Partners in Love

by Saunders, Jean

  “You’re damn right I wouldn’t,” she said at once. “No man is worth getting into that kind of state for.”

  Luke ignored the jibe. “Will you take it, then?”

  The conversation was getting away from her. Robin sat bolt upright now, her green eyes sparkling like gemstones.

  “Work for you? Are you kidding?”

  “I never joke about business. You’ll realise that if you take the job. That’s why I’m a success at thirty-two while other men of my age are still wet behind the ears. I own developments all over the country. I could buy up half of Cornwall and still have change in my pocket. I can buy anything I like.”

  The sheer arrogance of him left Robin speechless. That he had made a success of his business through ruthless contempt for anyone and anything else was flagrantly obvious to her. That he was making it insultingly plain that he fully intended buying her, too, if he couldn’t have her any other way was also clear, to Robin if to no one else. Her father didn’t seem to see it that way. Out of the corner of her eye Robin could see in her father’s face nothing but admiration for a self-made man with plenty of style. Oh yes, he had style all right.

  “Sorry, but it’s no deal.” Her voice was clipped, not trusting herself to say more.

  Luke didn’t let go as easily as that. “Think about it. You don’t have to come to an instant decision. I’m offering a six-month contract with very favourable terms. If we suit each other after that time, we’ll put it on a permanent basis. You’ll find I’m a stickler for work, Robin, but there are compensations. For one thing, we’ll be coming down here on site quite frequently. You’ll be able to see your father more often than if you had a regular nine-to-five job in a London office. And Bristol isn’t so far away. Think about it over lunch and while we’re looking over the site this afternoon. Bill and I can stop over one more night if you decide you’ll come back with us tomorrow.”

  Robin gasped. Apart from the suspicion about the “permanent basis” and the “compensations” he mentioned, did he really think she could decide on a new way of life as quickly as that? Robin brushed aside the fact that she was normally a creature of quick decisions and that part of the attraction of working for Mrs. Fowler had been the stimulation of sharing her life-style. Mrs. Fowler had long since given up playing the piano professionally on a strict tour basis, but she was still enough in demand to undertake occasional engagements, and Robin had enjoyed typing out the replies to the fan letters that still arrived, each one signed by Elaine Fowler herself.

  But there was no way she was going to rush home and pack her things and go back to Bristol with Luke Burgess the next day. He must be mad to suggest it.

  She stubbornly refused to comment any further, changing the conversation and talking directly to Bill and her father, totally ignoring Luke. It was almost time for lunch anyway, and all the plans and folders were put away as the four of them went into the hotel dining room. Only once more did Luke refer to his offer of employment, and then he spoke to James.

  “Perhaps you’d persuade your beautiful daughter that I could really use her help, Mr. Pollard. Can’t you put in a word for me?” The suggestion was half mocking, as if Luke had never really needed anyone to do anything for him.

  James chuckled. “My daughter makes up her own mind, Luke, as you must have realised by now. And my guess is that she’s already decided on her future.”

  Luke raised his glass towards Robin at that, as if to seal the bargain. Didn’t he listen to anyone but himself? she wondered, bristling. From his expression everyone would assume that he had already got his way, and he certainly had not.

  All the same, over lunch she let the idea mull around in her head. Would it be such a bad thing after all? At least she would know exactly what was going on at all stages of the development. Presumably she would have access to all the facts and figures of the project, and there would be no chance of Luke’s putting one over on her father. Robin would know immediately if there was anything crooked about the deal. Not for one minute did she let the thought creep in that the chance to see more of Luke was too tempting to resist. It wasn’t that at all. It certainly wasn’t that!

  After lunch they drove out to the site in separate cars, though at the last minute Luke had a suggestion to make.

  “Perhaps you’d like to come with me, Robin, and I can explain a bit more about the project on the way, if we’re going to be working together ...”

  “I haven’t said that we are.”

  “Bill can go with your father,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “We’ll meet up above the site.”

