The Christmas Party (11 page)

Her heart knew him instantly too. It quickened and tightened as she looked at him. The colour, so carefully applied, drained from her face and it felt as if the ground was disappearing beneath her feet. The urge to reach up and touch him, to make sure that he was real and not just a mirage, gripped her. She clenched her hands into fists to stop herself.

Kirsten cleared her throat to make sure her voice knew that it was required to speak.

‘Simon Conway,’ she breathed, squeezing the words out of the dustbowl that had previously been her throat. ‘Well, well, well.’

He smiled, and a warmth that had been missing for too long flooded through her.

‘It’s been a long time.’ His voice, as it had always been, was as gentle as a lover’s caress.

Ten years and six months. That was
exactly
how long. Absolutely nothing that had happened in the intervening years had made her forget. If she was pushed, she could probably even count the days.

She tried to be sparkling, though her palms had grown clammy and damp. ‘Wow.’ She struggled to steady herself. ‘This
is
a surprise. What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I’m back in England,’ he said nonchalantly.

Was he feeling remotely like she was? He looked as cool as a cucumber. Only the intensity of his gaze gave anything away. He was pleased to see her – more than that – she could tell.

‘Really?’ Keep it light. Keep it light. ‘For a visit, or on a permanent basis?’

‘I’m here to stay,’ Simon said. ‘At least, I hope so.’

‘That’s nice.’

He cocked his head to one side and gave her an easy smile. ‘Is it?’

So he was back. After so long. She thought she might hyperventilate, and wished someone would bring her a chair that she could swoon into, some ice for her forehead. Simon Conway, when she had least expected it, when she thought he was out of her life for good, when she thought she’d never lay eyes on him again, was back.

He was standing there, looking so casual, so assured. Clearly, this wasn’t doing to him what it was doing to her. In fact, her heart was now banging so loudly, she was marvelling that she’d managed not to have a heart attack on the spot.

‘A delighted and spontaneous kiss for an old friend might be welcome,’ he teased.

An old friend? Was that how he saw himself?

Simon proffered his cheek.

The very last thing she wanted to do was get close enough to brush her lips against his skin. Oh, how the memories came flooding back. A tsunami of them. Yet what else could she do? Her traitorous lips tingled in anticipation.

In spite of her reluctance, she leaned towards him and pecked him lightly on the cheek. There was a hint of stubble and it grazed her skin so softly, so exquisitely, that she wanted to press her face against it. She wanted to feel his flesh against her flesh. Kirsten tried to ignore the several essential beats her heart decided to miss, and the familiar spark of electricity that flashed between them. Time might have passed, they might have changed as people, but that raw chemistry was still very much there.

When she pulled away, there was a trace of lipstick left on his smooth, tanned cheek and nothing on God’s earth would have persuaded her to revisit that cheek with her thumb to rub it away.

Simon made no comment on the brevity or impact of their contact, but then perhaps he hadn’t felt it quite the way she had. However, when she looked into his face again she was sure he seemed distinctly more ruffled than he had a few moments ago.

‘You look well,’ he said. ‘More lovely than ever.’

‘Thank you. I only wish it were true.’

His eyes held hers. They were challenging, daring, mischievous. Loving. As they had always been. ‘The years have been kind.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

She was aware that Simon’s hand was still resting on her skin, on her shoulder. He’d drawn her to him with an assured casualness and, though she so wanted to shrug it off, she couldn’t. There had been nights, so very many of them, when she’d longed to feel this touch once more.

He laughed. ‘You do look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is it so much of a shock to see me again?’

‘It’s possibly the last thing I ever expected,’ she admitted candidly. Perhaps he
was
a ghost. A ghost of her past. A ghost of what her future might have been. ‘Especially here.’

‘Are you pleased?’

Taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Delighted.’ It didn’t even come close to describing how she was feeling. Now she was unable to meet the clarity of his eyes and looked away. She had to keep this under control. If she fell for Simon all over again, then she’d be lost. ‘Tyler will be pleased to see you too.’

Simon looked at her as if she should know better. Which she did.

‘Where is Tyler?’

