The Only One

by Penny Jordan

  Something that could have been surprise flared briefly in his eyes and was gone. ‘Tomorrow leave your hair down,’ he told her in a smoky voice, watching her mockingly. ‘You didn’t mean it about being business-like—you did it because you knew I’d object. If you’d really wanted to be business-like you wouldn’t be wearing those silk stockings.’

  Fury battled with embarrassment as Brooke glared at him. She was wearing a severely tailored black suit over a cream silk blouse, and she had thought her neat court shoes and the fine black silk stockings she was wearing with them had correctly completed her outfit. Suddenly with one remark he had turned them from an unremarkable item of clothing that complemented the rest of her outfit to something teasingly erotic that she had worn to deliberately arouse him. And the worst of it was she couldn’t accuse him of doing so. Snapping her teeth closed and barely restraining herself from grinding her teeth she was glad to be saved from response by the ring of the telephone.

  Her first intimation that it wasn’t a business call came when she heard Adam saying smoothly, ‘No of course I haven’t forgotten, darling. Don’t worry I’ll be there.’

  Not wanting to eavesdrop she slipped out of the room and into the hall. It badly needed decorating—as did the entire house. Let to tenants it had been badly neglected and on several walls large patches of damp indicated how much it needed attention. From outside she could hear sounds of activity; as she stood in the hall a man walked in and smiled at her.

  ‘Tod Dearham,’ he introduced himself, ‘and you must be Adam’s new PA.’ He grinned as he looked around. ‘Never thought when the pair of us were kids that old Adam would end up with something like this. Not a penny to waste between us in those days—only difference was that Adam’s mum was a widow and mine wasn’t. About is he?’

  ‘He’s on the ‘phone in the study,’ Brooke told him, returning his smile. There was something instantly likeable about Tod Dearham; she could well imagine him as a small scruffy child, his fair hair untidy and his face streaked with dirt. It took a far greater effort of imagination to picture Adam growing up alongside him.

  The library door opened and Adam stalked out. ‘What the devil did you do that for?’ he demanded, not seeing Tod as he turned to Brooke. ‘When I want you to leave I’ll let you know….’

  Face flaming Brooke said stiltedly, ‘You seemed to be having a private conversation….’

  ‘Come on Adam,’ Tod intervened grinning. ‘Give the girl a chance.’

  ‘Tod. I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you about my plans for this place.’ Adam grimaced as a loud crash came from outside. ‘I’m going up to Abbot’s Meade with Tod,’ he told Brooke. ‘Expect me back about three. Take your lunch hour while I’m gone and there’s a pile of stuff on the left-hand side of my desk that needs sorting through, files making, etc.’ He was gone before she could retort, leaving her to glare frustratedly after him.

  * * *

  In the days that followed Brooke learned to conceal from Adam just how disconcerting she found his swift metamorphosis from boss to hunter. No matter how tense or prepared she thought she was he had a knack of catching her off-guard which left her torn between anger and anxiety and him mockingly amused. He wanted her because he wanted to prove to her that he could have her, she thought savagely one afternoon when he had gone up to Abbot’s Meade, leaving her alone in the office. She was a challenge to him, her inexperience sharpening his interest, but she was under no illusions. Even less than the other men she had disliked for the same reason, did he want her for herself. It was all a game to him and one he was only indulging in very half-heartedly with her, if the number of telephone calls he received from other women were anything to go by.

  In direct contrast Brooke had found herself striking up a very pleasant friendship with Tod Dearham. She liked the natural, down-to-earth attitude of the Northerner. When she had asked him if he was married he had grinned at her and winked. ‘Not yet, but I’m not saying you couldn’t tempt me if you wanted to.’

  She had learned from later conversations with him that he was the eldest of a large family and suspected that one of the reasons for his single state was that he contributed a large proportion of his earnings to his family. A further discovery that surprised her was that he held a small number of shares in Henderson-Hart. Bill had been with her when she made the discovery. She had been drawing up a list of the shareholders to place in her own personal oddments file, and Bill had looked up from the papers he was studying at her small exclamation of surprise.

