The Seduction Scheme (10 page)

‘A twelve-bore might be less destructive than your concern,' Benedict told him frankly but without heat. ‘If it makes you feel any better she isn't interested in me…'

His father laughed ruefully. ‘Perhaps she's got something about her after all.'

‘Parental approval—I feel
so
much better.'

‘I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, young man, and I'm not approving of anything.'

‘Were you rude to her?'

‘As a matter of fact I was extremely civil.'

‘Oh?'

The narrow-eyed suspicion from his offspring provoked an exasperated sigh. ‘It's possible I might have accidentally flicked on the intercom whilst we were…'

‘Whilst
you
were calling her a gold-digging opportunist. I suppose you made sure she received a strictly expurgated version.'

‘Naturally when I happened to see the red light I switched it off.'

Giving his father a hawkish look that shook the older man deeply, Benedict turned his back and strode purposefully out of the room.

Surprise, surprise, the outer office was empty. He couldn't go back into his office; he didn't trust himself to look at his father, let alone speak to him. He'd been entirely too tolerant of the manipulative old man over the years.

Where would she go? he wondered. Her half-opened bag lay beside the desk. Of course—the answer was obvious. Where did women always go when they wanted to shed a tear in private?

‘Good morning, Ben.' The latest female pupil to be recruited to the chambers stared at him, startled, as he walked confidently past her into the ladies' room.

‘Morning, Sarah.'

A quick survey revealed there was nobody standing beside the mirrors that ran the length of the plushly carpeted room. One cubicle door was closed.

‘I know you're in there, Rachel, so you might as well come out. You only heard what my father wanted you to.' His voice echoed in the high-ceilinged room. ‘I know you can hear me, Rachel. I need to talk to you. Come on out. Damn it, woman, if you don't come out I'll knock the door down!' he warned.

His head fell back as relief flooded through his body at the sound of the bolt sliding back. ‘Rach—' The eager smile faded dramatically from his face as the occupant fully emerged.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Ben, but it's only me.' A solicitor with whom he'd worked on several occasions stepped forward, trying without much success to hide her broad grin.

‘Carol. Hello. I thought you were someone else.'

‘So I gathered,' she observed, with a limpid look. ‘I had no idea you were so romantic…or forceful…' A twinge of envy mingled with her amusement as she finally succumbed to mirth, but she was talking to empty space.

‘S
ORRY
I'm late.'

Kurt Hassler got to his feet, his hand extended. ‘Don't worry, Ben; Rachel explained about your emergency. We've been well looked after.'

‘I'm sure you have.'

Rachel's eyes slid self-consciously away from the dark, ironic gaze. ‘I'll see you all after lunch, gentlemen,' she said with a smile as she got to her feet.

‘It's a working lunch; I think it would be beneficial to have you with us, Rachel. Besides, it's going to be a long session this afternoon; we don't want you fading on us before we're through.' He turned to the other men. ‘These young women and their apples and yogurt. Always dieting.' There was a general male wave of agreement and a flurry of compliments on the perfection of her figure.

Rachel's smile became strained as she thought vicious thoughts about where she'd put her apple had she had one to hand. She was sure that Ben knew exactly how much she hated this patronising, pat-her-on-the-head sort of situation.

‘I don't diet and I've never had any complaints about my staying power.' She positioned herself between the solid bulk of Kurt Hassler and Benedict. ‘However, there's no way I'm going to turn down a free lunch.'

There was also no way she was going to let Benedict know she'd heard the start of the humiliating conversation with his father. At least she could stop worrying about the possibility that she was going to cave in to temptation. After the things Sir Stuart had said she had no doubt Ben would steer clear
of her. A dalliance with a mere secretary—especially one, horror of horrors, with a child!—wasn't worth risking his brilliant prospects for.

And after that afternoon she had no doubt he had a brilliant future. He had cut a path through the legal maze which had made Albert despair. The clients went away happy, knowing they'd been saved a very costly court battle, and she could go home knowing her stint as Benedict Arden's PA was going to be much shorter than she'd anticipated.

 

‘So you're still here?'

‘Ask the same question in ten seconds and you'll be talking to fresh air,' she promised, heaving her bag onto her shoulder. ‘You must be pleased with how things went today.'

‘What happened to my seven-minute phone call?' Benedict growled unexpectedly. He sat down on the deep window seat and she thought he looked to be in a foul humour for someone who'd just achieved miracles.

Calmly she buttoned her dark tailored jacket to the neck. The very precise way she did so seemed to irritate him—his irritation was hard to miss. Some perverse imp made her go back and flick off an invisible speck then smooth a sleeve once more.

