Читать книгу Wanting - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 4

‘RACE Williams is going to be there tonight—I wonder what he’s like? Thirty-four is very young to be given overall control of the entire documentary section. He used to be a reporter, you know, before he started writing.’

‘Does Terry know about this burgeoning hero-worship for your new boss?’ Heather Martin asked her cousin dryly, surveying her petite form and clustering blonde curls.

No two girls could have been less alike. While Jennifer was petite and dainty, Heather stood five feet ten inches in her bare feet, her dark cloud of hair and long green eyes adding up to a gypsy sensuality that came across well when she was photographed. It was virtually impossible to open a magazine without seeing her own face, and she had grown used to other people’s reaction to her startling good looks. She had been modelling for three years, ever since she was twenty-one, and just recently had begun to wonder what the future held. She was currently on the short list for a prestige modelling job, promoting a brand new range of up-market cosmetics, but her real love was writing, and for the last few years she had been gathering material for her book. All she needed now was the time to write it.

‘Terry says Race has asked him about you,’ Jennifer announced, watching her reaction to her announcement. Terry was the art director of the television company Jennifer worked for—a new independent company which was fast gaining an excellent reputation, and which had recently ‘head-hunted’ Race Williams, whose reputation in the field of hard-fact documentary work was well known. He had been a Fleet Street reporter, before turning to writing ‘factional’ novels, and Jennifer, to judge by the amount of time she spent talking about him, seemed to be developing a crush on him.

Despite the fact that Jennifer was two years her senior, at twenty-four Heather was easily the more mature. She had lived with Jennifer, her twin brothers and her aunt and uncle since the deaths of her own parents when she was thirteen. Her father had been an explorer, her mother his researcher, and they had both been killed in an avalanche in the Andes, and Heather had never ceased to mourn their loss. Kind though her aunt and uncle were, she had always felt like a cuckoo in the nest, towering above her aunt and Jennifer, and even the twins until they suddenly started to shoot up at eighteen. Her height had always made her feel vulnerable. At school she had been the butt of cruel jokes, easily the tallest girl in the class, and she had been well on the way to developing a complex about it when she met Brad.

Brad! Her mouth tightened ominously. She had met him when she was seventeen and studying for her ‘A’ levels. He had just left school and started at university. He was a friend of the twins, and she hadn’t been able to believe it when he started paying attention to her, asking her for dates. He was the first boy-friend she had ever had; the first boy ever to pay her the slightest attention, and under it she blossomed.

Her aunt had been delighted but concerned. Heather remembered vividly an occasion when her aunt had taken her on one side and stumbled through a muddled speech about not taking Brad too seriously. She hadn’t listened. Brad loved her, he had told her so, and in her innocence and vulnerability she had thought he meant it, opening to him all the secrets of her heart and mind, content to let him dictate the pace of their relationship. She had never entered the giggled sexual discussions of her peers; she had always been an outsider, and Jennifer, in whom she might have confided, was already away at university. Brad made teasingly light love to her, and she had thought it was because he loved her that he only went so far. God, how naïve she had been!

She had found out the truth quite by accident. She and Brad had been invited to a party—a friend of Brad’s, and she had gone into the kitchen looking for a drink of water. She wasn’t used to alcohol, and the punch she had been given had made her acutely thirsty. She had seen Brad in the kitchen, talking to one of his friends as she approached, and was just about to greet him when she heard his friend ask, ‘Who’s the new girl? Hardly your type—all those muscles! What’s she like in bed?’

She remembered how vividly she had coloured, embarrassed by the other boy’s frankness, but nothing had prepared her for the cruelty of Brad’s response.

‘Who cares?’ he had responded carelessly. ‘Personally I prefer my women small and cuddly, but she’s got a fortune coming to her on her twenty-first birthday, and I aim to make sure that by then she’s my wife; I can always enjoy myself on the side.’

Heather hadn’t stayed to listen to any more. It was true that she was to inherit a good deal of money from her parents’ estate, but the thought that Brad deliberately intended to marry her for her money was something she found a bitter pill to accept. She hadn’t said anything when he took her home; some deep-seated instinct warned her against letting him see how badly she was hurt. In fact she hadn’t told anyone what she had overheard, but it had festered, aching inside her, giving her the strength to remain cool and aloof when she told Brad she didn’t want to go out with him again.

