Bittersweet Yesterdays
Kate Proctor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’RE joking, of course! Me? Your secretary?’ Lucy Preston flashed her stepbrother a look of horrified defiance across the huge, leather-topped desk separating them—a look completely wasted, it infuriated her to find, on Mark Waterford, who, having delivered his tersely worded bombshell, had turned his attention to one of the telephones beside him and began dialling a number.

‘Yes, you—my secretary,’ he snapped. ‘And I wasn’t asking your opinion, I was simply telling you that’s to be your position for the time being.’ With barely a pause, he launched into a rapid flow of French as his call connected, leaving Lucy leaning back heavily in her chair, her teeth almost grinding with fury.

She was twenty-three years old, she fumed to herself—not the accident-prone fifteen-year-old who had been abandoned to Mark Waterford’s despotic—not to mention vociferously reluctant—mercies virtually from the day her mother had married his father, James Waterford. The James Waterford, she reminded herself acerbically, of the fabled Waterford Consortium.

Lucy glowered across the desk at the man on the telephone. At fifteen she had been smitten by the most devastating of infatuations for her then twenty-two-year-old stepbrother—with his careless sophistication and rakish good looks he had seemed like the embodiment of her every romantic dream.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as they moved from the glossy dark thickness of his hair to the almost chiselled perfection of his features. She frowned with the effort of trying to pinpoint exactly what it was about him that drew women to him in their droves. Perhaps it was that intriguing blend of harshness and sensuality that was there, not only in his extraordinarily good looks but also in his personality. Or perhaps they were attracted by the broad streak of tyranny in him, to which she had been subjected, on and off, for the past eight years, she mused scathingly; if that was the case, they should all be certified, she decided, tensing perceptibly as he terminated the call.

Mark Waterford rose to his feet and proceeded to stretch. He was a tall man, well over six feet, and there wasn’t a square ounce of flesh on his magnificently proportioned body. He lowered his arms when he had finished stretching, his powerful shoulders flexing beneath the dazzling white of his shirt, then he returned to his seat. He gazed across at the slim figure of his stepsister, a dismissive impatience in the cold blue of his eyes.

‘Well, don’t lounge around here looking as though you’re about to doze off,’ he snapped. ‘I suggest you get your bits and pieces moved into my reception office.’

Lucy, who had been doing some rapid mental arithmetic and had come up with answers she found depressing, glowered over at him while biting back her inexpressible views as to what he and the entire Waterford Consortium could do regarding what she considered her enforced connections with them.

‘It’s hardly likely to do much for your image,’ she stalled, ‘promoting the typing pool’s equivalent of the village idiot to your secretary.’

‘It so happens that I’ve decided it’s high time something was done about that village idiot routine of yours,’ he retorted coldly. ‘And it’s a pose you’ll find yourself dropping pretty damn quickly around me, I can assure you.’

‘Oh, I see,’ gushed Lucy, glaring balefully at him. ‘You’ve decided to have another bash at furthering my education, have you?’

He tilted his large frame back in the leather swivel chair as he gave her a look of fastidious forbearance with which she was all too familiar.

‘Your education—or, to be more precise, your appalling lack of it—is and never has been of the slightest interest to me,’ he informed her with exaggerated patience. ‘But the unfortunate fact that you happen to be a peripheral member of my family—’

‘I’m not a member of your precious family!’ exploded Lucy. ‘The fact that my mother is married to your father has nothing to do with me! And another thing,’ she continued, every single one of her pent-up frustrations clamouring to have a say, ‘unlike you, I happened to have a completely open mind about their marriage at the time—I could hardly have been expected to foresee that my mother would lose her reason and waltz off and leave me at your mercy. I’d have been better off if she’d dumped me on the streets!’

‘Here we go again,’ he groaned, rolling his eyes in disbelief. ‘You’re like a stuck record. Damn it, on the streets is probably where you’d have ended up if it hadn’t been for my father!’ His eyes blazed their fury across the desk at her. ‘Your mother was up to her eyeballs in debt when she married him—’

‘You’re the one like a stuck record,’ Lucy practically screamed at him. ‘She didn’t marry him for his money! For heaven’s sake, how much convincing do you need? They’ve been happily married for eight years now and you still accuse—’

‘I’m accusing no one of anything,’ he cut in coldly. ‘I was merely pointing out the facts. And another fact is that I wouldn’t have been left here with you virtually on my hands if you’d behaved like any normal child and gone with them to the States as they wanted—so don’t give me any more of your sanctimonious hogwash about how open-minded you were about them marrying!’

‘I was fifteen, for heaven’s sake!’ shrieked Lucy indignantly. ‘It was only four years since my own father had died...the last thing I wanted was to be uprooted from England and all my friends.’

‘And how did you behave when you got your own way?’ he demanded witheringly.

‘I didn’t get my own way,’ she protested angrily, wondering why she had even bothered—no one had ever attempted to look at her turbulent teenage years from her point of view and Mark was the last person to do so now. ‘I was dragged from the school I knew and loved, and from all my friends, and dumped in a snooty boarding-school where I was a complete misfit!’

‘Damn it, how else could they have left you in England without sending you to boarding-school?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘And the fact that you couldn’t stand the place was hardly a reason for attempting to burn it to the ground.’

Lucy gritted her teeth and said nothing—what was the point in saying anything now when it had been her own obstinate pride that had condemned her all those years ago?

When Mark had been summoned to the school from his studies at Cambridge it had been impossible for her to judge which had hurt her most: the object of her secret adoration’s arriving with a sultry blonde in tow, or the crushing words with which he had greeted her.

‘This is all I need—you taking up arson!’

In her hurt confusion she had been unable to utter a single word. The fury that had erupted in him as he had taken her silence as total confirmation of her guilt had spawned a brainstorm of furious indignation in her which had eventually resulted in her screaming at him that she would make sure the place burned to a cinder if she had to remain there. Her immediate expulsion had removed any likelihood of her actually carrying out that mindless threat—but what had hurt her even more deeply was that her own mother, loving and concerned though she had been, had never once appeared to question her guilt either.

‘My father should have put his foot down then and made sure you stayed with them in the States until you were fit to be let loose on the world,’ continued Mark ruthlessly. ‘But no—once you turned sixteen you got your own way and returned to England to—’

‘Only because the American education system is so different,’ interrupted Lucy with hot indignation. ‘There was no way I could suddenly fit in there.’

‘Yet you didn’t have much success fitting in here either,’ he pointed out unkindly. ‘How many different courses was it you started on, only to drop out of?’

‘And I’m sure you don’t consider you played any part in that, do you?’ she lashed out at him with all the passionate resentment of her teenage years. ‘I was doing well and really enjoying the art foundation course at Kingston—’

‘Yes—so much that you dropped out of it after barely a year,’ he jeered.

