by Susan Napier
Nora scanned the copy with rising ire. The story was heavy on conjecture and light on facts, concerned mainly with drooling over Blake’s reputed past bedding of several celebrities and how close-mouthed he generally was about his affairs. But it did identify Nora by name—oh, why had she foolishly introduced herself to Hayley?—and a little journalistic rummaging had mis-identified her as a stock analyst for Maitlands and threw up the connection between the company she worked for and TranStar.
‘This is all total rubbish!’ she declared, flinging it back down on Ruben’s desk.
‘Yes, well, unfortunately one of our employees brought it to the notice of management and all hell has broken loose,’ he said. ‘And someone has confirmed that you and MacLeod did spend that weekend away together, including the Friday you were supposedly home sick…’
Nora’s heart plummeted. Kelly! Or Ryan. Or both of them. She, who had never made an enemy before, suddenly seemed to be besieged with influential foes!
‘But they’re saying I might have passed on inside information! That’s just ridiculous—I didn’t know anything about the takeover to pass on,’ Nora cried.
‘I know, but with your security clearance you have access to a lot of sensitive stuff, and maybe you didn’t even realise what he was doing. You know, you’re way too trusting, Nora. Do you really think he’s just interested in you…?’ Ruben probably thought he was being supportive; he didn’t even realise how insulting he was being, to Nora as well as to Blake.
‘Don’t I get a hearing first? What if I refuse to accept this suspension?’ she said angrily.
But no amount of argument could budge her boss.
‘Nora, under the terms of your contract, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.’ Ruben was beginning to looked alarmed by her unaccustomed fierceness. ‘If you’ll hand in your keycard and your laptop, I’ll get a member of the security staff to escort you out.’
A short time later Nora stood in front of the towering PresCorp building on the fringe of the city’s wharf district, buffeted by a stream of lunch-time workers exiting the building. She had not only burnt her bridges, she feared she had set fire to her entire transport system with her explosion of outrage.
She shouldered her capacious bag—the one which had been searched by security before she left Maitlands—and stalked across the marble foyer to the information desk.
‘Where do I find Mr MacLeod’s office?’ she asked the bored-looking man who was signing for a delivery.
‘Executive suite’s on the seventeenth floor,’ he informed her, without looking up from the clipboard. ‘Take the lift over there to the tenth-floor lobby, turn left and follow the signs. The executive lift will take you the rest of the way.’
Nora was so busy stewing over what she was going to say if and when she got in to see Blake, that it was only as she was stepping out on the seventeenth floor that she realised that ‘executive lift’ had been a euphemism for one of the fashionable glass-sided monstrosities, and that she had ridden up looking out over the city without even registering the fact. Smoothing down her navy skirt and making sure her fuchsia blouse was tucked in, she approached the executive receptionist, who exhibited the polished sympathy of a hardened professional as she listened to Nora’s request for a personal meeting with the most sought after man in the building.
She obviously didn’t read the tabloids because, before Nora had even finished speaking, she launched into her stonewalling routine.
‘Hi, there! Here to see Blake?’
Nora turned and for a moment didn’t connect the smooth-faced young man in the Hugo Boss suit with the bristly, bronzed surfer.
‘Oh, hello, Steve. Have you started your internship already? That was fast work.’
He grinned. ‘I got suspended from school for smoking and persuaded Blake to take me on early. You might say we exchanged favours. He rang me down at the beach last Tuesday afternoon, foaming at the mouth about his TVR being in a ditch somewhere up in the hills and asking me if I would ride back to town with the mechanic to make sure he didn’t treat her too harshly.’
Nora blushed. ‘Oh, dear. Did he say how it happened?’
‘Funny thing, he never did. He was as touchy as hell about it!’ Steve gave her a familiar wink that suggested he knew more than he was telling. He was definitely a tabloid reader! ‘Hey, you want me to take you along to his office?’
The receptionist intervened with stern talk of back-to-back appointments, but the upshot of his friendly interference was that she eventually conducted Nora into a spacious office with a huge picture window that looked out over the glittering Waitemata Harbour.
