“You’ve had me under surveillance? ”

Rachel continued, “Anyone would think you’re vetting me as a potential mistress.” She’d been so busy keeping tabs on Matthew that it had never occurred to her to look over her shoulder!

“Lover.” The soft word caressed her senses like a fur glove. “You could only be my mistress if I was already married. Since I’m not, that would make you my prospective lover rather than my kept woman.”

As Rachel scrabbled for a sufficiently devastating answer, Matthew added, “But why set your sights so low? I could be checking out your suitability as a potential wife….”

Presents™

Looking for stories that sizzle?

Wanting a read that has a little extra spice?

Pick up a Presents PASSION™—where seduction is guaranteed!

On sale in August:

The Italian’s Revenge

by Michelle Reid

Harlequin Presents® #2121

The Mistress Deception

Susan Napier

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

‘EXCUSE me—Mr Riordan…?’

Matthew Riordan’s dark head jerked up at the interruption and he directed an impatient frown at the middle-aged woman hovering in the doorway of his borrowed office.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you…’ she said, undeterred by the scowl on his narrow, long-boned face. She advanced towards his desk, a large manila envelope held out between her fingertips. ‘I know you asked me to deal with your father’s personal correspondence until he’s well enough to do it himself, but—well…I think this is probably something that you would prefer to handle yourself…’

Matt’s abstraction was banished as he rocked back in his leather chair, his thick eyebrows rising at the sight of his father’s unflappable secretary looking so ill at ease.

Was that a blush on those leathery cheeks? he wondered incredulously, his dark brown eyes sharpening behind the lenses of his round gold and tortoiseshell spectacles.

For over three decades—since before Matt was born—she had serenely guarded his father’s Auckland office, more than a match for Kevin Riordan’s rough-and-tumble personality and the raffish nature of many of his employees and customers in the early years of his company. The former rubbish-man turned scrap-dealer and recycling mogul, now owner of New Zealand’s largest waste-disposal conglomerate, had rewarded her mental toughness and unflagging loyalty with his boisterous respect, smugly boasting to all and sundry that nothing could fluster his redoubtable Mary.

His confidence had proved justified two days earlier, when Mary had investigated a thud from his office and discovered her employer in the throes of a heart attack. Instantly conquering her shock, she had phoned for an ambulance and proceeded to calmly administer CPR until the medical team arrived. Then she had busied herself telephoning his wife and son, faxing his second-in-command, who was in Tokyo on business, and discreetly fending off speculation and rumours as she postponed appointments and rearranged meetings.

Now, she gingerly placed the neatly slit foolscap envelope on the desk in front of Matt and scuttled backwards.

‘What is it—a letter-bomb?’ he commented drily, and Mary regained enough of her steely poise to give him a stern look, admonishing him for his flippancy.

Matt laid down his pen and pulled off his glasses, tossing them onto the blotter. His eyes felt gritty with fatigue as he picked up the envelope, noting the plainly typed address with the words ‘Strictly Personal’ thickly underlined several times. He tipped it up by one corner and three glossy photographs slid face-down across the desk.

He flipped one over and his eyebrows scooted up in puzzled surprise.

The glossy black and white photograph had been taken at a party two weeks ago—a profile shot of Matt leaning over the hand of a tall, voluptuous woman whose long, strapless glittering white gown looked as if it had been applied to her pneumatic curves with a spray gun.

He and the woman were both holding champagne glasses and smiling brilliantly, but the flattering picture didn’t tell the full story.

The photograph didn’t show the long, painted nails digging painfully into his skin, punishing him for the parody of a kiss he had just planted on the back of her hand. Nor did it reveal that Matt had been dangerously drunk, sullen and obstreperous.

He hadn’t been aware that there was anyone taking photographs that night, although in the circumstances that was hardly surprising, but he doubted that Merrilyn Freeman, their over-anxious hostess, would have jeopardised the exclusivity of her private dinner party by inviting a professional photographer along. The harsh contrasts and grainy texture suggested the print had been blown up from a much smaller negative.

It was also perfectly innocuous—nothing to give Mary Marcus reason to treat the envelope as if it was an unexploded bomb.

In the course of his business and social life Matt had been photographed in similar poses with numerous women of his acquaintance. He could see no reason why anyone would want to mail this one to his father, except, perhaps, as an attempt to curry favour…

Matt flipped over the other photographs and his complacent assumption exploded in his face. He stiffened, the breath hissing between his clenched teeth.

To his intense chagrin he could feel the warmth flooding into his face. Although he didn’t look up he was excruciatingly aware of Mary’s disapproving gaze as she made good her escape, closing the door behind her with a definitive snap that sealed him in with the smoking ruins of his reputation as a gentleman.

Thank God he could rely on her to keep her mouth shut!

His mouth compressed into a thin line, Matt studied the evidence of his betrayal.

In the first photograph Matt was sitting bare-chested on the edge of a rumpled bed, facing towards the camera, his smooth torso sculpted by the soft light from a bedside lamp. The woman in the strapless dress was kneeling on the floor between his splayed legs, the white sequins of her gown a glittering contrast to the black fabric of Matt’s formal trousers where his knees pressed against her flanks, trapping her in the quintessential pose of female sexual submission. He was looking down at her bent head, his palms cupping her skull, fingers threaded into her feathery, short-cropped hair, while hers were out of sight of the camera’s intrusive eye…from the position of her bent elbows, obviously busy in his lap!

God!

Matt’s flush deepened, his blood pressure spiking as he transferred his stunned gaze to the second picture. Here the roles of submission and domination were dramatically reversed. This time Matt was lying flat on his back on the bed, the muscles of his deep chest straining against the pull of his arms stretched over his head, his crossed wrists bound to the head of the brass bedstead with the narrow silk cummerbund he had been wearing in the earlier photo. Straddling his lower belly was the Valkyrie, flaunting a vast expanse of smooth, creamy skin unmarked by tan-lines, her knees digging into his lower ribcage, her spectacular breasts hovering invitingly above his pillowed head as she arched up to secure his bonds. The crowning salacious touch was the thin black leather whip which lay coiled on the bed beside them.

Matt cursed, his alcohol-hazed memories warring with the erotic images before him. His expression tightened as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to ease the treacherous tautening in another part of his anatomy.

He was furious, and aroused—and furious at himself for being aroused. He had been manipulated—his pride scraped raw, his privacy violated—and instead of being disgusted he was getting turned on!

He raked his fingers inside the empty envelope, grimly unsurprised to find that there was no accompanying message.

No message was needed. Matt knew exactly what form the blackmail would take.

The bitch had set him up!

And to think that he had sent her flowers afterwards, to thank her for preventing him from making a complete drunken ass of himself at the party…an expensive sheaf of yellow roses and a polite, handwritten note which had skilfully disguised his chagrin that she should be his rescuer and, later in that guest-house bedroom, sole witness to his humiliating weakness.

Except it was now painfully obvious that she had not been the sole witness!

Matt pinched the narrow bridge of his nose, castigating himself for his gullibility. How could he have allowed himself to trust her? He had been suspicious of her from the first day they had ever met, and even tanked to the eyeballs he had recognised the cool antipathy she had exuded when Merrilyn had anxiously thrust them into each other’s company. It had been partly the desire to smash through that frigid aloofness which had goaded him into baiting her the way that he had.

And now she thought she had it within her grasp to extract the perfect revenge.

Well, he might have been an easy target drunk, but—sober—he was going to show her how very difficult he could be!

He glanced at the smudged date-stamp on the manila envelope, his eyebrows snapping together when he realised what it meant. He leaned forward and punched in Mary’s extension number on his telephone.

