JEN BROWN stood rigid behind the bedroom door in the dark, arm raised, the vase in her hand poised to be broken over the intruder’s head the second he entered the room. As the door swung open one last thought dashed through her mind before cold panic set in and impulse took over. She wished, not for the first time this week, that she was back in her mother’s cottage in the country, where you could leave your door on the latch all night and still not be murdered in your bed.
A state-of-the-art security system and a massive front door was apparently not enough to guarantee that here in Chelsea.
As the door opened and the light snapped on she leapt with a yell from her hiding place and swung the vase with every ounce of her strength. If this were a movie she would have knocked him out with one crash and then waited smugly for the police to arrive and pat her on the back. But this was reality. And she wasn’t movie heroine material.
And so it was that before she could connect vase with scalp, before she had the chance so much as to kick the man in the shins, she was soaring backwards through the air to land with a thump on her own bed. Her wrists were immediately held in an iron grip on either side of her head, and as the intruder loomed above her she drew in a lungful of air and screamed as long and as loudly as she could.
She surprised herself with how loudly, in fact. He recoiled a little at the sound, his face catching the light, and she realised with a flash of disbelief just who she was staring at. Last seen yesterday morning on the front of her newspaper, in the flesh he looked even more gorgeous but a lot angrier.
She’d just tried to crack the skull of the most influential figure in British film-making.
‘Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you!’ he shouted over her, exasperation lacing the deep voice.
Famous or not, he had her pinned to the bed, so she ignored him and began to suck in another enormous breath.
He took advantage of the break. ‘Drop the damn vase and I’ll let you go!’
His dark green eyes were just a couple of inches above her own. The sharp woody scent of his expensive aftershave invaded her senses. Hard muscle was contoured against her body as he used his legs to pin her down effortlessly. She struggled, trying everything to move her legs and kick the stuffing out of him, but she couldn’t move an inch. The eyes looking into her own were determined, and his breath was warm against her lips.
Drop the vase? She gave it a split-second’s consideration. If her hands were free and he tried anything she could grab something else and bash him with that. The place was full of heavy minimalist ornaments—she’d be spoilt for choice.
‘Let me go first,’ she countered. Her heart thundered as if she’d just done the hundred-metre dash. She held his gaze obstinately.
He made no move to release her but his voice dropped to a let’s-be-reasonable tone.
‘You’ve just tried to brain me with it. Let the vase go and then perhaps you’d like to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing in my house.’
Fear slipped another notch as her mind processed that last sentence.
She should have known the only person who could get past the Fort-Knox-style security system in this place would be the person who’d put it there. And if it had been daylight instead of the dark small hours she might have listened to her common sense instead of turning the situation into a movie plot. No wonder the house-sitting agency kept their property owners’ details confidential. She could imagine women queuing up round the block to get this gig. It would be a stalker’s dream.
She’d built up a mental picture over the last two days of the person who owned this beautiful apartment: rich, clearly. You couldn’t rent so much as a shed in Chelsea unless you were über-rich and/or famous. Preferably both. Male, definitely. Everything in the place was pared-down and masculine. Exposed brickwork, black leather sofas, expensive spotlights, vast flatscreen TVs. No task was left ungadgeted. And single. In her opinion there was a serious over-use of art featuring the naked female form. Jen couldn’t walk past the huge painting in the hallway without being reminded that her breasts were on the small side and she had no curves to speak of. No, the only women who passed through this apartment were overnight guests with no say in the décor. She was sure of it.
She congratulated herself on her powers of deduction. She was in the wrong profession. Perhaps she should swap journalism for the police force.
Alexander Hammond. Film producer. Award-winner. Millionaire playboy.
She let the vase drop from her fingers. He followed it with his eyes as it rolled away, the look on his face thunderous, and the next moment she was free as he released her hands and stood up.
He straightened the jacket of his impeccably cut dark suit. A pristine white shirt was underneath, open at the collar and devoid of a tie. His thick dark hair was cut short. Faint stubble against a light tan highlighted a strong jaw. He looked as if he’d just stepped off the set of an aftershave commercial. One of those ones filmed in black and white, showing the hero on his way home at sunrise, a glass of champagne in one hand and the perfect woman in the other.
She suddenly realised how she must look, staring at him with her mouth gaping open from her position on the bed. Warmth rose in her cheeks and she snapped her gaze away from him, concentrating on scrambling to her feet with some measure of dignity. Unfortunately on the way up she caught sight of her appearance in the gilt mirror on the wall. One side of her hair was plastered against her face and neck and the other side resembled a bird’s nest. Terrific. Add in the greying old shorts and vest she’d been wearing in bed and she wasn’t sure she could feel any more insignificant in the face of his gorgeousness.
She made up for it by drawing herself up to her full height and fixing him with a defiant stare. After all, he was the one at fault here. There was a two-day-old signed contract on the massive kitchen table, detailing her right to be here.
‘You’re paying for me to be here,’ she told him.
She suddenly caught herself running her fingers through the tangled side of her hair and folded her arms grimly. What was the point? It would take a damn sight more than a hairbrush to turn small-town Jen Brown into the kind of woman who would impress Alex Hammond.
‘I’m what?’ he snapped.
‘Executivehousesitters.com? I’m here to provide that extra level of security against intruders.’
She searched his face and saw his sudden understanding in the exasperated roll of his eyes.
‘By crowning me with my own vase? That was your best effort at security?’
So an apology was too much to expect, then. Typical arty type. Everything had to be about him. Never mind that he’d scared her half to death.
‘What did you expect, creeping around the place when you’re meant to be out of the country indefinitely?’ She could hear the beginning of temper in her own voice. ‘I’m not meant to be some kind of vigilante security guard, you know. I’m just meant to make the place look occupied, that’s all.’
Apparently he could hear her temper, too, because he held up a placating hand.
‘About grabbing you like that,’ he said. ‘You were just on me before I had a second to think. I could tell as soon as I got through the door there was someone
