Passionate Fantasy. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ a double bed in it ... For one wild, unstoppable moment she imagined Darius Speed lying darkly naked against the stark white sheets. She wondered fleetingly if he made love as beautifully as he made films ...

      Oh, for goodness’ sake! She was becoming obsessed with thinking about sex—she, with the sexual experience of a gnat!

      What was important was that she was here, ready to put her plan into action and to do a big favour for Caro.

      Kitty owed a lot to Caro. The rather eccentric sixty-five-year-old had rescued her from the deadly-dull highway snack-bar where Kitty had been working ever since she’d arrived in Western Australia on a working holiday, feeling utterly miserable and determined to forget all about Hugo. Caro had employed her as a temp in her own employment agency, Caro’s Kitchen Cookies. Caro was friendly and clucky and Kitty adored her—and if the jobs she’d been sent on weren’t up to much, well, at least they’d been thankfully brief and a whole lot better than the highway snack-bar. Kitty had shied away from permanent work, thinking that it might be too restrictive, but soon she’d begun to hanker after something which would allow her to use her culinary skills, instead of zooming round carrying a tray all day.

      Then one day Caro had announced that she had the perfect permanent job—‘but I can’t possibly send you on it.’

      ‘Why not?’ Kitty had wanted to know.

      ‘Because it’s working for Darius Speed—the cheating swine!’

      That’s when the whole story had come out about Darius Speed stealing Caro’s film-script.

      ‘I sent it to him in good faith!’ she’d quavered. ‘It was brilliant—and now I hear he’s making it into a film, with not a cent to me, or even a mention!’

      Kitty had begged to go on the interview. ‘I’m going to get your script back for you, Caro,’ she’d said coolly.

      ‘Could you really?’ Caro’s hands had fluttered as she’d waved her cheroot in the air. ‘But you will be careful, won’t you?’ she’d twittered. ‘He can be very devious, you know.’

      ‘Well, I can be devious too,’ muttered Kitty aloud as she began to undo the zip of her suitcase. ‘Taking advantage of an old lady, indeed!’

      She quickly hung her clothes up and filled the drawers with underwear, swimsuits and T-shirts, and checked her reflection in the mirror. She was wearing cobalt-blue leggings and a short-sleeved silk shirt of exactly the same colour. A casual outfit, and one which was entirely suitable for cooking, particularly when protected by one of the deep blue cotton smocks she usually wore for working.

      She unpacked her various lotions and potions in the bathroom, before glancing at her watch. It would, in normal circumstances, she thought rather wistfully, be absolutely wonderful to have a swim in the pool he’d mentioned. But these were not normal circumstances, and it was important that she didn’t lose sight of that for a moment. Important that she stayed on her guard where Darius Speed was concerned ...

      She glanced at her watch again. It had only taken her twenty short minutes to unpack, and Darius had said that Simon would be around in an hour.

      Her sneaker-clad foot tapped lightly on the wooden floor and, as the minutes ticked by, she became sorely tempted to go and explore the house for herself.

      Why bother waiting for Simon to come and show her around? Why not show a little initiative? She would go and explore the kitchen in the main house, decide what to cook for the evening meal, and maybe—just maybe—catch a glimpse of where he kept his safe ...

      She walked back along the perfumed path and into the main house, revelling in its cool, dim interior. The floors here were marble—she’d never seen marble floors in a private house before—and there was something so ancient and classical about them that she found herself having to resist an urge to slip her canvas shoes off, to feel the polished stone cool and smooth beneath her bare feet.

      The house was also quiet.

      Very quiet.

      She stood still for a moment, listening, her head cocked to the side like a bird which suspected that a cat lurked near by. There was not a single sound to be heard.

      Kitty made up her mind instantly, reminding herself of all the maxims learnt in childhood—about no time like the present, he who hesitates is lost ... so why waste an opportunity which might not arise again for some days? Darius was in the shower, which meant that the study was free. And the study was probably where he kept his safe ...

      A number of doors led off the large main hallway and she moved lightly towards the door she thought he had said was his study, pausing as she gave the gentlest of taps, which went unanswered, so, pushing it quietly open, she stepped inside, her heart sinking with disappointment as she noted that it was a light, airy sitting-room whose doors opened on to the veranda. Not a sight of a safe to be seen ...

      She retraced her steps back into the hall, her eyes scanning the doors anxiously, as if she hoped that their closed exteriors might provide her with some clue. Like a small painted notice saying ‘safe’— perhaps with a convenient arrow? she thought with a trace of humour as she knocked at a second door, her heart lifting as she walked inside and saw walls lined from ceiling to floor with books. Eureka! She saw a huge high-backed chair with its back to her which presided over a vast antique desk. His study, she thought with relief.

      And then, to her absolute horror, the chair slowly swung round and, facing her, the quicksilver eyes as cold as mercury itself, the mouth unsmiling, sat Darius, his dark hair in damp tendrils, a telephone receiver cradled between neck and shoulder and— oh, horror of horrors—he was wearing nothing but a short, dark towelling robe which gave her a provocative glimpse of taut, hair-roughened thigh and an equally disturbing view of a dark, muscular torso.

      ‘Hello, Kitty.’ The deep voice was very quiet, a strange undertone to it which filled her with instinctive foreboding. ‘Looking for something?’

      She thought, desperately, that her guilt must be written all over her frozen stance. If her intentions had been innocent, she would have been able to shrug and laugh it off, but, as it was, she didn’t like the way he was looking at her one bit.

      She decided quickly to brazen it out. ‘Sorry,’ she said guilelessly. ‘I was looking for the kitchen.’

      ‘I pointed it out to you earlier. Remember?’ he prompted sarcastically.

      ‘I’d—forgotten,’ she improvised quickly.

      ‘But that’s precisely why I instructed Simon to give you a guided tour,’ he snapped back. ‘I thought I told you to wait for him to collect you?’

      ‘Er—so you did,’ she said lamely as she tried to think of a reasonable-sounding excuse, but quite honestly the sight of his body, obviously stark-naked beneath the robe, had put paid to any powers of reasoning remaining intact.

      ‘So why didn’t you?’ he barked out at her, as though she were some kind of imbecile.

      ‘Because I——’ But she didn’t have a chance to formulate an answer.

      ‘Listen,’ he cut across her, his voice as cold as his silver-grey eyes. ‘Did you ever stop to wonder why I took so long before I interviewed you?’

      ‘It had crossed my mind,’ СКАЧАТЬ