Mistress for a Weekend

Susan Napier

In memory of my dad,

the little guy with the big smile.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

BLAKE MACLEOD had been watching the young woman for some time before she became aware of his presence.

At first it had merely been out of idle curiosity. He’d happened to be glancing her way when she had tottered out of the lift and his attention had been caught by the paleness of her freckled face in the wash of the overhead light, and the abruptness with which she had halted, regarding the revolving floor of the restaurant with ill-concealed dismay. Her teeth had dug deep into her lower lip as her gaze resolutely avoided the circular sweep of floor-to-ceiling windows revealing the lights of the rain-washed city twinkling far below, fastening instead on the metal joints in the carpet where the fixed central column of Auckland’s Sky Tower became the slowly rotating platform which formed the main body of the restaurant.

In any other circumstances Blake probably wouldn’t have given the unprepossessing lone female a second glance, but he had been feeling dangerously bored and ripe for any form of distraction. He had only attended the party under pressure, as a courtesy to his host, a valued business client, and he was already calculating the earliest he could leave without giving offence. Once he would have relished the opportunity to rub shoulders with a room full of movers-and-shakers, but at thirty-three he was well past the stage where he felt the need to impress.

From his vantage point by one of the seamless windows, he had studied the latecomer over the heads of the partygoers as she hovered uncertainly in the elevated reception area, a folded umbrella clutched to her chest in a white-knuckled grip, her figure shrouded by the damp folds of a voluminous brown raincoat. She stood out from the colourful crowd like an ordinary house sparrow amidst a pride of peacocks. Her hair was a nimbus of brown curls frothing out around the blanched oval of her face and Blake guessed that, her style of coiffure notwithstanding, she had found the ride in the glass-fronted lift a hair-raising experience.

Tuning out the sycophantic conversation of his companions, Blake speculated on the reason for the sparrow’s shell-shocked state. He could eliminate the theory that she was a gatecrasher afraid of being caught—she never would have got past the tight security at the base of the Sky Tower if she hadn’t had an invitation. The most obvious answer to her angst was that she had a fear of heights, but if that was the case why on earth would she have accepted an invitation to a party atop the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere?

One of the restaurant hostesses on cloakroom duty approached her, and the twin brackets around Blake’s hard mouth deepened in amusement as he watched the sparrow erupt into a flurry of awkward movements, getting both the umbrella and a large black-beaded evening bag entangled in the sleeves of the raincoat in her haste to shed her outer plumage. By the time she had freed herself from the bunched fabric, and picked up the umbrella and bag she had dropped in the process, her pale face was flushed with embarrassment. She thrust the trailing coat and umbrella apologetically at the bemused hostess and walked jerkily towards the short flight of steps that led down to the fan of tables, tucking the beaded clutch bag into the crook of her elbow as she surveyed the glittering throng with a glazed expression that contained a curious combination of desperation and determination.

Blake nearly choked on his drink when he saw the dress she had been hiding under the brown shroud. It was a plain black strapless number, blatantly sexy and sophisticated—and it didn’t suit her at all. Rather than enhancing her femininity, it merely emphasised her flaws—making her bare freckled shoulders appear too wide and the rest of her body look too boyishly straight. Instead of smouldering sensuality, she projected all angles and elbows, her face looking oddly naked in spite of—or perhaps because of—her heavily made-up eyes. She was quite tall and therefore correspondingly leggy, but the hem of her dress finished too far below her knees to showcase what Blake suspected were her best assets. As she teetered down the staircase in shiny spiked heels, still nibbling at her pale pink lower lip, he thought she looked more like a fresh-scrubbed, freckle-faced kid playing dress-up, and from the way she kept discreetly hitching at the outer edges of the strapless bodice she felt no more comfortable than she looked.

Not his type at all, he thought wryly, as he watched her reach the bottom of the stairs and grab a wineglass from the nearest tray, sending the adjacent glasses skittering with her straying forearm and almost upending the entire silver platter down the waiter’s impeccable white jacket. Her flustered apologies were accepted with a pained smile and her exposed skin was again bright pink as she attempted to melt inconspicuously into the crowd.

Blake got the impression that she spent a great deal of her time apologising.

Most definitely not his type.

Blake’s taste in female companions ran to genuine sophisticates: beautiful, self-confident, worldly women who craved attention rather than interest, who never involved themselves in embarrassing situations—physical or emotional. Women who might tax his ingenuity in bed but who rarely challenged his independence, and who could be relied upon to accept an amicable parting of the ways when the affair had run its course.

Inexplicably, the downy-haired sparrow continued to bob in and out of his wandering attention over the next half-hour. At just over six foot, Blake had a reasonably unobstructed view over the heads of most of the crowd and, since her high heels made her almost his equal in height, it was easy to find her at a glance. He noticed that, unlike everyone else, she stayed well away from the windows, barely moving from the spot where she had come in, quaffing the free-flowing wine as she studied the passing parade of guests.

Even from a distance he could see the tension in the set of her shoulders, the aura of suppressed energy that gave her brooding watchfulness a sense of purpose. She seemed poised to take wing at any moment—but for flight or fight? What was it she was searching for amongst the crowd? Someone to rescue her from her fear? Blake mocked his own whimsy as he turned back to field the conversational ball that was tossed his way. The answer was probably far more prosaic, and she was simply looking for someone she’d arranged to meet at the party.

The next time he glanced her way she was scooting forward to intercept another roving waiter, swapping her empty glass for a brimming champagne flute. Blake unconsciously held his breath until she safely negotiated the exchange, then watched in fatalistic fascination as she stepped back on to a portly matron’s foot and spun around in dismay, elbowing her victim’s unfortunate escort sharply in the solar plexus and dripping wine on his shoes. Recognising the head of a powerful quasi-Government think-tank on foreign trade, Blake winced…although, come to think of it, there’d been a time or two during the industry consulting process when he’d been tempted to take a slug at the pompous little windbag himself.

Perhaps the sparrow was the embodiment of his cosmic revenge! he thought, a slight smile curving his hard mouth as he looked down into the melting remains of his Scotch on the rocks. Unfortunately, the ambitious young businesswoman at his side who had been uttering flirtatious remarks took it as a sign of encouragement, and he was forced to adopt a brutal uninterest to convince her that she was mistaken.

When he looked up again it was to discover with a mild jolt of disappointment that his idle entertainment for the evening had disappeared. He turned his head and suddenly found himself staring straight into the brooding eyes of his former quarry. She had edged out of her comfort zone and was with a cluster of people helping themselves to canapés from one of the second-tier tables, close enough for him to see that he might have been wrong about her legs being her best asset. Her wide-set kohl-lined eyes were the sensuous colour of old gold, glowing with burnished brightness under their heavy-smudged green lids, dominating her otherwise unremarkable face. And they were currently trained on Blake with an arrested intensity. Big, luminous, disturbingly warm eyes, fringed with thickly coated black lashes; siren’s eyes, that seemed to look straight through his polished shield of cynical sophistication into the hidden secrets of his soul.

To his astonishment Blake felt his body suffuse with heat, as if all his secrets had suddenly become X-rated. He gritted his teeth in disbelief as he felt the blood rising to his face, fighting to keep his expression impassive under that steadfast golden stare.

A clumsy freckle-faced kid was making him blush, for God’s sake!

He shifted abruptly, using a comment addressed to him as an excuse to turn his back, but his mind was distracted by the disquieting realisation that he had, in effect, blinked first. He, who had never backed away from a challenge, who had outfaced kings of industry and princes of wealth, had flinched from a confrontation with a mere girl. Or was it himself he was unwilling to confront…and the underlying reason for his growing boredom with occasions like these?

Without turning around, he knew that he was still under surveillance, still being assessed by those golden eyes…but assessed for what?

The short hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. A sure sign of impending trouble. Fortunately, he and trouble were intimate acquaintances. Handling strife was his chief talent and major occupation.

And the most important thing he had learned over the years was that it was far safer to meet the arrival of trouble head-on than to ignore it and hope it would leave you alone.

CHAPTER TWO

ELEANOR LANG’S fingers tightened around her wineglass as she made another visual sweep of the restaurant to check that she hadn’t overlooked anyone.

Her eyes skipped impatiently over a face which could have belonged to a male model. She wasn’t looking for the most handsome man in the room, nor even the most charming. She had discounted men who were obviously with their wives or significant others, which cut the field down considerably, and ignored the fun-loving party animals. She wasn’t after character or personality, kindness or courtesy.

