Читать книгу Sweet Sinner - Diana Hamilton - Страница 8

‘THE restaurant’s in Fallow Street—can you find your own way there? Or shall I send a car?’ The dark voice was even more curt this morning, but Zoe was too relieved to hear it to care.

‘Twelve-thirty, Mr Cade; I’ll be there. And of course I can make my own way.’ She was practically burbling.

‘I’ve no doubt you can,’ he came back drily, and before she could work out what that tone was supposed to mean the line went dead.

Replacing the receiver, she glanced at her watch. Lunch with James Cade in exactly one hour. She grinned. Exhilaration got her bouncing to her feet, far too unsettled now to continue with the particularly knotty set of profit and loss sheets she’d been working on.

The weekend had been far from relaxing. What with having to move into the basement rooms with a miffed Jenna who kept muttering darkly about going to live in sin with Henry, caring for two energetic small boys who obviously thought that aunts were people who had nothing else to do but play with them and allow them to eat chocolate bars instead of lunch, and agonising over James Cade’s totally unexpected and incomprehensible arrival—and abrupt departure, on such a deeply embarrassing note, too—she had entered Monday morning feeling frayed to the point of disintegration.

And hadn’t been able to concentrate properly on her work, either, because her mind had kept sliding off at a tangent, grappling with the problem of how on earth she could approach James Cade and put him right.

What he privately thought of her morals was neither here nor there; she accepted that. After all, her company would be working for his company and that was as far as their relationship would go. And the only time that they ever need meet would be for a short session before she tackled his personal tax returns and his no doubt massive portfolio of investments.

But the knowledge that he thought she was some sort of Jekyll and Hyde character, doing a bit of hookering in her spare time, sharing a house with what he had probably decided were pimps and their prospects and already having two small sons—and no idea who their father was—was too awful to live with!

So his unexpected invitation to lunch was the answer to her prayers, and then some! And Zoe felt completely cheerful and nicely in control again for the first time since that awful fancy dress party on Friday night.

She poked her head into the adjoining office, checked that Simon, her PA, had set up the initial formal meeting with Wright and Grantham and had the final audit for Future Computers well in hand, told her secretary that she would be out of the office for a couple of hours, then retreated into her own office, collected her washbag from her desk and tripped light-heartedly to the ladies’ room.

Hanging her suit jacket and crisp white blouse on the hooks on the inside of the door, she uncapped the gel she preferred to wash with and vigorously sluiced her face with warm water.

Cade had almost certainly set up this meeting to fill her in on his personal tax details—handling all the director’s returns would come within her brief—because he wasn’t a fool. While she and her team would do all the hard graft, Luke, as the senior partner, would pick up the credit. James Cade would know that and would want, initially anyway, to liaise with her directly. And she would take the heaven-sent opportunity to explain that his warped opinion of her was completely and utterly incorrect.

Because, far from being sexually promiscuous, she had never had a lover in her life. One or two boyfriends, that was all, and they had been politely given the heave-ho when they had tried to get too fresh or too serious.

But she wouldn’t tell him that, of course; her hangups were her own business. Not that they were exactly that, she assured herself as she smoothed moisturiser into her fine, pale skin. She preferred to think of her celibate state as a well-rationalised decision, arrived at after sensibly weighing the pros and cons.

She had first-hand evidence of how loving could destroy a person. And, quite apart from not wanting to take the risk of that happening to her, she valued her freedom and independence. She had worked hard to attain it and didn’t intend to lose it.

Zoe buttoned herself into her blouse and shrugged into her lightweight suit jacket. So far, so good. Not one strand of blonde hair escaping the pins that held it in its neat knot, her small features serene, only the sparkle in her big green eyes betraying her pleasant anticipation of the coming meeting.

An anticipation that was solely down to the comforting knowledge that before lunch was over James Cade would have revised his embarrassing opinion of her, she assured herself as she opted to walk to the restaurant he had named. The spring in her step had nothing to do with the man himself, his undoubtedly awesome good looks, his sheer mind-blowing presence.

Forcing herself to slow down her pace because if she kept bouncing along in the warm June sun she would arrive looking hot and sweaty, she found her thoughts unaccountably turning to the woman Cade was to marry.

And she knew, with a feminine intuition that rather surprised her, that Stephanie Wright would have to be a very strong lady indeed to be able to handle the almost frightening maleness of Cade. He would walk all over a weak woman, dominate her utterly—and probably end up despising her.

