CHAPTER ONE

      MARTINE was late, and in a hurry, so she leapt out of her taxi and ran across the pavement towards the Mayfair restaurant, too intent to notice the man in evening dress who got out of a parked car on the other side of the road and headed in the same direction.

      There was a moment when either of them could have held back, but, although they glanced briefly at each other, neither of them stopped. Martine thought she was nearer and would get there first; but he moved faster.

      They collided in the revolving door. Which promptly jammed—with them crushed together inside one section. Martine looked up, her eyes as stormily green as northern seas. The eyes that met hers were black, cold, irritated.

      ‘If you back out, that will free the door!’ said a deep, dark voice with a faint foreign accent which she couldn’t identify.

      ‘If you had had the manners to let me go first this wouldn’t have happened! You step back!’ she snapped.

      It was all his fault, and Martine didn’t like his peremptory tone, or the fact that she had been forced so close to him. You couldn’t have got a sheet of paper between them, in fact—which meant that his body actually touched hers, making her very aware of his powerful build. He might be wearing civilised evening dress but underneath it was a distinctly primitive body: six feet of muscle and bone and smooth, tanned skin, a face that could have been carved out of granite.

      ‘There’s no point in arguing about whose fault it is!’ he bit out. ‘Just wriggle backwards.’

      ‘Any wriggling can be done by you,’ Martine informed him.

      Just because she was almost a foot shorter than him, fine-boned and slender, he needn’t imagine that she was a helpless female and a pushover. She wasn’t backing down, even if it meant they stayed jammed in this door all night.

      He stared down into her angry green eyes, and she bristled like a cat faced with danger, the hair standing up on the back of her neck.

      Something about the arrogant tilt of his head, the sleek black hair, the cool eyes, reminded her of a man she had once loved, but who had walked out on her to marry a girl with rich parents. Three years had gone by since then, and Martine had dated other men, but never fallen in love like that again, and never meant to. She had been badly hurt once. She didn’t intend to repeat the experience.

      ‘Look, even an idiot should see that the easiest way of freeing the door would be for you to back out,’ he coldly pointed out.

      ‘Oh, very well,’ Martine said, shifting sideways to get into a better position for wriggling out. His foot was in the way. Her elegant little black shoes had thin, high heels, like stilettos. She felt one of them sink into the top of his polished shoe.

      He started violently, took a sharp breath, and said something under that breath which she couldn’t quite hear but which sounded suspiciously like swearing.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said, and met glittering black eyes.

      ‘You did that deliberately!’ he accused.

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I was simply trying to get out. How was I to know you would put your foot in the way?’

      He eyed her with dislike. His nostrils flared, a white line of rage around his mouth.

      ‘I suppose I’ll have to get us out of here or we’ll be here all night,’ he muttered. ‘Just stand still, will you?’

      Turning sideways, he began to slide past her, his body pressing against hers in the process, his long thigh pushing past, his arm brushing her breast. Despite herself she felt a sharp needle of sexual awareness stab through her and tensed in shock.

      ‘Hey! Watch it!’ she hissed, guessing that he was inflicting his intimacy on her deliberately in male revenge because she hadn’t been the one to back out.

      It was a mistake to say anything. It made him stop, dead, looking down at her with those dark, narrowed eyes barely inches above her own, their bodies still touching. ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he said through his teeth. ‘This isn’t giving me any thrill at all, I assure you.’

      Martine reddened crossly. ‘Oh, just get a move on, will you?’ she muttered. ‘We’re attracting a crowd!’

      There were people on the inside of the restaurant, trying to get out, and another couple on the pavement, trying to get in, all watching them and grinning. They were providing live entertainment and Martine felt very silly and very angry. She hid it, giving their audience helpless smiles and shrugs.

      Her reluctant companion finally squeezed out backwards, and Martine immediately pushed the revolving door to emerge in the restaurant, murmured an apology to the people waiting, slid out of her silk evening jacket and handed it to a hovering waiter.

      ‘Is Mr Redmond here, yet?’

      ‘If he is, he’ll be in the bar, miss.’

      Behind her she heard the revolving door turning and was aware of a looming presence emerging.

      She ignored him.

      As she walked into the circular, discreetly lit bar, she saw a faint reflection swimming in the black glass lining the wall behind the bar counter. First herself, slender, in black georgette, her face thrown into odd prominence, a pale, shimmering oval, her neck long and slim, a white magnolia pinned just above her breasts, at the edge of her deep neckline, her dark auburn hair coiled low on her nape; and, walking behind her, a head taller than her, the black-haired foreigner in his stiff white shirt front and black jacket.

      She had to admit they made an interesting composition in black and white; the only colour visible was the dark flame of her red hair.

      She halted to look around the room. There were a few people in the bar, but there was no sign of Charles, which didn’t surprise her. He was often unpunctual, but then he had so much on his mind. Since the death of his wife he had buried himself in work; sometimes he didn’t seem quite sure which day of the week it was! She only hoped he would remember that he had asked her to have dinner here tonight.

      He had just flown back from New York that morning and hadn’t been in to the office since landing; had stayed at home, resting after the trip.

      He had made their date for tonight from New York. No doubt he wanted to talk to her out of the office; there was always too much going on there for any possibility of a private conversation, and since much of the information he needed