Wanting
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘RACE Williams is going to be there tonight—I wonder what he’s like? Thirty-four is very young to be given overall control of the entire documentary section. He used to be a reporter, you know, before he started writing.’

‘Does Terry know about this burgeoning hero-worship for your new boss?’ Heather Martin asked her cousin dryly, surveying her petite form and clustering blonde curls.

No two girls could have been less alike. While Jennifer was petite and dainty, Heather stood five feet ten inches in her bare feet, her dark cloud of hair and long green eyes adding up to a gypsy sensuality that came across well when she was photographed. It was virtually impossible to open a magazine without seeing her own face, and she had grown used to other people’s reaction to her startling good looks. She had been modelling for three years, ever since she was twenty-one, and just recently had begun to wonder what the future held. She was currently on the short list for a prestige modelling job, promoting a brand new range of up-market cosmetics, but her real love was writing, and for the last few years she had been gathering material for her book. All she needed now was the time to write it.

‘Terry says Race has asked him about you,’ Jennifer announced, watching her reaction to her announcement. Terry was the art director of the television company Jennifer worked for—a new independent company which was fast gaining an excellent reputation, and which had recently ‘head-hunted’ Race Williams, whose reputation in the field of hard-fact documentary work was well known. He had been a Fleet Street reporter, before turning to writing ‘factional’ novels, and Jennifer, to judge by the amount of time she spent talking about him, seemed to be developing a crush on him.

Despite the fact that Jennifer was two years her senior, at twenty-four Heather was easily the more mature. She had lived with Jennifer, her twin brothers and her aunt and uncle since the deaths of her own parents when she was thirteen. Her father had been an explorer, her mother his researcher, and they had both been killed in an avalanche in the Andes, and Heather had never ceased to mourn their loss. Kind though her aunt and uncle were, she had always felt like a cuckoo in the nest, towering above her aunt and Jennifer, and even the twins until they suddenly started to shoot up at eighteen. Her height had always made her feel vulnerable. At school she had been the butt of cruel jokes, easily the tallest girl in the class, and she had been well on the way to developing a complex about it when she met Brad.

Brad! Her mouth tightened ominously. She had met him when she was seventeen and studying for her ‘A’ levels. He had just left school and started at university. He was a friend of the twins, and she hadn’t been able to believe it when he started paying attention to her, asking her for dates. He was the first boy-friend she had ever had; the first boy ever to pay her the slightest attention, and under it she blossomed.

Her aunt had been delighted but concerned. Heather remembered vividly an occasion when her aunt had taken her on one side and stumbled through a muddled speech about not taking Brad too seriously. She hadn’t listened. Brad loved her, he had told her so, and in her innocence and vulnerability she had thought he meant it, opening to him all the secrets of her heart and mind, content to let him dictate the pace of their relationship. She had never entered the giggled sexual discussions of her peers; she had always been an outsider, and Jennifer, in whom she might have confided, was already away at university. Brad made teasingly light love to her, and she had thought it was because he loved her that he only went so far. God, how naïve she had been!

She had found out the truth quite by accident. She and Brad had been invited to a party—a friend of Brad’s, and she had gone into the kitchen looking for a drink of water. She wasn’t used to alcohol, and the punch she had been given had made her acutely thirsty. She had seen Brad in the kitchen, talking to one of his friends as she approached, and was just about to greet him when she heard his friend ask, ‘Who’s the new girl? Hardly your type—all those muscles! What’s she like in bed?’

She remembered how vividly she had coloured, embarrassed by the other boy’s frankness, but nothing had prepared her for the cruelty of Brad’s response.

‘Who cares?’ he had responded carelessly. ‘Personally I prefer my women small and cuddly, but she’s got a fortune coming to her on her twenty-first birthday, and I aim to make sure that by then she’s my wife; I can always enjoy myself on the side.’

Heather hadn’t stayed to listen to any more. It was true that she was to inherit a good deal of money from her parents’ estate, but the thought that Brad deliberately intended to marry her for her money was something she found a bitter pill to accept. She hadn’t said anything when he took her home; some deep-seated instinct warned her against letting him see how badly she was hurt. In fact she hadn’t told anyone what she had overheard, but it had festered, aching inside her, giving her the strength to remain cool and aloof when she told Brad she didn’t want to go out with him again.

He had been persistent, she gave him that, but she remained resolute, deriving a bitter satisfaction from the thought that he would never know just how much it cost her to refuse him. She had loved him; trusted him; revealed her innermost thoughts and hopes to him believing he returned her feelings. Well, she would never let it happen again.

It had been Neil, her cousin, who had suggested she take up modelling. He was a very keen photographer and his photographs had won a competition in their local paper. With the encouragement of her family Heather had approached one of the well known model agencies, who had agreed with Neil’s judgment. Only to herself was Heather prepared to admit that her fierce determination to succeed had sprung from the pain she experienced when Brad derided her. She was consumed by a need to prove to him and the world at large that she was desirable, and she had proved it.

She smiled without mirth, thinking of the number of proposals and propositions she had received in the last three years, but none of them had touched her. They weren’t from men who loved her, who cared genuinely and deeply about her, all they had been interested in was the satisfaction of their own desire. Oh, they might wrap it up in pretty words and compliments, but Heather knew better. And now here was Jennifer telling her that Race Williams had been making enquiries about her.

She wasn’t totally surprised. As a model she was used to the interest she aroused in men. Only she knew that inside the cool detachment she showed to the outside world she was still the same vulnerable, hurting girl who had stood in the shadows and listened to the person she loved destroying her world.

‘What did Race Williams want to know about me?’ she asked her cousin. They were both eating their evening meal. Heather didn’t need to diet to keep her lissom shape, and she drank her coffee, grateful for its fragrant warmth as Jennifer studied her.

‘Oh, the usual things,’ she grinned, ‘were you attached, etc., etc. Terry must have told him you were my cousin….’ She saw the look on Heather’s face and warned anxiously, ‘Heather, he isn’t one of your usual men, you can’t play the same games with him you do with them.’

‘Games?’ Heather raised one immaculate eyebrow.

‘Come off it, you know what I mean,’ Jennifer interrupted crossly. ‘Look, honey, I’ve seen you in action; the come-on and then the put-down; the whole bit. There hasn’t been a man in your life since Brad who’s even come close to touching your emotions, but with every one you let them think you’ve fallen—hard—and then you pull the rug out from under.’

Heather frowned at this accurate and rather unattractive picture her cousin drew. ‘Oh, look, I’m not criticising,’ Jennifer assured her, ‘far from it, I’m just saying that Race Williams isn’t like all the others. He’s hard, Heather, and he won’t let you get away with it, so if that’s what you’re planning on doing, don’t, please.’

‘I wasn’t planning on doing anything,’ Heather assured her cousin. It was true, Heather always let the men do the running, and not until she was sure they deserved it did she let them see her contempt for them. They were all the same; all so egotistically sure of themselves and her ultimate surrender to them that they deserved the treatment she handed out.

‘When do you get to hear about the Rio contract?’ Jennifer asked her, changing the subject.

‘Oh, I think they’re making the final decision within the next few days. Four of us are shortlisted, and I’m the only brunette.’

‘They’re bound to choose you,’ Jennifer assured her warmly. ‘You’re so right for the image they want to promote.’

Privately Heather agreed, and she had already made up her mind that if she got this contract it would be her last. She would retire and concentrate on her book. She knew there had been a considerable degree of speculation in the fashion press about the contract and she was hotly tipped as favourite.

