Face it, Nora, you’re not the sort of woman that men notice.
Her stomach clenched as she pushed away the intruding voice, reminding her that she hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, her lunch break having been spent shopping for the elegant but annoyingly uncomfortable dress she was wearing. She tugged uneasily at the top of the low-cut bodice to make sure that it hadn’t drifted down again. She didn’t think she had enough cleavage to do justice to the style but Ryan had insisted that she wear something black and strapless, which he thought was the ultimate in feminine sophistication, to tonight’s party.
He had given her some money and told her to buy a new dress for herself after work, but she had been so eager to make him proud of her that she had squeezed the task into a shortened lunch break and worked like a maniac all afternoon so that she could leave early and rush home to try and pamper herself into the semblance of a glamour girl.
She had been such a gullible idiot, she thought, her throat tightening at the memory of the ghastly scene that had ensued at her flat. Her friends often chided her for being too trusting, and now she had wrenching proof that they had been right. Because it would never have occurred to her to be unfaithful, she had actually been pleased that Ryan seemed to be getting on so well with her young and trendy new flatmate.
A sudden stinging in her eyes threatened to ruin the make-up Nora had carefully applied to conceal her tear-swollen tissues. To think that she had naively imagined Ryan’s unaccustomed generosity over the dress had meant that he wanted to make the evening really special for her—maybe he was planning to suggest that they move in together! Instead, it had been a sop to his guilty conscience. She was only twenty-five and already she knew what it was like to be dumped for a younger model!
Anger boiled up like hot lava inside her, scalding away any remaining urge to cry. She snatched up a succulent pink prawn from the table in front of her and bit it viciously in half. She had wasted five years of her life trying to mould herself into the kind of woman she thought Ryan could love. From now she was going to be her own woman. Starting tonight, she was going to prove that everything that Ryan had said about her was a self-serving lie!
A man likes a woman to take the initiative sometimes. But you’re such a mouse when it comes to new experiences. At least Kelly knows how to have fun. You never want to experiment or take any risks…
Nora smouldered over the humiliating words that he had thrown at her as she had blundered her way out of the flat, numbed by the icy shock of his betrayal. He had been flattered by her feelings for him, but he had never meant them to tie him down. He was sure that if she looked around she would eventually find someone more compatible…
No one as fascinating as Ryan Trent, of course. No doubt he expected her to hook up with a man who was as timid and boring as herself!
Her eyes had remained trained on the man who looked like the absolute antithesis of all those things.
‘Do you know who that is over there?’ she asked a stockbroker acquaintance who was fishing in the same platter of prawns. ‘The tall, dark man with the killer frown.’
The woman followed her sight-line and practically shivered when she said his name.
Blake MacLeod.
Ryan might accuse her of being more interested in computers than people, but even Nora had heard of Blake MacLeod…vaguely.
She remembered someone in the office reading aloud from a newspaper column about New Zealand’s biggest domestically owned transport and communications conglomerate. Much of its current strong growth had been credited to the ‘defiantly unpolished’ MacLeod, who was said to be ferociously hard-working and ice-cool under pressure. He had been described as a maverick for his unorthodox views on business, and a brilliant opportunist for his ruthless, take-no-prisoners approach to acquiring ailing competitors. Much had been made of his working-class background, lack of formal qualifications and his cynical disrespect for the financial establishment.
He was also, she dredged up from the blurred fringes of her recall, an unrepentant bachelor.
‘Isn’t he the head of PresCorp?’
‘Not yet. He’s Prescott Williams’s chief troubleshooter, but rumour has it that when the old man retires or kicks the bucket, the whole kit-and-caboodle will land fair and square in his lap,’ her informant supplied obligingly. ‘All the PresCorp shares are under Williams’s thumb, but he never married and there aren’t any children to inherit, you see.’ She leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘MacLeod hadn’t even graduated from high school when Williams took him into the firm and made him his pet protégé. Some say it’s because he’s really the old man’s illegitimate son…’
Nora wasn’t interested in his murky antecedents, only his current personal status. ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’
The broker gave Nora’s pale, absorbed face a sidelong look. ‘You want to steer clear of the likes of him,’ she warned kindly. ‘He’s got a bad reputation with women—great in the sack, but an ice-man out of it. Acquires mistresses rather than lovers, and none of them last longer than a couple of months. “Use ’em and lose ’em” seems to be his motto.’
In other words, he was every bit as dangerous as he looked. Perfect!
‘He’s not your type, anyway, Nora,’ the other woman added as a parting shot. ‘His women are all interchangeably gorgeous—and definitely not the kind to take home to Mother, if you know what I mean…’
She meant that Nora wasn’t his type. No one had ever come even close to calling her gorgeous. The words that had haunted her all evening rang again in her ears:
I’m sorry, Nora, but you must know this was inevitable. I mean—you’ve been a good mate but, let’s face it, the sex between us has always been pretty pedestrian, hasn’t it? You take ages to get heated up and then you’re only lukewarm. I’m not blaming you—some women are like that—but I need someone who physically excites me…
As an apology it had been a slap in the face. So he wasn’t blaming her for being stodgy and undersexed—how kind of him! She’d been a virgin when she met Ryan, so how had she been supposed to know that ‘the sex’ was pedestrian? She had never looked upon it as having sex, anyway, she had quaintly imagined that they were making love, sharing more than just their bodies. And he had never given any indication that he was dissatisfied with her lovemaking…or her cooking, or her frequent ironing of his shirts and tidying of his apartment, or the amount of unpaid time she had spent after-hours at Maitlands Consulting, where they both worked, helping him meet his project deadlines.
Blake MacLeod might be a ‘user’ but at least he was open about it.
And he was ‘great in the sack’.
Nora was engulfed by a wave of heat. What she was contemplating was sheer madness, but she had earned the right to go a little crazy. She was tired of people pointing out her limitations. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
After all, what was the very worst that could happen if she went over and tried out her womanly wiles on Blake MacLeod? An embarrassing snub? Nora was living proof that no one ever died of humiliation.
On the other hand, in the wilder realms of possibility, if she actually succeeded…
Her imagination
