Taken Over

‘It’s time I got a new car,’ he told her, frowning. ‘This one’s had it, but father replaced his Rolls earlier this year. Perhaps you could buy me a new car as a wedding present?’

Cassie knew that he was only teasing but somehow the words grated. She was getting oversensitive, she told herself. She had entered this engagement willingly enough; she had known why Peter had proposed; she couldn’t claim that she loved him any more than he loved her, so why this feeling of distaste; this desire to open the car door and run?

Bridal nerves? She smiled derisively. Hadn’t her father brought her up to face the truth about herself, no matter how painful? She was a plain, clever woman, whose fiancé was marrying her because of her cleverness rather than her beauty. Was that really any worse than being married for beauty? Beauty faded, ability lasted … so who really was the loser; the beauty or the blue-stocking?

Sighing, Cassie realised that they had reached the restaurant. Peter looked very attractive in his dinner suit, his fair hair gleaming under the lights in the foyer. It wasn’t his fault that despite his boyish good looks there was a weak, almost petulant droop to his mouth. He had been spoiled by his mother, Cassie knew; and she also suspected that Isabel Williams fully intended to carry on that spoiling after their marriage.

The restaurant was a popular one and full. They were shown to their table where Peter’s parents were waiting for them. Isabel Williams made a big show of kissing Cassie enthusiastically, but Cassie could see the rejection in her eyes, the smug female satisfaction in the younger woman’s plainness, and as she studied her mother-in-law-to-be’s immaculate make-up and expensive silk dress Cassie was acutely conscious of her own plain appearance.

Once their meal was ordered Isabel started to discuss plans for the wedding.

‘Talk to Cassie about that some other time,’ Ralph Williams ordered his wife. ‘Cassie, I want to set up a meeting between our two accountants …’ He went on talking and Cassie was suddenly and acutely conscious of being studied by someone outside their table.

So intense was the sensation of being watched that her skin prickled underneath it. She itched to turn round but refused to give in to the impulse, forcing herself to listen to Peter’s father. He was asking her about the work she had in progress, enquiring if she was working on anything new. She was just about to demur, hating talking about what she was doing until it was clear in her own mind, when she felt an overwhelming urge to turn round seize her. She had given in to it almost before she was aware of doing so, her breath catching in her throat as her glance clashed with the navy-blue stare of Joel Howard. He was seated two tables away, just simply watching her, oblivious to the chatter of his blonde companion. The look in his eyes was so savagely angry that Cassie rocked with the force of it. It was like shouting defiance at thunder and lighting, and her mind reeled away from the shattering impact of his anger. She had known he was angry at her refusal to talk to him, but the intensity of that rage was something she had not anticipated. It was several seconds before she could draw her glance away and in that time Peter became conscious of her lack of attention.

‘Joel Howard,’ he exclaimed in disgust, ‘what on earth is he doing here?’

His father spun round, frowning angrily at the other table. ‘He wants Cassietronics.’ He said it loudly enough for the other man to hear, and Cassie caught the flash of fury darken the navy-blue eyes to black. Fear, and something else coursed through her body, making her shake and cling to the safe security of Peter’s fingers. The stone in her engagement ring glittered and she could almost feel the instant Joel Howard’s attention became fixed on it, the expression on his face changing, hardening first to rage and then to contemptuous derision.

Quite distinctly above the murmur of conversation from the other tables Cassie heard his companion complaining, ‘Darling, what’s wrong? You look dreadfully angry.’

She could just hear Joel’s response, and as the cruelty of it drove what colour there was from her face, she knew that it had been pitched deliberately for her to hear it.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he told the blonde, ‘I was just thinking that some men would sell their very souls, not to mention their lives, to get what they want.’

The blonde pouted, and Cassie couldn’t drag her eyes away even though she desperately wanted to. ‘Would you?’ she asked him archly. Across the intervening tables, his eyes locked on Cassie’s, contempt and derision mingling.

