The Only One

‘I’m Brooke Beauclere by the way,’ she introduced herself, rectifying the omission.

‘Adam Henderson.’ He watched her carefully, but she made no response to the name, which was unfamiliar to her. Nor did he offer to shake her hand, instead, sliding his grip from her wrist to her hand, lifting it palm upwards to his mouth and placing his lips against it. The brush of his tongue against her palm made her jump in surprise, a thousand tiny nerve endings pulsing into life as his lips moved down to her fingers, nibbling erotically at her skin. When he finally released her hand she felt hot and disorientated. No one had ever made her feel like that before, but as she pulled herself together she reminded herself that practice makes perfect, and that no doubt he had learned long, long ago, just how to make a woman responsive to him. He certainly didn’t look the type of man who would expect his partner to lie back and think of England, and he must want something for his money other than an unresponsively receptive body, Brooke thought cynically.

‘Until tonight….’

He let her go and watched her walk out of the door. Brooke was acutely conscious of his eyes on her back, and only realised when she got outside that she had been holding her breath.

A brisk walk down the drive to her lodge did much to restore her normal equilibrium, and by the time she reached the Lodge she was mentally berating herself for her stupidity. It must have been the wine, was her only excuse, but as she had drunk only the one glass it was a feeble one. Never one to deceive herself for long as she opened the door and braced herself to receive the enthusiastic embrace of her uncle’s Afghan hound Brooke acknowledged that it was the man himself who had affected her, infuriating her to the point where she felt compelled to give the antagonism she had felt towards him an actual physical life.

‘Down Balsebar,’ she commanded the dog, grinning as he dropped pathetically to her feet. Balsebar was a dog of positive and slightly eccentric character; a true ham who loved playing to his audience. Right now he was doing a sterling impression of a down-trodden and mistreated innocent—a picture to tear at the heart of sweet old ladies and innocent children. Remembering his many escapades Brooke was unimpressed.

Black with golden paws and chest, his eyes could gleam with a wickedness that made him look almost devilish, but apart from his eccentric nature he was a first-rate guard dog. He also had an aversion to the male sex, excluding only her uncle, and Brooke grinned again at his possible reception of Adam Henderson. For some reason, despite all her determined efforts to stop him, Balsebar slept on the floor at the bottom of her bed—nothing could shift him from his chosen spot, and his normal reaction to any unwary male entering the Lodge was so craftily and cleverly worked out that the victim rarely knew what was happening to him until it was far too late. Not for Balsebar the reaction of other, less Machiavellian dogs—the frenzied barking or the doggy sulks. Every encounter involving Balsebar was a triumph of tactics and canine intelligence over his chosen human victim.

There had been the man who was allergic to dog hairs whose lap he had insisted on sitting on; there had been the one who had announced that he knew exactly the right way to handle recalcitrant dogs—no one was quite sure how it happened, but one moment he had been commanding Balsebar to ‘sit’, the next, for some reason the dog’s claw had caught in the zip of his trousers as Balsebar leapt up in direct disobedience to his command and the poor man had been left standing in her uncle’s drawing room with his trousers round his ankles and his rather stunning striped boxer undershorts on display to the world.

There had been countless others who had retreated in disorder, and Brooke wondered idly as she prepared his meal how Balsebar would deal with Adam Henderson. She also wondered how Adam would react when she told him she had changed her mind and that no matter how expensively he paid her she wouldn’t go to bed with him. Now that she had left the party the tension which had led her to betraying her antagonism towards him had gone and in its stead was the uneasy knowledge that he was not a man who would take kindly to being duped. Her hand brushed the dog’s head and he glanced up at her in mute enquiry. At least she could rely on Balsebar to defend her honour she thought wryly, even if she was incapable of doing so herself.

CHAPTER TWO

BY the time the grandfather clock in the small living room struck quarter to ten Brooke was an aching mass of too tense nerve endings, one moment mentally berating herself for her stupidity, the next telling herself that it was time that someone cut Adam Henderson down to size.

