The Trusting Game. PENNY JORDAN

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CHAPTER ONE

      GRIMACING at the rain, Christa Bellingham hurried from the car park to the hotel forecourt, cursing the abrupt and unforecast change in the weather which meant that she had neither coat nor umbrella to protect her from the heavy downpour.

      Up ahead of her a taxi was disgorging its two male passengers into the protection of the canopy above the hotel entrance as Christa ducked her head against the driving rain, mentally bewailing the vanity which had led to her deciding to wear her precious Armani. She was only calling in at the hotel to drop off some fabric samples and prices for John Richards, the hotel manager, on her way to the local Chamber of Commerce, where a talk was being given later in the evening on a subject in which she took a deep and antagonistic interest.

      She had protested against the speaker’s being invited to address them right from the start, but Howard Findley, the new head of the chamber, had insisted that it was time they shed their old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud image and open themselves up to the possibilities of new theories and projects.

      ‘We might as well give a blank cheque to every charlatan who wants to come and cry his wares and get paid for it,’ Christa had protested bitterly.

      ‘Daniel Geshard doesn’t charge a speaker’s fee,’ John had told her mildly, but Christa had refused to be mollified. No matter how much John might have been impressed by the man, Christa knew exactly what type he was—and what he was up to. Deception was the name of the game for men like him, and they didn’t care how much pain or suffering they caused in achieving their ends, as she knew all too well…All too well.

      Daniel Geshard was coming to talk to them for one purpose and one purpose only—so that he could sell himself and his spurious New Age theories to anyone gullible enough to buy them, and that included the council.

      Her head full of angry thoughts, Christa closed her eyes briefly in despair. Howard Findley was a nice man, genuine and good-hearted, but he was no match for the likes of the Daniel Geshards of this world, and already, just on the strength of a telephone chat with the man, Howard was talking enthusiastically about persuading the council to fund several groups of key employees and officials through one of Daniel Geshard’s miracle courses.

      ‘He’s got this wonderful idea about being able to reach out to even the most disaffected members of our society and to help them get back in touch with themselves, with their real emotions and motivations,’ he had enthused.

      Howard talked like that. Christa much preferred the plain straight facts and realities of life, rather than having them wrapped up in fancy words and theories…

      ‘Whoops!’

      The amused male warning and the shock of her totally unexpected contact with the hard, warm body attached to it brought Christa’s head up sharply and her mind back to the present. The automatic brisk apology she had been about to give died on her lips as she found herself staring dazedly into a pair of pale grey, thickly lashed male eyes alight with warmth…warmth and something much…much more personal.

      Yes. There was a lot more than mere good humour in the way their owner was studying her, just as there was a lot more than mere male good looks in the face they belonged to, Christa admitted as she suddenly found herself struggling slightly for breath while her heart flipped over inside her chest and her pulse-rate beat out an excited tattoo message of approval and attraction.

      And he was attractive, Christa recognised, as she stood there half mesmerised, the pouring rain forgotten in her bemused concentration on the man standing in front of her. Tall and powerfully built, almost athletically so, if the speed and skill with which he had so adroitly prevented her from running full-tilt into him was anything to go by, with thick, dark, well-groomed hair and skin that smelled of fresh air and rain rather than some cloying, unpleasantly heavy aftershave.

      The dark business suit was fashioned, Christa recognised with an expert eye, out of extremely good cloth and tailored here in this country, which meant that the slightly battered basic Rolex watch he was wearing had probably got that way through constant use on his part rather than being bought second-hand as the latest statussymbol fashion accessory.

      This was not a man who needed to underline his masculinity with status symbols of any kind, Christa decided approvingly. This was a man who would have looked equally impressive in an old, worn pair of jeans-equally impressive and very, very male.

      Just for a second her mouth curled upwards in delicious feminine fantasy as she momentarily exchanged his suit for those jeans and their present surroundings for a certain TV advertisement made very popular with female viewers by the actor Nick Kamen. As she smiled, the expression in the grey male eyes deepened slightly, intensifying as though he too was conscious of her physical attraction towards him—and shared it.

      The strong physical and emotional pull she could feel was so completely unfamiliar to her that it had taken her completely off guard. She felt as though she had somehow stepped into a special and magical world, encompassed by his smile and the warm aura he had thrown almost protectively around her.

      As he continued to watch her, the temptation to do something totally out of character and dangerously reckless almost had her taking that small but oh, so giveaway step towards him which he seemed to be silently encouraging and inviting; but then, from the hotel doorway, she heard the man with him calling out impatiently, ‘Come on,