‘Come on, time to get ready,’ announced Jennifer, getting up. The party was to celebrate the television company’s first year in business and the appointment of Race Williams. Jennifer’s invitation had extended to cover a friend and Heather had agreed to go with her. One of the shareholders in the TV company was also a shareholder in Rio, and a little public relations work wouldn’t come amiss. Not that Heather ever used either her beauty or her body to further her career. It was the inviolateness of her body and mind that gave her the power to destroy the male sex; her strength came from the fact that secretly she despised them. She was glad Brad had left her a virgin, she thought fiercely, and she intended to stay that way, giving nothing of herself to any man, because giving meant receiving pain in return; and she’d had enough of that.

In her room she abandoned her thoughts and studied her reflection with professional scrutiny. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes set wide apart, deeply green and tilted at the corners, her mouth warmly curved, her cloud of dark hair reaching down on to her shoulders. Hers was a sensual face, one which was used to market goods with a high degree of sexual appeal, but inwardly Heather felt her nature was completely at odds with her looks. Inwardly she was as cold and devoid of sensuality as a lump of ice, and it was this that made it so easy for her to revenge herself on the male sex; they took one look at her face and her tall languidly curved body and mentally docketed her as ‘easy’. She laughed mirthlessly. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and in time, with varying degrees of humiliation, they all discovered it. She had perfected a form of put-down that sliced into the delicate male ego like a knife through butter, and every time the look in their eyes was the same. But best of all, they never warned the next victim; never admitted their humiliation, leaving her free to repeat the whole process over and over again. She smiled when she read the names of her supposed ‘lovers’ in the press, smiled in genuine amusement, her reputation protected her from men who might have found her virginity a challenge they would commit rape to overcome, and that was the way she liked it.

Her dress for the evening was in fine black matt jersey; striking décolleté, sweeping down to her waist at the front revealing the smooth cream flesh of her rounded breasts and the narrow vulnerability of her rib cage. At the back it exposed her body right down to the base of her spine and it fitted her like another layer of skin. An advantage of her height was that she was able to carry off the ripe fullness of her breasts without seeming badly proportioned, their curves in direct contrast to the narrowness of her hips and the slender length of her legs. Black silk panties were the only thing she wore under her dress. Her legs were still slightly tanned from her last modelling trip abroad, her toenails painted a deeply vibrant pink.

So Race Williams had been asking about her… Heather quickly collated all that she knew about him. They had never met, she had no idea what he looked like, but the gossip columnists loved him; he had featured as an escort of many beautiful women, and he had a reputation for ending his affairs when they began to bore him that made her eyes gleam and harden with the anticipation of battle. It would be very pleasant to humiliate a man like that; a man who treated her sex so contemptuously. Perhaps he was already contemplating making her his latest conquest. The thought wasn’t formed through vanity—what man would want the girl she had been, the vulnerable woman she still was inside? Oh no, she didn’t delude herself on that issue. What Race Williams and men like him wanted was the outer shell she presented to the world; the looks that adorned the covers of magazines; the kudos of escorting a newsworthy female; or possessing her and subjugating her to their male power.

‘Heather, are you ready yet?’ she heard Jennifer call outside her door. ‘The taxi will be here soon!’

Quickly completing her make-up, Heather brushed her hair, watching it billow on to her bare shoulders, recognising the glitter in her eyes and the colour gleaming on her cheekbones, and knowing the reason for them.

‘Thank God Terry likes small blondes,’ Jennifer pronounced piously as Heather opened the door. ‘My God, you’re really going to town tonight!’ She watched as Heather slipped on high-heeled sandals, wondering how tall Race Williams was. In her high heels she topped six foot, and it always amused her to witness a man’s initial reaction to that fact. Some, she knew, found her height sexually exciting, visualising her as some sort of Amazon in bed, and initially she was careful not to disillusion them.

‘You’ll need your fur jacket,’ Jennifer told her, ‘the temperature was starting to drop when I came in. I hate January and February,’ she added, shuddering, ‘and we’re only just into January—brrr!’

Laughing, Heather reached inside her wardrobe for her jacket. Both girls had been presented with them as Christmas presents that year. Jennifer’s was a soft silky blue fox which suited her fair colouring, and Heather’s a richly dark silver fox, in which her uncle had told her fondly that she looked magnificent. Dear Uncle Bob; he and the twins were the only men she actually liked and felt at ease with. The twins were as close to her as brothers and her aunt and uncle had taken the place of her deceased parents, but still there was this sense of loss, of not truly belonging, of always, somehow, being on the outside. Which was why she had responded so passionately to Brad’s attentions; needing the commitment of sharing her feeling with someone else; needing to feel ‘special’ to another person. She sighed, pushing away all thoughts of the past, following Jennifer outside.

The television studio was several miles from their flat and they arrived to find it well lit, the car-park full of expensive, prestige pieces of metal. Male toys needed to boost fragile male egos.

The commissionaire recognised Jennifer and welcomed her with a grin, but it was on Heather that his eyes lingered admiringly.

‘Another conquest,’ Jennifer murmured as they got in the lift. ‘Oh, don’t look like that—I’m not a fool, Heather,’ she told her cousin. ‘I know you don’t give a damn for any of those men you go out with. I also know that when you’re supposed to be having mad flings with them, you’re tucked up safely in your own virginal bed.’ She saw Heather’s expression and said quietly, ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Without waiting for an answer she went on, ‘I’m not going to pry, but Heather, you’re heading for trouble, honey. One day a man’s going to come along who you can’t play with, and he’s going to think it’s all for real. By the time he finds out the truth, it’s going to be too late. You know what I’m trying to say, don’t you?’

‘Yes, and you needn’t worry. I’m immune to sexual come-ons, Jen; frigid, if you prefer me to use that term.’

‘Frigid? Or frightened?’ Jennifer asked acutely as they stepped out of the lift. ‘I’m two years older than you, cos, and I can remember quite vividly how shy and sensitive you were in your teens. That girl hasn’t completely disappeared. I know you, you’re already plotting the downfall of the next poor victim, but take care the roles aren’t reversed—if you’re thinking in terms of Race Williams, remember he eats women for breakfast!’

‘And changes them as frequently as he changes his pure silk shirts—yes, I know, but I never make the running, Jen. If Race Williams wants me he’s going to have to let me know it.’

‘And once he does you’re going to put him down, humiliate him like you’ve done the others. Heather, I’ve watched you. Oh, you’ve got away with it because none of them want to admit the truth, but Race Williams isn’t like that. He’s tough, and he’s got a temper. He doesn’t play the game by the rules, and with him civilisation is just a veneer.’

‘You seem to know a lot about him,’ commented Heather.

‘I’ve heard the rumours, Terry knows him quite well. They were at Oxford together, apparently.’

‘Bully for Terry,’ Heather muttered in a voice that made her cousin raise her eyebrows, although she refrained from saying anything because the lift doors had opened and half a dozen people were already milling around in the small space outside.

‘We’ll leave our jackets in my office,’ Jennifer told her. ‘The cloakroom’s only small and it will be crowded.’ Jennifer’s office was a bare room at the end of a long corridor, and Heather was familiar with it from previous visits. She took off her jacket, hanging it in the small cupboard, waiting patiently while Jennifer checked her make-up without even looking at her own.

‘Okay, that’s it,’ Jennifer announced when she had finished applying her lipstick. ‘I warned Terry to save us a table and I told him what time we were arriving, so with a bit of luck he should have got us drinks.’

Heather knew Terry Brady quite well. Jennifer had flitted from man to man like a bee in search of honey until she met Terry, with whom she swore she had fallen in love at first sight. At the moment she wasn’t sure whether he returned her feelings, but she was determined to give him every opportunity to find out.

