The Mistress Assignment

by Jordan, Penny

  Fiercely she bit down hard on her bottom lip. She wasn’t being vindictive, she was simply exercising her right to have justice, avenging the wrong which had been done to her, and neither were her motives totally selfish. She had been concerned for Beth’s pain and heartbreak and, despite what Kelly seemed to think, she was aware of the difficult position she had potentially put her in, and of the heartache that Eve could suffer if no one warned her what Julian was.

  She had, of course, assumed that Eve would immediately refuse to have anything further to do with Julian once his involvement with Kelly became public knowledge; Brough would have surely insisted on that for his sister’s own sake and, from what she knew of him, Brough was certainly a strong enough character to be able to achieve that end.

  It was a pity that Kelly had changed her mind, but the game wasn’t over yet, not by a long chalk. One way or another, Dee was determined that Julian Cox was going to make full recompense for the debt he owed her. Full recompense... with interest, the interest at the punitively high rate caused by the sheer extent and weight of the emotional anguish and despair she had suffered.

  There was no despair like that of suffering a broken heart, destroyed dreams; the complete desolation of a once promising future.

  Determinedly, Dee started to head back towards the town centre. It was time for her to go home. Yes, Kelly’s decision was going to cause her a problem, but no problem was insurmountable unless you allowed it to be and she, Dee, was certainly not going to do that.

  Where was Brough now? Kelly wondered dreamily as she said goodbye to the customer she had just served. In another five minutes she was going to close the shop for the day and then she was going to go upstairs and indulge in the delicious pleasure of curling up in a chair whilst she relived every second of yesterday, and most especially what had happened after Brough had insisted on seeing her safely inside the flat.

  Even now she felt as though it couldn’t be real, as though she had to keep mentally pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t imagining everything.

  She had felt guilty telling Dee that she couldn’t go on with their plans, but wisely Kelly knew that even without the discovery of her love for Brough she would have found it extremely difficult to continue to practise the deceit her role had called for.

  Where was Brough? Still in London? On his way back? When would she hear from him...see him... hold him?

  She caught her breath as she heard the shop doorbell ring behind her, and out of the corner of her eye she caught the male outline of the person walking in.

  ‘Brough!’

  She turned round eagerly, his name on her lips, only to be swept by a surge of disappointment as she recognised that her visitor wasn’t Brough but Julian.

  ‘What happened to you last night?’ Julian demanded without preamble. ‘We had a date...at the wine bar...remember?’

  Guiltily Kelly frowned. She had completely forgotten about that, but even if she hadn’t... The last person she really wanted to see was Julian Cox, but since he was here she could at least make it abundantly clear to him just where she stood, and, turning away from him so that he couldn’t see her face, she managed a dismissive shrug.

  ‘I changed my mind,’ she told him carelessly. ‘In fact...’

  Summoning all her courage, she turned round and announced crisply, ‘In fact, Julian, I think it would be best if you didn’t try to get in touch with me any more.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ Julian demanded furiously, his mouth tightening as he stepped in front of her, blocking her exit. She couldn’t do this to him. He had got it all planned—Kelly, with her substantial fortune, unfettered by any access restrictions, was a much better proposition than Eve with her trust fund and her brother, and besides, he wanted Kelly. She excited him in a way that the Beths and Eves of this world could never do.

  ‘I’m trying to say that I think we’ve both made a mistake,’ Kelly informed him as diplomatically as she could. ‘You are dating someone else...’

  ‘So?’ Julian demanded. ‘You didn’t seem to consider that much of a problem the other night at the ball, nor when I rang you up...’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Kelly allowed. ‘But since then I’ve had time to think things through... Eve loves you, Julian,’ she told him directly.

  To her disbelief, instead of looking embarrassed, he smiled triumphantly.

  ‘You’re jealous, aren’t you?’ he challenged her. ‘Well, you needn’t be. Eve’s a child, Kelly, but you’re a woman... The things you and I could do...’ he promised her thickly. ‘You know what I mean. You want them too. I’ve seen it in your eyes... Eve is a mistake. It’s you I want, Kelly.’

