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www.millsandboon.co.uk
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘DADDY’S current bimbo...’
In a room stuffed full of warmly alive, happily partying people Roberta Chandler stood alone, battling to stop herself going white with anger around the edges of her red-faced humiliation, while the person who had just used that cuttingly dismissive description of her moved away from the small group of people she had said it to, without needing to glance Roberta’s way to know that she had been overheard.
Roberta’s heart was pounding, her body trembling with the suppressed desire to retaliate—an urge so strong that she had to force herself to stand very still and stare fixedly at the glass of champagne she was holding to stop herself from doing just that.
Lulu Maclaine would be a much better person if her doting daddy were to wash her nasty mouth out with soap!
What was he? she wondered furiously as the blood continued to pump an angry tattoo inside her burning head. Was he a man at all, or just a pathetic little mouse where his darling Lulu was concerned? Willing to let her behave any way she liked so long as it made her happy?
She glanced up, her glinting green gaze honing directly on to the man who was uppermost in her angry thoughts. He was standing on the other side of the room, talking within a group of people, smiling at some amusing anecdote that one of them was relaying, the corners of his fiercely sensual mouth curved in lazy amusement.
Was he totally unaware of the way she was being treated here tonight? Or just utterly careless of it? Whichever, he was out of order—right out of order—and he was very lucky that her manners were so much better than his daughter’s manners, or he would be tasting a bit of humiliation himself right now!
Damn you, she thought angrily. Damn you to hell for setting me up for all of this!
Laughter rang out, sounding so wickedly amused that it drew Roberta’s gaze because it represented such complete opposition to her own black feelings just now. It was Lulu again. Of course it was Lulu, standing in the middle of another set of guests, holding court in her lovely blue taffeta gown that was such an exact match to her lovely cornflower-blue eyes.
‘Daddy’s bimbo’. Had she just repeated that clever little remark to her new rapt audience to make them laugh like that?
Roberta shuddered, feeling sick. She wouldn’t put it past the vicious witch, since she had been saying that or something like it to anyone who would listen from the moment Roberta had stepped into the house!
And not only Lulu, she reminded herself. Lulu’s mother had behaved no better, offering Roberta the kind of cold shoulder all evening that had been a callous message in itself.
Bitches, both of them. The Maclaine women were nothing but a pair of lousy bitches.
My God! she railed at herself. Why didn’t I listen to my instincts and stay at home tonight, instead of opening myself up for this kind of ridicule?
After all, it was Lulu’s party. Her eighteenth birthday celebration, to be exact, and perhaps the younger girl had a right to enjoy it without having ‘Daddy’s current bimbo’ present to spoil it for her.
Yet she had been invited! Roberta reminded herself fiercely. Mac had done it himself! And, fool that she was, she’d thought, This time—this time perhaps he means to let them all know how much I mean to him!
What a joke! she mocked herself acidly now. You should have known from the moment he palmed you off on his younger brother Joel for the evening that he was going to pretend that you were barely acquainted rather than lovers. Lovers for almost a year now.
And Joel, she thought suddenly, dragging her angry thoughts over to the other important man in her life—Joel being her boss as well as Mac’s brother. Where was he in her hour of need? Chatting up some nubile lady somewhere instead of protecting her from all this flak?
She sparked a hooded glance around the room until she spied him shuffling on the dance-floor with—Lulu’s mother, no less.
The two of them were deep in conversation as they slowly circled the floor. Discussing me, probably, Roberta assumed from the expressions on their faces. Joel would be getting ticked off for bringing her here tonight, and he would be using his sandpaper-dry tongue to deflect the scold.
Delia was not pleased. Lulu was not pleased. The whole darned assembly of close friends and relations were not pleased! And why? Because they were all determined to follow nose to tail on the rudeness of their current leader—Lulu. And even ‘Daddy’ had been very careful to do little more than acknowledge Roberta with one of his benign social smiles so as not to upset his precious daughter!
‘Daddy’s bimbo’. Not to be offered even the barest courtesy.
