Elusive Obsession

by Carole Mortimer

  It was uncanny how the cat always knew she was going, even if she deliberately delayed packing until the very last moment. But after two years of being subjected to Puddle’s unique form of protest Diana had decided it had to be the Celt in him that knew; he was one of those rare things nowadays—a truly Manx cat, totally bereft of a tail. He was also clever, intuitive, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was the only companion Diana wanted in the large flat she had bought and decorated in her own particular style.

  All the floors in the two-bedroomed flat, one of which she had made into a studio for the painting she did as a hobby, were either tiled or wood-panelled, with brightly coloured scatter-rugs thrown at random over their surfaces; the furniture, what there was of it, was all white, as were the walls. As Diana walked through from the kitchen with a mug of coffee, leaving Puddle to finish his brunch, she was like a bright splash of colour in the otherwise austere surroundings, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt over the garish multi-coloured leggings.

  She dropped down on to one of the white bean-bags that lay about the room, relaxing back in its body-shaping comfort, letting all the tension of the day drain out of her as she sipped the strong coffee.

  It had been an uneventful flight back from Paris early that morning, with very few people recognising the tall woman with her hair pulled back into a tight bun at her nape, wearing the white business suit and white blouse beneath the jacket, as the glamorous model Divine. It was exactly the way she liked it to be.

  She enjoyed her work; she had really meant it when she had told Reece Falcon that if she didn’t enjoy modelling any more then she wouldn’t be doing it. She was thrilled that so many people liked the way she looked, how clothes looked on her. But that was the professional side of her life, and as Divine she accepted that, but as Diana Lamb she liked to keep her life very private indeed.

  But even if anyone had recognised her on the early flight this morning they had been too polite to bother her. No, her tension had reached a head-pounding pitch long before she even reached the airport. She hadn’t slept all night, had just been too tense, too haunted by memories, to be able even to think of relaxing enough to grab a few hours’ sleep. Reece Falcon’s presence in Paris had deeply disturbed her. As it was, she had packed and left the hotel long before she needed to, and had then sat around at the airport constantly looking over her shoulder in case Reece Falcon should already have realised she had gone and followed her there!

  He hadn’t, of course, but by the time she boarded the aircraft bound for Heathrow her tension had been such that she had almost leapt out of her seat when the air hostess approached her quietly from behind and asked if she would like a drink!

  Lying back in this bean-bag, her eyes closed, the coffee-mug now hanging limply from her fingers, she realised this was the first time she had relaxed in over twelve hours. Since that meeting with Reece Falcon. She could almost, almost…fall asleep…

  The strident ringing of the doorbell did little more than elicit a heartfelt groan of protest; she was too exhausted at that moment to do more than that.

  She knew who it was, of course. Christopher had wanted to be with her in Paris this last week, but his father had sent him off on business for him—deliberately, Diana now realised—to America. Diana had told him how busy she was going to be with the show—too busy to spend much time with him really, and so he had finally gone to America, protesting all the way, hence the arrival of those red roses from him every day they were apart. But Chris should have arrived back in England this morning too, and had no doubt come to see her now with the intention of repeating his marriage proposal.

  In spite of herself, she actually liked Chris. She certainly hadn’t wanted to, having considered before she met him that as Reece Falcon’s only child he was as much the enemy as his father was. But Chris was nothing like Reece Falcon; he was very easygoing by nature, and, taking after his American-born mother in looks, tall and blond, with the physique of an athlete. Even so, Diana had no intention of marrying him…!

  ‘Keep my seat warm, Puddle,’ she sighed wearily as she got up to answer the second ring of the doorbell, the now bulging cat instantly taking her place on the warm cushion.

  But the tired smile of welcome that curved her lips froze into something resembling a grimace as she opened the door to find it wasn’t Chris who stood there at all, but his father—Reece Falcon!

  Silver eyes glittered with mocking satisfaction as he saw the stunned expression she was too tired to mask, his mouth twisting derisively. ‘Breakfast.’ He held up the brown paper carrier-bag he held in one arm. ‘I told you we would have breakfast together.’

  And what he ‘told’ her he was going to do, he obviously did, Diana realised dazedly as he brushed past her into the flat, easily finding his way into her spacious kitchen—probably following the smell of coffee!—the sound of his whistling coming from there seconds later, accompanied by the rustling of the paper bag as he obviously unpacked its contents.

  She had seriously underestimated him over this, Diana now realised. She had thought that, once he discovered she had left the hotel before his arrival, he might just follow her to the airport; it had never occurred to her that he would follow her back to London!

  But it should have done, she now berated herself. Who better than she to know how arrogantly single-minded this man could be when he set his mind to it?

  By the time she followed him into the kitchen he had unpacked croissants, pastries and fruit into bowls and on to plates—a traditional French breakfast, in fact! This man didn’t do anything by halves, Diana acknowledged; he had told her he would be joining her for breakfast, and a true continental breakfast it was going to be. It might almost have come from France itself. In fact—he might just have done exactly that. Chris had told her his father flew around the world in his own jet; there was no reason why he shouldn’t have brought breakfast back from Paris with him this morning!

