Unchained Destinies
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Sara Wood
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CHAPTER ONE
‘BULLSEYE!’
Mariann paused in the doorway of her new boss’s office, taken aback by his cry of triumph. Oh, good! she thought. He’s a bit zany! She saw he’d been playing darts—a healthy sign, she reckoned, in a man she’d judged to be under stress.
But when he turned there was a startling malevolence in his expression and she took the dart he thrust towards her with a wary concern. Ordinary bosses were difficult enough; she wasn’t too keen to play games with a maniacal one! What was his hang-up?
‘I’ll pass on the darts,’ she said pleasantly. ‘I came to—’
‘Throw it,’ he growled, jerking his head at the wall opposite.
Her sister Tanya had always said publishers were mad! Mariann stifled a giggle and balanced the dart between finger and thumb to humour him, turning her attention to the large photograph which had been skewered to the noticeboard by three other darts.
For a moment her hand wavered. Staring back at her was a man who seemed to burn holes in her. ‘At him? Who is he?’ she murmured in awe.
‘You must know Vigadó Gabór!’
Now she understood! Like many other publishers, Lionel had suffered because of this man. For several seconds, Vigadó’s intense animal quality held her quite still. It was the eyes that mesmerised her, glowering out black and full of malevolence from under lowered brows, capturing her, drawing her to him as surely as if she were being tugged on a rope like a slave!
‘Extraordinary guy!’ she managed, quite unreasonably disturbed. How infuriating! Her self-respect, her female pride was ruffled. Men never had that effect on her.
‘You said it.’ Lionel sounded strangely pleased.
‘Where’s his nice toothy smile for the photographer?’ she asked wryly, and studied the rest of him. Wide shoulders. An expensively toned torso beneath that expensively tailored navy suit. Dark as the devil. And a scar that slashed into an inch or so of his Slavonic cheekbones, lending him a disquieteningly exciting air of wickedness. ‘Wow! How did he get that?’ she murmured.
‘Duelling, they say.’ Her boss seemed to be watching her reaction like a hawk.
She laughed in disbelief. Too romantics ‘Oh, yes?’
‘He’s a wild, impetuous Hungarian with a vile temper——’
‘Fighting over a woman?’ she hazarded, seeing the possibility instantly.
‘Women,’ answered Lionel scathingly.
She wasn’t surprised. He had a mouth to make bones liquefy and a jaw…She smiled. That jaw told everything: his ruthlessness, the tenacity, the way he’d swept through the publishing world like a scourge. He’d been the talk of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Her dart flew arrow-straight and lodged between a pair of wickedly sculptured lips. ‘Will that do?’ she said, giving a small laugh to clear the effect of Vigadó’s dynamic eroticism on her.
‘Till you skewer him in person,’ said Lionel bitterly.
‘I’m your new editor, not your hit-man,’ she grinned.
Entirely against her will, she found herself looking at the photograph again. Two-dimensional or not, Vigadó looked ready to leap out from his glossy paper prison at any moment and tear his many enemies apart with his teeth.
‘I think it’s time someone made a stand against him.’ Lionel slumped in his chair. ‘He’s devoured half the publishers in Europe. What do you know of him?’
Mariann considered. ‘Gossip, mostly. I know he’s a street-fighter and not a gentleman by any means. He head-hunts authors. He’s taken some of yours—and he has an agent in Hungary, like you.’
‘He’s trying to ruin me,’ said Lionel quietly.
Her sympathetic eyes noted the despair in every line of his body even while her own apprehension made her heart beat faster. This was her first editing job. Her first step on the ladder. If Lionel went under, so would she. More interviews. More lecherous bosses. She sighed.
‘He can’t want a small publishing house,’ she began.
‘It’s a matter of vindictiveness!’ Lionel raised a face consumed with hatred. ‘I could kill him! He’s threatening the existence of this precious company I’ve built up from nothing—nothing!’
‘You still have Mary O’Brien,’ Mariann soothed hastily.
‘Not any more!’
‘What?’ she cried in dismay.
Her boss poured out a large whisky and Mariann realised with concern that it was about to follow the route of several others. ‘Last week I went to Cork,’ grated Lionel, ‘to discuss the editing of Mary’s final six chapters. She’d vanished—gone into hiding, God knows where. Her letter said it all. Vigadó’s poached her!’
