Читать книгу Wife For Hire - Кэтти Уильямс, Cathy Williams - Страница 7

‘HOME tutoring.’ He sat back in his chair, crossed his legs and looked at her. ‘Carry on.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You were giving a little pep talk on all the opportunities still available to a teenager who has been stupid enough to get herself pregnant. You mentioned home tutoring as an option.’

‘Yes.’ He had removed his jacket before entering the room, and now he slowly began to roll the sleeves of his shirt up, exposing strong forearms, black-haired, and lightly bronzed. Although he was English by birth, she remembered him telling her years ago that there was Greek blood in him. Lust had apparently got the better of common sense, and his maternal grandmother had shocked everyone by throwing caution, and her very British fiancé, to the winds and marrying the son of a Greek tycoon. The tale had amused him, had appealed to that element in him that rebelled against convention.

She dragged her eyes away from his wretched arms and fastened them on his face. ‘Home tutoring. I didn’t mention that because I felt any kind of obligation to point out a bright side to this whole sorry business. I mentioned it because it’s a perfectly viable option, and actually I think Emily would do very well on it. She’s incredibly bright. She picks things up very easily. It would more be a matter of steering her towards her exams, making sure that certain levels of work were maintained.

‘I’m not saying that it would be a piece of cake for her, or for her tutor for that matter. She’ll still have to deal with all the ups and downs of the pregnancy, still have to come to terms with it, and she can be difficult.’ Rebecca laughed a little. ‘Possibly one of the bigger understatements of my lifetime. But she should be all right, at least academically, provided you find the right tutor. Someone patient, I think.’

‘You didn’t explain why my daughter chose you for her confidante.’

‘Well…’ Rebecca blushed ‘…as Mrs Williams said, I am one of the younger members of the staff here, and, well, I do pride myself on having a certain rapport with the girls. I do a fair amount of stuff with them after school hours. I run the amateur dramatic society, for example. Actually, that was about the only class that your daughter really seemed to enjoy. I think she liked being able to slip in and out of characters. Perhaps she found it relaxing.’

‘Yes, that would make sense.’ His mouth twisted cynically. ‘Her mother was fond of amateur dramatics herself.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Probably runs in the genes.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that,’ Rebecca said vaguely.

‘No. I don’t suppose you would. You just know Emily as a child who joined your school approximately two years ago and has proved troublesome from day one. Do you ever take an interest in their backgrounds?’

He was looking at her curiously now, and there was something ever so slightly critical about his appraisal.

‘To some extent,’ she said stiffly. ‘But if you imagine that I spend half my leisure time going through their personal records, reading up on what their parents do for a living, then no. I don’t.’

‘So you are unaware of the circumstances surrounding my daughter…’

‘I know that her mother died two years ago…’ Actually, she did have some idea of Emily’s background from what the child had told her, but she had no intention of admitting that. Trust was something that teenagers held very dear, and she was not about to break Emily’s.

‘So you’re not aware that she and I were divorced when Emily was only a toddler.’

‘I don’t see how this is relevant…to what we were discussing earlier, Mr Knight. Namely, home tutoring for your daughter.’

‘Oh, but you were so quick to judge me earlier on, Miss Ryan,’ he said smoothly, and a little caustically. ‘I thought you would be eager to slot together the little mental puzzle you had formed of my relationship with Emily. I mean, there’s no point in jumping to lots of amateur deductions if you only know the surface gloss, is there?’

‘It’s none of my business,’ Rebecca said, blushing furiously. She pressed her head against the back of the chair in an attempt to stop her hair from unravelling totally. Why she had bothered with these ridiculously uncomfortable clothes, she had no idea. Nicholas Knight was about as intimidated by her as an elephant by a flea. And she felt as though she was suffocating in her jacket, which she had not had the foresight to remove from the beginning. ‘Anyway, Mrs. Williams will be returning shortly…’

‘But I’m sure she’ll leave again if we’re not quite finished.’

‘Not quite finished with what? I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you on the subject of home tutoring. If you like, I’m sure Mrs Williams can recommend a few people…’ A few brave, intrepid people, she thought to herself. Emily would need brave and intrepid. She would need the sort of private tutor who did bungee jumping for fun in his spare time. Such creatures were thin on the ground.

‘I shouldn’t like to leave you with any deluded impressions of me, Miss Ryan. I know your conscience couldn’t bear it if you thought that you were dispatching my daughter off to face a life of despair and misery at the hands of an unsympathetic, absentee father.’

