by Lyons, Mary
Even through the thickness of their respective clothing she could feel the increasingly rapid thud of his heart, echoing her own wild pulse-beats; her nostrils filled with the warm, musky scent of his cologne and her body was suddenly shockingly aware of his own arousal as his dark head came down towards her.
Much later, when she tried to come to grips with what had happened in Leo’s office, Alex would be completely at a loss to account for her own quite extraordinary behaviour.
After all, it wasn’t as if she was a nervous virgin, afraid to say boo to a goose. She was twenty-four years of age, and well able to look after herself, right? So, why hadn’t she shouted and screamed blue murder? Or, at the very least, made a serious attempt to struggle and fight her way free of the foul man’s embrace?
Unfortunately, the only conclusion she would come to would be that she must have been struck down by a total mental paralysis! Nothing else could satisfactorily explain why, instead of a vigorous protest, she so swiftly became oblivious to everything except the fierce, overpowering rush of excitement which scorched through her body as his hard, firm mouth possessed hers.
For a few, mad moments she abandoned herself to the overpowering intoxication of his kiss, her lips parting breathlessly beneath the ruthless savagery and determination of his lips and tongue. And then, as the warning sirens began wailing loudly in her fuddled mind, she at last made a feeble attempt to struggle free of his arms. Only to find that she’d left it far too late; his hand swept up to hold her head firmly and immovably beneath his own.
Her traitorous body seemed determined to ignore the danger signals flashing so loudly in her brain, instinctively melting against his hard, firm chest as her arms wound themselves up about his neck. There was no resistance from her as his hands moved caressingly down over her soft curves. Her senses apparently drugged and seduced into quivering acquiescence as his experienced fingers rapidly undid the buttons of her close-fitting jacket, they allowed his lips passage down over her throat and neck, to search for the warm swell of her breasts.
Goodness knows what might have happened next, had they not been interrupted by the sudden appearance of Leo’s personal assistant.
One moment it seemed as though she was drowning in ecstasy, and the next she found herself being pushed abruptly away, her ears filled with the sound of Leo cursing violently under his breath.
‘Excuse me, Mr Hamilton...so sorry...I thought you’d already left for your lunch appointment...’ Dora muttered incoherently, her cheeks flushing a bright crimson as she hurriedly turned to leave the room.
‘Make my excuses about lunch. Say that I’ve been unavoidably detained, but will join them for coffee later,’ Leo barked over his shoulder, his tall body shielding Alex’s dazed, trembling and dishevelled figure from his assistant’s sight until he heard the sound of the door closing firmly behind her.
In the ghastly silence that followed Dora’s departure, Alex could only lean helplessly against the marble mantelpiece, frantically trying to do up the buttons of her jacket with fingers which seemed to be made of cotton wool.
Eventually summoning up enough nerve to peek cautiously through her eyelashes at Leo, she saw that he was gazing down at her with stunned eyes, as if staring at a ghost, his face pale beneath its tan. However, as their eyes met, he turned abruptly on his heel, marching back across the thick carpet to sit down at his desk.
Leaning back in his chair, he appeared buried in deep thought for some moments, before giving a heavy sigh.
‘You’d better come and sit down,’ he rasped harshly. ‘What happened, just now...’ He shrugged his broad shoulders. “There’s obviously no point in trying to explain the inexplicable—so I’m not even going to try. I suggest that we both do our best to forget the last five minutes.’
Miserably aware that she had just made an almighty fool of herself, Alex could only give a helpless nod of agreement. Stumbling across the room on legs which felt as though they were made of jelly, she sank thankfully down onto the chair in front of his desk.
‘Well, Alex, we clearly have a problem,’ he said at last. ‘If I understand the situation correctly, it seems that, unless I agree to allow you to write an article about myself and my fiancée, you have every intention of exposing my mother’s extremely stupid, unkind behaviour in the past Correct?’
‘Um...yes, I suppose so,’ she muttered, unable to meet his eyes as she stared unhappily down at the clenched hands in her lap.
