Sweet Sinner
Diana Hamilton
9 to 5 MEMO Private & ConfidentialTo: Mr. Cade From: Zoe Kilgerran, your employee I find this difficult to say and don't know where to start, so I'll take a deep breath and begin! I'm afraid you've formed the worst possible impression of me and even branded me a heartless tramp with no morals.Your opinion means so much to me. Can I ever convince you that you are so wrong? Perhaps we could meet and talk it through… .
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u8ee8a19c-66fd-5610-aee2-a8bbc6ac6757)
Excerpt (#u105b82e2-993c-5257-bb25-1096419499d3)
About the Author (#uf2047b81-bae7-5e98-b8a2-7e06d3a9d390)
Title Page (#u317509c8-a729-5b82-9040-9aa5965e40bc)
CHAPTER ONE (#u69a3dd6d-dba1-5fb9-a828-68647505968f)
CHAPTER TWO (#u1b84410e-caa9-5bd0-a751-458e052f22f0)
CHAPTER THREE (#ucbab35ce-9e8c-587d-8d97-aa328d120f29)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I won’t go to bed with you, Mr. Cade.”
Zoe felt herself drown in confusion as a vivid mental picture of the two of them together, naked limbs entwined, presented itself with shocking clarity.
“I wasn’t asking you to,” James mocked. Zoe felt herself cringe at the pointed putdown. “But if the time ever came when I did want to go to bed with you, I would. Make no mistake about that, Miss Kilgerran!”
DIANA HAMILTON is a true romantic at heart and fell in love with her husband at first sight. They still live in the fairy-tale Tudor house where they raised their three children. Now the idyll is shared with eight rescued cats and a puppy. But despite an often chaotic life-style, ever since she learned to read and write Diana has had her nose in a book—either reading or writing one—and plans to go on doing just that for a very long time to come.
Sweet Sinner
Diana Hamilton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_ed406f0c-4d19-55c5-82f1-f11221d7b38a)
‘TAKE your hands off me!’ Zoe twisted her legs away from the driver and endeavoured to cover the expanse of her fishnet-covered thighs with the skirt of the coat she wore flung casually over her shoulders just as the souped-up Mini took a corner on two wheels, the dipped headlights revealing yet another narrow London back street, a figure, gender unguessable-at, leaning against a darkened, vandalised lamp-post.
‘Off, I said!’ Small though she was, Zoe could shout vhen she had to. She pushed at the groping hand. She couldn’t remember his name, but he had to be drunk, or mad. She ground her teeth with rage as she heard him say thickly, ‘Quit foolin’ around. You’re after a bit of fun and I’m equipped to provide it. What the hell else do you think we’re doing here?’
She was not going to answer that. And yelled instead, ‘Stop the car!’ And much to her surprise, and deep relief, he did, brakes screeching, rubber burning on to tarmac.
Scrabbling to unfasten her seat-belt, reaching for the door release, her fingers all panic-stricken thumbs, she felt herself helped out with a violent shove of his hands, heaving her on to the pavement—which was now miraculously fully illuminated—her handbag following and landing on top of her inelegantly sprawling form, his voice slating as he shouted, ‘Little cheat!’ before shooting away with a roar of protesting horsepower.
Her breath sobbing between her teeth, Zoe got shakily to her feet, pushed the wildly curling mane of bright blonde hair out of her eyes and bent to retrieve the scattered contents of her handbag. Her coat fell away from her shoulders, pooling on the ground as she hauled herself upright again, only now recognising the source of that sudden illumination. The long, slinky lines of a stationary vehicle were just discernible behind the glare of headlights.
For a moment she was too petrified to move, her heart thumping as if it would beat its way right out of her chest. And her knees were grazed where they’d taken the brunt of her ignominious landing. She couldn’t have run if someone had paid her.
Out of the frying pan…All alone and no one in sight…Even the lamp-post-leaner had disappeared. No taxis cruising this area. No one came to these mean streets in one of the least salubrious parts of London unless they lived here or were driving through, taking a short cut.
Someone exited the car. She heard the expensive clunk of metal and saw the impressive height, the intimidating breadth of the man as his shadowed form moved forward into the beam of the lights.
Green eyes widened between thickly mascaraed lashes and stayed that way as she fought to compress the trembling of her lush scarlet mouth. For the first time in her twenty-five years she was frightened witless. Back in the car, with that nameless creep, she had been angry and outraged. But this was different. And she was too terrified to take her eyes from the menace of his measured approach to retrieve her coat to cover herself…
One small hand tugged ineffectively at the narrow tube of tacky black satin that barely covered the crotch of her fishnet tights while the other flew to cover the cleavage afforded by her black, sequinned top. Heavy gilt bracelets jangled and she swayed on her spindly scarlet heels and desperately wished she had secreted a hat-pin about her scantily clad person.
‘Were you hurt?’ The dark, gravelly voice was abrasive and she took a small, defensive backward step, shaking her head, just wanting him to go away, shivering uncontrollably now despite the heavy warmth of the June night air. ‘There have to be better ways of earning a crust.’ The wide slash of his mouth indented cynically. ‘Don’t you understand the risks you’re running?’
Mutely staring at him, Zoe tried to find a tart streetwise comment to throw in his face. She failed, her quick wits deserting her, hysteria threatening as immediate fear receded just a little.
She would never forget his face. Never. Thrown into harsh relief by the lights, his features were too austere to be handsome in the popular sense. Arrogant selfassurance rode on slanting cheekbones, on the long straight line of his nose, the determined sweep of his jaw, while the incisive moulding of his mouth was an essay in cruel sensuality and the gleam of his eyes was pure, unadulterated cynicism.
Wide shoulders swooped as he bent to pick up her coat, flinging it at her, dark hair gleaming in the lights.
‘Cover yourself. If you’ve got a shred of sense you’ll get back home, out of harm’s way. How old are you, anyway? Fifteen?’ He didn’t wait for an answer; his sort never did, she thought as she clutched the edges of her coat tightly together and heard him ask, ‘Where do you live?’
‘Peckham Rye,’ she managed squeakily, because this time it seemed he did expect an answer and if he thought she would accept his offer to take her there then he would have to think again. She’d rather take her chances and walk. She had never felt so demeaned in the whole of her life.
The offer, however, failed to materialise. He told her instead, ‘I’ll get you a taxi. I take it you’ve earned enough to cover the fare.’
He strode away and, her cheeks burning beneath her heavy make-up, she teetered after him, her mental faculties regrouping at long last. She was going to tell him a thing or two! What gave him the all-fired right to sit in judgement?
But he was feeding terse directions into the handset of his car phone and when he had finished she spluttered out, ‘The way I earn my living is nothing to do with you! And anyway, you’ve got everything wrong. I’m—’
‘Save the justifications. I don’t want to know. A taxi should be here in a matter of minutes. I’ll wait until it gets here.’ He left the car again, towering above her, his features a mask of bored indifference now as he told her, ‘Next time you let yourself get into the kind of trouble you were in tonight just remember that the odds against someone happening by to pick up the pieces are extremely long. A million to one, at a guess.’
He looked as if he deeply regretted the impulse to stop and investigate, to make sure that the tarty object he’d witnessed being hurled out of a barely stationary car hadn’t sustained any incapacitating injuries.
Zoe turned huffily away, uncomfortably aware that the few words he’d allowed her to get out must have reinforoed his definition of her morals. Non-existent. She was not going to thank him for finding her a taxi. Why should she? The opening to lecture and moralise, jump up on his high horse, was all the recompense he could look for. She was far too sore in mind and body to look at the situation from his point of view.
