Читать книгу The Heiress Bride - Laurey Bright, Laurey Bright - Страница 10

The traffic light changed from red to green. Alysia turned the snappy little blue Toyota and it moved forward, then inexplicably stopped, stranding her in the middle of the intersection.

Other cars maneuvered around the stationary vehicle as she vainly pumped the accelerator and switched the key off and on.

Clenching both hands on the steering wheel, she gave vent to an expletive that would have shocked her father, before getting out and gratefully accepting the help of a couple of hefty male passersby who pushed the car to the side of the road.

“Want me to take a gander at the engine?” one asked.

“Thanks, but no.” Amateur tinkering might void the guarantee.

The other Samaritan, a blond young man with a cocky air, offered hopefully, “I can give you a lift. My car’s over there.”

Alysia shook her head and brushed back a strand of hair escaping her ponytail. “I’ll be fine,” she said firmly. “My father’s office is quite close. Thanks for your help.”

He stood by as she took her purse and shopping bags from the car, locked the doors and walked away. When she glanced back he was still watching. Damn.

The late-afternoon sun beat hotly on her shoulders, bared by the tiny, sleeveless pink top she wore with a short denim skirt. Scientists had been warning of ozone depletion over New Zealand for years now. And summer was early this year. Christmas was still two weeks away.

At the Clarion Building she paused, and unconsciously took a slightly deeper breath before ascending the worn marble steps into the dim chill of the imposing old building. Next year she’d be doing this every day. Working in the newsroom with other reporters, she reminded herself. Not in the print room with its huge machines, echoing spaces and hidden corners.

She left her keys and purchases with the receptionist, then went up the brass-edged stairs and along a corridor to the office suite at the end.

A word processor hummed on the desk in the outer office, but there was no sign of Glenys Heath, her father’s longtime secretary. The inner door was ajar. Tapping on the panels, Alysia pushed it wide and walked in.

Spencer was rummaging in a drawer behind the desk while Chase Osborne lounged against one side of it, his hands in his pockets. He looked up, giving her a faint, questioning smile, and straightened.

Spencer lifted his head, a sheet of paper in his hand. “Here it is!” he said, handing the paper to Chase before he noticed his daughter. “Alysia, my dear! This is a surprise.” He smiled at her, so evidently happy to see her that she flushed with pleasure.

Chase said, “I’ll leave you.”

“No need,” Spencer assured him. “Alysia won’t mind waiting while we go over the figures, will you, Alysia? Get her a chair, Chase.”

Alysia murmured that of course she didn’t mind, and sank into the chair that Chase unnecessarily placed for her.

“I think I can follow these okay,” he told Spencer, glancing at the sheet of paper.

Holding out his hand for it, Spencer said a mite testily, “We’ll just check them together. Excuse us, my dear.”

Alysia slipped her leather bag from her shoulder, folded her hands in her lap on top of it and placed her ankles together while the two men murmured over the document before them.

She deduced that Chase was perfectly able to understand without Spencer’s help, and when she looked up she found that instead of following the finger her father was running down a column, he had lifted his head slightly and was idly staring at her.

Alysia blinked, and he gave her an almost conspiratorial smile before his attention returned to the paper.

Alysia shifted her feet, crossing her ankles and tucking them to one side. As if he’d caught the movement from the corner of his eye, Chase’s attention strayed again, and she was aware that he was interestedly inspecting her ankles, then her calves right up to where her skirt stopped above her knees.

Resisting the urge to tug at the skirt, she curled her fingers around the bag in her lap. Chase’s eyes swept up to her face, and he smiled openly before lowering his head and concentrating on what her father had to say.

He didn’t look up again, and Alysia, after gazing at the art prints on the cream-painted walls, found herself studying the strong male hand that Chase had spread on the desk to brace himself as he bent over Spencer’s shoulder. He had long fingers with short, almost square nails. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, and his arm, sporting a businesslike stainless-steel watch, looked muscular and lightly tanned under a dusting of hair. She recalled how strongly it had held her three nights ago, how his fingers had combed through her hair and cradled her nape. Reluctant heat invaded her.

At last her father stopped talking, and Chase said patiently, “Okay, I’ve got that,” before picking up the paper and folding it.

Spencer said, “What about a drink after work, Chase? Get Howard along. We need to do some preliminary planning of the home improvement supplement.”

If Chase was put out at the demand on his supposedly free time, he didn’t show it. “If you like,” he said easily. About to leave, he paused as Alysia opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind. His brows lifted in faint interrogation. “Something wrong?”

