her sole parent Cassie had learned from him the bitter lessons of his life. In his daughter he had discovered the same aptitude for maths that he had, and this skill had been honed and polished until Cassie far outstripped her fellow pupils. This had carried its own penance. It wasn’t ‘done’ for a girl to be even moderately good at maths, never mind brilliant enough to outstrip even the more senior pupils, and torn between pleasing her father and gaining the acceptance of her peers Cassie had gradually taught herself to accept that there would always be a gulf between herself and her schoolmates. Most of them treated her as though she were an alien life-form, teasing and tormenting her until she gradually withdrew from them to the extent where their barbs never touched her.
While her fellow students flirted and dated Cassie concentrated on her maths, and it had been from this that her interest in the new technology had sprung. Her father died the year she was nineteen from a heart attack, and it had been in a mood of bitter defiance at life following his death that she had entered the competition.
Her ability to design and pioneer computer games was something that still half amazed her. She had discovered in herself a deep hidden vein of imagination which, when harnessed to her mathematical skills, made her games far superior to those of her rivals.
‘Don’t ever forget that while you’re at the top of the tree now,’ David had warned her seriously, ‘computer games is a young people’s industry. One day you will grow stale, and you must prepare yourself for that day.’
She had already earned enough money not to need to worry about her financial future, and as Peter’s wife … She frowned, sighing faintly as she stepped into the lift which would take her up to her suite of offices. Her last game had been almost frighteningly successful. It had sent her company’s profits soaring, and it had been then that she first realised the dangerous waters her success was taking her into.
Other established companies had started casting envious eyes in her direction, especially the two leaders in the field, Howard Electronics and Peter’s father’s company Pentaton. She still seethed inwardly thinking of her one and only meeting—if it could be called that—with Joel Howard.
He had strolled into her office, smiling winningly at her as she lifted her head to look at him. Tall, at least six foot two, with an almost overwhelming breadth of shoulder, something inside her had retreated from him on sight. Brief memories of the agonies of her schooldays; the scorn of her class-mates and the taunting mockery of boys who had no doubt grown up into men like Joel Howard; arrogant; assured, all too aware of their sexual magnetism, surfaced and flooded out into reality, and as his navy-blue eyes skimmed over her she had been burningly aware of the plainness of her features; of her untidy cascade of mid-brown hair; the lack of elegance of her too thin five-foot-six frame; the dullness of her pale skin without make-up and the depressing ordinaryness of her hazel eyes behind the screen of the huge glasses which, in her moments of vanity, she deluded herself she needed only for close work.
That one considering look had summed her up and dismissed her—humiliatingly, the mocking warmth of his smile merely adding to the pain of the memories the sight of him stirred up. Once, long long ago she had fallen deeply in love—an adolescent crush, she recognized now, and only she could have been stupid enough to fall for the most sought-after boy in school; a boy who had made capital out of her badly hidden feelings for him, turning her into a laughing stock for his cronies. Her skin burned at the memory, and while being aware of it she had glared at Joel Howard with all the pent-up hatred of those times in her eyes.
‘My, my dragon lady,’ he had drawled, almost insultingly, she remembered, ‘whatever have I done to you? Or is it just the male race in general that you hate? I’d like to see your boss,’ he had told her, not bothering to smile this time, but eyeing her instead with cool, sardonically knowing eyes. ‘She is expecting me. My secretary made an appointment.’
Already he was looking beyond Cassie to the closed door of the inner office that was really hers. She had come into the outer office to use her secretary’s typewriter, and the bitter knowledge of how Joel Howard would view the reality of her identity had suddenly struck her. While he thought she was merely a secretary he had made no secret of his sexual contempt for her. When he discovered who she really was, no doubt he would use all the flattery and sexual skill he undoubtedly possessed to persuade her to give him what he wanted—and that wasn’t her. A mirthless laugh shook her slender body, racking it with pain. Oh no, men like Joel Howard didn’t want plain drabs of women like her. Joel Howard went for the glamorous model and actress type, she had seen his photograph in various periodicals, escorting them. He was known as the playboy king of the computer world. A man who had made a fortune by the time he was twenty-five, and who had gone on using his skill to expand his business empire until he was one of the two largest in the country. The other largest company was the one owned by Peter’s family—an older, less go-ahead company according to David, but she would rather sell her soul to the devil than ally herself to Joel Howard in any way, Cassie thought bitterly.
She didn’t want to remember the shrewdly assessing way in which his glance had slid over her tense body when she delivered the bombshell of her identity, but as she stepped out of the lift and into her office she couldn’t prevent herself doing so. He had stood there, towering over her, making her wish she had the forethought to stand up before she had told him. His suit was dark, and made of the finest, softest wool, fitting impeccably, as did his silk shirt. On the outside, he was the epitome of the successful businessman, but Cassie wasn’t deceived; at heart he was a hunter, a powerful, cruel predator, who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, and he wanted her company. Cassie had sensed that straight away, and a renewing surge of power had given her the courage to stand up to him, to deny the potent force of the charm he was directing at her, using to cloak a willpower so formidable that she could practically feel it reaching out to subdue her.
Afterwards when she had questioned David he had admitted that for once Joel Howard had bitten off slightly more than he could chew; that his investments in advanced, as yet undeveloped futuristic technology had drained his companies of capital reserves, and that if he wasn’t to be forced into abandoning his research he would have to come up with a market leader, and very quickly.
‘It isn’t Joel’s fault,’ David had assured her. ‘One of his top designers broke his contract and accepted a job in Silicone Valley—California,’ he had elucidated. ‘He took with him the new computer game he had been working on as part of Joel’s design team. Open industrial piracy, but there wasn’t a thing Joel could do about it.’
‘So now he’s decided to indulge in a little piracy of his own,’ Cassie had interrupted bitterly, ‘he wants my company—’
‘He wants to take you over, yes,’ David had agreed, mildly puzzled by the vehemency of her voice. ‘But I warned you you would have to expect this Cassie. You’re in an extremely vulnerable position at the moment—a very tempting and tasty little minnow surrounded by a dozen or more greedy dangerous sharks …’
‘And the law of the jungle being what it is, the biggest and greediest gets to gobble me up—well not this time,’ Cassie had told him emphatically.
David had tried hard to change her mind. ‘He’s the best in his field, Cassie,’ he had pointed out. ‘I can’t see what you’ve got against him.’
‘I can’t see us working together,’ Cassie had told him firmly. ‘He strikes me as the type of man who believes the best place for a woman is in the kitchen …’
She had said it scathingly, hurt and offended when David had smothered a totally male smile. Her mind made up in that instant that no matter how much David cajoled she would not allow Howard Electronics to swallow up her company.
It had been ten days after that that she had been approached by Peter Williams. She