‘And you know perfectly well why!’ she accused hotly. ‘Because of those two harpies you farmed me out with! They made my life an absolute misery. If I wasn’t back at their place by eight, they used to call the police. I must have been the only art student in the entire country who had to be home by eight—weekends included!’

‘Lucy, I simply haven’t the time to sit here being subjected to a blow-by-blow account of your delinquent youth,’ he drawled in tones of bored disdain, sliding back the cuff of his shirt to display a slim gold watch at his darkly haired wrist.

He was a gloriously hairy man, she suddenly found herself thinking. Not in any way abnormally so—there were some men who looked positively ape-like, whereas Mark was... She pulled herself up abruptly, experiencing an uncomfortable churning sensation in the pit of her stomach as she remembered the precise moment she had made the discovery as to his hirsuteness or otherwise. It was one morning during the two weeks when he had had no option but to put her up at his flat and during which he had made it starkly clear she was the most unwelcome of guests. Having believed him to be out, she had gone racing into his bedroom to investigate the alarming sounds emanating from it...on reflection, she realised the girl sharing his bed had probably felt every bit as disconcerted as she had. She glared across the desk at Mark, his unconcerned laughter as he had ordered her from the room all those years ago once again ringing in her ears.

‘You were the one who brought up the subject,’ she informed him, her tone suddenly switching to ominous sweetness. ‘And while we’re on it—perhaps you’d care to cast your mind back to those two ghastly weeks I was forced to spend at your flat.’

‘You were forced?’ he queried with supercilious indignation. ‘My God, that’s rich! I reckon I deserved a medal simply for having let my father talk me into allowing you to stay there!’

‘No, if you deserved a medal for anything, it was your stamina as a stud—as far as I can remember, you had a different woman every night, and that was hardly an example to be setting for an impressionable teenager, now was it, Mark?’

‘Lucy, darling, your terminology is, to put it mildly, unfortunate,’ he murmured through clenched teeth. ‘I might have seen different women every night, but...’ He broke off with an eloquent shrug that brought the colour racing to her cheeks. ‘But I have to admit that one woman did spend the night there during your stay,’ he conceded off-handedly. ‘And I also admit that it was wrong of me to allow her to do so—just as it was wrong of me to credit you with enough intelligence not to come barging in on us. And as for your picture of yourself as an impressionable teenager—I’d be more inclined to describe as delinquent a sixteen-year-old who decides to take a joy-ride in an extremely expensive car—especially one who wrecks it before she’s even managed to get it out of the garage.’

Lucy leapt to her feet, beside herself with fury. Yes, she had almost wrecked his precious car—but that was only half the story. And, as always, he hadn’t even attempted to find out the other half!

‘I take it you’re now off to get your things and move them into your new office,’ he murmured tauntingly, having beaten her to the door, which he now nonchalantly barred.

There was consternation as well as defiance in Lucy’s wide-spaced blue eyes as they rose to those of the man towering over her. As always, when she stood this close to him, she felt as though her five and a half feet of height had shrunk to four. And that wasn’t the only effect he had on her. The amount of male attention she received was more than enough to confirm that she was an attractive woman; all too often the slender curvaceousness of her lithe young body and the wholesome loveliness of her features brought her attention she could well do without, yet at this very moment she felt like a frumpy fifteen-year-old.

Rattled by these confidence-sapping sensations flooding her, she made to flick her cornsilk, shoulder-length hair behind her ears—a gesture she resorted to without even being aware of it whenever she felt nervous or threatened—only to find that today was one of those days she had decided to tie it back.

‘Yes—I’ll move my things into that office, but only because I haven’t any choice!’ she flung at him, furious with herself for the way she was feeling. ‘But I warn you, I’m sure there’s a law against what you’re doing to me—and when I find out what it is, I’ll...I’ll sue you through every court there is!’

‘You plan to sue me for plucking you from what amounts to a typing pool and making you my secretary?’ he murmured in wonderment, the laughter colouring his words incensing her.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean!’ she raged. ‘Every time I’ve tried applying for other jobs, you’ve made sure I didn’t get them—I don’t know how, probably through some business mafia you belong to, but I know you have!’

‘I suppose it would never occur to you that other potential employers found you lacking in some way?’ he taunted.

‘If that’s the case, why do you want me as your secretary?’ she demanded triumphantly.

‘I have my reasons,’ he murmured enigmatically. ‘Now, would you mind—?’

‘Silly me—of course you have!’ exclaimed Lucy, her eyes widening in indignation as a thought suddenly struck her. ‘You’ve been here how long—four months? And you’ve been through secretaries like a dose of salts! Dear me, now I really am getting the picture! Let’s see, two Waterford offices in the States, four on the Continent—and possibly sundry others dotted around the world I’ve never even heard of—and you’ve alley-catted your way through all of them!’ She could tell by the thunderous expression on his face that she should stop, but the words kept coming. ‘And now you’ve hit London—and at last it’s dawned on you that business and the sort of pleasure you revel in simply don’t mix. No wonder you’re prepared to put up with me as a secretary—it probably wouldn’t even bother you if I couldn’t type.’

It astounded her how quickly he had moved. One minute they were facing one another in combat, the next she was locked in his arms, the muscled hardness of his body imprinting itself down the length of hers as though the clothing had been stripped from her.

‘But what if you’ve got it all wrong, Lucy?’ he murmured with threatening softness. ‘What if I’ve decided to move in on you...and really finish off your education?’

She had never been this close to him; never experienced the mind-sapping chaos of excitement of being in his arms.

‘I...you...I’ve already been thoroughly educated in that particular department, thank you very much,’ she stammered with childlike guilelessness, her heart hammering as though it would burst against the wall of his chest.

‘What a relief it is to hear that,’ he whispered, his head lowering as though in slow motion towards hers. ‘That means we can dispense with all these boring preliminaries and get down to the really advanced business.’

And there was nothing in the least preliminary about his kiss. His mouth possessed hers with a practised thoroughness that startled her into a complete lack of resistance to the probing invasion of his tongue. But it wasn’t simply the instantly intoxicating effect of his mouth on hers that she had to contend with, it was also the debilitating excitement caused by the hands that had somehow found their way beneath her sweater and to which her flesh responded as though to high voltage, intensely pleasurable blasts of electricity.

These were Mark’s lips burning against hers with such swiftly soaring passion, her crazily spinning senses tried to warn her; and Mark’s hands moving with such inflammatory effect against her flesh and making her feel more acutely conscious of being a woman than she ever had in her life before.

‘No!’ She tore herself free, staggering backwards from him, her hands rising to cover her face in a gesture of sheer panic as she battled to regain her senses.

It had taken all the strength of will she possessed to drag herself free from the mesmerising spell of his touch, and it was the mere fact that it had been necessary for her to conjure up such a strength that was terrifying the wits out of her.

