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Amazement fought with wonder that her calmly voiced comment had struck at his sense of humour, and while she was still trying to comprehend the fact that she, Geraldine Barton, had actually made this rude, overbearing man laugh, the humour disappeared from his face and he was saying soberly, ‘I knew the real you would have to come to the surface before too long.’

And then, while she was still trying to think up something sharp in reply to that, he was hauling her even closer to him, and she saw his head coming down to meet her, and knew herself powerless to stop him. She felt his lips close over her own and thought she was going to faint from’ sheer shock.

Then it was over and she might have imagined those warm lips had ever claimed her own. She tore her transfixed gaze away from his mouth, all her energies busy trying to gather the security of a false calm about her.

‘Perhaps, Miss Barton, I’ve hit on the one way of ensuring you are never again late arriving for work. I’m sure you gained as little pleasure from that—small punishment as I did.’ With that he let go of her arm and strode past her.

She didn’t look behind to see where he was going. Her own radar seemed decidedly faulty and she needed all her concentration to get her the remaining few steps down the corridor to the door of Janet’s office.

Crawford had said he gained no pleasure from kissing her—well, she didn’t doubt that; she already knew he had no liking for her. But what of her own feelings? Was she so starved of masculine caresses that even a kiss from that brute had seemed pleasurable? It wasn’t that—she knew it wasn’t. But she couldn’t hope to argue against the voice inside her that yelled to be heard—she had felt the touch of his mouth against her own anything but as objectionable as she would have supposed. Unable to deal with such traitorous thoughts, she opened the door to Janet’s office and went in.

Janet reminded her during the morning that it was her last day, and as they broke from their work for a few moments, asked, ‘Have you enjoyed your three days with us?’

Gerry hadn’t stopped to wonder whether she had or not. As far as she was concerned it was one mad rush to get here, and another mad rush to get home to her sister. But the part in between, the actual time spent with Janet and seeing how she did things had been most instructive and—yes, now she came to think of it, most enjoyable.

‘Do you know,’ she said, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice, ‘I rather think I have.’

‘Good,’ said Janet, seeming pleased. ‘I think Mr Arrowsmith was concerned that you should be happy with us—you’ll be able to tell him he had nothing to worry about.'

Gerry couldn’t quite see that Crawford Arrowsmith would be one whit bothered whether she was happy or not. Ever since that first day she had come into contact with him it seemed to her he had gone out of his way to make her feel miserable. That kiss hadn’t been designed to cheer her up either. But she decided against telling Janet how wrong she was, and the two of them got down to discussing the remaining items Janet had left till last.

Back in Little Layton and in bed that night, Gerry tried to relax. Everything was now back to normal. She didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn in the morning and coax the A35 to London. With luck she should get another two hours’ sleep. She felt tired enough to need it —didn’t know when she had ever felt more tired—and yet sleep eluded her.

She looked across to the other bed, the beam of moonlight showing up Teddy’s blonde head, turning her hair to wisps of silver as it spread over her pillow. Poor Teddy, she’d had an awful time. Was she right in thinking Teddy was starting to get over her grief at losing Mark? She hoped so.

Her thoughts drifted on to thoughts of Crawford Arrowsmith. She didn’t want to think of him, would rather think of someone else, but he just wouldn’t go away. She recalled the touch of his mouth, warm against her own. His kiss had been in no way passionate—but it hadn’t been the sort of kiss one gave one’s maiden aunt either. She turned silently in her bed as if to turn her back on thoughts of him, but that didn’t keep him out of her mind. If it wasn’t for fear of disturbing the twins, she’d go and make herself a warm drink, she thought, but even the action of movement was denied her, and she was forced to lie still and battle to oust Crawford Arrowsmith from her thoughts.

I must sleep with one ear cocked, she mused the next morning when Emma crying in the next room roused her from sleep. She had lain awake ages last night and had no idea what time it had been when sleep had finally claimed her. Teddy was still sleeping solidly when she climbed out of bed to go and quieten Emma. It was as well for Teddy to have as much rest as she could, once her day started there would be no stopping until she was able to put the twins down for their nap.