Too drained by events to argue further, she waited in defeated silence until the black cab arrived, gave the driver her home address and climbed into the back with her nose at a haughty angle, not looking at her pious knight-errant because she knew she would die of embarrassment if she did. And sat in the back devising a hundred and one ways of doing Gary Fletcher to death.
‘When I agreed to rent part of your house I didn’t know I’d be sharing with a low-down, rotten, treacherous fink!’ Zoe limped into the kitchen, her mane of blonde hair still wet from the shower and thankfully free of last night’s riotous curls.
‘And good morning to you, too.’ Gary was deep in the morning edition of the tabloid he worked on and his bluntly good looking features wore a beatific expression as he hitched it down and smiled at her over the top. ‘Breakfast?’
‘An abject apology would be preferable,’ Zoe grumbled. She hadn’t slept, she’d been too embarrassed by recent events, and just to pile on the agony she was sore all over this morning. ‘But if that’s too much to expect from a hard-nosed reporter I’ll settle for coffee. Fresh, black and strong.’ She swivelled back towards the door. ‘In ten minutes.’ Adding darkly, ‘I’m due at the office by ten, but I’ll speak to you later!’
‘But you don’t work on Saturdays,’ Gary objected, patting a vacant stool at the breakfast bar. ‘Come and tell me what’s put vinegar in your pretty mouth this morning.’
‘But I am today,’ she countered with heavy, forced patience. ‘Special clients get special concessions. Which was one of the too-numerous-to-mention reasons why I didn’t want to go to that dreadful party last night.’ Which he had conveniently forgotten. He only remembered what he wanted to, and what he had forgotten he made up. Which was what made him such a good reporter, she supposed, earning him his byline with a tabloid which was openly derided and universally read.
‘But it was a beautiful party, sweetheart.’ Gary’s grin threatened to split his face. ‘Hannah’s agreed to give it another go. We’re back together again and—even better—she’s going to move in with me. If it works out we’re going to make it legal.’
‘That’s wonderful!’ Zoe’s small, triangular face warmed into a lovely smile. She had forgotten to be cross. She was generously pleased for him, despite what he had put her through.
During the three years they’d shared this house she had watched the arrivals and departures of Gary’s girlfriends with a fairly impartial eye. But Hannah had been special, she had been able to tell that by the way he looked at her, the way he never stopped talking about her. And then there had been the row, the big one. Zoe had never learned the reason, but the upshot had been an abrupt break-off of the relationship. And the upshot of that had been Gary’s long face and heartrending sighs, his sudden lack of interest in anything.
And that was why, after a great deal of persuasion, she’d agreed to go to that party. Because he’d begged. It was an annual thing, a fancy dress thrash for the members—and their guests—of the tennis club he’d recently joined because Hannah was a staunch member herself and where she was, Gary needed to be. And if Hannah could see him with another woman—a gorgeous woman—she might just be jealous. And if she was jealous he could work on it, persuade her to come back to him. That had been the theory.
The theme of Tarts and Vicars hadn’t appealed, though. Zoe was something of a blue-stocking and not ashamed of it, and she’d spent most of her life being sensible and responsible. So she’d said, ‘It won’t work. Hannah knows me. I’m your tenant, that’s all.’ But Gary had had an answer for that.
‘Don’t you believe it! Hannah never did like the idea of my sharing a pad with two gorgeous females. She was always the teeniest bit miffed by the intimacies she imagined we shared.’
‘I suppose I could always go as a Vicar,’ Zoe had offered, not seeing herself as the other, and Gary had scorned,
‘If you think Hannah will see you as sexy competition dressed up as a clerical gent, you’re off your trolley.’
And Jenna, the third inhabitant of the tall, early Victorian brown-brick terraced house, had echoed his scorn.
‘You’d defeat the object of the exercise. I’d go myself if I didn’t already have a heavy date. It’ll be fun, and I’ll help you. Make-up, hair, clothes—leave it to me.’ As an aspiring actress with her first TV part firmly in her pocket, Jenna exuded the type of confidence that was enough to persuade anyone to do anything.
So Zoe had agreed to go, for the sake of Gary’s love-life. He’d been impossible since Hannah had given him the elbow. And even though she’d hated the way Jenna had made her look, she’d decided it might be fun as long as she forgot she was Zoe Kilgerran, one of the junior partners in a firm of big city accountants, responsible, sensible and—let’s face it—a tiny bit dull.
‘So you’ll understand if I ask if you’d share the basement with Jenna? Starting as of today.’ Gary put a steaming mug of black coffee into her hands, his face very bland. ‘Hannah and I want the house to ourselves. You know how it is…We want to be able to run around naked if we feel like it, make love on the kitchen table…Anyway, did you get home OK last night?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Zoe grouched, memories of what had happened to her flooding back. And knowing she was expected to move into the basement flat today didn’t help to make her feel any sunnier.
She fully understood Gary’s and Hannah’s need to have their own space—it looked as if this was the real thing. But Dad was bringing the twins round this afternoon, leaving them with her for the weekend, and the basement flat was small and she’d never get her stuff shifted before they arrived—not with the meeting she had this morning.
Her lower lip jutted pugnaciously.
‘I understood why you couldn’t escort me home from that party—you’d got it together with Hannah and couldn’t give a damn what happened to me——’
‘Hang on!’ Gary shot her a hurt look which somehow didn’t ring true. ‘I fixed you a ride home, didn’t I?’
‘So you did, silly me!’ Sarcasm dripped off her tongue. ‘With a sex maniac who ended up throwing me out of the car in some godforsaken back street, where I got lectured by some passing do-gooder on the foolhardiness of my trade! So much better, of course, than my own idea of taking a cab home! And don’t you dare laugh!’ she shrieked as she saw his mouth twitch. And proceeded to fill him in on the details, which sobered him and enabled her blood-pressure to slide back from danger point.
‘I’ll kill the creep!’ her landlord announced darkly, coming quickly to her side, hugging her. ‘He must have had more to drink than I realised. Sober, Dan’s OK—a bit big in the ego department, but fine if you don’t try to cut him down to size. But once he gets a couple of drinks over the odds inside him he believes he’s God’s gift to womankind, or so I’m told. I’ve never seen that side of him myself and he seemed sober as a judge when he told me driving you home wouldn’t take him far out of his way, since he lives in Greenwich. If I’d thought for one——’
‘Forget it. Maybe I’ll forgive you in time.’ She gave him a weak smile. The memory of what that whatever his name was—Dan?—had put her through last night still made her feel sick inside and she was running late already. She moved out of his embrace and rallied enough to toss over her shoulder as she left the room, ‘If I move into the basement I’ll expect a rent reduction, and you can do my share of the cleaning for a month to make up—partly, mind—for what you let me in for last night!’
But she was back to feeling draggy as she scrambled as quickly as her sore knees and shins would allow into one of her severely styled grey business suits and pulled back her abundant hair into the no-nonsense knot that made her look older than the teenager her lack of height, slight build and piquant features sometimes led her to be taken for.
That man, last night, had formed the impression that she was a fifteen-year-old prostitute, she remembered, her pale skin taking fiery embarrassment on board. Her encounter with him had been even worse than the in-car scuffle with the creep who had offered to drive her home! It would be a long time before she forgot his scathing lecture, the scornful way he had looked her over as she’d stood in the full glare of his headlights wearing all that degrading tat!
And even when she’d partially recovered from the combination of shocked outrage and fright he hadn’t given her a chance to tell him the truth. He was obviously the sort who formed an opinion and stuck to it, no matter what, because it was his—unable, ever, to concede that he might be wrong!
