SILK WICKEDNESS 1

SYNOPSIS

‘What about us Guy? Don’t you care about me and the baby?’

When I was asked to act as a kissogram for dishy Guy Hamilton, I didn’t mind. After all, I was doing it for charity. But somehow things didn’t turn out quite as expected. Guy looked much too angry when he saw me, so I decided to tease him a little. Unfortunately the plan backfired, and now I’m stuck in Arabia with him and his maddening teenage daughter! Still, it could be worse; I could have fallen for him and he could be carving my name - Claudia Maitland - on his bedpost. He’s way out of my league and I know I’d never be able to hold him. So why oh why do I keep hoping that this holiday will last forever?

CHAPTER 1

Long before the taxi pulled up outside the restaurant, Claudia was having second thoughts. Third and fourth thoughts too.

By the time it stopped her mouth felt like freeze-dried sawdust. Even now, it would be so easy to run away. One horrified gasp while she was paying the cabbie and a neat little fib about having left the gas on, and he’d have her home again in half an hour.

Don't even think of it, she told herself fiercely. Since when are you a quitter?

She tipped the cabbie with reckless generosity and wished she were dead. Three times she walked past that discreet black door. She’d never been there before, but she’d read write-ups in the glossies. Smart, French, with heart-failure prices.

Just do it, Claudia. Take a deep breath and open that door. One, two three . . .

With icy aplomb, she swept in.

She stood erect, clutching her black cashmere coat around her. All the tables were occupied. There was a discreet buzz of conversation and the hum of well-heeled Londoners doing justice to the chef.

She picked him out at once, at a secluded round corner table, bathed in soft candlelight.

Guy Hamilton.

That face had been etched on her memory. Hair the colour of old, polished mahogany, just long enough to show a slight wave. Medium olive skin. The kind of nose and chin that lesser mortals don’t mess with. And the kind of looks to make your worst female enemy hate you even more if he happened to have his arm around your waist at a party.

He lifted a bottle from the silver ice-bucket, offered it to an elderly lady on his right. There was an elderly man at his table too, and an exotically attractive girl in her early twenties.

Claudia was rapidly aware of the lessening chat at nearby tables. She knew she presented a dramatic figure: all in black, her coppery hair swept up, her skin creamy pale against the cashmere.

As if sensing her scrutiny, he looked up.

For several seconds, as their eyes locked, Claudia was paralysed with terror.

There was a tactful cough at her elbow. ‘Can I be of assistance, Madame ?’

It was too late to run away. Ignoring the head waiter, she swept across the room.

‘How can you do this?’ With an impassioned sweep of her hand, she indicated the half-finished rack of lamb, the lobster, the Chateau Latour. ‘What is all this costing? What about us, Guy? Don’t you care about me, and the baby?’

There were sharp intakes of breath all round the table. Before anybody recovered enough to utter, she ploughed on, her voice quivering with emotion. ‘How can you deny his existence? He needs you, Guy!’

Over the restaurant had fallen a deathly hush as the other diners realized there was something far more interesting going on than their own conversation.

She turned to his guests. To the elderly lady, trying to contain her well-bred horror. To the elderly man whose face had gone a nasty shade of purple.

Her voice trembled, but it was dignified, her head held high. ‘This man is the father of my son. All I want is for him to acknowledge his existence.*

For several long seconds there was an appalled silence. Not a fork fell, not a glass was lifted.

‘Guy, what is going on?* said the elderly lady, aghast. ‘Who is this woman?’

‘I have no idea.’ The Hamilton voice was deep and crisp and ominous. He rose swiftly to his feet, tossing his white linen napkin aside.

Although Claudia stood five feet nine in her heels, she seemed to have shrunk in the wash. The eyes that looked down on her were navy blue, and about as warm as a Scottish loch in winter. ‘Have you finished?’

Never had she understood so well that expression about being hanged for a sheep as a lamb. With one swift movement she slipped off her coat to reveal the cream silk teddy, the frothy suspenders - and the red rose pinned at her cleavage. With a flourish, she drew the pin from her hair, letting it cascade about her shoulders. With the other hand she released the rose and offered it to him with a wide, sweet smile.

‘Happy birthday, Guy,’ she said, with only the tiniest wobble.

The stunned silence was broken by a peal of helpless laughter from the girl.

Nobody else was laughing. The icy disapproval could not have been more marked if she’d stripped at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party. But Claudia was on autopilot to the bitter end.

The next few seconds were a blur; elusive male scent as her lips made an upward dash for his face, the smooth- shaved roughness of his cheek, firm hands on her waist, putting her sharply from him, and firmer fingers on her arm, propelling her to the door.