  ‘Adam made them over to him,’ he had told her. ‘Tod is one of his oldest friends, as well as being one of the best men the company has. He’s a joiner by trade and he learned the skill from his grandfather, you’ve only got to see Tod with an old piece of furniture or panelling to see just what it means to him. He touches it….’

  ‘Like most men touch a much-desired woman,’ Adam had finished for him, walking urbanely into the room.

  ‘Why the curiosity about Tod?’ he had asked when Bill had gone. ‘Not thinking of doing a bit of slumming are you?’

  The jeering, hard note in his voice was unfamiliar to her and she had reacted almost instantly to it, her head coming up and her eyes blazing.

  ‘Tod is a friend, and a person I greatly admire. That comment wasn’t just insulting to me, it was insulting to him too. No one talking to him could help but be impressed by his warmth and his intelligence.’

  ‘He comes from a hard-working, down-to-earth, working-class family,’ Adam told her hardily, ‘whereas you….’

  Anger blazed up heatedly inside Brooke. ‘You’re talking like someone out of a Victorian novel,’ she told him furiously, ‘if anyone around here has a hang-up about class it’s you Adam … I don’t give a damn about what “class” Tod is supposed to come from; he’s a very attractive and interesting human being.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ Adam derided her, hard coins of anger darkening his cheek bones, ‘but then you’ve never seen life from the other side of the fence, have you Brooke? You’ve never had to see your mother being treated like dirt; slaving her life away for a pittance and supposed to be grateful for it; you’ve never been told that no matter what you do or how well you succeed, in some circles you’re never going to be quite good enough. Nouveau riche; isn’t that how people of your class describe people of mine and always with that same supercilious tone to their voices; that lifted eyebrow that conveys so much….’

  ‘Perhaps once,’ Brooke was forced to admit, ‘but not these days; that sort of attitude is antiquated … out of date … these days people are assessed on their own merits, not who their antecedents were.’

  That conversation lingered in her thoughts this afternoon as she worked alone. Adam had flown to the States at the beginning of the week and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. For such an urbane, sophisticated man he had an almost paranoid hang-up about the supposed class barriers.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Tod asked, suddenly walking in.

  ‘Just thinking.’

  ‘Umm. Not about anything pleasant by the looks of you.’

  ‘I was thinking about Adam, actually,’ she admitted, watching his smile become displaced by a frown. ‘He seems to have this thing about class barriers….’

  ‘You’ve noticed?’ Tod leaned against her desk and frowned. ‘You must really have got to him then. He’s normally very careful about keeping it hidden.’

  ‘But why?’ Brooke asked curiously. ‘After all you and he both had similar upbringings, but you….’

  ‘I’m not the head of a multi-million pound empire,’ Tod told her dryly, ‘and I haven’t been kicked in the teeth by a hoity-toity society bitch who thinks she’s too good for me.’ He saw Brooke’s expression and grimaced. ‘Adam would kill me if he knew what I’d just said. It was years ago now, but some things still rankle.’

  ‘What happened?’ Brooke knew she was guilty of prying and that Adam would undoubtedly be furious if he knew what she was do
ing, but something urged her to question Tod further. With Adam out of the office she had expected to feel more relaxed, but instead the tight coiling sensation inside her had grown. She felt restless and on edge; she wasn’t sleeping properly and when she did she had the most disturbingly erotic dreams, something she had never experienced before. It didn’t help knowing that Adam had featured in those dreams with her and sometimes when snatches of them came back to her during the day she would sit in front of her word processor with hot cheeks, totally unable to divert her thoughts into other channels. He was getting to her, and wouldn’t he just gloat if he knew it.

  Telling herself that she needed all the ammunition she could hoard, she pressed Tod to finish his story.

  ‘It’s nothing really,’ he said uncomfortably, plainly wishing he had never said anything, ‘but when we were kids Adam’s mother worked at this big house a mile or so outside the town. It was owned by the local millowner; a local big-shot, JP, society connections, all that sort of thing. Adam used to go up there after school to do odd jobs and earn a bit of pocket money, mowing the lawns, that kind of thing.

