‘You can’t order me about!’ she gasped indignantly. ‘If I want to go out I’ll damn well go!’
‘Try it,’ he warned softly.
‘Rick, I want to go out!’
He frowned at her near-desperation. ‘Are you sure you aren’t the one who’s frightened of being alone? Shanna, what—Hell, are you going to faint?’ he moved to grasp her arms as she swayed, her face paler than ever. ‘Shanna?’ he hissed as she leant weakly against him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he rasped. ‘Do you need a doctor?’
‘No,’ she dismissed through stiff lips. ‘I—I think you’re right, I need an early night. I’ve been overdoing it lately.’
Rick’s arm about her waist supported her into the bedroom, his frown one of deep concern. ‘It’s all these damned parties you keep going to,’ he said angrily. ‘How can you expect to function properly when you go out every night and hold down a job in the day, especially one with the responsibilities yours has?’
‘You do it,’ she accused weakly, sitting down on the bed.
‘I’ve built up an immunity over the years.’ He pushed her hands away to pull her dress off her shoulders. ‘From what I understand you’ve only been behaving this way since your husband died.’ He put his arms around her to release the fastening of her bra. ‘Calm down,’ he snapped as she flinched. ‘I’m putting you to bed, not raping you.’
‘But I can undress myself—’
‘And I can do it with much less effort.’ He talked down her protests, laying her on the bed to remove the rest of her clothes, going over to the dressing-table to search through her drawers for a nightgown and coming back with a black lacy one. ‘I’ll be having fantasies about you all night,’ he mocked gently as he pulled the garment over her head. ‘Just for a change!’ He stood her up to pull back the bedclothes and tuck her comfortably beneath the crisp sheets, sitting on the side of the bed to gently touch her cheek. ‘You have to slow down, Shanna. The body, your body, can only take so much before it burns itself out. Heed the warnings, sweetheart, your tiredness, your weakness. If you don’t you’ll kill yourself.’
Sleep wouldn’t be denied once he had left, and her mental decision to go to the party once she was alone became impossible as she knew she didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed. Rick could have no idea how right he was. She was killing herself, slowly but surely…
* * *
There were no signs of tiredness about her as she entered her office the next morning, and she returned Rick’s questioning greeting with cold politeness, wanting their relationship back on the strictly impersonal.
She put her burgundy-coloured briefcase on her desk-top and took out the notes she had been working on the previous evening.
Rick stood up to come over and lean on the side of her desk. ‘How do you feel today?’ he asked gruffly.
She looked up at him with cool green eyes. ‘Just fine, thank you. Now yesterday you mentioned something about—’
‘Shanna, it won’t work,’ he interrupted gently. ‘I told you that last night. And the fantasies I had of you during the night tell me I didn’t imagine one thing that happened between us in your apartment yesterday evening. I don’t have that vivid an imagination!’
She swallowed hard. ‘I can’t work with you if you’re going to constantly remind me of one lapse I had with you. I was tired, I wasn’t thinking straight. Now could we talk about this problem page you mentioned yesterday?’ She looked at him steadily.
For long breathless minutes he continued to look down at her, seemingly undecided about whether or not to take her lead. Finally he shrugged. ‘You don’t like the idea?’ He straightened, every inch the businessman in his blue tailored suit and snowy white shirt.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I think it was the way you pronounced “problem page”,’ he derided. ‘You make it sound like two dirty words.’
‘And isn’t it?’
‘A survey shows that the majority of women turn to the problem page in magazines first.’
‘Whose survey?’ she asked dryly.
‘Mine. Oh, not personally,’ he mocked. ‘I had people out on the street doing it for me.’
‘Where?’
He smiled. ‘Central London. Satisfied?’
She shrugged. ‘Fashion Lady has always got along very well without a problem page.’
‘All those women can’t be wrong, Shanna.’
‘Can’t they?’
‘No,’ he shook his head decisively.
‘Fashion Lady has always been above such things,’ she dismissed.