Her stomach lurched, not at the sight of the bobbing ferries docked far below, but at the wizened sprite of a man with a thick shock of white hair who was seated behind the huge wooden desk in front of the window. A man whose portrait hung prominently in the waiting area.
‘I think there must be some mistake—’ She started backing out.
‘No, no!’ Sir Prescott Williams leapt to his feet. ‘When Sandra said you were waiting for Blake I told her to bring you in here. Wanted to meet you.’ He limped around the desk, his dark suit jacket flapping open, and seized Nora’s hand, shaking it with a vigour that made her teeth rattle. ‘Prescott Williams—you can call me Scotty—Blake always does. It’s Nora, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Sit down! Sit down!’ He led her over to a buttoned leather couch and urged her into it, standing over her, rocking on his heels, brows beetling over his black-button eyes. ‘I can get Sandra to bring some tea, if you like. Or what do you say we both have a real drink? Sun well over the yard-arm and all that!’ He sprang across the room and whipped open a bulging drinks cabinet, rubbing his hands together as he looked over his shoulder at her. ‘Join me in a whisky? Or do you prefer that rot-gut vodka that Blake drinks?’ He spun around, his face creasing with sudden inspiration. ‘Or we could open a bottle of champagne—make a proper toast.’
The thought of vodka made Nora feel green, and why she would want to toast the smoking ruins of her career and reputation was beyond her. She decided to try to assert some ownership of the situation. ‘Sir Prescott, I don’t know what you’ve read in the papers, but—’
‘Oh, no need to worry about the papers.’ He waved a knobbly blue-veined hand in contempt. ‘Blake has all that well in hand. Told me the whole story. Silly girl Hayley got the wrong end of the stick! Typical—not the sharpest tool in the box! Whisky, was it you said you wanted?’ He clinked the glass hopefully and Nora knew that if she didn’t say yes he would gallantly refuse to have one himself.
She agreed, dying to ask exactly what story he had been told to make him sound so cheerfully unconcerned.
He limped across with the glasses and plonked himself down on the couch beside her, extending his leg in front of him. ‘Damned hip—they tell me I have to have a new one put in next month. Cheers!’ He clinked his glass against hers. ‘Drink up! Drink up!’
Nora sipped cautiously and coughed politely into her hand, blinking rapidly to try and clear the tears in her eyes.
Sir Prescott chuckled. ‘That’ll put hair on your chest!’ He settled back, black eyes snapping. ‘Work for Maitlands, do you? Computers and all that rigmarole. Pity!’
Nora wasn’t quite sure what she was being pitied for, so she took another sip of her whisky, which encouraged her to admit bravely, ‘I don’t…work at Maitlands any more, I mean. I quit. Today.’
The black eyes lit up. ‘Good! Good! Blake persuaded you to come to us, has he? Cunning lad. Says you’re a top brain. Talked you up a storm. Mentioned that you’re working on something of your own that could be just up our alley…software for use in sea-bed salvage work.’ He took a long, satisfied gulp of his drink, not noticing Nora’s stunned expression. ‘That’s how I started this little empire of mine, you know—in the marine salvage business.’ He chuckled. ‘That programme of yours sounds as if it might have uses in the underwater construction
and drilling fields, too. Maybe you should be thinking of getting some investment capital behind you to help develop your ideas and diversify them into commercial applications. And if it’s finance you’re after, well, I’m always on the lookout to invest in up-and-comers with bright ideas. Of course, if we negotiated our way into doing some business together, that would be over and above any salary you make with PresCorp….’
Nora lubricated her frozen vocal cords with a warm trickle of whisky. ‘Sir—uh…Scotty, I haven’t really even thought about—’
Suddenly the door crashed open and Blake strode into the room with a thunderous scowl. ‘What the devil is going on?’
‘Ah, there you are, boy. We were wondering where you’d got to, weren’t we, Nora?’ Sir Prescott said blandly.
