Dangerous Male Read online

  'Mind you don't, then,' Harn Durrant said dryly. 'Now, have you got the revised plans for the administration department? Let's have a look at them.' The young man spread a plan out on the desk and Harn said over his shoulder, 'Gemma, you'd better come and sit beside me, and learn as much as you can about this.' He leaned over and drew up a chair close to his own, so close they were almost touching. Gemma came across the office and eased the chair a little further away from his, but before she could sit down he put out a hand and pulled it back to where it was before, without a word or a look in her direction.

  Damn him, she thought, he's a mind-reader. He knows I don't want to sit that near to him. Reluctantly she sat down and was rewarded by a flicker of his lashes in her direction that might have been a kind of warning. Do as I say or else, he seemed to hint.

  The meeting proceeded. Harn shot questions at the young architect, one after the other, hardly giving him time to reply, his arm reaching out across the plans on the desk, pointing to this item and that, criticising, objecting. Gemma felt sorry for the young man; she could see that he was getting more and more nervous under this onslaught. She was getting more and more nervous herself as the sleeve of Harn's jacket brushed her arm every time he stretched across the desk. She shrank back as far as she could in her chair, and he slanted her a glance from under those dark lashes that she could only call devilish. He was doing this on purpose, she realised. But why?

  At last he sat back in his chair and gave Derek Underhill a withering look. 'This isn't really what I want at all—I explained it all at our last meeting. Can't you do any better than this?'

  The young man flushed and muttered something about fire restrictions and the difficulty of obtaining certain materials that Mr Durrant had specified.

  'Difficulties are there to be overcome,' Harn told him cuttingly.

  Derek began to roll up the plans and Gemma saw that his hands weren't quite steady. In the end he dropped the plans on the floor. Bending to pick them up, he laughed rather selfconsciously. 'A bit clumsy this morning, I'm afraid, Mr Durrant,' he apologised. 'I was working on these most of last night.' He was laughing ruefully, it wasn't intended as an excuse.

  Harn Durrant didn't laugh, he didn't even smile. He walked to the door and opened it. 'Then I suggest you might try a few more sleepless nights, in order to get somewhere near my requirements. If you want the job, that is,' he added, shrugging.

  'Oh yes, I want the job, Mr Durrant,' Derek Underhill said quietly. His thin face had gone very pale now and Gemma thought he looked as if he might burst into tears.

  'O.K., work on it while I'm away,' Harn Durrant said carelessly. 'Ring my secretary for an appointment.' He closed the door on the luckless young architect, whose steps could be heard stumbling down the wooden stairs.

  Harn turned to Gemma, smiling. 'Well, did you pick up anything from all that? I don't imagine you did—the plans were miles away from what I specified. If young Underhill really stayed up all night working on them, I should think he'd dined too well first.'

  'Were the plans really all that hopeless?' Gemma asked.

  He shrugged. 'Not completely, but he has to be kept up to the mark or he'll get carried away by his own inventiveness. He has some very good ideas and I like that, but I also intend to keep him on a very tight rein. He's only beginning, you see, he has his way to make and he badly needs this commission.'

  Gemma stood up. 'Poor young man,' she sighed. 'He was rather upset. You really hurt his feelings, didn't you?'

  Harn Durrant walked slowly back to the desk, staring at her incredulously. 'His feelings'! What have feelings to do with it? Feelings are a self-indulgence that have no place where matters of business are concerned.' He snapped the rubber band over his notebook and thrust it into his pocket. Then he looked suspiciously at Gemma as she stood observing him as if he were a strange animal in a zoo. The ability to feel was something that distinguished a human being from a wild animal, surely? Where did that leave Harn Durrant?

  'What's the matter?' he asked impatiently.

  'Oh, nothing, nothing at all.' Gemma walked back to her own desk and sat down.

  He came after her and stood behind her chair. 'You're very young, Gemma, and working for me will be a baptism of fire, I promise you. But if you can manage to see things my way, and not through a rosy haze of sentimentality, like most girls of your age, I think we may get along very well.' He put hands on her shoulders and gave them a quick squeeze. 'O.K.?'

