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‘The British employee’s psyche and attitude to work is not necessarily the same as an American’s,’ she announced coolly. ‘What works here in America will not necessarily work in Britain,’ she said challengingly, looking directly at Kyle for the first time, the warning look in her eyes telling him that what had happened last night was now in the past and that he would be a very foolhardy man indeed if he tried to make any capital out of it now.
‘That’s true,’ he agreed, answering her, ‘and I appreciate that there will be certain...cultural difficulties to overcome...’
‘Which is, hopefully, one of the ways in which you will be able to help Kyle find the right approach,’ Brad intervened.
Star’s eyebrows lifted as she pointed out coolly, ‘I’m a PR consultant, not a sociologist.’
‘Yes, but you’ve already highlighted our main area of weakness,’ Brad was quick to tell her, ‘and I suspect you’re far too intelligent and independent a woman not to have formed certain conclusions and views on how the problem can best be resolved.’
What Brad was saying was no less than the truth but his praise immediately made Star feel wary and suspicious. Men did not, in her experience, praise women unless they wanted something in return.
Brad and Kyle were obviously close friends and she wondered suspiciously if it was, perhaps, in their minds to place any blame for any potential failure on Kyle’s part to achieve the same success in Britain as he had done in the States on her shoulders, or rather on the shoulders of her PR campaign. It was not, after all, unheard of for men to use such tactics—gamesmanship, they called it; plain underhand was a more honest description in her book.
‘It’s my job to promote the company from a PR point of view,’ she told Brad firmly. ‘Or at least that’s what I understood the contract I signed earlier to say.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Brad agreed politely. He looked slightly puzzled, causing Star to wonder if she might have misjudged him and even been guilty of a little paranoia, but where men were concerned a woman couldn’t be too careful, she reminded herself. Look at the way Kyle had withheld from her the fact that he already knew that they were going to be seeing each other again.
‘I know you’re flying back home today,’ Brad told her, ‘but Claire wondered if you’d time to have lunch with her and Sally before you left. She said to tell you that she’d pick you up at your hotel at noon.’
There was really no way Star could refuse. Sally was, after all, her closest and oldest friend and during her turbulent teenage years her home and her stepmother had provided Star with the kind of warmth and stability that her own home life had lacked.
Ten minutes later, as she left Brad’s office, she couldn’t bring herself to look directly at Kyle. Gritting her teeth, she walked past him, her head held high.
All right, so he might very well have stolen a march on her and was no doubt right now enjoying that sensation—enjoying knowing that he had rejected her, enjoying the superiority and sense of power he probably felt that gave him—but she was damned if she was going to give him the satisfaction of letting him see that she was aware of his triumph.
‘Come on, the champagne’s already on ice,’ Sally announced, pouncing on Star as she walked into the hotel foyer. ‘You did sign the contract, didn’t you?’ she asked, frowning slightly as she saw how grimly preoccupied Star looked.
‘Yes, I signed the contract,’ Star confirmed.
‘Star, what is it, what’s wrong?’ Sally began, confused. ‘I thought you’d be over the moon. You said yourself that this would be the biggest contract you’d had; you were so excited about it and—’
‘It’s nothing... Just a bit of jet lag,’ Star lied, forcing herself to smile. What was the point, after all, in advertising her sense of ill-usage? Sally wouldn’t really understand. She had never shared Star’s feelings about the perfidious nature of the male sex.
‘Claire’s waiting for us in the dining room,’ Sally explained, taking hold of Star’s arm as she added, ‘No, not this way. We’ve got our own private dining room courtesy of Brad. He’s a darling, isn’t he? But then American men are sweeties, aren’t they? Just look at Kyle...’ Sally closed her eyes and gave a small, ecstatic sigh of deeply feminine approval.
‘If it wasn’t for Chris, I think I could fall for Kyle in a big way—a very big way,’ she emphasised. ‘He’s got that something about him that tells you you could rely on him utterly and completely, hasn’t he? You just know that he’s the kind of man who would always be able to get a taxi and produce an umbrella when it rains.’
‘Oh, yes, irresistible,’ Star replied sarcastically, trying to hold onto her temper as she listened to Sally eulogising on Kyle’s supposed virtues.
‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Sally guessed. ‘But Star—’
‘Personally, I prefer my men a little less homey and a little more sexy. All right, then, a lot more sexy,’ she told Sally recklessly. ‘And—’
‘Oh, but Kyle is sexy,’ Sally interrupted her to protest. ‘He’s very sexy,’ she insisted. ‘Anyway, enough about him. How did your dinner date with that guy go last night?’
Star murmured something non-committal, her expression clearly revealing that she didn’t want to talk about it.
‘Look, Star,’ Sally said gently as she saw the familiar stubbornness tighten Star’s mouth and recognised the look in her eyes, ‘I know how you feel about men and I do understand, but just because your father—’
‘Just because my father what?’ Star demanded dangerously.
Sally gave a small sigh and tried again.
‘Not all men are the same. Look at Chris...and Brad...and James... And Kyle is—’
‘The kind of man who claims he can only have sex with a woman he feels emotionally bonded to,’ Star interrupted her savagely, and added vehemently, ‘He’s lying. I know it and I mean to prove it, to make him—’
She stopped speaking, abruptly aware that she had been letting things get out of control and allowing herself to be swamped by her emotions.
‘Star,’ she heard Sally appealing softly, but she refused to respond to her friend’s plea, turning her head away when Sally suggested gently, ‘I can see that you and Kyle obviously haven’t quite hit it off, but don’t you think you could be overreacting a little bit...? He really is one of the most genuine men...people I have ever met and everyone else, including Brad, has a very high regard for him; he says he’s the most honest and straightforward man he’s ever known—very highly morally principled and completely a man of his word, whilst, at the same time, always having the ability to see the other person’s point of view and to treat them compassionately.’
/> ‘Brad would think that—he’s another man,’ Star sneered, her body stiffening in rejection of what Sally was trying to tell her.
But, even whilst her body language was challenging Sally to continue to oppose her, inwardly her stomach had started to churn in a long-familiar mixture of pain and fear made highly toxic by a generous inclusion of panic as she fought to hold onto her beliefs and her self control.
A long, long time ago she had first experienced that same volatile cocktail of destructive and painful emotions when listening to her mother denouncing her father. Then she had fought fiercely to deny and reject what her mother was saying, convinced that she was wrong, that her father loved them—that he would never leave them, and she had been wrong.
But she was not wrong now. She was not wrong about Kyle.
And somehow she would find a way of proving, not just to herself but also to those like Sally who doubted her judgement, that she was right.
Somehow she would find a way of exposing Kyle’s hypocrisy for what it was. It would be her own personal crusade, her own private war.
‘Well, perhaps Kyle just isn’t your type,’ Sally was saying diplomatically, obviously anxious to smooth things over. ‘According to Brad he’s an idealist and a romantic. It’s a shame that there isn’t anyone special in his life,’ she added musingly. ‘I suppose the kind of woman that would be most likely to appeal to him is someone soft and gentle, someone he could cherish and protect, and that’s not you at all, is it?’
‘No, it certainly isn’t,’ Star agreed shortly.
‘Well, we’ll just have to see if we can’t find him someone suitable at home,’ Sally chattered on. ‘Any suggestions?’
