Kitabı oku: «Bittersweet Deception»

Table of Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO? This is what the cook gets up to when the day is done?’ The velvet drawl was an essay in world-weary cynicism.

Kate Thornley, grasped firmly in the arms of one large, rather tipsy man, did not much care for the sardonic tone of this onlooker and would have told him so, if her lips had not been clamped tightly shut against a very determined assault.

Surely the wretched man could see the predicament she was in? She needed help, not an audience! How dared he stand there, watching, as if she were part of the entertainment?

‘Don’t mind me,’ he continued, and she heard his footsteps cross the kitchen floor. ‘Just carry on. I can wait.’

Incensed, Kate gathered herself for a second attempt at heaving off the sweaty weight pinning her against the sink. But the voice had finally penetrated the slightly fuddled brain of her molester and he abruptly released her. She staggered slightly, regained her balance and turned angrily on the man now leaning against the kitchen table to tell him exactly what she thought of him.

But the words turned to ashes on her lips as she recognised the owner of a pair of the darkest, most insolent eyes she had ever seen.

Scarcely beyond his thirtieth birthday, Jason Warwick was already a legend. The autocratic ruler of Magnum, a company he had founded ten years earlier and now the richest prize of the commercial television network, his acerbic wit and outrageous comments about women ensured that he was a favourite with late-night chat-show hosts and the bane of feminists, who seemed unable to ignore him and often made themselves ridiculous by baying for his blood. As the direct object of his derision, Kate knew precisely how they felt. Jason Warwick was impossible to ignore.

From photographs she had seen of him in the newspapers, always with some glamorous television hopeful draped languorously about him, she had never been bowled over by him, although she was well aware that she was in a minority of one. He was just too darkly handsome, too perfect.

Face-to-face she had to acknowledge that she was wrong. His appeal had nothing to do with good looks. His face had strength, a forceful energy, and his eyes had the power to hold her when she would much rather have looked away. To her complete mortification, Kate felt the slow spread of colour suffuse her cheeks.

‘Oh, it’s you, Jay. I just came down for…some—er…’ The man faltered and grinned stupidly.

‘Dessert?’ Jason Warwick offered, his mouth twisting slightly in a parody of a smile, but his eyes never left Kate’s.

‘Dessert? That’s a good one, Jay.’ And he laughed as he left the kitchen. ‘Cheerio, Kate. See you again. Soon,’ he added, with a wink, as if he had known her forever instead of meeting her for the first time ten minutes earlier when he had wandered into the kitchen claiming to need some aspirin.

Not if I see you first, Kate thought as anger deepened the hectic colour of her cheeks. It was galling enough to be found in such a compromising situation, but to be considered a willing partner to it was more than Kate could stomach. She touched the little brooch that had betrayed her name. Her sister had bought it for her and she always wore it. But after tonight, she would leave it at home when she was working.

She could normally handle the occasional amorous dinner guest who strayed into the kitchen without resorting to hysterics or violence, but she had mis-judged the man who until a moment before had been holding her in such a passionate embrace. An embrace Jason Warwick clearly assumed she had encouraged.

But one look was enough to persuade her that if she tried to explain what had happened, that sensual mouth would simply twist in a knowing parody of a smile and he would carry on thinking whatever he chose. Galling though it was to be the object of his unwarranted insolence, she knew she had done nothing to be ashamed of. Her only mistake was to believe the wretched man when he told her he had a headache. He had trapped her against the sink as she turned to get him a glass of water, demanding a kiss before he would release her and taking it, despite her insistent demand that he leave her alone. The man’s breath reeked of whisky and cigar smoke and she raised the back of her hand to her mouth in an attempt to rub away the disgusting taste.

‘Can I get you something, Mr Warwick?’ she asked, raising her chin a little. ‘Or have you come looking for a little dessert on your own account?’

‘If you’re looking for a replacement for Harry, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. I never eat dessert.’

