by Marsh, Susan
She gave a deep sigh. ‘I explained that.’ Resigning herself, she capitulated, feeling in her bag for the pass, then lifting up the edge of her jacket while she clamped it on. ‘See? Ruins it.’
His eyes were fastened to her waist. He must have only seen the merest fragment of bare skin over her ribs before she dropped the hem back, but his pupils dilated and she saw his heavy black lashes give an almost imperceptible flicker. He raised his darkened gaze to hers.
Somehow she couldn’t look away. The air tautened and she felt her mouth dry. She pulled the pass off and patted down the hem several unneccessary times, conscious of her heart’s sudden mad racketing.
A priest’s dark figure loomed in the doorway, and they both started. A gang of small, fresh-faced boys crowding in behind him told her that the choir had arrived. She became fully conscious then of something she’d had at the edge of her awareness for some time, but had been too intensely absorbed in Tom Russell to notice.
The organ was playing, and there was a growing swell of voices.
The church was filling up.
‘I’d—I’d better go,’ she said, making an abrupt move towards the door, looking for a way through the milling boys. ‘I don’t want to miss my spot in the church.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Tom Russell sprang to his feet and caught her elbow. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight.’
Visions of Mike, outside, fuming, assailed her. ‘But—I have to do my job—’
His hand closed around her wrist in a deceptively light grip. ‘Until I decide what to do with you, sweetheart,’ he said softly, ‘you’re with me.’
CHAPTER THREE
IT FELT surreal, walking into the main chapel with Tom Russell. All over the church heads swivelled their way, and there was an added buzz to the murmurs of the congregation. Everywhere she looked, she met the interested stares of celebrities and socialites, business high-fliers and politicians, plenty of whom had tasted dust, courtesy of the Sydney Clarion.
She had the unnerving sensation that she was in the maw of the enemy. A small crowd surged to greet Tom, but she couldn’t help noticing that, despite their sombre murmurs of sympathy, their curious glances kept shifting sideways to scrutinise her.
Perhaps their interest mightn’t have been as avid if he hadn’t been keeping such a firm hold on her arm. A stylish older woman, who looked vaguely familiar, rushed up to engulf him in an emotional embrace and he was forced to relax his grip. Cate saw her opportunity, and tried to slip away, only to feel a ruthless hand grasp hers and draw her back. Despite her sudden shock, or because of it, his hard palm in sudden connection with hers sent her blood coursing in giddy confusion.
The woman appeared to be one of Marcus Russell’s ex-wives. ‘Who’s your friend, Thomas?’ she demanded, leaning forward to peer closely at Cate once her effusions had run out. ‘Introduce me.’
Tom Russell’s caustic gaze clashed with Cate’s. ‘No one you want to know.’
The woman looked taken aback, then, when his attention was diverted by the next well-wisher, whispered to Cate, ‘Don’t take any notice of him, dear. This is a difficult day for him.’
Of course. It must be, Cate thought with some remorse. How could she have taken such pleasure in taunting him?
The service was surprisingly simple and austere. Though the chapel was packed to the rafters with celebrities, there was none of the razzmatazz Sydney had come to associate with Marcus Russell. Someone had chosen the most exquisite, spiritually moving music in the repertoire. If music could waft Marcus’s poor old soul to heaven, Cate reflected, then J. S. Bach and Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ should do it.
She gave up trying to escape to Mike, and allowed herself to be jammed into the front pew beside Tom Russell and a gaggle of expensively dressed stepsisters and their mothers, who all stared at her with surprise and curiosity. Some of the glances at her suit made her wonder if she’d left the price tag showing. She crossed her ankles under the seat, hoping to spare her shoes from their merciless scrutiny. She prayed when the others prayed, and sang the Twenty-third Psalm along with everyone else.
A stream of dignitaries, including the Prime Minister, stood up to honour the memory of Marcus Russell, but after a tedious while she tuned down to listen with half an ear, and started to plan her story for tomorrow’s issue. Her absent, wandering gaze drifted down to the burnished leather shoe resting next to hers, and she surfaced from her reverie with a small start of surprise. Why hadn’t she noticed before?
