Читать книгу Ransacked Heart - Jayne Bauling - Страница 7

‘CAN we give you a lift?’

Maria flung Luke Scott a hostile look as he and Cavell Fielding appeared just as she was taking her leave of Giles and Ursula Estwick, with Florian and Nicky on either side of her.

‘I’m going home with Florian and Nicky, thanks.’

It was deliberately dismissive, but a scorching anger rose in response to the searingly contemptuous look he gave her.

‘We’ve managed to wangle her an apartment just a floor below Nicky and me,’ Florian volunteered cheerfully. ‘Well, it was Nicky’s influence really, I have to admit. It takes Taipei’s most famous daughter to buck our letting agent’s system of waiting lists like that.’

‘It sounds like a convenient arrangement,’ Luke commented urbanely, and Maria saw his lip curl sar-donically, as if everything he believed of her had just been confirmed.

What did he think they were going to do? Toss a coin to determine on which floor Florian spent the night?

‘Cosy,’ she offered flippantly with a defiantly challenging smile.

‘Obviously,’ he drawled.

Maria met Cavell’s watchful sapphire eyes and a furious resentment gripped her, felt on Cavell’s behalf almost as much as her own, because Luke couldn’t have spoken to her as he had earlier, openly stating that he intended to make her his mistress, if he had had any real regard for Cavell, or women in general, for that matter.

‘See you tomorrow, then, Cavell,’ she confirmed an arrangement they had made during the course of the evening, ignoring Luke now but still acutely conscious of his attention as she thanked the Estwicks again and departed with Florian and Nicky.

‘Luke Scott doesn’t like you any better yet, Flo,’ Nicky commented amusedly when they were in a taxi.

‘I’m a woman’s man,’ Florian returned complacently as their driver eased his slow way out of one of the traffic jams that were a major problem in Taipei. ‘Other men can resent that.’

Maria shook her head, her smile a little cynical.

‘You don’t think his dislike might be a little more personal than that?’ she wondered casually.

‘As gorgeous as she is, I don’t go for women like Cavell Fielding.’ Typically, Florian laughed, natural vanity making him misunderstand her. ‘Although I suppose he might suspect her of fancying me! I have to say this, though—whatever it is, he’s never let it become a big issue. He ignores me when he can and I co-operate by keeping out of his way, because I like the job. He’s never allowed his dislike, personal or otherwise, to influence his professional judgement in any way. He knows I’m the best jock he’s got here. But generally it’s been unnecessary for us to have much contact. As I told you earlier, he spends most of his time in Hong Kong, where his major interests are.’

It was just a pity that Luke hadn’t decided to ignore her as well, Maria reflected wryly. The policy he applied to Florian would have suited her perfectly.

As it was, the most she could hope for was his speedy return to Hong Kong, but for now she supposed she would just have to endure a certain amount of contact, as he had warned her earlier at the party just before leaving her with Cavell Fielding and Penny Seu Chen.

‘I plan to be around over the next few weeks while we get this new image launched, and we expect you to be very visible. Obviously we haven’t gone for whole-sale personnel changes, so you’re the hook on which we’re hanging the idea, a new programme manager whose own image is the station’s—young, smart, sophisticated and committed to the music. Taiwan is one of the most Westernised countries in this region, and our last few surveys have shown that we’re attracting an extensive local listenership now, covering an age-group ranging from mid-teens to late thirties, so we want to ditch a lingering perception that we exist solely for the benefit of non-nationals. Giles Estwick will have discussed it with you, and you’ll have ideas of your own. Cavell will want to hear what they are, as well as some appropriate biographical details for Press releases, as she’s handling the publicity angle for us. She’s the best there is, so consult her if there’s anything you’re unsure of on that side.’

‘But only on that side?’ Maria had prompted derisively.

Luke’s smile was equally mocking. ‘Obviously we understand each other perfectly already.’

‘I understand you,’ she corrected him sharply. ‘I should. Rats aren’t exactly rare.’

