“Harper!” The exclamation came from Charles, who had at last looked up from his comic book and noticed them. The boy waved a grubby, excited hand. “Look what I got!”
“In a moment, sport.” Harper glanced at the shopping basket at Nikki’s feet and asked, “Are you done here?”
“Almost,” she said, her attention shifting with reluctance to what had so preoccupied her just a little while before. “I just have to choose the paper I want, and pay for all this. I’ve started on some rough ideas for you, but of course we need to discuss quite a lot of it.”
“Good, you can show them to me over the weekend. Go ahead and finish what you were doing; there’s no hurry.” With that, he strolled over to Charles and bent to look over the comics and pens the boy clutched.
Nikki’s concentration had completely disintegrated, however, and she could no longer remember how many sketches of which size she had intended to make. She made a quick, arbitrary selection, gathered everything together and went to the cash till to pay.
Harper wouldn’t let her, though, insisting on settling the bill himself. After all, he pointed out reasonably when she would have argued, she wouldn’t have needed to buy the things had she been back in her studio in London. After a moment’s struggle, she gave in as gracefully as she could, and with Charles holding their hands as he skipped between them Harper guided them to where he’d parked his car.
“Anne must have told you where to find us,” Nikki commented as he unlocked the doors.
“Yes, I thought I’d come looking for you two, because I wanted to give you fair warning about our imminent weekend guests.”
“Terrific,” muttered an antisocial Charles from the back.
Nikki admitted, in her secret heart of hearts, to the same sense of intrusion, which was wholly uncalled for, considering that not only was she herself a guest, but Harper had warned her from the beginning of the possibility of other visitors. Once she had welcomed the thought.
Now Harper said, with a smiling glance in the rear-view mirror. “Oh, it’s not so bad, sport. It’s just Gordon, and Gayle.”
“That’s all right, then,” said the wriggling boy.
“So nice to have your approval,” replied Harper in a dry voice, at which Nikki laughed silently. Then he said to her, “Gordon’s dying to see you again, and Gayle Chancellor is a mutual friend of ours who goes way back. Ah, I see they’ve already arrived.”
That last was as they turned into the drive where a lemon-yellow Mercedes sports coupé was parked in front of the house. A couple were just climbing out, equally polished and beautiful, like a matched set of Dresden figurines, pale with an arrogant Nordic grace, and Nikki’s heart sank to the bottom of her shoes.
Gordon’s male beauty she had expected, but the other one, ah, the other woman was the exact antithesis of Nikki, who was small, and dark, and scruffy. As she climbed reluctantly out of the car and saw the cool, disdainful amusement in the other woman’s eyes, Nikki thought again of the peacock-blue dress with deepest regret, for she had intended on wearing it for all the soft, seductive reasons of a woman dressing for a man, and she knew now that she would wear it as a declaration of war.
Chapter Seven
Gordon sauntered over to where Nikki stood, dirty and despairing and squirming internally, and the handsome doctor’s face was lit from inside with a beatific joy. “My love, you are, as always sublime,” he greeted her softly as he took both her hands in his. “I was so glad to learn from Harper that your hands are almost healed.”
Her teeth set on edge as she smiled up at him, and she gritted very privately, “I’m a wreck and we both know it, so don’t rub it in.”
“Oh, God,” whispered the blond laughing man, “a woman’s vanity. Put it out of your head, my little dearest. Concentrate instead on all the speed limits Harper must have broken to get back home by six o’clock, only to find that nobody was home anxiously awaiting him. Today must have been the first day in fifteen years that he knocked off work early.”
The colour in her sun-kissed cheeks drained away, leaving her looking very pale, with the edge of self-consciousness stripped from those great eyes as they clung to him. “Are you being serious?” she said, almost begging as her pride blew away on the wind and she focused on Gordon fully for the first time.
“I’ll make you one promise, darling,” he said, his blond head bent to hers, “I’ll never lie to you. But we can put it to the test, if you like. Give us a kiss.”