No, what Nora was looking for was much rarer. What she wanted was the most dangerous man in the room.

Her eyes returned to the broad shoulders which she had been studying a few moments before…the long, straight back encased in the faultless perfection of a tailormade suit. The man with the fierce grey eyes.

Blake MacLeod.

She hadn’t known who he was when she had first caught a glimpse of his trademark scowl, but what she saw had made her spine tingle. She had immediately shifted closer to get a better look, squeezing her way over to the table of food which was directly across from the loose cluster of people around him.

Whoever he was, he certainly didn’t look safe. In fact, he looked as surly as the devil and bored to within an inch of his life. One hand was thrust into his trouser pocket, ruffling the unbuttoned jacket of his light grey suit, the other lifting a squat glass of whisky to his mouth as he stared stonily over the rim at the attractive woman beside him, blatant disdain for whatever she was saying plastered across his harsh features. His collar-length hair was as black as sin, sleeked back to reveal a prominent forehead and thick black brows that gave the impression of a permanent frown riding astride his hawkish nose. He couldn’t be classed as handsome but he was fully mature and formidably masculine. His face was long and narrow, his cheeks hollowed beneath jutting cheekbones, and there was already a dark shadow blooming along the unforgiving line of his smooth-shaven jaw.

All in all, he looked lean, mean and hungry. The kind of man who would sell his own grandmother if it would turn him a profit, and give no quarter in a fight.

Not that Nora had any intention of fighting him! On the contrary…

Then their eyes had unexpectedly met, and she’d felt the same scary sensation that she had experienced coming up in the lift. Adrenaline pumped through her veins and sucked the blood from her head to fuel her racing heart.

Her first impulse was to pretend that she just happened to be casually glancing around, but she was forced to brazen it out when she found that she couldn’t look away, fascinated by the molten flare of acknowledgement in his silvery eyes before they rapidly chilled to the colour of tempered grey steel. Curiosity unfurled inside her, spiked with a delicious thrill of fear at her own daring.

They must have stared at each other for only a second or two, but to Nora it seemed like aeons. When he finally turned away she went limp, and realised that during those few moments of suspended animation every major muscle in her body had contracted to a state of red alert.

She stiffened her wobbly knees, congratulating herself on her boldness. Danger Man knew she existed. For a split second she had forced him to notice her. That was a start, wasn’t it?

Face it, Nora, you’re not the sort of woman that men notice.

Her stomach clenched as she pushed away the intruding voice, reminding her that she hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, her lunch break having been spent shopping for the elegant but annoyingly uncomfortable dress she was wearing. She tugged uneasily at the top of the low-cut bodice to make sure that it hadn’t drifted down again. She didn’t think she had enough cleavage to do justice to the style but Ryan had insisted that she wear something black and strapless, which he thought was the ultimate in feminine sophistication, to tonight’s party.

He had given her some money and told her to buy a new dress for herself after work, but she had been so eager to make him proud of her that she had squeezed the task into a shortened lunch break and worked like a maniac all afternoon so that she could leave early and rush home to try and pamper herself into the semblance of a glamour girl.

She had been such a gullible idiot, she thought, her throat tightening at the memory of the ghastly scene that had ensued at her flat. Her friends often chided her for being too trusting, and now she had wrenching proof that they had been right. Because it would never have occurred to her to be unfaithful, she had actually been pleased that Ryan seemed to be getting on so well with her young and trendy new flatmate.

A sudden stinging in her eyes threatened to ruin the make-up Nora had carefully applied to conceal her tear-swollen tissues. To think that she had naively imagined Ryan’s unaccustomed generosity over the dress had meant that he wanted to make the evening really special for her—maybe he was planning to suggest that they move in together! Instead, it had been a sop to his guilty conscience. She was only twenty-five and already she knew what it was like to be dumped for a younger model!

Anger boiled up like hot lava inside her, scalding away any remaining urge to cry. She snatched up a succulent pink prawn from the table in front of her and bit it viciously in half. She had wasted five years of her life trying to mould herself into the kind of woman she thought Ryan could love. From now she was going to be her own woman. Starting tonight, she was going to prove that everything that Ryan had said about her was a self-serving lie!

A man likes a woman to take the initiative sometimes. But you’re such a mouse when it comes to new experiences. At least Kelly knows how to have fun. You never want to experiment or take any risks….

Nora smouldered over the humiliating words that he had thrown at her as she had blundered her way out of the flat, numbed by the icy shock of his betrayal. He had been flattered by her feelings for him, but he had never meant them to tie him down. He was sure that if she looked around she would eventually find someone more compatible….

No one as fascinating as Ryan Trent, of course. No doubt he expected her to hook up with a man who was as timid and boring as herself!

Her eyes had remained trained on the man who looked like the absolute antithesis of all those things.

‘Do you know who that is over there?’ she asked a stockbroker acquaintance who was fishing in the same platter of prawns. ‘The tall, dark man with the killer frown.’

The woman followed her sight-line and practically shivered when she said his name.

Blake MacLeod.

Ryan might accuse her of being more interested in computers than people, but even Nora had heard of Blake MacLeod…vaguely.

She remembered someone in the office reading aloud from a newspaper column about New Zealand’s biggest domestically owned transport and communications conglomerate. Much of its current strong growth had been credited to the ‘defiantly unpolished’ MacLeod, who was said to be ferociously hard-working and ice-cool under pressure. He had been described as a maverick for his unorthodox views on business, and a brilliant opportunist for his ruthless, take-no-prisoners approach to acquiring ailing competitors. Much had been made of his working-class background, lack of formal qualifications and his cynical disrespect for the financial establishment.

He was also, she dredged up from the blurred fringes of her recall, an unrepentant bachelor.

‘Isn’t he the head of PresCorp?’

‘Not yet. He’s Prescott Williams’s chief troubleshooter, but rumour has it that when the old man retires or kicks the bucket, the whole kit-and-caboodle will land fair and square in his lap,’ her informant supplied obligingly. ‘All the PresCorp shares are under Williams’s thumb, but he never married and there aren’t any children to inherit, you see.’ She leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘MacLeod hadn’t even graduated from high school when Williams took him into the firm and made him his pet protégé. Some say it’s because he’s really the old man’s illegitimate son….’

Nora wasn’t interested in his murky antecedents, only his current personal status. ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

The broker gave Nora’s pale, absorbed face a sidelong look. ‘You want to steer clear of the likes of him,’ she warned kindly. ‘He’s got a bad reputation with women—great in the sack, but an ice-man out of it. Acquires mistresses rather than lovers, and none of them last longer than a couple of months. “Use ’em and lose ’em” seems to be his motto.’

In other words, he was every bit as dangerous as he looked. Perfect!

‘He’s not your type, anyway, Nora,’ the other woman added as a parting shot. ‘His women are all interchangeably gorgeous—and definitely not the kind to take home to Mother, if you know what I mean….’

She meant that Nora wasn’t his type. No one had ever come even close to calling her gorgeous. The words that had haunted her all evening rang again in her ears:

I’m sorry, Nora, but you must know this was inevitable. I mean—you’ve been a good mate but, let’s face it, the sex between us has always been pretty pedestrian, hasn’t it? You take ages to get heated up and then you’re only lukewarm. I’m not blaming you—some women are like that—but I need someone who physically excites me….

As an apology it had been a slap in the face. So he wasn’t blaming her for being stodgy and undersexed—how kind of him! She’d been a virgin when she met Ryan, so how had she been supposed to know that ‘the sex’ was pedestrian? She had never looked upon it as having sex, anyway, she had quaintly imagined that they were making love, sharing more than just their bodies. And he had never given any indication that he was dissatisfied with her lovemaking…or her cooking, or her frequent ironing of his shirts and tidying of his apartment, or the amount of unpaid time she had spent after-hours at Maitlands Consulting, where they both worked, helping him meet his project deadlines.

Blake MacLeod might be a ‘user’ but at least he was open about it.

And he was ‘great in the sack’.

Nora was engulfed by a wave of heat. What she was contemplating was sheer madness, but she had earned the right to go a little crazy. She was tired of people pointing out her limitations. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

After all, what was the very worst that could happen if she went over and tried out her womanly wiles on Blake MacLeod? An embarrassing snub? Nora was living proof that no one ever died of humiliation.

