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‘Goodnight, Genista.’ His hand slid from her arm to her wrist, lifting her fingers to his lips and touching them with a panache that was making George goggle. ‘You must think of our parting not as an end, but as a beginning.’
Genista could tell that George thought he was witnessing the tender beginning of a love affair, but beneath the lightly drawled words and the soft look she sensed an implied threat. Luke was warning her that he still intended to have his revenge!
Only when she was quite sure that the Maserati had pulled away did she turn towards the commissionaire, her voice shaky with released tension.
‘George, I seem to have misplaced my key,’ she told him. ‘Would you be an angel and let me in? I think I’d better have the lock changed as well. You can’t be too careful these days.’
‘I’ll see to it myself tomorrow, miss, if you like,’ George offered. ‘I’ll just lock the main doors and then I’ll come up with you and open your door for you.’
He’d always had a soft spot for her, right from the first day she moved into Mallory Court, he told his wife later. There was something about her. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. She made him feel all protective-like somehow. High time she got herself a boy-friend, he added, and by the looks of it the one she’d now found herself was doing alright for himself. Fast, powerful sports car…
Unware that she was the main topic of conversation in the commissionaire’s flat, Genista prepared for bed. There were faint bruises on her throat, and she touched them lightly, shuddering. Jilly had warned her that Luke could be dangerous and she had laughed at her. She wasn’t laughing now, and she was only thankful that it was extremely unlikely that she would ever see Luke Ferguson again. First thing tomorrow she must remind George about changing her lock. When his anger cooled she doubted that Luke would pursue her any further, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep in her bed at night knowing he had a key to her apartment. Her hand crept towards her breast. The flesh still tingled from his touch, emotions she had not experienced for years rushed through her, and she was remembering Richard. Luke…Richard…her father…they were all the same. All men were the same; she turned her face into her pillow and allowed the frightened tears she had been bottling up from the moment Luke kissed her with such merciless contempt to flow freely at last.
CHAPTER TWO
GENISTA overslept—an almost unprecedented occurrence, and as she struggled to make her way to work through the crowded underground rightly or wrongly she blamed Luke Ferguson. He was the reason she had lain awake half the night, tormented by all manner of strange emotions. Forget the man, she told herself, stopping in her tracks so suddenly that the man walking behind her bumped into her, as she remembered that she had not seen George again about changing her locks. She bit her lip. She would have to try and ring through from the office. She didn’t think Luke would try to use her key. He had struck her as a man of too much pride to attempt to see her again—unless his desire for revenge still burned as fiercely as it had done last night. She was being over-imaginative again, she told herself. It was over.
Bob was already seated at his desk when she walked in, his head bent over some papers. Computerstore was only a small concern; everyone worked together in one large office, except the owner and Managing Director, Brian Hargreaves, who was usually out somewhere selling the company’s services. Since the news of their takeover had broken no one had seen Brian, although there were rumours that he had been offered a position on the board of their new owners. If that was the case they would need two new staff members; someone to replace Brian and someone to replace Greg, who had left the firm to take up a job in the States. Greg’s loss did not particularly worry Genista. She could tolerate Greg, but she knew that beneath his surface charm lurked a particularly malicious streak which had often manifested itself in the manner in which he took her refusals to go out with him.
‘Hello there! You’re late!’
Jilly breezed into the office behind Genista, sighing enviously over Genista’s pale lilac and cream separates. ‘You always have such lovely clothes,’ she complained. Jilly and her fiancé were saving up to get married and consequently there was very little money to spare for new clothes. Genista had bought her outfit from Jaeger—one of the benefits of having private means, she reflected wryly. No one could have been more surprised than Genista herself when, six months after the death of her parents in a landslide in the tiny Alpine village where they were spending their ‘second honeymoon’, she had received a letter from a firm of solicitors in Australia informing her that she was the sole beneficiary under the will of her mother’s uncle. Genista had vague recollections of her mother talking about an uncle who had left England in disgrace, but she had never dreamed that he had built up a vast sheep station in the Australian Outback, which had been sold to his partner on his death, with the proceeds going to Genista as his only surviving relative. The money would keep her in modest luxury for the rest of her life, carefully invested, but she could not envisage life as a lady of leisure, so she had come to London, bought her apartment and set about finding herself a job which would fill the huge gap the death of her parents had left in her life.
