They were at Reception waiting for their keys when he informed her that he would not be requiring her services that evening. `I'm dining with some people I'm doing some business with. I see no point in you waiting around or coming to collect me when I've no idea what time I shall need you.'

'You'd like the car keys?"

'I'll take a taxi.'

That probably meant he was celebrating some business deal with a glass or two of something! `If you're sure?' she checked-this to a man she was growing positive was sure in all he did.

He didn't deign to answer, and they were going up to their rooms in the lift when he told her, `Make certain you have something to eat yourself.' Yancie got out of the lift on her floor and she didn't deign to answer.

She was in her room when she began to wonder why the man had the power to-without effort-niggle her so. Probably, she pondered, because she had never met a man like him before. The man was an automaton. `Make certain you have something to eat yourself,' he'd said. Well, of course, she would.

Though, having eaten in the hotel's dining room by herself at lunchtime, she had little wish to dine by herself that night. But the only person she knew in this neck of the woods was Thomson Wakefield, and he was dining elsewhere, thank you very much.

She paused then and stood stock-still as the thought suddenly came to her-was that why she was feeling all niggled? Because he hadn't asked her to dine with him?

Oh, come on! As if she wanted to dine with him, for goodness' sake! To do so would mean she was keen for his company, that she liked him. Why, she couldn't even stand the man! Having indisputably established that fact, Yancie did a mental trawl of girls she'd been at boarding-school with, but, before she could come up with a name, she remembered Charlie Merrett. She reached for the phone.

'Fennia,' she said when her cousin answered, `have we got Charlie Merrett's phone number between us?'