  ‘Well, the Delaneys had a daughter. She was away at private school most of the time, but she’d come home for the school holidays. The year he was fourteen Adam told me that when he grew up he was going to own a house bigger than the Delaneys and that he was going to marry Susan Delaney.

  ‘I laughed at him then, the way kids do, but he must have meant it and by the time he was twenty-one he was well on his way to being richer than the Delaneys. He’d been away from Sourford for four years by then, and when he came back we could all see how much he’d changed.

  ‘They were having some sort of charity “do” on up at the Delaneys I remember and Adam bought a ticket. It was one of these formal dress dos, and I can remember thinking how posh he looked. He’d got this new car….’ Tod smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘I went with him, and everything was going fine until he asked Susan Delaney for a dance. She was all dolled up like the fairy off the top of a Christmas Tree and I suppose to Adam she was just as elusively tantalising and out of reach. I admired him for his guts in asking her, but she was furious. Her face just froze as she looked at him, and said in that cutting upper class voice of hers, “Dance with our cleaner’s son—you must be mad.”

  ‘At least a dozen people heard her, and it went deadly quiet all around, just as it always does at the wrong moment. Adam went white. I thought he was going to kill her for a moment but he just turned on his heel and left, with me trailing behind him.’

  Pity and understanding mingled in Brooke’s feelings. She could well imagine Adam’s hurt pride and bitter chagrin.

  ‘What happened then?’ she asked softly.

  Tod shrugged. ‘Oh nothing much. We went out and got drunk…. Five years ago I saw Susan Delaney again. She was married by then to some weak-chinned City type. Adam had been asked to give a talk at our old school. She came up to him at the reception afterwards and was all over him, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the expression on her face when he removed her hand from his arm and said, “I don’t like being pawed by married women, Mrs Crawford.” He was kinder than she’d been though. I don’t think anyone overheard apart from me. He has this hang-up now about society women and in a way who can blame him? She’s divorced now.’

  Brooke was still thinking about Tod’s revelations that night as she went home. They explained so much about Adam’s personality that had puzzled her. How Susan Delaney’s refusal to dance with him must have rubbed his pride raw; but surely a man of Adam’s intelligence couldn’t honestly believe that…. Sighing Brooke acknowledged to herself that emotions couldn’t always be reasoned away with logic. Look at her. Against all the inner warnings of her mind and intelligence she was dangerously attracted to him. The way she had listened to Tod this afternoon had brought that home to her. Why this almost feverish need to know everything about him that she could if she was indifferent to him?

  She missed his presence at the Dower House; she missed the spiralling sensation of excitement heating her veins whenever he came near her; she missed the taunting note in his voice whenever he said something that he knew would disturb her, she missed him the way a woman always misses a man who she is emotionally attached to.

  Emotionally attached? In less than a month and to a man like Adam Hart? Never, Brooke told herself fiercely; it would be as suicidal as opening her arteries and watching her life-blood pour out; more so, that way would at least be relatively painless, while loving Adam…. Closing her eyes she responded to Balsebar’s ecstatic welcome.

  Yawning, Brooke stretched in her chair and glanced at her watch. Just gone eleven, and she had been on the point of going to sleep in her chair. She got up to let Balsebar out, taking her coffee mug to the kitchen with her as she went. She was physically tired but her mind was over alert; she was spending far too much time thinking about Adam, she acknowledged with wry self-mockery as she called Balsebar in and locked the kitchen door.

  She was just on her way upstairs when she heard the car. By now she was familiar with the distinctive engine note of Adam’s Ferrari and her heart leapt, blocking off her throat, her tension increasing when she heard the car stop outside.

  For a moment as she heard the gate creak she was tempted to pretend she was already asleep. Coward, she chided herself; sooner or later she would have to face him, and it might as well be sooner.

  His eyebrows rose as she opened the door before he knocked. He was dressed in a formal dark grey suit and as he stepped into the hall she could see the lines of tiredness raying out from his eyes.

  ‘Adam, it’s late,’ she warned him. ‘I was just on my way to bed.’

