Mistress of Convenience. PENNY JORDAN
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as for the lengths such women were prepared to go!
His mouth hardened. So far as he was concerned Suzy Roberts and her ilk were as contemptible as the rags they worked for.
Reporter? Scavenger was a more appropriate word.
He turned his attention back to his paperwork, but, maddeningly, she would not be ejected from his thoughts.
What the hell was the matter with him that he should be wasting his time thinking about Suzy Roberts? That auburn hair and the way her gold-green gaze fastened on him must have addled his brain.
Had she really thought he was so idiotic that he would be deceived by that obviously fake look of longing she had given him? That equally fake tremor he had felt run right through her body when he had touched her? And as for that faint but unmistakable scent he could have sworn he could still smell…
Angrily he got up and strode across the room, pushing open a window, letting in an icy cold blast of air. Perhaps the unintentional celibacy of his life over these last few years had suddenly begun to affect him. But to such an extent that he wanted a woman like Suzy Roberts?
Like hell he did! But the sudden tension in his groin told a different story.
It was late, and he had a business appointment to keep. Finishing what he was doing, he made his way from the office to the privacy of his own apartment, automatically watching and checking as he did so. Once a commando always a commando—even when he could no longer…
Suppressing thoughts he did not want to have to deal with, Luke walked into his suite and headed for the shower.
Stripping off, he stepped into it, the hot needle-jets of water glistening on his body as he moved beneath the shower’s spray. The light fell on old scars on his chest, and the newer one low down on his body.
Having finished showering, he stepped out onto the marble floor, padding naked into his bedroom to extract a pair of clean white boxer shorts from a drawer. The phrase ‘going commando-style’ might have a certain sexual edge to it when used to describe the choice not to wear any underwear, but from his own point of view weeks, sometimes months of living in the field, in one set of sweat and dirt-soaked combats had given him a very different take on the matter! To anyone who had experienced desert combat conditions the luxury of quantities of clean water was something to be truly appreciated.
Six months later
SUZY paused and studied the sleek yachts clustered in the harbour of the small Italian coastal resort. Two women walked past her, expensively groomed and wearing equally expensive designer clothes. Suzy had dressed as appropriately as she could for this luxurious resort, in white linen trousers and a brief sleeveless matching top, with sandals on her feet and the de rigueur sunglasses concealing her eyes, but no way was she in their league—and no way was she made for such an exclusive resort.
She had tried to tell Kate as much when her friend had announced that since she and her husband could not take up the week’s holiday they had been offered via their business they wanted to give the treat to Suzy instead.
‘Oh, no, Kate, I couldn’t possibly accept your generosity,’ Suzy had protested.
‘It isn’t generosity,’ Kate had retorted. ‘You need this break, Suzy. You’ve been through a lot these last few years—nursing your mother and then losing her, working every spare hour you had to finish your degree, and then that awful job you had!’
Suzy had sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have handed in my notice, really. My tutor had been so kind, getting the intro for me, I feel so guilty.’
‘You feel guilty?’ Kate had exploded. ‘Why on earth should you? You said yourself that you hated the way the magazine worked, its lack of morality with regard to how it got its stories and everything. And when I think of the way that slimy boss of yours tried to behave towards you! If anyone should be feeling guilty it’s them, not you, Suzy! I’m surprised they’re allowed to get away with treating you as they did. You know my opinion—you should have reported them for sexual harassment!’
Just listening to Kate’s words had been enough to make Suzy shudder a little.
‘It wasn’t as easy as that, Kate,’ Suzy had reminded her. ‘For one thing I was the only female working there. No one would have backed me up.’
Hearing the strain in her friend’s voice, Kate had shot her a quick look of concern before continuing, ‘Suzy, I know how strong you are, and how independent, but please just for once put yourself first. You need this break. You need time to relax and reflect, to pick up the threads of your life and weave them into a new pattern. You need this breathing space! I want to do this for you and I shall be very hurt if you refuse.’
Put like that, how could she refuse? Suzy had acknowledged ruefully. And besides, there had been enough truth in what Kate had said to make her see that her friend was right.
She still shook with anxiety and nervous tension when she thought about the scene in the Down and Dirty office the day she had handed in her notice. The crude insults her boss had hurled at her still made her face burn with embarrassment and loathing.
‘You aren’t leaving—I’m sacking you,’ he had told her furiously. ‘No jumped-up little nothing is going to mess me about!’
He had then claimed publicly that he was sacking her because she had offered him sex in exchange for promotion—but privately told her he would rescind his claim if she agreed to go to bed with him.
Her flesh still crawled at the thought.
Roy Jarvis might be the magazine’s editor-in-chief, but so far as Suzy was concerned he was the most morally corrupt man she had ever met. And her opinion was not just based on his attitude towards her, but on the way he ran the magazine and obtained its articles. Roy Jarvis’s reporters were told to let nothing stop them in their pursuit of obtaining a story. She had been like a fish out of water in such an environment.
And Kate had been right, Suzy acknowledged unhappily now. She did need some time out to reassess her life. And her emotions.
Suzy closed her eyes and tried to swallow past the hard ball of pain and misery lodged in her throat. Panic prickled over her skin as she fought against allowing herself to think about the cause of her pain.
Instead she switched her mind to more easily dealt with issues. The difficulties of the past few years, then the misery of realising she was in a job she hated, and working with people whose morals she could never accept, never mind adopt, had all affected her. But she still needed to earn a living—somehow! And giving in to Kate and accepting this holiday was not, in her opinion, going to aid that.
No, but it might stop her from dreaming about a man she should have forgotten.
And this pretty Italian fishing village, perched precariously on the steep sides of a small bay, was surely a perfect spot in which to chill out and ground herself, to assess her own ambitions and think again about her original desire to become an archivist, perhaps. Her tutor had scorned her ambition, but Suzy had a deep longing for the cloistered quiet of such career.
Skirting the pretty harbour, with its chic and very expensive restaurants, Suzy headed for the steep path that led to the top of the cliff.
Half an hour later she had reached it, and she paused to study the magnificent view and to take a couple of photographs to show Kate.
Another hill rose up a short way along the path, and Suzy headed for it, wondering what lay beyond.
Its incline was steep, and she was a little out of breath when she finally made it to the top. She gasped, her eyes widening in delight as she looked down into the lush valley below her at the stunningly beautiful Palladan villa at its centre. She just had to get a photo of it to show Kate and her husband.
Rummaging in her