  James thought it was a good idea, so Robin had no option but to agree, unless she wanted to appear completely unreasonable. What was it about Luke Burgess? she thought savagely. He seemed to bring out the worst in her with no effort whatsoever.

  They drove the first couple of miles in silence, and then Luke spoke softly.

  “Why are you fighting me, Robin?”

  “Why not? What did you expect? I’ve never been an active conservationist, but I know when the landscape is about to be desecrated by an ambitious land developer overkeen to line his own pockets.” She deliberately misunderstood him.

  “To hell with all that for the moment, though you’re not stupid, my darling,” he said lazily. “You know very well what I mean. Why do you fight the inevitable? The minute I saw you stretched out on that patch of sand, looking so deliciously sexy, I knew there was more to Cornwall than tales of piskies and smugglers. ,Any red-blooded man would have been stirred.”

  “I wasn’t there for any male oglers,” Robin snapped, her heart racing at the tone of his voice and the way his eyes kept leaving the narrow lane to glance over her body. She knew then that she had made a mistake: She should have insisted on riding with her father. She clamped her lips together, determined not to let him rile her. To her fury, his hand rested lightly on her thigh for a moment, the warmth of it penetrating her linen skirt. She jerked her leg away.

  “Get this, Mr. Burgess” — she whipped her head round to glower at him — “women don’t like being regarded as sex objects any more. We’re liberated ladies these days, on equal terms with men, and if I am going to work with you, I want to make that very clear!”

  “Good. That means you haven’t entirely discarded the idea, then,” he retorted. “And if you want to be treated as an equal, I don’t have to soft-pedal anything I want to say to you, right? You can’t have it both ways, Robin.”

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  “I suppose so,” she muttered. She didn’t trust him.

  The lane widened a little beneath a shady bower of trees and a little pull-in for cars. Luke suddenly turned the car into the side of the lane and pulled on the hand brake, leaving the engine running. Robin wasn’t sure if it was the throb of the car engine or the uneven beat of her heart that was loudest as his arms came around her, imprisoning her in their embrace.

  “Then I’ll make it perfectly clear.” Luke’s face was very close to her own, and the tangy scent of fresh pine she’d noticed the day before drifted into her nostrils from his freshly shaven skin. He was so close that she could feel his heart against her breast, the thin fabric of their clothes doing little to lessen the effect of the contact. Robin knew a feeling of helplessness.

  She should struggle. She should be outraged or unnerved by the desire she saw in his blue eyes, darkened with his need. She should fight against this. Hadn’t he just been asking her why she continued to fight him? It wasn’t in her nature to remain passive. She wasn’t the clinging type, but incredibly she realised that she was almost clinging to Luke at that moment as her hands came up against his chest in a mute plea for him not to do that ...

  His chest was hard and unyielding against her palms. In contrast Robin felt her soft female contours crushed to him. Her long silky hair fell back on her shoulders as one of Luke’s hands gently caressed its golden tresses. It seemed to be an endless torment before his mouth took possession
of hers, slowly at first, with a delicate pressure, and then more surely as he felt her instinctive response.

  He was bruising her lips, forcing her mouth to open. His need to dominate was almost tangible, and she, who had never allowed any man to rule her, felt the strangely pleasurable feeling of submission sweep through her like a flame. Yet, it was not submission; it was a meeting halfway, an acknowledging of the senses and the flesh that made Robin feel exhilaratingly alive.

  It was only the sound of another car passing them in the lane that brought Robin back to awareness. Only then did she remember to struggle, to recall that this was the man who was disrupting a way of life. Luke still held her, his fingers digging into her slender shoulders for a moment, but he moved his mouth away from hers a fraction of an inch.

  “Now try to deny that we’re the same kind of people, you and I, Robin,” he said huskily against her bruised lips. “We meet on equal terms, with the same needs, the same desires; your responses tell me you want me as much as I want you.”

