Undressed by the Boss (Mills & Boon By Request) (51 page)

In fact …

She peered anxiously about. She wasn’t familiar with much more of the city precinct than the shopping streets and those that were visible from the train she caught to work, but weren’t they travelling
away
from the
Clarion?
Surely now they were heading east. She strained to see some landmarks and to read the lettering on the shop fronts. She should have been able to see Chinatown by now. With a lurch she realised that the city towers were gradually giving way to lesser buildings and maritime factories. ‘I don’t know this route. Isn’t this Woolloomooloo?’

‘It’s a short cut.’

She felt a pang of alarm. Wasn’t that what kidnappers always told their victims? She glanced at him, but his harsh profile was inscrutable, his mouth firm and controlled.

Of course, she reflected with growing certainty, how could he risk her spilling the beans? He knew she’d be weighing up the chances of her scoop going cold, of circumstances changing and it all whittling away to nothing. In his shoes she’d do the very same thing. Where would he be taking her? She couldn’t help thinking of that house with high stone walls and steel grilles.

A shameful surge of excitement swept through her at the things he might intend to do with her there, but she sternly repressed it. As lean, gorgeous and addictive as Tom Russell was proving to be, she was in charge of her destiny,
and
any physical clashes she might choose to engage in.

She considered her narrow range of options. If she wanted to file her story there was no choice but to open the door and jump out at the first opportunity. An intersection was coming up, and she tensed as the traffic light flicked to orange. She eased open her seat belt catch with one hand, and inched the other to the door handle. A tentative tug revealed it was locked.

Blast. The car’s smooth, gleaming luxury closed in around her like an implacable prison. There had to be a way. Her
roving glance alighted on the pristine carpet beneath her feet. In a wave of what must have been divine inspiration, she plunged into her bag for a handful of tissues and pressed them to her mouth.

‘Do you mind stopping here? I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘What?’ The word was wrenched from the depths of him. He swivelled around to stare at her in disbelief. ‘Is this for real?’

She gazed wanly at him and dredged up a sick little cough.

With a muttered exclamation, he twisted around to look for a break in the traffic, then swerved across a lane and skidded into the kerb, halting before the striped awning of a row of shops.

He leaned an arm on the wheel, studying her with amused suspicion. ‘It can’t be the motion of the car. This vehicle was custom-built to give the smoothest possible ride.’

‘Please,’ she choked, rolling him a distressed glance. ‘The door.’

His brows edged further together. ‘Though I s’pose … you did say …’

She put her hand over her mouth and made a convulsive heave. Alarm shot into his eyes, and he swiftly released the central lock. The instant she heard the click, she opened the door, flailed her way out of the seat belt, and in her panic nearly fell onto the pavement, dragging herself upright just in time to avoid crashing into a bunch of afternoon shoppers.

The nearest shop entrance was crowded with a display of Eastern carpets. Recovering her balance, she ran for it, dimly conscious of the sound behind her of Tom’s door closing.

‘Sorry,’ she gasped, colliding with a fat teenager buried in a drink carton.

Barely avoiding a rack of clothes a man was pushing along the street, she raced past the warehouse doorway, and fled into the entrance of a neighbouring arcade. The mall promised to stretch to the next street, but, knowing how easily Tom could catch her on the straight with his long athletic stride, a third
of the way along she veered into a shop door, and found herself inside the rug warehouse.

The vast musty interior smelled of dust and exotic places. It was crammed with enormous racks of ceiling-to-floor rugs, piles of Indian dhurries and carpets in massive rolls—a perfect maze of hiding places.

She crept behind a suspension stand of Pakistani rugs, waiting for several heart-thundering minutes for Tom to pounce on her from behind like a slavering wolf. When her wild pulse had calmed a little and she judged he’d have given up her pursuit and driven off, she stole back towards the entrance, and peered between the carpets in the front windows.

Her lungs seized. He was still there, standing by the kerb, scanning the street, anxious impatience in every line of his big, lean body. She watched him glance at his watch and pace to the entrance to the arcade to stare down its length. He moved so close to the window she could see the sexy shadow under the taut skin of his jaw. She shrank further back behind the display, fearful he’d somehow realise she was on the other side of the glass.

