Stranger From The Past

It didn’t take her long to change and redo her hair, and within the hour she was parking her car outside the office she and Belinda rented in the centre of the town.

‘Sorry about the delay,’ she apologised to Meg as she hurried in.

‘No problem,’ the other girl assured her. ‘Oh, and Belinda rang in to say that Tom’s fine, and that she’ll be back in tomorrow if you want to take your day off then. I’ve been through her diary for you. She’s got a lunch booked for today with Talbot Engineering. Ray Lewis from Talbot Engineering.’

Sybilla’s heart sank. Ray Lewis was a very good client, but as a man…From the moment they had met he had made it plain to her that he wanted more than a business relationship with her, but he was a married man, and even if he hadn’t been he was not the type to appeal to her. She realised that his personal good looks and smooth charm might have deceived another woman, but to her they were simply a mask he used to conceal his insincerity and sexual greed.

She had met his wife and had instantly felt sorry for her. It was plain that she adored her husband, and equally plain that she was terrified of losing him, as she most probably would do, Sybilla thought cynically.

Ray Lewis was a rich and successful man, and he was the kind of man to whom loyalty…love…the promises he had made in marriage meant nothing. Sooner or later he would start looking around for a woman he could show off…the kind of woman a man of his financial success ought to have as a wife. Until then, no doubt, he would content himself with a series of unimportant little affairs…but one day…

Sybilla’s mouth curled in disgust. She had made it as plain to him as she knew how that the only relationship she was interested in having with him was limited strictly to business, but he had refused to take the hint, and because of this she and Belinda had agreed that he would become Belinda’s client.

Socially it wasn’t always possible for her to avoid him, but she had begun to hope that he had at last taken the hint. The last thing she wanted to do was to have lunch with him, but Meg was saying quickly, ‘He’s thinking of expanding the company, and he wants us to provide him with extra part-time staff while he gets things off the ground. I know that when he made the appointment he told Belinda that this was the only day he had available as he was involved in negotiations with his bank for the rest of the week.’

It was the kind of business they just could not afford to turn down. She had, Sybilla acknowledged, no real option other than to take Belinda’s place over lunch.

The morning was already virtually gone, and as soon as she had gone through the post it was time for her to leave for her lunch appointment.

Belinda had arranged to meet Ray Lewis at a very popular and very expensive restaurant some miles outside the town. It was the kind of place that was favoured by the well-heeled business fraternity during the day, and the local ‘in’ crowd at night.

Privately Sybilla found the atmosphere rather oppressive and rich; she preferred both a less rarefied atmosphere and a plainer diet, but it was typical of the kind of place Ray Lewis would choose…the kind of place designed to impress.

She had changed into a smart navy suit and a fresh silk shirt. Outside it was still raining but this time she was prepared. Her navy pumps and tights wouldn’t show the rainspots, and she was armed with her umbrella just in case she had difficulty in parking outside the restaurant.

‘I’ve no idea what time I’ll be back, although I’ll try to keep it as short as possible,’ she promised Meg.

The other girl laughed and suggested mischievously, ‘I could, if you like, telephone you at the restaurant.’

Sybilla groaned. ‘No…don’t you dare. It’s the kind of place where they bring the phone to the table. Horrendous.’

She was a few minutes later arriving at the restaurant than she had planned. The bar was full, but she could see Ray Lewis. He was standing with a group of people and had his back to her.

As she approached him he turned round and, on seeing her, exclaimed loudly, ‘Sybilla!’

And then, before she could stop him, he had taken her in his arms and was kissing her on the mouth.

As she froze with anger and rejection he whispered in her ear, ‘I knew that sooner or later you’d start to see things my way. You and I—’

‘Belinda isn’t available. It was too late to cancel and so I’m taking her place,’ Sybilla told him curtly. She couldn’t create a scene here in this crowded bar, however much she deplored Ray’s behaviour. Nor could she take the risk of publicly humiliating him, much as she would have liked to do so, for his wife’s sake if not for her own.

As she tried to manoeuvre herself away from him he held on to her, taking a very obvious delight in refusing to let her go.

She could feel both her temper and her embarrassment increasing, but refused to allow him to see it, instead saying coolly, ‘I suggest you let me go, Ray. We’re being watched, and I don’t think you’d want your wife…’

She didn’t have to continue. He was already releasing her and stepping back from her. He really was a most despicable man, she reflected, refusing to give in to the craven impulse to look quickly around the bar to see who might have witnessed his unpleasant behaviour. She could only hope that none of their other clients had seen it.

‘If I’d known I was going to have the pleasure of your company I’d have arranged to take you out to dinner. Somewhere very private and very discreet, if you take my meaning.’

Sybilla most certainly did. She made no attempt to hide her revulsion from him as she told him curtly, ‘This is a business lunch, Mr Lewis, nothing more.’

‘Hey, come on, what’s with the “Mr Lewis”? And as for all that crap about business…you and I both know that potentially we’ve got a lot more than business going for us. I like you, Sybilla. I like you one hell of a lot. You’re a very desirable woman. A very successful woman. Some men might find that threatening, but not me. In fact…’ He was reaching out towards her again, and instinctively she stepped backwards, tensing as she bumped into someone.