‘Not in this particular case,’ he drawled, and Cassie knew the words were meant for her. ‘There are some prices too high for any man to pay.’ His gaze left her face to slide contemptuously over her body and where she had been pale Cassie was now hot, with humiliation and rage; so bitter and angry that she was shaking with it. At her side Ralph Williams said something, and remembering his earlier question she replied brightly and a little too loudly.

‘As a matter of fact I am working on something new—it’s going to be a wedding present for Peter.’ She flashed a bright and totally meaningless smile at her fiancé, barely aware of what she was saying as she told him, ‘If it’s anywhere near as successful as my last one darling, it will buy you a whole fleet of new cars—and the garages to go with them.’

Ordinarily, Cassie would have been appalled by her behaviour, shrinking away from the crassness of it, but right now, all she cared about was wiping the derisive glitter from Joel Howard’s eyes; she wanted to see him humiliated as he had just humiliated her. Without saying the words he had told her plainly that in his eyes she had bought herself a husband; and that no woman would ever be allowed to buy him.

The rest of the meal passed in a daze. She drank champagne, she knew that, and she listened to toasts on their engagement. Later she and Peter danced, but although he held her close to his body, murmuring his delight at her earlier words, excitement making his body tense against hers, in reality she was far away from him, concentrating on the sight of Joel Howard, dancing with his blonde companion. Her head barely reached his shoulder and their bodies swayed together as intimately as though they had been making love … As they would make love later on. Cassie’s head swam with the intensity of her thoughts: she shivered in Peter’s arms, shaking with revulsion at the direction of her thoughts. They were an invasion of the other couple’s privacy; almost voyeuristic in their intensity and they shamed her to her soul. What was it about Joel Howard that prompted such a reaction from her; that drove her beyond the boundaries of logic and reason into a realm where emotions alone held sway?

She was relieved when the time came for them finally to leave. She was just waiting for Peter in the foyer when she felt iron fingers curl round her arm. She froze instantly, knowing with a knowledge that went beyond logic whose fingers they were.

‘Why are you marrying him?’

The contempt in his voice lashed her into swift retaliation. ‘I thought you already knew. I’m buying myself a husband. Peter is a very attractive man.’

‘Attractive enough to make you willing to part with Cassietronics?’ His voice derided her, telling her that he knew exactly why Peter was marrying her. She wanted to lash out and hurt him as he had just hurt her by laying bare the fact that without her skill, without her company Peter would never even have looked at her. It was one thing for her to know that, it was another for someone else; for him, to point that out to her, and suddenly she latched on to the thing that would wound him the deepest.

Baring her teeth in a parody of a smile, she said softly, ‘Oh no, but knowing that by marrying him I’m preventing you from getting Cassietronics makes it more than worthwhile.’

She pulled herself free of his grip before he could retaliate, walking on shaking legs to where Peter had just emerged from the cloakroom with her jacket. It was only when they reached the door that she turned round, impelled by something stronger than her will to look at Joel Howard. What she saw in his face made her pale and sway, shocked by the force of the implacable determination she saw written there; forced to acknowledge the message he was sending her with those cold, hard eyes. She might have thought she had won, but he hadn’t given up the fight yet. He still wanted her company; and he still meant to have it, with or without her consent.

As she settled into Peter’s car she was attacked by a cowardly desire to beg him to marry her tomorrow; but she fought against the impulse telling herself that she was reacting foolishly emotionally. What could Joel Howard really do? Nothing, nothing at all.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS almost a week since Peter had taken her out to dinner with his parents; almost a week since she had seen Joel Howard, and in that short space of time he had occupied far too many of her thoughts Cassie reflected, angered by her own inability to dismiss the man from her mind.

This afternoon she had an appointment for the first fitting of her wedding dress. Peter’s mother had made all the arrangements and Cassie glared resentfully at the entry in her diary, wishing instead that she could spend the afternoon working on her new idea.

It was always like this when a new idea came to her; she wanted to spend all the time she could developing it and it occupied her thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. Not quite everything on this occasion a small voice reminded her; there was the irritating monotony with which Joel Howard interrupted her thought processes.