‘Hey, come back! Where were you? Having second thoughts about last night?’ Jilly teased. ‘So would I in your shoes. He was gorgeous—and very plainly fell hard for you. When he walked into the room and saw you he was almost transfixed—just like something out of the movies!’
Jilly was making her feel uncomfortable.
‘It wasn’t at all like that,’ she protested. ‘You’re seeing things through rose-coloured glasses. All he wanted to do was go to bed with me. That’s all men like him ever want.’
‘If you believe that then you’re the one with eye trouble—like you’re wearing blinkers,’ Jilly retorted spiritedly. ‘Honestly, Gen, I sometimes don’t think you’re for real! The most gorgeous male I’ve ever seen in my life walks into a party, takes one look at you and gives a pretty fair impression of a man who’s met the love of his life, and all you can do is say that he wanted to go to bed with you. You haven’t the faintest idea! If that was all he wanted, why didn’t he accept the invitation Mary was offering so blatantly?’
‘Perhaps he prefers redheads,’ Genista said flippantly. Jilly was being absurd. People in love were notorious for it. So she thought Luke had fallen for her, did she? She hadn’t noticed!
‘Who was he anyway?’ Jilly asked. ‘I’ve never seen him around before, have you, and most of the others were the usual crowd.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Genista admitted. ‘We didn’t get as far as exchanging life stories.’ She had no intention of telling Jilly what had happened after she had left the party; Jilly’s questions awakened her own curiosity. Luke had come to the party alone, and had plainly not known many of the other guests. If it hadn’t been for his air of arrogant command, and the powerfully expensive Maserati he had driven she might have put him down as one of Greg’s ex-university friends; or someone who lived in the same block, but now that she thought about it, there had been an air of aloofness about Luke; a sort of aloneness, which didn’t tie in with his being one of Greg’s gregarious friends.
‘I don’t suppose you exchanged phone numbers?’ Jilly pressed wistfully, plainly convinced that her friend ought to have encouraged Luke’s attentions.
‘No.’ Genista purposefully made the word sound final, although a tiny part of her mind wondered what Jilly would have said had she told her that Luke did have her key.
‘Join me for lunch?’ Jilly questioned.
‘I’ll try. We might have to work through. Bob wanted to work late last night, but he had to go home.’ A small frown furrowed Genista’s forehead. She glanced across to where Bob
Norman was still bent over his papers. He hadn’t seemed his normal calm self after he had spoken to his wife the previous evening, and Genista hoped there was nothing wrong at home. Elaine was a charming person, although very much lacking in self-confidence. She and Bob had one son who attended a small public school, and privately Genista thought it was wrong that Elaine should live so much through her husband and son, although of course it was none of her business.
Bob smiled at Genista when she sat down at her own desk.
‘Sorry I’m late. I overslept, and then Jilly collared me to chat about last night’s party,’ she apologised.
‘So I saw,’ said Bob with a smile. ‘Don’t let it worry you. Oh, by the way,’ he added almost as though it were an afterthought, ‘I’ve heard that our new boss is going to pay us a visit this morning. He rang me at home last night. He was hoping to get back from Amsterdam in time to do the honours, but there’s been a hold-up with the Van der Walle deal.’
‘Do you know much about our new owner?’ Genista asked him, abandoning the chart she had been studying.
Bob shook his head. He was a tall, well-made man, still very attractive, his dark hair tinged with silver, a twinkle in his blue eyes as he studied Genista’s downbent head. His manner towards her was fatherly, teasing almost, and Genista was able to enjoy his company without worrying that he might think she was attracted to him—Bob was very happily married; one of the very few who were, Genista often thought.
‘All kinds of rumours were floating about while you were away,’ he told her, ‘but nothing concrete. The entrepreneur who built up the L.F.N. Corporation is something of a mystery man, apparently, and doesn’t go in for publicity. Greg’s met him. He called round at Brian’s flat when he was there.’