Alysia shook her head. To her father, she said, “My car broke down. I’ve called the garage to get the keys from reception and fetch it, and I was going to ask you for a lift. But if you’re not coming straight home—”

Spencer frowned. “You haven’t run out of petrol?”

Chase was trying not to grin, she thought. “I have plenty of petrol,” she said, her chin lifting. “Teething troubles, I suppose.” The car was brand-new.

Her father snorted. “I’ll have something to say to the dealer about that.” His face clearing somewhat, he suggested, “No reason why you shouldn’t come with us. In fact we could all have dinner afterward. Save you fixing a meal.”

“I can get a taxi.” It was much too hot to walk.

Spencer overrode her, apparently unwilling to relinquish his solution. “Tell Howard he’s invited to dinner, too,” he ordered Chase. “He’ll have to let his wife know.”

Seated on a deep upholstered banquette flanking a low polished table, Alysia was next to Chase as they were served predinner drinks.

Howard produced a briefcase and opened a folder. “This is a preliminary draft of the home improvement supplement, but I think we can do better than last year, if we increase the ratio of straight advertisements—”

The three men bent over the folder, effectively blocking Alysia out. Spencer, with an air of giving her a treat, had ordered the cocktail of the day for her, and it had come in a wide, shallow glass decorated with a cherry and a tiny pink parasol. She sipped at it slowly until only a film of creamy foam remained, then sat idly opening and shutting the parasol.

“Alysia?” Chase’s voice was in her ear, and she looked up to find his face quite close. The other two men were still engrossed in discussion. “Another drink?”

“No thanks.” She shut the parasol decisively and placed it in her glass.

Chase’s gaze followed the movement. “How was it?”

“The way it looked,” she answered succinctly.

He gave a small, almost silent laugh. “Pink and sweet,” he said, following her exactly. “Didn’t you like it?”

“It was fine. I just don’t need another.”

He was still looking at her rather curiously, humor curling his mouth, when Spencer called his attention back to business.

After the waitress led them to their table it was Chase who pulled out a chair for Alysia between him and her father. The discussion continued throughout the meal.

“Our clients will provide most of the copy,” Howard said.

Chase leaned back in his chair and picked up his wine glass. “Half the PR people who write those advertorials can’t even spell, let alone string a literate sentence together.”

“So we edit it!” Howard spread his hands. “That’s what we pay sub-editors for.”

“Advertorial?” Alysia queried.

Howard explained. “Articles about our advertisers’ products.”

“I know,” she answered. “Disguised advertising. A cheap way to fill pages.”

Chase gave her a considering look. “You have a problem with it?”

At journalism school this subject had been debated quite hotly. “I think people should know when they’re reading puff for the paper’s clients, not a real product comparison. Will the supplement be labeled as advertising?”

Spencer said impatiently, “People wouldn’t read it.”

“They would if they’re interested in the featured products,” she argued.

“You don’t think,” Chase asked her, “that our readers are astute enough to know that a glowing article cheek by jowl with an ad for the product is a promo?”

“A lot of people trust a newspaper to deliver impartial opinions.”

“Certainly, in the news pages—”

Spencer interrupted brusquely. “People who don’t advertise with us can’t expect free publicity, Alysia. Just let us get on with our planning, my dear.”

Alysia swallowed a protest. She might have paper qualifications but that didn’t give her any clout with these experienced men. “Yes, of course,” she said quietly.

Chase’s eyes were still on her, as if she’d intrigued him, although her views couldn’t be new to any seasoned newspaperman. “I’m interested in what Alysia has to say.”

“I’ve said it.” She looked down at her plate and speared a morsel of pineapple.

“We value your opinion, I’m sure.” Her father gave her a perfunctory smile, but she was more conscious of Chase’s concentrated gaze. “Now, Chase, if we have copy from advertisers there’ll be no need to send staffers…”

No use expecting her father to listen seriously to her. Even though these days he bought her cocktails and took her along to an impromptu business dinner instead of treating her to ice-cream cones and G-rated films. Maybe parents never really accepted that their children had grown up.

When they’d had coffee Chase pushed his cup aside. “Thanks for the meal, Spencer. Shall we call it a night?”

Howard said, “I want to talk to Spencer about a problem with the classifieds.”

Spencer called the waiter for more coffee, but Chase and Alysia both shook their heads.

“You don’t need me anymore,” Chase said. Again his eyes lighted on Alysia, with that new and disconcerting intentness. “Alysia looks tired. If you two want to stay on, I can take her home.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” Alysia said.

But Spencer waved a hand benevolently and said, “Go with Chase, my dear. I’m sorry if this is a bit tedious for you.”