‘Then we’ll just have to drag it down to my level, won’t we?’ he taunted abruptly. ‘Because I intend to go ahead and have a problem page in the first issue of the magazine for next year.’
Her eyes sparkled with temper. ‘Then why bother to tell me you wanted to talk about it?’
‘Courtesy,’ he dismissed. ‘You are still the editor of Fashion Lady.’
‘Not for too much longer!’
‘Mm,’ he nodded thoughtfully. ‘Which reminds me, did you do anything about advertising for a replacement for you?’
‘I’ve been in touch with an agency that specialises in such things. There’s a couple of women who look quite promising.’
‘I want to be in on the interviews.’
‘Why?’ she gasped. ‘Don’t you trust me, is that it?’ Her tone was aggressive.
‘You’re being childish now—’
‘I want to know why you feel you have to be present at interviews for prospective employees for my job,’ she glared at him. ‘I think I have a right to know that.’
‘You have that right,’ Rick nodded abruptly. ‘And I have no objection to answering you. I want to be in on those interviews because I have to work with the woman who replaces you long after you’re gone.’
‘And forgotten,’ she said tightly.
‘You’re never out of my mind, Shanna,’ he told her throatily. ‘And you know you aren’t. Look, surely you can see the sense of what I’m saying?’ He quirked dark brows.
‘Of course,’ she nodded stiltedly. ‘As soon as the interviews are arranged I’ll let you know. Unless you would like to do that too…?’
Rick gave an impatient sigh. ‘No, you carry on. I can see there’s going to be no reasoning with you today.’ He held up his hands in dismissal.
‘None at all.’ Shanna stood up. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.’
It wasn’t until she got out of the office and was walking along the corridor that she realised she had no idea where she was going! Heavens, she had allowed Rick to make her so angry that she had walked out of her own office!
‘Hi, Shanna. How are you today?’
She turned thankfully at the sound of Cindy’s cheery greeting. ‘I’m fine,’ she smiled. ‘I was looking for you, actually,’ she invented. ‘You never did get round to those introductions yesterday, and Rick’s too busy this morning for me to bother him with it.’
‘Come right this way,’ Cindy said lightly, as bright and bubbly as usual. ‘I know the guys are all anxious to meet you.’
‘The guys’ turned out to be a pretty lighthearted bunch once they lost their initial awkwardness with her. Jack was exactly as she had thought he was, a flirt, Peter was very serious and quiet, and Lance was friendly without being familiar, obviously feeling she was still an unknown quantity.
‘Do you enjoy the travel your work involves?’ She tried to draw him into conversation, while Cindy and Jack were doing their usual bickering, and Peter was engrossed in the same papers he and Rick had been working on so intently the day before.
Lance shrugged; the two of them were in the sitting area of the office. ‘It can get a little tiring, but for the most part I enjoy it. I enjoy working with and for Rick. He’s a good boss.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed abruptly. ‘I think I made—no, I know I made a fool of myself yesterday,’ she told him ruefully. ‘Rick and I don’t really get on,’ she c
hewed on her bottom lip. ‘I think we both have strong personalities, and that doesn’t make for working harmony.’
‘But we all thought you and he—No, I guess not,’ Lance drawled ruefully. ‘Not after what you said yesterday. Does that mean you might be interested in a date with one of his assistants?’
‘Cindy?’ she taunted, not having expected this invitation at all. It was a sure fact that Rick wouldn’t approve!
Lance grinned, glancing over to where Cindy and Jack were still arguing. ‘No,’ he laughed, ‘I wasn’t thinking of Cindy.’ He turned back to her, his blue eyes suddenly intense. ‘Would you have dinner with me one evening, Shanna?’
‘Rick wouldn’t like it,’ she warned him honestly.
He grimaced. ‘I’m not asking Rick.’
She smiled. ‘I meant he wouldn’t like the two of us going out together.’
‘I realise that. But I can handle it,’ Lance told her quietly.
Shanna wasn’t sure anyone could handle Rick’s temper when he was aroused. And she also wasn’t sure she should expose Lance Edwards to that. She had no doubt he was a nice man, a handsome one too, but she could never feel anything more than liking for him, despite his likeness to Perry.
