Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Copyright

“I’ve kept my side of the bargain!”

“Bargain?” he teased. “What bargain was this?”

“The bargain that if I humored you you’d go away?” Ana reminded him sweetly. “So I take it you’re leaving in the morning?”

“I said no deal.” Jed grinned. Unrepentantly, he raked a thoughtful hand through his hair. “I’ve no intention of going anywhere…”

Ana glared at him, eyes wider. “You’re planning on staying all week?”

“I’m touched by your enthusiasm.”

Having abandoned her first intended career for marriage, ROSALIE ASH spent several years as a bilingual personal assistant to the managing director of a leisure group. She now lives in Warwickshire with her husband, and daughters Kate and Abby, and her lifelong enjoyment of writing has led to her career as a novelist. Her interests include languages, travel and research for her books, reading, and visits to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in nearby Stratford-upon-Avon. Other pleasures include swimming, yoga and country walks.

Dangerous Nights
Rosalie Ash

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘ANA?’ The deep, male greeting came from the shadows by the stage door. Halting abruptly in her stride, long blonde hair flying behind her in her haste, she swivelled to scan the darkness.

‘Anastasia French?’ The owner of the voice stepped towards her. He was silhouetted now against the light from the doorway. She could make out only a tall, tough-looking man in denims and brown leather flying jacket. A black baseball cap was pulled well forward over his eyes. He was holding a theatre programme in his hands. An autograph hunter. She hugged her coat around her, glanced warily at his shadowed face. In her old velvet jacket, her floppy black velvet hat covering most of her hair, she was rarely spotted by one of the audience. She wasn’t one of the well-known members of this season’s Royal Shakespeare Company. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But there was something familiar about him. His build, height and, above all, his voice. Her heart flipped annoyingly in her chest.

‘Hi, did you enjoy the play?’ She smiled politely, waiting for the request to sign the programme. A group of fellow actors brushed past her. She exchanged goodnights with them as they went.

‘I didn’t watch the play,’ the man murmured coolly. ‘I was intrigued to see if the Anastasia French in the programme was the Ana French I knew, a few years back.’

This time the jolt in her heart felt more like a miniature earthquake. Whatever the last few years had taught her about disguising her emotions, she had difficulty clamping down the surge of reaction. Mixed up with anger, pride, apprehension were a host of other emotions, less easily identified…

‘Jed?’ Her voice was usually husky, rich and quite deep. She hardly recognised the breathless squeak which came out now.

He pushed the baseball cap back, then flipped it off. He had brown hair, worn longish, tousled back into crisp, thick layers which brushed the collar of his jacket. A hard, unconventionally attractive face. Long, narrowed, grey-green eyes. An unreadable gaze, which was achingly familiar…

‘Hello, Ana.’

‘What are you doing here?’ she managed. Her pulse-rate was still galloping at a hundred miles an hour. It didn’t make sense still, to feel such an intense reaction, after all this time. She’d got over Jed Steele ages ago. Hadn’t she? He’d been her baptism of fire. The big mistake all teenagers had to make before they grew up, grew their protective layer, grew accustomed to the cruel old world around them.

‘Hoping to get this programme signed?’ He shot her a cool, brief grin, holding open the page where the cast list was printed. ‘It says in here you’re understudying a major role. Congratulations. That’s a big career move, isn’t it?’

‘If I get to do it, which is by no means guaranteed.’ She spoke as evenly as she could, scrawling her name with an unsteady hand. ‘There. Happy? I wish I could say it was nice to see you again, Jed…’

Now why had she said that? Showing bitterness, giving herself away, after all this time?

He caught her arm as she began to swing away. She turned her head, stiffening at his touch. His eyes were intent, searching her face. That look made her heart sink.

‘I don’t see you for four years,’ he queried lazily, ‘and all I get is a twenty-second conversation?’

‘What did you have in mind?’ Her defensiveness was amusing him, she realised bitterly. His hold on her arm, even through the thickness of her coat, was making the surface of her skin contract into tiny shivers of awareness.

But how could she fail to be aware of him? Jed wasn’t the kind of man you could ignore. Tall, arrogant, faintly menacing, he radiated strength, cynicism and forceful virility in almost equal measures. How he managed to restrain them into his cool, watchful manner, a hallmark of his character, she’d never worked out. But then, when it came to what made Jed Steele the way he was, she’d never succeeded in working anything out…

‘How about a drink?’ Jed was suggesting, in that deep voice which had always made her stomach melt. ‘In the pub up the road?’ The invitation was casual, but already he was falling into stride beside her, one hand still on her upper arm. The proprietorial air was unnerving.

‘I’m much too tired for that…’

‘Just one drink. Then I’ll walk you home.’

Walk her home? Who did he think he was? Turning up after a four-year silence, after the cruel fiasco of their last meeting, and calmly taking over. Anger surged, but she controlled it. The more she protested, a small voice reminded her, the more she gave herself away. Fake indifference. Feign uninterest. With a massive effort, she shrugged lightly.

‘OK. I suppose one drink won’t hurt.’ A yawn behind her hand gave credence to the performance. If he felt affronted, he gave no sign. But he’d always been infuriatingly…deadpan. She might have chosen acting as her profession, but Jed’s talent for masking his thoughts would win him an Oscar.

With a glass of white wine in front of her, she met that hard, narrowed gaze over the corner table in the smoky bar, and remembered precisely, in painful detail, why she’d once felt that instant, devastating attraction…

‘You look well, Ana.’

The simple words were no more than a polite formality. She was imagining any husky quality in his voice, wasn’t she? Fooling herself that those cold eyes held a hidden gleam in their depths?

Taking a shaky breath, she silently lectured herself to be very, very careful. It would be fatal to read anything into this surprise meeting.

‘Thank you. So do you. So…what are you doing in Stratford?’ she managed stiffly. ‘Apart from hanging around the stage door holding programmes for plays you haven’t seen.’

Under the lazy, non-committal regard she had to summon all her poise to flip off the velvet hat idly, rake long fingers casually through her thick blonde hair. But she met his light green eyes with a calm brown gaze.

