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‘Thank you,’ said Miranda reluctantly.
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Rafe. ‘I don’t often get the chance to make myself useful!’
She eyed him uncertainly, unsure if he was joking or not. On the whole, she thought not. He certainly didn’t have the air of a man used to menial tasks, and why would he? Few people could have led such a pampered and privileged life as Rafe Knighton.
‘Careful!’ she warned as he straightened with the cartridge still in his hand. Bitter experience had taught her that used toner had a tendency to leak badly, and Rafe wouldn’t be nearly so pleased with himself if he ended up with the fine black powder all over that immaculate suit. He looked the fastidious type, and she didn’t have time to deal with an executive’s wardrobe emergency this morning.
But it appeared that Rafe was more competent than he seemed. He set the cartridge down without so much as a particle of powder escaping. ‘I’m not as careless as I look,’ he told her, almost as if reading her mind, and then he smiled at her expression.
Miranda wished he would stop doing that. Her heart knocked into her ribs again, and, desperate to put a few more inches between them, she found herself backing into the table until it dug into the back of her thighs. She was grateful to him for fixing the copier, of course, but now he should just go away.
Close up, Rafe was less handsome than he seemed from a distance and in the glossy magazine photographs, she realised. It should have been reassuring, but the unevenness of his features and the faint prickle of stubble gave him a rough edge that paradoxically made the dark, glinting eyes and the mobile mouth more attractive rather than less, and all at once she was suffocatingly aware of him, of the clean, expensive smell of him, of the faint quiver of laughter she could sense vibrating beneath the suave exterior, of his massive, solid warmth so close to her.
Swallowing, Miranda turned away to busy herself inserting the new toner cartridge. Once it had clicked into place, she wiped around the copier to remove any spilt ink and closed the front of the machine with a snap.
‘Now, get on with it!’ she told it, relieving her feelings with a jab at the start button.
Obediently, the copier whirred into action.
‘That’s what I like to see,’ said Rafe, who had been watching her with amusement. ‘A firm hand! There’s no mistaking who’s boss around here, is there?’
‘Very funny,’ said Miranda mirthlessly, her eyes on the copies that were emerging from the machine. After all the hassle the copier had given her this morning, it was hard to believe that it was actually doing what it was supposed to do.
She couldn’t believe Rafe had actually joked about who was in charge. He seemed to have no sense of his own importance. He was unlike any boss she’d ever encountered before. He definitely wasn’t the kind of boss she had been in those last disastrous months at Fairchild’s.
In her experience, bosses maintained their distance from the staff, either because they were too busy, or because they were concerned about their own status. They certainly didn’t drift around the way Rafe Knighton evidently did. Miranda couldn’t think of any other boss she had known who would hang around in the copying room, winding up the new temp or attempting to fix a photocopier themselves. Didn’t he have anything better to do?
That unnerving awareness of him as a powerful male was fading, and she could dismiss him once more as little more than a clothes horse for expensive suits, an empty-headed celebrity wandering around his own company because he didn’t know what to do with himself.
‘Were you looking for anyone in particular?’ she asked repressively.
‘I was hoping to have a word with Simon,’ said Rafe, recalled to a sense of his original purpose. ‘Is he around?’
‘He’s out, I’m afraid. He’ll be back this afternoon. He’s got a meeting at two.’ Miranda nodded at the papers stacking up in the copier tray. ‘That’s what all this copying is for.’
‘I’ll catch him later, then,’ said Rafe easily.
‘Shall I ask him to call you when he gets back?’
‘You could do,’ he said, ‘or I’ll wander down again a bit later. I only took over a month or so ago, and I’m still trying to get to know everybody,’ he explained, seeing that Miranda was looking unim¬ pressed by this casual approach. ‘I like to walk round myself and see what’s going on rather than wait for staff to come to me. That’s how I get to know people like you and learn interesting things I didn’t know, like rude words and how to talk to photocopiers!’
Miranda flushed slightly. Didn’t he take anything seriously? ‘Can I tell Simon what it’s in connection with?’ she asked, deliberately formal.
‘I’ve got an idea I want to discuss with him,’ said Rafe. ‘I think we should hold a ball.’
A ball? Miranda’s lips tightened disapprovingly. Rafe ought to be worrying about investment and product development and financial forecasts, not parties and balls and getting his photo in the papers! He reminded her all too bitterly of her father, who had been bored by the nitty gritty of business and had poured all his energy—not to mention the firm’s profits—into putting on a show. Rafe Knighton had a reputation as a hell-raiser, and Miranda hoped that he wasn’t going to throw away everything his father and grandfather had achieved the way her own father had done at Fairchild’s.
‘I’ll tell Simon as soon as he gets back,’ she said curtly as she collected the first set of copies and banged them lightly on the top of the machine to straighten them into a neat pile.
