Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (45 page)

She risked a tiny sip. It melted into her lips, and suffused her mouth and throat with a seductive, tingling warmth that irradiated her entire being like the rays of the sun on a winter’s morn.

Her eyes watered with the effort of trying not to cough, but she still had to, anyway.

He waited for her to recover, an amused quirk disturbing the stern line of his chiselled mouth. ‘I want to make a deal with you.’

‘What sort of a deal?’ Though warmed by the cognac, she
reminded herself to be cautious. She said hoarsely, ‘I hope you know nothing will tempt me to compromise my journalistic standards.’

He broke into a laugh. It lit his eyes and made them crinkle up at the corners. ‘What standards?’ Then he caught her glance and his face grew solemn. ‘I would never try to tempt you from your standards, Cate. But I can give you something you want, and you can give me something I need.’

‘Really? What’s that?’ The cognac, or maybe his deep laugh, had melted into her bloodstream and infused her voice with a husky quality she could have done without.

He made a gesture with one bronzed hand. ‘You want your story. I’m prepared to give it to you. First break, even ahead of my own newspapers. Full disclosure of the merger. Interview—photographs—everything.’

Excitement surged to her head. Full disclosure would give her a far more meaningful scoop than a few lines that were light on details, but heavy on hints and guesses. And an actual interview with him! It would take her right up there with Steve and Barbara. She could get Gran into a private hospital and …

She roused herself from her fantasies, and caught him studying her face. His eyes were veiled, but his sexy mouth had edged into a very slight smile, like a wolf with a tasty little goose in its sights. It stirred her misgivings. ‘What’s the catch?’

‘Ah, the catch.’ He straightened up a little, as if to gain more leverage in the contest. ‘The catch is that you must wait for three weeks to publish. If you can’t promise that, I’ll spill the story this afternoon and the merger will collapse.’ He gave her a moment to digest, his eyes intent on her face, then added softly, ‘And then you’ll have nothing to report.’

She frowned. Three weeks was an eternity in publishing. Could she trust him to keep his word? A man with his cool, uncompromising mouth was unlikely to be a slimy liar like
Steve. And if she took into account his stunning eyes and that appealing little cleft in his chin—

She fought down a warm tidal surge in her blood. Really, she must not focus on his physical attributes. She had to remember he was a shark in the ocean of world affairs, and she needed to keep her head. An unnerving thought struck her. The one thing he
did
have going for him was the genuine affection with which he’d talked about his father.

What if he was setting her up to take some sort of revenge for her cutting obituary?

She gave the cognac a wary sip. ‘You must realise that I have to report on the memorial today. You’re not asking me to falsify the truth, are you?’

A muscle tightened in his jaw. ‘I’m asking you to do the
ethical
thing and limit your report to strictly what was on the record. When my merger goes through you can write what you like.’

He was lounging back on the seat, his long limbs lazily disposed, but despite his casual posture she sensed a waiting stillness in him, as though a lot hung on her acceptance. Again she wondered just how important this merger was to Russell Inc. Was the corporate giant in trouble?

Sad creature that she was, she considered drawing out his suspense, taking her time to agree so as to postpone the moment when he dropped her from the enchanted limo and she plummeted back into ordinary life. A man with such a low opinion of her integrity deserved to be tortured a little.

She sighed. Lucky for him she was cursed with a conscience.

‘Oh, all right,’ she said, leaning back against the cushions.

She could feel his smouldering gaze scorch her from her hair all the way down to her toes. It was flattering to command such a furnace-blast of attention.

‘As well,’ he added in an offhand tone, ‘today you act as my girlfriend. ‘

‘What?’ She sat bolt upright. Shocked at first into a laugh, she
stared at him then for incredulous seconds. ‘Are you serious? Do you think anyone would believe that? I know my friends would be amazed, not to mention the newsroom. I mean—don’t get me wrong, but anyone who knows me knows that you’re absolutely the last person on earth I’d ever dream of—’

She broke off in time to realise his lean, harsh face had stiffened. ‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ he said drily, ‘since the feeling is mutual. In fact, your total unsuitability is one of your greatest assets. People will expect me to dump you in five minutes, and I will.’