Between Tom Russell’s trouser hem and his expensive loafer was an expanse of bare, tanned skin.
He’d forgotten his socks.
A strange sensation flooded her, of sympathy and amusement mingled with some poignant, melty feeling. How unexpectedly human it made him. She was overwhelmed with a need to turn and look at him, to touch one of the beautiful lean hands resting on his Armani-clad knee. Possible words of comfort welled up on her tongue, but she forced herself to keep gazing straight ahead, and had to be satisfied with drinking in the magnetism of his masculine aura, and luxuriating in the warm contact of his arm and shoulder.
When he rose to take the lectern, the coughs and shuffles of the congregation ceased, and the church fell silent. The air pulsed with anticipation. She held her breath for him, wondering how nervous he was.
If he was it didn’t show. Like a man born to rule, he rose to the occasion and spoke with dignity and authority, taking only an occasional glance at his notes. His voice resonated through the church like the darker tones of a cello.
It gave her a perfect opportunity to study the classic bone structure of his lean, harsh face. He was so tall and masterful, so sincere and grief-stricken and restrained, she felt moved. How he must have loved that dreadful old man.
It came as a shock. Affection for his only child was the one thing she’d never heard Marcus Russell accused of. She knew a stab of discomfort to wonder how much the unshrinking honesty of her obituary had added to Tom’s pain.
‘My father may not have been universally admired,’ he said, controlling the emotion in his voice, ‘but he was a generous benefactor to many charities. Those who knew him well knew that he was not “a mere leech, fat on the profits of greed”.’
The familiar words, read with grim distaste, jolted through Cate. Murmurs of sympathetic outrage rippled around the congregation.
She sank down in her seat. What if they knew the perpetrator of those words was here in their very midst?
From his commanding position at the lectern, Tom spoke to the sea of familiar faces before him without seeing a single one. Conscious this had to be the performance of his life, he measured his comments with care, searingly conscious of their irony. If people only guessed how generous his father had been to charity.
The question that had tortured fourteen sleepless nights tormented him afresh. Why had Marcus done it? How could a man of his experience have believed a desperate financial shortfall would change his son’s life for the better? Did he really believe a disaster could erase a man’s grief?
Something of the depths of his dismay must have leaked into his voice, because the hushed atmosphere suddenly seemed charged with dynamite.
‘In fact,’ he read on, frowning in the effort to concentrate on the task at hand, ‘far from “squandering his squalid profits on sordid pleasure”, throughout his life my father was a notable phil—’
A sudden connection pinged in his brain and with a little choke he broke off. The notes blurred, while in his mind’s eye, in perfect clarity, a name focused.
Cate Summerfield.
The people, the church, the rigorously composed thread of his address receded. He raised his eyes from the page.
Cate Summerfield, obituary writer, stared back at him from her pew, frozen in guilty acknowledgement. Her mermaid’s eyes were wide in alarm, her lips tight-pressed.
In the throbbing silence, the emotional tension ratcheted up to screeching pitch and sobs broke out, but Tom was hardly aware o
f them. For speechless seconds he grappled with the sheer enormity of it. The nerve of this dizzy little blonde to have shown her face, even to have set foot in the church. But to have eavesdropped on a negotiation that gave her the actual power to ruin him …
For a heart-struck instant he stared into an abyss. If the corporation went under thousands would lose their livelihoods. The Russell name would echo down the years as a byword of shame.
Conscious of a faint, unwonted moisture on his upper lip, he had to grip the lectern tight to restrain himself from loosening his collar. But he wasn’t his father’s son for nothing. With an almost superhuman effort, he summoned his formidable powers of recovery and cut the unnecessary emotion to make a lightning situation assessment.
Damage control needed to be neat and complete. He must find something to offer her. Some way to zip her saucy mouth with its infuriating smile. He thought of a bribe and discarded it. How the Clarion would gloat. Although if there was something she wanted, something out of her reach …
What could he offer her? The answer boomeranged back at once. What else would she want, but what they all did? She was a reporter, after all.
