Читать книгу: «Takeover Engagement»

CHAPTER ONE

LUCY glanced at her watch as she hurried across the tiled lobby to the lifts. Two minutes to twelve. She was cutting things a bit too fine.

It was an old building, one of the oldest in Melbourne. The two lifts looked as if they were from the same era, judging by the heavy doors and the ancient iron numbers on the panel above. An amber light showed that one lift was stationary on the top floor—the sixth. The other was slowly, ever so slowly descending.

Time was ticking away. She began to tap her foot. Would that darned lift never come? David would think she was doing this deliberately.. .making him wait until the last possible moment…teasing him by showing up just in the nick of time. David, I wouldn’t do that to you, she told him silently. I meant to be early.. .truly.

She felt a twinge of guilt. Then why hadn’t she left the clinic earlier and made allowances for any possible delays, like traffic jams?

Approaching footsteps diverted her. As she turned her head a beam of sunlight from the front entrance of the old building caught her face in its harsh autumn glow.

She would have sworn she heard a sharp intake of breath from the man who had paused a few paces away from her, a tall, dark-haired man in a charcoal-grey suit.

For the briefest second their eyes met, vibrant turquoise clashing with heart-stopping, depthless black. With the daylight behind him, the man’s face was shadowed, yet even so she could sense his interest in her, his almost startled reaction, his lips parting as if he were about to speak. Then he clamped his mouth shut and flicked his gaze away, as if realising he’d mistaken her for someone else.

She felt an involuntary tremor run through her as she turned back to the lifts. There was something about the man…some potent force about him that she found…disturbing. Even that single brief glance had been enough to tell her that here was a successful, supremely self-confident, possibly powerful man. A man who would despise weakness and failure—in himself as much as in others. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would easily make a mistake.

A ding from above signalled the arrival of the lift. At last! She looked at her watch and swore under her breath. Five past twelve! She was five minutes late already. Damn!

The heavy doors rattled open and she stepped inside, the fine hairs at her nape prickling as the dark-eyed stranger followed her in.

Without looking at him, she extended a finger and pressed the button marked ‘6’ before melting back against the wall to allow him access to the panel. He merely inclined his head and moved back a step, to stand with his back against the opposite wall. Facing her, she noted, rather than the door.

She willed herself not to react, or look directly at him. But as the doors clanged shut and the lift began its slow grinding ascent she found herself watching him out of the corner of her eye. Feeling his eyes on her again.

For the first time she felt a twinge of unease. Had he really been heading for the sixth floor, or had he only decided to do so after seeing that she was going there herself? With the rate this lift was moving it could take an age to get there. Was he aware of that?

Suddenly she felt glaringly vulnerable and alone. It was unlikely that the lift would stop on its way up to collect any other passengers. Anyone waiting on the upper floors of the building would be more likely to be waiting to come down.

She swallowed hard. It wouldn’t be the first time a lone woman had been attacked in a lift. And this man looked extremely strong, extremely powerful. If he lunged at her she wouldn’t have a chance.

On the other hand, he looked far too smooth and self-possessed, far too well-dressed and respectable to be a potential rapist. But there was no point in taking any chances.

She stiffened her jaw and turned her body slightly away from his, facing the lift door—hoping that her body language would send out off-putting signals.

Glancing at the panel in front of her, she noted that they were slowly approaching the third floor. Barely halfway!

If she hadn’t been feeling so edgy, with David’s ultimatum at the back of her mind and this disturbing stranger adding to her nervous tension, she might have seen the amusing side of this interminable lift ride and shared a wry smile with her fellow passenger.

But she didn’t dare. Even though she wasn’t directly facing him now, she knew—she just knew—that he was still looking at her.

It wasn’t that she’d never had a man stare at her before. Her eyes, being such an intense blue, tended to attract attention—from men in particular—though in her own opinion they were spaced too widely apart. And her hair, which was long and straight, except for a slight curl where it swirled round her shoulders, was an unusual colour too, she guessed. People had described it at various times as rich chestnut, deep honey, even as burnt gold…it seemed to change with the light.

