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  'Organise someone from the typing pool to come in and do the basics,' he instructed her. 'It'll be a while before you can ditch it completely, but, in the meantime, I'll be breaking you in gradually on the tougher stuff. Your first assignment, though, will be a more traditionally feminine one.'

  'Indeed?' she asked warily.

  He smiled. 'Don't get ideas, Kate. I want you to act as my hostess at a small dinnerparty I'm giving for one of my business associates. He's not a bad old stick, but he's used to getting his own way. He can be led, but not driven, and he resents being told outright what to do. Do you think you could cope with him?'

  'It's a type I've had a little experience with lately,' Kate said demurely.

  'And with reasonable success.' His hand acknowledged the hit. 'You won't have to do any cooking or anything—that will be handled by a firm of caterers I always use. They're totally reliable and there won't be any problems about that. All you have to do is look elegant and respond intelligently to anything Sir Geoffrey says as well as keeping everyone else happy.'

  'Sir Geoffrey?'

  'Sir Geoffrey Markham, the industrialist. His wife will be with him, of course, and I've invited his daughter and her husband to make up the numbers,' he explained. 'But of course, you'll have met Jeremy Edwards before, won't you? You worked for Edwards Engineering, didn't you?'

  Kate heard the words as if from a great distance. If she had been standing she was sure she would have disgraced herself by collapsing at his feet. To have to meet Jeremy again and act as if there had been nothing between them! Was she capable of carrying it off, or would her old feelings for him revive when she saw him again? She was aware of Nicholas' voice repeating the question and forced herself to answer normally. 'Yes, I know Jeremy Edwards.' She wondered how he would react if she added, 'I was going to marry him once.' Instead she heard herself asking, panic-stricken, 'Can't Diana organise the dinner party for you?'

  'What's the matter? Don't you think you're up to it? Or is it something else?' Nicholas was eyeing her with his usual penetration. Had his shrewd brain already started delving beneath the surface and speculating on the nature of her relationship with Jeremy?

  'You've already put her nose out of joint once—twice—this week,' she ventured tentatively, remembering the brief phone conversation that morning.

  'She'll get used to it,' he said indifferently. 'I'm not asking her. I'm asking you. Can you imagine Diana being tactful and intelligent? Or either?'

  He obviously considered the matter closed and to try to argue further would only make him suspicious about her reasons for dodging a meeting with Sir Geoffrey and his family. Instead she acquiesced and took down all the details necessary for the occasion.

  'You've got a week to get organised,' Nicholas told her casually, by way of reassurance.

  And to worry herself sick about how Jeremy would react when he saw her again, she thought despondently. Outwardly bright and efficient, she got to her feet and prepared to leave his office.

  'Oh, there's one thing—' he checked her.

  'Yes?'

  'Your dress.' Nicholas eyed her thoughtfully and she felt suddenly self-conscious under his gaze. He might have been buying a slave-girl at an auction from the way he looked at her.

  'My dress?' she echoed, puzzled.

  'Get yourself something suitable for the party and give me the bill. You needn't stint yourself, I want you to look good.'

  'I have a dress which will be perfectly adequate for the occasion, thank you,' she said frostily.

  'I don't want you to look adequate. I expect you to dazzle my guests. And, if your present wardrobe's anything to go by,' his expression clearly indicated what he thought of the black dress, 'I hardly think you possess anything suitable.'

  'You've obviously got such a low opinion of my dress sense I'm surprised that you trust me to buy something new,' she challenged him. 'Perhaps you'd like to come and choose it with me, then you'd be sure you got your money's worth!'

  'I've done that before now,' he murmured wickedly. 'But I'll spare you the embarrassment, Kate. I'm sure I can rely on you to find the right thing.'

  'And there's no need for you to buy my dress. You pay me well enough for the—privilege—of working with you. I don't need any money from you.'

  'Don't be so damned stubborn,' he told her irritably. 'You're doing a job of work and you need the right tools for it. I don't suppose we'd be arguing if I'd told you to get yourself a new typewriter or an office chair.'

