Past Passion Part 10

Besides, she genuinely liked Tim.

"There--there isn't anyone at the moment," she began, 'but--' "But you don't want to get involved," he concluded wryly for her.

"Just my luck, but this doesn't mean that we can't be friends, I hope?"

"We can be friends," Nicola agreed.

"Nicola, I haven't mentioned it to you yet, but there's a conference coming up that both of us ought to attend, according to Matt. It's being held near Bournemouth at the Grand Hotel, over the weekend of the twenty-eighth. Matt considers this conference to be very important, since it deals with various environmental issues concerning the building trade. Will you be able to come?"

Nicola nodded her head.

"It sounds interesting," she commented.

"How long does the conference last?"

"Only a couple of days. We'll be leaving here mid-morning Friday, and we should be back Sunday evening."

They discussed the issues likely to be raised by the conference for a few minutes before Evie appeared to say that Tim was needed in the yard.

Later that evening, when she was telling her parents about the conference, her father commented approvingly, "A sound decision on Matthew Hunt's part, getting his business geared up in tune with the environmental issues we're all going to be confronting this coming decade. Those businesses which are first off the block in being environmentally aware are the ones which are going to be the most successful."

That night when she went to bed Nicola wondered if Matt would be attending the conference, her body quickening with sharply painful desire.

It didn't matter how often she told herself not to do so, she couldn't seem to stop herself from thinking about him . from wanting him. from loving him.

Three days before the conference, the foreman handed in his resignation, announcing that he was going to set up in business on his own account. After he had dealt with him, Tim turned to Nicola and commented wryly, "I wonder how many of our men he plans to take with him."

"If it's any comfort I doubt that any who go will stay with him for very long," Nicola told him.

"Maybe so, but--Look, I'm going to have to go out on site. If necessary, until we can find a replacement, I'm going to have to become an acting foreman myself.

"I've done it before. Matt came into the business the hard way himself, and he's pretty keen on all his managers at least having a basic working knowledge of the physical aspects of the building trade.

Matt was a bit of a rebel when he was younger, apparently.

"He could have joined his father in the City, but instead he chose to leave school early and take off round the world. That was how he picked up his various building skills, and then, when he came back, he worked his way through university, and then decided to set up his own construction business--very small-time at first..."

A rebel. That accorded with the Matthew Hunt she remembered . the Matthew Hunt with his well-worn clothes, his casual manner, his pirate's smile, his easy insouciance after their shared night of s.e.x.

She gave a tiny s.h.i.+ver. A man, given the will to do so, could escape from the follies of his youth, and even be considered by some to be a better man for having lived through them; but a woman, even in these modern times, was still judged in a different way.

On the Thursday before the conference, Tim came into the office late in the morning and announced that he would be spending the rest of the day on one of the sites where they had run into some problems.

"Without a foreman, I really need to be there to keep an eye on what's going on. Will you be OK here? Silly question," he continued without letting her answer.

"Of course you will. You know, in many ways you're wasted here, Nicola. You're a first-cla.s.s administrator; you could become a real high-flyer if you chose..."

"I don't choose," she told him, adding grimly, "I've tried city life when I was younger, and I didn't like it."

"No? Well, you aren't alone in that. Men as well as women are beginning to wonder if they're sacrificing too much to their careers.

Personally, I'm against a single-minded obsession with work.

"You're OK for tomorrow, aren't you? We're leaving here mid-mo ming--might as well travel there together. Pointless taking two cars..."

"Yes, my father's going to drop me off in the morning. Save me having to leave my car parked here all weekend."

Because she wanted to clear her desk, leaving only the post to be dealt with in the morning, Nicola worked late on Thursday evening.

Tim hadn't returned to the office, and the communicating door between her office and his was closed. Several times after Evie had left she looked at it, trying not to fall into the trap of fantasising that the room beyond her own wasn't really empty at all, and that she only had to open the door to see Matt sitting at his desk working.

Once, on a ridiculous impulse, she even got up and walked across her own office, opening the door and standing there, staring hungrily at the empty desk, mentally picturing Matt's lean frame on the other side of it.

There was a huge lump in her throat, an agony of need and love that was almost a physical pain, and there was anger as well. anger against herself that she should behave so foolishly, so self-indulgently, and so potentially selfdestructively.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

at eight o'clock on Friday morning, Nicola's father dropped her off in the yard. She had her suitcase with her, containing all that she needed for the weekend.

