Dangerous Ground (Harlequin Presents, December 118)

by Alison Kelly

  ‘Bull,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I happen to know that unless you agree to new terms—their new terms,’ he emphasised, ‘you will no longer be the Risque Girl.’

  Damn! Where had he got his information? More importantly, did he have any idea of what the ‘new terms’ were supposed to be?

  ‘What are these “new terms” you seem to know so much about?’

  ‘Well, Jaclyn—’ he lounged back in his chair and linked his fingers behind his head ‘—I’m not sure exactly…’

  The sigh of relief she was about to let go wedged halfway up her windpipe at his next words.

  ‘But I do know you aren’t interested in them, since you’ve had your agent sweating blood trying to line up new clients for you.’

  ‘How…how do you know all this?’

  ‘Trade secret.’

  ‘You aren’t in the trade,’ she pointed out. ‘At least, not in this country.’

  ‘True, but being Wade Flanagan’s son affords me—’ he frowned ‘—let’s say, the advantage of friendships with wellinformed insiders.’

  ‘Too bad it doesn’t afford you a pleasant personality!’

  He laughed with such genuine appreciation that Jacqui was forced to run through mentally what she’d said. To her it still sounded like the insult she’d intended it to be.

  ‘You’ve a quicker wit than I credited you with,’ he complimented her.

  She gave him a dry look. ‘Somehow that doesn’t strike me as a big wrap.’

  Grinning, he again went to refill her champagne glass. She covered it with her hand.

  ‘I thought you said you liked champagne?’

  ‘I do, but the only way you’re going to get any more of it into me tonight is if you do it intravenously.’

  Patric set the bottle aside and sat back. Her immaculately made-up face might, at a casual glance from a distance, have suggested cool serenity, but from his vantage point he easily recognised the determined set of her jaw, could practically feel the irritation burning in her thickly lashed blue eyes. Actually they were now more a storm-grey colour than blue.

  He wondered what colour they turned when their owner was sweating in the throes of passion. No, he didn’t! Lord, where was his mind?

  ‘OK,’ he said, determined to cut the crap. ‘Let’s talk turkey.’

  Jacqui resisted saying that no doubt he and turkeys had a lot in common, and merely nodded.

  ‘My information is that for some reason you and Risque are not going to come to terms over a new contract.’

  He looked to her for confirmation, but she simply said, ‘Go on.’

  ‘Your agent, Garth Lockston, has been trying to line up a new deal for you, but with no luck…’ He paused and gave her an expectant look.

  ‘Keep going, Flanagan,’ she said, giving nothing away. ‘If you win a kewpie doll I’ll let you know.’

  ‘My feedback is that seven years as the Risque Girl is proving a career liability for the first time. New clients fear that, regardless of whether you endorse vacuum cleaners, car tyres or designer running shoes, the public will always associate you with Risque Cosmetics, not their product. How am I doing so far?’

  He was spot on, but Jacqui had been too close to Wade to be conned by his son. ‘I’m still waiting for you to cut to the chase,’ she told him flatly.

  ‘In a nutshell,’ he said, ‘your career is in danger of becoming nothing more than a distant memory.’ She knew her face had given her away when he raised an eyebrow and added, ‘I believe you owe me a kewpie doll.’ He was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat and anger was singeing her bones.

  ‘Well, at least one of us is thrilled about all this!’ she snapped. ‘What the hell have I ever done to you?’ She wasn’t interested in getting a response; she barely resisted the urge to throw her drink over him as she leaned across the table. ‘You can,’ she said, producing a plastic smile for the benefit of any onlookers, ‘shove your dinner right up—’

  ‘Uh-uh, Jaclyn. Think of your reputation. Your career.’

  ‘As you so happily pointed out, my career doesn’t have much longer to run.’

  ‘True, but I’ve an idea that can change all that. An idea that’ll put you into a tax bracket even your accountant has never dreamed of. Of course…’ He paused just long enough to be sure that he had her full attention.

  ‘Of course what?’ she prodded, wishing that she didn’t give a damn.

