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She glanced around her and froze. All these people. The chances of spotting Ellis Fitzmerton amid the throng were a million to one. The chances of him spotting her were equally low, but he had. He was staring at her. He had a drink in one hand, and she watched with mounting dismay as he parted a way through the crowd towards her.
It was not really surprising that he was there and she wished desperately that the possibility had crossed her mind earlier, in which case she would have used any excuse in the book to back out.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to Ross, because the last thing she wanted was for them to meet, and before he could say anything she began walking towards Ellis.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said, holding out his arms, which she ignored, ‘fancy seeing you here, of all places.’
He looked as though he had already consumed a fair amount of alcohol. His eyes had a certain glazed look about them.
‘How nice to see you, Ellis,’ she lied politely, hoping that Ross had moved on into the dining-room. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, as always.’ The blue eyes lingered over her. ‘Hoped you might have returned to the office, paid us all a visit.’
‘I’ve been very busy,’ she said, keeping out of reach of his hands. She looked at him critically and wondered what on earth had possessed her to ever be attracted to him. He was good-looking enough, but there was no depth to him. He looked glossy and shiny, like a pretty piece of costume jewellery.
‘I’m sure, I’m sure,’ he laughed knowingly, and her fists curled into balls.
‘And how is Catherine?’
‘Pregnant. Married a year ago.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘You’re looking good, Abigail,’ he leered, gulping down some of his drink. ‘Very good. Edible.’
Abigail cringed back, and he said petulantly, ‘No need to act like that. Not as though we don’t know one another.’ His face cleared, became calculating. ‘There was no need to leave because of her, you know,’ he said, drinking some more but keeping his eyes fixed on her face. ‘We could have carried on what we had.’
‘We had nothing.’
‘Now, now, it grieves me to hear you say that.’ His hand snapped out and his fingers circled her wrist.
‘Let me go,’ she muttered, tugging.
‘I will, but only if you give me a little kiss first.’ He smiled coaxingly and she looked at his flushed face with disgust.
‘If you don’t watch it, Ellis,’ she hissed, ‘I’ll give you a little something else first, and you won’t like it.’
He opened his mouth to say something, and a voice said from behind her, ‘Let her go. Now.’
They both looked at Ross who was smiling, but it was a dangerous smile, and Ellis’s hand dropped to his side.
‘Don’t believe I know you,’ he said and Ross ignored him.
‘Come along, Abigail,’ Ross said, steering her away, and she didn’t know whether she should feel relieved because she had been rescued from an unpleasant situation, or cross because she was a big girl now in no need of being rescued anyway.
Ellis weaved a path behind them.
‘Can’t believe the amount of people here,’ he was saying. ‘Surprising really that we managed to see each other.’ He had moved alongside them and shot her a look from around Ross.
‘Must be Fate,’ he said as a joke, and she didn’t answer.
‘Where’s your party?’ Ross asked curtly and Ellis blinked at him.
‘Over there,’ he pointed vaguely, and Ross said in a hard voice,
‘Then why don’t you remove yourself to them?’
Ellis glared, then said sulkily to no one in particular, ‘Oh, fair enough.’ He looked at Abigail who by this time was feeling thoroughly embarrassed. ‘Off with the old and on with the new, eh, Abby? Don’t blame you.’ He winked at her and she smiled in frozen humiliation.
He wheeled off in the opposite direction and Ross didn’t say a word to her. He released her hand, and they walked to their table in silence.
It was only when they were alone in the taxi and heading to drop her off at her flat, that he said without looking at her, ‘Interesting affair, don’t you think?’
‘The food was good,’ she answered non-committally.
‘Who was he?’ Ross shifted to look at her and she stared back at the shadowed, hard face.
‘I used to work for him,’ she said. You can never escape your past, she thought. It always catches up with you and at the least expected times.
‘Really.’
She could feel his eyes assessing her in the darkness of the taxi, she could hear the wheels of his brain churning over, reaching conclusions.