He had been persistent, she gave him that, but she remained resolute, deriving a bitter satisfaction from the thought that he would never know just how much it cost her to refuse him. She had loved him; trusted him; revealed her innermost thoughts and hopes to him believing he returned her feelings. Well, she would never let it happen again.

It had been Neil, her cousin, who had suggested she take up modelling. He was a very keen photographer and his photographs had won a competition in their local paper. With the encouragement of her family Heather had approached one of the well known model agencies, who had agreed with Neil’s judgment. Only to herself was Heather prepared to admit that her fierce determination to succeed had sprung from the pain she experienced when Brad derided her. She was consumed by a need to prove to him and the world at large that she was desirable, and she had proved it.

She smiled without mirth, thinking of the number of proposals and propositions she had received in the last three years, but none of them had touched her. They weren’t from men who loved her, who cared genuinely and deeply about her, all they had been interested in was the satisfaction of their own desire. Oh, they might wrap it up in pretty words and compliments, but Heather knew better. And now here was Jennifer telling her that Race Williams had been making enquiries about her.

She wasn’t totally surprised. As a model she was used to the interest she aroused in men. Only she knew that inside the cool detachment she showed to the outside world she was still the same vulnerable, hurting girl who had stood in the shadows and listened to the person she loved destroying her world.

‘What did Race Williams want to know about me?’ she asked her cousin. They were both eating their evening meal. Heather didn’t need to diet to keep her lissom shape, and she drank her coffee, grateful for its fragrant warmth as Jennifer studied her.

‘Oh, the usual things,’ she grinned, ‘were you attached, etc., etc. Terry must have told him you were my cousin….’ She saw the look on Heather’s face and warned anxiously, ‘Heather, he isn’t one of your usual men, you can’t play the same games with him you do with them.’

‘Games?’ Heather raised one immaculate eyebrow.

‘Come off it, you know what I mean,’ Jennifer interrupted crossly. ‘Look, honey, I’ve seen you in action; the come-on and then the put-down; the whole bit. There hasn’t been a man in your life since Brad who’s even come close to touching your emotions, but with every one you let them think you’ve fallen—hard—and then you pull the rug out from under.’

Heather frowned at this accurate and rather unattractive picture her cousin drew. ‘Oh, look, I’m not criticising,’ Jennifer assured her, ‘far from it, I’m just saying that Race Williams isn’t like all the others. He’s hard, Heather, and he won’t let you get away with it, so if that’s what you’re planning on doing, don’t, please.’

‘I wasn’t planning on doing anything,’ Heather assured her cousin. It was true, Heather always let the men do the running, and not until she was sure they deserved it did she let them see her contempt for them. They were all the same; all so egotistically sure of themselves and her ultimate surrender to them that they deserved the treatment she handed out.

‘When do you get to hear about the Rio contract?’ Jennifer asked her, changing the subject.

‘Oh, I think they’re making the final decision within the next few days. Four of us are shortlisted, and I’m the only brunette.’

‘They’re bound to choose you,’ Jennifer assured her warmly. ‘You’re so right for the image they want to promote.’

Privately Heather agreed, and she had already made up her mind that if she got this contract it would be her last. She would retire and concentrate on her book. She knew there had been a considerable degree of speculation in the fashion press about the contract and she was hotly tipped as favourite.

‘Come on, time to get ready,’ announced Jennifer, getting up. The party was to celebrate the television company’s first year in business and the appointment of Race Williams. Jennifer’s invitation had extended to cover a friend and Heather had agreed to go with her. One of the shareholders in the TV company was also a shareholder in Rio, and a little public relations work wouldn’t come amiss. Not that Heather ever used either her beauty or her body to further her career. It was the inviolateness of her body and mind that gave her the power to destroy the male sex; her strength came from the fact that secretly she despised them. She was glad Brad had left her a virgin, she thought fiercely, and she intended to stay that way, giving nothing of herself to any man, because giving meant receiving pain in return; and she’d had enough of that.