‘Highly intelligent, though,’ Luke retorted dismissively, apparently uperturbed, but hostility still glinted in his eyes.

‘Every rule has its exception,’ she snapped.

She could work with Cavell, Maria had decided by the next afternoon. Along with a Chinese freelance photographer, Cavell had called for her that morning and whisked her round some of Taipei’s famous land-marks, the all-marble Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial, a colourful Buddhist temple, and the Grand Hotel with its magnificent Chinese architecture, pausing only long enough at each for the young man to take the photos that would help introduce Maria to the Taipei public, before escorting her back to the apartment and approving the outfit she planned to wear to the dinner the radio station was hosting for the rest of the local media that night.

‘You’d better have the afternoon to yourself as I imagine the heat and humidity must be hitting you,’ she decided, preparing to depart. ‘We’ll see you tonight.’

‘Will everyone be attending?’ asked Maria.

‘Except for whoever’s on duty. It’s expected,’ Cavell added drily.

‘Mr Scott?’

‘Of course. He’s taking a personal interest in this.’

Personal. The word disturbed Maria for a while afterwards, although Cavell probably hadn’t given it any real thought, since she appeared so untroubled, her manner calmly confident and still strictly professional.

Maria was checking her public face, glittering tawny colour smudged lightly over her eyelids, darkening at the outer corners, lips defined with vivid colour, when the doorbell rang that evening, and she went to open it, expecting Nicky Kai, who had telephoned during the afternoon to suggest that the three of them share a taxi again tonight.

Surprise made her catch a breath, but it was the swiftly ensuing resentment that held it locked in her lungs for seconds after she should have expelled it as she stared questioningly at Luke Scott, casually elegant in a beautifully made lightweight jacket worn over a pale shirt and obviously expensive trousers with a discreetly fashionable belt.

‘Are you ready?’ he enquired, eschewing any conventional greeting.

‘What do you want?’ Maria demanded rudely, not yet fully recovered from the oddly physical shock of seeing him so unexpectedly.

Luke didn’t answer her immediately, but the grey eyes were eloquent as they dropped to the tiny cham-pagne-coloured skirt the slenderness of her legs made permissible, then travelled upwards again in slow appraisal of her strapless matching bustier, encrusted with transparent beads and revealing both her smooth olive-toned midriff and the upper swell of her high, proud breasts beneath the single fine circle of gold she wore about her neck.

‘Do you really want to go into that now?’ he challenged her softly, his ironic gaze returning briefly to her party face and the shiny, streaky curls that tumbled over her brow and about her neck, just skimming her bare shoulders. Then he glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t think we have time.’

‘I meant, why are you here?’ Maria elaborated bitingly, suppressing reactions more heated than simple anger.

‘To make sure you get to this dinner tonight.’ It was tersely volunteered.

‘Cavell never said anything about this,’ she protested tightly.

‘Cavell doesn’t know.’

She had already guessed that, and her smile was blistering as she registered his arrogance all over again. He not only believed that she would be a willing accessory to his two-timing Cavell, but that Cavell either wouldn’t realise what was happening or wouldn’t mind if she did.

‘Then forget it. I’ve already made arrangements to go with Nicky and Florian.’

‘Cancel them. God, do you think Nicky really wants you hanging around?’ Luke added disgustedly, his expression growing relentless.

‘Does Cavell?’

‘Cavell doesn’t come into this. Get used to the idea, Maria. I’m going to be partnering you at most of the functions you’ll be required to attend in your professional capacity over the next few weeks.’

‘That wasn’t in my contract, and there was no mention of it in the programme Giles and Cavell have outlined for me either.’ Maria produced a whisper of a laugh. ‘In fact, I could swear your image-maker wants me to come across as a free spirit, someone who doesn’t need the convention of a male escort—and I don’t. It won’t be a pretence.’

‘Nevertheless, you’ll have one,’ Luke told her inexorably.

‘You?’ Maria derided.