‘Why would I think that?’

‘Because if Emily ran to you with tales of what had happened, then it’s more than likely that she confided all about her unhappy family life.’ He gave her a shrewd, knowing look. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.’

‘Well, she just mentioned one or two things. In passing,’ Rebecca answered feebly.

‘Care to fill me in?’

‘I did happen to know that you and your wife split up when she was two, and she was taken to Australia to live.’

‘Did she also tell you that I did my damnedest to keep in touch, and that it was only years later that I was informed by her mother that every letter and present I had sent over the years had been shredded and destroyed? By which time she had been inculcated in the belief that I was the big bad wolf who had driven her innocent, victimised mother into a divorce she never wanted, and then, not content with that, had forced her to flee to the opposite ends of the earth?’

Not precisely, Rebecca thought. She couldn’t quite understand why Nicholas Knight felt obliged to fill her in on any of this, but, as a teacher, she knew that she had a duty to listen. Underneath his cool, self-contained acknowledgement of the situation, he no doubt was feeling pangs of guilt and this was his way of releasing some of it. That being the case, she tilted her head obligingly to one side, prepared to listen. He wasn’t to know that everything he said she would take with a hefty pinch of salt. Emily might have done a fair bit of exaggerating, but the truth doubtless lay somewhere between the two accounts.

‘When Veronica died, I found myself with a teenager I didn’t know and who seemed quite incapable of accepting the generous efforts made by us to smooth the path.’

‘Us?’ Rebecca’s ears pricked up. This introduced a complete new line into the story. Had Nicholas Knight remarried? Emily had made no mention of a stepmother. In fact, she had made no mention of a woman on the scene at all, but now, thinking about it, and delving back into her memories of him, he was not the sort of man who cultivated celibacy as a chosen lifestyle.

‘So she didn’t mention Fiona to you?’ The black eyes narrowed. He uncrossed his legs and stretched them out in front of him.

‘Fiona being…your wife?’

‘Fiona being my girlfriend. My dearest ex-wife rather tarnished my belief in the institution of marriage, I’m afraid.’

‘No, Emily didn’t mention a Fiona.’

‘I’m surprised. Fiona did her utmost to get to know her.’

Rebecca thought that that manoeuvre was probably the one thing guaranteed to put off someone like Emily. She would have seen it as the threat of a mother substitute in the offing and would have instinctively reacted against it.

‘Well, I’m sure that you and your girlfriend will be able to sort everything out suitably,’ she said vaguely.

There was a knock on the door and Mrs Williams poked her head around it, her eyes flitting between the two of them questioningly. Rebecca smiled, relieved, but her relief lasted approximately three seconds, until he said, without the slightest hint of apology in his voice, ‘We’re not quite finished here. Perhaps you could give us another…’ he glanced at his watch ‘…half an hour?’ It was just lip-service to politeness. The three of them knew that the principal would give him just as long as he wanted, and she nodded and retreated back, shutting the door behind her.

‘Where were we…?’ he asked, settling back to look at Rebecca.

‘You were just agreeing that once you get Emily back everything will be fine. I’m sure your girlfriend will rise to the occasion and give you both all the support you need.’

‘Well, now, I’m not at all sure I want to throw poor little Fiona into any such situation…’ he ruminated, and Rebecca ground her teeth together in sheer frustration. She had no idea where all this was going, but she had a suspicion that it was going somewhere.

‘If she loves you,’ Rebecca said firmly, ‘then she’d want to help you deal with it. And she’d also want to help Emily deal with it.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she’d like nothing better than to busily try and make herself indispensable, but, you see, I don’t want any such thing.’

‘Oh, right. Well, that’ll be up to the two of you to sort out between yourselves.’

‘But then I’m back with my little problem, aren’t I? One wayward, pregnant daughter who needs home tutoring. Even if I find the time to interview a series of prospective candidates, I’m abroad a hell of a lot, and I won’t be available to supervise how things are going. And you have to admit, knowing Emily as you seem to do, that supervision is going to be essential.’

‘Not if you find someone you feel confident in.’

‘I’m glad you said that.’ He smiled at her. The smile of a rampaging barracuda that had successfully managed to trap its prey through sheer cunning. Rebecca stared back at him blankly.