Kate’s dark brows shot up. ‘Never?’ she demanded, quite unable to resist this opportunity to retaliate. His own reputation where women were concerned wouldn’t bear too much scrutiny.

Acknowledging the hit, his mouth twitched into something that might, with encouragement, have turned into a smile. A very cynical smile. ‘Well, certainly not as often as the newspapers would have you believe.’

Kate placed her hand on a heart that was racing uncomfortably. ‘Are you telling me that the newspapers don’t always tell the truth?’ she asked, with complete seriousness.

‘Not always,’ he assured her, with equal gravity. ‘They tend to dwell on the sensational at the expense of probity. A habit they have in common with the female of the species.’

For just a moment she thought she had glimpsed something beyond the scorn, but she had clearly been mistaken. Kate shivered slightly at the chilling sincerity with which he spoke. ‘Perhaps you should improve the quality of your reading matter, Mr Warwick,’ she advised him. ‘And your women.’

‘I hardly think you’re in any position to offer advice on the good character of women,’ he said pointedly.

‘And you are?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, yes, Kate. I know exactly what makes a woman run. Money, power, ambition. They will do anything for it.’ And this time his smile almost reached his eyes. ‘They frequently do.’

She refused to let this go unchallenged. ‘Haven’t you forgotten the most important emotion?’

He folded his arms and regarded her with interest. ‘And what is that?’

‘Love, Mr Warwick.’

‘Love?’ He raised one dark expressive brow in a slightly puzzled expression. ‘Do you mean sex—Kate?’ Her cheeks fired under his raking gaze as he stretched out a long, well-shaped hand to lift the little brooch, read her name. She jumped as his fingers brushed lightly against her breast and, beneath her white wra-pover overall, her nipple hardened with such shocking immediacy that he could not fail to notice. His eyes flickered to hers. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. But that’s not an emotion. It’s a weapon.’

‘What did you come to the kitchen for, Mr Warwick?’ she asked, turning abruptly away. Until that moment, despite his almost unbelievable rudeness, she had felt in control of the situation. Had felt able to match anything he could throw at her. But she had been fooling herself. Her heart had been locked away for so long that she had failed to appreciate the dangerous spike of sexual awareness that had mingled with the buzz of anger.

‘Ice,’ he said simply, in reply to her question.

‘Ice?’

‘Ice. You know. Little cubes of frozen water. If it’s no trouble? But if you want to rush off and keep your appointment with Harry, just point me in the right direction and I’ll help myself.’

She wrenched open the freezer door and tried to remember that this man was a guest in her client’s house. ‘It’s no trouble,’ she said through gritted teeth as she grabbed a bag of ice and dumped it on the table, jabbing a hole in it, wishing it were him. She tipped some into a bowl, holding it out at the full stretch of her arm, unwilling to move any nearer, to risk further contact.

He made no move to take it. Instead he continued to regard her with a level, penetrating, oddly seductive stare that, despite her anger, or perhaps because of the flood of adrenalin rushing giddily through her veins, did something rather odd to her insides, flipping them over in a way that made her breath catch raggedly in her throat and her breast rise and fall rather too quickly.

Gripping the bowl more tightly in a desperate attempt not to betray the urgent increase in her pulse-rate, she lowered her eyes to the broad white expanse of his shirt-front, the top button unfastened to reveal his tanned throat, the silk tie long since pulled from its bow to hang loose about his neck. But he hooked his fingers under her chin, lifting her face until she could not avoid looking up at him. Five feet and four inches in her stockinged feet, she had a long way to look.

‘Is there something else you want, Mr Warwick?’ Her voice stuck somewhere in her throat and emerged as little more than a whisper.

For a long moment his dark eyes held her captive to a searching scrutiny, her apparently boneless legs his unwilling accomplices to this hijack. ‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind about dessert,’ he said, at last.

Kate had thought she was angry, but now she was glad of the fury that lashed through her, restoring some semblance of sanity to her overheated body. Jason Warwick might be considered desirable by some women, but as far as she was concerned he was an arrogant, self-opinionated… She stopped. Forced a smile to her lips. Pride demanded a cool response.