Blake’s eyes took on a strange glitter as they whipped suspiciously back and forth between the pair on the couch. ‘Were you? How strange, then, that Sandra never bothered to tell me that Nora was here to see me. I had to learn it from some pimply intern.’ He prowled over to frown at the older man. ‘I thought the doctor had told you to cut down on the hard stuff until after your operation?’
Sir Prescott’s bony knuckles whitened on his glass, as if he was afraid Blake would snatch it away. ‘This is a special occasion.’
‘Yes, Scotty was just offering to back me in a business venture,’ said Nora, nervously defiant. ‘Apparently you’ve been telling him all about the sea-bed project I’m working on—’
‘Scotty?’ Blake folded his arms across his chest as he loomed over her, looking magnificently menacing in his black suit, black silk shirt and steel-grey tie. ‘I had no idea you two were such friends.’
‘Come off it, Blake. I may have jumped the gun but I thought this was what you wanted.’ Sir Prescott chuckled at his stony expression. ‘It was your idea to offer this clever fiancée of yours a job. And, lucky for us, she says she’s already quit the other mob—’
Fiancée? Nora scooted forward on the couch. ‘Oh, but we’re n—’
Blake abruptly shifted his stance, a black-clad knee bumping her arm, upending her whisky glass in her lap. She jumped to her feet with a shriek, brushing at the sodden linen, which had sucked up the liquid like a thirsty alcoholic and now clung drunkenly to her legs.
‘What a waste of good Scotch,’ mourned Sir Prescott, picking up her empty glass.
‘I don’t think it’ll stain if you rinse it out immediately,’ murmured Blake and Nora froze as she recognised the words she had said to him on the first night they met. He took her elbow, propelling her to the door, barely giving her time to grab her bag. ‘Come on, you can use the bathroom in my private office.’
‘Good idea. Can’t have you going round smelling like a distillery,’ chipped in Sir Prescott helpfully, limping after them. ‘Tell you what—you go off with Blake and get cleaned up and I’ll round everyone up and open a few bottles of that champagne so we can properly toast your engagement when you come back. I’ll get Sandra to send out for some food, too, shall I, Blake? May as well go the whole hog. Perhaps even a cake—’
‘You!—’ Blake halted his Chairman with a disrespectful finger poked into his chest ‘—have done enough. Thank you, but I’ll take this from here.’
He slammed the door on Sir Prescott’s expression of injured innocence and hustled Nora back through the reception area, scowling at anyone who dared approach.
‘Why did you do that? What was he talking about?’ Nora burst out when she had been frogmarched into a luxurious blue and grey office which mirrored the layout of the one they had just left. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t bother,’ she said impatiently, as he picked up the remote control from the desk to close the vertical blinds. ‘If I came up in that wretched glass box of yours without turning a hair, I’m hardly going to keel over now! I want to know what you’ve been saying to Sir Prescott, and why he thinks we’re engaged!’
‘Did you?’ He dropped the remote and spun around to study her.
‘Did I what?’ she asked distractedly, wrinkling her dainty nose as she lifted the saturated skirt away from her damp tights.
‘Handle the lift without panicking?’
She shrugged, trying not to be disarmed by the warmth of encouragement in his eyes. ‘I had other things on my mind,’ she said.
‘Like quitting your job? You’ve really left Maitlands?’ He slipped off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair.
‘They tried to suspend me, so I told my boss he could make it my period of notice,’ Nora said, her temper flaring all over again as she described the encounter. ‘Ruben was even talking about honey traps—’
‘Mmm, well, I do seem to recall at least one occasion when honey did feature rather prominently in our relationship,’ said Blake with unblushing calm. ‘Otherwise their investigation is going to be a waste of their time and money. Now, why don’t you take your skirt off and I’ll get my secretary to send it out to the one-hour laundry service. That wet patch is far too big to try and blot with a towel—’
‘And whose fault is that? What on earth am I supposed to do in here without a skirt for an hour?’ she snapped unthinkingly, and went the same colour as her blouse as he started laughing. ‘Damn it, Blake—’
‘I’m sorry, Sparrow, I can’t help it—I love seeing you with ruffled plumage.’