Damn the man, she thought angrily. Another three weeks and she would be safely married to Peter and Cassietronics would be out of his reach for ever. That must be why she spent so much time thinking about him. That threat of his, unspoken maybe, but very real threat, none the less, was preying on her mind. Her intercom buzzed and she flicked the switch automatically. The voice of her temporary secretary, cool and disembodied reminded her of her afternoon appointment. Her own secretary had been absent with some mysterious ailment for several days but before going off ill she had arranged for a temporary girl to take her place. The temp was almost frighteningly efficient Cassie acknowledged, shrugging on the jacket of her neat tweed suit. She had owned the suit for several years, and although it was unremarkable both in cut and colour, she felt comfortable in it. It helped her to fade into the background. As she moved Peter’s ring glittered under the office lighting and she almost flinched from its gleam. It wasn’t really her sort of ring at all, far too cold and brash; chosen for show—rather like her marriage an inner voice taunted—but Cassie firmly dismissed it. As yet she and Peter had made no formal announcement to the press of their engagement. Peter’s father had suggested they wait until just before the wedding; had in fact told them that he would call a press conference for that day, at which the announcement would be made. Although she had said nothing at the time, Cassie frowned a little, wondering if she was quite happy about the way Peter’s father seemed to be ruling their lives. Peter was weak where his parents were concerned, and although initially that had not worried her, gradually she was coming to see their power over him as a cause for concern. What would happen if there were ever to be a clash between Pentaton’s interests and those of Cassietronics? Would Peter support her?

Telling herself that she was just suffering from pre-nuptial nerves Cassie let herself out of her office. The temporary secretary; a tall, attractive brunette smiled at her, but Cassie ignored her smile. The other girl was poised and attractive, her very self-confidence making Cassie miserably aware of her own short-comings. Although she was only wearing a very simple skirt and blouse the rich emerald colour provided a stark contrast for Cassie’s own drab oatmeal outfit.

Would there ever come a day when the sight of a pretty woman didn’t immediately underline and reinforce her own insecurities Cassie wondered bitterly, as she left the office.

Her car was parked in the basement car park, and she had already told the temp that she didn’t expect to be back that afternoon. In the capacious bag she always carried with her were the notes she had jotted down for her new game. Perhaps this evening she would get an opportunity to work on them. The initial stages of creating a new game were always very absorbing, and as she pressed the basement button in the lift Cassie felt her doubts and dreads slip away as she was filled with the familiar tide of exultation a new venture always brought her.

By the time she stepped out of the lift she was feeling much more optimistic. The basement was murkily dark after the bright light of the lift, and while she waited for her eyes to adjust she made her way automatically to her parking bay. As she reached her car she frowned over the selfish way in which the owner of the next bay had parked his vehicle, almost, but not quite blocking her in. The car was unfamiliar to her, long and sleek, its black paintwork glittering almost menacingly.

As she drew nearer she recognised its distinctive trademark and her mouth curled disdainfully. A Ferrari, no doubt the proud possession of some image-conscious, successful businessman occupying one of the other offices. Without bothering to give it another glance Cassie extracted her keys from her bag and bent to insert them into the lock.

The totally unexpected pressure of strong fingers on her arm made her freeze, her heart thudding in instinctive terror as fear drove a surge of adrenalin through her veins. Without stopping to think or reason Cassie tried to pull away, fear clawing frantically inside her. Her free hand lashed out at her foe, palm and fingers smarting from the blow she managed to land against a frighteningly hard torso.

‘Stop it, I don’t intend to hurt you.’ Her free hand was tethered, imprisoned with its fellow behind her back in the same instant that she was spun round to face her assailant.

The sight of him was almost as terrifying as discovering his presence. The colour drained from Cassie’s face as she stared up into familiar ink-blue eyes and then unwillingly down over a hard boned male face to the grim line of a mouth drawn into a hard curl of disdain.

‘If you always react like that when a man touches you, Peter Williams must have been dreading his honeymoon.’

The mocking words infiltrated her brain slowly because it was far too busy trying to come to terms with the identity of her attacker.

‘Just as well I’m going to save him the ordeal isn’t it?’

Cassie’s mind refused to function. She stared disbelievingly up into Joel Howard’s face, barely taking in what he was saying.