Beyond that, he seethed, she was a woman. And in that crystalline instant he knew exactly how he could do it.
Cowering in her pew, Cate recognised sudden purpose in Tom Russell’s glinting gaze. She gathered herself to make a dash for the exit, but too late, for with an eloquent gesture that provoked a wave of sobs around the cathedral, he handed over the lectern to the officiating archbishop, and in a couple of strides was back beside her.
‘Stay put,’ he hissed in her ear, smiling, though his white, even teeth were gritted. ‘I’m not finished with you yet.’ He slipped his arm around her and held her close against his hard body, as though she were some stricken family member in need of support. Her senses plunged into uproar, but she shrank from making a scene, and submitted to the disturbing effects of feeling his long muscled thigh pressed against hers.
In a short, nerve-racking while the service came to an end, and she knew her time had come. As soon as the mourners rose to make their way out, her captor seized the opportunity, amid the confusion, to hustle her away from the goggling stares of his family members, down the aisle past the crowded vestry, and out through the door to the visitor’s car park.
As they emerged into the sunshine a long, low black limousine, its darkened windows blank and sinister, drew up alongside them. Visions assailed Cate of being strangled and dumped on some highway.
‘Get in,’ he said, opening the rear door. And when she hesitated to dive into what looked impossibly like some sultan’s cave, complete with oriental rugs, sumptuous cushioned seats and silken panelling—‘Please.’ In the sunlight his cool grey eyes glittered inscrutably against his tan. ‘We need to talk. I have a proposition for you.’
Please on his brusque tongue was unexpected enough to be reassuring. After a moment she bowed her head in acquiescence, climbed in and slid as best she could to the far side of the deeply cushioned divan-seat. With a few curt instructions to the driver, Tom Russell joined her, and closed the glass barrier.
His elegantly clad knee was only centimetres from hers. She moistened her lips, overly conscious of his high-octane masculinity in the opulent space. She crossed her legs, then uncrossed them when she saw his gaze flicker down to them.
‘Alone at last,’ he drawled.
‘I had no idea limos were furnished like this,’ she said nervously.
‘This was my father’s car.’ His lip curled. ‘His most recent mistress had a taste for the exotic.’
To her alarm the engine purred into life and the car moved towards the street-exit. ‘I thought you said you just wanted us to talk?’
‘Aren’t we talking?’ He lounged back to survey her with a considering gaze, his black lashes half lowered.
She wished she didn’t have to be so aware of him, and tried not to notice the relaxed idleness of his long limbs and smooth, tanned hands. ‘Shouldn’t you be with your guests now? I mean, as they—as they leave the church, don’t you want to be there in the front porch to shake hands with everyone?’
‘No, I don’t.’
They’d left the cathedral yard and were now weaving their way through traffic. Where to? she thought with panic. Some execution site?
She took the risk of meeting his sardonic gaze. ‘But isn’t there some sort of a—gathering or something? I mean, don’t you have refreshments, or a luncheon party, or—or—’ The limo took a turn towards the eastern suburbs. She struggled to think of some compelling reason for them to turn back. ‘Don’t you have things you want to say to your guests,’ she tried in desperation, ‘to thank them? You know, for their concern, and their good wishes?’
A tinge of amusement crossed his face. ‘Those self-indulgent sink-holes of the nation’s wealth? No, I’m more interested in the things I want to say to you. But now you remind me …’ He pressed something in the pleated silk wall and a door slid open, revealing an elegant little cabinet containing decanters and glasses. He selected a crystal balloon glass and poured a drop into it of pure liquid amber. ‘Cognac?’
To be honest, she wasn’t very good with alcohol. It had a tendency to go straight to her head. But when was the last time she’d been in a travelling pasha’s den with a billionaire? She accepted the balloon with as casual a nod as if she drank the stuff every day of the week, and stole a glance into its depths. Fire glowed in it, and it seemed to be alive with a strange, electric beauty. She inhaled, and the intoxicating aroma rose to fill her head.
