Read One Reckless Night Online
Authors: Sara Craven
She pushed open the heavy glass door and went in. She was immediately aware of light and space and color, of the subtle scent of polished wood and expensive fabrics and a wide and shallow ramp leading in a gentle semi-circle to an upper floor. The atmosphere was discreetly luxurious, she thought, glancing round her, and totally inviting.
'Welcome to Lantrells.' The receptionist was the epitome of blonde chic, but her smile was genuinely warm as she handed Zanna a catalogue. 'Is this your first visit to us? I'm afraid the current exhibition is nearly over, and much of the work has been sold, but if you're interested in any particular artist, our staff will be happy to advise you.'
'Thank you.' Zanna returned the smile with a touch of awkwardness, aware that she was there under false pretences. 'I-I'd just like to browse.'
'Could I ask you to sign our visitors' register?' The girl pushed across a smart leather-bound book, already thick with names. 'Then we can keep you up to date with our future exhibitions.'
Zanna took the pen and added her signature. Not that she could make an offer for even a few inches of frame in her present circumstances, she reflected as she turned
away.
I wish I knew more about painting, she thought as she moved slowly from canvas to canvas. I wish I'd bought pictures like this for the flat, instead of allowing the decorator to choose for me. I wish... And there she stopped, because this was a third wish and might just be granted, and she didn't know what she would wish for. Don't lie, she thought, staring up at a vast canvas of overlapping circles and triangles in black and every conceivable shade of red. You know exactly what you want. That's why you went back to Emplesham to look for him. You've known all the time-when you've allowed yourself to think about it.
And even as she felt the hand, gentle on her shoulder, and his voice say, very quietly, 'Susie,' all she could think, absurdly, was, But I didn't make the wish-I didn't say it. Then the circles and triangles were swirling madly around her, drawing her forward and down into some inner core of darkness.
'What wish?' said Jake.
She was lying on the downy comfort of a sofa in a room that was clearly an office. She'd regained consciousness to find herself being carried up the ramp in his arms, amid a buzz of consternation.
'What happened, Mr Lantrell? Did she just collapse?'
'Should we call a doctor, Mr Lantrell-an ambulance?'
'No,' Zanna had roused herself to say, despite her dry mouth and swimming head. 'No, I'll be fine.'
The blonde receptionist had brought her a glass of water. An older woman had dashed in with a tray of coffee.
Now, they were alone, and he was a few yards away, across the room from her, half-sitting on the edge of a vast desk. The dark elegance of his suit, the comparative sobriety of his trimmed hair made him seem alien, a stranger. As indeed he was, Zanna reminded herself as she struggled to sit up, hating the vulnerability of her supine position...
Not Jake Brown, in whose arms she'd learned the meaning of rapture, but someone quite different, and a thousand miles from the beguiling gipsy she'd run back to find.
Jake Lantrell, she thought. The owner of all this discreet opulence. A man of power. Someone she didn't know at all and couldn't afford to know.
She said, nervously pulling her skirt over her knees, 'I-I don't understand.'
'Before you passed out, you said something about making a wish.'
'Did I?' She tried to laugh, but the sound was high-pitched and unnatural. 'Put it down to the effect of shock on an overloaded nervous system.'
'Was it such a shock?'
'Oh, yes.' She moistened dry lips with the tip of her tongue. She thought, And it still is...
'After all,' she went on quickly, 'car mechanic into gallery owner is quite a metamorphosis.'
His mouth twisted in acknowledgment. 'All the same,' he said softly. 'I didn't think you'd swoon at my feet when I found you again.'
'You hardly found me,' Zanna objected feebly. 'I just-walked in from the street.'
'A lucky chance,' he agreed. 'But it doesn't alter the fact that I've been searching for you. Or did you think I'd just let you vanish like that?'
She was very still suddenly. She said, 'I hoped you'd understand my wishes-and respect them.'
He shook his head. 'Unfortunately, I'm not a great respecter of wishes that don't coincide with my own.' There was a pause. 'You didn't suspect anything when I sent you the invitation to the opening?'
'No, how could I?' Zanna looked down at her clasped hands. 'After all, it wasn't addressed to Susie Smith.'
His smile reached out to her. The dark eyes lingered on her face, her mouth, then moved down to her breasts. 'Perhaps it should have been. But I wanted us to start again, without pretence this time.'
She felt her heart begin to thud, half in trepidation, half in nervous excitement. Be careful, she warned herself silently. The dark path of his attraction was not something she dared to tread again.
'When did you find out-who I really was?'
'It didn't take long to establish.' His expression was enigmatic.
'No, probably not.' She paused. 'But was it really worth the trouble-for such a brief encounter?'
'I think so. After all, you and I have a lot of unfinished business, Susie.'
She lifted her head, tried to speak crisply. 'If you're so well-informed, you should know I'm always called Zanna.'
He lifted a negligent shoulder. 'I don't regard it as an improvement.'
'You have one hell of a nerve.'
'You don't get far in this life without it. And you've shown a fair bit yourself, leaving the security blanket of Daddy's company,' he added smoothly. 'How are you finding the real world?'
