only taken a couple of sips but she was thinking deeply when he strolled back into the room. He’d changed into jeans and a shirt; his hair was towelled dry and spiky.
‘Will you stay for dinner?’ he queried as he poured his own brandy.
‘No thank you,’ Holly said automatically. ‘You know, it’s just struck me—this could look strange.’
‘What could?’ He sat down opposite her.
‘Me flitting around with you.’
‘In what respect?’
She glanced at him then looked away a little awkwardly. ‘People might wonder if I’ve joined the long list of, well, perhaps not beautiful—I mean they were all probably stunning—but the long list of women you’ve squired around.’
‘What long list is that?’ he enquired in a deadpan kind of way that alerted her to the fact he was secretly laughing at her.
Holly went slightly pink but said airily, ‘Just something I read somewhere. But, believe me, I have no ambition to do that. Unless…’ she stopped, struck by a thought, and relaxed a bit. ‘I’m not stunning enough or upmarket-looking enough to qualify? Don’t answer that,’ she said with a lightning smile. ‘I’m just thinking aloud.’ She sobered and contemplated her drink with a frown.
Does she have no idea of how unusually attractive she is? Brett Wyndham found himself wondering. Maybe not, he conceded. She certainly didn’t appear to expect him to counter her claim that she wasn’t stunning enough to qualify as someone he would “squire around”.
On the other hand, she’d had to fight off a bandit and a sheikh, if she was to be believed, so…
He shrugged. ‘I never bother with what people think.’
‘You may be in a position not to bother—your reputation is already set,’ she retorted. ‘Mine is not.’ Then she took a very deep breath. ‘Please tell me why you’re doing this.’
He rolled his glass in his hands then looked directly into her eyes. ‘I’m intrigued. I can’t believe you’re not.’ He paused. ‘And I guess that’s brought out the hunter instinct in me. At the same time, I don’t ever force myself on unwilling women, if that’s what’s worrying you.’
Holly looked away. She paused and pressed her palms together tightly. ‘And if I told you I don’t have any interest in…Well, the thing is, I got my fingers pretty badly burnt once due to “chemistry”. It’s—it hasn’t left me yet. I don’t know if it ever will.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Not the bandit or the sheikh, I gather?’
Holly waved her hand. ‘Oh, no,’ she said dismissively.
‘I think you better tell me.’
She glanced at him from under her lashes, then smiled briefly. ‘I don’t think I should. It’s supposed to be the other way round—you telling me stuff. And you have no intention of going into your private life.’ She looked at him with some irony.
A silence lingered between them.
‘So, should we just leave it there?’ she suggested at last.
He stared at her pensively. ‘Don’t you want the interview now?’
‘I thought you might have changed your mind.’
His lips twisted. ‘Because I got my wrist slapped metaphorically? No, I haven’t changed my mind.’
‘But you won’t—I mean—bring this up again?’ she queried, her eyes dark and serious.
‘Tell you what,’ he drawled. ‘I won’t say a word on the subject.’
Holly frowned. ‘That sounds as if there’s a trap there somewhere.’
‘Sorry, it’s the best I can come up with. So, are we on or off?’
She hesitated then put down her glass, stood up and walked over to the louvres that framed the city view. She was in two minds, she realized. She sensed an element of danger between her and Brett Wyndham, but she had to admit he’d been honest, whereas she hadn’t—not entirely, anyway.
On the other hand, her career was vitally important to her. It had been her mainstay through some dark days.
She turned back to him. ‘On. My journalistic instincts seem to have won the day,’ she said ruefully. ‘Can I go home now?’
‘Of course.’ He stood up, called for Mike Rafferty, and when he came asked him if he’d found Holly’s car.
‘Sure did,’ Mike replied, and handed Holly the keys. ‘It’s parked downstairs, Miss Harding.’
‘Thank you,’ She hesitated then turned back to Brett Wyndham. ‘Well, goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Holly,’ he said casually, and turned away.
After he’d dined alone, Brett took his coffee to his study, where he intended to work on his next trip to Africa, only to find himself unable to concentrate.
The fact that it was a girl coming between him and his plans was unusual.
He swirled his coffee and lay back in his chair, Well, a change of direction in his life was on the cards; whilst he knew it was one he needed to make, would he ever be able to resist the call of the wild? Was that why he was unsettled?
It was a juggling act holding the reins of all the Wyndham enterprises based here and being away so frequently. Also, there was something niggling at him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he suspected it was the need to establish some roots.
In the meantime—in the short term, more accurately—a girl had come to his attention. A girl he wasn’t at all sure about.
A girl who continued to hold him at arm’s length, now with the claim that she’d had her fingers burnt due to “chemistry”. How true was that? he wondered.
Could it all be part of a plan to hold his interest? He’d come across many a plan to hold his interest, he reflected dryly.
None of that changed the fact that she was attractive in a different kind of way—when did it ever? Good skin, beautiful eyes, clean, very slim lines; at times, sparkling intelligence and a cutting way with her repartee…
He smiled suddenly as he thought of her ‘Holly Golightly from Tahiti’ act.
He finished his coffee and contemplated another possibility. It was so long since any woman had said no to him he couldn’t help but be intrigued. Especially as he could have sworn there’d been that edgy, sensual pull between them almost from the moment they’d first crossed swords.
Why, though, he wondered, had he gone to the lengths of dangling an interview before her?
Because she was likeable, kissable, different?
He drummed his fingers on the desk suddenly; or did he have in mind using
