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  'Didn't you?' she said, aware of the fury in his voice, but careless of the consequences.

  'No, I didn't, although I don't know why I'm bothering to deny it. My God, you must have a low of opinion of me to think that I'd stoop to that sort of trick!'

  'And you must think me very naive, if you gambled on fooling me like that,' she retorted. 'I wondered why you were so keen to take me out to dinner. When that photographer appeared it dawned on me.'

  'It didn't occur to you that I might have something else in mind?' he enquired.

  'Should it have done?'

  'Your opinion of my morals seems to be rock bottom. Surely I wouldn't stop at seducing my secretary along the way.' The cold contempt in his tone stung her. 'Or would I have lured you to my flat for that?'

  He made the question sound like an accusation and she felt the first tiny seeds of doubt in her mind. Could she have been wrong? 'I'm sorry—' She forced the words out. 'I may have misjudged you. It was just that—'

  'I may have misjudged you,' he mimicked her harshly. 'An apology, Kate? That's big of you. I can leave the court without a stain on my character, can I? Or are you just making a qualified retraction?'

  She was silent.

  'To hell with your apology. If I'm cast as the villain of the piece I may as well justify my reputation.' He reached for her in the darkness and, before she could guess his intention and attempt to break free, his mouth had descended on hers, brutal in its punishment. It was more than she was capable of to try to fight him and, unresisting, she suffered the bruising mastery of his lips on hers and rested limply in his arms.

  He raised his head, his eyes raking her face. 'Damn you, Kate, why do you always make me lose my temper with you?' he asked and, without waiting for an answer, his mouth came down again on hers with something akin to desperation. This time his kiss was gentle, his touch almost butterfly soft as his lips left hers and traced a line of awareness along her cheekbone to nibble her earlobe, lingering with tantalising slowness before descending to the smooth column of her neck and the dark hollows beyond.

  Mindlessly Kate let the waves of sensation drift over her, building up until her whole body felt alive at his touch. His arms were around her, holding her close to him, closer than they had been on the dance floor half an hour before. But then the presence of the other dancers had served as a check on her inclination to demand more of him, to offer him all that was hers to offer. Now the only barrier between them was a rapidly fading inner voice which told her that she would regret it if she gave in to him.

  She felt as if he had hit her when he suddenly released her and asked her furiously, 'Does that reinforce your opinion of me?'

  Without waiting for an answer he turned the key in the ignition with an angry jerk of the hand and set the car in motion. 'You'd better tidy yourself up,' he told her brusquely. 'You look as if you've been dragged through a hedge backwards!'

  And felt as if she had, thanks to him, she thought, as, with unsteady hands, she straightened her clothes and tried to recover enough to issue brief directions to him as to how to reach her flat. She was too shaken to attempt any form of verbal retaliation and, to judge from his tight-lipped expression, it would hardly be well received.

  The sleek black car drew up outside her flat with a squeal of brakes. He reached across her to open the door for her and said, as if it was an effort for him to sound civil, 'I'll see you in the morning and, if you know what's good for you, don't put me to the trouble of coming to get you if you don't turn up.' The words held a threat of further punishment.

  She got out of the car and slammed the door behind her in wordless protest. Even before she had reached the door of the flat she heard the powerful roar of the engine as he drove off into the distance. Shakily she put the key in the lock and turned it on the second attempt, blinking back the hot tears that welled up in her eyes.

  The light was still on in the sitting room and Jane was curled up on the sofa reading a thriller.

  'So what happened to you, then? You can't have been working until this time. Did a handsome millionaire sweep you—' She broke off as she saw the tears on Kate's cheeks. 'What happened, love? Look, sit down and hang on a tick.' She pushed her friend, unresisting, into an armchair by the fire and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass which she thrust at Kate. 'Drink this brandy.'

  'No, it's all right,' Kate sniffed, trying to stem the flood. 'I'll be all right in a bit.'

  'Drink it,' her friend insisted. 'You've obviously had a shock of some kind.'