As abruptly as the colour had left her cheeks, it now flooded back in a dark tide. “Gordon!” she exclaimed in frantic mortification. All too suddenly she became aware of Harper’s narrowed, hard stare, of the other woman’s raised eyebrows, and, realising how intimate the two of them must look, she pulled away in some confusion from the gleeful doctor.
Charles had already disappeared into the house, leaving the front door swinging open on its hinges, and, anxious to escape before her composure shredded any further, Nikki managed a tight smile as she excused herself. “Forgive me for rushing away, but I’m dying for a bath.”
“Yes, I dare say,” murmured Gayle, falsely sympathetic while her gaze shot daggered antipathy.
My God, how did I make an enemy of her so quickly? thought Nikki in some dismay. Harper reached into the back of his car, pulled out an overnight case and the large bag of art supplies they had just bought, and said pleasantly, “Gordon, Gayle, you know your usual rooms. Anne tells me that supper can be served at eight, if that’s all right with everyone, so drinks will be at seven-thirty. I’ll be going up now, myself.”
He waited and glanced at Nikki with eyebrows slightly raised, and one part of her mind registered the fact that Harper had just pulled one of his favourite tricks again, manipulating a scenario with an adroit master touch, then stepping back to see how everyone reacted. She could walk up the stairs with him now, or somehow manoeuvre to avoid the implications of such companionship, and both Gordon and Gayle were watching to see what she would do.
In another mood, she might have behaved quite differently, but in the complicated unspoken nuances resounding throughout the fresh early evening air she gravitated instinctively towards her most established ally, falling into step beside Harper as naturally as if they had ascended the stairs together many a time. In response he gave her a remarkably sweet smile.
“I am sorry about the ice-cream on your suit,” she said as they entered the house and she began to trudge up the stairs with a weary sigh. It had been a long, busy day, and every muscle in her body seemed to be aching.
“I’ve told you already, it’s unimportant.” Harper sent an oblique glance at her downbent head beside him, and he asked coolly, “What did Gordon have to say to you just now?”
“Gordon?” she replied blankly, slow to catch on. Then another dark, revealing flush swept over her traitorous face, leaving her looking as guilty as if she had been caught in the act of some major sin. Her blue eyes flew up to his, then very quickly away. “Oh, that—it was nothing,” she muttered.
“That ‘nothing’ certainly provoked a most intriguing reaction,” he murmured with taunting silkiness as they came up to her bedroom door. When she would have opened it, he laid aside his case and the shopping basket and stepped in front of her with a deceptively lazy movement. She backed against the wall and found herself trapped as he planted his hands on either side of her head. “What’s the matter, Nikki—afraid to tell?”
She had gravitated towards her most established ally? That was a joke. What had got into him, anyway? Where was the close, gentle camaraderie they had shared in the art shop only a half an hour ago? Feeling hassled and flustered, she raised her tousled head and said pointedly, “I told you, it was unimportant. If you’re so concerned about it, why don’t you ask Gordon?”
“Now, there’s a thought,” he murmured, and smiled in a way she didn’t trust, for it lit an unpredictable light i
n his dark, intent eyes. “And what would he tell me if I did?”
“Why, to mind your own business, of course,” she remarked lightly, with an ironic quirk of her eyebrows. She was very thankful that he could not climb inside her head and read what was there, for she might have lost her heart to this man, foolishly, precipitately, but she wasn’t about to admit to it. It was too soon, too revealing, her chaotic emotions straining against common sense, her desires reined in by insecurity.
He laughed softly to himself, a strange, almost angry kind of sound that sharpened her interest to the point of worry, but she could not imagine what had prompted it. But just as she was opening her mouth to ask him, just as his gaze had dropped to watch the movement of her lips, Charles came galloping around the corner of the hall.
“Harper, see the picture of a spaceship I made for you?”
