An Innocent Affair (4 page)

‘I know you don't want to see me.' His dark, sombre face was impossible to read.

‘I don't?' She was treading warily. There was transference if ever she'd heard it, she thought sourly. It must be something urgent to make him voluntarily seek her out. He was probably going to warn her not to stalk him!

‘But my lawyer couldn't contact your agent today, and there are a few details that need to be sorted out without delay…'

She was totally at sea. ‘Jonathan?'

‘Jonathan Harkness
is
your agent, isn't he?' Impatience was evident in his tone.

‘Well, I've only got one.' And sometimes he was more trouble than he was worth. Jonathan's agenda for her career and her own could diverge pretty dramatically at times.

‘I know you don't want to get involved personally, but—'

‘Can we just stop there?' she interrupted. ‘It's not very comfortable for me standing for too long.' She glanced pointedly at her plaster-encased leg. ‘Come along to the sitting room.'

‘Alex, how lovely to see you. I'll go and get some tea, shall I?' Beth said to nobody in particular before she disappeared.

Subtle as a sledgehammer, thought Hope, left with a strained smile on her face. ‘Perhaps you'd better tell me what's brought you here.' Since it wasn't the charm of my personality, she added silently. She avoided the armchair—once she got down there it was difficult to get back up. Instead she sat in a oak ladder-backed chair with a sagging rush seat.

‘The fact that I'm perfectly ready to accept responsibility was meant to facilitate a speedy conclusion to this affair. However, your legal people appear to take that as a sign of weakness.' He began to pace the room. He moved softly for a big man. His anger was evident in the rigidity of his straight spine. ‘The demands they're making now are absurd by anyone's reckoning. This last fax I got…' he began, his voice like subdued thunder.

He abruptly pulled a rumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and crushed it in one strong hand, before flinging it savagely onto the floor. ‘You've picked on the wrong man if you want a fight, Hope. I won't be manipulated. I'll accept responsibility, but I won't lie down for anyone to walk over me.'

‘Alex,' she said quietly, ‘I don't know what you're talking about.' There was no mistaking the menace he was emanating, but the cause was a total mystery to her. Anger began to supplant her confusion. She'd done nothing to deserve being on the receiving end of his threats.

‘Do you mean to tell me you
didn't
tell Harkness not to accept my offer?' He regarded her with scornful disbelief.

‘I don't even know why you should know Jonathan,' she said firmly. ‘If you're going to look at me as though I'm something nasty and slimy underfoot, I'd at least like to know what I'm meant to have done!'

His eyes searched her face. ‘You're serious, aren't you?' he said slowly. ‘You really don't know what I'm talking about.' He shook his head in disbelief and sank into an armchair. He was a big man and he looked to be firmly wedged in the floral-patterned chair.

‘You might need a crane to get you out of there.' From out of the blue her devilish sense of humour re-surfaced.

The smile slipped slowly from her face as her eyes dwelt on the muscled contours of his thighs, moulded by the denim of his black jeans. How would it feel to touch…? The steamy graphic flow of speculation was debilitating. Her body felt as if it had been abruptly isolated from her energy supply. If she hadn't been sitting she'd have fallen.

Good God, this had to stop! She'd always thought people who acted crazy when they fell in love were slightly pitiful. ‘If the man's a monster or he doesn't love you go look for someone else,' she'd told friends on numerous occasions—it had all seemed so simple then. What she hadn't understood then was that love wasn't pliable at all; it was the poor sucker who'd succumbed that did all the bending.

‘Harkness approached me the day after the accident—'

‘You still don't believe that I know nothing about it, do you?' she interrupted, bristling with antagonism. The resignation in his voice made it clear to her he was going
through the motions; he couldn't actually bring himself to believe she was as ignorant as she claimed.

‘You've got to admit that it's pretty far-fetched. Why would your agent keep you in the dark?'

