by Alison Kelly
“You’re saying I wasn’t explicit enough?”
“Bingo!” Jacqui said. “I can hardly be expected to read minds—especially where one doesn’t exist!”
Patric grabbed her arm and hauled her up against him. “If my mind has become nonexistent it’s entirely your fault.”
“Let me go!”
Patric drew her lower body up against his own. “Not until I show you just how explicit I can be…”
ALISON KELLY, a self-confessed sports junkie, plays netball, volleyball and touch football, and lives in Australia’s Hunter Valley. She has three children and the type of husband women tell their daughters doesn’t exist in real life! Not only is he a better cook than Alison, but he isn’t afraid of vacuum cleaners, washing machines or supermarkets. Which is just as well—otherwise this book would have been written by a starving woman in a pigsty!
Books by Alison Kelly
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Dangerous Ground
Alison Kelly
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PROLOGUE
JACQUI hung up the phone and opened her diary to the date ten days hence; five appointments had already been deleted.
‘Oh, yeah, I’m free for dinner,’ she muttered. ‘And at this rate probably will be every night for the rest of my life!’
Strange how bleak she felt now that her once constant desire for just two consecutive free days had actually materialised into three weeks without work and an equally blank employment future. The old adage about wishing too hard for something was certainly being proven in this case.
The bottom line was that her career was pretty much over, and while her savings would certainly keep the wolf from the door for months yet, the goal she’d set herself was being snatched away just when it had seemed within reach. Another fifteen months, perhaps only twelve, and she could have retired a winner. Instead…
Not optimistic enough to risk using anything as permanent as ink, she picked up a pencil and wrote:
Dinner. Patric Flanagan—7:30 p.m. at The Dome.
CHAPTER ONE
PATRIC FLANAGAN recognised her the moment she walked into the restaurant, as did all of the other patrons facing the cocktail lounge. Those who weren’t quickly turned their heads in response to whispered comments and discreet nudges.
She was one of Australian advertising’s greatest successes, yet even without her celebrity status she’d have drawn the appreciative glances. At roughly five-eight Jaclyn Raynor had been too short to scale the heights of catwalk success, but her thigh-length fair hair and Grace Kelly looks had made her a photographer’s dream and a cosmetic company’s biggest marketing tool.
Tonight, clad in a body-hugging, choker-necked black dress that ended ten inches above her knees, she had every male head in the restaurant almost swivelling off as they strained to follow her leggy blonde progress towards Patric’s table.
The reaction confirmed his belief that if he could get Jaclyn to agree to his idea he’d not only establish a name for himself, in the country where his father’s had been an icon, but he’d be halfway to fulfilling the fantasies of every Australian male—hell, every man with a pulse!
He rose as his guest neared his table.
‘Hi, Patric,’ she said, her voice more gravelly than her appearance led one to expect. ‘Sorry I’m late, but Friday nights you’re at the mercy of the cab companies.’
‘No sweat,’ he said, waiting until the eager-to-please maitre’d could draw out the simple task of seating the model no longer before retaking his own chair. He’d have laid odds that she was late by design, but since it wouldn’t serve his cause any good to say so he flashed the forgiving smile expected of him. ‘I don’t execute beautiful women for being a few minutes late.’
Maybe not, Jacqui thought, but do you have a smile to die for, or what?
She couldn’t recall Patric Flanagan making any sort of lasting impression on the one occasion they’d met before, but then his father’s funeral had hardly been the place for such things. In fact she’d spoken to him for no longer than it had taken to sob her condolences and to say how much Wade had meant to her. She hadn’t expected to hear from Patric again, so his call last week asking her to dinner had been something of a surprise.
Although she would have accepted the invitation simply because it had been issued by Wade’s son, it had been Patric’s allusion to the fact that the meeting could be financially beneficial to both of them which had really pricked her interest. And it was that which was making her blood pump quicker—nothing more. The fact that he was the sexiest male she’d met since…since…well, in a long time had nothing to do with it! It wasn’t allowed to because, with luck, she would be working with this guy.
‘I presume you have no objections to champagne?’
His question was accompanied by yet another devastating smile, so Jacqui decided that she’d only imagined the undertone of disapproval in it.
‘No, I like champagne.’ She smiled, wishing she had the nerve to order a beer. In view of her current occupational status it was stupid still to be clinging to the image that the advertising agency which handled the Risque Cosmetic campaigns had created for her.
‘So, Jaclyn,’ Patric Flanagan said, his eyes roving over her in a way that was both flattering and arousing. ‘How was it I was lucky enough to get slotted into your diary on such short notice?’
Again the smile was charm itself, but she sensed that the question was as leading as any that a prosecuting lawyer could have constructed. She decided to keep her cards close to her chest.
