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through the front door.'

'I see. Why didn't you return my call today?'

She frowned. 'I didn't get a message that you called.'

'I told my secretary to get in touch with you at the airstrip, but she said you were out.'

Light began to dawn and she asked, 'Is your secretary by any chance named Helen?'

'Yes.'

'I tried to ring her back but the line was engaged.'

'Never mind, I got hold of you in the end. Why don't you come into town and meet me

for lunch tomorrow?' he suggested.

Kirstie covered the mouthpiece of her receiver and leaned her forehead against the

kitchen wall as she raced through a whole gamut of emotion. Seeing Francis was like

playing with a bomb she knew would go off in her face at any time. 'I can't,' she said at

last. 'I'm busy tomorrow.'

'Liar,' he told her. 'I talked to your brother Paul earlier, and he said you didn't have

anything on for the afternoon.'

Damn him. Damn them both. She screwed up her forehead and tried to think. Francis

said silkily, 'We still haven't had our talk.'

'I don't happen to think it's necessary.'

'I do.' He sounded like velvet and iron, and it was a combination she was beginning to

dread. 'If you don't want to come into New York, I can always drop by tomorrow

evening. I'm sure we can eventually persuade Louise into giving us some privacy.'

'That's blackmail!' she exclaimed, horrified at imagining the scene and furious at him for

using such base tactics.

'That's right,' he said serenely. 'See you at one o'clock. You know where the office is. I'll

have my secretary reserve a parking space for you.'

'If you think you can coerce me like that ' she shouted, but he had already hung up and

she was left gibbering to the high buzz of a dialling tone.

Kirstie slammed the receiver back on the hook and stormed into the empty living-room.

How dared he? It would serve him right if she left town, and he came to face Louise

alone! It would serve them both right! But then the thought of Louise's cold blue eyes on

Saturday morning pulled her up short. Kirstie had no idea what her sister would do if

Louise found out she'd been lying.

Perhaps lunch wasn't such a bad idea after all. She. could be icy, composed. She could

wither Francis with her scorn for his blackmail, intimidate him with her poise. She got a

grim sense of satisfaction in contemplating it.

Cripes, she didn't have a thing to wear!

Kirstie did have something to wear by one o'clock on Thursday. She was thankful for it

when she walked down the corridor of Amalgamated Trust's executive floor. Original

prints adorned the walls; every inch of the patterned grey and steel-blue carpet screamed

corporate wealth. The immaculate receptionist downstairs who had given her clearance

and directions had looked like a high-class businesswoman. One glance at her and all

Kirstie's doubts as to how much she had spent on her appearance had vanished.

Her cream silk blouse, the knee-length tailored beige skirt, the high-heeled pumps

became as comforting as a security blanket. Kirstie spoke calmly to Francis's private

secretary. When the other woman turned to the intercom, she touched her wide leather

belt to make sure it was straight.

The secretary turned back to her with a superbly polished smile. 'I do hope you had a

nice drive, Miss Philips. You're welcome to go right in. Can I get you a cup of coffee?'

'No, thank you. There's no need to get up, I'll let myself through.' Kirstie opened one of

the double walnut doors and entered Francis's office.

He sat with his head bent over a file at a desk situated in front of a row of windows that

reached from ceiling to floor. 'I'm sorry about this, Kirstie. Take a seat, I'll be finished in

a minute.'

Tired-looking Francis in that exquisite handmade business suit aroused such a reaction

in her that she turned away in silence to study a row of reference books on one of his

bookshelves. Her eyes roamed blindly over the leatherbound volumes. Gone was the

unscrupulous manipulator from yesterday, and in his place was a man who looked as if

he needed nothing more than a hug.

There was a sound of paper shuffling. 'Thank God that's done. If I had to proofread any

more statistics, I'd ' He stopped in mid-sentence. Kirstie looked over her shoulder at him.

Francis had sat back in his chair, his expression arrested. 'Heavens to Betsy,' he said,

'will you look at that?'

'Hello to you, too,' she said drily and walked over to take the seat across from him. The

side slit in the skirt fell apart as she crossed her legs. Francis's green gaze ran up the

movement and flared alight. Oh, God, the outfit was a mistake.

He jabbed a button on the console at his right. 'Helen,' he said casually, 'no more calls.'

Kirstie sat straight in her chair. Francis rose to his feet in a leisurely fashion, eyes never

leaving her. Blood thundered in her ears. With a brisk gesture she checked her

wristwatch. 'Isn't it about time we were leaving?'

He rounded the desk, smiling a lazy, predatory smile. 'There's no hurry.'

She bolted to her feet and whirled in a panic. 'I disagree.' He caught her by the shoulders

and turned her back to face him. 'Francis ' she babbled.

'Yes, dear?' he murmured, lifting one hand to run his fingers through the sleek silk of her

hair.

All the starch left Kirstie's body in a whoosh. She could have sunk to the floor right

there and then. Such a loss of control frightened her; with one touch he broke through

every one of her preconceived notions about today and made a mockery of her

resolutions. With a panic against that seductive drowning, she fought for coherence. 'I—

I'm hungry.'

'So am I,' he whispered, watching her lips. 'You look sensational. In fact, you look more

than sensational. You look good enough to eat. Shouldn't we be going?'

His apparent effortless switch from sensuality to practicality had her floundering. She

stared at him, stranded in a desert of no reply, and with a groan he put an arm around her

shoulders and purposefully steered her out of the door. 'We'll be back around three

o'clock, Helen,' he calmly told his secretary.

Kirstie was all too aware of the other woman's fascinated scrutiny as they walked past

her desk, but she could do nothing except follow Francis's lead.

