Peach (54 page)

Noel shrugged. “I’m sorry, Peach. You asked for the truth. Of course you can ask other people, but I’m afraid in the US that’s the consensus of opinion.”

“But at first the response was so good,” said Peach, “although the reviewers were unkind. Or truthful, I suppose.”

“There’s always a good initial response to an ad campaign like yours,” said Noel, “and I congratulate you. It was the one really good thing about the ‘Fleur’. Besides, you looked beautiful.”

Peach managed a smile. “Noel, you realise what it means if the de Courmont doesn’t sell? The company won’t be able to carry on—they’re too heavily into the production of the ‘Fleur’ financially.”

“It was a mistake ever to go downmarket,” said Noel. “De Courmont’s competition should be Mercedes not Volkswagen! The old boy in the portrait was right—he created an expensive high-class vehicle and an image to match. Your face should be selling the high-priced, up-market answer to Mercedes and Porsche, not a little run-about to the suburban housewife, for God’s sake! You need new design planners, efficient costings, and a limited production. De Courmont can’t compete in the scrabble for the mass middle and bottom ranges, Peach. It’s as simple as that. Aim for the top with the right team, and you’ll win.”

Peach sat up straight, her hands folded in her lap, her knees together like a girl at school listening to her teacher’s lessons. Noel noticed the coral varnish on her toenails and the soft sheen of her bare legs. Her arms in her sleeveless dress looked smooth and soft and the light from the chandeliers shimmered on the golden curve of her breasts where the dress was cut lower. With an effort Noel looked away.

“It all seems so logical—
so simple
now you say it,” said Peach dispiritedly. “I know it’s all true. I believe you.”

Noel smiled at her. “People pay me thousands for that kind of advice,” he said. “Act on it if you wish. I guarantee it will work.”

“I’ll pay you,” said Peach suddenly, “if you’ll come and work for de Courmont, Noel Maddox, and show us how to do it!”

“Peach,” he said, standing up and stretching, “I’m afraid de Courmont can’t afford me.”

She walked with him to the door, padding through the marble hall in her bare feet. The night was warm and the ropes of light glimmered along the Seine as they stood together at the top of the steps. “But only
you
could save de Courmont, Noel,” Peach said persuasively. “No one else understands.”

Noel smiled at her. “Well then,” he said, “I’ll have to think about it, won’t I?” Leaning forward he kissed her lightly on the lips. “Goodnight, Peach.”

Peach ran after him down the steps. “Noel. Goodnight.”

He waved as he strode away. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

Peach waited for Noel alone at a table at Maxim’s. She was one of only three women there—all the other tables were occupied by businessmen, talking important deals and high numbers over poached chicken and Grand Cru wines. She had invited Noel here to talk business and she was nervous, torn between remembering the faint tremor of his lips as he kissed her—surely that hadn’t been her imagination?—and the need to act on his advice—or see de Courmont fail. She’d stopped at Monsieur’s portrait as she left this morning. “I’ll do my best Grand-père,” she’d promised.

There he was, coming through the tables towards her!
Noel’s lean dark face looked stern and composed. He looked like a man in command of any situation, a man in full control of himself and his own life. Oh God, the last time she’d felt like this was when she saw Harry for the first time at the cricket match at Launceton! But Noel Maddox would never be seduced by a woman the way Harry had. Noel was a man who would find what he wanted—and take it. His deep-set grey eyes that could look so dark and withdrawn lit up as he saw her.

“Peach,” he said, holding out his hand, “I’m so sorry I’m late … a call from Detroit—a few problems I had to sort out.”

“Nothing drastic, I hope?”

“Nothing important enough to make me late meeting you,” he said lightly. “I’m truly sorry.” He glanced at the champagne waiting in an ice-bucket by the side of the table. “Are we celebrating?”

“I hope so, that’s why we’re here.”

