Dear Reader,

We’re delighted to bring you Helen Brooks’s fortieth romance! Sleeping Partners is a wonderful story, brimming with passion and emotion…and we hope you’ll enjoy the sparkle and intensity that Helen always brings to her characters.

Helen Brooks is especially popular for the gorgeous, strong and dynamic heroes she creates. Always commanding, always highly sensual—and always tamed at last by a warm and spirited heroine!

A natural storyteller, Helen keeps readers around the world frantically turning the pages of her books. She creates emotional journeys for her characters with a powerful depth of feeling—with a few tears and plenty of smiles along the way.

Congratulations on your fortieth Harlequin romance, Helen!

With best wishes

The Editors

Sleeping Partners
Helen Brooks

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

‘CLAY LINCOLN! Are you mad, Cassie?’ Robyn’s beautiful velvet-brown eyes were narrowed with disgust. ‘I’d rather walk through the streets of London stark naked than ask Clay Lincoln for help.’

‘You wouldn’t be asking him for help though.’ Cassie Barnes’s voice was as impassive as her face. ‘You would merely be giving him the chance to buy into a thriving little concern that will eventually net him a considerable profit.’

‘Whatever.’

‘He’s ridiculously well off, Robyn.’

‘So?’ It was truculent.

‘So…’ Cassie sighed patiently, her role of elder sister by five years very evident by the maternal streak in her voice ‘…you need a backer if you’re going to take your business onto the next stage, and everyone else you’ve approached is either flat broke or simply not interested, your bank manager included. Clay seems the perfect solution to me.’

‘Clay Lincoln is not a perfect anything!’ The bitterness was acidic. ‘And frankly I’d rather stay as a one-man band for the rest of my life than have anything to do with that low life.’

‘No, you wouldn’t.’ Cassie looked at the lovely heart-shaped face in front of her which at the moment was flushed a defiant red, the colour indicative of the hot temper that went with the clouds of burnished red-gold curls tied high on Robyn’s head. She sighed again, this time silently. Robyn had inherited all of their mother’s volatile, fiery nature and none of their father’s placid equability.

‘You know you wouldn’t,’ she said again. ‘You’re ambitious and incredibly talented and good at what you do, and you’ve worked your socks off to get where you are right now. How many other women of twenty-eight have their own PR company? And you’ll go places, I know you will. You deserve success, Robyn.’

Robyn looked at her sister’s sweetly earnest face and the dark shadows beneath Cassie’s mild hazel eyes—courtesy of the fact that she had been up half the night with her twin boys which didn’t sit well with being five months pregnant—and felt instant contrition. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Cass, I am really. I’m being a pig and I know you mean it for the best but I couldn’t approach Clay Lincoln for all the tea in China.’

‘Well, Guy still sees him occasionally; I’m sure he would—’

‘Cassie, no!’ Robyn interrupted vehemently.

‘All right, all right.’ Cassie held up her hands in defeat. ‘Whatever you say, Robyn.’

‘I’ll expand in time and for the moment Drew is happy to work all the hours under the sun. She’s just thrown the latest live-in boyfriend out ’cos he was messing around, and she’s off men.’

‘Until the next one arrives,’ Cassie said darkly. She disapproved of Robyn’s assistant’s somewhat promiscuous lifestyle from her matronly position of being married for twelve years to Guy Barnes, her first boyfriend whom she had met when she had been sixteen and had married five years later.

‘As you say, until the next one arrives.’ Robyn laughed in agreement. If she was to speak truthfully she would have to admit to a sneaking admiration for Drew. She had known the tall, leggy blonde since they had done a postgraduate diploma in public and media relations together, and in all that time—seven years now—Drew’s torrid love life and penchant for picking the worst rats in society had never got the other woman down. After each disastrous affair Drew would have a little cry, declare she was going to devote herself exclusively to her career, her cats and her friends—usually in that order—and blow her current bank balance on designer outfits to cheer herself up. The longest the celibate state had lasted had been one month some years ago, and that had only been because Drew had had a severe attack of a particularly nasty flu and had been in bed for two weeks.

‘Robyn, most days you’re in your office before eight a.m. and you don’t get home until eight or nine; later when there’s a launch party of something. When do you ever relax?’ Cassie said worriedly.

‘It’s not as bad as that.’

‘It’s worse,’ Cassie said plaintively. ‘You never get the chance to meet anyone.’

‘Cass, I meet people all the time,’ Robyn said firmly, knowing where this conversation was going to lead. It was the same one they had had many times in the past and it never varied in its content.

‘You know what I mean.’ Cassie had got the bit between her teeth, her freckles all but popping off her face in protest. ‘The last time you went out on a date was months ago. All work and no play—’

‘Makes this lady a fulfilled and happy one,’ Robyn interrupted with a grin at her sister’s disgruntled face. ‘I like my life the way it is, Cass.’ And at her sibling’s snort of despair, she added, ‘I do. You know I’ve never been one for serious relationships, Cass. It’s not my style.’

‘No relationships at all is your style,’ Cassie retorted promptly.

‘Perhaps, but that’s me. You chose Guy and kids and domesticity; I chose career.’ Robyn was trying very hard to keep it friendly and calm but it was hard. Since their parents had moved to a retirement bungalow in the south of France Cassie had taken on the role of bossy and protective older sister with a vengeance. She meant well, Robyn reminded herself, and there wasn’t a malicious or nasty bone in Cassie’s whole body, but she did go on at times!

‘But having a career doesn’t cut out meeting Mr Right,’ Cassie began fervently, only to stop and lift her head as she added, ‘That’s Guy and the kids home, and just when we were having such a good chat.’

‘Pity,’ Robyn agreed drily, noting with a pang of guilt that the sarcasm went completely over Cassie’s head.

At least Guy’s return from his Sunday afternoon visit to the park with the twins focused Cassie’s attention on tea and baths for her exuberant offspring, but once Robyn was on her way home to her little flat above the office of her PR business in Kensington later that evening, she found her thoughts returning to the conversation with her sister, or to one particular part of it anyway.

Clay Lincoln. If she shut her eyes—which would be very dangerous considering she was driving her little blue Fiesta—she could see him as clearly as anything. Black hair, ice-blue eyes and a smile to die for—or so she had thought once, she corrected herself swiftly. Twelve years ago to be exact, when she had been a very young and silly sixteen and he had been a devastingly experienced twenty-three.

He had been at university with Guy and so had briefly been part of her sister and brother-in-law’s circle. She had idolised him from afar as a spotty adolescent just going into her teens when Clay had spent time with Guy and his friends in the university recesses. If he’d deigned to speak to her at all it had been with the sort of indulgent kindness most adults applied to children.

And then her spots had cleared up and she had had the brace off her teeth and had learnt how to manage her riotous mass of curly hair, just in time to be Cassie and Guy’s bridesmaid when her sister had got married.

Her stomach turned over and she breathed deeply, willing the memories back under lock and key. It worked usually; she kept the little box in her mind labelled Clay Lincoln closed at all times having learnt from past experience that she only had to relax her guard for a while and the lid flew open, regurgitating all the pain and humiliation. Tonight, though, seemed to be an exception.

She brought the car to a halt at some traffic lights and opened the window while she waited for the lights to change, breathing deeply again of the mild June air which was laden with the peculiarly distinct smell of the city.

It had all happened so long ago, she told herself firmly. She had been a different person then, coping with rampaging hormones and tumultuous emotions under the fragile exterior of burgeoning womanhood. Being tall and slender she had looked older than her sixteen years but the childish heroworship with which she had adored Clay had been there still under the surface. And she had been so thrilled, so elated when she had looked at herself in her bridesmaid finery and seen a slim young woman who had looked every day of twenty or so. After the years of spots and braces it had gone to her head.