‘Who else? Unless you’ve moved unbelievably fast, Nicky Kai still has a claim on Jones, and while some of the other jocks may have shown signs of making themselves available as reserve players last night—yes, I noticed the attention you attracted—they’ll just have to wait their turn.’ The look Luke gave her was cautionary as she stirred rebelliously, brilliant lips parting. ‘And perhaps I should remind you that the contract you’ve just cited binds you as securely as it does us, unless you’re willing to face interminable legal hassles in an effort to extricate yourself.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ The passionate question was involuntary and, regaining a measure of both control and fighting spirit, she went on quickly in a lightly mocking tone, ‘And what’s Cavell Fielding’s reaction going to be when she does know about these…plans you have for escorting me? And not so much about the fact of them, as the reasons behind the fact?’

‘You seemed to understand it clearly enough last night, so why not now? I won’t have Cavell dragged into our personal affairs.’

It was offered as a warning, but the threat was unmistakable.

‘Our personal affairs!’ Maria sent him a smouldering glance as her mind screamed its resistance to the idea of there ever being anything personal between them, and every muscle in her body clenched in physical imitation of that wild denial.

Luke shrugged indifferently, his face hard but still astonishingly handsome.

‘How else should I phrase it? I can be a lot more crude if you want me to.’

‘I’m sure you can!’ Maria snapped, and flung out a hand, unconscious of the helpless appeal allied to imperative demand in the gesture as control slipped once more. ‘Tell me why you’re doing this, damn you!’

‘Why?’ he repeated, his eyes resting on the suddenly tempestuous shape of her mouth. ‘Because arriving with you makes it easier for me to leave with you—to take you home, Maria.’

And all that the phrase implied. He didn’t need to be more explicit. She flung up her head, bright satin-smooth curls shaking.

‘I’d rather die!’

It rang with pride and passion, the intensity of the emotion heightening the slightly exotic aspect of her peculiar beauty which was in reality merely the end sum of a wonderfully mixed ancestry of ordinary Celts, Latins and Anglo-Saxons.

Luke laughed, his amusement genuine for a moment.

‘How extremely dramatic!’

‘But true,’ she insisted, her eyes still stormy.

‘And passionate.’ Grey eyes were turned silvery by a gleam of speculation. ‘Do you make love as passionately as you hate?’

‘Love?’ Maria scorned, and saw his lips twist in acknowledgement.

‘You’re right—a badly chosen phrase,’ he conceded derisively as he looked at his watch again. ‘The limi-tations of our language…Ring Jones and tell him I’m taking you to this dinner.’

‘Because arriving with me will make it easier for you to leave with me?’ Maria threw his explanation back at him. ‘Easier being the limited English way of saying—less likely to excite comment and speculation?’

‘If you like,’ he allowed tautly.

‘And it will look more as if you’re carrying out a professional duty.’ Surging resentment drove her on. ‘So if you don’t want anyone thinking you might be with me for personal reasons, why bother?’

‘You know why,’ Luke asserted, suddenly harsh.

But she didn’t really. Oh, yes, she recognised the sexual awareness that was an integral part of his attitude towards her, and it made her uneasy, but he couldn’t really mean to do anything about it when he despised her so intensely. His talk was just that, talk aimed at intimidating her, but she would never give him the satisfaction of allowing him to succeed. Six years ago, her own bewildering awareness of him, the way it had made her feel threatened, must have been obvious to him when his simple presence, a glance in her direction, the sound of his voice, had been enough to unnerve her; but these days she answered back—and for some reason he was hell-bent on punishing her for what he believed her to be, humiliating her with constant reminders of his contempt.

But he would never actually touch her, Maria decided, directing a quick look at the resolute line of chin and jaw and the arrogant curve of his nose. Strength of character and a confident decisiveness were implicit in the hardness of that darkly handsome face, and while the curve of his lower lip was disturbingly sensual, there was a fastidiousness there too which ought to be reassuring. He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to touch her, because if he did, the contempt he felt for her would be extended to himself, and she thought Luke Scott was too intelligent a man to submit to anything so destructive. Like most successful, powerful men, he would cherish his self-respect.