‘That’s unethical! Outrageous!’ gasped Mariann. ‘Mary’s your best-selling author—’
‘And without her I’m finished,’ her boss said grimly, hurling the last dart wildly at Vigadó’s merciless face.
‘Why?’ asked Mariann, appalled.
‘Let me spell it out for you. The bank knows Mary’s done a bunk. That swine must have told them. They’re reluctant to continue my overdraft and I can kiss goodbye to any hope of venture capital loans. This business eats money! I might as well slit my throat and be done with it!’ he yelled.
And he looked as though he might, given any more blows to his professional pride. ‘You can’t throw in the towel! Don’t let him win!’ she cried hotly. ‘I’ll stand by you, I’ll do anything I can.’ Her voice softened with sympathy and became coaxing. ‘OK, Vigadó’s stolen your authors—so what? He doesn’t have the one thing that made this company successful: you. If you built up your publishing house before, you can do so again.’
Lionel gave a mirthless laugh, looking more haggard than ever. ‘You don’t understand! I need Mary,’ he insisted. ‘She’s one blockbuster author that even the banks have heard of. She guaranteed our loan merely by being on our list. Mary can make a fortune for us. We nursed her, encouraged her, saw her through all her crises and published her first book, then the rest…’
‘What about her contract?’ said Mariann quickly. ‘She must be in breach of it. We can—’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘She was in between contracts. We’d been…discussing fresh terms.’
Mariann groaned. ‘What awful luck! But…perhaps one of those manuscripts on my desk will turn up another Mary—’
‘You know the odds!’ he said, impatiently dismissive. ‘I can’t afford to wait for the unlikely. Mariann, you’re my only hope!’
‘Me? I’ll read till the words blur for you, but I’ve been an editor’s secretary for the last two years. You only interviewed me for this job a few days ago! I’m not exactly your most experienced member of staff!’ she protested.
‘You’re the most beautiful, though.’ He clamped a sweating hand on hers, his expression that of a desperate man.
Her mind whirled uncomprehendingly and she drew back, her eyes narrowed. ‘What did you say?’ she asked coldly.
‘I have a job for you. A very important one. Get Mary back.’
She blinked, not seeing the connection. ‘How—?’
‘You speak a little Hungarian. You’ve not long come back from Hungary.’ He looked at her for confirmation.
‘Yes. I went for my brother’s wedding. John works there,’ she said, frowning—and omitting to say that the wedding never took place. ‘My sister Tanya is marrying a Hungarian—István Huszár.’
Suddenly she picked up his drift. Vigadó worked for Dieter Ringel, the vast, international publishing house. He’d risen sky-high in that organisation via his wife’s bed, marrying Dieter Ringel’s only daughter. But Vigadó was Hungarian by birth.
She slid her hand away. ‘I suppose you’ve heard somewhere that István is a pretty influential guy,’ she said slowly. ‘I want to help, but I won’t use him to—’
‘It’s your own talents I want!’ broke in Lionel. ‘Vigadó’s moving the fiction department of Dieter Ringel from London to Hungary. That means the records will be on their way to Budapest. Mary O’Brien’s hideaway address will be in his office files. Charm your way into the office. Make tea, service the drains, anything! My agent will give you every assistance. He knows his job is at stake too. When you’re alone, search for that address. Mary has always liked the intimacy of our small company and scorned conglomerates. If I can get to her, I can persuade her to return, I’m sure.’
Drains? He was raving! ‘Everyone knows that Vigadó works all night like a vampire,’ she pointed out. ‘Even if I did gain access, I’d never be alone long enough—’
“The Bookseller says he’s not leaving London himself till the end of the month. That gives you three weeks.’