‘Mr Riordan’s office—’

‘Mary, when did this envelope arrive in the office?’ he demanded, his abrupt urgency overriding any potential embarrassment.

‘The day before yesterday—in the morning,’ Mary replied, after a small hesitation to think out the sequence of events. ‘I always slit open Mr Riordan’s personal mail for him as soon as it arrives, and put the stack on his desk…but of course I never look at the contents unless he expressly asks me to—’

‘So this has just been lying around—open—on Dad’s desk for the past two days?’ interrupted Matt, sweating bullets.

‘Well, yes…but with Mr Stiller not due back from Tokyo until later in the week, only the cleaners and I have had access to Mr Riordan’s office,’ Mary pointed out.

Matt’s tension eased a notch at the reminder of his cousin’s absence. Both only children, he and Neville Stiller had spent a lot of time in each other’s company while growing up, but as adults their relationship was far from cordial.

Neville, who had worked at KR Industries ever since he’d left high school, had been appointed Chief Executive five years ago, and was generally expected to take over as General Manager when his uncle retired. Matt, on the other hand, had been actively discouraged from following directly in his father’s footsteps. Instead he had been educated, guided and groomed for the job which now consumed most of his waking hours—chairman of the family’s holding company, which controlled multimillion-dollar investments in both the local and international share markets.

Matt had long accepted that there was no place for him in the flourishing business which had been the cornerstone of his father’s fortune, but Neville remained intensely protective of the power-base he had carved out for himself, quick to resent any advice or expression of interest in the firm as an attempt to undermine his position as Kevin Riordan’s successor.

If this pivotal deal had not demanded Neville’s continuing presence in Tokyo, Matt didn’t doubt that he would have rushed back to commandeer the General Manager’s office.

Firmly ensconced in the seat of power, Neville would have had few qualms about nosing through his stricken uncle’s private correspondence, and if he had come across the photos how he would have gloated over the knowledge that his cousin had been caught, quite literally, with his pants down!

Matt cringed at the thought. As it was, Neville had had little choice but to grudgingly accept Matt’s offer to hold the fort until he had concluded his complex negotiations with a Japanese industrial waste management company with whom KR Industries was planning a joint venture.

Suddenly Matt was hit by another, even more devastating worry.

‘Do you know if Dad had time to look at his private mail before he had his heart attack?’ he grated.

Mary’s sharply indrawn breath recognised the ugly implication. ‘I suppose he may have done,’ she admitted slowly. ‘We went through the business mail together first, as usual, and he dictated a few urgent letters, but…yes—it’s possible that he started going through his own mail while I was typing up the letters. But since that envelope was the largest, I would have put it at the bottom of his pile…’

They both knew that that was little consolation. The brash personality shaped by Kevin Riordan’s poverty-stricken childhood viewed size as an important indicator of status. ‘Restraint’ was not a word which figured large in his vocabulary. If he had decided to read his mail he was likely to have reasoned that the bigger the envelope the more interesting the contents.

In this case he would have been right!

Matt’s dark eyes narrowed to glittering black slits, a faint tic pulsing on the hard temple above his left eyebrow. His left hand clenched on the receiver, the spare flesh whitening over his knuckles and around the broad gold band on his ring finger.

‘Mary—bring me a plain foolscap envelope!’ he ordered, and slammed down the phone.

He dragged a blank writing tablet towards him and picked up his fountain pen to scrawl a slashing message in his trademark green ink across the page.

When Mary appeared with his request he transferred the photographs and the folded message into the new envelope and addressed it in aggressive block letters.

‘See that it goes out immediately,’ he said, pushing the sealed envelope across the desk.

‘By courier, or post?’

His smile was unpleasant.

‘Courier.’ He wanted the blackmailer’s mental suffering to start as soon as possible.

Mary looked at the address, her poker-face breaking up as she raised concerned grey eyes to his. ‘Don’t you think you should—’

‘Just do it!’

Her mouth snapped shut at his unprecedented rudeness. Her chin lifted and she turned on her heel, her rigid, bony back a silent reproach. Matt was irresistibly reminded that her staunch loyalty to his father had always also extended to himself.

‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ he apologised swiftly, his deep voice resonant with sincerity as he ran his fingers through his thick wavy hair, disciplined into a conservative cut that flattered the long bones of his face. ‘I didn’t mean to shout. I’m not angry at you. What with keeping my mother company at the hospital and trying to juggle things here, as well as my own job, I haven’t had much sleep over the past two nights and I’m afraid my temper’s suffered accordingly. But as you said before—this is something that I need to handle myself…’

As a boy he had always been quick to admit fault and offer amends, thought Mary, and as a man he was equally ruthless with his failings. In fact sometimes she felt he took too much responsibility upon himself…

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing,’ she murmured.

‘Oh, I know exactly what I’m doing,’ he told her with a savage smile. ‘I’m turning the tables on an extortionist.

‘I have a feeling that I may turn out to have a gift for blackmail!’

CHAPTER TWO

RACHEL BLAIR sat at the kitchen table sipping her morning coffee and glowering at the letter in her hand.

‘Hello, what are you doing up so early?’ Her elder sister came bustling through the door, dressed in her nurse’s uniform and carrying an armful of crumpled sheets and damp towels. ‘I thought you were going to leave it one more day before you went back to work.’ She vanished into the adjacent laundry and Rachel could hear her lifting and closing the lid of the temperamental washing machine and cranking the dial around.

‘I felt perfectly fine when I woke up so I changed my mind,’ Rachel called to her through the archway. The mild headache niggling at her consciousness she preferred to attribute to the letter in her hand rather than the lingering after-effects of her ailment.

‘Hmm.’ Robyn reappeared in the doorway and gave her a professional once-over. ‘Just make sure you don’t overdo it. Your immune system’s probably still not back to full strength.’

‘It was only a virus,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘I’ve finished my course of antibiotics and my cold is pretty much gone—see?’ She sniffed to show that the clogged airways of the past few days had cleared.

Robyn shook her blonde head in bafflement. ‘I don’t know how you managed to catch the flu in the middle of Auckland’s hottest summer on record. No one else we know has it…’

With an effort Rachel managed not to blush.

‘I guess I’m just ahead of my time,’ she said airily. ‘The doctor said I have the type they’ll be offering a vaccine for this winter.’

Fortunately Robyn was easily diverted from her speculation on the source of the infection.

‘Maybe if you’re lucky they’ll name it after you,’ she grinned.

Rachel could think of someone far more deserving of the honour of being commemorated as an irksome germ!

‘Type-Rachel flu? Do you think I could ask for royalties?’ She grinned back, and the resemblance between the sisters was suddenly pronounced, even though, superficially, they looked as different as chalk and cheese.

At forty, Robyn was still as slim and petite as she had been as a teenager, her ash-blonde hair and big blue eyes lending her a doll-like air of feminine fragility which was belied by her job as a hard-working practice nurse.

Ten years her junior, Rachel towered over her sister, and most other women of her acquaintance. Her wide shoulders and full bust would have made her top-heavy if it hadn’t been for the broadly rounded hips flaring below her neat waist, and her long, firmly muscled legs. Her triangular face, framed by a spiky, razor-cut cap of hair the colour of burnt toffee, thickly lashed hazel eyes and thin, determined mouth possessed strength of character rather than beauty…but unfortunately people often tended to judge her from the neck down!

She knew that her curvy, hour-glass shape rendered her almost a cartoon-figure of female pulchritude, the living embodiment of countless male fantasies.