  The touch of his hard fingers through her thin blouse gave her a curious sensation that was mostly pleasurable. Was that being sentimental? No, she thought, she had no feeling for this man at all, except perhaps contempt, if that could be reckoned a feeling.

  'O.K.,' she said coolly. A thought was beginning to take shape in her mind, and it was an uncomfortable thought. Why had he drawn up her chair so close to his, so that when he stretched forward he would be bound to touch her arm or her hand? Why did he find it necessary to put his hands on her shoulders when he was encouraging her? Why (and this was the most unpleasant possibility of all) had he got rid of Beth, who was thirty-four, and engaged instead a young girl who might be much more compliant—much more likely to be bowled over by his undoubted charisma? Gemma felt herself go hot and cold as an obvious answer to this last question suggested itself. Already he had accused her of being provocative. What sort of a girl did he think she was? Accommodating?

  I'm certainly not going to be that kind of secretary, she assured herself, moving forward so that his hands slipped from her shoulders. If that's what he's looking for he'll have to look elsewhere. Her pretty lips set into a firm line as she said, 'Have you any more work for me, Mr Durrant, or shall I go on practising on the typewriter?'

  He perched himself on the end of her desk, next to the word-processor, and placed his hand on the top of the screen almost affectionately.

  'I think perhaps I'd better take a little time off to put you in the picture,' he said. 'But not at this moment. I've got several long-distance phone calls booked that will probably take me up to lunchtime. I suggest that you come out and have a snack lunch with me and I'll give you all the gen. You've got to be familiar with my proposed plans for the future of the business if you're to be any use to me.'

  The phone rang on his desk and he went over to it. 'Yes, Mrs Brown? From New York? Right, put him though, please.'

  He placed a hand over the mouthpiece and spoke to Gemma. 'You go along down to Ted and learn all you can from him about his side of things. I'll collect you when I'm ready.' Without a pause he spoke into the telephone. 'Josh? Hullo, how are you? Fine, thanks. Now, about that contract—'

  Gemma got up and went quietly out of the office.

  Ted was delighted to see her. Business was slack at the moment, he told her, but he guessed that young Mr Durrant was going to liven things up pretty soon. 'He's got a finger in several pies, that one. He's off to London next week.'

  'Yes, he told me,' said Gemma, and went on to explain that she was the new temporary secretary. 'Mr Durrant sent me down to learn a bit about what goes on in your department.' She quirked a smile at the elderly man. 'After all, this is the most important part of the business, isn't it? Where the action is, as they say.'

  Ted chuckled delightedly and smoothed back his thinning hair. 'I can see you've got the right idea, Miss Gemma. Well now, you come along with me and I'll show you the stock books and the store room. I pride myself,' he added modestly, 'that I can find my way round here in the dark—I can put my hand on any piece of paper, any ream, any bale, at a moment's notice.'

  'I bet you can, Ted,' Gemma smiled.

  Half an hour later she enlarged on that. 'You're a marvel,' she said as they made their way back to the shop. 'You've got it all taped, haven't you?'

  'It's been my life for forty-two years, Miss Gemma,' Ted told her. 'You sort of grow fond of the different sorts of paper, if that doesn't sound silly. Sometimes I try to picture the great forests—in Canada maybe, where the pa
per started as trees. And then I begin to think as it was a pity to have to cut those trees down. But I guess that's just being soft.' He grinned ruefully. 'You can't afford to be soft in business, can you, Miss Gemma?'

  'No, I suppose you can't,' she sighed. That was the second time this morning she had heard that view expressed, but in very different circumstances. Ted had a heart, no doubt about that. The man upstairs had only his cool, calculating intelligence. No heart—not for business at any rate. But out of business hours? The words of that letter came back to her and she heard again his voice, low and sexy, saying, 'I adore you.'

  'Ready, Gemma?' She hadn't heard him come downstairs, and the clipped tones, so different from the voice in her head, made her jump.

  'Er—yes, quite ready, Mr Durrant.' She turned to Ted and thanked him for showing her round the stores.

  'My pleasure, Miss Gemma.' Ted went back to his stock-book.

  'A good fellow, Ted Baines,' Harn remarked briskly as he led the way to his Mercedes. 'There isn't much he doesn't know about the business.'

