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'I didn't realise you meant. . .' She was slowly getting angry. 'You've really had me followed about by some little sneak in a dirty raincoat or something?'
'I've no idea who was doing the legwork,' he said and frowned as there was a purring sound in the car. Liza frowned, too, irritated by the distraction. 'Will you excuse me? That's the phone,' he said, and leaned forward. Liza had a start of surprise as she saw a telephone in his hand; where had that come from? With
Alice-in-Wonderland disbelief she heard him speaking.
'Hello? Yes? Oh, I see. When? See if you can get a better price, but if it looks as if it's climbing, buy immediately.' He firmly replaced the phone and said to Liza, 'The detective is off the job now, anyway—there's no need to get agitated.'
'You come from another planet!' Liza burst out furiously. 'What earthly right do you think you have to spy on me, just because I've been seeing your nephew socially?'
'Liza, you told me why you'd learnt to be wary of men,' Keir said flatly. 'Well, I have just as good reason for distrusting women. I told you we had more in common than you thought. Why do you think I've never married ?'
'Why bother, when you can have all the fun without the wedding ring?' she said sourly and he eyed her with a sardonic smile.
'Who told you that? Bruno? My God, I'm a busy company executive—I work a twelve-hour day and I don't have time for a mad social whirl. You could count the women that I've dated on the fingers of one hand; dated for any length of time, I mean. Over the years there have been some women I hoped might mean something, but sooner or later I've always found out that they weren't what I was looking for, or that they cared more for my money than me, or even that there was someone else hidden away, some guy ready to step out of the picture until his lady had safely netted me. Since I was a schoolboy I've met them all, all types of women, and not one of them ever really made me happy.'
Liza listened soberly, watching the wry contours of his face as he talked, his mouth incisive, cynical. What Keir said didn't surprise her. She didn't doubt it, either. She could believe that he had been a target for some clever, ambitious, greedy women—a man as wealthy as Keir
Gifford was bound to be!
'So when I heard that Bruno had started seeing a '
'Blonde ex-model,' Liza supplied and he grinned at
her.
'Exactly. When that news reached me, I rang the agency I use to check out my possible acquisitions and I told them to dig up everything they could on you.'
She frowned, i want to see that file.'
'One day,' he promised.
'Now, at once!' Liza said in spitting rage, i want to destroy it, and I want you to promise to destroy all the copies—it makes me sick to think of a file like that sitting about in your computers, all the data on me, my private life, my personal records ...'
'Most of them were on a computer tape before my agency started looking!' Keir's mouth was hard with impatience. 'These days we're all on file, Liza; from the minute we take our first breath—no, before that, while we're in the womb. Somewhere there is always a computer record of your every movement, and as the years go by it gets worse, your privacy shrinks and shrinks.'
'You have a computer company, of course,' Liza said and he pulled a face.
'Of course. They're money spinners, even now.'
Liza looked at him with horror and alarm. 'You're a dangerous man, Mr Gifford. You're too powerful, you have too much money and too many tentacles; you can go anywhere, do anything. Someone like me has no chance against you, do I?'
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'I'm just a man, Liza.' His hand came out and touched her cheek—lightly, almost imperceptibly, with a delicate uncertainty, if you cut me, I bleed. If you shoot me, I may die. I'm flesh and blood, like you. I can be hurt, or be made happy.' His fingers caressed her skin and he watched her with blue, smouldering eyes. 'You can do that to me, Liza; hurt me or make me happy—so how powerful does that make you?'
She laughed angrily, breathing very fast, because the touch of his hand was like a magnet to her blood; she felt it flowing hotly where he brushed her skin, and she was so tense she could hardly breath. She must not let him undermine her like this! He couldn't mean it; he was seducing her with that deep, husky voice, those hungry eyes.
'I'm just an ordinary girl, Mr Gifford. I have no power.'
'You are as ordinary as spring,' he murmured. 'As powerless as sunlight.' He ran his fingertips down her neck. 'And when I touch you, I burn,' he said, making her heart stop and a flare of wild panic light inside her. He was too close; he was getting to her.
At that instant she heard the click of Pam's very high red heels on the concrete and she arrived, chattering, pink and breathless, seeming quite blind to the atmosphere between the two in the limousine.
'I'm sorry, I couldn't get a taxi and then it got stuck in a traffic jam and I was going spare, honest. I thought I'd never get here, I was leaning forward, yelling at the driver, and he yelled back at me and said what did I want him to do, get out and push it? I'm very sorry, Liza, Mr Gifford. I hope I haven't kept you waiting about too long—I mean, we haven't missed our plane, have we?'
it will wait for us,' Keir said coolly as the limousine smoothly drove out of the underground car park.
Pam stared, goggle-eyed. 'Ooh!' she said, deeply impressed. 'Will it really wait? I've never had a plane wait for me before.'