Once outside, Claudia almost collapsed in her relief that it was over. Only, unfortunately, it wasn’t.

‘Just for the record,’ he said, in tones as chill as the November air, ‘how much were you paid to embarrass my guests and interrupt a passable dinner?’

‘I haven’t been paid anything yet,’ she retorted, scrambling back into her coat. 'I did it for a bet.’

Part of a bet might have been more accurate, but it wasn’t time for splitting hairs.

‘You did this for a bet ?’ His voice rose with sarcastic incredulity. ‘Forgive me for asking, but did I wrong you in a previous life?’

‘It was just a joke,’ she retorted. ‘Where’s your sense of humour?’

‘Believe it or not, I seem to be suffering a major humour failure.’

He stepped off the pavement to hail a passing cab. As it pulled into the kerb the driver leaned over enquiringly. ‘Where to, mate?’

Guy Hamilton whipped a wallet from his pocket, thrust a note at him. ‘As far as possible.’ With that, he took Claudia’s arm and steered her cab-wards.

Indignantly she shook him off. ‘Do you mind?’

His reply was crisp and unequivocal. ‘I want to make quite sure you’re gone.’

After all she’d been through, it was a bit much. ‘You wretched misery! You deserve to be embarrassed. I hope you get indigestion.’

‘Do you, indeed? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’ll take a damn sight more than you to embarrass me.’

His voice took on a dangerous edge. ‘And one last thing, for the record. For a kissogram, it was a pretty dismal failure. Do it properly next time. Like this.’

She was too astonished to protest as he took her in his arms. There was no pussy-footing about with tentative nibbles. It was the firm, compelling possession of a mouth already conveniently open, and gaping like a goldfish.

And it lasted all of five seconds.

‘Here endeth the first lesson,’ he said, yanking the cab door open. ‘Off you go.’

With that, he bundled her into the cab.

Claudia was almost speechless. As the cab pulled away she yanked the window down. ‘Why are you taking it out on me?’ she yelled. ‘It was your girlfriend who ordered it!’

There was no reply. He stood motionless on the pavement till the cab was out of sight.

‘Had a bad day, love?’ enquired the cabbie tactfully.

Claudia pushed the window up again. ‘You could say that,’ she muttered.

At the end of a one-way street he stopped at a crossroads. ‘I know he said as far as possible, love, but that’s not in my A to Z'

She shook herself. ‘Putney,’ she said, with a sigh that seemed to come from her toes. Home, to Kate’s postmortem sympathy and a large gin and tonic.

What a nightmare. Even worse than the other night, when she’d done a Tarzan’s Jungle Jane at a fortieth birthday party.

From her pocket she drew the photo she’d been given for identification purposes. On the back was written, ‘Guy Hamilton. You can’t miss him.’

You’re right there , she thought.

His face was tanned above a pristine dress shirt and black tie, and half a ball-gowned blonde was visible on his right.

I knew you wouldn’t be amused , she told his photographic image silently. I took one look and just knew it was far too down-market for the likes of you .

‘The kissogram business is a wash-out,’ grumbled her cousin Ryan, two days later. ‘At this rate you’ll be here till Christmas.’

Claudia was praying her ordeal would be over long before that. ‘And then I suppose you’ll send me out as the naughty fairy from the top of the Christmas tree.’

‘That’ll be up to the punters, Claud. Personally, I’m praying every night that somebody’ll order a naughty nun for the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

Claudia knew her exasperation was wasted, but that didn’t stop her. ‘Aren’t you ever going to grow up?’

Ryan assumed the injured innocence that had always cloaked his wickedness. ‘I don’t know why you’re complaining. You’re going to get a big fat cheque for a dozen evenings of fun and - ’

‘Fww? It’s not my idea of fun, going half-naked into a room of complete strangers and kissing some fat, sweaty - ’

‘Fun for me, I meant,* he grinned. ‘I sit at home with a nice cold beer, imagining every gruesome detail.’

Claudia counted silently to ten. She had not been in the sunniest of moods on entering Ryan’s grubby office five minutes earlier, now she was beginning to understand why nice, normal people, the kind you natter to in the queue at the supermarket, suddenly turned into homicidal maniacs.

‘I really don't know what came over me, Officer . One minute he was grinning at me like a monkey, the next I found myself putting bits of mangled corpse through my Speedicook Chopomatic .’

The nerve-centre of Ryan’s dubious empire was located up a scruffy side-street in a scruffy corner of south-west London. The only pristine items in the office were two posters, fresh from the printers.

One read, ‘ryan's mini-cabs, airports, theatres, parcel DELIVERIES. COURTEOUS, CAREFUL DRIVERS.’