She had never met his chairman’s daughter and wasn’t likely to, but she could paint pictures in her head of someone very glossy, smoothly sophisticated and tough. She would have to be, to have attracted a man like Cade. And, being tough, the likes of Luke Taylor would label her ‘bitch’ because men disliked strong women more often than not; they made them feel insecure so they called them names to make them feel better themselves.

James Cade was the type who would respect a strong woman, consider her his equal. So he wouldn’t be contemplating marriage to cement his career, she decided cosily; he was probably deeply in love with his Stephanie.

And quite why that neatly worked out snippet should take all her breath away, suddenly drain the bounce out of her step, was something she had no time to work out, because she had arrived. And stood still for a single second while she straightened her suit jacket, hauled back her shoulders, arranged what she hoped was a serene expression on her face and walked on in.

He was already waiting, and as the waiter ushered her to the secluded table for two he rose courteously to his feet and she felt herself go decidedly pink. And knew why. All those dreadful—but understandable, given the circumstances—misconceptions of his!

Which she now had the perfect opportunity to put right, she reassured herself. Zoe the part-time hooker would soon be a thing of the past!

‘Thank you for giving me your time,’ he said tonelessly, his eyes half hidden beneath heavy lids and an even heavier fringe of thick black lashes.

She didn’t think he was actually seeing her at all and Zoe bit back the outrageous impulse to drawl right back, ‘I don’t give and I don’t come cheap. Fifty quid an hour’s the going rate,’ and wondered if ladies of that sort charged by the hour or by the——And felt herself go scarlet and wondered just what it was about this man that made her lose all her sanity and say and think the silliest things…

He was towering above her and, all around her, the atmosphere seemed to crackle. He looked mean and moody and, yes, it had to be faced, terrifyingly desirable.

Zoe sat quickly, her breath all gone again, and watched as he seated himself and beckoned a waiter. And that initial show of courtesy wasn’t in evidence as he ordered for both of them—bottled mineral water and a plain green salad as it turned out—when for all he knew she might have craved a large gin and a thick rare steak!

Not that she did, of course, it was the principle that counted. But she hadn’t come here for the food, she reminded herself, and, looking at things from his viewpoint, he wouldn’t consider the type of female he believed her to be deserved much in the way of polite behaviour.

So now was the time, before they got into business discussions, to put him straight. She opened her mouth to do just that but he cut across her, his dispassionate tone more chilling than it had any right to be.

‘Before I approach your superiors I think it’s only fair to tell you that I intend to have you taken off the Wright and Grantham account.’

‘You can’t mean that!’ Her head felt as if it were about to spin off her shoulders and the fork she’d been holding fell from her fingers and she didn’t even notice. Her career prospects with Halraike Hopkins would bite the dust and she would be suspect from here on in. Influential clients didn’t make such requests without good reason.

‘I don’t say things I don’t mean.’

To give him his due, he remained silent while the watchful waiter removed the fallen fork and replaced it with another and then he explained, with the softness of a cobra striking.

‘But I prefer to look a person in the eye instead of pushing the knife in between the shoulder-blades. Hence this meeting.’

‘Oh, but you can’t!’ Zoe insisted frantically, sliding down in her seat a little because one glance from those coldly, quellingly authoritative grey eyes would have stopped a manic axe-murderer in his tracks.

But he merely contradicted, ‘I can. And I will.’ He began eating his salad with no sign of enjoyment, as if it was every responsible person’s duty to fuel the body so that it could function properly, no more than that.

Zoe couldn’t even look at hers and stared at him, knowing she just had to look stupid but unable to do anything about it as he expounded, ‘Your morals, or lack of them, are your business, of course. I don’t presume to judge—’

‘You don’t! You, you—’ she spluttered, the blistering words that would put him right on that score crowding on the edge of her tongue.

But he silenced her with another killingly quelling look and cut in quietly, ‘Normally, no. But what I witnessed late on Friday night, coupled with the fact that you admit you have no idea who the father of your children is—plus the way you appear to live—adds up to the unpleasant truth that your integrity has to be in question. No, hear me out—’ He sliced through her hiss of outrage, his voice like ice-edged steel. ‘Wright and Grantham’s accounts contain certain sensitive information.’ He laid down his cutlery and leaned back in his chair, long fingers absently curved around his glass of iced water. ‘Our research funding, for example. Which new and possibly revolutionary drugs are being given priority by our research department. All useful information to rival companies. Added to which, you have a useful pusher to hand. The reporter—I thought I recognised him and subsequent checking proved me right—the guy who was so anxious to get everyone in bed. All in the same bed? Or hasn’t the depravity gone that far yet?’ One dark, well-defined brow rose in a query that was entirely without humour. ‘Be that as it may, the information in the wrong hands—his hands and, by implication, yours—could do Wright and Grantham a whole load of no good at all.’

