Terrified that he was leaving already, Clara drained her second glass for courage and headed after him. She couldn’t let him get away without at least trying to buttonhole him.
Pushing her way through the crowds, she followed him out into the cavernous entrance hall in time to see him striding purposefully towards the cloakrooms. He was going to get his coat and leave, and her chance would be gone. She would have sat through a lecture on economics for nothing!
It was now or never.
Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she hurried after him. ‘Dr Valentine?’ she called breathlessly.
Simon bit down on an expletive. His lecture had gone very well, but he would much prefer to have left immediately afterwards. Instead, he’d had to stand around and make small talk. He’d barely stepped into the library when a whole gaggle of women had descended on him. Ever since he had appeared on the news explaining the blindingly obvious about the financial situation, he had become a reluctant celebrity.
At first it had seemed an excellent idea. His firm was all for it, and Simon himself believed it was important for people to understand the economic realities of life. He had no problem with that, and the opportunity to bring new thinking about micro financing to global attention was too good to miss. He was delighted that the ensuing documentary had had such an impact, but had been totally unprepared for the effect of his television appearances on female viewers.
It was all very embarrassing, in fact, and the intent way some women had taken to hanging on his every word made him deeply uncomfortable. If they were that interested in economics, why didn’t they go away and read his articles instead?
And now, just when he’d managed to escape for a few minutes’ quiet, here was another one.
For a moment Simon considered pretending that he hadn’t heard her, but some of his so-called fans could be annoyingly persistent, and he wouldn’t put it past some of them to pursue him right into the Gents. So he paused, clenched his jaw, and fixed on his least welcoming expression.
But when he turned, the young woman coming after him didn’t look at all like one of his normal fans, most of whom tended to hide their silliness at being fans in the first place beneath a veneer of seriousness. There was nothing serious about this girl.
His first impression was of vivid colour, his second of a spectacular pair of legs. In spite of himself, Simon blinked. He doubted very much that the Institute had ever seen a skirt that short before, or shoes that frivolous.
He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the legs before he made himself look away from them. Just because Astrid had left, he didn’t have to start leering at the first pair of decent legs to come his way.
‘Yes?’ he said uninvitingly.
She offered him a friendly smile. ‘I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your talk very much,’ she said, still breathless from the effort of hurrying after him in those absurd shoes. ‘I thought you made some excellent points.’
Simon eyed her suspiciously. ‘Oh? Which particular points?’ he said. Maybe it was unfair to put her on the spot, but he didn’t feel like being helpful.
‘All of them,’ she said firmly, only to falter as her gaze met his. She had an extraordinarily transparent expression, and Simon could see her realising that as an answer it was less than impressive and dredging up something she remembered from the lecture.
Which turned out to be not very much.
‘What you said about qualitative easing was particularly interesting,’ she offered with an ingenuous smile.
‘Really? That’s strange, as I was talking about quantitative easing.’
‘That too,’ she said.
He had to give her points for trying. Most of his ‘fans’ did their homework in an attempt to impress him when they met. This one clearly hadn’t bothered.
‘You’re interested in the banks’ asset policies?’
‘Fascinated,’ she said, clearly lying, but meeting his eyes with such limpid innocence that Simon felt an unfamiliar tugging sensation at the corner of his mouth. It took a moment before he recognized it as amusement, and he pressed his lips together before he actually smiled.
Now that he looked at her properly, he could see that she wasn’t particularly pretty. Once you got past the animated expression, her features were really very ordinary, with ordinary brown hair falling in a very ordinary style to her shoulders. And yet she seemed to shimmer with a kind of suppressed energy, as if she were about to break into a run or fling her arms around, that made her not ordinary at all.
She made Simon feel vaguely unsettled, and that wasn’t a feeling he liked.
‘Were you even at my lecture?’ he demanded.
‘I sat through every riveting minute of it,’ she assured him.
‘And how much did you understand?’
He saw a brief struggle with her conscience cross her face before she opted, wisely, for honesty. ‘Well, not everything … that is, not a lot … in fact, none of it, but I do admire you a lot, obviously.’ She cleared her throat. ‘The truth is, I don’t know anything about economics. I’m here because I really need to talk to you.’
‘I’m afraid I only talk about economics, so if you don’t know anything about the subject it’s likely to be a very short conversation,’ said Simon curtly and made to turn away but she clutched at his arm.
‘I won’t keep you a minute, I promise,’ she said and plunged into a prepared speech before he could shake his arm from her grasp. ‘My name’s Clara Sterne, and I—’
But she had already said enough. Simon’s eyes narrowed. ‘As in the Clara Sterne who has been ringing and emailing me and apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of the word no?’
‘Oh, you recognize my name? Good,’ said Clara brightly.
Simon’s mouth tightened. ‘Spare your breath!’ he said, flinging up a hand as she opened her mouth to go on. ‘No, I will not participate in your ridiculous television programme. Once and for all … No!’
‘But you haven’t even given me a chance to explain about the programme,’ she protested. ‘It’s not ridiculous at all. We want it to be a serious examination of the romance industry.’
‘Clara, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a global recession going on. I think there are more serious issues to examine than romance, even if such a thing existed.’
Clara pounced on that. ‘So you don’t think romance exists?’
She might as well have asked him whether he believed in the Jolly Green Giant. ‘Of course I don’t,’ he said. ‘It’s clearly an artificial construct dreamed up by marketing teams.’
‘Then that’s all we want you to say on the programme! That’s the whole point, in fact. It’ll be a serious discussion, with you and your co-presenter putting different sides of the argument.’
‘A serious discussion? I seem to recall you told me the other presenter was a footballer’s wife who hosts a daytime chat show!’
‘Ex-wife,’ Clara corrected him. ‘We think the contrast between the two of you will be very effective.’
She had an extraordinarily mobile face. Her eyes as she leant eagerly towards him were an undistinguished brown, but her expression was so bright that Simon was momentarily snared, like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights. Irritated by the image, he still had to make a physical effort to jerk himself free.
‘I don’t care how