‘Rick explained your reaction to seeing me yesterday,’ Lance spoke again as she didn’t answer him. ‘The reason you seemed upset.’
She frowned. ‘What did he explain?’
‘That I look a little like your husband. Hey, that’s okay,’ he soothed as she blanched. ‘It doesn’t bother me that you confused me with your husband for a while. I’m sure a lot of friendships have started on less than that.’
And Rick had just made certain that there couldn’t even be friendship between Lance and herself. How dared he tell this man she reminded him of her husband? She knew how he dared, knew that he had told Lance that so that the other man would believe any interest she showed him was because of his likeness to Perry. And he had succeeded, damn him!
CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU arrogant bastard!’
Shanna had remained in the executive office another half hour after turning down Lance’s dinner invitation, and no one looking at her as she laughed and joked with the others could possibly have known of the anger boiling inside her.
It all came to the fore now as Rick looked up from the work on his desk with a surprised expression. ‘How dare you tell Lance anything about me?’ she stormed. ‘What right do you have to go around telling men I only like them because they look like my husband?’ she demanded furiously as he seemed to be digesting her words, taking a cheroot out of his case and slowly lighting it. ‘Answer me!’
‘You’ve spoken to Lance?’ He did so.
‘Obviously!’
He nodded. ‘Obviously. Although I can’t believe he said anything like what you’re accusing me of.’
‘So you didn’t tell him he looks like Perry?’ she scorned.
‘Of course I told him that,’ he rasped impatiently. ‘I had to give him some sort of explanation for the way you behaved yesterday morning. Besides, the photograph on your desk only has to be seen for him to know that anyway.’
‘So you deny telling him he looks like Perry because he would then think I only like him for that reason?’ asked Shanna disbelievingly.
‘Do you like him?’ Rick snapped.
‘As a matter of fact, yes!’ She had found the other man to be intelligent and interesting, and the longer she spoke to him the less she noticed any resemblance to Perry at all.
Rick stood up. ‘Then I’m glad I told him what I did. And no, I don’t deny I told him for exactly the reason you’re accusing me of.’ His expression was harsh. ‘The situation between us is already confused enough without the addition of your going out with Lance.’
‘I don’t find it confusing at all,’ she bit out. ‘I don’t like you, don’t want to go out with you. And if I want to go out with Lance I will!’
Rick’s eyes narrowed to black slits. ‘Did he ask you?’
‘Yes!’
‘You won’t go, Shanna,’ he shook his head confidently, moving towards her determinedly.
She stood her ground defiantly. ‘I will if I want to.’ The fact that she didn’t want to was none of his business.
‘No!’ His arms came about her like steel bands. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned raggedly. ‘If you do I’ll just have to do this a few times in front of Lance.’ He claimed her mouth with fierce possession, bending her body into his. ‘And if that doesn’t work,’ his eyes glittered like black opals as he raised his head, ‘I’ll just have to send him back to New York.’
‘You wouldn’t do that?’ she gasped.
He nodded grimly. ‘I’d do it, Shanna—believe me. Oh, I wouldn’t fire him, he’s too good a man for that, I’d just send him back to my head office there.’
That would be almost as bad for Lance, she knew that. The other man was very proud of his position as Rick’s personal assistant, to send him back to America, in disgrace almost, would really injure his pride.
‘You really are a bastard,’ she told Rick with feeling.
He nodded cool acknowledgment of the fact, his mouth tight. ‘If by that you mean I stake my territory and fight off anyone who comes near my property, then yes, I’m a barbarian.’
‘I’m not your property. And you don’t fight clean!’
‘I fight with any weapons available to me,’ he shrugged.
‘But a man’s career—’
‘Is in your hands,’ he drawled coldly. ‘I’ve told you what the consequences will be if you go out with him; you know the penalty he will pay.’
‘That isn’t fair!’ she sighed her frustration.
