The Only One

by Penny Jordan

  The moment she walked into the room Balsebar stopped howling and began instead an award-worthy performance of a grovelling and distraught offender. As Brooke slipped his lead on, the study door opened and Susan walked in. She was wearing a crimson silk cocktail dress, diamonds glinting in her ears, her face hard and angry.

  The moment he saw her Balsebar tensed, growling softly, a look of mutual antipathy passing between woman and dog. ‘Please hurry up and get that animal out of here,’ she told Brooke imperiously. ‘Adam, my parents can hardly hear one another speak over the row that animal’s been making. How on earth did he get into the grounds in the first place? You ought to hire a keeper.

  Daddy has one. He has instructions to shoot trespassing strays. They’re a menace to the stock….’

  Too furious to care what she said Brooke whipped round, her face white with temper and strain. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, Abbot’s Meade doesn’t have any stock,’ she said curtly, ‘and you must remember that it was, until recently, Balsebar’s home.’

  ‘But it isn’t now, is it?’ Susan returned bitingly, adding so that only Brooke could hear her. ‘Perhaps that’s something you should both remember,’ before she turned and stalked out of the room.

  Adam, who had been studying some papers on his desk, turned to her and said coolly, ‘Susan has a point, Brooke. I can’t have Balsebar running tame in the Park. It isn’t as though….’

  ‘It’s his home any more? Yes, I do realise that….’ Feeling almost light-headed with temper and stress, Brooke walked blindly out of the room, ignoring the sound of Adam’s voice behind her. Only instinct led her to the front door; her eyes were too full of angry tears for her to see where she was going. Outside the wind whipped them away, Adam’s angry demand for her to come back following her as she turned and said brightly, ‘Please don’t let me keep you from your guests Adam…. Balsebar and I can make our own way back … and I’ll make sure that neither of us has to disturb you like this again.’

  By the time she reached the Lodge she was crying in earnest, but the high, keening sound of the wind was whipping the sound away, her face as wet from the rain as it was from her tears. Once inside she dried the dog with an old towel she kept expressly for that purpose and then fed him. For once he seemed almost dejected and kept nuzzling her with his long pointed nose, his eyes sad and knowing. ‘What on earth am I going to do with you?’ she asked him softly, rubbing his ears and stifling the sneeze suddenly tickling the back of her nose. She was frozen, she realised, shivering as she reached to turn and throw more logs on the fire.

  By Sunday Brooke knew she was in for a bad cold. Sunday night found her shivering and hugging the fire, alternately sneezing and coughing. On Monday morning she felt too ill to go to work but went anyway. She was just uncovering her typewriter when Adam walked in and announced abruptly, ‘Leave that—I’ve got to go to London and you’re coming with me. We’ll be there for several days, so you’d better go back to the Lodge and pack what you need.’

  ‘I can’t go with you.’ Brooke forced back a sneeze and turned to face him. Adam’s eyebrows lifted, signifying his impatience.

  ‘Why not? It’s part of your contract,’ he reminded her crisply. ‘You won’t be much use to me as my PA if you can’t work away from here when I want you to.’

  ‘I have a dog—remember?’ she asked sardonically.

  ‘I’ll get Tod to feed and exercise him for you. I need you with me Brooke,’ he told her curtly. ‘There’s a problem with one of our major contracts—we’re on a time penalty clause with it, and apart from the loss of prestige if it goes wrong we can’t afford to risk losing money by paying out on penalty clauses. I don’t want to trip up on this one. Susan’s father is watching our progress on it with a sharp eye—if all goes well we could be asked to tender for some work for his company…. That’s why they were here the other night. Susan had suggested he might talk to me….’

  ‘Big of him.’ Brooke muttered through her teeth, unaware that Adam had heard her until he walked over to her desk and turned her round, watching her. The touch of his hands on her shoulders light though it was seemed to burn right through her clothes. She had felt cold on coming into the room; now she felt extremely hot.