She shut her eyes tightly, gripping the steering wheel with knuckles that turned white. She had played with fire, manipulated it even, and she had been badly burnt. It had been her own fault, all of it, but the resulting scars were still tender and had shaped the person she was today in a way she could never have imagined that summer’s day so long ago.

As an irate horn behind her brought her eyes snapping open she saw the lights were green and in her hurry she stalled the engine, causing the car behind her to emit another loud blast.

Damn! Her cheeks were scarlet by the time she moved off. She hadn’t stalled a car in years and it was all the more galling that it had happened through thinking about Clay Lincoln! How could just thinking about him reduce her to a flustered sixteen-year-old schoolgirl instead of the cool, sophisticated woman of the world she now purported to be?

She bit her lip hard, angry with herself and the world in general and especially Clay Lincoln. Ruthless ice man that he had been. She repeated the thought for extra emphasis before she determined to put Clay back where he belonged: in the box in her mind with his name on it and with the words, The past—dead and buried, in great red letters beside it.

It was just beginning to spot with rain when she drew up outside the narrow, terraced, three-story property she had purchased five years before, courtesy of an inheritance left by her maternal grandmother. Her mother had been an only child but after Robyn’s grandfather had died her parents had made it plain they preferred any inheritance to be split between their two daughters rather than having anything themselves.

Consequently both Robyn and Cassie had been the sole recipients of their grandmother’s estate, which had afforded the two women a very nice nest egg of some one hundred and fifty thousand pounds each. Cassie had been planning to start a family and she and Guy had decided to keep a portion of their windfall for all the expenses that would entail, just buying an estate car and banking the remainder of the money. But Robyn had put every penny of her hundred and fifty thousand pounds into buying her first home which had mean her mortgage was gratifyingly small.

The house had been well-maintained but was dark and gloomy, and so she’d ploughed much of the salary she’d earned working as a PR assistant for a record company into it over the next two years, always with a view to the future. And the future had meant her own PR firm, which she had achieved with Drew as her assistant just as Cassie had finally fallen with the twins after two years of trying.

The ground floor of the house was one long open-plan office, the floor above, Robyn’s bathroom and kitchen, and the top floor her living quarters which again was one long room with a bedroom area at one end. She had painted this room in pale buttery yellow and had sanded and varnished the floorboards. Due to it being south-facing the new colour scheme drank in every ray of sunshine which was reflected in the warm-ochre bed-settee, pine table and chairs and the floating brick-red viole drapes at the French windows which led onto the minute balcony. It was radiant and cheerful and Robyn loved it; she loved the whole house, along with the work she did. Life was good.

She nodded to the thought as she opened the front door and stepped inside out of the drizzle. Yes, life was good. The last three years had seen an increase in clients which had surprised and delighted her, mainly because she was passionate about her work and right from the beginning had had the courage to only get involved in products she truly believed in. Journalists were canny folk: they could always see straight through any dissimulation.

Without pausing downstairs she climbed the stairs—again varnished and devoid of carpet—to the bathroom, where she began to run a bath before making herself a cup of hot chocolate in her bright streamlined kitchen. Once undressed and in her thick towelling robe she carried the hot chocolate through to the bathroom, setting it on the floor at the side of the bath before she sank into the silky bubbles.

If only her bank manager had been more positive about the business loan she’d applied for… She drained the mug and leant her head back against the smooth surface of the big cast-iron bath the house had boasted when she’d bought it, and which she had had resurfaced in gleaming white. She desperately needed a second assistant; Cassie had been right this afternoon in that the workload was becoming too much. But only in that! All that talk about Clay Lincoln had been crazy.

Her eyes closed as the caressing warmth of the hot water did its work on tired muscles, and before she could stop it, her mind had taken her back in time to Cassie’s wedding day. As bridesmaid, she’d been dressed in a gorgeous dress of pale jade silk, her curls threaded with tiny, fresh white orchids and her face alight with the wonder of being sixteen and desirable. Or at least she had imagined she was desirable.

She shifted in the water, but it was too late. She was sixteen again: young, vulnerable and breathtakingly in love with life. With life and Clay Lincoln. He had been so handsome that her knees had turned to jelly every time she’d seen him and on this day, Cassie and Guy’s wedding day, he had looked like a Hollywood film star. Better than a Hollywood film star. The smart suit and silver-blue shirt and tie which had exactly matched the devastatingly cool eyes had held her transfixed.

And he had noticed her. For the first time he had noticed her. She had seen something in his eyes when she had followed the bridal pair down the aisle, her arm in that of Guy’s married brother who had been the best man. She couldn’t have found words to describe what she’d seen, she’d just known that in the three years before that day it had not been there.

It had made her want to shout and dance, to act crazy, but instead she had stood outside the church posing for pictures as though the only thing on her mind was the success of Cassie’s special day.

Clay had stood at the back of the crowd, his dark good looks brooding, but she’d been aware of every little movement he had made. The minute he had turned his head, whom he had spoken to, how many times he had smiled or nodded—her mind had recorded it all, along with the breadth of his strong shoulders, the magnetic pull of his overwhelming masculinity.

The reception had been typical of such occasions, she supposed. Feverish gaiety, endless speeches, toasts and more toasts, but all she had known was that when the dancing had started Clay had danced with everyone but her.

It had hurt. Desperately, tragically, in a way that only sixteen-year olds can feel, and towards the end of the evening she had passed through every emotion known to man.

The reception had been held at a lavish hotel overlooking a vast, man-made lake, and just before ten o’clock she had noticed Clay walk out of the big open doors at the end of the room and disappear into the shadows beyond. Even now she didn’t know what had made her follow him. Curiosity, desire, frustration, desperation, love… Probably a mixture of all of them.

The sky had been a deep indigo velvet pierced with stars, flooded with an ethereal whispering stillness that had made the scented air rich and heavy. It had been intoxicating.

He had been standing at the edge of the lake some distance from the lighted hotel, his dark bulk silhouetted against the water, and he hadn’t been aware of her presence until she had almost reached him. She’d gazed at him, aching with love.

‘Robyn?’ He turned as she trod on a small twig which alerted him to the fact that she was there. And then the look of bemusement changed and he said, his voice forced and teasing in a way she found insulting, ‘What are you doing out here? You’ll spoil that pretty dress of yours if you aren’t careful,’ as though she was six years old instead of sixteen.

‘It’s hot in there.’ She continued to his side, her stomach churning with her temerity. She paused, and then summoned every ounce of courage she possessed and said, her voice quiet and her eyes wide and serious, ‘Why didn’t you want to dance with me, Clay?’

‘Dance with you?’ He cleared his throat before smiling carefully, but she noticed it didn’t reach the silver blue of his eyes. ‘You’re in such demand tonight no one can get near you.’ His voice with its faint American accent was overhearty.

‘That’s not true.’ She didn’t know what was driving her but the night was timeless and enchanting and she had loved him so much for so long, and then to be disappointed afresh…

‘No?’ He opened his mouth to make some light, throw-away remark—she saw it in his face—but then as his eyes met hers he froze and it seemed as though they both stopped breathing. ‘Robyn…’

‘What?’ She moved even closer, her heart thundering at the look on his face. She might never get a chance like this again.

‘This is madness.’ It was a husky murmur, almost a sigh. ‘You’re a baby.’

‘I’m not a baby.’ She was hardly aware of reaching up to put her arms round his neck, her body pliant as the delicious smell of him wrapped round her. She’d show him she wasn’t a baby.

