A Rage to Live (26 page)

‘You are if you keep me here one more minute.’

He smiled at her and leaned close to whisper, ‘You’ve got great legs. Will you go out to dinner with me tonight? Please don’t say no. This has nothing to do with architecture, just you and me.’ Straightening up he said, not caring about listening ears, ‘Thanks, you’ve solved my problem.’

‘Problem?’

‘Getting me out of this hell hole. I’m off tomorrow morning. And many congratulations, it is a wonderful design solution.’

‘They’ll toss it out, you know.’

‘Who will toss what out?’

Cressida was already at work lifting the masking tape off the corners
of her drawings. ‘These are concepts, far from a finished product. They will need feasibility studies. That’s what they’ll say.’

‘You don’t know how wrong you are. They’ll grab it and you’ll be working two floors up in a matter of hours.’ With that he walked away and on to the moving staircase which he now took two steps at a time, then three, passing the other riders.

He burst into the conference room and went directly to Owen Merrick. The two men walked to the window and it was there that Carlos discussed with Owen what he had seen. They were still standing there, Carlos still enthusing, when the door opened. He liked her more for the way she entered the room, all hesitation gone, quiet and yet with a certain authority.

The men rose from their chairs, a look of surprise on their faces. Most of them didn’t know her, had never even seen her. ‘I think over here, Cressida. I hear you have something interesting for us?’ Owen Merrick prompted.

‘I hope so,’ she said.

She walked the length of the table to stand between Owen and Carlos. Cressida. He liked her name. She began to fascinate him. Carlos offered her a seat. She declined, and after unrolling her drawings and neatly placing the stack of yellow sheets of tracing paper with their sketches on the table, she proceeded. ‘Señor Arriva has shown some interest in these.’

‘Not interest, gentlemen, the lady is being very modest. Señor Arriva believes she has found the missing link to this project and is delighted with what he has seen.’

There did not appear to be the relief on everyone’s face that Carlos expected. Owen covered up well. He was quick to suggest, ‘Why don’t you talk your concept through with us, Cressida? Have a seat.’

‘No. I think I’ll stand.’

She gave her pitch and Carlos was impressed. Ten minutes into it, so were the other men. Forty minutes later, Owen Merrick, Perry Wendell and Mark Corey, the senior partners of the firm, standing on the opposite side of the table from her, had taken over the drawing and were talking among themselves. The structural engineers were called in. Carlos, who had been walking restlessly to and from the table, walked back from the window to stand next to Cressida.

He whispered, ‘You are a sensation.’ She turned to face him and he saw her real smile for the first time, and found her suddenly seductively attractive. ‘Tell me, do you never wear knickers?’

The men in the room were too distracted with her drawings and deep in discussion to have any interest in what Cressida and Carlos might be saying. It was a strange sensation for her, feeling alone and
very sexy in a room full of men, when all she should be feeling was excitement that her work had enough merit to get her, after years of being with the firm, some recognition and into the boardroom.

She whispered back, ‘Never. I’m a sexual opportunist created by a man as sensuous and as bad as I think you must be.’ Then she turned on her heel and gave all her attention to the discussion.

How amusing, thought Carlos, and stepped in behind her, delighted by her teasing. Though he was not quite sure it was mere teasing. Was she out to seduce him? Standing half hidden by a highback chair and Cressida, he slipped his hand under the short skirt that lay smoothly over her narrow hips and flared alluringly. He warned her, ‘Not a move, not a sign of any kind to draw attention to us. Here is your opportunity to find out just how bad I can be, especially when provoked.’

His hand caressed her bottom. She tensed. With surprise? Delight? He waited for some indication from her that he
was
what she wanted. She felt good in his hand, and she was indeed naked. Yet again she surprised him. As discreetly as possible, as bold as hell itself, she backed closer into his body rather than resisting him. Then she raised her bottom ever so slightly and leaned forward on the balls of her feet, her legs moving apart that fraction more he needed.

