exposé would be worth?’
‘It works both ways,’ he retorted softly. ‘By working for me, you’re putting yourself within my power, and after what you’ve just admitted, doesn’t that thought frighten you?’
‘Not in the least,’ Briony lied bravely. ‘You’ve already done your worst. Anything else could only be an anticlimax.’
He gave her so much work that it was lunchtime before she could ring Gina to warn her that she might be late.
The Italian girl was delighted to hear that she was going out. ‘You took my warning about Nicky to heart, eh?’ she teased. ‘I wish you luck in your search for a papa for him.’
Briony had worked through her lunch-hour and expecting that Kieron would be detained by Gail had not thought to close her office door when she made her call. The result was that he walked in when she was right in the middle of it, and Gina was describing Nicky’s newest trick.
‘Personal call?’ Kieron said sardonically when she had finished. ‘First time I’ve seen a spark of life in you since I got here. Does Matt know about him?’
‘My private affairs are my own,’ Briony retorted, colour scorching her skin as she realised the inference he had drawn from her words. Of course he would think she meant love affairs. She turned her back on him, searching through the files for an article she needed. When she straightened up Kieron was standing right behind her. She could smell the faint tang of his aftershave. His skin was firm and tanned, the blue eyes framed with ridiculously thick dark lashes. Just like Nicky’s. Her heart pounded, and she bent down to close the cupboard drawer, trying to conceal her reaction. Kieron frowned suddenly.
‘You still use the same perfume.’
Anger flooded her at his cruelty.
‘I’m surprised you remembered,’ she said bitterly. ‘But then reporters are trained to remember every small detail, however minor, aren’t they? That’s how you managed to piece together your scoop, wasn’t it? How boring it must have been for you to have to search through all the dross of my confidences for those precious nuggets! But well worth it in the end. As Gail said, the story made you famous overnight. As it did me, although in my case the word was “infamous”. I’m surprised you didn’t tell them all yesterday exactly who I was. Or can it be that you actually felt ashamed of admitting exactly how you got your story?’
‘You weren’t exactly unwilling,’ he reminded her harshly.
‘I wasn’t unwilling to let you make love to me, but I wasn’t given the opportunity to state my views on how you intended to use my confidences, was I? I wish I could think that having me working for you would put you through hell, Kieron, but we both know that you don’t have that much compunction, don’t we?’
He reached for her, but she was ready for him, sliding behind her desk and sitting down. Anger blazed in his eyes, his skin stretched tautly across the bones of his face. He had removed his jacket and his thin silk shirt showed the smoothly muscled wall of his chest with its covering of dark hair. With a sense of shock she realised that he was intensely male; something she had never fully appreciated before. Because he had hidden that side of himself from her? Of course he had never been attracted to her. He was the sort of man who had women coming out of his ears. How he must have laughed at her naïveté!
By five o’clock her desk was clear, but her head was pounding and all she wanted to do was to go home and go to bed. The heat in the city was oppressive, beating up off the pavements and clogging the air to mingle chokingly with the petrol fumes.
When she went down to the cloakroom to freshen up several of the other girls were already there.
‘What a waste!’ a giggly blonde from Fashion moaned to her friend. They were bent over one of the basins and neither of them had seen Briony come in. ‘That gorgeous hunk of male and Ice-Cold Winters! I bet she wouldn’t know what to do with a real man. Look at that wet Matt she goes about with!’
Someone kicked her on the ankle and she turned round complaining, her mouth dropping open when she saw Briony. For a moment Briony had a savage longing to tell her that she knew exactly what to do with a man like Kieron Blake, but she suppressed it, pretending she had heard nothing, which was stupid because the girl had a particularly shrill voice.
‘Ice-Cold Winters.’ Was that what they called her? She grimaced and then shrugged dismissively. What did it matter after all?
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