Just then Amanda approached her secretary. Amanda Blake was a tall broad woman, in her late forties. Un-married, she had devoted her life to her work and her novels were very popular, both in this country and overseas, where they were translated into many different languages. Her work was of the kind which appealed to almost anybody and there had been talk recently of film rights and adaptations. Susan thought it all very exciting and knew that after she was married she would miss the world that Amanda moved in.
Of course, with the money she had amassed and a small private income, Amanda could have retired, but she enjoyed writing her thrillers as much as everyone enjoyed reading them and could not imagine life without a current who-dunnit on the go. Her hair, a mousey-grey, was cut short and straight. She wore tweeds whatever the occasion, and horn-rimmed spectacles completed a picture of stern solemnity. Not so, however, was the real Amanda, as Susan had soon found out. Quite contrary to her looks she had an unending fund of good humour and a dry and clever wit which endeared her to the columnists.
‘Enjoying yourself, Susan?’ she asked now, looking at the half-empty glass of gin and vermouth in Susan's hand. She was very fond of her young assistant and their association veered nearer to a mother-and-daughter relationship than that of employer and employee.
Susan smiled. ‘I thought it would have been over by now, Amanda,’ she replied, sighing.
‘I expect you've got a date with that young man of yours,’ remarked Amanda dryly. ‘Let him wait. Good for the soul, you know. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that.'
Susan laughed. ‘You always say that,’ she answered. ‘And David does quite a bit of waiting for me. What time is this likely to dry up?'
‘Sevenish,’ said Amanda. ‘Will that do?'
Susan opened her mouth to reply when an eager reporter beat her to it and bore Amanda off to discuss some aspect of the new novel.
Sighing again, Susan turned and walked into the large modern kitchen which adjoined the lounge, and poured the remains of her drink down the sink. She had had four gin slings already. She did not want to meet David in an intoxicated condition. He was a teetotaller and disapproved of alcohol.
She drew a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her slacks and lit one and then looked critically at her reflection in the mirror above the draining board. Green, sleepy eyes looked back at her, veiled by long black lashes, while her ash-blonde hair hung loosely to her shoulders where it curved up lightly at the ends. Her hair was thick and silky soft, and did not need to curl to be attractive.
Suddenly, she became aware that someone was watching her from the doorway which led to the tradesmen's entrance of the apartment; someone who was very big and broad and darkly attractive, with raven's-wing dark hair which was inclined to curl on his collar. Dressed in a thigh-length overcoat and a dark suit, he was quite the most physically attractive man she had ever seen; he was so completely male, and estimating that he was about thirty-five, she imagined she would not be the first, or the last, woman to think so.
Aware of a kind of breathlessness about her, she managed to say: ‘Who on earth are you?'
‘A newspaper man,’ he remarked, non-committally.
Susan flushed beneath his gaze, annoyed at feeling suddenly so inadequate. Being a tall girl herself, she usually was on eye-level terms with the men of her acquaintance. This man dwarfed her, and immediately put her at a disadvantage.
‘The … the cocktail party guests usually use the front door,’ she said, managing to sound cool, though she felt far from it.
He shrugged his broad shoulders and lit a cigar.
‘I prefer to see A.B. alone,’ he answered smoothly.
Susan ran a tongue over her dry lips. ‘Really! And will she want to see you?'
‘I think so,’ he murmured. ‘Amanda and I are old friends. Unfortunately we seldom see anything of each other.'
‘Well, if you go through you can see her now,’ said Susan, running a nervous hand through her hair.
‘I'll wait until the rabble have gone, if you don't mind,’ he replied casually. ‘I've been abroad for some considerable time, and I'd like to see the old girl alone.'
Susan was shocked. How dare he address Amanda Blake as ‘the old girl'? Who was he?
She turned to go intending to tell Amanda immediately that he was here. After all, she only had his word that he knew her employer at all. But he caught her wrist as she passed him and stopped her.
‘Don't go,’ he murmured. ‘Stay and keep me company. How about getting me a drink?'
Susan wrenched her wrist out of his grasp. His touch had sent the blood pounding through her veins, and she realized with horror at her own duplicity that she had enjoyed the feel of those hard fingers gripping her arm.
‘If you want a drink, you'll have to go in there for it,’ she said angrily.
He grinned. ‘If I remember correctly, A.B. used to keep a bottle of Scotch in the cupboard over the refrigerator, for medicinal purposes such as this.'
Susan clenched her fists. She crossed to the cupboard he had mentioned and, sure enough, at the back stood the bottle of Scotch. Really, she thought, he seemed to know an awful lot!
She lifted the bottle out, took a glass from the drainer and poured him a drink. ‘Ice?’ she queried, in a voice as cold as ice itself.
‘Naturally.'
Susan took the tongs and lifted two large pieces of ice out of the ice container and dropped them into the amber liquid. Then she handed him the glass. The man took it, nodding his thanks. Susan stubbed out her cigarette in the near-by ashtray, and he said:
‘Won't you join me?'
‘No, thanks,’ she replied shortly, glancing at her watch. It was almost seven now.
‘Got a heavy date?’ he asked. ‘You're A.B.'s secretary, aren't you?'
‘Yes, to both questions,’ she answered, acutely conscious of him. She turned to look at him again; she had been avoiding his eyes but suddenly she found her eyes held by his and something seemed to flare in his at the contact. It was fantastic, crazy, and yet she felt drawn to him; something dangerous and exciting and forbidden seemed to be in the room. He must have felt it, too, for his eyes narrowed slightly, and he looked at her through half-closed lids. Susan wondered whether the amount of alcohol she had consumed was clouding her brain. This was all so – so – mad!
She forced herself to look away, and said, breathlessly: ‘I must go back.'
All at once the door from the lounge opened and Amanda stood there.
‘They've all gone now—’ she began, and then stopped in amazement. ‘Dominic – Dominic Halstad!'
The man smiled, his eyes dancing, and Amanda rushed across the room and hugged him warmly. Over her shoulder, the man's eyes sought Susan's and she had to steel herself to force things back into perspective.
For, as Amanda made a fuss of the man, chattering volubly, the name she had used caused Susan no little feeling of trepidation.
Dominic Halstad! No ordinary newspaper man as she had assumed. He was the chairman of the board of directors of Halstad Press Limited, one of the largest syndicates of newspapers and magazines in the country.
If she had not felt so strange she would have felt like laughing. And she had thought he was trying to get an inside story! She turned away and lit another cigarette with trembling fingers. Dominic Halstad! Glory!
Then Amanda was saying: ‘Susan, my dear, come and meet one of my closest and oldest friends, Dominic Halstad. You've heard of