Bad Influence. SUSANNE MCCARTHY

touch he had promised…

      ‘Why did you disappear like that?’ he breathed, the husky timbre of his voice caressing her. ‘I thought I’d never see you again. If it hadn’t been for one very damp blanket on the floor by the open window I might have thought you were a figment of my dreams. And now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to let you go—I want to make love to you…’

      Abruptly his words brought her back to reality. What in hell was she doing, letting him kiss her again when she knew that he was a threat to everything she had worked for—everything her grandfather had worked for? Summoning all her strength, she forced her hands between them, struggling to push him away.

      ‘Damn that bloodless creep and his diamonds,’ he cursed, misunderstanding her reaction. ‘I can buy you diamonds—all the diamonds you want. Come upstairs to my suite and let me remind you what it’s like to be touched by hands that still have some warmth in them…’

      ‘Stop it—let me go…’ she begged, her voice rising in panic. ‘Leave me alone…’

      ‘It’s all right, Miss Geldard, we’ve got him!’

      As Georgia blinked in bewilderment a sixteen-stone gorilla in a white dinner jacket caught Jake from behind in a massive bear-hug, dragging him off her as another swung a punch at his head. With the instincts of a street-fighter he ducked, the blow hitting the first gorilla square on the jaw as Jake barged the second in a low rugby tackle, bringing him down in a sprawling heap—and the world erupted in a mêlée of flying fists and the exploding flashbulbs of Press cameras.

      ‘Stop it! You’ve made a mistake!’ she cried, wishing she could vanish through the floor as the atrium filled with curious guests, coming out to stare.

      Slowly the struggling mass on the floor resolved itself into three bruised and bloodied men, who drew cautiously apart and rose to their feet, eyeing each other with considerable hostility and suspicion. Jake shook his head, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to dab gingerly at a trickle of blood on his lip.

      ‘Would somebody mind telling me what in hell’s going on?’ he demanded, looking from his assailants to Georgia and back again.

      She drew in a deep, steadying breath. ‘I’m…sorry,’ she managed, conscious of the flaming heat in her cheeks. ‘These men are from the security firm responsible for protecting my diamonds.’

      ‘We thought you was trying to pinch ‘em,’ the first gorilla supplied. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Geldard—we was watching you dancing and everything looked kosher. Then the next minute you was missing, and when we got out here it looked like you was…having a bit of bother. I…suppose we jumped to the wrong conclusion,’ he added sheepishly. ‘No hard feelings, mate?’ he added to Jake. ‘We was just doing our job.’

      Jake grinned, accepting the massive hand that was being held out to him. ‘No hard feelings,’ he conceded, the glint of amusement in his half-closed eye suggesting to Georgia that he had quite enjoyed the scrap.

      ‘You put up a damned good show,’ the other gorilla admitted with wry admiration. ‘If you’re ever looking for a job, we could use you on the firm.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Jake responded, shaking his hand solemnly. ‘I hope I won’t ever need to be, but if I am I’ll remember that.’

      The flashbulbs exploded again, to catch the moment. ‘Miss Geldard, what are the diamonds worth?’ one of the photographers called out, delighted with this unexpected bonus on an evening when they had anticipated nothing more than deadly dull society snaps.

      With a swift step, Jake interposed himself between her and the cameras. ‘I think you have enough pictures,’ he asserted grimly. ‘Miss Geldard is tired.’

      There was a murmur of protest, but no one seemed inclined to argue with him. With some reluctance, the crowd and the photographers drifted slowly back to the ballroom. The security guards were the last to go, leaving them alone.

      Georgia lifted her hand to her hair, trying in vain to tuck back the strands that were slipping from the elegant arrangement her hairdresser had created. Nervously she flicked a glance up at Jake, who was leaning one wide shoulder against the stone pillar beside them, easing his grazed knuckles.

      ‘Well, Miss Geldard,’ he remarked, adding a sardonic emphasis to her name. ‘I suppose you could say that we’ve now been formally introduced—in a manner of speaking.’

      She lowered her lashes, her cheeks flushing faintly pink. ‘Yes, well…I’m very sorry for the…misunderstanding…’

      He shouted with laughter. ‘Well, that’s an understatement! There was I, thinking you’d found yourself a nice wealthy sugar-daddy, and what do you know? Turns out you’re a little Croesus in your own right!’ He lifted the heavy diamond collar around her throat on one finger, regarding it with the expert eye of one who knew his gemstones. ‘Very nice too—and worth a cool half a million, at least. No wonder you need bodyguards.’

      ‘Quite.’ With an effort of will, she lifted her eyes to meet his, all her icy dignity restored. ‘However, although there’s no “bloodless creep” on the scene, I’m afraid I must regretfully decline your charming invitation to go upstairs to your suite. I have no taste for casual one-night stands.’

      He laughed without humour. ‘That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.’

      ‘Oh? And what did you have in mind?’

      He regarded her for a moment in quizzical assessment, and then he shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think this is quite the right moment to explain,’ he responded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’

      She hesitated, drawing in a long, steadying breath. ‘I don’t think this is quite the right moment to explain,’ she countered crisply. ‘I’m sorry about the misunderstanding with the security people—I hope your injuries aren’t serious?’

      ‘I’ll live,’ he returned, an inflection of sardonic humour in his voice as he cautiously felt his swollen eye. ‘Ow! Those guys can sure pack a wallop!’

      ‘I’ll ask the kitchen to send you up a raw steak.’

      ‘You could try kissing it better…’ he taunted, leaning his hands against the wall on each side of her shoulders to trap her between his arms.

      Her blue eyes flashed him a frost warning, and she ducked neatly under his arm. ‘I’ll ask the kitchen to send you up a raw steak,’ she reiterated dampeningly as she turned him an aloof shoulder and walked back to the ballroom.

      He chuckled with wry amusement. ‘You know, you should always wear diamonds,’ he remarked in lazy mockery. ‘They go with your eyes.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘DECENT shiner you’ve got there, old man.’

      lake squinted out of his good eye, smiling wryly as the pale young man, whom he recognised as the one he had mistaken for Georgia’s rich sugar-daddy, came over to join him, leaning against the bonnet of the Range Rover. ‘You should see the other guy.’

      Robin Rustrom-Smith chuckled. ‘I had a ringside seat It’s all over the papers, you know. Our Sweet Georgia is not going to be best pleased with you—doesn’t like that sort of publicity.’

      Jake shrugged his wide shoulders in a dismissive gesture, holding his binoculars gingerly to his eyes to watch the string of horses galloping across the soft Lambourn turf. ‘How was I supposed to know who she was? She never told me her name.’

      ‘Ah, so that’s why you were so reckless. You got off lightly, you know—the last chap who tried it on with her still bears the scars.’

      ‘You don’t say,’ Jake drawled with laconic humour.

      ‘No,