He said hurriedly, ‘Still, it’s good to see her enjoying herself again. I thought a big party might be too much for her. But she said it would be good practice for your wedding.’
‘Ouch,’ said Nikolai. His expression was half-rueful, half-sad.
His grandfather did not pretend to misunderstand him.
‘Why are you so set against marriage, Nicki?’
Nikolai looked round at the crowded room. The music had started again, louder and heavier now that the older guests were leaving. Men threw off their hot jackets. Girls bared their shoulders and let their elaborate hairstyles fall as they would. Nikolai grimaced.
‘Maybe I’m just not a party animal.’
His grandfather was not deflected. ‘You can party with the best of them when you want. Anyway, marriage is more than a party.’
‘Exactly.’
Pauli peered up at his tall grandson. ‘Are you afraid of marriage, Nicki?’
Nikolai looked away. The firm mouth set into a stubborn line.
He knew that expression, thought Pauli. The shutters had come down. Normally he would have stopped there. But tonight, for some reason, he kept on.
‘We’ve never asked. You like your privacy and we’ve never wanted to intrude. But—have you ever lived with a woman, Nicki?’
Nikolai’s eyes flickered. He gave his grandfather a wide, false smile and shuddered dramatically. ‘Never.’
‘But there have been women,’ said Pauli, revealing that even if he didn’t ask he had other ways of finding out what he wanted to know.
‘Of course there have been women,’ said Nikolai calmly. ‘I just don’t let them move in.’
‘But—’
‘It only encourages them. Once a woman hangs her clothes in your wardrobe, she thinks she’s got rights in you.’
Pauli’s expression darkened. He turned his head away so Nikolai could not see it.
‘You sound very cold-hearted.’
‘That’s me,’ said Nikolai cheerfully. ‘Hot blood. Cold heart. Makes for a peaceful life.’
CHAPTER ONE
‘SO FIRE me!’
Lisa Romaine tilted her pointed chin to a challenging angle. She leaned insolently against the wall, looked her boss straight in the eye and waited.
Behind his desk, Sam Voss shifted irritably. ‘Can’t I give my Head of Bond Trading a hint?’
‘Hint!’
He tried a winning smile. ‘Now, Lisa, don’t overreact. Why don’t you sit down and we can talk?’
Predictably, she did not move. Her green eyes narrowed to slits.
‘Not about my private life,’ she said dangerously.
‘When you work for Napier Kraus, merchant bank to the new industrialists, you don’t have a private life.’
Lisa looked ironic. ‘You might not,’ she said. ‘I do.’
Sam shook his head. ‘I thought you wanted to get on.’
‘Sure,’ said Lisa evenly. ‘That’s why I work hard and deliver the goods. I’m not going to turn myself inside out trying to be a clone of the managing director.’
‘That’s enough.’ Sam’s voice hardened. ‘You’re on the management team now. If you want to stay there, act like it.’
‘At work, of course. But I’m not going to change my whole lifestyle. And turn my back on my friends.’
‘Look, kid—’
‘I’m twenty-two,’ flashed Lisa, suddenly losing her cool. ‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘Then stop digging your heels in. You’re a clever girl and you deserve your chance. Don’t blow it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean the Personnel Committee aren’t sure about you,’ he told her brutally.
‘Why? With my score—’
‘Oh, they like your results,’ he allowed. ‘You’re up there on the shortlist for Trader of the Year. Of course they like your results. They’re just not sure about a woman bossing a lot of punchy guys.’
Lisa gave a scornful shrug, not answering.
‘And, frankly, they’re not sure about your image either,’ said Sam, goaded.
‘What’s wrong with my image?’
He waved a hand. ‘You’re a good-looking kid. Sorry—woman. Get yourself a decent haircut and couple of designer suits and you could be in there mixing it with the MBA dollies. God knows, you’re bright enough. So why go out of your way to look like a punk?’
Lisa looked down her nose. Sam lost no chance to put her down, but on the issue of her appearance she was quite confident. The glass wall behind his desk reflected an image back at her which no one but Sam had any problems with: natural blonde hair, gamine features, long legs in spite of her moderate height and a figure to die for. It had taken all her considerable personality to stop her new staff from wolf-whistling at her every time she left her desk. ‘I don’t look like a punk,’ she said calmly.
Sam was alone in Napier Kraus in his lack of appreciation of Lisa’s black-clad legs. Even the Financial Controller had been known to give them a passing beam. Now Sam glared at her short skirt.
‘One day soon you’re going to find yourself hosting one of our corporate entertainments. How are the clients going to feel being taken to the races by a woman with earrings like a modern art gallery?’
Lisa put her hand to one of the offending ornaments.
‘You’re not serious!’
‘The top brass already know you live in a place that’s one up from a student squat. The chauffeurs talk, you know.’
Lisa was outraged. Her eyes were usually a green flecked with the gold of a woodland summer. Now they were green ice. ‘You’re a snob.’
‘No. I just know the score.’ He was torn between affection and exasperation. ‘Face it, Lisa. We’ve got a parent company with some very definite ideas about how it wants its management to live. You don’t qualify on any count.’
Lisa folded her arms across her chest and glared. ‘And to qualify I’ve got to pretend to be something I’m not?’
‘Up to you,’ said Sam, losing patience. ‘Now get out of here and make us some money.’
It was the end of a bad week. With Far Eastern markets in freefall, Lisa had had to be at her desk earlier than ever, staying well after New York had closed for transatlantic strategy discussions, and she hadn’t got home until after ten.
As a result, she’d missed her turn to clean the shared kitchen. But what had really offended her housemates was her failure to make it to Anna’s twenty-first on Wednesday evening.
‘Too grand to remember something like a birthday party now,’ Alec Palmer had sneered.
Of all the people she shared the house with, Alec was the one who knew most about her job. He had even worked at Napier Kraus briefly himself. When he’d first moved into the house they had got on well. But since her promotion he had sniped constantly.
In a way, she could understand it. He was older and, unlike Lisa, who had left school at sixteen, he had a university degree. It was natural that he would feel competitive. But there was an edge of spite in his remarks