Passionate Fantasy

She had remembered Caro showing her the newspaper clipping which had pictured a girl draped round the film director’s neck like a boa-constrictor. ‘Tomorrow evening, Mr Speed?’ she had enquired frostily.

‘I’m not,’ an amused-sounding voice had said, ‘Darius Speed. I’m Simon Parker—his secretary.’

‘It seems rather an—odd—time for an interview,’ Kitty had ventured.

The voice had sounded even more amused. ‘Not so much odd as unusual. He’s an unusual man. And besides, he’s out doing research during the day.’

‘Oh.’

‘So are you available or not?’

It had struck Kitty that he could have chosen a word with slightly less awkward connotations than ‘available’, in the light of what Caro had told her about Darius Speed’s reputation with the fairer sex, and she couldn’t help feeling a little shiver of apprehension, half tempted to tell him no. But then she had thought about what she had promised Caro. ‘Yes,’ she had said, forcing a note of enthusiasm into her voice. ‘I’m free.’

‘Good. Can you meet him in Barbary’s restaurant at eight? Oh, and don’t eat first.’

A meeting in a restaurant. At night. Don’t eat first. Kitty’s face, she hoped, hid her misgivings as she paid her cab fare and walked into the fashionable and already crowded restaurant at five minutes before the appointed time.

‘Mr Speed, please,’ she said to the maȋtre d’.

He gave her an expansive smile. ‘Mr Speed hasn’t arrived, madam. If you would like me to show you to your table?’

She followed him across the room to a table which was suitably central for an important customer, yet far enough away from other tables to prevent any conversation being overheard.

‘Would madam like a drink?’

‘Just a mineral water, please,’ she said instantly, vowing that alcohol wouldn’t cloud her senses. ‘Sparkling.’

The drink was produced immediately in a long crystal glass packed with ice, With a piece of lime floating decorously on the surface, and Kitty had just started sipping it when there was the momentary lull which, she knew, heralded the arrival of Somebody Very Important, and the man whose photograph she had seen in the newspaper appeared in the doorway.

Darius Speed.

He looked straight across the restaurant, at the table at which she was sitting, and their eyes met. He stood very still for a moment, and stared hard at her. His own face was stern, although he said something to the maȋtre d’ which produced a wide smile.

Wow! was her first thoroughly instinctive thought. In the photograph he had looked devastating, but in the flesh he was something else! He had to be the most delectable man she had ever, ever set eyes on, and then she reminded herself what kind of man he was, and immediately felt appalled at herself.

He began to walk towards her, full of both grace and power, and Kitty watched him approach, suddenly exceedingly nervous of what she was intending to do. She was intending to infiltrate the house of this man, to gain his trust, and then coolly to rob him. And while that was OK in theory, the reality of such an intimidating opponent quite unnerved her.

He was so much bigger than she had imagined— well over six feet—and his shoulders were distinctly and disturbingly broad. His hair was as dark as the night, unmarred by any trace of grey. And as he came closer to the table she could see that his eyes were the light, mercurial colour of quicksilver—grey one minute, silver the next.

He wore a suit in some dark grey material which fell loosely about the powerful frame, yet hinted at the strength which lay beneath, but there all conventionality ended because beneath the suit he was tieless, wearing a shirt of black silk—the hard inky colour somehow at odds with the softness of the material, as the penetrating look in his eyes was curiously at odds with the polite half-smile he gave her as he extended his hand.

‘Miss Goodman? No, don’t get up—I’m Darius Speed.’

She took the hand he offered, felt it give hers the most cursory of firm squeezes, before he sat down opposite her, his eyes questioning as he waited for her to speak.

‘Good evening, Mr Speed.’ Stop sounding like a mouse speaking to a lion, she told herself firmly.

‘Darius,’ he corrected shortly. ‘And you’re Kitty?’

She nodded, taking her courage in both hands. ‘I am.’

The grey eyes flicked over her face, briefly taking in the well-pressed but fairly unremarkable outfit she wore. ‘You don’t,’ he said, the deep voice holding the faintest undercurrent of warning—or was that just in her guilty imagination—‘look in the least bit like a cook.’

