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The Baby Verdict
CATHY WILLIAMS






“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” (#ubdb497e2-9480-59ee-a25b-5f66cfaf7a38)Title Page (#ub226615e-9ea9-5552-88de-16c066eea173)CHAPTER ONE (#u07339642-a1b1-5d80-9721-3cd9fbc850c0)CHAPTER TWO (#ue9e0585b-217d-5c49-b3af-1795b3fd3f62)CHAPTER THREE (#ud4fc5940-c360-5950-8769-b7c5c4484af0)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

It was a question, but posed as a statement. Jessica found that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. The drumbeat in her ears was too loud, and even as she maintained her horrified silence she knew that it pronounced the truth of what Bruno had just said.

“Why don’t you just admit it?” Bruno raked his fingers through his hair. “You’re resigning because you’re carrying my baby. Did you have any intention of telling me?”

“Please go,” Jessica begged softly.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth.”

“It’s true. I’m pregnant....”


She’s sexy,

successful...

and

PREGNANT!

Relax and enjoy our fabulous series about spirited women and gorgeous men, whose passion results in pregnancies...sometimes unexpected! Of course, the birth of a baby is always a joyful event, and we can guarantee that our characters will become besotted moms and dads—but what happened in those nine months before?

Share the surprises, emotions, dramas and suspense as our parents-to-be come to terms with the prospect of bringing a new little life into the world.... All will discover that the business of making babies brings with it the most special love of all....

Look out next month for:

Having Leo’s Child (#2050)

by Emma Darcy


The Baby Verdict

Cathy Williams










www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


CHAPTER ONE

‘THE big boss wants to see you.’

Jessica looked at the petite, blonde secretary she shared with her boss, Robert Grange, and grinned.

‘Has anyone told you that you’re wasted as a secretary, Millie? You have a special talent for making the most innocuous statements sound dramatic. Really, you need to be in a TV soap.’ She rested her briefcase on the ground next to her and began riffling through the post, sifting out bits, leaving some for her secretary to open. ‘That tax information I need still hasn’t come through,’ she said distractedly, ripping open an envelope and glancing through the contents. ‘Why can’t people get their act together? I asked for that information two days ago.’

‘Jess,’ her secretary said, ‘you’re not hearing me. You’ve been summoned! You need to get your skates on and not stand there flicking through the mail!’

Jessica looked up from what she was doing and frowned. ‘I’m due to see Robert in fifteen minutes’ time,’ she said. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘The problem is,’ Millie told her in a long-suffering voice, ‘you’re thinking of the wrong big boss. Bruno Carr is in your office waiting for you.’

‘Bruno Carr?’ She glanced along the corridor. ‘What does Bruno Carr want with me?’ She had been working at BC Holdings for nine months, and during that time she had not once laid eyes on the legendary Bruno Carr. BC Holdings was just one of a multitude of companies he owned. His headquarters were in the City somewhere, and he rarely deigned to visit some of his smaller companies. Once a month, Robert would journey to the City with a case bulging with documents, proof that profits were where they should be, finances were running smoothly and employees were doing what they should be doing.

‘I have no idea,’ Millie said now, throwing a cursory glance at her perfectly shaped nails, today painted jade-green to match the colours of her suit, ‘but he doesn’t look like the kind of man who appreciates being kept waiting.’

Well, what kind of man does he look like? Jessica wanted to ask. She felt a thread of nervous tension snake through her body and she did a quick mental calculation of what she might possibly have done to warrant Bruno Carr descending on her.

‘You should have asked him what he wanted,’ she hissed, her brown eyes flicking between the corridor and her secretary. ‘That’s what secretaries are for.’ She was very rarely thrown off balance by anything, but the sudden unexpectedness of this was enough to disconcert her.

‘People don’t ask Bruno Carr questions like that!’ Millie exclaimed in a horrified voice. ‘He comes in, says what he wants, and you just nod a lot and do it.’

‘Well, he sounds a particularly pleasant kind of individual.’

A great, big, overweight, pompous man who went around stamping on the little people and issuing orders by royal decree. This was all she needed on a freezing January Monday morning.

‘Where’s Robert?’ she asked, postponing the inevitable for as long as she could. Her lawyer’s instinct told her to get as much information about what was going on as she possibly could, even if Millie was being particularly unforthcoming.

‘Meeting. He was told to go ahead without you.’

‘I see.’

‘Guess that means that the great Bruno Carr wants to see you all on your lonesome,’ she whispered confidentially. ‘Sounds ominous, if you ask me.’

‘I don’t recall asking you,’ Jessica said automatically. ‘Well, I’d better go along in.’ Whatever it was she had done, it had clearly been a grave crime against Bruno Carr’s enterprises, for which she was to be punished by immediate dismissal. Perhaps she had inadvertently taken home one of the company’s red marker pens with her, and he had somehow discovered it. From the sound of it, he was just the sort of man who would see that as reason for instant sacking. And why else would he have sought her out, making sure that he gave no warning in advance, if not to confront her with some misdemeanour?

She retrieved her briefcase from the ground and mentally braced herself for the worst

‘Could you bring us in some coffee in about ten minutes’ time, Mills?’ she asked, running her hands along her neatly pinned back blonde hair, just to make sure that there were no loose strands waiting to ambush her composure.

‘You mean if Mr Carr allows it...’

‘You’re being ridiculous now.’

She pulled herself erect and headed down the corridor, pausing briefly outside her door and wondering whether she should knock or not There was no remote reason why she should knock to enter her own office, but, then again, barging in might be another nail in her coffin.

It was frustrating. She could admit, without any false modesty, that although she had been at the company for under a year she was doing a brilliant job. She had a sharp, alert mind and a willingness to work any number of hours to get a job done. What could he possibly have found to criticise in her performance?

She found herself knocking angrily on the door, then she pushed it open and walked in.

He was sitting in her chair, which was turned away from the door so that only the top of his head was visible, because he was talking on her phone, his voice low and staccato. She stood for a few seconds, glaring at the back of the leather swivel chair, knowing how those bears had felt when Goldilocks had swanned in in their absence and usurped their property.

‘Excuse me. Mr Carr?’ she said, folding her arms and injecting as much crispness into her tone as was possible, just in case some of her annoyance oozed out.

He turned around very slowly and she stared at him, mouth open, as he slowly finished his telephone conversation and leant forward to replace the phone. Then he sat back, folded his arms, and looked at her without saying anything.

She had been expecting thinning grey hair. She had been expecting middle-aged spread caused by too many rich lunches and not enough exercise. She had been expecting bushy eyebrows, wobbling jowls and a tightly pursed mouth.

Why had the wretched Millicent given her no warning of what the man looked like?

True, there was arrogance stamped on those hard features, but any arrogance was well contained in a face that was the most powerfully sensual she had ever seen in her life before.

His hair was almost black, his eyes shrewd, cool, and wintry blue and the lines of his face were perfectly chiselled, yet somehow escaping from the category of routinely handsome.

Handsome, Jessica thought, was a combination of features that blended well together. Perhaps it was his expression and a certain mantle of accepted self-assurance, or maybe it was the overall impression of brains and power, but there was some intangible element to the man sitting in front of her that catapulted him into a category all of his own.

