The Man Who Broke Hearts

Tina finished drying her hand and held out the handkerchief to him. ‘So, is that why you’re here?’ Her tone was disapproving. ‘On a kind of window-shopping expedition? To see what you’re going to buy up next?’

Justin smiled. ‘I already know what I’m going to buy up next.’

‘You mean Berry’s—the company I work for?’

That was the rumour that was going around. In fact, that was the very subject that Tina and her friends had been discussing with some concern just a few minutes ago, while Justin had been secretly observing them.

And talk about coincidence....! Someone ‘up there’ must have been listening. For Tina had been proposing that it might be a good idea if one of them were to pay a visit to JM Publishing and have a word with Justin Marlowe. For, in fact, there were a number of rumours going around and some of them were deeply disturbing. It seemed there was more than just a simple take-over in the air. And Tina was all for getting to the bottom of it.

Well, here’s your chance, she told herself now. This totally unplanned confrontation wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind, but all the same it was too good an opportunity to miss.

‘So, is that right?’ she pressed him now. ‘Is Berry’s next on your shopping list?’

To her surprise, he shook his head. ‘Actually, I wasn’t referring to Berry’s...’

As he paused, just for an instant a spark of hope touched Tina’s heart. Were these rumours they were all so concerned about just rumours, after all? But the hope was barely formed when Justin shattered it.

‘Berry’s I consider to be already in the bag.’

He took the handkerchief, but did not return it to his pocket.

Tina felt herself blanch. ‘So, the stories are true, then? You really are about to take over Berry’s?’

‘There are still a couple of papers to be signed, but the answer is yes. I am indeed about to take over Berry’s.’ At her sudden pallor he smiled the sadistic smile of a tiger. ‘You may congratulate me. And yourself, of course. You’re about to have a new boss.’

‘How unfortunate.’

Suddenly, there was a lead weight in Tina’s stomach. It grew heavier as he elaborated. ‘Just like old times, eh?’

Old times. Bad times. Tina glared at him. ‘To be frank, I can’t think of anything worse.’ For she had worked for him in the past. That was how they’d . first met. And it was an experience she had no desire to repeat.

But Justin was still smiling his sadistic tiger’s smile. The smile of a tiger lazily sharpening its claws. ‘I was just thinking, as I was watching you chatting to your friends there, how much I’m going to enjoy having you back under my wing.’

‘Under your wing? You mean in your claws!’

And suddenly, as she glared at him, Tina felt another shiver as a new suspicion occurred to her. She hadn’t bumped into him. More likely, he’d bumped into her. He’d deliberately orchestrated this encounter so that he could tell her this bad news to her face and gloat.

She fixed him with a flinty look. ‘I suppose you’re feeling pretty pleased?’

‘Immensely pleased. However, I must say I’m saddened——’ He broke off to smile a smile that was rather more triumphant than sad. ‘Saddened that you unfortunately don’t appear to share my pleasure.’

‘No, I don’t and I’m afraid neither will anyone else at Berry’s. Frankly, this is the worst news you could possibly have given me. Everyone at Berry’s is going to be devastated. Nobody wants you to take over the company.’

‘Really?’ Justin arched one caustic black eyebrow. He regarded her narrowly for a moment. ‘That’s extremely team-spirited of you, I must say, to care about the feelings of your colleagues.’ The eyebrow lifted a little higher. ‘Quite out of character.’

Tina felt a twist inside her as she remembered the episode that had given him that low, and totally unjust, opinion of her. It had been their last bitter encounter, when all she had cared about was paying back some small measure of the huge hurt he’d inflicted on her. She’d been totally out of her mind that day.

But she would never take back the things she had said to him. She knew they’d done no more than slightly bruise his ego, but even that was a source of some satisfaction. And she didn’t give a damn what he thought of her anyway.

She tilted her chin at him and totally ignored his comment. ‘Everyone, on all the magazines at Berry’s, is very much against you,’ she repeated.

‘Are they?’ He looked as concerned as an elephant with a fleabite. ‘Don’t worry, they’ll learn to love me. Everybody does.’

