A Bad Enemy (13 page)

Her mouth trembled suddenly, and she threw herself back across the bed with a little smothered groan. So easy, she thought, and at the same time—such a disaster.

There was a different atmosphere at Harlow Bannerman. Lisle noticed it as soon as she entered the building. It was as if some new and powerful dynamo had been switched on and was charging every corner of the company.

Lisle thought wryly that the source of that new power would not be far to seek. The place was buzzing with excitement on a more human level as well. When she went into the women's cloakroom, the high laughing babble of conversation between the assembled secretaries died as swiftly as if someone had snuffed a candle. There was an extra zing and sparkle about all of them this morning. It was evident they had all taken more than the usual trouble with their appearance, and half a dozen exotic scents vied for mastery over each other.

Now her arrival had reminded them that it was all a waste of time, Lisle thought as she intercepted one of the sidelong glances and interpreted the frank resentment it held.

Look, she had a crazy impulse to say, you think I'm a winner, the girl who has everything, but you're so wrong. I've had one hell of a weekend. I've hardly eaten, hardly slept, because every time I close my eyes I get this nightmare image of Jake with Cindy Leighton. She flew to the States this morning, you know, so this last weekend together must have been really special for them.

But of course, she didn't say any of that. She just went through the motions of taking off her coat and hanging it up, and pushing a comb through her wind-ruffled hair, and at last someone said in an embarrassed voice that they were very sorry to hear about her grandfather.

She gave her a cool, neutral smile and said, 'Thank you. He's now making excellent progress.

On the way to the PR department, she reflected that that was no more than the truth. Murray was making giant strides in his return to health. He had been moved out of intensive care and into a private room on the medical floor. He had clearly been disappointed by Jake's absence, during the weekend, but to Lisle's relief he hadn't probed too closely for the reasons behind it— but then he had too much else on his mind, she thought ruefully.

He had talked weddings obsessively, balancing the local church and a reception at the Priory afterwards against a fashionable London ceremony and a hotel wedding breakfast, with a dance to follow. Honeymoon destinations he had brushed on too, and the initial convenience of Jake living at the Priory while they searched for a home of their own.

Lisle had let him talk, because he obviously derived such deep contentment and comfort from it, and she had answered him when he seemed to require some response from her, saying the things she knew he wanted to hear. And no one would ever know what it had cost her, she thought with a little inward grimace.

She went into the office she shared, steeling herself against the inevitable thinly-veiled surprise at her appearance. There were a few items in her in-tray, most of them slightly yellowing round the edges in mute evidence of how long they had been there, none of them urgent or in the slightest bit interesting. It was the story of her life, she thought, sitting down and examining a fleck on her nail with minute interest.

The conversation between the others had wavered when she entered, but it was gathering momentum again now, although lisle was prepared to bet there had been an abrupt switch of the main topic. She felt sorry for her colleagues. Her presence in the office was invariably an inhibition. The usual complaints and grievances could not be aired in front of her because she was a Bannerman, and today they couldn't talk about Jake and the effect he might have on the company and their respective futures because of the diamond ring she wore on her finger.

Carl Forster, the head of the department, wasn't in his room. He was attending a meeting in the boardroom, along with the other executives. Lisle left the folder she had prepared on the Harlow Bannerman stand at the Salzburg Fair on his desk. She had worked hard on it, and there were some good ideas, but she knew they wouldn't be used. Jeff and Marian would have been working in the real promotion. Carl's suggestion that she should prepare a scheme had been one of the sops to justify her existence that he threw out every so often.

As she walked back towards her own room, she heard Marian's voice raised argumentatively 'Why should she care?' she was demanding. 'We all know she's only been filling in time before hooking some suitably wealthy guy. Well, she's managed that all right—and how…' Her voice ceased instantly as Lisle pushed the door wide open and walked in. She saw Marian's flush of dismay and Jeff and Ian's obvious embarrassment, and walked over to her desk, not betraying by so much as a quiver that she had heard one word of what Marian had said, or applied it to herself.

Yet at the same time, it had confirmed something she had felt since she had arrived that morning—that something was deeply wrong. Her companions were usually civil, if nothing else, but today she had had the impression they were deliberately avoiding her glance.

She said, 'Does anyone know how the meeting in the boardroom is going?'

Ian smiled uneasily, 'Well, there's no blood actually running under the door.'

'But there must be rumours,' Lisle said lightly. 'There always are. The coffee must have gone in by now. Didn't anyone count the bodies?'

'There's going to be streamlining—rationalisation,' Marian said abruptly. 'That's what people are saying. That it's going to mean redundancies. This department hasn't been overloaded with work lately, and we're wondering which of us will be for the chop.'

