by Susan Napier
‘And yet…here you are,’ he said in a neutral tone that was at odds with his smouldering eyes. ‘Should I have asked someone about you?’
A rueful smile revealed Nora’s disproportionately wide mouth and splendid teeth. ‘It wouldn’t have done you much good. I hardly know anyone in this crowd. I only got invited because I used to flat with the sister of the girl who’s turning twenty-one.’ Her eyes were almost on a level with his and it gave her a powerful kick to look directly into the windows of his deep, dark soul. ‘I’m Nora.’
His impressive eyebrows lifted. ‘Just Nora?’
‘Eleanor, actually, but no one calls me that,’ she breezed. No one except Ryan when he was impatient with her—grinding up the syllables in his gritted teeth!
Blake was silent, and she realised that he wasn’t going to let her get away with the evasion. So much for hoping that she could cloak herself in alluring mystery for the evening.
‘Lang. Nora Lang,’ she said, adopting a flippant Bondian drawl. ‘Does that make you any the wiser?’
He dipped his head, acknowledging the introduction. ‘Not wiser, but certainly better informed. I always try to make informed decisions.’
‘How boring,’ she teased. ‘Don’t you like surprises?’
‘It depends on the nature of the surprise,’ he said, deliberately running his eyes over her captive body.
She felt her skin tighten in every pore. ‘Are you always so cautious?’
‘It depends on the nature of the threat.’
The verbal fencing was having a heady effect on Nora’s battered self-confidence. ‘Do I threaten you, Mr MacLeod?’ she asked with a sweet smile.
‘The idea seems to excite you.’
She felt a sluggish warmth move through her veins. ‘I’ll admit it has a certain raw appeal…’
‘It’s an interesting proposition, Nora, but I’m afraid I’m not into S&M.’
She blushed, not pink, but a vivid rose-red. ‘I wasn’t—I didn’t mean that!’
‘No? Sorry, I must have misunderstood,’ he said with such patent insincerity that they both knew he was lying, and mightily enjoying her confusion.
‘I’m not into anything weird!’ she said firmly.
‘How about mildly kinky?’
She thought of Ryan and Kelly in the bathroom. In the bath of all places, in the middle of the afternoon. Nora’s bath! Boring, undemanding, unadventurous Nora who obviously didn’t know what she was missing….
‘Define kinky.’
He laughed, a deep masculine rumble of appreciation. ‘Now who’s being cautious?’
‘A woman alone has to take care not to raise expectations she’s not prepared to fulfil,’ she said primly.
‘You’re here alone?’ In spite of the upward inflexion it was more of a statement than a question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I watched you as you came in,’ he admitted unexpectedly.
‘Did you?’ Her smile widened for an instant before she remembered her ignominious entrance. ‘Oh. And I suppose now you think I ricochet about the place like some sort of unguided missile,’ she said with a sigh.
His fingers briefly contracted on her ribcage. ‘Or perhaps a cleverly guided one.’
‘Are you accusing me of dropping my bag at your feet on purpose, in order to meet you?’ she demanded, clenching her fists against his chest.
‘Did you?’
She tipped her chin and looked down her nose at him. ‘That is so arrogant! Do you consider yourself so irresistibly attractive that you automatically assume that every woman is grovelling to attract your attention?’
His mouth ticked up at her haughty response. ‘Well, not every woman. Did you?’
‘No, of course I didn’t!’
Then she recalled her chaotic thoughts in the moments before she had turned coward. ‘Well…’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she struggled with her over-scrupulous conscience. ‘Maybe I might have been thinking of a way to introduce myself, but…no, I wouldn’t have—certainly not consciously, anyway…’
His eyes were on that tell-tale worrying of her lip. ‘You mean it was in the nature of a Freudian drop?’ he said, with such suspicious blandness that her fists relaxed against his chest.
‘Is that any different from a Freudian slip?’ she asked, discreetly smoothing out a small crease she had made in his yellow silk tie.
