matter with her. She would have thought it would have taken very much more than the impudent stares of a strange man to deaden her always hearty appetite.
‘Won’t you introduce me to your companion, Alex?’
Fenella didn’t have to look up to know whom that voice belonged to. It was cool, authoritative steel, very slightly burred with dry, amused confidence. The fingers that held the fork she’d been using to push her food around her plate started to shake. Very carefully, she put the implement down as Alex hurriedly pushed back his chair and stumbled to his feet.
‘Saul. How’s this for a coincidence! I saw you at the theatre—only had to look for VisionWest’s camera team—’ His expansive smile was shaky round the edges, the sudden pinkness of his face emphasising the beginnings of a sagging jawline, the pull of gravity that was wrecking the face that had had women of all ages drooling in the aisles. He was making a too conscious effort to straighten his shoulders and pull in his stomach muscles, Fenella noted, her heart twisting with anguished love.
Ackerman, though, had no need to try to project an image. There wasn’t a superfluous ounce of flesh on that tall, aggressively masculine frame. Not even the suavely styled immaculate dinner-jacket could disguise the potent rawness of this prime male animal, she thought with disgust, hating him.
He had a cruel mouth, she decided, refusing to flinch away from the eyes that were consciously and compellingly holding her own. He was totally devoid of compassion, sympathy or understanding. The uncrowned head of the consortium which had recently made a successful bid for the Vision West franchise, he had more clout than was good for him. Already his business empire encompassed publishing, an airline, communication systems; he had forgotten the meaning of compassion—if he had ever known it in the first instance—and would break poor darling Alex without a second thought.
‘How did you rate tonight’s performance, Miss ?’ Very briefly, his cold gaze spiked towards Alex, reminding the older man of the neglected introduction. No one, especially someone he had already put down as a has-been, neglected his commands.
‘Fenella Flemming—my—my niece.’ Alex went crimson, shifting from one foot to the other. He couldn’t have looked more ill at ease if he’d tried. ‘Fen, sweetheart, this is—’
‘I know who it is, darling,’ she cut in, sounding bored, the downward twist of her mouth, the golden glitter of her eyes letting him know she wasn’t impressed, catching her breath a split-second later as she saw the gleam of pure cynicism in the blackly fringed silver eyes, the scornful knowing curve of his mouth as he repeated softly,
‘Your niece? But of course—who else could she possibly be?’
Which meant, of course, that he didn’t believe it for one instant.
She held his eyes with cool defiance. ‘We enjoyed the performance immensely, didn’t we, Alex?’ She wished he would sit down, stop fidgeting from foot to foot. But maybe no one, but no one, sat when in ‘the Presence’! She made a mental note to ask him some time and then went icy cold as that cool voice commanded,
‘Then why don’t we discuss it? Join me for coffee and brandy and I’ll introduce you to the author and Vesta.’
No mention, Fenella noted sourly, of the author’s wife. People wouldn’t count with him unless they were famous, at the top of their own particular ladder.
‘Some other time, maybe.’ Fenella rose languidly to her feet, her eyes on Alex. He was probably itching to take up the invitation but not even for his sake could she endure to spend a moment longer in Ackerman’s company. One delicate brow rose and disappeared beneath her glossy, honey-gold fringe. ‘It’s time we were tucked up in bed, isn’t it, darling?’ Her mouth curved in a slow smile that couldn’t be misinterpreted. ‘Excuse me just for a moment while I freshen up before we leave.’ And then, not giving her courage chance to desert her, she made herself encounter Saul Ackerman’s icy stare. ‘So nice to have met you, Mr Ackerman.’
And she walked away, heading for the rest-rooms at the rear of the restaurant, threading her way through the tables, aware as never before of the way her body swayed within the clinging confines of the black silk sheath, uncomfortably sure that the monster’s eyes were following her every inch of the way.
The door closed behind her with a soft, expensive thud and she leaned gratefully against the cool, aqua wallpaper, her fingertips to her throbbing temples.
What had started out as a fun, if mentally challenging evening had ended on a quite different note, a note she couldn’t really define—even if she’d wanted to. From the moment she’d learned what the chairman of Vision West was planning to do to Alex she had disliked the man. But seeing him, meeting him, had affected her more strongly than she had bargained for.
Shuddering, she pushed herself away from the wall and effected a few minor repairs to her make-up in front of one of the softly lit mirrors. Saul Ackerman was nothing to her, simply a man she despised. He was planning to axe Alex’s programme, strip him of his self-respect, toss him into an empty, financially barren future.
So it was perfectly natural that she should dislike the man so intensely. Sheer, gut-wrenching hatred was something she had never experienced before. No wonder it had a strange effect on her!
Relieved that that was sorted out, she dropped her lipstick into her slender evening purse and snapped the clasp with a defiant click. The sooner she and Alex were out of this place, back in the flat, alone together with all the time they needed to chew over the evening’s happenings, the better.
She marched out into the silent, thickly carpeted corridor and almost scurried straight back in again when she saw Ackerman waiting for her, his face blank.
Sinkingly prepared to brazen it out, she gave him the ghost of an acknowledgement and stalked past him. But, levering himself away from the wall he’d been so casually leaning against, his hand shot out, clamping around her upper arm, dragging her to a teetering halt. Her breath froze in her lungs as she swayed on her impossible heels. At a distance he was lethal enough; at such close quarters he was pure poison.
‘Do you make a habit of grabbing every passing female?’ She managed to sound frosty but she was boiling inside, her temperature rising through the roof. How dared he waylay her? Touch her?
‘Do you make a habit of being rude to strangers?’ he countered, his mouth indenting sardonically. ‘Or is it only me?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She glanced pointedly at the hand that manacled her arm. His fingers looked strong and lean and dark against the whiteness of her skin. ‘Please let me go; you’re hurting.’
‘I don’t think so.’ There was a trace of wicked humour in his voice, making it richer, deeper, too intimate. ‘I might touch the goods before I buy, but I never damage them.’
And what the hell did he mean by that? She had a sneaking suspicion but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking. And there was far too much exposed flesh above the low-cut bodice of her dress to give her any hope that he had failed to register the increase of her breath-rate. And he was certainly looking, those silver eyes making a thorough scrutiny of everything exposed or otherwise.
Quickly putting a lid on her temper, she made a futile effort to pull away, hating the way the pressure of his hand increased immediately, loathing the way his touch made her feel. As if she was burning up inside. With outrage. What else?
Those wandering eyes fastened on her lips
