She found him alone in his office, but immediately she stepped inside he took the wind completely out of her sails with an astonishing greeting.
'Ah, Catriona! I'm pleased you've finished your work in time for me to show you to your cabin before I make my way to the mess hall for dinner. Leon's busy at the moment,' he told her, his expression wooden, 'but he's asked me to pass on the message that you're to choose whichever bunk you find most comfortable as he can sleep equally well in the upper or lower berth.'
If a clenched fist had landed against her solar plexus she could not have been more winded. Embarrassment ran molten hot through her veins as she stared at Geoff, every puzzling question answered by his obvious effort to maintain an expression of studied indifference. Her lips parted to utter an immediate protest, to state plainly and unequivocally that she had no intention of sharing a cabin with any man, much less her boss-cum-temporary fiancé, but even as the first hot word scorched the tip of her tongue realisation struck, fusing her lips into silence.
Her refusal to accept conditions aboard the platform was the whole object of Leon's exercise! The tool with which he hoped to prise her out of her job without fear of any backlash from head office, or the inconvenience of having to spare time for the legal formalities that were bound to follow hard on the heels of any protest she might make to the appropriate authorities on the grounds of unfair dismissal.
' Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look:
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.'
How aptly the quotation fitted the lean, revenge-hungry boss of Lion Oil Incorporated!
Feeling lightheaded as a climber saved by pure instinct from falling into a hidden abyss, Catriona expelled a shuddering breath and took a second or two to quell her rioting senses.
'Thank you, Geoff, I'll be glad to retire to my cabin. As I'm feeling very tired and not at all hungry, would you mind conveying my excuses for not turning up for dinner?'
Although to her own ears, her emotionless words had sounded very far off, their effect upon Geoff was dramatic. 'Look here, Catriona,' he glared, striding round his desk towards her, 'I can't go along with this farce a moment longer! I know Leon is capable of holding you to your word, of forcing you to endure the limitations of a male-orientated society, but I refuse to believe you're the very liberated lady you're pretending to be. On the contrary,' he snorted angrily, 'just like my wilful, bra-waving daughters, you're hiding behind a front of bravado! Let me tell Leon, on your behalf, to go to hell, Catriona,' he urged. 'I can't think of any errand that would give me greater pleasure!'
Consoled by his bluff show of concern, she wavered, but when an image of her aunt's wrinkled face flashed into her mind's eye she squared her shoulders.
'Thank you for feeling concerned about me, Geoff, but there's a very good reason why the situation must be allowed to stand,' she declined gently. 'Please don't interfere, I know that basically you and Leon share a very deep bond—I should hate to be the cause of a rift between such good friends.'
To her relief Geoff accepted her decision without further argument. After guiding her wordlessly through a labyrinth of passageways he stopped eventually outside the door of a cabin situated as far away as possible from the noise of heavy machinery penetrating even to the heart of the platform as a low, vibrating grumbling.
'This is Leon's cabin, earmarked for his own personal use,' he informed her gruffly, swinging the unlocked door wide. 'I'm sorry I can't offer you a key—there are two, but Leon has them both. However, you'll find my number on the pad next to the telephone. If you want me for any reason don't hesitate to dial.'
When he left her inside a spartan room just large enough to accommodate two bunks, an easy chair, a small table, and a wardrobe fitted into a narrow recess, the headache that had begun as a niggle while she was typing accelerated into a dull, throbbing ache against her temples. Wearily she dropped on to the lower bunk and stretched supine, intending to remain there just long enough for her headache to subside. But as she listened to the dull throbbing that reverberated twenty-four hours a day throughout the platform her eyelids grew heavier and heavier until finally all sounds faded.
'Kate, wake up!'
When the imperious command penetrated her slumber she opened her eyes and twisted round to stare dazedly at an unfamiliar lamp; cream-painted walls, strangely-patterned curtains and bedspread. Then when a patch of shadow moved she jerked upright to stare with startled green eyes into the smiling face of the company boss. The rude awakening could not have left her more unprepared, less able to cope with a traumatic, potentially dangerous situation.