‘What exactly did you have in mind, Mr Warwick?’ she asked. ‘A quick fumble, like your friend Harry?’ If she had thought she could shame him, she realised at once that she had made a mistake. Nothing about him changed, but his eyes sparked ominously as they scanned her face.

‘In all my life…Kate…’ he paused briefly to linger on her name, investing it with the power to insult ‘…I have never done anything even remotely the same as Harry Roberts.’ His voice was as smooth and cutting as glass. ‘I certainly wouldn’t be cheating on my wife with the hired help in someone else’s kitchen.’ She took a swift step backwards, away from the drugging touch of his fingers and for a moment she thought she had escaped him. But the table dug into her back and before she could turn away he had placed his hands, either side of her, making her his prisoner. ‘But then, I’m not married.’

‘So it’s all right?’ She was at his mercy. They both knew it, but she had had enough of lecherous men for one night. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Warwick, but I’m afraid you’re really not my type,’ she said, holding herself rigid, eschewing an unseemly struggle in an effort to retain some semblance of poise.

‘No?’ He raised one eloquent brow and shrugged slightly. Then, taking the bowl of ice from her hands and putting it on the table behind her, he said, ‘Shall we see?’ For him this was just a game, one in which his partners were always more than willing. So he waited, making no move to meet her halfway, apparently expecting her to stand on her toes and reach up to kiss him. Kate was damned if she would.

Yet she knew that kissing Jason Warwick would be a world away from being manhandled by his fellow dinner guest. Her racing pulse, the way her body quickened mindlessly to the warm masculine scent of him, the gentle pressure of his arms as they held her captive told her so, ringing alarm bells in her head. She had thought she was immune to such careless flirtation. Heartbreak was a painful vaccination, but it had served her well over three hard years.

But this man emanated a quite irresistible magnetism and, while her head was behaving rationally, she was only too conscious that her body was not. Her lips were hot and swollen as she imagined his beautiful, passionate mouth plundering them, and there was a trembling about her midriff at the thought of his hands about her waist, drawing her close…

She shivered convulsively. What on earth was happening to her? Sensible, down-to-earth, cold-as-ice Kate, who never let even the most devoted of her admirers within an arm’s length.

Agitated, stalling for time, she reached up to tuck a glossy black strand of hair behind her ear. Her lips parted nervously and she ran a cooling tongue across their surface. For a moment their eyes met and with a jolt like an electric shock she realised that he was angry. With her? For her apparently casual flirtation with Harry Roberts? That was surely ridiculous. Or was it with himself for so eagerly following suit?

Well, she thought, furious at his arrogant assumption that she was prepared to inflate his oversized ego a little further, he needn’t get himself into a bother about it. Her grey eyes turned steely and her naturally warm voice dropped several degrees below zero. ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it that I have absolutely no desire to kiss you, Mr Warwick.’

For a moment he remained perfectly still, the slightest frown creasing his brow. Then with one swift movement his hand slid down her back and he held her against the long, hard length of his body, moulding her breasts, her hips to him, and her body quivered with a surge of longing for something she knew he could give her and in that moment she wanted more than anything in the world.

‘Liar,’ he grated out harshly. Before she could utter a protest, his mouth had staked its claim and it was too late. But in those long, blissful moments she didn’t care. As desire sparked through her like a lightning strike she knew, without the slightest shadow of doubt, that he was the most desirable man she had ever met.

Her response had nothing to do with thought, or common sense. Her lips parted to his coaxing as unthinkingly as she breathed. Her breasts, hard against the broad expanse of his dress shirt, tingled deliciously as heat flickered through her veins and she let herself drown in the sensual pleasure of his tongue, sweet on hers. The kiss seemed to go on forever, her breath rising in tempo to match his, her arms long since having found their way around his neck to draw him down to her.

