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She shut the door behind her very quietly, and then stood for a few seconds willing her racing heartbeat to calm down. Control, control—it was all about control. As long as she remembered that, she would do just fine.
She pretended to check through the papers in the file as she remained standing in Jed Cannon’s secretary’s plush office; standing was all she could manage just at that moment. Reaction had set in, walking was quite beyond her, and the thought of falling in a heap just outside his quarters did not appear.
‘Is everything all right? You haven’t left anything...?’ The beautiful Miss Rice-Brown looked up from her word processor after a time, and the gracious expression on the lovely face was just the spur Tamar needed to get moving again.
‘No, I’m just making sure,’ Tamar said evenly. ‘There’s nothing worse than getting back to the office and finding something has been mislaid, but everything seems to be here. Mr Cannon has asked me to phone later with details about a viewing I’m setting up for this afternoon.’
‘Right.’ The secretary clearly wasn’t overly interested, inclining her head absently before her glance returned to the screen. ‘No problem.’
Not for you, maybe, Tamar thought with a touch of wry self-mockery as she waded through the carpet again to the outer door, stepping into the silent corridor outside and walking over to the lift with a dignity she was far from feeling.
Had she bitten off more than she could chew, here? she asked herself nervously, the lift whisking her down to the ground floor of the Cannon Express building before she could blink. Very probably, but then, nothing ventured—nothing gained...
The warm, sluggish air was portentous of another baking hot August day, but as Tamar stepped from the cool air-conditioned building into what resembled an oven her mind was not on the weather.
She had vowed, all those months ago now, that one day she would have her day with Jed Cannon and confront him with the near-fatal results of his ruthlessness, and if nothing else she was a woman of her word. But she had realised very early on that she needed to do more than tell him. That would have been water off a duck’s back as far as this man was concerned, and it was doubtful if he would have given her a moment’s thought afterwards.
No, she needed to get into Jed Cannon’s head, establish herself as a person in her own right before she let rip, and if she could make him fall for her, however carnal such an attraction would be with a man like him, it was all to the good. She would rather die than let him touch her, but he didn’t know that.
She decided she was still feeling a mite too fragile after the encounter she had psyched herself up for for days to contemplate the push and shove of the tube, so opted for the luxury of a taxi back to the office, settling in the cavernous depths and giving the driver the address of Taylor and Taylor before she allowed her mind to transport her back to that morning in February, six months ago.
The phone call had come when she was in the shower, and she had padded into the small sitting room of her one-bedroomed flat in Chelsea, expecting Richard or Fiona’s voice to be on the other end of the line. But it hadn’t proved to be one of the young, dynamic and recently married Taylors who had spoken.
‘Tamar? Oh, Tamar, thank goodness. I thought you might have already left for the office. I... Oh, Tamar...’
‘Aunt Prudence?’ Tamar had never heard her normally vivacious and bubbly aunt so upset, and it frightened her. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she asked anxiously.
There was silence for a moment, followed by the sound of sniffling and snuffling, and then her aunt said, her whisper thick with tears, ‘It’s Gabrielle. She...she’s in hospital.’
‘Gaby’s in hospital?’ Tamar had hardly been able to believe it. She had only spoken to her cousin—who was more like a sister than anything else, the two girls having been brought up together from the age of five, when Tamar’s own parents had been killed in a train accident in her mother’s native France—the night before, and Gabrielle had been fine then. In fact, she’d been on top of the world—wildly, ecstatically happy... ‘What’s happened, Aunt Prudence? Has there been an accident?’ Tamar prompted urgently, her voice shaking.
‘Not exactly.’ And then her aunt totally amazed and bewildered her when she wailed at the top of her voice, ‘Oh, Tamar, I wish she had had an accident; I could cope with that. But this! This is awful.’
‘What’s awful?’ Tamar was trying—very hard—to keep her patience. Her aunt had never been a person who could cope with any sort of pressure, all the family knew that, and made allowances, but when the only sound from the other end of the phone was loud sobs that went on and on, Tamar said at last, her voice sharp, ‘Aunt Prudence, answer me. What’s so awful?’ and then, when no answer was immediately forthcoming, ‘Where’s Uncle Jack? Aunt Prudence, where is Uncle Jack?’
