The Innocent's One-Night Confession

‘But a whole lot of new ones will be in the shop tomorrow.’ His tone was jovially reproving as he took a step closer. ‘However, you’re young and I might be persuaded not to report you to Hetty.’

‘And a fat lot of good that would do you,’ Alanna said under her breath as she stepped backwards, only to find herself trapped between his bulky body and the steel shelving.

Oh, God, she thought in horror, please don’t let this be happening. Please...

‘That is,’ he added, ‘if you’re prepared to be nice to me.’

He licked already moist pink lips expectantly, leering at her as he moved closer, his hand snaking towards the hem of her dress.

What, Alanna wondered wildly, would be the penalty for kneeing a bestselling author in the groin?

But before she could take the risk, another voice intervened.

‘Haven’t you finished yet, darling?’ He was back, the customer, the silver-eyed focus of her recent imaginings, leaning casually in the doorway, smiling at her and ignoring Jeffrey Winton who had spun round, red-faced and furious at the interruption. ‘You promised me the rest of the evening—remember?’

She said huskily, ‘I’m quite ready. I—I just need my jacket and bag.’

She eased past Mr Winton and collected her things from the staffroom, uttering a few words of breathless congratulation on a successful evening to Mr Solomon before joining her unexpected rescuer at the shop door.

‘It seems I arrived at the right moment,’ he commented helping her into her jacket.

‘Yes,’ she said with a shudder. ‘I still can’t really believe it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I—I don’t know how to thank you.’ She paused. ‘But what made you come back? Did you change your mind about the book?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I wanted to ask you to have dinner with me.’

She hesitated, feeling her pulses quicken outrageously. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ she managed. ‘But truly, there’s no need.’

‘I disagree,’ he said. ‘For one thing, I’m keen to continue our discussion of English literature. Also I dislike eating alone.’

‘But I don’t even know your name...’

‘It’s Zandor,’ he said. ‘Or Zan, if you prefer. And you are...?’

She swallowed. ‘Alanna.’

‘So now we are at least fifty per cent respectable,’ he said. ‘The rest can wait.’

As he signalled to the cab that had suddenly appeared from nowhere, it occurred to her that by no stretch of the imagination could she accept that solitary dining would ever play a major role in his life.

From the moment she’d seen him, she’d recognised that he was a seriously attractive man on a scale marking as dangerous, at the same time registering an exhilarating awareness that her blood seemed to be flowing more quickly. That her senses had somehow become more finely tuned.

Knowing at the same time that by accepting his invitation, she could be making a disastrous leap from a hot frying pan into a raging inferno.

A view reinforced by the sight of Jeffrey Winton emerging from SolBooks and glaring venomously in her direction. Proof, if proof were needed, that he was unlikely to be a good loser, she thought, her stomach churning with renewed alarm, as she shrank into her corner of the cab.

Which Zan noticed as he took his seat beside her.

‘What’s the matter?’

She said shakily, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not very hungry. I—I’d like to go home, please.’

‘Do you live with your family?’

‘No, I have a flat.’ An absurdly upbeat way, she thought, to describe one room with a kitchen alcove, and a shared bathroom.

‘Which you share?’

‘Well—no.’

He nodded. ‘Then I think our original plan is best.’ His tone was matter-of-fact. ‘You’ve had an unpleasant experience but some food and company will help put it behind you. Solitary brooding will not.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she flashed back. ‘You don’t stand to lose your job over this evening’s fiasco. Jeffrey Winton is a huge bestseller. If he spins some yarn about me, guess who will be believed?’

He frowned. ‘I could speak to your boss. Tell him what I saw. He seems a guy who would listen to reason.’

But my boss is a woman. She has to consider the bottom line... The words were trembling on her lips, but she swallowed them unspoken.

Zan, she realised, must think she worked at SolBooks, and, on the whole, that seemed preferable to launching into complicated explanations about her junior role at Hawkseye. Or any other personal detail, for that matter.

And she felt too weary to go on arguing about dinner. For one thing, the planned soup and jacket potato no longer held the slightest appeal for her. And he was trying to be kind, so she could at least be civil in return for an hour or so.

Besides, she owed him—didn’t she?

After that—well, they would be ships that passed in the night. Nothing more, she decided, staring out of the window at the brightly lit shops—which suddenly seemed oddly blurred.

And realised to her horror that she was crying, quietly and unstoppably.

She heard Zandor say something under his breath, and found herself drawn towards him. She gave herself up the astonishing comfort of being cradled in his arms, her head against his shoulder. Of breathing the warm scent of his skin and the faint but heady fragrance of his cologne. And, not least, the sheer practicality of having an immaculate linen handkerchief pushed into her hand.

‘He was so vile.’ She sobbed the words into his expensive tailoring. ‘If you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t come back...’

‘Hush,’ he whispered, his hand gently and rhythmically stroking her hair. ‘It’s over. You’re safe now.’

And she’d believed him, she thought. Had cried herself out while he held her, then sat up awkwardly, reducing his handkerchief to a sodden lump as she blotted her eyes and blew her nose.

‘I feel so stupid,’ she said huskily.

‘There’s no need.’ He pushed a strand of damp hair back from her forehead and she felt the brush of his fingers resonate through every inch of her skin.

At the same time she realised the cab was coming to a halt and, as Zandor paid the driver, found herself standing outside an imposing facade announcing itself as the Metro-Imperial Hotel, with a uniformed commissionaire holding open a pair of elegant glass doors.

As they crossed the expanse of marble-tiled foyer towards a bank of lifts, Alanna hung back.

‘Why are we here?’

‘To have dinner.’ He urged her forward gently, his hand under her elbow. ‘I didn’t have time to book a table anywhere else. But the food is good.’

And then she was in the lift, which was rising smoothly and swiftly past floor after floor until it reached the very top.