  ‘Ah, coffee.’ He picked up the pot Diana had made only minutes earlier, pouring them both a fresh mugful. ‘It’s good,’ he told her appreciatively after the first sip.

  Diana was still stunned into silence. This flat, with its simplicity of design, was her own private little haven. And this man had just invaded it without a qualm. Certainly without an invitation!

  ‘Drink up,’ he encouraged briskly as her mug of coffee remained untouched on the marble worktop. ‘And we’ll take the food through to the sitting-room.’ He easily balanced the plates in the expansive strength of his hands. ‘I had a brief glimpse of that room on the way in here; I’d like to have a closer look,’ he added almost to himself, striding out of the kitchen with sure steps.

  Once again Diana followed him dazedly, feeling as if she were following in the wake of a tidal wave!

  He was dressed totally in black today, in a loose short-sleeved shirt with black fitted trousers that drew attention to the lean length of his legs. He looked every one of his thirty-nine years, lines of experience beside his eyes and mouth, and yet at the same time he possessed a dangerous magnetism that made age irrelevant.

  ‘Puddle,’ Diana finally managed to say weakly as Reece put the laden plates down on the rug in front of the bean-bags.

  He looked up at her with raised brows. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘The cat,’ she explained a little impatiently, feeling as if she were being treated—and for the most part, acting, she freely admitted—like an idiot.

  But once again his unexpected appearance had thrown her completely; it was the only excuse she could give herself for her lack of force, for allowing him to invade her home in the way he had. But her strength had always been of a different kind than force. It was only now, when faced with Reece Falcon himself, that she realised how ineffective that might be in dealing with him!

  * * *

  Gobsmacked.

  Not very grammatical. Certainly not very delicately put. And it certainly wasn’t a turn of phrase Reece could ever remember using before. But it so p
erfectly described how the Divine Diana had looked when she first opened the door and found him standing on the other side of it!

  And she wasn’t faring much better now either, burbling on about Puddle being the name of the cat that lay stretched out on one of the bean-bags. He didn’t get the relevance of the introduction of the cat into the conversation at all. Unless she thought perhaps he didn’t like them, or was allergic to them? As it happened he liked cats, approved of their detached independence from the people who thought they owned them; he respected their intelligence. He had never been able to appreciate hearing a woman being called a cat; he had never yet met any woman who portrayed anything like their majestic aloofness—not and actually meant it, that was!

  And yet…

  He studied Diana as she stood a short distance away from him. He knew a little more about her now, having called his assistant, Paul, once he had realised Diana had left Paris early this morning without seeing him, instructing the other man to have any information he could find concerning the model Divine available to him once he reached London. It hadn’t even occurred to him that it wouldn’t be; Paul was as efficient as he was highly paid, and only Reece knew he was the highest paid in the business.

  Paul had two files waiting for him, one on the professional model Divine, the other one a personal file on Diana Lamb. Reece had been surprised at the briefness of the latter, barely three sheets of paper long, whereas the professional file was so thick with photographs and newspaper articles about her work that it had to be put on a desk to be read.

  There had been hundreds—no, thousands—of photographs in this second file of the lovely Divine, of the model wearing everything and nothing——No, never really nothing. The beautiful Divine had never been that sort of model, and, while Reece had been able to see the golden perfection of her body in minuscule swimwear, her nakedness had remained tantalisingly elusive. He had found those provocative photographs so much more erotic to look at than complete nudity could ever have been.

  The personal file on Diana Lamb, for different reasons, had been just as frustrating. There was no childhood history at all, but, as this wasn’t the part of Diana’s life he was interested in, that hadn’t disturbed him unduly. He might be able to find something in her background with which to hit Chris if the couple persisted with their relationship, but for the moment it wasn’t too important.

  The adult Diana Lamb, it appeared, led a very quiet life, no high-profile romances—he had asked Paul to check into there being any low-profile ones—no scandals either, just a calm, uncluttered life that didn’t include family, and not too many friends either, friendship with this woman seeming to be an exclusive club not too many people were admitted to.

  And yet Chris, his wayward, frivolously irresponsible son, had been allowed into that select club. That fact, for reasons he wasn’t yet sure of, irritated the hell out of Reece.

  And so the information Paul had managed to gather together about this woman, hastily as it had been done, didn’t really tell him much more than he already knew: the model Divine was one of the highest paid in the business, while Diana Lamb was an extremely elusive woman.

  ‘Puddle likes bread and cakes,’ she impatiently explained her earlier warning about the cat now.

  Reece turned to look down at the cat as it stretched before getting lazily to its feet. ‘Stay!’ he instructed softly, silver gaze meeting lime-green in a silent battle of wills.

  The cat was the first to look away, falling back down on the big bean-bag before curling up and going back to sleep, looking for all the world as if he had never had any interest in the food so temptingly laid out before him.

  Now if only he could elicit the cat owner’s co-operation in the same way he might be in business!

  As it was, Diana gave the sleeping cat a look that told it exactly what she thought of its disloyalty, before sitting down gingerly on the edge of the same big cushion.