The moment they entered the crowded studio which was being used for the party Heather spotted Terry. He was sitting at a table with another man, his fair head turned towards him. As though he knew they were there his companion lifted his head and looked towards them, his eyes riveted on Heather’s face. For some reason she was consumed by a wave of heat, burning slowly up her body, leaving her feeling as though she had been completely robbed of energy. Although he was too far away for her to study properly, Heather had a vivid impression of darkly male features; a face stamped with arrogance and masculinity, dark hair growing low over a white shirt collar, lean brown hands and the shocking and inescapable feeling that he had just slowly and thoroughly removed her clothes arid then caressed every inch of the skin he had revealed.

‘Can you see Terry?’ Jennifer asked her, standing on tiptoe.

‘No, but I have seen someone I want to talk to, an old friend,’ she fibbed. ‘Look, why don’t you go and look for Terry, and then I’ll come and find you later.’

Jennifer squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I wish you’d come with me,’ she protested, adding hurriedly, ‘Well, Race asked Terry if you were coming, and he suggested we make up a foursome. They’ll be waiting for us, and….’

‘I thought you’d just warned me against him?’ Heather reminded her cousin wryly.

‘Against trying to make a fool of him,’ Jennifer shot back. ‘Look, he only wants to meet you….’

‘To meet me, presumably as a prelude to bedding me,’ Heather agreed bluntly. ‘Look, I’m sorry if it embarrasses you, but I’m not going to be manipulated. I’ll join you later when I’ve spoken to Donna.’

So Race Williams wanted to meet her, did he? Her heart contracted on a fierce wave of anger as she remembered the look Terry’s companion had given her. He had to be Race Williams, she was sure of it, and equally sure that there was no way she was going to be manoeuvred into spending the evening with him. If he wanted her, then let him find out the hard way, as others had done before him, that he was going to have to work hard at trying to get her. And he did want her—she had seen it in the look he gave her. It had been ferrociously sexual, and not simply sexual, there had been a hint of possession which sent fear coiling along her spine, even while she shrugged it aside. Heavens, there was nothing to be afraid of, he represented nothing she couldn’t handle, just as she had handled men like him before.

Eventually Jennifer left, plainly none too happy about doing so, and Heather was free to walk in the direction of the bar. She was stopped half a dozen times by people who recognised her, all of them male, and she parried their questions and compliments with her cool, languorous smile, never realising that the languor beneath the ice was what fired their blood, and excited their masculinity.

From the vantage point of her height she was able to see Terry’s table relatively clearly, although she took good care to study it discreetly. Race Williams had his back to her. She watched him stand up as Jennifer approached, Terry frowning slightly and then glancing around the room.

Poor Terry—she hoped her non-appearance wouldn’t count as a black mark against him. She had already decided that she was going to leave just as soon as she could order a taxi, unwilling as yet to analyse the instinct for flight rather than fight.

As she watched Heather saw Race Williams get up and disappear, presumably going to the bar, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. Now was her opportunity to make her escape. Escape? She was being rather dramatic, wasn’t she?

She found the corridor leading to Jennifer’s office without too much difficulty, not bothering to switch on the light as she walked inside. She was just reaching for her jacket when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled warningly and she swung round, her heart thudding as she found herself confronted by the very man she wanted to avoid.

He was taller than she had imagined, six four at least, arms folded across his chest, his lean body completely at ease as he rested against the door, blocking her exit.

‘Leaving already?’ he drawled.

‘I have a headache,’ she smiled, keeping her voice even and pleasant. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, deliberately casual, ‘I don’t believe we’ve met….’

He snapped on the light, almost blinding her with its brilliance, his mouth creasing into a humourless smile as he drawled mockingly, ‘Nice try, Heather, but it won’t work. You know who I am, just as I know who you are. Terry’s told me a good deal about you.’

‘Terry?’

‘Umm, I asked him. You see, I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite a long time. You’re a very beautiful woman,’ he added softly, ‘and extremely desirable…. I’d very much like to go to bed with you.’

Heather hid the anger she could feel boiling up inside her.

‘But then you already know that, don’t you?’ Race Williams continued in a smokily seductive voice. ‘You knew that the moment you saw me tonight. What I don’t understand is why that knowledge made you run away from me. Because you are running, aren’t you?’ He laughed softly when she didn’t answer. ‘You’re giving me a psychological advantage, Heather. Why are you frightened of me?’

‘I’m not,’ Heather retorted coolly, gathering her scattered wits, ‘and neither am I running.’

‘Then come back to the studio and dance with me. Something tells me we’d move very well together, you and I.’

She forced herself not to acknowledge the sexual undertones of his comment.

‘I hear you’re in the running for the Rio contract,’ he commented, suddenly changing the subject, relaxing the sexual pressure, she recognised suspiciously, wondering at the change in tactics. ‘Do you want the contract?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be in the running, as you put it, would I?’

‘And you’re hot favourite to get it. I can see why, but the competition is pretty tough. I hear you’re also a writer.’

Heather’s eyes hardened. Damn Jennifer and her careless tongue! She hated anyone knowing about her writing. The family knew, of course, but that was all. She had been a dreamy adolescent when she first knew she wanted to write, and the urge had never left her.

‘I’m interested in lots of things,’ was her careful answer, but she wished she hadn’t given it, when he agreed laconically.

‘My sex being one of them, so I hear. You go through men like other women go through pairs of tights.’

‘Perhaps I’m choosy.’

‘Then choose me.’ Suddenly he had closed the distance between them, and she was intimately aware of the heat coming off his body, the desire glittering in the dark grey eyes as they roamed restlessly over her. Fear knifed through her, a sharp throat-gagging fear she had never experienced before and which held her motionless as his hands slid down her shoulders, exploring the shape and texture of her back, forcing her against the unwanted intimacy of his body, making her burningly aware of the power and maleness of him, her mind fastidiously outraged by the pulsating hardness of his body when his hands gripped her hips. She shouldn’t have come here, she should have made sure he hadn’t seen her leave the studio. Here they were alone and there was no way she could fight him.

‘I want you, Heather.’ Race Williams kept on saying it as though saying the words reinforced his belief that he had every right to take what he wanted. Heather could feel her body tensing, recoiling from his, fear coiling through her stomach, acrid on her tongue. He bent his head and she knew he was going to kiss her.

She forced her body to relax, wrenching herself out of his arms as he relaxed his grip, and snatching up her coat, turned for the door.

‘Well, I don’t want you!’ she told him furiously, cool disparagement forgotten as rage flicked through her veins. How dared he assume that she was his simply for the taking, that he could state his desire and blandly assume she would assauge it! ‘Men like you make me sick,’ she told him in a low voice, the pent-up loathing of years thickening it until it was only a husky whisper, her eyes emerald in her pale face. ‘If you want a toy to play with, go buy yourself a Barbie doll! I’m fussy about the men who share my life.’

‘That wasn’t the way I heard it.’ They faced one another like two antagonists. Heather could see the rage simmering in the molten heat of his eyes sharpened by sexual frustration, the intensity of his emotions half frightening her as she watched him, wary as any animal scenting the hunter.

‘I want you,’ he repeated thickly, ‘and I damn well mean to have you….’

‘Never!’ The denial was out before she could silence it, lying between them like a gage, anger and frustration mingling in his expression, his chest rising and falling as though he had been running. Without pausing to think Heather turned, running down the corridor and out into the foyer, pressing the button for the lift. Jennifer would wonder what had happened to her, but she would just have to wonder. She glanced over her shoulder half expecting to find that Race had followed her, but there was no sign of him. He was probably still trying to come to terms with the blow she had just dealt his mammoth self-esteem.

She could hardly believe he was real, she thought, mentally re-living their conversation. Had he actually thought all he had to do was say he wanted her for her to fall into his arms? Was that what normally happened? There was a raw maleness about him that some women might find appealing, an overt sexuality that she found totally repelling, frightening almost, but that other women might enjoy. His arrogant assumption that she was his simply for the asking still had the power to stun her. She had met some self-assured men in her time, but they had nothing on him. No wonder Jennifer had warned her against him!

