Fire Beneath The Ice. HELEN BROOKS

downcast. How could she reply to that? She took a long, hidden breath and prayed for calm. ‘How long have we been in here now?’ she asked tensely.

      ‘About ten minutes.’ He didn’t glance at his watch as he spoke; his gaze never left her face. ‘Shut your eyes a moment and try to relax,’ he added gently. ‘Take a few deep breaths and regulate your breathing.’ He thought there was a danger of her hyperventilating? Lydia thought weakly. How right he was, but not for the reason he imagined! Nevertheless, she did as he instructed, leaning back against the wall of the lift and shutting her eyes tight as she folded her arms protectively over her breasts. The dim light from the emergency batteries in the lift’s back-up system produced a dull charcoal glow against her closed eyelids, and after a few seconds she heard Wolf’s briefcase snap open and the rustle of papers.

      He was going to work now? She opened incredulous eyes to see him crouched over a long report, a slight frown wrinkling his brow as he peered at the small figures in the shadowy gloom. He was unbelievable, quite unbelievable. Didn’t he ever stop working? She smiled bemusedly.

      ‘What?’ She hadn’t been aware that the blue eyes had flicked upwards, but now saw they were trained on her face.

      ‘I’m sorry?’ She was flustered and it showed.

      ‘You were smiling, a Mona Lisa smile if I may say so,’ he added softly. ‘Why?’

      ‘Oh, nothing, it was just——’ She stopped abruptly as she wondered if she dared tell him. Oh, blow it, he had asked, after all. ‘I was wondering if you ever stop working,’ she said quietly, ‘that’s all.’

      ‘Do I detect a note of disapproval?’ he asked smoothly as he crouched back on his heels, the position emphasising strong muscled legs and hard inner thighs.

      ‘Not really.’ She smiled with what she hoped came across as cool composure. ‘I’m sure it needs your sort of dedication to stay at the top in this business——’

      ‘You’re right,’ he interrupted expressionlessly, ‘it does.’ He stood up slowly, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. ‘But that is only part of it. I like what I do, that’s the bottom line.’

      ‘Yes…’ She shook her head slowly. ‘But incidents like the Mike Wilson thing, don’t they bother you at all?’

      ‘Mike Wilson has been dealt with before he could do any damage,’ he said coldly, ‘and, more importantly, has been seen to be dealt with. He will serve as a timely example of what happens if anyone is stupid enough to try and cross me, so, if anything, I have gained, not lost, from the episode. That being the case, why should it bother me?’

      She stared at him silently, shocked by the blatant ruthlessness his words revealed. ‘But he has a wife and child,’ she murmured, after a pregnant pause. ‘You said yourself he’ll never get another job——’

      ‘That is his concern, not mine.’ The handsome face was stony now. ‘He had an excellent and extremely wellpaid position with me, which he chose to put in jeopardy through his own greed. He has lived an executive life-style for several years, complete with large house, private schooling for his boy, all the trappings wealth brings, and that has been on the salary I have paid him. If you are asking me to feel guilty, forget it. I don’t.’ He eyed her grimly. ‘Besides which, the Mike Wilsons of this world always get by,’ he finished brusquely.

      He was right. She had to admit there was more than a grain of truth in what he said, and he had had the option of giving Mike enough rope to hang himself but decided against it, and yet…She too rose, very slowly, to stand looking at him across the few feet of space. Did he have to be so cold, so remote, so untouched by it all? She doubted if he had any normal feelings at all or, if there were a few, they were deeply encased in solid ice.

      ‘I can understand what you are saying but——’ She stopped abruptly, not quite knowing how to continue. This was her boss, when all was said and done, her bread and butter, so to speak.

      ‘But?’ His expression was cynical and cold, and suddenly Lydia knew he was totally aware of her feelings about the matter and they didn’t bother him an iota. He was a man who would always do exactly what he thought was right in any situation in which he found himself, and to hell with the rest of the world. Her own mouth hardened, but even as she opened it to speak the security guard’s voice crackled over the intercom again.

      ‘Mr Strade?’

      ‘Yes?’ Wolf’s voice was clipped.

      ‘Any minute now, sir. Are you all right in there?’

      ‘Fine, Rogers.’ He bent, stuffing the papers back in his briefcase, and gesturing to her coat by her feet. ‘I suggest you put that back on,’ he said calmly as he reached across for his own. ‘No doubt it’ll strike cold once we’re out of this sauna.’

      At the same moment that the lights flooded back on the lift began to move, but in the same instant it jerked violently, throwing Lydia off her feet for the second time that night as it stopped again. And this time she was frightened, petrifyingly so. ‘Wolf?’ He had caught her as she fell, the momentum of her body and the bending position he had been in sending him to his knees and now she lay across his lap, her face uplifted and hair fanning out across his arm as the knot came loose. There was one split second, as she looked up into the hard, masculine face above her own, when she knew what was about to happen and felt the blood pound through her veins, her body beginning to quiver in anticipation. His eyes were bright and glittering as they stared down into the velvet brown depths of hers, the desire she could read so plainly in his dark face hot and hard and incredibly sensual.

      He was going to kiss her. The thought exploded into her mind, and now little tremors of helpless excitement reached her toes and curled the small pads into the soles of her feet as she envisaged his mouth on hers. She could feel his heart pounding against the solid wall of his chest and the expensive, heady, totally masculine smell of him pervaded every nerve and tissue.

      She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything in her life and, strangely, the thought didn’t seem shocking as his arms tightened and his eyes narrowed into brilliant blue slits.

      Wolf. She was never sure even afterwards if she said his name out loud or just breathed it in her soul as a silent, helpless plea, but just as she thought his dark head would lower to hers, that she would know what it was like to be kissed by this fierce, powerful, cold man, he moved her from him, his face stiffening with unconcealed disgust and his body rigid with control.

       CHAPTER THREE

      As THE intercom coughed and spluttered, the sound seemed to explode into the deathly quiet of the tiny box and then Rogers’s gruff voice spoke, his tone concerned. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Strade, there seems to have been a minor hiccup. The circuit-breakers have tripped out due to their normal mode being broken, but it won’t take me above five minutes to re-set them. Are you and the lady all right, sir?’