‘Good grief! You’re serious! Commercial espionage!’ Gracefully she lowered herself into a deep chair and looked at him in amazement from under her thick, dark brows. ‘Lionel, the chances of my getting work in his office is nil—’
‘Don’t you look in a mirror?’ he snapped irritably. ‘God, Mariann, they’ll take you on just so they can look at you! You’d tempt a whole monastic orderly’
Putting his exaggeration down to stress, she flicked a glance down the neatly waisted scarlet jacket and brief coral skirt. ‘I look good,’ she acknowledged. ‘I get eyed up, but—’
‘No. Not good, That’s the point. Oh, I’m sure you say no more often than most women brush their teeth, but that’s not the impression you give out,’ said Lionel impatiently. ‘I don’t know what’s in your background, but it sure isn’t goodness! You’ve got legs a man could dream about, wondering where they ever end, a mindboggling body that sways with invitation whenever it moves and eyes that would lure an ice-man to his fate!’
Her mouth gaped open. He’d given no hint of the way he saw her. She’d virtually taken the job because he seemed preoccupied with other concerns and not the length of her legs.
‘Lionel!’ she said sharply, stiffly. ‘This is my second day. I’ll make it my last if—’
‘Oh, god!’ he groaned, burying his head in his hands. ‘You don’t know what I’m going through. He’s sleeping with my wife!’
Mariann’s eyes widened. No wonder Lionel was at his wits’ end and suggesting this hare-brained scheme! A believer in constancy where marriage was concerned, she glared indignantly at the photograph. Vigadó was evil— and looked it. A modern-day pirate, burning and sinking companies, press-ganging the crew and taking hostages. Poor Lionel, to be up against that monster!
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said gently.
‘Adding insult to injury,’ muttered Lionel, ‘he’s given my wife a job as senior editor!’
She gasped, pained by such a cruel betrayal, and thought how good it would feel to pay Vigadó back for his double-dealing. Crazy! Or was it? Her head lifted high on its long, honey-skinned neck, a reckless smile curving the lush lips with their permanently uptilted corners. Supposing she succeeded? What a coup! Ideas piled into her head.
Hi! I’m your local, friendly plumber…I’m checking your telephones…Rat-infestation inspector here….
Amused by her inventiveness, she glanced at the malefic Vigadó, felt a jolt of raw sexuality and resented him for producing it. He was ripe for his come-uppance. And perhaps she could deliver it by helping Lionel to steal back his brilliant author.
It was a terrific gamble—but rather exciting! And if it came off, her job would be secure. Her dream profession would be solid reality. Even if she were caught searching the files, she could find some excuse like… What am I doing? Why, I’ve lost one of my eyelashes! she imagined herself saying, with a blandly innocent smile. Mariann’s bold sense of the dramatic leapt with the prospect of a full-blown, real-life part to play.
And she’d see her dear sister Tanya, István, John, and the fizzing, exotic city of Budapest again…She grinned, conveniently sweeping obstacles away and dreaming of gorgeous pastries, the magic of the snow, the passionate arguments with husky-accented Hungarians over Turkish coffee…
‘OK,’ she said impulsively, her eyes glistening with anticipated pleasure. ‘The sticky buns clinched it. I’l give it a go—and we’ll beat the brute at his own game!’
‘Oh, bless you, bless you!’ breathed Lionel triumphantly.
Involuntarily, she slanted her sloe eyes to the watchful Vigadó. His gimlet stare was directed straight at her in challenge. ‘Viggy, sweetie,’ she murmured, hoping to cheer Lionel up, ‘are you in for trouble!’
‘Oh, a-dabbin’ it here, a-dabbin’ it there, a-sloshing itWhoops!’ Feeling immensely exuberant now her fellow decorators and the staff of Vigadó’s Budapest office had gone home and she was alone, Mariann halted her raucous song in mid-roller stroke. ‘Drop the “g”,’ she reminded herself with a giggle. ‘Keep in character!’
A dollop of paint dropped on to her bare shoulder and she remembered that she’d been tempted to leave Vigadó’s office reeling from a rash of purple spots, but had overcome the urge!
Her peal of infectious laughter echoed around the empty room as she sidled barefoot along the plank between two ladders. ‘A-sloshin’ it here and a-sploshin’ it there…’
She’d done enough. Operation Search, begin! she thought, and a thousand butterflies suddenly took flight inside her stomach. That was natural, she grimaced.
She’d never done anything criminal before. So far, she’d only skirted the fringes of deception. Now she was breaking and entering. It was still a lark—and she hoped it would remain so. Lionel had seemed thrilled at her clever deception, eagerly demanding to know every detail of her plan.