  ‘Now there’s a tantalising thought.’ His mouth quirked, sexual appreciation glimmering in his eyes as he studied her. Knowing she was flushing like a schoolgirl and unable to do a thing about it Brooke headed for her sitting room.

  ‘You said I could have those plans—the ones of Abbot’s Meade,’ Adam reminded her.

  Her eyebrows rose. ‘And you want them now? At this time of night?’

  He shrugged powerful shoulders. ‘Jet lag does something to my metabolism—physically I want to sleep but mentally….’ Again he shrugged. ‘That being the case I prefer to put the time to good use.’

  ‘They’re up in the loft,’ Brooke told him helplessly. ‘It could take ages to find them.’ A dark shape loomed into the room and walked over to Adam. He reached out a lean, tanned hand and scratched the dog’s ears; the thin tail began to thump gently on the carpet. Even Balsebar wasn’t proof against Adam’s personality Brooke thought ruefully watching them, so how was she supposed to be?

  ‘How about a cup of coffee for the weary traveller then?’ Adam mocked. ‘Or is even that too much to ask? You’re quite safe Brooke,’ he added in a harsher tone. ‘I haven’t come here bent on seduction, although the way you persist in behaving makes it a very tempting prospect at times.’

  As he dropped down into one of her chairs, he surveyed her from beneath half closed eyelids, a lazily mocking smile curling his mouth as he studied her cross expression. ‘Oh come on Brooke,’ he drawled tautly, ‘you’re old enough to know the quickest way to stop a man chasing is to let him catch you. The faster you run the keener the hunter; and you’ve been running very fast.’

  The cynicism behind his comment infuriated her. ‘Now let’s just get one thing straight right away,’ she began angrily. ‘If I’ve been “running” as you call it, it’s because I want to put as much distance between us as I can. It’s the old story isn’t it Adam,’ she asked fiercely, ‘the old chauvinistic male idea that when a woman says “No” and he doesn’t want to hear it she means “yes”, well when I say “No”, I mean it, I….’

  ‘Do you?’ He was on his feet so quickly she didn’t even have time to back away from him, brown fingers circling her wrist and closing on it until she could feel the pressure of his grip against her bones. He was angry; she could see it in his eyes, mo
lten flecks of mercury heating the steel grey, warning her that his control was near breaking point.

  ‘Well, let me tell you something Brooke. Your tongue might have been saying “no” loud and clear, but your body’s been giving me an entirely different message. Want me to prove it to you?’

  He was bitterly, almost dangerously angry; she could sense the tension building up inside him, imposing a strain which showed in his eyes and his tight muscles and for the first time she felt afraid.

  ‘All the time I’ve been in the States I’ve been thinking about you,’ he told her thickly, ‘wanting you, and I don’t like it Brooke….’

  ‘No, you treat the women in your life like disposable hankies don’t you Adam?’ she shot back at him, suddenly equally angry. ‘Use them and then discard them; they all have to be kept in their place just because Susan Delaney once refused to dance with you.’

  The moment the wildly angry words were out Brooke wanted to recall them, but it was too late, much, much too late.

  ‘Damn you,’ Adam swore hoarsely. ‘Damn you for that Brooke,’ and then his mouth was on hers fiercely bruising, taking, demanding, punishing her for her defiance and making her all too aware of her physical vulnerability to him.

  ‘Open your mouth.’ The thickly muttered command penetrated the dazed cottonwool of her brain. Brooke knew she should ignore it but something stronger than common sense seemed to have taken over, pushing her beyond logic and reason, making her want to match the bitter fury of Adam’s embrace with an anger of her own; that of being made to want him against her will and judgment; of being betrayed by her own flesh; of wanting him to the point where pride and logic meant nothing and the hunger inside her for him everything.

  The kiss went on and on, short-cutting a hundred conversations, giving her another, far deeper glimpse of the unsuspected sensuality of her own nature. What was it about this man, she wondered heatedly, responding blindly to the commands of his mouth and tongue, that aroused her to the point where everything else faded into insignificance?