Astra had been happy at boarding-school. All three cousins were born within a month of each other, and, rooming together as they did, Astra, Yancie and Fennia became as close as sisters. Apart from school holidays, they were inseparable.
Astra considered herself the lucky one in that both Fennia and Yancie’s fathers had died, and while Astra, too, sometimes had an ‘uncle’ come to collect her at the end of school term more often than not it was her father who came for her.
Though, because he was busy a lot of the time, her mother demanded that she spend her school holidays at home with her. This, Astra soon discovered, was more to spite her father than from any deep-rooted maternal instinct. For Imogen, married again and now Imogen Kirby, was still carrying on as though she had never said ‘I do’ to Robert Kirby.
Holidays, apart from the time Astra spent at her father’s smart apartment, were in the main fairly awful. She couldn’t wait to get back to school—the same went for her two cousins. Astra clearly remembered how the three of them had met up again after a lengthy summer break and Yancie, having gone through a shocking time, had fervently declared, ‘No, no, no, no way am I going to be like my mother.’
‘That goes double for me and my mother!’ Fennia, having gone through a dreadful traumatic time too, unhappily asserted.
‘And that’s triple for me!’ Astra had chipped in, having been aghast at the way her mother had barely waited for the door to close on husband number two, whenever he left for his office, before she was on the phone to some other man.
Having spent weeks in the same close confines with their female parents, each cousin—aware enough by then, educated enough by then—had been absolutely appalled by what they had seen and heard going on. Absolutely appalled and—afraid!
‘What if we’ve inherited something?’ Fennia exclaimed, aghast. ‘A gene, or something—some promiscuous part of our mothers that makes them the way they are when any likely-looking man pokes his head above the parapet!’
They had gasped in dismayed consternation—it was truly a terrifying thought. And it was there and then, after a lengthy and fearful discussion, that the cousins vowed that they would defy any such wayward gene should it rear its ugly head. They would not be permissive, promiscuous or free-moralled. They would, they pledged, be alert and ready to stamp on any wayward urge that showed itself.
There had been no need to renew that vow two years later when, at the age of eighteen, they had left boarding-school for the last time. It was by then as if written in stone. There would be no string of lovers. Only one man would do. The right man. If they didn’t find him, they would give themselves to no man.
Yancie and Fennia’s ‘right’ men had come along, and they had married them. Astra, having undergone further extensive and in-depth business training, was career-minded and dedicated to her job. She had hopes of going higher and yet higher up the professional ladder. Marriage simply had no place in her plans.
She worked hard, evenings and weekends, and had no time for any kind of a relationship. Which was fine by her—she’d seen enough of her mother’s ‘relationships’ to know that that route wasn’t for her.
Not that Astra was lacking for offers. She had rich red hair, green eyes and, though naturally pale, a dream of a perfect skin. Her figure, while slender, curved in all the right places. And, according to Sukey Lloyd—a girl the three cousins had been at school with—Astra had legs to die for.
While feeling quite friendly on the inside to her fellow man, Astra found she could do little about her cool, aloof-looking exterior. Indeed, she had been completely unaware of her cool and aloof look until a couple of months ago when she’d turned down yet another invitation out from a newcomer to Yarroll Finance, who, peeved at her crisp thank-you-but-no, went away muttering, ‘Now I know why they call you North Pole Northcott!’
She hadn’t thought that had bothered her but, friendly with one of the secretaries who sometimes did some work for her, Astra found herself one day asking her if everybody at Yarroll’s had a nickname.
‘Only the favoured few,’ Cindy had replied. And, on a gasp as she realised what lay behind the question, she exclaimed, ‘You’ve heard?’
‘North Pole Northcott?’
‘Oh!’ Cindy murmured—and, obviously trying to make light of it, added, ‘Never mind—your mum loves you.’
That, Astra considered, was extremely doubtful. She had returned to live with her mother when she had finished school, but that arrangement had never been going to work. Her mother lived an idle life of socialising and greed. Astra—to her mother’s shame—wanted to work for her living.
It was a constant bone of contention between them that Astra, while living at home, was taking a full-time course which involved taking further exams for her chosen career. So that by the time Carleton Northcott decided to retire and move to his second home in the Windward Islands, and suggested that if Astra didn’t want to go to Barbados with him she could move into his London apartment and keep an eye on the place for him, Astra thought it the best idea she’d heard in a long while. Her mother must have thought so too, for this time she raised no objection.
All of which had worked out for the best, Astra reflected as she washed her used dishes at the kitchen sink. Over the last few years, what with being so busy with her job, and Imogen having a full social calendar, Astra rarely saw her mother. Though, dutifully, she would telephone and occasionally her mother—usually when she was having some kind of disaster with her current male, and both her sisters were engaged elsewhere—would pay her a visit.
Which, Astra thought, dragging her mind back to the present, her briefcase as yet still unopened in her study, wasn’t getting the work done. She dried her hands, and ten minutes later she was totally absorbed in her work.
Strangely, though, after all the multitude of thoughts that had gone through her head that evening, when later she turned off her computer and went to bed it wasn’t of her family that she thought. For quite some while she lay sleepless, her mind not on any member of her family, but on the tough-sounding board member of Blyth Whitaker International, a man she had yet to meet.
Next day, Astra arrived at the Blyth Whitaker building in good time. Incongruously, when she would have said she knew her business inside out, she suddenly started to feel a little nervous. What nonsense! she scoffed, but couldn’t deny that she was glad the mirror in the lift she had been directed to showed her looking cool and immaculate in her black suit and white silk shirt.
Briefcase in hand and in her smart plain black, two-and-a-half-inch-heeled shoes, Astra stepped out of the lift determined to keep looking outwardly composed. On the face of it, there was no reason why she should lose the tiniest bit of composure—even if it was Mr Sayre Baxendale himself that she was there to see.
Even if it seemed too incredible to be true that Sayre Baxendale had asked for her personally, she was good at her job. Why did she feel the need to keep reminding herself of that? Good grief—she couldn’t remember the last time, or any time for that matter, when she’d had the jitters about meeting a client. For heaven’s sake, he was expecting her; she wouldn’t have got past Reception had that not been so.
Astra found the door she was looking for, and, since she was expected, tapped on it only lightly, and went in. A tall black-haired man was at another door with a woman in her late twenties who was on her way out so that Astra caught only a glimpse of her. The woman seemed vaguely familiar. But Astra met so many people in her job that it didn’t surprise her that the woman, his PA, most probably, could be someone she had already met.
However, she was here to see Sayre Baxendale, who had closed the door after the woman and was coming back into his office. ‘Astra Northcott, Yarroll Finance,’ she introduced herself. She was softly spoken, her voice unaccented, with a hint of friendliness—otherwise