Her figure wasn’t too bad either, thanks to all the bike-riding, swimming and running she did. On the other hand her nose was too long, her mouth far too large and her lips too full. ‘Kissable lips’, David had called them once, but then, he was biased. As for her neck…well, swans weren’t in it!

Still, whatever she looked like, she didn’t deserve to be eyed in the way this stranger was eyeing her. Never before had she been so pricklingly aware of a man’s scrutiny, so…confused by it. She didn’t know whether to find it flattering, irritating, tiresome…or alarming.

From her own fleeting appraisal of him, he didn’t look the type of man who would stand and stare at a woman, even surreptitiously. He looked more the type who would be used to being stared at.

Which she was tempted to do…and she just might have risked a quick glance if she hadn’t felt so alone and exposed, stuck in this confined space with him. Instead, she darted another anxious peek at her watch. And at the same moment the lift gave a ghastly jolt.

Her darkly fringed eyes sprang wide, her gaze colliding with the narrowed black eyes of the stranger opposite. She gave a weak smile, holding her breath as the lift gave another frightening jolt before coming to a shuddering halt.

Her eyes leapt to the numbered panel. ‘Oh, no,’ she groaned aloud. They were stuck between the fifth and sixth floors! So near and yet so far.

‘About time they installed some new lifts,’ her companion commented drily, and, despite her alarm, she noted how deep and softly vibrant his voice was. It seemed to coil right down into the pit of her stomach.

She caught her breath as he lunged forward suddenly, his hand shooting out to press button ‘6’ on the panel. She almost had to catch her breath all over again as a waft of his aftershave drifted past her nostrils. Not that it was strong—it was extremely subtle, extremely…well, male. Disturbingly male. As he was, she realised, headily aware of his close proximity…his tall, athletic physique…his strong, chiselled face…those eyes.

‘Damn!’ he swore when nothing happened. He pressed another button, then another, stabbing at each one with an increasingly vicious finger. ‘Come on, damn it.. .move!’

‘What are we going to do?’ she burst out, alarm mingling with dismay. David wasn’t going to wait for her. Well, not for much longer. He’d warned her. If she didn’t turn up by twelve-fifteen at the very latest he was leaving. And he would too. He had an afternoon plane to catch.

‘This is the last time I’m going to ask you, Lu,’ he’d pronounced only yesterday. ‘I’ve waited long enough. If you don’t turn up tomorrow, I’ll know your answer. That’ll be it. It’ll be over.’

He’d meant it too. She’d never seen him more decisive. And she couldn’t blame him. She’d kept him dangling for far too long. Even elastic could only stretch so far.

Why did I leave it so late to drive into town? she berated herself. And why didn’t I run up the stairs when I saw the lift was taking so long to come? What’s six flights of stairs when your future’s at stake?

She felt a wave of mingled mortification and panic. She’d taken David too much for granted. Expecting him always to be there, patiently waiting…waiting until she was ready to make up her mind, to make a commitment. She had been so unfair to him!

For the first time she paused to think about what she might be losing if she missed today’s appointment with him. She’d be losing one of the gentlest, most decent, most dependable men a girl could ever hope to find. Was she crazy?

‘Can’t you do something?’ she cried. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting someone at twelve!’

The man turned his head, his mouth quirking into a crooked smile which, despite its mockery, was startlingly sensual. ‘He’ll wait, won’t he?’ The black eyes raked over her.

A surge of heat scorched up her slender neck. She clutched her handbag to her chest in an instinctively protective gesture, feeling suddenly stripped bare.

Despite the predicament they were in, and despite her fevered wariness, she found herself covertly examining his face from under her fringe of thick lashes, trying to work out just what it was about him that she found so disturbing.

His face was lean and hard, slashed with cynical lines on either side of his square jaw. His sensual mouth had a sardonic twist. His hair was very dark, almost black, its wiry thickness tamed by a stylish cut. But there was nothing tame about him. She only had to look into the glittering black eyes to sense that. He exuded a dangerously potent masculinity that made her intensely aware that she was a woman.

