War Of Love. Carole Mortimer

try it some time, Lyon; it might make all the difference—’

      ‘That’s enough, Henry!’ the younger man snapped tautly, eyes glacial now as he turned his attention back to Silke.

      Which she instantly wished he hadn’t. She had been finding the two men’s confrontation enlightening to say the least, but it certainly hadn’t improved Lyon’s temper—and it was now directed back at her!

      Well, if he had brought her up here, as she suspected he had, to reprimand her for her behaviour towards his uncle earlier, then he could go ahead and do it—and after he had, she would tell him exactly what a dirty old man she thought his uncle to be. And from the brief conversation between the two men just now, that shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to him! In fact, attack was her best defence, and she would get in her opinion of his uncle before he could even start on her.

      ‘I don’t know what your uncle has told you happened downstairs earlier, but—’

      ‘I thought I told you to sit,’ Lyon observed softly—too softly, dangerously so—completely ignoring her words. Again.

      Which Silke was becoming more than a little tired of! ‘I may be wearing this ridiculous bunny outfit—’ her eyes flashed deeply green behind the mask ‘—but underneath this I’m a person, not an animal to be ordered about!’ She was breathing deeply in her agitation.

      ‘I’m glad you agree that what you’re wearing is—inappropriate,’ he rasped drily, again ignoring what she had really said. ‘If you would care to remove—’

      ‘I don’t care to remove anything!’ she cut in frustratedly. ‘And if you can’t control the way your uncle behaves towards women, no matter what they are wearing, then I suggest you keep him away from them. Preferably far away!’ she snapped, looking from him to his mildly surprised uncle, before once again turning back to the younger man. ‘The few sharp words I said to him earlier were well deserved, and I would do it again given the same circumstances.’ She glared pointedly at the older man.

      Lyon was now looking at his uncle too. ‘Circumstances?’ he prompted softly, dark brows raised questioningly.

      The older man looked a little uncomfortable now. ‘Well, as I said, Lyon, she’s an appealing little thing.’ He moved his hands dismissively, once again billowing smoke around the room from the half-smoked cigar he still held.

      ‘And, being the old rogue that you are, you couldn’t resist the appeal!’ his nephew realised, shaking his head disgustedly. ‘God, Henry, you really are—’ He broke off abruptly as the intercom buzzed on his desk. ‘Yes?’ he rasped impatiently into the innocent machine.

      ‘Mr Moore to see you, Mr Buchanan,’ came the disembodied voice of his secretary.

      Silke missed the rest of the conversation, staring at the man who sat so confidently across the desk from her, at last beginning to realise exactly why he was so confident. Mr Buchanan! This man, the man who had forcibly dragged her into the lift and up to the executive floor of the department store, was a Buchanan.

      My God, and not just any Buchanan, from the way he had behaved towards her from the first and the deference with which the staff had treated him, but Buchanan himself, the owner of the store! Unless he was the son; she had thought the owner of the Buchanan group was someone called Charles Buchanan. Although this man’s uncle had said he had effectively been Lyon Buchanan’s guardian since he was a baby, so... None of this really made any difference to the fact that this man was a Buchanan. And the man she had verbally rebuked earlier was his uncle!

      She didn’t need any further telling to sit down; she almost fell into the waiting chair. What a mess! And her mother...! Oh, God, what her mother was going to say about this she just didn’t like to think.

      Silke turned dazedly as the office door opened behind them to admit Doug Moore.

      ‘Ah, Doug, so glad you could join us at last,’ he told the other man silkily now, getting slowly to his feet, instantly putting his personnel manager at a disadvantage with his superior height—if he needed any added advantage. His position as owner of the store already more than gave him that!

      The younger man looked puzzled by his employer’s obvious displeasure—obvious, despite the pleasantness of his tone; there was an air of menace about Lyon Buchanan that was unmistakable. ‘I was down in Ladies’ Fashions when I got your message—’

      ‘A pity you didn’t pay Confectionery a visit some time this morning,’ Lyon Buchanan told him icily. ‘Would you like to tell me what that is?’

      ‘That’ was Silke!

      She had recovered enough from the shock of realising exactly who this man was to look up to see what Lyon Buchanan was talking about, only to discover he was looking directly at her. She was ‘that’. Her shock was replaced by indignation as she realised he was once again talking about her as if she weren’t a person, with feelings, but an object to be discussed. And she didn’t care who he was, he still had no right—

      ‘Good God!’ Doug Moore, the man who had been perfectly charming to her earlier this morning when they met—probably because of his penchant for ‘pretty, youthful nubiles’—was now looking at her with something approaching horror. ‘I—my God...!’ he said again, weakly this time, looking in need of a chair himself now. Except that there wasn’t another one available!

      ‘A bunny girl, Doug,’ Lyon Buchanan rasped with feeling. ‘You employed a damned bunny girl in a costume so revealing that every lecher within a hundred miles made a beeline for her.’ He looked pointedly at his uncle. ‘A bunny girl,’ he repeated again, as if he could still hardly believe it, ‘to give away our line of chocolate Easter bunnies. When it should have been a cute fluffy rabbit children would find appealing!’

      At last Silke was being given an insight into exactly why she had been dragged off the shop floor and up here to the office of Lyon Buchanan himself—and it had nothing to do with what she had said to his uncle Henry! She had wondered at his puzzlement earlier concerning her accusations towards his uncle; now she knew it was because he had had no idea of the verbal encounter between his Uncle Henry and herself; the way his uncle had informed him she was dressed appeared to be the problem!

      ‘Forgive me if I’m wrong, Doug,’ Lyon Buchanan continued smoothly—his tone saying he knew damn well he wasn’t the one in the wrong, that he rarely, if ever, was! ‘But I thought we had agreed, during the meeting concerning this particular promotion, that we would contact an agency and take on someone who would—’

      ‘Wear a cute, fluffy bunny costume while giving away the chocolates,’ Doug Moore finished weakly, staring at Silke in the revealing costume as if he still couldn’t quite believe his eyes. ‘I don’t understand how the mistake could have happened—’

      ‘Oh, you admit there’s been a mistake?’ his employer prompted with raised brows, still supremely confident in the mistake’s not being of his making.

      Just as Silke was. But she wasn’t sure it was completely Doug Moore’s either; the instructions her mother had received had been ambiguous to say the least—a simple request for a girl in a bunny costume to promote a line at the store. And when Silke had reported to Doug Moore this morning she hadn’t been in costume, had changed in the staff-room later, so neither of them had realised then that the mistake had been made. And that appeared to be what this was: a genuine mistake, brought about through lack of information on both sides.

      Although from the look of increasing anger on Lyon Buchanan’s face he wasn’t going to be satisfied with that explanation! But it was the truth, so what more could any of them say?

      ‘Buchanan’s has a reputation to uphold,’ he told his personnel manager icily. ‘And I don’t believe having a barely clothed bunny girl in fishnet tights parading around the store is quite the image—’

      ‘I’m not wearing fishnet tights!’ Silke cut in indignantly as she stood up; she had drawn the line at that part of the costume that