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      Her eyes slid towards the en-suite bathroom across the room. If she could make it in there, she could lock the door.

      Charles’s laughter was low and ugly. ‘I don’t think so, Salome. I’m a lot closer than you.’

      She pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘Closer to me than what?’ she said scoffingly.

      Again he laughed. ‘OK, play that game if you want to. Play any game you want to. I like games. My favourite is hard to get. Nothing like a bit of challenge to whet the appetite.’

      When he actually began loosening his tie, Salome’s face paled. ‘I want you to get out, Charles!’ she demanded, but her voice was trembling, her fear exposed.

      His expression lost all humour as he slid the tie from his neck and curled it, as if it were a snake, on the bed. She almost died when his hands went to the buckle on his belt. ‘I don’t think you should adopt that superior tone with me,’ he warned, then whipped the belt out from his trousers, snapping it in front of her before it too joined the tie. ‘It doesn’t bring out the best in me.’ He shrugged out of his jacket and threw it away, then began on the buttons of his shirt.

      ‘You can’t seriously mean to do this,’ she rasped, terror a vice in her chest.

      ‘To do what?’ he smiled.

      ‘To...to assault me.’

      ‘Assault?’ He feigned mock-surprise, and pulled off his shirt. Salome was shocked to see that, although overweight, he looked amazingly strong, his chest and shoulders massive. ‘I have no intention of assaulting you, my dear. Once you’re suitably subdued and... restrained...I’ll make sure you enjoy it. In fact, I’ll guarantee it. After all, I know what you are. I know where you come from. You’ve learnt to put on airs and graces, but, underneath the designer clothes and ladylike veneer, you’re nothing but a slut, like your mother.’ He picked up the belt and began moving towards her, an evil, thin-lipped smile beneath his equally thin moustache. ‘God, I’m going to enjoy this!’ he breathed. ‘I’ve been wanting to do it for years!’

      Salome moved with a strength and speed she didn’t realise she had. But her adrenalin was high, panic and desperation inspiring her to attempt anything in her own defence. Snatching the heavy brass bedside lamp into shaking hands, she reared up to crash it down on to her assailant’s head before he knew what was happening. Groaning, he collapsed over the bed then began sliding down on to the floor.

      She didn’t wait to see what the damage was. Scrambling from the bed, she snatched up a towel from a chair and raced from the room, wrapping the towel around her naked body. Within seconds she was out in the corridor, where she fled along and began hammering on Mike’s door, pounding and screaming for him to help her.

      He couldn’t have been asleep, for the door was flung open almost immediately, and he was standing there in a maroon dressing-gown. Startled black eyes swept over her. ‘Salome! What on earth’s going on? Hell, you haven’t got any damned clothes on! Here... put this on.’

      He swept off his dressing-gown and helped her flustered body into it, leaving him with only the bottom half of navy silk pyjamas and a magnificently bare chest. It was a tribute to Salome’s fear and consternation that she hardly noticed.

      ‘Oh, God!’ she sobbed again, letting the towel drop as she sashed the gown tightly around her like a shield. ‘I hit him. I might have killed him!’

      ‘Hit who? Killed who?’

      ‘Oh, don’t ask me questions. Just come!’ she cried, grabbing one of his arms with wildly trembling hands, and tugging him out into the corridor.

      ‘All right, all right.’

      He followed her back into the other penthouse, where Salome stopped at the doorway to the bedroom, shaking and pointing. ‘In there...beside the bed...Charles Smeaton...Ralph’s lawyer...’

      Mike flashed her a look that suggested he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘You had a man up here? Tonight? After you left me?’

      For a second she didn’t comprehend what he was getting at. But then she groaned, understanding dawning like a winter’s day, bleak and cold. ‘No, no, it’s not what you think.’ She shook her head dejectedly. Oh, God, it was so typical of him to believe the worst of her. Typical and despicably predictable. Her dismay eventually found voice in strangled, desolate words. ‘I was alone...asleep. I woke to find Charles in my room. He—’

      ‘How did he get in?’ Mike interrupted, frowning darkly.

      Salome’s sigh was despairing. Did he have to sound so disbelieving? ‘Charles obviously had a duplicate set of keys,’ she explained frustratedly. ‘It was he who handed me over my keys earlier today. I suppose he used the private basement elevator to avoid the security man in the foyer.’

      ‘Mm.’ Mike still looked sceptical. ‘So what happened next?’

      ‘He was staring at me in bed, and then he came in and started undressing. He—’ She broke off, the memory of her near-escape sweeping over her, bringing nausea and a feeling of faintness. She swayed, and Mike caught her by her upper arms, his eyes rounding with what looked like horror.

      ‘He didn’t rape you, did he?’

      She heaved in a shuddering breath. ‘No...but he was going to. I...I asked him to leave, but he wouldn’t. I was in bed, you see, and I couldn’t get out. I...I didn’t have any clothes on. He took off his belt, and...’ Another shudder reverberated through her. ‘I think he was going to beat me first,’ she husked. ‘He—’ Her voice died, cut off by the appalled and incredulous expression on Mike’s face.

      She smothered a sob of utter despair. ‘It’s true!’ she cried. ‘As God is my witness, it’s true.’

      For what seemed like ages he just stared at her, and then his eyes saddened with a type of weary resignation. ‘I believe you, Salome,’ he sighed, his hands lifting to rake back his hair with exasperated fingers. ‘Truly...I believe you.’

      His declaration of belief gave her cold comfort, for his words had a sardonic, bitter flavour that implied she was still at fault, as though somehow she inspired men to commit atrocities. Any indignation was swiftly followed by guilt, though, as she recalled what had happened in the lift, how she had eagerly welcomed his attentions, then spurned him later. A shamed heat burnt in her cheeks and her eyes dropped in dismay. How could she blame him for thinking what he did? She had indeed acted like the tease he’d accused her of always being.

      Thinking about what had happened between them in the lift, however, did not produce a guilty reaction for long. Instead, it flooded her mind with memories and her body with feelings that were very distracting, especially with Mike standing so close to her in his half-naked state.

      Her gaze slowly lifted to flick over him, lingering far too long on the tanned breadth of his shoulders and chest, the smattering of dark curls running from below his throat down to his navel, exposed by the rather low-slung pyjama-trousers.

      The sound of a groan coming from the bedroom had Salome’s eyes flying away from their perturbing travels to where two unsteady hands were appearing over the side of the bed, clutching at the sheet. Her heart somersaulted. Good grief, she had virtually forgotten all about Charles, her mind having been totally СКАЧАТЬ