‘Leave? With you?’ She arched her eyebrows and managed a cool trill of laughter. ‘My dear man, you’ve been entertaining company, but not that entertaining. I expect far more from a man than that before I allow him to take me anywhere.’ She turned her back on him, and smiled at Greg. ‘Be a darling, Greg, and get me another drink, will you?’ He was too drunk to argue. Well aware that everyone was watching them, Genista turned back to Luke, almost as though the gesture were an afterthought, her expression mockingly bland as she suggested, ‘If you’re lonely why don’t you ask Mary to go with you? You’d love Luke to take you home, wouldn’t you, Mary?’
The blonde girl glowered angrily at her, ignoring Luke, as she tossed her head disdainfully.
‘I’m not so short of a man that I need your cast-offs, thank you!’
Her departing flounce was rather spoiled by a slight wobble as she turned on excessively high heels, but otherwise her performance could not have been bettered had Genista written her script personally.
Luke was watching her with eyes that were suddenly smouldering like a volcano on the point of eruption, but Genista ignored the warning signs to say sweetly, ‘Still here? Can’t you take a hint?’
‘That’s what I thought I’d been doing ever since you walked in here,’ he snarled back at her, all the earlier traces of pseudo-tenderness gone. ‘You’ve been leading me on all evening, and now you turn me down flat. I want to know why, Genista.’
She hadn’t been expecting this. She had thought that her refusal to leave with him would have been enough to make him disappear without another word.
‘You do?’ Somehow she managed to appear calm. ‘Oh dear! I do so hate hurting people’s feelings. You’re a very attractive man, Luke,’ she added sweetly, ‘but you’re just not my type.’ She looked him up and down assessingly, a little surprised at her own ability to slip so easily into her new role. It was obviously true that there was a little of the actress in all women, although she seriously doubted her ability to give a repeat performance. Already her legs were beginning to feel distinctly shaky. There was something about the menacingly silent way in which Luke was regarding her that made her wonder if she might not have been wiser merely to have been satisfied with her initial success at putting him down, without trying to add any further gilding, but it was too late for second thoughts now. She had gone too far for those!
‘Oh?’ The solitary word was ominously quiet. ‘When did you discover that fact? When I didn’t accompany my offer to take you home with the promise of something more tangible if you spent the night with me?’
It was by a supreme effort of will that she prevented herself from hitting him. The cynical gleam in the charcoal grey eyes made the blood rush to her cheeks, but from somewhere she found the self-control to clench her hands into two small fists and say icily, ‘There isn’t enough money in the world to compensate me for having to endure a night in your bed. I can’t think of anything that would fill me with more revulsion.’
‘No?’ Luke’s voice had gone thick with rage. ‘Then you’re short of both imagination and memory. You were all but inviting me to make love to you there and then when we were dancing. If that was revulsion you felt you’ve got a damned funny way of showing it!’
When she didn’t say anything his eyes suddenly darkened suspiciously, his fingers biting into her wrist as he grasped it, hauling her against him. ‘You set me up, didn’t you?’ he demanded harshly. ‘You deliberately led me on, fully intending to humiliate me, didn’t you, you little bitch! God, you must be sick!’
Their onlookers had lost interest in them now and were drifting away. No doubt they thought Luke was still pleading with her to go with him, Genista thought wryly, nursing her aching wrist, when he turned without another word as he headed towards the door, leaving her standing alone.
‘Phew, you were taking a bit of a risk, weren’t you?’ Jilly Holmes, Greg’s secretary commented to Genista ten minutes later when Luke had gone.
Genista liked Jilly, they got on well together. She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. ‘Serves him right. He shouldn’t go round expecting females to fall at his feet with delight just because he deigns to smile at them.’
‘You weren’t exactly discouraging him, love,’ Jilly pointed out mildly. ‘In fact you were positively leading him on, and he didn’t strike me as the type of man to take very kindly to the way you humiliated him. It was a bit much, wasn’t it, Gen?’
‘What are you trying to do? Stir up my non-existent conscience? I’m telling you, Jilly, he got exactly what he was asking for, supercilious brute!’
‘Oh, come on. He was rather gorgeous. I wish he’d been looking at me the way he was looking at you. You had me convinced, you know. When the pair of you were dancing together, I thought the impossible had happened and you’d actually found a man you could like. You know, love, you were lucky he didn’t get nasty with you. You were really giving him the green light.’
‘Stop feeling sorry for him,’ shrugged Genista. ‘All I did was bruise his ego. You can’t be foolish enough to think he cared about me. We’d only just met! All he wanted to do was get me into bed.’
‘Don’t be so sure. Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?’
‘Often, but not from anyone who’s ever experienced it. Look, I think it’s time I went. I don’t know why I came really.’
‘Umm,’ mused Jilly. ‘Well, you can’t act the hermit all your life. I know you like to pretend that you’re quite happy in your solitude, but there must be times when you feel …’
‘A longing for a home and family?’ Genista interrupted briskly. ‘Never! Happy families are a myth, that’s all. Say goodbye to Greg for me, will you, Jilly. I’m going now.’
‘And you’re going to walk, I suppose, all on your own through the streets of London at this hour of the night. You must be mad!’
‘It’s only a short walk—quite safe. Don’t fuss. After all, I’m probably in far less danger walking home alone than I would have been if I’d accepted a lift from Luke.’
‘Umm, but that type of danger I could get to enjoy,’ Jilly drooled unrepentantly, but her eyes were clouded as she watched Genista go. There had been a look in Luke Ferguson’s eyes when he left the party that made her feel uneasy for her friend.
Genista, oblivious to Jilly’s concerned thoughts, collected her jacket from the bedroom where the coats had been left, adroitly fending off an amorous pass from one of the more junior members of the staff, as she reached past him to open the door. The night air felt cold, the street below the flat was deserted, and for a moment she considered going back inside and calling a taxi. The knowledge that it might be quite a while before she could get one made up her mind for her. It would only take her fifteen minutes or so to walk home. She had never felt at any risk in London before, it was silly to do so now just because of what Jilly had said.
Poor Jilly! She had obviously been quite smitten with Luke Ferguson. Genista shrugged. He deserved everything he had got. Disconcertingly she remembered the pressure of his hands on her back when they danced. He had held her close, making her feel every movement of his body as they swayed to the music, and knowing that apparent capitulation then would make her revenge seem all the sweeter, she had not objected to the way he had held her. She bit her lip, unconsciously worrying at it as she stepped outside. The street was deserted. Turning right, she walked briskly away from Greg’s flat, her mind on the possible repercussions of the takeover of Computerstore and its effect on her. She had no real need to work for a living, but she enjoyed her job and would not wish to lose it.
She had walked several yards before she became aware of the soft purr of a car engine behind her. At first it did not alarm her; all the old houses along this road had been converted into flats, and the sound of a car slowing to a halt was nothing to get frightened about. Only the car wasn’t stopping. It was crawling slowly and purposefully along