The other read, ‘ryan's kissogramsi french maids,

POLICEMEN, TARZANS, NAUGHTY NUNS, OR YOUR OWN ONE-OFF. TREAT SOMEONE TO A SURPRISE THEY'LL NEVER FORGET!’

‘Anyway, I’ve got to go,’ he went on. ‘Got a Gatwick run. Mick’s sick so we’re a driver short and you’ll have to use the mobiles because the radio’s on the blink.’

She forbore to say that everything in the office was on the blink, including his brain. ‘Push off then, you little toad.’

Ryan put on his most irritating smirk. ‘May I remind you, Claud, that you are my employee until I’ve won this bet. I’d like a little respect, please. A little cringing and crawling and yes sir-ing.’

She gave him a contemptuous withering look. ‘Until I’ve won it, you mean.’

‘In your dreams.’ He grinned and put his tongue out at her as he left, just like the devilish small boy who’d plagued her as a child.

As the door closed behind him Claudia just stopped herself throwing his coffee-mug at it. It was a disgusting mug, well overdue for smashing, but still half-full and she couldn’t face the mess.

Still, she had got herself into this. Having heard through her mother that Ryan had come into some money via some ancient great-aunt in Scotland who’d obviously never met him, and naively thinking that he might possibly have turned into a reasonable human being, she had called to see him one day, saying brightly, ‘Ryan, I’m approaching local businessmen on behalf of a very worthy cause.’

He had listened like an angel and said magnanimously, ‘I dare say I could manage a small donation.’

‘Er, how much?’ she’d enquired, her pen poised to nail him down.

Expecting a mere token, she had nearly fainted at his reply. ‘How much ?’ she’d squeaked.

Only then had the real Ryan reappeared, with the devilish grin she remembered so well. ‘It’s real money, Claud. But it’s more in the nature of a bet. And I bet you’ll never have the nerve to do it.’

With a sigh, she came back to the mess on Ryan’s desk, sorted his chaotic paperwork into piles. It was almost a

relief when the doorbell announced an imminent customer.

Until she saw who it was.

She’d have been less startled to see Mother Teresa in Ryan’s grubby office, and from the way he stopped dead it seemed that he’d had a minor shock too.

Claudia recovered her wits fast. He had come through that door with the grimly purposeful air of a man spoiling for a row, and if that was what he wanted, she was more than happy to oblige. It would liven up a dull morning, at any rate.

She put on her best, tongue-in-cheek smile. ‘How nice to see you, Mr Hamilton. Were you so delighted with our service that you want to book a repeat?’

Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he gazed down at her. It was a cool, measured assessment, from the top of her coppery hair, over her crisp white cotton shirt and back to her eyes, where it had started. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be running this dubious outfit. I seem to recall something about a bet.’

Claudia was recalling a few things too. Like the way he’d shoved her into that taxi. ‘Your memory would seem to be in order, Mr Hamilton. No signs of senile dementia yet.’

Purely for her own satisfaction, she was beginning to wish she’d bothered with more than a smidgeon of lip- gloss. A bit of mascara wouldn’t have come amiss either. Although her eyes were wide, vivid green, her lashes needed a bit of help.

He gave her a look that said, Don't get smart with me. ‘I assumed you meant a one-off.’

‘Oh, no. The agreement is a round dozen. And in between my fun nights out, I play office dogsbody. Make the tea, lick my boss’s boots, and generally pander to his poor little ego.’

The flicker at the corner of his mouth told her two things. One, that he didn’t believe a word of it, and, two, that even if he didn’t he was reluctantly amused. ‘May I ask what you stand to win?’

It was tempting to say, Money, what d’you think? but she didn’t want him thinking she was desperate. Besides, secrecy had been part of this deal. Ryan had been itching to rope in the local press, to capture her in all her glory and plaster it all over the Echo. He’d even thought of captions, such as ‘leggy redhead bares nearly all for charity’. He’d have revelled in the lurid publicity but she had threatened him with death if he breathed a word. People would think she was some tacky exhibitionist doing the ‘warm and caring’ bit.

With a flash of inspiration she said, ‘A bottle of champagne. Served on board Concorde, halfway to Tahiti.’

‘Wonderful. Except that Concorde doesn’t go to Tahiti.’

You would he the kind of smart-ass who knows these things , she thought crossly. And as he turned away to scan the posters on the walls she gave him a not-so-subtle onceover.

This was a different customer from the classic-suit model. He was dressed in casual trousers of sludgy olive-green, a lighter shirt and a suede jacket: the kind of smart casual that came with a hefty price-tag.