  ‘If you’re not interested…’

  She glared at him, wishing that she could afford to pander to her pride and simply tell him to chew glass, wishing that homicide wasn’t illegal.

  ‘You know, Flanagan, the world would have been a much better place if your father had been sterile.’

  ‘More wit!’ He laughed. ‘You aren’t quite the dumb blonde I had you pegged as.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ She sighed and pushed her plate aside. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be still sitting here. OK, let’s hear how you think you can resurrect my career. And why,’ she said pointedly. ‘You don’t strike me as the altruistic type, so what’s in it for you?’

  ‘A chance to establish myself as a top-flight photographer in this country.’

  ‘That’s it? Money doesn’t come into it, huh?’ She didn’t have to manufacture the scepticism in her tone.

  He shrugged. ‘While my idea will be lucrative, it’s the recognition I’m most interested in. Which is why I want you. Jaclyn Raynor automatically creates interest that no other model could.’

  ‘But,’ she said, pausing to give him a smirk, ‘you’ve just said that my Risque Girl image will be a hindrance no matter what product I take on.’

  As smirks went, his left hers for dead.

  ‘Ah, but that’s the point, Jaclyn. I don’t want you to take on a product endorsement. I want you to shed your current image entirely. I want,’ he said, ‘the centrefold the big boys couldn’t get! I want you naked.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SO WHAT do you think? Would you do it?’ Jacqui asked as her sister Carolyn placed a mug of steaming coffee in front of her.

  ‘No, Jac, but then I’m eight months pregnant! And even if I weren’t after two kids already the old boobs aren’t quite up to it.’

  Jacqui sent her sister a droll look; Caro was not only stunningly attractive but her IQ was in the genius range. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yeah, I do. What I don’t know is if you’re here because you haven’t made up your mind or because you have and want my approval.’

  Jacqui couldn’t help smiling. Trust Caro to cut straight to the heart of things. ‘Half and half,’ she said, pausing to munch into a chocolate biscuit. ‘The more I think about it, the more I’m tempted. I just don’t want to cause you, Phil or the kids any embarrassment’

  ‘Oh, c’mon! My kids don’t know the meaning of the word, so Phil and I have built up immunity to the condition!’

  ‘Simone starts pre-school next year,’ Jacqui felt obliged to point out. ‘She could cop a lot of flack. And I’d hate to create problems for Phil at work.’

  ‘The chances of anyone connecting the name Jacqui Raynor with Simone Michelini is remote,’ her sister said drily. ‘And if you do a centrefold the only problem Phil will have is that every guy in the office is going to be hounding him to get you to autograph his copy.’

  ‘I though accountants were supposed to be rigid, upright members of society.’

  ‘They are—’

  Both women turned at the arrival of Caro’s husband.

  ‘Which is exactly why—’ he grinned at Jacqui ‘—you’re becoming an aunt for the third time in as many years.’

  She laughed. ‘And here I was blaming it on your Italian blood!’

  ‘That too,’ Phil said, dipping his wife over his arm Latin-lover-style for a passionate greeting.

  ‘Aaaah! Careful, Phil,’ Caro laughed. ‘In my condition sensual reaction could cause contraction!’

  Jacqui smiled. ‘Honestly, coming to you two to discuss
an issue of moral judgement makes no sense at all. And anyway you’ll be tickled pink when I tell you I’ve got the chance to make enough money to pay off the balance of Dad’s debts before the end of the year,’ Jacqui told her brother-in-law.

  His stunned expression made her smile.

  ‘How?’ he asked. ‘By my figures the best you could hope for was twelve months! And that was assuming Risque renegotiated your contract with a ten per cent increase.’ Suddenly his face darkened. ‘Hey, that talk about morality earlier…You haven’t agreed to Wagner’s perverted contractual terms, have you?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Phil!’ his wife snapped. ‘Of course she hasn’t! How could you ask such a dumb question?’

  ‘You’re right.’ He sighed and looked at Jacqui. ‘Sorry. It’s just I’d like nothing better than a shot at that bastard’s jaw.’

  Though the thought of having her six-foot-five tank of a brother-in-law rearrange Dickson’s pretty face was a pleasant one, Jacqui too sought to reassure him.