As she turned her head to apologise to them she heard Ray adding sickeningly, ‘I find it a turn on. I find you a turn on.’

And she knew that the person standing behind her had heard him as well.

Trying not to let either her embarrassment or her anger show, she forced a polite smile to her lips and turned round properly to apologise. And then her face froze as she saw that the man she had bumped into was Gareth Seymour.

Her apology died in her throat. The look he was giving her was contemptuously disdainful, the way he withdrew from any further physical contact with her bringing a hot wash of colour to sting her face.

This was the last person she would have wanted to witness Ray’s unwanted advances towards her. Twice in one day now she had been humiliated in front of Gareth; twice she had been made to feel a fool in front of him.

At her side, Ray was asking her what she wanted to drink. Automatically she told him mineral water, unable to drag her eyes away from Gareth’s face and the cold contempt so plainly portrayed there.

‘Oh, come on. You can have something more exciting than that,’ Ray was pressing her.

She shook her head. She rarely touched alcohol and never when she was involved both in business discussions and driving, but Ray was one of those men who seemed to think it clever to insist on overruling anyone who refused a drink, and she suspected that in the end she would be forced to give in and let him buy her a drink she didn’t want and had no intention of consuming.

‘I know this is supposed to be a business lunch, but there’s no law that says we can’t combine business with pleasure, and you know already how much I’d like to give you pleasure,’ Ray was saying suggestively and far too loudly. Certainly loudly enough for Gareth to have heard him, to judge from the look of distaste that crossed his face.

As she started to turn away from him he said curtly to her, ‘The owner of the shaving-foam, presumably. I can’t say I’m impressed by your choice of…friends these days, Sybilla.’

It was outrageous, unforgivable, and totally and completely uncalled for that he should make such a comment to her. They hadn’t seen one another for ten years; they were virtually strangers to one another, and he had no right, absolutely no right at all to pass criticism on her regarding matters about which he was completely uninformed and completely wrong!

She was halfway to opening her mouth to tell him so when she realised what she was doing. Quarrelling with Gareth, and in public too, was the last thing she needed. Far better to treat his unfounded and ill-judged condemnation of her with the contempt he seemed to think she deserved.

Even so, as she turned away from him she couldn’t resist saying under her breath, ‘Fortunate for me, then, isn’t it, that your opinion of me…or my friends doesn’t rate very highly in my personal scale of life’s vital statistics?’ And then, as she caught sight of the woman she had seen with him earlier in the day coming towards them, she added for good measure, ‘As it happens, I wasn’t too impressed with your friend either. Scarlet nail-polish at nine o’clock in the morning is rather overdoing things a little, isn’t it?’

With that she turned back to Ray and said quickly, ‘I’m rather hungry and short of time. Do you mind if we go straight into the restaurant?’

Before he could object she started to walk towards the restaurant, praying that Ray would follow her.

Of all the people to have run into. And why, oh, why had she allowed herself to be baited into that extraordinary and totally out-of-character bitchiness about his woman friend? It had been completely unnecessary…completely over the top. The smart thing, the sensible thing to do would have been to quietly ignore his gibe and just walk away from him. Instead of which she had had not just to go running headlong into trouble, but to actually verbally invite it. Even in the white heat of her resentment and anger she had been able to see that Gareth hadn’t been too pleased by her attack on his woman friend, and who in his shoes could blame him?

She remembered how overawed and diminished she had felt by the girls he used to bring home, how young and vulnerable she had felt in comparison, and wondered a little grimly if it had been those old memories, memories she ought to have rooted out and destroyed long, long ago, which had been responsible for today’s outburst.

Whatever the cause, it was pointless regretting it now. All she could do was to hope that she and Gareth did not come into contact with one another again.

With a bit of luck they shouldn’t do so. He, after all, couldn’t be staying around for very long. He would doubtless arrange for Thomas’s business to be put up for sale or perhaps even closed down, and he would then return to America, and she doubted that anyone in the town would ever see him again. Over the last few years it had been only his love for his grandfather that had brought him back, and now that Thomas was dead…

Despite the fact that Gareth had refused to join the family business, had wanted to make his own way in life, he and Thomas had always remained close. Always after his visits Thomas was full of what he had done…what he had achieved. Sybilla had nerved herself to listen to Thomas singing his praises because she knew how much he meant to the older man.

After Gareth’s parents had been killed in an accident Thomas had brought him up, and there was a very, very strong bond between them.

Once, na?vely, she had asked Thomas if he had not been upset by Gareth’s decision to branch out on his own, but wisely Thomas had told her that Gareth must have the right to define and shape his own life, and that to try and keep him within the confines of their small town when he wanted to be elsewhere would be to destroy the bonds between them and would eventually destroy their relationship completely.

She hadn’t understood that then, at seventeen, but she did now. She had already heard from those who had been there how grim-faced Gareth had been at the funeral, and how obvious it had been to the onlookers that he was deeply upset by the loss of his grandfather, even though he had kept his emotions under control.