In her room she abandoned her thoughts and studied her reflection with professional scrutiny. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes set wide apart, deeply green and tilted at the corners, her mouth warmly curved, her cloud of dark hair reaching down on to her shoulders. Hers was a sensual face, one which was used to market goods with a high degree of sexual appeal, but inwardly Heather felt her nature was completely at odds with her looks. Inwardly she was as cold and devoid of sensuality as a lump of ice, and it was this that made it so easy for her to revenge herself on the male sex; they took one look at her face and her tall languidly curved body and mentally docketed her as ‘easy’. She laughed mirthlessly. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and in time, with varying degrees of humiliation, they all discovered it. She had perfected a form of put-down that sliced into the delicate male ego like a knife through butter, and every time the look in their eyes was the same. But best of all, they never warned the next victim; never admitted their humiliation, leaving her free to repeat the whole process over and over again. She smiled when she read the names of her supposed ‘lovers’ in the press, smiled in genuine amusement, her reputation protected her from men who might have found her virginity a challenge they would commit rape to overcome, and that was the way she liked it.

Her dress for the evening was in fine black matt jersey; striking décolleté, sweeping down to her waist at the front revealing the smooth cream flesh of her rounded breasts and the narrow vulnerability of her rib cage. At the back it exposed her body right down to the base of her spine and it fitted her like another layer of skin. An advantage of her height was that she was able to carry off the ripe fullness of her breasts without seeming badly proportioned, their curves in direct contrast to the narrowness of her hips and the slender length of her legs. Black silk panties were the only thing she wore under her dress. Her legs were still slightly tanned from her last modelling trip abroad, her toenails painted a deeply vibrant pink.

So Race Williams had been asking about her… Heather quickly collated all that she knew about him. They had never met, she had no idea what he looked like, but the gossip columnists loved him; he had featured as an escort of many beautiful women, and he had a reputation for ending his affairs when they began to bore him that made her eyes gleam and harden with the anticipation of battle. It would be very pleasant to humiliate a man like that; a man who treated her sex so contemptuously. Perhaps he was already contemplating making her his latest conquest. The thought wasn’t formed through vanity—what man would want the girl she had been, the vulnerable woman she still was inside? Oh no, she didn’t delude herself on that issue. What Race Williams and men like him wanted was the outer shell she presented to the world; the looks that adorned the covers of magazines; the kudos of escorting a newsworthy female; or possessing her and subjugating her to their male power.

‘Heather, are you ready yet?’ she heard Jennifer call outside her door. ‘The taxi will be here soon!’

Quickly completing her make-up, Heather brushed her hair, watching it billow on to her bare shoulders, recognising the glitter in her eyes and the colour gleaming on her cheekbones, and knowing the reason for them.

‘Thank God Terry likes small blondes,’ Jennifer pronounced piously as Heather opened the door. ‘My God, you’re really going to town tonight!’ She watched as Heather slipped on high-heeled sandals, wondering how tall Race Williams was. In her high heels she topped six foot, and it always amused her to witness a man’s initial reaction to that fact. Some, she knew, found her height sexually exciting, visualising her as some sort of Amazon in bed, and initially she was careful not to disillusion them.

‘You’ll need your fur jacket,’ Jennifer told her, ‘the temperature was starting to drop when I came in. I hate January and February,’ she added, shuddering, ‘and we’re only just into January—brrr!’

Laughing, Heather reached inside her wardrobe for her jacket. Both girls had been presented with them as Christmas presents that year. Jennifer’s was a soft silky blue fox which suited her fair colouring, and Heather’s a richly dark silver fox, in which her uncle had told her fondly that she looked magnificent. Dear Uncle Bob; he and the twins were the only men she actually liked and felt at ease with. The twins were as close to her as brothers and her aunt and uncle had taken the place of her deceased parents, but still there was this sense of loss, of not truly belonging, of always, somehow, being on the outside. Which was why she had responded so passionately to Brad’s attentions; needing the commitment of sharing her feeling with someone else; needing to feel ‘special’ to another person. She sighed, pushing away all thoughts of the past, following Jennifer outside.

The television studio was several miles from their flat and they arrived to find it well lit, the car-park full of expensive, prestige pieces of metal. Male toys needed to boost fragile male egos.