‘It’s generally more revealing,’ he told her, and paused before adding, ‘Rather like that dress.’
She followed his gaze and uttered a stifled sound of annoyance when she saw that the embroidered edge of her black bra was still visible above the top of her dress. He beat her to the rescue, the backs of his fingers branding her with their searing warmth as they dipped beneath the fabric at the side of her breasts to gently hitch up her top by several freckles.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered, her hands automatically replacing his as he stepped back, leaving her bereft of his disturbing touch. She wriggled even more securely into the dress while he turned to pick up his neglected drink. ‘I wish I’d never worn the wretched thing,’ she grumbled. ‘I knew it wasn’t right for me.’
Unfortunately she’d had no choice since it was what she had been wearing when she had fled the flat. She had been trying on her dress and accessories when she had heard odd noises from the bathroom. Believing Kelly was out on a modelling job, she had snatched up a heavy lamp with which to clock the intruder if he turned nasty. In hindsight, she wished she had used it!
To Nora’s chagrin Blake didn’t disagree. He tucked her bag in the crook of her elbow and placed her wineglass in her hand. ‘So why wear it?’
He had manoeuvred her to one side of a support pillar, his back to the room, discouraging anyone else from joining the conversation.
‘It was a gift from a friend. He advised me that something black and strapless would make even me look elegant.’
‘Some friend.’ His sardonic drawl made Nora’s eyes light up with militant agreement.
‘Former friend,’ she corrected him with savage relish.
‘Personally, I think the shoes were the better buy,’ he said.
‘The dress was terribly pricy,’ she murmured, with a twinge of guilt.
He shrugged. ‘So were the outrageously sexy shoes, but they’re a work of art in themselves.’
Outrageously sexy? Little thrills ran up and down her spine.
‘How do you know what they cost?’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Nora cursed the foolish naivety of her question. As a wealthy man he was probably used to paying his lovers’ bills—and to making sure he got full value for his money!
His wicked smile suggested he had read her mind. ‘Because they have a famous Italian name stamped on the sole…and you’re still wearing the price tag.’ He bent down and laced his fingers around her left ankle, lifting her foot and peeling something off the delicate sole of her shoe. Although she automatically gripped his shoulder for balance, he had acted so swiftly that he had replaced her foot firmly on the ground before she had a chance to wobble. ‘I noticed it when we were kneeling down.’
Ignoring the lingering warmth in her tingling ankle, Nora stared at the small adhesive-backed paper square he had pressed on to the back of her hand.
‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed, aghast.
‘Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone would class it as a major social gaffe—’ he began in amusement.
‘My God, this can’t be the price!’ Nora continued in an outraged whisper. ‘This is wrong—it has to be a stock number or something. I can’t have paid that for a pair of shoes! I wouldn’t have! It’s indecent!’
‘Maybe they were on sale,’ he murmured, watching her dusting of freckles glow vivid ginger against her blanched skin.
‘Expensive hotel boutiques target high-rolling tourists—they don’t have sales,’ she said hollowly. She blinked her thickly mascaraed eyelashes, trying in vain to make the dollar sign in front of the figures go away. ‘I don’t
believe it—they cost almost twice as much as the dress did!’ She heaved a sigh, screwing up the price sticker until it was a tiny hard pellet and flicking it away.
‘How much did you think they cost?’ he asked curiously.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t care. I was in such a temper I didn’t even look at the price,’ she admitted, closing her eyes as she frantically tried to remember what else she had put on her credit card this month.
‘A temper?’
‘Mmm?’ Her eyes flew open and she became enmeshed in his intently curious gaze. Had he noticed that her eyelids were slightly pink and puffy under their lavish powdering of green shadow and gold glitter? She didn’t want him to think she was a pathetic weepy female. ‘Oh…’ She gestured vaguely with her glass and delivered the understatement of all time. ‘I was upset about something that happened earlier.’
‘And when you’re upset, you shop?’