‘And what’s the matter with you, young lady?’ Gerry whispered to the bright-eyed Emma.

Emma answered in what could have been Hindustani for all the sense her aunt could make of it. But the way she held up her arms to be picked up could not be mistaken. Gerry nursed her over her hip as she took her into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Sarah, blonde like her mother, was still asleep, and Emma was as sweet as a little angel as she snuggled up to her dark-haired aunt.

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

Gerry looked up to see a yawning Teddy in the doorway. The tea was made and she had just poured two cups. ‘I was going to bring you a cup,’ she said in answer.

‘Thank the Lord we’re back to normal! If your boss has any more bright ideas, tell him what he can do with them.’

Teddy’s suggestion had infinite appeal, Gerry thought as she drove into Layton. But with luck, he wouldn’t have any more bright ideas. Then suddenly thoughts of Crawford were forced to take a back seat, for the A35 began to act strangely, and with a groan, and an exclamation of, ‘Oh no—it can’t be!’ Gerry pulled into the side of the road, quickly got out of the car, and saw she had a puncture. If she’d been the weeping sort, she thought, she would have sat right down on the side of the kerb and howled her eyes out—she felt defeated somehow, and experienced the same tired feeling that had beset her in the bath on Monday night when she had given way to a few tears without knowing it. Trying to pull herself together, she stood and looked and looked at the offending tyre as if hoping by some magic the tyre would inflate itself and be all right again.

Now what am I going to do? she muttered. She had a spare wheel in the boot, certainly, but that was still flat from yesterday, there had been no time to have it fixed. She flicked a hurried glance at her watch. It had already gone ten to nine. If she left her car where it was and forgot about it until lunch time it would take her all of fifteen minutes to walk to the office. She wasted another two precious minutes in wondering what to do for the best— then deciding the car would come to no harm parked where it was, she set off, hurrying now, to get to Arrowsmiths, hoping against hope that Crawford was still in London. She would have to telephone a garage when she got to the office—her mind wouldn’t cope with the question of how much their help was going to cost.

Even before she opened her office door she suspected the worst, and her heart sank as she saw through the communicating door that Crawford Arrowsmith was already seated behind his desk. Oh, why couldn’t he still be in London?

Wasting no time, she popped her bag down by the side of her chair and began to look through her pending tray to see what if anything had been placed there. Her fingers hesitated as she became aware that Crawford had left his desk, and when she knew he had come to stand near her, was possibly watching her every movement, her fingers came to a halt and she was forced to look up at him. He was dressed in a light grey suit with a very fine check in it, and she couldn’t help thinking how well it became him before she stepped on the thought and prepared herself for his acid comments.

‘It would appear,’ he said mildly, none of the acid she had been expecting evident in his tones, ‘that since it is now,’ he made a deliberate study of his watch, ‘nine-fifteen precisely, you must take kindly to the penalty I issued when you were late yesterday.’

Hurriedly she turned her eyes away from him, and gripped hard at the edge of her desk. Very funny, she was sure! She was certain he had no intention of kissing her again, but felt herself go tense nevertheless. Then looking up again, she saw Crawford’s eyes were doing a thorough search of her face. She knew she couldn’t be looking washed out this morning, for her cheeks were still overheated from her rush to get to the office. She was aware also that she had lost the prim look she adopted for the office. In her rush tendrils of hair had escaped from the confines of the tightly drawn back bun, but she had thought better than to waste more time by checking her appearance in the cloakroom. She watched Crawford s lips tighten as he studied her, and felt her composure slipping fast, and even though she made every effort to hold on to it, felt forced to blurt out:

‘My car broke down.’

‘What’s the trouble? Or don’t you know?’ His voice was still mild, but she felt he was keeping it so only by a great effort.

‘Puncture, I think.’

