AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She had been introduced to him briefly, during the cruise, but couldn’t remember his name. That was weird, wasn’t it? He had haunted her dreams ever since, yet she didn’t even know his name.
Terry pushed his way through the crowds of guests, bringing another glass of champagne for her. He was wearing a rainbow: sunshine yellow shirt, blue jacket, hot pink and green tie, blue trousers.
Huskily, tearing her gaze away from the angel of death, she managed to smile. ‘You look . . . dazzling!’
He grinned. ‘You mean I have vulgar tastes in clothes! I know. But I love bright colours, they cheer me up when I’m feeling down.’
He threw a glance over her. ‘You don’t look bad yourself. A bit subdued, all that mauve and white, but it suits you. My old Gran used to wear mauve all the time – it was what widows wore fifty years ago. Black at first, then mauve after six months.’
Their eyes met and he groaned.
‘Hush my mouth! Sorry, Miranda. I spoke without thinking. I’d forgotten Tom.’
‘That’s OK,’ she managed to get out, thinking, how could he forget Tom? But three years is a long time and people do forget. She wished she could, but Tom still showed up in her dreams, especially when she was very tired or under a strain.
‘You look lovely,’ Terry said in a sweetly obvious attempt to change the subject and cheer her up. ‘What are you doing this Sunday?’
‘Nothing much.’ Was he going to ask her out? Now and then she picked up the impression that Terry fancied her and might be going to ask her for a date, but so far it hadn’t happened, and she was not certain whether or not she would welcome his approach if it came.
She liked Terry, but she did not want to get involved with anyone. She was sure she would know if she were ready for a new relationship. So far she wasn’t.
He gave her a coaxing smile. ‘I’d like you to work on projected publicity for the new printer. I don’t want anyone to have an idea what we’re doing, yet, which means you can’t do this during the week with people walking in and out of the office all day. Could you do it on Sunday afternoon?’
‘OK,’ she said, laughing at herself silently. So much for her daydreaming. It had been work on Terry’s mind, after all, not romance. She should have known it would be. Terry was a workaholic.
The day to day workload for her job was not exactly heavy. She had to arrange advertising and publicity, of course, but Terry kept a very small budget for either of those. Advertising was largely in trade magazines, and bought in blocks for so many weeks or months, and publicity came up only from time to time, usually when they introduced a new product.
She had to have a certain technical literacy in order to work out copy for advertising, although Terry usually gave her a sketch of what he wanted her to write, puffing new features of a machine. She would have to know all about the new printer when she dealt with the marketing campaign later that year, so it made sense for her to familiarise herself with the details now.
Somebody loomed up beside them and her nerves leapt.
‘Hello, Terry.’
‘Alex! Great to see you, thanks for coming.’ Terry beamed from ear to ear. He either liked this man a lot or the man was rich and important. Or both.
Seeing the other man staring at her, Terry introduced them. ‘Alex, this is the head of our Public Relations department, Miranda Grey. Miranda, this is Alex.’
‘Alexandros Manoussi,’ the other man expanded, proffering his hand. ‘But we’ve met before, haven’t we?’
So that was his name. It sounded like the hiss of a snake. Sibilant, yet frighteningly sexy. She was sure she had never heard it before. She hesitated to take his hand, to touch him; long enough for Terry to notice.
‘Alex is one of our best customers,’ he told her pointedly, frowning. ‘We make all the navigational computers Alex puts into his yachts.’
‘Of course,’ she said, realising she had dealt with queries about such instruments, which were being put into boats in countries other than Greece, including Britain.
She had no choice; she had to put out her hand, let it be taken into the cool, supple fingers. A shiver went down her spine at the touch of his skin.
‘I’m a boatbuilder,’ he explained and the sound of his voice was bitterly familiar. She had never forgotten it; had heard it in her dreams for years.
‘Alex makes his boats over in Greece, at Piraeus,’ Terry told her. ‘I’ve been there to see how he works, and discuss with his designers what they need the computers to do for them.’
She was looking into Alex Manoussi’s dark eyes. ‘You built the yacht?’ Had he built the yacht they had been sailing on when it was wrecked and Tom drowned. There had been an inquest some months later but she had not been present, she had been too ill.
Only afterwards did she hear that the firm from whom Terry had chartered the yacht had been accused of negligence. That must have been Alex Manoussi’s firm.
What had happened after the inquest? She had never been told. This man must be rich and powerful. Had he had to face consequences? Or had his employees been blamed?
Over the years since, she had never wanted to discuss it, with Terry, or anyone else. When she came out of hospital she had only wanted to forget. The doctors had told her to put the past behind, try to forget, and she had not wanted to think too much about what happened after the wreck, although sometimes she was not sure the medical advice had been sensible. Perhaps refusing to think about something so traumatic allowed it to fester in the mind?