‘Because you are going to be Emily’s home tutor.’ He sat back and watched her, and she could feel her face transparently revealing every single thing that was going through her head. Stunned surprise, followed swiftly by incredulity, followed even more swiftly by a complete rejection of the idea.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised, ‘but there’s no way that I can…’

‘Why not? This is an appalling business and you yourself stated that the only way out of it for Emily, without ruining her chances in life for ever, is to employ a home tutor.’ He tapped his finger. ‘She trusts you, first of all.’ He tapped another finger. ‘You’re a good teacher from all accounts, well able to get her through her exams.’ He tapped a third finger. ‘I won’t need to supervise the situation if I know that whoever is with Emily can be trusted. So where’s the problem?’

‘Where’s the problem? Where’s the problem? How can you ask that?’ Her voice had risen and she had leant forward, so that her bun now did the dirty on her and collapsed. With one hand she yanked her hair free and it fell around her face, straight, shiny and ludicrously image-altering. ‘The problem is that I already have a job! Just in case it’s passed you by! I can’t just up sticks and take on a temporary private job because it suits you!’

‘I’m not the one at stake,’ he pointed out calmly. ‘Emily is. If her education fails her now, then I needn’t paint you a picture of what life holds in store for her.’ Having said that he needn’t paint a picture, he then proceeded to paint a complete and graphic picture of his daughter’s supposed state of affairs, should home tutoring prove impossible for one reason or another. He, too, leant forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, and skewered her with his eyes so that she felt as though she was personally under attack.

‘Suppose I do manage to find her someone to tutor her at home,’ he began, making it sound as if the task would be along the lines of finding a needle, possibly even a broken one, in an enormous haystack, ‘you know my daughter probably as well as I do. In fact, probably much better. She would eat the poor person alive. Or else she would do her best to ensure that the minimum of work was done, so that the duration of each tutor would be approximately a fortnight. Which,’ he emphasised, ‘would mean that any educational benefits would be eradicated.

‘She would see this situation through and emerge from it well behind her peer group. With that immediate disadvantage dogging her, where would she find the impetus to suddenly pick things up and get going again? With a baby in tow? Far easier to simply let the whole damned thing slide, and in a couple of years’ time, when she became utterly bored of being at home, supported by me, she would find herself some nondescript, badly paid, lowly job totally unworthy of her wasted talents.’

Rebecca felt physically besieged by his onslaught.

‘Well,’ she began, ‘that all seems a bit on the extreme side, Mr Knight. I’m sure—’

‘What you’re sure of, at the end of the day, is that you don’t want to become involved. You’ve uttered your little words of wisdom, but beyond that…well…’ He sat back and gave an infuriatingly Gallic shrug of his shoulders.

‘That’s not what I’m saying at all!’ she responded heatedly. How dared he imply that she didn’t care? Of course she cared! And who was he to speak, anyway? Wherever the truth lay as far as his relationship with his daughter was concerned, she would bet her last pay cheque that it didn’t fall on the side of Nicholas Knight, devoted father, mysteriously slandered by his only daughter. Oh, no, sir!

‘Then please clarify. I’m all ears.’ He cocked his head to one side and she could have hit him.

‘I’m merely pointing out that I am currently employed…’

‘And that’s your only objection?’ he asked, interested.

‘It’s a pretty big one from where I’m sitting,’ Rebecca countered cuttingly. ‘We minor members of the workforce do like to have a bit of job security, you know.’

There was another knock on the door.

Again Mrs Williams poked her head around and was about to speak, when he told her that they were wrapped up.

‘I’ve just made a little proposition to your star teacher,’ he opened by saying, and when the principal raised her eyebrows in polite enquiry he then proceeded to fill her in on all the details of his preposterous plan. Rebecca watched him as he spoke. He was paying no attention to her now. Every scrap of his considerable concentration was focused on the principal, who was visibly wilting from the sheer impossibility of getting a word in edgeways. He politely sidestepped every objection that began forming on her lips with the dexterity of a trapeze artist.

Finally, he informed her, as a point of passing interest, that he would compensate her hugely for releasing Rebecca immediately.

‘No!’ Rebecca protested hotly. ‘I mean,’ she carried on in a less frantic voice, ‘it was just an idea that Mr Knight had. I’m sure you would be able to recommend some private tutors for Emily in the London area. Gosh, there must be thousands!’

