How was it, she asked herself silently, that all her previous good intentions of being distantly charming and amusing could be shattered with one glance from the man? In all the last twelve years she hadn’t met anyone who could set her teeth on edge like Clay Lincoln. Everything, but everything about him grated on her. She couldn’t imagine why he and Guy were friends.
She wasn’t going to wait for someone else to make the first move to leave. As soon as it was decently possible she would make her goodbyes and be out of here; she didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this. She would rather die than let Clay see it but she was acutely aware of every little movement he made and it was mortifying. Suddenly she just didn’t know herself any more and she was aghast at the way she felt.
Music was drifting in from the lounge, courtesy of Frank Sinatra who was doing it ‘his way’, and as Cassie began ushering them all out of their seats Robyn seized the opportunity to take her sister’s arm and say quietly, ‘I really need to be making tracks, Cass, I’m sorry. It’s been a lovely evening but—’
‘You can’t go yet.’ Cassie was horrified. ‘It’s only half past ten for goodness’ sake! Here, grab one
of the bottles of brandy and port and bring them through, would you?’ And with that she sailed off across the hall, where she could be heard urging everyone to replenish their glasses.
Robyn stared after her, biting her lower lip and wondering how she could love someone and want to strangle them at the same time. It was a feeling she’d had before but never so strongly.
She had just turned to reach for the bottles when she saw Clay, still seated, surveying her with contemplative eyes. ‘Somewhere else to go?’ he asked mildly.
At some point in the evening he had discarded his suit jacket over the back of his chair and had undone the first couple of buttons of his shirt, pulling his tie loose, and although she was absolutely furious with herself the sheer physical magnetism of him registered in her solar plexus like a fist. She could feel the blood pulsing through her veins, a frantic flood that made her feel breathless and giddy, and she had to swallow hard before she could say, ‘Not—not exactly. Only home. But I’ve a heap of work waiting for me.’
‘At half past ten at night?’ he queried softly.
She flushed hotly, her voice something of a snap as she said, ‘I meant tomorrow, of course. It will mean an early start and so I didn’t want to be too late tonight.’ He needn’t try and be clever!
‘Do you always work such long hours?’ He stood up as he spoke, his silver eyes running over her face and the cloud of silky red-gold curls falling to below her slender shoulders. ‘I thought everyone was due one day of rest a week.’
She shrugged carefully. At five feet nine she had never considered herself petite but Clay must be at least another six inches taller and it was disconcerting to find she was having to look up at him. ‘It varies,’ she said stiffly.
‘Are you always so communicative?’ he drawled silkily.
They were the only two people left in the dining room now and Robyn had the ridiculous urge to turn and bolt into the lounge, but the knowledge that he would love that, just love it, restrained her. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said tightly, reaching for the bottle of brandy and another of port as she added, ‘Cass wants these, I’d better take them through.’
‘Running away…again?’ The pause was just long enough to bring the colour which had begun to recede from her cheeks surging back with renewed vigour.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she said with icy dignity, her voice at direct variance with her fiery skin. Horrible, horrible man!
‘If you had known I would be here tonight you wouldn’t have come.’ It was a statement, not a question.
You’ve never said a truer word, she thought. ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she returned scathingly. ‘How could your whereabouts be of any possible interest to me one way or the other?’
He hadn’t liked that. Robyn was immensely gratified to see his mouth tighten, but the black scowl was a little unnerving and grasping the bottles she made for the door. Enough was enough.
‘You’re an angel.’ As she entered the lounge where the others were draped about talking and laughing, a couple of the women dancing languidly to the music, Cassie took the bottles from her, glancing interestedly over her shoulder. ‘Where’s Clay?’
‘How would I know?’ Robyn said offhandedly. ‘Bathroom perhaps?’ Her tone made it quite clear she couldn’t care less.
‘Robyn, make an effort please,’ Cassie hissed quietly. ‘That’s not too much to ask, is it? He’s—’
What he was Robyn never found out as the next moment Clay walked in the room and Cassie fluttered over to him, insisting on replenishing his glass and then—to Robyn’s horror—drawing him over to Robyn as she said loudly, ‘You know you two have so much in common when you think about it, both with your own businesses and so on. You’re both workaholics, you know,’ and she giggled in a most un-Cassie-like way.
‘Clay and I have nothing in common, Cass.’ It was out before she could stop it, his narrowed eyes and cold face hitting a multitude of nerves, and she hastily qualified the retort with, ‘Clay is a millionaire with a network of businesses that stretch from here to Timbuktu, and I’m a one-man-band in Kensington. You really can’t compare the two.’
‘Timbuktu is a town in central Mali on the River Niger, and to my knowledge I have no business connections there,’ Clay said pleasantly, his voice conversational and his eyes deadly, ‘and I am sure your company is every bit as important to you as mine are to me. I think that is what your sister was getting at.’
She knew what Cassie was getting at but she couldn’t very well say so, Robyn thought helplessly, knowing she had been put in her place by an expert. She glared at him, hating him for making her feel such an ungracious, churlish boor, and then as Cassie shifted uncomfortably at the side of them Robyn tried to straighten her face into a more acceptable expression.
‘Robyn works too hard, Clay.’ Cassie was clearly in ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ mode. ‘I know she’s trying to build the business up but nothing is worth killing yourself for. Of course it doesn’t help that her bank manager is less than far-sighted,’ she finished with all the delicacy of a charging bull-elephant.
Dinner party or no dinner party, this was finale time. ‘Excuse me.’ Robyn’s voice was throbbing with outrage as she nodded at Clay, taking Cassie’s arm in a vise-like grip as she did so and hauling her sister out of the room before anyone could say another word.
She didn’t let go until the pair of them were safely in the kitchen with the door shut behind them, and then she pushed her sister onto one of the breakfast stools with the command of, ‘Sit,’ her face flushed and her brown eyes sparking.
‘Robyn, please, just let me explain—’