by Penny Jordan
Mutely seething with resentment, she sat down.
‘Excellent. Now that I have had a chance to assimilate how this magazine is run, I intend to institute some changes. One of these will be that, from now on, you will be working as my assistant.’
His assistant!
She was too shocked to give voice to the objections clamouring for utterance, but her white face and furious eyes gave her away.
‘Try not to think of it as a demotion so much as as a sideways move,’ suggested Hazard with soft malice.
A demotion! Her brain reeled. Of course… In the shock of hearing his first words, all she had been able to think of was her own reaction to working in close proximity to him.
A demotion! Fierce heat scalded her skin.
‘My work!’
‘Your work is something I am having rather a problem in assessing, Miss Hargreaves,’ he told her bluntly, and from beneath the pile of letters he removed a folder.
‘In here are the articles you have done while working for the magazine. Very good, well thought-out and rational articles, which more often than not betray a partisanship and compassion for the, shall we say, more unfortunate victims of our society than I would have expected from—er—a woman of your ilk. In short, Miss Hargreaves, I suspect that your articles can, in fact, be more properly attributed elsewhere.’
What was he saying? Susannah could barely take it all in. Was he actually suggesting that someone else had written her work? But…
She was too stunned to defend herself.
‘I know, of course, that you were Richard’s protégée…’
‘And you think that Richard wrote my articles?’ she interrupted wildly, instantly seeing where his words were leading.
‘What I think or suspect is not primarily at issue,’ he told her smoothly. ‘For the good of the magazine as a whole, I can hardly allow you to work unchecked until I have resolved my doubts as to your ability, and it is for that reason that I have decided that, from now on, you will work as my assistant.’
‘Editing your features,’ Susannah guessed bitterly. ‘Aren’t you afraid I might pirate them and sell them to someone else?’
The smile he gave her made her toes curl in apprehension.
‘Why don’t you try it?’ he suggested softly. ‘But, before you do, let me warn you that I’d love a legitimate reason for getting rid of you.’
The reality of what was happening to her hit her like a bucket of icy water. She couldn’t afford to lose this job, she acknowledged with a sense of panic. The media world was a notoriously small one. It loved nothing better than to gossip. Tomorrow was the very best magazine of its kind on the market. If she lost her job here… She shivered suddenly and then tensed, seeing Hazard Maine’s frown, not knowing it had been caused by the vulnerability of her mouth and eyes.
‘As from tomorrow morning, you’ll be working in here. It’s all arranged. Your desk will be moved tonight and, as soon as the morning conference is over, I’ll want to go over with you all the projects you’re presently working on.’
He bent his head back over the papers on his desk, and Susannah didn’t know whether she was supposed to stay or go. Every muscle in her body seemed to be seized in a peculiar sort of paralysis. It was the shock, she told herself.
The dark head lifted, icy grey eyes studying her.
‘What are you waiting for, Miss Hargreaves?’
Somehow, she managed to get herself out of the office, thankful to discover that Lizzie wasn’t sitting at her desk. Fate seemed to relent a little as she hurried back to her own cubby-hole, because she got there without seeing anyone.
Once there, she sank down into her chair, simply staring into space as she tried to come to grips with what had happened. It seemed impossible that Hazard Maine had actually accused her of putting her name to work done by someone else. Surely he knew Richard would never have countenanced it, for one thing? Why hadn’t she said that to him? she wondered, shivering with reaction. Why had she just sat there like a dumb bunny, taking everything he had chosen to fling at her?
She could hardly march back into his office and tell him now. If she wanted to keep her job, she would just have to prove to him how wrong he was. Oh, but it was so unfair! Life was so unfair, she thought bitterly, only too relieved to see that it was well gone five, and that she could leave.
Of course, she would have to run into Hazard just as she was crossing the foyer, all wrapped up in her raincoat
‘Leaving already?’ he taunted, glancing up at the clock. ‘Make the most of it, Miss Hargreaves, because from tomorrow you’re going to discover what work is really all about.’