  Thoroughly revolted, Kelly tried to step back from him, but the hard edge of the counter was behind her, jarring her back. She looked anxiously towards the door, wishing a customer would walk in and put an end to their unwanted privacy. Unwanted on her part, that was. Julian, far from accepting what she had told him, seemed to be trying to be deliberately obtuse, Kelly recognised. Was he really so vain that he didn’t realise how much she loathed him? If so, she would simply have to take a stronger line with him.

  ‘Julian, I meant what I said,’ she told him firmly. ‘I don’t want to see you. If I gave you the wrong idea—’

  ‘If?’ he broke in, his face changing as he understood the forcefulness of her determination. No way could he afford to let her go, he acknowledged inwardly. When he had first met Eve he had not realised just how much control her brother had over her financial affairs. There was no love lost between him and Brough at all.

  ‘You were giving me the green light, Kelly, all the way to your bedroom door. I want you, Kelly, and I intend to have you.’

  ‘No!’ Kelly protested, shocked.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he overrode her. ‘You want me too; I can see it in your eyes...your mouth...’ As he spoke he reached out and pressed his thumb hard against her bottom lip. ‘There’s no way I’m going to let you go.’

  Taken off guard, Kelly immediately tried to push him away, making a sharp sound of distress.

  He actually made her feel physically sick, and not just sick but afraid as well, she recognised as she saw the ugly look in his eyes.

  ‘I want you to leave, Julian,’ she told him shakily. ‘Now...’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ he responded aggressively. ‘And what if I choose not to? What if I choose to make you come good on all those sexy promises you’ve been giving me, Kelly? What are you going to do about it? How are you going to stop me?’

  ‘What you’re talking about is sexual harassment,’ Kelly told him bravely. ‘If you don’t stop threatening me and leave straight away, Julian, I shall report you to the police.’

  To her dismay, instead of responding as she’d hoped, he threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘Do you think they’d believe you...after the way you’ve been coming on to me? Get real, Kelly. You’re just being hysterical.’

  Hysterical—wasn’t that what he had accused Beth of being?

  Outrage and panic paralysed Kelly, rooting her feet to the floor as she stood trapped in the maniacal beam of his almost colourless, cold eyes.

  Julian was a desperate man, she recognised numbly. He was also enjoying her fear, feeding off it, not just emotionally, she sensed with increasing, harrified disgust and fear, but physically as well. Oh, please God, let someone come into the shop and save her, she prayed mentally as she fought not to succumb to the awful, fearful heaviness filling her body. To say that she was afraid in no way came even close to describing what she felt Her whole body had gone icy cold. She knew, she just knew, that Julian meant every word he said, that nothing, nothing she could do or say would persuade him to leave. Now, when it was almost too late, she recognised how much she had underestimated how dangerous he really was.

  Brough had been delayed in London longer than he had planned. There had been a couple of time-consuming delays in the finalisation of the transaction with Hong Kong. He had be
en tempted to ring Kelly just as he left the city, but he had wanted to clear his mind of everything to do with his work before he spoke to her again. And besides, when he told her he loved her he wanted to see the look in her eyes, to hear that wonderful female adorable catch in her breath as she looked at him, to know that she felt the same way that he did.

  Impossible now to think that he had imagined that first time he had held her in his arms that he was immune to the risk of falling in love—and besides, what risk? Loving her was heaven...paradise...the fulfilment of his every previously unacknowledged dream.

  . He would go home, shower and then drive round and see her...surprise her...

  So why, having made that decision, did he suddenly, when he was within a hundred yards of his own driveway, suddenly succumb to an almost overpowering sense of urgency, so strong a need, so immediate and intense, that he drove through a set of traffic lights on amber and broke the speed limit just to get to her. He drew up several yards away from the flat and got out, forgetting to lock his car as he strode quickly towards the shop.