‘Albert's temp was having a problem this morning locating a brief,' she explained, with a final glance around her clean desk. ‘You don't mind that I slipped down to help, do you?'

‘Why should I mind?'

‘You look a bit…on edge,' she observed innocently. She met his hard scrutiny with a bland indifference that gave no hint of the churning misery in her stomach. Was he seeing the same scheming bitch his father evidently did when he looked at her now? Was he wishing he'd never shown any interest?

‘On edge,' he mused. ‘That's as good a description as
any.' For some reason the thought seemed to amuse him. ‘Are you surprised? You've met my father…'

‘On several occasions,' she admitted, compressing her lips. ‘I didn't know I'd made a deep impression, but today he seemed to know an awful lot about me.'

‘You did hear, didn't you? Look at me, Rachel,' Benedict said, and she could hear the urgency in his voice.

‘Hear what?' she said in a bewildered tone.

‘You heard what my father said—heard what he
intended
you to hear. Didn't you?'

‘It's no big deal,' she said, making a big show of looking at her watch. ‘What I did hear made very good sense.'

What a fool she'd been to imagine she'd ever been anything but a passing fancy. Men like Ben Arden didn't take women like her seriously—she was a novelty to a jaded palate, that was all. She ought to be thanking Stuart Arden for making her wake up.

Walking through the corridors of the old, luxuriously furnished building today, she'd been hard-pressed not to assume that every quiet conversation she came upon was about her. Rationality didn't come into it; the seeds of doubt had been planted and she felt conspicuous, as though everyone knew about her lustful fantasies. Fantasies that had almost become reality.

When he spoke Benedict's deep voice vibrated with anger and frustration. ‘You and my father are on the same wavelength, it would seem.' His nostrils flared and the sensual curve of his lips was outlined by a thin white rim of anger. He came around and placed his hands palm down on her desk. The sturdy oak trembled slightly under the pressure, but not nearly as much as her knees trembled.

‘Do you mind?' she asked coldly, catching hold of the creased corner of a document under his hand.

As he leaned forward the warm male smell of his body
assaulted her nostrils. She could see the faint dark blur of body hair through the fine white cotton of his shirt. Despite the air-conditioned coolness of the room sweat trickled down the valley between her breasts. Her hostility was almost submerged by the scorching thrill of arousal that swept through her.

With a sweeping movement he knocked the whole pile she was attempting to straighten onto the floor. ‘Will you stop that?'

For a moment she'd thought he had been privy to her prohibited thoughts. The flush of mortification faded when she recognised his meaning.

‘It's what I'm paid to do!' She hadn't even realised she'd been sharpening a pile of pencils that lay neatly on her desk. ‘You won't get anywhere with me by acting like a thwarted child!'

The veneer of indifference was abruptly torn away and suddenly she was trembling with suppressed emotion—with humiliation. What did he think it felt like to hear herself discussed like a…an object? He might not like being reminded that at the end of the day it was daddy who called the shots, but at least he hadn't heard himself spoken of like some sort of grasping tart!

‘How will I get somewhere with you?' The husky query made her quiver.

This was a question she decided it was politic to avoid. ‘Why didn't he just sack me?' she wondered out loud. She bit down firmly on her trembling lower lip.

‘Because that would leave him open to an accusation of unfair dismissal,' Benedict said gently. He didn't doubt his father would have used this method had it been an option.

‘I hope you told him he had nothing to worry about. A kiss, a bit of mild flirtation…I'm sure you're much more
pragmatic than he thinks. It would certainly take more than me to distract you from your great future.'

‘I'm much more selfish than either of you think.'

She didn't quite know what to make of this cryptic utterance, and mysteriously Benedict's expression wasn't showing much of the relief she'd expected after she'd so generously let him off the hook. She didn't think for a minute he'd consider the effort of continuing to pursue her would be worth the aggravation.

Her slender shoulders lifted fractionally and she gave a brittle laugh. ‘I'd hate to be the cause of dissent.'

‘Dissent is the natural state between my father and me.'

‘Fine, if that suits you, but I don't feel happy being in the middle of your private battleground.' Her eyes filled slowly with tears and angrily she blinked back the stinging heat. ‘Hearing you discuss me…it made me feel soiled and…' She shook her head as she swallowed the constriction in her throat.

‘Hurt,' Benedict supplied gently.

‘No matter,' she said with a sniff. Hurt implied she cared to begin with. ‘I know some people think just being a single parent automatically means that you're on the look-out to rectify the situation.' She swallowed and cleared her throat. Losing her cool now wasn't going to help. ‘About lunch; shall I book you a table for two for tomorrow?' She could be the perfect secretary for a few more days, maybe less—how hard could it be?

‘What makes you think I'll need a table for two?'