Roberta quivered on yet another wave of deep, bubbling enmity, and returned her gaze to where Mac was still standing, looking every bit the powerful leader of men he was in his black dinner-suit and white dress shirt.
Mac. Or Solomon Macmillan Hunter Maclaine, to give him his full and most glorious title. A big, strong name for a man born and bred to take on the world—which he did, very successfully most of the time, running the family engineering empire with a crisp, clear foresight that knocked spots off his nearest rivals. It was only when it came to his private life that things around Mac became decidedly shadowy.
Roberta was one of those shadows, she accepted grimly. His lady of the night, not fit to acknowledge away from the bedroom!
Yet, shadowy or not, angry with him or not, she found that the simple act of letting her gaze rest on him was enough to set those tiny muscles deep inside her body stirring in heated recognition of their sensual master.
And she despised herself for it, wondering why it had to be him. All right, she argued with herself, so he possessed the kind of dark good looks most red-blooded women yearned to know intimately. But she’d met other men of his calibre before without falling flat on her face for them. So why him? Why this man who was, on the outside at least, little different from those other high-powered, good-looking men she’d known and repulsed quite easily?
He moved, half turning in her direction, to listen to something someone was saying to him, and those tiny muscles deep down inside her stirred again in eager anticipation of his noticing her. He didn’t, but she got the answer to her question.
Mac stirred her senses like no other man had ever done. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
And it probably had nothing to do with his black-haired, square-chinned solid good looks, but with the inner man, the man she yearned to know, and the one she very rarely got to see, simply because he did not let her—did not let anyone, as far as she could see, except his family, of course.
And Roberta was not and never would be family.
That fact was being patently hammered home to her tonight.
‘Daddy’s bimbo’. Didn’t Lulu see that in calling Roberta that she was also insulting her father?
Look at him! she wanted to yell. Does he look like a man whose tastes in women only stretch as far as empty-headed bimbos?
Who cares if the woman beneath you has a brain or not, a mocking little voice in her head yelled back, when it’s not her brain you’re taking pleasure in?
And more than half the women present in this room would not want Mac for his dynamic brain either, she tightly mocked that voice. Not if they knew him as intimately as I do!
And it was that intimate knowledge of him that she used now cynically to strip away the conventional veneer of elegance and sophistication that he wore so well around himself, to see right through to the naked beauty of the man beneath.
Tall—he was tall—and superbly constructed with it. A lean, lithe, sleek construction of tight, satin-sheened skin stretched tautly over hard, healthy muscle. Wide-shouldered with flat, spare hips, and what came in between was so shockingly desirable that it dried up her mouth just thinking about it. Long limbs, powerfully built. Good hands with a light, knowing, sensitive touch that could—
She stopped, sucking in a careful breath of air then letting it out again slowly. It was best not to think about those hands, she decided grimly, and fixed her attention on his face instead. A lean face, with jet-black hair cut to sweep confidently away from his high, intelligent brow. His eyes, darkly fringed by thick straight brows and softly curling lashes, were a most compelling colour of come-to-bed grey; they drew you towards them like magnets, urging, promising, lazily admiring—
Another stop. And she forced her attention away from the eyes to the mouth. A mouth so rawly sensual that it, too, was dangerous even to look at. Thin but nicely shaped, it was such an experienced, expressive, uninhibited mouth that in intimacy it could be quite ruthless in its efforts to draw the response it required.
And what was that mouth doing now? she wondered, once again curbing her thoughts before they went too far. It was smiling lazily, flashing the odd white-toothed, devilishly infectious grin now and then, fielding witty remarks to return them with interest. Like the man himself, supremely at ease, that quick mind of his ten seconds faster and sharper than anyone else she knew.
Joel teasingly dubbed him ‘Mac the Knife’ because of his sharp wits, but he said it fondly. Joel respected his brother deeply for the way he had taken on the mantle of power very young after their father’s first serious heart attack, which had meant Mac’s growing up a whole lot faster than most young men his age would have been expected to do. Yet he had taken up the challenge with barely a qualm and, although Joel was no small fry in the family firm, he deferred always to Mac’s decree.