‘Yes, I’m sure—’

‘No,’ he cut in before the principal could finish her sentence. ‘I think perhaps you both misunderstood me…’ He shot Rebecca a look from under his lashes which implied that any misunderstanding was purely on the part of the principal because he had made his thoughts crystal-clear to Rebecca. ‘As I explained to Miss Ryan, Emily will be an uphill task for any private tutor, apart from one who knows how to handle her, as she clearly does. I realise that it will be difficult to release her today, but the end of the term is…when? In a fortnight’s time? That will give you all of the Christmas vacation to work on finding a replacement, and, as I said, I will pay generously for putting you out.’

The principal appeared to be dithering.

Rebecca could almost feel the net hanging overhead, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to be trapped. She didn’t like Nicholas Knight, and she especially did not want to spend months under his roof, with the past rising up inside her every time he walked into a room.

‘I have a responsibility to the girls I teach,’ she said carefully.

‘Who, at this moment, do not require quite the same level of compassion as my daughter does. It will be a matter of a few months. Surely you can find it in yourself to spare the time?’ He gave her a winning smile, and the overhead net seemed to drop a few inches closer.

‘It’s entirely up to you, Miss Ryan,’ Mrs Williams said. ‘I should be able to call upon a support teacher to cover for you until you return.’

‘Yes, but…’

Two pairs of eyes focused on her, as they both waited in silence for her to complete the objection.

‘It seems highly unorthodox,’ she finished lamely. ‘And anyway, have you considered that Emily might well disagree with the plan? She may not want to be pursued by her teacher and forced into line…’

‘My daughter will just have to accept it,’ he said bluntly, his mouth hardening. ‘As I will make it perfectly clear when I see her. I can’t unravel this situation, but I have no intention whatsoever of letting her get away with any further stupidity. She made a mistake of horrendous proportions and I shall deal with it whether she likes it or not. She’s sixteen years old and she’ll do as I say.’

Rebecca had visions of racks and thumbscrews and a diet of bread and water for lack of obedience. She shuddered. The man obviously knew nothing at all about teenagers, least of all teenagers like Emily. His idea of taking control of the situation had all the makings of the sort of heavy-handed attitude that could end up driving his daughter to run away.

And, however clever and cunning and unruly Emily was, she was still, underneath it all, a mixed-up child who wouldn’t survive for a day on the streets of London.

The net settled over her and she sighed in defeat.

She would take the job. He was right; it would only be for a matter of months, and she would make sure that he was never reminded of any past they might have shared. She would also make sure to avoid him at all costs. She could still remember how he had made her feel all those years ago. True, she had been young and naïve then, but the man had a certain predatory charm. She might dislike him intensely, but charm had a nasty habit of getting under your skin, and that was something she would simply not allow.

‘All right,’ she conceded, and she saw him breathe a sigh of satisfied relief. Had he actually contemplated the possibility of refusal? If he had, then he could be an Oscar-winning actor, because not at any point had he appeared to doubt the persuasiveness of his arguments.

‘But I shall have to discuss this with you in a great deal more depth before I commit myself.’

‘I thought you already agreed,’ he pointed out. ‘You either agree or you don’t agree.’

‘I will work for you provided you meet my terms and conditions.’

‘Don’t worry, money is no object.’

‘I wasn’t talking about money!’ she snapped, suddenly flustered at the situation she had let herself be talked into.

‘Order, please!’ Mrs Williams smiled at her sudden surge of humour. ‘I think it’s only wise that this is discussed in some depth. I’m sure you understand that Miss Ryan may have some misgivings, Mr Knight. But for the moment I need use of my office. I’m seeing the governor of the board in five minutes. Why don’t you two continue this discussion in the staffroom?’

‘Why don’t we continue this discussion,’ he said smoothly, rising to his feet, ‘in your quarters? It’ll be much more private. The open forum can be a hotbed for gossip.’ He looked at her with the smugness of a cat that had successfully managed to catch a wily little mouse. ‘We’re going to be talking about salary, despite your apparent aversion to money, and you wouldn’t want all your fellow teachers knowing what sort of pay packet you’ll be on, do you? They might all be lining up for jobs as private tutors in London!’

‘Splendid idea!’ Mrs Williams said on Rebecca’s behalf, obviously imagining a mass exodus of her teaching staff. She walked them to the door and shook his hand, pleased with the way things had turned out. She had anticipated the worst and was relieved that a solution of sorts had been found.

‘But…’ Rebecca began. She didn’t think that she had opened so many of her sentences with ‘But’ in all her life.

‘But nothing,’ he said, steering her out of the door and smiling at the principal. ‘You heard Mrs Williams.’