He said it so flippantly, yet looking straight at her, as though he had meant it as a callous reminder of the overpowering love he had once aroused in her.

Tina felt herself recoil. Her heart thudded inside her. ‘If they do, they soon get over it,’ she shot back at him in a harsh tone. ‘It’s not the kind of love that runs very deep.’

That was what she had wanted him to believe of her three years ago. It was why she’d said the things she’d said at their last meeting. She’d had too much pride to let him see her bruised, bleeding heart.

And it seemed she’d done a good job. He flicked a look back at her now. ‘But some people are only capable of the shallowest emotions. They just take what they can get and then cynically move on.’

Then he smiled, his eyes darkening, and let his gaze travel over her. ‘The heart of a vampire in the body of an angel,’ he purred.

This was nothing like the way he had looked at her earlier. Then his gaze had been perfunctory and mocking. But now his eyes lingered, moving like touching fingers, caressing the full, generous curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the gentle flare of her hips. And it was a far too familiar scrutiny. Far too knowing. His eyes held the arrogant look of a man taking a stroll over territory he had once known very well.

How dared he? Bristling with anger, Tina opened her mouth to rebuke him. But before she could utter a word she was suddenly freezing to the spot.

For he was reaching out towards her with the handkerchief. ‘You’ve missed a bit here,’ he was saying in an amused tone as he dabbed lightly at the lapel of her cream silk blouse. Then as she tried to move he caught her lightly by the arm. ‘Stand still. How can I see what I’m doing if you move?’

A rush of panic seized her. All at once she had difficulty breathing. It was crazy; they were in a public place, surrounded by people, yet all at once Tina felt like a helpless prisoner. The hand that gripped her arm was like a manacle holding her. A manacle of red-hot burning steel.

‘You don’t need to do that!’

‘It’s no trouble, I assure you.’

‘No, really... But really...’

Her heart was jumping inside her. For not only was he holding her, not only was he touching her, but, much worse, all at once she had suddenly become aware of the light scent of the handkerchief that drifted up to her nostrils.

It was his scent. That cool, clean scent she remembered. And suddenly, like some magic carpet of the senses, it was transporting her back to that time three years ago when she had been as familiar with that scent as with the scent of her own body.

And suddenly, in her mind she was lying naked beside him, caressing him, touching him, pressing against him, dizzy and drunk with desire and love for him.

It was a shattering moment. She felt something crumble inside her as she glanced up, helplessly, into the arrogant dark eyes that looked down on her now, distant and uncaring. For a moment her heart seemed to break all over again. A sense of paralysing loss went flooding through her.

‘There, that’s better.’ Justin was stepping away now, releasing his grip on her arm as he did so. Then he handed her the handkerchief. ‘There’s another spot on the collar. But perhaps I’d better let you attend to that.’

He was mocking her. He had picked up her sudden anguish and it appealed to his sadistic sense of humour. Perhaps, she thought wretchedly, he’d done it on purpose, guessing in advance how she would react. It still amused him to play with her, even after all these years.

At that thought Tina’s anguish turned instantly to anger. She was not his plaything—though he had once treated her as though she were. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman whom no other man in the world would ever have dared to treat so familiarly. And all he was to her was a man she despised with all her heart.

She took a pointed step away from him, her blue eyes chipped porcelain. ‘It’s not like you to be so solicitous,’ she observed frostily. ‘And I can assure you I neither need nor want your help in any way.’

‘But it’s my pleasure.’ Justin simply smiled in the face of her annoyance. ‘As I said before, you’re someone pretty important these days. One feels obliged to offer one’s services.’ A sarcastic look touched his eyes. ‘Though I wasn’t doing you full justice when I referred to you earlier as features editor of Scope. I understand that these days you’re also acting editor.’

‘Only while Maggie’s ill.’ Maggie was Scope‘s editor. ‘It’s only a temporary position.’

‘But one that could lead to greater glory in the future. If you do a good job, who knows what it could lead to—especially with Maggie due to retire in a couple of years?’