Brand Of Possession. Carole Mortimer

proximity.

      ‘I know that.’ He took hold of her elbow as someone walked past them. ‘Shall we go to your room?’

      She snatched her arm out of his grasp, startled by his words. ‘How dare you!’ she gasped. ‘I may have spoken to you, but I certainly didn't——’

      His mouth turned back mockingly. ‘I'm not so stupid that I think a polite conversation in the lift entitles me to invite myself into your bed. I suggested we go to your room as a means of gaining privacy, we seem to be attracting quite a lot of attention standing here.’ As if to prove his point one of the porters walked by, turning back to stare at them curiously.

      ‘Well, yes. But why should we need privacy?’ she asked sharply.

      He looked even more impatient. ‘I want to know more about the reason for your being dismissed from the film.’

      Her green eyes widened. ‘Why? It has nothing to do with you.’

      ‘It may do,’ he contradicted curtly.

      ‘The fact that you work for Jake Weston doesn't give you the right——’

      His dark brows rose. ‘What makes you think I work for Jake Weston?’

      She shrugged. ‘I—Well, you do, don't you?’

      ‘I may do.’

      She nodded. ‘I thought so.’

      ‘Mm—well, now that you know I'm not just a curious stranger perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me the reason you were fired.’

      ‘But I would,’ she said stubbornly. ‘The reasons are private and need only be known to the director and myself.’

      Those blue eyes remained intent upon her. ‘I disagree with you. Don't you think Mr Weston has the right to know the reasons too?’

      ‘Perhaps,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But you aren't Jake Weston.’

      He acknowledged this with a grim smile. ‘Perhaps not, but I could tell him.’

      Stacy had to almost bend back to look up at him, he being at least a foot taller than herself if not more. He made her feel small and feminine, as if she could easily be crushed in his muscular arms, and it was a feeling she found strangely pleasing. ‘Why should he be interested in the sacking of a girl playing a minor role in a film he wrote?’

      His mouth tightened as if in anger. ‘Because although you consider him to be—now what was it? Fat, bald and ageing? Mm,’ he nodded at her flushed face, ‘I think that was the way you described him.’

      ‘You know it was,’ she muttered resentfully. ‘I didn't realise anyone had heard what we had to say.’

      ‘It wasn't intentional.’ He pushed back a dark swathe of hair with impatient fingers, as if its thick vitality irritated him. ‘But just because you consider him to be all of those things it doesn't mean he's incapable of appreciating a beautiful woman.’

      Stacy blushed, although the words were in no way presented as a compliment but more a statement of facts. She knew she was attractive, in her job she had to be aware of her own potential, but this man had made it almost seem a crime for her slender figure, long red hair, sparkling green eyes, small uptilted nose and wide smiling mouth to be in the least beautiful.

      Her eyes flashed angrily, her lashes naturally sooty and long. ‘Well, as he's never seen me he won't know what he's missing,’ she snapped. Really, this man was arrogant!

      Even his stance was arrogant, his legs slightly apart, challenge in every muscle and sinew. ‘But he has seen you, several times, in fact,’ he told her calmly.

      She frowned. ‘I'm sure I would have remembered it.’

      ‘Really?’ he asked mockingly. ‘Do you remember every short, fat, balding man who makes your acquaintance?’

      Stacy flushed angrily. ‘You overheard a purely private conversation, and it's very rude of you to keep reminding me of it.’

      ‘I stand rebuked,’ he taunted.

      ‘You're damned arrogant!’ she said tautly.

      He gave a deep husky laugh, an attractive sound that made her nerve-endings tingle. His teeth were firm and white against the dark tan of his skin and he looked younger when he laughed, although she would say he was in his late thirties, the fine lines at the corner of his eyes and mouth an indication of the licentious life he had led the last thirty-seven, thirty-eight years.

      ‘So I've been told,’ he acknowledged without shame.

      ‘I'm sure I would have remembered if I'd met Mr Weston. Besides, he only arrived today, and I've only just got back to the hotel.’

      He still looked amused. ‘I didn't say you'd met him, I said he'd seen you—on film. Your screen test actually. There were over a hundred applicants for that part when they narrowed the field down, and he wanted to choose the girl for that part himself. He chose you.’

      ‘I didn't realise.’

      ‘Although it's only a small part he considered that role important, the girl Jason eventually marries.’

      She looked surprised. ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

      ‘I would hardly be a good employee if I didn't take an interest in my employer's work.’

      ‘What exactly do you do?’

      He shrugged his wide powerful shoulders. ‘This and that.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘I doubt it,’ he mocked, not rising to her contempt. ‘But I really couldn't give a damn. So, the reason you've been fired?’

      Stacy gave a defiant flick of her head, her long red tresses flying back over her shoulder. ‘If you're that interested ask the director.’

      ‘He's the one who dismissed you?’

      She grinned as she remembered the meeting she had just been through with Martin Payne, her good humour never down for long. ‘You could say that,’ she agreed.

      ‘Then I'll talk to him.’

      Stacy shrugged. ‘Please yourself. I have to go and change for dinner, excuse me,’ and she walked off before he could answer her.

      ‘You didn't tell me your name,’ he called after her.

      She hesitated with her key in the door to her room, turning to look at him as he stood several feet away from her. ‘My name? You seem to be the one with all the answers, so find out!’ She quickly opened the door, slamming it hurriedly behind her.

      She leant back against the door, smiling impishly at her room-mate, who sat on one of the single beds yawning tiredly. As one of the unknowns in the film Stacy didn't merit being given a room of her own, but luckily she liked Juliet Small, which was perhaps as well in the circumstances. Juliet had a slightly smaller part than herself, another love of the hero Jason, so she supposed it was only natural for them to be put in the same room.

      Juliet was slightly older than her, twenty-five to her nineteen, with bubbly black curls and an impish face. She stood up now, stretching her aching limbs. ‘God, I'm tired!’ she groaned. ‘I had to go through that scene in the hayloft with Paul Forbes so many times today that I feel positively unclean!’

      Stacy grimaced, beginning to unpeel the figure-hugging dress from her own tired limbs. ‘I'm not surprised, having to let him paw you all over like that.’

      Juliet grinned. ‘Oh, I didn't mind that. It was all that hay, I have an allergy to it.’

      ‘And I have an allergy to Paul Forbes.’ Stacy stepped out of the dress completely, clothed now in only a pair of minute briefs. ‘Thank God I don't have to let him touch me!’ she shuddered at the thought, going through to the adjoining bathroom to run the water for her shower.

      Juliet