A Night of No Return

Hazarding a guess as to the correct direction, she turned right and walked along a carpeted corridor until she reached a heavy oak door.

She tapped once and opened it. ‘Lucas?’ A spiral staircase rose in front of her and she walked up it and found herself in a large circular room with windows on all sides. Logs blazed in a huge fireplace and out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a huge four-poster bed draped in moss-green velvet, but her attention was on the low leather sofa because there, sprawled with his feet up on the arm and a bottle of champagne in his hand, was her boss.

‘Lucas?’

‘I thought I told you to get out.’ His savage tone made her gasp and she took a step backwards and almost tumbled down the stairs. Not once in the years she’d worked for him had he spoken to her like that.

One glance told her that he was rip-roaring drunk and she so rarely saw him out of control that her initial reaction was one of surprise. The fact that he didn’t make a habit of it did nothing to soothe her bruised feelings.

While her Friday night had been well and truly ruined, he’d been enjoying himself. He’d switched his phone off not because he was busy with an important business call, but because he was busy getting drunk. She’d risked her neck driving around the English countryside in a snowstorm, while all the time Lucas was warm and snug in front of a roaring log fire drinking champagne. Not only that, he had the gall to tell her to get out.

Emma’s temper, usually slow to burn, began to glow hot.

She was about to slap the file down on the table and leave him to his solitary party when she suddenly realised that what he’d actually said wasn’t get out but ‘I thought I told you to get out.’

She frowned.

He certainly hadn’t already told her to get out. Which could only mean that he thought she was someone else.

She remembered the balloons and the streamers. The abandoned champagne bottles. The cake.

‘Lucas!’ She spoke more clearly this time. ‘It’s me. Emma.’

For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her, and then his eyes opened.

Across the shadowy room she saw the lethal glitter that told her everything she needed to know about his mood. She was nowhere near him and yet it was as if he’d reached out and touched her. Her body warmed. She shifted uncomfortably. She’d never seen him like this before. The man she knew was always sleek and groomed. His suits were handmade in Italy, his shirts custom-made. He was a man who expected the best in everything. A sophisticated connoisseur of all things beautiful.

But tonight he looked dangerous in every way. In mood. In looks. His shirt was open at the neck, exposing a cluster of dark hair and a hint of powerful chest. Shadowy stubble darkened his strong jaw and, most disturbingly of all, she had the feeling that he was balancing on the very edge of control.

Sensing it, Emma reacted the way she would have reacted had she suddenly been confronted by a snarling Rottweiler intent on ripping her throat out. She froze and tried to project calm. ‘It’s just me,’ she said soothingly, ‘only you seemed to think I was someone else, so I thought I ought to just clarify that … er … it’s me.’

The silence stretched for such an agonizing length of time that she’d started to think that he wasn’t going to answer when suddenly he stirred.

‘Emma?’ His voice was soft and deadly and did nothing to reassure her.

She discovered that her hands were shaking and that irritated her. This was Lucas, for goodness’ sake. She’d worked with him almost every day for two years. He was tough, but he wasn’t threatening. Not exactly kind, but not cruel either. ‘I’ve been calling you for hours. Why didn’t you pick up the phone?’

‘Who the hell let you in?’

‘No one. I rang the bell and no one answered so I—’ She broke off and he raised an eyebrow.

‘So you thought you’d just walk into my house? Tell me, Little Red Riding Hood, do you make a habit of walking through the forest when the wolf is loose?’ Fierce blue eyes met hers and Emma felt as if she were being suffocated.

She lifted her hand and loosened the scarf around her neck. Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was the look in his eyes, but suddenly her heart was pounding. ‘I rang the bell. You didn’t answer.’

‘But you walked in anyway.’ Those softly spoken words were a million times more disturbing than the hard tone he’d used to order her out.

She tried to rally herself. ‘If you had answered your phone I wouldn’t have had to walk in.’

‘My phone is switched off. And I didn’t answer the door because I wasn’t looking for company.’

Something snapped inside her. ‘You think I drove for over two hours in lethal conditions for the pleasure of your company? After the week we’ve had, when I’ve had your “company” for an average of fifteen hours a day? I don’t think so.’ The injustice of it stoked her temper. ‘I drove here, at much personal inconvenience, I might add, to give you a file. The file that you forgot to pick up. The file you need tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ The way he said it made it sound as if that day were a lifetime away. A point somewhere in the future that might never come.

‘Yes, tomorrow.’ She looked at him in exasperation. Was he really that drunk? ‘Zubran? The launch party? Your papers for the Ferrara meeting? Is any of this ringing any bells with you?’ She’d been clutching the file to her chest like a shield but now she thrust it towards him and then decided that on second thoughts she didn’t want him to move from the sofa, so instead she dropped it on the nearest table. ‘There. My job is done. You can thank me when you’re sober.’

Slowly, he put the champagne down on the floor. ‘You drove out here to give me the file?’

‘Yes, I did.’ And suddenly she felt like a crazy person for doing that. ‘You need it. I didn’t want to trust it to a courier.’

‘You could have given it to Jim.’

Jim was his driver. ‘Jim has flown to Dublin for a long weekend.’ Why hadn’t he remembered that? What was the matter with him?

‘So you chose to bring it in person.’ His eyes glinted in the firelight and his gaze slowly travelled from her head to her toes as if he was seeing her properly for the first time.

‘Yes, I brought it to you in person,’ she snapped, hating herself for caring that she wasn’t looking her best. It wasn’t that she had any expectations of coming close to meeting his standards of visual perfection, but it would have boosted her confidence and made her feel businesslike. As it was, it was hard to feel businesslike with mud and snow streaked down her coat. ‘Frankly I’m starting to wish I hadn’t bothered, since the gesture clearly isn’t appreciated.’

‘Your head is bleeding. And your hair is wet. What happened to you?’

There was blood? Emma touched her head with her fingers and felt the bruise. Oh God, there was blood. How embarrassing. She rummaged in her bag for a tissue and pressed it against her head. ‘I slipped walking from the car. It’s fine.’ Suddenly she was horribly aware that it was just the two of them in this enormous house. It didn’t matter that she was often alone with him in the office. This felt different. ‘I’m going now and I’ll leave you to your party.’ She thought again about the balloons and the cake and wondered where everyone else was. In a different part of the house?

‘Ah yes, my party.’ He gave a humourless laugh and his head dropped back against the sofa. ‘Go, Emma. Someone like you shouldn’t be here.’

She’d been about to retreat but his words stopped her. Offended, she tapped her foot on the floor. ‘By “someone like me” I assume you mean someone who doesn’t move in your lofty social circle.’

‘I didn’t mean that, but it doesn’t matter.’

Stung, she stood still for a moment. ‘Actually it does matter. I’ve just risked my neck and upset someone I love to bring you a file you don’t even remember needing. A “thank you” would be nice. Manners are a good thing to have.’

‘But I’m not nice. And I’m certainly not good.’ His bitter tone shocked her. Her anger fizzled out.

‘Lucas—’

‘Get out, Emma.’ This time he used her name so that there could be no mistake about whom he was addressing. ‘Get out and close the damn door behind you.’

CHAPTER TWO

OF ALL the ungrateful, rude, pig-headed … Emma stomped down the stairs, along the landing and down the main staircase, swept forward by rolling waves of righteous anger.

Get out, Emma.

Get out, Emma.

Those words rang in her ears and she set her teeth and walked faster.

Well, she was getting out. She couldn’t get out fast enough.