She dismissed the treacherous thought with a firm thrust of her dimpled chin.

‘My friend can only wait fifteen minutes.’ She tried to sound tart and crisp, but the words came out husky and defensive.

‘Any man who will wait only fifteen minutes for you needs his head read,’ the man drawled.

Hot prickles broke out all over her skin. It wasn’t the words so much—flirtatious comments of that nature normally left her cold, or brought a derisive curl to her lips—it was the fact that the words had come from the mouth of this suave, self-assured stranger, this stunningly attractive businessman, who had success and privilege written all over him.

What is it with this guy? she pondered in confusion. He just didn’t add up. First the way he’d stared so intently at her, when he didn’t look the type who would stand and gawp at a woman—any woman, let alone a stranger in a lift. And now here he was making silvertongued personal remarks, when he didn’t strike her as the type who would sink to oily flattery either.

‘My friend has a plane to catch,’ she informed him curtly. ‘He can only wait until twelve-fifteen.’ She looked pointedly at her watch, her heart sinking when she saw that it was ten past already.

‘Then we’d better try to do something,’ the stranger responded easily. He thrust out a hand and she tensed, until she realised that he was reaching past her for the emergency phone mounted on the wall. It was an old-fashioned telephone, its ancient dial lacking numbers.

But there was no need to dial. The moment he snatched it from its hook, a voice answered, ‘Emergency lift service.’

He explained their predicament, and after an exchange of words he grimaced and hung up. ‘They’ll send someone straight away. There are no engineers in this building, apparently. We’ll just have to wait until help arrives.’

‘Did they say how…how long they’d be?’ She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. David would be pacing the floor by now. He was probably already losing patience, thinking she’d stood him up. She had only a few minutes left before he gave up and walked out. For good.

‘Let’s just say I don’t like your chances of making your appointment,’ came the ironic reply. ‘And I’m afraid you won’t be able to call your…friend. This phone’s directly connected to the lift service downtown, not to this building. Never mind…I’m sure he’ll forgive you once he hears what held you up. If he doesn’t, I’d say he’s not worth it.’

His unconcern—and the realisation that she was going to be stuck here in this lift with him for heaven knew how long—brought her emotions, anger uppermost, boiling to the surface.

‘I’d thank you not to presume my friend’s worth or lack of it,’ she flared. ‘You know nothing about him!’

He didn’t even blink. ‘I presume he must be worth something…to you,’ he said silkily, ‘or you wouldn’t be planning to meet him at Kowalsky’s…Melbourne’s most exclusive and expensive antique jewellers.’

She caught her breath as the deadly innuendo sank in. Her enraged silence gave him a chance to slip in a further barb, edged with a cynical dryness.

‘You must be mighty keen to get those pretty little hands on whatever glittering bauble your friend has promised you…or you wouldn’t be in such a lather about him walking out on you.’

She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut, too incensed to speak for a second. Of all the insufferable, arrogant, presumptuous—

He laughed. A sharp, unexpected sound in the confines of the antiquated lift. Her eyes leapt to his, catching the amused glint in his black depths. Amusement…but no real softness. More a lethally dangerous gleam, she thought, caught off balance by it.

‘You have extremely expressive eyes,’ he remarked, the laughter still in his voice, licking through it, lightening its rich, deep resonance. ‘You’d like to hit me. Go ahead, if it will make you feel better. I plead guilty. I am all those things you’re thinking. But it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.’

She nearly did hit him. She was sorely tempted to. But lashing out at him like a virago would only lower her further in his eyes. He didn’t think much of women, that was obvious. There was a wealth of cynicism in his voice and in his face. A world-weariness…disillusionment too, if she wasn’t mistaken. Why cement his low opinion of women by acting in the way he expected her to?

