Chapter 20: Chapter 20

After the call, Sharon went over the Japanese stock market, observing all the shares they held and how they were doing. She had an appointment with a Japanese client that afternoon and wanted to know what she was talking about when she met him.

She was coming out of the beautiful building which housed the bank at Lunch time when she saw Bryan strolling towards her from the taxi that had just dropped him.

He looked at her and in his head, he thought, 'Look at the lady who made him feel less than what he was. She tries to put me down at all times but she does not know that I cannot be out down. I am like a mountain that cannot be shaken. Instead of allowing myself be put down by the likes of her, I shall cease to be Bryan Ferdinand. She reported sick but there is no sign of the I'll health in her. She looks as cool and as beautiful as ever and I want her desperately but I'll be damned if I'd let her know after hurting my feelings at every turn,by flinching away from me, from my touch but she had screamed with pleasure while I made love to her and had even given me live bites that had kept reminding me of that night. Perhaps she had imagined she was with someone else? Like that German? Or David? She had allowed me near her only because she was very lonely and I happened to be the one available at the time? Damn her!

She held on tightly on the railings of the staircase for support as they met on the steps, wondering the rude and cynical word he would have for her that afternoon as her heart lurched as she saw him and she was not disappointed.

He nodded, 'Back at work then? his face dark and cool.

'Yes'.

'David saw it was the flu'. His sardonic tone indicated that he didn't believe it.

She lifted her chin. 'Yes, that's right'. Her own tone told him that she didn't care what he believed.

His mouth twisted. 'But now you're normal'.

Anyone else overhearing them would have taken what he was saying at face value but Sharon heard the undertone. The sarcasm, the distaste and she flinched from it.

'Yes', she said as she started bitterly into his black eyes.

'I know you'll be pleased to hear how much David kept saying that he missed you', he drawled. 'They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, didn't they? So your bout of flu was brilliantly timed, obviously'.

She didn't answer, her face stiff, just walked away, blinded to the traffic and confusion of London as she moved.

She hadn't seen him for over a week but he had t been out of her mind all that time and just now as they talked, she had kept looking at him, looking away, unable to stop looking back, swinging wildly all the time between extremes of feeling which left her giddy.

Absence had had a drastic effect on her heart, it seemed.She wished to God it hadn't.

That brief encounter on the steps outside the bank would make it easier next time she saw him, though. She hoped.

In fact, she saw him again the next morning in David's office. There were several of the bank directors there. Bryan and Sharon were able to ignore each other without it seeming strange.

Nobody else seemed to notice the chill in the air whenever they spoke to each other, either. Al though it seemed so obvious to Sharon. O my David picked up on it and mentioned it later in private,gently chiding her.

'What is wrong with you and Bryan? I had hoped you two would get better by now than you obviously do. Didn't you hit it off while you were in Rome? I thought that being thrown together like that might have broken the ice between you too but the way you talk to each other lately, the ice seem thicker than ever'.

Flushed and furious with herself for letting David glimpse her feelings, she said simply, 'I'm sorry if it's that obvious. I always try to be polite'.

'Oh, Polite, Yes. But I know you both, I don't need you to draw diagrams. Everytime the two of you are in the same room,the temperature goes down with a thump. You know my plans for him Sharon, one day, he'll be sitting on my chair. Try to make friends with him'.

She forced a pretense of laughter. 'Good heavens, David, stop talking as if you're ninety three! unless you are planning to retire at fifty. Bryan isn't going to take over for a long, long time'.

Then their eyes met and she frowned, struck by a new idea.

'You aren't planning to retire, are you?' That prospect appalled her. David gone. Bryan in his place? She would have to leave the bank!

'I'm certainly not planning anything if the kind but you never know what the future holds, do you? If I had been told that my wife would be taken from me so soon, I'd never have believed it. She was so you g and full of life. She never had a terminal sickness. The future is uncertain. So make friends with Bryan, Sharon'.

Sharon looked closely at him. Hope he was not trying to say something to her.

'You are okay David, aren't you?'

'I am but I am asking this of you. I am disturbed about your hostile attitude towards each other and I want you both to be amicable towards each other. That's only what I am trying to say'.

'It was too late for that, David, Sharon thought grimly. She could not even consider that. He had done alot to wreck her life and peace. She and Bryan were never going to be friends. They might have tried at it had the conference not happened but it had and they had briefly been lovers, now they were enemies and it would take a miracle to change it to be otherwise.