‘What are you doing in my chair?’ she asked stupidly, forcing down the immediate physical impact he had made on her and trying to retrieve some of her composure back from where it had been flung to the four winds.

‘Your chair?’ His voice was low, velvety and coldly ironic.

She instantly felt her hackles rise. It was easy to work out what his type was: the wealthy, clever, powerful, good-looking bachelor who assumed that the world lay somewhere in the region of his feet.

‘Sorry. I meant your chair in my office.’ She smiled sweetly and continued to look at him with a steady, unfaltering gaze.

Her momentary lapse at being confronted with such intense masculinity had now been put away in a box at the back of her mind, and her self-control was once again reasserting itself.

It never let her down. It had been her companion for such a long time, seemingly all twenty-eight years of her life, that she could avail herself of it effortlessly.

He didn’t bother to answer that. Instead, he nodded briefly in the direction of the chair facing him, and told her to sit down.

‘I’ve been waiting to see you for the past...’ he flicked back the cuff of his shirt and consulted the gold watch ‘...twenty-five minutes. Do you normally get into work this late?’

Jessica sat down, crossed her legs and swallowed down the lump of anger in her throat.

‘My hours are nine to five—’ she began.

‘Clock watching isn’t a trait I encourage in my employees.’

‘But I left work at a little after ten last night. If I got in at a little after nine, then I do apologise. I’m normally up and running here by eight-thirty in the morning.’ She bared her teeth in a semblance of politeness and linked her fingers together on one knee.

‘Robert sings your praises...’ he looked at the piece of paper lying in front of him, which she recognised, upside down, as her CV ‘...Jessica. I take it, by the way, that you know who I am?’

‘Bruno Carr,’ she said, tempted to add Leader of the Universe.

‘You’re younger than I imagined from what Robert has told me,’ he said flatly. He looked at her speculatively through narrowed eyes, as if weighing her up, and she wondered what her age had to do with the price of sliced bread. Instead, she thought, of making disparaging comments on her age, why didn’t he just cut to the nub of the matter and tell her why he was here? In her office, sitting in her chair, having used her telephone.

‘Would you mind very much if I had a cup of coffee? Before I launch into defending my age?’ That one she couldn’t resist, and he raised his eyebrows, unamused.

‘Millie,’ he buzzed, ‘two coffees, please.’ He leaned back into the chair, which dwarfed her even though she was tall, but appeared made for him. Even though he was camouflaged by his suit, she could see that he had a muscular, athletic physique and was tall. He would be, she reckoned, one of those rarities: a man she would have to look up to, even when she was in heels.

In record time there was a knock at the door and Millie fluttered in with a tray, on which were two cups, with saucers, instead of the usual mugs, a plate of biscuits and cream and sugar.

‘Will there be anything else?’ she asked, smiling coyly and hovering.

Oh, please, Jessica thought wryly. Was this the same delicate, porcelain girl who could make mincemeat of men? Bruno’s presence had obviously reduced her to the archetypal eyelash-batting, empty-headed bimbo she most certainly was not. No wonder the man wore that aura of invincibility about him, if women dropped like ninepins every time he was around.

‘For the moment.’ He looked appreciatively at a blushing Millie and gave a smile of such profound sensual charm that Jessica’s breath caught in her throat for the merest fleeting of seconds. Then she steadied herself and reached forward for the cup on the tray.

Yes, men like Bruno Carr were a dangerous species. The sort who should carry health warnings stamped on their foreheads so that women knew to steer clear of them.

Jessica’s mouth tightened as her mind flicked through the pages of her past, like a calendar blown back by a strong wind.

She remembered her father, tall, elegant, charming, always talking to her mother’s friends, making them feel special. It was only later, as she had grown up, that she had realised that his activities had extended well beyond merely talking and that his charm, never applied to his wife, had been only skin-deep.

‘Now,’ he said, once Millie had disappeared out of the door, ‘you’re doubtless wondering why I’m here.’

‘It’s crossed my mind.’ After all, she thought acidly, it’s hardly been your policy in the past to fraternise. At least not with the members of this particular offshoot company, however hugely profitable it was.

‘Has Robert said anything to you about his health?’ Bruno asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk.

‘About his health?’ Jessica looked at him, confused. ‘No. Why? Is there something wrong?’ She knew that over the past three months he had been leaving work earlier than usual, but he had told her that a man of his age needed to wind down eventually, and she had believed him.

‘Have you noticed nothing about his hours recently?’ There was cool sarcasm in his voice and she stiffened.

‘He hasn’t been working very much overtime...’

‘And he’s been delegating quite a substantial amount of his workload onto you. Am I right?’

‘A bit,’ she admitted, wondering why she had never questioned that.

‘And yet you didn’t put two and two together? Hardly a very positive trait in a lawyer. Shouldn’t lawyers be adept at ferrying out information and making assumptions?’

‘I apologise if I didn’t see anything sinister in his behaviour,’ she said with equal coldness in her voice. ‘Believe it or not, cross-examining my boss wasn’t part of my job specification.’ She could feel her anger going up a notch and was alarmed more by the fact that he had managed to arouse such a reaction in her than by what he had said.

Outbursts of emotions were not something that she was accustomed to dealing with. From a young age, as she had stood on the sidelines and watched the antics of her father and the misery of her long-suffering mother, she had learned to control her emotions, to keep them under lock and key.

‘Are you telling me that he’s ill?’ she asked tightly, worry in her voice.

‘Stomach ulcer. He’s on medication for it and has been for a while, but he’s now been told that he needs to have a sabbatical. At least six months away from the stress of a work environment.’

‘How dreadful. I wish he’d said something to me. I would have relieved him of far more of his workload.’ She thought of her boss—tall, grey-haired, kindly, always encouraging her and never backward in his praise when she’d done a good job at something—and felt a stab of guilt.

Bruno was right. Why hadn’t she put two and two together and worked out that he was not well?

‘It’s unfortunate,’ Bruno said, watching her face and reading her reaction, ‘but it’s not terminal.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know a great deal about stomach ulcers...’

‘I gathered that from the expression on your face.’ He raked his fingers through his hair, and she watched, half mesmerised by this simple gesture.

‘I’ve told him,’ Bruno said, ‘that the sooner he leaves the better. There’s no point jeopardising his health for the sake of a job. Which,’ he continued slowly, ‘brings me to you, and the reason I’m here.’

‘Right. Of course.’ She was still dazedly thinking of all the signs she had missed over the past few months.

‘You’re Robert’s second in command. I gather that you’re good at your job.’

What did he expect her to say to that? ‘I do my best.’

‘I’ve read your CV. For someone who’s so young, you appear to have excelled in your previous job, and in your law exams.’

Appear to have excelled? What was he trying to tell her? That he doubted what was in front of him?

‘Why didn’t you go down the line of barrister?’ he asked, not looking at her, still flicking through the sheets of paper in front of him.

‘I thought about it,’ Jessica said, still smarting from his tone of voice. ‘In the end, I decided that working within a company would give me more of a sense of stability and fulfilment Of course, I still have friends in the field of criminal law and I try and go to as many court cases as I can.’

‘As a hobby?’ He glanced up at her, his eyes unreadable, and she wondered whether there was an element of sarcasm there.