  Robin pushed him away from her, sitting as far from him as she could in the car, her green eyes blazing.

  “You’re like all men,” she lashed out at him. “You think all you have to do is turn on the sex appeal and women will grovel at your feet!”

  “That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.” Luke grinned. “But maybe it wouldn’t have worked after all. I’m not sure I could cope with a secretary with the looks of an angel and the temper of the devil. Let’s forget the whole thing.”

  He released the hand brake and turned the steering wheel to get them back onto the road so suddenly that Robin lurched against the door. Her eyes smarted at the sharp jab in her shoulder, but she wouldn’t let him see it. She was too busy weighing the pros and cons of taking up the challenge of being Luke Burgess’s secretary, weakly admitting to herself that the decision had already been made. The kiss had put the final seal on it.

  Chapter Four

  If she thought about it forever, Robin couldn’t have said exactly how it happened that she came to be sitting in Luke Burgess’s car the following morning, with most of her worldly goods packed into two suitcases, which were stuffed into the trunk of the car, along with Luke’s and Bill’s overnight bags. But it had happened, and she was going into what she still thought of as enemy territory in order to become Luke’s secretary.

  James had thought it a marvellous idea. He had a great admiration for Luke and never stopped telling Robin so. When they got back to Pollard Manor late the previous afternoon and she told her father that she had finally made up her mind, he had looked delighted.

  “Does Luke know, or is this a sudden decision, darling?”

  Robin had given a half-smile. She hadn’t yet told Luke, but he knew all right. He was so damnably sure of her. To regain her crumbling self-respect, Robin had told herself firmly that she was only taking the job for one reason: to see that everything was aboveboard and that her father wasn’t going to lose by going into business with Luke Burgess.

  “I said I’d phone the hotel in Helston before six-thirty to give him my decision,” she had said. “If I don’t phone, he and Bill are going back to Bristol tonight. Otherwise, they’ll stay on to give me time to pack.”

  Despite her doubts, Robin was thrilled that she was starting on a new kind of adventure — by which she meant the job, naturally. She had been with Elaine Fowler since leaving secretarial college, and it was strange to think of beginning all over again. She swallowed, trying to ease the tightness in her throat. The past was over, and regrets were pointless. It was a cynical philosophy, but one that had kept her grief under control in the sad days following Mrs. Fowler’s death. She had needed all her strength then, and had only wilted upon coming home and collapsing into her father’s understanding arms. Now, restored, Robin welcomed this new challenge.

  She and Luke weren’t quite on equal terms any more, either. In business, at least, Luke was now the boss. She admitted that much, but he’d find out that her subservience went only so far. The fact that she found him the most attractive, most intriguing, sexiest man she’d ever met had nothing at all to do with anything.

  “I didn’t expect this to happen so quickly,” James had remarked as she began making frantic lists of what to take and what to leave behind, since she would be able to stay at the manor whenever they were on site — which was a big attraction of the job, Robin admitted. “You’ll need to find somewhere to live.”

  She had already thought of that one, and gave a wry smile.

  “I mentioned that, but you might have expected it to be no problem. Luke’s not a property man for nothing. His last secretary left in a bit of a hurry, and her flat is ready and waiting for the next one to move in. It goes with the job.”

  Robin had bitten her tongue rather than ask why the last secretary had moved out so unexpectedly. She didn’t want to know. If it was because the poor girl hadn’t been able to handle Luke, then he’d learn that Robin was a very different proposition.

  So there she was, right after lunch, heading out of Cornwall into Devon and onto the M5 motorway, which would take them to Bristol. By the time they crossed the Tamar River, which separated the two counties, Robin felt a strange shiver inside. They took the modern road bridge, but to the right of them was the twin-curved structure of Brunel’s railway bridge spanning the river. For a crazy moment Robin thought that it seemed to symbolise her own life — leaving the old for the new — and who could tell her if she was making the right choice?