The suit she was wearing wasn't new, but she felt comfortable in it, and it travelled well, even though the plain grey skirt seemed to have shrunk a little the last time it was cleaned, so that it was a little bit shorter than she would have liked.

The jacket that went with it was long and double-breasted, a fine red line breaking up the plainness of the silky lightweight woollen fabric. The suit had been expensive, but well worth the money she had paid for it, as Evie confirmed when she walked into the office an hour later and admired.

"You look great! Really brill... Pity you didn't have a bright red s.h.i.+rt to wear with it, though."

Nicola hid a smile. Her plain cream silk s.h.i.+rt was a deliberate choice. Not for her the scarlet that Evie would plainly have preferred.

A tiny frown married her forehead. Once she had worn scarlet. A scarlet lipstick. Her hand trembled a little as she slid a piece of paper into her machine.

She had another suit in her case, and a pair of neat pleated walking shorts and a thick sweater, just in case any impromptu meetings took place in the large grounds that surrounded the hotel; in her experience there was nothing more uncomfortable than trying to walk across a smooth lawn in high-heeled shoes, and the shorts were tailored enough to reinforce her business image.

It had been her mother who had pointed out that there could well be a certain amount of formality over dinner on Sat.u.r.day evening, suggesting that it might be as well for her to take a dress with her.

Unwillingly she had allowed herself to be persuaded into adding her navy silk-unwillingly, because she didn't think she could ever wear it again without thinking about Matt. without remembering how he had held her and kissed her.

They had been due to leave at ten-thirty and, when Tim had not arrived at that time, Nicola checked her watch a little anxiously.

She knew that he had intended to visit a couple of the sites before they left, but she had no idea which ones and, since three of their sites were ones which couldn't be reached by phone, she was just wondering anxiously what she should do, when Evie exclaimed excitedly, "Matt--Mr. Hunt has just arrived!"

Nicola had barely managed to quell the frantic, sickening twisting in her stomach when the door opened and Matt walked in.

He was wearing a suit, a very expensive and well-tailored suit, she noticed, an immaculate half-inch of laundered white cuff protruding from its dark-clothed sleeves.

"If you've come to see Tim, I'm afraid--' " I haven't. "

He sounded terse and irritable.

"Evie, if we could have some coffee... Nicola, if you could come through into the office, I'd like to have a word with you."

He had remembered her. He was going to sack her. He had found out how she felt about him. Sick with tension, Nicola followed him through into the other office, numbly noticing how he waited for her to do so and then closed the door behind her.

"I'm afraid there's been a slight accident," he told her.

"Tim missed his footing on site yesterday. Luckily he hasn't done too much damage, but it means that, as far as he's concerned at least, the conference is out. However, that makes it even more imperative that you attend.

I've discussed the whole thing with him, and we both agree that you're more than capable of judging what will and what won't be of importance to this part of the organisation. "But no one wants to force you into something you may not feel you want to do..."

Nicola's head was whirling. Matt's anger wasn't directed at her, there was nothing personal in it at all; he was simply irritated because Tim's accident meant that Tim would not be able to attend the conference, and that both he and Matt would have to rely on her to use her judgement to ensure that she evaluated its information properly.

What he was asking her was, was she prepared to take Tim's place and attend the conference without him?

"I'll have to go home and get my car," she heard herself saying almost stupidly.

"But of course I'm quite prepared to go. I'm sorry about Tim's accident, will he ?"

"He'll be fine," Matt told her shortly, breaking off as Evie knocked on the door to tell her to come in.

While she was handing them their coffee, he said tersely to Nicola, "So the conference is still on, then. Good. You won't need your car, by the way. You'll be travelling with me."

Travelling with him} Her hand trembled, sending coffee slopping over the sides of her mug.

If he was going to the conference, why did he need her to be there?

Surely ?

"Of course, I'll be there in a different capacity. I'm giving a lecture on the benefits of finding alternative sources of timber, so that we can do our bit to halt the destruction of much-needed forests, although of course a good deal of progress has been made in that direction already..." He went on to talk about the importance of the conference, but Nicola could hardly take in what he was saying.

She was still trembling violently inside, so much so that she had had to put down her coffee untouched.

If she had known that attending the conference without Tim meant that she would have to travel with Matt. She swallowed hard.

"We're already running late," she heard Matt saying.