It had been rough coping with the unwonted sexual attention when she was young, but she had determined very early on not to let her overtly sexy body image dictate the path of her life. She had fought hard to be her own person, and with maturity had perfected subtle strategies to control the perceptions and prejudices of those around her—dressing casually, in loose, multi-layered clothing, and cultivating a robust good humour which was the opposite of seductive. Fortunately her height and superior strength gave her a physical edge whenever her defensive strategies proved too subtle for over-active male libidos.

‘I doubt it—though you’d probably have hordes of guys clamouring to be personally infected,’ chuckled Robyn. Thanks to the considerable age gap between them, and the fact that she had been happily married to Simon Fox for over twenty years, she had never been jealous of her sister’s effect on men.

A rattling mechanical hiccup sounded behind her and she darted through to give the washing machine a well-practised kick of encouragement.

Rachel rolled her eyes and returned her brooding attention to her unwelcome letter.

She was getting fed up with this petty campaign of harassment. At first she had dismissed the escalating stream of annoyances as an unfortunate run of back luck, but too many coincidences had piled up, and now her suspicions condensed into certainty.

It was typical of her unknown harasser to hide behind a faceless bureaucracy. Whoever had it in for her was a coward—but very a clever one, initiating trouble but never following it through to a point where Rachel might have a chance to identify the source.

A low growl of frustration purred in the back of her throat.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Robyn, drifting back to the accompaniment of noisily hissing water pipes.

‘The council has received a tip that I’m running a business from this address,’ Rachel paraphrased in disgust. ‘They’re warning me that they’re going to investigate and I could be prosecuted for carrying on a non-complying activity.’

‘It must be some mistake,’ said Robyn, tucking a shoulder-length strand of hair back into the smooth French twist she wore at work.

‘You think so? And was it also a mistake when the phone company was told the same thing and tried to charge me a higher line rental? And when the tax department decided to audit me because someone phoned their hotline and told them I had an undeclared second income? Or when I didn’t get any mail for two weeks and suddenly discovered that the post office had been advised to redirect my mail to a house which just happened to be the residence of a motorcycle gang?’

Robyn put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh! That reminds me—Bethany said something arrived for you yesterday afternoon by courier. You were having a bath and she was just leaving for basketball practice so she just signed for it and took off with it in her bag. She forgot all about it until this morning.’

She crossed the small, sunny kitchen and fetched the bubble-wrapped plastic courier bag which had been tucked with some other papers behind the telephone on the bench, handing it to her sister.

She glanced at the watch pinned to her breast and let out a little huff. ‘I hope Bethany’s out of that bathroom—I’m sure when you offered to put us up for a few weeks you didn’t expect to have to put up with a teenager who showers twice a day for twenty minutes at a time! I do wish you’d let us pay something towards the water and power, as well as the groceries.’

Rachel paused in the act of ripping into the zip-locked seam of the bag. ‘Don’t be silly. Just be thankful that Bethany’s into cleanliness, not some ghastly grunge kick. It’s not as if I have to pay rent, or a mortgage. I’ve loved having you to stay.’ There was a hint of wistfulness in her hazel eyes. Since David had died two years ago there had been no one special in her life, no one who was critical to her happiness—or she to theirs. Usually she kept herself looking resolutely to the future, but these last few days of enforced rest had given her time to dwell on all the ‘might have beens.’

She shook off the cruelly unproductive thoughts. ‘I just wish that Simon wasn’t coming back so soon and whisking you both so far away,’ she said lightly.

‘We’re only moving to Bangkok—not the moon,’ Robyn chided her bracingly. Simon, who worked for a multinational chemical company, was being transferred to Thailand to help build a new manufacturing plant. While he had flown out there to meet his new boss, choose their company-paid accommodation and register Bethany to attend the local International School, his wife and daughter had been packing up and selling their Auckland home and arranging to ship their belongings.

‘We get an annual home-leave, and, anyway, I hope you’ll come up and have a holiday with us. You did say that Westons had some huge contract in the offing that might let you give up your day job!’

Rachel gave a rueful laugh. Her work as a massage therapist and fitness trainer was actually carried out in the early morning or late afternoon and evening, so that she could devote the business hours to the security company which she had inherited from David. No one had been more astonished than herself when she had discovered that her fiancé of six months had altered his will to leave her not only his townhouse but also his fifty-one percent share of the security company which he and his brother Frank, a fellow ex-policeman, had bought.

Although Weston Security Services had possessed a loyal core of clients at the time of David’s death, it had also been carrying a heavy debt-load, and at first, woefully aware of her ignorance, Rachel had been content to remain a silent partner. But as the business had continued to struggle she had realised that it would be a betrayal of David’s trust to watch his cherished dream die without lifting a finger to help.

It hadn’t been an investment that he had given her in his will so much as a part of himself. She might doubt herself, but David had always had faith in her ability to tackle new challenges. To that end she had used her stake in the company to persuade Frank to give her an active role in managing the business. She had waived a salary, preferring to see the money invested in new staff and equipment, and lived off her freelance earnings from two city gyms and a physiotherapy practice.

It had been a steep learning curve, and although Rachel had made plenty of mistakes, her hands-on method of training wasn’t proving the disaster that Frank had feared it would be. In the last few months the company turn-over had shown a promising improvement, but a balloon repayment was looming on the loan, and meeting the debt was largely reliant on a major corporate contract which Frank seemed to be confident was already in the bag. Rachel was not so sanguine.

‘I think it’ll be a while before I can afford to do that,’ she sighed. ‘Frank says that trust and respect build slowly in the security business, and being a woman in a male-dominated industry makes it that much more difficult to get accepted—’

She was interrupted as her sister took another surreptitious look at her watch and dashed for the door with a squawk of dismay.

Rachel returned to ripping open the zip-lock bag. Her birthday wasn’t far away, and she wondered with a lift of her spirits whether someone had sent her an early present.

Her eager anticipation drained abruptly away as she withdrew some photographs paper-clipped to the back of a scrawled note in green ink which slanted across the page, arrogantly ignoring the ruled lines. She washed down her disappointment with her rapidly cooling coffee as she scanned the jolting words.

Did you really think I would let you use me as your free ride to riches?

Of the two of us you’re obviously the more photogenic—a fact which I’m sure the tabloid press will be quick to exploit if these, or any even more explicit, are put into circulation. I always knew you were centrefold material, but while the resultant notoriety might well annoy me, it won’t destroy me. Unlike you. What will happen to Westons’ reputation for probity and discretion when your corporate clients find out that their security rests in the whip-hand of a blowsy, over-blown dominatrix who looks as if she’d be more at home in a brothel than a boardroom?

Sorry, doll.

You lose.

A mouthful of lukewarm coffee was stranded in her mouth as her throat clogged with shock. Her cup crashed down into its saucer as she unclipped the photographs and fanned them out in her hands like oversized cards.

‘Oh, God!’ She choked, spewing coffee droplets across the table in her spluttering horror, dropping the photographs as if they were hot coals.

‘Oh, God!’ Rachel’s horror deepened to bone-bruising humiliation, the outrageous insults in the note suddenly making sickening sense. There was no signature, but she didn’t need one. She knew instantly who to blame for the outrage.

She shuddered, pressing her shaking hands to hot cheeks as she looked down at the shameful photographs. Yes, she had knelt between his legs to unfasten his trousers…but this picture gave the impression that she had been—that she had done it in order to pleasure him. The heavy-lidded smile on his face certainly seemed to suggest that she’d been succeeding, whereas in reality she had been cursing a blue streak that his formal trousers had buttons rather than a zip—which she would have cheerfully used to castrate him! If he had gained any pleasure from what she had been doing, then it was purely his own warped mind that had created it.