Well, she needn’t worry, Heather thought grimly as she got out of the lift and asked the commissionaire to get her a taxi. There was simply no way she was ever going to get within a mile of Race Williams knowingly again.

He had frightened her—she could admit that from the sanctuary of her taxi. His determination had overwhelmed her, threatening all her carefully erected barriers. He wasn’t a man she could lead on and then drop, he wouldn’t stand by and let her dismiss him.

She was in bed but awake when Jennifer came in, and called out to her. Jennifer looked defensive and slightly guilty when she walked in.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised without Heather having to speak, ‘but he made Terry promise to introduce you to him. He was furious when I turned up without you. He went looking for you.’

‘And found me,’ Heather told her grimly. ‘It’s high time someone taught Mr Race Williams that he can’t get everything he wants simply by demanding it. Relax,’ she added when she saw Jennifer’s face, ‘I value my skin far too much to try it.’

‘He wants you, Heather,’ Jennifer told her uneasily, ‘and he won’t let go. He kept on asking me about you. It was frightening… he’s almost obsessive about you. Perhaps you ought to go out with him, let him see what you’re really like—behind the model-girl mask. He likes sophisticated worldly women, when he realises what you’re really like….’

‘I don’t want to hear another word about him,’ Heather told her, pulling the bedclothes over her head. ‘Not another word.’

CHAPTER TWO

THE phone rang and Heather jumped, eyeing it dubiously. She had been tense all day, and all because of Race Williams. The desire she had seen flaming in his eyes had unnerved her. She wasn’t a stranger to men’s desire, she reminded herself, and he wasn’t the first man to make it plain to her in a first meeting that he wanted her, it happened all the time, but there was something different about him; an intensity and determination that alarmed her.

She picked up the receiver at the fourth ring, relieved to hear her agent’s voice on the other end. ‘Good news, I think,’ he told her, ‘You’ve been summoned for another interview for the Rio contract. One of the directors this time. I’ll give you the address. They want you there at three o’clock sharp. I haven’t heard of any of the others being sent for, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.’

Heather replaced the receiver and glanced into the hall mirror. Her reflection looked unfamiliar, her eyes dark and clouded, her mouth tremulously full, intensifying the sensual attraction of her features. She knew she ought to be feeling glad about the interview, but instead she merely felt restless, impatient with the constant round of interviews; of move and counter-move, and she yearned to be free to be herself, not a marketable commodity.

Nevertheless she went into her room and carefully selected the outfit she would wear for the interview. The Rio cosmetics range was essentially glamour cosmetics and that was the image she would have to project. She chose a black suit, the skirt fitted and fairly short. The jacket was tailored to follow the lines of her body, flaring out gently just below the waist, the sleeves slightly full. With it she wore a white silk blouse, and Dior stockings. She swept her hair up into a chignon and sat down to put on her hat, carefully arranging its spotted net veil. The finished effect was one of carefully contrived sophistication underlining her sensuality. Jennifer, who had the day off, came in loaded down with shopping just as she went into the living room. ‘Wow’, she exclaimed with a grin. ‘What’s the big occasion.’

Heather told her.

‘Umm, well you should get top marks for that outfit, especially if it’s a man. It simply shrieks sexy underwear,’ she added obliquely, but Heather knew what she meant, and said dryly that that was the whole idea.

The address she had been given was in Mayfair, and she managed to find a taxi to take her there without too much difficulty. A manservant opened the door to her ring, showing her into some sort of waiting room, its furnishings as uninspiring as those in any busy doctor’s surgery. In the distance Heather could hear someone typing, and she sat down, trying to empty her mind and concentrate on the interview ahead. There had been half a dozen of them already. Rio was a new concept and the directors seemed unable to agree on exactly what image they wished to project. Ten and then fifteen minutes ticked by, and her thoughts strayed back to the previous evening. She could feel the tension and anger rising inside her as she remembered the way Race Williams had looked and talked. She had met men like him before, she reminded herself, men who thought women existed solely for their pleasure; and she detested them. This man was not so different, merely more dangerously sensual; more explicit in his intentions. She quelled a briefly impulsive desire to puncture his conceit, to destroy the monstrous ego that made him think his attentions might be welcomed.

What kind of a woman did he think she was? She grimaced. She already knew the answer to that one, and curiously enough resented the reasoning behind it with an intensity that startled her. She glanced at her watch and tapped her foot impatiently. Why was she being kept waiting like this? She got up and opened the door, the hall was empty, the sound of typing louder. Frowning Heather listened to it. Perhaps they had forgotten about her?

Without giving herself time too think she marched towards the door behind which she could hear the typewriter and knocked, her eyes widening in stunned shock as she saw the man sitting behind the large desk.

‘I’m sorry Heather,’ he apologised blandly. ‘Did you think I’d forgotten about you?’

‘You!’ It was all Heather could manage to say. What was Race Williams doing here? ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded baldly, ‘I’ve….’

‘You’ve come to see one of the directors of Rio, he interrupted smoothly, ‘Quite right. That’s me.’ He rose from the desk and came to stand in front of it, leaning back, arms folded as he studied her. ‘Very nice,’ he added when he had finished. ‘Not quite as provocative as what you were wearing last night. You must wear that dress for me again Heather,’ he added softly. ‘What there was of it made me ache to take it off you.’ His eyes rested on her breasts and to Heather’s furious confusion she felt their involuntary response and knew without having to look down; without hearing his soft, satisfied laugh, that her nipples were tautly outlined against the thin fabric of her suit.

‘You tricked me into coming here,’ Heather ground out, turning back to the door, ‘I….’

‘Not really,’ he said smoothly. ‘I am a director of Rio with enough shares to make sure you get the contract, if….’

‘If?’ She turned to stare at him, hardly able to believe she was not imagining that delicate pause; hardly able to accept that he was actually going to say what she suspected.

‘I’ve done a little more research on you since last night, Heather,’ he told her softly. ‘And from what I’ve learned it seems plain that you and I got off on the wrong foot. Now, if I were to promise you that you would get the modelling contract for Rio, I’m sure….’

‘It would persuade me to go to bed with you?’ Heather inserted, hardly knowing how she kept from screaming the words at him.

‘Oh I wouldn’t put it as crudely as that. Let’s just say I’m sure you’re nothing like as hard as your detractors suggest, and that pure kind-heartedness would persuade you to assuage my… desire?’

Dear God, she didn’t believe this. ‘You mean you’ll give me the Rio contract if I go to bed with you?’ she said bluntly. ‘For how long?’

‘For as long as it takes,’ he said gently. For as long as it took for him to grow tired of her he must mean. She started to shake with repressed rage. How dare he insult her like this; how dare he suppose even for one moment that she was for sale?

‘And if I agree?’ Some biting urge to discover just how avaricious he actually thought she was prompted her to go on. ‘What proof do I have that….’

He looked at the phone. ‘I’ll arrange it whilst you’re here, provided you make a small down payment as proof of sincerity first,’ he added mildly.

‘I can’t believe you mean this,’ she said the words to herself more than to him but he heard her and his face tightened.

‘Oh, believe me, I do,’ he said softly. ‘You ran from me last night Heather, you made it plain just how much you loathed the thought of me. You rejected me—publicly. Publicly…’ he continued when she would have interrupted, ‘Terry knows… Jennifer knows. I’m not a man who likes being humiliated.’

If that was the case he shouldn’t have assumed that she would simply fall into his arms, Heather thought feverishly.

‘You need that contract,’ he told her. ‘As models go, you’ve reached your peak. This contract will set you up nicely for the rest of your life.’ He obviously didn’t know that she had money of her own, Heather decided; and that she could easily afford to fling his threats back in his face.