  'He's a poppet,' Gemma said warmly as he slid into the driving seat beside her.

  He pursed his lips. 'Um—yes. Possibly,' he said, and as the car nosed its way out into the High Street he added, 'You have a very subjective view of people, don't you, Gemma?'

  She kept her eyes straight ahead as they threaded their way through the traffic. 'If you mean do I consider people as human beings, with feelings, yes, I suppose I do.'

  'Still on about the way I treated your stepsister?' he enquired mildly.

  'You asked me a question and I answered it,' she said in a crisp voice.

  He laughed out loud. 'I can see I'm going to have to watch my step with you, Gemma! You're not afraid of me, are you? I like that.'

  She glanced up at the straight back, at the squared shoulders and the hard line of his mouth, and she thought, I could be afraid of you. She hoped nothing would happen to bring that about.

  'We'll go to the lunch-buffet place at the Dennington,' he said, turning into the car-park of the town's most prestigious hotel. 'They put on quite a good choice and you don't have to wait about to be served. You know it?'

  'Good heavens, no,' said Gemma as they walked in through the heavy swing doors. 'This isn't my scene at all. Much too pricey.'

  A waft of expensive perfume came to meet them, followed by a girl who came running along the softly-carpeted corridor. She wore a floaty lavender outfit and her ash-blonde hair waved and curled round baby-soft cheeks. Her lips parted in a brilliant smile as she reached Harn and put a hand on his shoulder, lifting her pretty face in a gesture that asked for a kiss. She didn't seem to notice Gemma.

  'Harn—darling! I guessed right. I thought you might be coming in for lunch. I've got a table—our table by the window.' She spoke quickly, nervously, the words tumbling over each other with a false gaiety.

  Gemma drew away and stood beside a door that led into a bar. The girl didn't seem to realise that Harn wasn't alone. Gemma supposed this must often happen to a secretary, and the thing to do was to fade into the background. She was standing half turned away from the pair, but she didn't think that Harn accepted the invitation to kiss the girl and it was impossible to miss the coldness in his voice as he said, 'Sorry, Julia. We're not lunching together today or any day in the future. I thought I made that clear last night.'

  'But you didn't mean it—you couldn't—not after—there was some sort of misunderstanding, wasn't there?' The voice shook with pleading. 'You were worried about business, that was it, wasn't it? Harn darling, tell me you didn't mean it! I couldn't bear—' The voice cracked and broke on a sob.

  'Oh, for God's sake, Julia, don't make a scene. It's over, that's all there is to say. You knew the score all along, so don't start whining about it now.'

  The callousness in his voice made Gemma wince. She looked briefly at the girl standing holding on to the door-frame as if she needed support. Her face was ghastly and there were dark smudges under her eyes, which were swimming in tears.

  'I suggest you go home,' Harn said stonily. 'Are you alone? Come along then, I'll see you out to your car.' He looked round. 'Gemma, where are you? Oh, there you are.' Quite deliberately, it seemed, he rested his hand for a moment on her waist. 'Wait here for me, there's a dear girl.'

  He took Julia's arm in a tight grasp and pushed her towards the door. As she turned, Julia seemed to see Gemma for the first time. She stared for a moment, her tear-drenched violet eyes flying wide with a kind of horror. Then she made an odd, whimpering noise and stumbled through the doorway into the car-park, Harn still holding her arm in a pitiless grasp.

  He was back in a couple of minutes. 'Sorry about that,' he said briefly, and led the way into the bar. 'Let's have a drink before we eat.'

  The bar was crowded and Gemma stood wedged in a corner while Harn fought his way to the bar. He nodded to the one or two men who greeted him on the way, but didn't speak or stop.

  'Here you are—lemonade.' He thrust a tall glass into her hand. 'That do you?' He added carelessly, 'You're too young for alcohol at lunchtime.'

  She would have asked for lemonade anyway, but he might have consulted her and not treated her like a little girl. But he looked so moody and unapproachable as he tossed off his whisky that she thanked him meekly and made no comment.

