Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (46 page)

‘What are you doing?’ she cried, reaching to retrieve it. But she was too late. The full mass of her hair tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. Tom Russell slipped the ribbon into his pocket and surveyed her, satisfaction in his gaze.

‘There, that’s better. Now try not to talk. In fact, it would be a good idea if you avoid my stepsisters and their mothers. And for God’s sake don’t tell anyone you’re a reporter. If anyone tries to question you, move away from them.’

‘But I’m sure you’ll want me to at least greet your family members. Otherwise, won’t it seem rude?’

His frown darkened. ‘We’re not here for any bloody garden party.’

Behind the reception desk on the other side of the foyer hung a large framed picture of towering waves poised to crash down on a team of grinning sailors leaning backwards off the edge of a yacht. It made Cate seasick just to look at them.

She was orienting herself to the place when Olivia West bustled in from somewhere in the interior of the building. Olivia stopped short when she saw them, her glance flicking from one to the other. A curious expression stole over her face.

‘Oh, Tom.’ After a moment she moved forward, and greeted Tom as if for the first time that day with an extravagant buffing of cheeks.

‘Well, well. What do you know?’ she muttered with a little sideways glance at Cate. She looked quickly about the foyer, then her eyes lit on a door to the left of the reception desk. She strode over and peered in. ‘Good. Come in here where we can talk. We want to use this room,’ she bawled to the receptionist, who seemed nonplussed, possibly wondering why he was being shouted at at such close range.

Frowning, Tom Russell glanced at his watch, then with an impatient gesture followed Olivia into the room. Cate hesitated a moment too long and the door closed in her face, to be opened again almost immediately. Tom motioned her inside with a testy growl, ‘Come on, come on.’

The room was a small, light office, lined with glass cases filled with trophies, and more pictures of intrepid yachtsmen cresting dangerous seas.

Olivia stalked to centre floor and whirled about to give Cate a hard, cold stare. She tilted a sardonic eyebrow at Tom. ‘I see you wasted no time. Nothing could surprise me about what a man is capable of, but, I must admit, even
I’m
left breathless.’

Tom introduced them, but although Olivia’s greeting was polite enough, her examination of Cate was super-critical.

‘Yes, yes, I see.’ She nodded, circling her. ‘She might do. But that hair colour is way too obvious. Where did you get it, darling? Some ghastly place in the suburbs? You’ll really have to get her some clothes, Tom, if you want to convince people.’

Cate flushed with annoyance as Tom Russell stood back to make his own assessment. ‘Do you think so?’ He put his head on one side to sweep a narrowed glance down to her ankles and up again. ‘Still …’ His cool, amused gaze locked with Cate’s and her indignation flared. ‘It might be best if you stay in the background until we can get you up to speed. People will only have to see us together once or twice to get the picture.’

Cate opened her mouth to retort, but Olivia interposed herself between them. She coaxed Tom a little aside and whispered, although Cate’s smarting ears could pick up every word, ‘But can she talk, darling? You know, if she’s not a tiny bit educated, no one will believe it after Sandra.’

Tom Russell’s black brows snapped together. A rebuke gathered in the air like a storm, until he glanced at Cate. Then his stern, sexy mouth relaxed. A reluctant smile crept into his eyes. ‘The trouble is not whether she
can
talk …’

Olivia threw Cate a stony, narrow look, and placed a black-gloved hand on Tom’s arm, positioning herself to give him an excellent view of her bosom. ‘I’d love to stay for you, Thomas, but I’m afraid it’s better I leave.’ She added in a confiding voice, ‘Malcolm’s insisted on coming, and he’s in a dangerous mood. I can’t even bear being in the same room with him.’ As if Cate were two paddocks away, she tossed, with a light, charming laugh, ‘You’d better make it good, Dolly. We expect to get our money’s worth.’

Cate’s anger surged, but she held onto her temper. This was not the moment to offer herself as a rich woman’s floor-wipe. She could admire Olivia’s chutzpah, but didn’t Cate Summerfield have her own distinctive brand?

Olivia needed to learn respect for the younger woman.

Cate smiled at the tabloid diva with angelic innocence and shrugged a shoulder. ‘Certainly, ma’am. How about something like this?’