‘And if I don’t agree to become your… mistress, you’ll make sure I don’t get the contract.’

‘Clever girl,’ he mocked.

‘But why me?’

‘Why not me?’ he encountered. ‘What have all the other men in your life had that I don’t?’

If she told him he’d never believe her, Heather thought watching him silently menacing her, waiting for her to fall into his trap.

‘Come on Heather,’ he said grimly, suddenly very much at the end of his patience. ‘What difference can one more man make, and think of the benefits?’

‘I’m surprised you’re prepared to go to such lengths,’ she said dryly, trying to buy time to think. ‘I shouldn’t have thought a man like you would need to go to them to get female companionship.’

‘I don’t, normally, and I doubt I would now, if it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t like being made a fool of,’ he told her, his face hardening. ‘Everyone saw the way you avoided me last night; and half of them knew I’d deliberately set things up so that I could meet you… and like I said,’ his eyes rested on her body. ‘I want you.’

Well, you’re not having me. The words were on the tip of Heather’s tongue, but she suppressed them. No. She’d played along with him for a while; let him think he’d won her and then…. A tiny inner voice warned her that she was playing with fire, but she ignored it.

‘So it would seem,’ she agreed, dropping her voice to a soft purr.

‘And I’ll make you want me,’ he told her.

Did he honestly think he could? She almost laughed aloud. Here at least she was safe. ‘You think so?’

‘I know so.’

His arrogance almost robbed her of breath.

‘Come on, Heather, let’s stop playing games. I know the sort of woman you are, and your type doesn’t normally appeal to me, but there’s something about you, and it’s got right under my skin. You make me itch to possess you,’ he told her frankly.

‘I wonder what your co-directors would say if they knew about the offer you’ve made me?’ she murmured coolly.

He laughed. ‘If you’re threatening to tell them, I shouldn’t bother. You see, Heather, they’ve already made their choice and it isn’t you, but as I’m the major shareholder I can make them change that choice. If you go running to them, all they’ll do is assume it’s sour grapes.’

Was he telling the truth? What did it matter? She would have liked the contract but not to the extent that she was willing to barter herself for it.

‘Could I have some time to think about it?’ she asked, watching him.

He laughed and shook his head. ‘I promised myself that you’d share my bed last night, Heather, and I don’t take easily to frustration. I want your answer now; and your commitment. But we both know you’re going to say “yes”, don’t we?’ he said easily, infuriating her still further. ‘You’re too greedy to refuse.’

Battening down her anger, Heather looked at him, and then said carefully and clearly, ‘For the last time, there is nothing, no inducement you could offer, that would make me share your bed. Your ego is enormous; your arrogance unbelievable.’ She saw the colour sting along the high cheekbones and continued remorselessly. ‘I don’t need the Rio contract; and even if I did I’d refuse it. You dare to try and blackmail me into bed with you? What kind of man are you….’

‘I’ll show you, shall I?’ he ground out, reaching for her, so quickly that she was caught off guard, his fingers snapping round her wrists, imprisoning her, the strength of their tensile grip too much for her to resist. Suddenly she felt extremely vulnerable, and Heather knew with shocked insight that she had pushed him too far. As he held her she knew exactly what it was to experience fear. For a moment her anger had been so great that she simply hadn’t thought. Despite her height there was simply no way she could free herself from the grip of his hands, and panic, wild, and disordered shot through her, making her struggle frantically, poise and cool control forgotten as she felt the heat coming off his body and knew her struggles were arousing him.

When his body touched hers she shrank from it, shocked by the sensations coursing through her; totally alien and yet in some way, intensely familiar, as though some part of her had always known they were there but had rigorously held them at bay. As she looked up into Race’s eyes she saw his expression change, sharpening, watching; whilst her body started to tremble in primitive response to his touch. She didn’t understand what was happening to her. He was everything she loathed and detested, and yet…

His hands slid from her waist to her back finding and stroking along her spine. She tried to remind herself that Race was simply trying to punish her, but her body refused to listen. The moment he touched her it had been like the beginning of a nightmare; all her defences swept away, not by him, but by her reaction to him. She still hated and loathed everything that he was but he was right; inexplicably, horrifyingly, she wanted him! The knowledge was enough to make her freeze in his arms, hoping that his anger had died down enough for her to reason with him.

‘Heather.’

She heard her name and looked up, gasping as his hands slipped up to her shoulders holding her against his body, his mouth searingly hot against hers, his tongue probing the tense outline of her lips. Her head was swimming with the rage of need suddenly out of control inside her. No man had ever made her feel like this; she didn’t even like him, she kept repeating soundlessly, but her body wasn’t listening. Race had already found the buttons on her shirt, his fingers impatient as he tugged them open, her startled murmur giving him the access he wanted to the moist interior of her mouth. She tried to fight against the insidious pull of the desire she could feel building up inside her, forcing herself to remember why she had come here, but it was as though all her barriers had suddenly come down, as though Race’s touch was the magic key to turn the locks she had always secured against his sex.

And she wasn’t alone in her desire. What had started out as anger had changed swiftly—for both of them. In the heat of his body against hers, she could feel his arousal; see it in the glitter of the eyes that searched her face, his mouth wry as he pulled away to mutter thickly, ‘My God, I don’t believe this. One moment I want to wring your neck, the next all I can think about is having you in my bed, feeling you burn up against me, wanting me in the same way I want you. And you do want me, don’t you, my lovely Heather?’

Perhaps if he hadn’t bent his head to touch her throat with his lips, his hand stroking sensuously against the curve of her breast she might have found the strength to deny him. What she was doing was wrong; every instinct she possessed told her that— every instinct bar one, and that one clamoured above all the rest for satisfaction. Her body, starved of all that he was offering it for so long, blindly over-rode the danger signals from her brain. When Race left her to close the curtains she simply stood there, swaying slightly, her gaze fixed on the log fire burning in the grate, her body knowing without her having to look, the exact moment when he came to stand behind her, gently removing her jacket and hat, his hands on her shoulders turning her to him, a smile darkening his eyes as he murmured, ‘I think I prefer the outfit you had on last night——’

She opened her mouth, and he laid his fingers across it. ‘No, don’t say anything. Last night when I saw you I thought you were the most exciting thing I’d seen in years. I wanted you so badly I could have taken you there and then—like an adolescent,’ he told her with a grimace, ‘and then you ran.’ His eyes smouldered darkly over her face. ‘No woman runs away from me, Heather—no woman makes a fool of me the way you did. I want you. And you want me too,’ he told her, ‘I know you do.’

That was the trouble, Heather thought weakly, closing her eyes as his hands reached for her blouse, she did. So badly that she was shaking with it, unable to marshal any coherent or logical thoughts, her whole being concentrated on the man in front of her and the ache gradually spreading through her body.

She let him remove her blouse, shuddering strongly when he peeled it back to reveal the pale flesh of her breasts, inadequately concealed in the lace bra she was wearing. She felt him tugging down the zip on her skirt but even when it joined the rest of her clothes on the floor she felt incapable of protest. She felt his hands tremble as he reached for the fastening of her bra, and as his hands moved slowly upwards, cupping her aroused breasts, anguish and desire mingled inside her, her eyes closing involuntarily as Race bent his head, his mouth burning her skin, her body on fire from his touch, shaking in his arms as he pulled her tautly against his hips, letting her feel the extent of his arousal.

‘You’re burning me up inside, Heather,’ he muttered hoarsely against her skin. ‘Feel.’ Somehow his shirt had come unfastened, and his skin was damply hot beneath her palms, her body arching instinctively against the rhythmic thrust of his. He was taking her too far, too fast, warning bells jangled in her brain, the intensity of her own response, confusing her, deafening her to the urgings of her mind, her body fused against him by the heat of their mutual need. She could feel him tremble as his mouth explored the column of her throat, his teeth nipping the delicate flesh.

