Dangerous Male

by Marjorie Lewty

  Dangerous Male

  By

  Marjorie Lewty

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DANGEROUS MALE

  How could anyone be quite as heartless as Harn Durrant, Gemma fumed— sacking her dear sister Beth after years of devoted service as his secretary! She would never forgive him. But then, to her astonishment, Harn offered her the job instead. Would this be her chance to get her own back on him?

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  First published 1983

  Australian copyright 1983

  Philippine copyright 1983

  This edition 1983

  © Marjorie Lewty 1983

  ISBN 0 263 74338 1

  CHAPTER ONE

  Beth was right, the man was an inhuman bastard. Gemma Lawson fought down a surge of anger and disgust as she met the cold grey eyes that regarded her from the opposite side of the large mahogany desk. Not that Beth had used that particular word. 'Inhuman beast' was the way she had put it. Beth's generation wasn't as forthright with its language as her young stepsister Gemma's was.

  Harn Durrant's shoulders moved impatiently under their immaculately-tailored lightweight suiting. 'So you see, Miss—er—' he glanced down at the pad on which he had jotted Gemma's name when she walked unceremoniously into his office five minutes ago '—Miss Lawson, I'm afraid you're wasting your time. And mine,' he added, with a pointed look towards the door.

  Gemma's eyes were as deep blue as the ocean and could look as cold. At this moment they looked arctic. 'You mean you're prepared to throw my sister out, just like that, when she's worked for the firm for seventeen years, ever since she was seventeen? When she's been your father's trusted and confidential secretary for ten of those years?'

  The grey eyes looked up at the ceiling as if seeking patience. 'That's just the point, I'm afraid, Miss Lawson. Your sister has been in one job too long, she's got into a rut and she can't get out of it. Things move on, you know. This will soon be a very different firm from the one that my father managed for most of his life.' His glance flicked with distaste round the shabby office with its old-fashioned office furniture, its metal filing cabinet, its cracking ceiling with the yellowing stucco frieze. 'It suited him as it was, but it certainly doesn't suit me.' Strong brown fingers closed over the worn leather arms of the director's chair as if they would mould them to his will. 'I intend to transform this firm so that it's ready to crash into the twenty-first century.'

  Yes, thought Gemma, looking with dislike at the dark, lean face, the deep-set grey eyes with the strange, darker rims round the irises, the hard mouth. Yes, 'crash' would be the right word. Everything this man did would be violent. Even his name—Harn Durrant—sounded savage, ruthless.

  'At least,' she said, 'you could have given Beth time to adapt. She hasn't—'

  'Time!' he barked. 'How much longer does she need? She's had five training sessions on the word-processor, which is more than is considered necessary for a competent secretary. She's moaned and groaned about it, never really concentrated.' His lips curled. 'And yesterday she even had the nerve to tell me that she intended to go on using the old Remington typewriter that should have been pensioned off years ago—that she wasn't prepared to learn the new technology. No, it's quite obvious that your sister isn't up to the job, and anyone who isn't willing to change isn't going to remain in this company very long now I'm in charge. I don't have any room for passengers.' The grey eyes moved away from her without interest. 'And now, Miss Lawson, I'm very busy. I've allowed you to come in here without an interview and interrupt me at my work. In view of the fact that your sister was my father's secretary I've taken the time to explain matters to you in some detail, but my time is valuable and I can't spare any more of it. I must ask you to leave.'

  'No,' said Gemma. 'Not yet.'

  His head shot up. 'What did you say?'

  'I said no,' Gemma repeated firmly. 'I've listened to your utterly contemptible statement and I'm not going until you hear what I have to say.' She stood up, because it was going to be easier to say what she had to say standing on her own two feet.

  Harn Durrant scowled up at her darkly. 'I've no intention of—' he began angrily, but she interrupted him just as he had interrupted her a few moments before.

  'You'll jolly well listen, Mr Durrant—unless you're prepared to have me thrown out. And I doubt if old Ted would consent to throw me out, even if you ordered him to. He's a good friend of mine, I've known him since I was a little girl.'

  Harn Durrant sat back in his chair. His eyes moved slowly from the smooth wheat-fair hair, held by a black velvet ribbon, to the small, pretty breasts which were at the moment heaving up and down slightly with nerves and anger under a white silky blouse. Gemma felt a flush rise to her cheeks. She was quite accustomed to being looked at by men—she was young and pretty and desirable— but there was something about this particular man that sent shock-waves passing through her.

  At last he spoke. 'Well, say what you have to say, but make it brief.'

  'I will,' said Gemma. 'I'm just as anxious to dispense with your company, Mr Durrant, as you are with mine. What I have to say is this. My sister has only just got over a bad attack of 'flu. She's had no chance of getting back into working routine gently—you saw to that, didn't you? You worked her until eight o'clock and after every day she got home tired out—so tired that she was unable to sleep. She hasn't been in any state to cope with anything new, but did you make allowance for that? No, you thrust her head-first into this micro-chip thing, and when she couldn't grasp it straight away you—' she wrinkled her short, straight little nose contemptuously '—I think "dispensed with her services" was the tactful way you put it, wasn't it, Mr Durrant?'