She summoned a soft laugh instead, deliberately turning his laughter back on him. ‘I suggest you never take up psychiatry,’ she advised him lightly, with the faintest hint of derision. ‘You’d be bound to fail.’ She widened her gaze in mock dismay. ‘You’re not a psychiatrist, I hope?’ she asked, injecting a note of pity into her voice.

Something flickered in the black eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched. His voice, when he answered, held an edge of dry humour. ‘I’m relieved to be able to say no, I’m not.’

‘Relieved?’ she echoed. Secretly, she was relieved too. Relieved that he seemed to have a sense of humour!

‘Very much so. And I shall bow to your expert advice,’ he promised, ‘and decline to take that particular career path in the future.’ He paused a moment, then added softly, ‘Being a man who doesn’t like to fail.’

She could well believe that. He wouldn’t have had too many failures in his life, she hazarded. Except maybe.. .with women? Or a woman? The one who had made him so jaded and cynical?

‘Very wise,’ she applauded facetiously. And turned away, biting her lip. Did anyone else in this building realise that one of the lifts was stuck between floors, with people trapped inside?

There was no sound of any activity from above or below. Would the emergency lift people take much longer to arrive? And when they did turn up, how much longer would it take them to fix the problem? What if it was difficult to fix? Dangerous, even? She’d seen movies where trapped people had had to climb out through a lift roof, or where the lift had suddenly dropped dramatically. She shuddered at the thought, her hands trembling on the handbag she was still unconsciously clutching to her chest.

She heard a slight movement and tensed, thinking that her companion, sensing her anxiety, was about to close in on her, offering physical comfort. All her nerve-ends sprang to sharp alert. How would she react if he did.. .if he should put his arm round her and pull her close? She began to tremble anew…but not with fear this time…with something quite different, a strange, heady excitement.

But he didn’t move closer, didn’t attempt to touch her. Perhaps at the last minute he’d thought better of it, fearing that if he offered a comforting shoulder she might break down completely and he’d have a hysterical female on his hands. Or maybe he’d remembered, just in time, that they were strangers, and he didn’t want her leaping to any wrong conclusions.

Instead, he heaved a deep sigh and muttered through clenched teeth, ‘I can’t stand confined spaces.’ He began to pace restlessly back and forth like a caged tiger, his hands clasped behind him.

She looked at him in surprise, her nervousness forgotten. ‘You suffer from claustrophobia?’ she asked, her heart stirring in sympathy. She wouldn’t have thought he’d be the type of man who would suffer from fears of any kind.

He paused, letting his broad shoulders lift and fall in another heavy sigh. ‘Even big, tough guys can have phobias,’ he said, his mouth twisting in self-mockery.

She nodded slowly. That was true. Even Indiana Jones, the intrepid hero of Raiders of the Lost Ark, had his Achilles’ heel—in his case a fear of snakes that turned him to quivering jelly.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked tentatively. As far as she could tell, he didn’t appear to be shaking. Or sweating. Or turning deathly pale. But people showed fear in different ways, she guessed, and this man, with his smooth self-confidence and air of worldly experience, had no doubt learned how to cover up his feelings and any fears he might be suffering underneath.

‘Having someone with me helps…’ The corner of his mouth curved in a self-deprecating smile. ‘Someone calm, who doesn’t suffer from the same stupid phobia. ‘You don’t, do you?’ he asked quickly, his eyes spearing hers.

‘No, I don’t.’ She shook her head, her pulses whirling under the force of his dark gaze. ‘Um…maybe if you loosened your tie?’ she suggested helpfully.

‘Ah. Good idea.’ He raised a well-shaped hand and began to wrestle with the knot of his red-patterned silk tie. ‘Damn! I feel all thumbs. This wretched knot! I can’t seem to—’

‘I’ll do it,’ she said hastily, not wanting him to start panicking. She reached up, her hand brushing his as he drew it back, the brief touch bringing a tingling awareness of rough warmth, of fine hairs on firm skin.

