Mistress Against Her Will. Lee Wilkinson
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Oblivious to her mental discomfort, Paul was going on, ‘I’ve had a report from someone I’d already planted—the plans for the Rainmaker project should be finalized in the next few weeks, which means we’re just in the nick of time.
‘As soon as you’ve managed to see those plans and get the latest gen, just let me know.’
He made the whole thing sound so casual, so innocuous, Gail thought helplessly, but to her it was spying, pure and simple, and she hated the thought of being involved.
But after days of unrelenting pressure Paul had made it a test of her love….
‘There’ll never be another opportunity like this. With his present PA leaving just as the Rainmaker project is going through, and you being out of a job, this is exactly the chance I’ve been waiting for.
‘Lorenson has a reputation for being daring, for sticking his neck out when it comes to these really big deals. That’s how he comes to be a billionaire at just turned thirty. If he intends to play it the same way this time and I know about it in advance I can be waiting with a hatchet.
‘This is important to me.’ He took her hand and squeezed it by way of emphasis. ‘I have to know what’s in those plans. I need to be at least one jump ahead.’ Taking her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to her palm he continued, ‘That way, if I can’t bring him down altogether, and he may be too powerful for that,’ Paul admitted regretfully, ‘at the very least, I can bring him to his knees.
‘All I need is some reliable inside information, and when you’re his PA it’ll be a doddle…’
When Paul had first mentioned Jenson Lorenson, Gail had felt her heart stop, then start to race again uncomfortably fast.
‘Jenson Lorenson?’ she echoed warily.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard the name. It’s a big Anglo-American concern. It was started in the States by Richard Jenson just as the boom in electronics really got under way.
‘When Jenson retired five years ago, he made the company over to Zane Lorenson, his nephew, who’d been his right-hand man for a number of years…’
So it was him.
Unbidden, a mental picture of Zane Lorenson filled her mind. Tall, black-haired, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped… A lean, tanned face with strong features… A mouth like a fallen angel, and long, heavy-lidded dark green eyes. Handsome eyes. Eyes that seemed able to look into her very soul.
A shiver ran through her.
Paul went on, oblivious to her reaction. ‘Lorenson, who had an American mother and an English father, is a clever swine and brilliant when it comes to business. He added the Anglo part, moved into Information Technology and Research and Development and trebled the company’s profits inside two years…’
‘But I don’t see what—’
Paul cut in, speaking over her. ‘He’s an old adversary. That swine was responsible for my first company going down, and I’ve hated his guts ever since. Now, with your help, I’ve a chance to derail the Rainmaker project and get some of my own back.’
Gail turned to him, wide-eyed. ‘With my help? Oh, but I—’
‘Just listen. It should work like a dream…’
While he outlined the scheme her agitation grew. As soon as she could get a word in edgeways she said in a rush, ‘No, Paul. I don’t want anything to do with it.’
Once again, he dismissed her protest. ‘It won’t be difficult. Think about it. I’m sure you’ll change your mind.’
‘I won’t change my mind.’
With a smile that would normally have melted her heart, he coaxed, ‘Come on, sweetie, do it for me.’
Even if it hadn’t involved Zane Lorenson she wouldn’t have wanted to do it. But as it did, there was no way…
‘I’d never be able to bring it off.’
Well aware that she was besotted with him, and wondering at her unusual reluctance to toe the line he had marked out for her, Paul demanded, ‘Surely you could at least try?’
Her lovely mouth set in a determined line, she shook her head. ‘I don’t want to get involved.’
Paul turned to meet her gaze and said somewhat sharply, ‘You once said you’d do anything for me.’
‘I said anything I could do. But this is something I can’t do,’ Gail pleaded.
‘Why can’t you?’
She shook her head, helplessly. ‘I just can’t.’
‘There must be a reason,’ he pressed.
Cornered, she blurted out, ‘I once knew him.’
‘How do you mean, you once knew him?’
‘I met him when I was living in the States. He was…friends with Rona.’
‘Your stepsister?’
Gail nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘I thought you’d been back in England for quite a few years?’
‘I have—’
Paul brushed off her concerns. ‘So it must have been some time ago?’
‘Seven years.’ She didn’t add that for seven long years Zane Lorenson’s image had haunted her. ‘I was just seventeen.’
‘Did you know him well?’
‘No…’ In spite of what had happened, she hadn’t really known him at all.
Awkwardly, she added, ‘But we met two or three times and I—’
His face impatient, Paul butted in, ‘When your mother remarried after your own father’s death, did your new stepfather adopt you?’
‘No.’
‘In that case you and your stepsister must have different surnames.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Then what are you worrying about? Your name won’t ring a bell, and if you only met each other two or three times he’s hardly likely to remember you after seven years.’
‘But suppose he did?’
‘If by any faint chance he did, would it matter?’
‘Yes, it would… You see I—’
‘My dear girl,’ Paul interrupted peevishly, ‘do you seriously believe there’s a cat in hell’s chance of him recognising you after all this time…?’
The honest answer was no. She had been less than nothing to the young Zane Lorenson. Until Rona had turned that cruel spotlight on her, he hadn’t even been aware of her existence.
‘If you really think there might be a problem, for goodness’ sake find some way of altering your appearance; get some glasses or something.
‘But I’m quite certain you’re worrying over nothing. In the last seven years you must have altered a great deal.’
She had.
In those days she had been just a gawky adolescent, a late developer, painfully shy and gauche, and still with the remains of a northern accent.
Then, goaded by Rona, and hopelessly in love with a man she had only seen from afar, she had set about changing her image.
Only to be laughed at and ridiculed by her stepsister who, at twenty-three, had been beautiful and glamorous and worldly.
But that hadn’t been the worst…
She pushed