  Gemma had come here with a vague idea of making this man change his mind, but now she had seen him she knew beyond doubt that he wouldn't. She also knew that darling Beth would never be even moderately happy working for him. Beth was warm and loving and sensitive. She had been almost like a daughter to old Mr Durrant and hadn't yet got over his death, two months ago. She certainly wasn't in any state to cope with a man like his son, Harn Durrant, a man who would drain away any girl's confidence with that contemptuous look of his, and Gemma decided there and then that her sister wasn't going to come back to work out her month's notice. Somehow she, Gemma, would get a job and begin to pull her weight so that Beth could take it easy for a while and not have the whole burden of keeping the home going for the two of them.

  'Yes, I believ
e that was the way I put it,' Harn Durrant said coolly. 'I also remember that I arranged for a very handsome hand-out for her— much in excess of what was required. It could almost be termed a golden handshake, in fact.'

  'Money!' Gemma tossed her head in fine contempt, and her mane of fair hair slapped against her neck. 'Money doesn't make up for the insulting way you rejected her! If your father had known—'

  The grey eyes narrowed. 'I think I've taken quite enough from you, Miss Lawson. I don't know why you came here in the first place, and you certainly haven't made me disposed to change my mind. If it's any satisfaction to you, you may tell your sister that I'm sorry she feels she has been treated less than fairly, but I can't reconsider my decision. This affair has been extremely inconvenient for me. I'm going to London for a few days next week and I had hoped that by now your sister would have adapted to my way of work so that I could leave her in charge of the office. Instead of which she proved herself completely incapable of coping.' He laughed nastily. 'Women—you're all the same! You say you want equality, and then when you're faced with a challenge you go to pieces.'

  Gemma couldn't let that go. Anger overcame the nervousness she had felt at first when confronted with this formidable individual who held her sister's future in his relentless hands. 'How dare you say that!' she blazed. 'If anybody can rise to a challenge my sister Beth can. I don't suppose you would know what it's like to be left alone at seventeen, with very little money and a year-old baby sister to look after? You wouldn't know, would you, Mr Durrant? You've always had money, position, haven't you?' The words tumbled out, almost of their own accord as she warmed to her subject. 'Well, that was a challenge if you like—twice as daunting as—as learning to work some silly word-processing machine. Beth could have opted out—she could have put me into a home—after all, she isn't any blood relative, I'm only her stepsister. But she didn't. She rose to the challenge. She gave up her plans to go to art school. She worked at nights to learn shorthand and typing. She got a job in this company and over the years she rose to be your father's trusted secretary. She's been wonderful to me, all my life, she's a grand person. But you wouldn't appreciate qualities like that, would you, Mr Durrant? All you want is a super-girl with more head than heart, who can work your marvellous new technology for you. Well, I hope you find her, and good luck to both of you! Certainly I don't envy any girl who works for you.'

  She turned to the door. 'Thank you for listening,' she said. Her knees were trembling now, all she wanted was to get away as quickly as possible. 'Good morning, Mr Durrant.'

  'Wait a minute,' he rapped out, getting to his feet. Standing, he was even more formidable. He must have been well over six feet, with the broad shoulders and slim hips of an athlete. He walked slowly round the desk and stood towering over Gemma. A shiver passed through her as she felt the impact of his devastating masculinity. Beth had said he was a womaniser. 'Girls hanging round him by the minute,' she'd told Gemma with a scornful twist of her mouth. 'I just hate working for that sort of man. Not that he'd look twice at me,' she had added with a wry laugh.

  'Come back and sit down again,' he said now to Gemma, and she felt herself bristle at his dictatorial tone. He was a perfect illustration of the term 'male chauvinist'. 'There's something more to be said.'

  'Not by me,' she said shortly. She needed to get away from this man, who was having an unnerving effect on her. And she wanted to get back to Beth, who had been in a dreadful state when Gemma left the house earlier this morning.

  'No, by me,' he put in smoothly. 'Come along, don't be touchy just because I happen to have told you the truth about a few things.' He gripped her wrist and she found herself being helplessly impelled towards the chair she had just vacated. She sat there dithering with fury while he went round and seated himself opposite once again. How dared he—how dared he put his hands on her! Her wrist was tingling where his fingers had touched it. She would have got up and run out of the office, only she was afraid that her legs wouldn't carry her to the door.

  He leaned back in the worn leather chair and surveyed her in silence for so long that she felt like screaming. Then he said calmly, 'And what do you do for a living, Miss Lawson?'

  She glared back at him. 'Does that really concern you?'

