At The Millionaire's Bidding

‘Working.’

‘Are you shacked up with anyone?’

‘No, I—’

‘I do wish these checkout girls wouldn’t stop to gossip,’ the woman in the queue behind him remarked in a loud voice.

‘And I wish these old biddies wouldn’t be so cantankerous,’ he retorted, equally loudly.

‘I really shouldn’t be talking,’ Eleanor said guiltily.

‘Why not?’ Fishing in his pocket, he added, ‘Surely they don’t own you body and soul?’

‘No, but—’

‘Oh, hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘With coming out in a rush I forgot to pick up my wallet. I’m afraid I can’t take the stuff.’

‘Do you have a credit card?’

‘That’s in my wallet, too.’ He made to hand her the carrier back.

‘Take it. It doesn’t amount to much. I’ll put it in out of my own money.’

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘Look, what time do you finish?’

‘In about ten minutes.’

‘See you outside.’

He was waiting in the street for her, looking cold and pinched in the chill September wind.

‘The Capuchin is still open if you want a hot—’ He broke off abruptly. ‘Damn! no money.’

‘It’s all right, I’ll pay.’

As they walked the short distance to the coffee-bar, she realised that though she was wearing flat heels, they were almost exactly the same height. At one time he had been taller than her, but now he was rather on the short side for a man.

Waiting by the steamy counter, she noticed him eyeing the clingfilmed ham sandwiches and asked, ‘Are you hungry by any chance?’

‘Starving. I was intending to get something when I’d shopped. Didn’t have time to eat earlier.’

When they were seated opposite each other, two packs of sandwiches and two mugs of coffee on the ringed and stained, piglet-pink, plastic-topped table, he asked, ‘So how’s the world been treating you? Tell me everything you’ve been doing since you escaped from Colditz.’

As she told him what little there was to tell, he wolfed his pack of sandwiches, and swallowed his mug of coffee.

Though he was as handsome as ever, he looked thinner than she remembered him, as if he hadn’t been taking care of himself.

All her childhood feeling for him returning in a rush, she pushed her own sandwiches and mug across, and asked, ‘Can you manage these?’

‘Don’t you want them?’

‘To tell you the truth I’m not hungry,’ she lied, ‘and it isn’t that long since I had a coffee.’

‘Why do you work in a hotel as well as the supermarket?’ he asked curiously, as he started into the second pack of sandwiches.

‘I’m saving hard. I’d like to be able to set up a little business of my own.’

‘Wouldn’t we all!’

Something about his reaction made her feel uncomfortable.

As though sensing it, he asked more mildly, ‘How close are you?’

‘Another year at the most and I should be able to start looking for somewhere suitable. I was thinking of a second-hand bookshop, or a maybe a tearoom,’ she explained.

Contempt in his voice, he said, ‘Surely that kind of thing is only for old maids?’

Hiding her hurt, she asked, ‘What about you?’

‘The same kind of dream, only keeping up with tomorrow’s world. When I’ve graduated—and I’d like to get a really good degree—I want to start my own business.’

‘Doing what?’

His dark eyes glowed. ‘Setting up and programming computer systems, with the emphasis on communications.’

‘So you’re at college?’

‘Yes. After two or three years of drifting from job to job, I decided to go for it.’

‘You got a grant?’

He shook his head. ‘I didn’t want to mortgage my future, so I’ve been working evenings and weekends to pay my fees and keep body and soul together.’

‘It can’t be easy.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ he admitted bleakly. ‘Though I’m good at the technical side, and getting excellent class marks, I’m finding it a struggle. There’s never enough time.

‘This coming year’s workload looks like being even heavier, but unless I can win the lottery, I have to find another job as soon as possible. A long bout of flu last month lost me my last one.’

She felt moved to protest. ‘But if the workload’s that heavy…’

‘I’ll have to manage somehow. No option. When I leave college and start my own business it will all have been worth it.

