Pretending was the trouble, he thought grimly. He was too interested. If he smiled at her, if he touched her anywhere other than the elbow, he might not be able to stop and, quite apart from the unacceptable lack of control that would incur, he would not breach her no kissing, no contact rule.
‘If you’re not going to meet me at least halfway,’ she continued, ‘you could do the decent thing and release me from this deal. There has to be another way. You could just let me go.’
There wasn’t another way. And let her go? For myriad reasons he didn’t care to analyse, that was not an option. But neither was this state of affairs because, despite her attempts to brush off what she’d heard in the bathroom, it had clearly upset her and he wasn’t having that.
‘I have a better idea,’ he muttered, taking her elbow again, wheeling her around and marching her back into the ballroom before she could protest. He came to a halt in the middle of the room, amidst the well-heeled, well-oiled guests milling about, and let her go. ‘Where are they?’
‘Where are who?’
‘The women you overheard.’
‘Oh.’
With a slight frown of concentration Kate scanned the room while Theo felt his displeasure rapidly morphing into anger.
‘The woman in purple sitting over there,’ she said after a moment, nodding in the direction of a table in the far corner, ‘and the woman in red next to her.’
He knew both and he’d have expected better. Too bad. He strode across the room and stopped at table twelve. ‘Samantha,’ he said icily, looking down at the owner of the PR company he used.
‘Theo,’ Samantha simpered while batting her eyelashes up at him. ‘So lovely to see you out. I was wondering if we might get together at some point to discuss—’
‘The Knox Group no longer requires your services.’
In the moment of silence that followed, Samantha’s eyes widened and her smile faltered. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, giving her head a quick shake as if she’d misheard. ‘What did you say?’
‘Your contract expires at the end of the month,’ he continued icily. ‘It will not be renewed.’
‘Oh, but—’ she spluttered, turning pink. ‘I mean... You can’t do that.’
‘I can.’ He snapped his gaze to the brunette in the red dress who was sitting open-mouthed beside her. ‘And you—Rebecca, isn’t it? Stand down as chair or I’ll find another charity to support.’
‘Wh-what?’ managed Rebecca, who, now he thought about it, was about as effective in her role as a wet dishcloth.
‘You heard,’ he said brutally. ‘Do it. By nine a.m. tomorrow. And the next time either of you feels like gossiping about my fiancée, don’t.’
* * *
If only Theo hadn’t leapt to her defence like that, thought Kate, tossing and turning in bed that night as the memory of it circled around in her head and an unwelcome, unshakeable fuzzy warmth enveloped her.
She couldn’t remember the last time someone had stood up for her, and the way he’d gone about it... The energy that had suddenly poured off him, the take-no-prisoners attitude of his and the sense of protectiveness... It was dangerously attractive and all too appealing to a certain someone who was starved of attention and achingly lonely. So appealing, in fact, that when they’d pulled up outside her building after a tautly silent journey, she’d inexplicably found herself wanting to ask him in for coffee, and maybe even more than that, which would have been unwise to say the least.
The trouble was, what he’d done made him so much harder to hate, and she needed to hate him because if she didn’t, she could well end up liking him, and then where would she be? At the top of a very slippery slope that plummeted from the dizzying heights of excitement and hope to the miserable depths of disappointment and heartbreak, that was where.
But she had no intention of venturing anywhere near that slide so she could not allow his brief moment of chivalry detract from the rest of his lousy personality. She had to focus on the blackmail and the ruthlessness and not the feel of his hand on her elbow that burned her like a brand and the mesmerising eyes, dark with seething outrage and grim determination on her behalf.
She also had to accept that realistically there’d be many more naysayers like Samantha and Rebecca out there. Who knew what the press would make of the engagement? Of her? And then there were her colleagues. Her sister. How were they going to react?
She had no idea about any of it, but one thing was certain. If she had any hope at all of surviving the next few weeks, with whatever Theo or circumstances threw at her, ice-cool control and steely self-possession were the way to do it.
* * *
By lunchtime the following day, Theo had fielded more messages of congratulations than his limited patience could take, and the anger that had led to the instant dismissal of two significant business partners had swelled to fury.
How dared they? was the thought that kept ricocheting around his head during the three meetings he’d already held and wouldn’t go away. How dared anyone attack what was his? Even temporarily his. So far the press had reported the facts without opinion, but if he ever heard anything in the way of sly accusation and measly
insinuation again more heads would roll. Big heads. The biggest there were, in fact.
That he hadn’t exactly behaved in an exemplary fashion himself was not on his conscience. Coercing Kate into a fake engagement by firing threats at her wasn’t the most ruthless thing he’d done in pursuit of a goal, and what was at stake outweighed everything else.