by Liz Fielding
‘India—’
‘Jordan?’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so late.’ He didn’t look one bit sorry. She wasn’t fooled for a minute by that touch of regret in his voice, the conversion of his smile to an expression of remorse at having disturbed her at all. ‘Unfortunately, this wouldn’t wait.’
What? What wouldn’t wait?
And what was in the rather scruffy cardboard box—so at odds with his perfectly groomed appearance—that was balanced between his hands?
She refused to be tempted into asking him, studiously ignored it, instead concentrating on her immediate concern.
‘How on earth did you get in?’ she demanded. The ring had come at her own door, not at the main entrance to the block, where a high-tech video entry security system was designed to keep unwanted callers—and arrogant tycoons were very high on her list of unwanted callers—out of the building.
‘I’m glad you brought that up. I was going to mention the laxity of your security,’ he said, taking advantage of her surprise, and the wide open door, to walk right in. And then, when he was on the same side of the door as she was, he turned and said, ‘Someone was going out as I arrived and, realising I didn’t have a hand free, she held the door for me. Charming woman. Very kind.’ He paused, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew he hadn’t finished. ‘And very stupid.’
‘Very,’ she agreed, although she was quite sure that even the most formidable of women transformed themselves into ‘charming’, ‘kind’ and as ‘stupid’ as it got around Jordan Farraday.
Most women would consider an encounter with him not as a threat—not to their career, at any rate—but as a treat.
She wasn’t totally immune to the Farraday effect herself. While the rational part of her struggled to deal with the sensory overload of coming unexpectedly face to face with him in this way, everything feminine in her soul yearned towards him waving frantically and calling, Me…me…
Maybe that was why she felt the need to hang onto the door. To stop herself toppling over into his arms.
She had to say something sensible. Let him know that her head wasn’t as pleased to see him as the rest of her. ‘How did you get my address?’ She held up a hand. ‘Forget that question. You’ve got files on me going back to my babyhood, so of course you have my address on file. All you had to do was look it up.’
‘Not even that,’ he confessed. ‘I have a retentive memory.’ His mouth tilted in that lazy smile of his. That tugged at every female cell in her body, making her feel wholly, utterly female, undermining all the sensible, level-headed ones warning her that his appearance at her door meant nothing but trouble. ‘If you feel at a disadvantage I’ll tell you mine,’ he offered. And a rerun of the smile made it sound like a variation of that old ‘I’ll show you mine…’ game.
For a moment her lips let her down as they softened into a smile.
No! She snapped them back into line. ‘This is a nine-to-five relationship,’ she reminded him, ignoring the fact that he was standing in her hall at way past ten o’clock. ‘Your office address is all I need.’ She found herself wondering what his home was like. Her mind was quick to provide the answer. Something smart. Something expensive. Something very, very classy. Then, since her cool reception hadn’t discouraged him, she closed the door. ‘What won’t keep until tomorrow?’
He didn’t seem in any rush to explain himself. Instead he walked through into her living room, setting the box on the low table in front of the sofa. Right next to the files—worn, tatty and spotlit by a tall table lamp that was the only lighting in the room. She clicked on the up-lighters that washed the walls with soft light. Still the files seemed to stand out like a sore thumb against the minimalist perfection of her home.
He couldn’t have missed them, but he made no comment. Instead he looked about him, taking in the pale walls, starkly simple furniture, the huge expanse of polished wood flooring. It was a room bereft of fussy detail or clutter. Even her flowers, tall dark blue irises in a straight-sided glass vase, were an exclamation point of colour.
‘This is lovely.’
‘Claibourne & Farraday Interiors,’ she said. ‘Not cheap, but very, very good. Try them next time you’re decorating.’ Then, ‘No, sorry, I forgot—you have your own interior designer.’