‘Pity you’re not into this modern technology lark,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘I could do with a partner. Someone to run the office. You’ve got a nice voice, the sort that sounds educated, though I don’t know how the hell you’ve managed it…’

Eleanor remembered, from when she was quite young, the Matron of Sunnyside remarking, ‘The child speaks well. She’s obviously from a good background… Which ought to make things easier…’

‘So you’d be ideal…’ Dave was going on. ‘Weekends and suchlike, when we had no one coming into the office, you could help with the actual installations. It’s not difficult once you know how.’

All at once her dream of a solitary future was replaced by a warmer, much more exciting prospect. But she knew rather less than nothing about computers and technology.

As though reading her mind, he said, ‘If you were remotely interested, there’s a school nearby that runs the kind of special business courses that would cover pretty well everything you’d need to know.’

‘I am interested,’ she assured him. ‘But I couldn’t afford to leave work.’

‘You wouldn’t have to. The classes are held on weekday evenings, so you could keep your job at the hotel, and still work weekends at the supermarket if you wanted to.’

‘How long are the courses?’

‘They run until next summer. By then I’ll have graduated, so the timing will be spot on. Hopefully you’ll have a good background knowledge of business, and I’ll have all the technical know-how we need. If I’m lucky I might even have made some contacts that could put work our way.’

He was contributing so much… What if she was a drag on him?

Seeing her anxious frown, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure that by then you’ll be in a position to pull your weight.

‘To start with money’s bound to be a problem, unless we can manage to get a bank loan. Once we’re underway, of course, we’ll be able to get short-term credit facilities from the suppliers, as well as asking the clients to put some money up front.

‘The trouble is, if we approach a bank they’ll expect us to be in a position to finance at least part of it ourselves.’

‘Well, we should be able to.’ Excitement made her sound breathless. ‘I told you, I’ve been saving.’

He looked unimpressed. ‘I don’t suppose what you’ve managed to save amounts to much. I reckon we’d need a minimum of seven or eight thousand.’

‘I’ve got a bit more than that,’ she told him with quiet triumph.

His jaw dropped. Then, fired with enthusiasm, he cried, ‘In that case we’re as good as in business! If you’re game?’

‘I’m game.’

‘Now all I need is a job to see me through till next summer… Of course I’d have a better chance of doing really well if I didn’t have to work, but—’

‘You don’t have to work. If I can boost my earnings with a weekend job at the supermarket, there should be just about enough money coming in for us both to scrape by on.’

‘You’re a jewel, partner.’

‘I won’t be able to save, and there won’t be anything left for luxuries but—’

‘Luxuries? What are luxuries? And with over eight thousand sitting in the bank you don’t need to save.’

He leaned across the small table and, taking her face between his hands, kissed her full on the lips.

Her heart began to pound and her colour rose. She could never remember anyone kissing her before, and certainly not in that way.

‘I can see us really going places, kiddo,’ he told her, jubilantly. ‘And maybe one day, when we’re successful and raking in the cash, we can extend the partnership.’

‘What do you mean…?’

‘Marriage… Why not?’

To be loved. To belong to someone. It was more happiness than she had ever dared dream of, and she wanted to cry.

CHAPTER TWO

OVER the next few months, with both of them working all hours, they hardly saw each other. Once a week they snatched a late-evening coffee together, and on very odd occasions a takeaway pizza.

Instead of living in student accommodation, Dave shared a small self-contained flat with a college friend. Though Eleanor paid his share of the rent for it, she had never been there, and wasn’t even sure where it was.

‘Off Station Road,’ Dave had answered casually, when she’d asked.

More than a dozen streets ran off Station Road, but knowing by now that he hated to be what he called “crowded” she let the matter drop.

As the festive season approached, learning that she had Christmas Day off, they began to make plans to spend it together. At the last minute, however, Dave rang up, sounding hoarse and snuffly, to say he had developed a stinking cold and all he wanted to do was stay in bed.

He rejected her offer of nursing and, when she looked like persisting, pointed out irritably, ‘At the moment you’re the breadwinner, so what’s the point of you catching it and having to stay off work?’

Though bitterly disappointed, she couldn’t deny it made sense, and when one of the kitchen staff failed to turn up, she worked in their place.

Unfortunately, Dave’s cold lasted over New Year, and it was well into January before they arranged to meet again.