On the other hand, in the wilder realms of possibility, if she actually succeeded…

Her imagination failed her, and Nora took a hasty gulp of her drink to bolster her courage. She could do this. She might not be beautiful but she was smart—smarter, in fact, than Ryan, although she had learnt to downplay the fact when they were in company.

If only he wasn’t standing next to a window….

‘Those who are about to die, salute you,’ she muttered, raising her glass in a fatalistic toast before forging her way through the crowd.

A passing waitress mistook her gesture for a request for another drink and Nora paused to accept her offer of a refill. She had a feeling that she might need it!

Progress in her spindly five-inch heels was slow, but given their inherent instability she didn’t dare hurry for fear of twisting an ankle.

The nearer she got to that lean imposing back, the greater the number of butterflies trapped inside her chest. Her palms went clammy and her breath shortened. With every step she became more aware of the vast expanse of glass beyond him, and the fact that at any moment the dizzying vista could open up beneath her feet. Only by focusing fiercely on the solid breadth of his shoulders could she block out the incipient panic, and by the time she fetched up behind him she was wound as tight as a drum.

At the last moment, with her hand reaching out to tap him on the shoulder and what she hoped was a mysterious Mona Lisa smile pinned to her lips, her nerve failed.

She jerked her hand back and wheeled away, but the sharp movement dislodged the clutch-bag wedged under her armpit and it thudded to the floor, the faulty catch springing open to disgorge the contents.

‘Oh, no!’ Nora sank down on her knees amongst the forest of legs, trying to hold her wineglass on an even keel as she started to rake her possessions back into the yawning maw of the capacious bag with her other hand. To her mortification a floral-wrapped tampon had rolled up against the swivelling toe of a highly polished masculine shoe. She swept it up in her palm and thrust it into the dark recesses of her bag as the shoe flexed and the owner came down in a crouch beside her.

‘Allow me…’ Blake MacLeod’s amused grey eyes met her horrified ones as he picked up a pair of low-heeled black velvet shoes wedged one inside the other, and handed them to her.

‘You carry an extra pair of shoes in your handbag?’ he said, under cover of the party noise which buzzed uninterrupted over their heads.

His voice was a deep, soft drawl that sent sensual ripples across Nora’s exposed nerves.

‘They’re for driving,’ she said quickly, avoiding his gaze as she stuffed them awkwardly into the bag. Thank goodness he had politely ignored the tampon!

‘Really?’

Sensitised by her agonised embarrassment, she was quick to detect the lilt of scepticism. God, she was such a terrible liar. Why did she even bother?

‘No, not really,’ she confessed helplessly, sinking down on her folded legs. ‘I—that is, I bought the ones I’m wearing on the way to the party.’ She couldn’t believe that he had actually stooped to help her. Was this fate’s reward, or punishment, for her moment of cowardice? ‘At the hotel boutique downstairs. I was passing and saw them in the window and, well…’

He tipped his head to look down at her feet, tucked beneath her bottom, and blinked, his hard mouth kicking up, revealing the unexpected fullness of his lower lip. ‘Let me guess—you just had to have them….’

He made her sound wickedly self-indulgent, used to the instant gratification of her impulsive desires.

‘Something like that,’ she agreed vaguely.

Because Ryan was slightly shorter than her five-foot-nine, and unduly sensitive about it, Nora hadn’t possessed any high heels…until tonight. She had been wandering through the complex, following the signs from the underground car park to the Sky Tower lifts, when she had spotted the frivolous, tall strappy pair she was now wearing in the glitzy boutique window…shoes that would have made Ryan look like a tiny insignificant speck beside her. She had immediately marched in and bought them. Only a vestige of her normal thrift had restrained her from binning her low-heeled pumps.

‘I admire a woman who knows exactly what she wants…and goes after it,’ he murmured, rescuing more of her scattered possessions from under passing feet.

She was perversely annoyed by his approval, the rage simmering just beneath the surface of her skin unconsciously seeking an outlet.

‘Instead of expecting a man to get it for her, you mean?’ she challenged, startled to hear that her voice was husky with suppressed temper. Heavens! She actually sounded provocative.

‘Something like that.’ He smiled, tossing her own phrase back at her, and she was swamped by a hot bloom of physical awareness. His eyes drifted lower, to the ginger-flecked expanse of skin that rose above the flattened curve of her bodice, and the speculative gleam that she glimpsed through his thick lashes made her nervously check the security of her dress with a discreet upward tug under one arm. His white teeth flashed as he innocently returned his gaze to her rosy countenance.

The fully fledged smile did fascinating things to his sullen face, warming the cold angles and austere planes and lending his mouth a sensuous softness. Close up, she could see the smooth grain of his olive skin, darkened further by the kiss of summer sun and the blue-black shadow on his chin and upper lip. She discovered that his deep-set eyes had tiny chips of green in them, hidden gems embedded in the grey sheetrock, flecks of emerald fire that sparked in her a sudden lust for precious stones. When she inhaled she found that she was breathing in the spicy scent of his body, not an artificially astringent cologne, expensive and anonymous, but his own unique natural fragrance—musky and unmistakably male….

‘You certainly seem to have the knack of acquiring things,’ he was saying, helping her to gather up her notebook and calculator, wallet, eye-make-up compact, tissues, vial of perfume, keys, pen-knife, a card of fuse-wire, mini-torch, nail file, comb, travel toothbrush, hotel sewing kit and tube of breath mints amongst sundry other bits and pieces. Pivoting from his splayed crouch he had the greater reach, occasionally stretching across her, the sleeve of his jacket brushing goose-pimples along Nora’s bare arm.

‘I—Really, you’ve helped enough. I can manage the rest myself,’ she protested, trying to distract his fascinated attention from the embarrassing amount of personal clutter. She saw him flipping through a small folder of family photos and snatched it away as he reached the image of herself as a plump, fuzzy-haired teenager.

‘That was taken when I was sixteen,’ she couldn’t help saying.

‘You don’t look much older than that now.’

‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’

‘Most women enjoy giving the impression they’re younger than their years,’ he said, making her feel unutterably gauche.

‘It’s the freckles,’ she sighed. ‘They make me look like a perpetual schoolgirl.’

He picked up her blood donor card. By the time he had finished ‘helping’ her, Nora thought, she would be totally stripped of all mystery. ‘Please, don’t let me keep you from your conversation with your friends—’

‘This is much more interesting,’ he drawled, with the teasing inflection which made her feel hot and edgy. ‘And I always finish what I start. It’s sort of a trademark of mine. Besides, they’re acquaintances, not friends. My friends know better than to bore me.’

‘What happens when you’re bored?’ she dared to ask.

‘I behave like a complete boor,’ he said languidly.

‘Oh…Oh!’ A hiccup of startled laughter erupted from Nora as she belatedly recognised his pun, her eyes crinkling into merry crescents. ‘The insensitive and ill-mannered person, or the male pig?’ she asked with pretended confusion.

‘Actually a boar is an uncastrated male pig.’ He corrected her second option, and watched her eyelashes flutter and her freckles fight against a rising tide of pink. ‘I feel that’s an important distinction, since my answer is…yes to both.’

‘Really?’ She wasn’t about to let a man get the better of her—not tonight. ‘Then you must have a lot of very tolerant friends.’

He laughed. ‘Or a few very interesting ones.’ He held aloft a yellow-handled tool and shot her a compelling lift of his dark eyebrows. ‘A screwdriver?’

‘I like to be prepared for every eventuality,’ she told him, plucking it out of his hand, noticing that his fingers were long and supple and his nails beautifully manicured.

‘So I see,’ he murmured, as he spied the last stray item, almost hidden by a fold of her dress flaring away from her knee. He handed her the small foil package with grave ceremony.

She stared at it lying on the palm of her hand, stricken by a chilling thought. Thank God she was unable to take oral contraceptives and therefore had had to insist that Ryan always used a condom. What if Kelly wasn’t the first woman he had slept with during the year that their relationship had been sexually intimate? She would have been forced to wonder whether her health was at risk.

With a jolt she realised that it had been ages since she and Ryan had actually made love…. He had been away on business, then he had gone on a skiing trip to Colorado with his rugby mates, and after he got back he had been busy with work, or she had, and their social life had got busier. There had always seemed to be a ready enough reason not to make love, and Nora admitted that she had barely noticed their extended bout of celibacy—on her side at least!

‘It is yours, isn’t it?’ he said, intrigued by the parade of expressions across her abstracted face.