Didn’t he know she wanted to be involved in anything to do with the paper? It was her future. “It isn’t at all—”

But Chase was already on his feet, and she had little choice. Gathering up her bag, she said good-night to Howard and walked beside Chase to the entrance, then into the cooler night air in the car-park.

Chase paused outside the doorway and let out a brief, whistling breath.

“You didn’t need to offer to take me home,” Alysia said. “It’s out of your way—”

“No problem.” He curled his fingers around her arm in a light hold. “I’m grateful for the excuse.”

Alysia was silent, and as they neared his car he said, “Sorry. That was tactless.”

Not sure if the apology was for the implication that he’d wanted to get away from her father, or for suggesting that taking her home was no more than a pretext, she said coolly, “It’s all right, Mr. Osborne.”

He unlocked the passenger door and turned his head to glance at her probingly as he opened it.

With careful grace Alysia sank into the seat and waited while he closed the door.

When he slid in beside her he didn’t immediately start the engine. Instead, his hands resting on the steering wheel, he turned to her and queried, “Mr. Osborne? We’ve known each other since you were a skinny little schoolgirl, Alysia.”

Alysia had been nearly sixteen when Chase came to work for the Clarion. Leaving school eighteen months later, she had completed her Bachelor of Commerce in Auckland, several hours south of Waikura, before enrolling in journalism school still farther south in Wellington for a graduate diploma.

And in those few years Chase Osborne had climbed through several grades to chief reporter. And now deputy editor, although he couldn’t be more than thirty.

“I might have been skinny then,” Alysia said, “but actually I was tall for my age.”

His mouth curved. “And you’re not skinny any longer.”

His eyes remained on her face, but she recalled his almost absentminded assessment of her legs when she’d sat in her father’s office, and again the memory of that devastating kiss under the pepper tree surfaced, tingling in her blood.

“All grown up, in fact,” Chase said. “But I hope you don’t expect me to call you Miss Kingsley.”

“I’m not a snob.”

“No?”

Alysia stirred, and her bare arm brushed Chase’s sleeve.

Turning away from him, she pulled her safety belt from its housing and clicked it into position.

She lifted an errant strand of hair from her cheek and put it behind her ear, then sat with her eyes focused straight ahead. The car park was lit with street lamps, and a few spiky cabbage trees shivered in a breeze, their slim, patterned trunks rising from floodlit flowerbeds.

Chase switched on the key and the engine murmured into life. He swung the car onto the road, drove through two sets of traffic lights and turned along the riverside. Between the boathouses and marine businesses, glimpses of dark water reflected wavery ribbons of light.

“So you have your own car now?” Chase asked.

Not sure why she felt defensive, Alysia said, “My father bought it as a graduation present.”

“Congratulations on your diploma, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“I was surprised you decided to do a journalism course after all.”

“Why?” Surely nothing could have been more obvious.

“I had the idea you didn’t particularly care for the newspaper business. We don’t see you down at the office much.”

Alysia felt her skin tighten but she kept her voice calm. “The last few years I’ve been studying,” she reminded him. “Of course I care—I’m a Kingsley.”

“Ah…the Kingsley dynasty,” he murmured.

“I prefer to call it a tradition.” Alysia didn’t like the irony coloring his voice.

He was silent for a couple of seconds. “Spencer doesn’t have a lot of time for high-powered career women.”

Spencer tended toward archaic views on women in business—in fact on women in general—but he didn’t have a choice in her case. The newspaper was a family institution, and Alysia was the only family he had. When she told him she wanted to first gain a commerce degree and then study journalism for a year, he had talked approvingly about the value of qualifications.

“I’m starting at the Clarion after the New Year,” she said. “Hasn’t my father mentioned it?”

“He suggested we make a place for you.”

Alysia guessed from the reserve in his voice that Chase Osborne didn’t approve of nepotism. Too bad. It might be old-fashioned, but it was the way the Clarion had always operated, each generation succeeding the last. One day the newspaper would pass to her. Her father couldn’t deny her that.

Her hands clasped almost painfully together. “I’m qualified.”

She willed away a nasty, sick feeling in her stomach. She was an adult now. Time she acted like one, instead of like some scared little schoolgirl.

Chase made a sound like a short, scornful little laugh. “You have a brand-new diploma.”

“Even you must have been a beginner once.” She knew she sounded snippy. “I don’t mind starting at the bottom. Like my father.” Though heir to the business, he’d begun as a junior reporter, straight from school.

“He’s a good journo,” Chase conceded. “I’ve learned a lot from him.”