‘It’s as useful a hobby as any I can think of,’ she said a little sharply.

‘Useful...if a little solitary.’

‘Which is no bad thing, as far as I am concerned.’

He looked at her fully then, not saying anything for such a long time that she began to feel uncomfortable. Then he pushed himself away from the desk and stood up, his hands in his pockets, and began pacing the room, finally ending up by the window, where he remained standing, resting back against the ledge.

He was even taller than she had originally thought, and his body had a toned leanness to it that reminded her of something dangerous and unpredictable. Some kind of predatory jungle animal. Or perhaps, she thought, aware that she shouldn’t stare and therefore carefully averting her eyes to a point slightly to the side of him, that was simply the overall impression he emanated.

‘You’ll have to cover for Robert during his absence,’ he said, looking at her, his blue eyes calculating. ‘Naturally, you’ll be financially compensated.’

‘That won’t be a problem.’ She could hardly carry on talking to the upper-left angle of the window, so she looked him fully in the face, and felt that disturbing awareness again.

Whatever was wrong with her? She didn’t even care for the man! He was about as jovial as a barracuda. Not the sort of man she went for at all. Her boyfriends, short-lived though they tended to be, were all fashioned in the same mould: easygoing, considerate, occasionally a little dull. But men she could handle.

She had seen firsthand how debilitating it could be to live a life over which you exercised no control. She had watched her mother wither over the years as she had endured her husband’s brutal infidelities, tied to the house because she had been told repeatedly that she was incapable of doing anything on her own.

Jessica had fashioned her escape from that stifling atmosphere with the precision of a military campaign. While her teenaged friends had spent their days swooning over boys and experimenting with make-up, she had buried her head in her books, working with the single-minded passion of someone who needed to furiously dig a tunnel before they could see the outside world.

She had no intention of ever handing over control of her life to someone else. She had studied hard, worked hard and every step of her career had been built on determination and lessons learnt in the past.

‘I already work very closely with Robert, anyway,’ she said, snapping back to the present and focusing on the man standing in front of her. ‘I know most of his client base. The rest I can familiarise myself with easily enough.’ A temporary promotion. She breathed a little sigh of relief. And to think that she had hovered uncertainly by that office door, convinced that she was about to be handed her walking cards.

‘Will that be all?’ she asked, standing up. She smiled and extended her hand.

‘No.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘No, that will not be all, so you might as well sit back down.’

A man accustomed to giving orders. A man who bypassed the polite preliminaries of conversation that most people took for granted.

She withdrew her hand, feeling a bit idiotic, and sat back down.

‘You don’t think that I travelled out here merely to inform you that you’ve got a promotion, do you?’ His voice was cool and amused, and it was an effort for her to continue looking at him without dislike.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘that was silly of me, wasn’t it?’

He frowned, and she struggled to contain a sudden urge to grin.

‘Do I hear a little edge of sarcasm there?’ he asked mildly.

‘Of course not!’ Her brown eyes were innocently shocked at such a suggestion. ‘I wouldn’t dare!’

‘You haven’t asked when Robert is due to leave.’ He returned to the chair behind the desk, sat back down and then pushed it away so that he could cross his legs, ankle on knee.

‘I assumed...’ What had she assumed? ‘I guessed that it would be in a couple of months’ time...?’

‘At the end of the week.’

‘The end of the week!’ Jessica looked at him, startled. ‘The end of this week? But how? Why hasn’t he said anything to me? Surely he’ll need longer than four days to tie up loose ends...’

‘Are you beginning to regret your optimism in filling in for him?’

‘I’m just expressing surprise at the suddenness of it all,’ she told him coldly. ‘I’m also a little bit taken aback that he didn’t see fit to inform me before this.’

‘You have me to thank for that,’ he said bluntly. ‘This development happened overnight, literally, and I told him that it would be better for me to talk to you. In fact, it was essential that I did.’ He paused, as though contemplating what to say next. ‘His mother lives in America and two days ago she suffered a stroke. I told him that it made sense for him to combine his leave with a visit out there to see her. He’ll speak to you about this when he gets in this afternoon, then he’ll call a staff meeting some time tomorrow.’

‘I see.’

‘The reason I made a point of coming out here to tell you all this yourself—’

‘When you almost certainly would have had better things to do,’ Jessica muttered to herself,

‘Sorry? I missed that.’ He leaned forward slightly, and she flashed him a brilliant smile.

‘Nothing important. Just thinking aloud.’

‘This sudden development comes at a rather inconvenient time.’

‘Inconvenient for whom?’ she asked.

‘I’ll ignore that question,’ Bruno told her, narrowing his eyes. ‘It borders on impertinence.’

Which it did. She felt colour steal into her cheeks. Had she forgotten that this man was her boss? Had she forgotten that she should toe the line and not risk her career for the sake of emotion?

‘I’m sorry,’ she said honestly. ‘I suppose I’m just shocked and worried about Robert. It’s been sprung on me out of the blue.’

What a limp lettuce of an excuse, she thought. She could feel his shrewd eyes on her, assessing, and she waited for him to inform her that sarcasm was not something he would tolerate. Sarcasm, she suspected, was not something he had probably ever had to deal with.

He chose to disregard what she had said, though.

‘Two days ago,’ he said instead, ‘I received this.’ He withdrew a letter from his jacket pocket and shoved it across the desk to her, then he sat back and watched while she opened it and read the contents several times over.

Bruno Carr was being sued. Personally. A component for a car, manufactured by one of his plants, had resulted in a near-fatal car crash.

‘This,’ he explained softly, ‘is why I thought it important to come and see you myself.’

Jessica looked up briefly before re-reading the official letter. ‘To see if you considered me capable of dealing with this...’

‘That’s right. And you’re not what I expected.’

‘Is that why you expressed concern about my age, Mr Carr?’ She carefully placed the sheet of paper on the desk in front of her and sat back, with her fingers linked on her lap.

A legal issue was something she could deal with. The personal confrontation with Bruno Carr had brought out feelings in her she hadn’t even known existed, at least not for a very long time. But this. She took her time considering him.

‘You think that because I’m relatively young I’m incapable of doing a good job.’

‘You lack experience,’ he said flatly. ‘You are also a woman.’

‘Perhaps I could address those concerns of yours one at a time?’ When she smiled, her jaw ached because of the effort, and her fingers were itching to hurl something very heavy at him. Precisely what century was this man living in?

‘Firstly, age has nothing to do with competence. I can’t deny that I haven’t got three decades’ worth of experience behind me, but then I can assure you that I am more than capable of dealing with this lawsuit.’ The only way to deal with Bruno Carr, she decided, was not to be cowed by him. He would smell out any hint of uncertainty from her with the unerring precision of a shark smelling blood, and he would promptly take his lawsuit somewhere else. Careerwise, it would be death for her.

‘Of course, I shall need immediate and unrestricted access to any information, technical or otherwise, that I consider necessary...’

He nodded fractionally, and continued to look at her, waiting for her to say her piece, upon which he would deliver his verdict.