‘What? Oh…yes.’ She blushed, dropping it hurriedly into her bag. ‘But don’t let it lead you to jump to any hasty conclusions about me,’ she added, putting her drink down carefully on the carpet while she fished about to find the fuse-wire and quickly wound a 15-amp strand in a figure of eight around the worn clasp.

‘The only conclusion I’ve come to is that you’re probably a highly organised person in a disorganised kind of way,’ he said wryly, watching her complete the makeshift repair with a deft twist of the fragile wire. ‘Shall we rejoin the party before people start wondering what we’re getting up to down here?’ He rose smoothly to his feet, showing no signs of stiffness from his prolonged crouch, whisking away her bag and wineglass and placing them on the edge of the window table behind him, next to his own drink, before stooping to offer both his hands to Nora.

His palms were slightly rough, the friction of his skin sliding against hers producing sparks of heat that fanned hotter as his fingers tightened, totally encompassing her slender hands, making her momentarily feel trapped and helpless and alarmingly vulnerable. A quick flex of his legs and he hauled her upright in one fluid, easy movement. Alarm turned to a rush of unexpected excitement, the sparks leaping from the point of contact to sizzle up Nora’s arms and razzle-dazzle around her body with electrifying speed, making it difficult to breathe, let alone coordinate her movements. The force of her forward momentum plastered her against his shirt front and she flailed on her precarious heels to find her balance, gasping when she felt an ominous downward drag on her breasts.

‘Oh, stop! Don’t move!’ she hissed at him as she realised what was happening. ‘I think I’ve caught one of my heels in the hem of my dress!’ she groaned, hopping on one wobbly foot like a drunken stork.

He uttered a smothered curse, threaded with laughter, obediently freezing in position.

‘This isn’t funny!’ she whispered fiercely into his ear. ‘I’ll be topless in a moment if we’re not careful.’

‘And this would be a bad thing?’ he chuckled softly, his breath stirring the silky curls that feathered her cheek. The deep vibration in his chest resonated against her squashed breasts and Nora was mortified to feel them begin to tingle, the nipples budding against the sheer fabric of her strapless bra, the top edge of which was now peeking above the satin band of her bodice.

‘Yes!’ Her chin was level with his shoulder, his tanned throat a tempting few inches from her mouth.

‘For goodness’ sake, stop laughing at me and try doing something helpful,’ she gritted. She pulled her hands from his loosening grasp and looked down over her shoulder, arching back to try and unhook her spiked heel from the looped thread, but the twisting motion jerked her awkwardly bent leg and she gave a little squeak as she felt herself begin to pop free from the top of her dress.

Her squeak turned to a breathless gasp as his hands whipped to her sides, palms clamping around the front of her ribs with almost painful force, splayed fingers digging into her back, anchoring the straining fabric firmly in place, her dignity still intact. ‘It’s all right. I’ve got you. Now try,’ he advised.

Nora was aware that she was teetering on the brink of social disaster. She licked her dry lips, her heart still pounding with fright, scarcely able to draw breath against the fierce compression of his grip. She stared up at the man holding her, her eyes wide and dark with doubt, her teeth sinking painfully into her bottom lip. She had already been betrayed by one man tonight. She had picked Blake MacLeod out as a dangerous man…what if it was an element of cruelty in his nature which gave him the dark aura she had found so appealing? What if he was setting her up for fresh humiliation?

‘Go ahead—I won’t let go.’ There wasn’t a trace of his previous mockery in his quiet voice and cool gaze. ‘Trust me.’

His calmness and the continuing steady pressure around her ribs curbed her fears. In any case, trussed up as she was, she really didn’t have any choice but to trust him.

It took her several flustered seconds to untangle the transparent thread from her snagged heel, and when she was finally standing on two feet again she uttered a ragged sigh of relief. She was grateful that he had drawn her slightly away from the group he had been talking to, sparing her the embarrassment of introductions. ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure….’

The silky mockery was back and as their eyes met she was even more aware of his hands still firmly caging her ribs, his thumbs sloping up under her breasts so that with every exhaled breath she stroked herself against him. All he had to do was to alter the angle of his thumbs and he would find the stiff crests which pushed against the shiny satin, she thought hectically. She could feel the long muscles of his thighs bunching as they tensed against hers, the hard thrust of his hips still bracing the centre of her slender body, generating a primitive response that filled her with a furious elation. The social buzz around them faded from her consciousness, her breathing quickening in response to the sultry recognition that darkened his grey eyes. Her heart jumped inside her chest, throbbing against the warm pad of his thumb, and her sensitised skin crackled with energy.

‘We haven’t even been introduced,’ she murmured faintly, having difficulty shaping the words on her thickened tongue.

‘It’s a little late to be formal. I’m Blake MacLeod.’

‘I know.’ She saw his eyelids give a wary flicker. ‘After I saw you across the room, I wondered who you were, so I asked someone…’

‘I see.’ The brackets around his mouth relaxed. ‘And?’

He obviously sensed there had been more to it than a simple identification. ‘She said that you had a bad reputation with women and I should avoid you like the plague.’

‘And yet…here you are,’ he said in a neutral tone that was at odds with his smouldering eyes. ‘Should I have asked someone about you?’

A rueful smile revealed Nora’s disproportionately wide mouth and splendid teeth. ‘It wouldn’t have done you much good. I hardly know anyone in this crowd. I only got invited because I used to flat with the sister of the girl who’s turning twenty-one.’ Her eyes were almost on a level with his and it gave her a powerful kick to look directly into the windows of his deep, dark soul. ‘I’m Nora.’

His impressive eyebrows lifted. ‘Just Nora?’

‘Eleanor, actually, but no one calls me that,’ she breezed. No one except Ryan when he was impatient with her—grinding up the syllables in his gritted teeth!

Blake was silent, and she realised that he wasn’t going to let her get away with the evasion. So much for hoping that she could cloak herself in alluring mystery for the evening.

‘Lang. Nora Lang,’ she said, adopting a flippant Bondian drawl. ‘Does that make you any the wiser?’

He dipped his head, acknowledging the introduction. ‘Not wiser, but certainly better informed. I always try to make informed decisions.’

‘How boring,’ she teased. ‘Don’t you like surprises?’

‘It depends on the nature of the surprise,’ he said, deliberately running his eyes over her captive body.

She felt her skin tighten in every pore. ‘Are you always so cautious?’

‘It depends on the nature of the threat.’

The verbal fencing was having a heady effect on Nora’s battered self-confidence. ‘Do I threaten you, Mr MacLeod?’ she asked with a sweet smile.

‘The idea seems to excite you.’

She felt a sluggish warmth move through her veins. ‘I’ll admit it has a certain raw appeal…’

‘It’s an interesting proposition, Nora, but I’m afraid I’m not into S&M.’

She blushed, not pink, but a vivid rose-red. ‘I wasn’t—I didn’t mean that!’

‘No? Sorry, I must have misunderstood,’ he said with such patent insincerity that they both knew he was lying, and mightily enjoying her confusion.

‘I’m not into anything weird!’ she said firmly.

‘How about mildly kinky?’

She thought of Ryan and Kelly in the bathroom. In the bath of all places, in the middle of the afternoon. Nora’s bath! Boring, undemanding, unadventurous Nora who obviously didn’t know what she was missing….

‘Define kinky.’

He laughed, a deep masculine rumble of appreciation. ‘Now who’s being cautious?’

‘A woman alone has to take care not to raise expectations she’s not prepared to fulfil,’ she said primly.

‘You’re here alone?’ In spite of the upward inflexion it was more of a statement than a question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I watched you as you came in,’ he admitted unexpectedly.

‘Did you?’ Her smile widened for an instant before she remembered her ignominious entrance. ‘Oh. And I suppose now you think I ricochet about the place like some sort of unguided missile,’ she said with a sigh.

His fingers briefly contracted on her ribcage. ‘Or perhaps a cleverly guided one.’

‘Are you accusing me of dropping my bag at your feet on purpose, in order to meet you?’ she demanded, clenching her fists against his chest.

‘Did you?’

She tipped her chin and looked down her nose at him. ‘That is so arrogant! Do you consider yourself so irresistibly attractive that you automatically assume that every woman is grovelling to attract your attention?’

His mouth ticked up at her haughty response. ‘Well, not every woman. Did you?’

‘No, of course I didn’t!’