She had changed out of the suit she had worn to the cocktail party—an outfit left over from the days when she had worked as a secretary in an upmarket advertising agency and had had to dress accordingly. These days she thought herself fortunate if she was able to buy herself a decent skirt and blouse, never mind blowing half a month’s salary on an expensive cocktail outfit. Glancing through her wardrobe she had dismissed most of its contents as unsuitable almost instantly—they were ‘officey clothes’, geared to executive lunches and board meetings. The odd dress she possessed was equally unsuitable, which left her normal uniform of jeans and a sweater or the pleated skirt and jumper she had worn when nursing Uncle James—he had hated the sight of women in trousers, and seemed to think that her soft heathery skirt and its toning cashmere jumpers were the right sort of thing for her to wear, and knowing how ill he really was she had purposely dressed to please him.

What did women normally wear in these circumstances? Her mind switched irresistibly to glamorous black silk négligés heavily trimmed with lace; but somehow she couldn’t imagine Adam Henderson being impressed by such a garment, even had she possessed one.

In the end she compromised with a plain black skirt and a pretty cream angora jumper with some self-embroidered detail on the boat-shaped neckline. She was still wearing the sheer silk stockings she had worn beneath her suit and she left these on, slipping her feet into a pair of lower heeled shoes.

Ready by nine thirty, she had spent the intervening fifteen minutes prowling restlessly round the small living room, much to Balsebar’s annoyance.

Fifteen minutes later when the imperious rap on the old-fashioned door knocker heralded Adam’s arrival, Balsebar did not, as other, less intelligent canines were wont to do, burst into a volley of barking. Instead he slid silently from his perch on the chair he had adopted as his and padded silently behind Brooke as she headed for the door.

The rooms in the Lodge were small, especially when compared with both Abbot’s Meade and the Dower House that went with it, but that surely did not account completely for the sense of suffocation she experienced when Adam stepped into the tiny hall, Brooke thought breathlessly.

Like her he had changed, switching the formality of his dinner suit for a pair of dark trousers in fine mohair and a white silk shirt, open at the throat beneath a grey leather blouson jacket.

‘Very prompt.’ He congratulated her as she closed the door behind her. Unlike his clothes his manner was anything but casual, his grey eyes moving over her with a gleam she recognised from her days working at Harrods during the New Year sale. Stepping hastily away she cannoned into Balsebar who signalled his disapproval with an unnerving howl.

Having seen the effect of this peculiarly nerve-shattering sound on the unsuspecting before, Brooke was a little surprised to see Adam’s grin.

‘Let that be a warning to you,’ he murmured as he followed her into the sitting room, ‘it isn’t always wise to step too hard on a member of my sex.’

‘Sometimes it’s unavoidable,’ Brooke snapped back feeling thoroughly unnerved, ‘you will get underfoot.’

‘What a strange attitude in a lovely lady. I thought that was where you loved having us—right under your dainty heels.’

‘It appears to me that you have a very jaundiced view of the relationship between the sexes,’ Brooke told him, indicating a bottle of sherry and asking if he would like a glass.

After briefly scrutinising the label he nodded his head. ‘Full marks,’ he told her accepting the glass she handed him. ‘For some reason that escapes me, the majority of your sex seems to prefer a revoltingly sweet version of what is really a most pleasant drink. Perhaps they think it reinforces the sweetness inherent in their natures.’

‘Or perhaps they think that your sex prefer pure syrup to something a little more astringent,’ Brooke retaliated. A little to her surprise amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth. He was, she realised on a small start of shock, the most compellingly attractive man she had ever met, and not just on a physical level.

‘Well,’ he drawled in the soft way she was becoming familiar with, when he had finished his drink, ‘that was the appetiser, now I’m ready for the main meal, but first….’

Balsebar, who had thus far ignored the presence of their guest, got slowly to his feet as Adam produced his cheque book.

Watching him in fascinated horror Brooke saw him flick it open and produce a pen.

‘You’re very businesslike,’ she managed to mutter faintly, hoping that the frail stem of her sherry glass wouldn’t snap beneath the tense pressure of her fingers.

‘I’ve found it pays.’ Adam agreed urbanely. She wasn’t quite in the same mould as his previous conquests, this tall redhead who was looking at him as though he had suddenly crawled out from under a stone. Fool, he mocked himself cynically, they’re all the same inside the packaging, every last one of them, and this one had made no secret of the fact that she was available—at a price.