'Last in, first out,' said Jeff with a little laugh. 'That makes it me, I suppose.'

Lisle stared down at the surface of her desk, her long sweep of lashes lowered to mask the compassion in her eyes. Jeff was hiding it well, but he'd only been married for a couple of months, and he must be worried sick at the prospect of unemployment.

Marian's outspoken remarks suddenly made total sense. There had been redundancies before, but they had mostly been achieved through natural wastage— people left for various reasons and were not replaced. Sometimes people even volunteered, usually because they wanted a change of direction and had another job planned.

As, Lisle supposed, it could be said that she had. That was what they would all think, naturally. If there was going to be a redundancy in the department, they would expect her to volunteer. And it was the last thing she had considered.

She had gone to Carl's room to tell him that she no longer wanted to be a passenger in the department, that she wanted to be part of the strength in real earnest. Jake's derision had achieved that, firing her with the wish to be more than the free-loader in the company that he thought her. She wanted him to see her as more than just a decorative body he would enjoy having in his bed, and facing him at the dinner table.

And she wanted too to have a career to immerse herself in and stop her from thinking too hard about her emotional wretchedness. They reckoned hard work was the solution for many problems, and Lisle had come to work that day grimly determined on a fresh start which would reveal her as the hardest working member of staff in the company.

It would be cruelly ironic if she was to be robbed of her chance by sheer economics.

The morning passed with agonising slowness. A couple of times, she lifted her telephone and dialled Gerard's office, but each time his secretary's rather anxious voice informed her that he was still in the meeting.

It was lunchtime when Carl came down the corridor. He went straight into his room and shut the door while they all looked at each other with a kind of desperate surmise, then the buzzers on their desks began to sound, summoning them all.

He gave them a shadow of his usual buoyant smile. 'Sit down, everyone. What do you want first—the good news or the bad?' His eyebrows flickered upwards as he saw Lisle. 'Oh—Miss Bannerman. Mr Allard said you might be in today. He would like you to join him for lunch.'

They all waited politely for her to leave. She felt colour rising in her face.

'But if there's going to be a departmental meeting…'

Carl sighed. 'Mr Allard is waiting,' he pointed out wearily. 'I told him I'd send you right along.'

To continue the argument would be undignified, but she felt totally humiliated just the same. The tacit decision that she was surplus to requirements had already been made, she thought, her cheeks flaming now with anger as well as selfconsciousness.

She said in a voice that shook slightly, 'Well, I'll leave you to your deliberations.'

She went out, closing the door behind her, although she was tempted to slam it, but she didn't make her way submissively towards the managing director's office. Instead, she turned towards the Sales Department.

She said abruptly, 'Is my brother in?' to a saucer-eyed Miss Lawrence, and when the girl nodded, walked past her into Gerard's office.

His face was set with sullen resentment, but when he saw her he managed a travesty of his charming smile. 'How are the mighty fallen!'

Lisle seated herself on the edge of the desk, eyeing him gravely. 'What happened? All the rest of us have heard are rumours.

'Well, rumour probably doesn't lie for once.' He was silent for a moment. 'Meet the new office boy. I'm out of Sales—permanently, as far as I can gather. No real responsibilities at all, or even lateral promotion.'

'In which department?' she asked sharply.

'His, of course. Presumably so he can keep an eye on me.' Gerard groaned.' "Thou, God, seest me." I have a title of sorts, but assistant dogsbody is an accurate description if anyone's writing one.'

Lisle bit her lip. 'I'm sorry.'

'Save some of your sympathy for yourself,' he advised drily. 'His damned accountants have been going through the records, and they're less than impressed with the number of items that we've been allowed for expenses in the past. You're going to have to look for a cheaper flat, darling, and get your wine from a supermarket.' He sighed. 'And my Porsche has to go. It's not their idea of a company car at all.'

Lisle heard him almost with indifference. None of it would be any loss as far as she was concerned, she thought wearily. She had gone along with Gerard's suggestions and persuasions because he had insisted that they were all necessary, and that she was helping Harlow Bannerman, but she had never been totally convinced or happy about the role he had thrust upon her, and subsequent events had proved that all her reservations had been, quite correct.

Gerard said savagely, 'And it couldn't have happened at a worse time. Carla will be back next week, and she does not go for losers.'

Lisle said gently, 'Does that really matter?'

'Yes.' He was silent for a moment. 'Hell, I was going to persuade her to divorce bloody Harry and throw in her lot with me permanently. I haven't a ghost of a chance of that now.'

She wondered if he ever had. The gorgeous Mrs Foxton knew exactly on which side her bread was buttered, and it was doubtful whether she would ever have been tempted to confuse the satisfaction of her sexual appetites with basic economics.