‘But I wouldn’t!’ Zoe exploded, all thoughts of telling him she wasn’t the sleazy tramp of his imaginings melting away in the fiery fury of hearing her professional integrity called into question.

Infuriatingly, he shrugged, wide shoulders moving just slightly beneath that smooth, expensive suiting. ‘Perhaps, perhaps not. Who’s to tell? However——’ he dropped his napkin on the table, making it clear the unpleasant interview was at an end ‘—I am not prepared to take the chance.’

Her brain was reeling. She felt as if she’d just gone ten rounds with a prize fighter. Punch drunk. But she had to pull herself together before he paid the bill and left her staring into a plate of salad and an impoverished future.

Trying to pretend that her face wasn’t scarlet with temper, she pushed out her pointy chin and, unaware of the threatening, deep green glitter of her narrowed eyes, told him, ‘Before you shoot your mouth off one more time, you can at least give me the chance to explain.’ And, ignoring the shutters of boredom that came down over his fascinating eyes, she spelled out the events which had led to her being tipped out of that car, ending with, ‘And Rickie and Robin are my nephews. Petra, my sister, is away on a walking holiday in Greece with friends. Dad and I had to practically twist her arm to make her go. She’s been working flat-out to get her Open University degree and she needed the break before taking up her job with a literary agency based in Bromley. And, before you start accusing me of lying, no, we don’t know who the father is.’ Realising that her normally cool, restrained voice had risen to fishwife levels, she took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to leave his, staring instead at the bread roll she’d put on her side plate and hadn’t touched.

She began to rip it to shreds.

‘Four years ago, when Petra was eighteen,’ she explained more calmly, ‘she worked as a receptionist in a small hotel near Orpington. Just temporarily, until she took her place at university. Dad’s always insisted that we both cram in as much education as possible—he was a teacher.’

For the first time, a tiny smile played round the edges of her mouth, and then she, in turn, shrugged. ‘She was looking forward to it, to getting her degree and making a career—with books—in publishing or with an agency. Then she met someone. He swept her off her feet, as the saying goes.’ She gave him another shrug, a look that said she didn’t believe in that sort of thing herself, and ploughed straight on. ‘I was studying hard for my finals at that time, at university myself, so I didn’t know what was going on. But Dad knew something was up. Petra stopped going home, and when she did put in an appearance she acted strangely. Then the truth came out. She was pregnant. The creep had talked about marriage, talked about undying love—and she had believed him.’ Unconsciously, her voice hardened. ‘When he learned she was pregnant, instead of naming the day he told her he was already married with three children. She never saw him again.’

‘And she didn’t say who he was?’ Cade asked, his dry tone telling her he had difficulty believing any of this.

And Zoe came back firmly, ‘No. After she broke the news she refused to talk about him. She probably could have traced him and demanded some kind of financial support but she obviously wanted to forget him, put it all behind her. And Dad and I supported her in that.’

‘I would imagine the advent of twins made forgetting him a touch difficult.’ An unforgivable trace of humour quirked his long mouth, drawing her startled attention to all that latent sensuality.

She would have liked to hit him but controlled herself and said primly, ‘None of us has ever looked on the boys as belonging to anyone but our family. We all love them devotedly. Dad helps Petra look after them during the week while I go down to the cottage at weekends to do my bit and give Dad a breathing space. Nobody resents them; we love them to pieces.’

‘You haven’t once mentioned your mother in all of this.’ The new, lighter tone of query in his voice, the careful way he was watching her, gave her hope that he was beginning to believe her at last.

So the relief of that gentled her tone as she told him softly, ‘Mum died fourteen years ago. Dad brought us up.’

He had devoted his life to his daughters because with the death of his wife there had been nothing else to live for. And although she could understand such depth of devotion she couldn’t condone it. If he had been able to find a new love and marry again—without feeling he was betraying everything he and Mum had been to each other—then he needn’t have sacrificed his career in the way he had, and she needn’t have had to witness those rare unguarded moments when his deep loneliness had shown in his eyes.

‘So your father is left with the unenviable task of bringing up a second family—virtually single-handed if I read you right—as a result of his daughter’s thoughtless lack of control.’

Pompous, pious, ignorant bastard!

Zoe ground her teeth, biting back the verbal brickbats she was itching to throw at him, remembering his threats, his ability—if he so chose—to put her prospects within her company at very grave risk.