Carefully she flicked some paint over herself in a few strategic places in case the janitor came in and clambered down. Everything had gone so well! Lionel’s agent had come up trumps. Impersonating Vigadó, he’d ordered two decorators to start work on the offices immediately—and to take on Mariann to help them. Here, the agent had made his voice husky with a few dropped hints.
‘I’m sending her to Budapest ahead of my amival, giving her a job, somewhere to stay and…well, I hope she’ll show her gratitude,’ he’d purred.
Glad of the highly priced job, the decorators hadn’t seen through the deception and had willingly agreed. Why should they care who she was? They had work.
They’d swept in that morning, full of confidence, and no one in the panic-filled building had dared to question ‘Vigadó’s’ arrangement. The staff were too taken up with organising order out of chaos, ready for Vigadó’s arrival—and the manager was more than busy grumbling that he was having to give up his beautiful, spacious office to his boss. She and the decorators had shifted out the antique furniture and spent the rest of the day rubbing down the paintwork and washing the walls while she’d simpered and wriggled seductively out of her boiler suit to lend credibility to her story by displaying a few assets.
Whenever possible, she’d made it clear to anyone who’d listen that Vigadó had picked her off the streets and she was immensely grateful. And when she’d prettily begged to start the ceiling that evening so she could ring Vigadó later and tell him how well she’d done, no one had liked to refuse. The Great Man obviously terrified them all!
Cowards! Her eyes gleamed. In the adjoining office, and now facing her, was the manager’s desk—and the keys to the filing cabinets. She’d particularly asked him to lock them up before they were moved out and had seen where he’d put the keys.
Stealthily she took the keys, slid the small one into the lock and heaved out the ‘B’ drawer…Nothing there about Mary! And before she had time to push the drawer shut and try the ‘O’s, she heard a sound outside and was forced to scamper back up the ladder and on to the board again. Shaking with nerves, she ran the roller up and down the tray, picking up a load of flapjack-coloured paint.
“Oh,’ she belted out noisily, ‘a-dabbin’ it here, a dabbin’ it there—!’
‘A beautiful intruder, I do declare,’ came a dry male drawl.
‘Wooahhh!’ yelled the startled Mariann, seeing who it was and wobbling perilously as a result, her whole body lurching about from the shock. Vigadó! she thought wildly. Why? How—?
‘Watch the—’
‘Oh, lor’!’ she wailed. Paint sloshed out from the shallow tray and hurled flapjack stains all over her shorts but with the dreaded Vigadó around she knew her priority: the ridiculous Marilyn Monroe wig that Lionel had proudly chosen and insisted she wore.
‘Hold on!’ rapped the harsh voice.
‘I—am!’ she grated irritably. Darn him! Why was he here? He was ten days early! The dart-riddled face in the photograph flashed before her eyes. The glacial stare. The menacing expression…‘Ohhh! Help!’ she cried, teetering precariously as her uneven weight tilted one of the ladders.
She heard his luggage hit the floor and the sound of his quick strides heading towards her. But her centre of gravity had given up the unequal struggle and, with both hands jammed on the wig, she toppled helplessly towards Vigadó Gabó’s waiting arms.
He caught her with effortless ease, as though he practised twice a night—which he probably did, she decided angrily, since he’d turned her around deftly and slid her to the ground to face him with the skill of a man accustomed to arranging scantily clad women where and how he pleased. She blushed at the carnal images she’d conjured up.
‘Stupid female!’ he growled, pushing her away. She almost crumpled to the floor on infuriatingly boneless legs so he caught her again, reluctantly folding her limp and shaking body to his rock-like chest, his open coat snuggling around her of its own accord. ‘Why the hell did you grab your hair?’ he added, with irritatingly masculine exasperation.
She grinned. Because it would have fallen off otherwise! With her face pressed hard into his vicunacoated shoulder, she searched her frantically spinning mind for an explanation.
‘I paid a fortune having’ it done,’ she gasped breathily, saying the first thing that came into her head.
‘God! Women!’ he grunted contemptuously and she sensed that he’d raised his eyes to her flapjack ceiling.