‘Oh.’ She cast him a glance through her lashes. It was a revelation to discover that a tall, dark sexy super-supremo could be so sensitive. But with his temper, it seemed prudent to humour him a little. ‘Well, if I agreed, what exactly would you expect me to do?’

He shrugged, and gave his cognac a bored swirl. ‘Just walk into the luncheon with me. Hang around. Act—like a girlfriend.’ He sounded so offhand, it hardly seemed like much of a request. ‘You aren’t committed to anyone, are you?’ His eyes fell on her ringless hands.

Committed. Deep down inside her something lurched. Even after more than a year words like that could still throw her.

It was hard to fall from prospective bride straight back into bright, chirpy single. Perhaps because she still saw Steve at work. She knew, though, it probably wasn’t fair to blame him altogether. A young man like him—of course he’d been daunted. He came from a big family and had no concept of how close she and Gran were. Then when Gran had changed overnight from her clever, funny and invincible self and turned into a frail elderly lady, he’d been jealous of the time Cate had had to spend with her.

As always she tried to thrust away thoughts of the scene with Steve the night Gran had been admitted to hospital for tests. His casual words across the hospital bed, devastating for her, near fatal for Gran.

Her own whispered responses, so defensive and emotional.

Gran had been out of it, so they’d thought, but not far enough out.

Her mind shied away from the choking guilt and fear she’d felt when Gran had clutched at her hand and gone into seizure. Why, oh,
why
hadn’t she put an end to the scene at once? She should never have allowed Steve anywhere near Gran.

He’d apologised later. Grovelled, in fact. Promised the earth if she’d take him back. Even Gran had urged her to relent. But she never would. A strong, instinctive part of her had known that if a man truly loved a woman, he cared for the people she loved.

She clenched her cognac glass. She’d learned from the love experience. A man expected a woman to devote herself exclusively to him. Give up her own interests. Spend all her weekends at the football, or her evenings watching sport on television, or playing pool with his beer-swilling friends. Until Gran had had her heart bypass and was safe and well, there could be no new love for Cate Summerfield, even if she did ever want to chance that stony road again.

‘Well?’

Tom Russell’s voice roused her, his black brows bristling with impatience.

‘No, no,’ she assured him. ‘Not—currently.’

What was she hiding? Tom wondered, scanning her face with a cynical gaze. ‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘Of course I’m sure,’ she snapped.

‘Ah. Then you’ll do it.’ He raised his glass to his lips and his lashes flickered down.

Cate eyed the determined line of his handsome jaw, and wondered how many people in his life had ever given him opposition.

She wrinkled her brow. ‘I suppose I could do it, so long as it doesn’t get out. I’m not sure how my grandmother or the people at work would take it.’

There was a second of stunned silence, then he gave a sharp little laugh. ‘Are you saying you’d be ashamed to—be with me?’

‘Not ashamed, exactly.’ His face was picture of bemusement, and she felt some remorse. Naturally he saw himself as a highly desirable property. With people like Olivia West throwing themselves at him from all directions, it was only to be expected. ‘It’s not
you,
so much as—’ She made a vague gesture and mumbled, ‘You know. What you represent.’

Struggling to find his way through shifting mists of unreality, Tom scoured her face for signs of teasing. But her big sea-green eyes held only earnestness, and, goddammit, he realised with a deep inner shock, something that looked like pity. When had he, Tom Russell, ever inspired pity?

He stared at her for long seconds with narrowed eyes. ‘Then we’d better make sure your family and friends never find out. I would hate to embarrass you.’

Cate bit her lip, aware of having been less than tactful. ‘It’s not just a case of embarrassment. It’s whether my friends would believe I could be seduced—even temporarily by your—’ she waved her glass ‘—your wealth, and all that. And that brings me to—something else I need to get straight.’ She took another swallow to bolster her courage, and her voice deepened. ‘I hope you mean this purely as a business arrangement, and you’re not hoping to whizz me off afterwards to some sleazy downtown hotel room.’