He was sitting on the side of her bunk, leaning so close she could have stretched out a hand and traced every line of mocking humour playing around his lips. Given no time to gather her scattered thoughts, she betrayed her vulnerability with a rush of hot, fiery colour.
'Why the guilty blush, Kate?' he murmured, stroking a possessive hand along the curve of her cheek. 'True innocence is ashamed of nothing.'
She stiffened with alarm when, deliberately audacious, he slid a stroking caress along her slender neck, down past her shirt collar, then began exploring the hidden silkiness of her shoulder. Numbed with shock, she tried to jerk away, but was trapped when he began exerting pressure upon her shoulder, pressing her back against the pillows. Then deliberately, and with a coolness that increased her shame, he plucked free the small, strategically placed button holding together both edges of the shirt strained tightly across her breasts.
'I've waited all day for that damned button to pop,' he confessed with a low growl of laughter, casting an amber-bright gaze of appreciation over exposed curves pulsating madly, gleaming pale and tender as innocence.
'Have you gone completely mad?' she croaked through a throat tight with fear when his head, with its mane of burnished hair, began lowering purposefully towards her. He hesitated, his lips twisted cynically.
'Aren't I reacting exactly as you expected exactly as you planned?' he smouldered. 'I never withhold praise that's due; you planned your campaign like a general, Kate, one possessing a thorough grasp of psychology, the knowledge of how a show of indifference, a slow advance followed by a quick retreat can confuse the enemy. But I think I've cracked the code,' he smiled coldly. 'First comes the freeze, then the slow thaw, next the blatant come-on, and the quick retreat before the cycle begins all over again. According to my reckoning we ought by now to have reached the most interesting stage of your strategy.'
Giving her no time to gasp an amazed denial, his lips swooped down upon hers, thirsty as a traveller in the desert; ravenous as a prisoner denied food, lustful as any virile buccaneer kept too long at sea, too long deprived of feminine solace.
Using white-hot anger as her main weapon, Catriona fought like a she-cat to escape from blistering kisses that ought to have repelled yet somehow managed to ignite shy, unawakened emotions to a pitch of sensuous arousal.
But determined as the king of beasts famed throughout the jungle for commanding looks, majestic manner, and virile reputation, Leon responded to her puny show of resistance with a throaty purr of pleasure, treating her writhing rejection as part of the mating game, the rolling, clawing, sensuous preliminary practised by nympho females intent upon teasing a mate's heat to fever pitch.
Her protests had been smothered to a despairing sigh, her defiant body caressed into a state of quivering acquiescence when the intense atmosphere filled with the racing throb of hearts beating in unison, heavy with an aura of intense inevitability, was shattered by the shrill demanding summons of the telephone.
Immediately, Leon's sinewed shoulders stiffened beneath her fretful hands and a savage curse ripped from lips sweetened by a first sip of shy, tentative response. He tried to ignore it, but when the piercing shrill was joined by the far-off wailing of a klaxon he responded by jerking angrily aside to grab the received from its cradle.
'What is it? Didn't you receive instructions that I w
as not to be disturbed?'
'Yes, Leon,' Geoff's calm response was clearly audible, 'but we're on yellow alert.'
Leon snapped to attention. 'Very well, I'll be with you in a couple of minutes—I'll come straight down to the radio room!'
Catriona could not help wondering whether their passionate interlude had been no more than mere fantasy as she lay in a dishevelled, breathless heap staring at the man who barely cast her a glance as he strode towards the door. However, something about her still, distraught figure must have impinged upon his conscience, for he paused just long enough to toss across his shoulder,
'A yellow alert means that there's something out of line that must be investigated immediately in order to avoid a shutdown. It's probably nothing serious, in which case we'll go over to green status and I'll be back very shortly.'
When the door slammed shut behind him she remained numbly staring, feeling cheapened as a chattel by the man whose flow of passion could be stemmed as quickly and easily as oil gushing from underground wells. Then her tear-filled eyes caught the glint of some small shiny object dangling from a chain attached to the lock.