‘He’s ... he’s at the hospital with...with Gabrielle. They said ... the doctor said I was upsetting her and it would be better if I came home and got ... got some rest.’
Even in her aunt’s obvious distress a note of affronted pride was detectable, and Tamar could imagine how the doctor’s suggestion had gone down with her aunt.
‘She ... Gabrielle took some sleeping tablets,’ her aunt sobbed. ‘A whole bottle full that I had in the cupboard from when your uncle Jack had shingles and couldn’t sleep.’
‘Gaby?’ Tamar exclaimed shrilly, her brain refusing to accept what her ears were hearing. ‘Aunt Prudence, you’re saying Gaby tried to commit suicide?’
‘Yes, she did—she did. She said so herself after they had pumped her stomach out.’
‘But why? Why on earth would she do something like that?’ Tamar asked shakily. ‘I only spoke to her yesterday, and she was over the moon about Ronald and making plans...’ She caught herself abruptly. This wouldn’t help her aunt. She had to find out the facts as quickly as she could, and, Prudence being Prudence, that would be difficult enough. She loved her aunt dearly, but she had to be one of the giddiest people on the face of the earth.
‘Aunt Prudence, is Gaby all right? Physically, I mean?’ she asked quietly, willing herself to sound calm despite the turmoil within.
‘I think so, but she wouldn’t talk to us,’ her aunt wailed plaintively. ‘She said...she said she just wanted to be alone.’ The sobs that were interrupting her aunt’s words were of a pitch to make Tamar’s ears ring, and it was at that point Tamar told her aunt she would be coming up to Scotland on the next train, and that she would speak further with her then.
Later that evening she had learnt the full facts from Gabrielle herself. Her cousin, her sweet, gentle and hopelessly naive cousin, was pregnant, and the man in question was Jed Cannon’s brother-in-law. Not that Gabrielle had known her beau was married until the evening before, when Jed Cannon himself strode into the hotel restaurant where they were having dinner, and verbally ripped Gabrielle apart in front of a crowd of interested and goggle-eyed spectators, before leaving again with a crestfallen Ronald in tow.
And then, later that night, with Tamar holding her cousin’s hand, Gabrielle had lost her baby.
CHAPTER TWO
THE house Jed Cannon had opted to view first was a beauty. Eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, three reception rooms, huge study, enormous sun lounge overlooking the covered swimming pool—the list of attributes was endless. The price took a while to say too, with all the noughts it necessitated...
Tamar met him outside the towering nine-foot wall surrounding the property on the outskirts of Windsor, making sure she was there and waiting in plenty of time. He had offered her a lift when she had phoned earlier with details of the meeting, but she had refused, insisting she would make her own way, due to a previous appointment meaning she would be in the area. It was a lie, and the exorbitant taxi fare was just punishment.
She saw the Mercedes the second it rounded the corner in the far distance, the shimmering heat turning the magnificent car to fluid bronze, but waited until it was almost level with her before she spoke into the little box on the gate, stating their names and the reason for their visit to Greenacres. The gates opened immediately. ‘Hop in.’
Jed Cannon was in the back of the vehicle, a host of papers scattered around him as he worked away on a small computer, and he leant across to open the far door for her, the chauffeur sitting impassively in his glass-partitioned isolation.
‘Thank you.’ It was a little breathless, but the overall authority of him was magnified rather than lessened by the sight of him working, shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie loose round his collar, in the confined space.
‘Where’s your car?’ he asked abruptly as she closed her door and settled down in the luxurious depths.
Her little old banger had failed its MOT the week before, and at present was in a car hospital having major surgery—something she could ill afford—but she wasn’t going to tell him all that. ‘Flat tyre,’ she replied economically. It was true, in a way, but there were about a hundred and one other defects that were being attended to at the same time.
‘And you haven’t got a back-up?’
No, and she didn’t have a Mercedes, a vintage Rolls, and a snazzy little Ferrari either. Unlike him. Perhaps three cars per multimillionaire wasn’t too excessive, but it had still grated when she’d first discovered it, and it rankled even more right now.
‘No, I haven’t,’ she replied shortly, her chin rising a notch. ‘Few working girls have, I should imagine.’
There was silence for a moment and then, ‘I’m sorry, Tamar, I put that incredibly badly.’
