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‘OK. Please, Ginny, I’d be terribly grateful if you’d clear up the mess you’ve just made,’ he murmured in a grating parody of an English accent. ‘Tell me, are you always this sensitive?’
Ginny’s unladylike retort was drowned by the shriek of the coffee-grinder he switched on just as she uttered it.
‘You’ve over-filled it!’ she yelled over the din.
‘What?’
‘I said…Oh, forget it!’
He switched off the grinder. ‘I couldn’t hear you with that thing on. Does it always make that noise?’ he enquired, his expression over-brimming with puzzled innocence.
‘Only when it’s too full,’ snapped Ginny, flashing him her most withering look before finishing clearing up the mess and then returning to making the coffee.
‘Things have been happening here since you’ve been out,’ he said.
Ginny had to force herself to keep on with what she was doing as she felt herself freeze. He had found out about Libby!
‘The equipment I’ll need to work from here arrived—I’m using the library as an office.’
‘Where do you want to drink this?’ asked Ginny, relief unfreezing her as she turned towards him with the coffee-jug.
‘Here will do fine,’ he replied, making no attempt to lend a hand as he took a seat at the table. ‘Have you any office experience?’
Ginny, who had been just about to pour the coffee, gave him a look of frowning suspicion. ‘A little,’ she muttered, and all of it bad, she added to herself as she poured out two cups. ‘Why?’ she asked, handing him one.
‘I thought you could help me out with a bit of office work—answering the telephone and checking the odd computer print-out with me.’
‘Oh, I see—you’d like me to work for you twenty-one hours a day, is that it?’
There was a mixture of irritation and amusement on his face as he took a sip from his mug.
‘No, it would involve so little time that I planned letting you off cleaning my shoes in lieu,’ he drawled. ‘So, how about it?’
‘With an organisation as vast as yours is reputed to be, I’d have thought you’d have a battalion of experts, not to mention clerical staff, at your beck and call.’
‘And you’d have thought right,’ he said. ‘But, remember, a year ago I was very much the new guy here. Now I’m the not-so-new guy and I feel the time has come for me to take a couple of steps back and see what sort of picture I get of the overall scene.’
In other words, thought Ginny, whatever he was doing here, he didn’t want his Paris staff knowing about it…A somewhat different story from the one he had originally given her.
Irritation flashed across his features. ‘All you have to do is say yes or no.’
‘I’d be happy to,’ stated Ginny, her curiosity aroused, ‘but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much use—I speak hardly any French.’
‘I guess that could present one or two problems, but I still might be able to use you. Libby’s French is OK—perhaps she might help me out if the need arises. When did you say she’d be back?’
‘I didn’t,’ replied Ginny, her curiosity giving way to an almost sickening feeling of apprehension. ‘I’ve already told you, I don’t know.’ And how many more times was he going to ask her that same question?
‘I guess you don’t think she’d be too happy to help me out in an office or anywhere else,’ he said quietly. ‘Libby and I, as you know, aren’t exactly buddies right now, but it wasn’t always like that. And once she would have jumped at helping out. When she was still quite a small kid, I took her to visit my brother, David, at his office. She was fascinated by the whole set-up and afterwards asked me some pretty adult questions about the family business,’ he continued, his tone surprising Ginny in that it sounded almost wistful. ‘I told her all I could, which wasn’t a great deal as I’d only just started at Princeton and was still pretty ignorant of the set-up myself. Years later, when I’d taken my place as an executive director, I found myself remembering all those questions she had asked—but by then it was too late.’
‘In what way?’
‘Because she’d embarked on a career of screwing up her life in whatever way she could,’ he snapped. ‘Look, I’m not claiming she had an easy time of it—Jack Collier may be in a class of his own as an academic, but he sure as hell was a lousy father.’
‘That may be so, but Libby seems to love him—warts and all,’ stated Ginny. Even in the rare moments when Libby had actually railed against her mixed-up father, there had been no mistaking her exasperated love for him. ‘Which is more than can be said for her feelings towards the Grant family.’
‘I’d be the last to deny the Grants have their faults,’ conceded Michael. ‘Though I’d say mine is pretty much the same as any other family—and not necessarily American—with what some might describe as an over-abundance of wealth and influence. Being the typical patriarch of such a family, my father can be pretty difficult to get on with at times—but my brother’s a much softer character.’
Ginny took a quick gulp from her cup to mask her surprise: she had somehow gained the impression that Libby regarded her uncle David as something of an ogre.