As though he sensed her tension Balsebar gave a warning growl deep in his throat, padding silently to Adam’s side, the teeth that Brooke knew could deliver a painful little nip, slightly bared.

Adam merely laughed, and said, ‘I think it might be best if we conduct the rest of our business upstairs—without the presence of your watchdog. As it is …’ he glanced at his watch and frowned slightly, ‘I have to be back by twelve, I’m expecting an overseas call….’

His sheer cold-bloodedness made Brooke seethe. Even if she was madly, desperately in love with him, his attitude would chill her, freezing her into an inability to respond to him. Was he always like this, she wondered in awed fascination. If so, no wonder he had to pay his women to…. She shivered slightly her thoughts skidding to a standstill as she looked into his eyes. Cold he might seem outwardly, but inwardly…. The heat of that grey glance seemed to sear deep into her skin, warming her blood to a pulse beating rhythm that was totally alien and yet somehow intensely familiar.

‘What’s the matter? Having second thoughts?’ The grey eyes narrowed; the effect of his total concentration on her almost hypnotic. It was very disturbing, this ability he seemed to have to follow her thoughts, and now perhaps was as good a time as any to let him see that on this occasion his male aggression and the power of his cheque book weren’t going to be enough to get him what he wanted.

As this was the conclusion she had anticipated when she agreed to see him Brooke couldn’t understand the too dry tension of her mouth; the emotion that could almost be fear which crawled down her spine. Unconsciously straightening her back she stared up at him. He must be at least six foot two she thought irrelevantly, because she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eyes—an advantage he was making full use of as he stared assessingly back at her.

‘I’m afraid I am,’ she agreed, giving him a small smile, ‘Naughty of me isn’t it?’

At any other time the sickening coyness of her response would have nauseated her, but now there was only a primaeval instinct for survival; an inner voice that urged her to turn and run and which she determinedly withstood, praying that the man standing opposite her wouldn’t guess that her knees were shaking and that her stomach was churning sickeningly.

‘Naughty?’ One dark eyebrow rose. ‘Oh I wouldn’t say that. Unwise perhaps … maybe even greedy….’ He moved as he spoke, grasping her arms with a swiftness that left her in a state of acute shock. No one had ever ignored the keep off signs she posted round her the way this man was doing.

The low growl coming from Balsebar’s throat brought her back to reality, steadying her shaken nerves. ‘I don’t think Balsebar likes the way you’re touching me,’ she told Adam pleasantly. He looked at the dog, and to Brooke’s disbelief he grinned.

Balsebar too seemed taken aback. He stopped growling and stared at him. Man and dog seemed to enter some silent male communication from which she was excluded, much to Brooke’s frustration.

‘Look, this has gone far enough,’ she said tensely. ‘Despite the outsize ego you possess which seems to lead you to believe you can simply walk in here and buy me, I’m really not interested in you—or your money.’

‘No?’ The slate eyes derided her. ‘That wasn’t how I heard it this afternoon.’

‘That was this afternoon. This is tonight….’

‘Second thoughts? Or perhaps you simply want to be coaxed.’ The cynical twist to his mouth made Brooke wonder how many other women he had put the question to.

‘You want to believe there’s more to it than merely sex, is that it? You’re “not that kind of woman”.’ The savagery in his voice as he mimicked the words, sliced through her. ‘I know all about the kind of woman you are,’ he told her roughly, ‘the kind who likes to play by the rules on the surface but who breaks them underneath it; the kind of woman who marries into the “right set” but who isn’t above entertaining herself with someone from outside it, discreetly, of course. Oh yes, I know all about your kind of women—innate snobs who’d die rather than admit they can feel lust for a man of lower class; a man who doesn’t play the game by their rules; who can’t trace his ancestors back for half a dozen generations and who wasn’t educated at the right schools….’

‘No….’ Brooke was genuinely horrified by his accusations. She knew exactly the sort of snobbery he referred to—she had seen it in action and to be given the label of the type of woman she most abhorred made her feel almost tainted.