Some of the cast from tonight’s play in the main theatre were gathered around the bar. Curious glances were being angled in their direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she could. see Camilla and Pru respecting her privacy, but covertly noting Jed’s lean brand of sex appeal. Theatre gossip being what it was, her unknown companion would be the subject of delighted conjecture and discussion for at least three days.

‘Just passing through.’ The detached scrutiny was calmly raking her from head to toe. Where his eyes moved, she felt a shiver of physical response. Could he see the effect he had on her? She gripped her hands together in her lap, agonisingly conscious of his power over her. Beneath her loose, scoop-necked white sweatshirt, she was braless. Her small, high breasts had tightened involuntarily under that calculating appraisal…

‘So what’s new?’ She fortified her nerves with a sip of wine, appalled at the way her hand shook. ‘You spend your life “just passing through", don’t you?’

‘No worse surely than spending your life pretending to be someone else?’ There was a dangerous gleam in Jed’s eyes.

Despite her determination to fight her feelings, she found herself staring at his face, wide-eyed, almost mesmerised. She was trapped then, in that poker-player’s gaze. Jed had always possessed the knack of concentrating visually, unblinking, apparently indefinitely, without moving a muscle.

‘If that’s your definition of the acting profession, it just shows your miserable lack of culture,’ she managed at last, dropping her eyes. ‘So how long does “just passing through” mean this time? One night? One week?’

‘I’m not sure yet.’

He took a mouthful of his drink. He hadn’t switched his tastes in that area, she noticed, with a stab of resentment. Still iced mineral water with a wedge of lemon. Maybe he felt the need to be on red alert every waking moment of the day? Alcohol might blur that robot-style control of his…

He flexed broad shoulders, rested one booted foot on the rung of the stool beside him. Under the soft leather jacket, he wore a black polonecked jumper. It looked like cashmere. The fine wool faithfully emphasised the rock-hard contour of his chest, the ridged flatness of diaphragm and solar plexus. His body resembled his personality, she reflected uneasily. Hard and controlled. Constantly on guard. It was disturbing, she reflected, how much she remembered about him. More than disturbing. Terrifying…

‘So how are things?’ He followed up his non-committal reply with a soft query. ‘Are you enjoying being in Stratford?’

‘What do you think?’ Her caution slipped a little. ‘It’s brilliant. I wake up every day and think, I’m so incredibly lucky! Being with the Royal Shakespeare Company is something I always dreamed of doing. Never quite believed possible.’

‘You’re good. I’ve seen you do Shakespeare, remember?’ He dismissed her modesty with deadpan insensitivity. ‘I could have told you four years ago that you’d make it, Ana.’

Surely he couldn’t be referring to that humiliating episode in the garden, at Farthingley? The memory brought heat to her face. She couldn’t think of the last time she’d blushed…at least, yes, she could. It had been that weekend, at Farthingley. That forty-eight hours in her life when all her novice feelings and emotions had seemed to spring to the surface of her skin and glow like phosphorus…

But now here she was, confident Anastasia French, twenty-three years old, rising young star, currently appearing on one of the most famous stages in the world, blushing again, like a schoolgirl on her first date—she could hate him for that alone…

Catching Camilla’s eye, she dragged herself together. Was she as lobster-red as she felt?

‘What are you doing these days?’ she countered quickly. ‘Or is that still classified information?’

The grey-green eyes cooled.

‘I scrape along.’

Anastasia stared at him for a long moment. Then she slowly shook her head. ‘You “scrape along"?’ she echoed. She was quite unable to hide her angry frustration. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you, Jed Steele! You’re so…barricaded! You—you lead your life in total secrecy! That day I first met you, you were “scraping along” at my father’s house, doing some unspecified, totally mysterious job for him during that conference weekend. Most men I’ve met, normal men, admit to being…actors, or theatre directors, or…or musicians, or even businessmen, accountants, firemen, plumbers…’

‘Spare me your sordid memoirs, Ana.’ His eyes gleamed with rare humour.

Her jaw dropped. After a moment’s strangled silence, she said frostily, ‘I was giving hypothetical examples, not listing my sexual encounters!’

‘I believe you.’

She took a long breath. ‘Where have you been working recently?’

‘Abroad.’

‘Where abroad?’

‘Washington. Paris. Brussels. Geneva.’ A heavy gold watch glinted at his wrist as he reached for his glass. She stared at the lean shape of his hand, the long, well-shaped fingers, the flexible ripple of tendons under the duskily tanned skin. A sprinkle of dark hair roughened the back of his hand, disappeared up the strong wrist under the black cashmere. Wrenching her eyes away with an effort, dismayed at his power to mesmerise her like this, she cast around for a flippant retort.

‘I’ve got it. You’re an international jewel thief,’ she said decisively. ‘That’s how you get to drive black Porsches and own huge town houses in half a dozen different cities all over the world…’

‘How do you know what kind of houses I own?’

‘Something my father said, I expect. But don’t worry,’ she added with an edge of sarcasm, ‘he didn’t divulge anything else about you! Your guilty secrets are safe!’

Jed’s gaze was wryly non-committal. He watched as she impatiently drained her glass. ‘Would you like another wine?’

‘No. I’m going to head for bed…’

‘I’ll walk you home.’

‘There’s no need to bother. My digs are only just round the corner…’

‘It’s no bother.’ He stood up, reached for her jacket and held it out for her.

‘How gentlemanly.’ She couldn’t resist the acerbic tease, although she was trembling inside as she slid her arms in. ‘I’d have thought you were better at helping girls off with their clothes.’

‘That’s pretty childish, Anastasia. Don’t forget your hat.’

Flustered, she turned and snatched up the velvet hat, pulled it on hard, waved quickly to her friends, and escaped into the night air. Thank goodness it was so cold. Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire…

September was nearly over. An early frost had sharpened the air. The heady scent of petunias and nicotiana had been almost obliterated.

‘Why did you come to see me at the stage door tonight?’ she demanded as he began to walk with her. He had an easy, prowling way of walking. It reminded her of a very large panther, shadowing silently beside her.

‘Just…to say hello,’ he countered calmly. ‘Renew acquaintance.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’ She shivered as she glared up at his dark profile.

‘Does there have to be a particular reason?’ He sounded coolly preoccupied, almost cagey. ‘Is this the way you normally walk home? Alone?’