Tell me,’ he drawled scathingly, ‘do you usually blackmail your victims in pursuit of a story?’
‘No, of course I don’t!’ she retorted angrily, raising her head to glare at the handsome, stern features of the man sitting across the desk. ‘I can promise you that I’ve never done anything like this in my life before.’
‘Which is hardly an excuse for doing it now.’
‘OK...OK,’ she mumbled, brushing a shaking hand through her hair. ‘If it’s any consolation, I’m thoroughly ashamed of having to bring this sort of pressure to bear. And I wouldn’t be doing so if I wasn’t absolutely desperate,’ she confessed with a heavy sigh.
‘Desperate...?’
She shrugged. ‘The truth is, Leo, that if I don’t get this story I’m going to lose my job.’
‘All the more reason to have you thrown out of this office toute de suite!’ he retorted with a grim bark of laughter.
‘Ha, ha!’ she ground out sarcastically, deciding that she’d never hated anyone as much as she did this foul man. ‘Anyway, that’s the only reason why I’m here,’ she added bitterly. ‘Why else would I want to have anything to do with you—or your rotten family?’
There was another long, heavy silence as he stared at the flushed cheeks and unhappy blue eyes of the girl sitting across the desk.
‘Very well,’ he said at last in a hard, grating voice. ‘Despite your attempt at blackmail, I don’t actually happen to believe that you would have written an article about my mother. In fact, I’m very sure that you’ve been using the possibility of doing so merely as a threat to gain my cooperation. However, that’s clearly not a risk I can take.’
‘Do you mean...? Are you really going to help me?’ she gasped, almost overcome with relief.
‘I wouldn’t get too excited, if I were you,’ he retorted grimly. ‘You haven’t yet heard my terms for going along with this totally mad project. For one thing, I’m going to insist that you will not—under any circumstances—try to make contact with my mother.’
‘I’m hardly likely to do that,’ Alex pointed out coldly. ‘In fact, she’s just about the very last person I’d want to see.’
He sighed. ‘Yes, well...there’s no doubt that she treated you very badly in the past. While it’s probably no excuse, I can tell you that it seems she was suffering from a bad hormonal imbalance and acute depression at the time.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Alex told him stiffly, still unwilling to forgive or forget the older woman’s cruel behaviour.
‘I’m also going to insist on having full control of what you write,’ he continued grimly. ‘And that means that nothing--absolutely nothing—gets published unless and until I’ve read and approved of every damn word!’
‘No problem. That’s fine by me,’ she assured him quickly, realising that she would, of course, face a battle with her editor about the fact that Leo was going to be claiming censorship. But she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
‘Anything else?’
‘No, not at the moment. I’m flying to Frankfurt this evening, for a brief conference with our new German partners. So this rubbish of yours will have to be put on hold, until my return.’ He glanced impatiently down at his watch, before adding bleakly, ‘I suggest that, under the circumstances, you’d better leave here as quickly as you can—before I change my mind.’
His mouth firmed into a thin, hard line, his green eyes glinting with suppressed fury at having being outwitted by this chit of a girl, now rising to her feet and smiling bright
ly down at him as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
Well...if Ms Alexandra Pemberton thought that she was going to get the better of him, she was in for a rude awakening. Because he was definitely going to find a way to make this... this brazen hussy very sorry that she’d ever had the sheer gall and barefaced downright impertinence to try and twist his arm like this. Very sorry indeed!
CHAPTER FOUR
FORCING her way through the noisy crowd of people milling around the bar, Alex spotted the dark head of her friend Sophie, who was seated at a corner table on the far side of the large room.
‘I’m sorry to be so late,’ she called out, squeezing past a fat, red-faced man before sitting down on the lumpy red leather bench seat beside her friend.
‘I hope you realise that you’re paying for this pub lunch,’ Sophie muttered, clearly still in a bad mood as she waved her hand at the pile of empty plates on the table in front of her.