He slipped his hand further under, delighting in her sensuous orbs, and caressed that crease where the thighs end and the buttocks begin their curve. Subtly, almost imperceptibly, she moved her bottom, rubbing herself against his hand. She was sending him sensual messages. He liked that. They spurred him on. With searching fingers he found the outer lips of her cunt and caressed her there, discovered the inner, silky soft lips. He was enchanted, bold and foolhardy, but he didn’t care. The excitement and pleasure of feeling her in his hand, of knowing he was exciting lust in her, the danger of discovery. Just the sort of thing he revelled in.

Cressida to all intents and purpose was paying full attention to her fellow architects. She contributed the odd word, answered the occasional question directed at her, but all the time he sensed that her real interest was in him, his caresses and sex. She was slow and cautious as she turned to look at him, clearly enjoying his caressing hand that moved with her until it came to rest on her mound. He could see it in the eyes of a woman. It was there in her eyes. Hunger, lust, desire. ‘I think I would like to sit down,’ she said, obviously excited by him and his outrageous behaviour.

‘Of course,’ he told her, and removed his hand, careful that no one in the room could see what he was doing. He pulled the chair out for her.

‘That was cruel,’ she whispered as she reached across him to take a pad and a pencil placed on the desk in front of him. ‘But nice.’

He laughed and told her, ‘I don’t intend to let you out of my sight. You’re a treasure.’

Their conversation was broken into by Owen. ‘It has possibilities. Definite possibilities we will have to look into, Carlos.’

‘Too indefinite. Don’t kid an old kidder, Owen. You’re not talking to a layman here, remember? I want it. It is possible and good, possibly great, and we all know it. What is a talent like this doing down in the dungeons? Don’t you talk to the minions in this firm?’

Owen Merrick looked embarrassed, as did his partners and associates.

‘Sorry, Owen, I know I am out of line but you know me – I hate New York in the summer, and this could have been solved without my coming here had these designs been discovered. Or, for that matter, offered to the man in charge. Never mind all that now. You put your team to work. I’m putting a yes to the job as long as you incorporate the changes I have seen in Miss …’ He hesitated, and someone jumped in to introduce them. Introductions having been made, he continued, ‘Miss Cressida Vine’s scheme.’ He turned to look at her. ‘I assume it’s Miss?’

‘Yes,’ Owen answered for her.

‘Owen, I would like Miss Vine to fly out with me to Buenos Aires in the morning. I want her to see the site. And for you to get an office going there as soon as possible. We’ll give you room in one of our buildings. We’ll call you from Buenos Aires if Miss Vine needs any assistance that my office cannot render. I want to begin clearing the site before the week is out. I’m really pleased. Very pleased, Owen.’

He put out his hand. The two men shook. A deal had been struck. The other partners walked round the table and shook hands with Carlos as well. Euphoria set in. Like a wave, it rolled over everyone in the conference room. Jubilation. They had won the contract. The men in that room knew their client well. Another piece of monumental world-class architecture would enter the art history books. There would be no skimping, no interference, that was not an aesthetic advantage to the building. Owen had the good grace to tell Cressida, ‘A terrific piece of work, Cressida. You have won us the day.’ He shook her hand and gave her a hug. ‘I know this is incredibly short notice but can you leave with Señor Arriva tomorrow? We would all be grateful. How grateful we’ll talk about on your return.’

Without waiting for an answer, he turned towards his associates and declared, ‘I think champagne is in order.’

‘Not for us,’ said Carlos, slipping an arm through Cressida’s. ‘I’m taking the lady of the hour to lunch.’

‘Not a long lunch, Carlos. I know you.
Not a long lunch
. We need to go over things with Cressida today if you expect her to go on that reconnaissance with you tomorrow.’

‘I promise not a long lunch.’

Carlos took Cressida from the boardroom of Owen Merrick, Wendell and Corey to the Sherry Netherlands and his suite.

‘I won’t be needing you, Eduardo. Why don’t you go for a walk in the park for a few hours?’ he told his man as he led Cressida into the drawing-room.

‘You promised me lunch,’ she said, her tone plaintive.

‘So I did.’ Carlos called Eduardo back into the room. ‘Can you arrange smoked salmon sandwiches, a bottle of chilled champagne, some
petit fours
, black coffee. Oh, and we’ll be going home to Buenos Aires on the first plane out tomorrow. Eduardo, I don’t believe you have been introduced to my new friend? She is called Miss Vine. Miss Cressida Vine and she will be coming with us.’