‘Lucy, don’t you dare go throwing a wobbly on me,’ warned Mark, his voice oddly strained despite the aggression in its tone. ‘I’m perfectly aware that I stepped way out of line—and I’m sorry.’

She spread her fingers open against her face, peeping through them at him, but far too wary of what her own voice might betray for her to dare attempt speaking.

‘You’re just going to have to learn to stop riling me like that,’ he exploded accusingly, ‘especially now you’ll be working for me.’

Lucy’s hands dropped from her face in a fury of indignation that swept all other considerations from her mind.

‘That’s a great apology—telling me it’s my fault for riling you,’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘Since when have I ever opened my mouth and not managed to rile you? And now you order me to work in close proximity with you! What are you—some sort of masochist? I haven’t the first idea what being a secretary entails, but I’m sure that’ll make it all the more fun for you!’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ he roared. ‘For God’s sake, one of the few courses you managed to survive was at that ludicrously exclusive—not to mention extortionately expensive—secretarial college you went to!’

‘Yes, but you obviously didn’t read any of the reports—’

‘I wasn’t interested in the damned reports—just as long as they didn’t sling you out,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘I was under the impression they gave you certificates when you left,’ he added, frowning.

‘Yes—one for elementary typing and another for shorthand at fifty words a minute,’ she retorted, knowing that such information would probably be double-Dutch to him.

‘So—what’s the problem?’ he enquired, his tone suspicious as his frown deepened.

Lucy opened her mouth to inform him that there were probably several typists in the company who could type twice as fast as she had once been able to take down shorthand—most of which she had probably forgotten anyway—then had second thoughts. She had taken the course simply to learn the basic typing skills she felt would be a useful tool in her ambition to write and for that reason had never regretted it, but, though her speed had improved markedly, there was no guaranteeing it wouldn’t collapse with Mark standing over her.

‘You can’t be that bad,’ he muttered, doubt resonant in his tone, ‘otherwise you’d have flitted off to another department, as you did with such monotonous regularity when you first started here.’

‘You’re wrong—I can be that bad,’ she informed him with gloating satisfaction. ‘Though, to be fair, even though I’m slow, I’m painstakingly accurate when it comes to complicated figure work—that’s why they dump all those mind-bogglingly boring specifications and the like on me.’

He gave her a wary, speculative look, pursing his lips as he did so.

Lucy found her eyes drawn irresistibly to his mouth, a strident excitement exploding through her as she relived the sensation of that mouth on hers—not pursed as it was now, as though for a chaste kiss, but open and uninhibited in its hungry exploration. She gave a sharp toss of her head in an attempt to clear it of the madness of such thoughts and felt the colour sting hotly against her cheeks.

‘OK—so you’re slow but accurate,’ exclaimed Mark brusquely, dragging his fingers through his hair with a gesture of weary impatience. ‘Lucy, we’ve really got to do something about clearing the air between us. I know you’ll probably not believe this, but I’ve been meaning to get around to having a talk with you ever since I arrived, but I’ve simply not found the time.’

Lucy’s look of sceptical disbelief was lost on him as he glanced down at his watch.

‘Look—let’s get your bits and pieces up here, then we can take an early lunch.’

Without waiting for her reply, he strode over to his desk and got his jacket. Lucy watched as he shrugged his broad shoulders into it, her mind racing frantically.

‘Well, come along, then,’ he urged, opening the door and glowering impatiently as he waited for her to make a move to go through it.

‘I...Mark, I’m not eating in the staff canteen with you,’ she burst out anxiously.

‘Who mentioned the canteen? There’s a good Italian place round the corner, where they usually manage to find me a table.’

He was the sort of man for whom most restaurants probably always managed to find a table, even if it meant turfing some other poor devil out, thought Lucy resentfully.

‘Lucy!’

‘Mark, I—’

‘Shift yourself!’ he snapped, grasping her by the arm and propelling her forcibly through the door.

‘I’m perfectly capable of getting my own things,’ she hissed at him in the lift, her eyes studiously avoiding his scowling features.

‘Are you?’

‘Yes! And I—’ She broke off with a squeak of protest as she was virtually shoved through the lift doors before they had finished opening. ‘Stop treating me like this!’ she raged, trying in vain to twist free of his grasp as he marched her towards the general typing offices. ‘I was perfectly happy here until you spoiled it all by turning up.’ She glanced up at his glacial features as he marched her relentlessly on, her heart sinking as she realised she was going to have to humiliate herself by pleading with him. ‘Mark—even you must realise how odd people are going to find this,’ she wailed.

‘Find what odd?’ he demanded.

‘For heaven’s sake—you’re practically God around here! People are bound to—’

She gave a strangled gasp as he halted unexpectedly and spun her round to face him.

‘OK, Lucy, spit it out—what exactly is your problem?’

‘I...well, if you must know, no one knows you’re my stepbrother...well, no one apart from the executives, as far as I know,’ she stammered, then added venomously, ‘I certainly haven’t told anyone!’

Her eyes widened in total disbelief as he began chuckling softly to himself.

‘Don’t tell me you’re actually worried what it might do to your reputation, being seen hob-nobbing with the—”alley-catting” was the term I believe you used—boss. My, that is a problem, sweetheart.’

‘Don’t you dare call me sweetheart!’ she shrieked, then clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes flying with stricken concern to the door near by and finding it mercifully closed.

‘You know,’ he murmured with gloating relish, ‘I’m sure we could give them a lot to talk about—if I really put my mind to it.’

‘Mark...please,’ she begged.

There was nothing she wouldn’t put past him, and the thought of having to live it down with her colleagues was something that didn’t even bear contemplating—especially Sarah Mitson, her closest friend, to whom she still hadn’t got around to divulging her complicated relationship to Mark.

‘Why, Lucy, sweetheart, I do believe you’re grovelling,’ he murmured complacently, releasing her and flashing her a wickedly taunting look as he stepped forward and held the door open for her.

Her eyes trained on the rich green carpeting beneath her feet, Lucy entered.

As with all the Waterford London offices, this general typing complex was magnificently equipped and almost lavishly appointed. Though she had no other work experience with which to make comparisons, Lucy had learned from the comments of staff from several of the departments within the company that Waterford’s wholly deserved their envied international reputation where staff pay, conditions and, most of all, job satisfaction were concerned. To refer to where she worked, as most did, as a ‘typing pool’ she knew was a complete misnomer. And it was too to refer to her colleagues simply as typists. Of the six of them, three were graduates, attracted by the company’s liberal internal promotion policies and lack of sex discrimination. Two current heads of department had started their careers in this very office. And she was the duffer among them, thought Lucy resignedly as she trudged, head bowed, towards her desk—acutely conscious of Mark close on her heels and the palpably loaded atmosphere permeating the suddenly hushed office.

