The Irresistible Tycoon (17 page)

‘Because it's a beautiful day, Maggie is in America and
I thought you might be able to use a friend's company,' he said quietly, still with his gaze directed at the small figure in front of them.

He'd done it again, read her mind. Kim didn't know whether to be angry or thrilled, but in view of all the complications that went hand in hand with this man she decided on the former.

‘That's very kind of you,' she began tersely, ‘but—'

‘No, it's not kind, Kim.' He looked up at her then, and she felt her breath leave her body at the intensity in the beautiful silver eyes. ‘It's selfish, if you really want to know. I want to be here with you, and with Melody. I've wanted to be with you every damn weekend for months and this morning I decided enough was enough.'

‘Oh.' She stared at him, totally taken aback and with all coherent thought clean gone.

‘So what do you say to a day together?' he asked slowly.

He wasn't touching her, not in any physical way, but Kim could feel the power of his magnetic personality reaching out and enclosing her. He looked hard and dark and sexy, and she found herself beginning to tremble.

‘I thought perhaps lunch at a little place I know,' he continued quietly, ‘and then an afternoon on the river, followed by dinner at my place. Martha is standing by for Melody's likes and dislikes.'

‘Lucas—'

‘Just friends, Kim, if that's what you want.' He surveyed her with unfathomable eyes. ‘You can't deny you could use a friend right now.'

A friend was one thing; Lucas Kane was quite another. Nevertheless the thought of a day with him was like Christmas and New Year rolled into one and magnified a million times, and Kim felt her resolve wavering. And then Melody took the decision right out of her hands when her daughter came to stand in front of them, small hands on
tiny hips, as she said, ‘Can Lucas stay for lunch, Mummy?
Please?
'

Kim hesitated for a moment, but it was long enough for Lucas to sense her indecisiveness and capitalise on it with the ruthlessness that was an integral part of him. ‘Better than that,' he said lightly. ‘We're going out to lunch and then you can have a ride in a boat on the river—would you like that? And if you're
very
good…'

‘What? What?' As Lucas let his voice die away mysteriously, Melody jumped up and down in her excitement.

‘If you're very good you can come and see where I live,' Lucas said softly, ‘and meet Jasper and Sultan.'

‘Who are Jasper and Sultan?'

‘My dogs—very big dogs.'

‘Do they bite?'

‘They don't know how to bite,' Lucas assured her seriously, ‘only how to lick.'

Melody nodded, believing him utterly. ‘I like dogs like that,' she stated firmly.

Kim looked at them helplessly, and then, as Lucas raised his eyes to hers, the crystal gaze pinned her. ‘Go and get changed,' he said very quietly, ‘while I wait for you.'

They continued looking at each other for a second, and Kim's pulse leapt at the tone of the last words. He was an enigma, this man. Every time she thought she had got him worked out he did something to amaze her, the way he had today. But whereas all Graham's surprises had been nasty ones, everything she learnt about Lucas just made her love him more.

It was too dangerous a line to pursue, and Kim held out her hand to Melody. ‘Let's make ourselves pretty,' she said as lightly as she could.

 

It was an enchanted day, the first of many in the weekends that followed. Lucas seemed to hit just the right note with
Melody, being neither too indulgent or too strict, and Melody took to Greenacres—Lucas's fabulous home with its several acres of grounds—like a duckling to water.

She took huge delight in bossing Lucas's enormous hounds around and fell in love with each one of Martha's cats, as well as Martha herself. And the old woman fully reciprocated the feeling, taking on the role of fussy grandma as though she had been born to it.

Lucas was always the perfect host—relaxed, urbane, amusing and thoughtful, and his kisses—social kisses, Kim assured herself, and not to be confused with anything else—were gentle, warm and totally non-threatening. The kisses of a friend.

After that first Saturday, Kim had tried to refuse further outings but Lucas had simply ignored her protestations with an arrogance that was pure Kane, although she had stuck to her guns about never staying the night at Greenacres. She felt uncomfortable at the thought of waking up in Lucas's home; she felt uncomfortable about a lot of things that were happening. But she kept reassuring herself that Lucas knew exactly where he stood—she couldn't have been more specific.