‘I haven’t felt much like socialising since Wade’s death, but dinner with his son seemed an appropriate way to end my isolation.’
She paused as the wine waiter arrived and sought Patric’s approval of the champagne.
‘Better let Ms Raynor do the honours,’ Patric told the man. ‘I’m strictly a beer and whiskey guy myself.’
Jacqui registered a touch of nostalgia at the description. Automatically she took a sip of the imported champagne, and smiled her satisfaction to the waiter. When he left she directed her gaze into the handsome face of the man opposite her.
‘Your taste in alcohol is obviously inherited from your father.’ She smiled, silently acknowledging that his dark hair and eyes were also a contribution from his Black Irish ancestry.
‘Dad wasn’t around enough to be particularly influential one way or another once I reached the legal drinking age.’ His response was a tad accusing, but his eyes said that he wouldn’t elaborate on the subject.
Lowering her gaze, Jacqui consulted the over-priced menu while puzzling over the conflicting messages this man was sending.
The appreciative look in his eye when she’d first arrived hadn’t been imagined—she’d been enduring them from almost every male she’d encountered since the age of fourteen. But Patric Flanagan also seemed to be emitting an active disapproval of her, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why. On the surface he was being charmingly urbane, yet her senses were picking up an undercurrent of hostility.
Actually her senses were being entirely too responsive in other directions as well!
It had been a long time since a man had triggered the interest of her hormones as quickly as this one had. In her world good-looking men weren’t exactly a rarity—albeit that the ideal combination of handsomeness and availability was reduced somewhat once sexual preference was taken into account—but her instincts told her that Patric Flanagan was as hetero as a male came! Suddenly aware that she was being spoken to, she shut off her libido and switched on her brain.
Patric watched his dinner companion struggling to bring her mind back to the question he’d asked and silently acknowledged that, despite the intelligent light in her blue-grey eyes, Jaclyn Raynor was only a well-orchestrated promotional exercise away from being the clichéd dumb blonde.
Not that it bothered him. He wasn’t interested in forming an intellectually based relationship with her, simply a business arrangement. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d had an IQ higher than Einstein’s. His own brain recognised the wisdom in avoiding models in general; gut feeling told him to avoid this one in particular.
No sweat, he told himself; for, while he’d have had to be a eunuch not to feel some stirring of sexual interest in a woman as beautiful as Jaclyn Raynor, he was safe from his more basic instincts simply because of his knowledge of her profession.
‘Are you ready to order?’ he repeated patiently.
‘Oh…yes. Yes, I am.’
Jaclyn, he noted, was diligent when it came to her diet, opting for two starters instead of a main meal. Given the way the fabric of her dress moulded the lush curves of her breasts, he had to concede that there was a lot to be said for diligence.
‘Work been keeping you pretty busy?’ he asked casually.
‘Well—er—’
He kept his amusement under control as his guest tried to dance around a direct answer.
‘Yes…more or less,’ she said, less than convincingly, her fingers worrying the stem of her champagne flute. ‘I haven’t done any shoots lately, though. I…I was pretty cut up about Wade passing away.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You seemed very distressed at the funeral. You and my father were obviously extremely close.’
‘Yes, we were.’
‘From what I understand, Dad was quite instrumental in your career.’ He noted how her gaze fleetingly wavered at his words, and the way a hint of her perfect teeth momentarily caught at her bottom lip.
‘Wade was pretty much the guiding hand behind my success,’ she told him.
‘And you’re missing that…“guiding hand”, aren’t you?’
‘Wade was more than just a mentor to me.’ Patric didn’t miss the hint of defiance in her tone. ‘He was a friend. It’s his friendship I miss more than anything.’
‘I’m sure it is.’
Jacqui shot him a speculative look at his words, but his impassive expression again had her wondering if she’d imagined the implication in his tone. She gave him the benefit of the doubt.
‘So when are you due to fly back to Canada?’ she asked.
‘I’m not. I’ve decided to stay in Australia.’
‘For how long?’ She hoped the question would lead directly into the reason he’d asked her here. She didn’t want to give anything away by appearing too eager.
‘Permanently.’
‘Really? Wade said you were very successful as a photojournalist in Canada. What’s made you decide to move here?’
He shrugged. ‘It felt right. I’m Australian, and I’ve decided it’s time I came home.’
She smiled, and for an instant Patric wondered how it would feel to have that smile directed from the pillow next to his own, knowing that it wasn’t for the benefit of a camera or an adoring public. Shoving the thought aside, he concentrated on what she was saying.
‘You have a—’ she frowned ‘—an unusual accent; I can’t quite place it How long have you lived overseas?’
