Читать книгу Her Tycoon Lover - Lee Wilkinson - Страница 6

“LUKE! Good to see you, did you just arrive?”

“Hi there, John,” Luke MacRae said, shaking the older man’s hand. “Got in an hour ago. Jet-lagged, as usual.” And remarkably reluctant to be here, he added to himself although he had no intentions of telling John that. “How about yourself?”

“Earlier in the day… There’s someone here I’d like you to meet, he’s got some holdings in Malaysia that might interest you.”

“Inland?” Luke asked, and to his satisfaction heard the slight edge to his voice, the intentness that had brought him to where he was today: owner of a worldwide mining conglomerate. He and John were two of the delegates at an international conference on mining being held at a resort beside one of Manitoba’s vast lakes.

“You’ll have to ask him the exact location.” John signaled to the nearest waitress. “What’ll you have, Luke?”

“Scotch on the rocks,” Luke said crisply, sparing a moment to wonder why the waitress was wearing such ugly glasses. She might be rather pretty without them.

He was deep in conversation with the Malaysian, who did indeed interest him, when an exquisitely modulated voice to his left said, “Your drink, sir.”

The voice didn’t in the least match the dark-framed glasses or the blond hair strained back under a frilly white cap. Uptight about her femininity and deadly dull into the bargain, Luke decided. Despite that very intriguing voice.

It was a game of his to make instant assessments of people; he was very rarely wrong. One thing was certain. The waitress wasn’t the kind of woman who turned his crank. “Thanks,” he said briefly, then forgot her right away.

Three-quarters of an hour later they all moved into the dining room; his table, he noticed automatically, had the best location as far as the view of the lake was concerned, and its occupants were the real powers behind this conference. He had long ago trained himself not to feel any selfsatisfaction from such arrangements. He was good. He knew it and didn’t dwell on it. Power for the sake of power had never interested him.

Power was security. Security against the kind of childhood he’d had.

Luke took his seat, running his fingers around his collar. Dammit, he never thought about his childhood. Just because Teal Lake, where he’d been born, was in nearby northern Ontario was no reason to indulge in maudlin memories. The proximity of his old home was, of course, the reason he was reluctant to be here. Although home was the laugh of the century. Neither of his parents had provided him with much of a home in the little mining town of Teal Lake.

Quickly Luke picked up the leather-bound menu and made his choices; then his eyes flicked over the other occupants of the table.

The only surprise was sitting directly across from him: Guy Wharton. Inherited money without the requisite brains to manage it had been Luke’s opinion of Guy the first time he’d met him, and any subsequent encounters hadn’t caused him to change his mind. Unfortunately Guy’s wealth was coupled with a tendency to throw his weight around.

The bartender took their orders, then the waitress started at the other end of the table. The waitress with the glasses and the beautiful voice, Luke thought idly. Guy had brought his drink to the table, and was now ordering a double, as well as a bottle of very good wine that would be wasted on him. Guy drinking was several steps worse than Guy sober. Luke turned his attention to his neighbor, a charming Englishman with an unerring nose for the commodity market; then heard that smooth contralto voice again. “Sir? May I take your order?”

“I’ll have smoked salmon and the rack of lamb, medium rare,” Luke said. She nodded politely, then addressed his companion. She wasn’t writing anything down; her eyes behind the overlarge lenses, he saw with a little jolt, were a clear, intelligent blue. Not dull at all. Somehow Luke was quite sure she’d keep all the orders straight.

Well, of course she’d be good at her job; a resort like this wouldn’t hire duds.

Waitresses and Teal Lake…he was losing it. “Rupert,” he asked, “what are your thoughts on silver over the next couple of months?”

The Englishman launched into a highly technical assessment, to which Luke paid close attention. Wine was poured into his glass; he sipped it sparingly, noticing that Guy’s face was already flushed and his voice overloud. The smoked salmon was excellent; the rack of lamb tender and the vegetables crisp. Then Luke noticed Guy signaling the waitress. She came instantly, her severe black uniform with its white apron effectively hiding her figure. But nothing could hide a certain pride of bearing, Luke thought slowly; although she wasn’t a tall woman, she walked tall, like someone who knew who she was and liked herself. Yet he’d categorized her as deadly dull…was he going to prove himself wrong for once?

“The steak,” Guy said loudly. “I asked for medium. You brought rare.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” she said. “I’ll take it back to the kitchen and bring one more to your liking.”

But as she reached down for his plate, Guy grabbed her by the wrist. “Why didn’t you do it right the first time? You’re being paid to bring me what I ask for.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “If you’ll let go, I’ll make sure your steak is brought to you immediately.”

There were faint pink patches in her cheeks; her mouth, Luke noticed, was set, her whole body rigid. But Guy didn’t let go. Instead he twisted her wrist, leering up at her. “You should take those stupid glasses off,” he said. “No man in his right mind’ll look at you with those on.”

“Please let go of my wrist.”

This time, she hadn’t said sir. Without stopping to think, Luke pushed himself partway up from his chair and said in a voice like a steel blade, “Guy, you heard the lady. Let go of her. Now,” and noticed from the corner of his eye the maître d’ heading toward their table.