  'That's different.'

  'You're thinking about your reputation again,' he taunted her.

  'What if I am?'

  'If you make any more allusions to my expected assault on your virtue you might find yourself taken up on them,' he said, the taut note in his voice warning her that this conversation could move into dangerous channels. 'But if you're so anxious not to take something you haven't earned, I'm sure we could arrange some kind of repayment.' He got to his feet in one lithe movement and came towards her.

  'No!' She backed hastily away, only to see from the amused light in his eyes that he had not been serious after all. She never knew quite whether to take him seriously and he was all too well aware of it.

  'No more arguments, then?' he said. 'You'll do as I say?'

  'I'll do as you say,' she agreed obediently.

  His mocking laughter followed her from the room.

  She would get her own back on him for winning that little round, Kate vowed, as she set off for Knightsbridge later that week to buy a dress for the dinner party. Nicholas had told her to get something that looked good. She would spend his money on the most expensive dress she could find and it would serve him right. Not that the size of the bill was likely to shock him; she had a shrewd suspicion that Nicholas Blake was well versed in the matter of settling accounts for his lady friends. He would probably regard any bill his secretary chose to run up as just another in a long line of such expenses. And with a bank account like a bottomless pit, thought Kate crudely, he could afford to be generous. Even so her heart missed a beat when, having fixed on a deliciously feminine creation in low-cut flame chiffon, which outlined her perfect figure and provided a vivid contrast to her chestnut hair and eyes, she charged what seemed an astronomical figure to Nicholas Blake's account.

  Twirling round the sitting room giving Jane a special preview of the new dress, Kate winced when her flat-mate commented admiringly, 'That should make Jeremy sit up and realise what he missed!'

  'Oh, I don't know. I expect a part share in his new father-in-law's business now and the prospect of the whole empire when Sir Geoffrey retires is enough for anyone—even Jeremy,' she said cynically.

  'Do I detect a slightly sour note? Has disillusion set in at last?'

  'I think I got over Jeremy the day he threw me over for Felicity. It was my pride that took a knock and stopped me forgetting,' Kate replied. 'That doesn't mean tomorrow night won't be incredibly difficult to handle. Meeting him again will be awkward. I don't know whether he'll acknowledge me or pretend I never existed for him. And the fact that Nicholas never misses a trick will make the evening even more difficult to get through.'

  'Ah yes, Nicholas. And where does he fit into the scheme of things? Is that gorgeous dress intended to knock him for six?'

  'In more ways than one,' said Kate, avoiding her friend's gaze and studying herself critically in the mirror. 'He's paying for it and it cost a small fortune.'

  Jane gave a low whistle. 'And what does he get in return?'

  'The pleasure of seeing me wear it—no more, no less.'

  'That's what you think,' her friend said sceptically. 'Be careful, Kate. That man was charming women in his cradle. He's forgotten more about the seduction game than you've ever learnt.'

  'Don't worry, I can handle him.'

  'Famous last words! I wonder how many women have said that before they met Nicholas Blake. I bet they ate their words afterwards.'

  'I can look myself,' Kate said firmly.
r />   But, two days later, as she stepped out of the lift and stood outside Nicholas' penthouse flat with the suitcase containing her evening clothes in her hand, she felt a mass of nerves. But it was too late to retreat now. She rang the bell firmly and wondered who would answer it. Did Nicholas have a housekeeper or manservant to look after him? She did not know. In fact, apart from the names of the string of lovely ladies who shared his life from time to time, she knew remarkably little about her employer's private life.

  He answered the door to her himself wearing a short towelling robe, carelessly belted at the waist, which left little of his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped frame to the imagination. It was all too clear to Kate that he wore nothing underneath it. He was obviously fresh from the shower. His dark hair, normally so severely groomed, sprang away from his face in damp tendrils giving him, if it was possible, a curiously boyish look. The tang of the masculine cologne he used caught at Kate's senses as she stepped past him into the hall.