Rafe was left with the distinct feeling that he had been dismissed. For a moment he wavered between irritation and amusement—who did this temp think she was?—but, as so often with him, amusement won. He had to admire her gall, if nothing else.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you, Miranda Fairchild.’
Miranda watched him go, shaking her head slightly. Thank goodness he had gone, she thought. Perhaps now she could get on with some work. It had been impossible to concentrate with him looming over her, charging the air with his mere presence and making her nerves fizz and prickle. He would be much better off staying in his boardroom than wandering around unsettling people like that.
She slotted another set of papers into the feeder and pressed the copy button again.
It looked like being a long day, and she still had tonight to get through. When Rosie had asked her if she wanted to help out on occasional evenings waitressing, Miranda had jumped at the prospect of earning a bit of extra money, but it was hard work being on your feet all evening, and there were times, like now, when she wanted nothing so much as to go back to the flat and flop in front of the television all evening.
But it would be worth it when she had earned enough to move to Whitestones, Miranda thought fiercely, squaring her shoulders. Think about the house, she told herself. Think about the cliffs and the sound of the sea on the shingle.
Think about leaving London and the likes of Rafe Knighton far behind.
It would all be worth it then.
‘You cannot be serious!’
Miranda held up the uniform Rosie had presented her and stared at it, aghast.
Rosie shifted uncomfortably. ‘I know it’s a bit tacky, but the organisers have insisted all the waiting staff wear these.’
‘They want us to dress up as cats?’
‘I think they thought it would be funny,’ said Rosie with a sigh.
‘Hilarious,’ said Miranda acidly. She dropped the cat suit back on the pile with a gesture of distaste. ‘What’s wrong with a black skirt, a white blouse and a frilly pinny?’
‘It’s a book launch,’ Rosie said miserably. ‘One of those novelty self-help books, How to Unleash your Inner Pussy Cat or something like that. If you think the uniform is tasteless, you should see the goodie bag!’
‘We don’t really have to wear this, do we?’ The skin-tight cat suit came complete with a fluffy tail and a cat mask with ears and whiskers. Miranda eyed it with dismay. ‘Can’t we just refuse?’
‘Oh, please, Miranda!’ Rosie begged. ‘I wouldn’t ask, but this is a really important contract for me. They’ve said if it goes well they’ll offer me other jobs, and I think they have launches like this all the time. I can’t afford to get their backs up by being difficult about everything. It all needs to go perfectly tonight.’
Miranda sighed. She knew how Rosie was struggling to get her new business off the ground. Rosie was a fantastic cook who made the kind of delicious, witty, and innovative canapés that were perfect for events catering, but so much business depended on establishing a reputation, and her friend badly needed a break.
How could Miranda let her down? Rosie had been her best friend since they were at school together. Other so-called friends had kept their distance, not wanting to be associated with dreary failure, when Fairchild’s had collapsed and Miranda’s world had come tumbling about her ears, but Rosie had stuck by her. She had a tiny flat at the very end of the Tube line, but had given Miranda a room without hesitation, asking well below the going rate for rent.
Temping by day, Miranda was glad to earn extra money in the evenings by helping Rosie out. Sometimes she just washed dishes or helped with the preparations, but for big events like this one she acted as waitress. Normally she wore black and blended into the background, but occasionally the client asked Rosie if the staff could wear something special. Tonight was the first time they had been presented at the last minute with quite such a ridiculous costume, but, looking at Rosie’s anxious expression, Miranda knew that she couldn’t refuse.
‘Oh, all right,’ she said, and watched her friend’s face clear magically. ‘It’s not as if anyone is going to recognise me with that mask on! And who notices the waitresses anyway?’
Nobody might notice her, but it was hard not to feel very conspicuous indeed once she was squeezed into the cat suit. It clung to her figure in a way that was embarrassingly revealing.
‘Actually, you look great,’ said Rosie, surprised, when Miranda presented herself for duty. She walked round her, inspecting her critically. ‘You’ve got a really good figure, Miranda, but you keep it hidden away beneath those shapeless jackets you wear.’
‘I could do with a shapeless jacket now,’ sighed Miranda, plucking fretfully at the suit. ‘I might as well be naked!’
‘It’s not that bad,’ Rosie consoled her. ‘When you’ve got your mask on you won’t feel so exposed.’
Miranda wasn’t sure about that, but it was too late to back out now. Nobody ever noticed her, anyhow, so why should tonight be any different?
The mask made her feel a little more confident, but she was still very conscious of the stares that seemed to follow her as she threaded her way through the crowd with a tray, and she was dismayed to spot Octavia on the far side of the room. Looking as beautiful as ever, her little sister was flirting with a soap star who was rumoured to be about to hit the big time, and leave his second wife in the process.