When finally he held her away from him Kate stared up at him, dazed, every inch of her pulsing with the sort of arousal that until that moment she would have dismissed as the feverish and overworked imagination of the adolescent mind, and a stifled sound came from somewhere deep in her throat.

‘Your word, like any other woman’s, Kate, is worthless.’ The sharp edge to his voice jolted her roughly back to the reality of the kitchen, the edge of the table at her back, the humiliation of having been kissed by a total stranger as if one of them was going to war. And the certain knowledge that it had been a demonstration. Nothing more. The blanked-out expression in his eyes could mean nothing else. And how could she protest? She had told him she didn’t want to kiss him and he had called her a liar. Her lips had betrayed her and proved him right.

‘I said I didn’t want to kiss you, Mr Warwick,’ she said, her voice hoarse from a throat aching with misery. ‘And that was the truth. I didn’t say I wouldn’t enjoy it.’ That was what made it so awful. At least Harry’s fumbling attempt at a pass, horrible though it had been, had had a kind of honesty about it.

Jason Warwick had simply set out to prove a point. Whether he had gained any pleasure from kissing her it was impossible to say. His brown eyes had a natural warmth that disguised the apparent coldness of his soul. Only a vein, beating furiously at his temple, suggested any feeling, any emotion.

For a moment he stared at her, then with a fierce oath he turned away and strode from the kitchen.

‘Mr Warwick,’ she called, a little unsteadily, as he reached the doorway. He paused, but didn’t turn. ‘You’ve forgotten your ice.’

The telephone rang and Kate, deep in concentration adding a row of figures, jumped, lost her place, sighed and lifted the receiver. ‘Kate Thornley,’ she said.

‘Good morning, Miss Thornley.’ Kate returned the greeting, instantly recognising the silvery tones of Lady Maynard, one of her favourite clients, despite the fact that it was Tisha Maynard’s kitchen that had been the scene of the appalling encounter with Jason Warwick.

‘Miss Thornley, I wonder if you would be kind enough to spare me an hour today?’

‘Of course. What kind of party are you planning?’

‘Not a party. I’d rather not discuss it on the telephone.’

Kate stared at the telephone. That sounded ominous. Surely the man hadn’t said anything about finding her in Harry Roberts’ arms? Jason Warwick hadn’t exactly covered himself with glory. ‘I’m free at eleven-thirty. Would that be convenient?’

‘I’ll expect you then.’

Kate replaced the receiver and went into her bedroom to change into something more suitable than jeans for the forthcoming interview. She opened her wardrobe door and stared at her reflection in the mirror.

She had the clear, almost translucent skin that often went with black hair. Only her cheeks were blushed delicately with pink, throwing her full mouth into vivid relief. For days after Jason Warwick had kissed her it had seemed swollen, heated, and she had been unable to bear to look at herself in a mirror. She laid a light finger on her lower lip and the pressure instantly brought his powerful image into sharp focus, and with it the memory of an urgent desire he had jolted free from its cage of ice.

‘Damn him!’ she swore, and reached for her one serious business suit.

It was precisely eleven-thirty when she rang the front doorbell of Lady Maynard’s Belgravia house, and she was immediately shown into the drawing-room.

‘How good of you to come at such short notice, Miss Thornley.’ Lady Maynard, a tall, graceful figure, her fair hair somewhat faded, but her dark eyes still remarkably bright, extended a beringed had. ‘Please sit down.’ Kate perched sedately on the edge of an exquisite sofa and waited. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. I have a business proposition to put to you, Miss Thornley.’

‘A business proposition?’ she repeated faintly. Until that moment she had not realised how tense she had become, convinced that she would have to defend herself in the face of unjust criticism. In freelance catering, where she was invited into homes and offices, reputation was everything. ‘What kind of business proposition?’

