'So is there any man in your life', Gerhard asked again as Sharon looked at him saying nothing but smiling.
She shook her head.'Not at the moment. Have you met the girl of your dreams yet?'
He laughed. 'I keep hoping, but so far not luck'.
'Maybe you are too difficult to please!'
'I have been brought up to expect the best', he agreed with wry amusement. 'No doubt you are right but never mind, I enjoy my life. I'm free, single and love to mingle as they say'.
'You still watch that program on TV?'
'All the time. When I work at home, I have the TV on the music program blaring, it helps me think and keeps with awake during long nights'.
'I wonder how people managed before recorded music!'Sharon said thoughtfully.
Gerhard told her how his parents had their own personal chamber orchestra.
Sharon ate her salad slowly as she listened to him. She had just finished her salad when the delegates started moving away towards the conference hall. The conference was starting again in fifteen minutes
'Time to get back. See you later'.
She got up to go and Gerhard rose too. He bent and kissed her lightly on the mouth.
'Meet me for drinks before dinner in the bar, okay? Seven o'clock?'
She nodded. 'Seven, okay'.
As she turned to go, she saw Bryan at the next table, watching her with the cold eyes of an enemy.
Sharon felt a leap of shock. The blood left her face. Pulling herself together, she walked away fast.
They were both in the main hall that afternoon, seated next to each other because the seats had been numbered in advance and one had to seat on the seat allotted to them.
Sharon tried to concentrate on the meeting, to try and ignore the fact that Bryan was sitting close to her but try as she could, she could not shut out her awareness of him.
Everytime he shifted in his chair, or turned his conference programme or even moved his head, she was always conscious of it. She even found herself listening to his heartbeat.
She could not understand why this was happening to her. She had been working with him for months in London. She disliked, distrusted and suspected Bryan Ferdinand, so why should she have suddenly become so intensely aware of him that she found it hard to think of anything else?
She was relieved when the business of the day was over and everyone began to go back to their rooms.
'Our car will be waiting', Bryan said offhandedly, and she nodded.
Bryan spoke casually of the last discussion and Sharon wondered when she would tell him that she would be sitting with Gerhard for dinner.
Then they reached their own hotel and took the lift. As they approached her room because they were on the same floor, their rooms adjoining, Sharon blurted out, 'By the way,I've been asked to join a friend for dinner tonight'.
Bryan halted outside her door. His face stiffening.
'The 'friend', I saw you having lunch with?'
'Yes', she said with defiance in her green eyes.
'You make friends very quickly', he said with cold derision.
'I've known Gerhard for ages', she said. 'David introduced him to me last year in London'.
Bryan's smile was sarcastic. 'Well, if he's a friend of David, you have to be nice to him of course'.
She resented his emphasis. 'David would definitely want me to be friendly to him. Gerhard is with the German bank'.
'Would he expect you to sleep with him too?' he asked.
Sharon went dumb after turning a deep shade of red and then going pale because his words cut like a knife.
She got out her key and turned to unlock the door but Bryan was not through speaking yet.
'Because judging by the way he kept looking you over', he threw at her back, 'that was what was in his mind as an after dinner entertainment. From where I sat, I could see him practically undressing you with his eyes'.
'You've got a one - track mind', she said angrily trying to get the key into the lock with her trembling hands.
'It's a track most men follow especially with someone who looks like you'.
At last, she managed to open the door and now she could escape both his presence and his unwanted remarks.
'All men aren't like you, thank goodness', she threw back at him over her shoulders.
'Well, don't say that I didn't warn you', he grated , turned and walked away to his room.
She slammed the door shut and rested on it with rage and agitation.
She had a long bath to unwind and got herself ready to enjoy the evening.
She had intended to we're her dark green velvet dress which she had worn the previous evening but somehow she could not stand to were that dress again and she knew that even in the future, anytime she wore the dress, she would be reminded of those moments in the dark doorway, of Bryan's mouth and hands, of the wild desire he had awakened in her.
She took out from the wardrobe a filmy black chiffon with a skirt that floated round her legs as she walked.
The chiffon made her breast and throat take on a glimmering pallor, her dark auburn hair glowed with the colour of leaves in the autumn. She clasped a necklace of pearls round her throat, brushed glittery green shadow along her lids, painted her lips a deep russet red and then she stood back and contemplated her reflection in the mirror.
The dress was as sophisticated as the green velvet but somehow... she thought frowning, biting her lip. It was somehow sexier, she admitted uneasily. All that skin showing through the black gauzy material... maybe she should wear the green velvet?
No! She couldn't bear to. She turned away. She had to leave or she would be late. She didn't wait for Bryan, she took a taxi back to the conference hotel and found Gerhard waiting in the bar when she walked in, dead on seven.
His blue eyes skated over her as she walked towards him and she recalled Bryan's accusation. He practically undressed you with his eyes, Bryan had said and Gerhard was certainly staring, but Sharon didn't find the way he looked at her offensive.