* * *
Half-way through the evening, just as she was finishing off a thank-you letter to Mamie, who was very keen on such matters, her telephone rang.
She stared at it for several seconds, frowning. Only a few people had her number here at the flat. One of them was David, and she was shocked to discover how much she dreaded the thought of picking up the receiver and hearing his voice.
She had been in love with the idea of love, she admitted wearily, reaching for it. For the man himself, she had no feelings left at all, other than those of distaste for what he had done to his wife, and resentment over the way he had tried to use her.
‘Susannah, is that you?’
It took her several minutes to place the female voice, and then her brain cleared and she recognised it.
‘Nicky!’
‘I thought you might like to hear the latest on John Howard.’
John Howard was the author Susannah was hoping to interview. Her interview with Hazard had driven all thoughts of him out of her mind.
‘Listen, I think he might be weakening. He was here on Friday and I talked to him and… Susannah, are you still there?’
Hurriedly assuring her friend that she was indeed listening, Susannah tried to banish Hazard from her mind. He had told her that from now on she would be working only as his assistant on projects selected by him. No doubt Hazard Maine, with his background of war correspondence, would find something like interviewing an elusive top-selling author boring and mundane. No doubt he would prefer something like in-depth reporting on a terrorist group.
‘I…’
‘Look,’ Nicky said impatiently, ‘John stayed over in London this weekend, and I’ve managed to get him to agree to meet you. That’s why I’m ringing. Can you make it for dinner at the Connaught this evening?’
Dinner at the Connaught! Susannah’s imagination boggled slightly.
As though she found her silence exasperating, Nicky demanded impatiently, ‘Well, can you make it or not?’
‘Yes—yes, I can make it. What time?’
She had rung off before she had clearly realised that she ought to have informed Nicky that the whole project was probably now in abeyance. But she had been pursuing the interview for so long, she was reluctant to back out now, when she was potentially so close to success.
She dressed carefully for the meeting. Clothes which were too elegant or aggressive would be bound to put him off. Interviewees always regarded interviewers in much the same vein as a torture victim did his tormentor, she knew that; and yet the Connaught…she could hardly appear in her jeans and sweatshirt!
In the end, she settled for the plain black silk dress which had been Mamie’s Christmas present to her. It was fitted and yet feminine in design without being overtly sexy. The soft black fabric enhanced the delicacy of her skin. Black had always been one of her colours, but the air of fragility reflected back to her by her mirror irritated her.
It was impossible that she had lost weight since this morning, but surely her face looked thinner and slightly more fine-drawn? Her eyes seemed almost haunted, and her mouth.
Cross with herself, Susannah turned away from the mirror. She was an idiot to let Hazard Maine affect her like this. Richard had warned her more than once that she needed to toughen up, and she had always accepted that he was right. She loved her
work, but sometimes she hated the cynicism that seemed to go hand in hand with it.
She arrived dead on time and, following Nicky’s instructions, asked to be shown to the bar.
It wasn’t too crowded and she saw her friend immediately. Of John Howard, there was no sign.
Nicky was seated with an older woman, who looked slightly apprehensive, and politely Susannah quelled her disappointment. Perhaps the writer had changed his mind. It was only when she saw that he wasn’t present that she realised how much she had been looking forward to meeting him, and not just because of the potential interview. She had read his book and loved it, amazed and awed by the degree of compassion he had shown, not just for his male but also for his female characters.
Swallowing her disappointment, she smiled warmly both at Nicky and her companion.
The older woman smiled back. She was about fifty, with elegantly styled hair and a face which portrayed a strong character.
Politeness forbade Susannah from making any comment on the missing author. She had obviously arrived just as Nicky and her companion were deep in discussion, and Susannah sat back, waiting until they had finished.
