Lover By Deception

Instinctively Anna panicked. Both the way he was walking and the tone of his voice were distinctly threatening and she started to run towards the protection of the conservatory, but she wasn’t quite fast enough and Ward caught up with her just as she reached the door, grabbing hold of her wrist in a grip that almost made her flinch at its strength.

‘Let me go... I... I have a dog...’ Anna told him, issuing the first threat that came into her mind, but just as she felt his grip starting to slacken Missie came trotting round the corner, her small, furry body quivering with welcome as she rushed happily towards Anna’s captor.

‘So I see,’ he agreed sardonically. He started to lift his free hand and immediately Anna reacted, her fear for her little dog far, far greater than her fear for herself.

‘Don’t you dare hurt her,’ she told him fiercely, holding out her own free arm protectively to Missie.

The little dog, a bundle of white fluff, had been a rescue dog, bought as a puppy and then abandoned when the family who’d owned her had decided that her small, sharp teeth were doing too much damage to their home.

Anna had taken her in, trained and loved her, and Missie adored her.

Ward frowned his surprise. Odd that a woman of her type should ignore her own danger just to protect her dog. Not that he had intended to hurt the little creature, and Missie seemed to know it.

Ignoring her mistress’s frantic attempts to shoo her away, she was happily investigating the stranger’s shoes, and then, as Ward extended his hand towards her, she jumped up and licked it, wagging her small tail approvingly.

‘Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want,’ Anna began nervously, ‘but’

‘But you do know Julian Cox, don’t you?’ Ward slipped in quietly.

‘Julian.’ Anna went pale. Was this man someone Julian had sent to demand more money from her? Had he perhaps guessed what they were doing?

As he watched the blood drain from her face Ward experienced a disturbingly unfamiliar—and unwanted—sensation. All right, she might not look anything like he had imagined. Her skirt was calf-length, all soft and floaty, and as for her make-up—well, she had to be wearing some, surely? No woman of her age could have such a soft, pink, kissable-looking mouth naturally, could she? And her hair had to be dyed, he decided triumphantly, whilst as for that air of frightened vulnerability she was projecting—well, that was, no doubt, as false as the colour of her hair.

‘Don’t bother lying to me,’ Ward announced sternly. ‘I know you know him and know something else as well. I know just what the pair of you have been up to...’

The p-pair of us...?’ Anna repeated, stammering a little. ‘I...’

‘I’ve got the evidence here,’ Ward told her curtly, releasing Anna’s wrist as he reached into the inside pocket of his suit.

As she rubbed her tender wrist Anna wished that she had the courage to risk slamming the conservatory door and locking him on the outside of it, but a quick, fleeting glance at him warned her of the danger of doing anything so reckless. For a start there was the size of him. He was...he was huge, she decided. So tall, over six feet, and so...so big. Not fat...no, not that. She could feel her face growing hot as her feminine instincts conveyed the message to her that the male body, under its quietly dignified suiting, owed its size to hard-packed male muscle and the kind of physique one might normally associate with a man who spent a lot of his time working physically hard. His hair was thick and dark brown, tinged unexpectedly with gold at the ends where the sun had caught it, giving him an almost leonine look.

‘This is you, isn’t it?’ he demanded as he turned the paper he was holding towards Anna, jabbing his forefinger at a name printed on it.

Anna’s eyes widened as she saw that it was her own.

‘Yes. Yes... it is...’ she admitted, her face burning hotly as she saw from the look he was giving her that he hadn’t, after all, missed the discreet female inspection she had been giving him. Trying to ignore him, she forced herself to read the document. What on earth was it?

Anna blinked and stared hard at what he was holding, her heart starting to pound heavily. In front of her on the paper she could see her own name quite plainly, and just as plainly beneath it was written the word ‘partner.’ What on earth did it mean? Why on earth had Julian Cox untruthfully and surely illegally claimed her as his partner? Anna had no idea. All she could assume was that he had done it because he’d felt it added weight and credibility to whatever he had been planning. Or had he perhaps known that something like this could happen and, in that knowledge, had deliberately set her up to act as a fall guy? Anna wondered queasily. He was, she knew, perfectly capable of that kind of deliberately dishonest behaviour.

The words of denial and protest springing to her lips were ruthlessly suppressed. Could this be the breakthrough, the evidence of Julian’s fraudulent deceit which Dee had striven so hard to find? She needed time to think, Anna decided, time to consult Dee and tell her what had happened, and, most of all, she needed that all-important piece of paper. But as she reached out to take it, as though he sensed what she was about to do, the man stepped back from her, determinedly folding it and putting it back in his pocket.