  As he approached the door he could see two people inside. Kelly was standing with her back half turned towards him so that he could only partially see her face, her head submissively bent towards the man who was wrapping his arms around her. To anyone else their pose might have seemed to be that of lovers, but Brough knew immediately and incontrovertibly that it wasn’t love that was keeping Kelly immobile in Julian Cox’s embrace, but fear. Just how he knew it he didn’t stop to question as he pushed open the door and rushed to Kelly’s side, forcibly thrusting Julian away from her. As he did so he could see not just the relief and shock in her eyes, but also an anguished pain that cut nght to his heart. His love, his darling, felt shamed by the fact that she was being attacked by...

  He could quite happily have slowly roasted Julian Cox over a very, very hot fire, just for that act of violation alone—he, a man of peace and logic. Brough could see the fury and the fear in the other man’s eyes, and the urge to punish him, hurt and frighten him, as well as release his own fury against him, was so strong that for a second Brough was almost tempted to give in to it.

  But over Julian’s shoulder he could see where Kelly was standing, white-faced, her eyes blank with shock, and instead he released Julian and told him in disgust, ‘Get out of here before I give in to the temptation to forget that non-violence is the making of a truly intelligent man.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong...’ Julian started to whine as he backed towards the door. ‘She’s the one who’s to blame, not me. She’s the one who’s been leading me on, coming on to me,’ he started to protest, but Brough had heard enough. Grabbing hold of his collar, he virtually marched him to the door and opened it, pushing him through it.

  ‘If I find out you’ve so much as even tried to speak to her again, I promise you you’re going to regret it,’ he told Julian in a steely voice.

  As Brough locked the door he turned towards Kelly. She was still standing motionless, her face grey-white, her eyes huge and unfocused. She was his prime concern now. He could talk to her later, find out later just what had been going on and why Cox had been terrorising her.

  At the back of his mind as he walked towards Kelly lay the knowledge that he was now going to have to take very firm action over Julian’s relationship with his sister, but right now Kelly was his only priority.

  ‘Kelly... It’s all right, my darling, he’s gone, you’re safe...’

  As she heard Brough’s familiar, warm voice, Kelly turned her head and looked towards him, towards him but not at him. How could she? How could she ever come to terms with the pain, the humiliation, the defilement of what she had just experienced? Julian’s verbal attack on her, his threatened assault on her, had left her feeling totally physically shocked and degraded. The thought passed through her mind that if this was how she felt how on earth did rape victims feel? How did they cope? Julian’s abuse of her had come nowhere close to anything like that...

  ‘Come on...I’m taking you upstairs...’ she heard Brough telling her. Desperately she struggled to get back to normality, her always keen sense of responsibility reminding her of her duties.

  ‘I can’t—the shop,’ she began to protest, but Brough overruled her.

  ‘The shop is closed,’ he told her firmly, adding more gently, ‘You’re in shock, my love; there’s no way you can work. You need...’ He paused and started to frown. ‘Who is your GP? I think perhaps that...’

  Immediately Kelly shook her head.

  ‘No, no, I’m fine...’ Her bottom lip started to tremble. ‘Honestly, Brough, I will be fine,’ she told him in a thready voice. ‘I don’t need... I don’t want... It was my own fault,’ she told him huskily, dropping her head so that he couldn’t look into her eyes and see the truth she felt must be clear there. ‘I shouldn’t have—’

  ‘You shouldn’t have what?’ Brough interrupted her immediately and fiercely. ‘You shouldn’t have let him in? No way was it your fault, Kelly. I saw what was going on... There was no way you were inviting or enjoying what was going to happen.’

  The sureness in his voice, the conviction, the trust and the love were too much for Kelly’s fragile composure. Hot tears filled her eyes and started to roll down her face as she shook her head.

  ‘Oh, no, please, my love, don’t cry,’ Brough begged her with a small groan. ‘I shouldn’t have let him walk away from this... The police...’

  ‘No...no, please. I don’t want anything like that,’ Kelly protested sharply. ‘I just want to forget about it, Brough... I just want...’

  She started to tremble violently, reaction setting in as the realisation of what had happened swamped her.