But he did pat her back soothingly so she obliged him and his prejudices with a trembly, ultra-feminine sniff. Lionel had told her on the phone to seem innocent, ignorant, a tart with a heart. Initially she’d protested, intending to play it straight—and only slightly over the top. Then she’d listened to Vigadó’s staff talking and her qualms about deceiving them had vanished. They were so proud of their boss’s ruthless, piratical tactics that she’d decided they were equally guilty of unfair business practices.
And now, unexpectedly faced with the dangerous viper himself, dumb stupidity might be a wise move!
‘My heart’s goin’ nineteen to the dozen!’ she breathed, waiting to see how he was going to react. Like a healthy male, she hoped, diverted by a pretty face.
‘So it is. Kind of you to draw my attention to the throb in your breast,’ he said mockingly, his Hungarian accent enhanced by the deep and husky timbre.
Mariann blushed at his directness. ‘I meant—’
‘Your acrobatics were dangerous. You could have broken your neck. How very foolish.’
She suppressed a smile of triumph. It was obvious he thought she was a dense, fluffy-headed female, and she wasn’t going to disillusion him! Fluffiness suited her in the circumstances; he’d never suspect her of any greater crime. And…it would be amusing to pull the wool over the eyes of such a womaniser, for Lionel’s sake…
‘Oh, my! I never thought of that!’ she cried in simulated horror, her voice muffled by his shoulder. ‘You’ve got to admit, though, if I’d ended up as dead as frozen chicken in a freezer, my hair would have looked nice,’ she reasoned idiotically, dying to laugh out loud and share the joke with someone.
His chest heaved up and down at her logic and Mariann realised to her amazement that he was trying not to laugh too. A monster with a sense of humour? she marvelled.
‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said evenly. ‘Now who…?’
He paused and went quite still for several seconds while the hairs on Mariann’s neck lifted in sheer apprehension. He was facing the other office. Could he see the open cabinet from there? She began to shake.
‘Somethin’ wrong?’ she croaked, feeling the quick rise and fall of his broad chest. And she also sensed an increased alertness; he was suddenly on guard. Surreptitiously she tried to check the wig.
‘Yes,’ he answered softly and Mariann tensed. ‘There’s paint on your hair.’ She breathed again. Paint! And she’d been afraid that he’d been putting two and two together, had looked right inside her head and read the words ‘Commercial Spy’ written there! ‘Looks like a repeat visit to the hairdresser,’ he mused, trying to lift one of her hands which was still locked rigid on her scalp.
‘Don’t!’ she said hastily, afraid he’d pull the wig askew. ‘I don’t like it being mussed up. The paint’ll wash out,’ she added, lifting her face from the shelter of his expensively soft coat and pushing herself back a little. Thinking she’d been a bit abrupt, she gave him a ‘my hero’ smile. ‘Thanks for catching me,’ she said politely, and met his gaze properly for the first time.
Wow! she thought in stunned admiration. What ruinously liquid eyes! Melting chocolate, she missed, and then recoiled in alarm because the chocolate seemed to be darkening and thickening as though he found her attractive. He shouldn’t have eyes you could dream in! she thought crossly. He should be cold and vicious with an icicle gaze, jagged teeth and foul breath!
Lionel had shown her articles and told her tales about this man to make her stomach turn. Staff meetings in rooms without chairs so no one waffled. High pay, long hours, ruthless sackings. Phone-tapping and bugging of his competitors’ offices and a no-hands-barred policy of seducing any woman who might aid his head-hunting expeditions. Secretaries in hysterics. Desperate husbands, suicidal wives whom Vigadó had loved and left.
A man with no morals. Furthermore, a man with only one aim: a driving need that amounted to an obsession to dominate everyone he came across, reducing strong men to quivering wrecks, tough editors to tear, boardrooms into submission.
He was certainly intent, she noticed angrily, on making the most of having a blonde fall like manna from the skies I En panic, she fought down a rush of sinful sensation as his mouth almost nuzzled her cheek. Her hands pushed the broad shoulders but she was locked in place by his immovable arms and all that happened was that her spine arched back and she was staring at his mocking lips.
‘I had no choice but to catch you,’ said his lover-close mouth, letting the lover-husky voice wash warm breath over her dizzily sensitised skin. ‘I walked in, saw a pair of provocative bare legs waving around at eye-level, and then a beautiful blonde fell into my arms. And she began to tremble appealingly, virtually asking for…I wonder what?’
