Give A Man A Bad Name. Roberta Leigh

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      NAN almost choked herself laughing when Marly told her that Alex Hamilton had treated her as though she were a fragile piece of china.

      ‘When are you going to give him his come-uppance and tell him you’ve made a fool of him?’ she asked when she could finally speak.

      ‘Not until he’s fallen for me good and hard.’

      ‘I hope you can keep up the butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth act?’

      ‘That’s the only problem. A few times this evening I almost forgot myself and verbally slew him!’

      ‘If you wore Thai clothes it might remind you to curb your tongue! I’ll lend you some of my cheong-sams,’ Nan encouraged.

      ‘Do you think I should wear them the whole time?’

      ‘Well, women staff at the hotel do, though I suppose you could change when you’re off-duty. Except that you were wearing one when he first saw you, and that might be part of your attraction.’

      ‘Won’t the staff find it strange if they see me pretending to be Thai?’

      ‘Not if you say you’re doing it to play a joke on someone. Then they’ll never give you away.’

      * * *

      Apart from a great sense of humour, Thais were among the most generous people on earth, Marly mused one morning after Christmas as she riffled through the brocades, silks and cottons Nan had placed in her wardrobe. Even though she knew cotton was cooler for day wear, she plumped for a peach silk, its long narrow skirt slit up the side to facilitate walking, the tight-fitting, short-sleeved top cut short to show an intriguing two-inch expanse of skin between top and skirt. It was a more constricting outfit than her normal casual summer wear, but needs must when the goal she hoped to achieve was going to give her so much satisfaction.

      She reminded herself of this as she touched eyeliner to her chestnut-brown eyes, and centre-parted her hair for it to fall sleek and straight to below her shoulders.

      If my family saw me now, she thought humorously, they’d walk right by me!

      She proved this conclusively when a security guard she had seen for the past seven days stopped her and asked whom she wished to see as she crossed the hotel lobby and mounted the stairs to the mezzanine floor and offices. Hiding a smile, she answered him in Thai, telling him who she was.

      His astonishment was gratifying, and in a conspiratorial whisper she fed him the story Nan had suggested. He chuckled and slapped his thigh, and enjoining him to warn his colleagues to keep her secret, she went into her office.

      The air-conditioning kept the Riverside comfortably cool, yet despite this she found working in a cheong-sam too warm, and was wondering how to make herself comfortable when Alex Hamilton strode in, thick, tawny hair ruthlessly brushed flat, though an errant strand in the front was beginning to curl.

      Gracefully she rose, placed her palms together, and waied him.

      ‘Don’t do that to me,’ he said instantly. ‘It isn’t necessary.’

      ‘We always greet our superiors this way.’

      ‘I’m not your superior; I’m your employer.’

      ‘You are playing with words, Mr Hamilton.’

      ‘You agreed to call me Alex.’

      ‘Not in the office. It wouldn’t be seemly.’

      ‘Now how did I know you were going to say that?’ he smiled, coming to stand directly in front of her. ‘I must be psychic!’ Wood-smoke eyes ranged slowly over her as if committing her to memory. ‘Since we met, I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you.’

      Many men had said the same to her, but none had made her heart beat faster, as it was now doing, and she wondered if it was because of the intensity of his gaze, as if she was the only woman in his world worth concentrating on. But then he was the sort of man who would do everything with intensity: loving and hating, working or playing. And playing the field too, she thought grimly. Like it or not, he was a born heart-breaker.

      ‘Have you been thinking of me?’ he broke into her thoughts.

      ‘Oh, СКАЧАТЬ