Carole Mortimer Romance Collection. Carole Mortimer

his uncle, a man who obviously knew him reasonably well, wouldn’t believe the humorous—albeit at her expense!—innuendoes of the conversation. But it was at her expense, and there could be no doubting that Lyon Buchanan was enjoying putting her at a disadvantage.

      She moved closer to him, standing on tiptoe, giving the appearance of intimacy—very aware of their listening and watching audience. ‘Actually—’ she spoke conspiratorially, but still loud enough for the two women to hear ‘—while I found our last—encounter interesting, it isn’t one I want to repeat!’ She looked up at Lyon Buchanan triumphantly as she saw that the two women were now looking at him with open speculation, disappointment in their faces that a man who looked so virilely handsome should—apparently!—have been such a failure in bed. ‘Just my personal opinion, of course,’ Silke added with feigned apology, challenge returning to her eyes as she looked up at the now stony-faced Lyon Buchanan; he certainly didn’t like having the upper hand taken away from him!

      His mouth was a thin line. ‘And it’s such an experienced opinion, isn’t it?’ he rasped contemptuously.

      She should have known he wouldn’t let her get away with that one! ‘Well, one doesn’t like to boast...’ she returned dismissively.

      He looked down at her coldly. ‘In this day and age “one” would be insane to do so.’

      She might be in there fighting, but she was wise enough to know she wasn’t about to win in this conversation! Better to give up now, before she lost too badly... ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me,’ she told him lightly, ‘one of my other clients is waiting outside.’ She gave him a falsely bright smile. ‘If you should need the agency’s services again, just give them a ring. But don’t ask for me,’ was her parting shot before she turned to give the now open-mouthed women a bright, meaningless smile on her way out of the store.

      She knew exactly the impression she had given with that last comment, of herself—and Lyon Buchanan. And it was him she had meant to hit out at. She didn’t particularly care for herself, knew who she was, also what she was, and the opinion of two women she was never likely to see again was completely unimportant to her. Lyon Buchanan was the one who needed to be shown that she didn’t consider herself one of his underlings whom he could browbeat with his damned arrogance, or a woman he could ‘frighten away’ with his rudeness.

      Arrogant. Self-opinionated. Chauvinistic. Silke had never met a man like him before!

      And she didn’t want to meet him again either.

      Though there was no reason on this earth why she ever should!

      * * *

      ‘Stop laughing, Mother.’ Silke frowned across at her mother as she rocked back and forth in the leather chair behind her desk. ‘God!’ She gave an impatient sigh. ‘I was worried sick you would be upset about annoying Buchanan himself, and instead you go off into hysterical laughter! I should have realised your warped sense of humour would find the situation funny!’ She sat down dejectedly in the chair opposite her mother.

      Tina Jordan, an older version of Silke, sobered slightly, her mouth still twitching as she tried to contain her laughter, laughter that had convulsed her ever since Silke had told her what had happened to her after the discovery of the mistake over the rabbit outfit.

      ‘Sorry.’ She chewed on her top lip in an effort to stop herself laughing again. ‘It’s just that I would have loved to have seen the look on Lyon Buchanan’s face when he first saw you dressed up as a bunny girl and not the fluffy bunny he had been expecting!’ Green eyes, so like Silke’s, glittered with suppressed humour.

      ‘Believe me,’ Silke groaned at the memory, ‘you wouldn’t!’

      Her mother sobered slightly. ‘Maybe not,’ she acknowledged drily. ‘Doug Moore sounded under more than a little pressure when he telephoned a short time ago.’

      Remembering the grim determination on Lyon Buchanan’s face as she hastily left his office, Silke thought ‘more than a little pressure’ was probably putting it mildly—very mildly! ‘Well, I for one am not going back there, Mother,’ she said firmly. ‘You don’t pay enough for me to put myself through clashing with Lyon Buchanan again.’ She still shuddered at the thought of her disastrous morning.

      ‘You don’t have to go back,’ her mother assured her with a shake of her head. ‘Nadine’s audition didn’t go well this morning, so I’ve sent her along to Buchanan’s.’

      Silke could hardly contain her relief. And then she berated herself for being such a coward. Who was Lyon Buchanan, anyway? Just a man. An arrogantly powerful one, yes, but still just a man.

      ‘What’s he like?’

      She gave her mother a sharp look. She hadn’t realised she was being watched, that her every expression would give away her confused anger where Lyon Buchanan was concerned. And that would intrigue her mother—the fact that Silke had reacted to Lyon Buchanan at all. Because she hadn’t reacted to any man for almost a year. Since James. The man she had been dating for three years. The man who, on the eve of their wedding, had eloped with a girl he had only met the week before!

      Since that time, Silke had considered that men weren’t worth bothering with, that she couldn’t put her trust in any of them. Her mother had been telling her as much for years, but, like the naïve idiot she had been, Silke had thought James was different. The two of them had been friends as much as anything else, so in effect she felt she had been let down not only by the man she loved but by her friend as well.

      ‘He’s just a man, Mother,’ she dismissed with a grimace, not wanting to give away the fact that he was probably unlike any other man she had ever met.

      ‘Yes, but—’ Her mother broke off the conversation as the office door opened, her smile one of polite enquiry as she turned towards what she hoped was a prospective client.

      But the smile froze on her lips, and the colour faded from her cheeks, her eyes wide.

      Silke frowned at this sudden change in her mother, turning towards the door herself, her frown deepening as she saw ‘Uncle Henry’ standing there. What on earth—?

      ‘Hal...!’ Her mother’s voice was a strangulated croak.

      ‘Satin!’ Henry returned with satisfaction, grey eyes glowing excitedly.

      Hal? Satin! Her mother’s name was Tina, so—but what did it matter what her mother’s name was, when it was perfectly obvious that Henry and her mother knew each other, and more than casually if her mother’s stunned reaction was anything to go by, her mother standing up now, still very pale, and totally unable to tear her gaze away from Henry—Hal...?

      And, as Silke looked at the two of them, she couldn’t help wondering if it had been her likeness to her mother that had caused Henry’s collapse earlier...

CHAPTER THREE

      ‘SATIN!’ Henry cried protestingly as, much to Silke’s amazement, her mother pushed her chair back and rushed from the room, a hunted look on her ravished face.

      And Silke was amazed—because, as far as she knew, her mother had never run from a situation in her life!

      Or maybe, just maybe, her mother had been running all her life...?

      Silke had never quite looked at her mother’s unsettled life in that way before, but in retrospect, with her mother’s reaction to ‘Hal’, perhaps there was another reason than wanderlust for her mother having travelled so much in her life in the way that she had. It—

      ‘I knew it,’ Henry gasped from across the room. ‘I thought—I hoped it might be true when I first saw you, Silke, but once you had told me your name—!’ He shook his head dazedly.

      ‘Satin’ and Silke...

      ‘—I just knew it had to be true,’