Misbehaving Under the Mistletoe (Mills & Boon M&B): On the First Night of Christmas... / Secrets of the Rich & Famous / Truth-Or-Date.com (Mb)

by Heidi Rice

  He was concerned about her.

  Whatever else that kiss had meant, he didn’t know. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Concern was the first step on a slippery slope towards caring, and he no longer did that. But somewhere along the way they’d become friends, and he couldn’t now just let this go. It hadn’t been so bad at the ball. He’d been around to keep tabs on the situation. This was completely different. She was on her own.

  Richard Moran was not just a ruthless businessman, he also had a very nasty accusation of sexual harassment lurking in his not-too-distant past. An accusation hastily dropped, yet rumoured to be true. And that was just one of many indicators of the unsavoury side of his personality.

  Alex threw his cup into the sink and grabbed his keys. However things were between them, he should never have let Jen go today. He might as well have let her go swimming with a very hungry shark. She wouldn’t thank him, he knew that, but anything would be better than sitting here driving himself nuts. He’d blag his way into the VIP enclosure when he got there.

  The Christmas race meet was a jovial affair. The VIP enclosure was festooned with decorations in subtle shades of blue and aqua, perfectly co-ordinated. Spicy mulled cider and canapés were served in the warmth of the glass-fronted bar as horses thundered past outside, their breath clouding the frosty air.

  After talking about himself for the entire car journey, Richard Moran seemed alarmingly determined to turn the tables on her as soon as they arrived. It was much harder to work the perfect date when you were constantly being kept on your toes about your fictional background.

  The first person he introduced her to turned out to be a successful jewellery designer with her own exclusive studio and website. Jen felt a line of perspiration break out along her spine as Richard mentioned her own invented jewellery business, and then watched beadily as she tried not to squirm while fielding questions about what was and wasn’t hot in jewellery right now.

  As the afternoon progressed being with him felt more and more like walking on eggshells.

  She’d no sooner pasted on a breezy smile as he introduced her to Annabel and Cosmo—’Old, old friends, darling. Cosmo and I studied together at Cambridge.’—than she was fighting back a wave of nausea as he pointed out that Annabel had attended the fictional private school she’d chosen.

  ‘Prior Park College, wasn’t it? You must have been there around the same time,’ he said.

  Annabel flicked back her glossy chestnut bob and surveyed her with perfectly made-up eyes.

  ‘I don’t remember you,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, well, it’s a big school, isn’t it? Perhaps we were there at different times.’ Jen groped desperately for a way to change the subject.

  ‘What house were you in?’

  ‘Aha! Those canapés look delicious!’ she gabbled.

  She made a beeline for a waiter a few paces away and returned munching a port and stilton tartlet. She couldn’t think of any other way of causing a diversion, and etiquette rules forbade her from speaking with her mouth full. She glanced at Richard and realised with a cold flash that she wasn’t doing half as well as she’d thought she was. He gave her a penetrating look which made her nerves fray. She tried to stop the rising heat in her cheeks by force of the mind, certain that he would pick up on the slightest blush.

  He was suspicious of her.

  The friendly, upbeat façade had switched like lightning to coldness, and she felt a dark twinge of unease as she remembered Alex’s warnings about him. She suddenly wished she’d heeded his advice and quit while she was ahead with the success of the ball to write about. But, no, she’d been so stupidly flattered by the in-your-face flowers and attention, and the idea of proving a point to Alex, that she’d failed to keep a clear head.

  Her only option was to stick to her story and try to avoid being alone with him.

  Richard drew Cosmo aside for a private discussion, and Annabel propelled Jen towards a group of glossy women who eyed her up and down as if she was some new and interesting life form. She took a deep breath. Intimidated didn’t really cover it, but at least Richard was distracted.

  ‘You can always count on Richard to bring along someone new.’ Annabel gave a tinkly laugh.

  Jen bit back a sarcastic reply. Yes, she knew he was a playboy—but surely it must be bad form to point that out?

  She soon found that belittling the girlfriend of a rich bachelor was practically a sport in itself among these women.

  ‘I had that dress, too—what a coincidence! It’s darling, isn’t it?’

  Jen glanced at the skinny blonde woman, introduced to her as Sukie.

  The three other women leaned backwards in unison and looked at her dress. As a spectator she might even have found it funny. She concentrated hard on keeping her posture relaxed.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Designer. Last season.’

  Jen didn’t miss the challenge. Pointing out that the dress wasn’t brand-new was an underhand move. She didn’t rise.

  ‘Unfortunately I had a bit of an accident in mine,’ Sukie said. ‘Someone spilled red wine down it at a wedding back in January. Landed mainly on the hemline. I remember it flapping around my ankles all wet. I could never quite get the …’ her voice trailed off ‘… stain out.’

  If this had been a movie the camera would have moved in on Jen for an immediate close-up. She tried desperately to keep a dignified look on her face when what it wanted to do was fold in on herself. Four pairs of beady rich eyes swivelled downwards to the hem of her dress. Jen didn’t need to glance down herself. She could tell just from their expressions what she would see if she did. The sweet floral print on the deep green fabric was busy enough for the stain to blend in on cursory checking. If you didn’t know it was there you would miss it. Turned out, she had.