The inexplicable tense mood that had built up between them disintegrated. Harper stepped away from her unhurriedly, his attention shifting away, and Nikki felt as if she had just escaped from a hot spotlight. She took the opportunity to escape into her room, and leaned weakly against the closed door as she listened to the fading sounds of his deep voice intermingled with the boy’s high treble.
Now, what had all that been about? She shook her head over the vagaries of men and went to stare at herself in her mirror. How horrifying—not only did her blouse carry strawberry stains, but the elbows were smudged with pencil marks, and her short black hair stood up in rumpled peaks where she had run her fingers through it distractedly.
She folded her lips into a grim line. No wonder Gayle Chancellor had looked down that perfect aquiline nose at her! She looked like a filthy street urchin. Well, there was nowhere else to go from the bottom but up. She stalked into the bathroom and began an assault on her offending appearance.
After washing her hands with care, quickly so that the healing cuts did not soften too much in the warm water, she pulled on another pair of tight surgical gloves that the local doctor had given her for protection, and ran herself a deep bath. There she wallowed, shampooing her hair and soaping herself until her skin was flushed a bright clean pink.
Then she prepared for the dinner ahead, reassessing every part of what she’d planned on wearing that evening: the very plain but exquisitely crafted pumps, the sheer black tights, the vivid dress that was little more than a silken slip that ended three inches above her slim knees and complemented her blue eyes perfectly and seemed to reflect a raven-black sheen on to the sleek cap of her hair. The dress lay against her skin, all the shape lent to it from her firm, slim body.
She gave an approving nod. It was smart enough and would look even more trendy against any muted elegance she suspected that Gayle would produce.
But the white of her shoulders and arms was broken only by the two thin straps of the dress. Nikki’s hand reached for the matching costume jewellery she had bought, and hesitated as she stared at herself with a little private smile. Really, her neck was quite shockingly bare without it.
She abandoned the jewellery and made up her face, and if the young woman in her was unsure about how much eye shadow and blusher to apply, the artist was in no doubt whatsoever.
She was a little late as she descended the stairs, and heard voices coming from the front reception-room. One part of her was fiercely, jealously glad, for the rear lounge was the intimate scene of Harper’s private relaxation that he had shared with her. No matter if the others had been in the room at some other time; Nikki didn’t want the memory of her first firelit evening in his house tarnished.
She walked into the front room. Charles was absent, for he was already eating supper in the kitchen, but the other three adults were present. Gordon, restless as always, was by the front window, and his face lit up with pure wicked pleasure when he saw her.
Gayle was sitting gracefully at one end of the couch, her expression wooden, her beautiful eyes filling with fury. For a moment Nikki didn’t understand, for they were a perfect foil for each other, the one tall, blonde, coolly elegant in black, the other slight, very dark and vivid with colour. But then she realised that after seeing the grubby woman outside Gayle had been totally unprepared to meet this sleek, dashing image, and Nikki’s confidence soared.
Then Harper turned around, saw her, and both the person she admired in him and the friend she was coming to trust were totally subjugated by the virile ascendancy of the rampant male. Their gazes met and clashed with such intensity that she felt the steadiness in her limbs fizzle out. Then, as if he couldn’t help it, his dark, ignited eyes lowered but he didn’t look away. She knew what he saw, and her breathing grew wildly erratic. He saw what she had wanted him to see—the shape of her unadorned body, the cream of her revealed flesh.
Gordon came around the end of the couch with the grace of a brilliant kingfisher, reached for her hands and brought them to his twitching lips. “What an astounding transformation!” he exclaimed. “Darling, you look exquisite!”
Nikki’s gaze was late in pulling away from Harper’s face, when the doctor leaned forward and whispered into her ear, “And good enough to eat!”
She trembled at the darkened expression that swept over Harper’s hard, forceful features, and she turned to Gordon with the whispered, desperate plea, “For pity’s sake, cut it out!”
“But we’ve only just begun, you and I,” murmured the blond man, his keen gaze reckless on her delicate, flustered face.
“How dare you?” she breathed in wonder, too shaken for outrage.