The keys! Without them Leon could not get back into the cabin!
Uttering a cry of thankfulness, she scrambled from the bunk and ran to lock the door.
CHAPTER NINE
IT was a calm, clear morning with hardly a ripple disturbing the surface of deep green sea nor a breath of wind to spoil the accuracy of gannets practising high dives, lazily wheeling and soaring, yet constantly alert for the flash of a silver fin.
Catriona waved and forced her stiff lips into the semblance of a smile as the helicopter engine roared into deafening life and Geoff's burly figure, braced to withstand the force of a powerful air-stream, began receding, then disappeared completely when the craft soared upwards to attain correct flying altitude. Thankful that the noise of rotor blades made normal conversation impossible, she leant back in her seat, keeping her eyes averted from a profile she knew was etched deep with the displeasure of a male who, because he felt cheated, was not disposed to hide his ill humour.
She had no idea whether he had slept or even where he had spent the night, for, in a cowardly attempt to avoid confrontation until the very last moment, she had skipped breakfast and skulked in her cabin until Geoff's cheery voice had persuaded her to unlock the door.
'I've brought you some sandwiches,' he had grinned as he had stepped across the threshold. 'If memory serves me correctly, you've had nothing to eat since lunchtime yesterday.'
Making no show of reluctance, she had accepted them eagerly.
'Thank you, Geoff.' Quickly she had disposed of the plastic wrapping. 'You're an absolute angel!'
'I almost became one last night,' he had twinkled, watching her munching greedily. 'At least, I was cursed to hell and back by your very irate fiancé,'
'You were? But why?' she had puzzled.
With an expression of bland innocence completely at odds with a twinkle of devilry, Geoff had confessed, 'I'm afraid I jumped the gun rather by setting the platform on yellow alert. The cause of the alarm turned out to be nothing more serious than exhaust fumes in one of the turbines, consequently we were back to green status by the time Leon reached the radio room. Never before have I seen him react so badly to having his rest disturbed,' he had confided with such an air of contrived bewilderment she had realised immediately—as Leon obviously had— that the alarm had been deliberately raised, the entire platform disrupted, solely for her benefit! She had stared, stricken dumb with gratitude, moved almost to tears by the first fatherly act of concern she had ever experienced, then because words would have been inadequate she had surprised him by flinging her arms around his neck and standing on tiptoe to express her gratitude with a shy kiss. Unfortunately, Leon had chosen that precise moment to make his appearance!
The flight was accomplished in record time. The moment the craft was grounded she made a hurried descent, then darted across the tarmac intending to make her escape. But after a few yards of freedom she was captured, jolted to a standstill by a painful grip upon her elbow.
'I'll drive you home,' Leon growled, towering vengeful as a predator robbed of his spoils.
'Don't bother,' she declined hastily, trying to shake off his hand. 'I'll walk to the kirk to meet Aunt Hanna, she gets a lift there and back each Sunday morning.'
Ignoring her protest, he guided her towards the car park where his enormous silver-coloured Range Rover that would have looked more at home transporting parka-clad oilmen across frozen Alaskan wastes stood glistening in the pale morning sunshine. Not until he had helped her into the passenger seat perched high above the ground did he release his grip upon her elbow in order to swing himself behind the steering wheel and set a mighty lever into first gear. The way in which the car lurched around a corner of the airport building, the deafening roar being forced from an accelerator that needed a mere touch of extra pressure to scale the highest sand dunes, were ample indication of his impatient, savagely resentful mood.
Catriona's fears were proved well founded when after half an hour's driving along the deserted road leading towards her home, he braked and ran the car into a layby poised on top of jagged cliffs, tumbling downward to a narrow, sea-creamed voe.
'Now,' he clenched, engaging the handbrake with a violence that caused her a jolt of alarm, 'would you mind explaining why you locked me out of my cabin last night?'