‘I would like to engage your professional services exclusively, that is full-time, for the next six months.’ The woman raised a hand to stall Kate’s expected protest. ‘I have no doubt that your business in London is booming. You are a wonderful cook, and, more to the point, a splendid organiser. I can assure you that I have employed enough people who called themselves caterers to appreciate that.’ She paused. ‘Shall I go on? Please tell me if you are booked up so far ahead that I’m wasting my breath.’

Kate, only too aware of the sharp reminder on her desk from the bank manager about the state of her overdraft and the way bookings had fallen in the past few months, particularly for lucrative business lunches as people tightened their belts, barely hesitated. ‘Please go on.’

‘Have you ever been to Norfolk, Miss Thornley?’

‘Norfolk?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘People say it’s flat and maybe it is, but the light is wonderful and it has enormous skies. I live between Norwich and the coast with my nephew. At Fullerton Hall.’ Her eyes were as sharp as needles. ‘Maybe you have heard of it?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No.’

Lady Maynard was not offended, but nodded as if rather pleased. ‘Well, it’s not so grand as Blickling, although it’s just as old.’ She took a booklet from the table beside her, a visitor’s guide, and handed it to Kate. ‘It’s being opened to the public very shortly.’

Kate looked at the photograph on the front cover. It was very beautiful and, despite Lady Maynard’s remark, grand enough, with twin towers at each end of the fa$cLade and enormous brick chimneys, similar to those she had seen on a visit to Hampton Court. ‘It’s lovely.’ She looked up, somewhat at a loss, and said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Heating must be a bit of a problem.’

‘Yes, my dear, it is.’ Lady Maynard laughed. ‘I knew you would be just right for the job. You’re not the sort of girl to get carried away by the romance of working in an Elizabethan manor. You see the problems. That’s good.’

‘I’m sorry…?’

‘We have a sort of tearoom in the old coach house, which was perfectly adequate when we just opened the gardens once a month during the summer. But I’ve decided to use the Edwardian conservatory to provide somewhere rather more comfortable and offer a really special afternoon tea to tempt new visitors. Now, would you consider taking on the task of organising it, running it for the first season and training a local girl to take over from you?’

Under normal circumstances she would simply have turned it down, eager to concentrate on her own business. But these weren’t normal times. Sitting at her desk, going through the figures, Kate faced the hard truth that the six-month contract she had been offered would answer all her immediate worries.

Particularly the problem of her sister’s school fees. She had been banking on a scholarship for this year, but it hadn’t happened.

Kate felt again the sharp tug of compassion as Sam had thrown her arms about her and cried. ‘I did try, Kate. Really I did.’

‘I know, my love. It’s not a reflection on your dancing. They just feel…’ She didn’t continue. She didn’t need to. Samantha was only fourteen, but she had come to terms with what being deaf meant. And deep down she had to sympathise with the dance academy’s reaction. They had given her a place when others wouldn’t even audition her and they were delighted with her progress. But there were so many deserving, talented girls…

It had all been there, tactfully concealed between the lines of the letter informing her that there could be no help with fees this year. With impaired hearing it would be that much harder for Sam. Beautiful, graceful, talented though she was, it was always going to be so much harder for her.

‘Will I have to leave?’ Sam’s voice had quivered slightly. Kate knew if her answer had been yes, her young sister would have taken it bravely. But she had already had to take so much in her short life and she deserved her chance. More than deserved it.

Instead Kate had held her by the shoulders, looked her straight in the face and made her a promise. ‘You won’t have to leave, my love. It would have been great to have had some of your fees paid, but we’ll manage.’ How, she didn’t know. But manage they would, even if she had to take in washing. Her sister’s brilliant smile was reward enough.

She glanced around her now. She hadn’t told her sister about the offer she had received for the flat from her neighbour whose sister wanted to live close by. Until now there had been no point. And it would be a wrench to part with the home they had shared for three years. But with Sam away at dance school for more than half the year, it was ridiculous to keep it. They could manage with something much smaller.