“I am playing with fire, aren’t I?” replied Gordon with a quicksilver grin. “God knows, Harper is dangerous when provoked! But my God, this is worth it! Did you ever think that the attentions of another man just might break down this obsessive distance he persists in putting between himself and the rest of the world?”
Her eyes widened in amazement. “But how did you know of that?”
“My dear, I’ve seen it from the very beginning. I’ve watched him grow up, and away from almost everyone around him, and if you can be the one to bring him back to himself you have my sincerest blessing.” Gordon managed to add, in a low mutter, “I’ve never seen him look like that! Don’t crack under the pressure, darling Nikki!”
“But—but—” she stuttered, hardly knowing how to act, and then Harper was upon them, furious and predatory, and looking for blood. She turned heavy, apprehensive eyes slowly up to him as he stood in front of them, exuding sultry menace, and was shocked to discover that there was nothing of it in his expression, nothing but urbane politeness. Harper was the total image of the civilised man, but his eyes were primeval.
“Perrier, Nikki?” he asked velvetly as he held a glass out to her.
Even as she reached for it, a thanks ready to be murmured from her lips, Gordon exclaimed, “Perrier? Surely you’d like something stronger than that, my dear?”
She caught her breath, frightened and stunned at the way Harper turned to his friend—such a simple movement of the body, just an economic twist from that taut male waist that had all the quality of a snarling wolf rounding on its enemy. She couldn’t believe how Gordon had the courage to face it, even as Harper said very quietly, “Nikki never drinks anything but a glass of wine with supper.”
Gordon’s eyebrows lifted audaciously. “Is Nikki ever given a choice?”
Harper smiled, white and gentle, and at the sight the fearful tension exploded out of her with the exclamation, “For God’s sake! It’s Nikki’s choice that she never has anything but one glass of wine, and she also hates being discussed as if she weren’t here!”
The blond man turned to her with a tender, flirtatious expression. “Believe me, darling, I’m all too aware of your presence in that incredible dress!”
As Harper’s dark eyes plummeted into savagery, Gayle said from behind Gordon’s shoulder, her flinty voice striking sparks, “Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in?”
/>
Oh, dear heaven, thought Nikki in despair, how bad can this get? Already the evening was a smoking debacle.
It got, in fact, much worse. Most of the hostilities went underground. Throughout supper Gordon behaved incorrigibly like a man smitten with desire; only the laughter throbbing in his low voice as he whispered to Nikki gave him away. Torn between the hard, ruthless contemplation of every change in Nikki’s volatile expression, and his duties as host, Harper conversed with Gayle as his gaze grew more and more violent.
And the other woman, Nikki saw, was narrowly watching the entire interplay, her haughty, inscrutable face revealing none of her thoughts.
Gordon gave her an unsympathetic explanation during one of his whispered exchanges. “Gayle’s always had one eye on her chances with Harper, but don’t worry, nothing’s ever come of it. And, fool that I am, I’ve chased after her for years while she’s blown hot and cold on me. So refreshing to give her a taste of her own medicine. At the moment she looks absolutely frigid, doesn’t she?” he concluded with a certain callous admiration.
“I don’t blame her!” replied Nikki from between gritted teeth, disappointed at not being able to enjoy the superb meal as the others seemed to have done.
From the head of the table, as he lounged back in his seat, Harper asked lazily, “Who don’t you blame, Nikki?”
Her cowardly gaze had barely collided with his before bouncing away, and, suddenly so sick of the fulminating atmosphere, she resorted to her innate core of honesty and snapped, “I don’t blame Gayle, of course, if she never wanted to speak to Gordon again! He’s behaving abominably, and if this supper’s any indication of what’s to follow, thank you very much, but I’ll skip dessert!”
The two men burst out laughing, and she sat frozen, frantically willing herself not to blush, for of course even as the words left her mouth she realised that she had shot them all back to the very first night they had met, and what she had said about Gordon’s interrupted tête-à-tête.
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