As soon as they were out of earshot, she turned to him and said stiffly, ‘I take it you’re accustomed to exploiting other people?’

‘Exploiting other people?’ He gave her an innocent look that didn’t quite sit with his dark, raffish good looks. Rebecca thought he looked about as innocent as Lucifer on a bad day. ‘I take advantage of opportunities, Miss Ryan. Perhaps I should call you Rebecca. I’m a great believer in employers being on first-name terms with their employees. Puts them at their ease.’

Rebecca, vastly ill at ease, not least because of the sidelong, giggling looks she was getting from the assortment of girls drifting from one class to the other, didn’t say anything.

‘And I’m Nick.’ He grinned to himself, as though at some private joke.

‘Why does Emily not carry your surname?’ Rebecca asked, leading him along corridors, past classrooms and finally into the secluded quarters of the dormitories. With no one around, she was unnervingly aware of his presence.

‘Because by the time Emily was born Veronica and I were so disillusioned with one another that she did precisely what she knew would stick in my throat.’

They had reached her quarters, and she opened the door to the small but comfortable sitting room. There was just enough room for a small flowered sofa, two chairs and a couple of tables, and on either side of the fireplace bookshelves had been mounted which she had crammed with her books. He strolled over to them and began perusing the titles, while she stood and watched him, arms folded.

Did he think that this was some kind of social visit? she wondered.

‘Why did you choose to live in the school?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier for a young woman like yourself to live in the town and travel in?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? Mind if I sit?’ He sat down.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ She had a very small and very basic kitchen. Generally, she ate the school meals, although on her free nights she always went into the town to see her friends. It was one of the good things about working in the place she had grown up in. She had kept in touch with all her own schoolfriends and they met regularly to catch up on gossip. ‘I’m fine.’ His dark eyes raked over her. ‘Why don’t you sit down? You look very awkward towering over there.’

Thanks for the flattering description, she thought sourly. Yes, I do tend to tower, but there’s no need to bring it to my notice.

She removed her jacket and primly sat on the chair facing him. At least she wasn’t hot and stuffy now, but the blouse was still a ridiculous fit. She could feel her breasts pushing against the white material. She was also acutely aware of his eyes on her, and it seemed to her that out of the principal’s office there was something rather more assessing to his gaze.

‘There are a few things I want to make perfectly clear before I take up the position with you,’ she began before he could launch into any more personal asides. ‘Firstly, I want you to know from the start that if I am to tutor your daughter I must be given free rein to do so however I see fit. These are unusual circumstances, and sitting Emily down for formal classes as she would do in a school environment just isn’t going to work.’

‘And what are you suggesting here?’

‘I’m suggesting that she has to feel comfortable with me if I’m to succeed in teaching her anything at all. She will have an awful lot on her mind and she will need fairly gentle handling.’ He looked at her as though he disagreed with every word she had just spoken, but after a while he nodded.

‘Naturally, you will want to be informed of her progress, so I suggest we arrange a time at the beginning of each week, when we can get together for a short meeting, so that I can tell you how Emily is getting along.’

‘And in between these arranged…meetings…? Should we conscientiously ignore one another? Speak, but keep it to the minimum? Pretend that we’re total strangers?’

‘This isn’t a joke, Mr Knight!’

‘Nick.’

Rebecca ignored that. ‘I’m sure Emily will keep you up to date with what we’re doing.’

‘Oh, I doubt that very much. She’s managed to make herself very scarce on the occasion when she’s been forced to be under the same roof as me.’ His voice was bland, but she could sense emotion underlying it, and she felt a pang of sympathy. As a father, it must be difficult to realise that your only offspring would rather ignore you than include you.

‘That must be very difficult for you,’ Rebecca said sympathetically. ‘Being denied contact with your daughter, and then, when she’s a teenager, finding yourself confronted with a young woman you have never really known.’

‘Thanks for the vote of sympathy.’ He gave her a long, cool look and she immediately understood that private utterances along those lines were not welcome. She wondered whether his girlfriend had more access to his emotions, whether he showed her the sides of himself that he kept carefully concealed from the public gaze.

‘Fine,’ she said crisply. ‘Now, shall we discuss the more technical aspects of this…arrangement?’

They became immersed in all the details involved, the nitty-gritty that would make up the contract of employment, which he assured her would be put in writing and sent to her for signature within the next couple of days by his secretary.

When she stood up to indicate that their meeting was now at an end, she was surprised and taken aback to find that he had remained where he was, and was staring at her in a vaguely unsettling manner. Not sexual, but somehow watchful.

