Carole Mortimer Romance Collection

She wouldn’t put it past Lyon Buchanan to have instructed his secretary to vet any calls from Jordan’s Miracles! ‘It’s personal,’ she snapped unhelpfully, feeling immediately guilty for allowing her resentment towards Lyon Buchanan to affect her response as she glanced across the room and saw how pale and haggard Henry still looked. ‘I have to talk to Mr Buchanan immediately,’ she added more urgently.

There was a click, a short pause—very short!—and then the arrogantly sure voice Silke recognised only too well came on the line. ‘I thought we had concluded our earlier—conversation, Miss Jordan,’ Lyon Buchanan drawled contemptuously.

Silke still cringed when she thought of that double-edged conversation, wishing now that she had never engaged in such a futile verbal battle with this particular man. It had been an act of bravado on her part, not to say childish, and it made talking to him now all the more difficult. ‘It’s Henry,’ she said without preamble—she still didn’t know the surname of the elderly man, and at the moment he didn’t look capable of telling it to her. ‘He’s collapsed again, and—’

‘My God,’ Lyon Buchanan exploded. ‘What have you done to him now?’

Her cheeks burned with indignation. ‘I haven’t done anything to him!’ Henry was actually asleep at the moment. ‘He—’

‘Where are you?’ Lyon Buchanan interrupted harshly.

‘At the agency. But—’

‘I’m on my way,’ he told her coldly. ‘Just don’t do anything else to him before I get there!’ He slammed his receiver down, the noise resounding in Silke’s ear.

Silke slammed her own receiver down too—and then glanced guiltily at Henry. But he continued to sleep—thank goodness.

Just what did the Lyon think she had ‘done’ to his uncle? Remembering the conversation they had had earlier, she could make a pretty accurate guess. My God, the arrogance of the man; did he really think that because she had denied being an out-of-work actress her other line of business had to be...? He did think that, she was sure of it from his tone of voice just now. He probably believed his uncle had collapsed again because they had been— Arrogant, arrogant swine!

She could not remember ever feeling this angry in her life before, not even once she had got over the initial pain of James’s defection on the eve of their wedding. And it was an anger that didn’t lessen as the time ticked by!

‘You look just like your mother when you’re angry, my dear.’

Silke looked sharply across the room at Henry, a blush darkening her cheeks now as she realised he had woken up and had obviously been watching her for some time.

She drew in a deeply controlling breath. ‘I probably feel like her when I’m angry too!’ she told him with feeling.

‘Lyon has that effect on people,’ he nodded, sobering slightly, a little colour having returned to his cheeks after his ten-minute nap. ‘I remember I used to make your mother angry a lot,’ he said heavily. ‘Do you think she’ll come back?’ He looked longingly towards the door where her mother had so recently fled.

Silke sighed as she moved to his side, offering no objection as he lightly clasped her hand as he had the last time. ‘I’m really not sure,’ she answered him honestly. ‘My mother has always been a law unto herself.’ She grimaced as she remembered the chaotic years of her early childhood, when she had never been quite sure what her mother might do.

Henry gave a half-smile. ‘I remember that too,’ he nodded.

Despite the fact that she realised how ill this man was, Silke’s curiosity momentarily got the better of her. ‘How—?’ She broke off abruptly as the office door burst open without warning, her initial hope that it might be her mother immediately dashed as Lyon Buchanan strode purposefully into the room.

He came to an abrupt halt just inside the door, taking in the scene with one cold glance, his narrowed gaze raking scathingly over Silke’s hand so cosily enfolded in his uncle’s much larger one.

Silke’s initial reaction was to pull her hand sharply away, but at the first sign that she was about to do that Henry’s hand tightened its grip. She looked down at him, knowing by his determined expression that he wasn’t about to release her without a fuss. And that she could do without!

Instead she turned her frustrated anger on Lyon Buchanan—he was the reason for it anyway! ‘What did you do?’ she said scathingly. ‘Fly here?’ She returned his gaze as challengingly as he was now looking at her.

‘Almost,’ he bit out grimly, his attention turning to his uncle, although the older man was obviously slightly recovered now. ‘When are you going to realise you’re nearly seventy years old?’ Lyon said impatiently.

‘Sixty-seven, boy,’ his uncle returned with some of his earlier spirit. ‘And don’t worry, I’ve just decided I’m going to be around for a lot more years yet.’ His softened gaze rested on Silke after he had made this statement.

Lyon Buchanan’s hard gaze returned to her too, a sharp questioning in those icy eyes as he took in the blush that seemed to be becoming a permanent fixture in Silke’s usually creamy cheeks. ‘Indeed?’ he finally bit out tersely. ‘Well, I think we should get you to Peter Carruthers and let him decide that, don’t you?’ he said scathingly. ‘Can you walk, or shall I—?’

