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CHAPTER ONE
‘SOMEONE to see you, Sarah.’ Jenny poked her glossy brown head round the inner office door, her pretty face flushed. ‘He doesn’t have an appointment and he wouldn’t give his name.’ Her brown eyes turned into saucers. ‘I explained that the agency was closed right now and offered to arrange an interview with you tomorrow morning— but he refuses to leave until he’s seen you.’
Sarah pushed the last file into the steel cabinet and locked it, a tiny frown on her smooth wide brow as she registered her deputy’s agitation. She selected her permanent staff very carefully, paying as much attention to temperament as ability because for the last four years her life had been dedicated to making her secretarial and business agency utterly professional, efficient and highly respected, not only in the North London suburb where it was located but throughout the capital.
Jenny Fletcher had been chosen for her pleasant personality and her calm unflappability but she was unaccountably acting as if she had as much professionalism as a giddy teenager.
Sarah sighed and glanced at her watch. Business had closed for the day twenty minutes ago and she had a dinner date. Nevertheless, even though Scott Secretarial Services wasn’t short of clients it went against her policy to turn prospective business away.
‘Show him in; I can give him ten minutes,’ she instructed, straightening the jacket of her sage-green linen suit as she placed herself neatly on the chair behind her desk, sliding the large leather-bound diary towards her, one fine brow arching quizzically as Jenny gushed breathily,
‘I’ll sit in, shall I? Take details of his needs.’
Her last word degenerated to an expressive giggle and Sarah’s aquamarine eyes went frosty, her voice repressive as she stated, ‘That won’t be necessary. You may as well go home. I’ll lock up.’ She wondered again what had got into her normally controlled and perfectly sober assistant and, with deep resignation, decided she knew the answer to that particular question when the most ferociously handsome male she had ever encountered shouldered arrogantly into the room.
Despite the elegantly styled dark business suit there was a raw sexuality, an aura of brooding power about the stranger that few women would be immune to and, in his mid-thirties, she guessed, he would be all too well aware of it. And Jenny, although professional to her fingertips, could be partly excused because she wouldn’t have the inbuilt immunity to such primary masculine magnetism that came completely naturally to her boss.
Sarah gestured to the seat on the opposite side of the desk, gave her usual cool smile and didn’t bother to wonder why it felt so forced on this occasion and wasn’t surprised when she registered that his voice was dark and smoky, the seductive accent betraying his Spanish birth, because he was far too exotic to be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill English businessman.
What did surprise her was the edge of accusation that threaded through his voice, and his use of the name she had discarded years ago as being utterly unsuitable to her image of herself.
‘Salome Bouverie-Scott.’
It wasn’t a query but a brief hint of a question did gleam in the depths of those black Spanish eyes and when she dipped her ash-blonde head in reluctant agreement the delicate skin on her fine cheekbones was stained pink with something close to embarrassment.
Perplexity followed as she watched his sensual mouth straighten with what looked like distaste because she hadn’t used that name for years. Sally, the natural diminutive of the hatefully flamboyant Salome, had been discarded in late adolescence as sounding too slapdash, too frivolous. And as Sally was also the accepted diminutive of Sarah she had plumped for that, feeling it had far more authority, dropping the Bouverie part of her name because who needed it?
Somehow he had got hold of the names she had been blessed with at birth. But although it was puzzling it wasn’t really important. Features serene again, she gestured once more to the vacant chair but his obdurate stance just inside the door didn’t alter so she cast a brief glance at her wristwatch, bit back a sigh and asked calmly, ‘How may I help you?’
Black eyes impaled her and his head was held arrogantly high above the impressive width of his shoulders, and there was something definitely intimidating about his penetrating, unwavering gaze. It made her suddenly wish she’d asked Jenny to stay.
But that was plain ridiculous. Maybe his command of the English language wasn’t so hot and he was searching for words. But time was passing. She would be late for her date. Nigel hated unpunctuality and, come to that, so did she.
Stifling the impulse to shoot another glance at her watch, she gave the stranger a cool, encouraging smile and he spoke then, the clipped words at strange variance with the throaty, almost hoarse dark velvet voice, as if he was trying hard to contain some kind of elemental, nameless emotion.
‘You may help me by telling me where to find Piers Bouverie-Scott.’ Strong, blue-shadowed jaw out-thrust, the sensual lower lip pugnacious, he regarded her down the length of his arrogantly aquiline nose, his hands planted on his non-existent hips now, parting the perfection of his tailored jacket to reveal a waistcoat that moulded his upper body with understated sartorial elegance.
