the house to ourselves. You know how it is…We want to be able to run around naked if we feel like it, make love on the kitchen table…Anyway, did you get home OK last night?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Zoe grouched, memories of what had happened to her flooding back. And knowing she was expected to move into the basement flat today didn’t help to make her feel any sunnier.
She fully understood Gary’s and Hannah’s need to have their own space—it looked as if this was the real thing. But Dad was bringing the twins round this afternoon, leaving them with her for the weekend, and the basement flat was small and she’d never get her stuff shifted before they arrived—not with the meeting she had this morning.
Her lower lip jutted pugnaciously.
‘I understood why you couldn’t escort me home from that party—you’d got it together with Hannah and couldn’t give a damn what happened to me——’
‘Hang on!’ Gary shot her a hurt look which somehow didn’t ring true. ‘I fixed you a ride home, didn’t I?’
‘So you did, silly me!’ Sarcasm dripped off her tongue. ‘With a sex maniac who ended up throwing me out of the car in some godforsaken back street, where I got lectured by some passing do-gooder on the foolhardiness of my trade! So much better, of course, than my own idea of taking a cab home! And don’t you dare laugh!’ she shrieked as she saw his mouth twitch. And proceeded to fill him in on the details, which sobered him and enabled her blood-pressure to slide back from danger point.
‘I’ll kill the creep!’ her landlord announced darkly, coming quickly to her side, hugging her. ‘He must have had more to drink than I realised. Sober, Dan’s OK—a bit big in the ego department, but fine if you don’t try to cut him down to size. But once he gets a couple of drinks over the odds inside him he believes he’s God’s gift to womankind, or so I’m told. I’ve never seen that side of him myself and he seemed sober as a judge when he told me driving you home wouldn’t take him far out of his way, since he lives in Greenwich. If I’d thought for one——’
‘Forget it. Maybe I’ll forgive you in time.’ She gave him a weak smile. The memory of what that whatever his name was—Dan?—had put her through last night still made her feel sick inside and she was running late already. She moved out of his embrace and rallied enough to toss over her shoulder as she left the room, ‘If I move into the basement I’ll expect a rent reduction, and you can do my share of the cleaning for a month to make up—partly, mind—for what you let me in for last night!’
But she was back to feeling draggy as she scrambled as quickly as her sore knees and shins would allow into one of her severely styled grey business suits and pulled back her abundant hair into the no-nonsense knot that made her look older than the teenager her lack of height, slight build and piquant features sometimes led her to be taken for.
That man, last night, had formed the impression that she was a fifteen-year-old prostitute, she remembered, her pale skin taking fiery embarrassment on board. Her encounter with him had been even worse than the in-car scuffle with the creep who had offered to drive her home! It would be a long time before she forgot his scathing lecture, the scornful way he had looked her over as she’d stood in the full glare of his headlights wearing all that degrading tat!
And even when she’d partially recovered from the combination of shocked outrage and fright he hadn’t given her a chance to tell him the truth. He was obviously the sort who formed an opinion and stuck to it, no matter what, because it was his—unable, ever, to concede that he might be wrong!
She ground her teeth as she pushed her feet into the plain black shoes that gave her two extra inches, applied the soft pink lipstick which was all the make-up she usually wore, apart from moisturiser which was a must in the dusty city, and made for the door, determined to put last night’s highly embarrassing happenings right out of her mind.
But she should have thanked him, she fretted, as the bus that took her to the centre of the capital jolted through traffic. Heaven only knew what might have happened if he hadn’t phoned for transport. She might have had to walk for miles in those silly scarlet heels before she’d found a cruising taxi, and walking through the warren of run-down streets, in that particular area, was not a sensible thing for a lone female to do. Not many men would have stopped to see if she was all right, taking the way she’d been dressed as evidence of her profession and leaving her to get out of a mess which was patently of her own making.
So she should have swallowed her pride and thanked him. But she hadn’t, she told herself crossly, and that was the end of it. She would never set eyes on him again and, as from this very moment, she would forget all about the horrible incident. Chewing it over in her mind was a pointless waste of mental energy.
She was later than she’d feared and felt panic squeeze her lungs as she waited for the lift that would take her to the fifth floor of the tower block—all glittering glass and muted silence—to the rooms occupied by Halraike Hopkins. She was never late, she never panicked, and this was an important occasion. As soon as her sister, Petra, took up her new and well-paid job she, Zoe, would be able to afford to move nearer the centre, take a mortgage out on a decent flat of her own and not have to face the awful bus journey from Peckham each morning. She couldn’t wait!
But that was in the future and her immediate boss, Luke Taylor, one of the senior partners, would never forgive her if she gave a bad impression—like being unpunctual, hobbling because her scrapes and grazes were giving her gyp, and compounding it all by looking panicky. If he could add the Wright and Grantham account to his portfolio he would be a happy and proud man.
Wright and Grantham, she had no need to remind herself, was a hugely successful drug company and their chief executive, no less, was meeting informally with them this morning to discuss the handling of their accounts. Already she was a full fifteen minutes late.
She was beginning to sweat as the lift arrived and she shot into the metal box and punched the button for the fifth floor. She would have had her secretary sit in on the meeting but Luke had stressed that he’d wanted this meeting to be fairly informal. Zoe could make discreet notes herself. He wanted everything nice and smooth and relaxed.
Light years away from feeling anywhere near smooth and relaxed, she limped out of the lift and had to force herself to stand still and try to haul herself together.
Taking slow, deep breaths, she closed her eyes and mentally absorbed the quiet, understated elegance of the vast reception area, the Saturday morning silence broken only by the muted hum of the air-conditioning.
She was good at her job, knew how to handle her team—with firmness but good humour, bringing out the best from them—and was, she knew, a respected employee on a salary many would envy. So she would walk in there and make a serene apology, refer briefly to horrendous traffic conditions, and leave it at that.
Trying to ignore the painful twinges in her legs, she pinned a cool smile on her lips and walked into Luke’s office. And nearly died.
SHE had known she would never forget his face but hadn’t realised just how soon it would be proved.
So James Cade, the highly respected and reputedly terrifying chief executive of Wright and Grantham, was the scathing knight-errant who had arbitrarily decided she was a fifteen-year-old hooker!
Cringingly deep embarrassment made her