Mariann stiffened. He’d changed from showing anger at the intrusion to acting like a hunter who’d found his dinner wandering provocatively around his lair. That was a deliberate opening gambit—but how to handle it? she wondered. Should it be the usual joky, gentle let-down, or a quick nipping in the bud? Infuriatingly, she couldn’t risk annoying him!
‘I had a shock,’ she confided. ‘Me past life zipped past me eyes.’
‘Oh! That must have been a dreadful experience to go through. I sympathise,’ he murmured insincerely.
‘Ta. I’m okey-dokey now,’ she assured him. ‘Give a girl a bit of breathin’ space, there’s a duck!’
‘No,’ he said succinctly.
Mariann was taken aback. ‘No?’ she repeated.
‘I’m hanging on to you till we establish what you’re doing in here,’ he said in a brittle voice, his grip tightening. ‘These are my premises and it’s after office hours, even Hungarian ones.’
‘I know,’ she said as cheerfully as she could, comparing him mentally to his photograph. He looked much more dangerous in the flesh, as if he’d flick their darts back and deliberately pierce a few of her vital arteries. Darn it, she’d have to soften him up and lull his suspicions by being moronic! And bluff like mad. ‘You’re the home-grown whiz-kid!’ she said with girly admiration.
‘I reckon I am,’ he agreed, his cynical gaze resting thoughtfully on her. ‘Vigadó Gab6r. And you?’
‘Mimi,’ she supplied and flashed a witless smile, deeply disappointed that she dare not risk saying, Call me Mimi!
‘Mimi,’ he repeated and his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Mariann didn’t blame him. It had seemed a harmless and appropriate choice when she’d been confronted by Vigadó’s lecherous office manager. Being ‘Mimi’ had made her feel coy and less inclined to ruin everything by crushing him with well-directed scorn when he’d suggested bringing a bottle of wine around to wherever she was staying.
Now, with this worldly-wise, laser-sharp tycoon dwelling on the likelihood of the name—instead of being mesmerised like the office manager by the way her vital statistics moved—she sensed she’d made a mistake.
So she grimaced and shrugged. ‘Daft name, ain’t it?’ she chirruped.
‘Yes. Very.’ To her dismay, Mariann’s body betrayed her, tightening with apprehension at his increasingly cynical glance. ‘You’re extremely tense. Women usually relax in my arms. Are you afraid of me?’ he asked with apparent innocence. But his voice had a steely edge to it.
‘You’ve got such…extraordinary eyes!’ she admitted huskily. ‘All glinty, like butcher’s knives. Give me the shivers, they do!’
‘My eyes are telling you what I’m thinking,’ he said tightly. ‘You see, I don’t take kindly to intruders, Mimi.’
‘Intruder?’ She bristled. ‘I’m legit!’
‘Legit what?’ he drawled.
Her head jerked confidently in the direction of the ladders. ‘Decorator, of course! Have paint tin and sandpaper, will travel!’
‘Really. Then why the nerves?’
Annoyed with herself, she tried to ease her tension and widened her eyes in simulated awe. ‘Dunno. But I’ve never been this close to a millionaire before!’
‘Billionaire,’ he corrected, reaching out unexpectedly to smooth her hair back off her face.
‘Ooh! Don’t! Tickles!’ she gurgled in panic, arching away. He’d find the join!
His mouth thinned. He was quite unaffected by her girly appeal, she realised in dismay. ‘How did you know who I was when I first walked into the office, Mimi?’ he asked with a sudden, devastating softness.
For a fraction of a second, she didn’t know what to say, then managed to pull herself together. ‘I’m not daft!’ she replied scornfully. ‘Who else would have a key?’
‘The janitor.’
‘In a vicuna coat? What do you pay janitors in Hungary?’ She laughed. ‘And would he be so bossy?’ she asked wickedly. Vigadó gave her a shrewd look. Divert him! her brain screamed. All she could manage was a simpering look of the utmost stupidity.
‘Mimi, I do believe you’re up to no good,’ he said softly. The glint in his eyes looked lethal.