  ‘Relax,’ she told him. ‘Regardless of how much I need to pay off Dad’s debts, I’m not about to prostitute myself to do it.’

  There was a moment of silence as everyone sipped their coffee and indulged in their own private thoughts, then Phil spoke. ‘Jac, no one expects you to pick up the tab for your father’s mistakes. We’ve been telling you that for five years! Legally you have no obligation to do so.’

  ‘I feel a moral obligation to the people he cheated. I was the reason he got into trouble in the first place.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Caro said. ‘Just because Dad had an ego problem that wouldn’t let him accept that his daughter could earn more money than he did doesn’t mean you’re responsible.’

  ‘I feel responsible!’ Jacqui said, as she had at least a thousand times before. ‘And I’m always going to until I know that every shoddy home Dad built is structurally safe!’

  ‘Hell, don’t you think the fools who bought his cut-rate sales pitch should shoulder at least some of the financial blame?’

  ‘Their naivety doesn’t make what Dad did right, Phil,’ she said. ‘He fed off the dreams of the people who bought his houses, and I intend to make sure that if nothing else they get back the money he owed them! And don’t either of you…’ she paused pointedly ‘…suggest selling this house again.’

  ‘As if we’d waste our breath,’ Caro muttered.

  Jacqui conceded a half-smile; their offer and her refusal were par for the course whenever this subject raised its head. Though she appreciated the sentiment, she had no intention of selling off Caro’s financial security while there was an alternative.

  The house—mausoleum that it was—had been built by their father for their mother, and at the time of their parents’ deaths it had been solely in her name. Maria Raynomovski had willed it equally to her two daughters.

  Caro, Phil and their two children, Simone and Nicholas, lived in the main house. For privacy and convenience Jaclyn lived in a self-contained flat separated from the house by an enormous garden, swimming-pool and tennis court. The entire complex had been built from the profits of her father’s well-intentioned but overly ambitious desire to prove himself a success.

  Unfortunately George Raynomovski’s venture into the building industry and his subsequent unexpected death had caused a great deal of emotional and financial hardship for his clients. It was Jacqui’s intention to make at least monetary recompense.

  ‘Regardless of what anyone else thinks,’ she stated firmly, ‘I’m going to make sure that every ill-deserved dollar Dad got is paid back. Even if it takes me another five years to do it.’

  ‘Which brings us back to what we were discussing…’

  Caro let the sentence dangle, and under her brother-in-law’s questioning gaze Jacqui explained. ‘I’ve been offered a deal to do a series of nude photographs. I’m considering it because, as things stand, assignments aren’t exactly rolling in.’

  Phil frowned. ‘You’re certain there’s no way round Dickson Wagner’s smutty blackmail?’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s the owner’s son and head of advertising. All he’s got to do is show the photographs that that rookie took of me to the board and every one of them is going to agree that I’m too old to head a new campaign.’

  ‘But anyone who saw the photos would surely realise that a four-year-old could do better with an instamatic camera…?’ Phil’s words died away as she shook her head.

  ‘His other work is first-rate. Who’s going to believe my story that he was paid by Wagner to deliberately make me look bad? Besides, the only way Wagner will agree to letting me choose my own photographer is if I crawl into his bed and agree to stay there. I’d sooner sell myself on the streets!’

  Caro swore violently. ‘The man is pond-scum! Are you sure that no one else is interested? I mean, you’re the highest profile model in the country.’

  ‘Sure! And my profile is indelibly stamped “Risque” as far as other companies are concerned. Once your agent dumps you, Caro, the writing is pretty much on the wall,’ she said wryly.

  ‘But a centrefold could be the final nail in the coffin,’ Phil pointed out. ‘Are you sure it’s worth the risk?’

  Jacqui mentioned the figure that Patric Flanagan had told her was only a conservative estimate. Both Caro and Phil went slack-jawed in amazement.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Phil finally managed to gasp.

  ‘My God, Jac!’ his wife exclaimed. ‘You must look heaps better undressed than I remember.’