“Only kidding,” Guy said, running his fingers over the woman’s palm, then releasing her wrist with deliberate slowness. The waitress didn’t even glance at Luke as she quickly removed Guy’s plate and hurried away from the table.

“I didn’t find it funny,” Luke said coldly. “Nor, I’m sure, did anyone else. Including her.”

“For Pete’s sake, she’s just a waitress. And we all know what they’re after.”

Luke was quite sure the waitress with the ugly glasses wasn’t after anyone. If she were, she’d wear contacts, and make the most of eyes that could be truly startling were they not framed by thick plastic. Pointedly he turned to the man on his other side, an Italian goldminer. A few minutes later the maître d’ brought Guy another plate. “Please let me know if that’s not to your satisfaction, sir,” he said with meticulous politeness.

“She chickened out, did she?” Guy smirked.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“You heard,” Guy said. “Yeah, this is okay.” Brandishing his knife as he talked, he began telling an offcolor story to his neighbor.

When they’d finished their entrées, it was the waitress who removed their plates. Her name tag said Katrin. Luke had read that the resort was near a village that had been settled over a hundred years ago by Icelandic immigrants; with her blond hair and blue eyes, she certainly fit the stereotype. Then, as she reached for his plate, he saw on her wrist the red mark where Guy had twisted her skin, and felt an upsurge of rage that was out of all proportion.

Because he’d always loathed men who picked on those who were weaker, or otherwise powerless to defend themselves? Because basic justice was a tenet he held no matter what the class distinctions?

He said nothing; the woman had already made it all too clear she hadn’t been grateful for his intervention. In no mood for dessert, he ordered a coffee.

“Join me in a brandy?” John murmured.

“No, thanks,” Luke replied. “Jet lag’s catching up on me, I’m going to call it a day very shortly.”

This was true enough. But Luke had never been one for alcoholic excess; his father had drunk enough for five men. One more reason why Guy’s drunken pronouncements had gotten under his skin. He and John talked briefly about the abysmal markets for copper and nickel; then Luke saw Katrin approaching their table with a loaded tray of rich desserts. She lowered it skilfully onto the dumbwaiter and started distributing tortes and cheesecakes with scarcely a pause. She had a very good memory and was extraordinarily efficient, he thought with reluctant admiration. So what else had he missed in his initial assessment?

Guy had ordered a double brandy. As she started to put it on the table, he deliberately brushed his arm against her breast. “Mmm…nice,” he sneered. “You hiding anything else under that uniform?”

So quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it, Luke saw a flash of blue fire behind her ludicrous glasses. Then the brandy snifter tipped as though the stem had slipped through her fingers. The contents drenched Guy’s sleeve and trickled down his pale blue shirt. “Oh, sir,” she exclaimed, “how careless of me. Let me get you a napkin.”

As Guy surged to his feet, his face mottled with rage, Luke also stood up. She’d done it on purpose, he thought, and suppressed a quiver of true amusement: the kind he rarely felt. “Guy,” he said softly, “you cause any more trouble at this table, and I personally will see that the deal you’re working on with Amco Steel gets shelved. Permanently. Do you hear me?”

There was a small, deadly silence. Guy wanted that deal, everyone at the table knew that. Wanted it very badly. Guy snarled, “You’re a bastard, MacRae.”

Technically Guy was telling the exact truth: Luke’s father had never bothered marrying Luke’s mother. But Luke had long ago buried any feelings around the circumstances of his birth. “I’ll kill the deal before it even gets to the table,” he said. “Now sit down and behave yourself.”

Katrin had reached for a serviette from the shelf below the dumbwaiter. As she straightened, she gave Luke a withering look which said more clearly than words that she neither needed nor appreciated his help, and passed the crisply folded linen to Guy. “The resort will, of course, look after the dry cleaning of your suit, sir,” she said, and very calmly passed out the remainder of the drinks and desserts, as if nothing had happened.

Adding a formidable self-control to his list of the shapeless and bespectacled Katrin’s qualities, Luke drained his coffee cup and said flatly, “Good night, all. According to my time zone it’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m going to hit the pit. See you all in the morning.”

On the way out, he stopped to speak briefly to the maître d’. “I trust there’ll be no repercussions for the waitress at our table,” he said. “If he were working in my office, Mr. Wharton would be slapped with a sexual harassment charge. And I’d make damn sure it stuck.”

The maître d’, who was at least five years younger than Luke’s thirty-three, said noncommittally, “Thank you, sir.”

“I’m sure there’ll be no further trouble from Mr. Wharton.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Luke said pleasantly, “If she’s fired or otherwise penalized, I’ll file a complaint with the management.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir.”

Suddenly Luke was tired of the whole game. Why was he wasting his time on a woman who patently couldn’t care less about him, and had resented his help? Bed, that was where he should be, he decided, and marched toward the elevators.

In bed. Alone. As he’d been for rather too long.

Once he got back to San Francisco, he must do something about that.