Slowly and very gently his arms pulled her against the hard solid wall of his chest, and as his face had come nearer she waited for the kiss in a rush of excitement that was too intense to bear. The taste and the feel of him was spinning in her head as his lips met hers, and as she gave a little moan of longing he answered it with a harsh, guttural sound of his own, his mouth becoming urgent and hungry.

At first she felt a slight sense of shock, the tiniest recoil as his tongue moved probingly against her lips, but almost immediately it was replaced with waves of delight as sensation after sensation began to bring her tinglingly alive.

Her body was moulded against his now, the vital male smell of him filling her nostrils and the alien sense of his hidden power and dominance becoming real as the thrust of his body against hers proclaimed his arousal. How long they continued to kiss she didn’t know, but their bodies were so close she could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage and feel every small tremor as his mouth left hers to blaze a burning trail down her throat and into the soft swell of her breasts.

He tried to move away at one point, his voice hoarse as he said, ‘We have to stop, Robyn, now. You’re Cassie’s little sister for crying out loud…’

But she pulled his head down to hers in answer, her love for him taking precedence over anything else and her surrender complete. His kisses and caresses were better than her most erotic dreams and she knew—she knew—she would never love anyone but Clay. She was moving mindlessly against him as he kissed her with a hungry intensity that was thrilling, his hands exploring her soft curves and causing her to arch and twist.

Her dress was off her shoulders now, exposing the pure creamy skin enhanced provocatively by the special lacy strapless bra she had bought. Then that too was peeled away from her hot skin and the full thrust of her breasts laid bare.

She should have felt shy; this was the first time she had even kissed a boy let alone been caressed and touched like this, but she felt nothing but elation and a wish to be even nearer to him as first his hands and then his lips made her arch with pleasure. This was Clay, she had dreamed of this moment, tasted it.

What would have happened if her name hadn’t been called into the dark shadows in which they were enclosed, she didn’t know. Or then again she did, only too well…

Robyn twisted jerkily in the bath, a wave of water slopping perilously close to the edge as the memories became almost too painful to contemplate.

Cassie and Guy had been ready to leave the reception and she had been missed. As their bridesmaid she had to wave them off.

She had tried to ignore the searching voices but Clay had frozen at the first shout, his muscled chest clenching before his breath had been hissed out between his teeth as he had very firmly put her from him, drawing first her bra and then her dress into place with hands that had shook slightly.

She remembered she’d made a small sound of protest, her arms reaching out to him again, but he had stepped back a pace, his voice grim as he’d said, ‘This should never have happened, Robyn. Hell, it must be the wine and the atmosphere and the fact that you’re so different tonight. But you’re too young, a child still, and I should never have touched you.’

‘I’m not a child.’ It hurt, terribly. ‘I’m over sixteen.’ She couldn’t believe he’d called her a child again.

‘Sixteen?’ His laugh was harsh, like a bark. ‘Damn it all, I’m twenty-three.’ And he glared at her.

‘I don’t care.’ The voices were still there in the background and she felt desperate to make him understand before they were found. ‘I—I’ve loved you for ages.’

‘Loved me?’ The note in his voice cut her in two and it was in that moment she discovered that love and hate are different sides of the same coin. ‘You’re barely out of nappies for crying out loud. How can you know what love is?’

She stared at him, too devastated to say a thing, and he glared back at her as he continued, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to with boys at school but judging by tonight it’s too damn much. I came very near to having you just now; do you understand that? Now, whether it’d be the first time or not for you is neither here or there, I know I should never have laid a finger on you. I’ve let Cassie and Guy down as well as myself.’

Cassie’s voice rose above the other calls and on hearing it Robyn whirled round and away from him, skimming across the grass like a will o’ the wisp, her hands pressed to her lips as she struggled not to cry. She paused to catch her breath before she emerged from the concealing shadows into the lights of the massive patio outside the room her parents had hired for the reception, adjusting her clothes and smoothing her hair. Then, forcing a smile to her face, she called, ‘I’m here, Cass.’

‘Where on earth have you been?’

It was her mother who spoke, her voice irritable, but Robyn ignored her, running over to Cassie and Guy and flinging her arms round her sister as she said brokenly, ‘Oh, Cass, I’m going to miss you so much.’

‘No, you won’t! I’m only going to be a few minutes away and you can come round whenever you like. And think, Robyn, no more fights over the bathroom!’ Cassie said, her own voice husky.

Their hugs and kisses masked Robyn’s shock and despair; everyone took her tears as emotion at Cassie having married, knowing how close the two sisters were.

And then Guy’s brother called that he’d brought the car round to the front of the hotel and they all poured through reception and out onto the drive. Guy’s brother and cronies had done a good job on Guy’s Cavalier, with shaving foam, ribbons and a supermarket-load of tin cans, and soon the happy couple were off in a hail of rice and confetti and ribald shouts from Guy’s football cronies, some of which made her mother’s face tighten.

Robyn stood stiff and still looking after the departing lights of the car, willing herself not to give way to the storm of emotion that was like a great hot ball in her chest. She had to get through this with a modicum of dignity, she told herself silently. No one, no one must guess what had happened, not a hint. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. She wouldn’t.

The whole episode hadn’t been Clay’s idea. She had followed him out to the lake when he had made it perfectly clear all evening he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She had thrown herself at him, quite literally—offered herself on a plate. No, not even offered, she corrected painfully—forced herself on him more like. She’d instigated everything, everything. What had possessed her? And now he thought she was loose, anybody’s…

And then his voice sounded just behind her, saying coolly, ‘Robyn, we need to talk.’ His hand took her elbow, turning her to face him. His face was closed, inscrutable.

‘Let go of me.’ Her voice surprised her: she didn’t expect it to be so firm or so cold considering what she was feeling like inside. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’

He complied, instantly.

‘I’ve nothing to say to you, Clay, beyond that I’m as sorry as you at what happened tonight,’ she said tautly. ‘So, can we leave it at that?’ She stepped away from him as she spoke.

The other guests were moving back inside and her mother approached them, sniffling loudly as she gushed how wonderful Cassie had looked and how desperately they were going to miss her. Robyn took her mother’s arm, making some light comment that she was quite proud of when her heart and her pride were in tatters, and once inside the hotel she slipped into the ladies’ cloakroom, locking the door of one of the cubicles behind her. She stayed in there some time, sick and numb with agonising misery and shame, and when she emerged Clay had already left.

She discovered the next morning, listening to her parents chat over breakfast, that Clay had apparently had a plane to catch having pulled off some big deal in the States. Her father was full of it, declaring they had been lucky to see him at all considering the way Clay’s particular star was rising in the world of business since his father had died.

‘He’ll go places, that young man,’ Mr Brett stated firmly. ‘He might have been born with something of a silver spoon in his mouth but he’s not your average, spoilt rich kid, not Clay Lincoln. He’ll go to the very top, you mark my words.’

Robyn knew exactly what Clay Lincoln was, and also the place she would like him to go. Shame and disillusionment and pain ate her up for months on end and she buried herself in working for her A levels, refusing all offers of dates from any young hopefuls and keeping herself strictly to herself.

Time passed. She gained first-class grades in her examinations and went to university with the wounds having healed to some extent. But she was wary, extremely wary, of the opposite sex. The odd date, a casual friend or two was fine; anything other than that and she wasn’t interested. It wasn’t that she purposely shut her mind and heart to love and commitment, more that it would take a special man to give her the confidence to become vulnerable again.

The special man hadn’t come along, the years had passed, and now she was twenty-eight and liked her life the way it was.