She had no need to feel so uneasy in his presence. All she had to do was steel herself to get through the forthcoming weeks until he returned to Hong Kong and she was left to immerse herself in this new job in peace, free of the distraction he constituted.

Half convinced, she shrugged philosophically and turned to leave the apartment’s square entrance hall in which they were standing, aware of Luke following her into the luxuriously appointed lounge, a long elegant room which ended in sliding glass doors opening on to a balcony with a view she had spent part of the afternoon enjoying, pretty green parkland dotted with ornamental ponds linked by a winding, deeply cut stream that was spanned by the occasional arched stone bridge.

A hand on the telephone receiver, she paused in the act of reading Florian and Nicky’s number which was jotted down on the pad beside it, and threw Luke a challenging glance.

‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll give you away to someone?’ she taunted. ‘Florian and Nicky, for instance? Suppose I tell them that you want to escort me tonight for personal reasons?’

Luke shrugged, unperturbed. ‘Perhaps there isn’t that much need for discretion. You’re a beautiful woman, after all, intelligent and successful in your career—and unknown here. Other than myself, probably only Florian Jones knows what you really are and he at any rate obviously doesn’t find the reality at all unpalatable.’

Maria’s eyes flashed. ‘Oh, yes, Florian knows what I am, Mr Scott. You don’t.’

‘Get on with it,’ he urged her impatiently, indicating the telephone, and she did, speaking swiftly when Florian answered.

‘Flo? Did Nicky tell you what we arranged? Yes, only you don’t need to call for me after all. Mr Scott is here, so I’ll go with him and see you later…Satisfied?’ she added sweetly as she replaced the receiver, finding Luke still watching her.

‘Nicky’s present naÏveté surprises me slightly,’ he observed. ‘But perhaps she has yet to realise what she’s letting herself in for, using her name to get you installed here, allowing you to share their transport…It’s a very cosy set-up, as you admitted last night, but I don’t suppose she knows what it’s leading up to, if Jones has conveniently forgotten to mention the exact nature of your past relationship.’

‘I don’t know why you’re surprised, when you seem to expect other people to be naive enough to remain blind to what you’re trying to do,’ Maria flared edgily, thinking of Cavell especially. ‘But in fact there’s nothing naive about what Nicky is doing, as she knows the nature of our relationship perfectly well. She’s simply being as welcoming and hospitable as I’ve always heard the Taiwanese are, and trying to help me feel at home and among friends because she knows what it’s like to be a newcomer in a foreign city herself.’

‘And because she believes your relationship with her lover is a thing of the past.’ The suggestion was laced with condemnation. ‘But it’s not, is it? You can’t leave each other alone. The two of you have followed each other halfway round the world over the years, and she’ll shut you out once she realises that your affair is something you renew periodically.’

‘In between all our other affairs, I suppose? Where do you get these ideas from?’ Maria derided angrily. ‘Apart from anything else, these are the nervous nine-ties, in case you haven’t realised, not the sixties or seventies when no one thought twice about having lots of different partners.’

‘Oh, I know people such as you and Jones like yourselves too well not to make sure you’re safe.’ It was so cynically dismissive that she was momentarily speechless, and he added, ‘Shall we go?’

‘Yes, let’s,’ she consented cuttingly. ‘If we don’t hurry we’re likely to meet Florian and Nicky in the lift, and right this minute I don’t think I could bring myself to keep quiet about the things you’ve just been saying.’

She was still seething when they got into his luxury car, hired, he told her, as he didn’t keep one of his own here, his visits to Taipei being infrequent and usually brief.

‘Has Estwick spoken to you about the vehicle clause in your contract?’ he added, easing into the heavy evening traffic.

‘Yes, but I’ve said I’ll experiment for a while before making a decision. Taxis seem to be plentiful, and the fares are very moderate.’