The look that Nicky exchanged with the older woman puzzled her, until Nicky said calmly, ‘Susannah, I’d like you to meet Emma King, otherwise known as John Howard!’
‘John Howard!’ Susannah’s eyes widened as she betrayed her surprise. Of course, this wasn’t the first time a writer had hidden behind a false name, or indeed adopted one that belonged to the opposite sex, but somehow she had never envisaged John Howard as a woman.
She said so quite openly, and was rewarded with a pleased smile.
‘And therein, I’m afraid, lies my dilemma. I’ve just put the finishing touches to a novel that continues where Past Times leaves off, and I’m concerned that if my identity is revealed then it will affect the book’s reception.’
‘Emma feels that the publishing world is still very much a male bastion, and that female writers are sometimes treated badly. She prefers to preserve her male identity as far as the media are concerned because she feels that, once she’s reviewed as a female writer, her work won’t get the same sort of serious consideration that it does now.’
Susannah could understand what she meant and she frowned, her quick brain searching for a solution while she heard Emma saying quietly, ‘I’ve always refused to give any interviews, but I was so impressed by the articles you’ve done, and by what Nicky had to say about you, that I decided to make an exception in your case. But you can see my dilemma. If I allow you to do an interview…’
‘If you allowed me to do one, yes,’ Susannah agreed quickly. ‘But I shouldn’t be interviewing Emma King, I should be interviewing John Howard.’
For a moment, both her listeners looked bewildered.
‘Look,’ she explained quickly, ‘as far as the public is concerned, John Howard is the author of Past Times, and it’s John Howard in whom they’re interested.’
‘You mean, I could give the interview as though I were, in fact, a man?’ Emma asked, catching on. ‘But wouldn’t that be dishonest?’
‘Not necessarily. It depends on the line the interview takes. At Tomorrow, our line would be on your writing. We don’t go in for revelations about people’s lives. Our interview would be conducted on the basis of your work as a writer. What made you want to write, how you got started…that sort of thing.’
‘Well, if you think we could pull it off…’ Doubt was giving way to interest. ‘Look, I need to think about it,’ Emma told her. ‘I’m going home tomorrow morning. Why don’t I give you a ring, and then, if I’m prepared to go ahead, we could fix another meeting?’
Susannah didn’t push for any more concessions, her brain was still striving to assimilate what it had already learned.
Over dinner, she discovered a little more about the elusive writer, and she tingled with the excitement that was her writer’s intuition and which told her that, if she could just gain her trust, in Emma she would find an interviewee who would give her an article that was well worth having.
It was late when she finally got up from the table, exclaiming ruefully that she had better leave. Nicky was staying on with Emma to discuss some mutual points of business and, as she made her way through the now busy dining-room, Susannah had the feeling that someone was watching her.
She paused to allow a waiter to manoeuvre a bulky sweet trolley and the sensation intensified. She could almost feel two eyes burning into the back of her head. It was an uncanny sensation, and one that was rather alien to her.
Willing herself not to turn round, she hurried to the exit, but a couple leaving a table ahead of her blocked the way, and the woman turned abruptly, almost knocking her over and causing her to spin.
It was as she straightened up that she saw him. He was seated at a table only feet away from her, his grey eyes blazing contempt and something else that made her shudder uncontrollably, her flesh flooded with sensual heat as, against her will, she was forced to recall those moments when his mouth had touched her skin.
Hazard, here… He was like some malign fate, blocking her every path. She had a muzzy impression of the group seated with him: one of them was a blonde who looked slightly petulant at not being the whole focus of his attention—just his type, thought Susannah acidly as she deliberately turned her back without acknowledging him.
As she got into a taxi, she told herself that she wasn’t going to allow him to disrupt what little peace of mind she had left. She might have to endure his presence during working hours, but once outside work she was going to blank him out of her consciousness completely.
She succeeded, but she had forgotten about her subconscious, and her dreams were filled with vivid images of him, with memories of the sensual sensations conjured up by his hands and his mouth.