She sat up suddenly in the bath, angry that she had so completely indulged herself with memories that were difficult even now to come to terms with. They said that time heals all wounds… Robyn grimaced to herself as she stepped out of the bath and wrapped a big fluffy towel round herself, sarong fashion. Maybe, in ninety-nine per cent of cases that was true, but where Clay Lincoln was concerned the scar tissue was almost raw. But that was her problem.

Her soft mouth tightened, and the chocolate brown eyes fringed by thick black lashes that drew so many male glances on a day-to-day basis lost their velvet warmth and became as hard as iron as they narrowed reflectively.

She had thrown herself at him that day so many years ago and had probably got exactly what she had deserved. She had come to terms with that years ago, but it had taught her a lesson about the ruthless, hard quality of the opposite sex she had never forgotten. He had made her feel less than the dirt under his shoes that night, and however stupid she had been—and she had been stupid all right—she still didn’t think she’d deserved that. She’d only been sixteen for goodness’ sake.

But it didn’t matter. She walked through to the bedroom, sitting down at her small but exquisite dressing table that had been her grandmother’s. She stared into the misty mirror at the large-eyed girl staring back at her, and nodded defiantly. No, it really didn’t matter. Clay Lincoln was a figure from the past; it had been Cassie’s talk of him that had triggered these reflections. He was in a different world from her now.

He had had the meteoric success in the business world her father had predicted, his star dazzling, and she had caught glimpses of it now and again in the newspapers and had heard reports from Cassie and Guy who still saw him very occasionally. But she had made sure their paths never crossed. It had been better for everyone that way.

She had known when he had got married in the States to an American girl a short time after that fateful night at the lake, and also when his wife had died some years later, but she never pursued a conversation about Clay Lincoln. She had told Cassie and Guy she didn’t like him, pretending it was just that she found him abrupt and cold and that she disapproved of the playboy image he had adopted after the death of his wife. If Cassie had ever wondered at her animosity regarding Guy’s old friend she had never said so.

Robyn breathed in deeply, reaching for the rich moisturising cream in front of her without taking her eyes off the ones staring back at her from the mirror.

She neither wanted nor needed to see Clay Lincoln again. Not ever. And nothing would ever make her change her mind on that point. And as for Cass’s suggestion of approaching him with a view to him having a stake in her business, her own special baby—she would rather go bankrupt!

CHAPTER TWO

‘ROBYN, you remember Clay Lincoln, don’t you? Guy and Clay were at university together.’

Robyn had just stepped into Cassie’s large open-plan lounge where her sister’s dinner guests were gathered in celebration of Guy’s thirty-fifth birthday. She had been smiling as she’d walked into the room but in the last moment the smile had been wiped off her face with shock. According to Cassie there had been three couples Robyn knew quite well invited to dinner tonight, along with Guy’s brother whom Robyn was partnering due to Cassie’s sister-in-law being away in Blackpool at a conference the bank she worked for had organised and which Beryl had been unable to get out of.

But the tall, lean man in front of her was definitely not dear old Jim. And the photos she had seen of Clay in the newspapers over the last years had failed to do him justice. Twelve years ago he had been pretty stupendous; now he was easily the most handsome man she had ever seen in spite of the jet-black hair she remembered now being liberally streaked with silver.

He was bigger—broader—than he had been at twenty-three but only in the breadth of his shoulders and chest; the leanness that had always given his good looks an almost animal quality was still there, but made all the more powerful by maturity.

The youthful face had changed into one in which cynicism had scored deep lines which annoyingly only heightened his attractiveness; the silver-blue eyes were piercing in the deeply tanned skin and his mouth was possessed of hard worldly sensuality she was sure had not been there twelve years ago.

It was a disturbing face, magnetic in quality but almost too male, even cruel. But why was his face—along with the rest of him—present in Cass’s house tonight? Robyn took a deep, hidden breath, silently thanked the guardian angel who had prompted her to make a special effort to look her best tonight, and said carefully, ‘Hello, Clay; it must have been years since I saw you last,’ as though she wasn’t aware of the exact date or circumstances.

‘Yes, it must.’ His voice was the same—dark, smoky—and it caught at her nerve endings making them tingle. ‘Cassie and Guy’s wedding I believe, so that’s all of twelve years in a couple of months time,’ he said easily.

‘Really? That long?’ How could Cass do this to her? Robyn was intensely, almost painfully, aware of the narrowed blue eyes taking in every detail of her appearance, but the expensive cream shot-silk chiffon dress and matching sandals, and the sparkling Cartier diamond studs in her ears which had been her twenty-first birthday present from her parents, more than stood up to the piercing scrunity. Which was a darn sight more than her legs felt able to do right at this moment!

She knew her face was flushed—she had always blushed easily, it went with the red hair and creamy skin—but there was nothing she could do about that and perhaps he wouldn’t notice.

Clay, on the other hand, was as cool and contained as she remembered, his handsome, finely chiselled face faintly smiling above the designer summer-weight suit and blue silk shirt and tie he was wearing, and the tall, lean body relaxed. She could have kicked him. Hard. Very hard.

‘I…I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight?’ As soon as she’d said it she realised it was a mistake. It suggested he was important enough to be mentioned in advance.

‘Didn’t I mention it?’ Cassie entered the conversation now from her vantage point of interested spectator, and her voice was suspiciously offhand. ‘I meant to give you a ring a couple of days ago, Robyn, but the twins are still playing up at night and with the way I am…’ She laid a hand over her rounded stomach in a silent plea for sympathy. ‘I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on,’ she added with a winsome smile at Clay.

Believe that, believe anything. Their conversation of six days ago was suddenly crystal clear in Robyn’s mind and she knew, she just knew, this was one of Cass’s ruses. Her sister had decided that Clay would be the perfect business associate and had acted accordingly. Cass never let the grass grow under her feet.

‘Jim got the opportunity to join Beryl at the conference—all expenses paid—so he rang us to explain, and it just so happened Clay was in town…’ Cassie’s voice dwindled away happily.

‘How fortuitous,’ Robyn said stolidly, her eyes holding her sister’s until Cassie had the grace to look slightly discomfited. But only slightly. Still, Cass had no idea of the true state of affairs between she and Clay, Robyn reminded herself silently. Perhaps she should have told her a little of what had transpired all those years ago to avoid just such a situation as this one. He was her partner for the evening. As disasters went, it was a biggie.

‘I’ll leave Clay to look after you, then. I just need to go and check a couple of things in the kitchen.’ Cassie managed to look faintly preoccupied as she drifted away although Robyn knew full well everything in the kitchen would be working like clockwork. Occasions like this were her sister’s forte and always went like a dream due to painstaking preparation and careful planning.

‘Let me get you a drink, Robyn. What would you like?’

If she told him what she would like—namely for him to be transported somewhere, anywhere, but here—it would be the death knell on poor Guy’s birthday celebration. She could feel that her cheeks had cooled a little and she hoped her voice was several degrees below its normal warm tone when she said, ‘A glass of white wine would be lovely, thank you.’

How had she allowed herself to be manoeuvred into such a truly horrific situation? As she watched Clay cross the room to the large circular marble table where all the drinks had been laid out for everyone to help themselves, Robyn’s thoughts were racing. She was stupid. No, no not stupid, she corrected in the next moment. Too trusting. But then that implied that Cass meant her harm and she knew that was untrue. Whatever Cass had done she had done it with the very best of intentions.

Robyn’s lips twitched ruefully. Cass was the epitome of the happily married housewife, blissfully content with Guy and the twins and over the moon at the prospect of a third child. The fact that Guy had the sort of job which meant his wife didn’t have to work unless she wanted to suited her sister down to the ground. Cass was utterly domesticated; she even made her own bread on occasion and grew raspberries and strawberries, along with her own vegetables, in the garden, claiming she wanted her family to eat produce she knew was safe and wholesome. Their mother had often said Cass should have been born in the middle of the country—she’d have made a wonderful farmer’s wife.

