Having It All (46 page)

This time it was Liz’s turn to smile. As it happened she had someone who would fit the bill perfectly. If only she could persuade Peter Glenning to consider not only a woman, but a
part-time one. And she was going to need every atom of skill she possessed to persuade him to do that. Suddenly she felt the adrenalin surge through her. She could do it. If she didn’t she
might as well kiss goodbye to WomanPower and start looking for somewhere else for Ginny to live.

But there was one more question she had to ask Nick Winters first. ‘Why are you telling me all this? Presumably it’s highly confidential?’

‘Indeed it is. Well, Mrs Ward, you could say there are two reasons. For one thing I find Peter Glenning a pompous arse who could learn a lot from a woman.’

‘And the other?’

‘The second reason’ – he paused and a slow, presumptuous smile lit up his face which made her breath come so fast she hoped he couldn’t hear it – ‘is that I
can’t think of anything more exciting than having you in my debt.’

Liz knew she should be furious. Nick Winters was behaving outrageously. But to her horror she realized she wasn’t furious. She was loving every moment. Trying to sound businesslike, she
stood up unsteadily and shook his hand.

‘Goodbye, Mrs Ward. I hope we’ll be seeing more of each other.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Winters.’ He held her hand for a fraction too long and she felt a sudden and devastating wave of desire. For the first time she looked directly into his eyes and smiled
slowly. What the hell if he used the same corny technique on every other woman in Sussex. ‘So do I.’

Just as Nick began opening the front door, a grey-haired man wearing a red cashmere cardigan over old sailing trousers and black espadrilles appeared from what was obviously the door to the
barn.

Nick turned to him and smiled. ‘Henry. Let me introduce you. This is Elizabeth Ward, for her sins, setting up in business in Lewes. Henry Carlisle, my business partner. Henry lives in the
Dower House. You’ll pass it on the way out.’

Liz looked at the older man with curiosity. This was the first mention of a business partner.

‘Henry does all the work –’ Nick began.

‘Freeing Nick here to charm all the customers,’ interrupted his partner with a smile.

I’ll bet he does, thought Liz, instantly sobering up from the heady draught of flirtation and innuendo and telling herself that no matter how tempted she might be, there was no way she was
going to let herself fall for Nick Winters’s obvious charm.

‘Goodbye, Mr Winters.’

‘Call me Nick, please. Haven’t you forgotten something?’

She looked down automatically to her briefcase. It was in her hand.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘I thought you wanted to see around Dream Cottages.’

But Liz knew she’d had as much of Nick Winters’s overpowering physical presence as she could cope with for one day.

‘Thanks Mr Wint– Nick. But I’m afraid I’ve got to rush off to a meeting.’

‘Maybe next time then. Good luck with Peter Glenning.’

Feeling suddenly ungrateful for what undoubtedly might be the breakthrough they’d needed so much, she smiled. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘I’ll ring and find how it went.’

As she walked to her car, Liz knew he would. And the knowledge left her with mixed feelings. He was the most attractive man she’d met in years. And yet there was something she
couldn’t quite put her finger on that made her uneasy about Nick Winters.

‘So, Mrs Ward, what can I do for you this time?’ Peter Glenning looked at his watch pointedly. ‘I have another meeting in fifteen minutes. I only agreed to
see you because you’ve been sitting outside my office refusing to move, my secretary tells me, for over two hours. I would hate to have to make a scene, but you really must leave.’

‘Fine.’ Liz wasn’t going to let him bully her. ‘Fifteen minutes is all I need.’

Briskly Liz opened her briefcase as she sat down. ‘I would like you to look at a CV.’

‘Oh really, Mrs Ward, we’ve been through all this. I do not require any of your clients on my staff.’

‘This is a rather special client. Her name is Helen Stevens and until very recently she ran First Intercontinental’s Acquisitions & Mergers Division. She was headhunted by them
from North American Life, which as you know is one of the most successful insurance companies in the world. Helen steered First Int. through two major take-overs and one merger and increased the
bank’s profits by seven million dollars in less than three years.’

She handed him the CV. Glenning looked mystified. ‘Fascinating. But what has it got to do with me?’

‘Helen would like to be your Finance Director.’