‘You are such a—a cold-blooded bastard!‘ she burst out involuntarily. She stopped to cross the road quickly, conscious only of the urge to get away from him.

‘Anastasia—’

Whatever he’d been about to say was abruptly cut short. A car had turned the corner and was roaring along the road towards them. With a speed which took her breath away and left her mentally reeling, she found herself half lifted, half pushed to the far pavement, and then pinned against the low stone wall enclosing the river gardens.

The car shot blindly past. The engine noise faded. It disappeared. Shaking all over, she struggled to free herself from Jed’s vice-like hold.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she said crossly. ‘Of course I’m all right. For goodness’ sake, I’m not stupid—I saw the car…’

‘He didn’t seem to have seen you,’ Jed said drily, releasing her, and dusting her down with an unreadable gleam in his eyes. ‘You’re trembling. Are you prone to near accidents like that, Anastasia?’

‘No! And I’m quite capable of looking after myself! But…thanks anyway.’ It took an effort to say it. He was right, the near miss seemed to have shaken her up more than she’d realised.

‘No problem. Do you usually cut through these gardens late at night?’

‘Yes. Normally I…I walk with a friend from the theatre. And Stratford is really quite a nice little town, you know. It has very few muggers and perverts lurking in the bushes…’

‘No town is free of those.’

‘Well, maybe I’m not familiar with whatever sordid world you inhabit.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘maybe you’re not.’

They’d reached the terraced house she shared with three other members of the company. Searching for her key in her shoulder-bag, she paused uncertainly. Jed showed no signs of bidding her a polite goodnight and vanishing. His deadpan presence at her side implied a definite expectation of being invited in.

‘I suppose I should be polite and ask you in for—for coffee,’ she said shortly, ‘but it’s late and I’m tired, so…’

As she pushed the key into the lock, the door swung open, unlocked. One of the others must have left in on the latch, for some reason, earlier on. The telephone was ringing.

‘Excuse me…’ Darting inside, she picked up the receiver. The caller rang off. Replacing the phone on its hook, she was just glaring at it in frustration, when she realised that Jed had followed her inside. Her heart began to thud painfully in her chest. He looked unnervingly large and intimidating in the narrow hall.

‘Jed, I’m sorry…I really have to get to bed.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’m just curious about where you live.’ He spoke with easy confidence, ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘No one. They rang off as I answered…’

‘Do you share this house with someone else?’

‘Three others. They’re either all out, or all asleep.’

‘Who left the door unlocked?’

Didn’t the wretched man miss anything?

‘I haven’t a clue. And right now I couldn’t care less!’

‘I’ll see you up to your room.’ There was an air of bleak authority about him suddenly.

She stared at him in mounting bewilderment. What kind of insidious game was he playing, knowing how she must feel about the past? Turning up tonight out of the blue. Following her home. Barging in, uninvited…

‘Look, I don’t know what you want,’ she began hotly, ‘but frankly I’d like you to go away and leave me alone, Jed—’

‘Ana—’

‘Just get out…!’

She trailed off abruptly as he took a step closer. He grabbed her shoulders, then hesitated, uncharacteristically. His fingers dug into her, hard and powerful, through the velvet jacket. He had an air of silently calculating the situation. Then, with a soft, four-letter expletive, he slowly closed the gap between then and lowered his head, as if to kiss her.

Ana caught her breath. She couldn’t breathe at all. But he didn’t kiss her. Maybe her fierce intake of breath had made him think twice? He stopped, within an inch of her mouth, then lifted his head again, his eyes dark with an emotion she didn’t recognise.

The shock of his nearness stunned her into terrified confusion—the clean, male smell of him, the remembered shape and feel of his body, a scant half inch from hers, so overpoweringly large, and male, and close. She could remember how it had felt to be moulded with brazen intimacy all the way down, every inch of their contrasting sexuality fused into one…It triggered a wild response. The response was unexpected in its intensity, and yet only too familiar. Humiliatingly familiar. The way he held her, that crucial few millimetres apart from him, had a fierce constraint which transmitted itself to her. There was a subtle hint of violence. As if he was suppressing a potentially dangerous depth of feeling.

He released her. The green eyes were a shade darker. Her heart seemed to expand and swell in her ribcage, her stomach was contorted with anger and fear and, to her eternal humiliation, a contrary and unwelcome shiver of pleasure. ‘This is not playing fair…!’

‘Back to games again, Ana? But I’m not playing at all,’ he assured her. The thick rasp made every tiny hair prickle on her body. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’ He sounded grimly angry. With her? Or with himself? But why should he be angry?

‘Go upstairs? Look, are you crazy? You expect to be asked to…to sleep the night here or something? With me? Just…just to finish off whatever was left in the air four years ago?’

‘You’re over-reacting. As usual. I said I’d see you up to your room.’ The put-down was coldly ruthless.

Hot and furious, shuddering with emotion, she glared up at him. The notion of physically attacking him was tempting, but swiftly dismissed. No amount of kicks and punches would dent that six-foot wall of masculine arrogance…

Turning stiffly on her heel, she marched up the staircase towards her bedroom. Her legs felt like rubber. Flinging open her door, she snapped on the light and made a dramatic gesture with her arms.

‘Voilà!’ she announced icily. ‘My bedroom. Satisfied?’

Jed strolled in, and looked bleakly around. The terraced house was early Edwardian, and the high-ceilinged, deep-corniced room was spacious, with cream walls and a green patterned carpet. His cool gaze took in the brass and wrought-iron bed, the rumpled crimson duvet, the battered old one-legged teddy-bear sprawled on the pillow, the posters of Hollywood greats plastered on the walls, the shelves of books, the pile of clothes on the armchair by the window.

‘Tidiness was never your strong point, I recall,’ he murmured, unforgivably.

‘If the only reason you’ve barged your way up here is to criticise my tidiness…!’ With a degree of defiance she dragged off her jacket and hat and threw them to land on top of the clothes pile. She stood, breathing rather raggedly, a petite, willowy figure in the floppy white sweatshirt and black leggings.

Jed ignored her. He’d crossed to the window, twitched back the heavy red velvet curtains. Impatiently, she marched over to stand beside him.