‘At the end of the month Claibourne & Farraday Interiors will be my designers too,’ he said. ‘In the possessive rather than the client/consultant sense of the word.’ Then, turning to face her, ‘Who’s George?’ Had he followed her home simply to remind her that her time was running out? Still reeling from the nerve of the man, she took a moment for his question to sink in. ‘You appeared to be expecting someone called George?’ he said. ‘When you opened the door?’ His brows lifted a millimetre in gentle query. ‘You definitely weren’t expecting me,’ he pointed out, quite unnecessarily.
‘Oh.’ The man had a way of changing direction without warning. She’d line up her mind to cope with whatever he was saying, and then he’d throw her off by asking the most unexpected question. ‘No.’ She gathered herself. ‘I thought you were my neighbour from across the hall. He’s a regular “Have you got a cup of sugar?” merchant. Never short of things like sun-dried tomatoes, first pressing olive oil, buffalo mozzarella, but the basics seem to elude him.’
‘Genuinely?’ he asked, glancing at the simple Shaker wall clock. ‘Or is it just an excuse to drop by, catch you when you’re…’ his gaze returned to her casual appearance, lingered for a moment, stirring up all kinds of forbidden longings—he was the enemy ‘…relaxing?’
‘He’s gay,’ she said. Then wished she hadn’t. It was none of Jordan Farraday’s business what she did out of hours, when the store was closed, and the prospect of a lover arriving at any moment might have provided her with a lever to get rid of him. Except she’d blown that over dinner with her three years, two months, six days…‘I could be naked,’ she said, lending just the smallest touch of regret to her voice, ‘and he’d still only want a pint of milk.’ India, uncomfortably aware that she was not wearing a bra beneath the thin T-shirt, that her breasts were responding noticeably to all those male pheromones that made the air bristle around him, wished she hadn’t brought up the subject of nakedness. ‘And I’m not relaxing. I’m working,’ she said, before he said something she’d have to hate him for. More, that was, than she did already. His gaze finally drifted towards the files. ‘So, come on,’ she demanded, in her best no-nonsense manner, ‘tell me what you’ve got in that box. You know you’re dying to.’
By way of answer he crossed to the sofa, sat down and lifted the flaps on the box. Then he looked up, inviting her to come and see for herself. She remained where she was, at a safe distance. ‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘Gareth—the security man at the store—found these wandering about the car park and didn’t seem to know what to do them. He hoped to catch you when you came back for your car—apparently you usually look into the security office to say goodnight? But tonight for some reason you were in a hurry to get away…’ He lifted one of those damn brows again, as if puzzled by her hasty exit. As if it had nothing to do with him.
Then he reached into the box and took out a handful of white, black and ginger fur, and India forgot all about keeping her distance. ‘Bonny’s kittens?’ She checked the box. ‘Where’s Bonny?’ Then, with a sinking heart, she understood. If their mother had been around they wouldn’t have been wandering about the car park.
‘She hasn’t been seen since yesterday. I’m sorry.’
‘Gareth hasn’t found her…?’ She couldn’t quite bring herself to say ‘body’. But Jordan shook his head and she let out a tiny breath of relief. ‘She disappears for days at a time. She once climbed into the back of a delivery truck and ended up in Lincolnshire.’ One of the kittens opened its tiny mouth and mewed. ‘Oh, bless.’ She sat down beside him, taking one of the kittens and cradling it in the palm of her hand. ‘They’re so precious…’
‘They’re very
small,’ he said. ‘Old enough to learn to lap, though, if someone had the time and patience to help them.’
‘That’s why you brought them to me?’ She turned to look up at him and realised just how close he was. That he had a tiny scar on his cheekbone. That his dark eyes had tiny gold flecks in them. That, close up, the smile was deadly.
Her mouth dried.
‘I can take them away again,’ he said. ‘If it’s an inconvenience.’
‘No!’ She reached out, as if to reassure him. ‘No, I’m glad you did.’ The smooth cloth of his jacket was warm, the arm beneath it solid, strong, and she glanced up and saw that he was watching her, not the kittens he was holding. ‘Well, thank you for bringing them. It was kind of you to bother.’