He took her down to the garage basement, for her a haunted place. She stayed quiet and

subdued under the weight of the terrible memories, meekly getting into the passenger

seat of his silver BMW. Francis, however, seemed totally unaffected by the scene. There

was no reason for him to be otherwise, as for him the garage was a daily reality and he

would have long since exorcised any uncomfortable ghost of the kidnapping.

But that lasting, nagging guilt kept Kirstie preoccupied when another time she might

have asked him where they were dining out. Thus they were already pulling up outside

the high-rise apartment building by Central Park before she had her wits gathered.

'What's this?' she asked stupidly, as Francis switched off the engine and got out of the

car.

He strolled unhurriedly around to her side and opened her door for her, a suppressed

smile deepening one corner of his engaging mouth. ' "This" is lunch.'

'Here?'
Shock lent far too much emphasis on the one word that exploded out of her

mouth, and she cursed herself furiously as his smile deepened.

'Unless you would prefer that I brought it down to the car?' he asked smoothly. Victor

the doorman had approached and stood just behind Francis, so conspicuously not

looking at them that Kirstie scrambled out of the car just to avoid having any more of

their conversation overheard. Francis carelessly handed over his car keys to the other

man while Kirstie twitched her skirt into place with the last tattered remnants of her

dignity, then he placed one light hand at the small of her back and escorted her once

more up to his apartment.

He'd tricked her. He had deliberately said nothing about this, had manipulated her into

coming in the first place—how could she have let her guard down in his office, just

because for one heartstopping moment he had looked tired, even inexplicably

discouraged? Why couldn't they have gone to a restaurant; why couldn't he have left her

barriers intact; what, oh, what was she doing just letting him propel her into his empty

private domain? Speculation sent her thinking into a highly erratic skid, so that when

they finally entered his apartment, and she saw the sparkling array of crystal, china and

heavy cream linen laid out immaculately on his polished dining table, she simply

dragged to a halt and stared, speechless.

A delicious scent of freshly baked bread and something that smelled like hollandaise

sauce wafted from the kitchen. It was obvious that he had put a lot of thought and

planning into this. Francis stood beside her, smiling again at the expression on her face,

hands casually tucked in his pockets as he waited until she turned to him with a helpless

little shrug. 'I don't know what to say.'

'Must you say anything?' he replied quietly. Her eyes followed the inherent grace of his

body as he went to open the balcony door, drawing the curtains to let in the bright

afternoon sunlight. 'Why don't you have a seat instead, while I go fetch the soup?'

He left her standing alone, so after a long indecisive moment she surrendered to the

occasion and seated herself at the lovely table just as he reappeared carrying a steaming

silver tureen. Kirstie peered around his elbow as he served her a generous portion of

fresh cream of mushroom soup and then filled his own bowl.

He disappeared again to bring back a crisp French muscadet wine nestled in a sweating

ice bucket.

Francis took the seat opposite her, and Kirstie watched the wine he poured splash into

her glass. 'How did you arrange all this?' she asked.

He sent her a brilliant, laughing glance, the green of his eyes the vivid focal point of the

entire room. 'I stayed up half the night cooking?'

'Don't tease,' she begged in a mutter, her own grey eyes falling back to her soup as she

tasted it. It was, she found without surprise, superb.

'I have this fairy godmother,' said Francis, relenting as he settled back in his seat with a

sigh of relaxation. Bit by bit the marks of pressure he had been wearing like war wounds

in the office eased away. The difference was so remarkable that it took years off his face.

'Her name, you may remember from your last visit here, is Mrs Callihan. She cleans,

does the shopping and cooks whenever I need it. I do believe that if I asked her she

would tuck me into bed at night with a hot toddy.'

'You're lucky,' she said, savouring the rich, delicate flavour of her soup.

'I know it. It is no exaggeration, believe me, when I say I don't know how I'd have

survived these last five years without her.'

Something in his expression caught her attention, not so much the words, as he had

spoken so very indifferently. Giving in to impulse, she laid down her spoon and asked,

as she stared at her empty bowl, 'Francis, how do you stand it?'

He didn't pretend to misunderstand, or prevaricate. Instead, he replied with a quiet

straightforwardness that was made all the more terrible by the very lack of self-pity. 'Oh,

I was young and ambitious, and work was just a game I wanted to win. I had all the time

in the world and so, like the rich, I squandered it. Then working all day became just a

habit, far easier to continue when I had made no outside emotional investment. It's a

very common occurrence.'

'But what about the things that can enrich you so much?' she asked, aching at thought of

the dry existence he depicted with such intimate knowledge. 'What about a family,

friends, children?'

'Now there's a question,' he said, and by acknowledging it with such wry adroitness

turned it neatly aside. He looked up and sent her a little twisted smile. 'Time for the main

course, I think.'

He took away the used tableware and brought in an outstanding entree of freshly

steamed salmon steaks with creamed broccoli and new potatoes, refilled her wine glass

and lifted his glass to her in a mocking salute. 'To my kidnapper,' he toasted, raising his

eyebrows in amusement when she sat as still as stone.

'I won't drink to that,' she said abruptly, turning her face aside, breathing hard against a

sudden constriction in her chest.

'No? A pity, as it was the most—interesting thing that has happened to me in some time.'

Her face flamed over with mortification as he drank deeply from his glass, then said,

still in that careless, frivolous way of his, 'And really, I can't think of a better way for

you to get rid of that persistent guilt of yours, which is about as much use to carry

around as a fifth wheel.'

'I acted wrongly on wrong information,' she stated flatly, spearing a flake of her salmon

without making any effort to eat it. She stared at it, her eyes too heavy, too reluctant to

meet his. 'You didn't deserve it, Francis.'