She ground her teeth as she pushed her feet into the plain black shoes that gave her two extra inches, applied the soft pink lipstick which was all the make-up she usually wore, apart from moisturiser which was a must in the dusty city, and made for the door, determined to put last night’s highly embarrassing happenings right out of her mind.
But she should have thanked him, she fretted, as the bus that took her to the centre of the capital jolted through traffic. Heaven only knew what might have happened if he hadn’t phoned for transport. She might have had to walk for miles in those silly scarlet heels before she’d found a cruising taxi, and walking through the warren of run-down streets, in that particular area, was not a sensible thing for a lone female to do. Not many men would have stopped to see if she was all right, taking the way she’d been dressed as evidence of her profession and leaving her to get out of a mess which was patently of her own making.
So she should have swallowed her pride and thanked him. But she hadn’t, she told herself crossly, and that was the end of it. She would never set eyes on him again and, as from this very moment, she would forget all about the horrible incident. Chewing it over in her mind was a pointless waste of mental energy.
She was later than she’d feared and felt panic squeeze her lungs as she waited for the lift that would take her to the fifth floor of the tower block—all glittering glass and muted silence—to the rooms occupied by Halraike Hopkins. She was never late, she never panicked, and this was an important occasion. As soon as her sister, Petra, took up her new and well-paid job she, Zoe, would be able to afford to move nearer the centre, take a mortgage out on a decent flat of her own and not have to face the awful bus journey from Peckham each morning. She couldn’t wait!
But that was in the future and her immediate boss, Luke Taylor, one of the senior partners, would never forgive her if she gave a bad impression—like being unpunctual, hobbling because her scrapes and grazes were giving her gyp, and compounding it all by looking panicky. If he could add the Wright and Grantham account to his portfolio he would be a happy and proud man.
Wright and Grantham, she had no need to remind herself, was a hugely successful drug company and their chief executive, no less, was meeting informally with them this morning to discuss the handling of their accounts. Already she was a full fifteen minutes late.
She was beginning to sweat as the lift arrived and she shot into the metal box and punched the button for the fifth floor. She would have had her secretary sit in on the meeting but Luke had stressed that he’d wanted this meeting to be fairly informal. Zoe could make discreet notes herself. He wanted everything nice and smooth and relaxed.
Light years away from feeling anywhere near smooth and relaxed, she limped out of the lift and had to force herself to stand still and try to haul herself together.
Taking slow, deep breaths, she closed her eyes and mentally absorbed the quiet, understated elegance of the vast reception area, the Saturday morning silence broken only by the muted hum of the air-conditioning.
She was good at her job, knew how to handle her team—with firmness but good humour, bringing out the best from them—and was, she knew, a respected employee on a salary many would envy. So she would walk in there and make a serene apology, refer briefly to horrendous traffic conditions, and leave it at that.
Trying to ignore the painful twinges in her legs, she pinned a cool smile on her lips and walked into Luke’s office. And nearly died.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_85bfa80f-7236-5e3c-a79f-dffe7da511f2)
SHE had known she would never forget his face but hadn’t realised just how soon it would be proved.
So James Cade, the highly respected and reputedly terrifying chief executive of Wright and Grantham, was the scathing knight-errant who had arbitrarily decided she was a fifteen-year-old hooker!
Cringingly deep embarrassment made her want to slide through the floor and she made her halting apology in a breathy whisper which was so totally unlike her normal cool, collected tone that she felt endlessly ashamed of herself, and Luke’s slightly sarcastic, ‘So you made it at last,’ didn’t help and made her go pink right to the tips of her ears.
The two men occupied leather armchairs with a low table between them and perhaps it was the contrast with James Cade’s hard, utterly assured confidence that made Luke look wound up to the point of taking off into orbit. At thirty, probably the other man’s junior by five years, Luke was already beginning to lose his sandy hair because he worried too much. Worried that in a handful of years’ time he would be over the hill, considered too old for original thinking…Worried about the state of his marriage…
‘Coffee, Zoe.’ Luke’s instruction, the laboured tone of his voice, jerked her into showing that she hadn’t grown roots into the luxuriously carpeted floor and she hurried, uncomfortably aware that she was hobbling, into his secretaries’ office and closed the door far too vigorously behind her, leaning against it for a second to get her breathing back under control and her mind tidily together.
But she couldn’t hide forever and so demonstrate to their would-be prestigious new client that she couldn’t even produce coffee for three efficiently. Brusquely, she went to work on her mental processes and by the time she had the tray ready she’d convinced herself that, although she might have recognised him immediately—and who the heck wouldn’t? He was dauntingly unforgettable—there was no way he would recognise her.
The small, neat, unobtrusively grey personage she projected today was as unlike last night’s cleavage-andfishnet trollop as it was possible to get. He would never in a million years equate a primly understated twenty-five-year-old accountant with a supposedly fifteen-yearold female of the night who got herself flung out of cars by disgruntled customers!
Not allowing herself to dwell overlong on that aspect because if she did she would stay permanently beetrootcoloured, Zoe carried the tray through, placed it neatly on the table, poured, murmured softly about helping themselves to cream and sugar and sat on the third strategically placed and glaringly unoccupied chair and quietly fished her reading glasses and notepad from her handbag.
And only then, when she was neatly settled, did she force herself to look at him. She couldn’t stare at the section of wall beyond his impressive, dark-suited shoulders for the entire meeting. He would notice and think she was peculiar.
She didn’t want him to have any thoughts about her at all.
There was no doubt about it, she conceded, he was an intensely, formidably attractive specimen. His tall, lean body was clothed with elegant urbanity, the look of complete assurance on his hard-bitten features saved from being awesomely terrifying by the sensual sweep of his wide lower lip.
And Luke was doing all the talking, outlining the comprehensive, confidential and detailed services offered by Halraike Hopkins and she, unprecedentedly, was saying nothing, because if she kept a low enough profile he might forget she was there, and that would be nice, even though she was positively sure he wouldn’t recognise her in a month of Sundays.
But he turned his attention from Luke and as she came into the firing line of those chilling grey eyes she wasn’t so sure. The look was cold, calculating and very, very comprehensive. He would be difficult, if not impossible, to fool, she thought, gulping, wondering if she should try to display a small, polite smile as his eyes left the soft pink of her mouth and locked on to her apprehensive green eyes.
Luke was still talking and James Cade was still impaling her with those impressively clever eyes and Zoe went hot all over, pushed at her glasses with a nervous finger and tried to convince herself that he couldn’t possibly recognise her, trying to see her nondescript appearance through his eyes—the neatly structured, almost mannish grey suit, the tightly confined hair, dark-rimmed spectacles…
As if picking up on her thought processes, his gaze travelled quickly over her body, down to her toes, then swept back up again to dwell on her slender, primly disposed legs.
Could he see those angry-looking grazes and scrapes through the sheer stockings she was wearing? Could he? Her one personal extravagance was pure silk stockings, as light and airy as thistledown. Too late now to wish she’d invested in a few pairs of thick lisle numbers.
Zoe wanted to scream and couldn’t remember ever having felt quite so relieved as she did when James Cade eventually rose from his chair with a fluid economy of movement, ending the meeting, his hand outstretched to Luke who had scrambled to his feet.
‘Thank you for your time,’ Cade said smoothly. ‘Get one of your people to set up a meeting with our MD and company accountant at head office and we’ll get the ball rolling.’
