PAST Pa.s.sION.

By: PENNY JORDAN

CHAPTER ONE.

As nicola climbed out of her small car, she smoothed down the skirt of her neat suit before glancing anxiously towards the offices.

It was ten to nine, and the car park was almost full; today the new owner of the company would be making his first official appearance.

Nicola had been on holiday when the shockingly unexpected negotiations for the take-over of her employers had taken place, but her work mates had been full of gossip about what had gone on.

It was well known locally that Alan Hardy, the owner of the small building firm, had virtually lost interest in the business following the tragic death of his son, but no one had expected that he would sell out to someone from outside the area, to someone, moreover, to whom apparently the acquisition of their small local company was merely another addition to his growing business empire.

Her own job was safe enough, or so she had been a.s.sured. She had worked for Alan as his secretary-c.u.m-PA ever since she had returned from the city over eight years ago, and very much enjoyed her work, even though lately she had found herself having to double-check almost everything her boss gave her to do.

Some of the staff were angered by the way Alan had kept the take-over a secret from them; she herself had known nothing of what was going on but, instead of anger, she felt sympathy both for Alan and for his wife, Mary.

The death of their son in a car accident had destroyed their lives and their hopes for the future. It was only natural that Alan should have lost heart. lost interest in the business.

She sighed faintly to herself. She had been feeling reasonably confident about her ability to work in harmony with her prospective new boss, whom she had been informed would probably put a manager in charge of the day-to-day running of the firm, only actually visiting them himself once a week, so that in effect she would be working for the manager he appointed; but over the weekend, Gordon,"her boyfriend, had expressed unflattering doubts about her suitability as the right kind of secretary for a high-flying entrepreneur.

His comments had made her angry, but she had suppressed her feelings.

Gordon was the kind of man who had a rather old-fashioned att.i.tude towards women. Nicola blamed his mother for that. She was one of those women who, while appearing to be helpless and clinging, was in fact extremely manipulative and domineering.

Depressingly, she was beginning to be conscious more and more these days that the time she spent with Gordon often left her feeling irritated and at odds with him.

They had known each other almost all their lives, although it was only in the last two years that they had started seeing one another on a regular basis.

At Christmas, Gordon had made noises about them considering getting engaged, but she had avoided the issue.

The trouble was that living in such a small community made it difficult for a single woman to enjoy a varied social life without the addition of a male partner.

Single women over the age of twenty-five and under the age of thirty were looked upon with a certain degree of suspicion by some of the local diehards.

Nicola had her women friends, of course-girls she had been at school with who had since married and produced families--and, if she was honest, she preferred the fun she had in their company to the often dull dates she had with Gordon.

Her mother had already commented rather drily that a lifetime of Gordon might seem a very long time indeed, and Nicola was inclined to agree with her, but Gordon represented respectability and old-fashioned morality, and she had her own reasons for believing that she needed those attributes m her life--that Gordon, no matter how dull and boring he might be, no matter how difficult she might find it to get on with his mother, was someone she was very, very lucky to have in her life.

As she walked towards the office-block, pleasantly acknowledging the 'good mornings' of the men in the yard, while ignoring the way they looked at her legs, she reflected uncomfortably that, like her clothes, her relationship with Gordon was part of her life--not because it gave her pleasure but because it made her feel safe.

She was well past the men now, but just as she was about to open the door to her office-block she heard one of them laughing.

Immediately her face flushed. She had no idea what might have provoked their laughter; it might not even have been her, but the instant she heard it she wanted to run. to hide herself away somewhere.

It was ridiculous, this burden she carried, which she could never allow herself to put down, and all because of one mistake, one silly adolescent error of judgement. It didn't matter how many times she tried to reason with herself that that one mistake did not mean she had to punish herself for the rest of her life; she had never been able to put it out of her mind and ignore it.

In her moments of deepest despair and misery she even wondered if it might not be worthwhile trying to talk to someone about it; but then the old, familiar panic would come back, and she would remember how hard she had worked to make sure that no one, but no one knew what she had done, how hard she had worked to make sure that no one, especially no man who looked at her, could ever, ever possibly think of her as the kind of woman who.

She realised as she hurried towards her office that she was actually physically trembling.