  ‘I donated it to Oxfam,’ Sukie added, to no one in particular. ‘In Knightsbridge.’

  So Sukie had no compunction about donating imperfect clothing to charity without pointing out the flaw. Jen really couldn’t give a damn what someone like that thought about her. Her temper flared.

  ‘I’m all for wearing second-hand clothing,’ she said. ‘Too much emphasis is placed on the price tag in my opinion. No one cares if it costs more than a car as long as it’s by an in-vogue designer. It’s incredibly shallow. And by the way …’ she frowned at Sukie, who took a step backwards ‘… you were supposed to point out to the store that there’s a stain on the dress.’

  She realised that the elegant, quiet tone she’d consciously been trying to maintain had disappeared and her loud voice was making heads turn.

  Richard Moran swiftly rejoined the group, tumbler of whisky in hand.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Genevieve appears to be wearing one of Sukie’s cast-offs,’ Annabel said smoothly, with that tinkly laugh again. ‘I think she’s finding the situation a little awkward, Richard.’

  Jen’s heart plummeted. Not one face in the group was friendly. They saw her as an impostor, and she supposed that was exactly what she was.

  Richard Moran grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her aside.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?’ he barked in a stage whisper. ‘Your big talk about a jewellery business just doesn’t stack up, you fobbed Annabel off when she asked about school and now it turns out your dress is from a charity shop. What are you? Some kind of stalker?’

  Jen felt a hot flash of contempt at the way he was treating her. And he thought she was pursuing him because she was infatuated? How arrogant could you be?

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She yanked her elbow free and snapped impulsively, ‘I’m not a stalker. I’m a journalist!’

  The words were barely out of her mouth before he’d grabbed her a second time, one arm clamped around her waist, the other digging sharply into her arm. The black eyes had a sinister tinge in them. He pulled her hard towards the roped-off exit.

  She struggled. ‘What are you doing? Let go o
f me.’

  He clamped her against him and spoke with absolute clarity in her ear as he propelled her along. She was vaguely aware that he was simultaneously smiling and nodding at people as they passed. Keeping up appearances.

  ‘You are going to walk out of here with me without making any fuss,’ he hissed. ‘We are going to go somewhere quiet and you are going to tell me exactly what you are up to and who you are working for.’

  His grip bit bruisingly hard into her arm and she felt the first dark tendrils of real fright twisting their way through her. Her instincts told her Alex had been right. This was not a man to be trifled with. She forced her whirling mind to think. She needed to get herself away from Richard before he could find out any more about her. Thank goodness she’d used a false name. If she made a run for it there was no way he could trace her.

  Gathering all her strength, she kicked him as hard as she could in the shins—but instead of releasing her he unclamped his hand from her arm and grabbed a handful of her hair. She struggled madly and drew in a huge breath to scream.

  The sound died on her lips as Richard Moran lurched suddenly sideways. Letting go of her, he fell into a nearby dark blue spiral Christmas tree. She stumbled to keep her own balance. As he got to his feet, covered in blue glitter and dabbing the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, she found herself dragged away at speed.

  It was Alex.

  He’d come, after all.

  They barely spoke at first as the car sped back to London. Her emotions were in turmoil. Hideous disappointment at the failure of Mission Racing churned deep in her stomach along with the humiliation of being manhandled to the exit, VIP heads turning her way. The dreadful feeling of being frighteningly out of her depth was something she loathed. But underneath it all there was a tentative glimmering of deep-down happiness at what Alex’s dramatic intervention might mean.

  He’d bailed her out again. This time at huge cost to himself. Would he really do that for a potential one-night stand he never needed to cross paths with again?

  Eventually she could stand it no longer.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For not saying it.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  She gave him a rueful smile.

  ‘I told you so. The temptation must be huge.’

  She saw the tension in his shoulders soften a little.

  ‘It is,’ he said.

  Silence fell again.

  ‘VIP tickets weren’t as scarce as they made out, then,’ she said. ‘Seems a bit of a scam.’

  ‘What?’ He glanced at her.

  ‘The auction,’ she said. ‘The other night. I almost got stung for a grand on supposedly golddust tickets, but you just strolled in like you owned the place.’

  Strolled in was actually way off the mark. Vaulted into the fray was more like it.

  He stared straight ahead.

  ‘No big deal.’

  ‘No big deal? You hit him! There were enough diamond-encrusted mobile phones in that VIP enclosure to guarantee you a place on tomorrow’s front pages. You’re probably already an internet sensation.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he said.

  Her stomach gave a dizzying flip. Being rescued shouldn’t really sit well with her lifelong determination to go it alone. And yet the deliciousness of it took her breath away.

  They were almost at the apartment now.

  ‘What about the movie? All your PR rules? You’ve probably broken every single one in the space of two minutes.’ The grief this was likely to cause him suddenly hit home, and she felt a sickening stab of guilt at what she’d dragged him into.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve spent my entire career worrying about how my every move affects my work, chasing success at the expense of everything else. Maybe I just decided to do what I want for a change, without reference to any of that.’

