Melting Fire. Anne Mather

tell me. How is he?’

      Alex flushed, and without his answering, Olivia didn’t have to be told that her stepbrother was in the best of health. It was a continual source of embarrassment to Alex that he should be the one who met her from boarding school, or handed over her allowance, or wrote to her when some change in the arrangements was being made. He knew, as well as she did, that Richard made use of him this way, and he was the one who always had to withstand Olivia’s disappointments.

      But not this time, she decided shortly. If Richard couldn’t be bothered to come and meet her when they hadn’t seen or spoken to one another for so long, why should she get upset? She wasn’t a schoolgirl any longer, and he was no longer the axis on which her world revolved.

      She allowed her gaze to rest on Alex’s features, as he sought to find a suitable reply. How old was he? she speculated. Thirty-two? Thirty-three, maybe. He had worked for Richard for at least the last twelve years, and as his personal assistant for perhaps five years of that time. He had witnessed Olivia’s transformation from a tunic-clad schoolgirl of seven or eight to the expensively turned-out product of the academy she was today, but he had never lost the shyness he always exhibited in her presence. Why? she wondered. She had been a tearful baby, going away to school for the first time, when he joined Richard’s staff. She ought to have been in awe of him. But it had never worked that way.

      ‘Don’t tell me,’ she said now, as they turned on to the M.4. ‘Richard’s involved in some terrifically important deal, and he sends his apologies for not meeting me, but it was just impossible for him to get away!’

      Alex cast an embarrassed look in her direction, and then, allowing the powerful car to gather momentum, he said: ‘As a matter of fact, your stepbrother isn’t in England at the moment, Olivia. He did send his apologies, but he had to fly to Athens on Tuesday——’

       ‘Athens!’

      Olivia’s newly-adopted independence vanished beneath a wave of indignation. The usual spate of recriminations sprang to her lips, and she had to bite them back as she sought to regain her composure. Richard was not at Copley, he was in Athens. And as indifferent to her homecoming as he had ever been.

      ‘I wrote you about the deal with Kuriakis, didn’t I?’ Alex was saying hurriedly. ‘You know what Greeks are like—very sociable people. When Aristotle phoned, Rich had no choice but to accept his invitation. Not that it’s wholly sociable, of course,’ he added, the colour deepening in his normally pale face. ‘There’s more business done across the dinner table than in the office, if you see what I mean …’

      Olivia’s slender fingers separated across her knees. She would not get upset, she told herself fiercely. She was a grown woman now, intelligent and mature enough to accept her graduation from St. Helena’s without requiring congratulations or a welcome home party. Richard had sent her to Paris, not only to finish her education, but to gain assurance and self-possession, and if he returned to tears and resentment he would never believe she was old enough to govern her own life.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Alex, unaware of the mental battle going on inside her, gazed at her anxiously. ‘He’ll be back tomorrow, or Sunday at the very latest. I know he’s disappointed to miss your homecoming——’

      ‘Don’t give me sympathy, Alex!’ Olivia could no longer suppress the need for self-expression. ‘We both know that all Richard cares about is the company, and not being at Copley when I get back means less than nothing to him!’

      ‘Oh, I don’t think——’

      ‘Well, I do,’ she interrupted him shortly. ‘Please, Alex, spare me the excuses. If Richard had had to go to—to Alice Springs or—Timbuktu, to further his own ends, he’d have done it.’

      Alex’s bony fingers tightened on the steering wheel, but he made no further attempt to argue with her. He didn’t like her talking about her stepbrother like that, and she knew it. Richard’s employees were intensely loyal, which said something for him, she supposed grudgingly, but no one could deny that Richard enjoyed the power his position afforded. She supposed he deserved the success which had come to him, she conceded, pleating the fine silk jersey of the dress she had worn specially to impress him. Since his father died he had built the small processing plant he had left into one of the largest chemical corporations in the world, but in so doing he had lost touch with the minor details, like her homecoming, for example. She didn’t need Alex to tell her that he employed a lot of people, that whole families depended on him for their livelihood, that it wasn’t reasonable for her to expect him to throw his responsibilities aside just because the girl he had cared for since their parents were killed fifteen years ago was returning from her finishing school in France. She just wished for once that she might have figured first in his list of commitments, instead of coming last, as always.

      Now she took a deep breath, and changing the subject completely asked: ‘How is Bella? She’s at home, isn’t she? I can’t wait to see her again. I’ve missed her so much.’

      Alex visibly relaxed. ‘Miss Ponsonby is very well,’ he assured her. ‘I know she’s looking forward to your arrival. She’s talked of little else for the past three weeks.’

      Olivia sighed, a small smile of satisfaction curving her lips. Dear Bella, she thought reminiscently, what would they have done without her?

      Miss Isabella Ponsonby had been Richard’s nanny many years ago, long before Olivia’s own father had died, and Mrs Ross had married Matthew Jenner. Miss Ponsonby had stayed on after the wedding, continuing to run the household as she had done since Richard’s mother had run away with an American banker she had met at a party in London five years before. The second Mrs Jenner was not a robust character, and she had been glad to delegate her responsibilities to the capable hands of a housekeeper, but during a holiday abroad, the Jenners were killed in a car crash, and Bella had become mother as well as nanny to the infant Olivia. She had cared for the child with all the devotion she had once lavished on Richard, and apart from her stepbrother, had become the most important person in Olivia’s small world. The tragedy had been easier for Richard to bear. He was already a man, twenty-two, and graduating after a year at the Harvard Business School …

      Olivia deliberately turned her head to stare out at the undulating Berkshire countryside. She would not think of Richard now, she decided impatiently. She would think of Paris, and Jules, and the exciting news she had to impart to Bella. Her lips parted in anticipation of the astonishment Bella would display. She had always refused to accept that Olivia was growing up, but when she learned about Jules, she would have to revise her opinion. Jules Merignac, she mused dreamily. The Jules Merignac, and he had singled her out for attention. She tilted her head critically, surreptitiously studying her reflection in the mirror secured to the sun visor. He had said he was in love with her, he had asked her to delay her departure for London; and when she had insisted she had to go home, he had told her he would follow her to England. Certainly his kiss of farewell at Charles de Gaulle airport had been more intimate than any kiss she had experienced so far, and little shivers of excitement had run along her spine at the prospect of sharing more than kisses with him.

      Some of the girls at the Academy already had lovers, knew all there was to know about having a relationship with a man, but so far Olivia felt herself to be irritatingly innocent. In England, Richard deterred all the boys she met at the golf and tennis clubs, and the overtures she had had were more than a little daunted by her stepbrother’s power and position. They didn’t seem to understand that she had never really felt herself part of the Jenner corporation, that her mother’s marriage to Matthew Jenner had been months rather than years old when they were killed, and she herself was very much the poor relation. Not that she had ever been treated that way. The schools she had attended, the clothes she had worn, had all been the best that money could buy. But it was Richard’s money, not hers, and their relationship was a tenuous thing at best. She loved him, of course, and she thought that he was genuinely fond of her, but he was not really her brother, and she sometimes wished she wasn’t so dependent upon him.

      ‘Have you heard of Jules Merignac?’ she asked Alex now, and was gratified when he told her that