‘God, no. I hate shopping…for clothes, anyway.’ She shuddered. ‘All that standing around, staring at yourself. And I certainly don’t get paid enough to buy shoes like this every time I lose my temper!’
‘What kind of work do you do?’ he asked, propping his arm against the narrow pillar, his wrist skimming the curve of her bare shoulder.
‘I help people fix problems with their computers,’ she said, deliberately down-playing her skill. She was all too familiar with the glaze that appeared on people’s faces when she started talking about her job.
‘Here in the city?’
‘Our offices are just a few blocks away.’ She didn’t want to talk about Maitlands. Or even think about how she was going to cope with the strain of working in the same office as Ryan—and Kelly—after tonight. ‘This is the first time I’ve been up the Sky Tower, though. Have you been here before?’
‘I bring international clients to the restaurant and casino quite regularly. PresCorp has a permanent suite at the hotel. It’s also useful for occasions like this, when my workload is so heavy that I don’t want to waste time commuting.’
Prickles danced across her skin. ‘You’re staying here at the hotel?’ she blurted huskily. He gave her a speculative look and she fought down a blush. ‘Wouldn’t a serviced apartment be more cost effective for the company?’ she hastened to say.
‘Even luxury apartments don’t come with twenty-four-hour room service—’ He stopped as she suddenly stiffened, the colour draining from her face. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘No—yes.’ She ducked her head below the level of his shoulders, burying her nose in her drink. ‘I just realised that I’m famished. I wonder when they’re going to serve some proper food.’
‘Not for some time yet.’ He tilted his wrist so that she could see the face of his steel Rolex. ‘Supper at ten-thirty p.m., the invitation said—and there’ll be speeches to get through first. Didn’t you eat before you came?’
She recalled throwing up in a rainy gutter somewhere, retching her heart out while the tears streamed down her face.
‘I wasn’t in the mood.’
‘There’re plenty of nibbles going around. Would you like me to get us some?’ He dropped his arm and began to turn.
‘No! Don’t go!’ She clutched at his jacket, her eyes sliding past him.
‘I was only going to signal a waiter.’ He looked down at her fixed expression, noting the way she had edged around to keep his body between herself and the room, while still keeping whatever was holding her attention in view. ‘Someone you didn’t expect to see tonight?’ he asked shrewdly.
Someone she would be happy never to see again!
With growing outrage, Nora watched Ryan working the room as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He had been enormously pleased at the prospect of mixing with some of the city’s leading citizens, but he had only received an invitation to the party because he was her partner. He certainly knew how to market himself, she’d give him that, but now that the scales had fallen from her eyes she could see him for what he was: a noxious little opportunist!
CHAPTER THREE
‘LET me guess…the former friend who mistakes fashion for style?’ Blake MacLeod murmured, tracking her gaze.
Nora felt a spurt of spiteful amusement as she turned her eyes squarely back to her companion and his impeccably understated elegance.
‘His name is Ryan.’
‘Is he important?’ The supercilious tilt of his eyebrows was a masterly put-down.
Nora smiled brilliantly. ‘Not anymore.’
She raised her glass to her lips and was dismayed to see her hand tremble.
It was too much to hope for that the sharp-eyed man she was with wouldn’t notice it, too. His eyes flickered down the slender length of her arm and his face turned to stone. ‘Are you afraid of him?’ he asked quietly.
‘Ryan? No, of course not!’ she scorned. He had already done his worst and she had survived.
‘Did he beat you?’
‘Only at squash—I always creamed him at chess and Scrabble!’ she replied flippantly.
His expression remained guarded. ‘Then how did you get these?’ he said, lightly touching his fingertips to the fresh bruises on the inside of her forearm, blotchy shadows blooming through the smooth, translucent skin.
The tiny sizzle that accompanied his touch made her senses scatter. ‘What? Oh…I banged my arm against a doorknob at home this afternoon,’ she recalled reluctantly. It had been the bathroom door she had been backing out of—her eyes screwed shut against the sight of the guilty pair in the bathtub, scrabbling to separate themselves. The sharp jolt of physical pain in her arm had been a welcome distraction from the agony of her disillusionment as Ryan had followed her, dragging a towel around his hips, blustering in self-defensive anger, turning the blame for his behaviour back on to Nora.