Miranda found it hard to shake the habit of worrying about Octavia, but she was fairly sure that her sister would just be amusing herself. For a girl who looked the way she did, Octavia was surprisingly hard-headed when it came to men. Still, she had better avoid that side of the room, Miranda decided. She wouldn’t put it past Octavia to recognise her, mask or no mask, and she and Belinda complained enough about her evening job as it was.
‘It’s so shaming,’ they grumbled. ‘What if anyone recognises you as our sister?’ Personally, Miranda felt it was more shaming to sponge off friends the way Octavia did, or depend financially on your in-laws as Belinda clearly had to do, but she had given up arguing with her sisters years ago.
Wheeling round, she headed the other way, and wound her way through the crowd, tray balanced aloft and tail draped over one arm to stop herself tripping over it. Champagne was circulating freely and the party soon warmed up, the chatter getting louder, the laughter more raucous.
Miranda’s feet were aching as she refilled the tray with exquisite little mushroom vol-au-vents and smoked salmon and scrambled egg canapés and headed back into the party once more.
There was Octavia again, sparkling up at a portly businessman. Miranda veered away and headed instead towards a group standing at the edge of the room. An incredibly slender girl wearing a dramatic dress that had probably cost as much as Miranda would earn in a year was looking bored, and as she got closer Miranda could guess why. The men with her had all obviously imbibed freely and were laughing uproariously at each other’s jokes.
Miranda wondered why the girl bothered to stay since she was so clearly unamused. She was standing close to a tall man with his back to Miranda, a possessive hand on his arm. Perhaps she would rather be bored than give up her position at his side?
He must be quite something, thought Miranda cynically. A girl like that wouldn’t bother unless he was very rich, very famous or very gorgeous, and she was clearly ready to defend her territory against the likes of Octavia. Needless to say, she didn’t even notice Miranda, proffering her tray, but her companion turned to look at her, and Miranda stopped dead, her heart lurching into her throat and wiping the smile from her face.
Now she could see why the girl was prepared to endure tedious jokes rather than abandon him—he was indeed very rich, very famous and very gorgeous, loath as Miranda was to admit it.
Rafe Knighton, in fact.
CHAPTER TWO
RAFE was looking straight at Miranda and the directness of his gaze made her burningly aware once more of her revealing costume. For one wild moment she was tempted to turn tail and run.
Then she told herself not to be so silly. Even if Rafe were to remember her from earlier that day, which was frankly pretty unlikely, there was no way he could recognise the sexily clad ‘cat’ as the colourless temp at the photocopier.
She forced a smile and held out the tray instead. ‘Would you like anything?’
The girl flicked a dismissive glance over her and looked away, not even bothering with a refusal, but the other men leered openly.
‘I know what I’d like,’ said one to a burst of laughter, ‘and it’s not on the tray!’
‘Here, pussy, pussy,’ called another in a high, stupid voice. ‘I’d like a stroke.’
Rafe was not enjoying himself. Why did he bother to come to these events? He had hoped to meet a rather more serious crowd at a book launch, but he should have known better. This party was even sillier than usual, and whose tasteless idea had it been to dress the waitresses as cats? They were all obviously hating it.
It was depressing to realise that someone had thought he would belong at a party like this. Had he really used to feel part of this life? Rafe was beginning to despair of ever persuading anyone that he had changed and was no longer the spoiled trust-fund baby that temp this morning had so obviously thought he was. No one was interested in what he had been doing for the past four years. No one was interested in what he was doing now. They all just assumed that he was playing at running the Knighton Group, and that the real decisions were being made by the board of directors.
About to feel sorry for himself, Rafe looked at the waitress, her smile rigidly in place. Poor girl. There were worse fates than inheriting a blue chip company, after all. He could be the one wearing the stupid costume and trying to earn a living while everyone else drank champagne and made lewd suggestions at his expense.
‘I’ll have one, thanks,’ he said, interrupting the increasingly risqué comments in an attempt to distract his companions, and she stepped forward gratefully with the tray.
As she did so the man standing next to her decided to put his words into action and patted her bottom, and Rafe saw her jerk unthinkingly away from his touch. He didn’t blame her for that at all, but the sudden movement tilted the tray, sending a selection of canapés shooting forward to land in a smear of pastry, egg and mushroom sauce all down the front of his jacket.
There was a moment of appalled silence.
Kyra was the first to speak. ‘You stupid girl!’ she snapped. ‘His jacket’s ruined.’
‘It wasn’t her fault,’ said Rafe sharply. He looked at the waitress, who was staring, aghast, at his jacket. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. Crouching down, she began hastily gathering the mess onto her tray while Kyra rolled her eyes and looked pointedly away, and the men shifted quickly into a new grouping, turning their backs on the whole sorry mess.