‘He was over there with a man in a too-tight cummerbund trying to look enthralled, but I can’t see him now.’ Perhaps he’d gone through to dinner without her. It wouldn’t be the first time. When he became engrossed in something to do with work, everything else went out of the window.

‘Is he still the same old Tyler?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she answered. ‘Nothing much has changed there.’

Again, his smile lit up his handsome face.

‘Men never grow up, do they?’ she added.

His voice was husky when he said, ‘Some of us do, Kirsten.’

Even the way he said her name sent an illicit thrill through her.

He regarded her levelly. She’d always loved his eyes. At first glance they could seem cold and harsh, like the first light of dawn. But behind them there was always the promise of the sun to come. And she felt like a person who had been starved of the sun for too long. Marriage to Tyler was too often like a long, hard winter. Relentless and grey.

‘I’ve missed seeing you,’ he whispered. ‘So much. Yet even I didn’t realise quite how much until now.’

‘Don’t, Simon,’ she said, shaking her head. What was the point?

He was making her feel like a gauche teenager again. He was so different from Tyler. Physically, emotionally, in so many ways. Taller for a start, and darker. His hair was effortlessly smooth and sleek, like the coat of a well-groomed cat. He was lithe with wider shoulders, slimmer hips, longer legs. Tyler was more straight up and down and although he couldn’t quite be classed as stocky, he had a figure that offered no more room for expansion.

Simon had always been the sporty type – rugger, cricket, golf and the odd game of squash with Tyler. Except that Tyler had played him under sufferance because Simon always won. Her husband wasn’t naturally sporty; he played some golf and squash, because it was the thing to do if you were a corporate man, to ease relations with similarly minded customers. He went to the gym because it sounded like a good thing to say. In reality, he did just enough that it allowed him to drink like a fish and not yet take on the shape of one.

Simon’s personality had always been sunnier, less intense. He used his humour to comfort or gently tease, rather than to cut or score points like Tyler did. At least, he used to be like that. Now that he too was a corporate being through and through, for all she knew he could have grown up to be just like Tyler. Kirsten felt that was a thought worth hanging on to.

‘You still haven’t answered my question,’ she reminded him, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground. ‘What on earth
are
you doing here?’

His face darkened momentarily. ‘Hasn’t Tyler said anything?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. Simon didn’t need to know that she and her husband rarely talked about anything of note.

‘Ah.’ Finally he dropped his hand from her arm and folded his arms across his broad chest.

The imprint of his fingers remained burning on her flesh.

Simon pursed his lips, a frown appearing beneath the floppy fringe. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know yet either.’

‘Know what?’ She was trying to ignore the fact that she desperately wanted Simon to touch her again.

‘I’m Fossil Oil’s newest recruit.’

Kirsten’s eyes widened. ‘Tell me you’re not.’

Simon nodded. ‘’Fraid so.’

‘Next you’ll be telling me that you’re going to be working for Tyler.’ Kirsten gave a perplexed laugh. ‘God help you if you are.’

There was an awkward little silence. Even when the two men had been close friends there always was an underlying spike of rivalry between them, despite all the amiable shoulder-thumping that used to go on. Kirsten’s face fell. ‘
Do
tell me you’re not.’

Simon checked that no one was around to overhear before answering. ‘I’m not exactly going to be working
for
Tyler.’

‘No?’ she queried. ‘What then?’

He raised his eyebrows knowingly and gave an apologetic grimace. ‘I’m his new boss. Tyler’s going to be working for
me
.’

Kirsten laughed out loud and then clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘Gosh, I shouldn’t laugh. He’ll hate it! You know that.’

Simon smoothed his hand over his hair, lifting his fringe back, only for it to fall again. ‘Lance was supposed to make an announcement. Today. In the office.’

‘Lance is supposed to do a lot of things that he doesn’t. As you’ll no doubt soon find out.’

‘He knows of my relationship with Tyler. Or my
previous
relationship,’ he corrected. ‘I thought Lance might have taken him to one side, broken it to him gently.’

‘It probably wouldn’t occur to Lance to treat Tyler, or anyone, with kid gloves. Your new chairman usually prefers a more baseball-bat type of approach.’

Simon made a
tsk
noise between his teeth. ‘I need to speak to Lance.’

