Rachel looked unseeingly down at the papers. She had not the slightest idea. She took a blind stab at a time.
‘Three hours.’
He looked incredulous. ‘You’ll have proposals in three hours?’
Rachel thought, I have proposals now. You’re not the only one who knows something has got to be done about this place. But I need time to convince Philip.
She said calmly, ‘I believe so.’
It seemed as if everyone in the room was holding his breath. At last Riccardo di Stefano nodded.
‘OK. Same place.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Two-thirty.’
He stood up. Everyone else did the same. As if he were an emperor, thought Rachel. She was not even trying to curb her hostility now. But still she somehow found herself on her feet too. That infuriated her.
Across the room, Riccardo di Stefano looked at her. His dark eyes measured her as if he had only just become aware of her. She thought she saw faint contempt and put a hand to her loose hair self-consciously. His eyes narrowed. Something in that basilisk regard brought Rachel to attention as if she were facing a court martial.
‘I look forward to your ideas,’ he said softly.
Something light as a feather, deadly as a cobra, slid up the back of Rachel’s neck. She managed not to shudder, but only just. Instead she gave him a bland smile.
‘I hope to surprise you.’
He laughed aloud at that. ‘I’m sure you do. But I have to warn you a lot of guys have tried.’
And failed, was the implication.
Rachel said, ‘I like a challenge.’
Riccardo di Stefano stopped laughing. The look he gave her was pure speculation.
‘So do I,’ he said softly. ‘So do I. Maybe we’re both going to learn something from this.’
CHAPTER TWO
AS THE door closed behind Riccardo di Stefano, Philip sank back in his seat. He looked ill, Rachel thought with compassion. Beads of sweat were etching out a mask on his face. She was not the only one to notice.
‘Better let Rachel run with this one, Phil,’ said Henry Ockenden, the head of lending.
Philip waved a hand vaguely. Rachel took this as agreement. It looked as if he was not going to need much convincing after all. She got up.
‘I’ll be in my office. I’ll get briefing to you by two at the latest,’ she said.
She gathered up her papers and went.
Mandy was at her desk in the outer office. She raised her eyebrows as Rachel steamed past.
‘Fireworks?’
‘As you predicted,’ said Rachel.
‘Di Stefano on the attack?’
‘And then some,’ said Rachel with feeling. ‘Call the group; I want a meeting in twenty minutes. Everyone to have a copy of these.’ She dumped di Stefano’s papers on Mandy’s desk.
Mandy picked them up and took them to the photocopier.
‘Is di Stefano as gorgeous as they say?’ she said, pressing buttons briskly.
The copier warmed into life.
‘Worse,’ said Rachel crisply.
She turned away. Mandy was too observant. Rachel did not want the other woman to detect that this was not the first time she had had the opportunity to observe at close quarters how gorgeous he was. Or that she would give anything not to remember how gorgeous.
Rachel gave an angry little sigh. Riccardo di Stefano had obviously had no trouble forgetting. So why couldn’t she?
Mandy, at the photocopier, was not detecting anything, fortunately. She laughed. ‘He looks a heartbreaker all right.’
Rachel stiffened imperceptibly. Not turning round, she said casually over her shoulder, ‘I thought you hadn’t met him.’
‘No.’ It was not hard to discern Mandy’s regret at this fact. ‘He had his mug shot in the papers yesterday. Taking Sandy Marquis out on the town.’
‘Sandy Marquis?’ The name was vaguely familiar. Then she remembered. ‘The model, you mean? The redhead discovered teaching gym to schoolgirls?’
‘That’s the one.’ Mandy looked at Rachel speculatively. ‘He seems to go for redheads.’
‘He goes for anything female that doesn’t run too fast,’ muttered Rachel unwarily.
Mandy’s eyebrows flew up. This time she was detecting. And accurately.
‘You know him,’ she said on a note of discovery.
That’s what comes of losing your cool, Rachel told herself, annoyed. Aloud she said repressively, ‘We’ve met.’
‘Wow.’ Mandy was impressed. ‘You’ve been clubbing on the quiet?’
‘Of course not. Even if that was how I got my kicks, which it isn’t, what time do I have to go clubbing? When I’m not working I’m trying to persuade two adolescents that school isn’t all bad.’
Mandy chuckled. ‘I don’t see di Stefano at a PTA meeting,’ she allowed. ‘Where on earth did you meet him, for heaven’s sake?’
Rachel grimaced. Take it lightly, she adjured herself. It was never important. Don’t build it up into something it was not.
She shrugged. ‘It was a long time ago. I shouldn’t think he even remembers.’
And I’m going to do everything I can think of to stop him remembering, she resolved fiercely.
‘Have you said anything to him?’
‘No.’ Rachel was unable to disguise her horror.
Mandy looked even more intrigued. Rachel realised she could be getting herself into exactly the kind of trouble she had hoped to avoid—the kind of trouble that slapped an ice-pack on the back of her neck and sent her normally logical mind into meltdown. She could trust Mandy, of course, but if she told her it was a secret Mandy would inevitably start to wonder what it was all about. It was only human nature. It was also horrifying.
I can’t stand that sort of speculation, Rachel thought. How can I avoid thinking about him if every time I put my head out of my office my secretary’s asking herself what Riccardo di Stefano was to me in my dark past?
She felt panic rise. It took all her self-control to quell it, to think of a plausible story. It was half the truth anyway.
‘Look,’ said Rachel, ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention it. It was no big deal but I was very young.’ She managed to sound rueful, even faintly embarrassed. She was impressed with herself. ‘It wouldn’t do my credibility much good to remind him. I don’t want him thinking he’s negotiating with a spotty teenager with no control over her temper.’
No hint of the inner panic. Well done, Rachel, she congratulated herself. Mandy was taking it at face value anyway.
‘No control...’ Mandy stared. ‘You?’
‘Youth,’ said Rachel. She gave a very good shrug, quite as if she did not care. She even managed a light laugh.
That was not quite so convincing, evidently. At least, it did not convince Mandy. ‘Did you have a crush on him?’ she demanded.
‘No,’ said Rachel with unmistakable truth. In spite of her determination to stay cool, she could not repress a shudder.
Mandy