Common sense intruded for a moment as she turned her head and saw the totally absorbed and intensely aroused expression on his face, fear streaking through her. What was she doing letting this man make love to her? She didn’t know him; she didn’t like him. She tried to pull away but his hands slid to her hips, holding her, the darkness of his head against her breast unleashing a wild tide of sensation that obliterated everything else. When he picked her up and carried her over to the leather chesterfield by the fire, she made no demur. For a long time he simply stared down at her, slowly examining every inch of her flesh until her body seemed to burn beneath the heat of his exploration. His hand caressed her thigh making her clench her hands and writhe in pleasure against him, her eyes flying open as he muttered something urgently, removing his jeans and coming to lie beside her, the heat and power of his body overwhelming her for a second so that she tensed in fear until she felt the seductive warmth of his tongue against her nipples, the suddenly harsh and changed tenor of his breathing, telling her that the caress gave him as much pleasure as it did her. The instinctive arching of her body against him, her nails raking urgently against his skin, made him groan and reach for her hips.

‘I’m burning up for you, Heather,’ he muttered unsteadily against her skin. ‘You’re a witch, do you know that? I can’t remember when a woman last made me feel like this. Make love to me,’ he pleaded huskily. ‘Dear God, you can’t know how much I need to feel your hands and mouth on my body. Last night when I got home I couldn’t sleep for thinking about you; wanting you.’

He moved against her and Heather could feel the rhythmic urgency within him. Her own body seemed to surge in response, melting against him, her teeth biting into his shoulder, as his hands swept up her body and she was enveloped in fierce sheets of desire, her senses filled by the sight, smell and sound of him, wanting his possession.

She felt him move purposefully against her, the hard hunger of his body an urgent need, her gasp of pleasure as he licked her nipples making him mutter thickly into her skin. ‘I can’t wait much longer, Heather,’ he warned her, and the sound of his voice brought her wrenchingly back to her senses, fear, and the appalled, bitter realisation of what she was doing tearing through her. She jerked away instinctively, aware of his tensed disbelief and the frustrated rage emanating from him.

‘Something on account,’ she reminded him, hardly recognising her own voice, ‘that was all….’

She heard him swear and flinched beneath the explicitness of the words he used. Pulling on her clothes, her breathing ragged, her every instinct urged her to get away, to escape before it was too late, only one tiny inner voice protesting that it was already too late, much, much too late.

She reached the door before he could stop her, nearly bumping into the manservant who had let her in, in the hall. What on earth must he think, or was he used to half-dressed women coming out of his employer’s office? Had Race used the same ploy with others as he had on her?

The thought made her feel acutely sick. How could she have allowed him to touch her as he had? What on earth had happened to her. She loathed men like him; she hated any man touching her and yet in his arms she had… responded like an intensely passionate woman. She forced herself to admit it as her trembling legs carried her out in to the street.

There was probably a rational explanation. Her reaction could have been fuelled by her anger; anger was a primitive and intense emotion. Race was a skilled lover; it was her body that responded, not her mind, she told herself, but it was not particularly comforting. Neither her body nor her mind had ever responded like that before.

The first thing she did when she reached her flat was to pick up the phone and tell her agent that she wanted to pull out of the Rio contract. He tried to argue her out of it, but she remained steadfast.

‘I want you to ring them and tell them now,’ she told him, refusing to give any explanation for her decision. Once she had finished her call, she paced the flat, tense as a caged animal. She had to get away, to escape before Race found some other way of hunting her down and trapping her. She feared him. She acknowledged it now, and not simply because he wanted her. She feared her own reaction to him, the primitive desire for possession she sensed within him. She wasn’t short of money. She could go abroad… concentrate on her writing.

Yes, that’s what she would do, she decided feverishly. She would give up modelling for good… she could afford to. She was still pacing the floor when Jennifer came in. She took one look at her strained face and rushed over to her in concern.

‘What happened?’ she demanded.

‘Race Williams,’ Heather told her grimly. ‘No… I don’t want to talk about it. Jen, I’ve got to get away,’ she told her cousin. ‘He frightens me….’

‘You should be flattered that he’s showing such an interest in you,’ Jennifer told her. ‘You know, at first I thought he simply wanted to add you to his list of conquests, but now I’m not so sure. I think he’s really fallen for you, Heather.’

Her cousin’s incuarbly romantic nature made Heather groan. there had been no love in the way Race had touched her body; no tender adoration, only angry male need, and she, God help her, had responded to it, had been set on fire by it; the ultimate betrayal, but he would never know that he was the only man who had made her feel like that.

‘Why don’t you give him a chance?’ Jennifer urged. ‘You both got off on the wrong foot. He’s crazy about you, Heather. Terry says he was furious when you ducked out of the foursome the other night. I hadn’t realised he was so involved, but Terry told me that even before he knew we were cousins or that Terry knew you, he was interested in you….’

Through her involvement in the Rio contract, Heather surmised, guessing that she was correct when Jennifer asked ingenuously, ‘He’s even got some magazine pictures of you in his desk. One of the secretaries saw them. I’m sure he’s fallen for you. Just give him a chance! Okay, he frightened you with the sexy come-on, but he doesn’t know that….’

‘I’m still a virgin?’ Heather supplied grimly. ‘No, and I don’t want him to know. Promise me you won’t say a word about it? Promise me, Jen?’

‘Of course I won’t,’ her cousin assured her softly. ‘What do you think I am? But sooner or later you’re going to have to tell him,’ she said mischievously, ‘or he’ll find out for himself. You can’t keep him at bay for ever! Come on, admit it,’ she coaxed, ‘you aren’t entirely indifferent to him. You couldn’t be, no woman could.’

‘Perhaps I’m not,’ Heather agreed, ‘but I’ve no intention of becoming just another bow on his string of women.’

‘I’m sure if you just give him a chance you’ll find out he really cares about you,’ Jennifer assured her.

Heather said nothing, not even pointing out that her cousin had changed her tune. She felt drained of all emotion other than a primeval sense of fear. Race haunted her; every time she closed her eyes she saw his face, saw the passion in it and felt her own heated response. She couldn’t believe what was happening to her.

‘Jen, I’ve got to get away,’ she announced huskily. ‘I need time to… to think. I’ve told my agent to tell them I’m not interested in the Rio contract.’ She saw Jennifer’s expression and smiled. ‘Yes I know, I’ve left it a bit late in the day, but I thought I’d try to get away somewhere, concentrate on my writing….’

‘You mean run away from Race,’ Jennifer said acidly, ‘where will you go?’

‘I’ve no idea. Somewhere remote and quiet. Let me know if you get any ideas.’

‘You know you were saying about going away, Heather?’

Heather raised her head from her newspaper to glance at her cousin. Three days had passed since she had seen Race; three days during which her stomach had clenched each time the telephone rang or someone knocked on the door, but he had made no attempt to get in touch with her. That didn’t mean that he never would; she was sure he was just biding his time, waiting…. He had known she had responded to him. She couldn’t disguise that and like any hunter smelling blood he would track her down, pursuing his kill.

‘Do you still want to? Get away, I mean?’

Surprised Heather nodded her head. Jennifer had been totally against her going away when she first mentioned it. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘I thought you disapproved.’

‘Mm…. Well perhaps you ought to if it’s what you really want. It’s just that Terry has this cottage in the Highlands of Scotland. He uses it during the summer for fishing, and I’m sure he’d lend it to you if you wanted him to. He was talking about it yesterday, that’s what gave me the idea.’ She flushed as Heather looked at her. ‘I’m only trying to help,’ she assured her, ‘but if you don’t like the idea….’