She did a mock ‘who, little me?’ expression because she was temporarily lost for words, her throat dry with fear. It could be her paranoia that sensed a sinister meaning behind that remark. Or…Her heart somersaulted. There was a chance, a remote chance, that he’d glimpsed her at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
Except…No! That had been the month she’d had long hair the colour of coal-tar—and had flown home early with flu. How could he recognise her? As a mere assistant to her last editor, she’d been one of the insignificant crowd, far from Vigadó’s glittering entourage. And she’d been power-suited, immaculately made-up and wearing her frigid ‘no-dice, hands-off expression to keep three lusting authors at bay—and cursing her editor for entrusting them to her care.
Today, she was a blonde waif in cut-off, ragged shorts and a vest T-shirt and no make-up. He was being naturally suspicious, nothing more—and it wasn’t surprising.
Cautiously, pretending to be fussing with her hair, she checked that no conker-coloured strands were escaping from Marilyn and then tried a resentful look on him. She had to fight this to the last ditch. It was all or nothing, sink or swim!
‘I think you’ve got a nerve! I’m doin’ everyone a favour, being here!’ she declared stoutly.
‘By waving your legs around enticingly? By launching yourself prettily into my arms?’ he purred. It was like the caressing purr of a contented tiger, who was about to pounce…devour flesh and crunch bones!
‘I told you. Me and my mates is decoratin’ the place,’ said Mariann, her perkiness not too successful because of the shake in her voice.
‘I haven’t seen them, but I’ll agree that you decorate it very prettily,’ he husked, his smoky accent deeper, more distracting than ever.
‘Ta. Mind you, if I’ve still got me looks, it’s no thanks to you,’ she reminded him, putting him firmly in the wrong. ‘It’s a miracle I’m in one piece at all, what with you comin’ in without warning.’
‘Why is an English girl working as a decorator in Budapest?’ he asked reasonably, but sardonically.
She simpered and launched into her story. ‘I’m helpin’ a couple of fellers I know. András and János. They’re fittin’ this job in as a favour. My mum’s Hungarian. I got family over here,’ she added truthfully. ‘Not a crime, is it? I got to eat, you know.’ A mischievous impulse, born of desperation, made her launch into wild, inventive improvisation to establish her credentials before making a quick exit. ‘I hope you know you’ve ruined me snake ‘n’ adder!’
His eyebrow rose quizzically, as well it might, she thought ruefully. And then she caught an excitement running through her veins and realised that playing risky games with the master of deception was rather enjoyable!
‘Snake and…adder?’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing.
‘Cockney rhyming slang. Adder—ladder!’ she explained sweetly, reasoning that it was rather unlikely that a Hungarian would be any kind of an expert.
‘I’m fascinated by your barrow-boy wit!’ he marvelled sarcastically. ‘This is almost like My Fair Lady.’
‘It is?’ A little puzzled, Mariann let her eyelashes do a bit of overtime and prayed that that was admiration gleaming in his eyes.
‘The simple Cockney girl in that particular musical turned into a raving beauty with a shrewd mind and a cut-glass accent,’ he murmured and she smiled uncertainly.
‘Oh, yeah. Audrey Hepburn. ‘Scuse me,’ she said, trying to ease out of his vice-like grip. Her hand looked decidedly white. Didn’t he care about hurting women? ‘I’d better give me ladder the once-over before I clean me brushes and go—’
‘I was intending to give you the once-over, after your fall down the…’ he paused, delicately, his mouth ironic ‘…adder!’
Mariann squirmed, not wanting to risk having a handson experience with Mr Bedroom Eyes himself and wondering what it would take to free herself.
‘You tryin’ to stop the blood flowing to me fingers?’ she asked in pointed objection.
‘Is that what I’m doing? Dear me! No wonder I’m known for breaking butterflies’ wings on wheels,’ he said in a low, unnervingly cruel undertone. He smiled unpleasantly, as though contemplating a few butterflies he’d destroyed, and Mariann’s pulses lurched erratically. ‘In certain circumstances, I use more force than necessary.’
‘What circumstances?’ she asked hoarsely.
His sharply sculptured lips curled into a calculating smile that coincided with the pressure of his hips against hers. ‘When I’m aroused in one way or another.’