Thank God it was over, Zoe thought on a wave of weak relief as she pushed herself up out of the low leather chair, unable to hide a wince of pain, and he noted it, of course he did, and his mouth was grim as he held out his hand.
There was no option but to take it and the touch of firm flesh and hard bone as long fingers clasped hers was like nothing that had ever happened to her before. At any moment she could dissolve into the carpet because the simple touch of his hand as it swallowed hers made everything she was made of fall to pieces.
Nerves, she told herself as her boss escorted James Cade out to the lift. She had behaved like a halfwit throughout the short meeting but she refused to blame herself. Who wouldn’t have been crippled by nervousness in such circumstances?
But Luke, of course, had no idea of the shock she’d sustained and his, ‘Well you were a lot of help!’ as he walked back in carried enough censure for the two of them. ‘You might have been a pile of bricks for all the input you made. You’ll be handling everything from now on. I hope to God you took notes.’ Then, with tardy concern, ‘You’re not feeling ill or anything, are you?’
Stacking the coffee-cups back on the tray, Zoe thought of the indecipherable squiggles on her notepad and shuddered. But she was back in control again, thinking on her feet. She’d get Simon Elliot, her PA, to set the meeting up as quickly as possible, no problem there, and she said sweetly, ‘No, I’m fine. You put our case beauti fully and I might be wrong but Cade struck me as the type who would prefer any direct dealings to be with another man. I would imagine he has little time for women in the workplace—up there in his rarefied atmosphere, in any case. I imagine he expects women to be seen and not heard, to sit quietly like good little secretaries, take notes and leave the thinking to the big boys.’
He hadn’t struck her as any such thing, she simply hadn’t thought beyond the dreadful embarrassment of seeing him again. But it was as good an excuse as any to explain the way she’d acted and Luke obviously thought it made sense because he followed as she carried the tray out, ruminating,
‘You could be so right. Nice thinking!’ He smiled at her suddenly, the worry lines rolling off his forehead. ‘He’s a cold devil and reputedly doesn’t suffer fools at all—let alone gladly. And his reputation with women stinks. Use them and drop them!’
Zoe, rinsing out the cups at the sink in the cubbyhole adjoining the secretaries’ office, thought she detected a note of admiration in his voice and fell to wondering if she’d been right to be irritated by his wife’s regular phone calls demanding to know where he was, why he was late when he’d said he’d be early, complaining that he’d forgotten he’d promised to attend the children’s sports day, end of term play—whatever.
She’d been irritated by Julie Taylor’s whining, anxious tone so many times in the past but now she was beginning to feel sorry for her. It just went to reinforce her opinion that it must be awful to become so dependent on a partner. It turned a person into a bag of neuroses, stripped them of their self-respect.
‘But he’s a clever bastard!’ He sounded as if he were verbally rubbing his hands. ‘Rumour has it he’s about to become engaged to his chairman’s daughter. An astute career move, that! He’s at the top of his particular tree at the moment; marriage to Stephanie Wright will cement him there permanently.’
‘Perhaps they’re madly in love with each other,’ Zoe said, remembering his awesome good looks, and with a slightly repressive note in her voice because, although all the staff at Halraike Hopkins were properly discreet when with outsiders, gossip tended to get a bit rife internally and she couldn’t approve of that.
And Luke drawled back, letting her know just how dull he thought she was, ‘Wise up, Zoe. Steph Wright’s a first-class bitch. A man would have to be a fool to fall for her. And Cade’s far from that.’
Drying her hands, Zoe wondered why she felt so disappointed. A man as charismatic, as obviously intelligent and authoritative as James Cade didn’t need to marry for such sordid reasons. He could get wherever he wanted to get under his own steam. But it was none of her business and she didn’t care how he conducted his life, of course she didn’t. The only thing that could possibly concern her was his lack of recognition of her.
Luke followed her out, locking the communicating door behind him, and as she gathered her bag he suggested, a little too studiously offhand, ‘How about a spot of lunch to celebrate? Cade wouldn’t have asked for this meeting if he hadn’t already gone through our records with a fine-tooth comb and a magnifying glass and decided to use us, we knew that. But it’s nice to have everything tied up. It won’t hurt for once if you’re late getting out to the cottage.’
No wonder his wife never quite knew when to expect him, Zoe decided as she declined his offer coolly.
‘I’ll have to pass on that. I’m not visiting this weekend. Dad’s got a reunion on and Petra’s away so he’s bringing the twins to me.’ She glanced at her plain, serviceable wristwatch. Because of this morning’s meeting she wouldn’t have been able to get out to the Kent borders in time for her father to set out for Birmingham for the Korean Veterans reunion he looked forward to attending each year. So she would have to cope with the boys here in London. And move her gear into the basement. It was going to be a trying weekend.
She was already later than she’d expected to be and she walked quickly to the door, shaking her head as Luke offered, ‘I’ll give you a lift, shall I?’
The offer was tempting. It would save time. But if she went to the Elephant and Castle by Underground and then on by bus, she shouldn’t keep Dad hanging around for too long. And her new sympathy for Luke’s wife wouldn’t let her be so selfish so she urged, ‘There’s really no need, thanks. Get back to Julie and the kids; there’s still plenty of weekend left if you don’t waste it.’
But the look on his face told her that a celebratory lunch with a colleague would have been more to his liking than mowing the lawn or taking his family shopping. And it reinforced her long-held opinion that going solo was much safer than pairing up. You could always rely on yourself but rarely on anyone else. Anyone else could lose interest, grow away. Or just plain die. Or let you believe things that simply weren’t true.
In the event she wasn’t late at all and was hurrying as best she could down the street when she saw her father’s ancient Ford estate pull up in front of the house she shared.
Suddenly overwhelmed by fondness for him, she swallowed the lump in her throat and put her feeling of vulnerability down to the traumas and mortifications of last night and this morning. It wasn’t like her to get needlessly tearful, or sentimental, but she couldn’t help thinking that he deserved better from life than what he had.
They had been such a close and happy family, her father, mother, Petra and herself. And Rufus, the dog. All squashed together in the two-bedroomed cottage just inside Kent and loving it, not yearning for anything bigger and better because they all had each other and nothing else really counted.
Until fourteen years ago when her mother had died and the light had gone out of everything. Zoe had felt betrayed. It had seemed, for a time, as if her whole world was falling apart, but her father had made sure it hadn’t.
He had said goodbye to his hopes of a headship and had taught part-time so he could be with his daughters, until his voluntary retirement two years ago. Which had meant, of course, that money had been in short supply and he’d had to make sacrifices most other men would have refused to do.
He had adored his wife and he’d never got over her early death and, although he’d always done his best to disguise his pain, to make their home life as happy and normal as possible, he hadn’t been able to hide the hurt in his eyes, at least not from Zoe.
And because Petra had only just turned eight when their mother had died Zoe had gallantly tried to take her place, becoming responsible and preternaturally sensible in her efforts to help her father carry on as if everything was all right.
Forcing the bleak and thankfully rare mood of introspection away, she pinned on a smile and went to give her father a hug as he tugged the bags of baby impedimenta out of the boot. A big-boned man, he was beginning to stoop, and the hair which had turned grey in the months following the death of his devotedly loved wife was going thin on top. Swallowing an inner pang, she made her smile wider.
‘You look very smart, Dad.’ And he did. The grey flannels he wore were immaculately pressed and his old regimental badge looked impressive on his dark blazer. ‘I’m sorry you had to go to the trouble of bringing the babies out here.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ His kind eyes smiled down into hers as he turned from stacking the last bag neatly on the pavement. ‘You had a meeting and your career’s more important than my trip to Birmingham.’