That night she left the light and warmth of the supermarket to find a biting wind was driving flurries of snow down the dark street.

They had been planning to have a spot of supper together and, thinking he still looked far from well, she suggested that if they got fish and chips they could take them back to his flat. ‘It’s much too cold to stand eating them in the shop doorway.’

Dave looked horrified. ‘Do you want to get me slung out? My dragon of a landlady has very strict rules. No smoking. No loud music. No wet washing hanging about. No showers after eight. And definitely no visitors. In any case, Tony will be home.

‘Tell you what, if you give me a bit extra spending money, just for once we’ll eat in the cafe.’

‘Of course.’ She fished in her bag and gave him her last ten-pound note.

Completely besotted, she would have given him anything he’d asked for. Herself included. But though he kissed her from time to time, he never tried to take things any further.

When she rather hesitantly made it clear that she would sleep with him if he wanted her to, he said, ‘Don’t think I’m not tempted, kiddo. But for one thing I’m working so hard I’ve no energy left, and for another, I can’t afford to be distracted. There’ll be enough time to have fun when our business is up and running.’

She could only admire his dedication.

In the end it paid off handsomely. He graduated with top marks and, to celebrate, they went out looking for an office to rent.

‘One with a reasonable address, if possible,’ Dave decreed. ‘Where you are can make a big difference.’

Finding something that fitted the bill was easier said than done. The rents were astronomical. Then, when they’d almost given up hope, in a rather rundown building just off the Edgware Road, they found what they wanted.

Or at least the best they could afford.

That first hurdle over, it meant changes all round. Dave would no doubt want to move, and when she had worked her notice at the hotel, she would need to find somewhere else to live.

Full of barely suppressed excitement, she waited for Dave to suggest they find a small flat and move in together. When he said nothing, she plucked up courage and broached the subject herself.

He shook his head. ‘I was planning to stay where I am. Apart from the fact that Tony needs my help with the rent, it’s cheap and reasonably comfortable, and handy for the tube.’

‘But I thought we could be together…’

‘Too much of a temptation, kiddo.’

‘Oh, but surely—’

‘Look, we have to be sensible about this. We need time to build up the business before we can afford to take any chances. If you got pregnant where would we be? Right up the creek without a paddle. Say we give ourselves a year…’

A year…

‘For that length of time we’ll need to work all hours, seven days a week. Then if everything’s going well we’ll start to relax a bit, get married, tie the knot in the good old-fashioned way. Tell you what, as soon as we’ve been paid for our first job, I’ll buy you an engagement ring.’

She couldn’t help but think it sounded like a sop.

Seeing she still looked far from happy, he added, ‘Oh, and as it’s your money that’s getting us started, I think you should rate as senior partner, and your name come first on our business cards.

‘After all,’ he added magnanimously, as she began to shake her head, ‘You’ve more than pulled your weight.’

She really didn’t care whose name came first. Just his praise would have been enough.

After a fortnight of fruitless searching, her luck changed and she found a one-roomed flat complete with a kitchenette and a tiny bathroom at a rent she could just about afford. It was within walking distance of the office, which meant she would save on tube fares.

Having bought a small second-hand van, Dave had promised to help her move in her few possessions, but when the time came he was busy, so she managed on the tube with a couple of battered suitcases.

Her new flat was cramped and shabby and three flights up, but the bed-settee was reasonably comfortable, and compared to the room she had lived in for the past four years, it was the height of luxury.

She felt like a queen.

As soon as she was settled, she set about furnishing and repainting the office. That done, inside a week they were in business. Their printed cards read:

Smith and Benson

Computer and Communication Systems Installed

Within a few days they had established contact with the necessary suppliers, and secured their first job.

It was heady stuff.

Her only disappointment was that she still saw very little of Dave. When they weren’t actually working, he was always out and about trying to drum up business.

Once or twice he took her to the cinema, or to eat in some cheap restaurant. He never came to her flat.

‘Avoiding temptation…’ he told her, when she suggested he came round occasionally. ‘If you’re lonely, buy a second-hand telly.’