‘Fine. Now, secondly, yes, I am a woman.’ Camouflaged as it was by her genderless working garb. In a man’s world, frilly dresses were off limits—not that she had ever been one for frilly dresses anyway. A suit told the world precisely what she wanted it to know, which was that she was to be taken seriously. Even outside the working environment, she steered clear of frocks and short skirts, preferring jeans and clothes that were tailored and smart rather than provocative. It was only when she stripped at night that she saw the reflection of her own body in the mirror—tall, slender, but with full breasts and long legs. A good figure, she knew. It was as well to conceal it.

‘However,’ she continued, ‘women comprise a high percentage of the working arena these days, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m sure if you cast your eyes around you’ll discover that there are quite a few spread throughout your various companies.’

‘Ah, but none of them is poised to defend my name in a lawsuit, are they?’ he pointed out smoothly.

‘And why do you think that a man might be more competent at the job than a woman?’ she asked, changing tactic. She fixed him a cool, implacable stare, one of her specialities when it came to withering any member of the opposite sex who might be overstepping her boundaries. He stared back at her, unperturbed.

‘Because women are prone to outbursts of hysteria when the going gets too tough, and I, frankly, don’t think that that will do at all in this instance.’

Oh, good grief, Jessica thought to herself. Was she really hearing this?

‘Outbursts of hysteria?’ she asked politely, with her head tilted to one side. ‘When the going gets tough?’ She laughed dryly. ‘Possibly with the women you tend to associate with, but I can assure you that there’s a whole army of them out there who don’t react in any such way when faced with a challenge.’ She paused, and added for good measure, ‘And by challenge I don’t mean colour co-ordinating our clothes or debating what shade of nail polish we should wear on our next date.’

He looked away and she caught something that looked remarkably like a stifled smile, although she couldn’t be sure, because when he once again looked at her his face was serious.

‘Robert has every confidence in your ability,’ he told her. ‘And that’s counted heavily in your favour. If it were up to me, I would say that a young, inexperienced woman would not come high on the list of people I would choose to handle this.’

I’m going to have to work fairly closely with this man if I get this job, Jessica thought grimly. I’m going to have to quell the urge to strangle him.

‘Well,’ she informed him with a cool little smile and a slight shrug, ‘there’s nothing more I can say to convince you that I’d do a good job. If you don’t feel one hundred per cent confident of my abilities, then, of course, you must look elsewhere.’

The interview, as far as she was concerned, was finished, but she was deeply reluctant to stand up, just in case he ordered her to sit back down again.

He saved her the decision by standing up himself and moving around the desk towards her.

For a second she felt a recurrence of that vague, unspecified alarm that had wrong-footed her previously, then it subsided and she rose to her feet In her heels, she reached just to the level of his mouth, and she averted her eyes hurriedly because, almost unconsciously, her mind registered that it was a disconcertingly sensual mouth.

‘I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, Miss Stearn,’ he said, reaching out to shake her hand.

‘And I’m flattered,’ she replied, withdrawing her hand almost immediately, ‘especially since I realise that it goes against your better judgement. I’ll do a good job.’

‘Oh, I hope so,’ he drawled, looking down at her, ‘for both our sakes.’

‘Quite.’ She abandoned all attempts at smiling. Why bother? If he could be brutally frank with her, then she would be as brutally frank back, within reasonable limits.

‘And I feel I should warn you that I’m intolerant of incompetence, especially when my reputation is at stake.’

‘Thanks for the warning. I’ll bear it in mind.’

She watched as he walked towards the door, then as he was about to open it he turned and looked at her over his shoulder.

‘You’re quite the hard nut, aren’t you?’ he said in a speculative voice.

Was he surprised? She supposed so. Quite unexpectedly, she had a vision of the sort of women he appreciated, and she could guarantee that not a single hard nut would be among them.

‘I’m not about to agree or disagree with that, Mr Carr. You’re entitled to your own opinion.’

He nodded, half smiled, and then closed the door behind him, and it was only then, as her body sagged, that she realised quite how much strain she had been under.

The news about Robert had come as a shock. He had seemed fit enough. Hadn’t he? She frowned and tried to remember whether there had been any give-away signs of ill health. Then, uneasily, it crossed her mind that perhaps there had been and she had just failed to recognise them because she’d been so wrapped up in her work. Her concentration on her job was single-minded and complete, which, she acknowledged, was great when it came to climbing ladders and winning promotions, but there was a great big world out there and...was it passing her by?

No. Surely not. She had a successful, rewarding career. How could anything be passing her by? Every goal she had striven for had been achieved. She should feel nothing but satisfaction.

Of course, her love life was not exactly thrilling. In fact, it was positively non-existent at the moment. Her relationship with Greg had ended six months ago, which had been roughly its duration. She uncomfortably remembered his criticism of her—that she had been obsessed with her career.

You’re quite the hard nut, aren’t you?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be independent, she told herself fiercely. If her mother had been financially independent, she would have had the courage to leave the man who had made her life hell.

There’s nothing wrong with me, she thought, and, if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll prove that I can take this case and win it.


CHAPTER TWO

JESSICA looked at her watch, stretched, and debated whether she should telephone Bruno Carr or not It was eight o’clock, she was still at work, and she needed information. If she was to win this case, she thought with a sense of self-righteous indignation, then he would have to be more available to answer questions. For the past week he had been abroad on business, and, however much information she could gather from various members of various departments, sooner or later he would have to avail himself.

She eyed the phone warily, as though fearing that it might metamorphose into something unpleasant at any moment, then, making her mind up, she dialled his direct work extension and was on the verge of hanging up when she heard his voice down the other end.

Irrationally, she felt a flutter of nerves.

‘Mr Carr? This is Jessica Steam here. I’ve been trying to reach you for the past week, but I gather you’ve been away on business.’

‘New York.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’re back because there are one or two questions I need to ask you.’ She shuffled some bits of paper in front of her, then began to doodle on her notepad.

‘Fire away.’

‘I think it might be better if this is done face to face. It’s important that you familiarise yourself with every aspect of the case so that every question that’s thrown at you on the stand can be dealt with.’

‘It wasn’t my intention to go into the witness box unprepared,’ he said dryly.

‘Perhaps we could meet some time tomorrow?’ she asked, glancing at her diary.

‘Why not now?’

‘Now?’

‘I take it you’re still at work.’

‘Yes, I am, but—’

‘No time like the present. Now, do you know the address of my office here?’ He rattled it off, and she hurriedly scribbled it alongside her complicated doodle. ‘Get a cab. You’ll get here quicker.’

‘Yes, but—’

She heard the flat hum of the dialling tone and stared at the receiver in her hand with an expression of stunned amazement. He’d hung up on her! He’d decided that now was as good a time to answer questions as any, and hadn’t even had the common politeness to ask her what her plans for the evening might be!

Was he so used to getting his own way that he simply took it for granted that the rest of the human race would fall in with whatever he wanted?

She stood up, slipped on her jacket and coat, grabbed her handbag from the low, square table in the corner of her office and hurried out of the building.

The more she thought about his attitude, the more exasperated she became. She could very nearly convince herself that she had really had exciting plans for the evening, when in fact her plans had included no more than a quick, pre-prepared meal in front of the television, a few law articles she wanted to have a look at, and then bed.

Hardly heady stuff, she knew, but she had been working since eight-thirty in the morning, and a low-key evening was just what she felt she needed.

