Fire Beneath the Ice

by Helen Brooks

  "But?" His expression was cynical and cold, and suddenly Lydia knew he was totally aware of her feelings about the matter and they didn't bother him an iota. He was a man who would always do exactly what he thought was right in any situation in which he found himself, and to hell with the rest of the world. Her own mouth hardened, but even as she opened it to speak the security guard's voice crackled over the intercom again.

  "Mr. Strade?"

  "Yes?" Wolfs voice was clipped.

  "Any minute now, sir. Are you all right in there?"

  "Fine, Rogers." He bent^ stuffing the papers back in his briefcase and gesturing to her coat by her feet.

  "I suggest you put that back on," he said calmly as he reached across for his own.

  "No doubt it'll strike cold once we're out of this sauna."

  At the same moment that the lights flooded back on the lift began to move, but in the same instant it jerked violently, throwing Lydia off her feet for the second time that night as it stopped again. And this time she was frightened, petrifyingly so.

  "Wolf?" He had caught her as she fell, the momentum of her body and the bending position he had been in sending him to his knees and now she lay across his lap, her face uplifted and hair fanning out across his arm as the knot came loose. There was one split second, as she looked up into the hard,

  masculine face above her own, when she knew what was about to happen and felt the blood pound through her reins, her body beginning to quiver in anticipation. His yes were bright and glittering as they stared down into he velvet brown depths of hers, the desire she could read so plainly in his dark face hot and hard and incredbly sensual.

  He was going to kiss her. The thought exploded into her mind, and now little tremors of helpless excitement cached her toes and curled the small pads into the soles of her feet as she envisaged his mouth on hers. She could 'eel his heart pounding against the solid wall of his chest and the expensive, heady, totally masculine smell of him invaded every nerve and tissue.

  She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted it more than the had ever wanted anything in her life and, strangely, he thought didn't seem shocking as his arms tightened and his eyes narrowed into brilliant blue slits.

  Wolf. She was never sure even afterwards if she said his name out loud or just breathed it in her soul as a silent, helpless plea, but just as she thought his dark head would lower to hers, that she would know what it was like to be kissed by this fierce, powerful, cold man, he moved her from him, his face stiffening with unconcealed disgust and his body rigid with control.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The intercom coughed and spluttered, the sound eemed to explode into the deathly quiet of the tiny box and then Rogers's gmff voice spoke, his tone concerned. "I'm sorry, Mr. Strade, there seems to have been a minor hiccup.

  The circuit-breakers have tripped out due to their normal mode being broken, but it won't take me above 5ve minutes to re-set them. Are you and the lady all right, sir?"

  "Just get on with it, Rogers." The security guard's voice had acted like a deluge of cold water, and immediately he had spoken, bringing the outside world into their small domain, an icy blankness had wiped all expression from

  Wolf's face. He helped her to her feet without speaking, his body stiff.

  "Lydia?" She raised her hot face slowly, unable to take a verbal slap in the face after the contempt and scorn he had just shown so plainly, but she wouldn't blame him if he told her exactly what he thought. How could she have encouraged him like that? How could she?

  What an earth must he be thinking? She was supposed to be a married woman, after all, and she had practically aegged-- "It won't be long and we'll be out of here, 3K?"

  "Yes." Her voice was small and bewildered and the sound of it made the harsh, masculine face in front of her tighten savagely, the hard features setting into stone. She had lain there and asked him to make love to her.

  Her mind shouted the accusation at her. And he had _wanted to--well, what man wouldn't if it was offered so outrageously?

  But he had had the moral strength to turn away, his disgust at her wantonness evident in every line of that handsome face. She couldn't bear this humiliation, she couldn't. The thoughts raced frantically through her mind as she tried desperately to pull herself together, fighting for the control that had seen her through so many difficulties and traumas in the last few years.

  "I..." Her voice faltered and she took a deep breath before trying again.

  She had to retrieve this situation, dredge up some dignity from somewhere.

  "I feel much better now, thank you, it was the panic..."

  "Panic?" He looked at her blankly for a moment and then nodded slowly, his mouth tightening still more. "You were scared to death, I know that, but I just want to say--' " How long will it be before we are out? “She had seen his devastating brand of honesty once or twice in the three days she had worked for him, but she wished with all her heart he could let it slip just once. She couldn't talk about what had so nearly happened now, and if he tried to take the blame through perverse male pride it would make things ten times worse. A post-mortem at this moment was more than she could take.

  He stared at her for a long, silent moment, the narrowed cold eyes tight on her face, and then took the cue she had given him with a cool equanimity that made her tangled thoughts seem even more confused.

  "A couple of minutes more, no longer."

  She nodded weakly. Suddenly her safe, ordered little world had turned upside-down and she was stunned with the unexpectedness of it. The two or three minutes it took for the lift to resume its downward journey seemed

  _like two or three hours, and for the whole time her heart was thudding against her breasts so hard it hurt. Not a word was spoken but the silence was deafening, banging against her ear-drums until she felt like screaming.