  He pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'I don't know yet. It well might. Do you have any objection to telling me?'

  'All right, as you're so interested in me, I'm a typist.'

  'H'm.' A gleam that might have been amusement touched the cold grey eyes. 'Not a secretary? Most typists call themselves secretaries these days, I find.'

  'I'm a typist,' Gemma repeated firmly. She wasn't even a typist, actually, she hadn't yet quite finished her course at the secretarial college, but she wasn't going to tell this horrible man that.

  'And you have a job?'

  'I'm between jobs at present,' she improvised airily. 'I have one or two offers, but I haven't decided yet which to accept. Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr Durrant—' She put one hand on the desk to help to lever herself up, as her knees still felt distinctly odd.

  'Oh, for God's sake, girl, sit down and don't jump about like a puppet on a string!' he burst out irritably. 'That's what I want to talk to you about. If your sister is unwell, as you tell me, and not able to come to the office to work out her notice, I need to engage someone else. You strike me as a tolerably bright girl, and if you can spell, and type reasonably well, you might fill the bill and save me interviewing a string of probably hopeless applicants. In London I should have no trouble, but this town does not, I imagine, produce the cream of the secretarial market.' He smiled sourly. 'And as you may have gathered already, Miss Lawson, I'm not an easy man to work for. I don't tolerate fools gladly. I may be wrong, but I don't think you're a fool. And you would at least start out with no false ideas about me.'

  Gemma's blue eyes widened in horror. Work for this hateful—overbearing—unfeeling—brute? She'd rather join the queue at the unemployment office! Which was probably just what she would be doing when she finished her course in July. Jobs were not so easy to come by, she knew that, and particularly if you had no previous experience. A picture of the rates demand form—and the gas bill—and the electricity bill—appeared again before her eyes. Beth's redundancy payment would cover them, of course, but how much better if she could keep the money, however much it was, to set herself up in something new—something she would enjoy.

  Harn Durrant was watching her face closely. 'Your last job—shorthand and typing, was it?'

  'Audio-typing,' Gemma said. 'Most men, I find, prefer to use a dictating machine these days. It's so much quicker and more convenient.' She was quoting shamelessly from her tutor at college, who had advanced ideas. Most of the girls took shorthand courses, but Gemma had wanted to qualify in the shortest possible time and she had opted to concentrate on her typing.

  Harn Durrant seemed to approve of that. 'No problem, then. I prefer to use tape myself.' Again that sour smile. 'I haven't the time to spend admiring a girl's legs while she takes down my immortal words in shorthand.' He tapped his gold Biro on the desk and said briskly, 'Well then, Miss Lawson, what about it? Shall we give it a try for, say, one month?'

  Everything in Gemma wanted to yell, 'No— no—not in a million years would I work for you!' That would have been the most sensible thing to do. And yet—and yet—there was something about the man sitting on the other side of the desk, observing her with those strange grey eyes, that made her want to accept the challenge. She'd like to—to show him. What she wanted to show him she wasn't quite sure. Perhaps, she thought, it was her ridiculous compulsion to take up a challenge. It had got her into trouble before—even at school it was generally known that Gemma Lawson could be relied on to accept a dare. She should be forewarned now.

  But she heard herself say, 'But you don't know anything about me, Mr Durrant. Wouldn't you want to take up references?' That would finish it, of course, because there weren't any references. There hadn't been any job. In fact, she ha
d blithely concocted a lot of lies.

  He shook his head. 'Waste of time,' he said in a clipped voice. 'I don't rely on other people's opinions, I make up my own mind. But as a matter of interest, perhaps you will tell me why you left your last job.'

  It was horrid—one lie leads to another inevitably. 'I—I wanted to better my prospects,' she said. 'I wanted to be free to look for something more interesting.'

  He looked keenly at her for so long that she began to feel hollow inside. It was as if he could read her mind. But when he spoke he merely said, 'You consider yourself ambitious?'

  'Oh yes!' That was the truth at least. She was ambitious—partly for her own sake but even more for Beth's. She wanted to be able to repay Beth for all she had sacrificed over the years. Beth had given her everything, all through her childhood and schooldays. Everything—and love as well. Or perhaps principally love. Warmth ran through her as she thought of all Beth had done for her. Now, for the first time, Beth needed her help and she would do anything—anything, to ease the strain for her stepsister. That rates demand—

  'What would you be willing to pay me?' She met the grey eyes squarely.

  He looked amused. 'That's what I like to hear— a girl who isn't afraid to ask. You could hardly expect to start on the same salary that your sister has been getting, of course, but I would say—let me see—' He looked out of the window and then back at her, naming a sum that had Gemma blinking, while trying not to show her surprise. 'That, I think, is quite a good offer, Miss Lawson, as I would be taking you on trust. Of course, your salary would go up rapidly if you proved your worth to me. I take it you don't share your sister's horror of technology and would be willing to train on the word-processor?'