A muscle twitched in his lean, smooth-shaven cheek, and his eyes glittered with a dangerous intensity. After a second he said, ‘I’m asking you because, rightly or wrongly, you were on the spot, and I may as well make the most of a bloody annoying situation. As for whether I could seduce you with my wealth … or that I might be planning some afternoon …’ He shook his head while he wrestled with the disgraceful concept. Then he tossed off the rest of his cognac and gazed at her with derisive amusement. ‘I need someone
to act the part. And that’s all you’ll be required to do, sweetheart.
Act.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. So long as it’s only acting. And as long as you honour your part of the deal and don’t leak the story without me.’

He hissed in an incredulous breath. ‘For some reason,’ he exclaimed when he could find the words, ‘the people I do business with believe they can trust my word.’

She arched her brows. ‘Maybe they’re birds of a similar feather.’

Tom experienced a further shock. What did she think he was—some shoddy used-car salesman? What had he ever done to this woman to earn such distrust? A blistering retort rose to his tongue, but he managed to control it, realising it was far more likely to be the things his father was reputed to have done.

‘Look,’ he said, with an attempt at smoothness, ‘we’ll just have to trust each other, won’t we? I’ll be trusting
you
to act convincingly enough to persuade Devlin—’

‘Is that Olivia’s husband?’

‘That’s correct—Malcolm Devlin—that we’re together. Do you think you can do it?’

Cate sank back into the plush luxury. Could she? It would be a huge risk, a leap into the unknown, but it would give her a fabulous inside view of a society party. She might even get a feature article out of it, once the embargo was lifted. Although …

She let her gaze flicker over his lean, tall sexiness. She would need to take care. He was so damnably attractive, he might talk her into anything.

She gave a shrug. ‘I suppose I could give it a go. ‘

His eyes gleamed. ‘So …’ He held out an imperious hand. ‘Do we have a deal?’

Too late she realised that touching him was a mistake. It was like putting her hand in the fire. His lean, strong hand closed around hers and sparked that blood-stirring electric frisson along her arm she’d thought never to know again,
while at the exact same instant some fiery turbulence disturbed the cool grey surface of his irises.

Oh, God.
Her insides plunged into chaos. She withdrew her singed hand with what she hoped looked like some sort of poise, and turned to the window in a confused pretence of looking out, her face and neck swamped with heat while her heart galloped for the finish of the Sydney marathon. All at once her black suit felt stifling.

They’d been winding their way through some swank residential streets lined with trees in spring blossom, when the limo took a sudden turn down towards the harbour foreshore. The marina at Rushcutters Bay hoved into view, home to the big, glossy cruisers belonging to the wealthiest of the Sydney yachting set.

They turned off to draw up before the entrance of a white building perched on the edge of the water. The undisclosed location, she realised. With extreme misgivings she viewed the insignia over its entrance—‘The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’.

Not the usual haunt of her social circle. What had she let herself in for?

The driver, a huge burly man with enormous hands who looked like a nightclub bouncer, climbed out, opened her door and stood to attention.

With her throat suddenly dry, she turned to Tom. ‘Shouldn’t we discuss the logistics of this?’

‘What’s to discuss?’

‘Well …’ She clung to the seat, unwilling to leave the comparative safety of the car.

‘Go on, go on,’ he chivvied. ‘Don’t keep poor Timmins waiting.’

She swallowed, and murmuring an apology to the massive Timmins, stepped out, to stand unarmed and defenceless before gang headquarters of the
Clarion’s
sworn enemies.

T
OM RUSSELL
got out of the car, slung a brisk arm about Cate’s shoulders and urged her towards the glass entrance doors. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

‘But …’ She tried to hang back, but he swept her inexorably forward. ‘Shouldn’t we work out what we’re going to say? Shouldn’t we get our story straight? Like how we met, and all that?’

He raised his brows. ‘You aren’t feeling nervous, are you, Cate?’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She made her voice far firmer than she felt. ‘Why would I be nervous?’

‘Relax.’ There was a grim twist to his mouth. ‘There’ll be no need to tell anyone anything. One look at you will be enough.’

The doors slid open, and as she moved forwards into the foyer she felt his fingers at the nape of her neck. With a quick tug he slipped off her hair ribbon.