Eduardo acknowledged the introduction as if he had never seen Cressida before, and left the room. Carlos kept up the pretence of Cressida’s having never been in the suite. That endeared him to her. He had promised he would never mention their ever having met if in fact they ever came across each other again. As extraordinary as it was, now it had happened, he was keeping his word. ‘This is the drawing – room. Pretty, isn’t it? Very New York, chic, nineteen-forties.’

‘Yes,’ she answered. Cressida too had decided to play the game. In fact she rather appreciated it.

‘Would you like to see the bedroom? That’s pretty too.’ He did not wait for an answer but took Cressida by the hand and together they walked into the bedroom. ‘Well, what do you think? Would you find it comfortable here? A glass of champagne? Yes, I’ll go get us a glass of lovely cool wine. Lunch in bed? Does that appeal?

Cressida walked up to Carlos and slid her fingers under the narrow lapels of his putty-coloured linen jacket. She never took her gaze from his eyes. Slowly, seductively, she slid the jacket off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. ‘Take your clothes off, Carlos Marias Arriva. Now!’ she told him as she loosened his tie.

Cressida came again and again. They were exquisite, powerful orgasms. Carlos set her sexually free as she had not been since those four days with Kane Chandler ten years before. None of the few men she had had since, not even Tommy, had ever been able to generate in her the sexual excitement she was experiencing with Carlos from the instant he had so boldly touched her in the boardroom of the firm.

There had been orgasms and good lustful times through the years but nothing to come near to the sexual fire that burned in her now for
Carlos. It was by no means one-sided. Her sexual hunger and outrageous lust for him was to ignite his own sexual fires. She made love to him that was as erotic and passionate as hell. She knew how to give him sexual pleasure with a kind of adoration for every act, a thirst for his orgasms, he had not expected.

Those few hours in the suite at the Sherry Netherlands were to be the foundation of a sexual life for them that neither ever tired of. Within days they came to terms with being besotted with each other.

Cressida liked Buenos Aires but loved Carlos’s ranch and the pampas even more. In the city they examined in detail the architectural site, she met his friends, she learned to tango, and they fell in love. In the country, they rode with the gauchos across the pampas. At night around an open fire, where a whole calf was roasting, he played the guitar and sang romantic Spanish folk songs with his men. He played classical guitar, Rodrigos and Bach, and she saw tears in the eyes of the cowboys of the pampas. And in their tent pitched far from the men sleeping rough round the fires, they made love, dwelt in an erotic landscape they created for themselves until sun up when they fell into the sleep of the contented, the chosen. Happy lovers.

The gauchos, in their wide trousers and leather waistcoats, colourful shirts and polished boots and silver spurs, were romantic figures of the past, living and working in the present. And the handsome and exciting Carlos, out there with them, was in his element. He moved from being the international aristocrat to one of the guys, inhabiting the saddle with ease. He was thrilling to know, as Cressida discovered every day that she was with him.

He held nothing back from her, wanting her to know that he could be kind, loving, and infinitely ruthless. A man no woman could ever hold. She understood that after a few weeks with him and respected that that was what he wanted in life, to be free, a man unto himself. When
he
wanted to be, unto women. Cressida and Carlos knew within a few days that they would be together always, in lust, in love, without commitment. They would share each other’s lives. And he was the man who made her understand that she was not a woman herself to be easily held. That she would always be the one to choose her lifemate, if there was ever to be one, and it was damned well all right if she chose never to choose one.

Having learned that, Cressida found a new kind of release. The pressure of
having
to marry,
having
to have children, was off for life. It had been Carlos who had taught her that she could fulfil herself in many other ways. She could be another kind of woman.

Carlos recognised in her that same rage to live as his own, that same
existentialist philosophy of life that he had. With one difference: she had a flaw, a weakness, that had allowed her, possibly unknowingly, to be easy to victimise. A woman looking for love could be that sort of woman. A woman not looking for success and power in her work, that too could make her prey. But he saw her as too bright, too rich in character, and believed that maybe even that flaw had enhanced her into becoming the very whole and special person she was.