‘Life rarely is,’ he dismissed unconcernedly. ‘Why not give up and go out with me, Shanna? I’ll not let any other man touch you.’
‘There must be some men in London that you can’t get to,’ she snapped.
He smiled, holding her easily in his arms as she struggled to be free. ‘If there are I’ll find a way, be sure of that.’ His arms tightened about her. ‘You’re mine, Shanna, and the sooner you accept that the better.’ His smile became a mocking grin. ‘You’ll see, I’m much easier to handle when I’m not consumed by sexual tension. And since meeting you I’ve known nothing else!’
‘Don’t expect me to do anything about that,’ she told him tautly. ‘Not even to get you out of my life will I go to bed with you.’
His mouth tightened. ‘Not for that reason, no. Because it wouldn’t get me out of your life—the opposite, I would think. I’d want to take it all over, Shanna, all your thoughts, all your smiles, your every waking moment. I’d entwine myself in your life so much you would feel haunted by me.’
‘I do now!’
‘As they say in the movies, “You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby”,’ he mocked. ‘At least at the moment I allow you to go home alone.’
‘Oh? And who was the man who broke into my apartment last night? I’m having a new lock put on the door today, by the way,’ she told him moodily. ‘I don’t like the idea of you being able to walk in any time you choose to do so.’
‘Honey, I’ve just finished explaining to you that I would never leave if I had the choice,’ he derided. ‘But I’m waiting to be invited before I stay with you.’
‘You’ll wait for ever!’
‘I don’t think so.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I don’t have that much patience. My parents would be amazed at the change you’ve made in me.’
‘I’m sure it’s only a temporary thing,’ she scorned. ‘Now will you kindly let me go?’
‘You know the price.’
‘And you accused me of being childish!’ she flared at him.
‘You were being at the time.’
‘As you are now!’ she snapped.
Rick gave a wolfish grin. ‘I’m being far from childish, Shanna, I’m being very adult.’ He curved her body more comfortably into his. ‘What’s one little kiss?’
‘Betw
een friends?’ she scoffed.
‘I never wanted to be your friend, sweetheart. Lover sounds much more—desirable.’
‘If only I found you that way—desirable, I mean.’
‘I’ve warned you about that tongue of yours, Shanna,’ he rasped.
‘I would think, I’ve had more opportunity to bite yours off than vice versa!’
He gave a deep frown of exasperation. ‘You would try the patience of a saint. And as we both know, I’m far from being that,’ he mocked her scornful look. ‘You can imagine that my patience is almost non-existent. Now give me that sweet mouth of yours so that we can get on with our work.’
‘Sweet, Rick?’ she derided the description.
‘When it isn’t spouting abuse and insulting me,’ he nodded with a taunting smile.
With a resigned shrug Shanna raised her mouth to his; she certainly never got anywhere by fighting with this man. Her arms moved up about his neck, fitting into the curve of his shoulder as he deepened and lengthened the kiss. She opened her lips to him, allowing him to search the warm cavern of her mouth for several seconds before she bit down, just hard enough to prove her point.
Rick was chuckling as he raised his head, releasing her with a light tap on the nose. ‘You see, you do know how to play, after all.’
‘Not by your rules,’ she shook her head.
‘You won’t go out with me tonight?’ He looked at her with narrowed eyes.
‘No.’
‘Okay,’ he shrugged.
She eyed him suspiciously as he went back to sit behind his desk. He was accepting her refusal very calmly today—too calmly. Somehow she distrusted him more when he was this malleable. He was up to something, she didn’t know what, but it gave her an uneasy feeling nonetheless. But there was no way he could interfere with her plans for tonight, she wasn’t even going to be at home if he should call.
She knew the reason for his smugness all afternoon as soon as she walked into the lounge of Henry and Janice’s London home; Rick was the only other apparent guest! They had worked in harmony for most of the day, had even joked together on a couple of occasions, and not once had he mentioned the fact that he was going to be at Henry’s tonight too. And she knew damn well he had known she was going to be here, knew it by mockery in his dark eyes as he greeted her now.
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