‘Thank you.’ His lean, strong-jawed face was very close to hers now. She could actually feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. Her heart began to hammer in a ridiculously wayward fashion. She hadn’t been this aware of a man for

She stepped back abruptly, almost tripping over her own feet, forgetting for a moment that she was wearing high heels. She was so used to wearing sensible flatties during the day.

His hand shot out to steady her.

‘You’re sure you’re all right?’ he asked, with a quick, amused smile. A smile uptilted at one corner, with more good-humoured charm this time than cynicism.

‘I—I’m fine.’ She found herself flushing. ‘I—I didn’t want to crowd you, that’s why I…’ She trailed off with a shrug. ‘I’m sure we won’t have to wait much longer,’ she assured him brightly, darting another quick look at her watch. Twelve-twenty!

She drew in her lips, her heart sinking. Would David already have given up, already be making his way down in the other lift? Or would he decide to wait a bit longer? From memory, his plane wasn’t due to leave Tullamarine until around two. But he would have to find a taxi and battle the city traffic to the airport, and then queue up for his seat allocation. David hated being late, feeling rushed. He would want to leave early, to give himself plenty of time.

‘It strikes me,’ the stranger observed softly, ‘that we both need to take our minds off our predicament. I find that talking often helps in situations like this. So…why don’t you tell me something about yourself? You work here in the city, I take it?’

His dark eyes swept over her stylish cherry-red jacket and matching slim-line skirt, and for a foolish, prickling moment, she was glad she’d dressed up a bit today, knowing she was coming into town, instead of wearing her usual working gear: practical skirt with a shirt or sweater, or tailored trousers as she sometimes did.

‘No. I just came into town to meet…my friend. I live and work in the suburbs.’ Now he’ll lose interest, she thought with a tightening of her lips. High-powered city businessmen—and this man looked the epitome of just that—didn’t waste their time on people who didn’t belong to their fast, slick, self-important world, on insignificant nobodies who spent their lives outside the power-hungry city rat-race.

‘Now let me guess,’ he said slowly when she didn’t enlighten him further. ‘You’re in…public relations?’ he hazarded. ‘Finance? Marketing?’ He paused. ‘Am I warm?’

He’s judging me by what I’m wearing now, she thought, her lips curving in a derisive smile.

‘Stone-cold,’ she said. If he wanted to make a game of it, at least it would pass the time. And take his mind off his claustrophobia.

‘Well…let me see.’ He pursed his lips. She found her eyes riveted to his mouth and looked quickly away. ‘Legal work, then? Interior design? Banking?’

She shook her head. ‘These aren’t my usual working clothes,’ she admitted. ‘I normally wear something a bit more practical and comfortable for the kind of work I do.’ Now it should be interesting, she thought, and waited, eyebrows delicately raised.

‘Ah.’ He fingered his jaw with long fingers, at the same time letting his dark gaze roam down her body, seeming to pause at the swell of her breast, and again at her exposed knees, before continuing down her long legs to her slim, well-shaped ankles. She had the sudden hot, uncomfortable feeling that he was mentally undressing her, divesting her of her clothes, imagining what lay underneath.

‘Oh, hell.’ He seemed abruptly to tire of his game. ‘If we go on like this, I’m going to end up insulting you; I can see that. If I say a model or an actress, you’ll turn out to be a brain surgeon or something. You’re not, are you?’

‘Close. But wrong end of the body,’ she quipped. ‘I treat feet, not brains. I’m a podiatrist.’

His dark eyebrows shot up. ‘Well. I never would have picked it in a month of Sundays. I’ve never met a podiatrist before, never been to one. So…you know all about feet and what’s wrong with them, eh? What kind of people come to you mostly? Little old ladies with bunions?’

She gave an ironic half-smile. It was a common misconception. ‘We do get a few, but mostly—in our clinic anyway—we see people with sports injuries. Or problems caused by…flat feet.’ She looked pointedly down at his well-polished shoes. ‘I take it you don’t suffer from that problem?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’ Amusement flickered in his eyes, revealing that he did have a sense of humour. ‘You work at a hospital?’

