Hers For A Night

Deliberately she made the words sound cold and impersonal, insulting in their objectivity, and she knew that they had struck home as she saw his head go back sharply.

‘It wasn’t that I chose you. It could have been anyone.’

He didn’t look convinced, damn him, but that was all she was prepared to say. Deep down, she had to admit that she was beginning to wish that she had chosen someone else, or had never had this idea in the first place.

‘Any man would have done.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Lucas drawled, lacing the words with silky cynicism. ‘Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t exactly believe you.’

‘Don’t exactly believe’! The arrogance of the man! She’d been warned strongly enough by Kelly, but until now she hadn’t really believed that he could be quite as bad as he was painted. Now she saw he was all of that, and more.

‘I realise that it must be difficult for you to believe that any woman would be able to resist your muchvaunted charms!’ she flung at him, unable to keep her temper under control any longer. ‘But, believe me, such a woman does exist! I want you to understand once and for all that any arrangement between us would have to be strictly business and nothing more.’

Georgia didn’t know if it was devilish amusement or black anger that twisted Lucas’s mouth sharply. She found herself unable to interpret his reaction as his dark head inclined in a gesture that might have been agreement, or something very different.

‘Strictly business.’

‘I want nothing more from you than your time and your—’

Hastily she caught herself up, painfully aware of the fact that she had been about to say ‘your body’. She could just imagine the interpretation he might put on that.

‘And your presence as my escort to the party. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly.’ Lucas’s tone matched hers in its clipped coldness—matched and outstripped it by a mile as it dripped icy condescension as he added, ‘Though why you need to emphasise that point is beyond me.’

‘What?’ It was as if his words had been an actual, physical slap in the face, leaving her gasping with shock as he got to his feet with leisurely grace. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No?’

When he smiled like that, for all that the room was packed with people, Georgia suddenly felt as isolated and afraid as if she had been alone with him on some dark and deserted street.

Those black eyes held her hazel ones mockingly as he reached into the inner pocket of his elegant dinner jacket and pulled out a slip of white card.

‘Then let me spell it out. You have no need at all to fear that our relationship will be anything other than the “strictly business” deal you’re so determined to insist on. Because, you see, if I did want anything more personal—more intimate—then, believe me, you would be the last woman on earth I would choose.’

The casual way he tossed the card onto the table so that it fell just short of her hand was deliberately insulting in its arrogance. The insult was deepened by the offhand way he continued.

‘My number’s on there,’ he declared coolly. ‘Ring me when you want to talk business.’

And before Georgia could regain enough composure even to think of a retort, let alone utter it, he had turned on his heel and strode away, disappearing from sight within seconds as he was swallowed up by the crowd.

CHAPTER TWO

FOR perhaps the twentieth time that day, Georgia reached into her handbag and pulled out the small slip of white card, frowning darkly as she studied the words printed on it in an elegant script Not that she had any need to read them through again; she already knew them, and the telephone numbers, off by heart.

‘Ring me when you want to talk business.’

Lucas Mallory’s drawling voice echoed inside her head, the calculated note of contemptuous dismissal searing over tightly stretched nerves.

‘If I did want anything more personal.you would be the last woman on earth I would choose.’

‘Damn you!’ Georgia muttered aloud, addressing the words to the piece of card as if it was the man himself. ‘Damn, damn, damn you! The feeling’s totally mutual, and if I never see you again it will be far too soon!’

Given the choice, she would leave the whole thing well alone, tear the card into tiny pieces and deposit it and her unpleasant memories of the meeting with Lucas in the wastepaper bin once and for all

But she didn’t have the choice, that was the real problem. Only that morning her mother had been on the phone, full of gossip and excitement.

‘I’ve booked Wyndhams to do the catering. They did Polly and Tim’s anniversary do and it was wonderful. Oh, and we’re having that trio that played at Meg’s wedding. We’ll open the doors between the sitting room and the dining room so there’ll be plenty of room for dancing, and have the buffet in the garden room—with champagne, of course!’

‘Of course,’ Georgia echoed wanly, but Anna Harding didn’t seem to need any response, being well launched onto her current favourite subject.

‘I did wonder just who I could get to propose the toast, but when Meg suggested Bryn Walker he seemed the obvious choice, and he was delighted to be asked.’

‘Bryn Walker?’ Georgia didn’t recognise the name.

‘The new manager of the Leeds store, darling! He and his wife will be coming, of course.’

‘But I would have thought that someone closer.’ Never a daughter, of course. ‘Perhaps one of his friends.’

‘Oh, but then I wouldn’t have known just who to choose, and I didn’t want to put anyone’s nose out of joint. And, of course, it is such an important anniversary for Harding’s, as well as Dad’s birthday.’

And Georgia knew only too well which of those two events her father would regard as being the most significant. His membership of the Harding dynasty meant much more to him than his position in his own family.

‘Of course,’ she said again, and this time her mother caught the strained note in her voice.

‘You are coming, aren’t you, George?’ Her own tone had sharpened, as if she suspected a possible flaw in her carefully laid plans.

‘Yes, I’m coming,’ Georgia hastened to reassure her. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

She hoped she sounded convincing. There was nothing her mother liked less than the suspicion that all was not right in her rather restricted world. But certainly Anna’s concern seemed to have eased.

‘And you’re bringing someone?’

With her own feelings still see-sawing up and down on that particular topic, Georgia could only manage an inarticulate murmur that might have been agreement in reply.