Used to being on her own, she wasn’t exactly lonely, she just missed him, and a television was the last thing she wanted. Books and music had always been her pleasure and her solace.

Some three months later, after they had been paid for their first job, true to his word, Dave bought her an engagement ring.

Slipping it onto her finger he asked, ‘There what do you think of that?’

A twist, with a couple of small zircons, it was clearly inexpensive, and at least one size too large, but she was thrilled with it.

‘As soon as the money starts rolling in, we’ll change it for diamonds,’ he promised.

She didn’t need diamonds. The ring he had put on her finger meant everything to her. Commitment. A future together. Love.

Perhaps afraid of the answer, she had never asked the question before, but now as he kissed her, she said, ‘Dave, do you love me?’

‘Course I do.’

‘It’s just that you’ve never told me.’

‘I’m not very good with words, but you must know I love you. We’re a pair. A partnership. I don’t know what I’d do without you…’

For the next few weeks that assurance had kept her floating on cloud nine.

As they neared the end of December, finding they had finished their current job and had nothing else on their books until early January, Eleanor started to plan for their best Christmas and New Year ever. Dave’s birthday was on the thirty-first of December, so it would be a double celebration.

When, wanting his input, she mentioned her plans, he said, ‘I’m sorry but I won’t be here. I’ve more than earned a break, so I’m joining Tony and the boys on a cheap trip to Belgium. We go on the twenty-fourth and come back January the second.’

‘Oh, but I thought we’d be spending Christmas and New Year together—’

‘I can’t afford to miss this chance. It’ll be the first holiday I’ve had for years. Pity it’s a men only, boozy thing, but that’s the way it goes. I’ll bring you back a present to make up for it.

‘I don’t suppose there’ll be much doing as regards business. Between Christmas and New Year is a bit of a dead period, so why don’t you have a break?

‘All you really need to do is pop into the office each day to check for mail and emails…’

So once again she had found herself facing the prospect of a solitary Christmas and New Year. But refusing to give way to gloom, she had decorated her tiny flat with holly and mistletoe, made mince pies, and stocked up with library books and CDs.

Christmas Eve she had gone to hear a carol concert, and Christmas morning she had walked in the frosty park and fed the ducks.

New Year’s Eve loomed, empty and lonely. She bought a cheap bottle of wine to see the new year in and, unused to drinking, got a little tipsy. Only then, thinking how lovely it would have been if Dave had been there, had she shed a tear.

He had returned on January the second, as promised, bringing her back a few tacky souvenirs. ‘Just to prove I’ve been thinking about you.’

Somehow the assurance had rung hollow…

Becoming suddenly aware that Robert Carrington was waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t even heard, Eleanor pulled herself back from the past and stammered, ‘I-I’m sorry?’

‘I asked if you had any regrets about going into business?’

‘No. None at all.’

Though if they didn’t get this job, it looked as if they wouldn’t be in business much longer.

Apparently reading her thoughts, he asked, ‘What are your future prospects?’

Knowing instinctively that it was make or break, she said carefully, ‘They should be good. Dave’s brilliant at what he does, and we’re both prepared to put our hearts and souls into it, but to succeed we’ll need to get the work.’

‘How secure are you financially?’

Her lips tightening, she said, ‘I don’t believe you have any right to ask that.’

His green-gold eyes pinned her. ‘Before I entrust any work to you I’ve a right to know what your chances are of going bust on me. A lot of small firms are disappearing down the drain at the moment.’

‘I hope we won’t be one of them.’ It was the best she could do, and she held her breath and waited.

Apparently it was good enough. He let that go and smoothly changed tack. ‘When are you due to begin your next job?’

She started to tell him it had been put on hold, as instructed, then, knowing full well he wouldn’t believe a word of it, she admitted bleakly, ‘At the moment we have no next job.’

‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘So it rather depends on me?’ His voice held satisfaction, and as he spoke he smiled a little.

Eleanor knew then, without the slightest doubt, that he had no intention of giving them his work. Like a wolf picking up the scent of prey, he had picked up just how desperate she was, and had been stringing her along.