  The luncheon room had a long buffet table down the side, presided over by a chef in a tall white hat. The savoury dishes looked so luscious and tempting that Gemma forgot the nasty little scene that had just taken place in the realisation that she was very hungry indeed.

  'What will you have?' asked Harn. 'You might like the ham and mushroom quiche. Yes?' He indicated a creamy-looking dish and she agreed eagerly. 'Roll and butter? Salad? O.K. You go and grab that table over by the window and I'll bring it across.'

  She did as he told her. As she sat down she thought, with a quirk of humour, that she was behaving like his poodle, following behind obediently. But of course that was what he was paying her for—this wasn't a social lunch date. She must never let herself think of him as a human being, with feelings, because he had shown pretty plainly that he hadn't got any.

  As he came down the long room towards her, carrying a tray, she thought absently that he made all the other men in the room look ordinary. As he put the tray down on the table he smiled at her and she thought how white his teeth were in the lean, sun-tanned cheeks. Then, immediately, followed the thought, This is how it must have been in the beginning with the girl Julia. They would sit here, probably at this same table, and she would look up as see him coming towards her and her heart would throb.

  Poor Julia, thought Gemma, remembering the way Harn had shrivelled the girl up with a look. If he ever looked at me like that I should want to die.

  But that wouldn't happen, of course. Their relationship, such as it was, was entirely different. He was the big boss and she was his secretary—on probation for a month. He was a man of the world and he would never see her—Gemma—as anything more than a young girl hardly out of school, and quite unused to the ways of his sophisticated world and its inhabitants. And of course she would never, for a moment, want him to.

  Would she?

  As an alarming thought occurred to her she began to lift the tip of one slender finger to her lips. Then she remembered and quickly put it down again. The last thing she wanted was to be accused of being provocative. That would get her nowhere with Harn Durrant. Or rather, it would probably get her out of her job in double quick time.

  There was only one safe way to relate to the heartless brute, and that was to meet him on his own ground. It wasn't going to be easy to pretend to be cool, aloof, detached, but if that would help her to keep the job she could at least try.

  And as she cut into the deliciously creamy quiche that he set before her, Gemma found, rather to her surprise, that she would be desperately disappointed, now, if he were to dismiss her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Harn ate his veal pie in brood
ing silence for a time. Then he put down his knife and fork and said, 'I can't let that little episode with Julia pass without a word or two, Gemma. I can foresee that she might possibly turn up at the office, and you'd better be prepared to deal with her.'

  Cool, aloof, detached, Gemma reminded herself, that was what she had to be. She lifted her prettily-marked eyebrows and said, 'Is it part of my job, then, to deal with discarded girl-friends?'

  He let out a short, bitter laugh. 'Oh yes, indeed. Didn't they warn you at your college that a secretary must be prepared to protect her chief from unwelcome callers?'

  She broke off a piece of roll and buttered it carefully. 'Yes, I do see what you mean. Will there be many of them?' she enquired innocently. 'Discarded girl-friends, I mean. If so, I must think out a technique for getting rid of them.'

  Harn scowled. 'Are you being funny at my expense, young lady? Because if so—'

  'No, of course not,' she said hastily. 'I'm merely asking for information.' She met his frown with limpid blue eyes. 'I would naturally expect a man like you to have a good many girl-friends, discarded or not.'

  'What exactly do you mean—a man like me?'

  She examined his lean, handsome face thoughtfully. 'Well, you're—you know—macho, sexy.'

  'Really?' He leaned towards her, eyebrows raised. 'And how would you know that at your tender age, Gemma?'

  She popped the piece of roll into her mouth, crunched it, and shrugged. 'Feminine intuition, they call it.'

  'I see.' He was suddenly curt. 'Well, don't let your feminine intuition run away with you, that's all. And as far as Julia Moore goes, you needn't imagine that she's been treated badly. Poor Julia's somewhat thick, and there's only one way to deal with a girl like that—state everything in words of one syllable so that she gets the message.' His mouth hardened. 'When a girl throws herself at a man and clings on, she's only got herself to blame for the consequences. I've always made it quite clear that I'm definitely not in the marriage market, which was what Julia had in mind. Now, suppose we get down to business? That was what I brought you out to lunch for.'