Sarah’s initial heated reaction was that he had wasted her precious time. Her second was to control her annoyance, rise fluidly to her feet, close the leather-bound diary and reach for her handbag, extracting the keys.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you there, Mr—Señor…?’ She stopped, her cool smile cut off as an oblong of white pasteboard flipped through the air, landing on the polished surface of the desk. Not thinking, she picked it up. She had no interest in his name, but found her eyes skimming the black letters all the same. Francisco Garcia Casals. ‘I have no idea where my father is, Señor Casals.’
When had she ever had more than a vague notion of where her remaining parent might be? Wherever he was, he was probably creating a ruckus and she’d eventually have the unenviable chore of reading all about it in the Press. The seamier tabloids always had a field day when Piers went on the rampage.
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‘My name means nothing?’ He sounded as if he didn’t belive her. ‘Or Encarnación?’
‘Should it do?’
Aquamarine eyes gathered a frown. He was still planted in front of the door, blocking the way. She wondered how many tons of dynamite it would take to shift him and then shuddered because he began to move towards her, long, lean legs narrowly clothed, slim hips barely moving at all. She thought, He walks like a matador, then swiftly told herself not to be so all-fired silly because she had never seen a matador in the whole of her twenty-eight years and for all she knew they might have to be transported in a wheelbarrow on account of wounds collected in painful places.
Then she heard herself gasp because, for one thing, it was utterly out of character for her to indulge in such juvenile flights of stupidity and, for another, he was looming over her now and for the first time in her adult life she had the strangest feeling that she wasn’t in control of the situation.
‘Then you would be wise to make it your business to find out because until I am satisfied my name and that of my sister will mean a very great deal to you.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Was that her voice? That thready whisper? And ‘looming’ wasn’t the word. His proximity was swamping her, engulfing her in waves of confusion. Only because he was talking in riddles, she assured herself stoically. Why should his name mean anything to her—let alone his sister’s— Encarnación?
The tip of her neat nose was on a level with his top waistcoat button. She took a rapid step backwards but sharp contact with the top of her desk reminded her that she didn’t back down for anyone. She squared her shoulders and informed him sternly, ‘Come to the point, Señor Casals, if there is one. I’m already running late.’
His wide shoulders moved in an eloquent shrug. ‘All the more reason for you to tell me what I want to know. Tell me where your father is, and you’re free to go.’
Her hackles rose with painful immediacy. He was talking as if she were his prisoner, as if she had no choices. Unease prickled her spine but she resolutely ignored it and answered precisely, ‘You can’t have heard me. I have no idea where Piers is at the moment. I had a card from him at Christmas and that was the last I heard. It was postmarked Edinburgh, but that’s no help because he often makes a point of being in Scotland over Hogmanay.’
She didn’t add that he liked the company of a certain Scottish widow who stroked his massive ego, fed all his voracious appetites and sent him lovingly on his way to pastures new a happy man. Annie Kelp had been an artist’s model in her heyday, before her Junoesque figure had become richly rotund, and entertaining the great Piers Bouverie-Scott took her back to the wild bohemian days of her young womanhood.
‘He has no fixed abode?’ The Spaniard made it sound like a crime and Sarah was almost in sympathy with him. Unfortunately—or fortunately, as Piers would have had it—there were plenty of Annie Kelps scattered around the globe, women who were only too happy to offer succour to the supremely talented, wildly rumbustious artist.
Piers never let a mistress go; he collected them— to Sarah’s deep mortification—as other men might collect rare postage stamps and he loved the female sex far too much to let them go. Once they were hooked they were well and truly hooked. Sarah couldn’t understand it. Didn’t any of them know they were on a hiding to nothing, being used? Or didn’t they care? Was each and every one of them happy to be taken advantage of provided she had the opportunity to enjoy the exhilaration of his company every now and then?
She sighed, shaking her head in answer to his question, then gathered her thoughts.
‘Why do you want to find him?’ It couldn’t be money. Piers, for all his manifold faults, paid his bills. People fought to acquire his latest paintings. He could charge what he liked, and did. He probably had no idea how wealthy he was. His agent, Miles Hunter, handled all his financial affairs.
Nevertheless, Sarah knew instinctively that whatever it was this man wanted it wasn’t to shake her father by the hand, congratulate him on his genius, beg him to take a commission. And, even though her wayward parent had been a source of continual and often excruciating embarrassment for as long as she could clearly remember, she would never disclose his whereabouts—even if she knew them—to anyone who might harm him.
‘You are telling me you do not know, cannot make an educated guess?’ Cynical disbelief stared out of his eyes. ‘You cannot be unaware of your father’s reputation. It is legendary.’ His dignity at this moment was chilling and Sarah quickly averted her eyes.