‘I used to, when I first started out. But now I’m in private practice. Not on my own. I’m at a foot clinic in Surrey Hills with two other podiatrists—a married guy with a young family, who owns the clinic, and a good friend of mine, Gaby, who went through uni with me.’

‘You like the work?’ he pursued. ‘Get many people coming in with—um—smelly feet?’ His eyes gently mocked her.

She tilted her head at him. ‘You clean your teeth before you go to the dentist, don’t you? Well, most people wash their feet before coming to see me!’

‘Hmm. Good point. You live near the clinic?’

Did he really want to know, she wondered, or was he simply passing the time? ‘Just around the corner, virtually. I share a flat—it’s a house, actually—with Gaby, the other podiatrist.’

‘Ah.’ It wasn’t clear just what he meant by that ‘ah’. Did he think she might have been living with David? ‘And your family? Your parents?’

His eyes were on her face as he asked the question. She flushed faintly under his scrutiny. She had the weirdest feeling that he was waiting intently for her answer. She couldn’t imagine why. He couldn’t seriously be interested in her or her family, surely?

‘My parents are divorced.’

After what she could only describe as a pregnant pause, he said impassively, ‘I’m sorry. You still see both of them?’

A fleeting shadow crossed her face. ‘When I can. My father still lives here in Melbourne. But he…married again a few years ago, so I don’t see him as much as I did before.’

‘You don’t get on with his new wife?’

‘I didn’t at first,’ she admitted. It wasn’t that she’d had anything against Beth personally. It was just that another woman had taken her mother’s place in her father’s life. After all those years! ‘My parents were married for twenty-three years,’ she heard herself telling him. ‘I was twenty when they separated, my brother twenty-two. Neither of us were living at home by then…I think our parents were only waiting until we were off their hands.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Since then my brother’s been married and divorced as well. Fortunately no children were involved.’

The break-up of her parents’ marriage and then her brother’s, more recently, had made her wary of marriage, cautious of commitment, of rushing into anything permanent before she was completely sure. If her parents’ marriage, which she’d always believed to be happy enough, could fail after twenty-three years…

‘And your mother?’

Again she felt his eyes on her face, and felt the fine hairs at her nape rising in involuntary response. For a stranger, he was showing an unusual interest in her…and in what she had to say. She shook off the thought. She had to remember that he was only making conversation to take his mind off being stuck in this lift. The sensation of being trapped could be a real trauma to someone who was claustrophobic. She had to hand it to him…he was managing to control his fear admirably. The least she could do was encourage him to keep on talking.

‘You live near her?’ he prompted before she could speak, as if he really wanted to know.

She frowned faintly. Why would he want to know? Why would he care? She took a deep breath. Humour him, she thought. Why not? You’ll never see him again, once you’re out of this damned lift.

‘My mother’s moved to Queensland to live. She’s sharing a house in Brisbane with a widowed friend.’ She felt a faint pang as she said it. Her mother had left Melbourne so suddenly and unexpectedly, not long after she’d started going out with David. Charlotte had insisted that it had nothing to do with Lucy’s father and his second wife, who had been married for some time by then. She had sworn that she wished them well, that it was the plight of her old friend that had decided her. Poor Avril had been very lonely since her husband’s death, and needed companionship and support, with her only daughter living overseas.

‘A male widowed friend?’ her companion asked with the ghost of a smile. But there seemed to be more cynicism in the smile than humour.

Faintly puzzled—not that it could be anything personal; he didn’t even know her mother so it had to be women in general—Lucy lifted her gaze to his and met the probing, magnetic force of his dark eyes. At once a veil seemed to come down over them.

Trembling slightly, from confusion more than anything else, she forced an answer. ‘A woman friend. An old friend of my mother’s. They were at school together, and met up again after they were married.’ This man was obviously cynical about all women…that was all it was. What on earth could have happened to him to make him like this?

But the stranger didn’t seem interested in her mother’s friend. ‘And do you get your good looks from your mother…or your father?’ he asked, lifting an eyebrow.