‘Is he the reason you left?’ he asked casually. ‘At the interview, you told me that you had reached the end of your career prospects at the company you worked for.’
‘I had,’ Abigail muttered, stubbornly refusing to be led by the nose into a conversation she preferred to avoid. She had spent months keeping herself to herself, maintaining her private life, making sure that Ross Anderson never ventured too close and now more than ever it was important that she keep him at bay.
‘Or maybe you were indulging in an affair that turned sour,’ he murmured, and her eyes flashed angrily at him.
‘I have no idea what gave you that impression,’ she snapped, ‘but you’re way off target! I left Jacobson and Brown because I was bored and restless. I wanted a change. I needed to work for a bigger organisation!’
‘It would make a perverse sort of sense,’ he mused thoughtfully. ‘You had an unfortunate love-affair with someone unsuitable, hence your rapid engagement on the rebound.’
Abigail felt a wave of humiliating anger wash over her, and she raised her hand to slap him, an impulsive gesture fired by emotion and a need to retaliate.
She hardly saw his hand snap out. She was only aware of it when his fingers bit into her wrist. He yanked her hand down, pulling her forward towards him.
‘Too close to the truth for comfort, Abby?’ he whispered.
‘You have no right to speculate on my personal life.’
‘Why does it matter so much to you?’
‘Because…’
‘Because you’re accustomed to being secretive? Hiding yourself away from prying eyes? Taking refuge in that shell of yours the minute you think someone is getting too close?’
‘No!’ She hated him for doing this to her, for making her heart beat faster, for making her feel this awful, compelling attraction when she, of all people, should know better. Ellis had been right about one thing. Seeing him like that, out of the blue, had been the hand of Fate, showing her the living proof of her own past mistake, pointing out that mistakes were there to be learnt from.
‘You’ve got to face your shortcomings,’ her mother had always told her, ‘you’re not beautiful, so don’t expect things to fall into you lap. Work hard and you might get somewhere but don’t expect people to trip over themselves offering you things on a silver platter.’
‘How close has this boyfriend of yours got to you? Do you keep him at a distance as well?’ he pressed, and she didn’t answer. If she didn’t say anything, then she reasoned there was a limit to how far he could needle her. He would have to give up in the face of silence.
‘No comment?’ he asked, with a short laugh.
‘That’s right.’
‘Why? Because it’s none of my business?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re so damned uptight.’
She ground her teeth together and he laughed, raking his fingers through his thick, dark hair.
‘You’ll get high blood-pressure, bottling everything up inside you like that. You ought to take a look at your face!’
‘I know you think it’s a great game, but it’s not funny.’ She could feel tears pricking the back of her eyelids and she blinked rapidly.
‘You’ve had a repressed life.’
‘Stop trying to analyse me!’ And then she did the unthinkable. She burst into tears. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
Ross drew in a sharp breath and put his arms around her, cradling her against him, stroking her hair, and she burrowed against his shoulder. It felt good to have his arms around her.
‘Don’t cry, Abby,’ he murmured. He produced a handkerchief and she wiped her face.
‘I’m fine.’ Her voice sounded choked. ‘I’m all right. I don’t know what came over me just then.’ She tried to pull back from him, and he released her but only to tilt her tear-stained face upwards.
‘I apologise if I upset you,’ he said roughly, his voice awkward. She had never heard him apologise to anyone before and it was clear from the expression on his face that the instinct was alien to him.
‘You didn’t,’ she muttered, dabbing her eyes and wishing that the taxi driver would stop lingering over the route back and put his foot on the accelerator.
He looked down at her and then inclined his head to brush his lips against her cheek. It seemed almost accidental when his mouth found hers and began gently exploring it, tracing the outline of her lips with his tongue, tasting her with leisurely thoroughness. Instinct was telling her something, but she couldn’t quite hear it over the roar in her ears.