She risked a tiny sip. It melted into her lips, and suffused her mouth and throat with a seductive, tingling warmth that irradiated her entire being like the rays of the sun on a winter’s morn.
Her eyes watered with the effort of trying not to cough, but she still had to, anyway.
He waited for her to recover, an amused quirk disturbing the stern line of his chiselled mouth. ‘I want to make a deal with you.’
‘What sort of a deal?’ Though warmed by the cognac, she reminded herself to be cautious. She said hoarsely, ‘I hope you know nothing will tempt me to compromise my journalistic standards.’
He broke into a laugh. It lit his eyes and made them crinkle up at the corners. ‘What standards?’ Then he caught her glance and his face grew solemn. ‘I would never try to tempt you from your standards, Cate. But I can give you something you want, and you can give me something I need.’
‘Really? What’s that?’ The cognac, or maybe his deep laugh, had melted into her bloodstream and infused her voice with a husky quality she could have done without.
He made a gesture with one bronzed hand. ‘You want your story. I’m prepared to give it to you. First break, even ahead of my own newspapers. Full disclosure of the merger. Interview—photographs—everything.’
Excitement surged to her head. Full disclosure would give her a far more meaningful scoop than a few lines that were light on details, but heavy on hints and guesses. And an actual interview with him! It would take her right up there with Steve and Barbara. She could get Gran into a private hospital and …
She roused herself from her fantasies, and caught him studying her face. His eyes were veiled, but his sexy mouth had edged into a very slight smile, like a wolf with a tasty little goose in its sights. It stirred her misgivings. ‘What’s the catch?’
‘Ah, the catch.’ He straightened up a little, as if to gain more leverage in the contest. ‘The catch is that you must wait for three weeks to publish. If you can’t promise that, I’ll spill the story this afternoon and the merger will collapse.’ He gave her a moment to digest, his eyes intent on her face, then added softly, ‘And then you’ll have nothing to report.’
She frowned. Three weeks was an eternity in publishing. Could she trust him to keep his word? A man with his cool, uncompromising mouth was unlikely to be a slimy liar like Steve. And if she took into account his stunning eyes and that appealing little cleft in his chin—
She fought down a warm tidal surge in her blood. Really, she must not focus on his physical attributes. She had to remember he was a shark in the ocean of world affairs, and she needed to keep her head. An unnerving thought struck her. The one thing he did have going for him was the genuine affection with which he’d talked about his father.
What if he was setting her up to take some sort of revenge for her cutting obituary?
She gave the cognac a wary sip. ‘You must realise that I have to report on the memorial today. You’re not asking me to falsify the truth, are you?’
A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘I’m asking you to do the ethical thing and limit your report to strictly what was on the record. When my merger goes through you can write what you like.’
He was lounging back on the seat, his long limbs lazily disposed, but despite his casual posture she sensed a waiting stillness in him, as though a lot hung on her acceptance. Again she wondered just how important this merger was to Russell Inc. Was the corporate giant in trouble?
Sad creature that she was, she considered drawing out his suspense, taking her time to agree so as to postpone the moment when he dropped her from the enchanted limo and she plummeted back into ordinary life. A man with such a low opinion of her integrity deserved to be tortured a little.
She sighed. Lucky for him she was cursed with a conscience.
‘Oh, all right,’ she said, leaning back against the cushions.
She could feel his smouldering gaze scorch her from her hair all the way down to her toes. It was flattering to command such a furnace-blast of attention.
‘As well,’ he added in an offhand tone, ‘today you act as my girlfriend. ‘
‘What?’ She sat bolt upright. Shocked at first into a laugh, she stared at him then for incredulous seconds. ‘Are you serious? Do you think anyone would believe that? I know my friends would be amazed, not to mention the newsroom. I mean—don’t get me wrong, but anyone who knows me knows that you’re absolutely the last person on earth I’d ever dream of—’