The Scottish Highlands, all grim grandeur and sullen skies; the scenery suited her mood. ‘Have you discussed it with Terry?’ she asked.

Jennifer shook her head. ‘Not yet, but I’m sure he won’t mind. I’ll ask him tomorrow if you like.’ She seemed unnaturally tense, and Heather wondered if Race Williams had been questioning her again. Jennifer hadn’t mentioned him and Heather hadn’t asked.

‘It sounds tempting,’ she admitted.

‘Oh, Heather,’ Jennifer’s eyes were shadowed, ‘are you sure you’re doing the right thing? Why don’t you stay here, talk to Race….’

Stay and let him overwhelm her defences again? Never! She had to get away, she wasn’t strong enough to stay and fight. There was something about him that robbed her of her invincibility; she feared him and she feared the way he made her feel.

‘I can’t,’ she told Jennifer huskily, ‘I must get away. Ask Terry if I can use his cottage. Tell him I want peace and quiet to work on my book. After all, it isn’t a lie….’

‘Well, if you’re sure…?’

Heather frowned. Why was Jennifer hesitating. She had been the one to bring up the subject, and now that she was agreeing she seemed to be hanging back, trying to get her to change her mind. Probably because she was romantic enough to believe her own P.R. work on Race’s behalf. She wouldn’t put it past Jennifer to actually convince herself that he did feel something more than lust for her, but she knew that wasn’t true. No man with any real feelings could have behaved the way he had.

CHAPTER THREE

‘FOR heaven’s sake stop worrying! Of course it’s all right, but Terry said to warn you that you could find yourself snowed in, so take plenty of provisions. Fortunately the cottage has its own generator and all mod cons, so you needn’t worry about that aspect too much.’

‘And it’s perfectly all right for me to use the cottage? He doesn’t mind?’

‘Look, I’ve already told you a dozen times that he doesn’t,’ Jennifer said in exasperation. ‘Here’s the key, and I’ve rung Mum and she says you can borrow her Mini. She’s going to drive it up to Town on Sunday and stay over to do some shopping; check up on us both, so on Saturday we’ll go shopping.’

Her cousin was displaying a remarkable aptitude for organisation all of a sudden, Heather reflected wryly, listening to Jennifer. The more she thought about Terry’s cottage, the more it appealed. She had never been to Scotland; she could even perhaps set some of her novel there. She was planning a factional work, a blend of fact and fiction, using as her base the de Travers family who for centuries had been the local squires of the village where Heather’s aunt and uncle lived. The family had died out during the first world war, but the Hall was still there and the local library abounded with information about the family. Heather had been fascinated by their history for as long as she could remember and knew it off by heart. They had come over to England with Henry II, and their history was closely entwined with that of England, but the information she had about them was not so detailed that she couldn’t embroider relationships where she wanted to.

The week passed without her hearing from Race, but that didn’t lessen her acute state of anxiety. She had lost weight and her nerves were so on edge that even Jennifer had noticed. She could hardly sit still and felt as though she were living on top of a live bomb, just waiting for it to go off. She felt vulnerable, afraid, tense to the point of hysteria. Remembering how she had felt in his arms kept her awake at night.

Jennifer didn’t help either. On several occasions she had pleaded with Heather to change her mind about her trip to Scotland, veering from seeming pleased that she was going to almost begging her not to do so. Heather half suspected her cousin of playing the devil’s advocate, or being primed by Race, but once she got to Scotland she would be safe. It was too far for him to follow her; he couldn’t leave his new position as head of the Documentary Department on Southern Television, not so soon after taking it up, and she began to long for the sanctuary the cottage had come to represent.

She was planning to leave that weekend, and was just deciding what to take with her when she heard Jennifer’s key in the lock.

‘You’re home early.’

‘Um, my boss gave me time off. He’s taking me out to dinner tonight. Well, actually he wants to take us both out. Don’t look like that,’ she told Heather, ‘it isn’t a trick to get you to meet Race. Terry wants to talk, about the cottage, either that or he thinks he needs a chaperon to protect him from me,’ she joked, giggling as she added provocatively, ‘and he’d be right. I love him, Heather,’ she went on more quietly, ‘and I think he suspects it—damn him. No, he wants to see you tonight to make sure you know the way to the cottage, and, I suspect, to check that I wasn’t lying when I told him you weren’t a featherbrain like me.’

Terry picked them up at eight and drove them to a new Italian restaurant run by some friends of his. The atmosphere was friendly and relaxing, and Heather found herself responding quite naturally to his questions. She had always liked him, and suspected he was by no means as indifferent to her cousin as he pretended.

‘I’ve already mapped out a route,’ Heather told him when they reached the sweet course, showing it to him. ‘Jen’s warned me about stocking up with food etc. My aunt is lending me her Mini for the journey.’

‘A Mini? Umm…. The weather can be pretty devastating up there, you could quite easily find yourself snowed in, but Jen tells me you aren’t frightened of your own company.’

‘Not in the least,’ Heather assured him, asking quickly, ‘Have you owned the cottage long?’

He shook his head. ‘Not very, a couple of years, that’s all. I only have a half share in it, I bought it with a friend and we both tend to use it as a retreat. There’s only one bedroom, so we’ve come to a satisfactory agreement about timing our visits and it works quite well.’

‘Pity it’s only got one bedroom,’ Jennifer broke in roguishly. ‘I was going to suggest you took me up with you next time you go.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ Terry agreed, his eyes teasing as he added, ‘You could always sleep downstairs on the settee.’

Mmm, not indifferent to her cousin at all, Heather thought in amusement, but wise enough not to make the chase too easy for her. Jen could well find out that she’d taken on more than she’d bargained for ‘Come on, girls, I’d better take you home,’ he added. ‘I’ve got to be at the studio at six tomorrow morning. Think yourself lucky you don’t work Saturdays,’ he told Jennifer, adding to Heather. ‘By the way, there’s no phone at the cottage, although there is a farm with one about four or five miles away.’

Saturday was busy. They shopped in the morning, the mound of tinned and dried food stacked in the kitchen after their forays, making Heather wonder how she would get it all in the Mini.

‘Dried milk, flour, coffee, tea, butter, eggs—that’s the essentials at least,’ Jennifer commented ticking them off on their list, ‘and then you’ve all these tins.’

‘Mmm, they’ll do for the days when I’m too busy writing to stop to prepare a proper meal. Terry did say there was an emergency Calor gas stove in case the generator failed, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, and plenty of logs. Sounds rather primitive to me. Are you sure you want to go?’

‘Positive,’ Heather told her firmly. ‘In fact I’m looking forward to it. Now, what else? Oh, I mustn’t forget all my research books and my papers.’

‘Keep on going at this rate and you won’t have any room for your clothes,’ Jennifer told her sarcastically. ‘Let’s get some lunch and then we’ll go out again. What else do you need?’ She glanced at her list.

‘Some thermal underwear might be a good idea,’ Heather joked, ‘especially if I do get snowed in.’

‘You need new jeans,’ Jennifer told her, ‘and new sweaters. You can’t go on wearing the twins’ cast-offs for ever. I know a shop that stocks the most adorable hand-knits with the cutest designs on them.’

‘No doubt at the most adorable prices,’ Heather agreed, suppressing a sigh. She had been thinking more along the lines of chain-store clothes.

By the end of the afternoon her feet and legs were exhausted. Jennifer must have dragged her through every shop in London. She had spent far too much money—nearly all her Christmas cheque from her aunt and uncle, and all she had to show for it was half a dozen jumpers, two new pairs of cords, and some sensible fleecy-lined wellington boots, plus a thick padded jacket with a hood. She turned round, looking for Jennifer, grimacing faintly as she realised her cousin had disappeared yet again.