"I don't want to rush you, Nicola, but if you're ready..."

Ready. ready? She would never be ready for this--for such unexpected and dangerous intimacy with him, for the mixture of elation and anguish which seized her every time she saw him. She needed time, time to prepare herself, to guard herself. She was behaving like a fool, she chided herself as she saw him walking towards the door. All this fuss, all this fear and pain simply because she was going to be sharing a car journey with him. Had she really so little control over herself. over her emotions . over her love. that she really feared she couldn't sit beside him for the s.p.a.ce of a few hours without betraying what she felt?

Totally unable to look at him, she hurried towards the door he was holding open for her.

CHAPTER NINE.

they had been driving for just over an hour when suddenly Matt pulled off the motorway and on to a quiet side-road.

When he drove into a small village and parked the car outside an ivy-wreathed hotel, Nicola looked at him in surprise.

"You didn't drink your coffee," he told her.

"When we arrive at the conference, we'll be going straight into a working lunch. You won't even have time to find your room, never mind unpack. The first opportunity you'll get to relax, if you're lucky, will be when you go to bed tonight, and by then your head will be so full of facts and information that you won't be able to sleep."

"You've got a pocket memo-recorder with you, haven't you? You'll find it helpful as an aide memoire--mach easier than making written notes."

He opened his car door and got out, coming round to open her door for her. Automatically Nicola got out, scrupulously avoiding allowing their bodies to touch. A small shudder convulsed her as she misjudged her timing a little so that as he leaned forward to close the car door his hand just brushed her arm.

"Cold?"

The frowning question made her stomach muscles clench. She shook her head, still bemused by the fact that he had noticed that she had left her coffee. He couldn't surely have stopped just because of that.

Silently she followed him into the hotel. A receptionist directed them to the coffee-lounge, which was already pleasantly busy.

A waitress found them a table by one of the windows, overlooking the street.

When the coffee came it had obviously just been freshly made. Its rich aroma made her mouth water, and suddenly, although not even ten seconds beforehand she would have sworn that a drink was the last thing she wanted, she discovered that she was longing for the richly fragrant brew.

"Feel better now?"

She looked up from the cup to discover that Matt was watching her, his own coffee barely touched. Immediately she flushed.

"And if it's Tim you're concerned about, I don't think he's done any lasting damage."

Her flush deepened, as Nicola acknowledged herself how little thought she had actually given to Tim or what had happened to him. She was becoming far too self-obsessed, she told herself angrily.

Matt, she noticed, still hadn't drunk his coffee, although he was insisting on her having a second cup. It wasn't until she was halfway through that it occurred to her that he really must have made this stop specifically for her benefit.

Her heart jumped fiercely inside her chest, her lungs contracting as she fought to breathe in. Nonsense, she was being ridiculous. Why on earth should it matter to Matt whether or not she had a cup of coffee?

And yet, by the time they eventually left the hotel, he still had barely drunk any of his and, even though he had brought up several points concerning the conference while she was drinking hers, they were things he could have mentioned equally easily while he was driving.

What was the matter with her? she derided herself scornfully as they walked back to the car. Was she really being stupid enough to try to convince herself that she mattered to Matt on some personal level?

How could she? She was simply one of his employees, that was all. They had reached the car now and, without thinking, she moved towards the door, at the same time as Matt reached out to open it for her.

Just for a moment she felt the hard pressure of his arm against her body, a sensation of shock combined with sharply painful desire stabbing through her.

She was, she discovered as she moved away from him, trembling. When she got into the car and inadvertently caught sight of her own reflection in the wing-mirror, she saw with sick despair that her eyes were huge and dark, her face far too pale. Her mouth trembled as she turned her head away from Matt, defensively letting her hair swing forward to conceal her expression from him.

She was glad when he asked her if she would mind if he played some music, relieved not to have to endure the trauma of trying to make businesslike conversation with him. Quite deliberately she kept her face averted, forcing herself to pretend an interest in the dull expanse of motorway landscape beyond the pa.s.senger window which she did not feel, and yet every so often her control broke and, without realising what she was doing, she found that she had turned her head and was watching Matt, focusing almost avidly on his face . his body just the way his hands held the steering-wheel, and that every time she did so she was filled with such an intensity of emotion and arousal, felt so sensitive to his presence, that it was almost like being without a protective layer of skin, almost as though she had already felt his touch on every part of her body and was responding to it.