Unwilling Surrender

‘He’s an actor, isn’t he?’

She nodded without saying anything.

‘A very precarious position, wouldn’t you agree?’

She nodded again and felt like a mouse that had strayed into a trap and was waiting for it to clamp shut.

‘I’ve been on the look-out for a theatre company to buy. There could be a lot of money in that. I’ve been meaning to broaden my interests in the field of the arts for quite some time now.’ He allowed a little silence to fall between them. ‘It’s a tight community, the artistic community. One word about someone can spread faster than a bush fire.’ He turned the mug over in his hands, inspecting it.

‘You wouldn’t ruin his career,’ Christina whispered, horrified. ‘You couldn’t.’

‘I’ll do what I can to protect my sister.’ He slammed the mug down on to the coffee-table, making her jump.

He had put her in an impossible situation. Keep quiet and risk watching Simon West’s career, such as it was, bite the dust. Tell all and betray her friend’s confidence.

Simon might be everything that Adam had said he was. Certainly, from what she had seen, he was vain, egotistic and irritatingly convinced that the world was somehow a better place with him in it. But she could not stand aside and let Adam do his worst.

‘All right,’ she said wearily. ‘They’re using that cottage in Scotland. The one your parents owned.’

‘That?’ Adam gave her a long, hard look and then began to laugh. ‘Well, I can’t see romance blossoming in that run-down place, can you? Especially in weather like this. West hardly strikes me as the sort of man who knows how to survive without central heating and all mod cons.’

‘Fiona said that they needed privacy.’

‘She gets privacy. In fact she has all the room she needs.’

‘Very little, when you’re under the same roof,’ Christina said under her breath, and he frowned.

‘Well, I shall have to go up there and try and talk some sense into her. Just in case she’s contemplating doing something crazy.’ He stood up and immediately the lounge seemed to shrink in size.

‘Like what?’ Christina asked, momentarily distracted by the sheer power of his presence.

‘Like marrying the half-wit.’ He snatched up his coat and began putting it on. Black and thick, it gave him the air of a raffish highwayman, not that he seemed aware of the impression he made. He was frowning, thinking.

‘Wouldn’t they need a licence or something?’ Christina asked, anxious now. ‘Besides, Fiona has more sense than that.’ But her voice was even more dubious.

‘Who knows how long they’ve been planning this little jaunt?’ He looked at her narrowly, and she shook her head in answer to his unspoken question.

‘I, for one, did not,’ she denied vehemently. ‘Fiona dropped this on me like a bombshell yesterday.’

He was staring at her, as if trying to work something out in his mind, and it made her uneasy. Nothing was ever straightforward with Adam Palmer. She rose to her feet and walked across to the door, her hand resting lightly on the handle.

He had got what he wanted, she thought. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble merely by recognising from the very start that he was going to get the information out of her, and by telling him what he wanted to know without bothering to beat about the bush.

But he had always brought out the argumentative side in her. Even when she had been madly infatuated with him, when she used to follow him with her eyes every time she saw him, she had still never been submissive enough to listen to what he had to say without responding.

He moved across to the door to stand by her, looking down at her with a calculating little gleam in his eyes.

‘Busy right now?’ he asked, and she stared into his blue eyes, surprised and taken aback by his sudden digression.

‘Quite busy, yes,’ she said warily. ‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘Merely being polite. After all, we’ve hardly exchanged pleasantries since I got here.’

‘I don’t remember a time when that bothered you particularly,’ Christina commented matter-of-factly.

He raised one brow, but she knew that he really couldn’t care less what she thought of him. He liked her well enough; time, after all, did bring a certain unsought familiarity into any relationship. But as far as he was concerned she existed on his periphery. His sister’s friend. The plain little girl who had grown into a quite ordinary-looking young woman. He had never looked twice at her and he never would, and so he had nothing to prove with her. He didn’t even have to pretend to care what she thought about him.

‘What interesting jobs have you got lined up? Fiona keeps me well informed about your fascinating line of work.’