  ‘So all this is about you making a point? Nothing more?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All this …’ She waved her hands in an all-encompassing gesture. ‘Everything you’ve done. Gatecrashing the racing.’

  He pulled the car to a standstill in his apartment’s parking space, turned the engine off, got out. She followed him into the lobby, waiting for an answer.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Am I just a distraction because you’ve been forced to stay in and miss the party for a few lousy weeks? What’s this all about?’

  He stopped, laughed into the darkness.

  ‘A distraction?’ he said. ‘You’re right. I’ve never been so distracted by anything or anyone. And it has nothing to do with my PR team or the award prospects for my damn movie.’

  In two quick strides he was right back beside her. Her stomach melted into softness.

  ‘I should never have let you go with him today.’

  ‘Then why did you?’

  ‘Because you were so determined to prove a point, and you would have argued me down until you were blue in the face.’

  He looked up at the ceiling briefly.

  ‘And because I didn’t want to admit how much I want you.’

  Heat tingled through her as he slid one hand firmly around her waist, traced the other along her collarbone. Sparks jolted deliciously down her spine.

  ‘Since when?’

  He smiled down at her.

  ‘To be honest I think I was halfway there the first night—just finding you in the apartment like that, with your long legs and all that attitude. But I think what really sealed it was the orange hair.’

  All sense and rationality left her, pushed out by the intensity of the desire that rushed through her under his touch. She let her arms circle his neck, let his thick hair slide through her fingers. The green depths of his gaze met her own. She felt as if her knees had melted and might quit holding her up very soon.

  ‘I could always dye it back,’ she said into his mouth, and she felt the grin on his lips as he kissed her, his hands sliding lower to press her hard against him.

  She felt him tighten his hold enough to lift her and then he was walking down the hall, her toes skimming the floor in the semi-darkness. She heard him mash the key blindly into the lock as he kissed her hungrily. Then, as he carried her inside and kicked the door shut behind him, all reservation was gone. She locked her legs behind his waist and let him carry her through to his bedroom.

  Sunlight slanted into the room through a chink in the heavy curtains and fell on the pillow next to Jen, pulling her back to consciousness. Alex’s side of the bed was empty. She slid her hand beneath the cover.

  Still warm.

  She glanced around, collecting her thoughts. The room was pure Alex, like the rest of the apartment. Nothing personal or sentimental. No indication that he’d put down roots here. It felt like sleeping in a hotel room. A very expensive one. A full flashback of what had happened between them zoomed into her mind and she threw the sheets back quickly.

  The deep feeling of hot euphoria that had enveloped her very bones at the feel of him the previous night was fast regressing into cold tension. She stood up, glanced round the room for her clothes. Her panties had somehow ended up under the chest of drawers, and she hooked them out and stepped into them.

  What had she done?

  Carried away by her very own Sir Galahad, stepping in yet again to save her. Was that what had removed her sanity? The novelty of having someone actually be there for her for a change, for her to rely on? She’d told herself she was happy with her life, yet there had always been that sniff of what might have been lingering just out of her reach. Hell, that was what had driven the whole article idea. Had she let him under her radar because he represented that parallel universe for her—the one where she really was a rich socialite instead of just playing a part?

  Rationality was sinking in deeper with every moment, driving away the delicious feeling of happiness she’d encountered in his arms, with his hands on her skin.

  She could hear his muffled voice somewhere outside the room and paused near the door,
listening hard. He was obviously on the telephone. That meant he could be back in here at any moment. She looked hurriedly around for the rest of her clothes and suddenly registered a swatch of dialogue.

  ‘… tomorrow. Send me the flight details through …’

  Cold regret seeped into her heart as she followed what he was saying. Along with anger at herself for letting things go so far.

  Where exactly had she thought it would go from here? She knew what his priorities were. He hadn’t made a secret of it. Work came first. Would always come first with him.

  Flight details.

  So he wasn’t even staying in the country for Christmas, then? What would he give her? A couple of days before he jetted off back to his life? What had she been thinking? She’d fallen into his arms like some simpering idiot, all because he’d rescued her from a scary situation. She’d slept with him and now he was going.

  The only thing stopping her from becoming her mother right now was the fact he’d used a condom.

  She dashed around the room, picking up her dress and cardigan. Now reality had bitten she knew only that she had to put a stop to any further repeat of history. There was only one way forward if she were to retain the control her mother had given up.

  She’d have to dump him before he got in first.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ALEX returned to the bedroom via the kitchen fridge, thinking they would have a slow and languorous champagne-breakfast-fuelled second round. Just the thought of the warm softness of her body curled up in his bed made hot desire rush through him again.

  The bed was empty, sheets strewn haphazardly across it. As he glanced at the half-open en suite bathroom door, of the darkness beyond it, she popped up suddenly from behind the far side of the bed. She was naked except for lace panties and clutching the rest of her clothes to her chest, hiding her modesty as if he hadn’t just spent half the night exploring every silken inch of her body. He stared at her.

  ‘What are you doing?’