And the other one—God!…that didn’t look anything like the way it had actually happened, either. Why—these pictures made her look as if she had been a willing participant in some kind of disgusting sexual perversion, rather than the good Samaritan which she had been dragooned into playing.

But good Samaritans didn’t roll around naked on a bed with those they rescued, the devil whispered in her ear.

Rachel shook her head, still dazed by the shock of seeing herself portrayed in the role of sexual predator. It was so fundamentally at odds with her character that it would almost be funny if it wasn’t so humiliating. The photographs were slanderously misleading. The circumstantial evidence might trumpet otherwise, but the situation had actually been completely innocent.

Well, perhaps not completely, she forced herself to admit as her mind replayed the images of that night. It had definitely not been her finest hour, but Matthew Riordan was to blame for everything that had happened. The whole un-savoury incident had been entirely his own fault!

So how dared he? How dared he now turn around and threaten to slander her with the evidence of his indiscretion! She had never said a word to anyone—not even Frank or Merrilyn—about what had happened that night after they had left the party. In spite of the pressure to gossip she had uttered not a single, solitary syllable. For his sake!

And this was how he repaid her for her kindness! One feeble bunch of flowers and this…this outrage!

The blood boiled in her veins as she looked at the note and one word suddenly jumped out at her. Blowsy. Blowsy?

Her hazel eyes turned a ferocious green. She could shrug off his groundless accusation that she belonged in a brothel as sheer malice, but how dared he call her blowsy? He hadn’t had any objections to her over-blown ‘centrefold’ of a body when he’d been begging her to make love to him, had he?

She was infuriated to feel her breasts tighten at the memory of his words, of the uninhibited way that he had expressed his desire as they had wrestled on the bed. As drunk as he’d been she had thought that he would be incapable of physical arousal, and hadn’t he taken great delight in proving her wrong! But then, maybe he hadn’t been quite so drunk as he had made out. Maybe it had all been a big act in order to lure her into just such a compromising position while some sleazy photographer snapped away from the closet.

Her eyes went unwillingly back to the most explicit photograph and hot chills fizzled in her belly. It was her body which was flaunted centre-stage, but no one could deny that Matthew Riordan made a pretty impressive supporting act. He wasn’t quite as tall as Rachel, but with his clothes off he had been larger than she had expected, in all ways…His lean body had a ripped quality, all muscle with little softening body fat, and the raw strength in the muscle-dense arms and thighs had taken her by surprise. At Westons she was used to seeing security guards shaped like weightlifters, but Matthew Riordan’s smooth, sleek body had an understated elegance that merely hinted at the power that lay sheathed beneath his skin.

The dirty rat! What a hypocrite he was—the cool, cultivated, highly respectable Matthew Riordan, scion of his wealthy family and controller of a substantial chunk of the New Zealand economy…

Well, the arrogant pig needn’t think he could control her. She mentally tossed her head. Let everyone find out that the real Matthew Riordan was a sleazy manipulator, without a scrap of moral conscience or a shred of human decency.

She looked at the photo of them lying on the bed and groaned, covering her hot face with her hands. In the end, would it matter which one of them was exposed as the liar? Any mud she threw was going to stick to both of them, and, while he had unlimited resources with which to whitewash himself clean, she had virtually none.

He had already proved as cunning as a snake and as lucky as the devil, she thought, peeking through her fingers again. He couldn’t have arranged that pose better if he had employed a Hollywood director to choreograph the sexy scene. The way they were posed made the most of her abundant breasts, her jutting nipples almost brushing his parted lips as she stretched above him to tighten his bindings. He needed only to lift his head slightly and…

Oh, no! She clamped down on the unruly urge to wander down that tortuous memory lane. She wasn’t going to be made to feel more of a sexual deviant than she did already. She struggled to fix her mind on more important matters. The most threatening implication in the note as far as she was concerned was that there were even more explicit photographs in existence.

Her eyes fell on the whip and she gave a little hiccup of hysteria. Admittedly she hadn’t been exactly alert to her wider surroundings while their tussle had been going on, but how could she have missed noticing that? The whole tenor of the scene implied that she was about to use it once she had rendered her victim helpless. As if she would ever use a whip against another human being! she thought hotly.

Although, come to think of it, at the moment the idea did have a certain sadistic appeal. Her pale pink lips pulled unconsciously back from her white teeth as she savoured the vengeful notion. Oh, yes, she mused—if Matthew Riordan and a handy whip should present themselves to her right now she might well take a great deal of pleasure in lashing the gloating smirk off his face.

So he thought he had won this dirty little game of one-upmanship, did he…?

‘Hi, Rachel, whatcha looking at?’

Rachel gave a frightened little yelp as Bethany bounced into the kitchen, her freckled face scrubbed squeaky clean, her budding breasts thrusting against her dark green school tunic as she leaned over the table.

‘Mum said you were opening the courier’s package. What was in it? Photos? Can I see?’

As Rachel frantically tried to push the prints back into the bag Bethany hooked one away. Fortunately for Rachel’s madly thundering heart it was the innocuous shot from the party.

‘Hey. Wow!’ Bethany’s green-gold eyes rounded in admiration. ‘What a babe! Who is he?’

‘No one.’ Rachel tried to grab the photograph back, but Bethany danced out of reach with a chuckle.

‘You look pretty hot, too. Nothing like your usual maiden-aunt get-ups. You look as if you’re about to explode out of that dress! Were you trying to vamp him? He looks pretty vamped to me.’

‘Bethany—’ Rachel’s protest held a breathless note of desperation that only egged her tormentor on.

‘So, who is he?’ Bethany teased, her face splitting on a grin, her long blonde ponytail dancing across her slender shoulders as she tilted her head. ‘A new boyfriend?’

Rachel fired up. ‘Definitely not!’

Bethany evidently thought her violent rejection a bit overdone. ‘He looks a bit younger than you,’ she said slyly. ‘Is he your secret toyboy…?’

Rachel bristled with all the dignity of her thirty years. ‘Hardly. I believe he’s about twenty-six!’ she snapped. Certainly old enough to have learned more respect for women. Perhaps she would be the one to teach him some manners!

‘Mmm. A pity he wears glasses, but I guess you can’t have everything, huh? At least his bod is nice, and he has that eat-you-up smile. And I don’t suppose he wears his glasses in bed…or haven’t you got him that far yet?’

Rachel went hot all over.

‘Beth-a-ny!’

Thank God those other photos were safely out of sight!

‘Oops, I forgot—personality is more important than looks, right?’ The girl giggled. ‘At least, that’s what you and Mum are always telling me. So—how sexy is his personality?’

‘Somewhat less than a slug’s,’ Rachel blurted out through her gritted teeth.

Bethany laughed in disbelief. ‘Oh, yeah? Then why are you looking at him as if you’d like to take a bite out of him?’

‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ she warned. ‘For instance, you look like an innocent fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, when we both know you’re actually the devil incarnate.’

Bethany raised and lowered her eyebrows. ‘Sounds kinky. Does that have anything to do with being carnal?’

Rachel bit back a reluctant smile. ‘You know it doesn’t, you evil child.’

Not only was Bethany highly intelligent, but thanks to her frank upbringing she also had a lively understanding of the world around her. Although Rachel sometimes found her sophistication unnerving, in her heart she thanked God that Bethany wasn’t as naive and wretchedly vulnerable as Rachel had been at her age.

‘So, are you going to tell me all about your pin-up boy?’ asked Bethany, finally handing the photograph back and clattering from cupboard to fridge to fix herself a large bowl of cereal and milk.