It didn’t help that she had to trudge two blocks and wait fifteen minutes before she managed to hail a taxi. Thursday nights were always busy. Late-night shopping and the remnants of the January sales were enough to encourage even the laziest into the streets. She watched as taxi after taxi trundled past and was in a thoroughly foul temper by the time a vacant one pulled over to the side for her.

I need a long soak in a bath, she fumed silently to herself, staring out of the window at the bright lights and the people, hurrying along to minimise the length of time they spent in the cold. Her suit felt starched and uncomfortable, her make-up had almost vanished completely and she wanted to kick off her shoes and let her feet breathe.

His office block in the City was quite different from where she worked. Large, with a lot of opaque glass everywhere, and, when she entered, a profusion of plants strewn around an enormous reception area, in the centre of which the large, circular desk, manned by an elderly man in uniform, was a bit like an island adrift in the middle of an ocean.

A group of three men in suits was standing to one side, talking in low voices, and they glanced around automatically as she entered the building, but aside from them it was empty.

Because, she thought, everyone else has left to go home and relax, or else get dressed before stepping out to paint the town red.

Jessica couldn’t remember the last time she had painted the town red. She had a sneaking suspicion that she had never painted it red—or any other colour, come to think of it.

During her more active moments, when she’d been involved with a man, few and far between though they had been, she had gone to the theatre or had meals out Somehow, she didn’t think that that fell into the ‘Red Paint’ category.

‘Mr Carr, please,’ she said to the man behind the desk, now feeling gloomy in addition to exasperated and inconvenienced.

He lifted the receiver, spoke for a few seconds, and then nodded at her.

‘Mr Carr’s expecting you,’ he said, and she resisted the impulse to tell him that she knew that already, considering she had been summoned half an hour ago. ‘Fourth floor, last office on the right. He said it’ll be fine for you to make your own way up.’

‘Oh, grand!’ Jessica said with a large, beaming smile. ‘That must mean that he trusts me not to nick anything en route.’

She was standing outside his office door at a little after eight-thirty, quietly determined that she would stay no longer than half an hour. Long enough to brief him on the details of the case, find out his thoughts firsthand, and then anything more detailed could be arranged via their secretaries.

That way, she would be back at her apartment in North London by ten at the latest, just in time to catch the news, microwave a meal and read for half an hour. Any law books would have to wait for another day.

The thick, mahogany door was slightly ajar, so she knocked and pushed it open without waiting for a reply. The room, obviously his secretary’s, was empty. Jessica glanced around it, unconsciously noting that it was larger than most of the top directors’ offices she had been into in her lifetime, if a little lacking in character. A comfortable, functional room that spoke of high-octane efficiency and an ability to get on with the job without distraction.

She strode purposefully towards a further interconnecting door, knocked and, without thinking, pushed it open. He had been expecting her, hadn’t he?

Obviously not, because he was not alone, and his companion was not a fellow senior worker who might have popped in for a five-minute chat. Not unless his fellow senior workers resembled Barbie dolls.

‘I—I’m sorry,’ Jessica stammered, embarrassed, ‘I had no idea that I was interrupting...’

‘Come in.’

Bruno looked not in the least disconcerted by her abrupt arrival. His female companion, however, clearly didn’t welcome the intrusion. She turned from where she was half sitting on his desk and looked at Jessica with no attempt to disguise her annoyance.

‘You could have knocked,’ was her opening line. Her voice, high and girlish, matched the rest of her. She was the perfect male fantasy package. Jessica acknowledged that without a trace of envy. Petite, curvy, with full breasts bursting out of a tight-fitting, long-sleeved top, a skirt that was short enough to leave little to the imagination, and high shoes, which had been discarded. The blonde hair hung in curls past her shoulders and her face was angelic, even if the expression on it wasn’t.

‘I didn’t expect...’ Jessica began, not quite knowing where to go from there.

‘You never said that your so-called meeting was with a woman!’ the girl accused Bruno, pouting.

‘I think it’s time you left, Rachel,’ he said, patting her arm to encourage her off the desk.

‘But we need to talk! You promised!’ She wriggled unhappily off the desk and stepped into her shoes. Her face was a mixture of frustration and pleading.

‘Perhaps you could come over to my place when you’re finished here.’ She turned to Jessica. ‘You won’t be long, will you?’

‘No, I don’t plan—’

‘Close the door behind you after you leave, Rachel,’ Bruno interrupted, swerving back behind the desk and tapping into his computer.

Oh, charming, Jessica thought Was this how he treated all his women? She edged into the room, uncomfortably watching as the dismissed blonde stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her, then she sat down facing him and placed a sheaf of papers on the desk between them.

‘I won’t keep you,’ she said icily. ‘I had rather planned one or two things this evening...’

‘Oh, really? What?’ He looked up from the computer with a mildly curious expression.

This was not what she had expected. Fool that she was, she had anticipated some sort of apology, if only for the sake of politeness.

TV, a microwave dinner and an early night did not seem the appropriate admission. However, she could not bring herself to tell an outright lie. Instead, she said, ‘I need to consult a couple of references in some law books at home...’

‘Another fascinating hobby of yours, is it?’ The blue eyes glinted with sardonic humour. ‘I shudder to think what your dull moments are comprised of.’

Oh, what a keen sense of humour, she thought acidly, excuse me if I don’t fall off my chair laughing.

How could she have forgotten quite how irritating the man was?

‘I’ve read every detail of the case that’s being put forward,’ she said, ignoring his remark completely and tapping the sheaf of papers on the desk. ‘And I’ve highlighted the areas we particularly need to concentrate on.’

He obligingly picked up the lot, scanned through them, replaced them on the desk and asked her if she had eaten.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Have you eaten? Had dinner? Consumed food within the last three hours?’

‘I know what you mean,’ Jessica snapped, ‘I just have no idea why you’re asking.’

‘It’s late. I think we might just as well go out for a quick bite. We can go through all this tomorrow when we’re feeling more alert.’

‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ But he didn’t seem to be. She watched, bewildered, as he strolled across to the two-seater sofa by the bookshelf, picked up his jacket and slung it on, followed by a camel-coloured trenchcoat.

‘There’s a good Italian just around the corner. I can always get a table there.’ He stopped to look at her. ‘Coming?’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Jessica spluttered, getting to her feet and feeling utterly manipulated as she shoved all the paperwork back into her briefcase. ‘With all due respect, this has been a pointless exercise for me.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he mused, eyebrows raised, ‘a meal out is surely more fun than looking up a few legal references...’

‘I would say that depends entirely on the company involved,’ she muttered stiffly.

‘If it’s any consolation, we’ll talk business for the duration of the meal. How about that?’ His phoney, soothing tone of voice got on her nerves even more, and she took a few deep breaths and controlled her temper.

‘I’m not dressed for a meal out,’ she pointed out, because a wayward thought had suddenly crossed her mind: she didn’t want to be alone with Bruno Carr unless there was the reassuring presence of files, desks and computers around.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He gave her a leisurely look. ‘I’m sure Gino has witnessed the sight of a working woman in a suit before. This is the twentieth century, after all, as you were so adamant about pointing out the last time we met.’