‘If that’s all?’ she prompted.

‘I thought that I was the one doing the interviewing,’ he said mildly. ‘There might be one or two things I’d like to say to you.’

‘Are there?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ He linked his hands behind his head and continued to stare at her until, disconcerted, she plonked herself reluctantly back down on the chair.

‘Well, fire away.’

‘Firstly, I shall expect you to have meals with me—expect you both to have meals with me—when I’m around. I don’t intend to slink through my own house like an intruder just to satisfy your bizarre preference for solitude. Admittedly, my work takes me abroad quite a bit, and my social life can be a bit disruptive as well, but there will be times when I’m around, and your presence might pave the way for a slightly smoother relationship with my daughter.’

She caught that slight edge of defensiveness in his voice again and bit down the feeling of sympathy. Emily must be the one crack in his suit of armour which he could not hide. His feelings snaked into his voice, almost of their own accord, and he seemed unaware of it. Probably he was so accustomed to controlling people, situations, events, that he was quite wrong-footed by the one situation, the one person, over whom he had no control.

Rebecca nodded but did not commit herself to agreeing with any such plan.

‘And—’ he stood up, finally, taking his time and slipping on his jacket ‘—just one more thing…’ He gave her a slow smile that made her pulses race. ‘I’d just like to say that you’ve changed.’

Rebecca’s mouth fell open.

‘I know you recognise me.’ He moved over to her and it was all she could do to hold her ground and not scuttle away to the side of the room in alarm. ‘I could see it the minute you set eyes on me. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Rebecca?’

Rebecca could think of nothing to say.

‘Did you think that I didn’t remember you? You did. I can see the answer in your eyes.’ His voice was as soft and smooth as melted chocolate. It made her dizzy, a response which she immediately put down to confusion. ‘You haven’t got the sort of face that’s easily forgotten. You look more or less the same. In fact, you seem to have aged very little over the years, but your manner’s changed. If I remember correctly you were so full of life, so eager to please.’

His voice had sunk to a husky whisper, and she could feel her cheeks aflame with colour as she raised her eyes to his. Did he imagine that his syrupy charm was going to have her wilting obligingly? Or was that syrupy charm all part and parcel of his persona, something that manifested itself in every word he spoke?

‘Our paths crossed years ago for a matter of a couple of weeks.’

‘Why didn’t you acknowledge me?’

‘Why didn’t you?’

He shrugged carelessly. ‘I figured you had your reasons. Anyway, it was incidental to what was being discussed. After a while, I became intrigued to see whether you’d slip up, which you didn’t. You still haven’t lost that urge to say exactly what’s on your mind, though, have you? I could see you bursting to condemn me before I’d even sat down!’

So he had known all along. She felt a complete idiot.

‘Why did you run out on me all those years ago?’ he asked. ‘You never bothered to explain. The last I saw of you at that party was with your back turned, laughing, with a glass of champagne in your hand, and then no more contact after that. Every call I made politely declined.’

‘I can’t think that that’s preyed on your mind all this time,’ Rebecca told him, plucking every ounce of self-control at her disposal and immeasurably grateful for the fact that teaching had given her an invaluable discipline as far as her emotions went.

‘Whoever said that it had?’ His eyes narrowed, and not altogether pleasantly, on her. ‘Although…’

‘Although what?’

‘I saw you there, in that room, and the past crossed my mind; it’s as simple as that. And with the past came a bucketful of questions that you never answered when you decided to do your vanishing act.’

‘And they won’t be answered now!’ she flared back at him. ‘And that’s another condition! I do my job, I do what I shall be paid handsomely to do, but there’s to be nothing personal between us.’

He gave her a leisurely, dangerous smile. ‘I suggest you tell yourself that every morning when you wake up,’ he said silkily, ‘because I can feel the heat radiating from you like a furnace. If I laid a finger on you right now, I bet you’d just go up in flames. Poof! Just like that. You’re even trembling, and don’t bother to deny it. But still, nothing personal. At any rate, I’m involved, in case you’d forgotten.’

He stalked across to the door and stayed there for a few seconds, looking at her, his hand resting lightly on the doorknob. ‘See you in a few weeks’ time, Rebecca. And I don’t expect you to back out because of our past little liaison. I’m sure you’re grown up enough to realise that it would be a vast disfavour to my daughter if you did. For the wrong reasons.’

With that, he was gone.