His voice was soft and genuine, and as she glanced at him she saw he was truly embarrassed.
‘What I meant was, I would have thought the firm you work for would have provided a vehicle for just such an emergency,’ he said quietly. ‘A car must be pretty essential for your day to day business?’
‘It helps.’ She was flustered, and hot and sticky—she had been waiting fifteen minutes for his car to arrive, so nervous had she been of being late, and there had been no shade from the fierce afternoon sun—but it was the look on his face and the softness of his voice rather than the heat which was making her uncomfortable.
She inclined her head slightly now, her voice mellowing as she said, ‘It just happened that everyone needed their own car today, and there isn’t a pool vehicle-not yet at any rate,’ she added hastily. The last thing she wanted to do was give Jed Cannon the impression that Taylor and Taylor was just a little tinpot kind of business. ‘But Richard and Fiona are working on it,’ she said positively.
‘And they are?’ he asked expressionlessly.
‘Taylor and Taylor.’
‘Right.’
Oh, damn, what was he thinking now? She risked a sidelong glance from under her eyelashes as the beautiful car nosed its way along the winding tree-lined drive towards the palatial house some hundred yards away. Did he think Taylor and Taylor weren’t big enough to handle this kind of property, that they were cowboys, or—?
‘So, most of the ground is at the front of the house, with just the swimming pool and tennis court at the back?’ Jed asked quietly, raising his head from his work and leaning back in the seat as he spoke.
‘Yes.’ Oh, she should have been giving him the sales pitch rather than daydreaming, Tamar cautioned herself irritably, and she went on to list the rare trees and flowers the garden boasted.
She continued to point out each advantageous feature of the property—the genuine solid oak beams in the reception rooms, the wonderful stained glass windows in the entrance hall and on the first and second floor landings, and so on—and by the time they had finished the inspection she had spoken herself almost hoarse.
It hadn’t helped that the owner—an aristocratic and hopelessly dotty old colonel-type, who had more money than sense—had completed the tour with them, helpfully pointing out the rising damp in the study, the crumbling brickwork in the west wing, and the failing filtering system in the pool.
She had sensed more than once that Jed Cannon was being vastly entertained. There was something about the studiously straight face and faintly strangled note to his voice that suggested smothered amusement—especially when she found herself arguing with the owner on the merits of a south-facing garden—and when they stepped out of the front door again, after the requisite sherry and dry biscuits, Tamar really didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
She did neither, inclining her head towards Jed as they walked across the scrunchy drive towards the Mercedes and saying, without any preamble, ‘Well, did you like it?’ her voice flat.
‘Very much.’ The silver eyes were positively wicked as he added, ‘And Gerald Biggsley-Brown proved to be a very honest and upright individual, don’t you think?’
She glanced at him sharply, but the handsome face was bland and innocent—too bland and too innocent.
‘Yes, he’s very nice,’ Tamar said primly. Why, oh, why, had she started this? She was way out of her league here. How on earth could she ever get a man like Jed Cannon to fancy her anyway? She must have been mad. But she would tell him what she thought of him; she could still do that at least.
‘Okay, set the ball rolling,’ Jed said easily.
‘What?’
Tamar stopped stock-still in the middle of the horseshoe forecourt, so that Jed had actually walked on a few paces before he realised she wasn’t with him. He turned to face her, taking in the wide dark eyes and partly open mouth with more secret amusement.
‘What did you say?’ she asked again.
‘I said, set the ball rolling—start the negotiations,’ he replied patently. ‘However you want to describe it.’
‘But ... but what about the damp, and the brickwork and...everything?’ she stuttered disbelievingly.
‘Tamar, are you trying to sell me this house or do a hatchet job?’ Jed drawled drily. ‘If you insist, I’ll sacrifice some more of my valuable time to traipse around a few properties, but the end result would be the same. I like this house. I want it at the right price of course—and I shan’t change my mind about that I’ve always prided myself on being a man who knows what he wants when he sees it, and then acquiring it. I’ve seen it.’
‘You have?’ She suddenly realised how hopelessly unprofessional she must sound, and forced a bright, positive note into her voice as she added, ‘Of course you have. This is a wonderful house. The oak beams—’
‘Were pointed out masterfully, along with the stained glass windows, the new fitted kitchen, and, of course, the south-facing garden.’