Which was why Mac had palmed her off on Joel tonight, of course. He trusted his kid brother to look after his woman for him while he was too busy—or too indifferent—to do it himself!
He happened to glance up and catch her staring at him then, his eyes instantly softening to a warm, smoky grey as he sent her one of those little twists to his mouth meant to be a rueful smile, and tipped his glass at her in acknowledgement. It took all she had in her to return the gesture, though an answering smile she could not manage. She was angry with him and was in no mood to hide the fact. Angry that he could take from her everything she had to offer him, flaunt her unflinchingly around London as his woman yet, when it came to his family, pretend that she meant nothing to him at all!
Just an empty-headed bimbo, too thick to notice how his family saw her as dirt!
Her eyes flashed a sudden bright, menacing green. Mac saw it happen and frowned, a silent question entering his own eyes. Roberta’s chin went up, her defiant expression daring him to come over and find out for himself what the look was for!
Impatience flickered across his face, followed by a frowning look of indecision when she continued to stare at him like that, and the desire to come and find out why she was spitting green daggers at him began to war with his determination to keep as far away from her as he possibly could tonight.
Then, with a small shrug of exasperation, he took a half-step towards her, and her senses began to fizz on a bright clamour of triumph when it looked as though she was going to win this particular battle and he was going to come to her!
But, just at that moment, a flash of blood-red silk caught her eye, and she glanced to one side of him just in time to see Delia wind her arm into the bent crook of his. By the time Roberta looked back at Mac his attention had already withdrawn from her, to be centred indulgently on his wife’s smilingly upturned face.
Ex-wife, she reminded herself as disappointment sent her racing heart plummeting to her feet. Ex damned wife! They had been divorced for almost eight years! Yet to look at them you would think that they couldn’t so much as function without the other close by!
God! Jealousy shot like the hot flame of hell right through her, forcing her to lower her eyes, close them tightly, pretend—pretend for her own sake more than anything else—not to have noticed their easy intimacy.
Solomon Maclaine and Delia Curzon had both been just eighteen years old when they were forced to get married because Lulu was on the way. All in all it had been an acceptable match, linking the Maclaine wealth with the Curzon millions, and generally making both families rather pleased at their siblings’ misdemeanour. But, from the small amount Mac had told her, the marriage had been anything but idyllic. And the long-overdue divorce which took place ten years later had been inevitable—though not so to their staunchly conservative families or their adored daughter.
Hence the show being put on by both Mac and Delia tonight, and the reason why, as usual, Roberta found herself left out in the cold.
‘Had enough yet?’
Starting at the unexpected closeness of Joel’s voice, she lifted her face, the nape-length edges of her softly curling pale blonde hair skimming across the expanse of milk-white skin left exposed by the off-the-shoulder design of her black velvet dress as she turned to look into his sardonically smiling face. But she knew that smile; Joel was angry—the little tic working at the side of his jaw told her so. Whatever Delia had said to him had just about finished him off tonight.
So, ‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘I’ve had enough.’ Then, on a sudden burst of grim certainty, she thought, More than enough! and felt a new emotion begin to seethe inside her, one which came from the bitter decay of her own self-respect.
For twelve months she had been playing this game the way Mac wanted it played—being what he wanted her to be when he wanted her to be it. But she was damned if she was going to be marked as ‘the other woman’ by a load of people she could not care less about just because they refused to accept a divorce that had taken place eight years ago!
Being seen as a man’s lover was one thing but being labelled his little bit on the side was very much another!
‘Daddy’s bimbo’. That telling bit of cruelty was, she realised, having a profound effect on her.
And yes, she decided roundly, she’d had enough. She had honestly and finally had enough! Her relationship with Mac was going nowhere and had no hope of doing so while he considered his family more important to him than she was!