‘Does she?’ Christina asked politely, thinking that he sounded anything but fascinated.

‘What was your last project? Photographing a member of royalty for a magazine cover?’

Christina nodded and wondered where this line of questioning was leading.

‘Must be very convenient, freelancing,’ he murmured, looking at her sideways. ‘I sometimes wish I had that sort of luxury.’

‘What? And give up the stress of the concrete jungle?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘I don’t believe that for one minute, Adam.’

He laughed softly. ‘No, perhaps you’re right,’ he murmured. ‘Still, you work to your own timetable, don’t you?’

‘Not really.’

He ignored that. ‘Which is particularly convenient right at this moment, because I want you to come with me to Scotland to fetch my sister.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU want what?’ Christina stared at him as though he had gone completely mad and he stared back at her with an insufferable look of patience on his face.

‘I want you to come with me to Scotland,’ he repeated, very slowly, ‘to fetch my sister. You’ve already agreed that she was crazy to have just vanished with that fool of a boy. Who knows where it will lead? And if she makes the mistake of marrying him, it’ll be over my dead body. So naturally I have to prevent that from happening at all costs.’

‘Oh, naturally,’ Christina spluttered angrily. ‘You go right ahead and do what you feel you have to do, but please don’t include me in your plans.’

She opened the front door and a cold blast of air wafted in.

Her flat did not lead directly out to the street, but rather on to a small landing shared by her neighbour’s adjacent flat. Even so, it was cold outside.

He pushed the door shut and leant against it, his arms folded.

‘You have to come, Tina, you’re her friend. Supposedly.’

She gave him a long, withering look. She hoped it spoke volumes, because she didn’t trust her vocabulary to cover precisely what she wanted to say on the subject, which was a good deal.

‘Don’t you dare use that sort of blackmail on me,’ she said emphatically. ‘You might be able to get your way with most people, over most things, but not with me and definitely not on this matter!’

There, she thought, take that.

But instead of moving out of her way, instead of acknowledging defeat, he continued to look at her, his face grim. He wasn’t playing any games when it came to this. She could see that. Ever since his parents had died, he had taken care of his sister zealously. Despite her age, he considered her his responsibility, probably until she settled down and married someone in whom he could safely entrust her well-being.

As far as he was concerned, Fiona was in danger of committing the biggest mistake of her short life and he was not going to stand around without doing something about it.

Christina could follow that line of thought, even though she wasn’t quite sure whether she agreed with it or not.

However, as far as she was concerned, coercing her into some kind of confrontation with his sister was out of the question.

She was not about to start taking sides with anyone, because she would have hated it if she had been in Fiona’s situation. Hardly likely, she acknowledged honestly, since highly unsuitable men weren’t attracted to her in the slightest, but that was not the point.

‘I’m not leaving here until you agree to accompany me,’ he said blandly enough, although his face was hard and determined. ‘You know my sister as well as I do. She’ll have a fit if I show up on the doorstep, playing big brother. But if she sees you, she might feel more inclined to listen to sense.’

‘Alternatively, she might just slam the door in both our faces and tell us to mind our own damn business!’

‘It’s a risk we’ll have to take.’

‘Correction; it’s a risk you’ll have to take.’

She glared at him and he reached out and gripped her by her arm, pulling her towards him so that their faces were only inches apart.

‘Now you listen to me,’ he said with razor sharpness. ‘You’re coming with me whether you like it or not. You can just get down from that “you’re entitled to do what you like in life” platform. This is Fiona and we’re not talking about some casual little fling here. She’s been seeing this boy for quite a while and she seems serious about him.’

‘It might be mutual,’ Christina interjected feebly, but she was on weak ground here, she knew that.

‘We both know that that’s not the case. God knows why my sister can’t see the obvious, but that’s irrelevant. The fact is, I don’t want her doing anything she’d live to regret.’ He took a deep breath and looked at her coldly. His fingers were still biting into her arm, and Christina gave a little tug, which he ignored. ‘Have I told you that he was throwing out feelers as to how much money she stands to acquire on her twenty-fifth birthday?’