Then she recalled her chaotic thoughts in the moments before she had turned coward. ‘Well…’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she struggled with her over-scrupulous conscience. ‘Maybe I might have been thinking of a way to introduce myself, but…no, I wouldn’t have—certainly not consciously, anyway…’

His eyes were on that tell-tale worrying of her lip. ‘You mean it was in the nature of a Freudian drop?’ he said, with such suspicious blandness that her fists relaxed against his chest.

‘Is that any different from a Freudian slip?’ she asked, discreetly smoothing out a small crease she had made in his yellow silk tie.

‘It’s generally more revealing,’ he told her, and paused before adding, ‘Rather like that dress.’

She followed his gaze and uttered a stifled sound of annoyance when she saw that the embroidered edge of her black bra was still visible above the top of her dress. He beat her to the rescue, the backs of his fingers branding her with their searing warmth as they dipped beneath the fabric at the side of her breasts to gently hitch up her top by several freckles.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered, her hands automatically replacing his as he stepped back, leaving her bereft of his disturbing touch. She wriggled even more securely into the dress while he turned to pick up his neglected drink. ‘I wish I’d never worn the wretched thing,’ she grumbled. ‘I knew it wasn’t right for me.’

Unfortunately she’d had no choice since it was what she had been wearing when she had fled the flat. She had been trying on her dress and accessories when she had heard odd noises from the bathroom. Believing Kelly was out on a modelling job, she had snatched up a heavy lamp with which to clock the intruder if he turned nasty. In hindsight, she wished she had used it!

To Nora’s chagrin Blake didn’t disagree. He tucked her bag in the crook of her elbow and placed her wineglass in her hand. ‘So why wear it?’

He had manoeuvred her to one side of a support pillar, his back to the room, discouraging anyone else from joining the conversation.

‘It was a gift from a friend. He advised me that something black and strapless would make even me look elegant.’

‘Some friend.’ His sardonic drawl made Nora’s eyes light up with militant agreement.

‘Former friend,’ she corrected him with savage relish.

‘Personally, I think the shoes were the better buy,’ he said.

‘The dress was terribly pricy,’ she murmured, with a twinge of guilt.

He shrugged. ‘So were the outrageously sexy shoes, but they’re a work of art in themselves.’

Outrageously sexy? Little thrills ran up and down her spine.

‘How do you know what they cost?’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Nora cursed the foolish naivety of her question. As a wealthy man he was probably used to paying his lovers’ bills—and to making sure he got full value for his money!

His wicked smile suggested he had read her mind. ‘Because they have a famous Italian name stamped on the sole…and you’re still wearing the price tag.’ He bent down and laced his fingers around her left ankle, lifting her foot and peeling something off the delicate sole of her shoe. Although she automatically gripped his shoulder for balance, he had acted so swiftly that he had replaced her foot firmly on the ground before she had a chance to wobble. ‘I noticed it when we were kneeling down.’

Ignoring the lingering warmth in her tingling ankle, Nora stared at the small adhesive-backed paper square he had pressed on to the back of her hand.

‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed, aghast.

‘Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone would class it as a major social gaffe—’ he began in amusement.

‘My God, this can’t be the price!’ Nora continued in an outraged whisper. ‘This is wrong—it has to be a stock number or something. I can’t have paid that for a pair of shoes! I wouldn’t have! It’s indecent!’

‘Maybe they were on sale,’ he murmured, watching her dusting of freckles glow vivid ginger against her blanched skin.

‘Expensive hotel boutiques target high-rolling tourists—they don’t have sales,’ she said hollowly. She blinked her thickly mascaraed eyelashes, trying in vain to make the dollar sign in front of the figures go away. ‘I don’t believe it—they cost almost twice as much as the dress did!’ She heaved a sigh, screwing up the price sticker until it was a tiny hard pellet and flicking it away.

‘How much did you think they cost?’ he asked curiously.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t care. I was in such a temper I didn’t even look at the price,’ she admitted, closing her eyes as she frantically tried to remember what else she had put on her credit card this month.

‘A temper?’

‘Mmm?’ Her eyes flew open and she became enmeshed in his intently curious gaze. Had he noticed that her eyelids were slightly pink and puffy under their lavish powdering of green shadow and gold glitter? She didn’t want him to think she was a pathetic weepy female. ‘Oh…’ She gestured vaguely with her glass and delivered the understatement of all time. ‘I was upset about something that happened earlier.’

‘And when you’re upset, you shop?’

‘God, no. I hate shopping…for clothes, anyway.’ She shuddered. ‘All that standing around, staring at yourself. And I certainly don’t get paid enough to buy shoes like this every time I lose my temper!’

‘What kind of work do you do?’ he asked, propping his arm against the narrow pillar, his wrist skimming the curve of her bare shoulder.

‘I help people fix problems with their computers,’ she said, deliberately down-playing her skill. She was all too familiar with the glaze that appeared on people’s faces when she started talking about her job.

‘Here in the city?’

‘Our offices are just a few blocks away.’ She didn’t want to talk about Maitlands. Or even think about how she was going to cope with the strain of working in the same office as Ryan—and Kelly—after tonight. ‘This is the first time I’ve been up the Sky Tower, though. Have you been here before?’

‘I bring international clients to the restaurant and casino quite regularly. PresCorp has a permanent suite at the hotel. It’s also useful for occasions like this, when my workload is so heavy that I don’t want to waste time commuting.’

Prickles danced across her skin. ‘You’re staying here at the hotel?’ she blurted huskily. He gave her a speculative look and she fought down a blush. ‘Wouldn’t a serviced apartment be more cost effective for the company?’ she hastened to say.

‘Even luxury apartments don’t come with twenty-four-hour room service—’ He stopped as she suddenly stiffened, the colour draining from her face. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No—yes.’ She ducked her head below the level of his shoulders, burying her nose in her drink. ‘I just realised that I’m famished. I wonder when they’re going to serve some proper food.’

‘Not for some time yet.’ He tilted his wrist so that she could see the face of his steel Rolex. ‘Supper at ten-thirty p.m., the invitation said—and there’ll be speeches to get through first. Didn’t you eat before you came?’

She recalled throwing up in a rainy gutter somewhere, retching her heart out while the tears streamed down her face.

‘I wasn’t in the mood.’

‘There’re plenty of nibbles going around. Would you like me to get us some?’ He dropped his arm and began to turn.

‘No! Don’t go!’ She clutched at his jacket, her eyes sliding past him.

‘I was only going to signal a waiter.’ He looked down at her fixed expression, noting the way she had edged around to keep his body between herself and the room, while still keeping whatever was holding her attention in view. ‘Someone you didn’t expect to see tonight?’ he asked shrewdly.

Someone she would be happy never to see again!

With growing outrage, Nora watched Ryan working the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He had been enormously pleased at the prospect of mixing with some of the city’s leading citizens, but he had only received an invitation to the party because he was her partner. He certainly knew how to market himself, she’d give him that, but now that the scales had fallen from her eyes she could see him for what he was: a noxious little opportunist!

CHAPTER THREE

‘LET me guess…the former friend who mistakes fashion for style?’ Blake MacLeod murmured, tracking her gaze.

Nora felt a spurt of spiteful amusement as she turned her eyes squarely back to her companion and his impeccably understated elegance.

‘His name is Ryan.’

‘Is he important?’ The supercilious tilt of his eyebrows was a masterly put-down.

Nora smiled brilliantly. ‘Not anymore.’

She raised her glass to her lips and was dismayed to see her hand tremble.

It was too much to hope for that the sharp-eyed man she was with wouldn’t notice it, too. His eyes flickered down the slender length of her arm and his face turned to stone. ‘Are you afraid of him?’ he asked quietly.

‘Ryan? No, of course not!’ she scorned. He had already done his worst and she had survived.

‘Did he beat you?’

‘Only at squash—I always creamed him at chess and Scrabble!’ she replied flippantly.

His expression remained guarded. ‘Then how did you get these?’ he said, lightly touching his fingertips to the fresh bruises on the inside of her forearm, blotchy shadows blooming through the smooth, translucent skin.

The tiny sizzle that accompanied his touch made her senses scatter. ‘What? Oh…I banged my arm against a doorknob at home this afternoon,’ she recalled reluctantly. It had been the bathroom door she had been backing out of—her eyes screwed shut against the sight of the guilty pair in the bathtub, scrabbling to separate themselves. The sharp jolt of physical pain in her arm had been a welcome distraction from the agony of her disillusionment as Ryan had followed her, dragging a towel around his hips, blustering in self-defensive anger, turning the blame for his behaviour back on to Nora.