‘Sixteen years. The accent’s a bit of everything, I suspect. My mother was French-Canadian; when my parents divorced I moved back to Montreal with her. I went to college in the States; then, like everyone does, I spent a couple of years backpacking round Europe.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You’ve never been to Europe?’ He was surprised.
‘I’ve never backpacked. I saw Europe from catwalks and photographers’ studios.’
‘I know plenty of people who’d have rather done it your way,’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m not complaining,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just that backpacking sounds more exciting.’
‘Perhaps, but I can’t imagine you doing it.’
‘Why not?’
A look that said she shouldn’t have to ask was quickly screened with a glib smile.
‘It just doesn’t gel with the image of the Risque Girl.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive, Patric. As a photographer I thought you’d realise that.’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But a backpack doesn’t have room for a limitless wardrobe and a truck-load of cosmetics.’
His arrogance was such that Jacqui would dearly have loved to tip the ice-bucket over his head, without even bothering to take out the champagne bottle! She resisted the temptation; her career was in enough trouble as it was without the bad publicity such a stunt would generate. She wished that just once she could drop the fabricated public image she’d carried for the last seven years. She would one day, but financially she couldn’t afford to do so now.
She was currently unemployed, and if Patric Flanagan was in the position to point her in the direction of some lucrative work, as he’d implied, then she didn’t want to burn her bridges before she’d even come to them. If, however, he was full of it, then she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him and blow his misconceptions of Jaclyn Raynor to smithereens!
‘How old were you when you started modelling?’ he asked.
‘Fourteen,’ she said curtly. Then, reminding herself that she didn’t want to alienate the guy, she turned on a megawatt smile. ‘My mum and sister entered me in a teenage cover-girl contest without telling me.’
‘And you won.’
‘I won.’
‘Is that when you met my father?’
‘No.’ It was obvious from his expression that he wanted her to expand, so she did.
‘One of the conditions of entry to the contest was agreeing to sign with a particular modelling agency for twelve months; they went belly-up after about four months when the manager was charged in connection with a child-pornography racket.’ She shuddered, remembering how some of the kids she’d come to know back then had been vilely exploited.
Patric swore softly. ‘You weren’t involved?’
‘No. I was one of the lucky ones.’ She took a sip of her champagne, and the moment she lowered the glass he topped it up again. She kept her amusement to herself and continued speaking. ‘If not for Wade, my career might have ended as quickly as it began.’
‘History shows it didn’t.’
‘No. Your father put a portfolio of me together and circulated it to every modelling agency around the world. Although I had offers from both New York and Paris I ended up signing with a Sydney firm.’
He frowned. ‘Not exactly the choice most people would have advised. Least of all, I’d have thought, my father.’
‘When I was fifteen it was my father who carried the most influence! Wade told him he would ruin my career, but Dad wasn’t about to let his baby daughter go—and I quote— “flaunting herself in front of a bunch of men on the say-so of some crazy Irishman!”‘
Patric watched as some memory lit her face with genuine delight. If the warmth of her smile could increase the pulse-rate in a male as immune to the outward trappings of beauty as he was, what would it do to the unsuspecting? Of course, he’d never previously considered that parental objections might be a stumbling block to his idea.
‘Does your father’s opinion still figure in your decisions regarding your career?’ he asked.
The question implied that he doubted whether she was capa
ble of handling her own affairs, and it irritated the hell out of her! Not least because she’d found herself wondering the exact same thing. She’d landed in a mess when her parents had died, and just when she’d thought she was out of it she’d lost Wade and suddenly faced more problems.
While it was entirely possible that the man opposite might be able to help her find a solution, she wasn’t prepared to politely accept his assumption that she was an imbecile.
‘This may surprise you, Patric,’ she said, ‘but I’ve been making my own decisions for a long time now. So far I haven’t made a bad one.’
‘At least, not until recently,’ he countered knowingly.
‘I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, but, hearing the lack of conviction in her voice, added more firmly, ‘What so-called “bad” decision do you imagine I’ve made?’
‘The one that’s caused Risque Cosmetics to pull the rug on your contract with them.’
Apprehension froze her body but her mind was racing, trying to ascertain whether he could possibly mean what she feared. He couldn’t know! Not yet, surely? Dickson Wagner, Risque’s advertising guru and all-round bastard, had told her that he wouldn’t yet go public on the firm’s decision. Secure in his position as son of the company’s owner, he’d ‘generously’ offered her another week to change her mind—and her morals!
Patric’s brown eyes never wavered from her face, and Jacqui found herself swallowing hard. Oh, he knew something, all right But how much? What if the guy was only fishing? Not wanting to reveal too much, she decided to try calling his bluff.
‘I’m not sure where you get your distorted ideas from, Patric, but it’s common knowledge in the industry that my contract expired right after Wade died. The company, realising I was distressed, have simply deferred negotiations on the new one.’