and she would spend it how she wanted to—and that most assuredly did not include being in Quinn McBride’s arrogant company!
She shrugged unconcernedly. ‘I’m sure you’ll cope without me,’ she mocked lightly.
‘That’s hardly the point,’ Rome bit out impatiently. ‘You—’
‘Andie is feeling a little better now, Rome,’ Audrey cut in smoothly. ‘I said you would probably pop up later,’ she added in parting.
‘Half an hour or so,’ Rome promised in a pleased voice.
From the abrupt change in Rome’s mood at the mention of Andie’s recovery, Harrie knew Audrey had succeeded in what she had set out to do—namely divert Rome’s displeasure away from Harrie. She turned to give Audrey a grateful smile before the other woman left the room, receiving a conspiratorial one back before Audrey closed the door softly behind her.
But Harrie’s smile faded as she turned back to find Quinn McBride watching her with narrowed eyes, obviously well aware of the silent exchange between the two women—and as obviously drawing his own conclusions!
Well, let him; she wasn’t answerable to him or anyone else for anything she did or said! Although Rome’s next comment wasn’t conducive to that impression!
‘Would you like to pour the tea while Quinn and I continue our discussion?’ he invited distractedly, his thoughts having already returned to the matter in hand. ‘You were about to tell us about your sister’s “mistake”,’ he prompted softly.
Quinn McBride looked grim once again. ‘I don’t think I was about to go that far,’ he bit out curtly. ‘It’s enough that the mistake was made, without going into the details. It’s this reporter’s reaction to the knowledge of it that is really the point at issue,’ he added harshly. ‘I—ugh!’ He grimaced his distaste after distractedly taking a swallow of the tea Harrie had just poured for him.
In the absence of any preference from him as to how he liked his tea, Harrie had added milk and two sugars before placing the cup of tea on the table in front of him.
‘Too sweet?’ she prompted too ‘sweetly’ herself!
He carefully put the delicate china cup back down onto its matching saucer before turning to look at her. ‘For future reference—I do not take sugar in either tea or coffee,’ he bit out grimly.
For ‘future reference’, she had no intention of ever pouring him either brew ever again!
Rome’s narrowed gaze in her direction was sternly disapproving, bringing an end to her mental berating of the man who was fast becoming more than just an irritation. ‘Please—take mine.’ She held out a second, as yet untouched, cup to him. ‘And for your future reference, I don’t take sugar in tea or coffee, either,’ she added pleasantly, knowing by his throaty chuckle that Rome, at least, wasn’t fooled for a moment by that pleasantness.
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Quinn McBride acknowledged dryly before turning back to the older man. ‘Did you know that at least one reporter on your newspaper isn’t averse to using blackmail in exchange for information?’
Harrie was stunned by the question, although, having come to know a little of Quinn McBride in the last fifteen minutes or so, not nearly so much so by the bluntness with which it was made!
Blackmail…? What on earth was he talking about?
And he’d said this meeting had no legal, or illegal, connotations! The last Harrie had heard, blackmail very definitely came under the heading of the latter!
She glanced at Rome, not fooled for a moment by the calmness of his expression—the angry glitter of his eyes, prompted by the other man’s words, told a completely different story!
Rome placed his own cup and saucer back down on the coffee-table before meeting the younger man’s accusing gaze with a frown. ‘What sort of information?’ he pushed hardly.
‘Political, what else?’ Quinn snapped harshly. ‘When this man first approached Corinne with the information he had concerning her past, she believed it had to be the end of her relationship with David, that the last thing he needed to forward his political career was a wife who was going to bring disgrace to his name.’ His mouth twisted contemptuously. ‘But that isn’t what this particular man has in mind at all…’ he added grimly.
‘Go on,’ Rome prompted softly.
Harrie wished he would too. It wasn’t too difficult to guess what Corinne Westley’s ‘mistake’ might have been—a young widow, devastated by the premature death of her husband; she’d been prime material for a relationship she hoped might help to ease some of her pain. And, in this case, it sounded as if the partner in that relationship had probably been a married man…
As Rome said, it happened, especially when someone was that vulnerable. And also extremely beautiful.
But that was still no excuse for what seemed to be happening to Corinne Westley now…
Quinn sighed heavily. ‘This man believes, as do most of us in the City, that David will eventually become Prime Minister. The price for this reporter’s silence is any inside information Corinne can give him on political issues—hoping to make them political scandals!’
After what Quinn McBride had already intimated, this wasn’t too difficult to guess. And in view of his closeness to his sister, it was no wonder he was angry about it.
Rome looked just as angry. ‘The man’s name?’ he bit out in that flat, emotionless tone that showed just how angry he really was.
‘I have your guarantee that nothing we have said so far will go any further than this room?’ the other man prompted again cautiously.
The guarantee was unnecessary, Harrie knew that; Rome could be determined, even ruthless if the occasion warranted it, but he had never done an underhand thing in his life. And he couldn’t abide the characteristic in others. Harrie had no doubt that the reporter’s days of working on any newspaper Rome owned, and possibly any others either, were numbered!
She also felt that perhaps Quinn McBride was right, and her presence at this meeting wasn’t needed…
‘Rome?’ she quietly demanded his attention for a moment. ‘Perhaps it would be better, after all, if I left you and Mr McBride to finish this conversation in private?’
‘You’ll stay put,’ he rasped harshly, causing Harrie to look at him with puzzlement for his vehemence. ‘The man’s name?’ he prompted Quinn again.
Harrie turned to look at the other man too, knowing there was no point in reasoning with Rome on her own behalf when he was in this mood; ‘Rome’s inflexible mood’, she’d always called it. And it meant literally what it sounded like; generally the most affable and charming of men, Rome was implacable in this mood.
‘Richard Heaton,’ Quinn told him with distaste.
Harrie’s breath caught in her throat, the look she gave Rome now one of silent accusation. Because she could tell by the now calm expression on his face that he wasn’t in the least surprised by the name the other man had just given him—because he had already known it!
What else did he know…?