Jon was developing a nasty habit of doing just that lately, she reflected grimly. If he suspected she wasn't going to follow his advice he left it to the last minute to discuss things with her—when, of course, it was more difficult for her to say no. She was going to have some very hard words with Jonathan.

‘Well, I'll just have to feign shock when you tell me what you two have been hatching, won't I?' Her voice was bitingly sarcastic.

Alex inclined his head and went so far as to allow a faint smile to play fleetingly across his lips. ‘He pointed out, quite correctly, that legally I was responsible for your accident. He also told me how much money you were going to lose because you were unable to fulfil your commitments.'

Hope's mind was racing. This was the third and final year of the lucrative swimwear contract. She knew there was a penalty clause if she was unable to complete her contract. All the same, Jonathan had had no right!

‘Don't worry,' she said grimly, ‘I don't want your money!' Wait until she saw Jon again. How
dare
he place her in this position? And how dared Alex assume that she was party to it?

‘That's hardly a practical stand to take, Hope. I was quite prepared to make restitution—I still am. It was just the new figure which they've now come up with I object to.'

‘How much?' she asked abruptly. The sum he mentioned made her grow pale with anger. Her anger, which had been firmly aimed at her absent agent suddenly
shifted direction. ‘You thought I was party to that sort of…of
extortion!
'

‘It's legal when lawyers do it, Hope.'

‘I don't care if it's legal or not,' she fumed, ‘I don't want your money.'

‘I wouldn't be too hasty if I were you…' he drawled. Her antagonism was more convincing than anything she'd said.

‘You're not,' she snapped, ‘and neither is Jonathan. And I don't need either of you to tell me what I need or want. That's what you were talking about in the hospital,' she said suddenly, her eyes flying wide open. ‘I thought…'

‘What did you think?'

She threw him a startled glance, which swiftly grew belligerent. ‘None of your damned business.' It was worse, really. At least before she'd thought he was telling her he wasn't attracted to her. She supposed this was the only logical next step as far as he was concerned… I'm perfectly happy to break up a happy home so why stop there? An avaricious money-grubber who is determined to make a profit at all costs was an easy progression.

‘I don't know why you're getting so emotional about this.'

‘Emotional?' she repeated in a low, dangerous tone. ‘Emotional!' Her voice soared effortlessly up the scale. ‘Don't you dare patronise me, Alex Matheson!'

‘I'm in the middle of some sensitive negotiations at the moment, and I don't want any bad publicity, Hope,' he said frankly. ‘I'd like this business concluded swiftly. I'm quite happy to pay for any distress and inconvenience you might have suffered. It's not as if we're friends—this is business.'

She stared at him, her bosom heaving with emotion.
That puts me firmly in my place, doesn't it? How, she wondered, could
anyone
be so insensitive? ‘Might? There's no
might
about it. You haven't got enough money to compensate me for the distress you've caused.' For the moment she didn't care what interpretation he put on her words. ‘You haven't got enough money to compensate me for being in the same room as you.'

Her temper dissipated abruptly, leaving misery in its place. He didn't want any bad publicity for his precious company. There was no genuine concern for her—he didn't care. But then why should he? she reminded herself. She heaved herself to her feet and he slowly followed suit.

‘Tell your mother I couldn't stop for tea.'

‘She'll be devastated,' she responded childishly.

Mother wasn't coming back. Hope had realised that some time ago. No doubt she thought she was being tactful. Pity it wasn't Dad who was home; he would have watched over her like a mother hen.

‘I suggest you don't make any decisions while you're in this mood. You might regret them later. This isn't pennies we're talking here.'

She gritted her teeth. ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to drag you through the courts.'

‘That's what I like to see—a consistent attitude.' The amusement in his voice was insultingly indulgent.

‘I'd like to punch you, too, but I'm not going to.'

‘This display of maturity is stunning.'

She tossed her head and her lips compressed in an obstinate line. She wasn't going to let that sly, sarcastic drawl rile her. She could be the soul of restraint when she wanted to be.

