Elusive Obsession

Not very grammatical. Certainly not very delicately put. And it certainly wasn’t a turn of phrase Reece could ever remember using before. But it so perfectly described how the Divine Diana had looked when she first opened the door and found him standing on the other side of it!

And she wasn’t faring much better now either, burbling on about Puddle being the name of the cat that lay stretched out on one of the bean-bags. He didn’t get the relevance of the introduction of the cat into the conversation at all. Unless she thought perhaps he didn’t like them, or was allergic to them? As it happened he liked cats, approved of their detached independence from the people who thought they owned them; he respected their intelligence. He had never been able to appreciate hearing a woman being called a cat; he had never yet met any woman who portrayed anything like their majestic aloofness—not and actually meant it, that was!

And yet…

He studied Diana as she stood a short distance away from him. He knew a little more about her now, having called his assistant, Paul, once he had realised Diana had left Paris early this morning without seeing him, instructing the other man to have any information he could find concerning the model Divine available to him once he reached London. It hadn’t even occurred to him that it wouldn’t be; Paul was as efficient as he was highly paid, and only Reece knew he was the highest paid in the business.

Paul had two files waiting for him, one on the professional model Divine, the other one a personal file on Diana Lamb. Reece had been surprised at the briefness of the latter, barely three sheets of paper long, whereas the professional file was so thick with photographs and newspaper articles about her work that it had to be put on a desk to be read.

There had been hundreds—no, thousands—of photographs in this second file of the lovely Divine, of the model wearing everything and nothing—— No, never really nothing. The beautiful Divine had never been that sort of model, and, while Reece had been able to see the golden perfection of her body in minuscule swimwear, her nakedness had remained tantalisingly elusive. He had found those provocative photographs so much more erotic to look at than complete nudity could ever have been.

The personal file on Diana Lamb, for different reasons, had been just as frustrating. There was no childhood history at all, but, as this wasn’t the part of Diana’s life he was interested in, that hadn’t disturbed him unduly. He might be able to find something in her background with which to hit Chris if the couple persisted with their relationship, but for the moment it wasn’t too important.

The adult Diana Lamb, it appeared, led a very quiet life, no high-profile romances—he had asked Paul to check into there being any low-profile ones—no scandals either, just a calm, uncluttered life that didn’t include family, and not too many friends either, friendship with this woman seeming to be an exclusive club not too many people were admitted to.

And yet Chris, his wayward, frivolously irresponsible son, had been allowed into that select club. That fact, for reasons he wasn’t yet sure of, irritated the hell out of Reece.

And so the information Paul had managed to gather together about this woman, hastily as it had been done, didn’t really tell him much more than he already knew: the model Divine was one of the highest paid in the business, while Diana Lamb was an extremely elusive woman.

‘Puddle likes bread and cakes,’ she impatiently explained her earlier warning about the cat now.

Reece turned to look down at the cat as it stretched before getting lazily to its feet. ‘Stay!’ he instructed softly, silver gaze meeting lime-green in a silent battle of wills.

The cat was the first to look away, falling back down on the big bean-bag before curling up and going back to sleep, looking for all the world as if he had never had any interest in the food so temptingly laid out before him.

Now if only he could elicit the cat owner’s co-operation in the same way he might be in business!

As it was, Diana gave the sleeping cat a look that told it exactly what she thought of its disloyalty, before sitting down gingerly on the edge of the same big cushion.

Reece thought she looked even younger today without the heavy make-up she had been wearing the evening before for the show. In fact, she didn’t look as if she was wearing any make-up at all today. And he could tell by the way the T-shirt reached baggily to her mid-thighs that she hadn’t worn the body-hugging leggings for effect but for comfort.

If anything she looked even more beautiful today, that vulnerability he had sensed in her yesterday even more apparent, although, strangely enough, so was that inner strength he had been aware of too. She really was the most unusual woman he had ever met!

‘Eat,’ he instructed harshly, disturbed at the force of his growing attraction for the young woman he had only met at all because he wanted to evict her from his son’s life. He certainly hadn’t meant for her to take up residence in his own ordered life instead!

She met his gaze coldly. ‘I’m not the cat!’

His mouth twisted derisively at the way it so obviously rankled with her that her cat had obeyed him instantly. It was just a rapport he seemed to have with felines, was certainly nothing personal. Although it relieved his own tension to know this woman hadn’t liked it one little bit.

‘You’re far too skinny.’ He was deliberately insulting, enjoying the responses he was getting from her now much more than the careful control he had encountered from her the night before. Obviously catching this young woman off-guard was the key to success where she was concerned.

She sat cross-legged on the cushion now, unselfconsciously alluring, a slight smile curving her lips as she shook her head. ‘I’m an inch off being six feet tall, and an English size eight.’

