Love's Prisoner

‘The thought of him being held hostage didn’t keep you awake at night?’ she protested.

‘Indeed, no. I never had any doubts but that he’d survive unharmed, and I always knew he’d come through it beautifully, which he has.’

Her brow furrowed. Clearly Hugo had stepped on to his own private piece of stage and was playing the supportive parent of the noble son to the hilt. It might be an amazingly persuasive performance, but if her profile were to have any credibility it was vital he be honest.

‘My parents would have been pacing the floor, unable to concentrate, jellies of neuroses for the entire year,’ Suzy said, attempting to coax him into an admission of equivalent distress.

‘Maybe, but—’ The blazered shoulders moved in an elegant shrug.

She changed tack. ‘Could you tell me what Piers was like as a child?’

‘Never caused any trouble. Unfortunately my career meant I was unable to give him as much time as I would have liked, so after Diana died he virtually brought himself up, and made a bloody fine job of it,’ Hugo declared.

‘How old was Piers when his mother died?’ Suzy enquired, realising that she did not know.

Though how much did she know about him? she thought. Not a great deal. Three years ago, the demands of Piers’ career had meant that the number of hours they had actually spent together had been few. Then they had been busy catching up on what each of them had been doing and there had never been much opportunity to swap background information.

‘He was eight. A mature eight.’ Hugo adjusted the line of a snowy white cuff. ‘He excelled at school.’

‘In which way?’ she queried.

‘In every way. Piers not only shone in his studies, but at sports—all sports.’

Suzy asked another question and another, but to her rising desperation and with her heart sinking, the interview continued with Hugo lavishing fulsome praise. Whether in his youth, as a journalist, or doing his period as a hostage, his son had been out-and-out perfection. She knew otherwise, she thought acidly, but no matter how hard she tried there was no way the actor could be induced to contribute anything which was not exaggerated and which sounded real—about Piers, about anything. And, of course, the friction which had existed between them was wholly ignored.

‘Each profile is being illustrated with a page of photographs, so do you have any snaps which I could use?’ she requested, when she had reached the end of her questions and, ruefully acknowledging defeat, had switched off her machine. ‘Both when Piers was young and up to the present day.’

‘There are some in my study,’ said Hugo, with a smile. He was rising to his feet, when the door bell suddenly pealed. ‘This’ll be Babs,’ he said, diverted. ‘She’s always forgetting her key. Please excuse me.’

He disappeared, but a moment or two later the surprised rumble of his baritone down the hall indicated that whoever it was who had arrived, it could not be his present partner. Suzy put her notebook away in her bag. Her job was done, the actor had a visitor, and she was intruding. As soon as the photographs had been provided, she would leave.

‘Guess who’s here,’ boomed Hugo, striding back in to flourish a delighted arm. ‘Haven’t seen him since he was discharged from the clinic, so he’s more than welcome.’

As a tall lean-hipped man in a black polo-shirt and blue jeans strolled in through the archway, Suzy’s stomach hollowed. Her head pounded. She gave a silent protesting wail. Another five minutes and she would have been gone, so why must Piers choose this particular time on this particular morning to pay his father a visit? Why must he catch her red-handed? Why, when Hugo had so obligingly offered to remain silent, did he have to be alerted to her strategy so soon?

The new arrival stopped dead. He frowned at her, down at the tape recorder, then angry grey eyes swept back up to nail themselves to hers.

‘There’s no need to ask what you’re doing,’ he said, in a damning indictment.

Suzy sat straighter. His displeasure did not mean she had to feel ashamed, or guilty—nor that she must apologise.

‘I’m only doing it because you’ve given me no alternative,’ she retorted, forcing herself to gaze steadily back.

Piers swung to his father. ‘You won’t know this, but Miss Collier—’ his enunciation of her surname was harsh and distancing ‘—has already asked me if I’d agree to be interviewed for her book, and I flatly refused.’

‘You’re wrong, old boy, I do know,’ Hugo told him, with an awkward smile.

‘I explained that you weren’t in favour when I telephoned to fix the interview,’ said Suzy.

Piers scowled at her, then turned back to his father. ‘Yet you were still willing to speak?’ he demanded.

‘You may insist on hiding your light under a bushel, but I see no earthly reason why I shouldn’t say a few words about my brave son,’ Hugo protested, his pride shining through. ‘Isn’t it time you paid a visit to the barber?’ he continued. ‘I don’t deny that your hair looks dashing in a cavalier sort of way, but—’

‘Never mind my hair,’ Piers cut in. ‘What we’re talking about is your agreeing to assist with a profile which I have not sanctioned and which I do not want!’