‘My, my—and what have we been up to?’ teased Sarah wickedly beneath her breath as Lucy, now scarlet-faced, passed her and halted at her own desk.

She loved Sarah dearly, she thought resignedly, noticing how her friend had openly abandoned all idea of work to gaze with wide-eyed interest on what was going on around her, but there were times, such as right now, when she could happily throttle her.

She dug a large plastic bag out of one of the drawers and then proceded to tip the entire contents of all the drawers into it.

‘Heck, Lucy—you haven’t been fired, have you?’ exclaimed Sarah, her look turning to one of horrified suspicion.

Lucy glanced pleadingly over at her friend, now on her feet and regarding her with a look of shocked indignation, then towards Mark, standing impassively by her desk.

‘Of course not—but I’ll have to explain later,’ she muttered in Sarah’s direction, then flashed her an imploring look—when it came to defending her friends, Sarah’s normally placid nature could become startlingly aggressive.

‘Is that it?’ enquired Mark, glancing with open disdain at the overflowing carrier bag Lucy was now hoisting precariously in her arms.

She nodded and, casting what she hoped was a reassuring look in her stunned friend’s direction, followed him as he began marching out of the office.

‘Hang on a minute, Mark,’ she exclaimed when they had almost reached the door, and could have bitten off her tongue for her carelessness in speaking in what, to her colleagues, must have sounded an astounding familiar way to address the supreme boss. ‘I’ve forgotten my coat.’

He turned and faced her, his expression long-suffering. ‘OK—wait there while I get it,’ he muttered, striding back past her. ‘Where is it?’

‘I’ll get it,’ offered one of the other girls, having difficulty keeping her face straight as she raced off, then returned and handed Lucy’s coat to a deceptively patient-looking Mark.

‘Is that it?’ he asked Lucy, in tones of equally deceptive patience as he slung her coat nonchalantly over his shoulder.

She nodded, deciding she could collect her scarf and boots, which she had just that moment remembered, later.

‘Come on, then,’ he snapped, striding past her, ‘we haven’t got all day.’

Gritting her teeth, she followed him down the corridor and into the lift, where she maintained a frigid silence which her companion showed no inclination to break on their journey back to his suite of offices.

No wonder she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell even Sarah about her unfortunate connection with the Waterford family, especially not this monster, she fumed resentfully to herself as she entered the office that was to be hers—her pride simply hadn’t the stomach for it.

She placed the carrier bag on the desk and tipped its contents on to it.

‘Right—now that you’ve reduced this place to the sort of mess only you would feel at home in, perhaps we can go and eat,’ drawled Mark from the doorway, flinging her coat across the room at her as he left to get his own.

Clutching her coat to her, she raced out after him.

‘I’ll not last five minutes here—so what’s the point of my bothering?’ she demanded. ‘And as for having lunch with you, it’s an ordeal I’ve decided to skip!’

‘Damn it, Lucy,’ he exclaimed, striding threateningly towards her, ‘stop behaving like a spoiled brat—I’ve told you there are things I need to discuss with you!’

‘Perhaps if you stopped treating me like a child I’d—’ She broke off in consternation as the memory of how much a woman she had felt in his arms seared suddenly through her.

‘You were saying?’ he mocked softly, both his words and the disconcertingly predatory gleam in his eyes leaving her in no doubt that he sensed what was going through her mind. ‘Lucy, I think we ought to go—before I’m tempted to give you further proof that I no longer regard you as a child.’

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE time they were seated in the restaurant, Lucy was feeling as miserable physically as she was mentally. Without her scarf, a voluminous cashmere wrap which had been a birthday present from her mother and James, she was frozen; and without her boots her feet had been soaked in the rain.

‘No wonder you’re cold,’ said Mark unsympathetically, catching her shiver, despite the warmth surrounding them, as he finished giving their order. ‘You’re not exactly dressed for December weather.’

‘Only because you didn’t give me time to get changed into something suitable,’ snapped Lucy, acutely conscious of a completely new dimension to the edgy tension she generally experienced in his company, yet unable to pinpoint its cause.

‘As your coat was all you claimed to have with you,’ he replied in innocent tones, ‘I can only assume you’re complaining I didn’t give you time to go home and change—and that’s hardly a reasonable complaint.’

‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ she demanded wearily. She knew this patronisingly innocent mood of his of old, and it was one that more often than not reduced her to gibbering rage.

‘Perhaps I should have ordered you a brandy to warm you up,’ he murmured, disregarding her words totally. ‘You have, I take it, learned to hold your liquor by now?’

Lucy was mortified to feel her cheeks flame.

‘Ha, ha,’ she ground out, inwardly squirming. At sixteen she had, quite by accident, managed to get herself well and truly drunk on an innocuous-tasting punch she had unfortunately assumed to be a concoction of nothing but fruit juices.

‘How old were you at the time?’ enquired Mark, once again displaying that disconcerting knack of reading her mind.

‘Sixteen,’ snapped Lucy, then rounded on him bitterly. ‘And if you hadn’t dragged me along to that wretched do, only to dump me in a corner and order me to blend in with the wallpaper, I wouldn’t have spent the entire evening drinking in order to relieve the boredom!’

‘Is there nothing you’ve ever done that hasn’t been someone else’s fault?’ he asked, his tone as icy as the eyes contemptuously holding hers across the table as the waiters arrived. ‘And just in case you were thinking of replying, don’t bother,’ he informed her, once they had been served. ‘In fact, I’d be grateful if you didn’t utter another word until I’ve finished my entire meal. I’ve no intention of risking an ulcer by subjecting myself to your petulant outbursts while I’m eating.’

There was something different about him, thought Lucy nervously, feeling like a severely reprimanded child. It was around two years since she had spent any time in his company, she mused, and also since his father had handed the entire business empire over to him. And before that there had been a similar gap between their meetings.

She picked at her food half-heartedly, startled to realise how long those gaps had been—not that time had ever lessened the intensity of the all-out war that had always existed between them. She frowned, giving an imperceptible shake of her head as she remembered that it hadn’t always been total war between them. From around the time she was seventeen and well into her eighteenth year, they had almost got on well, she realised with a sharp pang of nostalgia—admittedly they had still argued, but not with the venom of the earlier years and certainly not as they were to in the years that followed. And that strange period, almost of truce, had taken place during the time when his father had been reassessing the London offices and when he and her mother had, for the first time since their marriage, actually lived for a while in London.

Mark had still been a student, and younger than she was now, when he had been forced into the role of virtual guardian to a stroppy fifteen-year-old, and how bitterly he had resented it, she thought with a curiously tender pang of understanding. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that the only time they had almost got on was when her mother and his father had been around to relieve him of that onerous burden they themselves had placed on him. It was definitely when James and her mother left England again that hostilities had flared up between them with renewed intensity...even though she was old enough to stand on her own two feet—well, almost—by then.