He knew all that from her professional file, also that she had a body weight of only one hundred and thirty pounds, dark green eyes surrounded by sooty lashes, and waist-length hair that the Press seemed to describe as honey-coloured.

But away from the spotlights, her face youthfully free of make-up, the high prominence of her cheekbones seemed even more apparent, the line of her jaw sharper, the creamy length of her throat taking on a new fragility. And Reece was sure that, beneath the voluminous folds of that bright yellow T-shirt, the curves of her body would take on a more pronounced slenderness too.

For goodness’ sake, he had come here to get her out of Chris’s life, not concern himself with whether, because of her chosen career and the demands it made on her, she ate enough!

What was this man up to now? Why didn’t he just get to the point of his visit and get it over with, because they both knew the only reason he was here talking to her at all was because of Chris. Or was this all part of his game-plan—lure her into a false sense of security, and then hit her straight between the eyes with his demand that she get out of Chris’s life?

He sat back on his heels, eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘How much do you want to leave Chris alone?’ he rasped harshly.

Ah. He was back on territory she understood now. But he didn’t understand at all, because it wasn’t ‘how much’ she wanted at all; it was something so much more than that.

Neither of them was at all interested in the array of food, and Puddle, opening one eye and seeing their indifference, decided it was all fair game, getting up slowly to pad over to the rug—and delicately help himself to a particularly succulent-looking pastry!

Because, like her, Diana was sure, the cat had known of Reece Falcon’s lapse of control—an unfamiliar feeling for him. But she had guessed from the first that, where other things might fail to hit this man where it hurt, his son Christopher was definitely his Achilles’ heel!

The silver gaze flickered only briefly over the disobedient cat as it slunk off into a corner to enjoy its loot, although Diana was sure the slight had clearly registered with this arrogant man.

‘I said, how much?’ he repeated coldly.

Diana eyed him pityingly. ‘I’ve told you before, money doesn’t interest me,’ she said with obvious disgust for the crudity of the suggestion that it did. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t appear so to you, because I choose to live quietly, and because of the modest circumstances of this flat, but I’m a very wealthy woman in my own right because of my career.’ Her years as a top model had been good ones, and she could now command thousands of pounds for just a day’s work. She didn’t need money from this man—she had enough to live in comfort for the rest of her life even if she should never work again. And at only twenty-one years of age, by anyone’s standards, that was no mean achievement. Not that she was even considering retiring from the job she loved so much, but it was nevertheless, after years of hardship, gratifying to be secure in her own wealth.

‘No one ever has enough money,’ Reece Falcon rasped with contempt for the subject.

Only the very rich, who had never known any other way of life, could afford to be this arrogant. Reece Falcon had certainly never known what it was to want just enough money that you didn’t have to be beholden to someone else for even the clothes you wore!

‘I said I don’t want your money, Mr Falcon,’ she told him in a carefully controlled voice. She wouldn’t touch his money. Not one single penny of the Falcon millions—tainted as it was with the blood and suffering of others. No, she didn’t want any part of Reece Falcon’s money.

His mouth thinned, dark brows raised in mocking scorn. ‘Then what do you want, Diana? Chris?’ he derided disbelievingly. ‘A boy of twenty, who can’t even begin to match your inner maturity?’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe, knowing Chris as I do, that he can even begin to satisfy the needs of a woman like you.’

She knew he was being deliberately insulting, and yet she felt the colour drain from her cheeks anyway. ‘Needs…?’ she repeated harshly. ‘I don’t——’

‘Oh, but I’m sure you do, Diana.’ Suddenly Reece Falcon was very close to her on the gaily coloured scatter-rug in front of the bean-bag she sat on. ‘I think you know exactly what I mean by “needs”.’ He was so close now that his breath stirred the hair at her temple.

Every nerve in her body was screaming a protest, every brain cell she possessed recoiling in horror, as she knew, seconds before his mouth descended savagely on hers, that he was going to kiss her!

And it was like no other kiss she had ever known in her life before; it was totally demanding, erotically forceful, allowing no room for denial or rejection, just completely and utterly sensual, those warm lips moving over and against hers in a slow caress that seemed without end.

Try as she might—and she did try!—Diana’s mouth couldn’t escape his, and then, just when she thought she couldn’t stand it any longer, she knew what she had to do, knew that she was approaching this all wrong; her response, any response, was what Reece Falcon wanted!

And so she went suddenly still, her arms falling to her sides, her body going limp in his arms, her mouth coldly slack and unmoving.

For long, timeless seconds, as Reece continued to kiss her, it seemed that wasn’t going to work either. And then—miraculously to her, because she was starting to feel faint now!—he seemed to realise she was completely unresponsive, and his mouth stilled against hers even as he opened his eyes and looked down at her, her green gaze returning his with cold contempt for what he was doing to her.