She jumped to her feet abruptly. ‘Well now you’ve had your fun perhaps you won’t mind if—’

‘Sit down,’ he ordered. Adding, ‘Please,’ almost as an afterthought.

There was so much quiet authority in his voice, that she found herself obeying.

‘Tell me, what makes you think I’ve just been amusing myself?’

She refused to back down. ‘Well, you have, haven’t you? It’s obvious.’

Tawny eyes gleaming, he asked, ‘Would it alter your opinion if I offered you the job?’

‘It wouldn’t alter my opinion, but it would make the last half-hour or so worth it.’

He laughed, and she noticed that his mouth and teeth were just perfect.

‘I’m glad to see you have spirit. I thought you might have had it all knocked out of you.’

Startled, she asked, ‘What made you think that?’

‘Instinct mainly. I have a feeling that life hasn’t been too kind.’

The last thing she wanted was Robert Carrington’s pity. ‘It’s been kinder to me than it has to a lot of people,’ she informed him briskly. ‘I’ve never been ill-treated or gone hungry. I’m healthy and able to work. I’ve a place of my own and someone who—’ Unable to say the words, she stopped speaking abruptly.

‘Someone who loves you?’ he hazarded. ‘In that case you’re one up on me.’

Reaching across the desk, he lifted her left hand and examined the ring. ‘Am I right in thinking it’s Benson you’re going to marry?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long have you been engaged?’

‘Eight months.’

He looked surprised. ‘And you’re not living together.’ It was a statement not a question.

Suddenly feeling like some kind of misfit in this modern world, she objected stiffly, ‘I’m not sure how you reached that conclusion.’

Ironically, he told her, ‘When you were listing your blessings, you said, “I’ve got a place of my own”…’

She bit her lip.

‘So why are you playing hard to get? Afraid Benson will change his mind about marrying you if you give him your all?’

Before she could think of any answer, he went on, ‘No wonder the poor devil’s so edgy if you’re keeping him waiting.’

‘I’m not keeping him waiting,’ she denied sharply. ‘And he’s not edgy…’ But, even as she spoke, she knew he was, and had been for some weeks.

Though it could hardly have been for the reason suggested. Perhaps Dave had seen more clearly than she had what was facing them financially…

‘If you’re not keeping him waiting, why aren’t you living together?’ Robert Carrington pursued relentlessly. ‘You know what they say about two being able to live as cheaply as one…’

‘I really don’t see that it’s any of your business. And you know what they say about curiosity killing the cat…’

‘Touché. But I’m afraid we’ve strayed from the point again.’

Infuriated by his calm effrontery, and the way he had led her by the nose, she said through clenched teeth, ‘You mean you’ve strayed from the point.’

‘Aha!’ he exclaimed softly, ‘now you’re really starting to hold your own and answer me back. Perhaps you’ve decided you don’t want the job after all?’

Hotly, she said, ‘If I have to jump through hoops to get it, the answer’s no, I don’t want it. You can keep your job.’

He clicked his tongue against his teeth reprovingly. ‘Now how do you think Benson will feel about that?’

Eleanor’s face grew still and stiff with despair. Why had she allowed this man to bait and torment her until she was rattled enough to throw away the job they needed so badly.

Dave would never forgive her. Never.

‘Feel about what?’

Startled, she looked up to find he was standing in the office doorway.

‘Did your appointment go well?’ Robert Carrington enquired sardonically.

Dave, who was no fool, merely said, ‘Very well, thanks. But you were asking how I’d feel about something?’

With a spurious air of confidence he strolled round the desk and, watched by the other man, took the chair Eleanor had vacated for him.

After giving Dave time to get seated, and her time to sweat a little—she felt sure—Robert Carrington said, ‘Yes…As you’re aware, with this job, one of the main stumbling blocks was the length of time it would take to travel between London and Little Meldon each day. Well, that problem has been partially solved…’

As she waited tensely, wondering what he was up to, his eyes caught and held hers. An unmistakable challenge in their tawny depths, he continued smoothly, ‘Miss Smith has agreed that she would be quite willing to live at my home, Greyladies Manor, while the work is in progress…’

His words brought a shock of surprise and, mentally reeling, she wondered why he had lied.