No Place For Love. SUSANNE MCCARTHY
an affair with Clive. He’s simply a friend.’
He laughed in chilling scorn. ‘You really can’t expect me to believe that,’ he sneered. ‘It may be less than flattering to your ego, but you’re just the latest in a very long line—mostly blonde, and mostly as... opulently endowed as you. His taste in mistresses is quite tiresomely predictable.’
She slid him a glittering glance from beneath her lashes. It was evident that he had come here without speaking to Clive first. Well, he deserved to be taught a sharp lesson about jumping to conclusions about people; three years in drama school had taught her plenty about improvising characterisations.
Strolling across the room, she disposed herself gracefully in the shabby armchair, crossing her slender legs and letting the wrap slip a little to display a few tempting inches of creamy thigh. Smiling with just a hint of coyness, she shook back her hair, lifting one hand to rub the nape of her neck, knowing how the movement would cause her firm, round breasts to rise beneath the soft silk of her wrap. She was pleased to note that he couldn’t help looking, though his dark eyes conveyed only mocking contempt.
‘You’re not a very dutiful stepson,’ she pouted, a husky laugh in her voice.
‘I have no particular reason to be—my stepfather has never done anything much to earn my respect. But you had better believe, Miss Tyrell, that I have no intention of allowing him be dragged into a scandal over a cheap little tart like you.’
She had to force herself to ignore that barb. ‘Why don’t you call me Lacey?’ she purred, her violet eyes peeping at him from beneath the silky fringe of her lashes. ‘Everyone does.’
‘I wouldn’t care to be that familiar, Miss Tyrell,’ he grated with deliberate emphasis. ‘Oh, and by the way, if you have any ideas about selling your sordid little kiss-and-tell story to the gutter Press, you can think again.’
She lifted one delicately arched eyebrow. ‘But I’m sure they’d be very interested,’ she demurred provocatively. ‘It’s just the sort of juicy little titbit they love. If I play my cards right, I could make a great deal of money.’
She had the satisfaction of knowing that she had driven him to the very edge of losing his temper; it was costing him a visible effort to regain his control. ‘It would be very dangerous for you to cross me, Miss Tyrell,’ he warned, his voice soft and sinister. ‘I have a great deal of power—rather more, in fact, than most politicians. You might discover that any money you make wouldn’t go very far if you were never to find another job—not even cleaning floors.’
Lacey felt a small chill scud down her spine; she was quite sure that he could—and would—carry out such a threat. She knew, from the things that Clive had said, that even he was slightly in awe of his stepson. She couldn’t quite remember what line of business he was in, but she knew he was highly successful at it. Now she had met him, she wasn’t at all surprised—he was completely ruthless.
He was watching her in silence, those hard eyes glinting. But she’d be damned if she’d let him intimidate her! She was quite enjoying playing out her role—by the time she had finished with him, he was going to owe her the biggest apology of all time!
‘Tell me,’ she queried, deliberately goading him, ‘what does your mother think about Clive’s...er—mistresses?’
But he had himself well in hand again now. ‘My mother gave up allowing herself to be concerned a very long time ago,’ he responded with cool restraint. ‘They came to an agreement to lead virtually separate lives. So long as he was discreet, she didn’t mind what he did—naturally a divorce could have been harmful to his career.’
‘How very civilised,’ she approved bitingly.
‘Perhaps. However, I will not have her subjected to public humiliation—she has been unwell recently, and I don’t want her to have to cope with that sort of strain.’ There was an unmistakable thread of steel in his voice. ‘I believe I have made myself clear, Miss Tyrell—and rest assured, these are no idle threats.’
‘Oh, no?’ It was time to call an end to this little game! Rising to her feet, she regarded him with frosty dignity. ‘Well, let me tell you something, Mr Super-Powerful Jon Parrish. If you had bothered to speak to Clive before you came round here throwing your weight around, he would have told you what I told you—we are not, repeat not, having an affair. We are simply friends—though I doubt if your smutty little mind can conceive of such a thing. Nor do I have any intention of speaking to the Press. Now will you kindly get out of my dressing-room? You’re polluting the atmosphere.’
He had listened to her speech with an air of sardonic amusement, and as she finished, he slowly clapped his hands in mocking applause. ‘Well done, Miss Tyrell,’ he taunted. ‘A magnificent performance—almost worthy of an Oscar.’
She stared at him in angry frustration. He hadn’t believed a word she had said! And then he stood up and came towards her, those dark eyes glinting with unmistakable menace. She stepped back in alarm, but in the small room there was nowhere to go.
With an abrupt movement he caught both her wrists, shackling them in steely fingers, and jerked her against him. ‘Maybe I can understand what my stepfather sees in you after all,’ he grated softly. ‘When your eyes flash like that, they add a certain spirit to your whole face.’
Before she had realised what he was going to do, he had tangled one hand in her hair, dragging her head sharply back, and as she gasped in shocked protest his mouth descended on hers in a kiss that was almost savage in its intensity.
She struggled to be free, but beneath that air of aloof urbanity he had portrayed was the hard-muscled strength of any primitive male, angry and aroused. And to her shame, she felt herself responding, succumbing helplessly to his fierce demand, melting in a honeyed tide of purely feminine submissiveness.
His lips were moving over hers, hot and enticing, as his tongue plundered deep into the sweet, defenceless valley of her mouth. Her head was dizzy from the racing of her blood, and she was clinging to him as his hand slid down the length of her spine to mould her supple body into his hard embrace.
His other hand had shifted to encompass the rounded fullness of her breast, cupping and caressing it with an insolent assumption of licence. But she couldn’t control the sudden flare of heat he had ignited inside her. Her tender nipple had ripened to an exquisitely sensitive bud beneath the delicious abrasion of his palm, the teasing touch of his fingers, as electric sparks of pleasure crackled along her nerve-fibres and pierced her brain.
And for one magical moment it seemed as though he too had been caught up in the same wild surge of desire; his kiss gentled to the most incredible tenderness, and their bodies seemed to melt together like two halves cast from the same mould.
She heard herself moaning softly, her head tipping back into the crook of his arm as his hot mouth roved over her trembling eyelids and down to the delicate shell of her ear, his hard teeth nibbling sensuously at her lobe and making her shiver with heat...
The voice of the assistant stage manager calling the end of the interval shattered the spell. Jon drew back, regarding her with acute distaste. ‘Well, that’s one thing you can’t cover up with acting,’ he sneered, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth as if to wipe away every last trace of her. ‘You really are nothing but a cheap little tart.’
With a sudden rush of shame, Lacey realised that the tie of her silk wrap had slipped loose, affording him much too generous a glimpse of the warm fullness of her breasts, somewhat inadequately contained in the delicate lacy cups of her bra. Her cheeks flamed scarlet, and she snatched at the wrap, tying it tightly around her waist, all too aware of the way it outlined every curve of her body.
‘Get out of here,’ she hissed.
‘Don’t worry—I’m going,’ he countered witheringly. ‘Forgive me if I can’t bring myself to sit through the second half of the play.’ He deliberately let his gaze drop to the rounded curve of her breasts, rising and falling in her heated agitation, the taut buds of her aroused nipples still