The commissionaire recognised Jennifer and welcomed her with a grin, but it was on Heather that his eyes lingered admiringly.

‘Another conquest,’ Jennifer murmured as they got in the lift. ‘Oh, don’t look like that—I’m not a fool, Heather,’ she told her cousin. ‘I know you don’t give a damn for any of those men you go out with. I also know that when you’re supposed to be having mad flings with them, you’re tucked up safely in your own virginal bed.’ She saw Heather’s expression and said quietly, ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Without waiting for an answer she went on, ‘I’m not going to pry, but Heather, you’re heading for trouble, honey. One day a man’s going to come along who you can’t play with, and he’s going to think it’s all for real. By the time he finds out the truth, it’s going to be too late. You know what I’m trying to say, don’t you?’

‘Yes, and you needn’t worry. I’m immune to sexual come-ons, Jen; frigid, if you prefer me to use that term.’

‘Frigid? Or frightened?’ Jennifer asked acutely as they stepped out of the lift. ‘I’m two years older than you, cos, and I can remember quite vividly how shy and sensitive you were in your teens. That girl hasn’t completely disappeared. I know you, you’re already plotting the downfall of the next poor victim, but take care the roles aren’t reversed—if you’re thinking in terms of Race Williams, remember he eats women for breakfast!’

‘And changes them as frequently as he changes his pure silk shirts—yes, I know, but I never make the running, Jen. If Race Williams wants me he’s going to have to let me know it.’

‘And once he does you’re going to put him down, humiliate him like you’ve done the others. Heather, I’ve watched you. Oh, you’ve got away with it because none of them want to admit the truth, but Race Williams isn’t like that. He’s tough, and he’s got a temper. He doesn’t play the game by the rules, and with him civilisation is just a veneer.’

‘You seem to know a lot about him,’ commented Heather.

‘I’ve heard the rumours, Terry knows him quite well. They were at Oxford together, apparently.’

‘Bully for Terry,’ Heather muttered in a voice that made her cousin raise her eyebrows, although she refrained from saying anything because the lift doors had opened and half a dozen people were already milling around in the small space outside.

‘We’ll leave our jackets in my office,’ Jennifer told her. ‘The cloakroom’s only small and it will be crowded.’ Jennifer’s office was a bare room at the end of a long corridor, and Heather was familiar with it from previous visits. She took off her jacket, hanging it in the small cupboard, waiting patiently while Jennifer checked her make-up without even looking at her own.

‘Okay, that’s it,’ Jennifer announced when she had finished applying her lipstick. ‘I warned Terry to save us a table and I told him what time we were arriving, so with a bit of luck he should have got us drinks.’

Heather knew Terry Brady quite well. Jennifer had flitted from man to man like a bee in search of honey until she met Terry, with whom she swore she had fallen in love at first sight. At the moment she wasn’t sure whether he returned her feelings, but she was determined to give him every opportunity to find out.

The moment they entered the crowded studio which was being used for the party Heather spotted Terry. He was sitting at a table with another man, his fair head turned towards him. As though he knew they were there his companion lifted his head and looked towards them, his eyes riveted on Heather’s face. For some reason she was consumed by a wave of heat, burning slowly up her body, leaving her feeling as though she had been completely robbed of energy. Although he was too far away for her to study properly, Heather had a vivid impression of darkly male features; a face stamped with arrogance and masculinity, dark hair growing low over a white shirt collar, lean brown hands and the shocking and inescapable feeling that he had just slowly and thoroughly removed her clothes arid then caressed every inch of the skin he had revealed.

‘Can you see Terry?’ Jennifer asked her, standing on tiptoe.

‘No, but I have seen someone I want to talk to, an old friend,’ she fibbed. ‘Look, why don’t you go and look for Terry, and then I’ll come and find you later.’

Jennifer squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I wish you’d come with me,’ she protested, adding hurriedly, ‘Well, Race asked Terry if you were coming, and he suggested we make up a foursome. They’ll be waiting for us, and….’

‘I thought you’d just warned me against him?’ Heather reminded her cousin wryly.