  'I showered early to leave the bathroom free for you,' he explained as he led the way across to the spare room where Kate was to change. 'It's through there and all yours when you need it. My bedroom's next door to it.'

  'I'm hardly likely to need that,' she said pointedly, and he gave her a glinting smile.

  'You never know when you might change your mind. Nothing you did would surprise me, Kate.' He turned to leave. 'Shout if there's anything you want. When you're ready I'll show you the rest of the flat and the arrangements for dinner. Don't push yourself, we've plenty of time before they're due.'

  With that he disappeared, shutting the door behind him. Kate heard him whistling softly as he made his way along the corridor to his own room. Well, at least he sounded relaxed enough. That was one problem less to deal with. About her own feelings Kate was less sure. For all her brave words to Jane about having got Jeremy out of her system she was still uncertain of the effect he would have upon her. Was it possible to stop loving a man so quickly? She doubted it somehow. Then she was faced with deciding either that she had never really been in love with Jeremy or that she was fooling herself when she told herself that she had got over him and would respond to him again the moment she saw him. Either solution was equally unpalatable, particularly under the acute gaze of her employer, who would no doubt gain a good deal of pleasure from the situation if he was aware of it.

  Left to her own devices, she glanced round the room. It was furnished with taste and offered every expensive luxury including a king-size bed, but it lacked character and gave no indication of use. Presumably it was hardly needed. Kate assumed that the succession of house guests that Nicholas chose to entertain would no doubt not be banished to the spare room. She pulled a face at her disapproving reflection in the ornate, full-length mirror. Who Nicholas entertained was none of her business and she should try to remember that fact. Laying her cosmetics on a dressing table surface which would have made three of the one in her minute bedroom at the flat, she donned a dressing gown, picked up her spongebag and headed cautiously for the bathroom, childishly praying that she would not bump into her employer en route. Nicholas Blake in a formal business suit could shake her senses easily enough, but clad in a towelling robe the effect he had upon her was even more dynamic. Fortunately the corridor was empty and she reached the bathroom and locked the door without encountering him.

  There was a curiously intimate feeling about using the shower, still warm and steamy from its last occupant and with the smell of the expensive soap he used lingering in the air. It was almost like being married to him. She caught herself speculating what it would be like to live with Nicholas, to share every part of his life, and shivered deliciously at the thought. It would be heaven and hell combined, she imagined, and caught herself up with a guilty start. She told herself firmly that she was lucky that it was a state that she would never experience.

  Stepping from under the warm water, she wrapped a fluffy towel around her and inspected the exclusive body lotions and perfumes which sat, somewhat incongruously, next to more masculine impedimenta on the shelf. Nicholas evidently believed in making his female guests feel at home, she thought with a sudden resentment that she could not explain as she came upon Chanel No 5, the scent which, in Kate's mind, was always associated indelibly with Diana Kendall.

  Back in her room again she quickly donned fresh underclothes, carefully made up her face and brushed her hair. Well, she was no beauty, she thought, looking at the result, but she did not think she would disgrace him. He had told her to look good and if he was not satisfied with the result it was his hard luck. She took her dress down from its hanger and stepped carefully into it, pulling it up over her shoulders. Yes, she had been right to give in to the saleswoman's enthusiastic praise and take it: the colour highlighted the glossy chestnut of her hair and gave her face with its high cheekbones and slightly slanting eyes a faintly exotic look which Kate knew suited her. She could never aspire to the full-bodied loveliness of someone like Diana Kendall, but her own brand of attraction pleased her well enough when she surveyed the reflection in the mirror.

  She reached behind her to pull up the zip and suddenly groaned as she felt it stick halfway up. Squinting at her back in the mirror she saw that a piece of the delicate material had caught in the fastener. She tugged at it, first tentatively, then with growing desperation, but to no avail. She realised that if she persisted she would only succeed in tearing the dress. There was no help for it, she would have to ask Nicholas to disentangle the problem.