But… Robyn’s eyes narrowed on Clay’s tall frame as he poured the wine. Her sister’s habit of viewing the world through rose-coloured spectacles had distinct disadvantages to those around her at times, and never more so than now.

And then Clay straightened and turned and looked straight at her before she could blank her face, and she knew, when she saw the hard firm mouth twitch slightly, that he was well aware of her dislike and, worse, that it didn’t bother him an iota.

‘One glass of white wine.’ His gravelly voice was very even and quiet as he handed her the drink on reaching her side, and Robyn forced hers into like mode as she answered, ‘Thank you, Clay,’ making sure her hand didn’t inadvertently touch his.

‘It is chilled.’ The devastating eyes held hers with no effort. ‘Although that’s barely relevant in your case.’

‘I’m sorry?’ She raised her chin a fraction.

‘You’re frosty enough to take the wine down a good few degrees all by yourself,’ he said pleasantly.

She stared at him, shocked by the suddenness and speed of the confrontation which—for one stunned moment—had robbed her of all coherent thought. And then she raised her small chin further in an angry movement which wasn’t lost on the tall figure in front of her, and said, her voice crisp and steady, ‘That’s very rude, Mr Lincoln, considering we haven’t met in years and I barely know you.’

“‘Mr Lincoln” is going to go down like a lead balloon during the social repartee an occasion like this merits, and although we might not have met in years I’d say we know each other fairly well, all things considered,’ he returned smoothly.

‘Really?’ Robyn could feel her face burning.

‘Yes, really.’ He smiled, his voice silky. ‘I think you were about twelve years’ old when Guy first introduced me to your family, so I’d say the next three or four years count as a pretty good “knowing” period, wouldn’t you?’

She was saved the effort of searching for an adequately scathing reply by one of the other couples who joined them at that precise moment, but as she made small talk and joined in the laughter and social niceties she was furious to find she couldn’t ignore Clay as she wanted to.

The last years had evaporated as though they’d never been and she was like a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl again, conscious of his every movement, the low husky quality of his voice, the sheer physical appeal of him. The suit he was wearing couldn’t even begin to disguise the unequivocally tough and hard male body inside it, and his closeness was playing havoc with her senses. Which was as ridiculous as it was humiliating.

There were at least eight other people in the room besides Clay and herself, but it was his warm male scent surrounding her, his voice that made her pulse race, his body that she was painfully and rawly aware of. She could feel the attraction so strongly she wouldn’t have been surprised if the air had begun to crackle, but Clay seemed quietly relaxed and at ease as he chatted at her side to the other couple.

Mind you, there was no reason for him to be otherwise, she reminded herself tartly as she smiled and nodded at the woman opposite her who was regaling them with the latest achievement of the wonder child she had given birth to a few months previously.

She couldn’t bring herself to believe he had forgotten the events of that awful evening twelve years ago—much as she would like to—but the whole thing obviously had meant absolutely nothing to him. If she had stayed in his memory at all, which she seriously doubted, it would have been as a ridiculous little girl who had overstepped the mark and in doing so had embarrassed them both. If he had been embarrassed, that was. Which she seriously doubted. Icebergs didn’t embarrass as far as she knew.

‘…at the moment, Robyn?’

‘I’m sorry?’ She came to with a jolt to realise May Jarvis, the wife of one of Guy’s oldest friends, had asked her a question amid all the ramblings and she hadn’t heard a word of it.

May’s smile dimmed a little. ‘I asked you if there was anyone special on the horizon at the moment?’ she repeated.

Why was it that happily married matrons of her sister’s age always seemed to assume they could ask any pertinent question they liked at dos like this one? Robyn asked herself tersely, before her innate sense of fair play made her feel guilty. May was only trying to include her in the conversation and make small talk, she reminded herself quickly, and normally she would have passed off such a question with a light, amusing comment. But tonight wasn’t normal, and she was all out of light, amusing comments! She just wanted to go home.

‘No.’ She could feel the muscles at the back of her neck were as tight as piano wire and she had only been here ten minutes or so. How was she going to get through a whole evening?

‘Oh.’ May had clearly expected more and now she glanced across at her husband rather helplessly, who stared back at her with a face that seemed to say, What do you expect me to say?

It was Clay who spoke into the moment, his voice soothing and cool as he said quietly, ‘I understand from Cassie that all Robyn’s energies have been tied up in the business she’s involved in. Is that right, Robyn?’ he added smoothly.

Cass hadn’t. She hadn’t, had she? She wouldn’t have mentioned the refusal of the business loan and everything surely? ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she agreed evenly, gratified her voice was showing no sign of the turmoil within. She’d never forgive Cass!

‘Oh, really? How interesting.’ May was gushing but it was well-meant. ‘What sort of business is it?’

‘PR.’ She couldn’t just leave it at that, not after her abruptness before. ‘I formed my own business a couple of years ago so it’s pretty time-absorbing. If you want to get a foot on the ladder you have to put in all the hours it needs,’ Robyn said quietly to May without looking Clay’s way. ‘There’s plenty of competition who will be only too pleased to do it if you don’t.’

‘I can imagine.’ May was genuinely sympathetic. ‘I was involved in advertising before I had the baby and that’s the same. Of course I didn’t have my own company,’ she added quickly, ‘so I suppose the incentive wasn’t quite the same. How many people do you employ?’

‘Just one at the moment.’ She would have given the world to massage the taut muscles at the nape of her neck but she didn’t dare with those icy silver eyes watching her. ‘But I’m hoping to expand in time of course.’

‘So you’re a career girl.’ Clay had moved fractionally closer, his spicy aftershave subtly touching her oversensitised nerves, and Robyn willed herself to show no reaction at all. ‘Funny, but I’d got you down as a hearth-and-home type back in the good old days,’ he drawled with silky innocence.

‘Oh, so you two go back a long way?’ May was all ears.

‘We don’t go back at all,’ Robyn said politely but firmly, wondering how suave and debonair Clay would look with white wine dripping off the end of his nose. ‘Clay was at university with Guy, that’s all, and he used to come and see Cass and Guy in the holidays sometimes when I was just a kid.’ It was dismissive.

She knew the dark, handsome face was surveying her with mockingly raised eyebrows and for that reason she didn’t let her eyes connect with his. She wasn’t the young, starry-eyed sixteen-year-old any more and she was darned if she would let him call the tune tonight. He had purposefully got May interested, she knew it, with his pointed reference to the good old days. The good old days! She gave a healthy snort in her mind. Good for whom? Not for her, that was sure.

Once Cassie had got them all seated at the table and the first course—baby spinach, avocado and crispy pancetta salad—had been served, it wasn’t quite so bad.

Clay was sitting opposite her for one thing, and the few feet of space across the elaborate dining table which was a picture of glittering crystal and snowy-white linen and silver, was very welcome. May’s husband was on one side of her and was quite attentive, and she knew Guy’s friend, John, on her left, well, so she concentrated her conversation on them without being too obvious.

Nevertheless she noticed, with acid amusement, that Clay was charming the two women either side of him with no apparent effort on his part. They were twittering and giggling like teenagers! Still, from all she had heard over the last years he’d had plenty of practice at being a ladies’ man since his young wife had died. Love ’em and leave ’em reputation, according to Guy. Which was fine, just fine if that was the way he wanted to live his life, Robyn thought nastily. A tom-cat always finds its own level.