  But nothing had actually happened. She forced herself to think logically, to apply reason to the shame and embarrassment. But he had known. He had known she wanted him to kiss her. What should she do?

  She glanced across at Wolf’s stony face as he stood leaning against the far side of the lift, his eyes half closed and his body seemingly relaxed.

  This time the lift started smoothly, gliding down to the ground floor and opening its doors with silky obedience. As she followed Wolf out to his

  Mercedes in its reserved spot just outside the main entrance, she contemplated, for a crazy moment, telling him the truth, but as he opened the passenger door of his car for her to enter one look at his dark face convinced her she didn't have the nerve. It might persuade him that he hadn't got a potential adulteress in his office, but if he knew she had deliberately misled him, secured the job on a whopper of a lie. And he hadn't liked her defence of Mike; that was most certainly another nail in her coffin. She swallowed painfully.

  "Your address?" His tone was clipped and short, and after she had given it she slid into the beautiful Mercedes and sat huddled tensely in the seat as he joined her, his face cold.

  "Could you try and relax a little?" They had been travelling in silence for some minutes and she started violently as his voice, abrupt and deep, sounded at her side. "I'm beginning to feel like some sort of pervert with you sitting halfway up the window like that."

  "What?" As she glanced at the large area of vacant space on the right-hand side of her seat, she realised she was indeed perched against the side of the car in a manner that he could well term insulting, and she slid quickly into the middle of the seat, her face naming. Great. Now he'd think she was a split personality too!

  One minute a shameless temptress and the next the original shrinking violet.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't realise."

  "I'm not sure if that makes it worse or better," he said drily, with one swift, piercing glance at her red face. "Look, I don't want anything to spoil our working relationship, Lydia--' " It won't. “The reply was immediate as she cut off his voice. She couldn't talk about it, she just couldn't Somehow the whole incident ha
d opened up another side to him that had her tingling all over and, although the feeling wasn't unpleasant, in the circumstances it was intensely humiliating. He had rejected her with apparently the minimum of effort and that cool, devastatingly clear mind wasn't in the least affected. But she--she closed her eyes against her own weakness--she was aware of every tiny movement he made, of his strong, capable hands on the steering-wheel, his long, lean legs and powerful thighs... “Good. “She felt his glance on her face again but didn't look at him.

  "You turn right here." She was unutterably thankful this nightmare journey would end soon.

  "Then left at the corner ." He followed her instructions without speaking again, and when they drew up outside her house some minutes later she realised her hands were clenched together so tightly her fingers were numb.

  "Thank you for the lift--' she began primly, fumbling for her handbag at her feet, but he had already opened his door, moving round the car and helping her out with _an old-fashioned courtesy that was all the more seductively attractive for being entirely natural.

  "Thank you--' she began again, only to be interrupted a second time as

  Hannah's bright little voice called to her from the top step seconds before her tiny daughter bounded across the three or four feet of paved front garden and into her arms.

  "Mummeeee!" Hannah's voice was ecstatic.

  "Mrs. Thomson next door says I can have one of her kittens for my very own.

  Can I, Mummy? Can I?"

  "This is Hannah." She looked at Wolf warily over her daughter's head and surprised a look in his eyes that she couldn't quite fathom.

  Pain? Distress? Bitterness? Dislike? But then a shutter slid into place and the remote, cool gaze was the one she knew.

  "Hannah, this is Mr. Strade."

  "How do you do, Hannah?" he asked gravely, a smile touching the hard features briefly.

  "Lo." Hannah smiled back,-as she twisted round in Lydia's arms for a better view.

  "My mummy works for you, doesn't she?"

  "Indeed she does." He moved towards the car as he spoke, clearly not wishing to prolong the moment, for which Lydia was extremely thankful. The weight of her lie had suddenly become like a noose round her neck.

  "Do you like kittens?" Hannah was speaking directly to Wolf, who paused with his hand on the car door.

  "They're little cats," she added helpfully.

  "Hannah, Mr. Strade has got to go," Lydia said hastily as her mother appeared in the lighted doorway to the house. This was fast becoming too much.

  "Yes, I like kittens." He looked at Hannah as Lydia held her close, their two heads touching as Hannah snuggled down in her mother's arms, and then raised a casual hand to the figure in the doorway before sliding into the

  interior of the car and starting the engine in the same movement.

  "I like him." As the car moved smoothly away Hannah waved vigorously, but the dark figure in the driving seat didn't respond.

  "He's nice."

  "How do you know?" Lydia's mother asked smilingly as she joined them in the street, sharing a glance of amusement with Lydia over Hannah's head as they watched the tail-lights of the car disappear.

  "You've only said hello to him."

