Trust Too Much

Fee’s anger subsided and she looked at him hopefully, aware that Rhodes Properties’ reputation was excellent, but then rare pride stirred.

‘I don’t need you and Charles to arrange my life for me, thank you very much, Simon,’ she asserted caustically. ‘I’m quite capable of finding a job for myself, and, considering how scathing you’ve been about other people’s failure to realise that I’m not a helpless baby any more, I’d have expected you to tell him to go to hell when he asked you.’

The smile Simon gave her was biting. ‘Oh, definitely not a helpless baby. A spitting cat is more like it, and I do mean the wild kind. Charles didn’t exactly ask me—’

‘No, but I bet he hinted like mad and you felt obliged to come up with something because he’s a friend and you men have this stupid buddy-code about helping each other out,’ she accused tempestuously. ‘I don’t mind Charles interfering so much, because he’s family, but I don’t really even know you except as his friend, so don’t try to make a charity of me. I won’t accept it.’

Simon was still smiling at her, derisively now, but something flickering at the back of his eyes seemed to suggest that she had either angered or offended him.

‘No, you don’t really know me at all, Fee, if you can imagine I’d make you my good deed for the day,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘I’ve no objection to doing Charles a favour, but not if it’s at the expense of anything to do with Rhodes Properties. Assuming you’re interested in the position, I’ll only appoint you if you’re qualified for it. Right now, I have to say I have my doubts, if you’re stupid enough to believe anything else.’

Fee had always been flexible, seeing no point in clinging obstinately to an idea once it was proved to have no foundation, but something in Simon’s attitude was angering her, and her apology carried a distinct trace of acid.

‘Sorry! I was forgetting that first and foremost you’re a hard-headed businessman. Blame it on the way people talk about you. Everyone is so riveted by the social side of your life. But I should have remembered that Rhodes Properties is the one thing you truly take seriously—far more seriously than you do your famous love life.’

Simon shrugged dismissively. ‘Since, properly administered and maintained, property not only increases in value but is the one thing that actually lasts. Love doesn’t.’

Irrationally, since she had already known he believed something of the sort, it intensified her anger.

‘It might, properly cared for…It does, if people work at it, I’m sure.’

‘Who has got that much emotional energy?’ Simon retorted cynically. ‘I haven’t. You haven’t either, obviously, or you’d still be in Australia with Sheldon. I’m assuming you were the lazy one, given the particular nature of your very public break-up.’

‘Love didn’t come into that,’ Fee snapped, for once mercifully undistressed by the reference, too fascinated by his attitude and driven by some compulsion to try and understand it. ‘I suppose you’re so cynical because you’ve never seen anyone working at a relationship. You called my family life a horror story and my family odd, but you had all those step-parents and so-called aunts and uncles coming and going—’

Simon’s laughter stopped her. It was genuinely amused, but there was something hard in his eyes, denial or rejection, lending them the brilliance of diamonds.

‘Forget it, Fee, I dealt with all that years ago—not that it required much in the way of effort. There were no villains or victims, just a lot of nice, normal people, all coming and going, as you’ve mentioned. I never expected anything else.’

‘So you were never disappointed,’ Fee taunted softly, furious at the way he made her feel so naively idealistic.

‘Don’t try to analyse me, darling,’ he advised her with idle indifference. ‘You’re sure to get it all wrong.’

‘Yes, I suppose you flatter yourself you’re a madly complex, superior being, whereas men are actually the simpler sex, as every woman knows,’ she claimed with a swift, blistering smile.

But she didn’t really believe there was anything simple about him, while Vance Sheldon had taught her that some men were devious and not to be trusted.

‘Oh, I’ve always thought of myself as fairly uncomplicated,’ Simon offered easily.

‘All right!’ Irritated by his lack of co-operation with her attempts to comprehend him, Fee gave it up since he so clearly didn’t want to be understood. ‘I accept it. You’re just a simple, single-minded businessman and Rhodes Properties is the only thing in the world that really means anything to you, the only lasting relationship you’ll ever have.’

‘Well, don’t sound so disapproving about it,’ he adjured her amusedly, but then he frowned. ‘At least I’m never bored by work.’

After a moment she decided he wasn’t implying anything personal, and she considered his words, which had allowed her a glimpse of the isolation that his intellect must impose. Rhodes Properties probably provided him with his only real intellectual stimulation, and somehow that struck her as sad, making her wonder if he was ever consciously lonely.

But the amused way in which he had brushed off all her attempts to understand him better deterred her from probing further. Maybe he enjoyed being misunderstood, or perhaps there was nothing there to understand. Hadn’t she always thought of him as superficial? So why this instinctive urge to look for hidden depths? He had given her no cause to believe any existed.

Suppressing the strange fancies that had prompted her, she ventured cautiously, ‘If you’re serious about having a job for me, I do have a testimonial.’

Miss Betancourt had insisted.