‘No? Then make good the promise you gave me,’ he told her sardonically. One hand left her arm, his finger curling round her throat, his thumb lifting her chin, so that he could look into her eyes. ‘Or do you want me to make it good for you, is that it?’

‘All I want you to do is to leave here.’ Brooke was more shaken than she wanted to admit. There was something about the rough abrasion of his hand against her skin that her body reacted to. It took an effort of will to drag her eyes from his face, and as she saw the shuttered contemptuous anger fill his eyes panic seized her. She struggled wildly to pull away from him, distantly conscious of Balsebar’s warning bark, and the sudden flurry of black-and-gold fur as his teeth bit into the soft leather.

She heard Adam curse as he released her, staggering back under the weight of the dog. Never had she been more grateful for Balsebar’s protection, she thought dizzily, mentally acknowledging that she had only herself to blame for her present predicament. She should never have allowed her own antagonism to reach the point where she had felt compelled to strike a blow for her own sex; the whole episode was rebounding badly on her. Half expecting to hear Adam demanding that she call off her guard dog, she was stunned to see him reach round and prise the dog’s jaws out of his jacket. Balsebar was as surprised as her, especially when lean fingers closed firmly round his muzzle.

‘I think the remainder of our discussion is best conducted without this animal’s interference.’ Adam told her grittily, and yet there was no cruelty or anger in the way he grasped the dog’s collar or manoeuvred him into the kitchen, firmly closing the door against any further intrusion.

‘Now,’ he said pleasantly, when he had completed his task. His eyes weren’t grey, they were a devilish, dangerous black, Brooke thought dismally, watching him advance towards her and yet totally unable to do a single thing to evade him.

‘Where were we?’

‘I was just telling you that I wanted you to leave.’

‘So you were, and I was just about to tell you that I always get what I’ve paid for,’ he told her less pleasantly, indicating the cheque he had placed on her coffee table. ‘This …’ he picked it up and waved it tauntingly in front of her, ‘entitles me to certain….’

Before he could continue Brooke wrenched the cheque from his fingers and tore it to pieces, flinging the scraps of paper on the fire.

‘Now will you leave,’ she demanded, knowing that her cheeks were flushed with temper, and her eyes glittering with the fear she could feel inching through her, driving out her normal composure.

‘We made a bargain,’ Adam reminded her softly, ‘and I intend to make sure we both adhere to it.’

‘You can’t want me now, not knowing that I don’t want you,’ Brooke protested making a last desperate stand and measuring the distance between them. She was standing between Adam and the stairs; perhaps if she made a bolt for it, she could lock herself in the bathroom and sit it out until he decided to give up and leave. Undignified but….

‘Since I was never under that illusion in the first place, I don’t see why. You sold yourself to me,’ he reminded her. ‘Or is that something else you’ve conveniently forgotton?’

It was the look in his eyes that did it, panicking her into a wild headlong flight up the stairs, which she knew that she had lost when she heard him behind her. He grabbed her just as she reached the landing, his breathing still under control where hers was rapid and erratic. By some misfortune he had caught her just outside her bedroom door—it stood open, the old-fashioned half tester bed plainly in view.

‘Well, well, how convenient,’ he drawled, following her dismayed glance.’

Despite her height he picked her up as though she were a doll, kicking the door closed with one foot, and advancing towards the bed.

Having expected to be flung down on it, it came as a surprise to Brooke to find herself standing upright, Adam’s fingers manacling her wrists.

‘Well now,’ he drawled softly, ‘there are two ways of doing this. You can admit defeat— gracefully and charmingly as befits a lady …’ his voice lingered insolently over the noun, ‘or we can indulge in a little of the rough and tumble it seems so many of you ladies enjoy—a relic of the days when that was the way your ancestors won their rich brides perhaps? Which is it to be?’

He looked so controlled and indifferent, standing there watching her, that Brooke could hardly believe what she was hearing.

‘Either way it will be rape,’ she told him coldly. Too late now to bitterly regret her foolhardiness. Who was this man anyway? Her blood chilled as she remembered news stories of women abused and then murdered. Was this man….

The sound of his laughter as it filled the room, warm and genuine, threw her, stopping her terror-stricken thoughts in their tracks.