Of all days, why on earth did she have to pick today to start worrying about the past? Today she needed to be at her most alert, her most efficient, her most impressive. The one thing she had heard about the new man was that there was no room in his organisation for the unproductive or uncommitted worker. He had very high standards, apparently, and expected those who worked for him to match them.

Needless to say there had already been a ground swell of mutterings among the work force about the potential havoc he could wreak.

Nicola didn't need anyone to tell her that the firm wasn't very productive, that its profits were very, very small indeed; or that its work force was not efficiently deployed. that the foreman in charge of the men often turned a blind eye to certain malpractices which were expensive to his employers. The only reason they were still in business was really because in this rural area they were the only reasonably large builders around.

Their small market town served a large country area, and until very recently there had simply not been the business potential to attract any compet.i.tion.

Now, though, things were changing; people were moving into the area and buying up old property, empty farms and barns, and Nicola suspected that, if they had not been taken over, a rival firm would soon have set up in business, putting them into liquidation.

Many of the other employees, though, either failed to accept or did not want to accept this, and consequently the fact that the firm had been taken over was a cause of much resentment.

The new man had been described to Nicola as 'full of himself, a real townee, smart as paint'.

Only a couple of her co-employees had had anything good to say for him; one of them was her a.s.sistant, a pretty eighteen-year-old fresh out of college, who had told her enthusiastically that Mr. Hunt was really good-looking for someone so old, and that, if it wasn't for her Danny, she might have quite fancied him.

Nicola had laughed a little at this. She knew from what Alan had told her that Matthew Hunt was, in fact, not yet thirty-five years old.

Not just what one would expect, was how Alan had described him.

"A.

shrewd businessman, but unconventional. "

He certainly was shrewd. Her own father had confirmed that. He was in banking in the City, preferring to commute to and from his office rather than to live somewhere more urban, and it had been he who had filled Nicola in with all the background details of her new employer's professional life. Not much was known about his private life other than the fact that he wasn't married.

One of her own married friends had teased her about this, remarking, "Well, he can only be an improvement on Gordon. Heavens, Nicki, love!

He's so boring it just isn't true. I mean, these days we all know that there's more to a good and enduring relationship than world-shattering, exciting s.e.x. Real reliability is one thing, but Gordon is another. And as for his mother. "

Nicola had been forced to laugh. Anna wasn't known for her tactful ness and tended to say what she thought. Nicola hadn't been offended; she knew that her friend meant well although, as far as she was concerned, the idea of her new boss as a possible source of new romance in her life was completely out of the question.

And anyway, from what she had heard about him, he was the kind of man who no doubt liked the women he dated to be of the high-profile, physically attractive type, which she most certainly was not.

As he hurried into the cloakroom, she gave her reflection a hasty, disapproving glance in the small mirror.

She wasn't very tall, five feet four, with a slender frame, delicate wrist and ankle bones. From her mother she had inherited her fine pale skin and her dark hair, and from her father her surprisingly deep blue eyes.

It was an unusual combination, and one which, together with the delicacy of her facial bone- structure and the soft, feminine fullness of her mouth, earned her second and even third glances from appreciative males.

Those members of the male s.e.x who knew her, though, soon learned that the apparent sensuality of her face and figure were not borne out by her manner.

"Repressed' was how some of the more unkind ones described her, generally after their advances had been rebuffed. Others, less critical and with out a wounded ego to add malice to their comments, said she was rather quiet and withdrawn.

Nicola knew quite well what men thought of her. She didn't mind, though; in fact, she preferred them to think of her as prim and unavailable. Once things had been different. Once she She swallowed hard, s.n.a.t.c.hing up her bag and heading for the door. It was five to nine and she had far more important things to worry about than the past.

Later she was to wonder if she might not in some odd way have been touched by precognition-by an awareness that logic and reason had refused to allow her to entertain. But that was later, when it was much, much too late for her to take evasive action. for her to listen to the warnings the airwaves were carrying to her.

Although all the legal requirements of handing over the business had now been satisfied, Alan, her boss, was actually physically handing over control to Matthew Hunt this morning.

There was going to be a small, brief ceremony when he introduced him to the rest of the staff, and this ceremony was scheduled for ten o'clock.

It had been her suggestion, and one which had caused Alan to ponder and consider before agreeing that it would perhaps be a good idea.