Her instinct was to counter-attack, but she wanted the job, so she forced herself to be pleasant. From everything that Caro had told her, she already despised this man, but he wasn’t going to discover that. Not for a little while, anyway. ‘Whereas you,’ she smiled, ‘look exactly like a film director.’

There was an almost imperceptible tensing of his facial muscles. ‘You’ve heard of me, then?’

‘Naturally,’ she concurred. ‘I’m applying to work for you, aren’t I?’

Grey eyes narrowed instantly. ‘But the job description said only that the successful applicant would be working for a businessman. I don’t remember specifying which business.’

‘Well, I recognised you as soon as you walked into the restaurant,’ she amended hastily. ‘From your photo in the paper.’

He leaned back a little. ‘Did you?’ he enquired lazily, and Kitty got a strange and vivid impression that he would easily be able to differentiate between truth and fiction. She had better be careful. ‘Well, that makes a refreshing change,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

He shrugged, the movement causing a dark tendril of hair to stray on to his high and faintly tanned forehead. ‘You have no idea,’ he said, ‘how many young women believe that it will elicit my lasting and unswerving dedication if they play-act-usually badly—failing to recognise me. The implication being, I imagine, that I will respect a woman far more if she likes me for being just me, rather than for the attraction of my fame and my money.’

Kitty remembered one of her mother’s lessons. She counted to ten, but as she did so she began to savour putting into action her plan to extricate the script from this intolerably arrogant man! ‘Dear me,’ she said placatingly. ‘How difficult relationships can be—as I know to my cost! You don’t appear to have had very much luck either.’

It was the gentlest of put-downs. Obviously not what he was expecting her to say. He should have had the grace to look abashed.

He didn’t.

‘You don’t look like a chef,’ he observed again.

‘Don’t I?’ She gave a serene smile. ‘You would have preferred the stereotype, perhaps? A good ten pounds overweight, checked trousers, a white jacket with tall matching hat? Perhaps the tip of my nose covered in flour would have added the final convincing touch?’

There was the faintest smile, before the handsome face resumed a mocking mask. ‘Something like that,’ he said softly.

She looked straight into the flashing silver eyes. Oh, that voice, she thought reluctantly. Had she ever heard a voice like that before? Never. It sounded like chocolate and honey. Like music played by some deep, sexy instrument. With the faintest of underlying drawls which made it especially distinctive. She sighed. Why couldn’t he have looked like the back end of a bus? Much easier, surely, to deceive someone who didn’t bring you out in goose-bumps all over.

The silver-grey eyes were unwavering. ‘Now,’ he said crisply. ‘Before we go any further, I have to tell you that I’m looking for a chef and not an actress.’

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked slowly.

‘Think about it.’

Comprehension slowly dawned. ‘You think—that I’m really an actress? That my applying for the job of cook is simply a ploy to get to meet you?’

‘You’ve got it in one,’ he murmured.

Of all the insufferable arrogance! Stealing from this man was going to be pure, undiluted joy! ‘You’ve seen my certificates,’ she said coldly. ‘You must know I’m bona fide.’

‘Oh, yes—I’ve seen them.’ He laughed then, a sort of bitter, empty laugh. ‘But you’d be surprised,’ he drawled, ‘just how many women try it on. The whole world, it seems, wants to break into the movie business. I ring out for pizza—the girl who delivers it belts out a number from last year’s musical. I go shopping, and the woman selling me the sweater asks can she visit me on set to audition. Not just women, either. I take a bus and the driver gives me a rendition of Macbeth’s soliloquy. Yes——’ he must have seen her disbelieving expression ‘—bus. I don’t travel exclusively by limousine. If I cut myself off from real life, then I can’t make real films.’

What a cynic! Kitty drew a deep breath. ‘Listen to me,’ she told him. ‘I cannot recite poetry or dance to save my life. When I start to sing, people leave the room in droves. I have no desire in the world to become an actress. Cooking is what I do best, and I enjoy it. At the moment I’m temping— mostly waitress work—handing out microwaved food with stupid names to people who don’t need it. I answered your advertisement because I want to go back to cooking, which is why I’m here, though heaven knows—a restaurant seems a bizarre place in which to conduct an interview——’