Taken By The Maverick Millionaire. Anna Cleary
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she had to acknowledge the likelihood of Marge’s words. Tom Russell had been brought up by a father whose endless stream of actresses and models must have caused serious pain for his succession of wives.
She studied the photo. Was he as callous as Gran had so often described his old man? Those cool grey eyes roused an unquiet little buzz in her insides. Her gaze shifted to his mouth. A lot could be deduced from a man’s mouth. His had been chiselled in severe lines and was wide and firm, the upper lip straight, the lower one very slightly fuller. There was no softness there, though more than a suggestion of irony. He didn’t need to spike up his hair to make himself look taller.
She turned the photo sideways. Sexy, from all angles.
‘Cate.’
She started. It took a second for it to filter through to her that Harry had come out of his huddle with the news editor, and seemed to be looking her way.
Her? He wanted her?
She pushed her chair back and rose to stroll the length of the newsroom, vaguely conscious of Steve’s, Toni’s and Barbara’s startled gazes whipping around to stare.
At the desk the others looked up to watch and listen while Harry’s sharp eyes appraised her from beneath his bushy brows.
‘Your Russell obit wasn’t all that bad,’ he stated.
She gazed at Harry through a mystified fog. Were there bells ringing somewhere? Then pleasure, sharp and furious, streamed through her to her toes. ‘Oh. Oh, thank you. Thanks, Chief. Thanks very much,’ she stammered, feeling her ears turn pink.
She continued to babble her thanks, but Harry ignored her.
‘See what you can make of the memorial,’ he instructed with laconic calm. ‘The business people, the politicians who’ve been invited, who’s in and who’s out—the tone of it. Above all, watch Tom Russell. Who he talks to, who his friends are. Take Mike with you. They’re not allowing cameras inside the cathedral, but get there early and see who you can catch on the red carpet. There’s a lunch in some undisclosed location. Press are excluded.’
She nodded. A huge, joyous whoop had risen inside her and threatened to burst out, but Harry wasn’t the sort to encourage a hug, so she squashed it down.
‘Oh, and, Cate—security will be tight. Don’t forget your pass. And don’t even think of trying to get to Russell. He’s a dangerous man to cross.’
She nodded with appropriate newsroom nonchalance, and turned to stroll back to her desk. The little cluster of ace reporters fell back silently to allow her through. She permitted herself one glance at Steve Wilson. He was frowning hard, his ginger spikes quivering, his blue eyes narrowed. Pity itmade him look slightly cross-eyed. She should have noticed that sooner.
Everything—the day, the sunshine streaming in through the window, the newsroom—felt suddenly fantastic, as if it was her day. She grabbed some notebooks, pencils and her miniature tape recorder and stuffed them into her handbag. Then she paused a moment to glance down at her dress, beginning to show signs of washing stress. Not quite the thing for a society memorial.
Black. She needed something black.
A vintage suit she’d bought from Rhapsodie, the boutique down the road from her Kirribilli boarding house, was itching for a new outing. She glanced at her watch. Nearly eight thirty. The service was slated for noon and she and Mike, her photographer, would need to set up at least two hours earlier. Time enough to catch the train home.
She found Mike in the canteen, poring over the racing page. She had a hurried conference with him, and a bare thirty minutes later was running up the stairs of the Lady Musgrave.
Her eighties suit was a stunning fit. The slim skirt fell to just above her knees, while the jacket had big, sewn-in shoulder pads and a severely shaped bodice with a modest, though deep-cut neckline. Extremely flattering to her breasts, although hanging the press pass around her neck rather ruined the effect. She tried clamping the pass to her jacket hem, considered it with a frown, then took it off to worry about later.
The other nineteen occupants she shared the boarding house with had left for work, so she had the bathroom to herself. In the presence of black, her blonde hair had turned to a pleasing silvery ash. With no time to waste, she subdued the mass by tying it in her nape with a black velvet ribbon. Black heels and pearl earrings completed the effect.
Not too much later, dressed to kill in vintage Carla Zampatti, she found Mike at the rear of the cathedral with his camera, leaning his long, lanky bones against a brick wall.
Streets had been cordoned off to control traffic, and the cathedral precinct was quiet, apart from a battalion of security guards prowling the boundaries, mobiles to their ears, and an occasional black-clad cleric hurrying across the grounds. There were a couple of big, expensive cars in the visitors’ car park, but no other sign yet of the rich and famous.
A team of television journalists arrived to set up in the front. Cate exchanged mobile codes with Mike, and went to reconnoitre the cathedral.
A security guard with a shaven head was stationed in the porch. She showed him her press ID, and after a growled warning not to even dream of trying to use her mobile inside if she didn’t want it confiscated, he consulted a list before allowing her to pass. She grinned to herself. Fat chance they had of enforcing that rule.
A reception table had been set inside the door, and she helped herself to a programme, which included a sketchy seating plan. As she’d expected, the pews allocated to the press were at the rear.
The cathedral’s soaring interior was cool and dim. At once the deep hush washed over her, reminding her it was some time since she’d been in a church. Awed by the graceful lines of the architecture, she strolled about, examining the stained glass and reading wall inscriptions.
Two women carrying magnificent flower arrangements bustled in from the transept aisle. Cate paused, drinking in the atmosphere. Even the presence of a couple of security guards lurking behind pillars, keeping a watchful eye on her in case she broke into some anti-Russell guerilla activity, couldn’t dilute the spiritual repose of the place.
A priest attending to something in the chancel looked hard at her as if he knew a red-hot sinner when he saw one, and, shamed, she slipped into a pew. She sent up a small prayer for her grandmother. Perhaps heaven wanted vengeance for the damage she’d caused Gran, because a small nagging need she’d been vaguely conscious of for some time suddenly became compelling.
The priest finished his preparations and hurried away. Cate gazed after him. Down that aisle, she knew, were the vestry and church offices. There had to be a ladies’room. Should she risk it, though? She wasn’t sure the general public were allowed into the inner reaches of the cathedral.
The sound of voices alerted her to the arrival of more guests. She noticed that the security men were both scanning the people crowding the entrance. Taking advantage of the distraction, she rose to her feet. It was now or never.
Hoping she looked like a woman with nothing to hide, she walked coolly down towards the altar, asserting her feminine right to visit the ladies in her dignified gait. No one intercepted her, and when she made a quick turn into the transept aisle, and saw a long, wide hallway stretching ahead, she was grateful to see it devoid of either security or clergy. With her heart hammering at the strange guilt attached to stealing around a church like a thief, she hastened past a couple of unmarked doors, not daring to open them for fear of surprising someone, and turned into the vestry.
A maze of rooms opened from it. There was one with a piano, a robing room lined with alcoves hung with priestly vestments, and a business office adjacent to a small meeting room. In the office the computer was running, as though someone had recently stood up from it and taken a temporary break.
She hesitated, feeling more like a trespasser with every step, then spotted a promising door on the other side of the meeting room. To her relief, it belonged to a tiny washroom, with a small washbasin below a rust-flecked mirror, and a toilet cubicle redolent of disinfectant.