Rules Of The Game. PENNY JORDAN

her mind Jay lifted his glance from her body to her flushed indignant face, laughter gleaming gold in his tawny eyes. ‘You know I can’t imagine you as a model somehow,’ he said softly, ‘You don’t strike me as a young woman who would docilely allow herself to be ordered what to do. Something tells me you prefer being the one who does the ordering. Is that why you prefer being behind the camera to being in front of it?’

      This was the moment to tell him that she wasn’t Nadia, but just as she opened her mouth, the main doors opened and a slim, harassed looking man in his mid-forties hurried out, relief clearly evident in his expression as he saw Jay Courtland.

      ‘Jay, there you are. There’s a call for you about the new contracts we’re hoping to set up for Supersport. Will you …’

      ‘Tell them I’ll ring back in fifteen minutes will you Russell. I think this young lady has something to say to me that just won’t wait.’

      Vanessa went scarlet as she felt the other man’s interested gaze skim over her, and then Jay was taking her arm and guiding her in through the open doors, down a carpeted corridor coming to an abrupt halt outside the farthest door. Thrusting it open he stood back so that Vanessa could precede him inside. The room still smelled of fresh paint and had obviously been re-decorated and refurnished. Her mouth twisted in a slightly bitter smile. Of course everything would have to be bright shiny new for the new owner.

      As though he guessed what she was thinking Jay Courtland watched her mobile face for a few seconds before offering, ‘Packaging my dear Nadia, you of all people should know how important that is. How can we hope to persuade our buyers that Supersport’s products are the best if we try to sell them from grubby, tatty offices?’

      ‘Spend money to make money?’ Vanessa asked acidly. ‘I should have thought you already had more than enough of that commodity?’

      ‘A man can never have too much of any commodity he prizes,’ Jay told her sardonically, ‘and I learned young the value of money; the status and power it confers upon its owner.’

      ‘And that’s what you want? Status, power?’

      ‘Is that so wrong?’ He walked over to the row of modern cabinets with their smoked glass fronts and extracted a bottle and two crystal glasses. ‘The respect of our peers, isn’t that what all of us want?’

      ‘Respect can’t be bought,’ Vanessa told him defiantly.

      ‘You think not?’ His mouth twisted wryly. ‘You think the Mayor would still be wanting to dine with me if I was still Jay Courtland, bastard orphan of this parish? Would I be enjoying the company of a beautiful woman like you if I was still the same Jay Courtland I was at fifteen?’ His eyes and mouth told her that he thought he knew the answer, and Vanessa realised for the first time how much bitterness there was concealed behind the mocking mask; the smooth urbanity with which he faced the world. How could she tell him that no matter what he had done in life he would always have been a man who commanded the attention of others, especially her own sex. He opened the bottle he had been holding in his hand, the popping of the cork alerting Vanessa to its contents. ‘Veuve Cliquot,’ he drawled as he poured the foaming clear liquid into the fluted champagne glasses. ‘Your favourite I believe.’

      Just about to correct him Vanessa realised that it was Nadia’s favourite drink, at least according to the popular press. She wanted to tell him that he was mistaken and that she wasn’t her glamorous cousin, but something more important took precedence. ‘You bought that for me? But how did you know …’

      ‘That you would come here?’ He shrugged powerful shoulders and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, Vanessa realised. Nor a warm smile, in fact it was cold and rather bitter, his eyes flat and empty as they studied her flushed face. ‘Wasn’t it part of the game that you should?’ he asked softly, handing her one of the glasses. ‘I must admit you showed ingenuity and since that is a trait I greatly admire, I felt it should be rewarded.’

      Ingenuity? Vanessa stared at him, the truth suddenly so clear that it could have been illuminated in ten foot high letters outside the factory. She put down her glass so quickly that some of the frothy liquid spilled, anger darkening her eyes to deep sapphire as she faced him.

      ‘I came here to apologise for this morning,’ she said enunciating the words clearly and slowly so that there could be no mistake. ‘I’m very sorry for what happened, but it was a genuine mistake. I had no idea. Everyone makes mistakes,’ she added wildly, when it became plain that she wasn’t getting through to him. ‘Gavin did have a session booked.’

      Jay had put down his glass and he came towards her, with a cool economy of movement that reminded her of a huge jungle cat. Even the way he walked possessed an undeniable sensuality she thought, watching him with one half of her brain while the other half struggled with the task of impressing upon him the truth.

      When he reached for her hands she was so surprised that she made no move to evade him. ‘I really can’t allow you to call a halt now that the game has begun, it promises to be far too interesting. If it makes you feel any happier we’ll forget about motives for the moment shall we and concentrate on this.’

      ‘This’ was the warm, firm pressure of his mouth on hers, as he parted her surprised lips with consummate ease, enfolding her in his arms almost before she even realised he had done so, and then once his mouth was in possession of hers, somehow it was impossible to pull away.

      She had been kissed before of course. She could hardly have reached twenty-two and not had some experience with the opposite sex, but because of her inferiority complex she had always chosen as her dates boys and then men biased towards the intellectual rather than the physical, and the actual realisation of what a kiss could and should be totally overwhelmed her. Before she knew what she was doing she was holding on to Jay’s hard shoulders, sliding her fingers into the thick silky hair at his nape, allowing him to taste and plunder her mouth as though she were no more than a ragdoll.

      That he was the one to break the kiss was a humiliation she would dwell on more deeply when she was alone, for now it was all she could do to simply stand up, her eyes betraying her bedazzlement, while thick, dark lashes concealed his expression from her, his voice as warm and lazy as always as he commented softly, ‘A most auspicious beginning, don’t you think.’ He reached out and ran his thumb along the bottom curve of her lip, watching the emotions chase one another through her dazed eyes, a tigerish smile springing to his mouth as he observed, ‘For such a very experienced lady, you certainly have quite a few tricks up your sleeve, or did one of your lovers tell you how arousing that mixture of inexperience and enthusiasm can be?’

      His words jerked her out of her bedazzlement and she pulled away, but it was too late to evade the hard pressure of his arms, and the even harder pressure of his mouth, as it reinforced his comments about her effect on him. This was no teasing, lazy kiss, but a man’s expression of his powerful physical need and avowing his intention of appeasing it, in a very explicit manner. A pervasive indolence spread through her body, heating her blood, melting her resistance, every nerve ending concentrating on the feelings beating through her body. Her mouth opened of its own accord beneath the hard pressure of Jay’s, her fingers sliding into his hair to prolong the caress, her body meltingly pliant against him so that she wasn’t quite sure when she first felt the touch of his fingers against her breast, only that they seemed to burn through the thin silk of her blouse and she could think of nothing she wanted more than to be with him; to be part of him.

      He tensed against her, lifting his head, and her body cried out its protest, her tongue touching her swollen lips. His eyes followed the brief movement. ‘Someone’s coming,’ he told her huskily. ‘You’d better go.’ He bent his head, trailing his tongue tormentingly across the tender flesh she had just moistened, and when he lifted it again his eyes glowed as brilliantly gold as the sun. ‘You do things to me I’ve only dreamed about,’ he moaned against her throat. ‘Think yourself lucky you got that phone call this morning, otherwise we’d have been making love on that damned “beach” of yours.’

      She was at the door almost before she realised what was happening. When it opened Russell was there,