Carole Mortimer Romance Collection

As she doubted he actually intended losing the war; she had no doubts whatsoever that Henry’s and her mother’s battle with him was far from over. Lyon was just retreating slightly in order to rally his troops. And Silke didn’t want to be caught in the firing line!

‘I’m busy tonight, Lyon,’ she told him firmly—and every other night as far as this man was concerned. He was far too dangerous for her peace of mind!

‘Cancel it,’ he instructed arrogantly.

She gasped. ‘I—’

‘I’ll be at your mother’s apartment at seven-thirty, Silke.’ He walked over to the door. ‘We can discuss your jewellery designs over dinner.’

As carrots went it was far from subtle; but then Lyon Buchanan had never been subtle where she was concerned. She doubted he was ever subtle with anyone; he didn’t need to be, was far too powerful ever to need to be. But Silke wasn’t interested in anything he had to say about her jewellery designs—if indeed that was what he actually wanted to talk about, which she doubted; no doubt he still believed she knew where his uncle and her mother were!—because she could never work for this man. Never!

And she didn’t want him coming to her mother’s apartment at seven-thirty, either; what if her mother hadn’t rung by then and happened to ring once Lyon had arrived to pick her up? God, no, she didn’t want that!

‘My designs are all at my flat—’

‘Then I’ll call for you there,’ he nodded, opening the door. ‘Seven-thirty,’ he repeated as if to a backward child, before striding arrogantly from the office.

Silke was left sitting behind her mother’s desk opening and closing her mouth like a floundering fish. She had been about to tell him that her designs were all at her flat but that she had no intention of having dinner with him anyway. But he hadn’t let her finish. Had railroaded over her objections. As he seemed to do with everyone, she realised, as she saw Jackie sitting behind her desk with a similarly dazed expression on her face as she watched Lyon’s departure.

Jackie turned her head slowly, and the two women looked at each other for several long seconds, both looking totally bewildered.

Finally Jackie shook her head. ‘I don’t know what it is about that man, but he—well, he—’

‘It’s all right, Jackie,’ Silke sympathised, running an exasperated hand through the length of her hair. ‘He has the same effect on everyone.’ And she appeared to be stuck with going out to dinner with the man; how was she going to get through the evening?

‘Here’s that telephone number you asked for, Silke.’ Jackie stood in front of her desk, holding out a piece of paper towards her.

Silke blinked up at her, completely puzzled for a few seconds—and then she remembered. James! How could she have forgotten that he had telephoned? Lyon Buchanan, that was how! He was enough to drive every other thought from anyone’s mind—even that of an ex-fiancé who had contacted her after a year of silence—and almost a year of his being married to someone else!

My God, James had a nerve after all this time. What on earth could they have to say to each other now? The truth was, she had nothing to say to him. She had wanted to say it all a year ago and hadn’t been given the chance; now it was all totally irrelevant, even her pain and anger towards him having faded to a mild contempt for the way he had behaved.

She stared down at the piece of paper with his telephone number on long after Jackie had returned to her own outer office, vaguely registering the fact that James still worked for the same firm of accountants. Some things didn’t change, she acknowledged with wry self-derision. But she had, and James contacting her now was nothing more than an irritation. An irritation she could well have done without with Lyon Buchanan present!

Finally she opened her handbag and put the piece of paper with the telephone number inside her purse. Whatever James wanted to talk to her about, it could wait; it had already waited a year, so it couldn’t be that urgent.

The urgent thing on her mind at the moment was the thought of dinner with Lyon Buchanan. What was he up to? Because she didn’t for one minute believe the two of them were about to celebrate his uncle’s and her mother’s marriage. Or that he was seriously interested in her jewellery designs...

* * *

There was absolutely nothing Silke could do about her mother’s expected telephone call at her apartment. The only complication Silke could see was that once her mother received no reply at her own apartment she would then try Silke’s flat. As Silke luxuriated in a much-needed relaxing bath once she got in from the office, she could only hope her mother called before Lyon arrived. Although the way her luck was going at the moment, she very much doubted that would be the case!

She had firmly put the subject of James to the back of her mind—at least for the evening. He had waited this long; he could certainly wait another day!

The first thing Silke had done when she got in from work had been to look through her wardrobe for something to wear to go out with Lyon, something smart and elegant, but nothing that gave him the impression she had wanted to look beautiful for him; he would be sure to comment on something so obvious. But the truth of the matter was she did want him to find her attractive; the few occasions they had met he had hardly seen her in a good light, and she needed all the ammunition she had to withstand an evening spent in that particular man’s company.

The dress she had finally settled on was just a plain black, with a high neckline, and long sleeves. But the material was of a type that moulded to her body rather than clung, and the short length, just above her knee, allowed for a long expanse of her shapely legs. Yes, it was just the right sort of dress to wear to go out with Lyon Buchanan, provocative without being suggestive.