‘It overlooks the church,’ she pointed out unnecessarily, suppressing her temper with difficulty. ‘Jed, will you please go?’

There was a long silence. She couldn’t read his eyes. She couldn’t tune in to his thoughts. She’d never felt more at sea, more bewildered, in her life.

‘Do you want me to go?’ The question was softly abrupt. The steady gaze had locked with hers. When he let his eyes slide smoothly to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, the nipples visible as tight little points through the soft fabric of her top, a deep, disturbing confusion began rippling, like invisible waves, right through her.

‘What sort of question is that supposed to be?’ she shot at him angrily. ‘I don’t believe this! I should admire your nerve, I suppose. Do you honestly think that because I was…panting for you to take my virginity four years ago you can just stroll back into my life and haul me into bed with you? After one glass of white wine and half an hour of your famous non-conversation?’

‘Maybe we don’t always know what we want,’ he hazarded quietly.

The blatant arrogance took her breath away. ‘Oh, no!’ she breathed furiously. ‘You’re the one who didn’t know what he wanted, as I recall—!’

A door slammed. Voices on the stairs heralded the return of the others. The tension between Jed and herself was so taut, she felt herself sag with relief.

‘Ana? Ana? Are you back?’ her friend’s voice called along the landing, footsteps coming closer. ‘Who was that dishy male you were with in the pub…?’ Camilla froze on the threshold of the bedroom, and had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.

Exchanging an agitated glance with Jed, Ana gestured weakly at her uninvited guest.

‘This is Jed Steele. An old…acquaintance. Jed, this is Camilla Browning, one of my house-mates.’

Camilla’s blue eyes shone like sapphires in the pale beauty of her face. She tossed back her black curly hair and treated Jed to one of her most the-atrical smiles.

‘Enchantée, darling!’

‘Hi.’ Jed’s handshake was coolly polite. He turned back to Ana, with a half-smile which contained a decidedly mocking gleam. ‘Goodnight, Ana. I’ll buy you two glasses of wine tomorrow. We’ll take it from there.’

Colour surged into her face.

‘Like hell we will,’ she spat, through clenched teeth. ‘Goodnight, Jed.’

‘Don’t forget to keep your door locked,’ he advised smoothly. Without a wave, he loped athletically downstairs. There was a decisive click of the latch as he let himself out.

‘Come on, Ana, darling, tell!’ Camilla was settling down on Ana’s bed for a delicious gossip session. ‘Who is he, what’s the story?’

Ana found she was weak at the knees. Shakily she sat down on the pile of clothes, and glared bleakly at her friend.

‘He’s—he’s—well, I suppose he’s an old…friend,’ she managed finally. ‘A—a friend of my father’s, you could say…’

‘You don’t sound very sure,’ Camilla remarked, tucking her legs up beneath her and winding a black curl thoughtfully round her index finger. ‘Either he is or he isn’t!’

Ana gazed at her blankly. The confusion she’d felt with Jed’s powerful presence dominating her emotions had been bad enough. But this acute agitation now he’d gone was guaranteed to keep her awake half the night…

Tomorrow was Sunday. She had no performances at the theatre as an excuse to hide away from him. Maybe she could get up at the crack of dawn and catch a bus somewhere, anywhere?

‘He’s an ex-friend,’ she heard herself saying dismissively. ‘It didn’t work out, and it never will. He’s not my type at all…’

To underline the statement, she stood up and stretched, loosening the strained muscles of her neck and shoulders. To hide her eyes from her friend’s eagle gaze, she dropped her chin to her chest, rolled her head from one shoulder to the other, then lowered her upper half towards the floor, hanging there in the classic relaxation position. Her hair fell in a thick blonde curtain around her head.

‘You mean, if I took a liking to him, you wouldn’t mind?’ Camilla purred.

‘Go ahead,’ Ana said in a muffled voice. Slowly straightening up, she attempted a smile which felt more like a grimace. ‘Be my guest. Lord, I’m tired, Camilla. Do you mind if I throw you out and get to bed?’

‘No. I’m going.’ Camilla paused at the door, and flashed a teasing grin before she disappeared. ‘But that wasn’t one of your most convincing performances. From where I was standing, Jed Steele looked very much your type, darling! ‘Night!’

Alone, Ana gazed distantly around the room, then automatically began to shrug off her clothes and get ready for bed. Camilla was too perceptive. And she was right. Jed Steele had been, all too briefly, the one man Ana had ever met who filled every one of her dreams, made her feel excited and special, and floating, and deliciously feminine, and…

And he’d hurt her more than any other man. Led her on, urged her up to a dizzy, ecstatic height of wanting, and then ruthlessly dropped her, walked away. She paused in the act of scrubbing her teeth, catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. Wide brown eyes gazed back, startlingly dark against the natural blonde of her hair. She took after her father. He was grey now, but he had the same dark eyes, and his hair had been the same shade of blond…

After a quick shower, and with the battered teddy propped on the chair with the discarded clothes, she climbed into bed in her white, pintucked cotton chambray nightshirt, and made a mental note to tidy her room tomorrow. It was her Sunday job. Sunday was the only day she had any free time to do anything in. The sooner she got to sleep, the sooner she could wipe Jed Steele from her mind…

But as she lay there in the darkness Jed Steele filled her mind. His reappearance had robbed her of any peace. She could do nothing to stop the memories from rolling back and crushing her…

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS early when Ana finally woke up. Unforgivably early for a Sunday morning. Her duvet and pillow had somehow parted company with the bed during her stormy, restless night. They lay haphazardly on the floor beside her. Feeling shivery and unrefreshed, she carefully remade the bed as a determined start to her Sunday domesticity. Then she pushed her feet into padded crimson towelling slippers, hugged her matching dressing-gown round herself, and went blearily downstairs to make a cup of tea.

The house was silent, as she’d expected it to be. If Camilla, Pru or David, her fellow residents, heard her moving around at half-past eight they’d doubtless think they were dreaming, pull their covers over their heads and burrow back to sleep again.