He opened the door, stood aside, and she brushed past him with a lofty expression. Diplomacy is the better part of valour, she told herself on the way down in the lift. She was doing this because he was her boss and refusing point-blank was hardly a tactful manoeuvre. If any other man had treated her with such high-handed arrogance, she would have dismissed him on the spot.

That was a comforting thought.

They walked quickly and in silence to the restaurant. In this part of London, there were fewer people about. There were no trendy boutiques to attract the shoppers and not enough fashionable clubs to entice the young and the beautiful.

It was also too cold for dawdling. Within ten minutes they were at the restaurant, which was surprisingly full with an after-work crowd, but the proprietor immediately recognised Bruno and showed them to a table in the furthest corner of the place.

It occurred to Jessica that his girlfriend, or lover, or whoever the small, well-endowed blonde was, would not be impressed to find that his important business meeting had translated itself into a meal at the local Italian.

A suspicious thought began playing at the back of her mind, but she lost it as they were handed menus and the dishes of the day were explained with elaborate, Mediterranean flamboyance.

She had meals out with girlfriends on a fairly regular basis, but it had been a while since she had had a meal out with a man, and against all better judgement she found herself sneaking glances at Bruno as he contemplated the menu in front of him and ordered a bottle of white wine.

It was a unique experience to walk into a room and know that female heads were surreptitiously turning in their direction as they watched and assessed from under lowered lashes. She did not have the immediately captivating face of someone who aroused curious second looks. She was not unattractive, but she knew, deep down, that the few attractions she did possess were played down. Her mind and intelligence were what she wanted on display, rather than her physical attributes. It felt peculiar to be speculated upon by perfect strangers, even if it was simply because she was in the company of Bruno Carr.

He looked up suddenly from the menu and she dropped her eyes, ruffled to think that he might have caught her stare and followed the train of her thoughts from it.

‘So,’ he said lazily, ‘shall we launch immediately into a work-related discussion or would you like to have a glass of wine first?’

Why did she get the impression that, although he recognised her intelligence, he was secretly laughing at her?

‘I do have it in me to converse about things other than work,’ she told him coldly, unsettled by his attitude. She felt as though he was toying with her, in much the same way that a cat toyed with a mouse. ‘I just thought that that was my reason for flying over to see you at this time of the night.’

He ignored that part of her little speech. ‘Other things than work...well, I guess that means...play?’ He had ordered a bottle of white wine, and he looked at her as he tasted a thumbful, nodded, and then waited while two glasses were poured. ‘So, aside from law books and court cases, what other forms of play do you indulge in?’

He tilted his head slightly to one side, sipped his wine and contemplated her with a gravity which she knew was fake. He was highly amused by her and she found it exasperating.

‘I’m sure you know,’ she informed him calmly, taking a mouthful of wine and savouring the taste on her tongue, ‘considering you had my CV in front of you in my office and it was all listed there. But, in case you forgot, I enjoy going to the theatre, reading and foreign travel. What about you?’ She looked at him without blinking and decided that two could play that game. ‘Oops, sorry. I saw firsthand in your office what sort of play you enjoy indulging in.’

Had she said that?

Had she gone completely mad?

He grinned at her wickedly. ‘I do enjoy going to the theatre, reading, and foreign travel as well. But I’ll admit there are other, more absorbing types of play I prefer.’

‘Right.’ She could feel colour stealing into her cheeks, and she hurriedly drank some more wine. ‘Now, shall we discuss this case? At least go over a few things? I’m sure you have a hectic schedule tomorrow and the less—’

‘Dear me. Surely you can do better than that.’ He shot her a surprised look. ‘Just when I thought that we were going to have a little chat about these...things other than work you enjoy talking about.’

‘Okay. Then let’s talk about why you ordered me over to see you only to drag me out here the minute I step foot through the door.’

‘Drag you out here? You have a way with words, don’t you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jessica said stiffly, ‘I didn’t mean to appear rude.’

‘Oh, feel free to speak your mind. I appreciate honesty in a person.’

‘In that case, I might as well tell you that I’m a great believer in discussion. I don’t like being commanded to do things. I realise that you’re my boss...’

‘And have the authority to tell you precisely what I want you to do...?’ His voice was soft and when he drank his wine he continued to look at her over the rim of his glass.

‘Theoretically.’ The conversation seemed to be getting out of hand and she wondered when they had veered away from the conventional boss-employee line of chit-chat. ‘You did say that you wanted me to be honest,’ she said a little defensively, in anticipation of criticism.

‘Oh, I know. And there’s no need to look so alarmed. I’m not about to invoke the wrath of Khan on you for your temerity. After all, we will be working together to some extent. We might as well make sure that we can co-operate. I’m a great believer in the open forum.’

‘Except for tonight.’

‘Except for tonight,’ he agreed, half smiling.

‘Because...?’ She looked at him, and tried to let that suggestion of great charm wash over her. ‘Because...’ Bruno Carr did things for a reason. ‘You wanted me at your office...at that precise moment...because...’ It suddenly clicked. ‘Because you wanted to get rid of your girlfriend and my appearance was the most convenient way of doing that... am I right?’

‘You have a suspicious mind,’ he answered, leaning back slightly as plates of food were put in front of them, and vegetables were distributed with flourish. ‘It must be the lawyer in you.’

‘I don’t like being used, Mr Carr.’

‘Why don’t you call me Bruno? I encourage first names among my employees. Good for company morale. Makes people feel more comfortable.’

‘But that’s an illusion, isn’t it?’ Jessica said in a steely voice. ‘As tonight proved. You wanted me over because it was an expedient way of getting your girlfriend to leave.’

She could see that he was getting uncomfortable with her persistence but the thought of such blatant manipulation of her stuck in her throat.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, you’re like a dog with a bone. If it makes you feel any better to hear me admit it, then, yes, you’re right. You telephoned, and the idea occurred to me that an unavoidable business meeting was just what I needed’

Jessica finished her glass of wine and it was immediately refilled.

‘That’s despicable.’ She thought it, yes, but she was still amazed when it popped out of her mouth, almost as though any connection between thought and action had been severed. She knew that she ought to apologise. Whatever he said about first names and appreciating honesty and trying to make his employees feel comfortable, he still owned the company she worked for.

But she found it difficult not to voice her objections. She had spent too many years witnessing the price of her mother’s silence.

‘Why didn’t you just tell the poor woman that you were tired of her?’

‘The poor woman?’ All trace of charm had disappeared from his face and he glowered at her. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about when you refer to Rachel as the poor woman, and I have no idea why I’m bothering to elaborate on any of this with you.’

‘Guilt?’ she suggested. ‘Guilt that I saw through your little manoeuvre? A basic sense of decency in realising that I need some kind of explanation? Even if I am only an employee? I wouldn’t suggest this normally, but you did say that you enjoyed the open forum.’

He shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair, then he shot her a frustrated, perplexed look from under his lashes. ‘So, I gather, do you,’ he commented, eyebrows raised, and she smiled serenely at him.

‘I’m not in the habit of being quite so outspoken—’

‘Not in the habit! God, I should think you send men running in the opposite direction as fast as their legs can take them the minute you confront them with your brand of open forum chit-chat!’

Jessica went bright red and stabbed a few of the vegetables on her plate with misdirected aggression.