‘For what it’s worth, and my word is worth a lot, I’m going to give you a reference since Mr Sheldon is still refusing, and exercising your legal rights there is going to take time. I’ll make it clear that both he and I have found your work entirely satisfactory, and there’s no need to mention anything else, although I’m afraid anyone who has heard the story is bound to wonder; but it’s time you stopped blaming yourself so much. Your only fault was that you were too trusting. Finding yourself his only guest at the races should have made you suspicious; it’s what alerted the Press…But there’s no point in worrying about it now, and you can also stop worrying about the other people concerned. Mrs Sheldon isn’t nearly as shocked as you imagine, since she has never had many illusions about her husband.’

The pen Simon removed from the pocket of the lightweight jacket he had dropped on to another chair was a ball-point, but the most expensive in a range that had left left Fee wondering, when she had once seen an advertisement, what sort of person would spend such a fortune on something so utilitarian.

‘A Miss Sung-Li is head of Personnel. Ring her on Monday, but not first thing, because I’ll need to have a word with her, and if she thinks you’re qualified for the job she’ll make appointments for both of us to interview you.’

Fee regarded him levelly.

‘If you’re really not just being kind, because I’m Charles’s sister-in-law—’

‘I’m never kind,’ Simon interrupted distastefully, following it with a complicated smile.

‘No, you’re not,’ she conceded tartly, accepting that her assumption had been a stupid one, and jumping slightly as he handed her the card on which he had just scribbled the name and number she would need and their fingers brushed, Simon’s warm and hard. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever done a single altruistic action in your life.’

An amusedly reflective gleam appeared in his eyes.

‘Strangely enough, I used to flatter myself that I might have, once, and I’m not at all sure I won’t yet live to regret it, or else find it rebounding on me in some way.’ Then the thoughtful expression vanished as he paused, warm blue eyes glinting as they lingered on her face a moment before skimming her slender body and the length of her legs, pale because her fair skin couldn’t take much sun, but smooth and slim. ‘Why did you take up office work? You could have been a model. You’re not strictly beautiful, but then many models aren’t when you see what lies under the tricks they perform with make-up.’

‘And you’ve seen hundreds?’ Fee taunted.

‘Not so many really. I generally prefer small, curvy women myself.’

‘But not because they make you feel protective,’ she guessed acidly.

‘Hell, no,’ he confirmed, drawling slightly. ‘I like a woman who can take care of herself, stand up for herself, and the sassy little ones usually can.’

He would. Fee supposed that was partly why he had never appealed to her personally. She knew it wasn’t fashionable, but she dreamed of the sort of man who would take care of her while refraining from the sort of babying that people like Babs and Charles offered her—not that she couldn’t look after herself generally, of course, despite the self-doubt she had suffered since misreading Vance Sheldon’s intentions.

‘So you’re able to feel superior without having to be protective at the same time,’ she mocked.

‘Everyone is the same height in bed.’ Simon was dismissive. ‘Out of it, your height would have made you ideal for ramp work, especially now that that incredible grace has replaced your clumsiness, so how come you never considered modelling?’

‘Mainly because I don’t like a lot of people looking at me,’ she vouchsafed shortly.

‘Why not?’ His eyes were bright with interest.

‘I once had an unpleasant experience,’ she began pointedly, and saw his face harden.

‘You’ve had all the apology you’re getting, Fee, so don’t go on about it,’ he advised her ruthlessly, before smiling. ‘All the same it’s a pity…Nice legs too. You can wear shorts and miniskirts. Usually the women who do definitely shouldn’t…Here’s Babs.’

He stood up to go and help Babs who had appeared on the patio with a tray of drinks, leaving Fee blushing and confused. His manner had begun to perplex her, nowhere near as boredly indifferent, occasionally teasing and sometimes rude as it had been in her teens, for which she was grateful; but his odd, brief forays into the realm of what might loosely be termed flirtation were disconcerting, mainly because they were so inconsistent. She had to suppose that they arose out of mere habit, simply because he was such a chronic flirt, programmed to a certain automatic pattern of behaviour in female company, whether the women concerned interested him or not. He probably didn’t even realise he was doing it, and would be startled if she ever flirted back, she reflected wryly.

She glanced down at her denim shorts and pretty white cotton top and found confirmation of her suspicion; despite the air of sophistication she had managed to acquire over the years, but which she frequently tended to forget she possessed simply because she still felt so unsophisticated, she was sure she was devoid of the sort of glamour common to the women who attracted Simon.

Mercifully, her face had cooled by the time he and Babs arrived on the pool-deck, although Simon threw her an amused look as if he had discerned the trend of her recent thoughts. Fee prevented herself fidgeting self-consciously and managed to keep her expression composed, relieved when he seemed disinclined to make any further personal comments.

Charles arrived home from work a few minutes later and came out to join them, but Simon stood up to leave as soon as he had finished his drink.