‘He’s no pin-up, believe me,’ Rachel said darkly, ramming the resealed bubble-pack deep into her capacious shoulder-bag, hoping the contents would be creased into oblivion. ‘He’s a slimy, spiteful, scum-sucking, foul-minded, flatulent, male chauvinistic swine with a brain the size of a quark and an ego the size of Mount Everest.’

Bethany’s mouth fell open and Rachel flushed as she realised that she had let herself get carried away by her inner rage. But how good it had felt to snarl it out loud! She hastily summoned a weak grin to show that she had only been joking.

‘Of course—that’s on his good days.’

‘Uh, sure…’ In spite of her evident curiosity Bethany wisely decided not to tease for an answer as to what the mystery man was like on his bad days. She crunched on her cereal, sending sidelong looks at Rachel as she got up and absently washed out her coffee cup, her mind still shell-shocked by Matthew Riordan’s underhanded attack.

‘Um, Rachel…I—we get on really well together, you and I…don’t we?’

‘Mmm?’ She couldn’t just ignore his vicious threat and expect it to go away. He had the potential to make her life a misery. ‘Oh—yes, of course we do,’ she said warmly.

‘And you know how you always say how much you like having me around—you know, when Mum and Dad go away on holiday and I come and stay here with you…?’

Rachel shook out a teatowel. She knew what it was like to be a helpless victim and she had no intention of ever letting it happen again. ‘What?’ She struggled to make sense of what Bethany was saying. ‘Oh, yes, I do—you’re great company.’

‘Well…how would you feel if I was—you know—around a lot more. Like…maybe…all the time…’

Rachel’s attention snapped fully back to the young girl at the table.

‘All the time?’ Her voice sharpened as she realised what her niece was asking. ‘You mean, you living here…with me? Permanently?’ Her heart expanded tightly in her chest so that she could hardly breathe as Bethany nodded. ‘But, Beth,’ she protested weakly, ‘you’re going to be living in Bangkok—’

Bethany abandoned the table, eager to argue her case.

‘Just because Dad has to work there doesn’t mean I have to be dragged away from all my friends—I mean, what if I don’t like the school?’ she said in a rush. ‘I won’t know anyone, I don’t know the language—’

‘Beth, it’s an English-speaking school,’ Rachel pointed out gently. ‘There’ll be teenagers like you there from all around the world. They’re all in the same boat, and you’ll soon make new friends—’

‘But I like my old ones! I love the school I go to now…and what about my yachting? I bet I won’t be able to bike down to the harbour and go sailing on my own in Thailand!’

‘Oh, Beth, if you feel like this you should talk to your parents—’

‘I have,’ she gulped. ‘But they don’t listen. They keep telling me I’ll adjust. But what if I can’t? What if I really, really, really hate it over there? Mum and Dad wouldn’t let me come back on my own, but if I was coming to live with you, then they couldn’t say no, could they?’ She bit her lip and her voice wavered. ‘Unless you don’t want me to…you think I’d be in the way…’

A lump rose in Rachel’s throat and she had to swallow hard to stop herself bursting into tears. She longed to let her emotions rule, to sweep Bethany fiercely to her breast and assure her that of course she wouldn’t be in the way, that she would always be welcome into Rachel’s home and heart.

But she knew she couldn’t. There were bigger issues at stake. She took a deep breath.

‘Oh, darling, I know how you’re feeling.’ She cupped Bethany’s long face with her strong fingers and smiled brightly into her woeful eyes, hoping to phrase her rejection in a way that wouldn’t irreparably damage their very precious relationship. ‘I know you’re scared about stepping out into the unknown, but you’re not alone. Don’t you think that your parents are finding this move a bit scary, too?’

Bethany blinked at the sudden shift in her perspective. ‘Mum and Dad?’

‘Of course—they’re leaving behind all their friends, too. It’s going to be especially tough for your dad—he has to step into a new job in a new country with colleagues he doesn’t know, while displaying the confidence and authority that people expect of his new position. And your mum—she has to give up a job she really loves and revert to being a full-time housewife in a community where she doesn’t know a soul. But together you’ll get through it. The three of you are a team…’

Bethany was quick to pick up the underlying message. ‘So you won’t let me come and live with you, even if I’m horribly homesick?’ she said in a thin, high voice.

Rachel braced herself against the mixture of hurt and resentment glowing in the reproachful green eyes. ‘If you go over there expecting to be able to do that, you’re just setting yourself up for failure, and you’re too intelligent for that. When you want to succeed at something you know you have to put your whole heart into it. Your mum and dad need you to be there for them, Beth. Don’t disappoint them.’

‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ said Bethany stiltedly. ‘If you don’t want me…’

Rachel forced her voice to remain steady, although she felt clawings of panic shredding at her control. ‘You have a choice about the way you behave—whether you accept with grace or try and make everyone around you feel guilty because life isn’t perfect. You take your mum and dad’s unconditional love and support for granted, but a lot of kids grow up without that kind of emotional security to back them up when things get rough.’ Her eyes were clear as she picked her words carefully. ‘I only wish your grandparents had been as protective of Robyn and I as Robyn and Simon are of you. It’s difficult to have any confidence in yourself when you hear nothing but criticism and condemnation from the people you love…’

Bethany looked away, scuffing her thick-soled school shoes on the tiled floor, the freckles standing out on her pale skin. ‘I guess…’ She lifted her chin and said with a totally false brightness, still avoiding Rachel’s eyes, ‘I suppose I’d better get my bag, or I’m going to miss my bus.’

Ignoring her half-eaten cereal on the table, she grabbed her lunchbox off the bench and rushed out of the kitchen. Rachel closed her eyes, letting out a ragged sigh as she sagged against the sink.

‘Thanks.’

She opened her eyes to see her sister hovering in the doorway, her sweet face grave.

Rachel smiled wanly. ‘For what?’

Robyn came into the kitchen, her eyes shadowed with relief and redolent with sympathy. ‘For simply being an aunt.’

‘You’re my sister,’ said Rachel. ‘What else would I be?’ They looked at each other, a world unspoken in the glance.

‘She didn’t really want to stay with me, anyway,’ Rachel dismissed. ‘It isn’t a rejection of you and Simon. She’s just temporarily got cold feet.’

‘I know. But, still, if you’d given her the choice she was asking for it could have made things very difficult for us over the next few years.’

‘Well,’ said Rachel, ‘I do have a pretty crammed life already. God knows I don’t need the added complication of trying to cope alone with daily doses of teenage angst!’

Robyn wasn’t fooled by her flippancy. ‘Oh, Rachel, you would have got on famously, and you know it. If you were only thinking of yourself you would have said yes to her in a New York minute! I know you hated to hurt her, but she’ll get over it. From what I heard she was trying to manipulate you with a sneaky form of emotional blackmail.’

So…she was the victim of two separate blackmail attempts in one day, Rachel thought with an unexpected sting of humour—and it was still only breakfast!

‘Do you think she’ll ever forgive me for letting her down?’ she couldn’t help asking.

Robyn crossed to give her the hug she so badly needed. ‘You haven’t let her down. You love her and want the best for her. You always have. She knows that.’

‘I’m going to miss you all horribly,’ she admitted gruffly. Up until now she had been careful not to let them see how shattered she had been by their decision to move abroad.

‘I know.’ Robyn responded to the rib-crushing fierceness of her hug with a little gasp. ‘But we’re only going to be an e-mail away, and at least I’ll have plenty of spare time to keep you up to date with our doings. We can even send each other photos over the Internet!’