‘But this is your fifteen minutes of fame which Andy Warhol promised everyone back in the Sixties, and one profile in one book isn’t going to cause you any bother,’ said his father, obviously reluctant to quarrel. ‘Besides, Suzy’s a friend of mine, and she helped in your campaign, and—’

‘I just typed a few letters,’ Suzy said, in quick dismissal. She had no intention of trading on what she had done—which she would have done for anyone. ‘All the profile means is that you may be mentioned in a review some time next year,’ she went on. ‘If my book’s lucky enough to be reviewed.’

‘It will be,’ Hugo assured her gallantly. ‘You asked for photographs,’ he said, remembering. ‘I’ll go and get them.’

‘You may not have won any prizes, but you’re a dead cert for the Sneak of the Year Award!’ rasped Piers the moment they were alone.

‘Just because you didn’t bestow your blessing on the profile, you expected me to abandon it?’ Suzy protested.

‘Damn right! Coming to see my father behind my back is—’

‘Although I may have failed to despatch a fax giving you advance notice of our meeting today, he could have told you,’ she defended. ‘I didn’t ask him to keep quiet, as I shan’t be asking anyone else I interview to keep quiet either.’

‘You intend to cast your net wider and drag in other people?’ Piers demanded.

Her chin lifted. ‘I’m sorry if it offends your sensibilities, but yes.’

A muscle clenched in his jaw and his grey eyes darkened to leaden black. If he had been a pirate, there was no doubt her insubordination would have been punished by her being keelhauled or made to walk the plank.

‘I’ve heard all about the fearless spirit of investigation,’ he bit out, ‘but—’

‘Let me ask you something,’ said Suzy, rising to her feet because sitting below him while he stood was making her feel disadvantaged—and disadvantages were the last thing she needed right now. ‘If you required comments and you were unable to obtain them from the source, wouldn’t you go elsewhere? Of course you would. And the fact that you knew the source would be...rattled wouldn’t stop you.’

‘In other words, all’s fair in love, war and writing profiles?’ Piers said tersely.

‘In other words, I don’t need your seal of approval,’ she told him.

‘You’re not going to get it!’ He strode forward to plant himself in front of her, six foot three inches of aggressive, angry, dominant male. ‘Erase everything you have on that tape,’ he ordered.

Although it required an effort, Suzy stood firm. Piers Armstrong had a reputation for never allowing himself to be pushed around, and she did not intend to be pushed around either. Three years ago, she would have given way and obeyed his command, but these days she was made of sterner stuff.

‘You’re acting the heavy?’ she enquired.

‘You’re the one who wants to play rough, lady, not me,’ he responded. ‘Now, wipe that damn tape.’

Her eyes met his in a look of cool determination. ‘No,’ she said.

Piers bent to the machine, pushed a button and the cover flipped open. ‘In that case, I’ll take it.’

‘You can’t!’ wailed Suzy.

‘Watch me,’ he said, and slid the tape into his hip pocket.

Her temper flared. There was nothing of Hugo’s spiel which she intended to quote verbatim, so the tape had little real value, but that was not the point. The point was that Piers was interfering with the gathering of her data, with the writing of her book.

‘Would you kindly return my property?’ she demanded heatedly. He shook his head. ‘In that case, I’ll take it,’ Suzy declared, spitting his own words back to him, and made a sudden lunge for his pocket.

Taken by surprise, Piers reared back, started to turn and stumbled. Overbalancing, he made an instinctive grab at her in an attempt to remain upright, but only succeeded in yanking her off balance too.

‘Aargh!’ she gasped, as he toppled back on to the sofa and she fell on top of him.

Winded, she lay there for a moment or two, then she half raised herself.

‘No, you don’t,’ said Piers, when her hand dived downwards in a lightning attack on his hip pocket.

He caught hold of her wrists and pinioned her arms behind her back. Furiously wriggling and squirming, Suzy struggled to wrench an arm free and, thanks to a sly kick at his shins which made him swear and momentarily distracted him, she managed it.

‘I do!’ she retorted, going in search of the tape again.

Piers recaptured her arm with indolent ease. ‘I love to feel the heat of a woman’s anger,’ he remarked.

As his hands curved tightly around the slender bones of her wrists, Suzy’s eyes shot daggers. She had never met anyone more condescending, more arrogant, or more infuriating!

‘I understood that seduction was no longer your stock-in-trade,’ remarked Piers, as she once more started to squirm.

‘It—it isn’t,’ she panted.

‘So you aren’t slithering around in order to arouse me?’ he asked.

Suzy tugged and twisted her arms, but to no avail. He had twice her physical strength. ‘Of course not.’

‘But we are two different genders, and it’s red blood which flows in my veins,’ he murmured.