When she opened the door to the small office she shared with Evie, the younger girl was already seated at the switchboard. She smiled warmly at Nicola when she walked in and, jerking her head towards the inner door, told her, "Alan arrived a few moments ago. He doesn't look too good. I offered to make him a cup of coffee, but he refused."

Unlike her, Evie was wearing a brilliantly coloured T-shirt teamed with a pair of equally bright shorts. Her blonde hair was caught up on the top of her head in a cl.u.s.ter of untidy curls, and the bright fuchsia plastic earrings she was wearing clashed horrendously with her scarlet lipstick.

The two of them could not have presented more of a contrast, Nicola recognised wryly.

Evie at eighteen looked as bright and colourful as a parrot, while she, at twenty-six, in her plain navy suit, her crisp white blouse, her neat beige tights and navy pumps, her hair cut in a cla.s.sic shiny bob, looked as dull and plain as--as a secretary ought to look, she told herself firmly, ignoring the faint lowering of her spirits that comparing herself with Evie suddenly brought her.

"He hasn't arrived yet," Evie told her conspiratorially.

"I wonder what kind of car he drives... Something big and posh, you can bet--probably sporty, too. He's certainly going to perk this place up a bit... Danny was saying last night that we'll see some action now."

Danny, Evie's boyfriend, worked for the firm as well, as a trainee carpenter. His clothes were almost as colourful as Evie's, although, like her, he was an enthusiastic and hard worker.

Collecting the post, and pouring Alan a cup of coffee from the jug which Evie had just made, Nicola walked through into her boss's office.

Her heart sank as she saw him. These last two years since his son's death had taken their toll.

He looked what he was--a man who had lost all purpose and motivation in his life. Nicola also suspected that he had begun to drink more than was good for him. There was a drawer in his desk which was always kept locked, and sometimes when she walked into the room there was a sour sharp smell of alcohol on the air.

She felt heart sore for him, only able to guess at how it must feel to have suffered that kind of tragedy.

Tom, his son, had been twenty-two years old and just on the point of leaving university. He had been an intelligent and well-liked young man, and the accident which had killed him had been so meaningless that it was no wonder Alan was even now unable to accept what had happened.

The driver of the other car had been drinking. had crossed the centre of the road, to plough right into Tom's car, killing both Tom and himself outright. There was no easy way for any parent to accept something like that, and now the business which should have been pa.s.sed on to Tom had been sold to someone else.

"I've called a meeting of the work force for ten o'clock," Nicola reminded her boss as she put down his coffee in front of him.

"Luckily the men are all working locally on the house in Duke Street, and although we're paying them for it I've arranged that they will take an early lunch-hour to attend the meeting..."

The contract for renovation of a house just outside the town centre, work they were doing for a local estate agency which was moving from its existing modern premises to this much older and far more attractive property, carried stiff penalty clauses for failure to meet time requirements. Privately Nicola thought that, in view of the notorious tardiness of their foreman, the penalty clauses were going to make the contract unprofitable to them, and suspected that in accepting it Alan was betraying just another indication of how Tom's death had affected him. When she had first come to work for him, he had had his finger firmly on the pulse of the business, with everything under his control. Now things were different, and she often found she was gently having to point out to him various pit-falls in the contracts they took on, almost to the point where she was often the one redrafting the contracts to make sure that they were actually going to be profitable to them.

The only place which could accommodate all of the firm's employees was an empty storage shed adjacent to the office-block, and it was here that the staff were going to gather to officially meet their new boss.

From the window of her office, Nicola had a clear view of the yard and of everyone who came and went in it, and so at ten to ten, when a battered looking Land Rover was driven noisily into the yard, she gave vent to a small sigh of exasperation.

A potential client, much as his or her business was needed, was not someone who could be properly dealt with right now, with their new owner about to arrive at any moment.

The Land Rover was mud-splashed and had at one time or another been involved in some kind of minor accident. It looked very much like any local farmer's vehicle.

It stopped right in front of the office-block and the driver got out.

He was tall, with broad shoulders encased in a windbreaker jacket, his jeans dusty and well- fitting, a pair of battered trainers on his feet. His hair was thick and dark, not black, more a rich, warm brown, growing a bit too low into his collar. His hand, she saw as he slammed the Land Rover door, was brown from constant exposure to the elements.

And then he turned his head, and in doing so caused Nicola's entire world to turn upside-down, her body frozen with shock, her entire life-force numbed by the sight of him.