He was altogether too well-informed, damn him. Zanna drew a breath, wondering exactly how deeply his researches had probed. Not, she hoped, to the antenatal unit of a famous teaching hospital. 'Interesting,' she returned crisply.
'Found another job yet?'
Zanna hesitated, smarting. 'I'm waiting for the right opportunity,' she countered.
'In other words, no.' His mouth twisted. 'Being refused anything must be a new experience for you, Susie.'
'One of many,' she said airily. 'I know about gas meters now, and public transport, as well as sharing a bathroom and a thousand things to do with baked beans.'
'Why did you leave Westcott Holdings?'
It wasn't the question she was expecting-if there could be such a thing from Jake, she thought bitterly.
'A-difference of opinion,' she temporized.
'With your father?'
'Who else?' She made herself smile. 'Contrary to rumor, I did not transfer the petty cash to a numbered Swiss bank account.'
The dark brows rose. 'I'm glad to hear it, although that particular rumor had passed me by.'
Her hands clenched together in her lap. 'So, what have you heard?' She tried to sound amused, but every muscle was tense.
'That there's been a parting of the ways, personally as well as professionally. I went round to the place where you used to live and the security man told me you'd left.'
And I, she thought, went round to the place where you used to live and found it empty too. But that's something else I intend to keep secret.
She said coolly, 'I really can't understand why you should bother.'
'I told you-we have unfinished business.'
She shook her head. 'On the contrary. We met, we spent some time together and we parted.' She looked down at her clenched hands. 'That's how I want it. Coming here today was just-an unfortunate coincidence.'
'Is that a fact? Now I wouldn't have said you were a girl for one-night stands, Susie.'
'But then, in spite of all your research, you still don't know a great deal about me,' Zanna parried.
His mouth quirked. 'I'd have said we were intimately acquainted,' he drawled.
She felt his gaze touch her like the caress of a hand, and shivered inwardly as she remembered...
She bit her lip, forcing herself back to the present, and reality.
'I'm afraid I find this a tasteless conversation. You're quite right, of course. I don't usually behave as I did that night, and I don't want to be reminded of it-or to repeat it either.'
'That,' he said, 'was not what I was suggesting.' He swung himself off the desk and walked forward. He sat down beside her and took her chin in his hand, tilting her face towards him in spite of her immediate and instinctive resistance.
'You've been having a bad time,' he said abruptly. 'You've lost weight and you've got enormous shadows under your eyes.'
'Aren't you the flatterer,' she managed from a dry throat. His actual touch had set her every pulse hammering, she realized with vexation.
'I'm stating a fact.' He released her. 'Have dinner with me tonight.'
It was more a command than a request, and Zanna stiffened. This was a situation she needed to avoid at all costs, she thought, swallowing.
'No,' she said. 'Thank you.'
'Is there something wrong with my table manners?'
'Don't get paranoid,' she advised crisply. 'I'm busy, that's all.'
'Tomorrow night?'
'Not then either.'
He tutted. 'Playing hard to get, Susie?'
'Not before time, perhaps,' she said with cool irony. She paused. 'I'm sure you've heard the saying about ships that pass in the night. I'd like to leave it like that.'
He shook his head. The dark eyes held hers almost mesmerically. 'We didn't pass, Susie. We collided.'
She shrugged. 'Well, everyone's entitled to one major error. I'll consider that mine. But I don't intend to compound the fault.' She transferred her gaze back to her lap. 'Tell me something. Why were you in Emplesham?'
'Looking after a house.'
Her brows snapped together. 'Oh, please,' she said sarcastically. 'You have all this-' she gestured around her '-and fill in as a caretaker at weekends? Is that what you're saying?'
'No, that's what you're saying. I keep an eye on Church House for my father.'
'But you said it belonged to a Mr Gordon.'
He nodded laconically. 'Gordon Lantrell.'
'So you were even fooling me about that,' she said bitterly.
'You were the one who wanted to play games,' he said. 'I just invented a few of my own rules.'
'Please don't remind me,' she flung back at him. 'Your car mechanic act was wonderfully convincing too.'
'Thank you,' he returned politely. 'But it wasn't totally make-believe. Steve who owns the garage is semi-retired now, and he lets me borrow it when it's free. Naturally I pay for the electricity.'
'Oh, naturally,' she echoed derisively. 'A paragon of probity.'
'And working on classic cars like the Jag has always been a passion of mine,' Jake went on, without apparently noticing her interjection. 'You could say it's my favorite form of relaxation.' He paused. 'Or one of them, at least.'
He was far too close to her, the amusement dancing in his eyes and curving his firm mouth an all too potent force. Zanna got to her feet, clumsy in her haste.
'Careful.' He stood up too, with a steadying hand under her elbow. 'I don't want you fainting again.'
'That isn't likely,' Zanna said tartly, wrenching herself free. 'I don't make a habit of it. It-it must have been the heat.'
'I hope not. The temperature in the gallery is carefully controlled.' He paused. 'A quality you appear to share.'