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CHAPTER ONE
MARCUS FOX slammed down the telephone and strode over to stand at the window of his nineteenth-floor office, glaring down at the sun-washed expanse of Aotea Square below.
The blunt fingers of one hand tapped on the barrel of an expensive telescope—the perfect executive toy for the perfect executive, his mother-in-law had teased him when she had given it to him at Christmas. Only to protect Susan’s feelings from hurt had he permitted it to be set up in his office. Toys were for children. The last thing any executive of a large corporation needed was his work-space cluttered up with frivolous, time-wasting distractions.
He scowled.
A head-turning bottle-blonde in a miniskirt was sauntering diagonally across the square, creating a magnetic fluctuation in the wave of business-suited males fanning out from the pedestrian entrances to the underground car park. As if drawn by an invisible force, the men who were moving in the same direction automatically veered onto a close parallel path, while those who were approaching from another direction adjusted themselves on an intersecting line.
With an irritable grunt of self-derision he swivelled the telescope from its soothing view of the harbour and followed her progress across the square with a cynical, disapproving eye. He could tell that she was a bottle-blonde from the harsh reflection of the sun off the improbably white hair, and, from the length of leg she was flashing and her provocative, hip-hitching walk, she was clearly revelling in the disruption that she was causing to the immediate male environment.
Marcus’s mouth twisted contemptuously as one overeager young voyeur ran into a rubbish bin while his head was screwed around trying to keep the legs in lustful sight for an extra few seconds. Silly idiot! Perhaps it would teach him a lesson, but somehow Marcus doubted it.
Thank God he was too old for such foolishness! He had finally conquered the dangerous fascination that sexy, artificial blondes had once held for his youthful self. Now he could look, and even admire, with a gratifying sense of detachment. Experience had taught him that women who paid most attention to outward artifice, those who presented the sexiest image, were usually the least exciting in bed and the most emotionally selfish. To Marcus, the brazen, feminine self-confidence being flaunted in the square presented not a provocative challenge to his masculinity but a tiresome reminder of his incipient problem.
An impatient shove sent the telescope tilting violently skywards on its axis.
Women!
At the moment he could cheerfully have consigned the whole sex to the very devil.
Except that he needed them…or, rather, he needed one special woman in particular.
And she, thank God, was the complete antithesis of the meretricious female parading her wares below!
CHAPTER TWO
‘GOOD morning, Ted.’
Harriet nodded her usual pleasant greeting to the doughnut-munching security guard behind the main reception desk as she wafted past—although it was probably more of a wobble than a waft, she thought wryly, ignoring the strangled choking sound which was Ted’s only response.
She wasn’t used to the slender, four-inch heels that she was wearing. They clicked officiously against the polished marble floor of the lobby and had an unfortunate tendency to make her hips roll uncomfortably with every step. Walking was no longer the natural function she had always taken for granted and the narrowness of her short skirt further hampered her usually brisk stride.
She came to a stop by the bank of lifts, teetering unsteadily on her heels. As she reached for the button that would summon the express lift which serviced the upper floors a blunt masculine finger was there before her.
‘Allow me.’
Harriet drew back, glancing sideways at the goodlooking young man who had done a rapid shuffle up beside her.
‘Why, thank you, Michael,’ she murmured drily.
The trace of irony in her voice caused a flicker of puzzlement to dim the voltage of his confident smile slightly as she preceded him into the lift.
Michael Fleet was a stockbroker, known as ‘the wolf of Finance Towers’ by the females who worked in the twin buildings. Part of his infamous modus operandi was to use the notoriously slow lifts as a personal hunting ground in which to seek new prey. Harriet had witnessed his technique in action many times over the past six years but had never herself been deemed worthy of a second glance, let alone a smile.
Until today.
When Harriet turned she had a head-on view of Ted Sellers, his doughnut hanging limply from his stunned mouth, his bulging eyes rounded as he stared after her, the security of the building obviously the last thing on his mind. A surge of mischief made her lift her hand and waggle her fingers mockingly at him as the doors slid closed.
By the time Harriet tottered through the door to her office her good humour was flagging. Flirting up eighteen floors with Michael Fleet had been wickedly exhilarating, especially when he had belatedly realised who it was that he was trying to chat up. But when she’d departed from the lift the bright façade of cheerful insouciance that she had donned that morning with her new make-up and clothes had been sorely tested by the seething speculation that had stalked her through the sea of busy computer workstations in the main offices of Trident Finance.