She wanted to tell him it wasn’t, not really, that he had more than earned just one weekend for himself out of fifty-two. But she didn’t because he simply wouldn’t see it that way. Ever since the death of his wife his daughters had come first, their happiness and emotional security his prime concern.
Which was why, two years ago when the twins had been a few months old, he had taken early retirement in order to help look after them because Petra had been busy pushing herself through her Open University course. And, if he hadn’t been unable to stop loving his wife, grieving for her, then he would have remarried at some stage, concentrating on his career and handing over the responsibility of caring for his two daughters and, later, his small grandsons.
But now wasn’t the time to stand around as if she were in a dream, allowing her mind to backtrack through the years. Dad had a long drive ahead of him.
Gathering herself, she opened the rear car door and Bill Kilgerran said, ‘Gently. They’re both asleep.’
But just beginning to wake, she noted, going gooey as always when they were like this: two identical boneless blond puddings, long lashes fluttering over flushed cheeks. Blessedly quiet, just for the moment!
They each unstrapped a twin from an identical car seat and just before small chubby arms put a stranglehold on her neck Zoe saw hers was Robin. He had a brown fleck in the iris of one of his big blue eyes. Rickie didn’t, which was kind of Mother Nature as it stopped them getting muddled up completely.
The little boy nuzzled his cheek against hers and she gave herself a moment of auntly joy as she cuddled him back and then got into brisk and sensible mode, reached for one of the lined-up bags with her free hand and went carefully up the steps and into the house.
The long narrow hall already seemed to be full of luggage—suitcases, things in boxes, a portable TV. Hannah. Of course! Her slight frown was in danger of becoming a full-blown scowl so she straightened her brow, put Robin on his feet, took Rickie from her father, gave him a quick cuddle and set him down beside his twin.
Following her father back down the steps, she gathered the remainder of the twins’ bits and pieces and told him, ‘Don’t bang around. If you try to make up lost time on the motorway that old rattletrap will fall to pieces.’
She was doing it again! she thought, mentally shaking her head at herself. For the past fourteen years, one way or another, she’d been trying to be the little mother, fussing and worrying, taking her self-inflicted responsibilities far too much to heart—not that it had prevented what had happened to Petra…
‘Don’t cast aspersions—she might hear, go into one of her sulks and refuse to start at all!’ Bill Kilgerran brushed a knuckled fist lightly over his daughter’s pointed chin and added with a smile that hid the wryness, ‘When you learn to stop fretting I’ll throw a party. Now, if the boys get too rumbustious, take them for a long walk. It works like a dream. And I’ll be back here tomorrow afternoon to pick them up.’
Which gave her something else to fret about, because every year he stayed for the reunion weekend with his old friend from National Service days. Jack Foster and his wife Elaine lived in the Birmingham suburb of Solihull and after the reunion dinner and dance they had Sunday to get over it, plenty of things to reminisce about, to catch up on over a pint at the local, followed by one of Elaine’s apparently memorable Sunday roasts.
But Dad would have to miss out on his relaxing full day with his friend, Zoe thought regretfully, waving until he rounded the corner. But they had both agreed that Petra needed the break…
Suddenly aware that the household behind her was ominously quiet, she made her sore legs carry her up the steps at a run. And she had been right in guessing there was mischief afoot because both the tiny boys were practically upended in one of Hannah’s boxes, unpacking the contents with mountains of glee and little method.
‘No! Naughty!’ she admonished as sternly as she could, hooking an arm round each small body and hauling them out, rescuing a coat hanger from Rickie’s clinging fingers just as Hannah and Gary came slowly down the stairs, breathing hard, carrying the dressing-table from what had been Zoe’s room between them.
Halfway down they stopped for a breather and Hannah poked her rumpled head over the banisters.
‘Gary said you were looking after your sister’s kids this weekend so we thought we’d help move your stuff.’ She smiled shyly. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but…’ Her voice tailed off and Zoe took up,
‘But you want me out of the way, shut away in the basement so you two can play house,’ The smile in her voice robbed her words of any sting and the boys began to race round the hall on sturdy legs, chortling like wild things. The ‘bumping from stair to stair’ downward progress of the dressing-table had kept them quiet and enthralled but the journey had come to a standstill, and that was boring.
But the sudden eruption of Jenna into the hall, clad in what appeared to be a gauzy patterned throwover shirt and nothing else, closely followed by a tall, lanky guy who had to be the actress’s newest date, had them scampering for safety, clinging, shyly burying their flushed faces in Zoe’s skirt.
The sooner she changed into a pair of old jeans, the better, Zoe thought, absently patting two lint-blond heads, though how that would be accomplished when her possessions appeared to be in transit, with a goodly proportion wedged permanently on the stairs, she had no idea. She was beginning to get a headache.
She smiled tentatively at the lanky guy who smiled warily back. And Jenna crooned, ‘Zoe, my pet—meet Henry.’ She stroked the side of his lean face lingeringly. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous? I do believe I might marry him. At least,’ she batted fabulous lashes, ‘I shall move in with him to avoid having to share that meagre basement. No offence, Zoe, my pet—but really! Oi, you two,’ she hollered up the staircase. ‘Come down at once. I want your opinion.’
A distracted grunt was the only reply and Zoe wondered just what was going on behind that dressing-table, and Jenna patted Henry’s backside lovingly, ordering, ‘Do lend a hand, otherwise they’ll be there all day.’
It’s a madhouse, Zoe thought, subsiding on to the hall chair, feeling hot and bothered in her neat office gear as the midsummer sun poured in through the open hall door.
She dragged the twins up on her lap, out of the way, as Henry took one end of the recalcitrant piece of furniture and began to tug and Jenna shouted above the din.
‘My lovely room will look like a used furniture emporium! How much more do you think you’ll try to fit in?’ But the furniture removers ignored her and Zoe wondered whether to tell her not to worry because any time now she would be moving out herself, just as soon as she’d finished saving for a deposit on a place of her own. Now that Petra had a well paid job to go to, she would be able to afford it.
She closed her eyes briefly, picturing it—somewhere fairly central, peaceful, a place for everything and everything in its place, nothing pandemonic about it—and the moment had gone. No chance to tell Jenna anything as the dressing-table came to rest at the foot of the stairs and the actress clapped her hands and commanded, ‘Gather round folks, I want advice.’
Henry dusted off his hands and the upward drift of his wide bony shoulders seemed to say, She’s impossible, but cute. Then Hannah and Gary emerged, their hands twined together, and Hannah, despite the wildness of her curly dark hair, looked cool and lovely in brief lemon-yellow shorts which showed off her endless legs and a skimpy sleeveless top.
‘Right!’ Jenna flashed her wide white smile when she had their undivided attention. ‘You know about my part in this TV drama, and I guess I have to concede it’s only walk on, walk off and half a dozen tiny words. But I aim to make a big impression, folks! So I’ve got to look re-all-y——’ she spun the word out ‘—sexy, with a capital S. I appear at a poolside, right? I think I look sexier with this cover-up——’ she tweaked the edges of the diaphanous shirt ‘—sort of alluring—some mystery, you know.’ Briefly, she paraded up and down the cluttered limits of the hall. ‘But Henry here says it’s better without——’ She stopped, shrugging out of the filmy shirt, holding her arms dramatically wide, revealing ripely voluptuous curves in a bikini so small it was barely there. ‘So——?’ she questioned breathlessly. ‘What do you guys think?’