He was laughing at her, she knew it, but she was too surprised at the easy sale—and what a sale—to be angry. The commission she would make on this one deal was more than she normally earned in months.
‘Now, shall we sit in the comfort of the car while we discuss a few terms and conditions? It must be all of eighty in the shade out here,’ he pointed out matter-of factly.
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She found herself almost gambolling along at his side before she checked herself sharply. This was Jed Cannon. Jed Cannon. The sale was great, of course it was—‘tasty’ wasn’t the word—but there was more at stake here than filthy lucre. And in one way this had all been too easy. There would be no reason, once the sale was going through, for her ever to darken Jed Cannon’s door again, and that wasn’t at all what she had planned.
Once in the car, he turned to her, after tapping the glass for the chauffeur to drive off, and smiled. She wished he hadn’t It had been bad enough earlier in the office, but here, in this confined space, with the faint smell of expensive aftershave teasing her nostrils and the dark, latent power of the man seeming to strain against a precarious leash, it was positively devastating.
‘Now...’ He leant back casually in the seat, one arm stretched along the back of the leather upholstery and the silver eyes narrowed against the white sunlight. ‘That brickwork...’
He detailed several matters needing expert attention—most of which had been pointed out by the good Gerald Biggsley-Brown, bless him, Tamar thought balefully—before finishing with, ‘They can either be rectified by the present owner before I take possession, or by me, with estimates reducing the asking price by an agreed amount. I’m not fussy. And of course all this is subject to survey and the normal formalities,’ he said crisply.
‘Of course,’ Tamar agreed carefully.
‘And I want this completed fast—no hiccups, no delays. If Gerald can’t get the work done in the next two weeks, I can.’
She didn’t doubt that Jed Cannon could do anything he set his mind to, but two weeks? ‘But the survey and everything?’ Tamar stared at him in disbelief. ‘These things take time, Mr Cannon. Once you’ve reached an agreement with the owner—’
He interrupted her faintly dazed voice coolly. ‘The guy already has the little seaside place he’s moving to—’ Tamar wouldn’t have described Mr Biggsley-Brown’s seven hundred thousand pounds’ worth of beautiful holiday home in that way, but no matter ‘—so he could move out tomorrow if he wants. He said so. There are no mortgage complications on his side or mine, and I can get my people in to do the survey tomorrow morning if necessary.’
How the other half live. How the other half live, Tamar thought bemusedly.
‘I want to get a place near London quickly—there are ... family complications that make it important—okay? So, let’s all pull our fingers out and get cracking.’
‘Yes, right.’ She was still shell-shocked—that was the only excuse she could think of afterwards for her next words, which were a big, big gaffe. ‘But I thought you had an apartment in Kensington anyway?’ she said do-pily.
‘Did you...?’
The metallic gaze had turned to bright steel and was at variance with the almost lazy tone of voice, but Tamar was looking straight into his eyes, and they woke her up like nothing else could have done.
‘Have you been doing some homework on me, Miss Tamar McKinley?’ he asked thoughtfully.
‘No, no, not really.’ She had always been hopeless at lying, her tendency to metamorphose into a beetroot was a dead give-away, and now, as she felt herself burn with colour, she knew she had to retrieve the situation fast. ‘Well...’ She allowed the merest embarrassed pause before she lowered her eyes and said hesitantly, ‘The sort of property you’re interested in does cost a great deal of money, Mr Cannon. The firm prefers a little... investigation in those circumstances, to make sure the client is not disappointed at the last moment by. a buyer who simply can’t meet the required asking price.’
‘How thorough.’ It was cool and even, and as Tamar raised her eyes she couldn’t gauge a thing from the expressionless face in front of her. ‘And this is normal practice?’ he asked softly.
‘In deals of this calibre, yes,’ she said quietly. ‘We like to feel that if at any time in the future you decided to move again, the sort of service we provide would prompt you to contact us before any other firm.’
‘And what else is included in the ... service you provide?’
It could have meant exactly what it said at face value, but there was the merest inflexion in the tone that told Tamar he was flirting with her. Carefully, obliquely, even, but there was something there, and she had to be very very circumspect now. She couldn’t afford to make another mistake like the one she had just made.
