First Love, Last Love. Carole Mortimer

not told.’

      ‘Maybe that’s why you can’t hold on to your boy-friends,’ he remarked dryly. ‘The man likes to be in charge, Lauren, not the other way around.’

      ‘I can hold on to my boy-friends!’ she told him angrily.

      ‘Is that why the Canadian boy is deserting you at the end of the week and Steve Prescott has been reduced to the level of a friend?’

      ‘The reasons for Daryl leaving at the end of the week and Steve being a friend of mine are none of your business,’ Lauri told him with dignity. ‘I’m having to meet you to sort out the problem of your car, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to ask personal questions.’

      To her consternation she heard him laugh. ‘My dear girl, I have no intention of asking you personal questions.’

      ‘But you—you did!’ she accused.

      ‘It was a question in the form of a statement, Lauren. Now, much as I’m enjoying this conversation,’ he added in a bored voice, his tone instantly giving lie to his words, ‘I have work to do. I’m sure you do too. May I remind you that you’re making this call in my time, and on a firm’s telephone, no doubt?’

      Lauri flushed her guilt, glad he couldn’t see her. ‘One o’clock, I think you said?’

      ‘That’s right.’ The line went dead as he rang off.

      Lauri put the telephone down her end, an angry sparkle in her glittering green eyes, a furious flush to her cheeks, her mouth set in a mutinous line. Bossy, overbearing—All the names she had previously called him seemed mild in comparison to what she wanted to call him now.

      God, he was an arrogant swine! Just because he owned this firm, was her employer, it didn’t give him the right to treat her as if she had no more intelligence than a rather slow-witted child. If he thought he could talk to her in that manner and get away with it then he was in for a shock. She—–

      Carly’s wry chuckle broke in on her vehement thoughts. ‘I pity poor Daryl if he’s the cause of all that anger,’ she teased, coming back into her office.

      Lauri gave a start of surprise, so intense had been her dislike of Alexander Blair that she had forgotten where she was for the moment. She forced a smile to her lips and stood up to leave. ‘He doesn’t need your pity,’ she told Carly tightly. And she didn’t mean Daryl! ‘He’s just too fond of having his own way.’

      ‘Aren’t we all?’ Carly smiled.

      ‘Perhaps.’ But Alexander Blair had met his match in her, Lauri Prescott, she would make sure of that.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SHE felt very conspicuous standing outside the restaurant at one o’clock, aware that she had received a few curious looks from people entering this fashionable eating house. It was ten past one already; if Alexander Blair didn’t turn up soon she was leaving.

      As it was she had had another row with Daryl, this time about her not meeting him for lunch. She had told him she and Jane were going shopping, but he had wanted to know why she couldn’t meet her aunt at five o’clock and do their shopping then. Lauri had made the excuse that Jane might have to work late, hating having to lie to him, but at least he seemed to accept that explanation. Anyway, it could be the truth, Jane could be working late.

      She looked down at her wrist-watch. Another five minutes, that was all she would give him, and then she was off. If he thought she was going to stand about here waiting for him then he was sadly—–

      ‘Are you going to get in?’ drawled that infuriatingly familiar voice. ‘Or do you want me to get booked for illegal parking?’

      Lauri looked over at the source of that voice. A low sleek black car, a Ferrari, she thought, was parked next to the pavement. And Alexander Blair was seated behind the wheel. She had seen the car draw up, but as she was looking for a brown and gold Rolls-Royce the arrival of this car had meant nothing to her, except to register what a fantastic car it was.

      ‘I didn’t realise it was you,’ she told him resentfully, moving to stand by the open window on the passenger side.

      He gave her an impatient look. ‘Are you even going to argue about getting into the car?’ he sighed.

      ‘No, of course not!’ She wrenched open the door and scrambled inside, at once sinking into the luxury—and intimacy—of the interior. Alexander Blair was much too close in the confines of such a car, making her aware of the tangy aftershave he wore and the much more basic male smell of him. ‘I was looking for the Rolls,’ she added stubbornly.