‘A nice try my dear, but hardly applicable.’ One hand unclasped her wrist, his thumb running slightly and tormentingly over the soft fullness of her bottom lip.

‘You have the most sensuously inviting mouth I’ve ever seen, and I wanted to feel it beneath mine, sweet and hot, the moment I set eyes on you. You’re no young girl just out of school to plead innocence and ignorance. You know exactly what you do to me when you look at me with those green-gold eyes.’

‘Rape …’ he laughed again. ‘It might be worth calling your bluff.’

He said it so with so much calm self-assurance that something inside Brooke snapped. Like all the others he couldn’t see beyond her looks; didn’t want to see beyond them. Just for a moment she wanted to hurt him as painfully as he had just hurt her.

‘Well, Brooke, which is it to be?’ His voice was soft, mesmeric almost, his thumb probing the closed line of her lips, its roughness oddly pleasant against her smooth skin. His other hand was travelling up her arm, his thumb tracing the line of the blue vein that pulsed against her skin. Anger and despair mingled in an explosive reaction. Brooke opened her mouth, her teeth snapping defensively against his thumb. Just in time he realised what she intended to do and drew back.

This time when his eyes darkened she was in no doubts about the emotions she saw mirrored there. Anger and a desire so intense that it stunned her. This time she was flat on her back, fighting for breath and for freedom as the weight of his body kept her there, precious little finesse in his actions as her angora jumper was pushed up to reveal the soft thrust of her breasts in her cream silk bra. The delicate cups were pushed aside as cavalierly as her jumper had been.

‘Very well, if this is the way you want it’

She opened her mouth to protest and then closed it quickly sucking air into her deprived lungs, torn between humiliated shock and a tearing, searing pleasure that invaded her body when Adam opened his mouth over the centre of one rounded breast and tugged impatiently at the soft pink crest.

Her body’s response was electrically immediate. No one had ever touched her so intimately, and intermingled with a bitter fury that he should dare to do so was an undeniable physical response. Her body had gone rigid with the shock of his intimacy, her mind spiralling wildly out of her control as she fought to marshall her defences, but before she could utter a word Adam was releasing her, pulling her into a sitting position and matter-of-factly straightening her clothes, the sudden about-face stunning her.

‘Well, well,’ he drawled when he had finished. ‘You are a surprise package, aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’ Brooke’s chin tilted belligerently. Now that Adam was no longer touching her a little of her courage filtered back.

‘Well, there can’t be many virgins of your age still left,’ he told her mockingly. ‘You must be in your mid-twenties, and when one takes into consideration all your many physical attributes….’ His glance slid insolently over her body, resting for several seconds on the soft curve of her breasts. Remembering how he had caressed them only minutes before Brooke felt her face go a deep and unhideable scarlet.

‘You’re not gay are you?’

The matter-of-fact question stunned her into fresh silence, and then he started to laugh again, further adding to her humiliation. ‘No, something tells me that you’re not, so that doesn’t leave us with many alternatives does it? Are you going to tell me why, or are we going to sit here all night playing guessing games until I find out,’ he asked her pleasantly.

This can’t really be happening, was Brooke’s first thought. She had expected him to be furiously angry when she rejected him, which he had been, but this unexpected turn of events totally flummoxed her.

‘Why should you want to know?’ She was dismayed to hear herself sounding like a sulky, petulant adolescent.

‘Oh for a variety of reasons, including the very natural Curiosity of any man who a woman chooses as her first lover.’

Once she had assimilated the implications of his remark Brooke flushed angrily again.

‘I did not choose you as my lover,’ she stormed back at him. ‘You made totally false suppositions about me which led you to believe that I was sexually available—at a price,’ she finished bitterly.

‘And you did nothing to deny those suppositions,’ he reminded her calmly, adding, ‘and something tells me that I’m far from being the first male to make them. Is that the reason you’re still a virgin?’

He was far too astute Brooke recognised on a wave of trepidation. Far, far too astute.

‘You can hardly blame them you know,’ he added grinning at her. ‘That mouth …’ he traced the outline of it with his thumb before she could retreat out of range, ‘in fact everything about you, possesses an earthy sensuality that can’t help but turn men on.’