Bittersweet Deception

‘Money, power, ambition.’

This time Jason’s smile almost reached his eyes as he went on, ‘Women will do anything for it. They frequently do.’

Kate refused to let this go unchallenged. ‘Haven’t you forgotten the most important emotion?’

He folded his arms and regarded her with interest. ‘And what is that?’

‘Love, Mr Warwick.’

Jason’s eyes flickered to hers. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. But that’s not an emotion. It’s a weapon.’

LIZ FIELDING was born in Berkshire and educated at a convent school in Maidenhead. At twenty she took off for Africa to work as a secretary in Lusaka, where she met her civil engineer husband, John. They spent the following ten years working in Africa and the Middle East. She began writing during the long evenings when her husband was working away on contract. Liz and her husband are now settled in Wales with their children, Amy and William.

Liz Fielding

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

‘SO? This is what the cook gets up to when the day is done?’ The velvet drawl was an essay in world-weary cynicism.

Kate Thornley, grasped firmly in the arms of one large, rather tipsy man, did not much care for the sardonic tone of this onlooker and would have told him so, if her lips had not been clamped tightly shut against a very determined assault.

Surely the wretched man could see the predicament she was in? She needed help, not an audience! How dared he stand there, watching, as if she were part of the entertainment?

‘Don’t mind me,’ he continued, and she heard his footsteps cross the kitchen floor. ‘Just carry on. I can wait.’

Incensed, Kate gathered herself for a second attempt at heaving off the sweaty weight pinning her against the sink. But the voice had finally penetrated the slightly fuddled brain of her molester and he abruptly released her. She staggered slightly, regained her balance and turned angrily on the man now leaning against the kitchen table to tell him exactly what she thought of him.

But the words turned to ashes on her lips as she recognised the owner of a pair of the darkest, most insolent eyes she had ever seen.

Scarcely beyond his thirtieth birthday, Jason Warwick was already a legend. The autocratic ruler of Magnum, a company he had founded ten years earlier and now the richest prize of the commercial television network, his acerbic wit and outrageous comments about women ensured that he was a favourite with late-night chat-show hosts and the bane of feminists, who seemed unable to ignore him and often made themselves ridiculous by baying for his blood. As the direct object of his derision, Kate knew precisely how they felt. Jason Warwick was impossible to ignore.

From photographs she had seen of him in the newspapers, always with some glamorous television hopeful draped languorously about him, she had never been bowled over by him, although she was well aware that she was in a minority of one. He was just too darkly handsome, too perfect.

Face-to-face she had to acknowledge that she was wrong. His appeal had nothing to do with good looks. His face had strength, a forceful energy, and his eyes had the power to hold her when she would much rather have looked away. To her complete mortification, Kate felt the slow spread of colour suffuse her cheeks.

‘Oh, it’s you, Jay. I just came down for…some—er…’ The man faltered and grinned stupidly.

‘Dessert?’ Jason Warwick offered, his mouth twisting slightly in a parody of a smile, but his eyes never left Kate’s.

‘Dessert? That’s a good one, Jay.’ And he laughed as he left the kitchen. ‘Cheerio, Kate. See you again. Soon,’ he added, with a wink, as if he had known her forever instead of meeting her for the first time ten minutes earlier when he had wandered into the kitchen claiming to need some aspirin.

Not if I see you first, Kate thought as anger deepened the hectic colour of her cheeks. It was galling enough to be found in such a compromising situation, but to be considered a willing partner to it was more than Kate could stomach. She touched the little brooch that had betrayed her name. Her sister had bought it for her and she always wore it. But after tonight, she would leave it at home when she was working.

She could normally handle the occasional amorous dinner guest who strayed into the kitchen without resorting to hysterics or violence, but she had mis-judged the man who until a moment before had been holding her in such a passionate embrace. An embrace Jason Warwick clearly assumed she had encouraged.

But one look was enough to persuade her that if she tried to explain what had happened, that sensual mouth would simply twist in a knowing parody of a smile and he would carry on thinking whatever he chose. Galling though it was to be the object of his unwarranted insolence, she knew she had done nothing to be ashamed of. Her only mistake was to believe the wretched man when he told her he had a headache. He had trapped her against the sink as she turned to get him a glass of water, demanding a kiss before he would release her and taking it, despite her insistent demand that he leave her alone. The man’s breath reeked of whisky and cigar smoke and she raised the back of her hand to her mouth in an attempt to rub away the disgusting taste.