Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,79

She added almost to herself.

Vaughn didn’t miss her comment though and frowned but wisely chose not to say anything. Instead he changed the subject.

“So,” he said, “the plan for today is to get all the promotional material ready for the stand. I have fliers, posters, price lists, payment plans, terms of agreement and everything else in my car. We need to make up information packs and organise the display. Hopefully that won’t take too long and then when the others get here, I’ll brief them on the plan for tomorrow.” He stopped and glanced across at her.

“I’ll just go and get the literature; you can stay here if you like and dig into those biscuits.” He winked and walked out of the room chuckling to himself; no doubt at her expense again.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of activity and Elise found that she and Vaughn worked well together. Her organisational skills complemented his visionary skills and they soon had the display stand up and ready with eye catching posters and advertising material. Although Elise had done many conferences before, they had never taken this much time and care over the presentation of it and she could see now how much difference it made. All of the information was available at their fingertips and they had paperwork to back up pretty much all of the questions that they would be asked by potential clients. He had even managed to screen off a small side section to allow some privacy, should the client require it.

Their conversation during the day had been light-hearted but there was an unmistakable undercurrent in the room. When Vaughn had ordered some sandwiches for lunch, she had been aware of him watching her mouth as she ate and, at one point, he had reached across and collected a spot of mayonnaise from the side of her mouth with his thumb. He had then proceeded to put that thumb in his mouth and suck on it, cleaning all of the mayonnaise off whilst keeping his eyes firmly on hers. She had thought that she would self-combust there and then. Never had she witnessed such an erotic gesture and it was all she could do to get herself back into work mode for the rest of the afternoon.

The others arrived together around 7pm. They were in high spirits and were equally as impressed with the location as Elise had been. Vaughn briefed them before dinner, giving them the same outline that he had given to Elise earlier in the day and then instructed them to go and change for dinner, which was booked for 8pm.

This was the first chance that Elise had got to get her room key and she was surprised to find that she had a room on her own; she had thought she might have been sharing with Celeste. Instead Celeste and Tilly were sharing as were Sam and Roger, but both she and Vaughn had a room to themselves. Although it struck her as odd, she supposed it made sense in some way as there weren’t enough of them to all share rooms, but she couldn’t help being a little disappointed – a girly night with Celeste would have been a real laugh.

They all headed up to their rooms at the same time, arriving first at the girls’ room on the ground floor first, which was a few doors along from the boys’ room. Elise and Vaughn had rooms on the first floor but, as he had gone on ahead, she was left to find the stairs and her room on her own.

Opening the door, she gasped as she took in the beauty of the room. It was large with an oak four-poster bed on a raised island in the middle. The bed was facing towards the massive picture window which gave a never-ending view of the grounds and the countryside, which was even visible whilst sitting in the bed. Various items of antique furniture provided storage and a small bookcase contained a selection of the latest novels. There was a television with integral DVD player along with a stand up card dictating the myriad of channels available. There were also films; you just had to make your choice and let Reception know and they would arrange for it to be streamed directly into your room. Fresh flowers adorned every surface and on the bed, laid carefully in the middle, were the most luxurious robe and pair of slippers that she had