Catcalls and whistles, someone—probably Gary—was stamping his feet, and Zoe closed her eyes and wished she could close her ears, too, to shut out the din, and wished she had never been born when that unmistakable voice said with the cool precision she was beginning to dread, ‘I have no wish to sound offensive, but don’t you think your activities should be conducted more discreetly?’
The sudden strained silence made Zoe’s heart pound. She went hot all over, perspiration soaking the neat white blouse she wore beneath her suit jacket. It took a lot of courage to turn her head. Slowly.
James Cade was standing in the open hall doorway, impeccably suited against the background of the dusty street. Cool, collected and in control. Utterly. Dominating his audience.
The austerely beautiful features betrayed nothing, not a thing, not even disdain, and the cold grey eyes took in every single thing, labelling it, filing it away inside that clever brain. Everything. Jenna, posing, unashamedly near-naked; Gary and Hannah clinging together, one of Gary’s hands, shocked by the disruptive advent of the stranger to complete immobility, curving around Hannah’s pert breast; the clutter, the unbelievable clutter—boxes and bags, the abandoned dressing-table leaning drunkenly against one wall.
‘Want something?’ Gary was the first to recover. His hand slid down to Hannah’s waist and his jaw was belligerent. ‘You’re on private property.’
‘As your antics are clearly visible from the street I imagined privacy was the last thing you bothered about.’ James Cade was visibly unimpressed by Gary’s pugnacious stance. His hands were thrust negligently into the trouser pockets of the superbly tailored lightweight suit he wore and, with the sunlight behind him, his features were more darkly dangerous than even Zoe remembered them.
Her arms tightened around the twins and she shivered. And the shiver turned into a shudder that went souldeep as the voice that was insolent in its coolness imparted, ‘I want a private word with Miss Kilgerran.’
Unaware of the questioning look Gary shot in her direction, Zoe gulped. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She shook her head, hoping he’d disappear. But he didn’t. He had tracked her down and there could be only one reason for that.
He recognised her from the night before. She hadn’t really believed it possible.
One of the twins was pulling the pins out of her hair and it fell down around her face like a shiny blonde cloud and she gasped out the first thing that came into her head.
‘How did you know where I lived?’
A silly thing to say, she realised belatedly. She, who had never said a silly thing in her life, had spoken as if she had something to hide.
‘The usual channels,’ he answered with cool menace, advancing further into the cluttered hall, picking his way round a pile of toys that had spilled from one of the carriers.
Whatever that meant, Zoe thought and closed her eyes in complete despair as Gary, as if satisfied that she and James Cade knew each other, draped an arm round Hannah’s waist and said leeringly, ‘Right, folks—bed now. Everyone upstairs on the double! Let’s get at it!’
I’ll strangle him! I will, I will! Zoe thought, horribly close to a state of hysteria for the first time in her life. She didn’t know about Henry, but the others all took life and sex so lightheartedly, making a joke out of nearly everything, batting sexual innuendoes around like tennis balls in the Wimbledon finals. They were going to shift her bed down to the basement. She knew that. James Cade wouldn’t. He would think the whole household was set for an orgy!
Both the little boys were squirming around on her lap, babbling about biscuits which meant it was way past their lunchtime, and Zoe couldn’t have got to her feet if she’d wanted to because even if her legs hadn’t turned to water the twins were pinning her down. And James Cade clipped derisively, ‘Does Taylor know about the double life you lead? Is he a dupe, or do you give him a few favours on the side to keep him quiet? I hear his marriage is shaky and now I understand why.’
There was no expression on his hard features and that, somehow, was worse than a sneer. How could he imply she and Luke…? How could he believe she was—what he thought she was?
Violent denials exploded in her brain, denials she was unable to put into coherent words. Not that he gave her the opportunity because he just stood there, feet planted apart, telling her exactly what she didn’t want to hear.
‘When you walked in this morning I knew I’d seen you before. When I noticed the fresh grazes on your legs the penny dropped. But I didn’t fully believe it until I walked in on this sordid set-up.’ A nerve jumped at the side of his tense jawline and then cold grey eyes swept over the restless twins. The family likeness was unmissable. ‘Yours. Why, I wonder, do I find myself so unamazed?’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘Do you know who the father is?’
Grey eyes impaled her, as if drilling deep inside her brain and, her mind an impossible jumble of repudiations and denials, she squeakily told the truth.
‘No.’
Petra had adamantly refused to tell anyone the identity of the man who had used her and dropped her, doing a vanishing act the moment he’d learned she was pregnant. And Zoe had told the truth because her mind was direct. She didn’t stall or bend the facts to suit the circumstances and had blown her chance to explain that the twins weren’t hers, because he turned smartly on his heels and walked straight out.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4cbc9782-e9c6-562c-8d68-3183d853d4a4)
‘THE restaurant’s in Fallow Street—can you find your own way there? Or shall I send a car?’ The dark voice was even more curt this morning, but Zoe was too relieved to hear it to care.
‘Twelve-thirty, Mr Cade; I’ll be there. And of course I can make my own way.’ She was practically burbling.
‘I’ve no doubt you can,’ he came back drily, and before she could work out what that tone was supposed to mean the line went dead.
Replacing the receiver, she glanced at her watch. Lunch with James Cade in exactly one hour. She grinned. Exhilaration got her bouncing to her feet, far too unsettled now to continue with the particularly knotty set of profit and loss sheets she’d been working on.
The weekend had been far from relaxing. What with having to move into the basement rooms with a miffed Jenna who kept muttering darkly about going to live in sin with Henry, caring for two energetic small boys who obviously thought that aunts were people who had nothing else to do but play with them and allow them to eat chocolate bars instead of lunch, and agonising over James Cade’s totally unexpected and incomprehensible arrival—and abrupt departure, on such a deeply embarrassing note, too—she had entered Monday morning feeling frayed to the point of disintegration.
And hadn’t been able to concentrate properly on her work, either, because her mind had kept sliding off at a tangent, grappling with the problem of how on earth she could approach James Cade and put him right.
What he privately thought of her morals was neither here nor there; she accepted that. After all, her company would be working for his company and that was as far as their relationship would go. And the only time that they ever need meet would be for a short session before she tackled his personal tax returns and his no doubt massive portfolio of investments.
But the knowledge that he thought she was some sort of Jekyll and Hyde character, doing a bit of hookering in her spare time, sharing a house with what he had probably decided were pimps and their prospects and already having two small sons—and no idea who their father was—was too awful to live with!
So his unexpected invitation to lunch was the answer to her prayers, and then some! And Zoe felt completely cheerful and nicely in control again for the first time since that awful fancy dress party on Friday night.
She poked her head into the adjoining office, checked that Simon, her PA, had set up the initial formal meeting with Wright and Grantham and had the final audit for Future Computers well in hand, told her secretary that she would be out of the office for a couple of hours, then retreated into her own office, collected her washbag from her desk and tripped light-heartedly to the ladies’ room.
Hanging her suit jacket and crisp white blouse on the hooks on the inside of the door, she uncapped the gel she preferred to wash with and vigorously sluiced her face with warm water.
Cade had almost certainly set up this meeting to fill her in on his personal tax details—handling all the director’s returns would come within her brief—because he wasn’t a fool. While she and her team would do all the hard graft, Luke, as the senior partner, would pick up the credit. James Cade would know that and would want, initially anyway, to liaise with her directly. And she would take the heaven-sent opportunity to explain that his warped opinion of her was completely and utterly incorrect.
Because, far from being sexually promiscuous, she had never had a lover in her life. One or two boyfriends, that was all, and they had been politely given the heave-ho when they had tried to get too fresh or too serious.