‘This is ridiculous,’ she muttered, eating a mouthful of food that now tasted like sawdust. ‘All of this is beside the point. Whatever your reasons for getting me to your office, and whether I approve of them or not, the point of my being here is in my briefcase on the ground.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ he told her darkly. ‘You generated this topic of conversation, and we’ll finish it.’

‘Like you said, you don’t owe me an explanation...’

‘But we’ll be working together and I don’t intend to spend my time being treated like some kind of inhuman monster.’

‘Does it matter, just so long as we get the job done?’

‘Yes, I rather think it does.’

Jessica didn’t say anything. She concentrated on her food and waited for him to speak.

‘And would you like to know why? Because I wouldn’t want you to think that I spend my time chasing women. We’ll be working together, and I can’t have you feeling threatened, now, can I?’ Which, she thought, neatly put her in her place.

‘I feel so much better for that. Thank you for setting my anxious mind at rest.’

‘Where do you get it from?’

‘Get what from?’

‘That special talent you have for biting sarcasm? I can’t see Robert dealing all that well with that viperlike tongue of yours.’

‘Robert,’ Jessica informed him stoutly, ‘is a sweetie.’ And I’m not normally prone to biting sarcasm, she thought to herself, but then again the rest of the human race don’t provoke me quite like you do.

‘Oh, good grief.’ He closed his knife and fork and signalled for another bottle of wine.

Had they consumed one already? She had barely noticed what she had been drinking, and, looking down, she realised that she had done justice to her plate of food, also without noticing.

‘And just to clear the air,’ he informed her, ‘I don’t walk around treating women like second-rate citizens.’

‘I’m sure you don’t.’

‘That’s right, so you can wipe that supercilious expression off your face.’

‘Look, there’s really no need...’

‘Rachel, just for the record, started off as a bit of fun, but I discovered that she wasn’t as content as I thought just to have a good time. Pretty soon, she...she...’

‘Wanted more?’ Jessica said helpfully.

‘Oh, you’re aware of the phenomenon, are you?’

‘Not personally.’

‘Well...’ he shrugged and adopted a hangdog expression ‘...what can a man do?’

The blue eyes scoured her face with boyish bewilderment.

‘Oh, please!’ Jessica told him awkwardly, recognising that this was the essence of true charm. Bruno Carr, arrogant and self-confident that he was, would never veer into the arena of cruelty, because he genuinely liked women. His natural instincts were to persuade, even when seduction played no part in a hidden agenda. The ability to flirt was as inherent with him as the ability to breathe. He did it without thinking, which was why he was so adept at it

‘Women.’ He raised both shoulders expressively. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I understand them at all.’

‘Really. Now I wonder why I find that so hard to believe.’

‘Rachel started talking about the importance of families, of having children, the benefits of settling down.’

‘Poor, misguided girl,’ Jessica said without a trace of sympathy in her voice for him. ‘And what a dreadful predicament for you, I’m sure. One minute, you have a willing, vivacious partner, the next minute she’s gazing into jeweller shops and dropping hints about permanence.’

‘I’m not the marrying sort,’ he said. ‘Some men are and some men aren’t.’

‘You mean it’s all in the genes?’

‘Whereas all women are. Eventually.’

‘Ah. I see.’ She nodded slowly. In a strange, masochistic way, and even though she still resented his high-handed behaviour and was appalled by his train of thought, she found that she was enjoying this conversation. She must be mad.

‘I mean,’ he said, ‘you come across as being the archetypal career woman, but, if you were to be brutally honest with yourself, wouldn’t you agree that when you see the odd pram being pushed you get a certain pang?’

‘What kind of pang?’

‘A pang of longing. Something to do with a biological clock, I gather.’ He poured another glass of wine for them both.

‘Well, not that I’ve ever recognised, but I suppose if your theory’s true then I must subconsciously have that pang lurking in there somewhere.’ How come the conversation was suddenly featuring her in the starring role? Her mind was feeling a little unreliable from the wine.

‘And you don’t?’

Jessica shook her head and frowned. ‘I thought we were talking about you,’ she said, thinking furiously.

‘We were, but then somehow we’ve ended up talking about you. I think it’s important to have some insight into the people who work with me.’

‘You mean you enjoy prying into their lives?’

He grinned, and then laughed, and she gave him a wry smile in return.

This was beginning to feel just a little too dangerous for her liking, although she had no idea why. They were simply, at least for the moment, getting along. She got along with lots of people. Most of the human race, in fact. So why did this make her feel uneasy? When he raised the bottle to her glass, she shook her head and covered it with the palm of her hand.

‘I’ve drunk enough already,’ she told him honestly. ‘Any more and I’ll be fit for nothing in the morning. I don’t have much of a head for alcohol.’

‘Lack of practice?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You mean you don’t spend the occasional night seeing the dawn rise with a glass of champagne in your hand?’

‘Not routinely, no,’ she said. Her hand slipped from round the rim of the glass to the stern, and she curled her fingers lightly around it, not meeting his eye.

Did he do that sort of thing on a regular basis? The blonde bombshell looked like the sort of woman who appreciated overblown gestures along those lines, and presumably she was merely an indication of the type of female he went out with.

‘Actually,’ she said, looking at him, ‘I thought people only did that sort of thing in third-rate movies.’

His mouth twitched, but at least he didn’t burst into laughter. She had a sneaking suspicion that if he had her remark would somehow have backfired in her face, making her appear dull and unadventurous.

‘I take it you don’t approve...?’

‘Does it matter what I think or not? Oh, I forgot, you like to have insight into your employees. Well, as a matter of fact, I neither approve nor disapprove. I just think that it’s not my style.’

‘And what is your style?’

His voice was a low murmur and his eyes on her were suddenly intense. She felt her skin break out in a faint film of perspiration. It was the wine, of course. Between them, they had managed to drink the better part of two bottles, and that simply was not something she was accustomed to doing. One glass, yes. But virtually a bottle? She was surprised that all she saw on his face was a look of curious interest. She should rightfully be seeing three faces, all blurry, and all with different expressions.

‘Work!’ she told him, plucking the word from out of the blue.

‘Work,’ he repeated obligingly. ‘I take it that my limited time on getting insight has been exhausted?’

Jessica looked at her watch and realised that they had been at the restaurant far longer than she had imagined.

‘I must be getting back!’ she exclaimed.

‘Before the carriage turns into a pumpkin?’ he asked with dry amusement.

‘I don’t have a carriage,’ she answered, choosing to ignore any possible innuendo. ‘In fact, I shall have to take a taxi back to my place. I only hope I can find one.’

‘Why don’t you walk back with me to the office, and I can give you a lift home?’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ A lift home? She thought not. Whether it was the drink or not, the night seemed to have taken her onto unfamiliar ground. She had no desire to prolong the experience. Unfamiliar ground was territory she felt should be better left unexplored. She bad never been able to control her background. She had watched in helpless silence as her parents had waged their unremitting cold war and as soon as she had been able to she had left, first to university, then to London. She had learned to exercise control over her life and that had always suited her.

Bruno Carr, however, was not a man who slotted easily into any sort of category she could handle.

As she reached for her briefcase and her bag she realised that the conversation between them had had all the elements of a free fall. How had that happened?

She could feel his eyes on her, and she refused to look at him, at least until she had managed to get some of her thoughts in order.

