She snapped at him, ‘Let me go!’
‘Okay.’ He released her but stood so close she was still trapped and asked, ‘Is Simpson’s wife filing for divorce?’
She frowned at the unexpected question. ‘Yes, possibly. Why?’
‘Well, that explains the need to keep quiet,’ he concluded, ‘if not the attraction.’
His eyes narrowed in contempt and Tory found herself flaring back, ‘You know nothing!’
‘You’re right. I don’t,’ he agreed in the same vein. ‘I don’t know why a bright, beautiful young woman would waste herself on a washed-up has-been with a wife, two kids and a drink habit to support… Perhaps you could enlighten me?’
‘Alex isn’t a has-been!’ Tory protested angrily, recalling the programme outlines they’d prepared to impress this man. Some of their ideas were good, damn good. All futile, now, it would seem. ‘And he doesn’t have a drink problem.’
He threw her a look of pity.
‘Who says love doesn’t walk around with a white cane and guide dog?’
She threw him back a look of fury.
‘I’m not in love with Alex Simpson! I never have been in love with Alex Simpson. I never shall be. I don’t even believe in love!’
She spoke in no uncertain terms and speculation replaced pity in his gaze, but he still didn’t release her.
‘So you don’t love Simpson,’ he mused aloud. ‘You don’t love anybody. I wonder what gets you through the day, Tory Lloyd?’
‘My work,’ she answered, both literally and figuratively. ‘That’s what’s important to me. That’s all that’s important to me.’
He shook his head, then leaned towards her to say in a low voice, ‘If that’s true, Simpson must be goddamn lousy in bed.’
Tory reacted with shocked disbelief. ‘Do you have to be so…so…?’
‘Accurate?’
‘Crude!’
‘I can’t help it,’ he claimed. ‘I am American, after all.’
His tone was serious, but inside he was laughing. At her.
‘Is that what you like about Simpson? Is he suitably refined?’
‘More so than you, at any rate.’
Tory had, by this time, given up worrying about job security.
Lucas Ryecart had also abandoned any effort to be a fair, reasonable employer.
‘I won’t argue with that.’ He shrugged off any insult, before drawling, ‘But at least I have a certain homespun notion of morality.’
‘Really?’ Tory sniffed.
‘Yes, really,’ he echoed. ‘If I were married, I wouldn’t dump my wife and kids just because a newer, prettier model came along—’
‘That’s not the way it was,’ Tory almost spat at him, ‘and who knows what you’d do. You’re not married, are you?’
‘Not currently, but I was.’ His face clouded briefly.
Tory could have kicked herself. She’d forgotten momentarily his connection with Jessica Wainwright.
‘And when I was married, I was faithful,’ he added quietly.
Tory believed him. He hadn’t cheated on Jessica. He hadn’t cheated because he’d adored her.
Her anger faded as she wondered if he still grieved but she didn’t want to probe further. She was uncomfortable with the whole subject.
‘Mr Ryecart,’ she replied at length, ‘I don’t feel this is any of my business.’
‘It will be, Miss Lloyd,’ he mocked her formality, ‘come the day I take you away from Simpson.’
‘What?’
‘I said—’
‘I heard!’ She just didn’t believe him. Was it a joke?
Blue eyes caught and held hers. They told her it was no joke.
‘I’ve decided I am interested, after all,’ he stated dispassionately.
They could have been discussing a business deal. She was to be his latest acquisition. Take over, asset strip, move on.
‘I thought you were too old for me,’ Tory reminded him pointedly.
‘I’d have said so, yes,’ he agreed in dry tones, ‘but as you’re already living with someone of my advanced years, you obviously don’t share my reservations.’
‘I am not living with Alex,’ she seethed in denial.
‘You’re simply good friends, right?’ He slanted her a sceptical look.
Tory wanted to slap him. She longed to. She’d never had such a violent urge before.
‘Oh, think what you like!’ She finally snapped. ‘Only don’t take it out on Alex.’
‘Meaning?’ Dark brows lifted.