‘No problem,’ Alex assured her. ‘Did you manage to get hold of the information I wanted?’
‘Of course I did! Why do you think I’ve have been comfort-eating like this?’ the other girl retorted belligerently.
Alex laughed. ‘Oh, come on! It can’t have been as bad as all that.’
‘A fat lot you know,’ her friend grumbled. ‘I’ve never been so frightened in all my life. It might be all in a day’s work for you investigative journalists—but I’m hardly one of life’s natural burglars. Right?’
‘I know I shouldn’t have asked you, but...’
‘There’s no “but” about it!’ Sophie pointed out grimly. ‘Our magazine may only deal with the fripperies of life, like reporting fashion trends and high life in society. But, if anyone discovers that I’ve raided the office files, there’s likely to be hell to pay. In fact,’ she added gloomily, ‘it would probably end up with me losing my job.’
‘I’m quite certain it won’t ever come to that. And I really am very grateful for your help,’ Alex murmured soothingly, turning to smile up at a waiter as he placed a clean glass on the table. ‘What did you manage to find out about Fiona Bliss and her family?’
Sophie gave a heavy sigh, waiting until the waiter had moved away before glancing furtively around the crowded room as she handed over a plastic bag. ‘I took copies of everything that I could lay hands on.’
‘Great!’
‘I wouldn’t get too excited.’ Her friend gave a grim snort of laughter. ‘That information is going to cost you an arm and a leg. Because, after what I went through today, my price is now the use of your whole wardrobe for the foreseeable future.’
‘OK...OK.’ Alex grinned as she lifted her hands in mock surrender. ‘So, what did you find out?’
‘Well...basically it seems that George Bliss comes from Newcastle, and is a no-nonsense, hard-working sort of guy. Apparently, he became a multi-multi-millionaire on the sale of his margarine business to a large international company. Obviously flush with money, he then bought a large estate in Hampshire.
‘George appears to be a nice man. He’s a bit of a rough diamond, of course,’ Sophie added reflectively. ‘But he’s apparently developed a keen interest in conservation of the English countryside, and gets on well with his new neighbours. In the meantime, his wife, Ethel—who, by the way, sounds a really ghastly woman!—has concentrated on spending their newly acquired wealth, mostly in a determined effort to launch herself, and her daughter, into high society.’
‘Has she been successful?’
Sophie poured some wine into her friend’s glass, and topped up her own.
‘Well...if throwing money around like it’s going out of fashion, getting yourself onto a lot of charity ball committees, and being photographed at all the right parties is what turns you on, then I reckon Ethel Bliss isn’t doing too badly. As far as I can make out, she seems to be a pushy, tough old bird, with the hide of a rhinoceros, who rules her family with a rod of iron.’
‘What about the daughter?’
‘As you’ll see from the stuff I’ve given you, there isn’t much there about Fiona Bliss. She does occasional part-time work in an old schoolfriend’s boutique in Chelsea, is apparently supposed to be mad on horses, and spends as much time as possible at the family home in the country.’
‘But what’s she like?’ Alex probed.
‘I’ve never met the girl. So, how the heck would I know?’ Sophie shrugged. ‘If her photographs are anything to go by, she’s obviously very pretty. And that has to be a real bonus, as far as her formidable mother is concerned. Because, according to the gossip in our office this morning, finding an upper class and well-connected husband for her daughter seems to have been Ethel’s top priority.’
‘You’re right. Ethel Bliss sounds awful!’ Alex muttered with a grimace.
‘With a mother like that—who needs enemies?’ her friend agreed. ‘By the way—is that newspaper report true? Has Fiona really managed to land Leo Hamilton...?’
‘It certainly looks like it,’ Alex said. ‘I’m going to be featuring their romance, as well as one or two other couples’, in our St Valentine’s Day issue. Which was why I needed that information so badly,’ she added, quickly deciding not to tell her old friend about her meeting with Leo in his office earlier that day.
