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‘I bet you even had the restaurant booked tonight, didn’t you?’ she went on, as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘First the gift, then the wining and dining, followed by— Well, we both know what you intended it be followed by, don’t we, Conrad?’
She was right. She had known it even before she saw her words confirmed in the furious blue eyes. And the pity of it was he was right in one respect—she did want him as much as he wanted her, more in fact, because he had lots of women and she only wanted him.
Everything in her had been fighting against his magnetic attraction from day one, but when he had held her, touched her, she had known that she didn’t want him to stop, not ever. He could have had her today, right here on the office carpet, where anyone could have walked in and found them. She had been his for the taking. And they said history didn’t repeat itself!
A muscle was working in his jaw and she felt pinned to the spot by the brilliant sapphire gaze as she waited for him to respond to the accusation. But when his voice came the content of the words was more shocking than anything she had expected, even from someone as well versed in the cut and thrust of human warfare as Conrad. ‘So, I take it I cancel the restaurant?’ he drawled with cruel indifference, and then he turned, walking into his office like he had done so many times in the last months and shutting the door on her.
CHAPTER SIX
IF ANYONE had ever told Sephy that Madge Watkins was an angel in disguise she would have laughed in their face.
However, from the moment Sephy walked into Madge’s squeaky clean house the next morning that was exactly what Madge became. The elderly spinster took one look at Sephy’s wan, bleached face and pink-rimmed eyes—the results of a sleepless night and many tears—and metamorphosed into a maternal cherub.
Whilst her tiny hands busied themselves in making a pot of tea and several rounds of toast—Sephy having admitted she’d had no breakfast before she left—Madge skilfully drew out the full story of what had transpired, and when Sephy broke down in the telling she offered a lavender-scented shoulder for the younger woman to cry on.
Once ensconced in Madge’s neat and cosy sitting room in front of a blazing coal fire—Angus on her lap and a cup of tea and a plateful of toast on a little table at the side of her comfy armchair—Sephy felt a little better. Harsh, icy rain was lashing against the windowpanes and the morning was as dark as if dusk was falling, but here inside Madge’s home there was a semblance of peace. And she desperately needed that.
Angus had been delighted to see her, and kept up a low, steady rumbling of pleasure once he had established himself on her lap. The warmth of the big cat’s furry body and the way he snuggled into her brought a measure of comfort to Sephy’s bruised heart. There was something very therapeutic about Angus.
Madge talked of inconsequentialities until the teapot had been drained and the toast reduced to a few crumbs, and then she came straight to the point. ‘You did absolutely right to refuse him, Sephy,’ she said firmly, as though the conversation in the kitchen had happened the moment before instead of fifteen minutes ago. ‘And I don’t say that because I’m an old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy killjoy either,’ she added briskly. ‘I know what people think of me; old, dried-up spinster who doesn’t know what it’s all about. But I’ve had my moments, m’dear, I can tell you.’
Sephy became aware she was sitting with her mouth agape and shut it quickly, but she couldn’t have been more surprised if Angus had suddenly woken up and started talking.
‘No, the reason I say you are right is because you think too much of him to enter into what must be—because of Conrad’s nature—an essentially disastrous affair.’
‘What?’ Sephy’s senses suddenly became heightened to breaking point. Madge’s snug little room—with the small, black-leaded grate and red, glowing fire; the mantelshelf with its wooden candle-holders and stout ticking clock; the well-stuffed three-piece suite and elaborately patterned rug in front of the fire—took on a clarity that made the moment timeless.
‘You think too much of him, dear.’ Madge’s voice was very gentle now as she stared into the shocked golden-brown eyes in front of her. ‘I’ve seen it every time you’ve visited me.’
‘No, no…it’s…it’s not like that,’ Sephy stammered before she came to an abrupt halt. It was like that. Some time in the last months she had fallen for Conrad Quentin big time. Oh, admit it, a voice in her head challenged scornfully. Say the word! You love him. In spite of all you know about him, you love him. Perhaps it had been inevitable from the start, working with him all the hours under the sun and virtually living in his pocket. He was too mesmerising a man, too fascinating and charismatic, for it to have been any different.
