LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I THINK that’s all for today, Jaime.’ Felix Haines got up from his desk to flex his aching shoulder muscles, grimacing when he saw his secretary’s sympathetic smile. ‘You can laugh,’ he added, ‘but playing squash twice a week is going to do me good. As soon as I master it, that is.’

      ‘So long as it doesn’t master you first,’ responded Jaime drily, folding her shorthand notebook, and slipping her pencil into the metal spiral that secured the pages. ‘Honestly, I can’t see the sense of beating yourself to death just to prove you’re still active! I’m sure you’d find it simpler to join a golf club.’

      ‘Perhaps so.’ Felix was a little irritable. ‘But Lacey would think I was taking the easy way out—and I would be. As she says, forty-six isn’t old. I’ve just let myself get lazy, that’s all.’

      Jaime reserved judgement on Lacey Haines’s opinion. Since she’d broken up Felix’s first marriage, and married him herself eighteen months ago, Lacey seemed bent on changing him from the easygoing middle-aged man she claimed she had fallen in love with to one of those ultrafit sporting types you frequently saw on television. Men with trim figures, and sharp, hungry faces, men who Jaime privately thought were striving desperately to hang on to their youth. Talk about women being the vainer sex, she mused, watching Felix, as he endeavoured to throw off the stiffness of over-worked muscles. Still, Lacey was more than fifteen years his junior, so perhaps he felt compelled to make the effort.

      ‘Haven’t you ever thought of joining a keep-fit group?’ Felix asked now, as Jaime rose from her seat and began walking towards the door that led into her office. ‘Lacey goes to an aerobics class every Wednesday. You should join her.’

      ‘Oh, I—don’t think so,’ said Jaime finally, softening her refusal with a rueful smile. She could almost hear Lacey’s reaction to a suggestion like that. Lacey had never forgiven her for taking Margaret Haines’s side during the divorce proceedings, and if there had been any way she could have persuaded Felix to find another secretary she would have done it. But happily for Jaime, Felix was fond of her, and their twelve-year partnership had stood the test. ‘I—er—I don’t really have that much time,’ Jaime appended now, realising belatedly that Felix might misunderstand her motives. ‘I mean—what with Tom, and everything. I—just never seem to have a moment to myself.’

      Felix regarded her a little dourly now. ‘You don’t like Lacey, do you?’ he exclaimed, out of the blue. ‘Oh—–’ he lifted a hand to silence her, as she opened her mouth to protest ‘—you don’t have to say anything. I know. I’m not entirely without perception, Jaime, whatever you think. I just wish it weren’t so.’

      Jaime’s tongue circled her lips. ‘Felix, I—–’

      ‘You still see Maggie, don’t you?’

      ‘Occasionally.’ Jaime nodded.

      ‘And she’s poisoned your mind about Lacey, I suppose.’

      ‘No!’ Jaime was dismayed. ‘We never discuss your marriage, Felix.’

      He snorted then. ‘Do you expect me to believe that?’

      Jaime stiffened. ‘I think you flatter yourself, Mr Haines,’ she retorted, reaching for the handle of the door. ‘If that’s all—–’

      ‘Oh, Jaime!’ Felix sighed and came towards her, shaking his head. ‘Don’t look at me like that. All right. Perhaps I was out of line in suggesting you and Maggie spend your time pulling me to pieces. But you have to admit, it’s not unreasonable to assume my name is mentioned!’

      Jaime hesitated. ‘Felix, my associating with Lacey—or rather the lack of it—has nothing to do with your ex-wife. Lacey and I just don’t—get on. It’s as simple as that. I’m sure, if you asked her, she’d say the same.’

      Felix frowned. ‘I suppose you know she’s jealous of you.’

      ‘Jealous of me?’ Jaime was staggered. ‘You’re not serious!’

      ‘I am.’ Felix pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘You’re a beautiful woman. I’ve always thought so. And—who knows?—if you’d ever given me the slightest encouragement—–’

      ‘Felix!’ Jaime stopped him there. She couldn’t believe this conversation was actually happening, and she had no wish to complicate an already difficult situation. ‘I think I’d better go…’

      ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Felix was amazingly casual about it. ‘It’s a few years now since I got over my infatuation. You made it abundantly clear, consciously or otherwise, that you weren’t interested. Not in so many words, perhaps. But subtly. When you told me about Tom’s father, for instance.’

      Jaime felt as if she was totally out of her depth here. ‘Felix, I told you about Tom’s father because—–’

      ‘I know. To explain that Tom wasn’t your ex-husband’s son,’ Felix assured her tolerantly. ‘And I sympathised, didn’t I? I never liked Philip Russell myself. But I also realised you were unlikely to let another man into your life for quite some time. Maybe not ever. And I didn’t want to lose the best secretary I’d ever had.’

      Jaime tried to keep calm. ‘I—don’t know what to say,’ she murmured, aware that the idea of Felix—shy, bespectacled, sober Felix—nurturing some unrequited passion for her seemed totally unbelievable. He had always struck her as being such a moderate man. But, she acknowledged drily, he had left his wife of some twenty years for a much younger woman, so who could tell what went on behind that bland façade?

      ‘There’s no need to say anything,’ Felix reassured her, turning away from the evident confusion in her face. ‘I knew you were unaware that I existed—in a sexual way, that is. You were too wrapped up with your own affairs to notice anything—or anyone—else.’

      Jaime felt the hot colour invading her cheeks. So far, she had succeeded in controlling her intense embarrassment, but now she could hide it no longer. ‘I’m—sorry,’ she mumbled, jerking open the door, wishing he had never brought the subject up. Goodness, it resurrected too many other memories she would rather not think about, and she was glad to escape to the comparative sanctuary of her own office.

      However, Felix’s voice followed her. ‘Anyway,’ he called, and somehow she sensed his casual tone concealed a covert curiosity, ‘talking of the Russells, did you know the old Priory had been sold?’

      Steeling her nerves, Jaime came back to the open doorway. ‘The old Priory?’ she said, with commendable composure. ‘What does the old Priory have to do with the Russells? Except that Philip stayed there years ago.’

      ‘Wasn’t it where you met your ex-husband?’ Felix probed innocently. ‘I seem to remember—–’

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