Her mind still wrestling with such thoughts, she gazed furtively across the table at her silent companion and in that instant her mind blanked, only to be filled by sudden, searing memories of his lips on hers.

For heaven’s sake, all he’d done was kiss her, she remonstrated frantically with herself—except that it was so out of character that it had obviously thrown even him. But one thing she could be sure of—if ever he got any inkling of the effect that kiss had had on her, he would use it as a weapon against her without the slightest compunction!

‘Would you like coffee?’ he asked, finally breaking the silence.

Lucy nodded, her mind still resisting her efforts to clear it of the memories it seemed determined to dwell on.

He summoned a waiter, then didn’t speak again until the table was cleared and the coffee served.

‘About two and a half years ago, my father underwent major surgery for a stomach disorder,’ he then stated quietly.

Lucy looked at him in shocked disbelief.

‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ she asked hoarsely.

‘Probably because they felt you had enough to contend with at the time—that is, being plastered all over the Press as a gangster’s moll.’

‘Mark, you know you’re not being fair.’ As she was still stunned by his disclosure, her protest was mild. ‘I hardly knew the man—I just happened to be having lunch with him when he was arrested. And as for it being plastered all over the—’

‘Perhaps not here; but it was in the States, where the man was wanted on several charges,’ he muttered. ‘And you can imagine how it must have speeded my father’s recovery once the American Press dug up your link with him and brought his name into it all.’

He wasn’t being in the least fair, but Lucy was still too preoccupied by thoughts of her stepfather, of whom she had gradually grown very fond, to react.

‘Lucy, you’re right—I wasn’t being fair,’ he sighed. ‘But to get back to Dad’s operation; by all medical expectations it should have returned him to his old self—but unfortunately it didn’t.’

Lucy gazed at him aghast. ‘That rumpus I was involved in...are you saying it affected him that badly?’

‘Of course I’m not,’ he exclaimed, then startled her by giving her a wry grin. ‘Though I’d be lying if I said the thought never entered my mind.’ His expression reverted to one of seriousness. ‘Lucy, don’t tell me you didn’t find it odd that he should hand over the company to me, and opt out of all involvement with it, so early. It was something he had always intended doing eventually, but certainly not in his early fifties!’

Lucy hoped her expression wasn’t betraying her thoughts. She had had one or two thoughts on the subject of James handing over his empire lock, stock and barrel to his son—and none of them in the least charitable towards Mark—but the idea of poor health having any bearing on it simply hadn’t entered her head.

‘He did it because he realised he lacked the physical stamina to continue. It got so that a full round of golf was more than he could handle—and you know how he is about his golf.’

‘This is dreadful,’ whispered Lucy, feeling suddenly limp and trembly. ‘If only someone had had the sense to tell me. The things I’ve said to them! I virtually accused them of acting like a couple of couch potatoes! I spent last Christmas with them—at that place they suddenly bought in the Seychelles. I just couldn’t understand how they could sit around all day playing cards when there was so much to do there...I feel terrible!’

He gave a small shrug. ‘You weren’t to know—and anyway, it doesn’t matter. Give him a while and he’ll be back to his old energetic self.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘One of the reasons he bought that place in the Seychelles was that he’d had enough of being treated like some sort of medical specimen by the team that had originally operated on him. I suppose you couldn’t blame them really. When such relatively routine surgery produces unheard-of results like that, they’re bound to want to know why. But after the last extensive going-over they gave him, he’d had enough.’

‘Has the climate there cured him or something?’ asked Lucy tentatively.

He laughed as he shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. But with what they had from the last batch of tests, his doctors have finally cracked it—and it took some doing. I’ve no idea what the medical jargon is, but it appears Dad’s innards aren’t quite as they should be according to the textbooks. It’s a minor deviation which, ironically, wouldn’t have affected him a jot had he not had to have precisely the surgery he did have a couple of years ago.’

‘But they can cure it now they know?’

He nodded. ‘Unfortunately it involves another hefty bout of surgery. But once he’s over that, he really will be back to normal this time.’

‘When will he have the operation?’

‘In the New Year. In fact, they’re flying back to the States the day after New Year and he’ll be operated on a day or two later.’

‘Mark...I’m so glad,’ whispered Lucy almost shyly. ‘I know I used to say how much I hated him when they were first married...I suppose it was a confused sort of loyalty to my own father. But over the years I’ve grown very fond of him.’

‘Loyalty such as that is perfectly understandable,’ he muttered. ‘It took a long time for me to admit it even to myself, but your mother’s the best thing that could have happened to him. After my mother died, he just went to pieces.’ He broke off and shifted slightly in his chair, the movement uncharacteristically tense and awkward. ‘It was in that state that he ended up married—briefly, thank God—to an archetypal gold-digger. It was unfortunate but inevitable that I should regard your mother as being a similar type.’

It was only when he glanced around and motioned to a waiter to bring more coffee that Lucy realised he had said all he intended. No apology; no admission of any feelings even approaching warmth for the woman who had borne his open hostility with such fortitude—only that grudging statement.

‘So why are you telling me all this now?’ she asked, anger and resentment simmering within her. ‘I’m amazed I haven’t been left in total ignorance as usual.’

‘This time I intend making sure you stay out of trouble—and with your full co-operation. I don’t want anything—and I mean not the slightest thing—causing him any unwarranted stress while he’s going through this.’

‘And you really expect me to believe you don’t blame me for his failure to recover last time?’ exploded Lucy bitterly, unable to believe she was being treated like this.

‘Your infantile sensibilities aren’t of the slightest interest to me,’ he drawled, the boredom in his tone complemented by his eyes, which then left her to follow the progress of the extremely attractive woman walking past their table. ‘The only thing I’m interested in,’ he continued, though apparently having difficulty dragging his eyes temporarily back to Lucy, ‘is the next couple of months being as stress-free as possible for my father.’

‘Oh, dear,’ drawled Lucy, the blood boiling in her as she suspected he had succeeded in making some sort of eye-contact with the woman who, with her companion, had taken a table not quite in her line of vision somewhere to the left of theirs. ‘It looks as though I’m going to have to say goodbye to my dishy drug baron boyfriend—what a shame.’

The look he gave her was such that for an instant she was scared he was going to lunge across the table and throttle her.

‘You come out with remarks like that,’ he rasped, controlling himself with patent difficulty, ‘and yet you wonder why I feel the need to make sure I’ve got you right where I can keep close watch on you.’

‘I take it you’re referring to my new secretarial position,’ exclaimed Lucy with a dismissive laugh. ‘I hope you realise that any day now you’ll be kicking yourself for not having hung on to one of those you so rashly discarded.’