So all in all it was a magical summer, partly, but with dark surreal undercurrents that sometimes brought Kim wide awake and sweating in the middle of the night.

And then, at the beginning of September, two things happened within a few hours of each other which ripped Kim's fragilely built world apart, and were all the more unexpected for the great weekend she'd just had.

The weekend had started with Maggie phoning her from America on Friday evening to say that Pete had turned up on her doorstep with an engagement ring.

‘He can't do without me, Kim.' Maggie had been on such a high the receiver had fairly vibrated. ‘Apparently when I left England it prompted him to do some serious
thinking and he's been having counselling for his fear of commitment. It brought up all sorts of things, issues he's been burying for years all relating back to his childhood and so on, but he knew he'd lose me if he didn't persevere—so he did!'

‘I'm so glad, Maggie.' And she had been.

‘He wants us to get married as soon as possible and get a place together. He's so
different
. He's talking about the future, children; I can hardly believe it's Pete.'

‘If anyone deserves a happy ending it's you, Maggie,' Kim had said warmly.

‘I think he half expected me to contact him in spite of all I said before I left, and when I didn't it convinced him this was make or break time. He'll never know how near I came, time after time, to picking up the phone, though,' Maggie added ruefully. ‘He's staying out here with me for a short holiday and then we're flying home together the third week of September, so I'll see you then.'

‘What's the ring like?'

‘Oh, Kim, it's gorgeous! Three emeralds enclosed by a border of diamonds.'

There was more of the same, and the two women chatted for another two or three minutes before they finished the call. The news gave Kim a warm glow all through the following Saturday, spent at Lucas's home with Melody, and the Sunday when Lucas took them out for Sunday lunch before they visited an antique fair in the afternoon, returning home early because Melody had a headache.

But Monday morning started badly. One of Melody's school shoes disappeared off the face of the earth, a full glass of milk hopped off the breakfast bar and hurled itself on to the floor—according to a tearful Melody—and then Kim couldn't find her car keys. By the time they turned up under a cushion Kim was running half an hour behind schedule, which wouldn't have mattered so much normally
but in view of the important meeting due to start promptly at nine in Lucas's office mattered
immensely
.

Since their weekend jaunts, Kim had become almost obsessive about fulfilling all of her responsibilities at the office. The last thing—the very last thing—she wanted was for Lucas to think she was presuming on their relationship; she still hesitated to call it friendship, even in her mind. Friendship should be a pleasantly relaxing, easy, agreeable type of thing, predictable and harmless. Lucas didn't fit one of those criteria.

Kim was constantly on tenterhooks around him, vitally and exhaustingly alive. She was exhilaratingly aware of every little thing about him—the slightest inflexion of his voice which told her the sort of mood he was in, the way his intimidatingly intelligent mind never stopped selecting and storing data, the way he could strike with deadly intent and accuracy. And yet he'd allowed her to see his private side too, that seductive and fascinating part of him that was much more dangerous than anything he displayed in his working life.

On arriving in Kane Electrical's car park, the heavy driving rain exploded into a cloudburst as soon as Kim opened the car door, and in spite of the doors to Reception only being a few yards away her light summer coat was soaked through after her breathless dash.

Great. Raindrops were trickling down her neck and dripping off her fringe as the lift whisked her up to the top floor. Ten minutes past nine and she looked like a drowned rat.

Once in her office she could hear voices from the other room, and after switching on her desk lamp—the morning had turned as dark as night—she hurried into her private cloakroom and stripped off her wet coat, quickly dabbing her fringe and the rest of her hair before peering in the mirror at her damp face.

‘Kim?' The knock on the cloakroom door corresponded with Lucas's voice. ‘Are you okay?'

Whether it was the irritations and panic of the morning, or the fact that she felt she had been living on a knife-edge ever since she had first come to work for Lucas, or simply that her period was due soon and she was ready to argue with the bricks in the wall, Kim didn't know, but suddenly she felt angry.