‘You walked into a door?’ Blake said with blunt scepticism. ‘Do you realise what a stereotypical answer that is?’
Her eyes widened as she realised that he was seriously concerned that she might be a battered woman. ‘But I really did,’ she protested. ‘I would never let a man get away with being abusive towards me.’
‘I thought they looked like fingermarks,’ he murmured, aligning his fingers over the blue-brown smudges.
‘Well, they’re not. I have very sensitive skin. Bruises always show up quickly, looking worse than they are.’
The sight of his lean tanned fingers lying against her skin made her mouth go dry and her body throb with awareness. The contrast between his sinewy brown hand and her delicate paleness seemed starkly erotic. She couldn’t believe that a stranger’s touch could have such a dramatic impact. On the other hand, she had never before opened herself up to the possibility that another man could arouse her with a mere look, a touch…
She watched as he slowly splayed his hand, gently encircling her arm in a bracelet of warm flesh. She shivered.
‘Cold?’ he asked, in a knowing voice that said he knew very well what had caused her reaction.
Her eyelids felt heavy, weighted down by lashes as she lifted them to meet his gaze. ‘It is rather cool up here.’ She uttered the bald-faced lie in the nature of a challenge.
His lips and eyebrows quirked. ‘Perhaps the altitude doesn’t suit you.’
She wished he hadn’t reminded her! ‘Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m more exposed than usual,’ she said, with a hitch of one dappled shoulder.
‘Would you like me to put my jacket around you?’ he offered.
Nora’s hectic emotions translated the private gesture of courtesy into a primitive act of public possession.
‘No, you keep it,’ she said huskily. ‘I wouldn’t like you to catch a chill.’
‘I don’t think there’s any fear of that.’ His thumb moved on her arm, sliding over the rounded inner curve of her elbow. ‘I’m very warm-blooded.’
Her own spurted hotly in her veins. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard.’
‘And do you always believe everything you’re told?’ he taunted.
>
Her pupils contracted to narrow dots, the only sign of her inward flinch. ‘I used to.’ She couldn’t help glancing over to where she had seen Ryan. ‘Now I prefer to rely on more tangible evidence.’
Blake’s hand left her arm to tilt her head firmly back in his direction, demanding her full attention. ‘Very wise. How hungry are you?’
She blinked at his non sequitur. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You said you haven’t had dinner and, as it happens, neither have I. What say we blow this joint and find a restaurant that can serve us within the next half-hour?’
Blow this joint? His mocking slang made it sound invitingly dangerous, with the added bonus of allowing her to avoid any painful encounters with Ryan.
‘But what about the party—?’ she stammered, not sure whether he was joking.
‘In a crowd this size, one or two less isn’t going to matter.’
One or two? Did that mean that he intended leaving, with or without Nora? She felt a stab of disappointment, followed by a fresh surge of reckless determination. When she had singled him out in her sights she had had no idea where her flirtation would lead, or how far she was prepared to take her rash experiment. She still didn’t know, but her fear and uncertainty was all part of the intoxicating excitement that jetted through her as she contemplated her next move.
‘They might not notice my disappearance, but you’re a lot higher up the scale of importance,’ she felt compelled to point out.
A world of natural arrogance was expressed in his shrug. ‘I’ve done my duty. I came. Waved the PresCorp flag in the necessary faces. Kissed the birthday girl and gave her a gift. More than enough to satisfy Scotty’s festering social conscience. Now I’m back on my own time.’
It took her a moment to realise who he meant by ‘Scotty’.
‘You only came because Sir Prescott Williams asked you to?’
‘The word “ask” implies choice. Prescott is far too shrewd to offer options that won’t deliver his preferred outcome,’ he replied drily. ‘He knows exactly how and where to apply pressure. He’s an expert in getting his own way.’