After a few more minutes he returned to the car, but he didn’t drive away. It homed guiltily in on her that he was waiting. Waiting for her to come back from whatever private sanctuary she’d sought. Giving her time. Allowing her privacy.

Believing
her.

Her urgency to flee down that arcade into the next block, find a taxi, and speed to work warred with a sneaking sympathy for Tom Russell and the low trick she’d played.

She was almost overwhelmingly tempted to run to him and explain. Although, she argued with herself, even if he did believe she was ill, he’d still intended to abduct her. This dangerous weakness she was developing for him was beginning to look like Stockholm Syndrome, and there was only one way to fight it. She had to walk away. Run, in fact.

She did run, down the arcade to the next street, where she hailed a passing taxi. The driver made a neat U-turn, then drove her back towards the city’s heart, and the
Clarion.
The trouble was that every kilometre away from Tom Russell was a ridiculous, tearing wrench.

A
H-H-H … COFFEE
.

The essential newsroom aroma infiltrated Cate’s tissues and her hunger, temporarily suspended by serial rushes of adrenaline, came roaring back.

Lunch would have been cleared away by now in the cafeteria, but there were bound to be sausage rolls down in the warming-oven. Her mouth watered at a tantalising vision of their aromatic succulence wrapped in buttery, flaky pastry. If she could bring one back to her desk, she could see Mike, write her story, dash to Gran, and then …

Then …?

Go home. Go home, and … what?
Pack?

She closed her eyes as her insides clenched into an excited knot. Would she—
could
she seriously contemplate going back to Tom Russell?

She glanced almost furtively across the busy newsroom, hoping the fever seething in her veins didn’t show. Everyone appeared intent on their work. How many of her colleagues, she wondered, were harbouring secrets that could blow the country sky-high?

While amazing things had happened to her, and she had an exhilarating sensation of rushing towards a precipice at breakneck speed, around her life was continuing with the same buzz as was usual at this time every day. People were at their
keyboards, hastening to meet their five o’clock deadlines. The sub-editors were hunched over copy, poised to strike out offending phrases.

She spotted Mike, sprawled back in his chair with his feet up on the desk, and put her need for food on hold while she threaded her way through the aisles for a look at his pictures.

He accepted her apology for failing to connect earlier with an easygoing shrug, and good-naturedly removed his feet from the desk and made room for her. He’d already edited his best shots, and had set up a clever composite of celebrities arriving at and departing from the church. She drew up a chair and let him scroll her through the elegant selection he intended to pass on to his editor.

There was a compelling close-up of Tom, caught unawares in the church car park before the service. She stared at it for seconds, and halted Mike when he would have clicked on further. Tom’s unguarded expression was so strained and grim, she was seized with a renewed sense of the desperation that had hung about him in the church.

It was no game he was playing, she realised. His contract with her was serious. Deadly serious. He was counting on her.

With a pang of apprehension it occurred to her that after her mad dash to escape, he might assume she was planning to renege. She remembered his cool threat to spill the merger himself. That would be such a desperate move. Proud, ruthless and hopeless. It was clear Russell Inc was in trouble.
Tom
was in trouble. She should contact him. Let him know what she intended.

Although, what did she intend?

She finished with Mike, then headed for the cafeteria, absorbed in her dilemma. Certainly she’d made a deal, but, immersed once more in the solid reality of the newsroom, it was hard to contemplate not revealing what she knew about the merger at once. The revelation would be such a
coup for the
Clarion.
But could she really contemplate breaking her word to Tom Russell? Her heart flinched from such a betrayal.

She wondered how many of her colleagues had held back on stories because of personal loyalties. Most of them were kind, decent people. Knowing them as she did, she felt sure such things must often happen, despite the bosses’ insistence that friendship must be one thing, business something else entirely.

Still, she had to face it that in a moral sense honest, objective reporting was her first responsibility, to the paper and to the nation.