A short while later, when Robyn and Bethany had departed for school and work, Rachel dragged the abused package out of her handbag, grappling with the awful spectre that her sister’s innocent words had raised.

There were worse things than having yourself splashed all over the tabloids. What if Matthew Riordan decided to go global and posted those frightful pictures on the Internet!

She smoothed out his loathsome note and forced herself to go over it again, word by horrible word.

In places the slashing green down-strokes almost seemed to dig through the page, as if they’d been written in a rage. Having seen the reputedly buttoned-down Riordan heir in the raw, both literally and figuratively, Rachel could well believe he was not as cold-blooded as his reputation made out, but this outpouring of contempt made him sound dangerously reckless.

What did he really mean by his threats? They were actually rather vague. Should she wait for him to deliver more specific demands…or was he assuming that she knew what they were?

Perhaps he intended to broadcast the photographs regardless of her response—or lack of it? How could she defend herself if he started sending copies to the press, to Westons’ clients? Her family and close friends might believe her explanations, but to everyone else she would be reduced to an obscene joke. As Frank was constantly drilling into her, reputation was everything. He was so proud of the Westons name. If he found out that there was the slightest possibility of Rachel being involved in a scandal he would be furious. In order to protect the business she might well have to resign.

Rachel bit her lip, battening down her fear. She mustn’t let herself be panicked into doing anything stupid. She should be thinking damage control, not capitulation.

She had heard Kevin Riordan boast that his son intended to run for City Council in this year’s local body elections, with an eye to contesting the Mayoralty some time in the future. Logically, that meant Matthew Riordan had almost as much of a vested interest in keeping compromising photographs out of the public eye as Rachel did.

It was that ‘almost’ which gave him his ruthless edge. He was prepared to subject himself to public humiliation and rely on his PR clout for damage control afterwards…but surely only as a last resort. At the moment the primary value of the photographs to him must be as a weapon to hang over her head.

All Rachel had to do was keep cool and try to exercise some damage control of her own.

If only she had known what she was getting into she would never have taken on the job of watching over Merrilyn Freeman’s wretched dinner party!

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’VE got to do something!’

Rachel jumped as Merrilyn glided up behind her and hissed urgently in her ear.

‘About what?’ Relaxed yet alert, Rachel thought everything was going swimmingly. A string quartet played exquisitely civilised Baroque on the terrace, the champagne was flowing, the caviare circulating, the conversation buzzing, and there had not been a hint of a problem with gatecrashers, light-fingered guests or suspiciously wandering staff.

Merrilyn’s fingernails bit into her bare arm as she tugged her out of the way of a passing white-jacketed waiter. A slim redhead in an arresting green taffeta dress, she vibrated with nervous anxiety. ‘He’s going to ruin everything, I just know it!’ she whispered frantically. ‘I’ve spent months planning this! My first big formal dinner party and it’s going to end up a total disaster!’

Rachel had been Merrilyn’s fitness trainer for a year, and she was well acquainted with the young woman’s propensity for worrying over trifles. The exclamation mark might have been invented with Merrilyn in mind.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she murmured soothingly, transferring her dangerously tilted champagne glass to her free hand. ‘Everyone’s having a great time.’

‘I’m talking about him!’

Rachel followed her agonised gaze to the archway between the huge lounge and the sunken dining room, expecting to see some ill-bred, loutish interloper dipping his fingers into the caviare bowl.

‘Matthew Riordan?’ she said incredulously.

‘Oh, God, just look at him…’ Merrilyn moaned.

Rachel looked, ignoring the shivery frisson that lifted the fine hair on the back of her bare neck. She always instinctively bristled when she saw Matthew Riordan, and had learned not to take any notice of the uncomfortable sensation, which was normally a harbinger of trouble.

Viewed from the side, in formal black he looked leaner than usual, but otherwise impeccable, his knife-sharp profile tilted down as he poured champagne into the glass of a young society matron from a bottle which he had produced from under his arm. Whatever he was saying made her blush, and her middle-aged husband stiffen at her side.

‘You see!’ hissed Merrilyn, her nails stabbing at the nerve in Rachel’s elbow. ‘He’s at it again.’

‘At what?’ asked Rachel reluctantly, easing her arm out of her clutches. She had done a sterling job of avoiding Matthew Riordan so far tonight, and would prefer to keep it that way.

‘Saying wickedly provocative things to people.’ She sounded on the verge of tears.

‘Matthew Riordan?’ Rachel said again, just to check that they were indeed discussing the same person. The man who was renowned for his cool reserve and deadly civility?

‘Yes, Matthew Riordan,’ moaned Merrilyn, her hand fluttering up to pluck at her diamond choker. ‘Oh, God, John will never forgive me if he starts a fight—’

‘Matthew Riordan?’ gaped Rachel, beginning to feel like a maniacal parrot. ‘For goodness’ sake, Merrilyn, take a deep breath and calm down,’ she said astringently. ‘He’s a merchant banker, not a lager lout. I’ve met the guy—he’s intelligent and articulate, but abnormally controlled; I bet he knows exactly how far he can go.

‘He would no more get into a stupid fight than he would pick up the wrong fork at dinner. He’s certainly not going to insult his hostess or make a fool of himself by creating a scene. And none of your other guests are going to risk offending someone so influential—certainly not to his face.’

‘You haven’t heard the shocking things he’s been saying!’ Merrilyn despaired.

‘Come on, Merrilyn. Give the guy a break.’ Rachel couldn’t believe that she was actually defending the man who was directly responsible for Weston Security Services losing two lucrative corporate contracts within the past month, but the important thing right now was to curb her client’s hysteria. ‘Everyone lets their hair down a bit at parties. Don’t you want him to enjoy himself?’

‘But he’s not enjoying himself; that’s the whole point!’ Merrilyn’s exquisitely made-up face was a mask of tragedy. ‘He’s drunk!’

Rachel almost laughed at the ludicrousness of the idea. ‘I doubt it. He hasn’t been here long enough to have had more than a couple of glasses of champagne—’

‘No. You don’t understand!’ Merrilyn moaned. ‘He was drunk when he arrived. And to think I was panicking because he hadn’t turned up. Now I almost wish he hadn’t…!’

The disgusted admission was tantamount to heresy from a dedicated social climber like Merrilyn, and Rachel registered a surge of alarm.

She reappraised him. ‘He looks quite steady on his feet to me.’

‘Trust me, he disguises it well, but he’s on the brink of being bombed out of his skull,’ said Merrilyn grimly. Once, on the massage table after one of their sessions in the gym, she had confided to Rachel that her brother was an alcoholic. ‘And another thing—he’s turned up solo! He was supposed be coming with Cheryl-Ann Harding. I’ve spent a fortune on the table settings—if his girlfriend’s not here it’s going to wreck the symmetry!’

‘His girlfriend?’ Rachel was startled. ‘I thought he was married?’ She had noticed the plain gold band he wore on his left hand.

‘He was…Oh, hell, what’s he going to do now?’ Merrilyn was distracted by the sight of the ruffled young matron being hustled away by her stiff-jawed escort. ‘If Cheryl-Ann isn’t here he’s going to be roaming around like a loose cannon all night,’ she muttered. ‘They’ve been going out for yonks—it’s common knowledge that Matthew’s father is putting on the pressure for him to get married again, and everyone agrees they’d make a perfect couple. If they’ve had an argument, why on earth couldn’t they have saved it until after my party?’

She planted a hand in the small of Rachel’s back, propelling her forward. ‘Quick! Let’s get over there while he’s still by himself and see if you can keep him diverted long enough to sober him up for dinner.’