She smiled gently, listing all the pros of dealing with Taylor and Taylor one by one, at the same time allowing her eyes to give him just the faintest of come-ons.
The Mercedes pulled up outside Taylor and Taylor—where Jed had offered to take her—at just gone four, and she prayed he wouldn’t suggest coming in and meeting Richard and Fiona. The shop premises didn’t look too bad on the outside, but if he came in and saw just how small the set-up was, he might suspect they didn’t normally deal in seven-figure negotiations. But he didn’t.
Why would he? she asked herself once she was out of the car and raising her hand to him as the dark gold Mercedes glided away into mainstream traffic. Men of his wealth and importance weren’t exactly desperate to meet the minions below them.
‘Oh, wow!’ Fiona met her at the door and it was obvious she had been watching out of the window. ‘That was him, I take it? Jed Cannon? And look at that car! I bet you didn’t even know you were on the road.’
‘It’s a bit different to my little jalopy,’ Tamar agreed, with a rueful grin at Fiona’s avaricious face. She loved Fiona and Richard—she had been at university with them both, and they had helped her through a rough patch in her life then and continued to be steadfast friends—but sometimes the fierce ambition and ruthless intent to succeed that the couple shared left her cold.
They would make a name for themselves in the field they had chosen; she didn’t doubt that for a minute, in spite of estate agents being ten a penny in the London area. And that was good, just fine, Tamar told herself as she entered the office and turned to answer the hundred and one questions Fiona was throwing at her. But there was more to life than work. Richard and Fiona genuinely enjoyed working from dawn to dusk, six, sometimes seven days a week, and, as neither of them wanted children, they had decided to sink all their time and money, along with their hearts and souls, into their joint career.
But she wasn’t like that. She wanted a home of her own one day when the time was right, with a partner who loved her, and a family, dogs, cats...maybe a chicken or two pecking in the backyard and a pony in a field close by for the kids to ride on? It was a pipe dream, or most of it was, at any rate, but if you didn’t dream, what was there? Of course, to form a relationship with a man you had to be prepared to date now and again, and she wasn’t there yet, but she was getting better...
‘Well?’ She came back to the real world to see Fiona positively hopping with eager impatience. ‘How did it go? Did he display any interest? Talk to me, Tamar.’
‘He wants it,’ Tamar said off-handedly, enjoying the moment.
‘He...? He doesn’t! He doesn’t, does he? Really? For definite?’ Fiona gabbled enthusiastically, for once not at all like her normal cool, sophisticated self.
‘Absolutely.’ Tamar nodded, before laughing out loud. ‘And I’m looking forward to a nice long holiday somewhere hot with all that commission.’
‘Oh, you’ve earnt it—you’ve definitely earnt it,’ Fiona agreed happily. ‘If we can get a few more clients like him, we’re laughing. And to think all this came about because you had lunch with Carol at Webster and Hartman! That’ll teach her to boast about how well their firm are doing compared to ours.’
‘I feel a bit mean about that actually—’
‘Nonsense.’ Fiona interrupted Tamar’s subdued voice in her normal forceful manner. ‘All’s fair in love and war, girl, and don’t you forget it. You went out and got those three properties you showed him on our books, didn’t you? It was your enterprise and push that did that. You deserve to make a killing. It’s the first time I’ve seen you so determined about anything for ages.’
‘Ages’ translated into five years, Tamar thought wryly, as she gazed at this bright, attractive friend of hers, who was known for her plain speaking.
‘And anyway, Carol shouldn’t have mentioned Jed Cannon if she didn’t expect us to go for a bite of the same cherry,’ Fiona finished with a decisive nod of her head. ‘I wouldn’t expect you or Tim—’ Tim being the other employee of the firm ‘—to sound off about who we’ve got on our books and who we haven’t. And you told Carol you were going to try for Jed Cannon. That’s more than she would have done if the position had been reversed. No, you did very well. You’ve obviously got the right touch with millionaires.’
‘Obviously.’ But he hadn’t asked for her telephone number, or suggested a date, and she had so wanted to get under his skin a bit before she told him exactly what she thought of him. He had treated Gaby like dirt under his shoe, publicly humiliated her to the point where she had tried to take her own life. At the very least she wanted him to remember her for a while when she did the same to him.