She flashed Tom a provocative glance and swept down her lashes. With a small seductive smile, she thrust a hip forward and sashayed over to him like some voluptuous sex siren. She stood as close as she dared, her body almost touching his.

She heard Olivia’s sharp intake of breath, then the room grew still. Tom Russell seemed to freeze, as if his very nerve fibres had skidded to a halt.

Conscious of the blood pounding in her ears, Cate lifted her hand and lightly speared a tentative finger into the hard abdomen above his belt buckle.

He hardly appeared to breathe.

Pulsingly aware of the raw, masculine chest beneath the fine fabrics, she walked her fingers up his tie, then in mock feminine possession made a pretence of adjusting his shirt collar. She slid a languorous glance up at him through her lashes, then her lungs seized. His grey eyes clashed with hers, alight and blazingly sensual.

Unsmiling, he held her gaze for one breathless, scorching second, then in a swift, slick movement snaked his arms around her.

‘Or this?’ he said.

Before her shocked heart could slot back into its place he pressed his mouth to hers. She had little doubt it was calculated, but after the first stunned impact her lips sprang to tingling life as an electric charge vibrated through his big, lean body, and communicated itself to her like a primeval lightning bolt.

His charged fingers traced the length of her spine to her nape, then she felt him convulsively clench a handful of her hair in his fist. The conviction in that ruthless grasp was so electrifying, so risky, exhilaration flared in her blood like
wildfire. Somehow the blaze must have infected him too, for he deepened the kiss to sizzling, sexual possession.

Her breasts swelled helplessly as the tip of his tongue slipped between her fiery lips to taste their inner softness. The sensation of his flicking tongue tantalising those tender tissues was so delicious and arousing, she was hardly aware of Olivia’s outraged voice behind her and the snap of the door closing.

Drowning in their mingled breaths, intoxicated by the taste of him, the friction of his hard chest pressing her breasts, Cate was mesmerised, drunk on the sensual pleasures of his mouth, his knowing fingers and hard, muscled frame.

His hands surged to explore the curve of her hips, and her skin thrilled with a wild craving for more.

More of his lips. More of his clever hands. Beneath his increasingly bold caresses, her inflamed nipples and the intimate place between her thighs burned for his touch.

Suddenly she felt the hard evidence of his arousal push against her, then all too abruptly he broke the kiss and thrust her away from him.

She stared at him in shocked, panting upheaval. Naked lust flamed in the darkened eyes devouring her face, then he turned sharply from her.

Dragged from her swoon state, hot, flushed and dishevelled, her heart storming, she took moments to orient herself as rude reality flooded in and doused her fever. At least they were alone, she noticed with some relief.

She glanced confusedly at Tom’s rigid back. His wide shoulders were set and tense, the hands at his sides balled into fists. Clearly he’d been as affected as she was. Tom Russell. Tom Russell and
her.

Tom half turned and flicked her a glance that barely touched her. His grey eyes were forbidding, his face harsh and shuttered. When he spoke, there was nothing romantic about his tone.

‘In case you’ve forgotten, today I am supposed to be honouring my dead father’s memory.’ Though his deep voice was
quiet, its clipped tone cut her like a blade. ‘I know how low your opinion of him was, but do you really think this is the day to be taking some slutty advantage of this situation? Have you
any
scruples?’

When the words sank through she gasped, ‘Oh, that’s—that is just—!’ Her incoherent hands were fluttering at the injustice, her breasts rising and falling with indignation. ‘Look,
I
didn’t—it was you. I didn’t want you to kiss me.’

‘Is that why you struggled?’ His sardonic eyes mocked her, and she flushed with shame at her undeniable compliance. ‘I couldn’t expect someone like you to know how it feels to have lost your only blood relative. Even so, you were willing to do more than just kiss me, weren’t you? I’ve met more than my share of hungry little chancers who never miss an opportunity, but
this
…!’ He shook his head in disbelief.

His contemptuous gaze seared her from head to toe. He strode to the door, then paused, his hand on the doorknob. The cold cynicism in his voice was crushing. ‘Get one thing straight. Whatever dreams you might be cooking up in that scheming little head, I am
nothing
like my father.’

A saving wave of anger marshalled her brain cells. Trembling, she straightened her spine and advanced on him a step. ‘Listen. You wanted to know if I could act. Well, that’s what I was doing. Acting.’ She hissed in a long, simmering breath and said in an unsteady voice, ‘And get
this
straight. You can think yourself lucky to have taken me by surprise. Because I wouldn’t kiss you for real if you were the last man in Australia.’