She woke up twice, her body damp with sweat, her stomach muscles cramping denyingly against the dull ache of desire spreading through her lower body. She hated him and he hated her, but she couldn’t deny that physically he aroused her. Somehow she was going to have to come to terms with that unpalatable fact.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘HEY, SUSIE, what’s all this about your desk being moved into Hazard’s office?’
Susannah stopped, uncomfortably aware of the calculating curiosity in Jim Neaves’ eyes.
Jim had tried to date her when she’d first joined the magazine. Hurting from the realisation that David had not been honest and open with her, she had been in no mood for Jim’s blatantly motivated advances, and now she admitted that perhaps she had not let him down as tactfully as she might.
‘I…’
‘From now on, Susannah will be working as my assistant.’
Hazard’s clipped, impatient voice made them both start. Jim considered himself something of a high-flyer and the equal of any man born, not to mention the superior of most of the female sex, and yet almost instantly he heard Hazard’s voice his manner became embarrassingly servile.
‘Another of your admirers, is he?’ Hazard drawled when he had gone. ‘Perhaps there’s something I should make clear to you. I don’t care what kind of kiss-and-tease games you’ve been playing around here in the past, from now on they’re going to stop.’
Susannah was completely lost for words. There was no way she could defend herself without referring to that dreadful weekend at Mamie’s, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. If she explained to him that she wasn’t what he thought, he might start wondering why she had been so determined that he should believe that she was substituting him for her non-existent married lover, and that was a question she wasn’t sure she could answer herself yet.
Lizzie was bent over her typewriter, fingers flying as Susannah walked through her office. Deliberately? Very probably, Susannah thought miserably, remembering the other girl’s sensitivity towards the feelings of others. She must have heard what Hazard had said to her.
It was a shock to walk into Hazard’s office and discover that
her desk, far from being set up in a corner, had been aligned at a right angle to his own, and her terminal and word processor already installed.
From that position, he would be able to reach out and look at what she was doing. The thought unnerved her.
The outer door opened and she lifted her eyes from her desk. Unlike most of the other men working on the magazine, Hazard favoured formal office wear, and his restrained dark suit emphasised the lean arrogance of his body. The sensual contrast between the dark tanned skin and the whiteness of his shirt cuffs made an unwanted frisson of awareness wash through her, leaving her tense.
‘Sit down,’ he commanded brusquely. ‘You’re not back at school.’
Just managing to subdue the belligerent comment burning her tongue, Susannah fiddled with some of the things on her desk, deliberately remaining standing. From beneath her lashes, she sent him a glowering look of dislike.
The outer door opened and Lizzie called out, ‘Coffee, Hazard?’
‘Please.’
‘And you, Susannah?’
‘She can get her own.’
Flushing with mortification, Susannah stared fiercely at her desk, willing the bright sparkle of angry tears in her eyes to clear before she lifted her head. When she did so, Lizzie had gone.
After that, she deliberately waited until Hazard had gone into his morning meeting with the heads of departments before going to get her coffee. The rich smell of his as it had stood on his desk had driven her mad with longing, but she had been determined not to give way in front of him.
Lizzie, tactful as a good secretary always should be, said nothing when she saw her coming back holding the plastic cup, other than a calm, ‘Another miserable day. If this is summer, give me winter!’
‘Umm…I heard on the news this morning that several areas are being threatened with floods.’
Her aunt’s home in Leicestershire was in a small village in a very flat, exposed part of the county, and concern for her made Susannah impulsively pick up the telephone. Personal telephone calls were frowned upon officially, but in practice Richard had always turned a blind eye to the odd call, and she had never been the type of person to abuse any kind of privilege. It was just that she knew that Aunt Emily normally played bridge on Monday evenings, and then liked to go to bed early, so if Susannah wanted to be sure of speaking to her, it would be as well for her to ring now.