  "He likes kittens." That, as far as Hannah was concerned, was the end of the matter.

  "And Mummy likes him, don't you. Mummy?"

  Lydia smiled weakly.

  "What's all this about Mrs. Thomson and a kitten?" The diversion worked, but later that night, as she lay in bed with sleep a million miles away, Hannah's words came back to haunt her. Did she like him? She pictured the hard, handsome face and powerfully masculine body and a little shiver trickled down her spine, sensitising a hundred nerve-ends she had never known she had.

  "Like' was not a word that applied to Wolf Strade somehow. One 'liked' neighbours or friends or the family doctor, but Wolf... She twisted in the big bed irritably. What on earth was she thinking about him for, anyway? He was her boss, that was all, a multimillionaire whose lifestyle was so at variance with hers they could have been on different planets. But he had wanted her... The thought was there before she could stop it and she sat up in bed jerkily, her face stricken.

  "Oh, no, none of that, Lydia." Her voice as she spoke into the dark room was tightly emphatic.

  "You work for him, that's all, and the only reason he took you on in the first place was because he thought you were married _and immune from any fancy ideas. Women chase him all the time, you know that, for goodness' sake." But he had wanted her, the voice in her mind taunted quietly. She had read it in his eyes. It wouldn't mean a thing to a man like him, she answered silently, not a thing.

  In spite of the desire that had flared between them so swiftly, the wild hunger she had seen in his face, he had been able to push her aside without a qualm, although he must have sensed her surrender.

  Sensed it and shown his disgust at it too, the inexorable voice reminded her relentlessly. She groaned softly, the sound a little lost whimper in the emptiness of the silent room.

  The next day was a Friday, and painful in the extreme as Lydia struggled to maintain a cool, efficient image while shrivelling up inside every time she glanced at Wolfs dark countenance, but after a normal family weekend Monday was easier and Tuesday more so. Wolf was his normal arrogant cold self, his blue eyes cool and remote if they caught hers, and gradually the incident in the lift became a little less stark as day followed hectic day. Once or twice she thought she caught him staring at her with an odd expression in the darkly lashed blue eyes, but his manner would change so swiftly when he caught her gaze that she told herself she was imagining things.

  And she had noticed he went to great pains not to touch her, even in the most abstract way, but then, he wasn't a physical man, she told herself uneasily. was he? Matthew hadn't been. She shook her head mentally at her naivete where men were concerned, but then she had only ever known Matthew. The normal scenario of boy meets girl, the inevitable experimentation of life and love, had completely passed her by.

  And she knew absolutely nothing about Wolf. This _fact was brought home forcibly on the day Hannah was to collect the kitten from Mrs. Thomson, it now having reached the requisite age of eight weeks. She had arranged to leave an hour early in order to pick Hannah up herself from nursery, and was just finishing the final pages of a complex financial report when a cursory knock at her outer door interrupted her train of thought.

  "Yes?" The door had opened even as she spoke and a heavy gust of expensive perfume drew her head upwards.

  "Is he in?" The woman who had just sauntered into the room was tall, willowy and so beautiful that Lydia found herself gaping for a startled second before she collected herself.

  "Yes..." She reached for the buzzer on her desk.

  "Who shall I say?"

  "Don't bother with that thing." The throaty, attractive voice was warm and confident and wide blue eyes gave her the once-over a moment before the woman opened the door to Wolf’s office and stepped through.

  "But you can't--' Lydia followed through the open door a second later, her face aghast, to find the woman leaning over Wolfs desk to deposit a fleeting kiss on his mouth before turning to survey her in the doorway.

  "It's OK, Lydia." Wolf didn't look particularly pleased at the intrusion, but neither was he displaying the sort of anger she had expected.

  "I'm sorry--' " Oh, Wolf is used to my barging in at any time of the night or day, aren't you, darling. " A perfect little rotund bottom seated itself on the corner of his desk, the manoeuvre exposing a great deal of slim, tanned leg as smiling blue eyes wandered over Lydia in open appraisal

  "He's my mentor. Is that the appropriate word, darling?"

  "That's enough, Elda." Wolf smiled back at the beautiful brunette indulgently.

  "And get off my damn desk."

  The brunette's thin but beautifully shaped mouth pouted in a little grimace as she did as she was told, her movements elegant and unhurried. Where did she g
et such amazing self-assurance? Lydia wondered as she turned to leave.

  But then perhaps it wasn't surprising really. Sleek dark hair cut in an expert feathery style to complement the graceful head and long neck, huge blue eyes and a perfect skin added up to an impressive whole, and her clothes weren't from the local high street either!

  As she returned to her desk, shutting the door quietly and firmly behind her, she found to her dismay that she was shaking slightly.

  She sat down with a little plop and took a long deep breath, willing her heart to calm down. So he had a girlfriend? So what? Of course a man like him wouldn't be short of female company, she knew that, didn't she?