was going to leave just as soon as she could order a taxi, unwilling as yet to analyse the instinct for flight rather than fight.
As she watched Heather saw Race Williams get up and disappear, presumably going to the bar, and she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. Now was her opportunity to make her escape. Escape? She was being rather dramatic, wasn’t she?
She found the corridor leading to Jennifer’s office without too much difficulty, not bothering to switch on the light as she walked inside. She was just reaching for her jacket when the hairs on the back of her neck prickled warningly and she swung round, her heart thudding as she found herself confronted by the very man she wanted to avoid.
He was taller than she had imagined, six four at least, arms folded across his chest, his lean body completely at ease as he rested against the door, blocking her exit.
‘Leaving already?’ he drawled.
‘I have a headache,’ she smiled, keeping her voice even and pleasant. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, deliberately casual, ‘I don’t believe we’ve met….’
He snapped on the light, almost blinding her with its brilliance, his mouth creasing into a humourless smile as he drawled mockingly, ‘Nice try, Heather, but it won’t work. You know who I am, just as I know who you are. Terry’s told me a good deal about you.’
‘Terry?’
‘Umm, I asked him. You see, I’ve been wanting to meet you for quite a long time. You’re a very beautiful woman,’ he added softly, ‘and extremely desirable…. I’d very much like to go to bed with you.’
Heather hid the anger she could feel boiling up inside her.
‘But then you already know that, don’t you?’ Race Williams continued in a smokily seductive voice. ‘You knew that the moment you saw me tonight. What I don’t understand is why that knowledge made you run away from me. Because you are running, aren’t you?’ He laughed softly when she didn’t answer. ‘You’re giving me a psychological advantage, Heather. Why are you frightened of me?’
‘I’m not,’ Heather retorted coolly, gathering her scattered wits, ‘and neither am I running.’
‘Then come back to the studio and dance with me. Something tells me we’d move very well together, you and I.’
She forced herself not to acknowledge the sexual undertones of his comment.
‘I hear you’re in the running for the Rio contract,’ he commented, suddenly changing the subject, relaxing the sexual pressure, she recognised suspiciously, wondering at the change in tactics. ‘Do you want the contract?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be in the running, as you put it, would I?’
‘And you’re hot favourite to get it. I can see why, but the competition is pretty tough. I hear you’re also a writer.’
Heather’s eyes hardened. Damn Jennifer and her careless tongue! She hated anyone knowing about her writing. The family knew, of course, but that was all. She had been a dreamy adolescent when she first knew she wanted to write, and the urge had never left her.
‘I’m interested in lots of things,’ was her careful answer, but she wished she hadn’t given it, when he agreed laconically.
‘My sex being one of them, so I hear. You go through men like other women go through pairs of tights.’
‘Perhaps I’m choosy.’
‘Then choose me.’ Suddenly he had closed the distance between them, and she was intimately aware of the heat coming off his body, the desire glittering in the dark grey eyes as they roamed restlessly over her. Fear knifed through her, a sharp throat-gagging fear she had never experienced before and which held her motionless as his hands slid down her shoulders, exploring the shape and texture of her back, forcing her against the unwanted intimacy of his body, making her burningly aware of the power and maleness of him, her mind fastidiously outraged by the pulsating hardness of his body when his hands gripped her hips. She shouldn’t have come here, she should have made sure he hadn’t seen her leave the studio. Here they were alone and there was no way she could fight him.
‘I want you, Heather.’ Race Williams kept on saying it as though saying the words reinforced his belief that he had every right to take what he wanted. Heather could feel her body tensing, recoiling from his, fear coiling through her stomach, acrid on her tongue. He bent his head and she knew he was going to kiss her.
She forced her body to relax, wrenching herself out of his arms as he relaxed his grip, and snatching up her coat, turned for the door.
‘Well, I don’t want you!’ she told him furiously, cool disparagement forgotten as rage flicked through her veins. How dared he assume that she was his simply for the taking, that he could state his desire and blandly assume she would assauge it! ‘Men like you make me sick,’ she told him in a low voice, the pent-up loathing of years thickening it until it was only a husky whisper, her eyes emerald in her pale face. ‘If you want a toy to play with, go buy yourself a Barbie doll! I’m fussy about the men who share my life.’
‘That wasn’t the way I heard it.’ They faced one another like two antagonists. Heather could see the rage simmering in the molten heat of his eyes sharpened by sexual frustration, the intensity of his emotions half frightening her as she watched him, wary as any animal scenting the hunter.
‘I want you,’ he repeated thickly, ‘and I damn well mean to have you….’
‘Never!’ The denial was out before she could silence it, lying between them like a gage, anger and frustration mingling in his expression, his chest rising and falling as though he had been running. Without pausing to think Heather turned, running down the corridor and out into the foyer, pressing the button for the lift. Jennifer would wonder what had happened to her, but she would just have to wonder. She glanced over her shoulder half expecting to find that Race had followed her, but there was no sign of him. He was probably still trying to come to terms with the blow she had just dealt his mammoth self-esteem.
She could hardly believe he was real, she thought, mentally re-living their conversation. Had he actually thought all he had to do was say he wanted her for her to fall into his arms? Was that what normally happened? There was a raw maleness about him that some women might find appealing, an overt sexuality that she found totally repelling, frightening almost, but that other women might enjoy. His arrogant assumption that she was his simply for the asking still had the power to stun her. She had met some self-assured men in her time, but they had nothing on him. No wonder Jennifer had warned her against him!
Well, she needn’t worry, Heather thought grimly as she got out of the lift and asked the commissionaire to get her a taxi. There was simply no way she was ever going to get within a mile of Race Williams knowingly again.
He had frightened her—she could admit that from the sanctuary of her taxi. His determination had overwhelmed her, threatening all her carefully erected barriers. He wasn’t a man she could lead on and then drop, he wouldn’t stand by and let her dismiss him.
She was in bed but awake when Jennifer came in, and called out to her. Jennifer looked defensive and slightly guilty when she walked in.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised without Heather having to speak, ‘but he made Terry promise to introduce you to him. He