  ‘Come on, I’m taking you up to your flat,’ Brough told her masterfully, holding her gently by the arm and leading her towards the door.

  Five minutes later she was standing in her own small kitchen drinking the fortifying mug of coffee Brough had just made her, liberally laced with brandy. She could feel the strong spirit going straight to her head, relaxing her both physically and emotionally, releasing her from the rigid self control she had been exercising ever since Julian Cox had walked into the shop.

  ‘Brough, Julian wanted...’ she began huskily, suddenly desperately anxious to tell him everything, to explain to him what she had been doing and why, but before she could finish what she had been about to say she suddenly became very dizzy.

  Immediately Brough reached for her, rescuing the half-empty mug she had been about to drop, gathering her in his arms as he told her gruffly, ‘I know exactly what Cox wanted... He’s gone, Kelly. You’re safe—forget about him...’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ Kelly protested, but it was impossible to keep on trying to form rational thoughts and make difficult and painful explanations when Brough was holding her so tightly, one hand stroking her hair whilst the other tilted up her chin so that he could look down into her eyes.

  ‘I should never have gone home and left you last night,’ he whispered rawly to her. ‘I certainly didn’t want to...’

  ‘I didn’t want you to either, ‘Kelly admitted bravely, adding tremulously, ‘Oh, Brough, I wanted you to stay so much, but...I still can’t quite believe all this is happening... that you and I... It frightens me a little,’ she admitted, her tongue as well as her self-control loosened by the potent mixture of shock and alcohol. ‘I’ve never been in love before, never wanted... Loving someone means risking that they might hurt you and—’

  ‘I could never hurt you, Kelly,’ Brough interrupted her to tell her passionately. ‘And I know that you would never hurt me.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ Kelly protested nervously. ‘Brough, there’s so much about me that you don’t know...’

  ‘Mmm...so much about you that I still have to discover...’ Brough agreed softly as his lips started to caress her willing mouth.

  ‘Brough...’ Kelly whispered, but it was only a token protest. There was nothing she wanted more t
han to be held like this by him, kissed like this by him, unless it was to lie naked in bed with him, his body her only covering, his hands caressing her, leaving hers free to explore him...

  ‘Mmm...well, if you’re sure that’s what you want, I’m certainly not going to argue with you,’ she heard Brough saying hoarsely as he gently stepped back from her and turned her to face the kitchen door, and it was only then that Kelly realised that what she had thought were her most private and unspoken thoughts she had in fact spoken out loud to him.

  ‘Oh, Brough...’

  Her face pink, she looked helplessly at him, but far from being shocked by the desires and wishes she had expressed he was looking at her as though... as though... Kelly felt her heartbeat start to pick up. Suddenly she was finding it extraordinarily difficult to breathe properly; suddenly her mind was full of the most extraordinarily detailed and sensual images of them both together, suddenly she couldn’t wait to make those private wanton thoughts a reality.

  It took them almost ten minutes to reach the bedroom, primarily because Brough insisted on stopping virtually every foot of the way to hold her and kiss her and tell her that she was the most wonderful, the most wanted thing that had ever happened to him.

  ‘I never imagined you could be like this,’ Kelly breathed in ecstatic pleasure as the look in his eyes confirmed that he meant every romantic word he was saying to her. ‘When we first met, you seemed so disapproving... so...’

  ‘So desperately afraid of revealing to you just how totally and completely I’d fallen for you,’ Brough admitted softly as he cupped her face and very slowly started to kiss her.

  Dizzily Kelly clung to him. They were in her bedroom now, and Brough was very carefully, but very thoroughly and determinedly, starting to remove her clothing whilst continuing to kiss her with a passion which caused her heartbeat to slow to a sensuously heavy thud and her body to melt into eager compliance and longing.

  This was not how it was meant to be for a modern nineties woman. She was supposed to take her own initiative, remove her own clothes and expect her lover to remove his with equally mature independence, and when a modern woman did make love it was an open-eyed, clear-minded ‘I know what I’m doing and why’ thing. Wasn’t it?