But she wouldn’t tell him that, of course; her hangups were her own business. Not that they were exactly that, she assured herself as she smoothed moisturiser into her fine, pale skin. She preferred to think of her celibate state as a well-rationalised decision, arrived at after sensibly weighing the pros and cons.
She had first-hand evidence of how loving could destroy a person. And, quite apart from not wanting to take the risk of that happening to her, she valued her freedom and independence. She had worked hard to attain it and didn’t intend to lose it.
Zoe buttoned herself into her blouse and shrugged into her lightweight suit jacket. So far, so good. Not one strand of blonde hair escaping the pins that held it in its neat knot, her small features serene, only the sparkle in her big green eyes betraying her pleasant anticipation of the coming meeting.
An anticipation that was solely down to the comforting knowledge that before lunch was over James Cade would have revised his embarrassing opinion of her, she assured herself as she opted to walk to the restaurant he had named. The spring in her step had nothing to do with the man himself, his undoubtedly awesome good looks, his sheer mind-blowing presence.
Forcing herself to slow down her pace because if she kept bouncing along in the warm June sun she would arrive looking hot and sweaty, she found her thoughts unaccountably turning to the woman Cade was to marry.
And she knew, with a feminine intuition that rather surprised her, that Stephanie Wright would have to be a very strong lady indeed to be able to handle the almost frightening maleness of Cade. He would walk all over a weak woman, dominate her utterly—and probably end up despising her.
She had never met his chairman’s daughter and wasn’t likely to, but she could paint pictures in her head of someone very glossy, smoothly sophisticated and tough. She would have to be, to have attracted a man like Cade. And, being tough, the likes of Luke Taylor would label her ‘bitch’ because men disliked strong women more often than not; they made them feel insecure so they called them names to make them feel better themselves.
James Cade was the type who would respect a strong woman, consider her his equal. So he wouldn’t be contemplating marriage to cement his career, she decided cosily; he was probably deeply in love with his Stephanie.
And quite why that neatly worked out snippet should take all her breath away, suddenly drain the bounce out of her step, was something she had no time to work out, because she had arrived. And stood still for a single second while she straightened her suit jacket, hauled back her shoulders, arranged what she hoped was a serene expression on her face and walked on in.
He was already waiting, and as the waiter ushered her to the secluded table for two he rose courteously to his feet and she felt herself go decidedly pink. And knew why. All those dreadful—but understandable, given the circumstances—misconceptions of his!
Which she now had the perfect opportunity to put right, she reassured herself. Zoe the part-time hooker would soon be a thing of the past!
‘Thank you for giving me your time,’ he said tonelessly, his eyes half hidden beneath heavy lids and an even heavier fringe of thick black lashes.
She didn’t think he was actually seeing her at all and Zoe bit back the outrageous impulse to drawl right back, ‘I don’t give and I don’t come cheap. Fifty quid an hour’s the going rate,’ and wondered if ladies of that sort charged by the hour or by the——And felt herself go scarlet and wondered just what it was about this man that made her lose all her sanity and say and think the silliest things…
He was towering above her and, all around her, the atmosphere seemed to crackle. He looked mean and moody and, yes, it had to be faced, terrifyingly desirable.
Zoe sat quickly, her breath all gone again, and watched as he seated himself and beckoned a waiter. And that initial show of courtesy wasn’t in evidence as he ordered for both of them—bottled mineral water and a plain green salad as it turned out—when for all he knew she might have craved a large gin and a thick rare steak!
Not that she did, of course, it was the principle that counted. But she hadn’t come here for the food, she reminded herself, and, looking at things from his viewpoint, he wouldn’t consider the type of female he believed her to be deserved much in the way of polite behaviour.
So now was the time, before they got into business discussions, to put him straight. She opened her mouth to do just that but he cut across her, his dispassionate tone more chilling than it had any right to be.
‘Before I approach your superiors I think it’s only fair to tell you that I intend to have you taken off the Wright and Grantham account.’
‘You can’t mean that!’ Her head felt as if it were about to spin off her shoulders and the fork she’d been holding fell from her fingers and she didn’t even notice. Her career prospects with Halraike Hopkins would bite the dust and she would be suspect from here on in. Influential clients didn’t make such requests without good reason.
‘I don’t say things I don’t mean.’
To give him his due, he remained silent while the watchful waiter removed the fallen fork and replaced it with another and then he explained, with the softness of a cobra striking.
‘But I prefer to look a person in the eye instead of pushing the knife in between the shoulder-blades. Hence this meeting.’
‘Oh, but you can’t!’ Zoe insisted frantically, sliding down in her seat a little because one glance from those coldly, quellingly authoritative grey eyes would have stopped a manic axe-murderer in his tracks.
But he merely contradicted, ‘I can. And I will.’ He began eating his salad with no sign of enjoyment, as if it was every responsible person’s duty to fuel the body so that it could function properly, no more than that.
Zoe couldn’t even look at hers and stared at him, knowing she just had to look stupid but unable to do anything about it as he expounded, ‘Your morals, or lack of them, are your business, of course. I don’t presume to judge—’
‘You don’t! You, you—’ she spluttered, the blistering words that would put him right on that score crowding on the edge of her tongue.
But he silenced her with another killingly quelling look and cut in quietly, ‘Normally, no. But what I witnessed late on Friday night, coupled with the fact that you admit you have no idea who the father of your children is—plus the way you appear to live—adds up to the unpleasant truth that your integrity has to be in question. No, hear me out—’ He sliced through her hiss of outrage, his voice like ice-edged steel. ‘Wright and Grantham’s accounts contain certain sensitive information.’ He laid down his cutlery and leaned back in his chair, long fingers absently curved around his glass of iced water. ‘Our research funding, for example. Which new and possibly revolutionary drugs are being given priority by our research department. All useful information to rival companies. Added to which, you have a useful pusher to hand. The reporter—I thought I recognised him and subsequent checking proved me right—the guy who was so anxious to get everyone in bed. All in the same bed? Or hasn’t the depravity gone that far yet?’ One dark, well-defined brow rose in a query that was entirely without humour. ‘Be that as it may, the information in the wrong hands—his hands and, by implication, yours—could do Wright and Grantham a whole load of no good at all.’
‘But I wouldn’t!’ Zoe exploded, all thoughts of telling him she wasn’t the sleazy tramp of his imaginings melting away in the fiery fury of hearing her professional integrity called into question.
Infuriatingly, he shrugged, wide shoulders moving just slightly beneath that smooth, expensive suiting. ‘Perhaps, perhaps not. Who’s to tell? However——’ he dropped his napkin on the table, making it clear the unpleasant interview was at an end ‘—I am not prepared to take the chance.’
Her brain was reeling. She felt as if she’d just gone ten rounds with a prize fighter. Punch drunk. But she had to pull herself together before he paid the bill and left her staring into a plate of salad and an impoverished future.
Trying to pretend that her face wasn’t scarlet with temper, she pushed out her pointy chin and, unaware of the threatening, deep green glitter of her narrowed eyes, told him, ‘Before you shoot your mouth off one more time, you can at least give me the chance to explain.’ And, ignoring the shutters of boredom that came down over his fascinating eyes, she spelled out the events which had led to her being tipped out of that car, ending with, ‘And Rickie and Robin are my nephews. Petra, my sister, is away on a walking holiday in Greece with friends. Dad and I had to practically twist her arm to make her go. She’s been working flat-out to get her Open University degree and she needed the break before taking up her job with a literary agency based in Bromley. And, before you start accusing me of lying, no, we don’t know who the father is.’ Realising that her normally cool, restrained voice had risen to fishwife levels, she took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to leave his, staring instead at the bread roll she’d put on her side plate and hadn’t touched.