‘There was never any question of any one of them remaining with me,’ he informed her coldly. ‘I certainly don’t expect you to have the first idea about how this consortium runs—and I don’t simply mean the London offices, I mean the whole shebang worldwide; but that’s what I’ve been spending the past two years familiarising myself with. I don’t just look around the companies, or the various sections of the larger ones. Where feasible, and where the executives concerned are in agreement, I actually go in and run the particular section myself for a short period. That’s the only way to gain in-depth knowledge of what’s involved. And when I do that it’s only logical that I should borrow the secretary to the chief executive of the particular area concerned.’

‘Oh—I see,’ murmured Lucy with venomous sweetness. ‘I’d better put all those gossip-mongers straight by pointing out to them that all those secretaries they claim you’ve wined and dined out of office hours were working overtime to bring you up to date with your own business—and it was only coincidental that they happened to be the most attractive of the bunch.’ She glanced across at him smugly, only to find his attention had yet again strayed to the nearby table. ‘Mark, why don’t you simply draw up a chair and join them?’ she hissed viciously. ‘I’m sure her companion won’t object when you explain that all you’re interested in is familiarising yourself with wherever it is she works!’

The instant her words were out his eyes met hers, their goading mockery telling her he had been flirting for no other reason than to see how, if at all, she would react—and she had reacted all right, she accused herself angrily.

‘You sound almost jealous, sweetheart,’ he drawled, obviously determined to rub as much salt as he could into her wound.

‘I’ve told you not to call me sweetheart,’ she snapped in a vain attempt to divert to him some of her fury with herself for having fallen so easily into his trap.

‘So you did—but you don’t deny you were jealous,’ he murmured mockingly. ‘Tell me, Lucy, isn’t it about time you were thinking of finding some poor unfortunate to settle down with?’

‘Perhaps you’d like me to draw up a list so that you can have them thoroughly vetted,’ she retorted hotly. ‘I mean, that’s what you’d do, isn’t it?’

‘But of course,’ he agreed, startling her with a smile. ‘I couldn’t just hand you over to any Tom, Dick or Harry, now could I? Or George, Fred or Henry, for that matter.’

* * *

‘Your stepbrother!’ gasped Sarah Mitson from where she sat curled up in an armchair in Lucy’s flat that evening.

‘That’s what I’ve just said,’ snapped Lucy, feeling drained and miserable and not in the least up to the detailed explanations she knew Sarah was determined to drag from her. ‘My mother’s married to his father.’

‘Heck, Lucy, to think you’ve had the droolingly delicious Mark Waterford as a stepbrother and never breathed a word of it to me—to anyone!’

‘Sarah—please,’ begged Lucy wearily. ‘Just let me do my explaining and stop interrupting, will you?’

Sarah managed to keep her interruptions down to a few tuts and gasps for far longer than either of them would have thought possible, but eventually she broke.

‘Hang on a minute, Lucy,’ she begged. ‘That’s some accident—how exactly did you manage to set the school on fire?’

‘It wasn’t the actual school,’ muttered Lucy. ‘It’s a bit difficult to explain, but the back of the stage in the school hall was in an old wing—part of the original building going way back. It was like a junk room with old scenery from plays and moth-eaten theatrical costumes that no one had got around to throwing out littering the place. Everyone swore that wing was haunted and the reason it was such a mess was that even the staff were too scared to give it a thorough clearing out.’

‘Did you believe it was haunted?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘I told the other girls I didn’t, though I wish to goodness I never had,’ she sighed. ‘I got myself involved in a ridiculous bet with a couple of them which ended up in my agreeing to do a tour of the place...after midnight and by candle-light.’

‘You must have been out of your mind,’ gasped Sarah.

‘I almost was by the time I’d been in there a couple of minutes,’ shivered Lucy. ‘I’d taken two candles, just in case one blew out...I honestly can’t remember clearly what happened, except that I tripped over something and set a paper screen on fire. I was busily trying to put it out when one of the hampers of clothes next to me just went up—I don’t know whether I dropped the other candle into it, or what...luckily the alarm system went off.’

‘How did Mark Waterford react when you eventually explained?’ asked Sarah, her look tentative.

‘He didn’t—because I didn’t,’ muttered Lucy, all this dredging up of the past making her feel wretched and depressed.

‘You certainly seem to have had a screwball relationship with him—that’s for sure,’ observed Sarah diffidently, plainly thrown by that disclosure.

Screwball was one word for it, reflected Lucy bitterly. From the start she and Mark had always seemed to bring out the worst in one another—though, as he had been the adult and she the virtual child, surely it had been up to him to attempt rectifying that, she reasoned defensively. Yet as she continued with her story, she noted with growing discomfort, and not a little resentment, how unusually pensive her normally ebullient friend was becoming.

‘That’s one of the reasons I’ve never been able to tell any of my friends.’ Lucy broke off, then added despondently, ‘I knew no one would understand. And you don’t—I can tell from your face, Sarah!’

‘But I am trying to,’ protested Sarah. ‘Most kids of that age get into scrapes and rebel against the figure of authority in their lives, but I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for your stepbrother, being left on the receiving end of it all. If I’d been him I’d have been fuming to have had the stroppy daughter of my father’s new wife suddenly dumped on me.’

‘You make it sound as though they boarded me out with him,’ protested Lucy. ‘I was at boarding-school to begin with—he was only there as a name for the authorities to contact if anything went wrong.’

‘And I can imagine just how much you’d resent that,’ murmured Sarah wryly, ‘and how you’d plot to cross him whenever the opportunity arose.’

‘Perhaps some of the minor scrapes I got into were simply to rile Mark,’ Lucy admitted with a sigh. This was the second time today she was finding herself seeing the past from Mark’s viewpoint, and she wasn’t enjoying it in the least. ‘But I had absolutely no control over the really major incidents—I swear it!’

‘You mean there were other things—apart from the fire?’

‘One or two things,’ muttered Lucy uncomfortably. ‘Well—only two major ones...and as the last only happened a couple of years ago, it shouldn’t have affected Mark in the least—but, needless to say, it did, in a roundabout way, though I only discovered that today.’

She told Sarah about the American she had met through a vague acquaintance and the nightmarish results of her accepting a lunch invitation from him simply out of compassion for his apparent loneliness in a strange city.

‘I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies in that it was only the American Press that got hold of my name,’ finished off Lucy despondently. ‘Though heaven alone knows how they managed to make the connection between me and the Waterfords.’

‘The other disaster you mentioned,’ murmured Sarah, shaking her head in sympathetic disbelief, ‘surely it wasn’t on that scale?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘It depends how you view my writing off Mark’s car—actually, it was by no means written off, though it might just as well have been the way he carried on—and still does to this day...I’m glad someone finds this amusing,’ she exclaimed indignantly, as Sarah became convulsed with laughter.

‘I’m sorry,’ choked Sarah, trying desperately to control herself. ‘Lucy—you did have a driving licence, didn’t you?’ she gasped in sudden sobering horror.