And because of the plainness of the dress she would be able to complement it with some of the jewellery he had commented he had never seen her wear, the dress being perfect for the chunky style of her designs.

Lyon Buchanan would see a completely different Silke Jordan tonight, one who was as sophisticated and self-assured as the women he usually associated with! It was ridiculous that she had to go to these lengths at all, she knew, but she had been forced into going out for the dinner in the first place, and she needed every weapon available to her to get through it. God, there she went with the warlike vocabulary again. But that was exactly what it had felt like since she first met Lyon!

But she forgot all about war and battles and weapons when the doorbell rang shrilly at a quarter past seven; Lyon was early! She wasn’t even ready, had already laddered one pair of sheer tights and had to search frantically for another pair. Of which she had only smoothed up one leg!

The doorbell rang again—more insistently this time? Damn him, he was fifteen minutes early; as well as not being dressed, she hadn’t yet applied her make-up or even attempted to brush her hair. Had he done this on purpose, as a deliberate attempt to disconcert her before the evening even began? She wouldn’t put it past him!

She was flushed and cross by the time she reached the door after its third ring, having frantically pulled the tights off because she didn’t have time to smooth them on, only succeeding in laddering that pair too as one of her nails broke in her rush. Lyon had succeeded in more than disconcerting her; she was furious with him for trying to put her at a disadvantage!

‘Stop ringing the damned—’ All of Silke’s anger disappeared into mind-blowing disbelief as she opened the door to find, not Lyon standing on the doorstep, but James! What on earth—?

‘Silke,’ he said quietly, looking down at her intently.

Damn it, why did he have to be another tall man, able to look down at her with his male superiority? It was totally illogical to Silke at that moment to accept that she would be hard pushed to find any man shorter than her own five feet; also that James’s height of over six feet had been one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. He had no right being here at all now, height or no height!

She glared up at him, at the man she had once loved, intended to marry—and knew that whatever she had once felt for him was completely dead. He was just a tall, attractive man, his blond hair slightly longer than she remembered, a few more lines beside the dark blue eyes; but just a tall, attractive man, after all. Silke certainly felt no residual love for him.

‘What do you want, James?’ she asked him coldly. ‘As you can see—’ she looked down pointedly at her dress ‘—I’m getting ready to go out.’

James looked down at her dress too, at the way the straight style emphasised the fullness of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, the curve of her hips—and his expression warmed as it returned to the flushed loveliness of her make-up-less face. ‘You look lovely, Silke,’ he told her huskily.

She gave him a derisive look, her sigh impatient. ‘I’m sure you didn’t contact me again after all this time to tell me that!’ she snapped.

‘My marriage to Cheryl is over—’

‘So?’ Silke frowned up at him. ‘What does that have to do with me?’

‘I—’ He broke off whatever he had been about to say as the telephone began to ring shrilly in the flat behind Silke.

Her mother! It had to be. ‘I’m sorry, James.’ She was becoming flustered again now. ‘But, as you can see, this is hardly the right time for us to be talking—for whatever reason,’ she added pointedly as he seemed about to protest. ‘I have to go and take that call,’ she told him agitatedly; the last thing she wanted was for her mother to ring off and then call back again when Lyon had arrived!

She didn’t wait, hurrying back into her flat to hastily snatch up the receiver. ‘Mummy?’ she enquired anxiously—praying that it was!

‘You sound out of breath, Silke,’ her mother answered lightly. ‘I didn’t disturb you, did I?’

She had been disturbed since Lyon Buchanan had arrived at the agency this afternoon with the news that her mother was secretly about to marry his uncle! ‘No, you aren’t disturbing me,’ she assured her mother, not even glancing round to see if James had left as she had asked him to. It was sad, really, that she had nothing to say to the man she had once intended marrying, but she really did have much more urgent things on her mind at the moment; namely Lyon’s imminent arrival. ‘Now what—?’

‘One of us is here on the wrong evening,’ remarked a smoothly arrogant voice across the room behind her. ‘And I can assure you it isn’t me!’

Silke closed her eyes, inwardly groaning, knowing exactly what she was going to see when she turned and looked across the room.

And she wasn’t disappointed! James hadn’t left at all, had moved inside the doorway of the flat, and standing beside him, looking arrogantly down his nose at the other man—he was several inches taller than James, Silke noticed inconsequentially—was Lyon Buchanan!

This was even worse than the nightmare at the agency this afternoon!

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_f3ae32ff-7dd4-55e1-8dc3-66d874be00a0)

THE two men were eyeing each other up and down like two stags after the same doe, Lyon’s face set in arrogantly forbidding lines as he looked at the other man with narrowed grey eyes, James frowning across at him with open dislike.

It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Farcical, in fact. But it was happening right in front of Silke’s eyes.