Unwilling Surrender. CATHY WILLIAMS
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on that he was, but there was nothing tired about the man sitting next to her now. He looked invigorated, ready for a few hours of discussion, probably on her love-life, or lack of it, which he seemed to find highly entertaining. Maybe this was his sly way of extracting his pound of flesh for her silence over Fiona’s whereabouts.
‘What a damning statement,’ he said. ‘Bed-hopping? You have a very vivid imagination. I may have slept with a few women in my time, but I certainly don’t make a habit of jumping in and out of beds on a routine basis. Any chance of another cup of coffee?’ He held out his mug and Christina looked at it scathingly.
‘No chance whatsoever. I’m tired and it’s time that you left. I have no intention of telling you where Fiona’s gone, so you might as well forget it, Adam.’
His lips thinned.
‘I’ll do nothing of the sort. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll personally make sure that Simon West pays for any mistakes that my sister’s made.’
‘How do you intend to do that?’ Christina asked apprehensively. She had no doubt that he could and would do precisely as he had threatened. He certainly pulled enough strings, had enough power in the right circles to ensure that his threats weren’t hollow ones.
‘He’s an actor, isn’t he?’
She nodded without saying anything.
‘A very precarious position, wouldn’t you agree?’
She nodded again and felt like a mouse that had strayed into a trap and was waiting for it to clamp shut.
‘I’ve been on the look-out for a theatre company to buy. There could be a lot of money in that. I’ve been meaning to broaden my interests in the field of the arts for quite some time now.’ He allowed a little silence to fall between them. ‘It’s a tight community, the artistic community. One word about someone can spread faster than a bush fire.’ He turned the mug over in his hands, inspecting it.
‘You wouldn’t ruin his career,’ Christina whispered, horrified. ‘You couldn’t.’
‘I’ll do what I can to protect my sister.’ He slammed the mug down on to the coffee-table, making her jump.
He had put her in an impossible situation. Keep quiet and risk watching Simon West’s career, such as it was, bite the dust. Tell all and betray her friend’s confidence.
Simon might be everything that Adam had said he was. Certainly, from what she had seen, he was vain, egotistic and irritatingly convinced that the world was somehow a better place with him in it. But she could not stand aside and let Adam do his worst.
‘All right,’ she said wearily. ‘They’re using that cottage in Scotland. The one your parents owned.’
‘That?’ Adam gave her a long, hard look and then began to laugh. ‘Well, I can’t see romance blossoming in that run-down place, can you? Especially in weather like this. West hardly strikes me as the sort of man who knows how to survive without central heating and all mod cons.’
‘Fiona said that they needed privacy.’
‘She gets privacy. In fact she has all the room she needs.’
‘Very little, when you’re under the same roof,’ Christina said under her breath, and he frowned.
‘Well, I shall have to go up there and try and talk some sense into her. Just in case she’s contemplating doing something crazy.’ He stood up and immediately the lounge seemed to shrink in size.
‘Like what?’ Christina asked, momentarily distracted by the sheer power of his presence.
‘Like marrying the half-wit.’ He snatched up his coat and began putting it on. Black and thick, it gave him the air of a raffish highwayman, not that he seemed aware of the impression he made. He was frowning, thinking.
‘Wouldn’t they need a licence or something?’ Christina asked, anxious now. ‘Besides, Fiona has more sense than that.’ But her voice was even more dubious.
‘Who knows how long they’ve been planning this little jaunt?’ He looked at her narrowly, and she shook her head in answer to his unspoken question.
‘I, for one, did not,’ she denied vehemently. ‘Fiona dropped this on me like a bombshell yesterday.’
He was staring at her, as if trying to work something out in his mind, and it made her uneasy. Nothing was ever straightforward with Adam Palmer. She rose to her feet and walked across to the door, her hand resting lightly on the handle.
He had got what he wanted, she thought. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble merely by recognising from the very start that he was going to get the information out of her, and by telling him what he wanted to know without bothering to beat about the bush.
But he had always brought out the argumentative side in her. Even when she had been madly infatuated with him, when she used to follow him with her eyes every time she saw him, she had still never been submissive enough to listen to what he had to say without responding.
He moved across to the door to stand by her, looking down at her with a calculating little gleam in his eyes.
‘Busy right now?’ he asked, and she stared into his blue eyes, surprised and taken aback by his sudden digression.
‘Quite busy, yes,’ she said warily. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Merely being polite. After all, we’ve hardly exchanged pleasantries since I got here.’
‘I don’t remember a time when that bothered you particularly,’ Christina commented matter-of-factly.
He raised one brow, but she knew that he really couldn’t care less what she thought of him. He liked her well enough; time, after all, did bring a certain unsought familiarity into any relationship. But as far as he was concerned she existed on his periphery. His sister’s friend. The plain little girl who had grown into a quite ordinary-looking young woman. He had never looked twice at her and he never would, and so he had nothing to prove with her. He didn’t even have to pretend to care what she thought about him.
‘What interesting jobs have you got lined up? Fiona keeps me well informed about your fascinating line of work.’
‘Does she?’ Christina asked politely, thinking that he sounded anything but fascinated.
‘What was your last project? Photographing a member of royalty for a magazine cover?’
Christina nodded and wondered where this line of questioning was leading.
‘Must be very convenient, freelancing,’ he murmured, looking at her sideways. ‘I sometimes wish I had that sort of luxury.’
‘What? And give up the stress of the concrete jungle?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘I don’t believe that for one minute, Adam.’
He laughed softly. ‘No, perhaps you’re right,’ he murmured. ‘Still, you work to your own timetable, don’t you?’
‘Not really.’
He ignored that. ‘Which is particularly convenient right at this moment, because I want you to come with me to Scotland to fetch my sister.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU want what?’ Christina stared at him as though he had gone completely mad and he stared back at her with an insufferable look of patience on his face.
‘I want you to come with me to Scotland,’ he repeated, very slowly, ‘to fetch my sister. You’ve already agreed that she was crazy to have just vanished with that fool of a boy. Who knows where it will lead? And if she makes the mistake of marrying him, it’ll be over my dead body. So naturally I have to prevent that from happening at all costs.’
‘Oh, naturally,’ Christina spluttered angrily. ‘You go right