‘I didn’t—I was only sixteen. Though I’d had a few driving lessons in the States,’ replied Lucy. ‘But at the time it seemed like a life and death situation,’ she sighed. ‘It happened during that couple of weeks I had to stay at Mark’s flat. I’d gone down to the garage—one of those massive underground places—to get something I’d left in his car, when I saw Perry, the spaniel belonging to a delightfully daffy old neighbour of Mark’s. Perry was lying beside one of the bays and at first I was convinced he was dead, but he started this awful twitching when I touched him.’

‘Oh, Lucy, how ghastly,’ exclaimed Sarah, not in the least put out to discover this life and death emergency featured a dog rather than a human.

‘It was,’ agreed Lucy. ‘And I was terrified the old dear would come looking for him—she absolutely worshipped him and rarely let him out of her sight. Mark had gone off with one of his women in her car—she was one I particularly loathed,’ she interposed venomously, ‘and I’d no idea when they’d be back. I knew there was a vet not too far away, down a side-street, which meant I wouldn’t touch a main road...you see, I didn’t want to risk carrying Perry there, in case I did further damage—at that point I was sure he’d been hit by one of the cars.’

‘So you decided to take your stepbrother’s car,’ sighed Sarah.

Lucy nodded. ‘I was perfectly aware of how wrong it was,’ she admitted, ‘but it somehow seemed less wrong than letting that little dog die. I managed to get him into the car without heaving him around too much and started it up with no trouble. I had learned how to reverse—but not in a car like Mark’s. I’d also never come across anything like power steering before, so when I yanked the steering-wheel round I used far too much force and smashed the side of the car into one of the concrete pillars. Needless to say, I panicked and did far more damage than an experienced driver would have,’ she added with a sigh.

‘What about Perry?’ demanded Sarah, plainly not in the least concerned about the car.

‘His recovery was nothing short of miraculous,’ she replied wryly. ‘He was suddenly up on his feet and wagging his tail as normal. In fact, it was just then that his owner came looking for him, so I opened a window and he leapt out and bounded over to her as right as rain.’

‘You’re kidding!’ gasped Sarah.

‘It seems Perry was prone to occasional fits,’ sighed Lucy, ‘and it was in the tail-end of one that I found him.’

‘Oh, heck,’ groaned Sarah.

‘Oh, heck, yes,’ agreed Lucy. ‘Because it was just as Perry and his mistress trotted off that Mark and his woman appeared.’

‘And our Lucy, needless to say, offered no word in her own defence.’ Sarah gave an exasperated shake of her head.

‘I didn’t get a chance, the way he started ranting at me,’ protested Lucy. ‘It was bad enough listening to the racket he was making, without having that smirking female witnessing it all!’

‘Poor Lucy,’ sighed Sarah. ‘And with your track record anyway, I can’t say I blame you for not bothering.’ She uncurled her legs and got to her feet. ‘Come on, I’ll make us some tea—you deserve one after relating all that.’

As they pottered around the tiny kitchen, Lucy tried to clear her head of the oppressive gloom now clouding it.

‘Sarah, I’ve decided I’ve really got to get myself organised with my writing,’ she blurted out.

Sarah turned from the tray she was preparing with a look of surprise. ‘I’ve been telling you that for months now,’ she said. ‘Heavens, Lucy, you’ve practically made it already. I thought your problem was money, but it obviously isn’t. If I were you I’d pack in the job—you could go and stay with your mother and stepfather and do your writing in the lap of luxury.’

‘My problem is money,’ replied Lucy in ominously quiet tones. ‘It’s my mother who married into wealth, not me!’

Sarah gave her a startled look. ‘But surely there’s nothing to stop you staying with your own mother while you write?’

‘You mean stay with my mother and sponge off the Waterfords,’ exclaimed Lucy bitterly. ‘One of the reasons I’m so desperate to make a financial success of my writing is that I want to be free of the Waterfords and their damned empire. It’s bad enough being employed by them as some sort of poor relation, but my writing’s one area where I intend succeeding without a penny of their support.’

‘Lucy, I got the impression you were rather fond of your stepfather!’ exclaimed Sarah in shocked tones.

‘I am—I’m very fond of him,’ protested Lucy, picking up the tray and taking it into the living-room. ‘And I’m beginning to wish Mark had never told me about this operation coming up,’ she exclaimed as she placed the tray on the coffee-table. ‘What if I really am jinxed and get involved in something ghastly before he’s recovered?’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Sarah, flashing her a look of exasperation as she began pouring the tea. ‘From that tirade you just delivered in the kitchen, I can only conclude it’s your dishy stepbrother you want all this freedom from,’ she stated, handing Lucy a cup.

‘Why does everyone always have to refer to his looks?’ demanded Lucy despairingly.

‘Because he’s an exceptionally good-looking man,’ retorted Sarah sharply. ‘And I must say, it makes a pleasant change to hear all the women making such openly sexist remarks about a man’s looks, instead of the other way round.’

‘They wouldn’t drool quite so much if they knew what an overbearing tyrant he really is,’ muttered Lucy. ‘One of the reasons I can behave like a moron with such ease is that I spent most of my teenage years listening to him telling me I am one.’

‘Oh, my poor Lucy,’ groaned Sarah. ‘I’d always suspected you had some sort of a hang-up about your lack of qualifications—but I’d have thought the way your writing’s been received would have boosted your confidence no end on that score.’

‘Sarah, they’re only children’s stories—’

‘What do you mean, “only”?’ cut in Sarah incredulously. ‘They’re fantastic! And the kids must have enjoyed them, otherwise the publisher wouldn’t be nagging you for more. I know people with a string of degrees behind them who’d give their right arm to get into print.’

Lucy gave her a sheepish smile. She was secretly enormously proud of her small success—and it had boosted her confidence no end.

‘I take it your stepbrother knows nothing of what you’ve achieved?’ said Sarah, her expression resigned.

‘You’re the only person I’ve told,’ admitted Lucy cagily.

‘You’ve not even told your mother?’

Lucy shook her head, her feelings of discomfiture bordering on guilt as she did so.

‘I want to make sure it’s something I actually can do as a career before I started broadcasting it,’ she said. ‘And I honestly do intend getting myself organised to write more regularly,’ she insisted, brightening visibly with the prospect.

‘You’ll make a most successful career out of it—that’s for sure,’ Sarah informed her confidently. ‘But something tells me that all the success in the world with your writing isn’t going to help cure the problem you have with the divine—in looks, that is—Mark.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU said you wouldn’t go too fast,’ complained Lucy, and was surprised when Mark instantly complied by slowing down the rate of his dictation—but only to a rate that enabled her to get down every third instead of every fifth word he uttered.

Up until now he had simply given her the gist of his letters, leaving the actual wording up to her, and it had worked well. In fact, being Mark’s secretary hadn’t been the trauma she had worked herself up into believing it would be—but only because he had been in his office so rarely.