‘Here I am,’ Jennifer announced, touching her arm. ‘Just buying you a little goodbye prezzy.’ She was grinning, and Heather wondered uneasily what she had bought. They were back in the flat before she found out, gasping as she saw the delicate satin and lace underwear Jennifer spread out for her inspection. ‘Oh Jen, they must have cost the earth,’ she protested. ‘And there’s no use saying you don’t want them. The shop won’t take them back, and they won’t fit me. Look,’ Jennifer coaxed, ‘you’ll be wearing jeans and jumpers all the time you’re up there. Indulge yourself a little. There’s nothing for making you feel all woman like wearing sexy undies.’

‘Perhaps I don’t want to feel “all woman”,’ Heather told her tartly. She’d experienced enough of that particular feeling to last a lifetime in Race Williams’ arms, but Jen had only meant to be kind and it seemed churlish to refuse her gift, even though the delicate fabric and brevity of the garments she had bought would be completely out of place in the cottage environment, and totally impractical.

‘Mum should be here soon,’ Jennifer told her as they prepared the evening meal. ‘We’ll load the Mini tonight, so you can get an early start.’

True to Jennifer’s prediction, her mother arrived just as she was putting the finishing touches to the table. She kissed both girls warmly, stretching up to hug Heather, both of them laughing. Like Jennifer, her mother was small and dainty, and when the two of them were together Heather felt like a giantess. ‘It’s freezing out there,’ Lydia Murray announced as Heather served the soup. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Heather? I’ll worry about you, driving all that way.’ That was one of the nice things about her aunt, Heather thought warmly. She never differentiated between her own children and Heather, her love for all of them was unbounding. ‘I can’t understand why you want to go to Scotland,’ she fretted.

‘She’s running away,’ Jennifer said mischievously, adding with a sly grin at her cousin, ‘from a man.’

Her mother looked startled. ‘Jennifer!’ she expostulated as though unable to believe what Jennifer was telling her.

‘I said a man, Mother, that’s a… M-A-N.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘You know, the sort that makes you weak at the knees, a bit like Clark Gable,’ she teased her flustered parent, ‘and he’s finally made Heather realise that she’s human. Heather,’ she announced, disregarding the bleak look Heather was giving her, ‘has finally woken up and discovered sex appeal—with a vengeance—and now she’s running away.’

‘Jen, you mustn’t tease Heather like that,’ her mother protested, ‘and I’m sure she’s doing no such thing. She’s far too sensible.’

Sensible! A wry smile twisted Heather’s mouth. If only her aunt knew! All her life, because of her height and more serious nature, she had been dubbed ‘sensible’ and ‘practical’, but since her meeting with Race Williams she had been feeling neither of those things—far from it. And Jennifer was far too acute She was glad she was getting away from London, she wouldn’t put it past her to try and engineer another meeting between them if she stayed. Of course she wouldn’t do it from malice, Jen wasn’t like that, but to her there could be nothing more logical than for Heather to want to pursue her acquaintanship with Race. Jennifer thought her reluctance to see him again sprang from embarrassment and the discovery that she wasn’t immune to him. Her cousin had no conception of the fear and anguish rioting inside her; the sheer terror she experienced each time she remembered how he had made her feel. As long ago as adolescence she had told herself that no man was ever going to have the power to hurt her ever again, and that was the way it had been until… until Race Williams touched her and sent her up in flames, all her carefully constructed barriers turned to ashes at her feet.

She went to bed early, knowing she was going to have a long drive ahead of her, and was touched when both her aunt and Jennifer got up to have breakfast with her, coming to wave her off as she headed north.

Once on the motorway some of the tension that had been with her since she woke up disappeared. There had been a sharp drop in temperature overnight and she drove carefully, taking her time, stopping for lunch just before she reached the Lake District, the quiet village pub she found almost deserted.

The food and rest replenished her energy, but she hadn’t realised just how far she was going to have to drive, she reflected ruefully as she glanced at the snow-covered peaks of the Cumbrian mountains, brief flurries of snow dancing against the windscreen. The further north she got, the worse the weather, and when she eventually pulled off the motorway she felt concerned enough to check at the motel she came to, on the state of the roads and the weather forecast.

‘We’ve had it bad,’ the pump attendant told her. ‘Heavy snowfalls twice this last week, and they say there’s been more up past Fort William, but the roads are still open. Where are you going?’ Heather gave him the name of the village closest to the cottage. ‘Mmm—it’s pretty remote up there, hang on a sec, I’ll check with the weather centre. Why don’t you go and get yourself a cup of coffee, it won’t take long.’ When Heather thanked him he shrugged. ‘Better to be safe than sorry. We get too many inexperienced motorists coming up here, not realising how severe the weather can be. That last bad winter several lives were lost, partially through carelessness. Come back in about a quarter of an hour and I should have found out something for you.’

The coffee she ordered came quickly and was hot and reviving. After fifteen minutes had passed Heather returned apprehensively to the forecourt. Having come all this way she didn’t fancy having to turn back.

‘You’re in luck,’ the attendant told her. ‘But I hope you’re planning more than a weekend stay? There’s a blizzard on the way. Should hit tomorrow, so you’ve got plenty of time to get there.’

Thanking him for his kindness, Heather paused to check her tyres. She wasn’t going to take any chances. He smiled approvingly at her as she drove off, giving her the confidence to hold the small car steady on the thin black ribbon of road, alarmingly bordered by unending vistas of white.

It was dark before she reached Fort William, barely pausing there in her anxiety to reach her destination. She thought about staying overnight and then remembered what the garage attendant had said about the blizzard. It would be better to finish her journey tonight, tired though she was than risk having to turn back in the morning. And besides, it was only another twenty miles or so.

They must be the twenty longest miles in existence, Heather thought tiredly after what seemed like hours of driving through the darkness; the road almost deserted, the white silence of the countryside around her; the starkness of the scenery all combining to make her unusually edgy and nervous, Ben Nevis and the surrounding mountains towering above her, the pass along which her small car crawled unnervingly deserted. At last she found the signpost for the village, disturbed to find the road climbing steeply, but fortunately free from the snow which was banked high either side of her. The village, when she eventually came to it, was no more than a small cluster of houses, and a small shop, and garage, the latter illuminated. Thankfully Heather pulled into the forecourt. She wasn’t going any further until she had made absolutely sure of her directions. Even as she opened the door snow started to whirl down around her, and the man who emerged from the small office was quickly covered in the thick flakes as he strode towards her.

‘So it’s the MacDonald cottage you’ll be wanting?’ he asked in the soft sing-song of the Highlands. ‘I doubt you’ll get there in your Mini, lassie. The road’s been closed these two days past.’ Something of her disappointment must have shown on her face, because he said, ‘I’m not promising, mind, but it may be that the Land Rover will make it. Staying long?’

‘Two months,’ Heather told him. ‘It belongs to a friend of my cousin’s. I’m—I’m a writer….’ she added, feeling that some explanation for her sudden appearance was necessary. She knew all about village life and village curiosity from the Cotswolds where her aunt and uncle lived.

‘If you’ll just bide a while I’ll close up here and we’ll load your stuff into the Land Rover. Come well prepared have you?’ He peered into the Mini and grunted approval as he opened the boot. ‘Aye, it’s a good seven mile on foot down here to Mrs Mac’s shop, but I see you’ll not starve. A writer, you say… now there’s a coincidence.’ He didn’t say what the coincidence was, as he lifted one of the large cardboard boxes from the back seat of the Mini and deposited it in the battered Land Rover. ‘I’ll garage the Mini down here for you,’ he offered, ‘get someone to bring it up when the weather lifts. Who did you say your friend was?’ he added gently, but Heather wasn’t deceived and hid a small smile, knowing he was checking up on her, and why not? It was all part of the obvious neighbourliness of the villagers.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.