Still laughing, he fetched a long black towelling robe from the adjacent bathroom and, flustered by the rare endearment and by his casual use of the ‘L’ word, Nora put it on, wriggling out of her skirt under his amused eye and stripping off her tights to drape over the bathroom rail while he spoke to his middle-aged secretary. When his poker-faced employee had left, he remained leaning against the closed door, looking at Nora as she nervously tightened the belt of the bulky robe.
‘I’m sorry about your job, ’he said gravely. ‘But I was serious about wanting to offer you one here. PresCorp has a big IT department and they’re always aggressively head-hunting for experienced staff of your calibre. I also regret I didn’t handle the problem of Hayley earlier, and protect you better from the inevitable fallout when our relationship went public…’
‘I don’t think I was going to stay on at Maitlands anyway,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘It would have been too awkward. Ryan and Kelly have just got engaged—’ She broke off, suddenly remembering the reason she had been given a whisky bath. ‘Why did you want to stop me talking to Sir Prescott?’ She tensed in alarm as she foresaw a potentially cringe-making scene. ‘He wasn’t serious, was he, about getting everyone in for a champagne toast to our engagement?’
Blake’s shoulders lifted under the black silk. ‘Unfortunately, when Scotty gets his mind fixed on something it’s well nigh impossible to change it. He’s ferociously stubborn and a rampant opportunist—’
‘Gee, now who does that sound like?’ said Nora wryly, receiving a potent glare for her interruption.
‘I just didn’t want him putting words into my mouth. I prefer to speak for myself.’ He squared his shoulders against the door, as if facing a firing squad. ‘He’s been at me for years to settle down and marry. He thinks it would make me a better CEO, more loyal to the idea of staying with the company for life. He doesn’t want me making his mistake and having no one of the blood to carry on his legacy….’
‘So he was keen for you to marry Hayley,’ she dared to say thinly.
His head tipped back arrogantly. ‘He knew that was never on the cards. Besides, it wouldn’t have made any difference—she’s no more of a blood relation to Scotty than I am.’ The dry tone confirmed that he knew of the slanderous rumours.
Nora was beginning to picture a very demeaning scenario. She bit her lip. ‘So when that newspaper came out, you told him we were engaged as a temporary way of getting him off your back and defusing the likelihood of a scandal…’ she said hollowly.
Blake snibbed the lock on the door and walked across to where she stood, her slender back to his heavily laden desk.
‘There is no s
candal as far as I’m aware, and I certainly didn’t tell Scotty that I’d asked you to marry me.’
‘Oh!’ Her cheeks flaming, she deflated into mortified silence. Sticking her hands into the deep pockets of the robe, she forced herself bravely on. ‘You mean…he just assumed—’
‘I mean that I merely said I was thinking of asking you to marry me. Scotty being Scotty immediately advanced to the next step. Modesty should forbid me to say it, but it doesn’t seem to occur to him that any woman would refuse me….’
Nora’s breathing had stopped somewhere in his first sentence. ‘I—you—I don’t understand,’ she choked.
He reached up to gently finger the lapel of the robe, adjusting it where it folded across her breasts with meticulous hands. ‘Don’t you? And here I thought you might be feeling some of the things that I was feeling. It’s all happened so fast for us, though, hasn’t it? That’s what makes it so scary,’ he murmured, his eyes on his fingers rather than her pale face, and it came to her that he was as nervous as she was, that his hands weren’t quite steady….
‘It gives me a tiny inkling of what it must feel like for you when you’re somewhere up high, at the mercy of an uncontrollable force inside you that seems to be pushing and pulling you at the same time.’
He described the feeling so exactly that Nora shivered. His eyes flicked up to her face, dark and intense.
‘I’ve never asked a woman to marry me before, so I’m sorry if I’m not doing a very good job,’ he said softly. ‘We need each other, Nora.’
Her vulnerable mouth quivered, her golden eyes huge as they clung to his face, her hands stealing from her pockets to still his restless fingers.