  She drained the glass obediently and coughed as the liquid burned a fiery path down her throat. Yet it took the icy chill from her which had gripped her since she had staggered from Nicholas' car and she was grateful for that at least.

  'Do you feel like telling me about it?' Jane asked. 'Will it help?'

  Kate summoned up a watery smile. 'Nothing and nobody could help, but I'll tell you anyway.' And she gave her friend a swift account of the events of the evening.

  Jane listened without interrupting, her eyes wide. When Kate had finished she gave a low whistle of astonishment. 'My, you have got yourself into a mess! You don't think he's really capable of using you just to get back at Diana, do you?'

  'When I'm thinking rationally, no,' Kate admitted. 'He hates gossip columnists and does everything he can to avoid them normally. But tonight I wasn't thinking rationally.'

  'Obviously not,' her friend said drily. 'He must pack quite a punch when he's trying to charm a woman.'

  'Well, he didn't charm me,' Kate insisted. 'I hate Nicholas Blake. He's the most scheming, despicable man I've ever met!'

  'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,' said Jane, as she had on a previous occasion. 'But have you thought why he did take you out tonight if it wasn't just to make Diana jealous?'

  'God knows.' Kate gave a weary sigh. 'He said he had an ulterior motive, but what it could be is beyond me. I suppose he'll sack me tomorrow.'

  'Why are you so worried about it, if you dislike him so much?' Jane asked teasingly.

  'I'm not. I'll be as glad to see the back of him as he will be to get rid of me.' With those defiant words Kate took herself off to bed. Where, as she drifted off into a sleep of utter exhaustion, her last thoughts were of Nicholas Blake. She had told Jane she would be glad never to see him again, but she was all too aware that was the last thing in the world that she wanted.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  'Well, you certainly excelled yourself last night.' Jane entered Kate's room the next morning bearing a cup of tea in one hand and the morning paper in the other. 'Better drink your tea first. You'll need something to steady your nerves.'

  Kate ignored the advice and made a grab for the paper. 'Is there a photograph? What's it like? Is it as bad as I thought?'

  'That,' said Jane, opening the paper at the appropriate page and looking carefully at it, 'is a matter of opinion. It's quite a good likeness of you. Nicholas Blake looks his usual dashing self. And to judge from the look on your face you can't hate the man quite as much as you claim to do.'

  'Let me see.' Impatiently Kate tore the paper from her friend and studied it anxiously. Horrors, it was ten times worse than she could ever have imagined! Was the dreamy-eyed, besotted-looking female gazing up into Nicholas Blake's handsome face and clinging possessively to him really her? 'Oh, Jane, how awful!'

  'Have you seen what it says underneath?'

  She read the caption hastily. It was headed 'Mystery date for Nicholas Blake' and went on to drop coy hints that Diana Kendall had been supplanted as Number One in the harem. Kate tossed it aside. 'What a mess! Jane, what am I going to do? How can I face him this morning after that?'

  'With difficulty, I imagine.' Jane was sympathetic but unhelpful. 'It'll all blow over in a few days, I expect. He must be used to this sort of thing.'

  'Not having his name coupled with his staff, he isn't. He warned me not to get ideas along those lines when he took me on.'

  '
Then he shouldn't take you out to expensive restaurants for dinner, should he?' Jane pointed out practically. 'Anyway, if you don't hurry up and get ready for work, you'll have him pounding on the door to drag you there by the short hairs.'

  Kate supposed her flat-mate was talking sense, but as she dragged herself reluctantly across reception and towards the lift to her office she felt less inclined to agree, particularly when she was almost certain that the downstairs receptionist responded to her 'Good morning' with a good deal more interest than usual. On her own floor two secretaries stopped their animated conversation when they saw her and looked uncomfortable, and Kate did not need to be super-intelligent to guess what—or rather who—had been the person they had been talking about. Damn Nicholas Blake for putting her in such an unenviable position!

