Fire With Fire

Fire With Fire
PENNY JORDAN

Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.Emma had always played the role of dependable older sister, so it was not surprising that after smashing up Drake Harwood's brand-new Ferrari, Camilla, unable to pay, expected Emma to bail her out.But the shrewd and attractive entrepreneur saw a way of capitalizing on her predicament. He exacted a highly unusual, and very personal payment that cost Emma her career as a London TV newscater - to say nothing of her pride.Emma was prepared to fight fire with fire - never thinking that, for her, Drake Harwood was as lethal as dynamite!

Fire with Fire

Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Table of Contents

Cover (#u4ea24ff5-0afe-5bfd-9223-60d427084337)

Title Page (#ue11b3bcd-07bd-536d-904b-738d71a4d6ab)

CHAPTER ONE (#u97234c46-76c4-5530-a934-51ae26505d47)

CHAPTER TWO (#uc73a20ce-4b1d-5e03-8607-094baccb5b8a)

CHAPTER THREE (#ub2cf71b1-feb8-5e6e-a417-8742ee2dc8f2)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f9fef892-2a9a-550a-9d18-a11ab335a73a)

WHEN the central heating boiler had refused to reignite despite all her efforts Emma sat back on her heels and scowled ferociously at it. They really ought to have a new one, but her father’s income as vicar of a small country parish did not run to such self-indulgences.

Sighing, she pushed her hair back out of her eyes. Thick and curly, its dark chestnut colour was a striking foil for her creamy skin and widely spaced cool grey eyes, their coolness masking an intelligence and humour only perceived by the most discerning observer.

‘Emma. Oh thank God you’re here. You must help me, I’m in the most awful mess.’

It was far from being the first time Emma had heard those words on her younger sister’s lips, and she didn’t pay too much attention at first, her brain still trying to resolve the problem of the central heating boiler, but when Camilla burst into tears and gulped hysterically about ‘going to prison’ and ‘losing David’, she realised that whatever the ‘mess’ that she was in, it was something more serious than her usual small traumas.

Petite and blonde, Camilla had a way of attracting trouble that was completely at odds with her delicate appearance. The trouble was that her fairy prettiness had meant that her sister had been petted and spoiled almost from the moment of her birth, Emma reflected, brushing the dust off her hands and getting to her feet.

‘Come on Cammy,’ she began bracingly, ‘whatever it is it can’t be as bad as all that … David adores you …’

‘Don’t call me “Cammy”,’ came the tearful response. ‘You know David doesn’t like it … and it is bad Emma, just as bad as it could be …’

More tears flowed.

‘Well then you’d better tell me all about it.’ Calmly pulling out two chairs from the wooden kitchen table, Emma sat down in one and waited for Camilla to settle herself in the other. The trouble was that as their mother had died when Emma was ten and Camilla barely six, she had somehow taken over the role of mothering and protecting her younger sister and Camilla had grown used to expecting Emma to resolve all her life’s crises for her. What on earth could it be this time? Probably a quarrel with David’s mother over arrangements for the wedding, Emma thought wryly. Since she had become engaged to David Turner, the highly-strung Camilla had seemed to mature a little, but with the wedding approaching fast her tearful outbursts had become more and more common. A frown creased Emma’s forehead. There were times when she wondered if her younger sister actually wanted to marry David. They had known him for most of their lives and while she liked him, Emma couldn’t blind herself to the fact that he was very much under his mother’s thumb, and that if Camilla wanted a happy and smooth married life she would have to learn to get on better with her prospective mother-in-law than she did at the moment.

The main problem was that at heart Mrs Turner was an arrant snob. Her husband had been extremely wealthy and they had moved to the village when David was four and Emma the same age. Emma suspected that the only reason they had been admitted to David’s group of friends was because of their father’s family connections—his uncle had been a colonel in one of the better regiments and had married the daughter of a baronet.

It didn’t seem to matter to Mrs Turner that the vicar and his wife had very little contact with these minor relations; their existence was sufficient to make his children acceptable playmates for her son. But that had been twenty years ago. She was not as keen to welcome one of the vicar’s daughters as her daughter-in-law as she had been as ‘friends’ of her son. The Turners were comparatively wealthy. They owned the largest house in the district and Mrs Turner rather liked to play ‘Lady Bountiful’. The village fete was always held in the grounds of the Manor and Mrs Turner liked it to be known that she was heavily involved in several prestigious charities. Emma didn’t much like her, but Camilla was marrying her son, and the fact that David was dominated by his mother was something she was going to have to accept.