‘You walked into a door?’ Blake said with blunt scepticism. ‘Do you realise what a stereotypical answer that is?’

Her eyes widened as she realised that he was seriously concerned that she might be a battered woman. ‘But I really did,’ she protested. ‘I would never let a man get away with being abusive towards me.’

‘I thought they looked like fingermarks,’ he murmured, aligning his fingers over the blue-brown smudges.

‘Well, they’re not. I have very sensitive skin. Bruises always show up quickly, looking worse than they are.’

The sight of his lean tanned fingers lying against her skin made her mouth go dry and her body throb with awareness. The contrast between his sinewy brown hand and her delicate paleness seemed starkly erotic. She couldn’t believe that a stranger’s touch could have such a dramatic impact. On the other hand, she had never before opened herself up to the possibility that another man could arouse her with a mere look, a touch…

She watched as he slowly splayed his hand, gently encircling her arm in a bracelet of warm flesh. She shivered.

‘Cold?’ he asked, in a knowing voice that said he knew very well what had caused her reaction.

Her eyelids felt heavy, weighted down by lashes as she lifted them to meet his gaze. ‘It is rather cool up here.’ She uttered the bald-faced lie in the nature of a challenge.

His lips and eyebrows quirked. ‘Perhaps the altitude doesn’t suit you.’

She wished he hadn’t reminded her! ‘Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m more exposed than usual,’ she said, with a hitch of one dappled shoulder.

‘Would you like me to put my jacket around you?’ he offered.

Nora’s hectic emotions translated the private gesture of courtesy into a primitive act of public possession.

‘No, you keep it,’ she said huskily. ‘I wouldn’t like you to catch a chill.’

‘I don’t think there’s any fear of that.’ His thumb moved on her arm, sliding over the rounded inner curve of her elbow. ‘I’m very warm-blooded.’

Her own spurted hotly in her veins. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’

‘And do you always believe everything you’re told?’ he taunted.

Her pupils contracted to narrow dots, the only sign of her inward flinch. ‘I used to.’ She couldn’t help glancing over to where she had seen Ryan. ‘Now I prefer to rely on more tangible evidence.’

Blake’s hand left her arm to tilt her head firmly back in his direction, demanding her full attention. ‘Very wise. How hungry are you?’

She blinked at his non sequitur. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You said you haven’t had dinner and, as it happens, neither have I. What say we blow this joint and find a restaurant that can serve us within the next half-hour?’

Blow this joint? His mocking slang made it sound invitingly dangerous, with the added bonus of allowing her to avoid any painful encounters with Ryan.

‘But what about the party—?’ she stammered, not sure whether he was joking.

‘In a crowd this size, one or two less isn’t going to matter.’

One or two? Did that mean that he intended leaving, with or without Nora? She felt a stab of disappointment, followed by a fresh surge of reckless determination. When she had singled him out in her sights she had had no idea where her flirtation would lead, or how far she was prepared to take her rash experiment. She still didn’t know, but her fear and uncertainty was all part of the intoxicating excitement that jetted through her as she contemplated her next move.

‘They might not notice my disappearance, but you’re a lot higher up the scale of importance,’ she felt compelled to point out.

A world of natural arrogance was expressed in his shrug. ‘I’ve done my duty. I came. Waved the PresCorp flag in the necessary faces. Kissed the birthday girl and gave her a gift. More than enough to satisfy Scotty’s festering social conscience. Now I’m back on my own time.’

It took her a moment to realise who he meant by ‘Scotty’.

‘You only came because Sir Prescott Williams asked you to?’

‘The word “ask” implies choice. Prescott is far too shrewd to offer options that won’t deliver his preferred outcome,’ he replied drily. ‘He knows exactly how and where to apply pressure. He’s an expert in getting his own way.’

‘Somehow I can’t quite picture you as anyone’s helpless pawn. You don’t look like a man who enjoys taking orders.’

He threw back the last of his drink and acknowledged her tart remark with an insinuating smile. ‘On the contrary, if I perceive a mutual benefit I can be extremely accommodating.’

His soft purr hinted at all sorts of intriguing wickedness. ‘Are you saying you’d let me order you around?’ she said, forbidden images swirling up from the unplumbed depths of her mind.

‘Well, not here, obviously—I do have my ruthless image to protect,’ he mocked, playing to the shocked curiosity that flared across her face, fascinated by the contradiction between the smouldering passion of those sultry painted eyes and the astringent freshness of her unpredictable personality. It was a long time since Blake had been surprised by anyone or anything. ‘Perhaps I’ll let you order for me in the restaurant, as a start…’

‘Restaurant?’ In her flurry of wild imaginings she had forgotten the original question.

‘You’d rather wait and eat here?’ He looked down into his empty glass, masking his expression as he mused, ‘Maybe you’re right. Even if you’re not lucky enough to be assigned a window-seat, once everyone sits down you’ll have an uninterrupted view from whichever table you’re at, reminding you with every bite that you’re in a nine-storey building perched atop a concrete shaft around three hundred metres high but only a bare twelve metres in diameter…’

Nora’s stomach did a sickening loop-the-loop, a fine dew springing out on her brow.

‘…whereas the restaurant I have in mind is only a quiet ground-floor place around the corner from the casino,’ he continued smoothly. ‘Good food, but one step down from the street…with absolutely no view—’

‘Actually, that sounds rather nice,’ Nora gulped, clutching gratefully at the dangled safety-line. ‘Let’s go there.’

Only when the words were out of her mouth did she realise what she had committed herself to, and her stomach performed another crazy loop, this time of excitement. Somehow, she had beguiled one of the city’s most cynical bachelors into taking her out to dinner!

He gave her no chance to change her mind. ‘Do you need to make any farewells, or do you want to just melt away?’

She should at least exchange a few words with Patty, her former flatmate, and thank her for the invitation. ‘Well, I—’

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan and felt a sharp spike of panic.

‘Melting would be good,’ she said quickly. ‘Melting is very good—as long as we do it right away.’

If Blake was startled by the rough urgency of her tone he didn’t show it. ‘Don’t you want to finish your drink?’ he murmured, half turning to put down his empty glass.

Ryan’s face was now a nasty white blot on the periphery of Nora’s vision. Had he seen her yet?

Her overwrought imagination bubbled with horrifying scenarios. What if Ryan wanted to appease his guilty conscience with more shattering revelations? What if he decided that by approaching her in public he could compel her to listen to what he had to say?

Ryan knew how much she disliked being the centre of attention—he would be relying on it to prevent her from making a scene. He could be doggedly persistent and remarkably ingratiating when it served his own interests. He was even capable, she thought wildly, of following her from the party and turning Blake MacLeod’s desirable companion into a dreary woman scorned!

She held out her drink. ‘No, thanks, it’s gone warm anyway—’

As Blake turned back, a group of chattering people pushed past behind Nora and she was shunted forward. The arm she had extended jerked, the contents of her glass splattering in an arc over Blake’s jacket and tie and plastering a fist-sized patch of his shirt to his chest.

There was a stunned pause.

‘Oh, God, I’m most terribly sorry!’ Nora brushed ineffectually at the splashes on his lapel, which had instantly soaked into the pale sheen of the fabric.

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ he said, taking away her empty glass and handing it to a sympathetic bystander, ‘if it wasn’t your fault.’

‘Those people bumped against me,’ she explained, sure her guilt must be written in fire across her forehead.

He looked at her from under his lowered brow. ‘So I saw…’

‘One of them must have jogged my arm,’ she added unnecessarily.

‘I suppose I should be grateful that you weren’t drinking the Cabernet Sauvignon,’ he commented with wry resignation, taking a white linen handkerchief out of his breast pocket and blotting at himself.

If she had been drinking red wine she would never have had the courage to do it! she thought, but desperate situations had called for desperate measures. ‘I don’t think it’ll stain if you rinse it out immediately.’

‘This suit is made of silk,’ he pointed out.

He didn’t need to add that it was very expensive Italian-styled silk. Nora had already guessed that it had probably cost more than her top-of-the-line office laptop.

‘Oh, dear!’ She bit her lip. ‘And so is your beautiful tie,’ she commiserated. ‘If you don’t want to risk them being permanently marked you really do need to do something as soon as possible…’

He dabbed at the splotches on his tie. ‘What would you suggest?’