  Jacqui laughed. ‘That’s only a guestimate, but I’d say it’s not far off. I was offered only slightly less a few years ago, but because of the exclusivity clause in my Risque contract it was never an option.’

  ‘Who’s making the offer?’ Phil asked, nominating the two biggest-selling men’s magazines in the world.

  ‘Neither—a freelancer by the name of…’ she paused for impact ‘…Patric Flanagan.’

  ‘Wade’s son?’ Caro frowned.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I thought he lived in Canada.’

  ‘Apparently he’s decided to stay in Australia and try to establish his name out here.’

  ‘Well, a few shots of the famous Risque Girl in the altogether will grab everyone’s attention if nothing else!’ Phil said.

  Jacqui nodded.

  ‘Well, if, as I suspect, he tries to get your written agreement that you’ll not give a repeat performance for ten or so years, I’d say the money you quoted would be about right.’ Jacqui couldn’t help smiling at the speed with which Phil donned his cap as her accountant. ‘I suppose he intends to sell to the highest bidder?’ he queried.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. They hadn’t got as far as discussing that the other night In fact Jacqui had been so floored by Patric’s proposal that she’d not trusted herself to enter into too detailed a discussion for fear of putting herself at a disadvantage. Wade’s first rule when negotiating deals had been ‘Do it with a clear mind and never let them see you’re keen’.

  So she’d feigned only mild interest as Patric had briefly outlined his idea, trying hard not to drool when he’d tossed out what he’d considered to be a feasible financial return from the exercise. If she was honest, some distant part of her brain might fleetingly have suspected such an offer, but nothing more. It was her face most people wanted—well, commercially at least.

  She’d coolly told Patric that she’d have to think about it and had received the equally cool response of, ‘Do that. But the offer is only good for a week’.

  ‘Jacqui?’ Phil was directing a worried look at her. ‘You’re sure this is on the up and up? I mean just ‘cause this bloke is Wade’s son doesn’t mean he’s a nice guy. He could easily be a weirdo or something.’

  ‘Oh, Patric Flanagan might be a chip off the old block in many ways but he isn’t nice by any stretch of the imagination!’ she said drily. ‘He’s arrogant, rude, patronising, and… let’s see…superficial.’ She grinned. ‘But weird? No, I
don’t think so.’

  Caro smirked over the top of her coffee-cup. ‘As I recall from the glimpse I caught of him at Wade’s funeral, he’s also sinfully sexy.’ She quickly patted her husband’s hand and added, ‘But of course he doesn’t hold a candle to you, darling.’

  ‘Oh, ple-e-ease!’ Jacqui stood up, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m leaving before I throw up!’ She carried her empty cup to the sink. ‘I only stopped by to make sure that if I decide to do this you two won’t be upset.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Phil told her. ‘But remember you’ll probably have every do-gooding wowser in the country calling for your blood if you go through with it They won’t know that the motivation behind it is entirely selfless.’

  ‘Don’t make me sound noble, Phil—’

  ‘And the hard-core feminists will crucify you too,’ Caro added as Jacqui headed for the back door.

  ‘Naturally,’ Jacqui muttered. ‘Lord, I hate women who tell other women what they should and shouldn’t do! The way I see it, the women’s movement was about giving us the right to choose what we wanted to do—not have us bowing to a dictatorship of our own sex!’

  ‘Save that line for the Press when they start hammering at your door in the middle of the night,’ her sister said sagely.

  Jacqui knew that neither of them was understating the impact of what would happen if she accepted Patric’s offer, but she figured that after living in the limelight for as long as she had she could endure it for a while longer—especially if it would settle her father’s debts once and for all.

  ‘Jac—’ Phil’s voice was gentle ‘—Caro and I’ll back you all the way, you know that.’

  She looked at the loving faces of her sister and brother-in-law and smiled, her decision made.

  ‘Then I guess I’d best start thinking about what wording I want in my contract.’ She grinned. ‘I’ve got to meet Patric in an hour and give him my decision.’

  Jacqui looked at the harsh purple and gold ‘For Sale’ sign corrupting the sedate elegance of the garden and beautifully restored Federation-style home, its presence a painful reminder that Wade Flanagan was gone.