‘I’ve a feeling Libby’s always resented David and his wife once trying to get custody of her. The only reason they even contemplated such a step was because they loved her and felt the way Jack was diving in and out of marriages couldn’t be doing her any good. Once they lost the case we rarely saw Libby, though whether that was coincidence or revenge on her father’s part is anyone’s guess.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there,’ said Ginny, who knew nothing of the incident, but the feelings of sympathy stirring in her made her uneasy. ‘Libby’s never gone into much detail about her family problems.’ Though even when she had been quite young, Ginny had often wondered if love hadn’t been the driving force behind the Grant family’s interference, about which Libby sometimes complained with such bitterness.
‘If you say so,’ he drawled sceptically.
‘I do say so,’ snapped Ginny, his tone dissipating much of her discomfiting compassion. ‘Ours would have been a pretty depressing friendship if the two of us had spent our time exchanging the details of our mutual woes!’
‘Oh, so you’re also a bundle of woes, are you, Ginny?’ he enquired, his tone sarcastic rather than sympathetic.
‘You said you wanted to talk to me,’ snapped Ginny, any sympathy she had felt now entirely dissipated.
‘I did—and that’s what I was under the impression I was doing,’ he muttered, stretching, then dragging his fingers absent-mindedly through his hair. ‘Perhaps I’m just kidding myself, hoping that Libby and I can spend time together, and wondering if I could make a start on answering some of those questions she asked all those years ago.’
‘I thought you’d decided it was too late,’ retorted Ginny, still rattled and on edge.
‘You’re the one who insists she’s turned over a new leaf,’ he snapped.
‘And she has,’ protested Ginny, feeling more and more trapped. Her only alternative to arousing his anger and suspicion was to trot out words that lent credence to the lie that Libby was going to show up, but now her own innate sense of fairness was getting in the way of such words.
‘But not enough for her to want to mend her bridges with her family,’ he stated grimly.
‘No—that isn’t true!’ blurted out Ginny. Even if there hadn’t been Libby’s oft-proclaimed intention to make her peace with the Grants once she and Jean-Claude were married, there was the undeniable affection Libby still felt for Michael—there had been no mistaking it in her voice this morning.
‘Well, I dare say I’ll be able to judge that for myself soon enough,’ he muttered, rising and going over to pour himself more coffee. ‘Would you like more?’
Ginny shook her head, searching frantically for something non-contentious to say. ‘I’m sure Libby probably would be interested in learning more about the family business,’ she eventually managed.
‘Probably,’ he agreed, an edge of sarcasm in his tone. ‘Especially the financial side of it, which is what I deal with. Given that her trust benefits considerably from it annually, it could be/said she has quite an interest in it already.’ He returned to his seat, his expression oddly diffident as he glanced across at her. ‘I don’t have any idea how much you really know about the sort of things Libby got up to,’ he muttered. ‘But no matter how we tried to answer what all the psychologists kept saying were her cries for help—and I admit they were sometimes answered very clumsily—we couldn’t get through to her. I was just a kid when her mother died…but I loved my big sister—and Libby’s all I, and the rest of my family, have left of her.’
It was the terrible reminder of the contrasting lack of love in her aunt that brought the sudden sting of tears to Ginny’s eyes and made her even more inclined to believe that, high-handed though their dealings with Libby had always been, the Grants truly had been motivated by love.
‘I promise you…Libby has really changed,’ she said in a slightly muffled voice.
‘I look forward to seeing that for myself,’ he muttered.
Ginny took another sip of her now cold coffee, trying desperately to harden herself against the guilt niggling inside her by reminding herself of how he had landed himself in Libby’s bad books in the first place.
‘And I look forward to getting to know you, Ginny,’ he added after a pause, his intensely blue eyes rising to hers, scattering her thoughts and re-igniting those disturbing memories that only a while ago she had so blithely dismissed as mental aberration. ‘It’s not often I get the chance to meet with Libby’s friends.’
Perhaps not, thought Ginny, anger stirring once more in her, but from what Libby had said, he had made a point of getting to know one in particular most intimately.
She rose and, without a word, poured herself more coffee, most of the anger in her directed at herself. All right, so she had found him attractive before Libby had warned her what he was like, but that wasn’t an excuse for the way she was behaving now—in fact, there was something bordering on the unhealthy in the way that she could be actively disliking him one moment and feeling violently attracted to him the next.
‘You’re unusually silent, Ginny,’ he murmured, his words coming from right behind her and making her start with fright. ‘Does that mean you don’t want me to get to know you?’
‘I…No,’ she stammered, striving to get a grip on herself. ‘You frightened the life out of me, creeping up on me like that!’
‘I’m sorry. The last thing I meant to do was frighten you,’ he said, placing an apparently concerned arm around her shoulder. ‘And isn’t that a good reason for us getting to know one another…to ensure neither of us feels afraid of the other?’