Guy served a particularly delicious red wine with the main course of pan-fried pork fillet with sage and spring onion mash, and the excellent food and good wine produced a calmingly mellow effect on her racing nerves. Especially when John refilled her glass twice. By the time Cassie brought out the triple-chocolate torte, along with an Eve’s Pudding topped with caramelised sugar, Robyn was telling herself she was quite adult enough to handle this evening with dignity and aplomb. Clay Lincoln didn’t bother her!

She’d got off on the wrong foot maybe, she admitted silently to herself, but nothing was lost, not really. The worst thing she could do, with an egoist like Clay Lincoln, was to let him think he affected her in any way. She would treat him just the same as she did everyone else: she’d be friendly, charming, amusing—everything one was at occasions like this. Once the meal was over a little polite chit-chat, a laugh or two, and then she would bow out gracefully as soon as the first couple made a move to leave and that would be that. Easy.

Cassie brought in Guy’s pile of birthday presents from family and friends during the cheese and biscuits and, as Robyn left the table briefly to help Cassie in the kitchen with the coffee, her sister whispered, ‘You’ll never guess what Clay’s given us for Guy’s thirty-fifth. I still can’t believe it. Once the baby’s born and I’m feeling okay he’s going to fly the five of us out to his beach house in Florida for a couple of weeks, all expenses paid. What do you think about that?’

‘Really? That’s wonderful, Cass.’ Robyn was thrilled for them, really thrilled, but she couldn’t help wishing it had been someone else who had provided the trip. Anyone else.

‘Apparently you just step off the front porch straight onto white sand, but there’s an indoor pool as well and the use of one of Clay’s cars for the fortnight, and a housekeeper who will do all the cooking. It’s just too good to be true,’ Cassie beamed happily. ‘It really is.’

Bit like Clay Lincoln, then.

For an awful moment Robyn thought she had said the words out loud but when Cassie’s sunny face didn’t change, she knew the sarcasm had been in her mind only. ‘How often have you and Guy seen Clay over the last years?’ she asked carefully as she tipped the box of peppermint creams onto a silver plate and placed them on the serving trolley. ‘Isn’t a present like this a bit…extreme?’ she suggested expressionlessly.

‘According to Guy, Clay’s like that, unpredictable. And Guy’s seen him now and again; they go out to lunch mostly although Clay has been to dinner once or twice. He’s got a mansion-type place in Windsor apparently although we’ve never been there. He is always jet-setting here, there and everywhere—he’s never in one place for more than a few days, Guy says. Course, with all his business interests, you’d expect that.’

Robyn nodded. ‘What does he do exactly?’ she asked quietly as Cassie loaded the trolley with another plate of dark chocolates, slices of shortbread and jugs of steaming coffee, sugar, milk and whipped cream. Her sister always made sure everyone ate to excess.

‘Well, I understand his father was in shipping,’ Cassie said in a low voice, ‘but Clay’s diversified into property and one or two other things as well. Fingers in plenty of pies.’

‘A real entrepreneur,’ Robyn said lightly, keeping all trace of expression out of her voice with some effort. Filthy rich and with an ego to match. Just what she had thought in fact. She had been blind to everything but his overwhelming attraction and dark charisma at sixteen; it was different now. She was different.

When she and Cassie re-entered the room Robyn was aware of Clay’s eyes on her but she didn’t look his way, keeping her gaze on Guy at the head of the table. ‘Coffee for the birthday boy?’ she called brightly. ‘Black or white, Guy?’

‘Black, by the look of him,’ Cassie commented a trifle wryly at her side as she glanced at her husband’s flushed face and vacant grin. ‘I don’t fancy having to carry him up the stairs.’

Everyone lingered over coffee and brandy, the atmosphere mellow and comfortable as witticisms flashed back and forth and laughter reverberated in increasing waves of hilarity. Cassie was sitting basking in the glow of a supremely successful dinner party and Guy was surveying his guests with the air of a man who was truly satisfied with life. Robyn envied them. They had found each other as well as their niche in life and that was a double blessing. And then, as her gaze left Guy’s smiling, flushed, contented face it was drawn to the ice-blue eyes across the table and she found her breath catch in her throat at the mocking, mordacious quality to Clay’s hooded regard.

He was surveying them all in much the same way as a dispassionate scientist with a load of bugs under a microscope, she reflected angrily. How dared he? How dared he consider himself so far above the rest of them? Who did he think he was anyway?

‘I think Guy’s enjoyed his thirty-fifth, don’t you?’ The low drawl was just for her ears and although Robyn longed to tell him not to be so darn supercilious she knew she couldn’t. It was unthinkable to put a spanner in the works of Cassie and Guy’s evening. So instead she was forced to grit her teeth and give him a frosty little smile.

His eyes narrowed briefly but in the next moment she broke the hold and turned to John, and she made sure she didn’t glance Clay’s way again as she finished her coffee.

How was it, she asked herself silently, that all her previous good intentions of being distantly charming and amusing could be shattered with one glance from the man? In all the last twelve years she hadn’t met anyone who could set her teeth on edge like Clay Lincoln. Everything, but everything about him grated on her. She couldn’t imagine why he and Guy were friends.

She wasn’t going to wait for someone else to make the first move to leave. As soon as it was decently possible she would make her goodbyes and be out of here; she didn’t need this. She really, really didn’t need this. She would rather die than let Clay see it but she was acutely aware of every little movement he made and it was mortifying. Suddenly she just didn’t know herself any more and she was aghast at the way she felt.

Music was drifting in from the lounge, courtesy of Frank Sinatra who was doing it ‘his way’, and as Cassie began ushering them all out of their seats Robyn seized the opportunity to take her sister’s arm and say quietly, ‘I really need to be making tracks, Cass, I’m sorry. It’s been a lovely evening but—’

‘You can’t go yet.’ Cassie was horrified. ‘It’s only half past ten for goodness’ sake! Here, grab one of the bottles of brandy and port and bring them through, would you?’ And with that she sailed off across the hall, where she could be heard urging everyone to replenish their glasses.

Robyn stared after her, biting her lower lip and wondering how she could love someone and want to strangle them at the same time. It was a feeling she’d had before but never so strongly.

She had just turned to reach for the bottles when she saw Clay, still seated, surveying her with contemplative eyes. ‘Somewhere else to go?’ he asked mildly.

At some point in the evening he had discarded his suit jacket over the back of his chair and had undone the first couple of buttons of his shirt, pulling his tie loose, and although she was absolutely furious with herself the sheer physical magnetism of him registered in her solar plexus like a fist. She could feel the blood pulsing through her veins, a frantic flood that made her feel breathless and giddy, and she had to swallow hard before she could say, ‘Not—not exactly. Only home. But I’ve a heap of work waiting for me.’

‘At half past ten at night?’ he queried softly.

She flushed hotly, her voice something of a snap as she said, ‘I meant tomorrow, of course. It will mean an early start and so I didn’t want to be too late tonight.’ He needn’t try and be clever!

‘Do you always work such long hours?’ He stood up as he spoke, his silver eyes running over her face and the cloud of silky red-gold curls falling to below her slender shoulders. ‘I thought everyone was due one day of rest a week.’

She shrugged carefully. At five feet nine she had never considered herself petite but Clay must be at least another six inches taller and it was disconcerting to find she was having to look up at him. ‘It varies,’ she said stiffly.

‘Are you always so communicative?’ he drawled silkily.

They were the only two people left in the dining room now and Robyn had the ridiculous urge to turn and bolt into the lounge, but the knowledge that he would love that, just love it, restrained her. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said tightly, reaching for the bottle of brandy and another of port as she added, ‘Cass wants these, I’d better take them through.’

