LITMIR.BIZ

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to have had his appetite whetted by her apparent uninterest—the proverbial sprat to catch a mackerel—and then he would do all the running while she graciously made the odd concession now and again. He wasn’t supposed to meet her head-on like a ten-ton truck. But he had. And, thinking about it, she couldn’t afford to take any risks at this early stage of the game. The prey was still a long, long way off from the snare.

      ‘Of course, if you insist...’ Her smile had all the warmth of an arctic winter, and she didn’t have to act at all.

      ‘I do.’ It was uncompromising.

      ‘Then I’ll see you later this afternoon.’ He was pure, undiluted arrogance, she told herself testily as she nodded politely and left the room. A man who was used to clicking his fingers and seeing the rest of the world jump—through hoops, if necessary. But—and here her heart stopped, before galloping on furiously—she had put out the bait and he had taken it hook, line and sinker. She was in his life—only just—but in nevertheless. Battle could commence.

      She shut the door behind her very quietly, and then stood for a few seconds willing her racing heartbeat to calm down. Control, control—it was all about control. As long as she remembered that, she would do just fine.

      She pretended to check through the papers in the file as she remained standing in Jed Cannon’s secretary’s plush office; standing was all she could manage just at that moment. Reaction had set in, walking was quite beyond her, and the thought of falling in a heap just outside his quarters did not appear.

      ‘Is everything all right? You haven’t left anything...?’ The beautiful Miss Rice-Brown looked up from her word processor after a time, and the gracious expression on the lovely face was just the spur Tamar needed to get moving again.

      ‘No, I’m just making sure,’ Tamar said evenly. ‘There’s nothing worse than getting back to the office and finding something has been mislaid, but everything seems to be here. Mr Cannon has asked me to phone later with details about a viewing I’m setting up for this afternoon.’

      ‘Right.’ The secretary clearly wasn’t overly interested, inclining her head absently before her glance returned to the screen. ‘No problem.’

      Not for you, maybe, Tamar thought with a touch of wry self-mockery as she waded through the carpet again to the outer door, stepping into the silent corridor outside and walking over to the lift with a dignity she was far from feeling.

      Had she bitten off more than she could chew, here? she asked herself nervously, the lift whisking her down to the ground floor of the Cannon Express building before she could blink. Very probably, but then, nothing ventured—nothing gained...

      The warm, sluggish air was portentous of another baking hot August day, but as Tamar stepped from the cool air-conditioned building into what resembled an oven her mind was not on the weather.

      She had vowed, all those months ago now, that one day she would have her day with Jed Cannon and confront him with the near-fatal results of his ruthlessness, and if nothing else she was a woman of her word. But she had realised very early on that she needed to do more than tell him. That would have been water off a duck’s back as far as this man was concerned, and it was doubtful if he would have given her a moment’s thought afterwards.

      No, she needed to get into Jed Cannon’s head, establish herself as a person in her own right before she let rip, and if she could make him fall for her, however carnal such an attraction would be with a man like him, it was all to the good. She would rather die than let him touch her, but he didn’t know that.

      She decided she was still feeling a mite too fragile after the encounter she had psyched herself up for for days to contemplate the push and shove of the tube, so opted for the luxury of a taxi back to the office, settling in the cavernous depths and giving the driver the address of Taylor and Taylor before she allowed her mind to transport her back to that morning in February, six months ago.

      The phone call had come when she was in the shower, and she had padded into the small sitting room of her one-bedroomed flat in Chelsea, expecting Richard or Fiona’s voice to be on the other end of the line. But it hadn’t proved to be one of the young, dynamic and recently married Taylors who had spoken.

      ‘Tamar? Oh, Tamar, thank goodness. I thought you might have already left for the office. I... Oh, Tamar...’

      ‘Aunt Prudence?’ Tamar had never heard her normally vivacious and bubbly aunt so upset, and it frightened her. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she asked anxiously.

      There was silence for a moment, followed by the sound of sniffling and snuffling, and then her aunt said, her whisper thick with tears, ‘It’s Gabrielle. She...she’s in hospital.’

      ‘Gaby’s in hospital?’ Tamar had hardly been able to believe it. She had only spoken to her cousin—who was more like a sister than anything else, the two girls having been brought up together from the age of five, when Tamar’s own parents had been killed in a train accident in her mother’s native France—the night before, and Gabrielle had been fine then. In fact, she’d been on top of the world—wildly, ecstatically happy... ‘What’s happened, Aunt Prudence? Has there been an accident?’ Tamar prompted urgently, her voice shaking.

      ‘Not exactly.’ And then her aunt totally amazed and bewildered her when she wailed at the top of her voice, ‘Oh, Tamar, I wish she had had an accident; I could cope with that. But this! This is awful.’

      ‘What’s awful?’ Tamar was trying—very hard—to keep her patience. Her aunt had never been a person who could cope with any sort of pressure, all the family knew that, and made allowances, but when the only sound from the other end of the phone was loud sobs that went on and on, Tamar said at last, her voice sharp, ‘Aunt Prudence, answer me. What’s so awful?’ and then, when no answer was immediately forthcoming, ‘Where’s Uncle Jack? Aunt Prudence, where is Uncle Jack?’

      ‘He’s ... he’s at the hospital with...with Gabrielle. They said ... the doctor said I was upsetting her and it would be better if I came home and got ... got some rest.’

      Even in her aunt’s obvious distress a note of affronted pride was detectable, and Tamar could imagine how the doctor’s suggestion had gone down with her aunt.

      ‘She ... Gabrielle took some sleeping tablets,’ her aunt sobbed. ‘A whole bottle full that I had in the cupboard from when your uncle Jack had shingles and couldn’t sleep.’

      ‘Gaby?’ Tamar exclaimed shrilly, her brain refusing to accept what her ears were hearing. ‘Aunt Prudence, you’re saying Gaby tried to commit suicide?’

      ‘Yes, she did—she did. She said so herself after they had pumped her stomach out.’

      ‘But why? Why on earth would she do something like that?’ Tamar asked shakily. ‘I only spoke to her yesterday, and she was over the moon about Ronald and making plans...’ She caught herself abruptly. This wouldn’t help her aunt. She had to find out the facts as quickly as she could, and, Prudence being Prudence, that would be difficult enough. She loved her aunt dearly, but she had to be one of the giddiest people on the face of the earth.

      ‘Aunt Prudence, is Gaby all right? Physically, I mean?’ she asked quietly, willing herself to sound calm despite the turmoil within.

      ‘I think so, but she wouldn’t talk to us,’ her aunt wailed plaintively. ‘She said...she said she just wanted to be alone.’ The sobs that were interrupting her aunt’s words were of a pitch to make Tamar’s ears ring, and it was at that point Tamar told her aunt she would be coming up to Scotland on the next train, and that she would speak further with her then.

      Later that evening she had learnt the full facts from Gabrielle herself. Her cousin, her sweet, gentle and hopelessly naive cousin, was pregnant, and the man in question was Jed Cannon’s brother-in-law. Not that Gabrielle had known her beau was married until the evening before, when Jed Cannon himself strode into the hotel restaurant where they were having dinner, and verbally ripped Gabrielle apart in front of a crowd of interested and goggle-eyed spectators, before

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