The Trusting Game

Look at the way he had deceived her that first afternoon, the way she had been so certain that the warmth, the admiration in the look he was giving her had been real, until his companion had betrayed him.

What would have happened if he hadn’t done so, if she had never discovered his real identity, if for instance that afternoon he had been alone, if he had chosen to follow up on the promise of that exchanged look…?

How much damage could he have actually done to her emotions before she had realised the truth?

Her own vulnerability had come as a shock to her. She had thought herself so fireproof to men of his particular type.

There was only one reason that he had brought her here, virtually kidnapping her in order to do so. No man liked being challenged by a woman, especially when that woman won the challenge, and both professionally and financially he could not afford to be defeated.

It was going to be war between them, and he had some pretty devastating weapons in his arsenal, she acknowledged as he stopped outside one of the several doors off the broad corridor.

‘I’ve put you in here,’ he told her. ‘You’ve got your own private bathroom.’ He pushed open the bedroom door, allowing her to precede him inside it. The room was furnished plainly and simply, with an antique brass bed and a few pieces of highly polished, age-scarred oak furniture, including a desk.

‘I’ll leave you to settle in and then over supper we can discuss the structure of your course. One of the things we teach here is the importance of harmonious teamwork and its benefits. We find that many executives lose sight of the importance of working alongside others; our culture breeds a need to dominate, a desire for supposed superiority. We aim to redress the effects of that; to teach the benefits of co-existence, of valuing and supporting one another, of integrating with one’s colleagues and team-mates.’

‘I don’t have any team-mates,’ Christa told him drily. She was on safer ground here, and with every word he spoke she could feel her resistance to what he was saying growing. ‘You should try going out into the real world,’ she added cynically. ‘I promise you, it doesn’t work. One of the first things that would happen if I and my fellow importers started empathising supportively with one another is that our buyers would accuse us of setting up a cartel and of price-fixing.’

‘You don’t fool me, Christa,’ Daniel told her softly, by way of response. ‘You may think you sound hard and cynical, but that’s just a disguise, a form of protection.’

He had gone, closing the door quietly behind him before Christa could summon up a suitable retort.

Her need protection? Ridiculous. Protection from what—from who?

Christa hesitated in the hallway, the temptingly rich smell of soup coaxing her to go into the kitchen, the knowledge that Daniel was waiting inside it for her stopping her. But when the door opened and he appeared in front of her the decision was taken out of her hands.

‘Soup’s ready,’ he told her cheerfully, ‘although I can’t claim much credit. All I had to do was to reheat it in the microwave.’

Who had cooked it? Christa wondered curiously ten minutes later, seated at the kitchen table dipping her spoon into the thick rich broth. A comfortably middleaged local farmer’s wife, or someone else—younger-prettier? Daniel was a very attractive man, both sexually and in other ways, or at least he would have been, she amended hastily, if she didn’t have the intelligence to see through that very deceptive maleness and recognise what really lay behind it.

However, not all women were fortunate enough to have the benefit of her past experience and knowledge to protect them.

It would be all too easy, she suspected, fatally easy in fact, for a more vulnerable woman to be taken in by his apparent warmth and caring, his sense of humour and his pseudo-readiness to be open about himself, especially once they had looked into his eyes and seen the look she had thought she had seen when they first met!

Fiercely, she clamped down on the memory of how she had felt then, her body tensing.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Daniel asked her solicitously. ‘Soup too hot?’

Thank God he couldn’t really read her mind, Christa reflected wryly as she avoided his eyes, shaking her head as she responded guardedly, ‘No, it’s fine. Very good, in fact. Who made it?’

‘I’m not really sure. Some of the local farmers’ wives are involved in their own small business, cooking and supplying home-made food,’ he explained. ‘They cater for functions, speciality events, weddings and the like, and run a stall on market day, and they also provide me with a rota of cooks and staff for the centre when it’s in operation.

‘This soup was part of a batch of food that was in the centre’s freezer. I brought it up here to save it being wasted. Normally I cook for myself or eat at the centre.

‘I’ve drawn up a basic programme outline for your course,’ he continued. ‘We normally follow a more specialised routine, but in your case…’

‘In my case, what?’ Christa pounced suspiciously as he opened the folder he was holding. ‘What makes my case different? Or can I guess?’ she challenged him cynically. ‘You’ve already altered the odds in your own favour by doubling the length of the course, but I can tell you now, it doesn’t matter what you say or do, I shan’t change my mind,’ she told him triumphantly.

Just for a second, the grey eyes hardened slightly as he focused on her. ‘The extended length of your course has nothing whatsoever to do with my trying to shorten the odds in my favour, as you put it,’ he told her curtly. ‘It’s simply that without any shared group interaction it will take longer to…’

‘To brainwash me,’ Christa supplied acidly. ‘Why don’t you just lock me in my room and starve me into submission?’

He was angry now, Christa recognised, a small thrill of apprehension running down her spine as she saw the way his eyes had darkened, his mouth hardening as he looked at her.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ he told her softly. But then his expression lightened, a brief smile touching his mouth as he said, ‘You, submissive…? Somehow I doubt it.’

There was something in the way he was looking at her…something in his smile…Thoroughly flustered, Christa dropped her head.

Damn the man! How had he managed to turn her angry challenge around so that suddenly it was filled with such subtle sexual innuendo that she could actually feel her body starting to grow hot?

‘So what exactly are you planning to do with me?’ she demanded quickly—too quickly, she realised, biting her lip in chagrin as she waited for him to use the verbal slip she had just made; but to her relief, and to her surprise as well, he didn’t do so, merely looking down at his file and telling her,

‘The course comprises a mixture of physical and mental exercises designed to promote trust in others and to foster an ability to share control through group activities and group discussions.

‘The group activities make use of our surroundings and include mountain-walking, where the walkers are paired together, and, similarly, canoeing…’

‘Canoeing…’ Christa stared at him. ‘No way, you can forget that,’ she told him, visions of the flimsy, frail craft he was talking about filling her horrified imagination. She could swim—just—preferably in a heated pool with no current and no waves, but if he expected her voluntarily to risk her life…

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of…’ she heard him telling her, as though he had read her mind. ‘The canoes are unsinkable; the worst that can happen is that they might roll over if badly handled, but you’ll be wearing a wetsuit and…’