Rachel almost stumbled over her white slingbacks. ‘Me?’

‘Well, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To mix and mingle and stop minor problems escalating into major embarrassments?’ declared Merrilyn. ‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being here, Rachel. I’m so glad you persuaded me to go with Westons rather than some other firm. You’re right, it’s so much better having someone I know handling potentially sensitive matters like these. I’ll be sure and tell all my friends what a classy personal protection service you run!’

Sensing she was overdoing the gushing flattery, she altered her tone to a panicky plea. ‘Look, just stick to him like glue and do what you can to cover for him, OK? And be discreet! The fewer people who realise what’s going on, the better.’

‘Why don’t you just politely ask him to leave?’ murmured Rachel as they approached their target.

‘Throw him out?’ Are you mad?’ Merrilyn’s whisper was scandalised. ‘He’s one of my most important guests. It would be social suicide!’

She raised her voice on a fluttering laugh. ‘Matthew! Look who I’ve brought to see you! I know I don’t have to introduce you two—Rachel was just telling me she thinks you’re the most intelligent and articulate man she’s ever met!’

He had been topping up his own glass, and now he tucked the champagne bottle under the potted plant at his elbow with a casual disregard for his surroundings which made Rachel blink.

‘Really? How delightfully flattering of her.’

He held out his hand, and although Rachel mistrusted his honeyed drawl, allied as it was with a mocking disbelief in the dark brown eyes, she automatically reciprocated. But instead of the cool, impersonal shake he had delivered when they had been first introduced to each other in his office, he raised her hand to his mouth and placed a string of tiny kisses across her long fingers, letting her feel the faint sting of his teeth.

‘I shall endeavour to return the favour.’ Bowed over her hand, his eyes were licensed to rove, and made the most of their freedom. ‘Your breasts are truly in magnificent form this evening, Miss Blair,’ he purred. ‘What a pity they’re so much more impressive than your IQ—but I suppose a woman can’t have everything.’

Hearing Merrilyn’s choked whimper of horror, Rachel gulped down her shock and pinned on a blinding smile. ‘Can’t she? What a woefully limited little world you must inhabit, Mr Riordan.’

His eyes flickered, the only indication that she had pinked him with her quick riposte.

‘But I’m forgetting. One should never trust to appearances, particularly where women are concerned,’ he continued smoothly, his gaze openly caressing the bounteous curves which plumped above the beaded edge of the gown. ‘Perhaps it’s your dressmaker or plastic surgeon who should be accepting my compliments…’

‘With compliments like yours, who needs insults?’ murmured Rachel, resisting the urge to hitch up her fitted bodice.

Merrilyn had shrieked with outrage when she had seen the subdued, off-the-rack black dress which Rachel had originally planned to wear.

‘You can’t wear that—it’s not glamorous enough! You’ll stand out like a sore thumb, which is exactly what we want to avoid. Give me your measurements and I’ll arrange for my dressmaker to send over something more suitable.’

It had been Rachel’s turn to be horrified when she had gone up to the bedroom where she was to change and found the strapless, figure-hugging sequinned dress hanging on the closet door. Unfortunately it fitted like the proverbial glove, giving her no excuse to demur.

‘Oh, I do apologise…am I being insulting?’ Matthew Riordan oozed with silky insincerity, making her stiffen as he twisted her wrist to rest his lips against her pulse-point.

By now Rachel could perfectly understand Merrilyn’s panic. His diction was nearly perfect, but his words were stunningly uninhibited and his spectacles could not hide the hot, restless look in the hooded brown eyes. Apart from a streak of colour on his high cheekbones his face was noticeably pale in contrast to his sleeked-back hair and the dark stubble that graced his chin. His sultry air of controlled recklessness bore little resemblance to the grimly reserved chairman of Ayr Holdings whom Rachel had encountered when she had accompanied Frank to re-pitch for a couple of corporate contracts.

The companies, for whom they had run fraud prevention training programmes and provided security patrols, pre-employment vetting and confidential investigations in litigation support, had been involved in a series of mergers orchestrated by the majority shareholder—Ayr Holdings—and, having attained a controlling interest on several new boards, Matthew Riordan had been seeking to centralise their security arrangements.

At the meetings, although it had been made clear from the outset that Rachel was attending as co-owner of Weston Security Services, Matthew Riordan had virtually ignored her, addressing all his queries and remarks to Frank. When Rachel had taken it upon herself to answer or make an informed comment, he had given her minimal responses in a tone of clipped courtesy that had barely concealed his impatience with her interruption. Frank had claimed she was being over-sensitive, but Rachel had come away from their ultimately unsuccessful series of meetings steaming with frustration at being treated more like a glorified secretary than an equal partner.

‘No, just unbelievably crass,’ she replied, striving for just the right note of crushing boredom. She could feel his lips move against her skin as he smiled, the blood thumping through her artery his proof that she wasn’t as calm as she looked. She tried to slip her hand free, but to her surprise she discovered his grasp was unexpectedly strong. A brief, almost invisible power struggle ensued, and Rachel finally resorted to the feminine trick of curling her angry fingers over the edge of his palm and digging her fake nails into the sinewy back of his hand. He didn’t even flinch.

‘What else did you expect?’ he taunted. ‘A woman like you wearing a dress like that…you’re obviously not aiming to appeal to a man’s intellect…’

Even though she knew full well she was being deliberately provoked Rachel couldn’t help snapping at the bait. ‘A woman like me?’

She had narrowed his hostility to a specific focus, and now she was paying the price. His smile was insolent in the extreme. ‘Big, bold and brassy.’

The thin gold rim around her hazel irises glowed incandescently bright as she spluttered, ‘Brassy—?’

‘It means flashy, strident, showy…’ he elaborated, his eyes sliding from her breasts, heaving in outrage, to the tightness of her dress across her round hips and the slit in the side of the clinging skirt which revealed her leg to mid-thigh. ‘I knew the first time you walked into my office what you really were—window-dressing…a showgirl trying to do a man’s job…’

Rachel dug her fingernails deeper into his flesh and he gave an exaggerated wince.

‘Uh, Rachel…’ Merrilyn’s voice fluttered anxiously to her ears and Rachel suddenly remembered the role she was supposed to be playing. She should be pacifying him, not prodding him into even worse behaviour.

She batted her eyelashes and adopted a girlishly meek tone. ‘May I please have my hand back now, Mr Riordan?’

‘It depends what you’re planning to do with it,’ he challenged, and she couldn’t stop her eyes flickering to his temptingly exposed cheek. Unexpectedly he laughed, a purring sound that ruffled the nerves along her spine, and kissed her fingers again, releasing her hand with a slow, stroking motion that made it clear that it was purely his own choice.

‘A toast,’ he said, lifting his champagne glass and leaning forward to brush it against hers. ‘To the unfair sex, who resort to seduction when all else fails.’

‘If it was a man you would call it clever use of available resources,’ Rachel responded tartly. ‘And if you imagine this is a seduction you have some very odd opinions. You don’t like women very much, do you, Mr Riordan?’

His eyes glittered darkly. ‘I like certain women very much.’

‘Let me guess…small, fluffy-headed, delicately built females who constantly defer to your superior intellect and would never dream of challenging your masculine superiority?’

His face tautened. ‘What a sharp-tongued bitch you are!’

Her mouth curved smugly. She had obviously guessed right. She had probably just described Cheryl-Ann Harding to a T. She tossed back her champagne, forgetting that she had simply been holding it as a prop. ‘Not your type, Mr Riordan?’