She began to rip it to shreds.
‘Four years ago, when Petra was eighteen,’ she explained more calmly, ‘she worked as a receptionist in a small hotel near Orpington. Just temporarily, until she took her place at university. Dad’s always insisted that we both cram in as much education as possible—he was a teacher.’
For the first time, a tiny smile played round the edges of her mouth, and then she, in turn, shrugged. ‘She was looking forward to it, to getting her degree and making a career—with books—in publishing or with an agency. Then she met someone. He swept her off her feet, as the saying goes.’ She gave him another shrug, a look that said she didn’t believe in that sort of thing herself, and ploughed straight on. ‘I was studying hard for my finals at that time, at university myself, so I didn’t know what was going on. But Dad knew something was up. Petra stopped going home, and when she did put in an appearance she acted strangely. Then the truth came out. She was pregnant. The creep had talked about marriage, talked about undying love—and she had believed him.’ Unconsciously, her voice hardened. ‘When he learned she was pregnant, instead of naming the day he told her he was already married with three children. She never saw him again.’
‘And she didn’t say who he was?’ Cade asked, his dry tone telling her he had difficulty believing any of this.
And Zoe came back firmly, ‘No. After she broke the news she refused to talk about him. She probably could have traced him and demanded some kind of financial support but she obviously wanted to forget him, put it all behind her. And Dad and I supported her in that.’
‘I would imagine the advent of twins made forgetting him a touch difficult.’ An unforgivable trace of humour quirked his long mouth, drawing her startled attention to all that latent sensuality.
She would have liked to hit him but controlled herself and said primly, ‘None of us has ever looked on the boys as belonging to anyone but our family. We all love them devotedly. Dad helps Petra look after them during the week while I go down to the cottage at weekends to do my bit and give Dad a breathing space. Nobody resents them; we love them to pieces.’
‘You haven’t once mentioned your mother in all of this.’ The new, lighter tone of query in his voice, the careful way he was watching her, gave her hope that he was beginning to believe her at last.
So the relief of that gentled her tone as she told him softly, ‘Mum died fourteen years ago. Dad brought us up.’
He had devoted his life to his daughters because with the death of his wife there had been nothing else to live for. And although she could understand such depth of devotion she couldn’t condone it. If he had been able to find a new love and marry again—without feeling he was betraying everything he and Mum had been to each other—then he needn’t have sacrificed his career in the way he had, and she needn’t have had to witness those rare unguarded moments when his deep loneliness had shown in his eyes.
‘So your father is left with the unenviable task of bringing up a second family—virtually single-handed if I read you right—as a result of his daughter’s thoughtless lack of control.’
Pompous, pious, ignorant bastard!
Zoe ground her teeth, biting back the verbal brickbats she was itching to throw at him, remembering his threats, his ability—if he so chose—to put her prospects within her company at very grave risk.
It wasn’t like that. Petra had been deceived in the vilest way possible. Her heart had been broken because she’d loved the man and had believed he loved her, too. Her life could have been ruined but she’d been too strongwilled to let that happen and she, Zoe, and Dad, had been right behind her decision to carry on with her pregnancy.
They’d put their heads together and worked everything out. Petra would get her degree through the Open University and Dad would take early retirement when the babies needed more time-consuming attention, leaving their mother free to push on with her studies.
And Zoe was able to give practical help, too. Visiting every weekend to give a hand, giving all the financial support she could afford because although the state helped it was a pittance and didn’t go anywhere. And how dared he imply that all responsibility had been offloaded on to Dad? And the tiny boys didn’t represent an ‘unenviable task’—they were a joy!
Stormy green eyes clashed with his. She could see the cold condemnation in his eyes and knew she had to allow herself the luxury of putting him in his place. After all, his reasons for wanting her taken off the Wright and Grantham account were no longer valid, he could hardly demand her removal for being less than boot-licking, could he?
‘Have you always been so moralistic and judgemental, Mr Cade?’ she enquired in the coollest, most dismissive tone she could find. ‘Was it something that happened, or were you born like it?’ She reached for her handbag, determined that she would be the one to end what had turned out to be a very distasteful, unsettling interview. ‘Did you never do something you later regretted when you were an inexperienced eighteen?’
But James Cade would have been born with all the experience in the world buried deep in his frigid soul, she scorned as she gathered herself to go. She couldn’t imagine him ever being vulnerable, open to hurt and betrayal. Yet the look in his eyes told her she had inadvertently touched a raw nerve, revived something, a memory perhaps, that he could hardly bear to look at.
Interesting.
Too interesting to share, obviously. His face went blank again, his voice almost soft as he commanded, ‘Sit down. I haven’t finished with you yet.’
So she did, with a flurry of internal exasperation. She was going to have to watch her tongue. The more time she spent with him, the more she found herself spoiling for a fight. He was, she decided, infinitely dangerous to her equanimity—never mind her sanity!
‘I’m sorry.’ She arranged her features primly, a slightly off-balance semblance of her normal serene and unflustered expression. ‘I thought everything had been resolved.’ Perhaps he did want to talk about his personal tax returns, she thought. She couldn’t think of anything else he might need to say on the once vexed subject of her suspect morals.
Or maybe, she wondered without a lot of hope, he wanted to apologise. And just stared at him, unable to believe this was happening when he stated coldly,
‘I’m still trying to decide—given what you’ve told me—whether you are as brave and unselfish as you’d like to have me believe, or an accomplished liar.’ He settled his elbows on the arm-rests of his chair, grey eyes impaling her above steepled fingers. ‘The way you choose to conduct your life doesn’t affect me, personally, so don’t accuse me of taking the moralistic stance. But your lifestyle could leave you open to blackmail; I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to see that. And, as I said, there is a certain amount of sensitive, highly confidential information that our rivals would willingly pay substantial sums to obtain, or certain questionable newspapers would love to use as sensational headline material. “New Wonder Drug—Cure All or Kill All”—I’m sure you can visualise the type of thing?’ He allowed his voice to tail off, as if the final word had been said and the subject wearied him, and Zoe sucked in her breath, desperately fighting to find all the control she’d always had at the end of her neat fingers and now seemed to have lost.
And her struggle for composure must have been written all over her face because he lowered his hands and smiled. And the effect was utterly, unnervingly devastating. Made her almost forget his damning opinion of her, his stubborn refusal to believe in her integrity, until he said, ‘You don’t need to try so hard to project a meek, prim image, Miss Kilgerran. I’ve seen you in quite a different persona, remember? Black fishnet—a little torn around the knees, but fetching for all that. A cleavage any Page Three girl would be proud of and an apology for a skirt that defies description. And in any case, Miss Kilgerran, your eyes give you away. They positively spit with wild green passion whenever I say something you don’t want to hear.’
Oh, the hateful, sarcastic, wicked swine! She would like to take that evil smile and wrap it round his neck until it choked him!
‘I’ve already explained how I came to be dressed that way, Mr Cade.’ She marvelled, she really did, at the polite tone she achieved when every mental tooth was grinding down to mental gums. ‘And you only need to do some of that checking up you seem so extraordinarily good at to get at the truth regarding the parentage of the twins. Petra is due home on Wednesday, but if you’d rather not wait that long I’m sure my father would be delighted to have you call on him and to answer all the questions you want to ask.’
So get round that, she fulminated, keeping very still because if she allowed herself to move an inch she’d be over the table and thrusting her wretched, untouched salad down his throat, plate as well.
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