‘Meaning: you may fancy me—’ she continued angrily.
A deep, mocking laugh interrupted her. ‘English understatement, I love it. I don’t just fancy you, Miss Lloyd. I want you. I desire you. I’d like to—’
‘Okay, I’ve got the picture,’ she cut across him before he became any more explicit. ‘But that’s not my fault or Alex’s. I haven’t encouraged you. If this affects our positions at Eastwich—’
‘You’ll scream sexual harassment?’ His eyes hardened.
Tory scowled in return. He was putting words in her mouth that weren’t there. ‘I wasn’t saying that.’
‘Good, because I’ve told you before,’ he growled back, ‘I am quite capable of separating my private life and my position as Chief Executive of Eastwich… If I decide to fire Simpson, you can be sure it’ll be for a better reason than the fact he’s currently sharing your bed.’
‘He isn’t!’ Tory protested once more, only to draw a cynical glance that made her finally lose it. ‘To hell with this! You’re right, of course. Alex and I are lovers. In fact, we’re at it like rabbits. Night and day. Every spare moment,’ she ran on wildly. ‘We can’t keep our hands off each other.’
It silenced him, but only briefly before he drawled back, ‘Now who’s being crude?’
‘It’s called irony,’ she countered.
‘All right, so if you and Simpson aren’t lovers…’ he surmised aloud.
‘Give the man a coconut,’ she muttered under her breath.
He ignored her, finishing, ‘Prove it!’
‘Prove it?’ she echoed in exasperation. ‘And how am I meant to do that—set up a surveillance camera in my bedroom?’
‘That would hardly cover it,’ he responded coolly. ‘Some couples rarely make it to the bedroom. I prefer outdoor sex myself. How about you?’
Tory didn’t have to feign shock at an involuntary vision of a couple entwined in long grass under a blue sky. Not just any couple, either.
She shut her eyes to censor the image and heard his deep drawl continue, ‘Not that I was suggesting it as an immediate option. A date will do, initially.’
Tory’s eyes snapped open again. ‘A date?’
‘You know—’ he smiled as if he could see inside her head ‘—boy asks girl out. Girl says yes. They go to a restaurant or the movies. Boy takes girl home. If he’s lucky, he gets to kiss her. If he’s very lucky, he gets to—’
‘Yes, all right,’ she snapped before he could warm any more to the theme. ‘You’re asking me on a date?’
‘That was the general idea,’ he confirmed.
‘To prove I’m not slee—having an affair with Alex?’ Her tone told him how absurd she thought it.
‘It isn’t conclusive,’ he admitted. ‘But if you were my woman, I wouldn’t let another man get too close. I reckon Alex Simpson will feel the same way.’
Tory doubted it. Even if she had been Alex’s woman—how primitive it sounded—she didn’t see Alex fighting anyone over her.
‘Alex doesn’t work like that,’ she said disdainfully. ‘He’s much too civilised.’
‘Really.’ He glanced across the street towards her house and the bay window on the ground floor.
Tory followed his eyes in time to see Alex drawing back behind a net curtain. Evidently he’d been watching them. It was hardly surprising.
‘He’s curious, that’s all,’ she explained. ‘He’s realised who you are. It’s nothin
g personal.’
‘Yeah, I bet,’ he scoffed in reply.
‘It’s true!’ she insisted.
‘Okay, so it’s true,’ he repeated, humouring her, ‘in which case he won’t mind if I do this.’
‘Do wh—?’ The question went unfinished.
The American leaned forward and kissed her before she could stop him. His lips touched hers with fleeting intimacy. It was over in a matter of seconds, but she was left feeling the imprint of his mouth on hers.
‘I—I…’ she stammered, wide-eyed ‘…you sh-shouldn’t…’
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ he agreed, gazing hard at her. ‘But now I have…’
Now he had, he would have to kiss her again. His eyes told her that.
Tory had time to protest, turn her head, do anything but stand there looking up at him. Time to move away before his head blocked out the sun and his mouth covered hers, hard and possessive. Time to pull back as he began to kiss as if they were already lovers.
