But Mandy was grinning. ‘Himself.’
Rachel’s stomach penetrated the earth’s crust without difficulty and began to swirl around in the molten core. She could feel the heat in her face. She even put up a hand. Her cheekbone was warm under the make-up.
She swallowed. ‘What—?’ Her voice squeaked. Mandy was looking at her curiously. She swallowed and got a grip on her vocal cords. ‘What is Riccardo di Stefano doing here? The bank is only a minority investment from his point of view.’
Mandy chuckled. ‘Well, from what I saw when I helped Angela with the photocopying, that’s all going to change. I’d say he’s going to buy us.’
Rachel stared at her, appalled. Mandy misinterpreted the horror.
‘Don’t worry about it. He’ll probably buy your corprorate plan as well. More likely to than the old board, if you ask me.’
This could not be happening. Something inside her was turning over like a hibernating beast roused out of ice. Old, deep ice. Rachel could feel the faint internal tremors starting again. They were not exactly unfamiliar, but she had not been aware of them for years. Meanwhile, Mandy, unaware, was giving her an encouraging smile.
‘You could be right,’ Rachel said faintly.
Mandy patted her on the shoulder. ‘Of course I’m right. Now go and broke the agreement.’
There was nothing to be done. If he was here already, all her escape routes were blocked.
‘Yes,’ said Rachel automatically.
She shrugged herself into the check jacket like a sleepwalker and went to the door. She looked as if someone had hit her with a sandbag, Mandy thought. More encouragement was clearly called for.
‘Cheer up, Rachel. Your tights are whole and your jacket is clean. From here on in, today can only get better.’
Rachel stared at her. For an odd moment it seemed as if she were looking over the precipice of a particularly cold and deadly mountain. Then she gave a harsh laugh. ‘I wouldn’t put money on it.’
It was bitter. It even startled Mandy out of her cheerfulness. Then she said bracingly, ‘You’ll do fine. Bigwigs have never worried you. The bigger the wig, the cooler you get.’
But Rachel was still looking sick. Mandy had never seen her look like that before. She began to be alarmed.
‘You can handle yourself,’ Mandy reminded her urgently, putting a hand on her arm. ‘You know you can.’
Rachel gave a little jump as if she had been brought back to the present by main force. ‘I hope,’ she muttered.
The sick look went out of her face. But although she was regaining command of herself there was still that shaken look at the back of her eyes. It was almost as if she had received a bad shock, Mandy thought. Which, of course, was ridiculous. It took more than a visiting troupe of American money-men to shock Rachel. Or, at least, it ought to.
Rachel was thinking the same thing. She pulled her jacket straight and squared her shoulders in the mirror.
‘Boardroom?’
Mandy said, ‘Well, Mr Jensen said he’d like to see you in his office first.’
I’ll just bet he did, thought Rachel. If the biggest shark of them all has turned up in person, Philip will be turning to jelly.
‘But they arrived and he went straight to the boardroom. Would you join him—er—soonest?’
Panic stations, interpreted Rachel. She did not say so. She was too close to panic herself.
‘Right,’ she said.
She went, buried in thought. Confidence, she said to herself. That’s the thing to remember. You’re good at your job. You know that. Everyone else does. Believe it, why can’t you? Play to your strengths.
He must never know you even remember. Almost certainly he won’t. It is nine years ago. He must have had dozens of girls before and since. It’s ten to one that he forgot the whole thing in days.
She almost convinced herself.
She was still frowning in preoccupation as she went along the executive corridor. It was ankle-deep in an expensive carpet and hung with valuable seascapes. Usually Philip’s idea of executive interior decoration made Rachel laugh. Today, however, she barely noticed it.
In fact she was so deep in thought that she did not notice the man coming towards her. That was hardly her fault. Although he was tall and loose-limbed, he moved like a cat. On the sumptuous carpeting his tread was noiseless.
So when a voice said, ‘Hi there,’ she jumped about a foot in the air and came down with her head spinning.
It was the voice from her very worst dreams. Rachel felt as if someone had thrown ice-water over her. She found herself staring straight into those laughing, green-flecked eyes for the first time in nine years. It felt like yesterday. She stared at him, transfixed.
The man looked amused. ‘Rick di Stefano.’
There was not the slightest hint in his voice that he knew they had met before. Rachel registered his open smile: not a glimmer of recognition there. She moistened suddenly dry lips and tried to believe it.
In all those worst dreams of hers Riccardo di Stefano knew her at once. What he did about it varied with the awfulness of the dream but he had never looked at her with the smile of a pleasant stranger.
Rachel gulped. For the first time in years she was unable to think of a single thing to say. Instead, she just went on staring at him, horrified. Not yet, something in her brain was wailing. I’m not ready. Not yet.
Her reaction surprised him, she saw. One dark eyebrow rose.
‘I startled you. You must have been a long way away.’
Oh, she was, she was. Nine years and a whole ocean away. Impossible to say that, of course. Engage brain, Rachel, she told herself furiously. Engage brain. Or this will go out of control before you’ve even said hello.
Years of professional negotiations came to her aid at last. The unforgotten past receded, at least for the moment.
She swallowed and said, ‘Hello, Mr di Stefano.’ It came out a lot huskier than she’d expected but at least it did not sound as if all she wanted to do was run away from him and hide.
He laughed aloud then. ‘That sounds very formal.’
She gave him a quick, meaningless smile. ‘That’s the English for you.’
He smiled back. It was slow and sexy and made his eyes crinkle at the corners as if he was used to staring into the sun. He was not as tanned as she remembered, but the muscles were still as lithe under the city suit—and the laughter as wicked.
‘Now, I’ve always found English formality to be a bit of a myth,’ he said easily.
Oh, have you? she thought. Now that she had brought herself back under control she had time to observe him more dispassionately. She disliked what she saw amazingly. Confident, good-looking, intelligent. The things that her stepmother had gloated over all those years ago were still true. Even more so, if you could judge from one quick, resentful look. The charm was still there too—and he knew it. He was even waiting for her to respond to it. Rachel realised it in gathering wrath.
She said smartly, ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a formal person.’
Riccardo di Stefano’s eyes narrowed. It looked as if he had just registered that there was a real person confronting him in the corridor, Rachel thought, pleased. Her satisfaction was short-lived.
‘Have we met before?’
She could have kicked herself. Never start a fight unless you’re prepared to finish it, she reminded herself grimly.
She