A Bad Enemy. Sara Craven
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didn’t want realism. She wanted the comfort and reassurance that her grandfather had represented since she was a small child. Without him, she thought confusedly, she would be totally bereft. If the worst did happen, she would leave London and come to live here in the house she loved. Her inheritance should ensure an adequate income, and she could live within it as long as she wasn’t extravagant. She wouldn’t really regret the loss of her job in the public relations department at Harlow Bannerman. She hadn’t been a roaring success there, although she’d often felt she might have been if she’d only been given a chance. But nothing exacting, nothing that might stretch her mind and get the best out of her had ever come her way. The Bannerman name had always been there like a barrier. They had treated her like an unpredictable toddler, treading warily round her, and feeding her the odd unimportant sweet to keep her quiet. They had written her off as useless before she had even got there, she thought resentfully, and no one had ever bothered to discover what her capabilities were since.
She thought, without surprise, that it was probably from the PR department that the rumours about her sexual favours to customers had first emanated. She couldn’t pretend that she was the flavour of the month with many of her colleagues. In fact, she heard herself described as ‘Lady Muck’ on more than one occasion when they thought she was out of the way. At the time, it had hurt, but she had made herself laugh it off. She was Lisle Bannerman, and nothing they could say could touch her.
Only now she knew differently. Mud had been thrown, and some of it had stuck as it had a habit of doing. The kind of things which had been said about her, the kind of implications which had been drawn from her behaviour made her feel unclean, and the thought that some of these vile rumours had found their way back to her grandfather and distressed him was intolerable. Yet he had never uttered one word of warning or reproach, she thought numbly.
Mrs Peterson’s soup was everything she had remembered and more, and the cold roast chicken which followed was accompanied by a salad made infinitely more exciting by a selection of exotic ingredients. Jake asked for cheese to follow, but Lisle succumbed to the blatant temptation of a slice of home-made treacle tart, accompanied by thickly whipped cream.
Afterwards, Mrs Peterson deposited a tray of coffee in the drawing room and wished them goodnight.
Lisle poured the coffee, conscious of a feeling of awkwardness. Supper had been easier than she anticipated, with Mrs Peterson bustling in and out, making sure they were enjoying their food, and that they had everything they needed.
But now they had been left almost pointedly alone, and it made Lisle uneasy.
Jake on the other hand looked perfectly at ease. He had removed his jacket and slung it over the back of the big leather chesterfield and loosened his tie, and now he was leaning back, waiting for his coffee.
She handed him his cup, almost slopping it into the saucer in her haste, then got up to add another log to the already adequate fire, and fussily adjust one of the ornaments on the mantelpiece.
Jake gave her a bored look. ‘Relax, for God’s sake,’ he told her. ‘Rape is not imminent.’
‘I never imagined it was,’ she snapped, re-seating herself behind the coffee tray, and adding cream to her own cup.
Jake grinned suddenly. It made him look younger, and even more attractive, and Lisle decided she preferred him scowling. ‘Then you should have,’ he said. ‘After all, we have the perfect set-up—a flickering fire, a beautiful girl, and damn all on television.’
In spite of loathing him, she felt her lips quiver. ‘Aren’t you the flatterer!’
‘Not usually,’ he said. He drank his coffee, and set the cup down on a table near his seat with a deliberation that she found slightly unnerving. He looked at her, and she thought confusedly that the lamplight had softened the colour of his eyes to silver. He held out his hand, and his voice was very gentle suddenly. ‘Come here.’
And the shattering thing was that it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have got out of that chair and gone to him. It was unbelievable that she could feel that way, but she did. He was her enemy, and she hated him. He had insulted her and outraged all her feelings ever since he had walked into her life, and yet she remembered the way his mouth had scorched her hand, and knew that, in his arms, her whole body could turn to living flame.
And remembered too, just in time, that he thought she was the worst kind of tramp.
She said huskily, ‘I’ll see you in hell first.’
‘Heaven might be more enjoyable,’ he suggested, but she could hear the cynical note. He thought she was just playing hard to get, and that sooner rather than later she would let him make love to her.
She rose to her feet with a faint smile. ‘Heaven?’ she queried. ‘Now you’re flattering yourself, Mr Allard. I’ll leave you to your fantasies, and go to bed. Alone.’
‘What a waste,’ he said softly. ‘You wouldn’t be disappointed. I’m sure my performance would reach the standard you’ve come to expect.’
‘A personal guarantee,’ she marvelled. ‘Now there’s a novelty! But I’m still not tempted. Goodnight.’
‘One thing I would guarantee.’ His voice was silky. ‘That—come the dawn—at least you’d remember my bloody name. There’s another novelty.’
Lisle, walked to the door, nerves jumping at every step, in case he came after her. Because in spite of everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure how she would react if he touched her, seriously wanted her. She hoped she would kick and bite and scratch to be free, behave like the vixen he’d called her, but she wasn’t issuing any guarantees at all, and she knew she wouldn’t feel safe until she was safely up in her room behind a door which, for the first time in her life, she would lock.
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