‘Too plentiful. Along with all the motorbikes, they contribute to the traffic problem which is probably one of the worst in the world, and certainly one of Taiwan’s major problems, along with an over-competitive edu-cational system and political isolation.’

‘I’ve never seen so many motorbikes at once before,’ Maria confessed, staring disbelievingly at one in the lane alongside, two small children wedged between youthful-looking adults. ‘I checked out the problems before accepting this job, but the virtues seemed to balance them, which is usually the way anywhere.’

‘Cleanliness, low unemployment and crime rates,’ Luke suggested.

‘They were among the things that attracted me.’

‘But Jones was the real attraction, presumably.’

Maria drew a sharp breath. ‘Why does there have to be a man in it somewhere?’ she demanded.

‘There’s always a man with women like you.’ It was deliberately offensive.

‘Is that what this is all about?’ she demanded. ‘Except that you admitted last night that you don’t lead an absolutely pure life yourself, I could almost believe that you’re one of those buttoned-up celibates, offended by the mere idea of any sort of relationship, even if it’s between other people.’

Luke laughed. ‘No, Maria, I’m not celibate, but I’m probably more discriminating than you are, and I’ve always avoided triangles.’

‘Your hypocrisy is incredible!’ Temper sharpened her voice. ‘If that’s the creed you apply to your relationships, why are you doing this?’

‘Why not? You and I are both free, there’s no husband or wife languishing somewhere in the background, no children involved.’

‘Oh, of course, a piece of paper, a ring and a blessing make all the difference!’ She slanted him a scornful glance. ‘So why doesn’t Nicky Kai come in for a share of all this moral condemnation, since you know that Florian is still legally married?’

‘The marriage may exist legally, but hardly in fact. He hasn’t been back to South Africa in years.’ He paused. ‘But it was very much a fact when you were first involved with him, wasn’t it? His young wife was pregnant. Presumably you were the cause of their separation. Why was there no divorce?’

‘Rachel and her family don‘t believe in it.’ Maria snapped. ‘And it suits Florian because it gives him a valid excuse when the women he gets involved with start talking about marriage.’

‘You know him very well, don’t you?’ He slid her a contemplative look. ‘Does it suit you equally well?’

‘It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. You’re wrong about me, Mr Scott,’ she went on flatly. ‘I could tell you how and why, but I’m not going to, because I don’t care what you believe. Your thoughts and opinions just don’t matter to me.’

She hadn’t thought it out properly before, but it hit her squarely and solidly now. She would not explain herself to Luke Scott, because to do so would mean he mattered to her, and to let him matter in even the smallest way was to make herself vulnerable—to let him in at some level, and she had an intuitive sense of the havoc he could wreak once admitted to the number of those people who mattered in her life in their various ways.

Not that there was any real danger of his ever mattering to her. How could he? She hated him.

The dark grey eyes that glanced her way just before they moved across the chaotic intersection seemed to mirror that hatred, and she recoiled slightly.

‘Is it that you can’t think of anything plausible, or simply that you refuse to make excuses for what you are?’ he wondered insultingly. ‘I could almost admire you for it if it’s the latter.’

‘Almost, but not quite,’ she jeered in a brittle voice. ‘Because I’m still what you believe I am, still chasing Florian Jones around the world! Only, again, why does that make me worse than Nicky? As you’ve conceded, Florian’s marriage is no longer a fact except on paper, and Nicky isn’t his wife.’

‘It doesn’t make you worse, it just makes you weak,’ he told her insolently. ‘I’ve never been able to respect people who go back. Going back, starting over, is always either the easy option or a negative step in itself, retrogressive. It’s weakness…But then Florian Jones is your one great weakness, I suppose, since it’s obvious that you haven’t learnt a thing in the years since you first got involved with him. Or is it that your other relationships keep proving unsatisfactory, driving you back to him?’

‘My hundreds of other relationships, don’t you mean, Mr Scott?’ Maria prompted caustically.