Mrs Turner never lost an opportunity of pointing out that David could have done much better for himself. In Camilla’s place Emma doubted that she could have stomached it, but Camilla claimed that she loved David and that he loved her, and that together they would be strong enough to withstand Mrs Turner’s acid barbs.

Privately Emma doubted it. Beautiful though Camilla was, like David she was inclined always to look for the easiest route through life. If David had not been an extremely wealthy young man Emma doubted if Camilla would have looked twice at him. Camilla had always deplored the poverty that went with their father’s vocation; as a teenager she had never ceased bemoaning the lack of material assets when compared to those of her friends; the problem was that because of her blonde prettiness she had been petted and spoiled—friends’ parents had included her on various holiday treats; their father had always been coaxed to find from somewhere the extra pennies needed for new clothes … Not that Emma begrudged her any of it—no, in character as well as looks they were completely dissimilar. From being a young teenager Emma had known what she wanted from life and it hadn’t been marriage to a man like David.

Now, she was poised on the brink of taking the all important step forward in her new career. After leaving college she had been lucky enough to get a job with their local radio station; from there she had progressed to regional television and now her current boss had advised her of a plum job coming up with one of the National networks, which he thought she stood a good chance of getting.

At present she was a co-presenter on an early news local programme, but she had been doing the job for several years and was ready for something else. Her goal was a top newsreading or anchorwoman job; perhaps if she was very, very lucky, even something on breakfast television, but she had a long way to go before reaching that objective she reminded herself.

However, the interview her boss had lined up for this new National job sounded extremely promising. She wouldn’t be the only one going after it, but Robert Evans considered that she had a more than fair chance.

‘You’ve got the looks,’ he had told her only this morning, ‘and the brains. And let’s not disillusion ourselves, you need both, unfair though that sounds.’

Emma hadn’t disputed it. It was an unfair fact of life that while male presenters were chosen on ability and personality alone, female ones needed to have an acceptably attractive face and figure. Although nowhere near as pretty as her younger sister, Emma knew she was reasonably attractive. Her bone structure was good, her figure elegantly slender. Her air of cool self-containment put a lot of men off, she knew, David in particular … she frowned a little remembering Mrs Turner’s latest broadside. She had called round the day after the local newspaper had carried a small article mentioning the fact that Emma was being considered for a top London job.

Being in television was all very well in its way, she had begun when Emma asked her in, ‘but it wasn’t really the sort of thing David wanted to be connected with. Reading the news was all very well … but it could lead to other things…’

Anyone would have thought she was proposing to pose nude for a Page 3 photograph, Emma thought sardonically. She knew that Mrs Turner was being ridiculous and so she suspected did the older woman, but David took his mother’s every word seriously and she had boiled with angry indignation at the suggestion that her job somehow made Camilla unfit to become David’s wife.

Camilla was twenty-two years old and should be able to cope with her own problems, she knew, but she didn’t have the heart to tell her so, saying instead, ‘Come on then, what’s it all about.’

‘Do you remember last month when I went to stay with Fiona?’

Emma nodded. Fiona Blake was one of Camilla’s old schoolfriends. At the moment she was flat-sharing in London with two other girls while she tried her hand at modelling. Fiona’s parents were wealthy enough for it not to matter whether Fiona made a success of her ‘career’ or not, and privately Emma did not think she would.

‘Well while I was there Fiona took me to this party. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted.’

Listening to the aggrieved note in her sister’s voice Emma sighed. Nothing that went wrong in her life was ever Camilla’s fault; she had always been victimised by someone else.

‘Fiona wanted to go because the party was being held by Drake Harwood …’

Drake Harwood? The name was familiar, as well it might be Emma thought, recollecting how the first time she had heard it it had conjured up visions of a tough, buccaneering individual. He was an up and coming entrepreneur who had recently bought out Scanda Enterprises and he was reputed to be extremely wealthy.

‘Fiona wanted to go because he’s taken over Macho magazine, and she thought she might be able to persuade him to use her as one of his models.’

‘Macho? Fiona wants to appear in that?’ Emma grimaced distastefully. ‘Honestly Camilla that girl has more hair than wit. What on earth would her parents say? It’s a girlie mag isn’t it?’

‘Fiona says it’s the only way for unknowns to break into modelling these days.’ Camilla defended her friend. ‘She says…’