‘Running away…again?’ The pause was just long enough to bring the colour which had begun to recede from her cheeks surging back with renewed vigour.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said with icy dignity, her voice at direct variance with her fiery skin. Horrible, horrible man!

‘If you had known I would be here tonight you wouldn’t have come.’ It was a statement, not a question.

You’ve never said a truer word, she thought. ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she returned scathingly. ‘How could your whereabouts be of any possible interest to me one way or the other?’

He hadn’t liked that. Robyn was immensely gratified to see his mouth tighten, but the black scowl was a little unnerving and grasping the bottles she made for the door. Enough was enough.

‘You’re an angel.’ As she entered the lounge where the others were draped about talking and laughing, a couple of the women dancing languidly to the music, Cassie took the bottles from her, glancing interestedly over her shoulder. ‘Where’s Clay?’

‘How would I know?’ Robyn said offhandedly. ‘Bathroom perhaps?’ Her tone made it quite clear she couldn’t care less.

‘Robyn, make an effort please,’ Cassie hissed quietly. ‘That’s not too much to ask, is it? He’s—’

What he was Robyn never found out as the next moment Clay walked in the room and Cassie fluttered over to him, insisting on replenishing his glass and then—to Robyn’s horror—drawing him over to Robyn as she said loudly, ‘You know you two have so much in common when you think about it, both with your own businesses and so on. You’re both workaholics, you know,’ and she giggled in a most un-Cassie-like way.

‘Clay and I have nothing in common, Cass.’ It was out before she could stop it, his narrowed eyes and cold face hitting a multitude of nerves, and she hastily qualified the retort with, ‘Clay is a millionaire with a network of businesses that stretch from here to Timbuktu, and I’m a one-man-band in Kensington. You really can’t compare the two.’

‘Timbuktu is a town in central Mali on the River Niger, and to my knowledge I have no business connections there,’ Clay said pleasantly, his voice conversational and his eyes deadly, ‘and I am sure your company is every bit as important to you as mine are to me. I think that is what your sister was getting at.’

She knew what Cassie was getting at but she couldn’t very well say so, Robyn thought helplessly, knowing she had been put in her place by an expert. She glared at him, hating him for making her feel such an ungracious, churlish boor, and then as Cassie shifted uncomfortably at the side of them Robyn tried to straighten her face into a more acceptable expression.

‘Robyn works too hard, Clay.’ Cassie was clearly in ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ mode. ‘I know she’s trying to build the business up but nothing is worth killing yourself for. Of course it doesn’t help that her bank manager is less than far-sighted,’ she finished with all the delicacy of a charging bull-elephant.

Dinner party or no dinner party, this was finale time. ‘Excuse me.’ Robyn’s voice was throbbing with outrage as she nodded at Clay, taking Cassie’s arm in a vise-like grip as she did so and hauling her sister out of the room before anyone could say another word.

She didn’t let go until the pair of them were safely in the kitchen with the door shut behind them, and then she pushed her sister onto one of the breakfast stools with the command of, ‘Sit,’ her face flushed and her brown eyes sparking.

‘Robyn, please, just let me explain—’

‘Not another word, Cass.’ She was angry, so angry her voice choked before she took a deep breath and continued. ‘You’ve gone too far and you know it, don’t you? If I had wanted my private business broadcast to all and sundry I would have said so. Everything I tell you is in confidence, and you knew—you knew—Clay was the last person I’d want to confide in. I couldn’t have made it plainer the other day,’ she finished vehemently.

‘I’m sorry.’ Cassie didn’t look at her and her voice was meek.

‘Sorry isn’t enough, Cass. You tricked me into coming tonight too. You didn’t even give me the chance of refusing when you knew Guy’s brother wasn’t going to make it. Well, I’m going now and I tell you it’ll be a long time before I forgive you for this. I mean it!’ Robyn’s voice was high with outrage.

Cassie had always been unsquashable and pregnancy had only served to make her more serene. She raised her eyes now, her voice placid and her face composed as she said, ‘He would be perfect for what you need, Robyn. His own businesses are so vast he wouldn’t meddle or get involved with yours, but with just a fraction of what he’s worth backing you you’d never look back. And he’s a friend of the family. It’s ideal.’

‘He’s a friend of yours and Guys, Cass, let’s get that straight. I don’t know him; I don’t want to know him and if I ever see him again in all my life it’ll be too soon!’

They both heard the knock on the kitchen door and spun round to face it, and it dawned on Robyn—Cassie too, by the look on her face—that the person outside must have heard every word of that last statement because Robyn’s voice had not been moderate.

Robyn knew who it would be before the door opened and Clay’s dark cool voice spoke. It went with the whole miserable evening somehow. She prepared herself for the explosion.

‘Do I take it this is a bad moment?’ He was speaking directly to Cassie; Robyn might not have existed. ‘Guy asked me to tell you that May and her husband are leaving; babysitter deadlines.’

‘Oh, yes, yes, of course. I must… Yes.’ If Clay hadn’t had a grain of intelligence Cassie’s flustered voice and scarlet face would have alerted him to the fact that he just might have heard something personally detrimental.

But Clay was intelligent, formidably so, Robyn thought miserably as she watched her sister skuttle out of the room as though the devil himself was at her heels. But the devil wasn’t following Cass, he was here with her, she acknowledged silently, as icy eyes drilled into her. ‘So…’ It was grim. ‘I see the spoilt brat is still a spoilt brat?’

‘What?’ She couldn’t believe her ears. ‘What did you say?’

‘I should imagine you will rise to the top of the tree with very little effort,’ the devastatingly cold voice continued gratingly. ‘Ignoring anything you don’t want to acknowledge, bulldozing your way through without a thought of anyone else or any higher concepts—the business world will just love you, Robyn. Do you use that delectable body as well as your brain to get what you want? You started early, I should know that, so—’

Nothing in the world could have stopped her lashing out at him and it caught him completely off guard. His head snapped back with the force of her hand across his face and for a moment there was complete stillness in the kitchen, the sound of voices and music from outside unbearably normal in what was suddenly a terribly abnormal world.

Robyn was shaking now, her dark brown eyes enormous in her chalk-white face. She could see her hand print forming on one tanned cheek, the red lines a reproach in themselves, and she stared at him, shocked beyond measure at what she had done. She had never, in all her life, struck anyone, and for it to be Clay Lincoln! And at Guy’s birthday party!

And then she backed away as Clay came forwards without saying a word, his face frightening. ‘Don’t…don’t you dare hit me. I’ll call for someone—’

‘Hit you?’ It stopped him in his tracks. He swore, softly but vehemently and with enough force to scare her further. ‘Is that the sort of man you think I am? The sort who strikes women?’

‘I don’t know what sort of man you are.’

‘Really?’ It was deadly. ‘And yet you’ve been insufferable all evening. Care to tell me why?’ he asked cuttingly.

She had backed as far as she could go, the edge of the sink pressing into her lower back, but she still drew herself up as she said, ‘Me, insufferable? Me?’

‘Oh, don’t tell me!’ He folded muscled arms over his broad chest. ‘I’m the one who’s been aching to pick a fight. Right?’

‘I—I haven’t wanted to pick a fight, merely…’ Her voice trailed away. How could you explain the unexplainable?

‘Yes?’ He was eyeing her with complete and utter disdain.

She set her jaw, the old defiance which had been severely shaken coming to her aid. ‘I don’t have to explain anything to you,’ she stated tightly. ‘Not a thing!’

‘Wrong.’ He was watching her with unrelenting eyes, and then something in his expression changed as he added, thoughtfully now, ‘You don’t add up, Miss Brett, and I don’t like that. I remember a somewhat precocious teenager, bright, undeniably lovely, but fresh, eager, alive. There wasn’t a trace of sourness or scepticism there, so what happened?’