  ‘And what exactly did that little crack mean?’ His voice was so soft she had difficulty in catching the words, but his eyes were inimical, cold and searching as they studied her flushed face. A huge sneeze defeated her efforts to control it, and Brooke pushed away from him, diving for her handkerchief.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Just a bit of a cold,’ Brooke lied. She was far from ‘all right’, but suddenly she wanted to go to London with him; she wanted to be with him even if it was only as his secretary.

  They left just over an hour later, Tod having been introduced to Balsebar who accepted his overtures of friendship with regal decorum.

  ‘I’m sorry he interrupted your dinner party the other night,’ Brooke apologised as they sped through the Lodge gates.

  ‘And I’m sorry I blew up at you the way I did, but it was a rather fraught day.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand why.’

  ‘You can?’ A sharp look accompanied his words. ‘How so?’

  Knowing that she had said too much, Brooke bit her lip, refusing to say any more.

  There was a moment’s silence before Adam said. ‘I see….’ And then a rather enigmatic smile curved his mouth making Brooke itch to know what had caused it.

  ‘You look sleepy,’ he told her, interrupting her train of thought. ‘Why don’t you try and rest?’

  Before leaving the Lodge she had taken a rather large dose of a liquid cold remedy, and it was beginning to make her feel extremely light-headed. The heat of the car added to her torpor and it was easier to lean back in her seat and close her eyes., than to argue.

  The next thing Brooke knew was that Adam was shaking her awake, concern, and something approaching anger darkening his eyes as hers opened reluctantly. The interior of the car was in darkness and for a moment Brooke felt totally disorientated. ‘What time is it?’ she asked huskily, sneezing and then shivering, as she looked hesitantly at the darkness outside. Could it be evening already? Could she really have slept that long.

  ‘Just gone twelve,’ Adam told her, adding curtly, ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me you weren’t well.’

  ‘It’s only a cold….’

  ‘Cold or not, you’re in no fit state to wwork. Come on.’ He opened the car door, walking round to her side while she was still struggling with her seat belt to open her door for her and then retrieve their cases from the boot.

  ‘Over there.’ He nodded, indicating a lift, and Brooke realised that they were in an underground car park. As Adam followed her into the lift, he pressed the bell and they rose smoothly and extremely swiftly upwards. When the lift doors finally opened Brooke was dazzled by the gleaming white foyer she found herself in. Everything was stark and white, with the exception of the massed plants in one corner.

  The foyer was small and empty, only one door leading off it. The silence unnerved her. Where were they?

  ‘My apartment,’ Adam told her, obviously reading her mind, as he punched a series of numbers into a complicated lock system.

  ‘You’ll be staying here while we’re in London.’ The look he gave her was coolly disparaging. ‘Not that you’ll be doing much work today. That way,’ he told her when she simply stood where she was, almost struck dumb by what he was saying. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he asked her grimly. ‘Surely not to be carried over the threshold?’

  Brooke went white. ‘I can’t stay here.’ Even in her own ears her voice sounded husky with panic. ‘I thought we’d be staying in an hotel. I….’

  ‘When I’m already paying an extortionate rent for this place?’ Adam laughed harshly, and then said crisply. ‘Stop looking at me like that Brooke, I didn’t bring you here to seduce you if that’s what’s worrying you. In fact I wouldn’t have brought you at
all if I’d guessed how ill you are,’ he told her callously. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say you weren’t feeling well.’

  Why hadn’t she done? Because she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of knowing he was in London, and yet not knowing what he was doing … who he was seeing.

  ‘It’s only a cold,’ she told him unconvincingly, ‘I’ll be all right in….’ Even as she spoke she felt the sudden tidal wave of weakness roll over her, taking her completely off guard. The room turned black, the floor heaving and bucking. She must have made a faint cry because she heard Adam swear and then nothing.

  Her last conscious thought was that Adam must be furious with her and that she couldn’t possibly have seen concern for her in his eyes in those last few seconds of consciousness.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHE was so hot, Brooke thought fretfully, plucking restlessly at the bedclothes … far far too hot, and what was she doing in bed on such a hot day? As she struggled to sit up and push away the constricting bedclothes, she realised that she was wrapped up in them like a mummy, and that, for some reaon, trying to extricate herself from them was proving to be a herculean task.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t…. It took me twenty minutes to get you wrapped up in those.’

