The Tycoon's Takeover. Liz Fielding

sense. Of course he was here.

      She’d been mentally redesigning the frontage, chatting with the commissionaire, taking her morning stroll through the main selling floors while Jordan David Farraday had gone straight to the top floor and was already taking over her job.

      ‘He arrived on the dot of ten o’clock. You said you were expecting him some time today, so when Security buzzed through I told them to send him up.’

      ‘I was expecting him to ring and let me know when he was coming. I wasn’t expecting him to just turn up…unannounced!’

      ‘I was supposed to say, Go away, we aren’t ready for you?’ India raised a hand in a gesture of apology, shook her head. ‘I gave him coffee and put him in your office. There is nowhere else,’ she complained.

      No, there was nowhere else. It had seemed like a great idea when Romana suggested ripping out underused offices and moving Customer Services to the top floor in order to create more selling space. And why hang about? Get in the builders, create a noisy, dusty atmosphere and maybe, without an office—or even a desk—to call his own, JD Farraday would be less inclined to linger in the store. It was time she needed. Not her arch-nemesis following her every move.

      ‘I’m sorry, Sally. You did the right thing, of course, but just because he was sitting in my office did you have to treat the man as if he were already running the place? Did you have to tell him about the population explosion in the nursery department?’

      ‘I didn’t. Someone came rushing in with the news and he just sort of…well…took charge,’ she said, a little breathlessly.

      ‘Great.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But I really do think I’d better go and see what’s happening downstairs.’ She was in no rush. In fact she had a sudden craving to be somewhere else. Lying on a deserted beach, perhaps. ‘Do you ever just wish the alarm clock hadn’t gone off? That you’d slept through the day?’

      ‘Not this one, I promise you. JD Farraday is not a man I’d ever want to miss.’

      ‘That’s all I need. A secretary with a crush on a man who wants to take over my store.’

      ‘His name is above the door too. And I don’t have a crush. My personal life is fully spoken for.’ Then she grinned. ‘But I’m not dead.’

      ‘That’ll be a comfort to you when he’s sitting in my chair and you’re looking for a new job.’

      ‘Oh, come on. That’s never going to happen.’

      ‘Two months ago I might have agreed with you.’ Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Her fallback position was the equal opportunities argument. He had a centuries-old agreement stating that control should pass to the ‘oldest male’. She was basing her equality on being ‘oldest female’. Would a lot of old men in wigs be swayed by the logic of that argument? Or would they—as she suspected—go for just plain ‘oldest’. Farraday, after all, was a man with a track record for making money. All she had to offer was a lifetime’s knowledge of the business and a passion to turn Claibourne’s into a household name—not just in London, or Britain, but in the world.

      ‘Hey, if all else fails you can always do a Claibourne on him.’

      Dragged back from the yawning chasm of failure, she frowned. ‘A Claibourne?’

      ‘Flutter those long dark lashes at him. Once he’s in love, he’ll forget all about taking away your toy.’

      ‘Oh, great. I’m trying to convince everyone that I can run this store on merit and you want me to seduce the man. Whatever happened to thirty years of women’s liberation?’ As she turned angrily away she snagged her tights on a battered cardboard box. Great. The day that she’d begun with an uneasy feeling of foreboding was rapidly going downhill. ‘Sally, what the devil is this?’

      ‘Oh—’ She sucked in her teeth as she saw the damage to India’s tights, took a new pair from a supply she kept in her bottom drawer and handed them over. ‘Sorry. The builders left it there. They’re files from your father’s office. Pretty old stuff, but I thought you might want to look at them before I sent them down to the basement.’

      ‘But I cleaned out all the filing cabinets in Dad’s office.’

      ‘These were right at the back of that big walk-in cupboard. It looked like a box of old catalogues, but, knowing how disorganised your father was, I thought I’d better check before it went down the chute into the skip. The files were at the bottom.’

      India flicked through the top file. Thirty years old, it dated from the time her father had taken over the store from JD Farraday’s grandfather, and her scalp prickled with a rush of excitement. ‘Sally, that designer skirt you’ve been drooling over…it’s yours. Charge it to my account.’ Cutting off her thanks, she went on, ‘Just shift these files first,’ she said, peeling off the torn tights and replacing them. ‘I’d hate JD Farraday to fall over them and sue us.’

      ‘Why would he do that? Wouldn’t that be like suing himself?’ Then, realising that it was not a conversation with a future, she said, ‘I’ll put them in your office.’

      ‘No!’ India took a deep breath. ‘No, don’t do that. Arrange for them to be put in my car.’ The last thing she needed was Jordan Farraday looking over her shoulder as she went through them.

      Correction. The last thing she needed was Jordan Farraday. Full stop.

      CHAPTER TWO

      INDIA took another deep breath before she pushed open the door to the nursery department. She seemed to be doing that a lot this morning, but it was fortunate that her lungs were loaded with air, because she didn’t breathe again for what seemed like an age.

      JD Farraday was the kind of man who would always make the need to breathe redundant.

      He didn’t court publicity, but she’d gathered what information she could about the man. The grainy photographs from the financial pages of heavyweight newspapers had suggested an averagely good-looking, dark-haired man in his mid to late thirties. They didn’t do him justice. There was nothing average about Jordan Farraday.

      His features were arranged in the conventional manner, it was true, but the combination achieved something far from ordinary. There was something about him that transcended mere good looks.

      As if that were not enough he was taller, his hair darker—the touch of silver at his temple only emphasising just how dark—than just tall, or just dark. But that was the superficial, obvious stuff.

      What set her midriff trembling like a joke jelly, prickled her scalp and set up the tiny hairs on her skin, was the way he dominated the room, the way every person in it was looking to him for guidance, leadership.

      Jordan Farraday was the archetypal dominant male. Alpha man. Leader of the pack. The kind of man who would always make other men appear ordinary, who would attract women like iron filings to a magnet. In short, he was the most exciting man she’d set eyes on in months…years…possibly ever…

      And she’d taken him on in a winner-takes-all battle for control of Claibourne & Farraday.

      Not that he appeared in the least bit threatening at the moment. Far from it. As she stood there he crouched down to gently sandwich the hand of the very young soon-to-be-mother between both of his, reassuring her as she was fastened into a chair trolley by a paramedic, his smile a promise that he would let nothing bad happen to her.

      ‘You’re going to be fine, Serena. I’ve phoned your boyfriend and he’s going straight to the hospital.’ His voice was low, calming, like being stroked by velvet. ‘He’ll be waiting for you when you arrive.’ He glanced at the paramedics. ‘Ready?’ One of them nodded. ‘You’ll be there in just a few minutes.’ As he turned slightly the light behind him lit up a classic profile—the kind that Greek sculptors had reserved for gods. ‘Would you like me to come along with you in the ambulance?’

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