‘Incidentally, the men—the ones you were just consigning to redundancy—send their best wishes. You had them quite worried.'

He really liked to turn the screws—the rat!

It was only a wobble, and she'd have been perfectly able to steady herself if Alex hadn't chosen to wade in and get all macho and physical.

The arm that snaked around her waist lifted both legs—the injured and sound one—clear off the ground. She wasn't a small girl, and the fact he could do this with no apparent effort was impressive.

Breathless, she found herself clamped against his chest. The man was solid as oak and just as hard. Hope wasn't the sort of girl who'd ever been impressed by well-developed biceps, but Alex hit her at a level she'd never experienced before. The urge to cling and melt against him was staggering.

‘My ribs were only cracked, and I'd like to keep it that way,' she croaked. She had to do something before she made a total fool of herself.

It was rare that Alex forgot his strength and didn't adjust his actions accordingly. His apology was brusque and barely audible. She missed the unusual sight of his heightened colour because his face was averted from her as he placed her carefully back on her feet. She grasped a chair-back and he bent down to pick up her fallen crutches.

He got to eye level with her thigh, and no farther. He didn't need to reach out and touch, he didn't want to, but he did. Just looking at the smooth curve of her calf made his belly muscles tighten viciously. The long, lovely line of her thigh made the blood in his temples pound. Fantasies were one thing—this was altogether more dangerous. The fascination defied logic; it was a visceral gut response.

Hope gasped. His fingers could easily span the curve of her uninjured calf. She stopped breathing as hand over hand, fingers splayed to cover a wide area, he worked
his way higher. The sensuality of the slow progress instantly sent a flood of intense heat through her body. Her flesh tingled where the fine denier fabric of her stocking chafed her skin. A voice, unheeded, told her she ought to stop the marauding fingers which instigated the sinful friction, but she didn't.

Alex was almost as shocked by his action as she was. A wave of self-contempt swept over him. Damn it, man, talk your way out of this one without looking like a drooling idiot! There was no way he could write this off as accidental.

The muscles of his own thighs tensed and bunched as he began to rise, and his fingertips inadvertently moved above the lacy band at the top of the hold-up stocking she wore on her uninjured leg. Her skin was warm and silkily smooth. Shockingly he could sense through his fingertips the ripple that quivered through the inner muscles of her thigh at his touch. His eyes darkened and he rose to his feet abruptly. The short kick-pleated skirt she wore proved no obstacle to his big hands. They curved firmly over the smooth contours of her rounded behind.

Her head had fallen back and Alex could see the muscles in her extended neck, taut and tense. The tension in her body transmitted itself in tiny intermittent tremors. She was breathing deep and heavily. Her intense sensitivity filled him with a gloating delight. When he transferred one hand to the back of her head and forced her face up to him she looked directly back at him.

For a long, silent moment they looked at one another. Hope could smell the heat of his arousal. Being securely locked hip to hip against the pulsing betrayal of his desire was more darkly exciting than anything she'd ever known. The skin was pulled tightly over the sharp planes of his face and a faint sheen of sweat made it shine. She
blinked away the momentary image of a predatory hawk dropping upon its prey.

Whatever else she was going to do she
had
to kiss him. She did. She took his face between her hands and pressed her lips carefully to his. What began as exploratory swiftly became something quite different. His tongue was no longer passive as it suggestively probed the moist warmness of her mouth. His lips ground fiercely against hers with a hunger which awakened an answering fervour within her.

Half lifting her, he moved until her back was pressing into the wall. His hips ground rhythmically against her lower body, driving her half insane with desire.

He drew away, breathing hard. Fist clenched, he rubbed his knuckles delicately over her parted lips. Hope kissed what he offered, a languorous rapture still filling her eyes.

Alex audibly gasped before unclenching his fingers and capturing the curve of her jaw in his hand. ‘You are altogether unbelievable,' he said throatily. ‘Under the circumstances I can't blame him.'

Confusion crept into her eyes as she turned her cheek into the palm of his hand.