All her life she had played second-best to someone—second-best to her parents, who had been rather shocked to find themselves landed with a baby they had never really wanted. Second-best to their dual careers as wildlife experts, which had sent them wandering all over the world studying the habits of one animal or other while this new animal—a human child—was left behind with whoever would have her so long as their lives were not disrupted in any way. And now there was Mac, forcing her to take second place in his life to a family that was obviously so much more important to him.
And there was the rub, she noted rawly. She was not important enough to Mac for him to care what his attitude did to her. And if the last twelve months had not made him care, then nothing would.
She was fighting for a lost cause, and the realisation of it hit her like a runaway train, smack bang in the chest, lifting her perfectly shaped breasts and dropping them again in a single wrenching gasp of pain.
It was time to cut her losses and get out. Where she loved, Mac only desired. And why she had never realised it before was quite beyond her!
‘Uh-oh...’ Joel chanted drily. ‘Those lovely green eyes of yours tell me that trouble is a-brewing!’
You’re not so happy with this situation yourself! she wanted to snap. But, ‘I’m quite ready to leave if you are,’ was all she replied, holding herself stiffly, forcing her face to reveal as little as possible of what was going on inside her. Joel could see that something momentous was, but then he was standing barely a foot away from her, and also Joel knew her perhaps better than anyone else.
‘OK, sweetheart.’ Suddenly the mockery had gone from his voice, and he reached out to take one of her hands, squeezing it gently when he felt how much it trembled. ‘Let’s leave the gracious way, shall we?’ he suggested with false lightness. ‘Through the door with our chins up.’
‘You see too much,’ she muttered as he began leading her through the milling throng and out into the empty hallway of Mac’s elegant country home.
‘And you too little, angel-face,’ he replied rather drily, then with a gentle push, which was almost a gesture of sympathy, sent her towards the stairs. ‘Go get your coat.’
Her slender body was exquisite in the black velvet, and Joel watched her move gracefully up the stairs. She was beautiful; no one could deny that. Mac would not have given her a second glance if she hadn’t been. He liked his women beautiful, blonde, sexy. And Roberta possessed one of the sexiest figures that Joel had ever laid eyes on. She was all soft lines and seductively rounded curves, with skin like milk and hair that bubbled softly around her lovely face. Looking at her, you would be forgiven for mistaking her as the archetypal dumb blonde.
But Roberta Chandler was far from dumb—as those sharply intelligent green eyes would tell you, if you could bring yourself to look that high.
It had been to his advantage that Joel had bothered to look beyond that sizzling sexual allure when she’d come for her interview last year, because it meant that he had got himself the best personal assistant he had ever had, and Mac—by his good fortune of being his brother—had got himself the rarest woman he had ever had.
‘Where’s Roberta?’
Think of the devil, Joel thought drily as he turned around. ‘Fetching her coat,’ he replied.
Mac’s thick black brows took on a downward swoop. ‘So soon? It’s only—’ he glanced at the solid gold watch that he had strapped to his wrist ‘—ten-thirty. The night’s still young.’
‘Is it?’ Joel murmured cryptically. ‘I thought it well and truly done to death, myself.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Mac demanded frowningly. ‘You’ve been throwing out sarcasm at me all evening, Joel,’ he grunted. ‘And I would like to know just what the hell you’ve been trying to get at!’
‘Would you?’ Joel just sent him one of his sardonic looks. ‘Put a week or so aside some time, and I’ll take great pleasure in telling you.’
Mac stiffened, the frown becoming more pronounced. ‘What the hell’s got into you?’ he demanded bewilderedly. ‘To listen to you, anyone would think I’d offended you in some way!’
You have, Joel wanted to confirm, but at that moment Roberta appeared at the top of the stairs, with her black velvet evening coat draped across her arm, and Joel lost all Mac’s attention when the other man saw her. Those lazy eyes of his darkened dramatically at the enchanting picture she presented as she paused at the top of the stairs when she saw him, then came gliding downwards, eyes cool, face as inscrutable as a face as sensual as hers ever could be.
‘What’s this?’ Mac murmured huskily when she reached them, his expression so tenderly intimate that her senses quivered. ‘Running out on me with my kid brother?’