And if she took the job at Fullerton Hall, she would have no expenses for at least six months. Breathing space. The first in a long time. And time to decide on the way forward. She wouldn’t be losing touch entirely. She would still have her column in the London Evening Mail. Maybe she would even have a little time to think about the cookery book she had been collecting ideas for ever since she could remember. She picked up the telephone. There was no point in keeping Lady Maynard waiting for her answer. She would go to Norfolk as soon as Sam’s Easter holidays were over.

It was their last night in the flat. Sam was already packed for school and, apart from essentials that she couldn’t manage without, her own belongings were boxed up to be stored with their furniture.

Kate had cooked a special dinner and now they were draped lazily over the sofa, while Sam zapped through the televison channels looking for something interesting. She paused on a chat-show and for a moment there was a close-up of the host, laughing at something his guest had said. Then the camera panned and suddenly his face was there, in front of her. Jason Warwick. And every nerve-ending jerked to attention.

It was two weeks since the dinner party but almost instinctively her hand flew to her lips. Then he smiled, not as he had smiled at her, but with warmth and humour, and she gave a soft groan of anguish.

The man had held her for a few brief moments, but in that time he seemed to have imprinted himself somehow on to the surface of her skin. Even remote, untouchable like this, her body vibrated to him, and if she put out a hand she must surely be able to push back the thick dark lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead…

Sam said something, but she barely heard; her eyes were fixed upon the screen, wondering that so brief an encounter could unleash such powerful emotions. Emotions she had locked firmly away when she had taken on the responsibility of providing for her sister. When David had issued his ultimatum and it seemed that her life had come to an end.

He hadn’t been like Jason Warwick. David was fair, blue-eyed with an almost irresistible charm. Almost. But when it hadn’t worked, that last evening they spent together, when teasing and tender kisses wouldn’t move her, she had seen a different side of him. The cold, hard practical man. And she had learned her lesson well. All her love was reserved for Sam these days. They had each other, and while her sister needed her that would be enough.

And practical David had turned his blue eyes and his charm in another direction and was married within the year to a girl with parents who could provide financial support for his business, and no burdensome younger sister whose passion for dancing drained away every spare penny. A younger sister who could dance like an angel but whose hearing had been gradually deteriorating since the car accident that had killed their parents.

That had been three years ago, and no one had been able to reach her since. Until a bored, cynical man, with the reputation for breaking the heart of any girl foolish enough to let him, had decided to teach her a lesson and kissed her until, like some latter-day fairy-tale prince, he had brought every frozen emotion painfully back to life. She shivered a little. She had never liked fairy-tales.

Kate’s grey eyes narrowed as she regarded her tormentor. ‘Do you think he practises his smile in front of a mirror?’ she wondered out loud, her mockery a desperate attempt to destroy his power to disturb her. ‘You know, Sam, like a dancer limbering up at the bar? Twenty smiles suitable for old ladies.’ She tried on a patronising smile to amuse her sister. ‘Twenty serious expressions enlivened by a twitch of the mouth, like so. Twenty…’ She blinked angry with herself for allowing him to get under her skin, but not quite able to resist watching him. Then she coloured self-consciously at her sister’s knowing smirk.

The chat-show host smiled slyly at his guest. ‘Come on now, Jay,’ he urged with his deceptively mild Irish lilt. ‘Own up. You don’t really expect to find a woman these days who’s prepared to conform to your oft-vaunted ideals?’

The camera closed in on him. How it loved the moulded bones of his face, she thought, as he raked long fingers through that unruly lock of hair. He regarded his inquisitor intently.

‘I have never made a secret,’ he said, with perfect seriousness, ‘of my belief that women have two functions in life. One is in the kitchen. The other in bed.’ The camera switched to the audience as it roared its approval, the men in agreement, the women apparently in hope. He acknowledged them with a slight bow. ‘As you see, they don’t object to either occupation.’

‘Oh, God,’ Kate said faintly. She felt suddenly quite sick.

‘Which do you consider the most important, Jay?’ his host prompted with devilish glee.