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‘Maybe, but it’s never gone wrong before,’ Poppy seethed. ‘How can they make a mistake like that...? There must be something you can do... Offer to pay them extra... to...’
‘Poppy,’ James told her, speaking slowly and patiently as though she were a child too young to grasp what he was saying. ‘There are no empty rooms. Believe me. I just heard one of the receptionists telling another that she’s already been forced to give up her staff room and share with someone else on another shift because of overbooking. Believe me, it’s either this room or nothing.’
It was on the tip of Poppy’s tongue to tell him that if that was the case then there was no way she was staying. But then she-remembered how much James would relish her giving him an opportunity to prove how unprofessional she really was and she forced the impulsive words back.
James, taking her acceptance for granted, was already signing the register and taking possession of their pass-cards.
‘We might as well find our own way,’ he told Poppy. ‘God knows how long we’d have to wait for a porter.’
Like her, James was only carrying a briefcase and an overnight bag. She just hoped that the hotel’s laundry facilities were better organised and more reliable than its booking system, she reflected angrily as she followed James towards the nearest bank of lifts.
The modern part of the complex had been built around an atrium and as the lift took them upwards they could look down past the open balconies to the greenery and splashing fountains below them.
Although the complex had been given the title of spa it did not actually possess any natural hot springs or spa waters of its own, the term, Poppy suspected, being used in a slightly looser sense to embrace the fact that it offered a wide range of self-indulgent treatments and dietary regimes and holistic alternative therapies.
Their room was on one of the upper floors, the silence as they stepped out of the lift onto the polished marble floor broken only by the hum of the air-conditioning.
‘This way,’ James instructed her. Their room was halfway down the corridor and Poppy waited whilst James opened the door, and then froze with shock as she followed him inside and stared in white-faced disbelief at the room’s one, single, solitary double bed.
A double bed ...
She looked at James, then back at the bed, announced flatly, ‘I don’t believe this...’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Poppy,’ James told her smoothly, ‘but, as the company’s official translator, wouldn’t it normally fall within your field of operations to provide correct foreign translations for those departments which might need them?’
‘You know it would,’ Poppy agreed irritably. ‘But—’
‘In that case you would then be the person responsible for providing a correctly worded translation for this booking.’
‘If I had been asked for one, yes,’ Poppy agreed. ‘But—’
‘And I think I am also right in saying,’ James continued grimly, ‘that when this particular booking was made you believed that you would be attending this conference with Chris...’
Poppy stared at him in shocked disbelief as she realised what he was implying.
‘Yes, I did think I would be coming here with Chris,’ she agreed furiously, ‘but that does not mean that I deliberately altered the booking so that Chris and I would be forced to share a room. I had nothing to do with this booking. It was made by fax whilst I was away on holiday, and if you think for one moment that, no matter what...my feelings for...for anyone, I would ever stoop to doing something like this...that I would ever try to force...or manipulate a man... any man, but most especially one I... I cared about to—’
She couldn’t go on, her words abruptly suspended by the force of her emotions.
‘I can’t stay here in this room with you,’ she protested huskily when she could trust herself to speak again. ‘I can’t... and I—’
‘Stop being so hysterical,’ James told her coldly. ‘You don’t have any choice. Neither of us does. This conference is very important. I’ve spent months making contact with various international companies who’ll be attending it... potential customers, and I don’t have time to waste dealing with a hysterical, manipulative idiot who—’
‘I did not arrange this. It has nothing to do with me,’ Poppy protested furiously. ‘The last thing I want...I would ever want...is to share a be—a room with you...’
‘I believe you,’ James told her, adding cuttingly, ‘But then you didn’t think you would be here with me, did you? And, I promise you, Poppy, you’re not exactly my ideal choice of bed-mate either. What the hell was that conniving little mind of yours planning? Some kind of emotional blackmail...? A threat to tell Sally that Chris had been sleeping with you if he didn’t come across and—’
‘No!’
Her denial had been as explosive as a blow, Poppy acknowledged as she stared at James in sick disbelief. Did he really think she could... would stoop to something so underhanded as that?
Her mouth twisted bitterly as she made herself look straight into the wintry contempt of his eyes and told him quietly, ‘I love Chris, James, and in my book that means putting him first... not wanting to hurt him... Despite what you seem to think, I don’t need you to tell me that Chris doesn’t feel the same way about me. Do you really think I’d want him on those kinds of terms...? That I’d want any man who...?’ She swallowed, unable to go on.
‘What I think is that you’ve become so obsessed with your so-called love for Chris that you don’t know what’s reasonable or rational any more...’
‘You’re wrong,’ Poppy told him, but she could see from the look on his face that he didn’t believe her.
CHAPTER THREE
POPPY exhaled her pent-up breath in an angry hiss of despair, turning away from the panoramic view through the bedroom window in front of her and quickly averting her eyes from the bed.
James was downstairs in the conference hall where he had gone to check that their display stand, which had been shipped out via their Italian agents, had been assembled correctly, and she knew that sooner or later she was going to have to join him. After all, that was why she was here.
Officially, the conference didn’t open until the morning but she knew from previous experience, that the conference hall would be teeming with people getting ready for the opening.
How had it happened? she wondered miserably. How could such a mistake have
occurred and, even worse, how could... how dared James imply that she had had anything to do with it, that she had deliberately manipulated things so that she and Chris would be sharing a room?
She had already contemplated refusing to share the bed with him, but the room’s furnishings, although elegant, were not particularly comfortable and the marble floor would certainly not make a comfortable bed.
The saving grace was that at least the bed was a good size and there should be no danger of the two of them actually having to sleep close together. If she lay on her side and faced away from him, she might even be able to pretend that James wasn’t there at all.
And at least there was one thing she most definitely did not have to worry about. There was no way that James would try to take advantage of the situation or of her. She almost laughed aloud at the very thought.
Years ago, when they had all been children, there had been occasions when they had all holidayed together, and whilst they had never actually shared a bedroom there had been the kind of family intimacy between the cousins which had been natural under such circumstances.
That had been when they were children, though, Poppy acknowledged, and there was-a vast difference between a five-year-old and a thirteen-year-old running, dressing gown-clad, between their separate bedrooms and two adults of twenty-two and thirty sharing the intimacy of a bed as well as a bathroom.
The flimsy cotton robe that she had brought with her was hardly as protective or concealing as the thick, fleecy dressing gown that she had worn as a child and... Poppy froze and closed her eyes, cursing herself under her breath as she remembered that the one thing she had decided there was no need for her to bring with her was any kind of nightdress.
Remembering the golden rule of easy travelling—only take what you can carry on and off the plane in your hand luggage—she had kept her packing to the bare minimum... ‘Bare’ being the operative word, she reflected grimly now.