It wasn’t like that. Petra had been deceived in the vilest way possible. Her heart had been broken because she’d loved the man and had believed he loved her, too. Her life could have been ruined but she’d been too strongwilled to let that happen and she, Zoe, and Dad, had been right behind her decision to carry on with her pregnancy.

They’d put their heads together and worked everything out. Petra would get her degree through the Open University and Dad would take early retirement when the babies needed more time-consuming attention, leaving their mother free to push on with her studies.

And Zoe was able to give practical help, too. Visiting every weekend to give a hand, giving all the financial support she could afford because although the state helped it was a pittance and didn’t go anywhere. And how dared he imply that all responsibility had been offloaded on to Dad? And the tiny boys didn’t represent an ‘unenviable task’—they were a joy!

Stormy green eyes clashed with his. She could see the cold condemnation in his eyes and knew she had to allow herself the luxury of putting him in his place. After all, his reasons for wanting her taken off the Wright and Grantham account were no longer valid, he could hardly demand her removal for being less than boot-licking, could he?

‘Have you always been so moralistic and judgemental, Mr Cade?’ she enquired in the coollest, most dismissive tone she could find. ‘Was it something that happened, or were you born like it?’ She reached for her handbag, determined that she would be the one to end what had turned out to be a very distasteful, unsettling interview. ‘Did you never do something you later regretted when you were an inexperienced eighteen?’

But James Cade would have been born with all the experience in the world buried deep in his frigid soul, she scorned as she gathered herself to go. She couldn’t imagine him ever being vulnerable, open to hurt and betrayal. Yet the look in his eyes told her she had inadvertently touched a raw nerve, revived something, a memory perhaps, that he could hardly bear to look at.

Interesting.

Too interesting to share, obviously. His face went blank again, his voice almost soft as he commanded, ‘Sit down. I haven’t finished with you yet.’

So she did, with a flurry of internal exasperation. She was going to have to watch her tongue. The more time she spent with him, the more she found herself spoiling for a fight. He was, she decided, infinitely dangerous to her equanimity—never mind her sanity!

‘I’m sorry.’ She arranged her features primly, a slightly off-balance semblance of her normal serene and unflustered expression. ‘I thought everything had been resolved.’ Perhaps he did want to talk about his personal tax returns, she thought. She couldn’t think of anything else he might need to say on the once vexed subject of her suspect morals.

Or maybe, she wondered without a lot of hope, he wanted to apologise. And just stared at him, unable to believe this was happening when he stated coldly,

‘I’m still trying to decide—given what you’ve told me—whether you are as brave and unselfish as you’d like to have me believe, or an accomplished liar.’ He settled his elbows on the arm-rests of his chair, grey eyes impaling her above steepled fingers. ‘The way you choose to conduct your life doesn’t affect me, personally, so don’t accuse me of taking the moralistic stance. But your lifestyle could leave you open to blackmail; I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to see that. And, as I said, there is a certain amount of sensitive, highly confidential information that our rivals would willingly pay substantial sums to obtain, or certain questionable newspapers would love to use as sensational headline material. “New Wonder Drug—Cure All or Kill All”—I’m sure you can visualise the type of thing?’ He allowed his voice to tail off, as if the final word had been said and the subject wearied him, and Zoe sucked in her breath, desperately fighting to find all the control she’d always had at the end of her neat fingers and now seemed to have lost.

And her struggle for composure must have been written all over her face because he lowered his hands and smiled. And the effect was utterly, unnervingly devastating. Made her almost forget his damning opinion of her, his stubborn refusal to believe in her integrity, until he said, ‘You don’t need to try so hard to project a meek, prim image, Miss Kilgerran. I’ve seen you in quite a different persona, remember? Black fishnet—a little torn around the knees, but fetching for all that. A cleavage any Page Three girl would be proud of and an apology for a skirt that defies description. And in any case, Miss Kilgerran, your eyes give you away. They positively spit with wild green passion whenever I say something you don’t want to hear.’

Oh, the hateful, sarcastic, wicked swine! She would like to take that evil smile and wrap it round his neck until it choked him!

‘I’ve already explained how I came to be dressed that way, Mr Cade.’ She marvelled, she really did, at the polite tone she achieved when every mental tooth was grinding down to mental gums. ‘And you only need to do some of that checking up you seem so extraordinarily good at to get at the truth regarding the parentage of the twins. Petra is due home on Wednesday, but if you’d rather not wait that long I’m sure my father would be delighted to have you call on him and to answer all the questions you want to ask.’

So get round that, she fulminated, keeping very still because if she allowed herself to move an inch she’d be over the table and thrusting her wretched, untouched salad down his throat, plate as well.