Reaching the small suite of corner offices occupied by the accounts section, she felt as if she had just run a bruising gauntlet.
It was her own fault, of course. Usually she was one of the first to arrive
at the office and was unobtrusively working at her desk when everyone else began to trickle in. Today she had been deliberately late. She had thought that a grand entrance would get all the fuss over and done with in one fell swoop. Now she wondered whether it wouldn’t have been better to exercise a little caution and break her co-workers in gently to her flamboyant new image. She had had no idea that being interesting would be such hard work!
But no! She nipped that treacherous thought grimly in the bud. Caution was the watchword of the old Harriet Smith—the boring, pathetically conventional Harriet. The new, improved Harriet wasn’t afraid of drawing attention to herself. She was assertive, self-confident, spontaneous—her actions governed by the impulses of the moment rather than by the constricting dread of what other people might think.
To that end Harriet directed a dazzling smile at the attractive young woman sitting at the smaller of the two desks in the elegantly furnished office.
‘Good morning, Barbara,’ she greeted her breezily.
‘Miss Smith!’
Harriet closed the door behind her and strolled over to her desk.
‘Is something wrong? Have I got a smudge on my nose?’ she enquired, turning to meet her assistant’s fascinated stare.
Barbara Martin almost swallowed her tongue in her hurry to back away from the direct challenge.
‘Uh—n-no. Well, I mean—you’re so, so…’ She trailed off on seeing the militant gleam which sparked in Harriet’s blue eyes, and hurriedly summoned the diplomacy expected of a budding executive secretary.
‘That is, you’re so late…I’ve been trying to ring you at home. Mr Jessop’s been on hot bricks waiting for you to arrive. He’s been buzzing for you every five minutes…’
Harriet bit her tongue to stop herself leaping to attention with a string of worried questions.
‘Really?’ she said carelessly, swinging the scarlet handbag that matched her shoes and jaunty silk jacket. She sat down in her swivel chair, opened her bag and took out a slim powder compact.
‘In a bad mood, is he?’ she murmured, opening the compact and dabbing at the non-existent shine on her nose.
It had taken her a good half-hour to put on her make-up this morning—something that normally took her ten minutes—and she was relieved to see that it still looked immaculate. She had followed the instructions in the personalised booklet that she had been given at the beauty salon to the letter and was gratified by the result.
Her deep-set eyes no longer seemed to recede into her face, and the fullness of her lips was accentuated with scarlet gloss rather than subdued with her usual dusky pink lipstick. Her thick, straight brows had been ruthlessly plucked into graceful arches and a contour blusher made the most of her pronounced cheek-bones.
Every woman was unique, the make-up artist at the salon had told her, and the trick was to play up that uniqueness rather than try to imitate the air-brushed perfection of models in glossy magazines. Harriet might never be able to lay claim to beauty but at least now nobody could call her inconspicuous!
Her flippant comment hung in the air, and in the oval compact mirror she could see the by now familiar glazed look creeping across Barbara Martin’s face as she compared the frivolous Tuesday-morning version of Harriet Smith with the soberly dressed, quietly conventional woman she had last seen on the eve of the long weekend.
The former Miss Smith had always discouraged gossip and flippancy in the office, insisting on a businesslike formality at all times. It had been Harriet’s serious demeanour and innate discretion combined with her excellent secretarial skills which had secured her early promotion to the position of personal secretary to Brian Jessop, head of Trident Finance’s accounts section. She had only been twenty, but even then she had possessed an air of maturity and serene competence which had soon silenced the jealous criticism that an older, more experienced employee should have been given the job.
Now twenty-six, Harriet was ruefully aware that most people assumed that she was quite a bit older, mentally lumping her in with the rest of the executive secretaries at Trident, all of whom were well over thirty. Yet she did stand out from them in one respect—her patience and gentle personality made her a good trainer of junior staff. Harriet Smith was known to be strict but never temperamental or bitchy. Ambitious juniors like Barbara had taken to jostling for assignments to Brian Jessop’s office, knowing that it would improve their own chances of promotion if it was noted on their personnel files that they had been groomed by the superbly efficient Miss Smith.
No wonder Barbara was looking as if she had just been hit in the face by a wet fish. She probably had hideous visions of her career crash-diving if her mentor’s sanity was suddenly called into question.
‘What? Oh! No. At least, I—I don’t think so…’ Barbara finally managed to summon the presence of mind to babble.