  “Laying ghosts?” Luke prompted, after she had been silent for some time. Behind them, in the back seat, Bill dozed, and it felt as if there were only the two of them in the car. Robin shrugged. Until she actually began work in the office, they were still on equal terms, and she had always been one for speaking her mind.

  “Just wondering if I’m making the biggest mistake of my life, that’s all. Three days ago I had no intention of moving to Bristol. I’ve never even been there, apart from passing through by train. What am I doing here?”

  She was talking to herself as much as to Luke. To her surprise she felt his hand covering hers for a few minutes until he needed to put it back on the wheel. For once, she wasn’t tempted to snatch her own hand away. Instead she felt oddly comforted by the touch.

  “You’re doing me one hell of a favour, Robin, and when you get a look inside the office, you’ll know why I’m paying you an excellent salary. Work has been piling up for two weeks since Maggie skipped off with her sailor, and you’ll need to be a genius to unscramble some of the mess. That’s why I asked you to take on the job. That — and other reasons ...” he couldn’t resist adding. “Don’t you want to know what they are?”

  “I’m not sure I do,” Robin retorted. She wasn’t taken in by false flattery, and so far Luke hadn’t resorted to it, she realised with a little surprise. Not the usual kind that went with champagne and parties, anyway.

  “I’ll tell you all the same,” he said calmly. “You’re far more decorative than Maggie or any other girl I’ve had working for me, of course, but you’re no doubt aware of that already. You must get bored with men telling you how beautiful you are, so I won’t waste my breath in stating the obvious.”

  “Thank you,” Robin said sarcastically, not sure how well she liked this line of approach. It was different! She did get suspicious of any man who came on too strong with the chat, but he didn’t have to brush it all aside quite so curtly. A little finesse wouldn’t have been unwelcome.

  “You’re also more intelligent than most.”

  Robin wasn’t sure whether this was a particular compliment to her or a put-down of the rest of female society. She decided to let it pass without comment and looked stubbornly ahead at the ribbon of road in front of them.

  “You’ve been suspicious of me ever since you heard about the holiday development, haven’t you, Robin? And I think you’d have been more convinced that I wasn’t taking your father for a ride if I’d persuaded him to sell the land outright to
me. You can’t quite believe that I’ve made a fair and square business deal with him, can you? You can’t believe that he’ll get a reasonable percentage of the profits, though naturally it will be a far smaller percentage than my own.”

  By now Robin had jerked her head round to stare at him in furious embarrassment. It was true that she’d have felt easier if James had sold the parcel of land outright and had nothing more to do with it. She would have convinced herself it was because she wanted nothing to do with any holiday bungalow project ... but Luke had seen the real reason. And since he knew ...

  “All right” — she became defensive — “so what if I did feel the need to protect my father’s interests? Is that so strange?”

  “Not at all. It’s perfectly commendable. And when you know me a little better, I think you’ll find that I’m quite trustworthy, Robin. I’m not a business shark.”

  There was a hint of laughter in his voice, and for a moment Robin felt at a loss for words. Then she muttered an ungracious apology, hardly knowing why she did so. She wasn’t backing down from her opinion of Luke Burgess as a hard and arrogant man, but unless she could prove otherwise, she would give him the benefit of the doubt about his professional integrity. She was sure her father would have vetted him before signing a contract with him, and surely James was smart enough to recognise a charlatan.

  “Forget it, Robin,” Luke answered easily. “I just wanted to get one thing straight between us, that’s all. You and I will be spending a good deal of time together in the next six months, and we don’t have to start off as enemies.”

  “We’re still on opposite sides, though, aren’t we?”

  “Are we?” Luke sounded mystified. “I thought you were on my side now, if that’s the right way of putting it. In agreeing to work for me — ”

  “But you know the reason for that,” Robin said sweetly. “To infiltrate the enemy camp, remember? You just told me so! I may have an angelic look, Luke, but I’m not gullible. And I prefer to form my own judgement of people.”