  It was too much to expect that he might attempt to apologise for his behaviour and, at first, Kate wondered if he was intending to mention last night's little episode at all as he bade her a reserved 'Good morning' and proceeded to get down to work as usual. So much for the nerve it had taken to present herself in his office with notebook and pencil in hand, prepared to take dictation as if the events of last night were commonplace to her. In an effort to dispel the abandoned image she had presented then she had dressed carefully in a neat but sombre black dress that she had to acknowledge was not one of her best buys. Jane, well-meaning but tactless, had told her that it made her look like an old-fashioned waitress 'minus white pinafore'.

  Nicholas Blake was even less complimentary. As she turned to leave his office after a hard hour's dictation he glanced up, apparently taking her in for the first time. 'In mourning for your lost reputation, Kate?' he queried, looking faintly amused.

  'I might have known that you'd treat it like a joke,' she said bitterly.

  'What other way is there of looking at it? It was unfortunate, but it can't be helped.'

  'Unfortunate for me, perhaps. It just added to your reputation, didn't it?'

  He shrugged. 'That kind of reputation doesn't particularly interest me. And being bitter about it won't help you to put it out of your mind either.'

  'I can't forget it as easily as that,' she flung at him. 'I don't exactly enjoy facing the fact that everyone in the office thinks that I'm the latest girl to keep your sheets warm for you. You don't have to put up with the snide remarks and knowing looks.'

  'I think you might have suffered them anyway,' he told her.

  'I don't understand.'

  He gestured impatiently towards a chair. 'For God's sake, sit down instead of hovering like a schoolgirl up before the headmaster!' When she had complied and perched uncomfortably on the edge of a straight-backed chair by his desk, he continued, 'You may remember at one point in our—conversation—last night that you accused me of having an ulterior motive for taking you out. As a matter of fact I had, but, as I tried somewhat less than successfully to explain to you, it wasn't the reason you seized upon.' He got up and prowled to the window where he remained silently studying the view for long enough for Kate's interest to be caught and provoked by what he said. She supposed that was his intention; he liked to play cat and mouse with her. She wondered what was coining next.

  'I'll admit I had my doubts when I gave you the job,' he went on, suddenly turning to her again. 'But I'm seldom wrong when I back a hunch. You've shaped up very well and I've been able to leave a lot of things to you that before I'd have done myself. You're the first secretary I've had who's been able to work on her own initiative and yet not put a foot wrong.'

  'I—I—' Kate could have kicked herself. Where was her self-control? Instead of coolly accepting the praise as her due here she was blushing and stammering like the schoolgirl he had called her. 'Thank you,' she managed at last. Where was all this leading?

  'I don't waste time with idle compliments,' he assured her. 'I've always thought that actions speak louder than words.' He noticed the colour in her cheeks and added with a hint of wickedness, 'In more senses than one.'

  She ignored the dig. 'So?' she asked with a fair assumption of a calm she was far from feeling.

  'So I decided to promote you, give you a substantial rise in salary and make you my personal assistant. The typing and filing and most of the day-to-day routine can be handled by someone else and you can concentrate in future on helping with the important stuff which, I suspect, you enjoy more anyway.'

  So she had a future with him, did she? Kate was not sure whether to be consoled or horrified by the prospect of even closer contact with him.

  He went on, 'I'd worked it out while I was over in the States and was going to break it to you today. When I got back late last night and found you still working it occurred to me that dinner with you might be as good an opportunity as any to tell you about the state of things.'

  'I see.' She was stunned. Even amid the whirl that her thoughts were in she noticed that he intended telling her rather than asking her about the new job. The arrangement suited him, therefore it had to suit her, whether she approved of it or not. But that was unfair. How could she feel anything but delighted at the prospect of a pay rise and a more interesting job? If a doubt niggled at her at the wisdom of seeking a closer involvement with Nicholas Blake she pushed it firmly aside. 'It's very kind of you,' she said carefully. 'Thank you.'

  He laughed, his handsome face alight with amusement. 'No, not kind. I'm afraid pure self-interest motivated the decision,' he told her.

  'And was it self-interest that caused you to take such a long time breaking the news to me last night?' she asked him carefully. 'I don't recall you raising the subject over dinner.'

