Past Loving. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ my chances of success by tying myself down with a husband and children.’

      He had said that to her, but they both knew that what he had meant was that he would be a fool if he threw away his chances and tied himself down by marrying her. But he had deliberately chosen to make it sound as though he were thinking of her when in reality his motives had been entirely rooted in his own needs and wants. If he had thought about her at all, he would have made sure that she never got the chance to fall in love with him in the first place and he would certainly never have allowed her to believe that that love was returned, but then, as she had discovered over the years, men were adept at making women believe they were acting in their best interest and for the most altruistic of reasons when in fact they were doing almost exactly the opposite.

      ‘You’ve changed, Holly.’

      She smiled mirthlessly at him, and said lightly, ‘I should think I have, although I prefer to think of it as growth rather than change. I must go, Robert. I’ve got a board meeting this afternoon and I’m already late.’

      She realised as she said it that it sounded more like the defiant boasting of a frightened child than the cool, reasoned comment of a woman too protected and safe from the kind of vulnerability she had once known to be remotely affected by a chance meeting with the man who had once been the cause of her greatest unhappiness.

      The look Robert gave her seemed to reinforce her own thoughts.

      ‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll wait,’ he said softly, and it wasn’t a kind comment. ‘Odd how different our perceptions are from reality. You’re every inch the sleek, sophisticated, successful businesswoman now. I wonder, has she completely obliterated the girl I once knew?’

      His comment stunned her. She had no idea what had motivated it or why he should be so deliberately cruel as to mention that girl. He must know how much anguish he had caused her…how much pain…how much self-revulsion when eventually she had come through the madness of begging and entreating him not to leave her, of pleading tearfully with him to stay…to love her instead of leaving her.

      He had changed too…because the Robert she had known would never have made a comment like that. The Robert she had known—the Robert she had thought she had known, she reminded herself as she looked away from him, fiercely stabbing the car into gear, and gritting her teeth. But that Robert had never really existed.

      As she started to move away, Robert stepped back from the car, telling her drily, ‘Next time, remember, set out a bit earlier.’

      ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she told him through her gritted teeth. ‘Now that I know you’ve bought this place, wild horses wouldn’t drag me within a mile of it.’

      Ten minutes later, when she finally pulled out on to the main road, she was still shaking, still cursing herself for her folly in giving in to her need to make that childish verbal defiance. Why on earth hadn’t she simply remained cool and uncaring, shrugging aside his comment and just driving off without giving in to the need to react to it?

      Well, at least she had made her position plain. As far as she was concerned, his presence in the village wasn’t welcome, and she wished he had not chosen to come back. She was glad that it was extremely unlikely that she would have to have any kind of contact with him, although, womanlike, she couldn’t help wondering what on earth a single man could possibly want with such a huge barn of a house.

      She was of course late for her board meeting, apologising to the other members when she hurried in.

      As they discussed the new packaging, she remembered Patsy’s hint about Gerald not even being on the board. For some time she had been contemplating inviting him to join them as a non-executive director. He was a well-balanced, cautious man who would help to offset Paul’s ebullience, and he was their accountant.

      ‘I hear Robert Graham has just moved into the area,’ Lawrence Starling commented to her after the board meeting.

      Lawrence was their newly appointed sales manager. Paul had head-hunted him from one of the multinationals. Single and two years older than her, he was beginning to develop a semi-proprietorial attitude towards her that Holly was trying to discourage.

      ‘Yes, I believe so,’ she agreed dismissively.

      ‘Strange sort of thing for him to do—I mean to move out here…’

      ‘He grew up here,’ Holly informed him.

      ‘Oh, I see. Look, Holly, I was wondering: there are one or two aspects of the new packaging I wanted to bring up at the board meeting, but with your being late there really wasn’t time. I know Bob Holmes wanted to get off to play golf, and I didn’t want to delay him. Could we discuss them over dinner tonight?’

      ‘No, I’m sorry, I already have an engagement,’ Holly told him truthfully. She hadn’t missed the none-too-subtle way Lawrence had let her know that Bob was playing golf, and, while she was forced to agree with Paul that Lawrence’s aggressive marketing tactics were beginning to pay off, she found his incessant need to put others down and his uncurbed ambitious desire both distasteful and wearying. And besides, in a sense what she had said was true, even if her engagement was merely with her garden and her desire to make sure that the new forget-me-not plants were tucked up in their beds just as soon as possible.

      ‘Tomorrow, then?’ Lawrence pressed her.

      Firmly Holly shook her head, telling him, ‘I think you’d better wait and discuss it with Paul when he gets back. You know that he has overall charge of marketing.’

      The sullen look Lawrence gave her irritated her, but she didn’t let it show. Why was it that men had this annoying propensity to change from ‘I know best’ father figures to sulky little boys whenever the former bullying manner did not work? Why could so few men accept a woman as their equal and rejoice in her success and her skills? Why must they always feel so threatened and be so antagonistic? Perhaps it was time that someone discovered a way of reprogramming the entire male species.

      If they did, one thing was for sure; it would be a woman who would make the discovery and implement it…no man would ever admit that his psyche needed any kind of change.

      Reminding herself that she was perhaps being a little unfair and that there were many, many men who were comfortable with and supportive of their female partners’ success in life, she headed for her office.

      IT WAS SIX o’clock before she was able to lift her head from her paperwork and think about preparing to go home.

      An hour later, as she drove past the entrance to the lane past the Hall, she noticed that two men were working there, putting in the supports for a rough-hewn farm-style gate.

      Well, Robert certainly hadn’t wasted much time there, she reflected as she put her foot down on the accelerator and sped past.

      She was half a mile further down the road when she heard the all too unwanted sound of a police car siren. When she looked in the mirror and saw the driver flashing his lights at her, she cursed under her breath and pulled in to the side of the road.

      She had been speeding, if only marginally, and she of all people ought to have known better. The number of times she had complained to Paul that he drove too fast—And now she was the one to get booked.

      The police officer was polite but unrelenting; she wondered what he would have said if she had pleaded in mitigation that it had been the soreness СКАЧАТЬ