  Firm male fingers pushed away her hands, tugging back the detested bedclothes, the familiar voice suddenly increasing her weakness. Adam … but what was he doing here? For the first time Brooke became aware of the unfamiliarity of her surroundings. This bedroom decorated in rich creams and bronzes wasn’t her room.

  ‘Adam?’ Her voice croaked over his name, startling her with its husky dryness. Her throat felt sore, and a feeling of inexplicable panic washed over her. She felt so weak and helpless.

  ‘Drink this.’ The glass of barley water Adam produced was soothingly refreshing, once she had got over the shock of having him hold both it and the back of her neck while she drank, the deftness of his movements suggesting that it was a service he had performed many, many times.

  ‘Lie down again now Brooke. The doctor said you were to get as much rest as you could. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well before we left Abbot’s Meade?’

  Abbot’s Meade. Suddenly everything came rushing back, and Brooke remembered how ill she had felt in the car on the way to London and how she had striven to hide it from Adam, not wanting to be left behind while he…. She risked a glance at his face and wished she had not done so when she saw how bitterly angry he looked.

  ‘I should be at work,’ she protested huskily. ‘I shouldn’t be….’

  ‘At work?’ He laughed harshly. ‘Just what are you trying to do to me? Turn me into a complete ogre. You’ve come dangerously close to pneumonia. For a couple of nights it was touch and go whether you ought to be admitted into hospital.’

  A couple of nights. Then how long had she been here? Brooke stared mutely at him for several seconds before voicing the question.

  ‘Five days.’ Adam told her brusquely, adding mockingly, and before you ask the next question. ‘I have …’

  ‘You have what?’ Brooke asked him dryly, knowing exactly what he meant but needing to hear it put into words before she could comprehend the full humiliation of her position.

  ‘I have looked after you,’ Adam told her.

  ‘But your work…. You should have sent me home….’

  She watched the way his mouth twisted. ‘To that cold, damp cottage with no one to look after you?’ He shook his head, his face unexpectedly bleak. ‘You’ve been very ill Brooke, and to some extent that’s my fault. You rambled a good deal,’ he told her tersely, and Brooke was thankful that he turned from her to the curtained window. What had she said? That she loved him? Dear God, surely not that. ‘In your fever you re-lived your search for that damned dog….’

  Relief flooded through her body. ‘But Adam that was hardly your fault….’

  ‘It was my fault that I didn’t realise the state you were in when you collected him.’ Long fingers drummed impatiently on a small table. ‘My doctor tells me that you’ve probably been overdoing things for some time.’ He frowned. ‘I hadn’t realised you’d been nursing your uncle for quite so long….’

  He had been doing some digging Brooke thought resentfully, unless of course that was something else she had told him during her fever.

  ‘You didn’t need to look after me yourself,’ she blurted out, angry with herself when her skin coloured up under his sharp look. ‘I mean … I know how busy you are … You could have hired a nurse….’

  ‘Could you have afforded it?’ he mocked unkindly. ‘No, it was something I had to do Brooke. Call it a penance if you like….’ Outside the bedroom door a ‘phone rang, and Adam swore impatiently, ‘I’d better go and answer that. You stay right where you are.’

  When he had gone Brooke forced herself to try and relax. Without Adam’s presence she was acutely aware of how weak she felt and she closed her eyes, snatches of memory filtering back. She remembered waking up shivering and being soothed back to sleep by a touch she had thought was her father’s, but which she knew now must have been Adam’s. Beneath the bedclothes she suddenly realised that she wasn’t wearing anything, and her body flamed hotly. She was just trying to come to terms with the implication of this discovery when Adam re-appeared, walking quickly to her side to rest cool fingers on her forehead.

  ‘You look flushed,’ he told her, frowning. ‘I hope your temperature isn’t up again.’

