A Class Apart (65 page)

Ashley heaved a sigh of relief as she hung up. There was nothing more she could do, except pray that Jenneen was right, and that it wasn’t true.

She buzzed through to Jan to bring her some coffee, wishing that the feeling of impending disaster would go away. She rang her apartment. There was no reply; she hadn’t really expected one.

Jan came in with her coffee. “You’ve been summoned.”

“Already?” said Ashley, looking at her watch. “Christ, it’s twenty to twelve. Why didn’t you remind me?”

“You asked not to be disturbed.” And then, looking a little sheepish, Jan said, “Sorry, I forgot.”

“Don’t worry,” Ashley smiled. She took several mouthfuls of coffee. “Oh well, here goes,” she said, “Mohammed to the Mountain again. Wish me luck, otherwise you might have a new boss before the week’s out.”

“Good luck,” said Jan. “And I don’t think so somehow.”

“He’s waiting for you,” said Candice, as Ashley walked into the outer office of the Chairman’s suite.

“What kind of mood is he in?”

Candice pulled a face.

“Oh God,” Ashley groaned. She knocked on Conrad’s door and let herself in, closing the door behind her.

Conrad looked up from his desk. “Come and sit down,” he said, waving her to the chair at the other side of his desk, and then turned his attention back to what he had been doing before she’d come in.

She sat down in the chair, and gazed out of the window. It was several minutes before she realised that he was watching her. “You’re looking a bit pale.” he said.

“I had a bad night, I’m afraid.”

“Worrying over the account?”

“Partly.”

Conrad smiled, and looking into his face Ashley felt her heart turn over. He was so strong, always in control, and she wondered what it would be like if she could turn to him at times like this, when she was feeling so bloody vulnerable and confused. His hands were resting on the desk in front of him, strong, capable hands, that had held her only once. If only she could reach out and touch them now, and draw some of their strength into her bones. She pushed the thought away quickly. It was because she was tired, she told herself. Conrad was watching her, and for one uneasy moment she thought he might have read her mind.

“So,” he said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out in front of him, “to Mercer Burgess.”

Ashley felt her stomach begin to chum. She smiled. “To Mercer Burgess,” she repeated, in a quiet but steady voice.

“I spoke with David Burgess early this morning, and he’s given me his decision.”

Ashley looked into his face, but as ever, it was inscrutable.

“I’m afraid,” said Conrad, “that your pitch was not successful. They have turned it down.”

“What!” Ashley gasped.

“The decision was made late last night, as far as I’m aware.”

Ashley couldn’t speak. Her eyes began to dart about the room. This was impossible, she had been so sure they were going to accept. David Burgess had more or less told her so when they’d shown him the video at their meeting yesterday morning. They couldn’t have turned it down. But Conrad wouldn’t lie about something like that. Jesus Christ, it was as important to him as it was to her.

She looked back at him. “I see,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

Her jaw was tight as she said: “Yes, I’m sure you are.”

He got up and started to walk round the desk.

She leapt to her feet. “Well, let’s make this quick, shall we? I’ll go and collect my things together now. I can be out of my office by the end of the day, although I can’t promise to be out of New York quite so quickly. Would the end of the week be acceptable to you?” She was already walking towards the door.

“Ashley, come and sit down.”

She turned back to face him, her eyes blazing. “Conrad, really, I’d rather not go over this. You made it perfectly clear when all this started, that if the presentation did not win through then you wanted me on the next plane back to London. Well, you’ve got your wish. I’m sorry that Mercer Burgess did not take us on, but I rather think that in the end that had nothing to do with whether or not I stayed. Now, if you will excuse me . . .”

“Sit down!” He barked rather than spoke the words.

She stopped with her hand resting on the door handle.

“Please,” he said. He leaned across the desk and buzzed through to Candice. “We’ll have coffee now, Candice.”