‘I’m not kind, India. Never make that mistake.’ And this time there was no wry, self-mocking smile to soften the words. Only fathomless dark eyes that made her catch at her breath again, made her feel at once unbelievably young…and as old as time. She didn’t want kindness. She wanted passion, power. She wanted to reach out and touch his mouth with her fingertips, wanted to lean into him, take him down into the soft cushions, see those gold flecks in his eyes blaze and then melt… ‘As for thanking me…well, you might feel differently about that by morning.’ She struggled to disentangle her thoughts from Jordan’s words. ‘They’re babies,’ he prompted gently. He was, it seemed, fully aware of her confusion. ‘A full-time job.’
‘Yes.’ Her mind was free-wheeling, trying to catch a gear, and it took a long, confused moment before the cogs finally engaged. She carefully removed her hand from his arm, put the kitten back in the box, forced her desperate-to-be-kissed lips into a neat, don’t-let-me-keep-you smile, and said, ‘But don’t worry. I’ll manage.’ She got up and headed for the kitchen.
Jordan remained where he was for a full minute. Scrubbed his face with his hands, dragged his fingers through his hair and counted backwards from a hundred while thinking of something seriously boring.
For a moment there he’d nearly blown it. India’s eyes might be black as sin, velvet-black, with a soft melting look that betrayed every thought in her head, but this was not the moment to pick up the invitation he saw there. That the sex would be hot and exciting he had no doubt, but tomorrow she’d be angry with him, even angrier with herself, and she’d put up a firewall ten feet high. Sexual surrender was not enough. He wanted everything.
He’d take her to meltdown in his own good time, but first he wanted her emotional surrender. Wanted her on her knees, begging him to take everything, anything…
And if, right now, he was in desperate need of a cold shower—well, wasn’t it well known that revenge was a dish best eaten cold?
Thanks to the kittens he’d managed to recover the ground he’d lost by that careless reference to her father…and then some. He loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, picked up the box. Now it was time to earn some real Brownie points.
Not that spending an hour with India Claibourne was exactly a chore. She was still inclined to distrust him—he’d already discovered that she was clever—but he wasn’t letting slip an opportunity to get beneath the barriers she’d erected. Not just against him, but, by her own confession, against any deep personal relationship with a man.
‘I should have seen you to the door,’ she said from the depths of a cupboard as he put the box on the kitchen island.
‘Is that any way to treat a man who’s offering to help?’ He took off his jacket, hung it over the door, slipped his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves.
‘You’re not helping me, Jordan. You just want to remind me that you’re not going away.’ As she stood up, turned to face him with a small jug in her hands, her eyes seemed huge, and for a moment Jordan felt transparent, as if she could read his mind, see right through into his cynical soul.
‘Okay,’ he said, fighting the temptation to cross the room, take the jug from her hands and turn the clock back five minutes—go back to where they’d been when she was on the point of surrender. ‘Now we’ve established that I’m staying, shall we get on?’ There would be plenty of time to get close at the weekend. Right now he didn’t want her to feel crowded, threatened by his presence. ‘How about if I see to the milk? Then I’ll make some coffee while you’re playing mother.’
‘None of that sexist nonsense here, Mr Farraday. This store runs an equal opportunities policy.’ She placed the jug into his hands. ‘Daddy will have to do his share.’
‘Can I employ a nanny?’ The grin faded. Wrong answer. She’d been abandoned by her mother. Nannies must have figured large in her life. He caught a glimpse of the familiar, empty yawning gaps that were sometimes the heritage of a one-parent child… ‘Unless you can find a broody feline we’re going to have our hands full tomorrow.’
‘We?’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’
Yes, he was indisputably here. Taking over her kitchen the way he would take over Claibourne & Farraday unless she found a way to stop him. Taking over her with his lethal smile. Even now she was standing far too close, her hand still fixed to the jug, even though he was holding it safely.
India knew she should have walked him to the door, locked it behind him and put up the safety chain, but it had been a matter of urgency to put some distance between them. Do a little deep breathing. Cool off.