Aroused. Mariann swallowed hard. Was that anger or passion in his tone? She found it confusingly hard to tell. ‘You come to the boil a bit quick!’ she observed, her jaunty tone belying her fear.
‘Depends how high the heat is turned up,’ he said meaningfully. Mariann took the hint. She’d overdone it. This guy needed no encouragement for his sexual urge to take over. ‘Now let’s find out all about you, shall we?’
‘I’m better at talkin’ when I can breathe,’ she husked. His thumbs were now massaging in an irritatingly rhythmic way over her flesh. Her tingling flesh. How could it tingle? she thought in mortification.
‘And I’m better at getting information out of people when I have some kind of a hold over them,’ he replied coolly.
She gasped at his blatant threat and decided it was time this trickster experienced a dirty trick or two in return. So she inhaled deeply. Vigadó’s avid eyes fell to her T-shirt, which he watched with close interest as it rose beneath the strain of her lifting breasts.
And then, ‘Read all about it!’ she yelled, approximately two inches from his mesmerised face.
‘What the devil—?’ he roared, flinching violently.
She was free!’ ‘Just checking my lungs work all right,’ she said with bright innocence, taking a precautionary step or two nearer to the sanctuary of her outdoor clothes. A bit of bleached-blonde Marilyn slid seductively over one eye and she decided to leave it there. Her giggle surfaced at his pained expression. ‘I haven’t gone mad.’ She grinned. ‘That was-—’
‘I know,’ he grated irritably. ‘I’ve heard newspaper venders shouting that phrase in London. You bring the city sounds vividly back to me,’ he added in icy sarcasm. ‘You’ll be doing the Lambeth Walk and impressions of Big Ben chiming next.’
She flung him an amused look and then her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a laugh. ‘Oh, my!’ she gasped. ‘The paint’s gone all over your nice pin-stripe!’
His gaze followed hers. ‘Dammit!’ he cried irritably, slipping his arms out of the expensive coat—mercifully untouched—and passing it imperiously to her. ‘Look what you’ve done!’
Annoyed by his arrogant manner, she flung the coat in the general direction of his luggage and decided to have a dig at him. ‘I didn’t ask you to clutch me to you like a drownin’ man grabbin’ a lifebelt!’ she argued indignantly.
‘I was steadying you, after your launch into space,’ he said in chilling tones. ‘And I don’t quite see myself as a drowning man.’
‘Like a leech, then,’ she said in a kindly way, because he was, having sucked the life blood from her boss’s business.
His lips compressed. ‘I think I’m beginning to understand what you’re trying to convey,’ he said caustically. And suddenly she saw that he looked tired, as though his journey had been a long one. Tired was good news, she thought, giving a sigh of relief. He’d be less of a menace. ‘Have you got any turps?’ he snapped.
‘Sure,’ she chirruped. She strode over to She tool box and solemnly handed him the bottle and some rags.
‘You?’ Curt and barely civil, he held out the bottle.
Thanking him politely, she took the worst of the stains off her shorts and then turned her attention to the spots on her legs, aware that his eyes kept flicking over to watch her movements. No harm in that. Plenty of men had ogled her legs before—but this time she felt more uncomfortable than usual so she gave one hasty, make-do rub and waited anxiously for the chance to leave.
Her heart was racing at an all-time high. That would be due to the danger, of course. But being found out was far less worrying than the air of sexual violence he was projecting. And also worrying was her extraordinary pagan response to it. What had happened to her immunity, her sense of the ridiculous when men became doe-eyed and panting?
Unfortunately for her, this guy was light-years away from being doe-eyed or panting. She, however, had felt alarmingly close to sinking, with a mindless sigh, into his arms! Extraordinary—and humiliating that she was reacting to his leader-of-the-pack attitude by virtually rolling over in submission!
She darted a quick, resentful glance at him and he looked away. His strong but deft fingers worked at the cloth, stretching it taut across his well-developed thighs. In fact, he was very muscular all over. And she wished he were a seven-stone weakling. She’d feel safer. At the moment, she felt as safe as a rabbit in a trap. She shivered—and knew with a sinking heart that she had to abandon her attempt and try again the next evening. All she needed was a good exit line.