‘Just a little slower,’ she pleaded, though in her heart of hearts she knew she should be asking him to stop altogether—her shorthand was useless!

‘Hell, Lucy, if I go much slower I’ll lose track of what I’m saying,’ he exclaimed, scowling across the desk at her. ‘Now—where was I?’

Lucy waited with growing despondency for him to continue.

‘I asked you where I’d got to,’ he stated impatiently. ‘You’d better read it back to me.’

She gazed down at the jumble of hieroglyphics staring back at her from the pad on her knee and experienced a moment of total panic.

‘I...I can barely read a word of it.’

‘Lucy, I’m not in the mood for your juvenile humour—read the darned thing back!’

‘I’ve told you—I can’t!’ she protested. ‘I warned you I’d be rusty...but even I hadn’t expected it to be this bad. I’ve just about forgotten all of it.’

‘Then what the hell were you scribbling away at while I was dictating?’ he demanded, leaning forwards across the desk in a manner she found more than a little intimidating.

‘I was trying to take it down...but I’ve done it so badly I can’t read it back.’

‘So, might I ask what would have happened if I’d not asked you to read those few words back to me?’ he demanded grimly. ‘The first few words, I should point out, of what would have amounted to several pages. I suppose you’d have been quite content to let me carry on—while you continued scribbling down gibberish!’

‘I’ve really no idea what I’d have done.’ And that was the plain truth, she thought unhappily.

‘So—what do we do now?’

Lucy hesitated—now was the time to tell him to stop playing around and find himself a proper secretary. ‘You could use a dictating machine,’ she heard herself say instead, as it suddenly occurred to her just how badly she had been handling the whole question.

As usual whenever Mark arrived on the scene, her self-confidence had deserted her. But she wasn’t a halfwit, so why on earth was she confirming his low opinion of her abilities by behaving as though she were? By no means all secretaries used shorthand and there was absolutely no reason whatever why she shouldn’t perform the job well once she set her mind to it.

‘A dictating machine,’ he murmured, as though turning the idea over in his mind. ‘I could dictate into it for hours at a stretch...then you could erase the whole lot in as many seconds.’

‘Despite what you may think, Mark, I’m not a congenital idiot,’ she informed him sharply.

‘You’re wrong to think that’s an idea I’ve ever entertained about you, sweetheart,’ he drawled. ‘I know darned well that any such mishap certainly wouldn’t be a mistake on your part.’

‘OK,’ she conceded without umbrage—it was pointless denying there hadn’t been times when she wouldn’t have thought twice about such sabotage. ‘If I promise faithfully not to erase anything...will you use one?’

‘It doesn’t look as though I have any choice,’ he said, then promptly gave her one of those beatific smiles she had learned of old not to trust. ‘And I’m so pleased you’ve decided to stop frothing at the mouth whenever I forget and refer to you as sweetheart...it’s just one of those cosy endearments of mine that are liable to slip out from time to time.’

Cosy endearments, my foot, thought Lucy indignantly, and as for one slipping out, she doubted if anything had ever passed his lips that hadn’t first been scrutinised thoroughly by that coldly calculating brain of his.

‘Of course it is,’ she murmured, a smile to equal his plastering itself across her face as she rose to her feet, ‘so don’t you give it another thought, sweetie pie.’

His eyes widened slightly, but there was amusement lurking at the corners of his mouth.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he enquired.

‘To find you a dictating machine.’

‘Well, you don’t need to look far,’ he informed her, also rising, ‘there’s one in your office—the previous two secretaries I borrowed didn’t do shorthand.’

Lucy let out a groan of pure frustration. ‘Do you mean to tell me you put me through all that just for the heck of it?’ she demanded angrily.

‘Darling, I couldn’t resist it—you know how dictatorial I am. And besides, shorthand was part of that exclusive training you had.’

‘Exclusive, my eye!’ exploded Lucy, his not so subtle reminder of how much her unsuccessful education had cost his father affecting her like a red rag to a bull. ‘The only thing exclusive about it was the ludicrous fees they charged! The same with those ghastly crammers you kept packing me off to. All they—’

‘Can it, Lucy,’ he drawled, walking past her and towards her office. ‘How about you rustling me up some coffee while I dig out this machine?’

Lucy hesitated, then followed him into her office. ‘Yes, sweetie pie,’ she murmured, chalking it up against the ‘darling’ he had slipped in earlier.

This time there was no hint of humour in the set of his mouth as he turned and glared at her before walking over to her desk.

Lucy busied herself with the coffee.

‘What’s all this?’ he demanded.

Lucy spun round and found him frowning down at the draft specification on her desk.

‘One of the survey teams needs it in a bit of a rush,’ she said then, thrown by the expression on his face, added, ‘They’re used to me doing them, and, anyway, it’s not as though I’ve been worked to death since coming up here—you’re hardy ever around.’

‘Well, I shall be around from now on—so they’ll just have to get it done through the proper channels. And while you’re telling them, I’d be grateful if you’d refresh their minds as to what those channels are. From now on you work for me and no one else—understood?’

Lucy looked at him in amazement. ‘I’ve finished it, actually. I was just going to send the disks down for printing.’

‘OK—send them down,’ he growled, opening one of the cupboards behind her desk and removing a dictaphone from it.

‘Mark...why are you so annoyed?’ she asked, curiosity overcoming her.

He placed the machine on the desk, his expression slightly startled.

‘Lucy, you don’t seem to realise...’ He broke off, plainly rethinking what he had been about to say. ‘I’ve been borrowing other people’s secretaries for so long—so let’s just say I’ve become a little possessive now that I’ve got one of my very own.’

‘Ha, ha.’ Did he honestly think she would swallow rubbish like that?

‘Lucy, stop trying to be cynical,’ he admonished with surprising lightness. ‘And try getting it into your head that you are exactly what I need right now and that I’m not going to stand for anyone else poaching you... Isn’t that coffee ready yet?’

She flounced over to the percolator, her mind being tugged in different directions. Suddenly it was very important to her to do this job, not well, but brilliantly—if only to dumbfound him. But it was he who was managing to dumb-found her right at this very moment—not that she believed a word he was saying.

‘You’ve always made it perfectly plain that you’ve needed me like a hole in the head,’ she accused. The old Mark was bad enough, but this somehow different version was far worse. ‘So what’s changed?’

‘A lot,’ he replied, giving her one of those smiles she so distrusted as she handed him his coffee. ‘I’ve toured my empire and dutifully served my apprenticeships with all the experts and their super-efficient secretaries. And now that’s all behind me I’ll be able to get down to projects of my own in areas where I’m regarded as the expert.’

Lucy was racking her brain to remember what his particular field was. She knew he’d originally got a First in modern languages, but also that he’d immediately followed that with something else—architecture or something related to it, but she couldn’t be sure.

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