  Reece thought she looked even younger today without the heavy make-up she had been wearing the evening before for the show. In fact, she didn’t look as if she was wearing any make-up at all today. And he could tell by the way the T-shirt reached baggily to her mid-thighs that she hadn’t worn the body-hugging leggings for effect but for comfort.

  If anything she looked even more beautiful today, that vulnerability he had sensed in her yesterday even more apparent, although, strangely enough, so was that inner strength he had been aware of too. She really was the most unusual woman he had ever met!

  ‘Eat,’ he instructed harshly, disturbed at the force of his growing attraction for the young woman he had only met at all because he wanted to evict her from his son’s life. He certainly hadn’t meant for her to take up residence in his own ordered life instead!

  She met his gaze coldly. ‘I’m not the cat!’

  His mouth twisted derisively at the way it so obviously rankled with her that her cat had obeyed him instantly. It was just a rapport he seemed to have with felines, was certainly nothing personal. Although it relieved his own tension to know this woman hadn’t liked it one little bit.

  ‘You’re far too skinny.’ He was deliberately insulting, enjoying the responses he was getting from her now much more than the careful control he had encountered from her the night before. Obviously catching this young woman off-guard was the key to success where she was concerned.

  She sat cross-legged on the cushion now, unselfconsciously alluring, a slight smile curving her lips as she shook her head. ‘I’m an inch off being six feet tall, and an English size eight.’

  He knew all that from her professional file, also that she had a body weight of only one hundred and thirty pounds, dark green eyes surrounded by sooty lashes, and waist-length hair that the Press seemed to describe as honey-coloured.

  But away from the spotlights, her face youthfully free of make-up, the high prominence of her cheekbones seemed even more apparent, the line of her jaw sharper, the creamy length of her throat taking on a new fragility. And Reece was sure that, beneath the voluminous folds of that bright yellow T-shirt, the curves of her body would take on a more pronounced slenderness too.

  For goodness’ sake, he had come here to get her out of Chris’s life, not concern himself with whether, because of her chosen career and the demands it made on her, she ate enough!

  * * *

  What was this man up to now? Why didn’t he just get to the point of his visit and get it over with, because they both knew the only reason he was here talking to her at all was because of Chris. Or was this all part of his game-plan—lure her into a false sense of security, and then hit her straight between the eyes with his demand that she get out of Chris’s life?

  He sat back on his heels, eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘How much do you want to leave Chris alone?’ he rasped harshly.

  Ah. He was back on territory she understood now. But he didn’t understand at all, because it wasn’t ‘how much’ she wanted at all; it was something so much more than that.

  Neither of them was at all interested in the array of food, and Puddle, opening one eye and seeing their indifference, decided it was all fair game, getting up slowly to pad over to the rug—and delicately help himself to a particularly succulent-looking pastry!

  Because, like her, Diana was sure, the cat had known of Reece Falcon’s lapse of control—an unfamiliar feeling for him. But she had guessed from the first that, where other things might fail to hit this man where it hurt, his son Christopher was definitely his Achilles’ heel!

  The silver gaze flickered only briefly over the disobedient cat as it slunk off into a corner to enjoy its loot, although Diana was sure the slight had clearly registered with this arrogant man.

  ‘I said, how much?’ he repeated coldly.

  Diana eyed him pityingly. ‘I’ve told you before, money doesn’t interest me,’ she said with obvious disgust for the crudity of the suggestion that it did. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t appear so to you, because I choose to live quietly, and because of the mo
dest circumstances of this flat, but I’m a very wealthy woman in my own right because of my career.’ Her years as a top model had been good ones, and she could now command thousands of pounds for just a day’s work. She didn’t need money from this man—she had enough to live in comfort for the rest of her life even if she should never work again. And at only twenty-one years of age, by anyone’s standards, that was no mean achievement. Not that she was even considering retiring from the job she loved so much, but it was nevertheless, after years of hardship, gratifying to be secure in her own wealth.

  ‘No one ever has enough money,’ Reece Falcon rasped with contempt for the subject.

  Only the very rich, who had never known any other way of life, could afford to be this arrogant. Reece Falcon had certainly never known what it was to want just enough money that you didn’t have to be beholden to someone else for even the clothes you wore!

  ‘I said I don’t want your money, Mr Falcon,’ she told him in a carefully controlled voice. She wouldn’t touch his money. Not one single penny of the Falcon millions—tainted as it was with the blood and suffering of others. No, she didn’t want any part of Reece Falcon’s money.

  His mouth thinned, dark brows raised in mocking scorn. ‘Then what do you want, Diana? Chris?’ he derided disbelievingly. ‘A boy of twenty, who can’t even begin to match your inner maturity?’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe, knowing Chris as I do, that he can even begin to satisfy the needs of a woman like you.’

  She knew he was being deliberately insulting, and yet she felt the colour drain from her cheeks anyway. ‘Needs…?’ she repeated harshly. ‘I don’t——’

  ‘Oh, but I’m sure you do, Diana.’ Suddenly Reece Falcon was very close to her on the gaily coloured scatter-rug in front of the bean-bag she sat on. ‘I think you know exactly what I mean by “needs”.’ He was so close now that his breath stirred the hair at her temple.