Rafe bent to help her. ‘It’s not you that should be sorry,’ he pointed out. ‘You shouldn’t have to put up with hassle like that.’
‘These outfits are asking for trouble,’ she said philosophically. ‘I shouldn’t have jumped like that, but he took me by surprise. I’m not used to anyone noticing me.’
She sounded quite sincere, Rafe realised to his surprise. He would have imagined that a girl with that figure would be fighting men off all the time. True, he couldn’t see much of her face, but she had beautiful skin, and, although what little he could see of her expression was rather ironic, those legs were spectacular. He was having trouble keeping his eyes off them, in fact, even if it did make him feel a creep, and not much better than the guy who had groped her.
‘Thank you for your help,’ she said briskly as she straightened. ‘And thank you for not making a fuss. My friend is responsible for the catering, and this is her first big job. I don’t want to cause any trouble for her.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rafe said, picking a piece of scrambled egg off his tie, and wondering why she suddenly seemed oddly familiar.
‘Here,’ she said helpfully, shifting the tray onto the crook of her arm so she could pick up the fluffy tail and use the end to brush the last of the crumbs from his front.
‘At least this stupid tail is useful for something,’ she said.
There it was again, that peculiar conviction that he had met her before somewhere. Rafe frowned slightly. Surely he wouldn’t have forgotten those legs?
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, misinterpreting his frown. ‘There are still some marks on your suit. I should pay your dry-cleaning bill.’
‘Forget it,’ said Rafe easily. He was naturally neat, and there had been a time when he would have been bothered by a less than immaculate appearance, but the last four years had taught him that there were more important things than the odd stain. He certainly wasn’t going to accept what he suspected were the hard-won wages of a cocktail waitress. It hadn’t even been her fault.
‘It was high time this suit was cleaned anyway,’ he went on, when she hesitated. ‘You’ve done me a favour, really. Now I’ll have to do something about it.’
Behind her mask, Miranda regarded him in some puzzlement. Could it be that appearances were deceptive, after all? He had that glossy, well groomed look that was usually accompanied by an obsession with appearance, and she had expected him to make a huge fuss about the mess she had made of his jacket. Instead of which, he had been really very nice about it all. Few of the other guests at this party would have bothered to help out a frazzled waitress, that was for sure.
Miranda almost wished that he hadn’t. It was never comfortable having one’s preconceptions challenged, and she didn’t really want to think that there might be more to Rafe Knighton than met the eye.
The girl beside him hadn’t even made a token effort to help, but now that the mess was cleared up she was homing back in on Rafe. Miranda was amused to see the way she stepped slightly between them, turning her back to edge Miranda away. Not that she needed to worry, Miranda thought. She had absolutely no interest in the Rafe Knightons of this world. She knew only too well what it was like to live with a playboy.
You’d have thought that growing up with a father like theirs would have put her sisters off the idea of marrying anyone like him, but apparently not. Miranda couldn’t understand why Belinda had been so determined to marry a title, while Octavia, more practical, had set her sights on a wealthy husband. Their own parents had had the society wedding of the year in their day, and look how badly that marriage had turned out!
As if her thoughts had conjured her sister up, Miranda caught sight of Octavia somewhere behind Rafe’s shoulder. She was casually scanning the crowd, but as Miranda watched the beautiful green eyes widened as they fell upon Rafe’s profile.
Time to beat a retreat, Miranda decided. If she knew her sister, Octavia would be over here any moment now to introduce herself, and she didn’t want to be here when she did. Not that she cared about embarrassing Octavia, but it would be awkward if her sister somehow revealed her identity to Rafe. She would just as soon not be exposed to her boss while she was wearing a skintight cat suit.
‘I’d better go and get rid of this mess,’ she said to Rafe, backing away to his girlfriend’s evident relief. ‘Sorry again about your jacket.’
Rafe watched her slip away through the crowd. She had a very straight back, and he was conscious of the same odd feeling of knowing her somehow. His brows drew together in an effort to focus his memory. Where could he possibly have seen her before?
Beside him, he was vaguely aware of Kyra stiffening. ‘I’m bored with this party,’ she said abruptly, taking his arm with a proprietorial air. ‘Let’s go.’
Rafe hesitated. Kyra had attached herself to him early in the evening and he had been wondering how to shake her off without hurting her feelings. He had no intention of spending the rest of the night with her, but nor did he want to stay at this stupid party just to make a point. They could leave together and then go their separate ways, he decided.
As they turned to go he literally bumped into an enchantingly pretty girl, but Kyra towed him onwards before they had chance to do more than exchange apologetic smiles. Rafe glanced back over his shoulder with a faint frown as he left. There had been something elusively familiar about her too.
The thought made him pause at the door and look around to see if he could spot the waitress again, but there were too many people.
