Stand-In Mistress

She was. Her mission accomplished, she couldn’t wait to end the charade and escape. ‘Well, if you need to make a fairly early start tomorrow…’

‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ he agreed, signalling the waiter. ‘It’s time we were making a move.’

High time. Drawing a deep breath, she turned to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but just at that instant the waiter arrived.

While Brad paid the bill, and added a generous tip, she glanced around. There were still quite a few people within earshot, and, disliking the idea of making a scene in the quiet restaurant, she decided to wait until they were outside.

When she had picked up her bag he drew back her chair, and she rose to her feet a shade unsteadily. A hand cupping her elbow, he escorted her out of the restaurant and across the foyer.

Distinctly light-headed, she had to make herself concentrate as they descended the red-carpeted stairs. A couple of steps from the bottom, she stumbled, and he was forced to steady her.

At the entrance, a sleek grey limousine was drawn up, a liveried chauffeur holding open the door. Before Joanne could gather her wits Brad had handed her in and was sitting beside her.

‘I’d intended to get a taxi,’ she said in belated and breathless protest as they drew away. ‘Oh?’

Without turning his head, the chauffeur asked, ‘Straight home, sir?’

‘Yes, please, Gregory.’ Brad touched a button and the glass partition between the driver and his passengers closed. A moment later blinds slid into place, covering both the partition and the windows.

Taking immediate advantage of the softly lit intimacy, he caressed her silk-clad knee.

Flinching away in a sudden panic, and wishing desperately that she hadn’t been foolish enough to get into the car in the first place, Joanne announced as firmly as possible, ‘I live in Fulham, and I—’

‘Yes, I know.’ He drew her close, and an instant later his mouth was covering hers.

Shocked by the suddenness of the move and by the tumult of feeling his kiss evoked, for a moment or two she made no attempt to free herself.

When, remembering just who was kissing her, she pulled herself together and began to struggle, his arms merely tightened and he deepened the kiss.

Terrified now, she began to struggle in earnest, but he was so much stronger than she had realised, and he held her easily.

Tearing her mouth free, she gasped, ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want you to touch me…’

Looking completely unruffled, he remarked, ‘From the way you’ve been behaving, I rather thought you were inviting it.’

‘Well, you were wrong. I want to go home,’ she added shakily.

‘That’s where we are going.’

‘My home,’ she insisted.

‘Somehow I’d got the impression that, in spite of being engaged, you’d intended to come home with me.’

Her heart throwing itself against her ribs, she said hoarsely, ‘Well, you were wrong! I’d like you to tell your chauffeur to stop and let me get out right this minute.’

Raising his dark brows in mock-surprise, he queried, ‘So what made you change your mind?’

‘I haven’t changed my mind. I—’

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

Ignoring the interruption, she rushed on, ‘I haven’t changed my mind because I never had the slightest intention of going home with you.’

His voice holding more than a hint of soft menace, he said, ‘I wouldn’t like to think you’d been leading me on just for the hell of it.’

She swallowed hard. ‘I haven’t been leading you on just for the hell of it—’

‘Well, as you have undoubtedly been leading me on, perhaps you’d like to tell me why?’

‘Because I needed to keep you occupied, to prevent you contacting Milly,’ she admitted in a rush.

He smiled grimly. ‘So your sister was at home all the time? Oddly enough I never did believe in poor Auntie Alice…

‘But I’m afraid I don’t understand why you were prepared to go to such lengths to stop me contacting my own secretary?’

‘If you had spoken to her she would have dropped everything and come.’

‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘And you thought she might be…keeping my bed warm tonight?’

‘I know she would.’

‘You don’t know anything of the kind.’

‘She’s infatuated with you.’

‘And you blame me for that?’

‘Of course I blame you. She told me how you’d taken her out to dinner, and the way you’d looked at her.

‘If I hadn’t discovered what was going on, and happened to intercept your phone call, she would have risked everything to be here.’

He frowned. ‘Risked everything?’

Into her stride now, Joanne rushed on, ‘Steve told me you had a rotten reputation as far as women were concerned, but I never dreamt that even a swine like you would go after a girl who’s only eighteen and married into the bargain—’

‘Married?’ He sounded startled.

‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’

Her face full of contempt, she lashed out at him verbally. ‘You’re a miserable, womanising bastard, and totally without principles!

‘You dangled the bait of a Norwegian trip in front of her until she was almost prepared to break up her marriage and go to Norway with you, rather than move to Scotland with her husband—’

‘Would you care to slow down a little…? I’m getting confused. I thought she lived with you?’

‘She does, and so does her husband…Or rather they did. They’ll soon be on their way to Edinburgh to live, and hopefully Milly will be well out of reach of lecherous men like you…’ Running out of breath, Joanne stopped abruptly.

‘Now I’m beginning to understand,’ Brad said evenly. ‘Presumably they’re taking the night sleeper, and you wanted to keep me occupied until your sister was safely on board and couldn’t change her mind…’