“And so will I be,” Alysia asserted.

“You mean it’s in the blood?”

The mockery in the remark stung, although he couldn’t know how it reached a particularly sensitive place in her heart. Her throat tightened. “Anyone can learn.”

They reached the house and she was out of the car before Chase came round it to open the door for her.

“I’ll see you inside.” He followed her up the wide path to the front door and waited while she opened her bag, fumbling for her keys. She let out a short, annoyed exclamation and he said, “What’s wrong?”

“I assumed I’d be coming home with Dad. I’ve left my house key on the ring with the car keys.”

“So you can’t get in.”

“Damn! How stupid!” She glared at the firmly locked front door as if that might miraculously open it.

“No hidden keys?”

“We don’t do that.”

“Probably wise. What about open windows?”

“The bathroom, maybe. But it’s too high.”

“Show me.”

“You can’t…” But she showed him all the same, and then watched as he swung onto the roof of the veranda.

He moved with grace and economy and Alysia was unwillingly fascinated by the play of muscles under his shirt, the lithe masculinity of his body. Sternly she thrust away the stirring of sexual curiosity.

Chase made surefootedly for the slightly open window, thrust it wide and hoisted himself through the narrow space.

A few minutes later lights went on and he opened the door for her, stepping back to allow her in. He was fishing in his pocket with his left hand, holding his right hand up while blood trickled from the knuckles.

“What have you done?”

“Grazed myself getting the window open properly. There wasn’t much room. It’s nothing.” He’d found a handkerchief and was clumsily trying to wrap it about his bleeding hand. “I don’t think I’ve messed the carpet. Can you tie this for me?”

“Come upstairs again and I’ll get a plaster for it. Come on,” Alysia insisted as he looked about to argue.

She led him to the main bathroom, placed her bag on the floor and took a first-aid box from the cupboard under the hand basin. She unscrewed the cap on a bottle of disinfectant. “Is it dirty?”

“No. Just pour a bit of that on,” he said, holding his hand over the basin. “It’ll kill any lurking germs.”

He winced slightly as she did so, and she murmured, “Maybe we should have diluted this. It stings.”

“I noticed.” He seemed very close, watching her as she swabbed the wound dry with a piece of gauze and pressed a plaster over it. Although he shifted back a little while she replaced the disinfectant and plasters, she was conscious of him right behind her.

When she turned he didn’t move, and she found herself trapped against the basin. She raised wary eyes, and caught a strange look in his. A look that seemed attentive and faintly puzzled. Without speaking he lowered his head, pressing a quick, warm kiss on her mouth.

It was over before she had a chance to either reciprocate or protest, or even decide which she wanted to do.

“Thank you,” he said. And still he didn’t move away, his steady gaze questioning.

She stared back, refusing to evade the challenge.

He was too adept at finding vulnerable areas of her psyche. A reporter’s instinct, she guessed, that told him where to dig for what lay under the surface. For what people preferred to keep hidden.

He knew that since the kiss in the garden she’d been unwillingly attracted to him. No doubt the knowledge gave him great satisfaction. But that didn’t mean she’d give in to the attraction.

His smile widened a little, and then his head dipped again.

Alysia whipped her own head back, her hands clutching at the cold porcelain of the basin behind her.

Chase straightened. Alysia tried to keep her eyes steady and indifferent. She still felt a tingle of surprised pleasure on her lips. But mingled with the pleasure was hostility, resentment that this man could produce that sensation.

At last Chase took a step away, then another. Blocking the doorway, he cast a lightning glance over her, and she realized that she was taut as a bowstring, her body curved so that her breasts and hips were thrust forward. Hastily she readjusted her stance, releasing her grip on the basin to bring her arms protectively across her midriff.

Chase laughed then, his eyes going glittery. She must have imagined that fleeting tenderness, there was no sign of it now. The thought pierced her, unexpectedly poignant.

“That cocktail,” he said conversationally, “was it chilled?”

Alysia blinked at the non sequitur. “Yes. There was ice in it.”

“I thought so.” He stood there a moment longer, surveying her in a not unfriendly way but with a hint of sarcasm in his slight smile. Then he sketched her a salute. “Tell your father he ought to get a burglarproof catch on that window. Good night—I’ll find my own way out.”

She heard his quick footsteps on the stairs, and the forceful closing of the front door, and then the distinct sound of whistling as he went on down the path.

Pink and sweet—and cold. That’s what he thought of her, Alysia acknowledged irritably. Translated it meant insipid and uninteresting.

It didn’t matter. What Chase Osborne thought of her was a matter of total indifference to her. Wasn’t it?