Past Passion

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alan coming out of his office. Evie beamed enthusiastically at Matthew Hunt, who gave her a surprisingly warm smile.

A sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced before seemed to pierce right through Nicola. It was like being stabbed, and she almost gasped out loud with the shock of it. To her disbelief she realised that the obstruction clogging her throat felt like a hard ball of tears... Tears, when she hadn’t cried since—since she was eighteen years old... Evie’s age. But at Evie’s age she hadn’t had one tenth of her confidence, her belief in herself as a woman...a person, even.

She turned away, blinking rapidly, clenching her hands and gritting her teeth as she willed herself to control her stupid reaction.

Tears because a man treated her with coolness and uninterest while smiling warmly and appreciatively on Evie... Why, for heaven’s sake? Especially when the man in question was this man. Hadn’t she learnt anything from the past? Hadn’t all these years of living with the burden of her own guilt taught her anything—anything at all?

‘It’s almost ten o’clock. I believe we have a meeting to attend... I want to keep it as short as possible. There’s a good deal of work to be done, and I’ve got a meeting in the City this afternoon...’

Silently Nicola walked towards the door. Her legs felt horribly weak, her head as though it were stuffed with cotton wool. As she reached the door, Matthew Hunt opened it for her. She made to walk past him, her body tensing, the fine hairs on her skin standing up on end as she drew closer to him. He was watching her closely. She could feel tiny beads of perspiration breaking out on her skin, but she refused to give in to the dangerous urge to turn her head and look back at him just to make sure that she was right that he hadn’t realised... recognised... And then mercifully she was through the door, with Evie behind her, Evie’s high heels clattering on the wooden floor.

All through the meeting she found it impossible to concentrate on what was going on.

Matthew Hunt, their new boss!

Even now she could hardly take it in. Matthew Hunt, their new boss, was the same man who...

‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Evie pressed her. ‘You still look dreadfully pale.’

‘I’m fine,’ Nicola lied hollowly. ‘Just fine...’

* * *

SHE SAID MUCH the same thing to her mother later in the day when she returned home from work and was asked how her first meeting with her new boss had gone.

It wasn’t true, of course. All day she had been desperately conscious of the fact that Matthew Hunt was watching her, assessing her. She felt anything but fine. She suspected, from the questions he had subjected her to during the day, that he believed she had taken far too much of the day-to-day running of the firm on to her own shoulders, and he had given her the impression that under his control the company would be very, very differently run.

She could have explained to him that it had not been any desire for self-glorification or self-importance that had motivated her; that she had acted simply out of compassion and concern—but pride had kept her silent. Pride and a certain bitter stubbornness... He had misjudged her once before, and now he was doing the same thing again, and it made not one bit of difference that on both occasions, for different reasons, she was really the one who had been responsible for his misconceptions.

A new manager would be appointed to take over the running of the company by the end of the week, he had told her; until then, Alan would remain in charge in an advisory capacity.

Matthew had only stayed a handful of hours but, by the time he had left, Nicola had felt as wrung out and exhausted as though she had worked intensively and without sleep for a full week.

There was no doubt that professionally he was both dynamic and very, very well-informed. She could understand after listening to him just why he was so successful, but his success, his dynamism, weren’t the root cause of her tension.

And she could hardly tell her mother just what it was about him that disturbed her so much.

‘Oh, by the way, Gordon rang. He said to tell you that he had to cancel tonight. Apparently his mother isn’t feeling too well.’

Heroically her mother managed to keep her voice light and uncritical, but Nicola already knew her parents’ opinion of Gordon and her relationship with him. They had been going to play tennis this evening, but she was not sorry their date was cancelled.

‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ she told her mother wanly. ‘I feel rather tired.’

‘A good long walk would do you more good than an early night... Too much sleep can cause depression,’ her mother told her firmly.

Nicola managed a weak smile. Her mother was always forthright and open in her comments—unlike Gordon’s mother, who was exactly the opposite.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ she agreed.

‘I am, and what’s more you can take that fat, lazy dog with you,’ she told Nicola.

Both of them looked at the placid labrador warming herself in front of the Aga.

Nicola laughed again.

‘I see. It’s not me who needs the walk, it’s Honey...’

‘It will do you both good,’ her mother reiterated firmly.

* * *

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, leaning on a gate studying the pastoral view in front of her, Nicola reflected that, while physically the walk might have done her good, mentally... She glanced down to where Honey was lying at her feet.

Until today she had thought she had put it all behind her; that the past was the past and that she was safe from it. Now she knew she was wrong.

It had been at her own insistence that she had left home to work in the city and to share a flat with three other girls from college. Her parents had thought her too young, but had given way when she’d pointed out that at eighteen she was legally an adult.

She had found a job with a firm of City architects; she had been the youngest girl there. She had felt shy and out of place with the other girls, who were all in their twenties and who to her seemed so sophisticated and worldly... And then she had met Jonathon.

Jonathon was the son of the firm’s head partner. He was being groomed to take over his father’s position. He was twenty-six years old, tall, fair-haired, all smooth charm. She had been dazzled by him...awed and bemused, and of course she had fallen in love.

Naïvely she had believed he had fallen in love too, and then had come the fateful day she had overheard the conversation which had changed the whole course of her life.

Nicola closed her eyes and gave a deep shudder.

In front of her the peaceful view had faded, and once again she was standing in the small, dusty stationery-room at Mathieson and Hendry.

CHAPTER TWO

‘OF COURSE I’m not interested in her, sweetheart... How can you even think it?’

Nicola froze. She had recognised Jonathon’s voice instantly, and the shock of hearing him speaking to someone else in that soft, caressing voice she thought he kept specially for her, the shock of hearing him addressing someone else as ‘sweetheart’, held her rigid where she was, the copy paper the head of the typing pool had sent her to get clasped tensely in her arms as she stood rooted to the spot.

Jonathon was standing in the corridor, just outside the stationery-room. Obviously he had no idea she was in here, but Susan Hodges knew... She must have known because she had been there when Mrs Ellis told Nicola to come and get the copy paper.

‘Well, you’ve been taking her out,’ she heard Susan saying now.

‘Only because you weren’t available, my sweet. Oh, come on, honestly now. Can you really imagine that I’d be interested in someone as sexless and boring as that dull little prude? Heavens, she doesn’t even know how to kiss properly... Not like you!’

Nicola heard the sound of laughter, followed by the unmistakable sound of two people kissing.

She felt both sick and angry at the same time, so desperately unhappy that she had to clench her fists to stop herself from crying, and so furiously angry both with Jonathon and with herself that if she had had to confront him right now she would probably have hit him.

How stupid she had been to believe that Jonathon actually liked her, respected her, loved her, when in reality he and Susan Hodges... Susan Hodges, the office bimbo, the pretty, pouting blonde who always wore her clothes just that little bit too tight, who always seemed to giggle just that little bit too loudly and for too long.

If anyone had told her that Jonathon was involved with Susan she would have denied it instantly and immediately, claiming that Susan simply wasn’t Jonathon’s type.

How naïve she had been.