The energy she had expounded in reaching Arrowsmiths, albeit fifteen minutes late, seemed to have taken the stuffing out of her—she couldn’t understand it, and thought again She might be going down with a cold.

‘That’s not much of a problem—won’t take long to change the spare wheel over.’

‘The spare is flat.’

Crawford looked as though he would like to tell her exactly what he thought about such negligence, but he restrained himself. ‘Where did you leave your car?’ he asked instead, adding, ‘I’ll get one of the mechanics to go and tow it in.’

Without thinking her pride was up in arms. She didn’t want his help. She didn’t want him doing anything for her that he could be sarcastic about at some future date.

‘That’s not necessary,’ she said, becoming heated, even while an inner voice was telling her there was no need to get agitated over such a trifling matter. ‘All I have to do is make a phone call.’

‘I shouldn’t think
dear Teddy
will like having to shift himself to come all this way to see to his mistress’s car,’ Crawford said cuttingly, having no idea Gerry was meaning to telephone a garage the minute he had returned to the other office.

As his words reached her ears, something within her exploded, and she didn’t know who was the more surprised, herself or Crawford. For all the coolness, all the calm, the efficient surface she presented to anyone at Arrowsmiths who came into contact with her was dispersed without fight as an uncontrollable urge to take that sneering look off his face gave way to temper. Then several things happened at once.

‘Shut up!’ she yelled at him, and was on her feet as the words unrepentantly left her lips, feeling a glow of satisfaction that for however briefly, she had managed to astonish him. Her satisfaction was short-lived, as appalled by her lack of control, she gasped in horror as she realised Crawford would want retribution in full.

She was trembling even before his hands snaked out to take her by the arms. She knew at the very least he was going to shake the living daylights out of her, and her head swam with the enormity of what she had just done. To think she, Geraldine Barton, whose very livelihood depended on the mercy of the head of the Arrowsmith empire, had lost control so entirely as to almost scream at him to ‘Shut up’! Numbly she shook her head as if to clear it, felt the pressure of those hands on her arms increase, and as though compelled lifted her head to gaze into slate grey eyes, that instead of being afire with fury as she would have supposed were looking at her in what she could only describe as concern. She knew she had mistaken that look, and turned her head away knowing she was going to have to apologise and hoping she would be allowed to do so and not be goaded into losing her temper again.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have …' she began, and got no further, for the door leading from the corridor opened, and glad of the respite from the onslaught she knew Crawford was going to heap upon her head, she turned to see who had intruded on the holocaust that had been about to break.

And then her trembling started afresh, for as she barely felt Crawford’s hands leave her arms, Gerry’s eyes registered—while her mind refused to believe it—that the thinly built, tall man who had just come in was someone she had thought never to see again. For the man who had just entered the room was the man she had thought had transferred with his job to Birmingham, and he was the man she had fifteen months ago refused to marry.

‘Robin
!’
Gerry gasped, the unexpected sight of him blotting out for the moment the fact that Crawford had been just about to flatten her with a few well-chosen sentences, as she looked at the man she had been in love with what now seemed like a decade ago. Robin, she saw, was looking at her as if he couldn’t quite believe she was the same girl he had been forced to part from. Gerry’s mind registered this as she sought round for something that would loosen the tongue that seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. She hadn’t changed all that much though to deserve such an incredulous expression, surely? Admitted, she was about a stone lighter, and Robin would have remembered her with her hair in a different style—though, she conceded, if she looked as pale as she felt perhaps there was some justification for his stupefied look.

Robin didn’t say her name as she had done his. Whatever he had been planning to say seemed to have disappeared completely as he stared at the girl he remembered as laughing-eyed, with her hair flowing freely to her shoulders in deep waves.

‘My God!’ seemed to be dragged from him. ‘What’s happened to you? You look ...’ He hesitated as if stuck for words, and trying to recover from the shock of seeing him, Gerry thought, if he tells me I look washed out, I shall scream and scream and scream!

Then Crawford looked from one to the other, and put in quietly, ‘You see a change in Miss Barton? How long is it since you’ve seen her?’