She swept past him and into the foyer. Following in her wake, Tom ground his teeth, trying not to watch her hair bounce and ripple in rhythm with her staccato motion. The feel of her smooth, supple flesh was still warm on his hands. And so alive. So dangerously, erotically alive. He had no choice now. He would have to keep her out of sight.

Out of
his
sight.

Dismay and self-disgust at his unaccountable behaviour roiled through him. The surrender to temptation had been bad enough. And as if it wasn’t enough to find himself at the mercy of such a certified vixen, on this day of all days, how could he have been so reckless as to storm at her, so
inept?
Sure, he’d had to crush her pretensions, but how could he, Tom Russell, have acted so crudely? He’d offended her, and now he’d have to work that much harder to keep her to her end of the bargain. He clenched at the thought of having to crawl to her to make amends. Great bloody grief, he’d be forced to apologise.

The grim reality of his situation homed in on him, inciting an unfamiliar feeling of panic. He’d have to keep her away from people. In the mood she was in, God only knew what she might let slip.

A buzz of conversation burst upon them as, like two strangers, they approached the restaurant. Appetising food smells wafted from the kitchens, and despite her smouldering anger Cate’s mouth watered, reminding her she’d skipped the boarding-house breakfast.

The dining room was set with silver and crystal, and flowed to a wide deck perched over the water. There the cream of Sydney society mingled, glasses in hand, raising their voices a little to hear each other over the hum they created in their gratitude at being released from the constraints of the cathedral.

It was an elegant assembly. The seasonal designer black was relieved by the occasional wink of diamonds; a jewelled bracelet glittered as a gloved hand flew up to protect hair from the breeze.

Some famous faces looked up from their conversations. Cate’s anxious glance instantly lighted on a politician, who, that very morning, was gracing the front page of the
Clarion
over his possible links with a fraud scandal.

For a second her nerve nearly failed her. She looked uncertainly at Tom, and saw strain in the taut lines of his face.

Before they reached the deck he edged her into a quiet corner. He lifted his hands as though to touch her, then dropped them as if contact might mean instant electrocution. ‘Look,’ he said on a terse exhalation of breath, ‘I overreacted. I should never have … Try to understand, I don’t want any distractions today. All right? Can I trust you to stay here?’

She shrugged. Resentment burned in her chest like hot coals. Was a scoop worth it?

His jaw tightened. He gripped her forearm and bent his head to whisper, ‘I’ll make it worth your while. Whatever you want. Money …
any
thing.’

She looked witheringly down at his hand until he removed it. ‘You don’t have to offer me money. I don’t go back on my word.’

A sharp flush darkened the tanned skin over his cheekbones. ‘Oh.’ He closed his eyes for an instant. ‘All right, then. I—I beg your pardon. I—I’m sorry.’

The words sounded as if they’d been wrenched from him. She rolled her eyes and turned her face away.

He bit out, ‘This won’t take long.’ In a gruff effort to placate her, he added, ‘I promise I’ll have you out of here as soon as possible. Now, remember—!’ Bracing his wide, powerful shoulders, he gave her one last admonishing look, then strolled to greet his guests.

With a turbulent heart Cate watched him join the party. He wasn’t nearly so overbearing to his guests. Before her eyes he morphed from a tense, arrogant control freak into Mr Smooth and Urbane.

With a handshake here, a few brisk words there, he welcomed them with the quiet civility expected of a sophisticated man suffering bereavement, and they clustered to him. Especially the women, she noticed, narrowing her eyes at the
discreet elbowing for position among those anxious to lionise him under the guise of sympathy.

It was a polished performance, but she didn’t feel like applauding. So what if he had a certain brusque sex appeal? The man had made her feel like a fool. Hell would freeze over before she’d ever kiss him again. She waited in her corner, a small proud smile fixed on her face to cover the mix of unpleasant emotions jangling in her chest.

Olivia’s slur on her clothes stung, as did Tom’s alacrity in agreeing to keep her apart from his friends. Her morning’s confidence in her appearance was shot to pieces. Now, far from having a whimsical sort of chic, the second-hand suit seemed to scream its provenance.