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‘If the cap fits,’ she replied weakly, not moving as his hands dropped away, shocked by her own prurience. She had never stripped a man with her eyes before and it had happened almost without her volition. With such an unlikely subject, too…or should she say object? The colour burned in her cheeks. Maybe she was a little drunk. Or maybe it was just that her secret, sensual self was finally breaking through the taboos created by her gentle upbringing. She laughed breathlessly. It really was happening! The rebirth of Harriet Smith. All she had to do was look and act differently and soon she would be different.
‘Harriet? I asked if you were ready to go home now.’
‘What?’ What was he talking about? Home was a dark, lonely house, aching with memories. Why would she want to go back there? Harriet turned fever-bright eyes up to his, her smile one of desperate gaiety. ‘No! No, of course not. What makes you say that? I’m having too much fun to leave!’
‘The band is packing up soon, anyway,’ he said, stilling the restless flutter of her hand by catching it in his own. ‘This place only has a licence until one-thirty a.m. on week nights. And your sparkle is starting to tarnish. Come on; I’ll give you a lift home.’
His gentle tone made her dig her heels in. He was being condescending and she didn’t like it. ‘No, Michael’s doing that,’ she insisted.
‘I don’t think your escort is in any condition to drive right now, do you?’ He nodded to where Michael was leaning aggressively over the bar, arguing with the barman about the way he had made his drink.
‘Then I’ll drive—’
‘If you could get his keys off him, and if he would let a mere woman drive that precious macho machine he calls a car, and if you hadn’t had a few drinks yourself…’
Battered by his impeccable logic, she said the first stupid thing that came into her head. ‘I came with him, I have to go home with him.’
‘Don’t be foolish—’
‘It’s not foolish; it’s a simple matter of politeness.’
He gave a crack o
f grim laughter. ‘And how polite do you think he’s going to be when he gets you alone in his car? Or when you hit your doorstep? Polite enough to take no for an answer? A happy drunk is one thing, an angry drunk another. He certainly didn’t seem very happy about the way you were holding him off. Michael is not a gracious loser.’
It was exactly what she had been worried about earlier, why she had several times refused Michael’s suggestion that they leave. ‘I can—’
‘Handle it,’ he finished tightly. ‘So you keep saying. Tell me, do you want to go to bed with him tonight, Harriet?’
She flushed at his bluntness. He stood over her, tall, dark and grim. If she said yes he would go away and stop trying to ruin her enjoyment of life.
‘I was going to say I can get a taxi,’ she said haughtily. ‘I can look after myself, you know; you don’t have to feel responsible.’ Her haughtiness deserted her as she looked over at her sullen escort and nibbled her lower lip. ‘But I’ll have to go over and say goodnight; I can’t just desert him without a word…and he really should get a taxi himself…’
Marcus gave her an exasperated look. ‘Old habits die hard, don’t they, Harriet? The idea is not to give him the chance to object. Allow me to offer polite apologies on your behalf…’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘I CAN’T believe you did that,’ Harriet was muttering ten minutes later as they purred along the quiet motorway towards the suburbs.
‘What? Got rid of Fleet for you?’
He had done more than that. He had confiscated Michael’s car keys and arranged for the barman to call a taxi when he was ready to leave. All achieved with a minimum of discussion, from what Harriet could see from her cowardly vantage point beside the pillar.
‘No, I mean…left your friends like that. What did you tell them?’
‘That I’d found a hot blonde I was taking home for the night.’
She was too on edge to appreciate the subtle irony in his tone.
‘You didn’t!’ She looked in horror at the bold profile, illuminated in jagged bursts by the streetlights whipping past the windows of the Volvo.
‘Of course I didn’t,’ he murmured, casting her a chiding glance. ‘What do you take me for?’
A consummate gentleman, of course. He would never be so crude as to embarrass a lady deliberately. Harriet was annoyed with herself for being so gullible.
‘Then what did you say?’
‘That I had extricated an employee from a difficult situation, that she was distressed and I was taking her home.’