She should have gone straight for the cold shower and stayed there, because in his shirtsleeves, tie loose about his neck, his dark hair uncharacteristically ruffled, he offered straight-to-hell temptation.
‘Can we fit the management of a major department store around the needs of a family of motherless kittens?’ he asked.
From the box, the kittens mewed, distracting her from thoughts so out of character that she thought she must be bewitched. She let go the jug, put some space between them.
‘We?’ she repeated, and hoped she conveyed an impression that he was a long way from getting his feet beneath her desk. ‘I don’t know about you, Jordan, but I certainly can,’ she said, taking a carton of milk from the fridge. ‘You know, this is why men are hopeless domestically,’ she continued. ‘They can’t do anything without a plan. They’re still conducting a time and motion study while a woman has finished and put her feet up.’
‘It’s because women refuse to organise themselves properly that they’re so hopeless in business.’
‘It’s our flexibility’ she contradicted, ‘that makes us so good. We’re so much better equipped to cope with life’s sudden crises. Unlike men,’ she added, ‘who can’t do anything without creating a three-act drama out of it.’ Fine sentiments, but unfortunately the milk carton was determined to undermine her Miss Efficiency act by stubbornly refusing to open.
‘I think perhaps you’re confusing me with some other man,’ he suggested. ‘James Cawston, perhaps?’ He took the carton from her, opened it without fuss—a wordless demonstration of his domestic skills—and poured some into the jug before putting it into the microwave to take the chill off. ‘If he’s like that, I can understand why you chose not to marry him.’ He tested the milk, put it on for a few more seconds.
‘You weren’t listening, Jordan,’ she said, leaving him to it and sliding onto a stool at the centre island. ‘I didn’t marry him because I’m already wed to the store.’
Jordan was listening and hearing rather more than she intended, he thought. ‘Right,’ he said, as if he wasn’t convinced—well, he wasn’t—and let it go.
‘I thought you understood,’ she said as he handed her the milk, settled on a stool beside her, his elbows propped on the work surface, his fingers laced together, his chin propped on his hands as he looked sideways at her. ‘Are you telling me that you’re not like that?’
‘Like what? Am I a man who can’t work without a plan? Or am I wed to my work?’
‘Either.’ She was apparently concentrating on the milk, testing the temperature with a knuckle, and there was only the deep burgundy perfection of her nail polish to link her t
o the career woman with whom he’d spent the day. But he wasn’t fooled for a minute. And right on cue she glanced up, looked right at him. It was a look with a high-voltage punch. ‘Both,’ she said.
Her hair might be caught up in a cute mop on top of her head, her clothes well-worn favourites fit only for relaxing in the privacy of her own home, but he’d seen the dates on the files she was looking at. They were thirty years old. And the top one at least—according to the title—contained correspondence with C&F’s lawyers.
She hadn’t given up trying to obstruct him. She wouldn’t give up her fight to hang onto the store while there was a breath left in body. Three months ago, a week ago, yesterday, even, to have had this confirmation of how much she cared would have pleased him. Right at this moment he could only see the waste…
‘The first casualty in any battle is the plan, India.’ His plan had been to launch a charm offensive. Disarm the lady. Have her open the door to Claibourne & Farraday and invite him in, his charm increasing in direct proportion to his ruthlessness. He’d learned a lot watching Peter Claibourne in action.
But there was always the unexpected to be taken into consideration. He knew she was desirable, unattached, available and—with both her sisters, her allies, falling for the enemy and jumping ship—very much alone.
What he hadn’t expected was that he would like her. But then Peter Claibourne had probably liked his mother. Certainly enough to spend the night with her.
And anything Peter Claibourne could do, he could top… ‘As for my work—well, I wouldn’t describe it as a marriage, but I give it my full attention.’
‘Your full and undivided attention?’
‘If you’re suggesting I don’t have time for the additional burden of Claibourne & Farraday, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. I always have time for those things that are important to me.’