She wrenched open the door and glared up into Lucas's face as she said, ‘Of course I'm okay. You haven't left them all in there to come and ask me that, have you? What will they think?'

‘Think?' He hadn't liked her tone and the chiselled face told her so. ‘What on earth are you talking about?'

‘I'm talking about you nipping out here,' she snapped back testily, aware she was being horrendously unfair but unable to stop herself. ‘They'll either think you're checking up on me or that we're having an affair.'

He stared at her as though she had gone mad. ‘In the first place I have never “nipped” anywhere in my life,' he said icily, ‘and in the second this is the first time you have been later than half past eight in all the time you've worked for me. When I saw a light go on and you still didn't make an appearance, I wondered if you'd had a bump on the way to work in view of the atrocious weather conditions.'

‘Well, I haven't.'

‘So it appears.' The silver eyes narrowed into slits of light. ‘And as for anyone making a judgement on what I do and don't do as far as my secretary is concerned, it's none of their damn business.'

‘In other words, you don't care what assumption they might make,' she said frostily, as an errant raindrop trickled down her forehead.

‘Don't be ridiculous.' He was really furious now; the grey eyes were positively shimmering with white heat.

‘I'm not being ridiculous.' She knew she ought to stop, she knew it but her tongue seemed to have a life of its own. ‘You might think it's okay for people to think we're having an affair but I don't! Word has probably already got around that we've been seeing each other out of work; what do you think that looks like to everyone?'

‘That we like each other?' Lucas suggested with a silky smoothness that spoke of controlled rage.

‘You know what they'll think, especially with your reputation,' she shot back tightly.

‘That enough, Kim.' He looked as if he was about to shake her.

‘No it's not. Not nearly enough.' She couldn't remember how all this had stared but suddenly she knew this moment had been brewing for weeks, if not months, perhaps from the first days of their relationship when he had started to inveigle himself into her life and into her heart.

She couldn't be what Lucas wanted her to be. She didn't have the will-power or the strength to try, or the courage to face the pain and rejection if he decided she wasn't good enough. Graham had told her she was an empty shell—beautiful packaging with no present inside was how he had described it, once. Useless in bed, frigid, cold—he'd thrown accusation after accusation at her until, in spite of herself, she had begun to believe them. She didn't dare sleep with Lucas and see the disappointment in his eyes…

‘Come into my office when you've calmed down and are ready to begin work,' Lucas said with cold emphasis. ‘We'll discuss this later.'

‘I'm giving you my notice.' Her face was as white as a sheet but her voice was steady. ‘And I am calm.'

‘You're giving in your notice because I asked you if you were all right?' Lucas bit out incredulously.

‘No. Yes. I mean…' She willed herself not to cry, forcing
back the tears with superhuman effort. ‘I don't want to work here any more.'

‘You don't want to work for
me
,' he said grimly. ‘What about Melody?'

‘What about her?' she said, sticking her chin out. ‘I've paid off the last of the debts—' thanks to his generosity ‘—and we're solvent again. I can find a job that covers the mortgage and our bills and that's all I want.'

‘I meant, what about
me
and Melody?' he rasped tersely. ‘It might have escaped your notice but your daughter's got pretty fond of me over the last little while. How is it going to affect her if I disappear out of her life without so much as a by your leave?'

She jerked her head back, her face blazing with a mixture of hot defiance and panic, and it was the panic that made her say the words that cut like a jagged blade. Cruel words, words she didn't mean even as she voiced them. ‘So all this has been a ploy to get me into your bed through Melody, has it?' she said in a stony voice that was a cover for the desperate wailing inside. ‘You would actually sink so low to use a child to get what you wanted?'

For a moment he stared at her in blank disbelief, and then she saw a rage such as she'd never seen on any human being's face darken his countenance like a terrifying winter storm. He stepped into the small cloakroom, slamming the door behind him as his eyes shot white fire into her frightened face.