‘Against trying to make a fool of him,’ Jennifer shot back. ‘Look, he only wants to meet you….’

‘To meet me, presumably as a prelude to bedding me,’ Heather agreed bluntly. ‘Look, I’m sorry if it embarrasses you, but I’m not going to be manipulated. I’ll join you later when I’ve spoken to Donna.’

So Race Williams wanted to meet her, did he? Her heart contracted on a fierce wave of anger as she remembered the look Terry’s companion had given her. He had to be Race Williams, she was sure of it, and equally sure that there was no way she was going to be manoeuvred into spending the evening with him. If he wanted her, then let him find out the hard way, as others had done before him, that he was going to have to work hard at trying to get her. And he did want her—she had seen it in the look he gave her. It had been ferrociously sexual, and not simply sexual, there had been a hint of possession which sent fear coiling along her spine, even while she shrugged it aside. Heavens, there was nothing to be afraid of, he represented nothing she couldn’t handle, just as she had handled men like him before.

Eventually Jennifer left, plainly none too happy about doing so, and Heather was free to walk in the direction of the bar. She was stopped half a dozen times by people who recognised her, all of them male, and she parried their questions and compliments with her cool, languorous smile, never realising that the languor beneath the ice was what fired their blood, and excited their masculinity.

From the vantage point of her height she was able to see Terry’s table relatively clearly, although she took good care to study it discreetly. Race Williams had his back to her. She watched him stand up as Jennifer approached, Terry frowning slightly and then glancing around the room.

Poor Terry—she hoped her non-appearance wouldn’t count as a black mark against him. She had already decided that she was going to leave just as soon as she could order a taxi, unwilling as yet to analyse the instinct for flight rather than fight.

As she watched Heather saw Race Williams get up and disappear, presumably going to the bar, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. Now was her opportunity to make her escape. Escape? She was being rather dramatic, wasn’t she?

She found the corridor leading to Jennifer’s office without too much difficulty, not bothering to switch on the light as she walked inside. She was just reaching for her jacket when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled warningly and she swung round, her heart thudding as she found herself confronted by the very man she wanted to avoid.

He was taller than she had imagined, six four at least, arms folded across his chest, his lean body completely at ease as he rested against the door, blocking her exit.

‘Leaving already?’ he drawled.

‘I have a headache,’ she smiled, keeping her voice even and pleasant. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, deliberately casual, ‘I don’t believe we’ve met….’

He snapped on the light, almost blinding her with its brilliance, his mouth creasing into a humourless smile as he drawled mockingly, ‘Nice try, Heather, but it won’t work. You know who I am, just as I know who you are. Terry’s told me a good deal about you.’

‘Terry?’

‘Umm, I asked him. You see, I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite a long time. You’re a very beautiful woman,’ he added softly, ‘and extremely desirable…. I’d very much like to go to bed with you.’

Heather hid the anger she could feel boiling up inside her.

‘But then you already know that, don’t you?’ Race Williams continued in a smokily seductive voice. ‘You knew that the moment you saw me tonight. What I don’t understand is why that knowledge made you run away from me. Because you are running, aren’t you?’ He laughed softly when she didn’t answer. ‘You’re giving me a psychological advantage, Heather. Why are you frightened of me?’

‘I’m not,’ Heather retorted coolly, gathering her scattered wits, ‘and neither am I running.’

‘Then come back to the studio and dance with me. Something tells me we’d move very well together, you and I.’

She forced herself not to acknowledge the sexual undertones of his comment.

‘I hear you’re in the running for the Rio contract,’ he commented, suddenly changing the subject, relaxing the sexual pressure, she recognised suspiciously, wondering at the change in tactics. ‘Do you want the contract?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be in the running, as you put it, would I?’

‘And you’re hot favourite to get it. I can see why, but the competition is pretty tough. I hear you’re also a writer.’

Heather’s eyes hardened. Damn Jennifer and her careless tongue! She hated anyone knowing about her writing. The family knew, of course, but that was all. She had been a dreamy adolescent when she first knew she wanted to write, and the urge had never left her.

‘I’m interested in lots of things,’ was her careful answer, but she wished she hadn’t given it, when he agreed laconically.