Still holding her tethered with one hand, he used the other to reach behind him and snap open the passenger door of the Ferrari.

Stupidly Cassie stared at it. ‘That’s your car?’

Without deigning to answer her he pulled open the door, half pushing and half lifting her into the seat. His actions released Cassie from her frozen state and she started to fight to get free, pushing against the hard muscled wall of his chest as he leaned across her securing the seat belt.

‘Stop that.’ His voice was curt. ‘I don’t want to have to use violence, but that doesn’t mean I won’t, if I need to …’

The tone of his voice warned Cassie that he was telling the truth. Abruptly she retreated from him, tensing back in her seat like a small animal trying to curl into a protective ball.

‘I don’t understand,’ she told him shakily. ‘What is this all about?’

His car door slammed as he got in beside her, pressing a button. The faint click told Cassie what he had done and she looked wildly at her door reaching for the handle.

‘Too late, I’ve just locked us in.’ The laconic voice agitated her already overwrought nerves.

‘Will you please tell me what stupid game you think you’re playing,’ she demanded wildly. ‘I’m supposed to be on my way to a fitting for my wedding dress, and you’re making me late.’

‘Since you won’t be wearing it, that hardly matters,’ he told her coolly, snapping on his own seat belt and switching on the engine. ‘Did you really think I’d sit tamely by and let you destroy everything I’d worked for over the last ten years?’

Muzzily Cassie shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. ‘I’m not going to let you take over my company, if that’s what all this is about,’ she told him defiantly. ‘And no amount of sweettalk from you will persuade me. How did you know that I would be here this afternoon?’ she demanded, suddenly suspicious.

‘Easy. I persuaded your secretary to take a few days off so that mine could monitor your comings and goings.’

‘Your secretary.’ Cassie was bitterly enraged. ‘No doubt she much prefers working for you than me,’ she told him sarcastically remembering the girl’s immaculate grooming and pretty face.

‘No doubt,’ Joel Howard replied smoothly, ‘but she’ll be amply rewarded for her efforts.’

His tone and the look that accompanied it gave Cassie the distinct impression that Joel Howard believed that every female alive had her price if one was prepared to pay it. He had, she thought in quick surprise, almost as low an opinion of her sex as she had of his. She frowned, realising the strangeness of this thought. She would have expected a man as sexually compelling as Joel would be a devout admirer of the female sex; after all there was no doubt that he was thoroughly spoiled by it, so why did she have the impression that he despised, even perhaps, disliked women.

‘And how will you reward her,’ she flashed back at him, angered as much by her own thoughts as by his manner. ‘In cash or in kind …’

She saw his face harden as his hands gripped the wheel of his car.

‘Don’t try the clever comments on me,’ he advised her harshly. ‘It’s hardly my fault if your sex is so open to bribery, is it?’

‘Throughout the ages women have been forced to use what weapons they can against men, because men persist in considering them their inferiors,’ Cassie told him spiritedly, her mouth twisting bitterly as she remembered the price she had been forced to pay for her clever mathematical brain both by her own and the male sex.

‘I don’t have time to argue semantics right now,’ Joel told her hardily, ‘we’ve got an appointment to keep.’

‘An appointment?’ Cassie’s heart leapt in fear. ‘You can’t force me to sign over my company to you.’

‘Susan tells me you’re working on a new game.’ He had changed the subject completely and there wasn’t a thing Cassie could do about it.

She blinked dizzied by their sudden emergence into the daylight, wondering if she could possibly attract someone’s attention to the fact that she had been taken prisoner against her will; that she was virtually being abducted by this insufferably arrogant male creature who didn’t seem to be able to take ‘no’ for an answer.

‘And if I am?’ she responded, refusing to let him see how frightened she really was. Not for herself. She knew he intended her no physical harm. No, it was the compulsive strength of will; the powerful determination cloaked by the sophisticated façade that frightened her. He was, she recognised fearfully, a man who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And he wanted her company.