Ashley took a few steps away from the door. For the moment she was too angry to realise how hurt and disappointed she was. Or to admit how it was going to wrench at her heart to leave him, knowing that that was all he had wanted, almost from the very start. That she should go.

“I think I owe you an explanation,” he said, turning away from the desk. “I’d like you to stay and listen. Better still, it might help me a little if you were sitting down and not standing there looking like a bull getting ready to charge.”

Candice came in with the coffee and put the tray on Conrad’s desk. Ashley waited, tapping her foot, as Candice poured the coffee. She didn’t even manage to muster a smile when Candice handed her a cup as she left the office.

“Well,” said Ashley, “Let’s get it over with.”

“Ah, where to begin?” Conrad perched himself on the edge of his desk and sipped his coffee. Ashley watched him, but made no attempt to drink hers.

“I suppose,” he began, “that it all starts with Candida really.” He noticed how Ashley’s face darkened at the mention of Candida’s name and he couldn’t resist allowing himself a quick smile. “Unfortunately, when Candy discovered that you were coming to New York, she flew into what you English might call a fit of the pique.”

“Why on earth should she do that?”

Conrad shrugged. “What Candy does, Candy does for reasons best known to herself. But take it from me, she was not at all impressed by the idea of your coming here. In fact, I think I can go as far as to say, she was furious. And when Candida Rayne is furious, the whole of New York has to know about it. In this case, the victim of her fury was you. But not only you. She was furious with me too. And there is something you should know about Candy. There are very few people in this town who can afford to get on the wrong side of her, me included. So, I had to think of something, that, shall we say, would get us, and by us I mean Frazier, Nelmes, out of a situation where she might want to exercise her power over us.” And watching him sitting there, that arrogant smile on his face that she had hated and then loved, and now hated again, she felt the beginnings of a volcanic rage. She hated him for telling her about Candida. She hated him for wanting her to return to London. She hated him for smiling at her that way. And she hated him most of all for not knowing how much she loved him.

She took a deep breath, and with her head on one side, and her teeth clenched against her rising anger, she said: “So she is the reason, I suppose, that come what may, win or lose with Mercer Burgess, I had to be sent back to London. Candida, Candy,” she almost spat the name, “did not want me here.”

Conrad lifted an eyebrow, and began to smile. Ashley wanted either to cry, or to throw her coffee at him.

“You don’t see at all,” he said. “Did you know that Candy is the granddaughter of David Burgess?”

“Yes,” said Ashley, wishing that he would stop referring to Candida as Candy.

“There are three main accounts that keep this agency afloat,” Conrad continued. “David Burgess happens to be on the board of all three of those companies. Does that help to explain the situation?”

“I don’t think that explains anything,” said Ashley, deliberately being obtuse.

“All right, I’ll spell it out. David Burgess is extremely fond of his granddaughter. If Candy wants, then Candy gets, and David is almost always the one to deliver. If Candy had been so minded, she could have put this entire company in jeopardy. And with you around, she was very nearly so minded.”

Ashley shrugged. “So you’re sending me back to London to save the agency. Thanks for telling me, it helps,” and she turned towards the door.

“I’m not sending you anywhere,” said Conrad. “If you want to go back to London, then I’ll do everything I can to stop you, but in the end it’s your decision.”

Ashley’s hand froze on the door handle. “I beg your pardon?”

“David Burgess has offered you a job with any one of his companies you might choose. I turned the offer down on your behalf, I might add.”

“You did what?” she gasped.

“I said I thought you might wish to stay with Frazier, Nelmes. I hope I was right.”

Ashley was completely at a loss for words.

“You see,” Conrad went on, “the whole thing paid off in the end, as I hoped it would. After you had got such an impressive package together, which I was counting on your doing, I knew that David Burgess would want to meet you. It was the only way of keeping his business, and keeping you in New York too.”

“I’m still not with you,” Ashley said.