In the small, pine-panelled kitchen, she sat as close to the radiator as she could, sipped the steaming mug of strong tea, and gazed out of the window at the misty autumn sunshine breathing life into the patio-style back garden. Last night she’d dreamed almost non-stop, about Jed. Squeezing her eyes shut, she saw pictures from those dreams, vivid and fragmented, but indelible. However hard she tried, she couldn’t shut them out. She didn’t want to think about him, about the pain he’d caused her, about the fool she’d made of herself. But the details were crowding back into her mind, sharp and tormenting as invisible needles…

That hot July day, four years ago. She’d just finished her first year at LAMDA. A virus had laid her low in the final few weeks of term, and she’d battled on, determined not to miss a single day of her course. When the holidays had finally arrived, she’d abandoned plans to stay with friends, and instead caught the train home to Dorset, to surprise her father.

After the frenetic pace of drama school, she’d been anticipating blissful peace at Farthingley, the sixteenth-century mansion where she’d spent an idyllic childhood. Instead, she’d arrived to find the house and its ancient wooded grounds seething with her father’s company employees, manically preparing for a top-level conference.

Her father’s secretary-PA had met her in the hall, her cool reception implying that Ana was intruding where she wasn’t wanted.

Security was high on the agenda, she’d stated cautiously, eyeing Ana’s wind-swept blonde hair, ripped denim jeans and outsized denim shirt with misgivings. While there was no specific cause for alarm, she’d informed Ana, Hart Pharmaceuticals had to take routine precautions against cranks. That was why there was so much coming and going in the house and grounds. Frankly, she was surprised Ana’s father had invited her home.

Ana had retreated to the kitchen, coaxed some freshly baked flapjacks and a carton of orange juice from Ellen, snatched the old picnic rug and a straw sunhat from the cupboard, and retired to the tranquillity of the walled herb garden with her well-thumbed copy of Romeo and Juliet.

Rounding the clipped, nine-foot yew hedge, preoccupied by childhood memories induced by the heady scent of lavender and rosemary, she’d literally bumped, headlong, into Jed Steele.

A pair of hard brown hands had stabilised her. She’d looked up into that cold grey-green gaze, locked eyes with him for the very first time, and felt…How had she felt? Different. Altered, in some fundamental way. Like emotionally crashlanding in a jungle, without a clue how to hack her way out again…

‘Who are you?’ he mused, a gleam in his eyes. ‘A spy from a rival drugs company, maybe?’

‘I could be.’ She heard her unsteady voice, her husky laugh, and felt mystified.

He hadn’t released her. He was still holding her upper arms in a firm grip. She was registering the most extraordinary sensations from the warm touch of his fingers. Even through the blue denim of her shirt, tiny impulses were snaking their way along her nerve-endings, arousing the sensitive army of hormones just beneath the surface of her skin…

She drew a shaky breath, pulling herself together determinedly. She couldn’t be feeling this riot of reaction to a chance encounter with a total stranger. Maybe it was the aftermath of her virus.

‘I’m not, though,’ she added on a calmer note. ‘I’m more in favour of alternative medicine. I prefer natural remedies to manufactured ones, don’t you?’

It was a provocative question, she knew. This man could only be here as one of her father’s employees. He’d hardly admit to siding with the enemy.

‘I’ll plead the Fifth Amendment on that,’ he murmured. There was no visible reaction on the harsh, dark face. This was a characteristic she was to become familiar with. Jed Steele appeared to have trained himself to control his reaction to provocation.

‘You’d better identify yourself,’ he added coolly.

‘Lord above—’ she flicked her eyes comically skywards, twisting her arms free of his restraint ‘—I come home for a spot of peace and quiet, and get interrogated in my own herb garden!’

‘You’re William French’s daughter?’ His eyes raked her up and down without the faintest flicker of personal interest. ‘Come to think of it, you look like him.’

‘Since my father’s fifty-something and decidedly rotund, I’m not sure how to take that. And who are you?’ She widened her brown eyes enquiringly beneath the brim of the ancient straw hat. He looked sober and efficient and businesslike, she noted, in a darkly expensive grey suit, white lawn shirt, muted fawn silk tie. In the warmth of the summer afternoon, and in contrast to her own casual attire, he looked overdressed. There was a portable telephone, or two-way radio receiver, or something, in his pocket.

‘Don’t tell me…you’re Dad’s latest right-hand man? The new “company son", eager to impress?’

The level gaze narrowed. Ana felt a jolt of confusion. Why had she said that? The sarcasm, the world-weary air she’d projected hadn’t even begun to reflect what she was feeling inside. Resorting to this self-protective act was fine when she wanted to fend someone off. But did she want to fend off this man?

‘And you’re his spoilt, bolshie teenage daughter, eager to stir up trouble?’ It was more a cool observation than a malicious insult.

She reddened, and bit her lip. With a slight, embarrassed laugh, she said quickly, ‘I’m not spoilt! Why does everyone always assume that because I’m the only daughter of a very rich man I must be spoilt?’

‘Maybe you’re not in a position to judge?’

Was there the faintest glimmer of amusement in the cool gaze?

‘Maybe not. But then neither are you! You don’t know me well enough to judge me,’ she reasoned, with a dimpled grin. Gesturing to the picnic basket hooked on her arm, she added impulsively, ‘Why don’t you join me for a flapjack? We can exchange life stories.’

There was a fractional pause.

‘Some other time, maybe.’

He turned go to, and impulsively she said, ‘I’m Anastasia—Ana—French. Don’t you have a name?’

‘Jed Steele.’ After a second’s deliberation, he turned back and gravely shook her outstretched hand. The wry smile she’d prompted made her heart squeeze and then leap crazily in her chest. With most people, a smile was just a smile. With Jed, it was such a brilliant contrast to the wary hardness of his features that it took her breath away.

She met him again at dinner. He was sitting beside her father, in a darker, more formal evening suit. They appeared to be in deep, soft-voiced conversation. The brilliant smile she gave him was ignored. The cool snub seemed deliberate. She was staggered by the sharp contraction of pain in her stomach…

Without admitting it to herself, she’d taken abnormal care with her appearance—hair piled up in an elegant chignon, subtle make-up to enhance her tilted brown eyes and high cheekbones, short brown silk skirt and a cropped cream lace blouse.

‘You look gorgeous tonight,’ her father had announced proudly when Ana had dropped an affectionate kiss on his thick, greying blond hair and joined them at the table. ‘Don’t you agree, Jed?’

