch’. She certainly didn’t give them off consciously, though she was pleased enough for the men treating her as they would a sister, for Elizabeth had decided some years ago that her busy life of full-time work and bringing up a young son simply held no room for the complications of a relationship, particularly when all relationships seemed to fall short of the one which had changed her life forever ...

She stared back at her reflection. She had grown used to her sleek grown-up working-woman look, but sometimes, just sometimes, she found it hard to believe that the calm, pristine young woman who stared back at her really was Elizabeth Carson. The linen suit was crisp and pale; very tailored and very neat, the long jacket chosen cleverly to disguise the over-lushness of her breasts. There had been too many instances in the early days of men’s eyes straying to below her neck to linger there.

The cool image was deliberate, the mask she hid behind; the smart tailored clothes her shield. The metamorphosis of Elizabeth Carson. When had that insecure little orphan become this cool-looking female? It had not happened overnight, that was for sure, she thought, then bit her lip. No, not overnight. But maybe over a weekend ...

She heard a light tap, and the click of the door in her office, Jenny’s voice calling her name, which meant that the client was here; and she quickly turned on her heel and went out to meet him. She walked forward on the high heels she often wore which had the effect of making her already long legs appear endless, angry with herself for her daydreaming, because it was surely a disadvantage for a prospective client to find his accountant just leaving the bathroom.

But then her footsteps faltered as she saw him, heard Jenny say briskly, ‘Mr Masterton for you, Mrs Carson.’

But Elizabeth scarcely registered the words as she stared at the man who seemed to fill her office. He wasn’t short, or fat, or bald, she thought with something approaching hysteria. Something had happened to her vision—it was as though she was viewing him from the wrong end of a telescope. Her world had gone silent, the faint rushing of blood to every pulse-point in her body the only sound. A world that had suddenly turned upside down; her worst nightmare and her favourite dream come true. It was him.

Or had she gone insane? She forced a breath back into her lungs. Was she simply hallucinating up a fantasy? A man dreamt about and agonised over every single day for almost nine years? She had recently recovered from a bad bout of flu, and didn’t the body make the mind play cruel tricks sometimes?

She blinked several times behind her glasses, and when her eyes reopened properly she saw that it was no hallucination, but indeed the nightmare, or the dream. He was here. In her office. Riccardo. The father of her son.

Dimly, through her confusion, she realised how bizarre she must look, but there was nothing she could do about it; she was literally struck speechless as hope stirred within her.

He’s come back for me, she thought foolishly, her body seeming to be drawn towards his, towards the enticing warmth she remembered so well.

But as he gazed back at her, that shatteringly handsome face registering nothing but cool and faintly bored indifference, her heart plummeted as she realised that the unthinkable had happened ...

He didn’t recognise her !

She continued to stand, staring at him mutely, completely at a loss as to what to say or do next, forgetting that she stood in her own office with her secretary staring at her in amazement. But she could have been anywhere; all she saw was him.

He turned to Jenny. ‘Is she always like this?’ he mocked. ‘Do you have a physician on standby?’

But before Jenny could answer, Elizabeth realised that she was going to have to pull herself together, and quickly. He had not, as she had stupidly imagined in one brief moment of madness, come back for her. Indeed, the man she had spent all those years yearning for had absolutely no idea who she was. And what had she expected? For there had been nothing in his treatment of her at the time to indicate that she was anything more than one of a long line of young women he had enticed into his bed ...

And this bitter realisation flooded her like poison, removing all her remaining fantasies and replacing them with a steely anger. ‘Mr Masterton,’ she acknowledged coolly. ‘How nice to meet you.’ But her words rang with the hollowness of insincerity, and she didn’t offer him her hand. She saw his eyes briefly glitter, then harden. They stood facing each other across the desk, like two boxers about to commence a fight, and Elizabeth forced herself to think clearly—there had to be a diplomatic way of doing what she was about to do.