‘It’ll be a damned sight more convenient if I give you a lift home,’ he said.

‘No, thank you. Honestly.’ Why was she in such a panic at the suggestion? It made sense. ‘Perhaps I ought to telephone for a taxi.’ She looked around her, searching for inspiration.

‘Come on,’ he said, signing his credit-card slip, tearing off his copy, and then standing up. ‘Before you collapse in distress at the thought of getting into a car with me.’

She heard the amusement in his voice with a sinking heart. What must he think of her? Another hysterical woman, overreacting at something utterly insignificant. Hardly professional behaviour, was it?

She took a few deep breaths to steady herself.

‘I must appear quite ridiculous,’ she said in a calmer voice, rooting around for something sensible to say, ‘but I had no idea that the evening would be this late, and...’ Inspiration! ‘I completely forgot that my mum was supposed to call tonight...’

‘Ah. Important call, was it?’

‘My sister-in-law was due to have her baby today...’ Or around now, anyway. ‘Mum lives in Australia with my brother and his wife,’ she explained. True enough. Three weeks after her father had died, her mum, faced with sudden freedom, had taken flight to the most distant shores possible and was having a wonderful time out there. ‘She’ll be terribly disappointed that I wasn’t at home. Anyway, the sooner I get back the better, so if you don’t mind I’ll just jump in a taxi and tell him to go as quickly as he can...’ She knew that she was beginning to ramble, so she stopped talking and smiled brightly at him. What a pathetic excuse.

‘Of course. At times like these, every second counts.’ He ushered her out of the restaurant, and as luck would have it hailed a cab within seconds.

‘There now,’ he said, opening the door for her and peering in as she settled in the back. ‘Feel better?’

She felt a complete fool, but she smiled and nodded and tried to inject an expression of relief on her face.

‘Tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘My office. Eight-thirty.’ He stood back slightly with his hand on the door. ‘Make sure you bring your brain with you. You’ve got important work ahead of you. Can’t have your head addled with thoughts of babies.’ With which he slammed the door behind him, and Jessica ground her teeth together in sheer frustration and watched as he strode off along the pavement in the direction of his building.


CHAPTER THREE

‘I SHALL have to look at a drawing of the part in question. Is there any chance at all that it could have been made slightly askew? Grooves in the wrong place? Too many grooves? Too few? Anything at all that might have caused that car to malfunction?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Jessica sighed and looked across the table to where Bruno was sitting, his chair pushed back, his legs loosely crossed, with a stack of papers on his lap.

The boardroom was enormous, but he had insisted from the start that it was the only place that could guarantee his uninterrupted time. She still felt dwarfed by its vastness, however, and their voices had that hollow quality peculiar to when people spoke in cavernous surroundings.

‘You’ll be asked that in the witness box,’ she said calmly, ‘and I don’t think that the answer you just gave me is going to do.’ They had been working closely together for three weeks and this was not the first time that she had had to remind him that his answers would have to be laboriously intricate, leaving nothing to the imagination. He had a tendency to bypass all those tedious details, which he assumed everyone should know without having to be told.

‘Why not?’

Jessica sighed again, this time a little louder. It was late, her eyes were stinging and she was in no mood to launch into a debate on the whys and wherefores of what could and couldn’t be said on the stand. He tapped his fountain pen idly on the stack of papers and continued to look at her through narrowed eyes.

She was certain that he knew precisely how to make her feel uncomfortable. He knew that she was fine just so long as they stuck to their brief, but an errant gesture or a look that hovered just a fraction too long was enough to make her feel hot and bothered. She never showed it, but he could sense her change in mood and was not averse to preying on it for a bit of fun.

‘You’re being difficult,’ she said at last. ‘It’s late. Perhaps we should wrap it up for the day.’ She stood up and he followed her with his eyes, leaning back and clasping his hands together at the back of his head.

She had thought, initially, that she would become immune to his overwhelming personality and those dark, striking good looks, but she hadn’t. In the middle of a question, or as he swivelled to one side when he spoke on the telephone, or even at the end of a long day, when he stretched so that his taut, muscular body flexed beneath the well-tailored suit, she could feel her eyes travel the length of his body, she could feel her mouth become suddenly dry.

Now, she dealt with her own treacherous and aggravating response to him by doing her utmost to avoid eye contact.

‘Being difficult? Explain what you mean by being difficult .’

Jessica didn’t answer. She walked across the room removed her jacket and coat from the hanger and then walked back to her pile of papers. Without looking at him, she began sifting through them, pausing to read snatches of reports, then she stuffed the lot into her briefcase and snapped it shut.

‘I’m tired too,’ she said, meeting his stare reluctantly. ‘It’s been a long week.’

‘You’re right,’ he surprised her by saying. ‘Friday is the worst day to work late. Don’t you agree?’ He had slung his jacket over the back of the leather chair, and he stuck it on, tugging his tie off and shoving it into his pocket. Then he undid the top button of his shirt.

Jessica followed all of this with a mortifying sense of compulsion, then she blinked and dragged her eyes away.

The end of the case couldn’t come a day too soon as far as she was concerned. Working alongside Bruno Carr was stretching her nerves to breaking-point, and she couldn’t quite work out why.

‘Fridays are meant for relaxing. Winding down before the business of the weekend.’

She shrugged and made no comment.

‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ she said, facing him.

‘I’ll get the lift down with you.’

They walked together to the lift and as the doors shut he turned to her and said, ‘Big plans for tonight?’

‘Not big, no. And you?’ His eyes were boring into her but she refused to look at him.

‘Small plans, then?’

She clicked her tongue with impatience. There had been no more prying into her personal life, not since that unsettling meal out three weeks previously, but for some reason he was in the mood to stir and she was handy.

‘I shall put my feet up and relax.’

‘Isn’t that what you did last Friday?’ he mused thoughtfully, and she clenched her fists tightly around the handle of her briefcase.

‘Is it?’ she asked innocently, refusing to become bait for his sense of humour. ‘I forget. I’m surprised you remember, actually.’

‘Oh, I remember everything. It’s one of my talents.’

‘Along with your modesty.’

He laughed under his breath. ‘I hope we aren’t working you too hard...’ His voice was speculative, paternal and didn’t fool her for an instant. ‘I wouldn’t want to be accused of coming between you and your love life.’

The doors pinged open, and Jessica breathed a sigh of relief. Bruno was tenacious. When he got hold of something, he was like a dog with a bone, which was fine when it came to work, but when he started directing it at her private life she had an instinctive urge to dive and take cover.

‘I’ll make sure not to accuse you of any such thing, in that case,’ she answered politely. They walked out of the building and into dark, driving rain.

‘Have a good weekend’ He strolled off in the direction of the company’s underground car park, and five minutes later she saw him sweep away, his car sending up a fine spray.

Jessica held her briefcase awkwardly over her head, ventured to the side of the kerb and waited for a vacant cab which, after fifteen minutes, was beginning to resemble a hunt for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

She should have walked to the underground, but her feet ached, and now it seemed pointless.

She was on the point of returning to the office and calling a taxi when a low-slung, sleek car slowed down and finally stopped in front of her. The window purred down and Bruno contemplated her wet, shivering form with a grin.




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