‘If it’s as successful as your last one, it will turn Pentatons into the leading electronic games company in the UK.’ He took his attention off the road for a second to give her a thin-lipped and bitter look. ‘By the same token it will almost completely destroy my company and that’s something I cannot allow to happen. I need the revenues and the status of being the number one games company in this country to persuade the government to continue with the aid they’ve been giving me for several new ventures we’re working on. We’ve almost reached the breakthrough point. Another six months and we’ll have cleared the danger point; the first of our new, advanced designs will be through the initial stages and we can make announcements to the press that will secure their future, but all that will only come about if I can maintain my position as market leader for that space of time and if you marry Peter Williams and merge your company, your skill, with Pentaton that will be impossible.’ He broke off to turn left, and then smiled at her again, a smile that made her blood run cold. ‘So you can see why, I am sure, with that keen, sharp brain of yours why I simply cannot allow you to marry him.’

Petrified though she was Cassie managed to retort coldly, ‘And how do you propose to stop me?’

The minute the pert question was asked, she regretted it. She saw from the expression on his face that he was going to enjoy giving her the answer, and a roaring tide of apprehension flooded through her nervous system making her shiver spasmodically.

‘Quite simple,’ he told her softly, ‘I intend to marry you myself. It’s all arranged. I’ve got the special licence; the ceremony has been organised.’

Cassie’s reaction was instinctive and immediate. ‘Stop this car at once,’ she demanded huskily. ‘You must be mad if you think you can get away with this.’

His mirthless laughter chilled her over-heated skin. ‘With careful planning and proper forethought one can get away with a great deal.’

‘You can’t make me marry you if I don’t want to.’ Cassie was appalled to hear her voice tremble, and she knew by the brief, triumphant smile that curved his hard mouth that Joel Howard had spotted her momentary weakness as well.

‘I shouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you,’ he told her, adding almost musingly, ‘It’s marvellous what they can do with drugs these days, isn’t it?’

‘You wouldn’t drug me?’ Cassie was aghast. Surely not even a man like Joel Howard would go to such lengths?

‘Not with anything dangerous,’ he agreed, stopping the car at traffic lights and turning to watch her. ‘But believe me, Cassie, I need this marriage to you. I won’t see all my hard work wasted because you’re vain and stupid enough to fall for a weakling like Peter Williams. Do you honestly believe he cares about you?’

His question; the scorn in his voice; the intimation that no man worthy of the name could possibly find her attractive, bit into Cassie’s pride making her recoil with the pain of the wounds he was causing, but before she could retaliate caution intruded. Joel Howard was dangerous; all the more so for being determined to carry out his plan of action. Cassie wasn’t a fool; she could see how much the success of his ventures meant to him and she could also easily believe that he would stop at nothing to achieve that success. Quickly she thought and came up with the only way she could escape her present situation, galling to her pride though it was.

‘I’ll sell you the company,’ she told him with quick bitterness. ‘Stop the car and take me back to my office …’

‘And let you go running to the Williams family for protection?’ Joel Howard laughed soundlessly, ‘Oh, no, Cassie, there’s only one way I can be sure of your loyalty and that’s by buying it the same way Peter Williams intended to buy it—by marrying you.’

It was on the tip of Cassie’s tongue to deny his assertion that the only way she could get a husband was by exchanging her company for one; and that furthermore the main reason she was marrying Peter was to stop him from taking over Cassietronics, but she quickly saw the pitfalls of such an announcement.

‘Peter …’

‘Loves you?’ he derided. ‘He loves no one but himself. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently, Cassie? Do you really think …’

The sheer cruelty of what she was sure he was about to say took Cassie’s breath away for a second. Pain, searing and brutally sharp tore through her body, and just for a handful of seconds she longed to make him retract his words; to have him look at her with admiration and awe, to want her as … ‘No.’ Cassie was unaware of her sharply cried denial, her face white and set as she tried to come to terms with her thoughts, shivering in mute reaction to the danger of them. What was she thinking? It was Joel Howard’s fault; she thought angrily. He had got her in such an emotionally vulnerable state that she didn’t know what she was thinking. Of course she didn’t want him to find her attractive; even if such an improbability were possible she wouldn’t want it; she wouldn’t want him.