  The grey gaze held hers with a sudden devilry that she found disturbing. 'Possibly. I was going to tell you over coffee, but I was momentarily—diverted. Dancing with a beautiful woman doesn't always present the right opportunity for a business discussion. And afterwards, if you remember, you were too busy accusing me of every villainy under the sun to listen to anything I had to say in my defence or otherwise.'

  'Oh,' she said flatly. It sounded all too plausible not to be true. Nicholas Blake was not likely to concoct a story and a job offer like that just to preserve his good name in his secretary's eyes.

  'The offer still stands despite the less than flattering opinion of me you expressed last night. Well?'

  At the moment the telephone on his desk began to ring. He ignored it, his attention focussed on Kate. In the pent-up silence between them the ringing sounded unnaturally loud. She picked up the receiver and answered it. 'It's Diana,' she said, her voice carefully expressionless as she held out the receiver to him. 'She says she couldn't get you at home.'

  'Tell her I'm out,' he snapped, careless as to whether his voice could be heard at the other end of the line. 'I don't want to be bothered with her.'

  She conveyed the message as diplomatically as possible, but it did not satisfy Diana, who had obviously caught the end of his remark. 'I'm sorry, Mr Blake really isn't—' Kate was arguing when firm fingers took the receiver impatiently from her.

  'Diana, I'm busy and I've no time for you now.' Not discouraged, the shrill voice at the other end went on. Kate saw his face darken with anger and guessed that he was being taken to task for his part in last night's proceedings, possibly an unwise move unless Diana was extremely sure of herself. Nicholas listened, his expression growing grimmer by the second, then in a voice chillier than he had ever addressed to Kate, he said, 'Who I take to my bed is a matter for me and the lady concerned. I'll thank you to remember that in future.' The receiver slammed down on the rest and, still frowning, he turned to Kate as if the interruption had never taken place. 'Well?' he demanded.

  She smiled at him, strangely elated by the short, sharp way he had dispensed with Diana, even at the expense of her own reputation. 'I accept. I'd be a fool not to.'

  'A lot of people will think you're a fool to take me on. I'm not an easy man to work for, I'll admit that.'

  'I'm not worried,' she told him.

  'There'll
be plenty who'll say you owe the promotion to, how shall I put it, services rendered elsewhere than the office.'

  She shrugged. 'If I'm to be saddled with the reputation of being your mistress, I may as well enjoy the profits that ensue.'

  He moved closer to her and she was aware of her senses stirring dangerously as she caught the remembered scent of his cologne. 'Some women might think that sharing my bed was one of the pluses about that situation.'

  'I'm not some women,' she said firmly, standing her ground, although to give way to the temptation to put the length of the room between herself and him might have been the more sensible course.

  'No. I became aware of that last night.'

  'Were you disappointed?'

  'I wouldn't say that.' He put one hand under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. Taking his time as he studied her face as if he had never seen it before, taking in the tip-tilted nose, the high cheekbones, the dark, slightly apprehensive eyes and dwelling on the soft, all too vulnerable set of her mouth. She quivered slightly as she stood, unresisting, under his touch, her heart thudding so loudly she was afraid that he would hear it. 'You surprised me last night. You pack quite a punch, don't you?'

  'I'm glad you think so,' she said flippantly. His mouth was only inches away from hers. Was he going to kiss her? If he did there was no way she could avoid responding. Talking like this with Nicholas Blake was like playing with dynamite, but it was giving her an exhilaration that no man had ever made her feel before.

  'We'll have to explore the depths of your character further some time.' His voice promised a lot, but he was not going to kiss her. He let her go, not without reluctance, she thought. 'But, for the present, we've got work to do.'

  He stepped away from her and sat down behind the desk. She felt ridiculously disappointed, like a child deprived of its favourite chocolate bar. Damn him, did he tantalise her on purpose, or was he unaware of the feelings he aroused in her? She did not think so, somehow. There was nothing Nicholas Blake did not know about how to handle a woman.