‘I thought you might want to lunch with Sabrina; she did leave a message to that effect. Didn't you get it?'

‘I did.'

‘She looks a very persuasive sort of girl.' Perhaps I can take night classes in eyelash-fluttering, she thought viciously as she smiled generously.

‘She's also a great cook,' he agreed readily. ‘It makes you wonder why I settled for an indifferent cheese sandwich instead of the full works, doesn't it? Yes,' he agreed, folding his arms across his chest as she looked up with a startled expression. ‘I was on my way there when Charlie kidnapped me. Can you take a letter?'

‘Of course,' she replied, her professional dignity stung as she knocked all the neatly sharpened pencils onto the floor.

‘It's a letter of resignation,' he continued calmly as she scrabbled about on her knees, retrieving the scattered pencils.

‘A what?' she yelped, straightening up and hitting her head on the desk. ‘Ouch! You want me to resign?'

‘
My
letter of resignation.'

‘You can't resign because of me!' she said in a horror-struck tone. She sat back on her heels, wondering how she'd managed to get caught up in the middle of this chaos.

‘I'm not resigning because of you.'

‘Oh! Of course not.' That's what happens when you get ideas above your station, my girl, she told herself. If the father could humiliate her, why not the son?

‘Although I can see that would be quite a gesture.' His frivolous tone made her frown.

‘I think you should think very seriously about this, Ben.'

‘I know you believe I'm a capricious party animal, incapable of sober reflection.' The ironic flick of his eyes made her flush guiltily. ‘But I have actually thought this out. It's something I've been thinking about ever since I came back from Australia. I'm going back…'

And there was me thinking I had something to do with his decision.
The dark irony was like a dagger-thrust.

‘I see.' It's about time you opened your eyes and did just that, girl, she told herself sternly. ‘And how you spend your leisure time is nothing to do with me. You're single, eligible, and it's very natural that you like to let your hair down.'
These pragmatic words succeeded in focusing his eyes on her own hair, which fell softly around her shoulders. ‘The London social scene will probably grind to a halt without you,' she added quickly.

‘That sounds a bit impersonal; I'd prefer to picture pillows wet with tears.'

I just bet you would, she thought, inhaling deeply to steady herself. ‘The world is full of impressionable females.' Her tone made it quite clear she didn't categorise herself as one of these.

She was getting her message across loud and clear. ‘Your world might be full of them, but I meet precious few,' Benedict responded drily.

‘Perhaps you'll have more luck in the outback?' He was actually serious; it finally filtered into her consciousness. He was going. Would he
really
give up a lifestyle most people would envy?

‘Australian women are certainly refreshingly open.'

‘Are they the main reason you're going there?'

‘Careful, Rachel, you're sounding jealous,' he pointed out smoothly. He ignored her strangled squeak of denial and continued smoothly. ‘My grandmother left me a cattle station in Queensland when she died four years ago. I put in a manager and left it to take care of itself until last year when he walked out and it became painfully clear he'd been siphoning off profits.'

‘Oh!'

‘Oh, indeed, especially as Nina left me land but very little capital. Remember we're talking a different scale; put the station in Britain and think a small village. A lot of people's livelihood depends on its continued prosperity. Overstocking plus drought had left the place in a pretty bad way. I went out to sort out the legal wrangles and put another manager—one I could trust—in his place. If it wasn't for my mother's
sentimental attachment to the place—she was brought up on the Creek—I might well have put it on the market. It was just one big hassle.'

‘Was?'

Benedict grinned and she realised she'd never seen his eyes burn with quite that sort of enthusiasm before.

‘It still is, but the place has a way of getting under your skin. My life has always been so predictable: pass exams before and with higher marks than the next guy; be the first, the best… It stopped being a challenge years ago. Connor's Creek is different; the land is…' He gave an almost self-conscious shrug. ‘To cut a long story short I kept putting off finding a manager and in the end I didn't bother.'

‘You never intended staying here?' Did I come under the heading of time-filler—a handy stopgap? she wondered bitterly.

‘I left my options open.' Deep down he knew that wasn't really true; he'd always known he was going back.

‘I can't see you…'

‘The suit does come off…remember? I had a hard time convincing the people there I was serious too. Some people go too much on appearances.'

She
did
remember what he looked like without the suit and suddenly it wasn't so hard to think of him getting his hands dirty working under some vast, alien blue sky. She could imagine him relishing shrugging off the constraints of civilisation and undertaking a task that required not just his mental tenacity but also his physical endurance.

‘Your family won't be happy.' Why did she feel like this—so
empty
? She was physically attracted to him, nothing else. His leaving was a perfect solution in many ways to her own problem. No Benedict—no problem.