Only Tory had never felt like this before. Totally powerless, her eyes shutting, her lips parting, letting him in. Unable to resist as he stole the breath and the will from her. Boneless and fluid in strong arms wrapped round her waist, drawing her closer.
Passion flared so quickly, it caught them both unawares. Somewhere in the back of her head, Tory knew this was crazy, but she didn’t seem to care. Her arms lifted to his shoulders and he dragged her body to his. They fell back against the side of his car, oblivious. He went on kissing her. He started touching her. They forgot where they were.
Her jacket was big for her. Just as well. It hid the movements of his hands, pulling out the T-shirt from her jeans, running up over her back, then round to her small, firm breasts. She wore a crop top rather than bra. He touched her above it, stroking a nipple erect through the material. She moaned in his mouth. He groaned back and tried to push aside the top. She didn’t stop him. She wanted this.
Sanity returned only as the front door of the nearest house slammed and a voice exclaimed loudly, ‘Look, Mummy, they’re still kissing. Don’t they know they’ll get each other’s germs?’
‘Shh, Jack,’ another instructed, ‘and stop staring. Just get into the car!’
The first, childish voice penetrated the mush that Tory’s brain had turned into, and the mother’s had a sudden, sobering effect.
She pushed at Lucas Ryecart’s shoulders. He’d already taken his hand from her breast but was slow to release her entirely. He lifted his head away and they both glanced in the direction of the woman hustling her child into a car parked some yards down the road.
Embarrassed colour filled Tory’s cheeks but Lucas Ryecart was unflustered. He didn’t hide his pleasure in the kiss but gave her a slow, sensuous smile.
‘You’ll come back with me.’ It was a statement, not a question.
Tory looked blank.
‘To my hotel.’ He made his meaning clear.
And the blue eyes holding hers made it clearer still.
‘I…of course not!’ Tory finally mustered up some indignation.
He ignored it. ‘Why not? We both want it.’
Tory shook her head, denying it.
He smiled, and the smile called her a liar. He thought her a pushover. Something to do with the fact she’d just acted like one.
Pride reasserted itself and she tried to pull free. He held her easily, large hands spanning her waist.
‘You won’t have to go back to Simpson,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll help you move out on him tomorrow.’
Tory stared back at him. What was he suggesting?
‘We’ve only just met.’ Her tone told him he was absurd.
‘So?’ He laughed. ‘How often does it feel like this?’
She could have said, Like what? but he might have reminded her. And she didn’t need it. Her body was trembling from the simple touch of his hand on her waist.
‘You don’t have to move in with me,’ he went on. ‘Not yet, at any rate. But you can’t keep living with Simpson.’
‘I’m not living with Alex,’ she repeated for what seemed like the twentieth time. ‘It’s my flat.’
‘Even easier,’ he reasoned. ‘You can kick him out.’
Tory discounted the kiss and finally asked herself why she was having this conversation with a perfect stranger.
‘You’re crazy,’ she concluded with more than a vein of seriousness.
‘No, I’m honest,’ he countered, ‘and I don’t see much point in fighting the inevitable.’
Him and her in bed together. That was what he meant. Tory didn’t need a translation. His eyes told her. His certainty was disturbing. He imagined she was so easy.
It was time to fight back.
‘Mr Ryecart—’ she gave him a look that would have soured cream ‘—you either think an awful lot of yourself or very little of me. Whichever, I would sooner walk over red-hot coals with a plastic petrol can in my hand than go to bed with you. Is that honest enough for you?’
Was it insulting enough? Tory asked herself.
Seemingly not as he made some sound of disbelief and she, losing her temper, pushed him hard on the chest.
Taken by surprise, he stumbled backwards but recovered in time to grab her as she tried to escape.
The smile was gone. His eyes glittered dangerously. ‘You can’t sleep with Simpson again. Do you understand?’
A shiver went down Tory’s back at the unspoken threat. She pulled at her arm but he wouldn’t release her.