Her fighting ceased and she lay still—very still. Somewhat belatedly, his remark had alerted her to the fact that Piers was aroused. Suzy’s heart thumped wildly in her chest. Why, when at the clinic she had shied away from so much as shaking his hand, had she launched such a physical protest? she wondered. Why, instead of leaping straight up when they fell down, had she continued to lie on top of him, continued to grab for his hip pocket?

‘I’m simply attempting to retrieve my tape,’ she told him, with as much dignity as she could muster. Though, with her hair falling into her eyes and her cheeks bright red, it was a preciously small amount.

‘And how do you explain acting the femme fatale?’

Suzy looked up into the pale grey eyes which were just a few inches from hers. ‘Femme fatale? I don’t know what you mean.’

Piers removed one of the restraining hands from her wrists and brought it between them. ‘I mean this,’ he said, running the tip of a long index finger slowly down her throat and into the warm valley between her breasts.

She jerked back. His touch—so casual and yet so intimate—was like an electric shock. She felt as if he had sent a live current zig-zagging through every cell of her body. As his finger had stroked down so had his eyes, and now, as she followed his gaze, her face flamed. The top three buttons at the neck of her shirt were open, revealing the creamy swell of her breasts in what suddenly seemed like a racily low-cut white lace bra.

‘I wasn’t aware the buttons were undone,’ she said stiffly.

‘They came undone when you made that first grab. The glimpse of bosom has been most alluring, though the only time you lapsed into full-blown eroticism was when you pushed yourself up and then—’ Piers rolled his eyes.

‘You can have the tape,’ Suzy told him, at speed. ‘And you can release me.’

‘But after so much celibacy, to have a curvy young woman spreadeagled on top of me is most...invigorating,’ he drawled, and shifted his body against hers.

As she felt the thrust of him, a wave of heat engulfed her.

‘Let me go!’ she demanded, in a mixture of panic and fury.

A lazy smile tilted the corners of his mouth. ‘You aren’t inclined to indulge me?’

‘No, I am not!’

‘Spoilsport,’ said Piers, and released her.

Back on her feet, Suzy hastily fastened the buttons and tucked her shirt back into her skirt. Today her hair was worn loose, and she attempted to smooth down the tousled wheat-gold strands.

‘Aren’t you being a touch paranoid about my profile?’ she demanded, when her composure had been reassembled—well, some of it.

Piers rose from the sofa. ‘Paranoid?’ he repeated, his eyes glittering dangerously.

‘Suzy’s right,’ said Hugo, breezing back into the room with a handful of photographs. ‘You’re taking this business of being written up far too seriously. Even if you did possess some murky secret—’ he chuckled ‘—I’ve had enough experience of being interviewed to know when to be discreet.’

Piers frowned. ‘Yes, you’re good at discretion,’ he remarked. ‘For example, you’ve said nothing to me about the welcome-home party which you and Barbara are so busily arranging.’

His father’s jaw dropped. ‘You know about that?’

‘It’s the reason I’m here,’ said Piers. ‘While I’ve no wish to appear ungracious, I’ve come to suggest you cancel it, because I shan’t be present on the night.’

‘But Babs and I thought you’d enjoy hobnobbing with some of your chums again,’ Hugo protested, sounding so disappointed that Suzy’s heart shrivelled.

She eyed the two men. Granted, her presence had annoyed Piers, but, that apart, his manner towards his father was a little removed and very proper. And Hugo appeared...wary. He had said they had not met since Piers had left the clinic. Maybe it was only a couple of days, but in the circumstances... Suzy sighed. It seemed that the burying of differences which Hugo longed for, and which she had hoped for, had not come to pass.

All of a sudden, Piers noticed her inspection. He shot her a probing glance, then took a step towards his father.

‘Dad, I’m sorry,’ he said, his tone gentler and more apologetic, ‘but right now the prospect of spending an evening in a room full of people doesn’t turn me on.’

Hugo looked bewildered. ‘Why ever not?’

‘Because after being isolated for so long with just one person, I think I’d find it claustrophobic. And I wouldn’t want to put a dampener on everything by breaking out in a cold sweat and having to make a hurried exit midway.’

His father smiled. ‘I understand,’ he said.

Suzy frowned. If any other ex-hostage had made such a claim she would have believed them, but was Piers telling the truth? And if not, had he said what he did because he had felt ill at ease with Hugo’s dismay and needed to comfort him, or was it more a matter of making an excuse for her benefit? While she had told him about her family in what now seemed embarrassing detail, throughout their three-month affair Piers had rarely mentioned his father; yet when he did there had been no hint of bad feeling. He too obviously preferred to keep it hidden.

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