He looked her over, blatantly undressing her with his hot black eyes. ‘I don’t know—bedding you could have its…compensations,’ he drawled insolently. ‘As long as you kept your mouth shut. Except to scream at the appropriate moment, of course.’

‘You mean the moment of my supreme disappointment?’ she said sweetly, and had the pleasure of seeing his ears turn red. She could almost envisage the steam issuing forth. ‘It must get very noisy in your bedroom, Mr Riordan.’

Merrilyn uttered a choked groan, overridden by Matthew Riordan’s sneer. ‘There’s only one way for you to find out, isn’t there?’

‘Why, is this a proposal, sir?’ Rachel simpered.

‘Miss Blair, the last thing you’d ever get from me would be a marriage proposal,’ he snarled.

‘Good. Because being married to a chauvinist like you would make me feel suicidal!’

His face went stony-blank, his voice as vaporous as dry ice, and just as freezing as it bled from his pale lips. ‘You wouldn’t get the chance. I’d have murdered you beforehand. In fact, I’d be hard put to control my homicidal impulses until after the wedding!’

With that he yanked up the champagne bottle from under the plant and stalked off.

‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…’ Merrilyn was chanting the horrified mantra under her breath, her face as white as milk under the professional coating of make-up.

‘He insulted me first!’ said Rachel shakily, knowing that it was no excuse. She had been thoroughly unprofessional. How many times had she heard David say that to successfully subdue a volatile opponent you had to remain emotionally detached from the situation?

‘You don’t understand…his first wife, Leigh, did commit suicide,’ said Merrilyn. ‘They’d only been married a few years…’

‘Oh, no…’ Rachel breathed. She closed her eyes, her own spiteful words ringing in her ears, lacerating her conscience.

‘You’ve seen the kind of mood he was in, now he’s going to be even worse,’ Merrilyn fretted. ‘I told you this was going to end up a disaster.’

‘Look, don’t worry, I’ll handle it,’ said Rachel, with far more confidence than she felt. ‘I’ll go and find him again—you just concentrate on looking after your other guests.’

‘But we’re sitting down to dinner soon! How can I concentrate on anything else? It’ll be like having an unexploded bomb at the table!’

‘Change the seating. I’m in a suitably obscure corner—put Matthew Riordan next to me.’

‘After what just happened—are you kidding? That would really light his fuse!’

‘There won’t be any fireworks,’ vowed Rachel grimly. ‘If he won’t co-operate I’ll think of something else, but I won’t let him create a disruption.’

To Rachel’s relief Merrilyn appeared to accept her assurances although she still looked dubious as she hurried off to resume her hostessing duties.

Rachel didn’t need a bloodhound to track down her quarry; all she had to do was follow the trail of nervous smiles and negative energy which Matthew Riordan had left scattered in his wake.

She found him outside, wandering down the terrace steps, having bypassed the glass dangling from his fingers in preference to swigging champagne straight from the bottle. The evening was so warm and humid that stepping from the air-conditioned comfort of the house into the velvety night was like being enveloped by a smothering blanket. The mingled scent of the jasmine which cloaked the walls of the large courtyard below the terrace and the Mexican orange blossom shrubs set in tubs around the kidney-shaped swimming pool was heavy in the air.

Approaching his brooding back as he prowled restlessly along the edge of the salt-water pool, Rachel decided that the grovelling approach would probably only invite his further contempt.

‘Looking for a small dog or a child to kick?’ she asked, and when he swung around to face her she didn’t give him a chance to open his mouth.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough of that?’ She nodded at the champagne bottle.

His mouth twisted, the lenses of his glasses reflecting the dancing light from the flaming torches decorating the fluted columns in the courtyard.

‘What are you? My conscience?’

‘Since you apparently don’t have one of your own, I felt constrained to volunteer,’ she said acerbically.

‘Like to live dangerously, do you?’ He prowled back towards her, his voice thick with menace, but Rachel stood her ground. Let him know that she was far more than merely the sum of her curvaceous parts!

‘Merrilyn’s afraid that you’re going to get totally smashed and run amok, insulting all her guests and ruining her chances of making it onto the social register.’

Her shrewdly judged frankness arrested the flaring animosity in his face. ‘So she asked you to stop me?’ he asked incredulously.

‘Something like that.’

He took a long swallow of champagne and slowly licked his lips, taking one final step that brought him close enough for her to feel the heat from his body. ‘You and whose army?’

Rachel jerked her eyes away from his mouth. It was a highly inconvenient time to notice that his lips were sensuously full, casting a sexy shadow over the intriguing indentation in his chin. ‘I thought I’d start off by appealing to your better nature.’

‘You’re so sure I have one? It didn’t sound as if you thought so back in there…’ He jerked his head towards the partying buzz, tilting himself momentarily off balance before quickly adjusting his stance. A tiny slip but a betraying one.

‘Back in there I was operating under a slight misapprehension,’ she murmured.

He cocked his head. ‘Oh, and what was that?’

‘Merrilyn told me you were drunk, but I didn’t believe her. I apologise for my stupid mistake.’

He gave a crack of reluctant laughter. ‘You’re taking a hell of a chance, aren’t you?’

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘If you’re going to take it out on anyone, take it out on me. Merrilyn issued her invitation in good faith. She wasn’t to know that you’d have a tiff with your girlfriend and try and drown your sorrows.’

He paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. ‘Is that what she thinks happened?’

‘Well, Cheryl-Ann’s not here, and you are—distinctly the worse for wear, so…’

She watched him up-end the bottle again, her fingers itching to snatch it away from his lips. But she knew from their earlier encounter that he was a lot stronger than he looked, and stubborn as the devil. Cunning rather than brute force was the best way to handle him.

‘Actually it was vice versa,’ he said, catching her frustrated look and defiantly refilling his glass, toasting her with an exaggerated flourish before knocking it back.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It was because I’d been drinking that Cheryl-Ann refused to come along with me tonight…’

‘Oh…’ Rachel was disconcerted by his sudden revelation. Merrilyn had acted as if his behaviour was totally unprecedented, but perhaps he was a closet alcoholic.

‘Cheryl-Ann likes everything in life to be pleasant and predictable. Particularly her men.’

‘Are there so many of them?’ she asked curiously. ‘I thought you two were a big item.’

‘And I thought you didn’t believe everything Merrilyn tells you. More champagne?’ he said, and splashed some into her glass from the carelessly offered bottle. Most of it slopped over the edge and onto her fingers.

‘Sorry,’ he said as she sucked in a gasp at the sudden chill. ‘Would you like me to lick it off for you? No free hands.’ He extended his arms wide in explanation, his unbuttoned jacket splitting wide over his snowy pleated shirt-front, now lightly frosted with bubbles.

‘No, thank you,’ she said primly, pushing away the unsettling thought of his tongue stroking across her skin. ‘But if you’ll hand me the bottle I’ll pour myself some more—I don’t trust your aim.’

He laughed again, and tucked the bottle under his arm. ‘I may be drunk, but I’m not stupid.’

She shrugged. ‘It was worth a try. You could be a bit more co-operative.’

‘Why should I?’ His mouth turned down, making him look wilful and determined to be difficult. She was reminded that while he seemed preternaturally mature, and commanded a lot of power in his position, exuding an air of intimidating and apparently effortless authority, he was still four years her junior. She should be able to handle him with one hand tied behind her back!

‘Well, surely you don’t want people to think that you’re a lush?’ she wheedled.

‘I’m rich enough not to have to care what people think,’ he said, with breathtaking arrogance and unfortunate accuracy. ‘But, as it happens, I have none of the usual vices.’

‘Just the unusual ones?’ hazarded Rachel unwisely.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.