Reluctant Mistress. Natalie Fox

to happen?’

      ‘He didn’t say; ranted on about dropping sales and restructuring the whole set-up, and we both know what that means. New editor for starters.’

      Liza opened her mouth to protest but snapped it shut when John raised his hand. ‘Don’t say anything, Liza. I’ve brought it on myself. Not moved with the times, have I? He was right, you know. If it weren’t for you and your persuasive ways with the advertisers we would have sunk into oblivion a long while back.’ He stood up, stretched his long limbs lazily. ‘Can I buy you a liquid lunch to drown our sorrows?’

      Liza shook her head. ‘I’ve some calls to make. Robert Buchanan hasn’t folded us yet. Life goes on.’ She reached for the phone, pausing to watch John leave her office. Those liquid lunches didn’t help him one bit. Half the afternoon he was in a hazy stupor. His secretary and a variety of assistants had carried him for months now. It was no wonder the magazine was slipping.

      Impatiently Liza slammed down the phone. The calls would have to wait: she needed air. Slipping a ginger suede jacket over her dark green suit, she headed for the lift. A brisk walk down Berwick Street Market would clear her head.

      February greyness greeted her as she emerged out into Beak Street, but it hadn’t put off the tourists in Carnaby Street. They swarmed like excited bees, shrieking with laughter at some of the absurdities for sale. Liza crossed the road, headed in the opposite direction, and was nearly winded as a car door jerked open in front of her. She was about to slam it shut with a suitable expletive when she recognised the back-seat occupant.

      ‘Get in!’ Robert Buchanan ordered flintily.

      ‘I’m sorry, I have a lunch appointment,’ she lied.

      ‘Yes, with me. Get in before I haul you in, and don’t bother making a scene; in Soho it’s not unusual for women to be picked up in a limousine.’

      Flushing furiously, Liza slid in beside him and slammed the door viciously as a protest.

      ‘Thanks for the comparison,’ she fired sarcastically. ‘You’re obviously an experienced kerb crawler!’

      ‘Does nothing but hell-fire and fury ever emerge from that pretty little mouth of yours?’ he drawled as the chauffeur pioneered the huge black limousine through seething masses of lunchtimers in the narrow backstreets of Soho.

      ‘When there’s reason to I can charm the birds from the trees,’ she told him sweetly, her eyes straight ahead.

      ‘I bet you can,’ he murmured, and Liza suspected he might be smiling.

      ‘So what is the purpose of this pick-up?’ she asked stiffly, sure she was going to be the first sacking from Leisure Days magazine.

      ‘Lunch for one thing, business for another. Creda Court, Battersea, Carl,’ he directed at the chauffeur.

      Swivelling to face him, Liza gasped. ‘Creda Court! But that’s where I live!’

      He looked at her, dark eyes flecked with shards of silver. ‘I know. I thought a homely lunch and a chat out of the public eye a good idea; don’t you?’

      ‘I don’t!’ she rasped.

      ‘So you’d rather we conducted our business in a restaurant with the Press breathing down our necks and you making the gossip columns tomorrow morning?’

      Green eyes wide with shock, Liza gaped at him. ‘Business? Gossip columns? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’

      She gazed blindly out of the window. Of course she knew what he meant about the Press. Every movement he made was recorded and publicised, but then he asked for it all. He did nothing by halves. Take-overs, mergers, women; they were all the same to him—a challenge! The tabloids loved all that macho action-man stuff—it sold papers. And of course he was good-looking, achingly so.

      ‘I don’t think my husband would approve of my picking up strange men and bringing them home for lunch,’ she offered when he didn’t enlarge on her comments.

      ‘A husband, eh? When was the wedding—this morning in your coffee break?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘At the close of business last night you were very much a single lady. Life moves at a great pace in London, I know, but I’d say an overnight courtship is a bit racy, even for me.’

      ‘You...you know I’m single?’ Liza stammered uneasily, a coil of apprehension winding inside her.

      ‘I know everything about you, Liza Kay. Twenty-eight years old. Ten years in publishing, seven of those on the advertising side. Born and educated in Hampstead. Parents still live there. One younger sister, married to the writer Graham Bond with whom you had a two-year relationship—’

      ‘How dare you?’ Liza exclaimed angrily, her fiery blood rushing to the boil. ‘How dare you pry into my private life? Where did you get all this information and, more importantly, why?’ Her heart hammered at her ribcage. What on earth was going on here?

      ‘I don’t employ trouble. I have a detailed profile on all my key staff.’

      ‘I’m not your key staff!’ she retorted. ‘You haven’t officially taken over yet. I still work for—’

      ‘As from four o’clock this afternoon, Leisure Days doesn’t exist. As from nine o’clock tomorrow morning you work for Magnum Enterprises; in other words, me.’

      Stunned, Liza stared at him, her words of protest jamming painfully in her throat. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t work for him!

      ‘This should take about an hour, Carl,’ Robert Buchanan leaned forward to tell his chauffeur as they pulled up in the cobbled courtyard where a cluster of small architect-designed three-storey town houses were grouped.

      ‘Do you want me to wait, sir?’

      ‘No, Carl, take yourself off for some lunch, but be back by three—I’ve an appointment at three fifteen in Westminster.’

      Somehow Liza’s long legs carried her to her front door. She fumbled with the mortice lock, so sharply aware of him standing slightly behind her that her fingers felt stiff and clumsy. She heard the limousine reversing out of the courtyard, then her heartbeat racing inside her. This was ridiculous! Panic was rising unnecessarily. He’d offered her a job, wanted to talk about it over lunch in her home, and she understood why; nevertheless...

      ‘A nice home you have,’ he commented as she led him upstairs to the first-floor sitting-room. She took off her jacket and watched him warily as he stepped towards the window. ‘A river view; very pleasant.’

      ‘It’s...it’s even better from the bedrooms upstairs.’

      She could have bitten her tongue out for that. Heat scorched her neck as lazily he turned to her and, with a sardonic smile creasing across his jawline, he said, ‘Thanks for the offer but I came here to talk business, not to make love to you.’

      ‘I...I didn’t mean that!’ she blurted self-consciously. Oh, he was quick, too sharp and suggestive by far.

      ‘Didn’t you?’ He slid out of his suit jacket, flung it carelessly across her chintz Laura Ashley sofa. ‘You wouldn’t be the first woman to offer me her body within fifteen minutes of our relationship.’

      Steeling herself, Liza decided there was only one way to deal with this man—bluntly!

      ‘Takes that long, does it?’ she iced. ‘Don’t bother to make yourself comfortable,’ she blazed as he was about to lower himself on to the sofa. ‘Pick up your jacket and march, Mr Robert Buchanan; we have nothing to say to each other, business or otherwise.’

      He straightened up, a suggestion of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘You can afford to be that choosy, can you?’

      ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘You’re turning