Christina gasped, appalled. ‘No! Surely not!’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Did you mention that to Fiona?’

He gave a short, cynical laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. That would have had the opposite effect.’ He released her abruptly and she massaged her numb arm, trying to get the blood circulation back into action.

‘You’re probably right,’ she agreed.

‘Now do you still think that it’s all right to let her get on with her own mistakes?’

‘She’s a grown woman,’ Christina protested helplessly, but his revelation had taken the wind out of her sails and she knew that his sharp eyes had not missed that.

‘She’s got years of living to do before she can be called that,’ he said bluntly, though his eyes were indulgent. ‘She’s always been as flighty as a butterfly, and I’ve always accepted that. But not this time. This boy is a nasty piece of work. He could ruin her life.’

There was a little silence between them while Christina digested all this.

She had not banked on any of this happening. Oh, she had known that he would contact her as soon as he had read Fiona’s note, but she had been adamant that she would reveal nothing of her friend’s whereabouts.

Not only had she failed miserably in that decision, but here she was, teetering on the brink of agreeing with him that yes, maybe chasing her up to that cottage in Scotland wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

The man’s powers of persuasion were limitless.

‘Well?’ he pressed. ‘What’s your decision?’

‘I can’t just rush off and leave my work commitments,’ Christina said weakly, grasping at straws.

‘You’ll be gone two days at the outset. It’s hardly going to kill any potential jobs you might have.’

He had a point, she thought with an inward sigh of resignation. February was not a good time for her, for some reason. There was enough work to keep her going, but nothing like the demand which she normally had for the remainder of the year.

‘Not that that would stop you,’ she muttered gloomily, but he was relaxed now, smiling even, though with no real humour.

He had succeeded in getting her where he wanted her, and if she could have she would have wiped that look of satisfaction off his clever face, but she couldn’t.

‘Now, now,’ he soothed, ‘you make me sound like a tyrant.’

‘Do I?’ She raised her large brown eyes to his. ‘And that would be so far from the truth, wouldn’t it?’

He laughed, a low chuckle that somehow managed to addle her.

‘When you were much younger, I would have slapped you over your rear for that piece of cheek,’ he said, still with that crooked smile.

‘You always did have a way about you,’ she said with asperity, but her face had gone pink at the thought of Adam Palmer’s laying a hand on her, for whatever reason. ‘When do you propose to leave for Scotland?’ she asked, changing the subject, and he frowned, thinking about it.

‘As soon as possible. We can take the shuttle out of Heathrow Airport to Glasgow and then drive to the cottage. Arduous, but it’s the only way of getting there. I’ll give you a call as soon as I find out the details. We can meet at the airport.’

‘What about the weather?’ This consideration had only just occurred to her, but there was no way that she was going to find herself stranded in that cottage, which she knew from old was in the middle of nowhere, alone with him. That was the sort of stuff that bred nightmares.

‘What about it?’

‘Snow?’ she said patiently. ‘Impassable roads? Stuck miles away from civilisation?’

‘Dear me,’ he murmured with an aggravating note of mockery in his voice, ‘we can’t have that, can we?’

‘It’s not a joke!’ Christina snapped. ‘I have no intention of being stuck up there with only you for company.’ Her skin prickled at the mere thought of it.

No doubt there were hordes of women who would give their right arm to be in that situation. No doubt that was what was flashing through his mind even as he stood there, looking down at her with that annoying half-amused look on his face. But she was going to make it absolutely clear that she was not to be counted in that number.

She would listen to the weather reports and if there was any mention of snow—any mention of a passing flurry, for that matter—she would cancel that trip without giving it a second thought.

‘There was a time,’ he countered smoothly, ‘when you would have found that thought quite appealing.’

She met his eyes and looked away in sudden confusion.

‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ she heard herself asking.