‘Oh, yes—I’m sure you’re terrified out of your wits by me,’ retorted Ginny, stepping back against the counter as she shrugged his arm from her shoulder. His arm slid down and repositioned itself against her back.
‘Have I reason to be?’ he asked softly, his arm tightening against her back and drawing her towards him.
‘Don’t!’ she warned through clenched teeth, her hands rising and pressing against his chest.
‘Don’t what, Ginny?’ he laughed softly. ‘I honestly haven’t decided what I’m going to do with you yet.’
‘Well, don’t try seducing me the way you did that other friend of Libby’s because it’s not going to work on me!’
The softness of laughter was stripped from his face, leaving instead a harsh mask of coldness.
‘So Libby warned you about me, did she?’ he enquired icily.
‘Yes, she did. And if you——’
‘I wonder what it is she’s so frightened I’m going to get out of you?’ he asked in that same frigid tone.
‘She’s not frightened you’ll get anything out of me,’ exclaimed Ginny, panic swamping her as she realised just what she had said.
‘So why did she feel it necessary to warn you?’ he demanded, his hands now fiercely gripping the tops of her arms and making any thought of escape a waste of time.
‘I…Because…You’re hurting me!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, releasing her, but leaving her trapped against the counter. ‘Now answer my question.’
‘She warned me because of me—not because of you,’ replied Ginny hoarsely, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her.
‘Am I supposed to make sense of that?’ he snapped, his tall body tensing with anger.
‘Libby was afraid I’d find you attractive,’ ground out Ginny, her cheeks flaming with mortification. ‘I… She thinks I’m—that I tend to be attracted to the wrong sort of men.’
‘So she obviously thought I’d find your neo-Huckleberry Finn appeal irresistible,’ he drawled, ‘otherwise she wouldn’t have felt obliged to warn you.’
‘No!’ protested Ginny, her entire being awash with humiliation. ‘I…She said there was a lot about me that was like that other friend of hers…She just felt she should warn me.’
‘You’re nothing like that poor, unfortunate creature I’m rumoured to have used so abominably,’ he stated callously. ‘If I remember right, she didn’t slop around the place in dungarees all the time and I didn’t have any problem working out whether she was male or female the first time I set eyes on her. And she——’
‘You didn’t seem to have any doubts which I was when you made a lunge for me after dinner last night!’ exploded Ginny, beside herself with rage.
‘By then you had your party gear on—denims and a T-shirt, wasn’t it?’ he drawled. ‘Though perhaps you wouldn’t remember, given the drunken state it seems you were in.’
Choking back a squeal of outrage, Ginny made to push her way past him. ‘Get out of my way!’ she hissed when he blocked her path.
‘What’s up, Ginny?’ he grinned down at her.
‘Just get out of my way!’ she shrieked. ‘What sort of a man are you? How could you possibly kiss someone you find as revolting as you do me?’
‘Believe me, Ginny, I’d feel a lot happier if I did find you revolting.’
‘I…What’s that supposed to mean?’ she demanded, gazing up with hostility into a pair of laughing blue eyes and finding, to her utter horror, excitement fluttering through her.
‘I’m not too sure,’ he answered with a wry smile. Though it does seem Libby’s right in one respect—I’m sure you’ll agree, you’d feel a lot safer if you found me revolting.’
‘I hate to disillusion you,’ exclaimed Ginny furiously, ‘but I feel perfectly safe.’ Talk about rubbing her nose in it!
‘Oh yeah?’ he drawled with a humourless laugh. ‘So it really was that half teaspoon of cognac, and not my irresistible appeal, that stirred your libido last night.’
‘Haven’t you work to do?’ enquired Ginny frigidly, sidling along the edge of the counter away from the bulk of his body. ‘I know I have.’
‘If you want me to get out of your way,’ he murmured innocently, reaching out and pulling her against him, ‘all you have to do is say.’
Ginny made no attempt to escape; instead she concentrated all her energies on not moving so much as a muscle for fear of betraying the lazy, throbbing warmth with which her body was responding to contact with his.
It was he who moved, his arms tightening around her, a protesting groan of disbelief escaping him as desire surged hotly through his lean body.
Then his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding, while his tongue sought the succulent depths behind her parted lips.
Her absolute certainty that what was erupting between them was too explosively spontaneous ever to have been planned by him so side-tracked her mind that thought of resistance never once entered it. She wasn’t conscious of reaching up on tiptoes to entwine her arms around his neck; she was merely responding to the pounding need awakened in her to mould her body ever closer to the enticing heat of his. And the only protest that escaped her, when his hands reached beneath the bagginess of her dungarees and began an impatient search of her trembling body, was at the restrictions imposed on those hands.