In fact, only one serious relationship lay behind her, with a Wellington actor who read news bulletins in order to eat, and it had died owing to lack of feeling, disappointing them both at the time, but Maria had philosophically absorbed the lesson at the heart of the sad experience. She believed in love, but she had been too impatient, her eagerness to experience it persuading her to believe that what she had felt went deeper than liking and a mild physical attraction. In future, she would not go looking for love, or trying to manu-facture it out of other lesser emotions, but she still believed it would find her one day.

‘Hundreds?’ Luke was drily sceptical. ‘How have you found time to make such a success of your career? How many really?’

‘One,’ Maria admitted shortly, despising herself for confiding even that much. ‘It didn’t work out.’

‘Why not? No, don’t tell me. He didn’t measure up to Jones, the affair lacked the romance of having to follow a man around the world—perhaps even the bitter-sweet romance of uncertainty.’

‘There’s nothing romantic about my relationship with Florian,’ Maria asserted abruptly.

‘Wasn’t it a romantic gesture, accepting this job?’ Luke was slowing the car as they arrived at the restaurant, one of the most famous in Taipei, Maria knew, and an immaculately uniformed parking attendant was approaching. ‘And wasn’t he being romantic when he suggested that we consider you for this job? Which of you is responsible for the long periods of separation, or are they merely dictated by your careers?’

‘I’m sure you’ve made up your mind as to the answer to that, along with everything else, Mr Scott,’ she responded levelly, disconcerted by a need to conceal an unexpected surge of bitter frustration.

‘No, I’ve only made a guess,’ he returned coolly.

‘As your guesses instantly become convictions…’ she shrugged, not bothering to complete it, and neither of them spoke again until a commissionaire had ushered them into the foyer of the building housing the restaurant and they were inside a lift.

‘Just one more thing before we become part of a crowd, Maria,’ said Luke as the door slid shut and they began to move smoothly upwards.

‘What?’

The abrupt challenge was distracted because she was struggling to contend with an unexpectedly physical reaction to finding herself alone with him in such a confined space. It had happened before, when they had descended from her apartment, but then the presence of another person had diluted the effect to an extent where she was able to ignore it.

Now she wished fervently for an old-fashioned attendant to match the commissionaire downstairs and the man who had driven Luke’s car away to park it.

She felt panicky, as if something precious deep within her was menaced by his closeness, and once again as shockingly unsure of herself as she had always been in his presence six years ago.

‘I want you to stop calling me Mr Scott,’ he advised her blandly. ‘My name is Luke.’

Maria dragged a breath into her lungs and managed a tight smile.

‘Oh, but people might think there’s something personal between us if I do that,’ she mocked faintly.

The arresting copper-toned features tautened. ‘I’ve said I over-emphasised the need for discretion. Try it, and don’t tell me you’d rather die.’

‘I think I might,’ she retorted.

‘Say it!’ He was insistent, and she stiffened resentfully.

‘Why? Because you know how much I’ll hate it?’

‘Will you?’

Suddenly the tone was velvety. He was half turned towards her, and Maria saw him lift a hand and watched it move towards her, coming to rest against her bare midriff, warm fingers shaping themselves lightly to its gentle curve.

The odd fleeting stasis that gripped her was complete. Breathing and blood were stopped; her mind emptied, muscles went paralysed and even her heart skipped, missing a beat.

Then it was over, replaced by its opposite, restored life an explosion of rioting sensation. Her flesh was vibrantly alert, too sensitive, her heart thudding like a runner’s, wild hot panic flooding her reactivated mind. A single beat of awareness deep, deep in her woman-hood made every muscle clench in frantic denial.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she said tautly through stiff, barely moving lips.

‘Then call me by my name.’

His fingers stirred lazily against her skin, and she clamped her teeth together over a gasp.

‘This is harassment!’

‘It would be if you didn’t owe me,’ Luke conceded indifferently, no trace of compunction there to soften his mercilessly intent expression.

‘Luke, damn it!’

Her mind made the sacrifice for the sake of screaming flesh and she conceded defeat with a blistering fury, rage a fever in her eyes, darkening their colour to sherry.