‘Oh, you know what I mean, Tina. Remember that crush you had on me? You must have been all of what—fifteen? Sixteen? Sweet sixteen and never been kissed? I should have been flattered, but it was awkward, wasn’t it?’

Christina’s mouth went dry. She wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. Anything to spare her from this awful, nightmarish embarrassment washing over her.

‘You must have—’

‘Stop it!’ she interrupted in a high voice. She took a deep breath, counted to ten, and when she next spoke she was relieved to hear that some of her self-control had returned. ‘I was young. And stupid. Very stupid. Fortunately for me, I was cured of that little problem. So there’s no point in dragging it up, is there? The fact of the matter is I’m not going unless the weather reports are favourable, and that’s that.’

She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his eyes, so she stared at her fingers instead. A thousand things were running through her head, but really they all amounted to the same awful, vicious circle of memories that she had tried to put to the back of her mind. She had been so naïve. She had literally thrown herself at him and he had laughed with that sickening mixture of surprise and genuine amusement. ‘You’re a child,’ he had told her but what he had meant was that she just didn’t possess the easy charm and bold beauty of the women to whom he was already drawn.

What a picture she must have made, with her mousy brown hair and brown eyes, next to those blondes and brunettes and redheads who had adorned his parents’ house with predictable regularity during the university holidays.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I have no intention of getting stuck in ten-foot snowdrifts either. Not that your honour isn’t safe with me, so you needn’t fear anything on that score. You’re Fiona’s friend and...’ He shrugged and the unspoken words hung in the air, their meaning crystal-clear. He found her physically unappealing, was what he was saying, so she could relax, but instead of reassuring her it brought tears of anger and humiliation to her eyes. It reminded her of how she had felt when her teenage crush had been ever so smilingly handed back to her.

‘I’ll call you.’

‘Fine,’ she said stiffly, looking at her watch. It was nearly five in the morning. He had been there much longer than she had thought. Hours. ‘Now do you mind? I want to catch up on some sleep. As you do too, no doubt.’ She hadn’t meant to, but her voice implied that he needed the rest since he had spent the night doing God only knew what, but it didn’t take a genius to imagine.

‘Oh, I think I’ll go to the office,’ he said casually, reaching down to turn the doorknob.

She removed her hand from it quickly, to avoid any contact between them, then immediately hoped that he had not noticed her reaction.

‘At this hour?’

‘I have a lot of paperwork to clear before I can go anywhere. You aren’t, believe it or not, the only one whose tidy little schedule has been interrupted.’

‘I never said that I was,’ she muttered.

‘You don’t have to. The implication was there in your voice. You always did have a way of saying much more with your silences than with your words.’

That piece of insight startled her. Had he noticed that? It was a trait which she herself was aware of. She thought of it as tact, because she knew that if she relentlessly said what was on her mind there would be quite a few people who would be unnecessarily offended by her remarks. So she often kept silent, allowing her thoughts to supply the missing bits in her conversations.

But no one had ever been aware of this ploy. He must, she now thought, be incredibly perceptive to have picked that up from their numerous but casual encounters over the years.

Perception along those lines made her uneasy. It made her think that he could read her mind, and she didn’t like that sensation.

‘Really?’ she said blankly. ‘I’ll expect to hear from you a little later, then. If I’m not in, you can always leave a message on my answer machine.’

‘Fine. But make sure you’re around from this afternoon. I’ll probably try and get us on the earliest flight after lunch.’

It wasn’t a suggestion, it was a command. Be home after twelve or else.

She shut the door on him after he had gone and retired to her bedroom, where she spent the next hour trying to court sleep.

But it was difficult. She felt as though she had been abruptly swept up in a whirlwind and, now that she had been let down from it, she still couldn’t quite manage to find her feet. One minute she was in control of things, her diary all planned out with her various jobs, her social life, if not buzzing, then ticking over. The next, everything had been turned upside-down and she was off on some foolish rescue mission with a man who, after all these years, could still succeed in making her feel acutely uncomfortable with herself.