Noel laughed as the waiter filled their glasses. “It’s a celebration just being with you, Peach.” He added awkwardly, “You look so beautiful in that yellow dress, like rich vanilla ice cream with butterscotch sauce.”

Peach recalled Harry’s exotic images of her … barefoot maidens robed in flower leis, a panther on England’s green lawns, exotic in tropical jungles and on soft white beaches … “That’s the nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me,” she said, pleased.

“I’m not too good with compliments,” admitted Noel, embarrassed, “I’m better at business.”

“And that’s really why we’re here,” said Peach. “I spoke to Jim Jamieson this morning. Noel, he told me he’d met you a few weeks ago?”

“I had a preliminary discussion with him about a possible US Auto involvement in de Courmont,” admitted Noel.

“You never told me that US Auto might be interested?”

Noel shrugged. “We’d never discussed business until last night. I happened to be in Europe for US Auto and I heard about the de Courmont situation. I thought it worth while having a discussion with Jim although he probably told you I didn’t even know the structure of the company.”

“Anyhow,” said Peach, “I told Jim our conversation last night and he had to agree that what you said was right. And he also agreed with me that de Courmont needed you, Noel. Not someone
like
you, but
you
.”

Noel suppressed the smile of triumph that lurked at the corners of his mouth. He’d won. He had what he wanted—the presidency of de Courmont was within his grasp. He savoured the moment before he said, “Peach, do you realise what you are asking? You know that I’m a very highly paid executive at US Auto—in a few years I’ll be in line to be its president. That’s not just
any
job, Peach, it’s one of the top jobs in the world, and they pay a hell of a lot of money. Why would I give up all that to try to save an ailing foreign company?”

Peach stared into her glass as if analysing the fine spiral of bubbles. “I just hoped, I suppose, because … because of our friendship. I realise now it was silly of me—and very unfair.”

Noel took her hand. “Peach, our friendship is still there.” Her eyes looked anxious. “I’ll have to think about this,” he said. “There may be a way—but I’m not sure de Courmont would be happy with it.”

“
I’d
be happy,” cried Peach, “and
I am de Courmont!
”

“There might be a way to incorporate the company into US Auto. Then we could get financial backing to put the company back on its feet and begin production again. Of course, it would mean that you would have to give up partial control of your company—but that’s the only way anyone
would be willing to put up the money. But I promise you, Peach, that if you decide to take this route, de Courmont will become one of the top names in the auto industry. It’ll be back where it belongs—where Monsieur put it. At the top.”

“It seems I don’t have much choice,” said Peach, torn between the bitterness of losing control of the family company, and elation at its salvation. “Either de Courmont goes under, or I surrender control.” Her eyes met his. “I trust you, Noel, I’ll do as you say.”

Noel smiled at her, sipping his champagne. “It may take a few months,” he said, “before we can get things worked out.” He knew that by then de Courmont’s “Fleur” would have been ousted by the “Stallion”. And de Courmont would be desperate for him and for US Auto’s money.

“I’ll wait,” promised Peach, her eyes sparkling again.

Noel lifted his glass in a toast, “Then let’s celebrate,” he said, smiling at his golden girl. She, too, was everything he’d ever wanted.

Detroit was not looking its best to welcome Peach de Courmont. The usual February crust of snow bordered its icy streets and sleet splashed against the windscreen of the vast US Auto’s Premiere limousine as it pulled under the portico of the Hotel Pontchartrain. Wrapped in a sable coat that had been her grandmother’s and dressed by Dior, Peach
swept into the lobby followed by a slew of porters carrying a dozen pale leather suitcases and bags. No one would ever have known that she was nervous and that she was so unsure of herself, venturing into this high-powered American business-world, that she’d brought far more clothes than necessary simply because she couldn’t decide what to wear. She wanted to make an impression on these hard-headed businessmen and tomorrow she would be severe and tailored in Dior or Balmain for the meetings on the fourteenth floor of the “power tower”; she would be seductive and French at night, wearing the slender gold panne-velvet dress from Valentino, or maybe the bouffant-skirted coral silk from Givenchy, or perhaps the sliver of clinging sapphire satin that she’d bought at a new little boutique in London.