No. It wasn't possible. it couldn't be possible. It was a mistake.

She was wrong. It couldn't possibly be the same man. After all, it was all of eight years ago . and she had only seen him then in the half-light, and only on that one occasion. But it was him. She knew there was no mistake. knew there could be no way she would ever make a mistake about a thing like that. And besides, she hadn't only recognised him with her eyes, but with her senses as well, each one of them reacting betrayingly to him. each one of them remembering. She shuddered inwardly, wanting to close her eyes, wanting to block out his image, odd, panicky flashes of memory swamping her. Men when drunk did not make careful or considerate lovers--that was received opinion. They were careless, thoughtless, unskilled and lacking in awareness of their partner's needs or wants. That was what one always heard, but he--this man--had been different. had left her-She shuddered again, causing Evie to stare anxiously at her and ask, "Are you OK? You've gone dreadfully pale." She came over to Nicola's desk, and then, as her attention was caught by what was going on outside, commented excitedly, "That's him... The new boss... Matthew Hunt. He's arrived then... You'd better warn Alan."

Matthew Hunt? This was Matthew Hunt? Nicola had to grab hold of her desk to keep her knees from buckling beneath her. Impossible! It couldn't be. It must not be. Matthew Hunt. Her new boss. The same man who. She swallowed hard as the full horror of the situation hit her, her mind in complete turmoil as she sought frantically for something to hold on to, something to stop her from drowning in her own terror.

What if he recognised her? What if he. But no. That was impossible. He had only seen her the once, her hair had been longer then, and she had just had that dreadful disaster of a perm which had left her looking like something out of a horror film. She closed her eyes, shuddering deeply, trying not to remember how she had looked that night. the dress she had worn, bought in a fierce, reckless mood of defiant misery. the make-up she had put on. the way she had behaved. No. He wouldn't recognise her. Her own parents wouldn't have recognised her. Her heartbeat was returning to normal, her body still tense, wary. She could hear Evie excitedly telling Alan that Matthew Hunt had arrived.

Any minute now he would be walking into the office--his office. When he did she must be ready. prepared. She must-She took a deep breath.

The office door opened and he stood there, looking at her.

It shocked through her, as he studied her, how familiar everything about him was, right down to the piercingly intelligent way he was watching her. just as though he was somehow not quite a part of the general run of the human race. as though somehow he was elevated from it. superior.

She remembered how she had noticed that about him that night that and, of course, his spectacular good looks, his very obvious maleness. "Miss Linton?"

It was a statement, not a question, and she responded to it automatically, saying a little shakily, "Yes, I'm Nicola Linton, Mr.

Hunt."

The smile he gave her wasn't kind or warm.

"Make it Matt," he told her coolly.

"Outdated lip-service to respect, when it's sycophantic and not genuine, isn't something which appeals to me..."

His comment shocked her out of her personal terror, making Nicola stare and frown.

He hadn't recognised her, she knew that, but it was evident from his manner towards her that he was not well-disposed to her. Her eyelashes flickered defensively; she knew she was not popular with the male work force, who made fun of her behind her back and laughed about her primness, but better that than She swallowed hard. This man was going to be her boss. Unless she gave up her job, which she did not want to do, she was going to have to find a way of getting on with him. Jobs weren't easy to come by out here, and she had no wish to commute to the city, and certainly no wish to move there. Whatever had caused his antipathy towards her, it certainly wasn't the past. She was safe from that horror, at least.

As she made some inane comment, she was aware of being in a state of intense shock, of speaking and moving automatically, as a means of defence, while really all she longed to do was to turn tail and run just as far and as fast as she could from the man watching her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alan coming out of his office.

Evie beamed enthusiastically at Matthew Hunt, who gave her a surprisingly warm smile.

A sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced before seemed to pierce right through Nicola. It was like being stabbed, and she almost gasped out loud with the shock of it. To her disbelief she realised that the obstruction clogging her throat felt like a hard ball of tears. Tears, when she hadn't cried since--since she was eighteen years old. Evie's age. But at Evie's age she hadn't had one tenth of her confidence, her belief in herself as a woman . a person, even.

She turned away, blinking rapidly, clenching her hands and gritting her teeth as she" willed herself to control her stupid reaction.