She raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be in the running, as you put it, would I?’
‘And you’re hot favourite to get it. I can see why, but the competition is pretty tough. I hear you’re also a writer.’
Heather’s eyes hardened. Damn Jennifer and her careless tongue! She hated anyone knowing about her writing. The family knew, of course, but that was all. She had been a dreamy adolescent when she first knew she wanted to write, and the urge had never left her.
‘I’m interested in lots of things,’ was her careful answer, but she wished she hadn’t given it, when he agreed laconically.
‘My sex being one of them, so I hear. You go through men like other women go through pairs of tights.’
‘Perhaps I’m choosy.’
‘Then choose me.’ Suddenly he had closed the distance between them, and she was intimately aware of the heat coming off his body, the desire glittering in the dark grey eyes as they roamed restlessly over her. Fear knifed through her, a sharp throat-gagging fear she had never experienced before and which held her motionless as his hands slid down her shoulders, exploring the shape and texture of her back, forcing her against the unwanted intimacy of his body, making her burningly aware of the power and maleness of him, her mind fastidiously outraged by the pulsating hardness of his body when his hands gripped her hips. She shouldn’t have come here, she should have made sure he hadn’t seen her leave the studio. Here they were alone and there was no way she could fight him.
‘I want you, Heather.’ Race Williams kept on saying it as though saying the words reinforced his belief that he had every right to take what he wanted. Heather could feel her body tensing, recoiling from his, fear coiling through her stomach, acrid on her tongue. He bent his head and she knew he was going to kiss her.
She forced her body to relax, wrenching herself out of his arms as he relaxed his grip, and snatching up her coat, turned for the door.
‘Well, I don’t want you!’ she told him furiously, cool disparagement forgotten as rage flicked through her veins. How dared he assume that she was his simply for the taking, that he could state his desire and blandly assume she would assauge it! ‘Men like you make me sick,’ she told him in a low voice, the pent-up loathing of years thickening it until it was only a husky whisper, her eyes emerald in her pale face. ‘If you want a toy to play with, go buy yourself a Barbie doll! I’m fussy about the men who share my life.’
‘That wasn’t the way I heard it.’ They faced one another like two antagonists. Heather could see the rage simmering in the molten heat of his eyes sharpened by sexual frustration, the intensity of his emotions half frightening her as she watched him, wary as any animal scenting the hunter.
‘I want you,’ he repeated thickly, ‘and I damn well mean to have you….’
‘Never!’ The denial was out before she could silence it, lying between them like a gage, anger and frustration mingling in his expression, his chest rising and falling as though he had been running. Without pausing to think Heather turned, running down the corridor and out into the foyer, pressing the button for the lift. Jennifer would wonder what had happened to her, but she would just have to wonder. She glanced over her shoulder half expecting to find that Race had followed her, but there was no sign of him. He was probably still trying to come to terms with the blow she had just dealt his mammoth self-esteem.
She could hardly believe he was real, she thought, mentally re-living their conversation. Had he actually thought all he had to do was say he wanted her for her to fall into his arms? Was that what normally happened? There was a raw maleness about him that some women might find appealing, an overt sexuality that she found totally repelling, frightening almost, but that other women might enjoy. His arrogant assumption that she was his simply for the asking still had the power to stun her. She had met some self-assured men in her time, but they had nothing on him. No wonder Jennifer had warned her against him!
Well, she needn’t worry, Heather thought grimly as she got out of the lift and asked the commissionaire to get her a taxi. There was simply no way she was ever going to get within a mile of Race Williams knowingly again.
He had frightened her—she could admit that from the sanctuary of her taxi. His determination had overwhelmed her, threatening all her carefully erected barriers. He wasn’t a man she could lead on and then drop, he wouldn’t stand by and let her dismiss him.
She was in bed but awake when Jennifer came in, and called out to her. Jennifer looked defensive and slightly guilty when she walked in.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised without Heather having to speak, ‘but he made Terry promise to introduce you to him. He was furious when I turned up without you. He went looking for you.’
‘And found me,’ Heather told her grimly. ‘It’s high time someone taught Mr Race Williams that he can’t get everything he wants simply by demanding it. Relax,’ she added when she saw Jennifer’s face, ‘I value my skin far too much to try it.’
‘He wants you, Heather,’ Jennifer told her uneasily, ‘and he won’t let go. He kept on asking me about you. It was frightening… he’s almost obsessive about you. Perhaps you ought to go out with him, let him see what you’re really like—behind the model-girl mask. He likes sophisticated worldly women, when he realises what you’re really like….’
‘I don’t want to hear another word about him,’ Heather told her, pulling the bedclothes over her head. ‘Not another word.’
THE phone rang and Heather jumped, eyeing it dubiously. She had been tense all day, and all because of Race Williams. The desire she had seen flaming in his eyes had unnerved her. She wasn’t a stranger to men’s desire, she reminded herself, and he wasn’t the first man to make it plain to her in a first meeting that he wanted her, it happened all the time, but there was something different about him; an intensity and determination that alarmed her.
She picked up the receiver at the fourth ring, relieved to hear her agent’s voice on the other end. ‘Good news, I think,’ he told her, ‘You’ve been summoned for another interview for the Rio contract. One of the directors this time. I’ll give you the address. They want you there at three o’clock sharp. I haven’t heard of any of the others being sent for, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.’
Heather replaced the receiver and glanced into the hall mirror. Her reflection looked unfamiliar, her eyes dark and clouded, her mouth tremulously full, intensifying the sensual attraction of her features. She knew she ought to be feeling glad about the interview, but instead she merely felt restless, impatient with the constant round of interviews; of move and counter-move, and she yearned to be free to be herself, not a marketable commodity.
Nevertheless she went into her room and carefully selected the outfit she would wear for the interview. The Rio cosmetics range was essentially glamour cosmetics and that was the image she would have to project. She chose a black suit, the skirt fitted and fairly short. The jacket was tailored to follow the lines of her body, flaring out gently just below the waist, the sleeves slightly full. With it she wore a white silk blouse, and Dior stockings. She swept her hair up into a chignon and sat down to put on her hat, carefully arranging its spotted net veil. The finished effect was one of carefully contrived sophistication underlining her sensuality. Jennifer, who had the day off, came in loaded down with shopping just as she went into the living room. ‘Wow’, she exclaimed with a grin. ‘What’s the big occasion.’
Heather told her.
‘Umm, well you should get top marks for that outfit, especially if it’s a man. It simply shrieks sexy underwear,’ she added obliquely, but Heather knew what she meant, and said dryly that that was the whole idea.