Her father had turned to Jed, with a proud grin. ‘Have you met my daughter? Just back from her first year at drama school. She’s going to be a famous actress one day!’

‘We met earlier, in the garden,’ Jed had murmured non-committally, his light grey-green eyes dissecting her appearance with just the faintest hint of sexual interest. Ana had felt goose-bumps shivering the surface of her skin. Suddenly the cream lace top had felt transparent. Her lack of bra had felt like a major indiscretion. Fighting the warm blush creeping into her face, she’d averted her eyes quickly.

There were several of the company directors at dinner that night. The hum of conversation had gradually risen as wine and excellent food were consumed. The old oak-panelled dining-room, the candlelight and the flowers on the long, highly polished refectory table felt familiar yet strangely alien with Jed Steele’s cool gaze moving with what struck her as ruthless detachment over the entire gathering…

She pointedly concentrated on relating all her news to her father. She always enjoyed the warmth of his lively interest in her life. In turn, she heard about the conference, about the top-ranking scientists and drug-company chiefs expected to arrive the next morning.

When the meal was over, Jed Steele left the room before everyone else. But, gaining confidence from his absence, her subtle enquiries about the nature of his role in the company drew very little information from her father. Jed was here for the duration of the conference, just a ‘temporary assignment’, he explained vaguely. That was all she could glean. Her father could be infuriatingly obtuse when he chose to be.

After coffee, leaving them all discussing the final requirements in the big, book-lined library where the conference was to be staged, she strolled out through the French doors, across the wide, sloping lawn towards the rustic summer-house in the far corner.

Dreamily, she breathed in the summer-night smells, the heavy sweetness of roses and honey-suckle. Smelling the flowers made her think of her mother. She’d died when Ana was nine, but she’d been mad on gardening. Ana could remember walking with her in the garden, on a summer’s evening. If she could be granted three wishes by some obliging fairy, she’d use all three to wish her mother alive again, to have her here when she came home…

It was dusk. Rapidly getting dark. There was no one around. Impulsively, maybe as an extension of her sad train of thought, she launched softly and passionately into Juliet’s speech to Romeo, begging him to stay longer in their secret garden tryst. She was huskily declaiming into the darkness, ‘"…it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark…Believe me, love, it was the nightingale…"’ when a dark figure separated itself from the shadow of the summer-house. She choked to a halt, with a gasp of fright.

‘It’s OK, it’s only me.’ Considering she hardly knew him, Jed’s deep, amused voice was oddly reassuring.

Trembling with reaction, she found herself clutching her arms around herself, half laughing, half furious.

‘Do you suppose we’re doomed to bump into each other in gardens?’ Embarrassment made her speak more sharply than she’d intended. ‘What are you doing, creeping round out here in the bushes?’

‘Same as you?’ he suggested neutrally. ‘Except I wasn’t spouting Shakespeare to myself.’

‘You recognised it?’ she murmured, with reprehensible sarcasm. ‘You don’t look the type to know any Shakespeare.’

Why, why, why was she driven to be so unbearably bitchy towards him? Because his sardonic gaze was making her feel extremely silly? Inwardly wincing, outwardly braced for retaliation, she stared up at him. Tall and motionless, his face in shadow, he was eyeing her up and down slowly. They were standing very close together. An electricity seemed to have invaded the air between them.

A few minutes ago she’d been conscious of the garden, the sounds and scents of the summer evening. A distant hoot of an owl in the woods. Small rustles in the undergrowth. Now she was aware only of him.

‘I’d imagine most people would recognise that particular speech from Romeo and Juliet. And what “type” looks as if he knows Shakespeare?’ he queried, with bleak humour. There was an ominous glitter in his gaze, visible even in the shadowed darkness. ‘Should I be wearing an arty beard and a floppy bow-tie?’

Nervously, she took in his appearance. The suit he’d evidently felt to be de rigueur at dinner had been swapped for black chinos and a charcoalgrey polo shirt, open at the neck.

‘No,’ she assured him, unsteadily, ‘you look fine as you are…’

The casual outfit made him look slightly less intimidating. The portable phone was still in evidence, hooked on to a dark leather belt at his waist. Whatever this conference-duration role entailed, he obviously took it very seriously, she deduced. Perhaps he had to be alert and ready twenty-four hours a day, to field urgent calls from delegates arriving from Switzerland or Hong Kong or Timbuktu…?

‘Sorry…was I interrupting an important rehearsal?’ he queried, deadpan.

‘I was just strolling in the garden,’ she pointed out rather stiffly, ‘enjoying the night air. Smelling the roses and…’

‘Is that what that perfume is?’ There was that teasing, taunting tone in his voice again. For some reason, she sensed that he wasn’t talking about the flowers. He’d made no move to touch her, but his eyes seemed to be touching her. The shortness of the brown silk skirt hadn’t bothered her before. Now she felt vulnerable, acutely aware of the bare length of her legs. The night air felt cool on her slender thighs. Her underwear—small lacy cream briefs—seemed too skimpy beneath the thin summer clothes. Without quite understanding why, she was beginning to wish she’d donned an all-encasing bodysuit, armoured herself against whatever this man was doing to her emotions…

‘It could be mine,’ she admitted. Her voice was unrecognisable—husky, strained with suppressed emotion. ‘I got rather carried away when I was spraying it on after my shower earlier…’ And hadn’t she sprayed on a little more, before she came out here after dinner? Just in case she bumped into him again? The small prod of honesty made her blush in the deepening dusk.

The hard mouth twitched as he stared solemnly down at her. Could he read her mind? Had he somehow detected that her effort with her appearance tonight had been inspired by meeting him? It was a humiliating thought, and yet the notion that he was silently mocking her made her feel angry, indignant and rebellious at the same time…

Some demon inside her prompted her to step closer, go on tiptoe in her flat brown leather sandals, steady herself with one tentative hand on his shoulder, and lift her chin so that the slender curve of her neck was exposed.

‘It’s Fleurs du Jardin—do you like it?’ She spoke in a light, matter-of-fact tone, but her eyes held his, with a steady challenge. She was inwardly overcome with horror at her audacity, but for the life of her she couldn’t stop herself.