But how moral would it be to harm him for the sake of a story, no matter how newsworthy?

Although, what if the story leaked and another reporter scooped her? Or what if Tom failed to keep his side of the bargain? Did he even deserve that she should keep hers?

He’d intended to seduce her—or had he? He’d certainly intended to delay her. He’d shown a ruthless disregard for her. Insulting her, kissing her like that, pursuing her like a furious wolf, attempting to abduct her …

Just thinking about it sent a rush of excitement through her veins like electricity.

As she paid the cashier and started back for the newsroom she made an effort to calm her turmoil and think. Tom was no fool. Hadn’t they all told her what a tough operator he was? He was good, she had to give him that. In some subtle way he’d made her feel so feminine and desirable, she’d been mesmerised.

Wasn’t that the real danger? If a man could persuade her to let him stroke her very
neck,
what else could he persuade her to do? A neck might not have the same intimate status as a breast, or a thigh, but coming so soon after a kiss—two kisses, to be exact—there had been something undeniably sexual about it. If she hadn’t stopped him, who knew how much further that little situation could have developed?

With her history, the solution was obvious. She should never see him again. Except …

She couldn’t remember ever feeling so
alive,
as if she were in some zesty contest with him. Couldn’t she allow herself a little bit of fun? If he’d been truly sinister and willing to cause her harm, would he have stood back and waited for her after he’d let her out of the car? She bit her lip, wondering what he’d be thinking about her now, then broke into a smile. With his temper, he was probably fantasising about murdering her.

One thing was certain, she reflected as she approached her desk, if she blew the gaff on his merger, she could never face him again. She’d feel as if she had a blot on her soul a mile deep. But if she kept her part of the bargain … if she went back … if she actually stayed overnight with him …

She bumped into her chair and coffee sloshed from her paper cup. Marge was back at her desk, she noticed, watching her with a curious little crease between her brows.

‘Oops.’ She flashed Marge a grin.

Ignoring her friend’s scrutiny, she sat down. What was Marge staring at, anyway? She sipped her coffee, parked her sausage roll, and faced her empty screen.

Where to begin? What she needed was an angle. Some way to report on the event, while illuminating a measure of the man who was the true story at its centre.

Her desk phone rang. Absently she picked it up. ‘Yes?’

‘Cate.’

The deep dark voice flooded her being. She froze on the edge of her chair, gripping the phone. Stay calm, she warned her mad pulse. Stay in control.

‘What?’ she breathed when her lungs would allow it.

‘You panicked.’ The quiet mocking charm of Tom Russell’s tone, as if in acknowledgement of the sexy contest between them, thrilled through her like an ocean wave. He wasn’t furious.

‘I did not,’ she retorted, then, realising she was grinning,
angled her face away from Marge’s line of vision and said in a low, husky murmur, ‘I most certainly did not panic. I simply took prudent evasive action.’

‘From what? What scared you?’ There was genuine enquiry in his voice.

‘If you must know, I object to being kidnapped.’

‘Kidnapped!’ He sounded astonished, as if kidnapping were a remote, undreamed-of concept. ‘Are you serious? You mean—just now in the Ferrari? But how the hell—? What gave you that idea?’

She felt a tiny doubt, but it was almost instantly replaced by recognition. Such sincerity. What brilliant liars men could be.

‘Let’s just say I sensed it, Tom.’

‘Ah. You sensed it.’

She could hear the smile in his voice, and despite her indignation with him warmth radiated through her and swelled her breasts.

She pressed her inner thighs together and clung to the phone, drinking in his silence, almost able to hear his brain cells ticking over. Eventually he said very softly in his dark velvet voice, ‘I think we both know that wasn’t what you were scared of, sweetheart. But don’t forget we have a deal. I’ll pick you up at home. Where exactly do you live?’

‘God,
no.’ She imagined him driving up to the boarding house, witnessing the humble reality of her temporary abode, and her insides shrivelled. He’d probably think he was in some parallel universe. ‘You mustn’t do that. Please,’ she added with heartfelt urgency, then lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘I’ll come to the hotel.’