‘My sex being one of them, so I hear. You go through men like other women go through pairs of tights.’

‘Perhaps I’m choosy.’

‘Then choose me.’ Suddenly he had closed the distance between them, and she was intimately aware of the heat coming off his body, the desire glittering in the dark grey eyes as they roamed restlessly over her. Fear knifed through her, a sharp throat-gagging fear she had never experienced before and which held her motionless as his hands slid down her shoulders, exploring the shape and texture of her back, forcing her against the unwanted intimacy of his body, making her burningly aware of the power and maleness of him, her mind fastidiously outraged by the pulsating hardness of his body when his hands gripped her hips. She shouldn’t have come here, she should have made sure he hadn’t seen her leave the studio. Here they were alone and there was no way she could fight him.

‘I want you, Heather.’ Race Williams kept on saying it as though saying the words reinforced his belief that he had every right to take what he wanted. Heather could feel her body tensing, recoiling from his, fear coiling through her stomach, acrid on her tongue. He bent his head and she knew he was going to kiss her.

She forced her body to relax, wrenching herself out of his arms as he relaxed his grip, and snatching up her coat, turned for the door.

‘Well, I don’t want you!’ she told him furiously, cool disparagement forgotten as rage flicked through her veins. How dared he assume that she was his simply for the taking, that he could state his desire and blandly assume she would assauge it! ‘Men like you make me sick,’ she told him in a low voice, the pent-up loathing of years thickening it until it was only a husky whisper, her eyes emerald in her pale face. ‘If you want a toy to play with, go buy yourself a Barbie doll! I’m fussy about the men who share my life.’

‘That wasn’t the way I heard it.’ They faced one another like two antagonists. Heather could see the rage simmering in the molten heat of his eyes sharpened by sexual frustration, the intensity of his emotions half frightening her as she watched him, wary as any animal scenting the hunter.

‘I want you,’ he repeated thickly, ‘and I damn well mean to have you….’

‘Never!’ The denial was out before she could silence it, lying between them like a gage, anger and frustration mingling in his expression, his chest rising and falling as though he had been running. Without pausing to think Heather turned, running down the corridor and out into the foyer, pressing the button for the lift. Jennifer would wonder what had happened to her, but she would just have to wonder. She glanced over her shoulder half expecting to find that Race had followed her, but there was no sign of him. He was probably still trying to come to terms with the blow she had just dealt his mammoth self-esteem.

She could hardly believe he was real, she thought, mentally re-living their conversation. Had he actually thought all he had to do was say he wanted her for her to fall into his arms? Was that what normally happened? There was a raw maleness about him that some women might find appealing, an overt sexuality that she found totally repelling, frightening almost, but that other women might enjoy. His arrogant assumption that she was his simply for the asking still had the power to stun her. She had met some self-assured men in her time, but they had nothing on him. No wonder Jennifer had warned her against him!

Well, she needn’t worry, Heather thought grimly as she got out of the lift and asked the commissionaire to get her a taxi. There was simply no way she was ever going to get within a mile of Race Williams knowingly again.

He had frightened her—she could admit that from the sanctuary of her taxi. His determination had overwhelmed her, threatening all her carefully erected barriers. He wasn’t a man she could lead on and then drop, he wouldn’t stand by and let her dismiss him.

She was in bed but awake when Jennifer came in, and called out to her. Jennifer looked defensive and slightly guilty when she walked in.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised without Heather having to speak, ‘but he made Terry promise to introduce you to him. He was furious when I turned up without you. He went looking for you.’

‘And found me,’ Heather told her grimly. ‘It’s high time someone taught Mr Race Williams that he can’t get everything he wants simply by demanding it. Relax,’ she added when she saw Jennifer’s face, ‘I value my skin far too much to try it.’

‘He wants you, Heather,’ Jennifer told her uneasily, ‘and he won’t let go. He kept on asking me about you. It was frightening… he’s almost obsessive about you. Perhaps you ought to go out with him, let him see what you’re really like—behind the model-girl mask. He likes sophisticated worldly women, when he realises what you’re really like….’

‘I don’t want to hear another word about him,’ Heather told her, pulling the bedclothes over her head. ‘Not another word.’