She glanced at Joel, wishing in some ways that it were Joel she was involved with. But, although both men were good-looking, smooth, sophisticated, Joel’s wood-ash handsomeness had never attracted her.
‘I’m—tired,’ she answered Mac quietly, the well-modulated tone of her voice like rich cream on honey, giving nothing away of the cold, hard sense of death she was experiencing inside right now. ‘It’s been a long day, all told,’ she added rather drily.
‘The man was in his counting-house, counting out his money,’ Joel put in, smiling as always. ‘Here, give me your coat.’ He took the velvet wrap from her before Mac could grab the honours. ‘Take-over deals take it out of one, don’t you agree, Mac?’
Mac leaned back against the rich mahogany newel-post, sensing no threat in the way that Joel was smoothing fine velvet over Roberta’s shoulders. This was his home and here, where Roberta counted for nothing, he saw Joel as his safe substitute.
‘The Brunner deal.’ He nodded. ‘You clinched it today.’ Not a question but a well-informed statement of fact.
‘Not quite,’ Joel denied, then shifted uncomfortably under Mac’s sudden black frown. After all, brother or not, Mac was also his boss. ‘But all bar the shouting,’ he quickly assured him. ‘I fly out to Zurich on Tuesday to tie it all up.’
‘Is Franc Brunner playing footsie with you?’ Mac asked sharply.
Joel just shrugged. ‘He knows he owns the patent to a very lucrative product if placed in the right hands. I can’t blame him for being cagey.’
‘Well, I can,’ Mac argued. ‘He approached us, not the other way around. What stopped him signing the deal today?’
‘The legal bods his end,’ Joel said drily. ‘Finding problems when none is there.’
‘Deliberately stalling, you mean,’ Mac said, and looked grimly thoughtful. ‘Do you want me to get involved?’ he offered.
‘No, I damned well do not!’ Joel indignantly replied. ‘The Brunner thing isn’t your baby, it’s mine! So keep your nose out, big brother!’
‘Whoops.’ Mac grinned. ‘Hit a raw nerve, did I?’
‘I can handle it,’ Joel said gruffly while Roberta looked down at her feet, too aware of why Joel was getting so hot under the collar to want Mac to see it written in her face.
The trouble with Joel was that he was a hands-on engineer at heart. Show him a revolutionary new product and he tended to go a bit overboard with enthusiasm about it. Hence the ‘footsie’, as Mac had put it, that Franc Brunner was playing with him. He saw too much eagerness to possess in Joel’s manner and had been playing on that by pushing Joel for a better deal ever since.
‘Can’t we, Roberta?’
His long fingers were stroking the rolled collar of her coat around her slender throat. But when she didn’t immediately answer, they paused to chuck her gently beneath her chin, demanding her support.
She gave it. ‘No problem,’ she said. ‘Nothing daunts the three musketeers.’
‘Three?’ Mac quizzed.
‘Mitzy,’ Joel explained. ‘Our indispensable third arm.’ He meant their shared secretary, and Mac nodded in recognition.
There was no one else wandering around the hallway, and a short silence fell, broken only by the sound of an old-fashioned waltz seeping out from the huge drawing-room to one side of them.
Mac’s eyes were on Roberta, moving with a lazy warmth over her, though he still made no effort to touch her. ‘I’ll see you Monday, hmm?’ he said. His weekend was fully booked up here in Berkshire, playing host to the dynasty.
Joel felt Roberta stiffen slightly, the tension in her so fierce it was threatening to snap. She did not reply, and Mac took the answer as read, the lazy look dying away.
‘Daddy?’ Lulu appeared at the half-open doorway to the drawing-room, her blue eyes narrowing when she saw Roberta. ‘Hello, Uncle Joel.’ She sent him a beatific smile. ‘Leaving already? That doesn’t say much for my birthday party.’
Joel let go of Roberta to turn and smile at his favourite niece. ‘I must be getting old, pug-face,’ Joel apologised drily, opening his arms as Lulu glided towards him. ‘Can’t seem to burn the candle the way I used to.’