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‘I too am feeling the same,’ he told her ruefully, ‘and wondering if I am really in the right job. At university I had plans, dreams of being a writer, but in Germany these days it is not so easy to find a good job. My parents—my father—urged me to think of the future...’ He gave a small shrug and Poppy another smile.
‘But it is boring of me to talk of myself... I wish to learn more about you.’
‘There isn’t very much to learn,’ Poppy confessed, whilst her conscience prodded her, reminding her that there was a good deal more to know than there had been twenty-four hours ago, even if it was not exactly the kind of knowledge she could ever envisage herself passing on to anyone—sharing with anyone.
It was fortunate that the Japanese businessmen whom James was dining with this evening had their own interpreter with them, even if it had galled Poppy slightly to see the way that James had watched the diminutive and very attractive Japanese woman and listened to her as she’d translated his comments to her colleagues.
He patently had a good deal more respect for her and her professional skills than he did for her own, Poppy reflected, and that knowledge rankled.
‘You are looking angry,’ Gunther told her. ‘Have I...?’
‘I was thinking about something else—someone else,’ Poppy admitted.
‘It is a pity that there has been so much confusion and lack of organisation over the conference,’ he commented.
‘Mmm,’ Poppy agreed. ‘Although I doubt that we would have had much time to enjoy the hotel’s facilities even if they had been finished.’
‘This is true,’ said Gunther, and then added hesitantly, ‘I had thought of hiring a car and exploring a little of the region tomorrow; I was wondering if you would care to join me...?’
Poppy was sorely tempted to agree, just for the relief of getting away from James, but, despite what James seemed to think, she did take her work seriously and she knew that if she had been here with Chris or, indeed, with any other members of the company’s sales team she would never even have considered using Gunther as a means of escaping from them, and so she shook her head, gently refusing his invitation.
‘Remember, if you should change your mind about joining me on my tour of the region,’ Gunther told her later in the evening when they had finished their dinner, ‘you only have to say.’
‘You’re very kind,’ Poppy told him truthfully.
They had lingered in the dining room longer than most of the other diners, but Poppy was nervously aware that she couldn’t put off saying goodnight to Gunther and returning to her room for much longer.
His room was in a different part of the building from hers and when they parted in the foyer Poppy felt her heart start to thud in anxious dread. Would James be in the room already? And if he was...?
By the time she had reached their floor, her hands were shaking so much that she could hardly insert the pass-card into the lock, but to her relief, when the door swung open and she stepped inside the room, there was no sign of James.
She undressed and showered quickly, unable to bring herself to look properly at her body, so that she didn’t have to see those small but oh, so betraying tell-tale marks.
Once dried and wrapped in her robe she stood for several minutes on the threshold of the bedroom, staring at the pristine smoothness of the large bed, her heart pounding so heavily and painfully that she automatically put one hand over it to ease the pain it was causing her.
She couldn’t sleep in that bed again, she acknowledged, licking her dry lips. She simply couldn’t.
Her legs trembled as she walked quickly towards it, her glance drawn repeatedly to the door as she pulled frantically at the heavy duvet, dragging it off the bed and onto the floor, her body drenched in nervous perspiration as she prayed that James wouldn’t come in before she had finished.
Even doubled over underneath her, the quilt wasn’t thick enough to mask fully the hardness of the marble floor, but at least this way she was signalling unequivocally and loudly to James that, despite his goading remarks, she had no desire to endure a repetition of the previous night’s events.
But as she lay tensely in the darkness Poppy knew that not all of his cruel taunts could be rejected. She had begged him to make love to her, she had responded to him, wanted him ... she had been the one to insist, to demand that what was happening between them be brought to its ultimate conclusion.
‘Because I wanted him to be Chris,’ she whispered painfully to herself. ‘I needed him to be Chris...’
But she had known that he wasn’t. She had known that he was James—had known and had not stopped, had not ceased wanting... needing... aching...
The tears that burned the backs of her eyes felt like acid, raw and painful, bringing her no real relief, but then what relief could there be from the thoughts, the emotions that tormented her? she acknowledged miserably.