“The bottom line is, you impressed the hell out of the old man, and now even though he can’t give us the account this quarter, they are seriously considering it for next quarter, and he wants you to run it. Better still, he wants you to go and work for him, but as I told him, that was out of the question. So now, no matter what Candy has to say about it, you and Frazier, Nelmes are safe. The old man loves you, you’ve got him practically eating out of your hand.”

Ashley’s frown was puzzled. “So, who did get the account?”

“J.S. & A.”

“J.S. & A? But you saw what they were offering.”

“Yes,” said Conrad. “And by the way, it was you who took their file, I’ve since discovered. No, no,” he said, raising his hand as she made to interrupt him, “you didn’t know it. You picked it up with your own things the day you went to see Arthur Fellowman. He wasn’t in the least put out by it, in fact I think he looked on it more as a favour to me that I should see it. Probably trying to stop me from spending any more money than you already had.”

“So are you telling me that I don’t have to go back to London?”

“Not unless you want to.”

She shook her head.

“Good,” he said, sliding a hand into his pocket. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

“Tell me,” she said, “did you actually mean it when you . . . well, you implied that you actually wanted me to stay?”

“Naturally.”

“Even though we didn’t win the account?”

“It was never that important,” he said. “What was important was that you should be able to stay, and that Candy wouldn’t be in a position to make the agency, or me, suffer for it.”

Ashley swallowed hard. “This is all a little too much for me to take in.”

“Maybe you would like to sit down now?” he suggested.

“No,” she shook her head. “No thank you.” She walked over to his desk and put her cup back on the tray. “One other thing,” she said, after all, she might just as well have it all out in the open now. “I’m curious, but was it Candida who Alex met when you took him riding at the weekend?”

Conrad seemed uncomfortable with the question. “Ah, yes, it was Candy. She arrived unannounced, and with the results of your pitch still not decided I wasn’t in a position to ask her to leave.”

“I see,” was all she said.

He put his cup beside hers on the tray, and then, to her utter confusion, took her hand in his. “You don’t, but I’m not going to explain.” Reaching out for her other hand he added, “I’m glad you want to stay.”

She looked up into his face, and her heart suddenly tightened as she saw the serious look in his dark eyes. He grinned and then, putting his hand behind her head, he pulled her towards him and kissed her full on the mouth.

“Oh,” she said, as he let her go.

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

She realised that once again she was impersonating a goldfish. She gulped and tried to regain control of her mouth. “I can’t think of anything else.”

He laughed. “Did you know that I’ve been in love with you since the very first time I saw you?”

“Oh Conrad, that’s not true, and you know it.”

“If it’s not,” he said, “then it should be,” and pulling himself to his feet he took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. She looked back at him, not daring to speak for fear that one word would shatter this moment and bring them tumbling back to reality. That any moment she would wake up and find herself back in London. He lowered his head very slowly towards her, his lips parting as he pulled her to him. He pressed his mouth against hers, and as she reached up to put her arms round him he pulled her hard against him.

She clung to him, feeling her body melt against his, wanting to be even closer to him, forgetting everything, knowing only that this was what she wanted, more than anything else in the world, to be here with him like this.

The buzzer on his desk brought them abruptly back to reality. Not letting her go, Conrad leaned over and flicked the switch. “Your car’s out front,” said Candice, and the line went dead.

He turned back to Ashley, and smiled to see the question in her eyes, and the disappointment too. He couldn’t be going out, not now.

“Come along,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

He stopped at the door and turned back to take her in his arms. “Do you seriously think I can wait a moment longer?”

She felt herself begin to shake, and he caught her to him. “Say you’ll come.”

They said very little as they drove. The air between them was charged with a desire that had been suppressed for too long. Occasionally he turned to look at her, but she didn’t dare to look back. She knew if he touched her she might lose control all together. She wanted him so badly, her body ached.

When they pulled up outside his apartment block he tossed the keys to the doorman and ushered her inside.

By the time the elevator reached the ninth floor every inch of her body was on fire for him. He closed his apartment door behind them, and pulled her into the bedroom.