LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘THE restaurant’s in Fallow Street—can you find your own way there? Or shall I send a car?’ The dark voice was even more curt this morning, but Zoe was too relieved to hear it to care.

      ‘Twelve-thirty, Mr Cade; I’ll be there. And of course I can make my own way.’ She was practically burbling.

      ‘I’ve no doubt you can,’ he came back drily, and before she could work out what that tone was supposed to mean the line went dead.

      Replacing the receiver, she glanced at her watch. Lunch with James Cade in exactly one hour. She grinned. Exhilaration got her bouncing to her feet, far too unsettled now to continue with the particularly knotty set of profit and loss sheets she’d been working on.

      The weekend had been far from relaxing. What with having to move into the basement rooms with a miffed Jenna who kept muttering darkly about going to live in sin with Henry, caring for two energetic small boys who obviously thought that aunts were people who had nothing else to do but play with them and allow them to eat chocolate bars instead of lunch, and agonising over James Cade’s totally unexpected and incomprehensible arrival—and abrupt departure, on such a deeply embarrassing note, too—she had entered Monday morning feeling frayed to the point of disintegration.

      And hadn’t been able to concentrate properly on her work, either, because her mind had kept sliding off at a tangent, grappling with the problem of how on earth she could approach James Cade and put him right.

      What he privately thought of her morals was neither here nor there; she accepted that. After all, her company would be working for his company and that was as far as their relationship would go. And the only time that they ever need meet would be for a short session before she tackled his personal tax returns and his no doubt massive portfolio of investments.

      But the knowledge that he thought she was some sort of Jekyll and Hyde character, doing a bit of hookering in her spare time, sharing a house with what he had probably decided were pimps and their prospects and already having two small sons—and no idea who their father was—was too awful to live with!

      So his unexpected invitation to lunch was the answer to her prayers, and then some! And Zoe felt completely cheerful and nicely in control again for the first time since that awful fancy dress party on Friday night.

      She poked her head into the adjoining office, checked that Simon, her PA, had set up the initial formal meeting with Wright and Grantham and had the final audit for Future Computers well in hand, told her secretary that she would be out of the office for a couple of hours, then retreated into her own office, collected her washbag from her desk and tripped light-heartedly to the ladies’ room.

      Hanging her suit jacket and crisp white blouse on the hooks on the inside of the door, she uncapped the gel she preferred to wash with and vigorously sluiced her face with warm water.

      Cade had almost certainly set up this meeting to fill her in on his personal tax details—handling all the director’s returns would come within her brief—because he wasn’t a fool. While she and her team would do all the hard graft, Luke, as the senior partner, would pick up the credit. James Cade would know that and would want, initially anyway, to liaise with her directly. And she would take the heaven-sent opportunity to explain that his warped opinion of her was completely and utterly incorrect.

      Because, far from being sexually promiscuous, she had never had a lover in her life. One or two boyfriends, that was all, and they had been politely given the heave-ho when they had tried to get too fresh or too serious.

      But she wouldn’t tell him that, of course; her hangups were her own business. Not that they were exactly that, she assured herself as she smoothed moisturiser into her fine, pale skin. She preferred to think of her celibate state as a well-rationalised decision, arrived at after sensibly weighing the pros and cons.

      She had first-hand evidence of how loving could destroy a person. And, quite apart from not wanting to take the risk of that happening to her, she valued her freedom and independence. She had worked hard to attain it and didn’t intend to lose it.

      Zoe buttoned herself into her blouse and shrugged into her lightweight suit jacket. So far, so good. Not one strand of blonde hair escaping the pins that held it in its neat knot, her small features serene, only the sparkle in her big green eyes betraying her pleasant anticipation of the coming meeting.

      An anticipation that was solely down to the comforting knowledge that before lunch was over James Cade would have revised his embarrassing opinion of her, she assured herself as she opted to walk to the restaurant he had named. The spring in her step had nothing to do with the man himself, his undoubtedly awesome good looks, his sheer mind-blowing presence.

      Forcing herself to slow down her pace because if she kept bouncing along in the warm June sun she would arrive looking hot and sweaty, she found her thoughts unaccountably turning to the woman Cade was to marry.

      And she knew, with a feminine intuition that rather surprised her, that Stephanie Wright would have to be a very strong lady indeed to be able to handle the almost frightening maleness of Cade. He would walk all over a weak woman, dominate her utterly—and probably end up despising her.

      She had never met his chairman’s daughter and wasn’t likely to, but she could paint pictures in her head of someone very glossy, smoothly sophisticated and tough. She would have to be, to have attracted a man like Cade. And, being tough, the likes of Luke Taylor would label her ‘bitch’ because men disliked strong women more often than not; they made them feel insecure so they called them names to make them feel better themselves.

      James Cade was the type who would respect a strong woman, consider her his equal. So he wouldn’t be contemplating marriage to cement his career, she decided cosily; he was probably deeply in love with his Stephanie.

      And quite why that neatly worked out snippet should take all her breath away, suddenly drain the bounce out of her step, was something she had no time to work out, because she had arrived. And stood still for a single second while she straightened her suit jacket, hauled back her shoulders, arranged what she hoped was a serene expression on her face and walked on in.

      He was already waiting, and as the waiter ushered her to the secluded table for two he rose courteously to his feet and she felt herself go decidedly pink. And knew why. All those dreadful—but understandable, given the circumstances—misconceptions of his!

      Which she now had the perfect opportunity to put right, she reassured herself. Zoe the part-time hooker would soon be a thing of the past!

      ‘Thank you for giving me your time,’ he said tonelessly, his eyes half hidden beneath heavy lids and an even heavier fringe of thick black lashes.

      She didn’t think he was actually seeing her at all and Zoe bit back the outrageous impulse to drawl right back, ‘I don’t give and I don’t come cheap. Fifty quid an hour’s the going rate,’ and wondered if ladies of that sort charged by the hour or by the——And felt herself go scarlet and wondered just what it was about this man that made her lose all her sanity and say and think the silliest things…

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