‘Do you understand?’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ she choked the word out.
He caught and held her eyes, insisting, ‘You won’t sleep with him,’ even as he finally let her go.
For a moment Tory returned his stare, and saw something in it, dark and disturbing, that told her she didn’t really know who this man was.
Then she was running, running as she should have done earlier, blindly across the road and up the steps, through the door Alex had left on the latch.
She didn’t look back. If she had, she would have seen him.
Lucas Ryecart watched her until the moment she disappeared.
CHAPTER FOUR
TORY’S office looked out onto the main corridor. Monday morning she watched Alex and the other senior producers walk towards the conference room at the far end. They were in subdued mood for their first official meeting with the new big chief.
Two hours later she watched them return with a considerably more relaxed air.
Only Alex didn’t. He didn’t return for another half an hour.
Simon spotted him first. ‘Here he is.’
Alex popped his head round the door. ‘Tory, can I see you for a moment?’
His manner gave little away as he proceeded to his office.
‘Maybe he wants help in clearing his desk,’ suggested Simon on a hopeful note.
Tory muttered, ‘Shut up, Simon,’ in passing as she walked past him on her way to Alex’s office, closing the door behind her.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked tentatively, then listened in bemusement as Alex began to enthuse over the American and his plans for Eastwich.
It was as if he had suffered a blinding conversion on the road to Damascus with Lucas Ryecart in the role of God.
‘When he asked me to wait back,’ Alex ran on, ‘I thought, This is it. The axe is about to fall. But nothing. He just wanted to discuss the direction I envisaged our department taking.’
Tory’s gaze was incredulous. Did Alex really believe Ryecart was interested in his opinions?
‘Naturally I handed over the presentation package I’d prepared,’ he declared smugly. ‘He seemed impressed.’
‘Really.’ Tory tried to convey some of her scepticism.
Alex misunderstood. ‘Don’t worry, he knows you had a part in it. He asked me how long we’d worked in such close liaison.’
Tory recognised sarcasm even if Alex didn’t and could have groaned aloud. She wondered how she could bring Alex up t
o speed. The trouble was she’d worked hard to kill Alex’s curiosity about Ryecart the evening before. She’d put their evident quarrel down to the American’s belief that she’d been less than honest about Alex’s whereabouts and fortunately Alex hadn’t witnessed the kiss that had followed.
‘I wouldn’t take what he says at face value, Alex,’ she warned at length.
But Alex refused to let her dampen his spirits. ‘He seems straight enough to me… Anyway, I feel like celebrating. Come to lunch. Antoine’s. My treat.’
Tory wondered how Alex could suddenly afford to pay for such extravagant dining.
‘Thanks,’ Tory replied, ‘but I have an appointment in less than an hour. We could go to the canteen, if you like.’
Alex pulled a face, as Tory had guessed he would, and said, ‘I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all.’ Tory trailed back to her office, still puzzling over Ryecart’s game plan.
‘Well?’ Simon enquired as she returned.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Tory said succinctly and went to pick up her bag from under her chair. ‘I’m going to the canteen for lunch.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Simon wanted to hear more.
They walked along the corridor together and she relayed some of the phrases Alex had used about the American while Simon raised a sceptical brow.
‘Miss Lloyd!’ Someone called from behind them.
Tory kept walking for a step or two, pretending she hadn’t heard. She had no need to glance round to identify the voice.
‘Wait up.’ Simon grabbed her arm. ‘It’s the man himself.’
‘You don’t say!’ Her teeth were already clenched as she turned to find Lucas Ryecart bearing down on them.
It was a purely physical reaction. She knew she didn’t like him. She’d told herself that a hundred times.
But it had changed nothing. Her heart still stopped for a beat or two, then raced like a runaway train. She heard its engine roar and tried to focus on her dislike, not his looks. Did all women feel the same? Was that why he’d been called God’s gift?
Their absorption in each other was mutual and obvious, so much so that Simon said, ‘Shall I make myself scarce?’
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
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