  ‘No … no, I’m fine.’ Agitatedly Brooke pushed him away. ‘I’d like to go to the bathroom. If…. Adam what are you doing,’ she protested, quivering with shock as he thrust back the bedclothes and picked her up.

  ‘You said you wanted to go to the bathroom,’ he told her mildly, ‘I’m taking you there….’

  ‘No … please….’ How could she explain to him that her request had stemmed from an urgent need to escape from him? ‘I can walk there … please put me down.’

  He did as she asked, but before she could give vent to the sigh of relief trembling on her lips, he sat down on the bed beside her; an extremely large bed Brooke now realised, like the room it was in, which was surely no mere guest room. Her heartbeat seemed to accelerate tenfold in the few seconds it took Adam to start talking; she felt sure he must be able to see it thumping beneath the cotton sheet he had wrapped her in.

  ‘Now let’s get one thing straight,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re shrinking away from me as though you’re expecting me to pounce on you and commit instant rape. If that was what I wanted I could have had my evil way with you any time during these last five days….’

  ‘It’s not that….’ Hastily Brooke avoided his eyes. Adam would never need to stoop to rape—far from it.

  ‘Then what is it?’ A smile suddenly tugged at the corners of his mouth as she clutched the sheet even closer to her body. ‘Ah so that’s it,’ he murmured softly. ‘Well, it’s far too late for embarrassment now Brooke, I know your body almost as intimately as I know my own….’

  He saw the rich colour storming up under her skin, and frowned, dropping his bantering manner. ‘It was all extremely clinical I assure you, I did only what I would have done for anyone else in the same circumstances—male or female….’

  ‘You could have hired a nurse … asked one of the other secretaries….’

  ‘Perhaps, but I thought you’d find it embarrassing going back to work afterwards. You and I know your presence here is quite innocent, but….’

  ‘No matter how innocent I might be, no one would believe it once they knew I’d been staying with you,’ Brooke finished bitterly for him. ‘Knowing that, why did you bring me here in the first place?’

  A smile teased the corners of his mouth, ‘Ah … now this is where I believe I plead the fifth amendment.’ He smiled at her, and Brooke knew that he meant that he had intended to make love to her and that was why he had brought her to his apartment instead of booking her into an hotel. Of course he wouldn’t want his other employees to know he was
having an affair—no matter how brief—with a mere PA. It would be bad for morale—the remainder of the female staff would probably be queueing up for their turn instead of concentrating on their work, she thought cynically.

  ‘Well now that I’m recovered, I think I ought to leave….’

  ‘If you were recovered I might agree with you,’ Adam agreed calmly, ‘but you’re not. And that isn’t just my view, it’s Doctor Peters’ as well. He’s been extremely concerned about you Brooke.’ For a moment, as he turned his head away from her, in profile there seemed to be a tension etched into his features she hadn’t seen before, the bones of his face faintly gaunt and stressed.

  ‘Adam I can’t continue to stay here now….’ Brooke protested, avoiding looking at him. ‘Staying in your apartment….’

  ‘Sharing my bed,’ he mocked, laughing at her. ‘Is that what you were going to say? I assure you that for once my motives were totally pure. It made more sense to sleep here with you where I could keep a check on you than put you in another room and keep having to get up. You’re an extremely restless sleeper, do you know that?’

  He saw the doubt shimmering in her eyes and reached for her, grasping her shoulders, pulling her up into a sitting position facing him. The sheet which had become slightly loose started to slip, but as Brooke made a grab for it, Adam shook her, stopping her. ‘Leave it,’ he told her curtly. ‘You’re forgetting I’ve seen it all already, and Brooke … if and when I do make love to you, you’ll be fully conscious of every second of it.’ For a moment he looked extremely bitter, and then his expression changed as he said lazily, ‘You really are the most provoking female, you know. Doctor Peters is coming in later. I’ve given him a key. I’ve got to go into the office for a while this morning, but no trying to convince him that you’re fully recovered because you’ll be wasting your time.’

  Later in the morning the doctor arrived as Adam had told her. A small, balding man in his late fifties he gave Brooke a thorough examination, tutting frowningly as he did so.