Noel had made sure that the top American advertising agency who were to run the new publicity campaign would feature Peach and the de Courmont mansion as the company’s classy “image” for their new car—already provisionally named the “Duke”—and her arrival at Detroit’s Metropolitan airport had been carefully stage-managed for maximum publicity, with photographers and newsmen and television cameras in attendance.
But no Noel!
Just a bouquet of peach-coloured roses and a note: “It’s all yours—enjoy it! I’ll call you at the hotel later.”

Peach closed the door of the suite behind the last of the porters, the hotel manager and the maid and the three minions from US Auto who had been sent to “make sure she had everything she wanted and to offer any assistance she might need.” Kicking off her tall boots she sank thankfully on to the sofa.

The formation of the new company had taken longer than Noel had anticipated, but it hadn’t come too soon for de Courmont, what with sales of the “Fleur” dropping so suddenly once the “Stallion” hit the market. But somehow Noel
had been able to secure distribution rights to the “Stallion” for de Courmont and now their dealers were eager to see what the new company under Noel’s presidency would come up with. The “Duke” was to be a top-range luxury car competing with the Mercedes, but with sleeker Italian styling, and the model was already at fibreglass body-shell stage. Peach was to see it tomorrow for the first time. And she would also be seeing Noel for the first time in two months.

Noel had been flying backwards and forwards to Paris bringing teams of efficiency experts and executives and designers and accountants, taking the company’s structure apart, piece by piece, and reassembling it into his streamlined version of the new “de Courmont.” Peach had looked forward to his visits the way she had looked forward to Christmas as a child, counting the days and waking eager and excited on the mornings she knew he would be arriving. She’d asked him to stay at the house on the Ile St Louis, but he had said it was better if he retained his old suite at the Crillon. Peach had felt disappointed; she hadn’t realised how much she had wanted to have him to herself in her big old house. Just the two of them.

When Noel came to Paris it was often “just the two of them”—when he wasn’t working, of course, because with Noel work always came first. They went to dinner and to concerts and Peach had taken him to Germany to meet Lais and Ferdi at their fairy-tale castle looming on a crag over the Rhine, and to Switzerland to stay for a weekend’s rest at the family’s mountaintop hotel. But she hadn’t taken him to her grandmother’s. She wouldn’t take any man to see Leonie unless he were a serious part of her life. And much as she wanted Noel to be that, they remained just good friends and business partners. Noel had never done more than kiss her lightly when they met or said goodnight though she’d
felt sure he wanted to, as much as she did. She had been only too right when she’d thought that Noel Maddox wouldn’t be seduced by a woman: he would take what he wanted. Well, it seemed he didn’t want her and she wasn’t about to throw herself at him, the way she had with Harry.

The phone rang and Peach picked it up quickly.

“Welcome to Detroit.”

“Thank you, Noel. I feel very welcomed,” said Peach, glancing round her flower-filled suite. “The Detroit florists must have run out of roses!”

“Most of them are to apologise for my absence,” said Noel. “I’m afraid I shan’t be able to see you this evening. Something’s come up on the new design and we need all the facts and figures ready for tomorrow’s press conference.”

Peach felt her elation sag into disappointment. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m tired from the journey anyway.”

“I’ll pick you up tomorrow then,” said Noel crisply. “It’s the big day.”

Peach leaned back against the cushions. She was alone in Noel’s town. She’d been hoping that once they were away from Paris things would be different. And now on her first night in Detroit Noel had deserted her, just when she could have used his reassuring presence to tell her that what she was doing tomorrow was the right thing. But it wasn’t just the right thing any more—it was the
only
thing. Without Noel, de Courmont would have gone under three months ago. In fact without Noel in her life she would have lost everything.