And that made her cross. Why did he arouse that reaction in her? Was it because, in the enforced intimacy of her flat, the power of his personality had seeped into her and made her over-conscious of herself?

That had to be the explanation, she decided. In the past, she had seen Adam frequently enough, but always in the company of other people. When they had been alone, she had been usually waiting for Fiona to put in an appearance. She had been able to step back and view him with detachment, never putting herself in a situation where his presence could overwhelm her.

Tonight, though, it had been different. There had been no one else around to dilute the sheer force of his masculinity. She had been obliged to face him, one to one, and she had found her composure wanting.

All the more pathetic, she told herself with disgust, when he had made it clear that he found her quite unappealing as a member of the opposite sex. I don’t care, she told herself philosophically, I’m no longer addicted to him. But she would have to watch herself. She had no intention of being tripped up by that stupid charm of his. That wouldn’t do at all. She now had a plane trip and a car ride alone with him to contend with and, if she was going to sit through the whole thing in a state of nervous tension, then she would end up in need of medical treatment at the end of it all.

She finally drifted off to sleep and when she next opened her eyes it was after nine o’clock.

She had appointments. Two to cancel. She sprang out of bed, bustled into the lounge for her diary, and rang them both.

Mrs Rafferty, her first appointment, who wanted photographs of the interior of her house taken for inclusion in a book she was writing on stately homes, was easy enough to pacify. She had been working on her book for two years. A short delay in the photographs was not a matter of life or death.

Her second client, however, was somewhat harder to placate.

Mrs Molton was an irascible woman at the best of times. Now she listened while Christina made her excuses, then she bellowed down the line, ‘This isn’t good enough!’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Molton,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid it’s unavoidable.’

‘Unavoidable? The word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary!’

Christina could well believe that, thinking of her now. Thin, wiry, with a voice that could shatter glass.

‘And what about the dogs? My little poopsies? Don’t you think that it isn’t stressful for them, having to pose for photographs? They’re beautifully groomed. Today you would have got it right, I know it.’

Christina thought of her subjects, two corgis as irascible as their owner. Was it any wonder that this shoot was taking twice as long as it should have?

‘I can rearrange you for next Tuesday,’ she murmured, not wanting to stray on to the subject of the two infernal hounds.

‘And I can always rearrange you, young lady!’ Mrs Molton informed her testily down the line. ‘You’re not the only photographer in the world, you know. My niece may well have recommended you, but that doesn’t mean that I have to employ you. The world,’ she continued in a booming voice that belied her stature, ‘is full of talented photographers. I’ll allow myself and my poopsies to be rearranged just this once, but not again!’

Christina released a long sigh as she replaced the receiver.

Thank you, Adam Palmer, she thought. Now if I lose this job, however unchallenging it may be, I blame you entirely.

She spent a desultory morning throwing things into an overnight bag and lethargically reviewing some negatives for a job which she had undertaken a fortnight previously and which were due for submission to a magazine in a week’s time, but her mind was working overtime.

She kept thinking of Adam. She thought of the way his body moved, the way his eyes were somehow fierce yet coolly mocking at the same time. Had she forgotten all that, she wondered, or had she shoved it to the back of her mind?

These were irritating questions. She was acting like the silly teenager she had been all those years ago. She was no longer a teenager and she liked to think of herself as too clever to let herself be swayed by a man’s appearance. She might not be beautiful, but she was smart enough, and she wasn’t about to abandon her good sense by letting him get under her skin.

She glared at the jumper in her hand and then threw it into the bag.

Weather report or no weather report, she was going to make sure that she travelled with an ample supply of thick clothing.

The man on the radio had self-confidently assured her that there would be no snow in Scotland, although conditions would be freezing, but weathermen had a talent for getting it wrong.

At three in the afternoon Adam called to inform her that they would be leaving in an hour and a half.

‘Meet me at the airport,’ he said in the quick tone of voice which implied that he had better things to do than converse with her over the phone. ‘Take a taxi and charge it to my company.’