Red Rose For Love

‘Nothing about you makes me think there isn’t,’ she scorned. ‘So, what’s the asking price?’

‘An apartment, financial security, jewels?’ he said tautly.

‘All of them?’

‘If you like,’ he nodded abruptly.

She seemed to consider. ‘And your time?’

He frowned his puzzlement. ‘My time?’

Eve nodded. ‘How often could I expect you to visit me?’

His frown deepened, his eyes glacial. ‘As often as I could,’ he said slowly.

‘Which would be?’ she persisted.

‘Once or twice a week.’

‘Oh, that wouldn’t suit me at all,’ Eve dismissed, bending forward to press the button that lowered the dividing window. ‘Could you stop here?’ she requested the driver.

‘Mr Jordan?’ he said uncertainly.

‘Drive on, Adam,’ Bartholomew Jordan instructed, closing the window again. ‘That wasn’t very clever, Eve.’ His voice had hardened to anger.

She turned. ‘I wasn’t trying to be clever,’ she told him coldly. ‘I’ve been working for weeks to get this concert together, this last week has been hell, tonight was exhausting, and now I have to sit here and take insults from you! You can take your proposition, Mr Jordan, and——’

‘I think what you’re going to say next isn’t ladylike,’ he cut in firmly.

‘Maybe it wasn’t,’ she rasped, ‘but it was a damn sight more honest than what you’ve been saying to me. Why don’t you just tell me you want to go to bed with me and be done with it!’

He drew in an angry breath. ‘All right,’ he nodded, ‘I do want to go to bed with you. Now. Tonight.’ He stubbed out the half-smoked cheroot.

‘Go to hell!’ she spat the words at him.

‘What is it about the arrangement you don’t like? Ah yes,’ he drawled, ‘the amount of time I would spend with you. Was it too much or too little?’

‘Too much!’ she snapped. ‘Even sitting in this car with you now is too much. Men like you sicken me, Mr Jordan. You——’ She didn’t get any further; his mouth was savage on hers.

She didn’t give him the satisfaction of fighting him, but lay placid in his arms as he kissed her with complete thoroughness. He left her cold, as she had known he would; his seduction was practised, his kisses designed to extract a response even from the most reluctant of females. Although she doubted he ever met ones that were reluctant.

But she was, her eyes spitting venom at him when he at last raised his head. A dark flush coloured his cheeks, his eyes narrowed angrily, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her arms.

‘What did that prove, Mr Jordan?’ she scorned, shaking off his hands and straightening her tousled hair.

He sat back, that deep flush the only sign that he was at all put out by her lack of response. ‘It proved,’ he said slowly, ‘that your stage act is just that—an act.’

Eve gave him a startled look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘On stage you look incredibly sexy——’

‘And I don’t now?’ she taunted, knowing very well that she did.

He obviously knew it too. ‘I didn’t say that. There’s just no back-up to that act you put on for the audience.’

Her mouth twisted. ‘Because I’m not falling over myself with gratitude that you want me?’ she scorned. ‘Because I find your offer insulting in the extreme? Because I didn’t collapse in ecstasy when you kissed me? Well, I’m sorry, Mr Jordan, but as you said, it’s far from the first time I’ve been propositioned. And far from the first time I’ve said no!’

His eyes were cold now, like chips of green glass. ‘I should think the matter over seriously before you do that.’

Eve became still. ‘Are you threatening me?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did it sound as if I were?’

‘Yes!’ she hissed.

He shrugged. ‘Then I suppose I must have been.’

Eve drew in an angry breath, sitting forward to once again press the button to lower the dividing window. ‘Stop this car immediately,’ she ordered the driver. ‘Don’t ask your employer’s permission,’ she said tautly. ‘Just do it!’

‘Sir?’ he requested hesitantly.

‘Do it, Adam,’ Bartholomew Jordan drawled. ‘When it’s convenient to do so.’

Eve didn’t look at Bartholomew Jordan again. As soon as the limousine came to a halt beside the pavement she rushed to get out, only to find Adam there before her, his expression blank as he held the door open for her. Maybe it wasn’t the first time his employer had been turned down, after all.

‘Thank you,’ she told the chauffeur huskily, stepping back as he closed the door, hailing a taxi as she saw one driving slowly down the street towards her, its ‘For Hire’ sign alight.

Amazingly it stopped behind the still parked limousine, and Eve climbed gratefully inside, relaxing back in the seat once she had given the driver Derek’s address, not looking at the limousine as they pulled out in front of it.

She wasn’t lying when she told Bartholomew Jordan that she had been propositioned many times before. In her profession she was bound to be, but never ever as arrogantly as he had done. And no one had ever gone to the extreme of making threats before either!

She became aware of the taxi-driver shooting her questioning looks in the driving-mirror. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ she frowned.

‘Er—no, love. I—I was just wondering,’ he spoke in a broad Cockney accent, ‘are you Eve Meredith, the singer?’

She flushed, her embarrassment acute at being recognised in this way. ‘I am,’ she admitted softly.

‘I thought so,’ he grinned at her in the mirror. ‘My daughter’s a fan of yours. She went to your concert tonight.’ He chuckled. ‘Just wait until I tell her I actually drove you home!’

‘Not home,’ Eve hastily corrected that impression, not wanting people she didn’t know suddenly appearing on the doorstep. ‘Just to a friend’s.’

‘I picked up Cliff Richard last week,’ he told her. ‘A real gentleman, he is.’

She could imagine he was, the ever-youthful superstar seemed to be liked by most people.

They were fast approaching Derek’s apartment now, and she once again felt the exhaustion wash over her. Tomorrow she would have to go back to the theatre and do the whole show over again, and right now she badly wanted to sleep and regenerate her weary body.

‘No charge,’ the driver told her once they were parked. ‘It’s been a real pleasure to drive you. Not very often I get to meet a celebrity.’