He drew her from him, his lips murmuring their impatience even as they remained locked in passionate turmoil with hers, while his hands gave up their attempts to cup her throbbing breasts and reached instead for the fastenings that would free them.
‘I can’t see what I’m doing,’ he groaned barely coherently, dragging his mouth reluctantly from hers. ‘Ginny, I…Oh, hell,’ he rasped, the words ragged with disbelief as sanity began imposing itself on him.
Ginny heard her own gasp of utter incredulity as her arms slid lifelessly from around the body to which they had been clinging with such uninhibited fervour.
‘So, you feel perfectly safe, do you?’ he demanded almost angrily, then gave a dazed shake of his head. ‘Forget I said that,’ he muttered brusquely, turning abruptly from her.
‘Why?’ demanded Ginny recklessly, her body still on fire from the feel of his, her mind spinning from the futility of the denials she was trying to impose on it. ‘OK, so I was wrong! But at least I have the excuse of being a lousy judge of men—what’s yours?’
‘I don’t have any excuse.’ he informed her icily as he strode towards the door. ‘But once I hear from the people I have investigating you, I should have a much better idea of what I’m up against.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘GINNY!’
Ginny’s entire body froze for an instant, then she continued hoeing the geranium bed, the stark white gleam of her knuckles against the handle the only outward sign of an inner fury.
That bellowed name was one of only a handful of words to have broken the silence that had descended like a wall between them since his announcement that he was having her investigated. Quite frankly, she couldn’t have cared less if they’d never exchanged another word for the rest of their lives, she told herself, hoeing like one possessed. And if he really expected her to believe his ridiculous claim, he must think her the biggest fool alive—the only information he had on her was her name, for heaven’s sake!
‘Ginny, I called you,’ exclaimed Michael exasperatedly, striding towards her. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’
‘I’m sure the whole region heard you.’
‘So how come you didn’t answer me?’
‘Because, believe it or not, I’m not a dog trained to respond to your every command,’ she retortedly hotly, glowering up at him as his narrowed eyes flickered coolly over her dishevelled appearance.
‘You were some distance away, so I called loudly,’ he stated unconcernedly. ‘If you chose to interpret it differently, that’s your problem. Anyway, I wanted to tell you Libby called—and that I’m hungry.’
Ginny tried to counteract the shock surging through her by reminding herself that Libby had said that she would ring him and that her only reason for concern would have been had Libby not done so.
‘I…You were in your ofice so early this morning, I didn’t know what to do about breakfast,’ she stammered.
‘And it didn’t occur to you to ask me?’
Though he injected a questioning lilt into those mocking words, Ginny treated them as the statement they were obviously intended to be, and ignored them. ‘There’s bread and some goat’s cheese—or I could cook some——’
‘Bread and cheese will do me fine,’ he cut in, his eyes meeting hers in a look of chilling balefulness. ‘Get yourself cleaned up and we’ll eat together.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ retorted Ginny, willing herself not to be intimidated by those eyes.
‘I’d like you to join me, anyway,’ he stated, then turned and strode back towards the house.
Ginny flung down the hoe, her blood boiling—an effect he managed to have on her just about every time he opened that supercilious mouth of his, she noted with outrage. Except that it wasn’t always anger with which he made her blood boil, she reminded herself with a jolt of alarm that deflated her rage like a pricked balloon. She tensed as a now almost familiar honeyed warmth began slinking its way seductively through her. She wasn’t normally susceptible to looks, no matter how devastating, she reasoned exasperatedly, and especially not when they cloaked a personality as vile as Michael Grant’s did.
With a groan of pure vexation at her own stupidity, she ran to the house and raced upstairs to her room.
She couldn’t have it both ways, she argued impatiently with herself as she took a quick shower; despairing one minute of her apparent inability to feel anything more than a mild flutter of attraction towards a man, and wallowing in angst the next because one of them was affecting her in a manner she hadn’t bargained for.
Her look was brooding as she slipped on a fresh white T-shirt, a leaden heat throbbing through her as her mind attempted to skirt the passion that had flared between them the day before in order to examine his reaction to what had happened. She walked over to the wardrobe and opened its doors. Perhaps a really calculating man could have produced to order that groan of surprised disbelief that had escaped him… but never the accompanying desire that had surged hot and unmistakable in his body.
Never before in her life had any man had the power to reduce her to this mind-sapping state of permanent confusion—though what little she knew about men was probably dangerous, she reflected bitterly. Her trouble was that her aunt’s vituperative hounding of her over her first and only sexual experience wasn’t the only price she had paid for that oddly innocent indiscretion—ever since that incident it had been as though she had been trapped in an emotional time-warp, simply marking time until…She gave a violent shake of her head, dragging a navy skirt from the wardrobe and putting it on.
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