It might be impossible for her to deny or escape the taunts that James had thrown at her but it was equally impossible for her to understand why it had happened, why she had turned to James, responded to James, wanted James to such an extent that she had knowingly, wantonly and, yes, deliberately encouraged him to...
To what? she asked herself as the tears rolled down her face. To have sex with her, to make love to her, to transport her to a place she had not previously known existed; to take her there, and once there to...?
No, no, no, Poppy denied, rolling herself even more tightly in her duvet as she tried to stem both her tears and the hot, raw ache burning inside her.
It was close to dawn when Poppy woke up, her body stiff and aching, one of the pillows she had wrenched from the bed still beneath her head, the other... Hot scarlet colour flooded her skin betrayingly as she realised that she had her arms wrapped round the pillow as though...
Quickly she thrust it away from her, at the same time lifting her head to look anxiously towards the bed, praying that James was asleep and that he hadn’t seen the pathetic way she had cuddled up to the pillow, her tension changing to surprise and then bewilderment as she realised that the bed was completely empty and that James wasn’t there.
If he hadn’t returned to their room then where had he spent the night—where was he spending the night? Poppy wondered, for some reason instantly picturing the pretty Japanese woman and the way her silvery laughter had caused James to smile in a way he had never smiled at her.
Had they spent the night together? Neither of them had made any effort to conceal the fact that they found one another attractive, Poppy acknowledged sourly. She hadn’t missed the subtle message in the way that she had gently touched James’s arm to underline some comment she had been making, and she certainly hadn’t misinterpreted the sudden gleam in James’s eyes as he’d looked back at her, nor the way in which he had moved closer to her.
Well, she was welcome to him, Poppy told herself fiercely. All she herself wished was that she had known what he was going to do. That way, she could have slept on the bed instead of on the floor and, instead of waking up with her body aching and her neck stiff, she would have enjoyed a decent night’s sleep.
Yes, the Japanese woman was welcome to James. Poppy gave a small shudder. Did he make a habit of sleeping with two different women on consecutive nights? It seemed so out of character; she would have thought that he would have more concern for his health, more...more self-control, she decided bitterly.
It gave her a very odd and very unwanted feeling inside to think of James with another woman. Odd because that specific feeling was one she was more used to feeling in relation to Chris, and unwanted because...because...
Of course it wasn’t jealousy she was feeling, Poppy comforted herself as she dragged her aching body onto the bed, hauling the duvet with her. How could it be...? She was just thankful that James wasn’t here with her.
And yet, as she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep, no matter how hard she tried to summon up the comforting mental image of Chris’s beloved features, it was James
she kept on visualising. James, his eyes darkening as he leant over her.
‘No,’ Poppy denied aloud in growing panic. ‘No, no, no...’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘AH, JAMES. I am glad to see you again. It was good last night, wasn’t it?’
Poppy tried not to gape as the Japanese translator came over to their stand where James had just been informing Poppy that he had some documents he wanted her to translate; the woman’s eyes were eloquent with feminine emotion as she reached out and touched James’s hand.
She might just as well not have been there, Poppy decided as she saw the way James turned towards the other woman, the way he smiled at her and bent his head protectively towards her.
Poppy had been midway through her breakfast when James had slid into his seat opposite her, calmly ordering his coffee without giving her any explanation of his overnight absence.
‘Very good,’ Poppy heard James agreeing throatily now.
Poppy could have sworn that his glance rested just a fraction too long on the other woman’s body as she smiled coquettishly at him then announced that she must return to her colleagues—but not before she had leant forward and murmured provocatively to James, ‘I have some free time this afternoon; you did mention that you have a car...’
Poppy waited, expecting to hear James declare in the curt way she was familiar with that he was too busy to take any time off, but, to her indignation, instead she heard him responding, ‘I do indeed. What time exactly will you be free?’
As soon as the woman was out of earshot, Poppy couldn’t resist reminding him, ‘I thought you said we had come here to work; in fact I—’