‘What job is it, Si?’ She instantly regretted using the familiar name for him that only a privileged few were allowed to do. It could well be that she no longer fell into that category.

‘I think I’d better square it with Tyler first.’

‘Don’t you trust me to keep a secret?’

‘I just think I should be man enough to do my own dirty work.’

‘Tyler won’t stand for it, you know.’

‘He may not have any choice. There are big changes ahead for Fossil Oil. I can say no more than that.’

‘Why come back now, Si?’ she asked with a tremor in her voice that had appeared unbidden. ‘Why Fossil? You could have gone to any other company in the world.’

He looked at her earnestly and lowered his voice, despite the fact that there was no one around. ‘I think we need to talk about that later.’

‘Why?’ Kirsten asked. ‘What is there to say?’

His beautiful eyes clouded over and he held her with a searching look. ‘Do you really need to ask that?’

They were interrupted by the sound of a clanging gong. ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ the liveried master of ceremonies announced. ‘Can you please make your way through to the marquee. Dinner is served.’

There were only a few of them left in the reception hall now and Tyler was still nowhere to be seen. Thank heavens. He’d be apoplectic with rage if he saw Simon here.

‘We’d better go through.’ Simon held his hand under her elbow, and again she felt giddy with the sensation of his skin against hers. He escorted her to the marquee.

‘Thank you. And now I’d better join my errant husband,’ she said.

Together they looked at the table plan. She would love Simon to be at the top table – preferably next to her. Heaven knew she could do with an ally here tonight. On the other hand, she prayed that someone would have the good sense to seat him somewhere else – preferably as far away from Tyler as humanly possible.

‘You’re over there,’ he said. ‘I’m
way
over the other side. Looks like they’ve tucked the new boy out of the way. For now.’

Simon looked sadly at her and let go of her elbow. ‘I really
do
want to talk to you later,’ he insisted, the sincerity in his eyes confirming the depth of his intent. ‘
Alone
.’

Before she could reply, before she could tell him that would be a really terrible idea, he turned from her and walked away. She was vulnerable and she was sure he could tell that. Simon could read people well. But she remembered so very clearly exactly what kind of damage the oh-so-suave Simon Conway could do. It would serve her well to remember that.

Chapter Twelve

Melissa settled Lance next to her. ‘Are you OK there, honey?’

‘Sure am.’ He reached for the nearest wine bottle, not even checking the colour before he filled his glass.

She turned away from Lance, pleased to see that Tyler was sitting on the other side of her. It would be difficult to get any time alone with him tonight, there were so many people around, not least Kirsten, but she could at least talk to him at dinner.

This was the first time she’d come face to face with Tyler’s wife since their affair had started, and it pricked her conscience. When Kirsten was out of sight, she was, sadly, very much out of mind. The only person Melissa considered was Tyler. Yet she knew how she’d felt when she was in Kirsten’s shoes and it wasn’t pleasant at all. Melissa wondered what she would think of her if only she knew. What would she feel about her husband eschewing her bed to sleep with a more mature woman, and his chairman’s wife to boot?

The whole of Kirsten’s demeanour said that she’d rather be a million miles away from here, and Melissa could sympathise with that. In some ways looking at Kirsten was like seeing a version of her younger self.

Oh, she’d been so in love with Lance at that age, desperately trying to keep his attention when she knew that his eyes were straying. The things she used to do to gain his interest in her would make even the madam of a brothel blush. It hadn’t worked. She wondered what lengths Kirsten Benson went to in order to keep her own husband entertained. Tyler might say that they never slept together now, but she knew he wasn’t the sort of man who would tolerate a sexless marriage. Tyler Benson was definitely a sex-every-single-night sort of man.

She and Lance hadn’t been intimate for years. And even if Lance’s eyes roved now, there was nothing he could do to follow it through. An ever-increasing dependency on the demon drink had put paid to whatever prowess he’d once had in the bedroom.

Whatever the reason, the end of their physical relationship had all been a terrible blow to her self-esteem. Her confidence had plummeted. Once she’d taken part in the Miss New York City pageant and come second; that was damn nearly winning it. When their sex life had drawn to a gradual and inevitable close, she was sure that if Lance didn’t want her in that way any more, then no other man would. Thankfully, she’d been wrong about that.