Urging herself to remain calm in the face of seething anger, she aimed to achieve a steady, reasonable tone. 'Must I really outline the obvious—or is it a case of a shocking incident ceasing to become shocking when it becomes a familiar activity?'
'Shocking incident? Last night, d'you mean…?' His hoot of derisive laughter was confirmation, if she had needed it, that any attempt to impose moral judgment upon such a man would be as punitive as trying to slap a bridle on a creature of the wilds.
'Come now, Kate,' he jeered, with mockery curling his lips, 'you'll be telling me next that your aunt wasn't joking when she bracketed you with Victorian maidens who wore bonnets with ribbons tied beneath the chin, who linked chastity with modesty and tried to cultivate an illusion that, like cherubs, no body existed from the neck downwards!'
Resentful of being made to feel a figure of fun, she countered stiffly, 'Obviously you've strayed well out of your accustomed territory. Here in Shetland, chastity has not yet become outmoded.'
Oblivious to her urge to smack his taunting face, he continued to aggravate. 'But you cut free from social taboos and religious intolerance and chose instead to live in the more modern, free-thinking atmosphere that's made university halls of residence notorious. Was it there that you learnt the art of seduction,' he mused, inching closer, 'how to wear skin-tight denims over slinky hips and shirts two sizes too small that show a tantalising amount of cleavage? You baited the trap with all the traditional titbits of desirability, Kate, which is why I find it hard to understand your adverse reaction, your implication that I'd misread your signals. In my book, any desirable female willing to venture unchaperoned into a tribe of lusty males must be up for grabs!'
Goaded beyond the bounds of discretion, she snapped, 'How was I to know that your favourite choice of reading is The Jungle Book!' Fighting a weakness that swamped her when his hovering lips teased a short breath nearer, she croaked, 'One of the theories I learnt while working as secretary to a professor of psychology is that behaviour is determined not so much by an individual's own personality as by the standards and expectations of the society in which he has lived. Beasts are more to be pitied than condemned,' she charged bitterly, 'for beasts can't reason, they're entirely motivated by impulses and urges to seek pleasure in sensual, unrestrained and totally uncivilised activities!'
When his head snapped back she felt pierced by eyes glinting hard amber resentment of the insult. Instinctively she shrank from his aggressive attitude, casting the same look of appeal as a cornered, timid animal offering its th
roat to an adversary. For a second Leon seemed certain to decide upon the death stroke, but then his ferocious look faded and with it his threat of retaliation.
'Until I met you, Kate, I thought I knew what little a man needs to know about women,' he admitted softly, 'but you're such a confusing mixture of childish innocent and seductive sinner that I never know quite where I am with you -which is why, for a little while longer, I've decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Meanwhile, don't push your luck too far,' he glinted dangerously. 'Forget your impossible theories about equality of the sexes and dwell instead upon their differences. Millions of years ago Nature cast man in the tough, dominant mould of a hunter born to provide. Then she designed woman as his mate, making her soft, shapely, and appealing so as to ensure that the human race would survive. Nature's command must be obeyed, Kate,' he murmured, leaning to stroke a featherlight kiss across downcast lids. 'Your basic instincts haven't changed nor have mine!'
When his lips swooped to plunder she willed her tremulous mouth to freeze, her traitorous body to resist passionate caresses it had been taught to crave. Impassive as a statue she lay in his arms, green eyes seething with resentment behind a barrier of lowered lashes, her Viking pride outraged at the thought of being considered gullible enough to be duped by a line so well used the words had dripped from his lips like molten honey.
With only one of his arguments she had no dispute. He was a hunter, one whose pride had been piqued, whose curiosity had been aroused by the only prey that had managed to elude his net. If stage one of his plan had worked he would not have hesitated to send her packing; if she had succumbed to stage two he would have waved her goodbye at the airport, delegating her to the ranks of the numerous other unfortunates who had been beguiled, bewildered and finally bowled over by his virile, audacious seduction. But because she had resisted, had defeated him at every turn, his conceit would not be satisfied until victory had been won.
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