‘Wow—I can’t wait to read all about it!’ Sophie laughed. ‘I mean...have Fiona and her mother now got a tiger by the tail, or what? You should see his file. I reckon he must have romanced just about every good-looking woman in London!’
‘So I hear,’ Alex murmured, concentrating on eating the sandwich Sophie had saved her, and hoping that the dim lighting in their dark corner of the room would prevent the sudden sweep of hot colour she could feel rising over her cheeks from becoming too obvious.
Unfortunately, she had no excuse for her behaviour in Leo’s office. Especially not after hearing from James Boswell, at the editorial conference this morning, all about Leo’s lethal reputation with women. So, how could she have allowed the rotten man to kiss her? And, what was even worse, why hadn’t she screamed, or kicked his shins, or...or at least made some effort to extricate herself from his embrace? Unfortunately, try as she might, Alex could think of no sane, logical reason for having completely lost her marbles.
And the questions were still buzzing like angry bees in her tired brain the next afternoon as she drove down the motorway to interview Fiona Bliss.
After her late lunch with Sophie, yesterday, she’d hurried home to pore over the press cuttings provided by her friend, and to tell Dave Morris about the proposed St Valentine’s Day Ball.
Dave, and his girlfriend Kelly, were the people she’d chosen to represent the ‘working-class couple’ for her article. Although, as she’d quickly reminded herself when typing up her notes late last night, the old class structures didn’t really apply nowadays. Because Dave—a self-employed plumber—earned considerably more money each year than Nigel, her ‘middle-class’ tax inspector.
She’d first come across Dave a month ago, when the tank in her roof had sprung a leak following a hard frost and she’d had water pouring down into her bedroom. Having mended the tank, Dave had cast a jaundiced eye over her central heating system.
‘You won’t get through the winter with that boiler. And I wouldn’t fancy my chances with all that antiquated pipe-work, neither!’ he’d announced in a voice heavy with doom. Which had resulted in Alex employing him to put in a new, modern system—and to Dave becoming virtually a member of her household for the past month.
Their friendship, forged over numerous cups of sweet tea—the fuel apparently required to keep Dave working at full pitch—had led to her hearing all about his relationship with Kelly, who ran her own hairdressing salon, and their plans to get engaged on St Valentine’s day. .Since it was their romance which had first given her the idea, Alex had been pleased when the couple had agreed to feature in the article she was writing for the Chronicle. And highly relieved when Dave, on hearing about attending the ball, had merely grinned
and said, ‘I reckon it sounds like a good laugh.’
Trying to find the perfect middle-class couple had proved a difficult problem—one that had only been solved when Dave had suggested his own local tax insector.
‘Nigel’s all right,’ he’d assured Alex. ‘A bit uptight, of course. Nobody likes to think that they’re known as public enemy number one, right? But my Kelly does his girlfriend’s hair, and we’ve got sort of friendly with both Susan and Nigel. Well... as friendly as you can get with a guy who believes that just about everyone tries to cheat the tax man. And he’s not far wrong!’ Dave had added with a knowing grin.
When she’d finally met them, Nigel Adams and his fiancée, Susan, had proved to be a bright and happy couple, both very keen on sport of all kinds and spending a lot of time at the local gym, keeping fit. Nigel had been a bit hesitant about the article, but Susan’s mother—clearly a determined, forceful lady—had been over the moon about the idea of her daughter’s engagement appearing in a newspaper.
After phoning the lady last night—principally to make arrangements about Susan and Nigel’s attendance at the St Valentine’s Day Ball—Alex had come to the conclusion that Susan’s tough, formidable mother sounded like a sister under the skin to Ethel Bliss!
So, it’s two down—and just one to go, Alex told herself now, as she pulled into a parking lay-by, checking the map for the correct route to her destination.
Never having visited this part of the country, she wanted to make sure that she took the right turning off the motorway. She’d already wasted quite enough time trying to track down Fiona Bliss in London. And it looked as if this trip down to Hampshire was likely to be her only chance of getting to meet the girl on her own—without Leo.