You. You happened. You blew my word apart and you don’t have the faintest inkling, do you? From his comment labelling her precocious and a spoilt brat as a teenager, he’d obviously put his own interpretation on that night years ago. He’d imagined she’d been trying out her new-found womanhood on any available man, was that it? That he had been the luck of the draw on which to cut her puppy teeth? Whereas in reality…

And that crack about using her body to get what she wanted! He had made it quite plain how he viewed her now as well. He was hateful, loathsome. How ever could she have imagined herself in love with him? She must have been stark staring mad!

‘Cass will be concerned if I don’t get back to the others,’ she said stiffly, ‘so if you’ve quite finished?’

‘I haven’t even started,’ he said softly, but he stood aside for her to pass him, his dark face unfathomable.

If she had been thinking straight she might have known he wouldn’t just let her leave, not after all that had transpired, but her head was a whirl and hot emotion sat in the place where common sense normally dwelt.

She swept past him, only to find herself swung round by hard male fingers on her wrist and then she was in his arms before she realised what was happening.

‘Let go of—’ The rest of her words were smothered by his mouth on hers and for a heart-stopping second she was too surprised and bewildered to react. And then she struggled fiercely, fighting him with all her strength. It had about as much impact as a moth fluttering against a brick wall.

It was a challenging kiss, severe almost, a kiss that dared her to relax and enjoy it, and it was a kiss by an expert. That much registered on Robyn’s spinning senses. He felt hard and sure against her softness and the smell of him spun intoxicatingly in her head, bringing her skin alive from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.

His name was whispering deep inside her and that frightened her as much as the sensations he was drawing forth so effortlessly. Clay was the last person in the world she should want to make love to her and shockingly—humiliatingly—that was exactly what she did want. Which made her…what? The answer to that gave her the strength to jerk away with a suddenness that took him by surprise.

‘I hate you.’ It was raw and low and she was trembling.

‘Do you?’ He looked back at her, his silver eyes glittering slightly. ‘Why such a strong emotion, Robyn?’ he asked tauntingly.

She blinked a little. He was tying her up in knots and she was letting him; this was completely the wrong way to handle a man like Clay Lincoln. She knew that; she dealt with all types in her work including hard-bitten journalists who would sell their own mother for a story, so why had her normal cool, distant façade got blown to smithereens? What was it about this man?

‘I don’t appreciate being mauled about for a start,’ she bit out tightly, praying the trembling in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t communicate itself through her voice.

‘Mauled?’ He gave a soft, mocking laugh as he stepped back a pace, the crystal eyes pinning her to the spot. ‘I don’t think so, Robyn.’

His impossibly light eyes reflected his contempt of the statement and his aggressive handsomeness, his utter surety in himself, was galling. For a moment Robyn had the insane impulse to throw a paddy and shout and scream, anything, to get under that tanned skin, but the knowledge that she would be acting like the spoilt brat he’d accused her of being was restraint enough.

‘You may not think so but that is what I call it when a man forces himself on a woman,’ she said icily. ‘I neither asked for or wanted you to kiss me.’

‘True.’ And he had the absolute affront to smile. ‘But you enjoyed it when I did. I’ve kissed enough women in my time to know that. I had wondered all night what you’d taste like and now I know.’

She didn’t believe this man! She glared at him, bristling with fury, her fingers itching to hit him again. What an incredibly colossal ego. But she was not going to give him the satisfaction of losing her temper again. She drew herself up to her full five feet nine inches and stared straight into the silver-blue orbs, her voice dripping with scorn as she said, ‘You need to think I enjoyed it; that’s quite a different thing. If it makes you happy, dream on, Mr Lincoln.’

Her tone of voice did not amuse him, that much was obvious, but before he could respond the door to the kitchen opened again and Cassie breezed in, her voice bright as she said, ‘You two still in here? I told you you’d have plenty in common, didn’t I? You wouldn’t carry the ice bucket through for me, would you, Clay?’ she added as she opened the freezer door and extracted a bag of ice cubes to refill the huge silver ice bucket she had brought in with her from the lounge.

‘Sure thing.’ It was cool and relaxed, insultingly so.

Sure thing. Robyn stood for a moment more after the other two had walked through to the lounge. And did he think she was a sure thing too? Like all the women who flocked to his dark aura? Thought he only had to click his fingers, no doubt.

Think again, Clay Lincoln. She drew her lips together, her brown eyes narrowing. This was one man she wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. And she was out of here, right now.

CHAPTER THREE

‘SO HOW was the dinner party last night? Cassie serve up salmonella along with the main course, or is there another reason why you look like you ought to be in bed this morning?’ Drew’s voice was light but her baby-blue eyes were anxious as she surveyed Robin’s white face.

‘I’m fine, Drew.’ Robyn had just opened the door to her assistant and now she stood aside, waving Drew in as she said, ‘The coffee pot’s on.’

‘Robyn, you look awful.’ Never one to beat about the bush Drew turned to face her after Robyn had shut the door. ‘Go back to bed, I can manage here.’

That was ridiculous and they both knew it. They had a product launch for a cosmetic company the next day and Robyn had fought off some powerful competition to acquire it. Everything had to be faultless and flawless; she had promised a polished launch with maximum flair and that meant working until late evening as it was, and then a six o’clock start on Monday morning.

‘I’m all right, really.’ Robyn managed a fairly normal smile in spite of the fact she hadn’t slept a wink all night and had been downstairs at her desk by five. ‘I just didn’t sleep well, that’s all,’ she added with a fair attempt at nonchalance.

‘Have you eaten breakfast?’ And at Robyn’s shake of the head Drew scolded, ‘And I bet you were up at the crack of dawn too! Honestly, Robyn, sometimes I think you haven’t got the sense you were born with. You can’t work like you do and skip meals. I’ll make some toast and you’ll sit and eat it before you do anything else.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ But Robyn was laughing now. This was the other side of Drew that few people saw—the fussy, motherly side—and it was a complete antithesis to the dizzy, frivolous image the attractive blonde normally projected. But then, who knew what anyone else was really like? Robyn thought soberly as Drew bustled off upstairs. Certainly Clay didn’t have the faintest idea what or who she was.

And then she caught herself angrily. No more thinking about Clay Lincoln! She’d wasted all the night hours fretting and walking the floor, and who cared what he thought about her anyway. He’d labelled her an empty-headed, amorous little flirt at sixteen who’d been ready and willing to jump into bed with any male, and now she’d risen to a sour, ruthless-minded business woman who wasn’t averse to using her body to get what she wanted.

She ground her teeth, furious with herself because it still rankled. Because it shouldn’t matter. He was nothing. Nothing.

She had left Cass’s immediately after the episode in the kitchen, pleading a headache, and she hadn’t looked at Clay once, not even when she had said goodbye. Even then she had kept her gaze somewhere behind his left ear.

But somehow—and this was the worst thing of all—she couldn’t get the memory of what that kiss had done to her out of her head and her senses. She touched her lips unconsciously, her eyes wide and unseeing. How could she have responded like that to a man she loathed and detested? He was dangerous. He was so, so dangerous. And unprincipled. And base. And—

She was saved from further reflection by Drew calling down to say she was fixing scrambled eggs on toast and Robyn must come now, not a minute, not a second later.

The two women worked non-stop for the rest of the day with just a ten-minute break at lunch for sandwiches and more coffee, and after Robyn had waved Drew off at just gone five o’clock she continued at her desk until her brain was as scrambled as the eggs at breakfast and the sky was pitch black outside.

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