Glenning’s face was a picture of amazement as though he could not actually believe what he was hearing.

Liz decided to press home before she lost her nerve. ‘How much does the job pay?’

‘Thirty K.’ Glenning looked irritated with himself that he had supplied this information.

Liz made a face. ‘She was earning eighty at First Int. Still, this would only be a three-day week.’

Peter Glenning’s disbelief turned to sarcastic laughter. ‘You are proposing that I hire this woman as my Finance Director for £30,000 for a three-day week?’

‘With the usual perks of course. Private health care, company car, six weeks’ holiday, free life insurance. Do you operate a share option?’

‘Mrs Ward, have you gone stark staring mad? I already
have
a Finance Director.’

Liz smiled winningly. ‘No, Mr Glenning, I’m afraid you don’t. I think you’ll find that the present incumbent is on the point of handing in his notice.
So
inconsiderate. And just when you’re bidding for Southern Life Insurance too.’

Peter Glenning spat out his cigar and Liz noticed with satisfaction that his nose had gone the colour of an overripe tomato and that a vein had started ticking gently in the side of his head.
‘Is this another stupid publicity stunt?’

‘Certainly not. Why don’t you ask him?’

Without saying a word he pressed the buzzer on his desk again and again until it sounded like an angry wasp was trapped in the room. ‘Veronica. Get me Jack Godstone. Tell him I want to see
him now, and I mean
now
.’

For two or three minutes the tension was unbearable and Liz tried not to watch, mesmerized, as the nerve in Glenning’s forehead ticked away the seconds until finally there was a knock at
the door, and a confident-looking young man in his early thirties walked in. ‘You wanted me, Mr Glenning?’

‘Indeed I did, Jack.’ Glenning’s eyes narrowed until they were two pig-like slits of fury. ‘I have just been informed of some unpleasant gossip that you are intending to
leave us soon and I thought I would give you the chance to put my mind at rest.’

‘Ah.’ To Liz’s relief Jack Godstone looked uncomfortable but not dismayed. ‘Yes, well. I was actually about to ask your secretary for an appointment this afternoon so
that I could tell you myself.’

Liz thought Glenning was about to explode. The broken veins on his face were filling up with blood and turning from an unflattering red to a vivid purple. Liz hoped he wasn’t prone to
heart attacks or all this work would have been for nothing.

Glenning sat down heavily and tried to dredge up a voice of authority. ‘In that case, clear your desk now. Jim from security will be down in half an hour to escort you from the
building.’

Liz waited perhaps thirty seconds before passing over the CV again. ‘Would you like to read this now? If Helen started on Monday no one would be any the wiser, she could simply say
she’d been coming to take over the deal all along. With her experience no one would bat an eyelid. Otherwise you’ll have to look around and word is bound to get out. There might even be
a story in the local paper . . .’ She smiled and let her voice trail off.

‘Mrs Ward, are you threatening me?’

‘Mr Glenning. Would I?’

‘Yes, Mrs Ward, I believe you would. When can I see this financial wizard of yours?’

Liz tried to repress a grin and not rub his nose in it. ‘As a matter of fact, Mr Glenning, she’s waiting outside in the car park.’

‘To WomanPower! Half a woman is the best man for the job!’ The cork came out of the champagne with such force that it soaked Dawn’s brother’s
masterpiece on the wall behind but nobody cared. Peter Glenning had agreed to take on Helen Stevens for a three-month trial period and WomanPower was finally on its way.

Dawn began to do the can-can balancing on a pile of spread sheets and Ginny juggled with two desk-tidies as they discussed how much to charge as a placement fee. Clearly not much more work was
going to get done this afternoon, but it was four p.m. on Friday and now that this moment had come, they could all admit how much they’d needed it, how near they’d been to losing
heart.

In the midst of the chaos, the phone rang and Liz picked it up. When she realized who it was, without knowing it she flushed slightly and subtly turned her back on the party, poking a finger in
her ear to cut out the din.

‘Hello. It’s Nick Winters here’ – as if he needed to say –‘I’ve just heard the good news and wondered if you felt like dinner to celebrate?’