Her heart hammering, heat flickering over her skin, she waited as he thoughtfully considered her. Taking her chin in his thumb and forefinger, he twisted her head to the side. Bending slowly, he lowered his head to within a hair’s breadth of making contact, and inhaled the sweet warm scent at the hollow of her clavicle.

‘Not quite to my taste. A little too…girlish, maybe…’

But his voice had altered. There was a slight thickening in his tone. She stiffened at the subtle put-down. Too girlish? How old was he? she wondered indignantly. Around thirty? Mortified, she took a shaky step away from him. She felt a very ‘spoilt’ urge to slap his face, and suppressed it hastily.

‘I’m not a girl, I’m a woman,’ she said idiotically.

The green gaze narrowed. A twitch of laughter at the corner of his mouth should have completed her mortification, should have sent her running for the safety of her bedroom, but she felt transfixed, frozen to the spot. Her brain seemed to have frozen too. The only part of her working overtime was her heart, hammering away like an express train. She’d never felt so vulnerable, so emotionally confused, in her life.

There was a hoarse hint of humour and masculine impatience as he spoke again. ‘Shouldn’t you be going inside to bed, Miss French? Instead of roaming round the gardens trying to seduce strange men with your perfume?’

‘Trying to seduce…?’ She glared at him in stunned humiliation. ‘You think I’m trying to seduce you? Your conceit is unbelievable! And if I want to roam round the gardens, well, I can do what I like—I live here!’ she finished hotly, in spite of the anxious thud of her heart.

Quite at variance with her words, her pulses were racing frantically. Heat was glowing all over her body. Inwardly, she was appalled at herself. The accuracy of his taunt was unbearable. Just then, stepping closer, inviting him to smell her perfume…what else had she been doing but playing around on the fringes of seduction? But surely more flirtatious than seductive? Did he think she was cheap? That she made a habit of this, God forbid? What was the matter with her? She’d had casual boyfriends since she was about fifteen. She mixed with male students every single day at college. But never before had she felt this frightening pull of attraction. Towards a virtual stranger…

‘And you claim you’re not spoilt?’ The softly laconic goad cut like a whip. ‘How old are you, Ana?’

‘Nineteen! I’ve just finished a year at drama school! And I’m not spoilt,’ she told him, with husky emphasis. ‘Spoilt people are damaged individuals, products of parents with no time for them. My parents always had time for me. My father still has. I can’t help it if he’s rich! That doesn’t mean he’s spoiled me!’

Jed Steele’s gaze was wry.

‘Maybe not,’ he drawled, his eyes teasing, ‘but would he be proud of you if he could see you now?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Throwing yourself at a man you hardly know, in the garden at midnight.’

‘I’m doing no such thing—’ She opened her

mouth to protest, on fire with humiliation, then found herself hauled hard against the full length of his body, and crushed there mercilessly.

‘Maybe you need teaching a lesson, little Lolita,’ he murmured laconically against the loose, silky chignon of her hair. His breath was warm against her ear. ‘The lesson is don’t play games.’

‘Oh!’ The choked gasp was forced out of her as she registered the hardness of his body, lifted her arms to push him away without success. ‘Please, let go of me…’

‘Let go of you? When you’ve been busy giving me the come-on since we met this afternoon? Play fair, sweetheart. I’m only human…God, what the hell are you wearing under here?’ The taunting, amused growl of sensual discovery made her feel quite faint. Her raised arms had lifted the cropped hem of the lace top, baring a wedge of soft, warm midriff.

‘No, please…!’ At the touch of his fingers on her naked skin, her strangled shudder was utterly ambiguous. Eyes squeezed tight shut, she was drifting in a torment of self-doubt, outrage, and newly awakened need. She wanted this to stop, right now. And she wanted it to go on and on forever…

She was rigid with shame, but awash with sensation as his hard hands moved irresistibly upwards to caress the narrow expanse of her ribcage, not quite reaching the small, high jut of her breasts, then sweeping down again to mould her close against him.

Her choked moan was neither rejection nor invitation, nor was her convulsive writhe against the heat of his body. But with an abrupt oath he dropped his mouth to plunge his tongue arrogantly between her parted lips. He kissed her with a hungry power that made her head spin, and she found herself kissing him back, shudders of response rippling through her. More incriminating still, as she lifted her arms to cling to his shoulders, the short skirt rode higher. Jed’s abrupt sweep of her body terminated in long bare thigh, and the temptation to slide higher to the curves beneath the silk was clearly one he didn’t intend to resist…

When his stroking hands became bolder, arrogantly exploring the length of her spine to cup the petite swell of her buttocks in their skimpy triangle of cream lace, crushing her punishingly against the hardening bulge of his own body, fear and self-preservation came to her rescue. Blindly, she wrenched her mouth free, aimed a fiercely furious kick at his shins, and began to thump and pummel his chest with her fists.

‘Stop it, stop it…!’ she was half sobbing in the darkness.

‘You’re not playing this game any more?’ The tersely teasing words were bitten between clenched teeth.

She found herself released unceremoniously.

‘OK,’ he told her bluntly. His eyes were moving over her dishevelled, distressed state without compunction. ‘Tonight’s your lucky night, lady. You’re dealing with someone who abides by the rules. Usually. Treat that as a lesson in consequences.’

‘Consequences…?’ She could hardly speak.

‘Of your own actions. Save your flirting games for the boys in your drama class, Ana.’

He’d said he’d teach her a lesson—and he had, she reflected bitterly, the tears drying on her white face as he turned and walked away.

And even if he’d left it there, stayed right away from her from then on, it would still have been a lesson she’d never have forgotten…

How had he become so…embittered? Ana wondered now, huddled in the early morning chill of the kitchen, gazing through the spiral of steam from her mug of tea. The promise of another glorious September day was gilding the scene through the window, but she didn’t see it. All she could see was that ruthless glitter in Jed’s eyes as he’d demonstrated his superior strength, annihilated her self-esteem…

There was nothing soft about Jed Steele. Nothing warm. And by the time he’d finished amusing himself with her that fateful weekend every one of her fragile, youthful emotions seemed to have iced over to match…

The knock at the front door brought her back to the present with a jolt. Nine o’clock. Not an accepted time for callers on a Sunday morning…

Her shock at seeing Jed, calmly standing on the doorstep, was swiftly followed by horror at the state she was in. Pale and sleepy, hair wildly awry, the crimson dressing-gown bundled round her anyhow, she glared at him furiously. He looked impossibly attractive, in close-fitting Levis, white shirt and thick-ribbed navy jersey. A soft fawn suede jacket was slung over his shoulders. In daylight, the crisp, wind-ruffled brown hair had subtle gold-bronze lights in it. The cool green gaze and strong, tanned features were even more painfully familiar.