  She braced herself and called, 'Mr Blake! Nicholas!' There was no response, which was hardly surprising considering that nervousness strangled the words almost before they were out of her mouth. She sighed and tugged at the zip again, fooling herself that it might miraculously have unstuck itself. There was nothing else she could do except go and find Nicholas.

  She forced herself to her feet and out of the room. Outside the door she paused, her nerve nearly letting her down. Then she knocked timidly and, on hearing his 'Come in', she took a deep breath and entered. The room was a sombre setting for its owner, suggesting a serious man rather than a gadabout playboy. The walls and velvet drapes at the window embrasure were in shades of dark brown and the almost oppressive atmosphere was relieved only by the cream carpet into which her feet sank as she took a few steps over the threshold. It was plain and bare of ornaments apart from what appeared to be a genuine Corot on the wall and in complete contrast a solitary, beautifully ornate ivory figurine on a small table by the bed.

  Nicholas had not yet donned the jacket of his evening suit. He was standing in his shirt sleeves in front of the mirror, fastening his tie, a task which seemed to require considerable concentration on his part, for it was a second before he wrenched it apart with a muttered exclamation and turned to acknowledge Kate's presence.

  'This is an unexpected surprise,' he greeted her. 'I thought you'd sooner cross the gates of Hell than over the unholy threshold of my bedroom.'

  The crisp, white shirt emphasised the powerful column of his tanned throat and accentuated his dark good looks. In evening dress he looked impossibly handsome and she was sure that he was well aware of it. Hands on his hips, he regarded her quizzically. 'Did you want something other than the pleasure of watching me dress for dinner?'

  'It's my zip,' she explained hastily. 'It seems to have stuck.' She saw the half-smile on his face and wondered how many times he had been waylaid by women using that excuse to invade his bedroom. But in her case it was the pure and simple truth.

  'Let me have a look. I'll see what I can do.' He strode over to her and turned her round to inspect the problem. 'Yes, you certainly had a good go at untangling it yourself before you came to ask me for help, didn't you?'

  'I didn't want to bother you.'

  'Am I such an ogre? No, don't bother to answer that. I've a fair idea what you think of me.'

  She ignored the remark and asked anxiously, 'Can you do anything?'

  'Keep still.' It was an effort to o
bey him as the mere touch of his hands on the bare flesh of her back sent trickles of warm sensation down the whole length of her spine. She hoped that he would not notice the effect he had upon her, but was horribly afraid that he would. Nicholas Blake never missed anything where an attractive woman was concerned, and she was no exception.

  He took his time over the task, but finally she felt the pull of the zip as he freed it and then ran it up to the top of the dress where he fastened the tiny eyelet which secured it. 'There you are,' he said casually. 'It wasn't worth making such a fuss about, was it?'

  'Did I make a fuss?' she asked, all too conscious that his hands were resting lightly on her shoulders, holding her close to him. He seemed uninclined to move away.

  'You looked as if the skies had fallen. Was it the prospect of greeting our dinner guests like that that was appalling you or just the thought of asking my help?'

  Damn the man! Where she was concerned he was too perceptive by half. She laughed, wishing he would release her. 'You have to admit it would have been a little unconventional to greet Sir Geoffrey half-naked.'

  'Oh, I'm sure he would have appreciated it. I certainly did.' She felt his lips brush against the back of her neck and shivered slightly. 'You have a beautiful body, Kate.'

  'You're very kind. Coming from a connoisseur such as yourself that's quite a compliment,' she said, attempting to move away from him. But he retained his grasp on her, merely taking the opportunity to turn her round to face him.

  'And that dress displays you to the best advantage,' he continued.

  'I hope you still approve when you see the bill. I was rather nervous about spending that amount of money, even though you did tell me to get something good.'

  'And you're still nervous, aren't you? Are you afraid that I'm going to demand something in return for my services as a valet?'

  The sensual, slightly cruel lips were only inches from hers. If he chose to kiss her she was helpless to stop him. And she did not even know if she wanted to. 'Are you?' she asked, raising her head and meeting his gaze defiantly.