‘Keep practising,’ Luke quipped amusedly, and with-drew his hand as the lift glided to a halt.

Maria didn’t need to look at his face or see the confident way he carried himself as he stepped out of the lift with her. His subtle satisfaction seemed to permeate the space around them. She could literally feel it, absorbed by her pores and entering her bloodstream, an alien message of warning, invader already and threatening ownership, but the acrid flavour on which she was choking was that of her own resentment.

‘Have you gone speechless on me again?’ he murmured tauntingly as Cavell Fielding came forward from the restaurant’s extravagantly decorative entrance opposite them, a slight widening of her sapphire eyes the only surprise she evinced at seeing them together. ‘The silent nymph you were six years ago fascinated me, but the woman with so much to say for herself is infinitely more stimulating.’

‘I’II think of something.’ Maria’s voice was milky-soft.

Only what? The intensity of her response to him a minute ago filled her with self-loathing, but she was afraid too, because suddenly it seemed as if hatred was no longer enough to counter the threat he presented, and yet it was the only answer she possessed.

Quite deliberately, she summoned the memory of the anguish of six years ago, the job she loved summarily barred to her and her Communications course sacrificed; and she dwelt especially on the dilemma that had torn at her then, the agonising conflict between her obstinate determination to pursue an uninterrupted career in radio at a time when there were no positions to be had in Johannesburg but possibilities in Durban, and a heart-wrenching reluctance to leave her parents alone when advanced emphysema was shortening her father’s life so cruelly.

The hatred was enough, answer to the strange, stifling power that Luke Scott had over her, but now a new suspicion preyed on the edges of her consciousness of it, the shadowy suggestion of a conviction that the hatred had its genesis in something darker and more complex than the realities she was calling to mind.

Six years ago! Luke’s words and their possible implication slammed belatedly into her brain as she was being introduced to the entertainment editor of a local newspaper, but natural incredulity dismissed them as more talk, just words carelessly plucked from an inadequate language. Maria didn’t believe that the child she had been then could have fascinated him. If it were true, he would have done something about it. That was the sort of man he was.

Yes, there was something sexual between the two of them now, but any interest he had felt six years ago would have been connected solely with the phenomenon of the awe he had inspired, so overwhelmingly intense that it had reduced her to awkward, agonised silence every time he was around.

The restaurant that had been chosen to introduce both the radio station’s new programme manager and image to the media was splendidly stylish, opening on to a lantern-illuminated balcony all the way down one side, décor and menu strictly Chinese.

Maria thought the evening went well and could only hope those to whom this launch meant so much were equally pleased with the way she acquitted herself. At her side, introducing her to people, encouraging her to elaborate on some of her ideas for the future, Luke was urbane, expressing only suave approval, and no one could have guessed at the personal contempt he felt for her, not a hint of it—or anything else personal either—allowed to show through his sophisticated public manner.

She herself had not yet fully recovered from the trauma of those moments in the lift, but it probably didn’t matter. Who was there here who knew her well enough to discern and identify any flaws in her own polished public persona? Certainly—she hoped—not Luke himself, and while her acquaintance with Florian Jones went back to their high-school days in South Africa, she knew he was impervious to anything that did not affect him directly.

‘You do this very well,’ Luke commented smoothly later.

‘I’d rather be doing it on my own,’ Maria responded waspishly, taking advantage of the fact that no one was near enough to overhear them for the moment.

‘Sorry,’ he drawled with blatant insincerity.

‘Why don’t you go and talk to Cavell?’ The suggestion was tartly offered.

‘She’s working,’ Luke returned dismissively, and it was true, she realised, following his glance and seeing Cavell in conversation with a television reporter.

‘So am I,’ she reminded him pointedly.

‘We all are.’ There was something savage in his smile.

The look Maria gave him was inimical. That was what he hoped people would think, she knew, and so far only she was aware that he was here, relentlessly at her side, for personal reasons.