‘Not you again!’ she managed, raking an unsteady hand through her hair.

‘Can I come in?’

He didn’t wait for an answer. Overpoweringly blocking the hall, he eyed her up and down wryly.

‘I had some interesting dreams last night. How about you?’

‘Mine were nightmares,’ she supplied shortly. ‘What do you want, Jed?’

‘I came to find out what actresses do on Sundays.’

‘This one usually sleeps in late, then catches up on the jobs she hasn’t had time to do in the week.’

‘I hope I didn’t get you out of bed?’ He didn’t sound particularly repentant.

‘No. I was awake.’

‘Bacon, eggs and coffee would go down well.’

‘Jed, I really…’

He’d strolled into the kitchen, and was investigating the decidedly sketchy contents of the fridge and larder.

‘Go and get dressed, Ana,’ he ordered with a grin, shutting the fridge door with a slight shake of his head. ‘I’ll take you out for breakfast.’

‘I don’t want to go out for breakfast.’

‘Well, I do. And I didn’t forgo the full English version at my hotel to make do with half a bowl of cornflakes and a slice of mouldy toast. So move it.’

Her jaw dropped, but suddenly words failed her. Curiosity, strong, potent and dangerous, had begun to consume her. Whatever had brought Jed determinedly back into her life, he appeared to have some purpose. And she might have grown a protective shell these last four years, but the sight of Jed lounging nonchalantly in her small kitchen, professing a desire to eat breakfast with her, was more than her embattled defences could stand.

‘OK,’ she agreed flatly, swinging out of the door to hide her eyes from that probing, all-seeing gaze. ‘If having breakfast with you is what it takes to get rid of you, fine. Breakfast it is. Just breakfast…’

‘Just breakfast,’ Jed agreed easily. But something in the wry tone of his voice made the soft hairs all over her body prickle into red alert…

CHAPTER THREE

THE short drive to Jed’s hotel was accomplished in chilly silence. He was staying in one of the most luxurious hotels in the town, a half-timbered Elizabethan affair set in its own grounds. The dining-room was elegant, overlooking the river. Pale green damask cloths adorned the tables, with china bowls of russet chrysanthemums.

While Jed calmly consumed bacon, sausage, egg, fried bread and grilled tomatoes, Ana tried valiantly to do the same. But she was too tense to eat. To avoid eye contact, she kept her eyes on the view through the small leaded-light windows. The tranquil River Avon flowed very close by. She could see sunlit willows across the river, stroking the water with their lacy branches. A swan glided by, its beady eyes scanning the banks for tourists bearing bread.

‘Eat your breakfast,’ he ordered, shooting her a bleak grin.

‘I did tell you I wasn’t hungry.’

‘So you did.’ Leaning back in his chair, he scanned her impassively. Wriggling slightly under that cool scrutiny, she gazed about the room. There were guests at several of the tables near by. An American couple, and Germans, French and Japanese, Ana deduced, from the rich blend of languages and accents. Part of the ever-present pageant of tourists, flocking to experience Shakespeare’s county, to absorb the atmosphere left by the centuries. Stratford’s lure for visitors from so many different countries and cultures never failed to give her a warm little glow of pleasure.

Until now. Right now, she could think of nothing except devising some casual, uninterested-sounding excuse to escape from Jed’s company…

‘You look tired, Ana,’ he murmured, pushing his knife and fork together and lifting a hand to summon the waiter. ‘I imagine acting is an exhausting profession?’ There was no expression in his voice.

‘It can be very tiring,’ she agreed equally tonelessly. The waiter poured more tea into her cup, topped up Jed’s black coffee, then disappeared obediently in search of more toast. ‘You don’t get much time off. But I love it…’

‘When did you last take a holiday?’

She shrugged slightly, irritation creeping in. ‘Heavens, I can’t remember. I’ve got a free ten-day slot coming up soon, I think. Another play’s preview week. But it’s possible to do the entire season without a holiday. It’s just the luck of the draw.’

‘Is that why you’re looking like the walking dead?’

‘Spare me the flowery compliments!’ she snapped. ‘If you must know I’m feeling… stunned! I can’t believe I’m seeing you again!’ Horrified, she heard herself blurting it out. ‘I thought I never would. See you again, I mean. Part of it is like a nightmare. Part of it feels more like a dream. A dream I’ve had on and off since that weekend at Farthingley…’

She caught her lip in her teeth, mortified. So much for her urgent desire to play it cool, to escape.

‘I’ve thought about Farthingley, too.’ His deep voice was guarded.

Her face felt hot. Beneath her loose, scoop-necked emerald sweatshirt, her breasts tingled, the tips traitorously tightened like press-studs.

How could he still make her feel like this? Fighting the waves of heat, she struggled angrily to examine her subconscious feelings. Trying to make sense of her reaction to him felt like agitating muddy water with a stick. Hadn’t she hated him, despised him, resented him, blamed him for her sexual hang-ups, for the last four years? Burned with mortification, whenever she remembered that rejection on the lawn, and then the second, even more devastating rejection, the later episode she could hardly bear to relive? Was she so weak that she could sit here now, bleating on about dreams, as if he could still mean something to her?

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘No. I guess you wouldn’t.’

She fixed him with an intense brown gaze.

‘Unless it was to think back and gloat?’ she suggested tightly. ‘Presumably you got quite a kick out of that weekend?’

Jed’s face had darkened.

‘I was doing a job that weekend.’

‘Oh, yes, the mysterious “job". The one which entailed prowling round with portable phones and two-way radios and pouncing on innocent girls practising their Shakespeare in the garden?’

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