To her surprise, Liz felt herself hesitate. And she realized that the strength of her reaction to him had scared her. What if they went out to dinner, even went to bed together, and she never
saw him again? She was too old to behave like a teenager, to spend her life hanging round waiting for some man to call like Mel did. She was happy with her job and her home and the kids. She had
enough in her life without risking getting hurt again. And Nick was clearly quite an operator.

‘Nick, I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m rather tired, I . . .’

She stopped for a moment as Ginny handed her a large piece of cardboard with a message scrawled on it in felt-tip pen.

‘SAY YES,’ it commanded, ‘OR I WILL SHOOT YOUR CHILDREN.’

‘What I meant was,’ she aimed a kick at Ginny who swooped out of the way making kissing noises, ‘I’m rather tired so tonight’s out, but would tomorrow be OK
instead?’

As she put the phone down, smiling, to a round of applause from Ginny and Dawn, Liz realized it was the first day in five months that she hadn’t thought about David once.

As Liz shook out the red silk dress she’d chosen to wear tonight she told herself to stop worrying. Maybe Nick was just what she needed.

But as she got ready she realized for the first time how much losing David had dented her sense of being attractive or desirable. At the time, she’d tried to persuade herself that the
affair with Britt was the result of their crazy lifestyles, but she’d known in her heart there was more to it than that. It couldn’t be just coincidence that Britt was thinner, blonder
and smarter than she was. The stark truth was that David had left her after twelve years together for a more attractive woman.

And now someone found
her
desirable. And he was one of the most stunning men she’d ever met. It was high time she let someone make her feel good about herself.

She paused for a moment, trying to decide which underwear to choose: slinky or serviceable? Smiling to herself she took out the ivory silk briefs she hadn’t yet worn and held them up to
her cheek. Even though the room was cold the silk felt warm to the touch and smelt subtly of lavender. And somehow the conflicting sensations of the sensuous silk and the old-lady-ness of the
lavender felt oddly erotic.

Still smiling she slipped them on. But as she studied herself in the long mirror she felt her pleasure drain away. To her eyes the woman looking back at her was simply ridiculous. A 36-year-old
mother-of-two who needed to lose a few pounds, poured into silk knickers that were ever so slightly too tight.

Tearing them off she rummaged for her usual cotton ones and pulled them on. She was damned if she was going to muck about with silk knickers. Why on earth had she allowed Ginny to talk her into
this? She loathed having to worry whether her thighs were flabby or her spare tyre too obvious. She’d done all that at eighteen and it had been terrible then too.

All at once she realized the truth. She had lost her nerve. For twelve years she had been faithful to one man and the very idea of sex with another, especially one as beautiful as Nick Winters,
suddenly seemed not so much a turn-on as a terror. He would be used to slender twenty-year-olds with skin like silk and bottoms as firm as crisp autumn apples that you can’t wait to sink your
teeth into, not two old windfalls stuffed into M & S midi-knickers.

She sat down on the bed as it all flooded back to her. Sex and the Single Girl. From the first furtive grope, to the undignified move from sofa to bedroom, to the second thoughts when you smelt
that unique aroma of stale air, old socks and essence of unmade bed. And there was worse to come. The way once he got you into bed every man insisted on Pulling Out all the Stops, and even if
you’d only met him five minutes earlier, performing acts of such toe-curling intimacy that you counted the seconds till he put his tongue away and you could pull up the duvet and call a
taxi.

And then there was the next day when, even though you never wanted to see him again, you were terrified he wouldn’t ring because that would mean that Mother was Right. Stuff the sexual
revolution. He
had
only been after one thing. You had been used and chucked away like an old glove. And he had done the chucking before you did, God damn him.

How could she dream of going through all that again? She delved in her address book for Nick’s number and caught sight of her watch. Seven-twenty! He would be here in ten minutes and she
wasn’t even dressed.

Forgetting all her doubt in her efforts not to put her finger through her only remaining pair of tights, she smoothed down her cotton knickers and slipped on a sensible white bra. She grabbed
the silk dress and pulled it over her head, adding a pair of high heels and some red lipstick. Then she looked at herself again.

The bright red silk clung to her curves and emphasized the slimness of her waist and the swell of her heavy breasts. It also camouflaged the swell of her too-heavy tummy and the curves of her
rather too generous thighs. She grinned. What the hell! As Joan Collins once said, not bad for an old broad!