Madge sighed, her shrewd but not unkind button eyes tight on Sephy’s face as she watched the realisation dawn. ‘It’s better to face up to it now,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s broken a good few hearts in his time, believe me. Oh, not that he intended to,’ she added quickly, as though Sephy had suggested that very thing. ‘No, he’s always careful to be scrupulously honest about what he can and can’t give, but some of the women—especially the more beautiful ones—have thought they could change him, you see. But it just didn’t happen.’
A tide of hot colour washed over Sephy’s strained face. ‘I’ve never thought that, Madge,’ she said through the tightness in her throat. ‘I didn’t even know he was thinking like he was until last night. I mean, me…’ Her voice trailed away.
Madge gave a sudden snort that caused Angus to raise a startled head from Sephy’s lap. ‘Why not you?’ she asked briskly. ‘Don’t undervalue yourself, Sephy. You’ve got more of what makes a real woman in your little finger than women like Caroline de Menthe have got in the whole of their bodies.’ Madge stopped abruptly, a strange look passing over her face as she stared into Sephy’s huge liquid eyes, their thick lashes accentuating the amber tint. ‘Who knows?’ she said very softly, as if to herself. ‘Stranger things have happened. Every man has his own Waterloo.’
‘What?’ Sephy hadn’t been able to catch what Madge had said.
‘Nothing.’ Madge shook herself, planting her feet firmly on the floor as she raised herself from the chair. ‘Right, I’m going to put two baked potatoes and some pork chops in the oven to cook for our lunch, and then we’ll get down to those.’ She indicated the pile of files Sephy had brought with her. ‘And don’t worry, m’dear,’ she added softly, stopping by Sephy’s chair and stroking one smooth cheek for a second. ‘You carry on being yourself.’
‘Yes, I will.’ Sephy stared at her, somewhat bewildered but feeling comforted. There was much more to this little woman than met the eye!
It was gone half past eight before Sephy stood up to leave the benign confines of Madge’s small home, and then only after a delicious tea of hot toasted muffins and homemade strawberry jam.
For most of the long winter afternoon the two women had just sat in front of the fire and chatted about all sorts of things, and it wasn’t until Sephy was driving home in the taxi—which Conrad had previously insisted she take both ways and charge to the company—that she realised Madge had confided far more about Conrad than she’d appreciated at the time.
The stark, utilitarian existence he had been forced to endure at boarding school from the age of seven, which had aimed at a rigid, army-like discipline; his difficult teenage years when he had fought against authority at school and rebelled at being shipped from pillar to post among his relatives in the holidays; the pain he still felt about his sister’s untimely death, and much more besides.
‘He’s carved a name for himself. Quite literally carved it, with his blood, sweat and tears,’ Madge had said pensively, adding with a wry smile, ‘No, forget the tears. He told me once, oh, years ago now, that he can’t remember the last time he cried—it wasn’t encouraged, either at home or at the school, to show emotion, you see. If he’d been mine it would have been different.’
‘You look on him as a son, don’t you?’ Sephy had said gently, and the elderly woman had nodded slowly.
‘I was fifty years old when Conrad engaged me as his secretary over a host of young things with degrees and what have you,’ Madge had said softly. ‘I’d been made redundant, and it seemed like everyone had written me off because of my age, and then Conrad gave me a chance. He said he believed in me, in my experience and wisdom over material qualifications. One minute I was an old has-been everyone was treating with contempt, the next… Yes, I look upon him as my lad. I can’t help it.’
He had been wonderful to Madge, the little woman had related incident after incident to prove it, so why couldn’t he extend the milk of human kindness to the rest of the human race? Sephy asked herself as she looked out of the taxi’s steaming window into the gray sleety rain outside. There had been times this afternoon when she had found herself envying the lonely, solitary little old woman, and if that didn’t make her the saddest person in London she didn’t know what did! A self-mocking, mordacious smile brushed her soft lips.
Anyway, the most unlikely affair in the whole of history was over before it had even begun! She had to put this behind her, concentrate on her job and perhaps even consider moving companies to further her career. The boost the last few months had made to her CV wasn’t to be sneezed at, and besides—her mouth drooped unknowingly as street after sleet-drenched street flashed by outside—she couldn’t continue working at Quentin Dynamics now.