Her mouth went dry and she deliberately pitched her voice low to disguise her jittery tension. ‘Well…we were leaving anyway, and you said you have a suite at the hotel. Why don’t we go there and you can phone the concierge? I’m sure the hotel offers an emergency dry-cleaning service…’

His hand stilled.

‘I’m sure they do,’ he said, looking into her wide innocent eyes. ‘If you’re certain you don’t mind taking the detour?’

She swallowed, fighting down a blush. ‘No, no, not at all. You can’t go to the restaurant like that. I’d feel dreadful if you risked ruining your suit because of me.’

It was all she could do not to hustle him along as they began to move across the revolving floor. Unfortunately their progress was slowed by people who sought to waylay Blake, and it was several minutes before they finally made it up the steps to the reception area by the lift bay. In the meantime a furtive glance over her shoulder showed her Ryan’s startled face, mooning at her from the crowd as he set out on an intersecting course.

Nora stalked towards the glass doors, only to find herself stayed by Blake’s polite command.

‘If you wait here, I’ll collect your coat and umbrella.’

‘Oh, but—’ She found herself talking to empty air. She would gladly have abandoned the wretched things for the sake of a quick getaway. Stranded on elevated ground, she had no place to hide when the unwelcome voice sounded behind her.

‘Nora? Nora—I know you saw me. I can’t believe you’re here! Thank goodness you’re all right!’

She turned reluctantly, plastering a look of surprise on her face. ‘I was invited, remember? Why shouldn’t I be here? Why are you?’

Ryan mounted the last step, his even features bearing a tentative conciliating smile. ‘Well, we’d accepted the invitation. I thought at least one of us should come, and I didn’t think that you’d make it all the way up here by yourself. You were so upset when you took off from the flat, I didn’t know what to think! We were worried about you….’

He dared mention Kelly? As if either of them had cared a fig about her feelings when they were wallowing in her bath!

She stared haughtily down at him, unimpressed by his attempt to smooth things over. She had always seen him as a lovable, cuddly teddy bear—with his curly blond hair, button-bright blue eyes, square jaw and stocky physique. Now she could see his brash charm was a threadbare illusion, the careless affection with which he had captured her dreams no substitute for genuine passion.

‘Well, you needn’t have—as you can see, I’m fine,’ she said abruptly. He must have remembered the system profiles that she had been creating for his current project, beavering away in her spare time for weeks so that Ryan could gain extra kudos from his boss—who also happened to be Kelly’s uncle!

His eyes were puzzled as they travelled over her, trying to work out what was different—so different—about her. Finally it clicked and he looked down.

‘My God, Nora, where on earth did you get those ridiculous shoes? You’ll likely break your neck in them. Besides, they make you look like a beanpole.’

A few hours ago she might have meekly agreed with him, but Nora’s blood was up.

‘Look, Ryan, I’d love to stand around and chat all night,’ she said with heavy sarcasm, ‘but as it happens I have better things to do.’

His patronising confidence said he didn’t believe her. What could be more important to Nora than the man she had been mooning over since she was twenty?

‘Give me a break, Nora,’ he appealed, producing the wheedling little-lost-boy smile that she used to think was adorable. ‘We need to talk. You didn’t give me time to explain what I meant this afternoon. I never wanted to hurt you, you know, Nora—’

‘Then you shouldn’t have slept with my flatmate!’ she said icily.

‘We all make mistakes, Nora. We’ve known each other for years. I’d still like us to be friends, especially since we work at the same place—’

Of course he would, because then he could continue to tap into her specialised talent to enhance his own career. When he had been at university and she had been working in the technology lab, he had noticed her unrequited crush and persuaded her to give him free tutoring to help him pass his computer and statistics papers. As well as helping him out with research she had also typed up his assignments and edited the bad grammar and fuzzy logic out of his essays, all for the sake of a few platonic hugs and kisses and the privilege of being accepted into his magic circle of friends. And five years later she was still helping him to make a good impression at the expense of her own needs.

‘I’ve decided it’s time I graduated to a better class of friend.’

He laid a heavy hand on her wrist. ‘Come on, Eleanor, you don’t mean that,’ he said thinly. ‘Everyone makes mistakes.’

‘Yes, and you were mine,’ she said, clinging to her self-control.

His hand tightened. ‘If it wasn’t for me you’d still be stuck in some dreary little cubicle somewhere—’

‘Ready to go, Nora?’ The deep voice resonated in her bones and with a start she realised that Blake MacLeod was standing behind her, holding out her open coat. Instead of feeling embarrassed at what he might have overheard, Nora was emboldened by his solid strength at her back.

Ryan’s hand fell from her arm, his jaw going slack as he focused on the man taking her bag while he helped her into her coat. ‘You’re leaving with him?’

‘I told you I had better things to do.’ It gave her a malicious pleasure to say.

He didn’t appear to hear her, hastily extending his hand to take advantage of the unexpected encounter. ‘Uh, Mr MacLeod, we haven’t met, but of course I know who you are—I’m Ryan Trent—’

To Nora’s delight Blake ignored the eagerly outstretched hand, returning her bag and hooking her umbrella over his arm so that he could adjust the collar of her coat, his knuckles brushing with gentle deliberation along the tense line of her jaw.

‘I have in mind something far more succulent for you to sink your teeth into,’ he told her with shameless eroticism, pressing his thumb against the swollen lower lip she had been unconsciously abusing. ‘I hope you’re still as hungry as I am…’

‘More,’ she said throatily, falling in with his baiting game, her teeth briefly grating against his salty thumb which he withdrew to place between his lips.

Tasting her. His tongue flicked out, a provocative dart that only she could see, and suddenly it was no longer a game.

‘Shall we?’ he murmured, placing his flat hand low on her back, and Nora went warm all over, steaming up the inside of her coat.

‘Eleanor!’ Ryan’s shocked voice held the hint of an aggrieved whine as she began to move. ‘I thought we were going to talk—’

‘Some other time, Ryan,’ she tossed out carelessly. ‘And, oh!’ She paused beside him, savouring the advantage of her dominating height. ‘I never noticed it before, Ryan, but maybe you should see someone about that thinning patch on the top of your head—it’s a classic sign of premature male-pattern baldness….’

She sashayed on by, leaving Ryan, his hand smoothing uneasily over his crown, staring after them, his face a blotchy rash of angry colour.

‘Beautiful,’ said Blake in admiration as they sauntered out through the glass door, and Nora knew he wasn’t talking about her. ‘Is he really going bald?’ he asked as he summoned the lift.

‘If there’s any justice in the world. Ryan’s very vain about his hair. He’ll drive himself crazy worrying about it.’

‘Probably feel insecure about it for the rest of his life.’ The shiny metal doors hissed open and he indicated with the umbrella for her to precede him. ‘You’re clearly a dangerous woman to cross.’

She liked the sound of that. Even the hint of laughter in his voice couldn’t dent her triumphant confidence as she stepped over the threshold. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘In that case I’ll be careful to stay on your good side,’ he said, following her in. ‘Which is it, left or right?’

The wet patch on his shirt was low over his heart, the white cotton sticking transparently to his olive skin, showing the fine tangle of black hair on his chest. She thought she could also see his bronzed nipple, but she wasn’t sure whether it was just a shadow of a curl.

‘Nora?’

‘Hmm?’ Her coat rustled as she started guiltily, gesturing towards his open jacket. ‘I’m awfully sorry about what happened with the wine,’ she said, barely registering the sound of the door sliding shut, enclosing them in a hush of privacy.

He shrugged, dragging the dampened shirt taut across his skin. ‘I’m not; it saved me from a slow drowning in a sea of social platitudes.’ Definitely a nipple, thought Nora dizzily, feeling like a sleazy voyeur for noticing.

‘Since it’s still raining outside, and we’re going to the suite anyway, perhaps you’d prefer to relax there and order dinner from the room service menu,’ he continued, pressing the button for the ground floor and turning to face her.

Nora’s breathing quickened under his quizzical gaze. They both knew there was nothing innocent about his casual offer. It had not escaped him that she had virtually invited herself to his room, and now he was politely testing the waters, asking her to clarify her expectations in terms that a virtuous young lady was safe to misinterpret.

He was letting her know that all she had to do was refuse and the rest of the evening would be conducted under the conventional rules of propriety—a pleasant meal in a public restaurant, a light flirtation…final outcome: uncertain.