‘Well, your partner might have been clever enough to disappear, but you, it seems, were less wise—or perhaps more arrogant,’ Ward challenged softly.

Arrogant!

Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘How does it feel, knowing that you have deprived other people of their money; that this house, the clothes you wear and the food you eat are, no doubt, paid for out of other people’s pockets?’ Ward demanded with scornful anger. ‘Nothing to say?’ he queried. ‘No protests of innocence? You do surprise me.’

He would be even more surprised if he knew the truth, Anna reflected, but would he believe her if she tried to tell him? From the look on his face, somehow she doubted it. But if he thought she was going to stand there and allow him to revile her verbally...

Tilting her head so that she could look straight into his eyes, she told him firmly, ‘Look, I’m sorry if you feel that you’ve been cheated...’ She paused. Something about his attitude made her so angry that she felt physically weak at the knees. At least, she supposed it must be anger, after all, what else could it be?

She smiled sweetly before saying, very, very gently, ‘However, surely the fact that you were being offered such an exceptionally high rate of interest on your investment must have alerted you to the fact that something might not be quite...genuine...?’

Ward could scarcely believe his ears. Was she actually daring to tell him that it was his own fault he had been cheated; that he had been guilty of either a lack of intelligent caution or an excess of simple greed?

Her head barely touched his shoulder. She was as fine-boned as a little bird and he guessed that he could have spanned her waist with both his hands and picked her up off the ground without straining his breath, and yet she stood there and had the audacity to challenge him!

Reluctantly Ward acknowledged that she had guts. Certainly more than her partner. By heaven, though, she was cool and calm—both virtues that he admired.

Abruptly he pulled himself back from the dangerous brink he was teetering on, reminding himself of just what she had done.

‘I’m sure it would have,’ he agreed grimly. ‘I pride myself on being able to spot a phoney a mile off. As it happens it isn’t me the pair of you gulled—but then, of course, you know that already.

‘Does the name Ritchie Lewis mean anything to you?’ he shot at Anna.

‘No...I’ve never heard of him before,’ Anna told him honestly, starting to frown as she questioned, ‘But if you didn’t invest money with Julian then what are you doing here?’

‘Ritchie is my half-brother,’ he told her impatiently, demanding bitingly, ‘Have you any idea just what you’ve done? Ritchie should be studying, not worrying about the loss of five thousand pounds. No, of course you haven’t,’ he told her scornfully. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never strayed out of your cosseted, comfortable little world. Of course you don’t know what it is to suffer pain, disappointment—’

‘You’re making judgements about me without knowing the first thing about me,’ Anna interrupted him swiftly, her gentle expression suddenly replaced by one of pride and anger.

‘Oh, but I do know the first thing about you. I know that you’re a liar and a cheat,’ Ward returned softly.

Anna gave a sharp gasp.

‘Well... nothing to say?’ Ward demanded.

‘I...I don’t intend to say anything until... until I’ve spoken to my legal advisors,’ Anna fibbed, suddenly gaining inspiration from a recent television series she had been watching.

‘Your legal advisors? They’re no doubt as guilty of sharp practice as you and your precious partner,’ Ward told her bluntly. ‘Well, let me tell you here and now, there’s no way I’m going to let him or you get away with this. You owe my half-brother five thousand pounds and I intend to make sure you pay it back.’

‘You do?’ Anna was impressed. Dee would love to meet this man, she knew. Here at last was someone who was prepared to stand up to Julian; to pursue him, Anna was certain, to the furthermost corners of the earth with relentless determination.

Even so, there was something about his attitude towards her that had got her hackles rising in a way she could never remember anyone else doing.

‘Er...what you have to say is extremely interesting, Mr...er...’

‘Hunter,’ Ward supplied briefly. ‘Her—Ward Hunter.’

Ward Hunter. Well, at least now she had his name. She could pass it on to Dee along with the information he had given her and then she could leave him and Dee to pursue Julian Cox together.

Suddenly Anna had a brainwave.

‘You say you want me to repay your half-brother’s money. I’m afraid I don’t have five thousand pounds here at home with me. Could you call back, say, tomorrow...?’

Ward stared at her. Now what was she up to? One minute she was claiming she knew nothing about the money, the next she was accusing him of deserving to be cheated, and now here she was calmly and coolly announcing that she would repay him. She was even more dangerous than Ward had first suspected.