скачать книгу бесплатно
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.’
‘Somehow I can’t quite picture you as anyone’s helpless pawn. You don’t look like a man who enjoys taking orders.’
He threw back the last of his drink and acknowledged her tart remark with an insinuating smile. ‘On the contrary, if I perceive a mutual benefit I can be extremely accommodating.’
His soft purr hinted at all sorts of intriguing wickedness. ‘Are you saying you’d let me order you around?’ she said, forbidden images swirling up from the unplumbed depths of her mind.
‘Well, not here, obviously—I do have my ruthless image to protect,’ he mocked, playing to the shocked curiosity that flared across her face, fascinated by the contradiction between the smouldering passion of those sultry painted eyes and the astringent freshness of her unpredictable personality. It was a long time since Blake had been surprised by anyone or anything. ‘Perhaps I’ll let you order for me in the restaurant, as a start…’
‘Restaurant?’ In her flurry of wild imaginings she had forgotten the original question.
‘You’d rather wait and eat here?’ He looked down into his empty glass, masking his expression as he mused, ‘Maybe you’re right. Even if you’re not lucky enough to be assigned a window-seat, once everyone sits down you’ll have an uninterrupted view from whichever table you’re at, reminding you with every bite that you’re in a nine-storey building perched atop a concrete shaft around three hundred metres high but only a bare twelve metres in diameter…’
Nora’s stomach did a sickening loop-the-loop, a fine dew springing out on her brow.
‘…whereas the restaurant I have in mind is only a quiet ground-floor place around the corner from the casino,’ he continued smoothly. ‘Good food, but one step down from the street…with absolutely no view—’
‘Actually, that sounds rather nice,’ Nora gulped, clutching gratefully at the dangled safety-line. ‘Let’s go there.’
Only when the words were out of her mouth did she realise what she had committed herself to, and her stomach performed another crazy loop, this time of excitement. Somehow, she had beguiled one of the city’s most cynical bachelors into taking her out to dinner!
He gave her no chance to change her mind. ‘Do you need to make any farewells, or do you want to just melt away?’
She should at least exchange a few words with Patty, her former flatmate, and thank her for the invitation. ‘Well, I—’
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ryan and felt a sharp spike of panic.
‘Melting would be good,’ she said quickly. ‘Melting is very good—as long as we do it right away.’
If Blake was startled by the rough urgency of her tone he didn’t show it. ‘Don’t you want to finish your drink?’ he murmured, half turning to put down his empty glass.
Ryan’s face was now a nasty white blot on the periphery of Nora’s vision. Had he seen her yet?
Her overwrought imagination bubbled with horrifying scenarios. What if Ryan wanted to appease his guilty conscience with more shattering revelations? What if he decided that by approaching her in public he could compel her to listen to what he had to say?
Ryan knew how much she disliked being the centre of attention—he would be relying on it to prevent her from making a scene. He could be doggedly persistent and remarkably ingratiating when it served his own interests. He was even capable, she thought wildly, of following her from the party and turning Blake MacLeod’s desirable companion into a dreary woman scorned!
She held out her drink. ‘No, thanks, it’s gone warm anyway—’
As Blake turned back, a group of chattering people pushed past behind Nora and she was shunted forward. The arm she had extended jerked, the contents of her glass splattering in an arc over Blake’s jacket and tie and plastering a fist-sized patch of his shirt to his chest.
There was a stunned pause.
‘Oh, God, I’m most terribly sorry!’ Nora brushed ineffectually at the splashes on his lapel, which had instantly soaked into the pale sheen of the fabric.
‘There’s no need to apologise,’ he said, taking away her empty glass and handing it to a sympathetic bystander, ‘if it wasn’t your fault.’
‘Those people bumped against me,’ she explained, sure her guilt must be written in fire across her forehead.
He looked at her from under his lowered brow. ‘So I saw…’
‘One of them must have jogged my arm,’ she added unnecessarily.
‘I suppose I should be grateful that you weren’t drinking the Cabernet Sauvignon,’ he commented with wry resignation, taking a white linen handkerchief out of his breast pocket and blotting at himself.
If she had been drinking red wine she would never have had the courage to do it! she thought, but desperate situations had called for desperate measures. ‘I don’t think it’ll stain if you rinse it out immediately.’
‘This suit is made of silk,’ he pointed out.