But Nora wasn’t feeling virtuous or conventional. She knew that there was no respectable excuse for her to accept his loaded offer; she had already successfully evaded Ryan and salved some of her deeply wounded pride. But that ‘beanpole’ taunt still rankled, and no man had never looked at her in the way that Blake was looking at her now—with a blatant sexual speculation that ate her up with curiosity.

Her stomach flip-flopped as the lift began its rapid descent. She was conscious that he was watching and waiting as she hovered on the brink of the precipice. She hastily turned away, hugging her evening bag to her pounding breast with both hands.

‘I think that sounds—’ The words froze on her tongue as she found herself staring straight out through the rain-smeared glass front of the lift. Everything tilted, her blood roaring in her ears, a metallic taste flooding her mouth, her body going rigid, limbs paralysed with shock. The lights of the city blurred into coloured streamers that lashed back and forth, reaching through the glass, trying to pull her headlong into that rushing void, binding her chest until she was unable to breathe, to think, to save herself from falling, falling…

‘Nora?’ Blake’s sharp voice pierced her consciousness but, encased in an icy block of fear, she was helpless to frame a coherent response, an indistinct mewing sound issuing from her bloodless lips, her fingernails bending as they dug into her bag.

She heard him swear fluently, cursing his own thoughtlessness. A protective arm whipped around her waist, turning her aside from the cold glass, drawing her against the reassuring warmth of human flesh.

‘Don’t look.’

He didn’t understand, she thought, screwing her head sideways in order to keep the mesmerising horror in sight. She couldn’t not look. Imagination was far worse than terrifying reality.

‘Nora, it’s all right, you’re safe with me—you’ve only got to hold on for a little while longer. Close your eyes, if it helps….’

And let the nightmare of falling completely take over? She shook her head violently, a silent scream building up in her throat.

He cursed again and she dimly heard a rattling thud as he dropped her furled umbrella. ‘Nora, stop looking down—’He grasped her jaw in his hand, far more roughly than he had at the party, and forced her eyes to meet his compelling gaze. ‘Don’t worry about what’s out there…look at me.’

Her head jerked in mindless panic. ‘I can’t—’

Instead of impatiently snapping at her to pull herself together, as Ryan had done whenever she had revealed her weakness, he firmed his grip, his voice quiet, slow and forceful. ‘Yes, you can. Focus on me. Concentrate. Breathe deeply and think of something else, something you want more than anything—’

‘Like what?’ she choked despairingly, her slender body beginning to ripple with chills, the blood draining from her extremities to warm her icy core.

His eyes fell to her mouth and blazed with a fierce determination. ‘Like this…’

He bent his head, blotting out the world, his mouth crushing down on her cold lips, sealing in her ragged breath, invading her with his masculine heat and iron will sheathed in a wet velvet tongue. The arm around her waist slid down and tightened, arching her hips against the centre of his body, his other hand flattening between her shoulderblades, his palm hot against her bare skin as he locked her to his chest, trapping her folded arms between their bodies, leaving her helpless to resist his devouring hunger. The assault was sudden and brutal, an erotic smash-and-grab raid which swamped her fear in a flood of pleasure, robbing her of everything but the desperate need to feel him thrust harder, hotter, deeper inside her…

He cupped her head, changing the angle of his kiss to allow him deeper access, smothering her with his scent, his taste, sucking at her lower lip, scraping at her with his teeth, luring her tongue into a seductive battle inside his mouth, battering her with violently delightful sensations.

She squirmed to get closer, her chills turned to a raging fever, burning away her inhibitions, her awareness of time and place. She groaned as she felt him subtly pull back from the kiss, but it was only to allow her to free her arms. Her evening bag plopped unnoticed on top of her umbrella as her hands slid eagerly up under the back of his jacket, fingers clawing at the soft cotton of his shirt, her short-trimmed nails biting into his hot skin through the thin fabric.

His muscles tensed and he growled a warning deep in his throat, the sound of a hungry male predator staking claim over his captive prey. A new, entirely delicious fear feathered along Nora’s nerves and she flexed her nails again, revelling in his lightning-swift response to the feline goad. She gasped, the sound lost in his plundering mouth as he unleashed another burst of aggressive passion, prowling her backwards until her shoulders hit the padded corner of the lift, caging her there with his lean, hard body while he greedily satisfied her feminine curiosity. His hands slid to her waist, anchoring her to the wall, then sliding up to splay over the slight curve of her breasts, his fingertips curling into the top edge of her dress as if he would wrench it down, his hard knee pushing between her legs, his strong, sinewy thigh jamming itself intimately against the melting centre of her body.

‘Uh, excuse me…’

A polite cough had Blake wrenching his mouth from hers and for a few thundering heartbeats he stared at her, his breathing uneven, his grey eyes slightly stunned, his expression tight.

‘Excuse me, Mr MacLeod, but I need to let the lift go. Were you intending to get off here—or um…?’

Blake spun around and Nora flushed to the roots of her hair as she straightened and met the brightly curious stare of the liveried young man who was politely restraining the twitch of the automatic doors.

She hadn’t even been aware of the lift coming to a halt, let alone the doors opening. The whole journey had probably taken less than thirty seconds but she felt as if she had acquired the experience of a lifetime!

CHAPTER FOUR

TO HIDE her blushing confusion Nora ducked to pick up her umbrella and freshly abused evening bag, sending up a silent prayer of thanks that it hadn’t broken its makeshift wire catch. When she looked up again it was to see Blake tucking something into the young man’s breast pocket, murmuring a low-voiced remark into his reddened ear before turning back to place a guiding hand under Nora’s elbow.

‘What were you saying to him?’ she asked breathlessly, her heels wobbling to keep pace with his long impatient strides.

‘I merely reminded him that as a regular visitor I know I can rely on his discretion,’ he said, leading her on to the escalator that would take them up to the main entrance to the casino complex.

‘You were paying him to keep his mouth shut,’ she guessed, not sure whether to be admiring or disapproving.

‘Merely a small token of my appreciation,’ he demurred. ‘I also suggested that he share his bounty with the person who monitors the security cameras.’

‘Th-There was a camera in the lift?’ she stammered, blushing anew as she imagined her passionate frenzy splashed across a flickering screen somewhere in the bowels of the building. ‘I hope we don’t turn up on some “caught on video” reality programme,’ she muttered shakily.

‘I don’t think they’d be interested in anything so tame.’

‘Tame?’ Nora stared at him wide-eyed, her fingers tightening nervously on the moving hand-rail.

‘We kept our clothes on,’ he pointed out as they reached the top of the escalator.

‘Oh, yes, of course…’ she muttered, slightly reassured.

‘Although I must admit it was touch and go there for a moment,’ he added slyly, and Nora gave a little yelp as she mistimed her step off the moving pad, hooking her heel on the metal rim and lurching drunkenly against him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ultra-conscious of the coiled tension in his flexing muscles. ‘I—I guess I’m still feeling a bit weak at the knees—’

He didn’t even break stride, his hand sliding from her elbow to her wrist, supporting the full weight of her stumble with his braced forearm. ‘I’m flattered.’

His confident amusement ruffled her pride. ‘I was talking about the lift!’

‘So was I,’ he drawled, negotiating what seemed like a maze of pillars and walkways at a pace which had Nora’s loose coat billowing out behind her and rendered her even more breathless and light-headed. Blake MacLeod was clearly a very goal-orientated man, as decisive in his actions as he was in his ideas. Swept up in his whirlwind energy, Nora wondered darkly whether any woman had ever succeeded in making him weak at the knees.

He slowed down slightly, only because they had reached the plush hotel foyer and were approaching a bank of lifts. The door to one of the lifts instantly hummed open, as if to his silent decree.

‘Open sesame!’ Nora murmured, contemplating the empty, elegantly lit interior with a frisson of alarm.

‘How fortunate for both of us that you know the secret password.’ Blake distracted her with his sensuous purr, using his body to shepherd her gently over the threshold.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that cracking passwords was one of her professional specialities, but that would be far too prosaic. ‘I thought everyone did,’ she said huskily.

‘Only those conversant with The Arabian Nights. And knowing what words to say is useless unless you know where and when to say them. You enjoy romantic tales of the imagination?’ he asked, moving over to the control panel.

‘It beats reality any day,’ she said with a wry twist of her mouth.

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