Bad Influence. SUSANNE MCCARTHY

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       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘DECENT shiner you’ve got there, old man.’

      lake squinted out of his good eye, smiling wryly as the pale young man, whom he recognised as the one he had mistaken for Georgia’s rich sugar-daddy, came over to join him, leaning against the bonnet of the Range Rover. ‘You should see the other guy.’

      Robin Rustrom-Smith chuckled. ‘I had a ringside seat It’s all over the papers, you know. Our Sweet Georgia is not going to be best pleased with you—doesn’t like that sort of publicity.’

      Jake shrugged his wide shoulders in a dismissive gesture, holding his binoculars gingerly to his eyes to watch the string of horses galloping across the soft Lambourn turf. ‘How was I supposed to know who she was? She never told me her name.’

      ‘Ah, so that’s why you were so reckless. You got off lightly, you know—the last chap who tried it on with her still bears the scars.’

      ‘You don’t say,’ Jake drawled with laconic humour.

      ‘No, I’m serious. Took her horsewhip to him—lovely aim, straight across the cheek. Ten years ago, that was—no one else has dared risk it once.’

      Jake lowered his binoculars, turning to stare at his genial informant in frank astonishment. ‘You mean…no one?’ he queried. ‘No one’s even…? But she’d have been…what, sixteen?’

      ‘Seventeen.’

      ‘Oh, come on!’ Jake laughed. ‘You’re kidding me. A good-looking broad like that? She must have ‘em queuing in the aisles!’

      Robin shook his head. ‘If there’d been any action, I’d have known about it—m’sister Margot’s one of her best friends, and you know what women are for talking about that sort of thing. Oh, I agree she’s a great girl, but when it comes to trying it on with her…To tell you the truth, even the thought of it scares me into the middle of next week—and I’ve known her since we were children.’

      ‘So you mean she’s still…?’

      Robin nodded in cheerful confirmation. ‘Of course, it was the Old Man’s fault—her grandfather. The tight-fisted old goat was always convinced that anyone who looked twice at her was after his money, so he all but locked her up in a chastity belt and threw away the key. Siberia, we used to call her at school—couldn’t warm her up with a blowtorch.’

      ‘Well, well…’ Jake lifted his binoculars again. ‘Well, well, well…’ That was certainly no longer true—as he had every reason to know. Or was that the sort of game she played? He had met the kind before, promising everything and then refusing to deliver until they had got whatever it was they wanted—usually a ring on their finger and a mealticket for life.

      Not that the frostbitten Miss Geldard had any need of a meal ticket—she could afford to buy not only her own lunch, but the whole damned restaurant if she chose. Nor did she need to resort to those sort of tactics to get herself a husband, if that was what she wanted—with one snap of her fingers she could have half the available men this side of the Rockies queuing up for her hand.

      So what was it? Some kind of power trip? Was that what turned her on? Didn’t she have enough power as chief executive of her family firm? But then he had met a lot of men to whom power was like a drug—the more of it they had, the more they needed. Why shouldn’t some women be like that? And in her position she must have to fight her way in a man’s world every day of her working life—what better way to even the score than by hitting back below the belt, as it were…?

      Damn, he never had been able to resist a challenge—especially one with such a prize at the end of it! The thought of teaching Miss Geldard the danger of playing power games with the big boys, and at the same time disproving his new acquaintance’s blowtorch theory, was tempting enough to make his mouth water. Ice would never have melted more sweetly into honey…!

      A third СКАЧАТЬ