‘I can walk,’ his uncle assured him firmly. ‘And I want Silke to come with me.’

Now it was Silke’s turn to look at him sharply. She was worried about him herself, and, much as she would have hated having to contact Lyon Buchanan again, she had intended telephoning him later to assure herself that his uncle was indeed OK. But she hadn’t considered actually going along with Henry to see his doctor!

‘Now that I’ve found you, I’m not going to let you out of my sight again until we’ve talked further. I’m sure you can guess why,’ Henry told her ruefully.

Because of her mother. ‘Satin’ had run away, but he had no intention of letting her daughter escape as easily. And if Silke was honest she was more than a little curious to know more about ‘Hal’ and ‘Satin’ herself!

But she could see from Lyon Buchanan’s furious expression, and the angry glitter in his eyes, that he had completely misread the situation—and that he didn’t like his conclusions one little bit! Well, Silke didn’t give a damn how he felt about it; she would accompany Henry!

‘Of course I’ll come with you.’ She squeezed the elderly man’s hand reassuringly. No matter how much Lyon Buchanan might hate it!

And as they helped Henry out of the office and down to Lyon Buchanan’s car—parked illegally on double yellow lines; what else?—it was obvious how much he did hate Silke’s presence there, his eyes glittering down coldly at her as they stood either side of Henry to help him down the stairs and out into the street. And his face was set in grimly disapproving lines as Henry insisted he wanted Silke to sit beside him in the back of the silver Mercedes.

‘You’ll have more room to make yourself comfortable if Miss Jordan sits in the front next to me,’ he told his uncle harshly, somehow managing to infuse a wealth of contempt into the ‘Miss Jordan’.

Making Silke feel like kicking him up the seat of his tailored trousers! In fact, the temptation was so strong that she had to turn her attention firmly to Henry to actually stop herself carrying out the action. ‘I think, in this case, your nephew is probably right,’ she told the elderly man gently, seeing an answering humour in Henry’s eyes as his lips twitched in appreciation of her insertion of ‘in this case’. But, as far as she was concerned, Lyon Buchanan was wrong about most other things; he was a man who made assumptions and then acted upon them. ‘It isn’t far, is it?’ she prompted the arrogant man as she climbed into the passenger seat, concerned at how white Henry now looked as he slumped down in the back seat.

‘Not too far,’ Lyon replied tersely, slamming her car door closed to stride purposefully around to the driver’s side of the powerful vehicle.

There was a husky chuckle from the back seat. ‘I haven’t seen him this angry in years,’ Henry mused softly.

She turned to look at him. ‘That’s probably because he’s been surrounded by “yes-men”—and women!—for years!’ She scowled.

Henry raised grey brows. ‘There’s no danger of that from you, is there?’ he said with satisfaction.

‘None at all,’ she assured him firmly, turning back in her seat as Lyon climbed in beside her.

There was an instant tension in the interior of the car that hadn’t been there seconds earlier; the very air seemed charged with the electricity of resentment that flowed between Silke and Lyon. His expression was grim as he manoeuvred the car out into the flow of traffic, his mouth set in disapproving lines, dark brows frowning over those icy grey eyes.

And then Silke noticed his hands. They were long and slender, almost artistic-looking. Even the fact that the nails were kept cut practically short couldn’t detract from the fact that Lyon Buchanan’s hands were long and tapered—and beautiful.

Silke looked quickly away as she realised how ridiculous her thoughts had been, a blush to her cheeks. There was nothing beautiful about Lyon Buchanan. He was arrogant. And cold. Contemptuous of his fellow man—and woman. Especially woman, from her own experience with him. It couldn’t be her personally that he disliked; he didn’t even know her.

She didn’t know him either, but then she didn’t want to!

She just wouldn’t look at his hands again...

‘Could you check to see if he’s just fallen asleep or if he’s had another attack?’ Lyon spoke abruptly at her side, startling her.

She turned quickly to look at Henry. The elderly man was slumped right down on the back seat now, his eyes closed. With a slight adjustment of her seatbelt she was able to reach far enough back to check the pulse at Henry’s wrist. It was steady and strong. ‘He’s asleep,’ she replied, with some relief, as she turned back in her seat.

Lyon’s cold grey gaze raked over her briefly before his attention returned to negotiating the traffic. ‘You do realise I shall want a full explanation from you about what happened,’ he bit out harshly.

Silke gasped indignantly at the accusation in his voice. ‘I told you—’

‘Not now,’ he told her grimly. ‘I want to make sure Henry is going to be all right first.’

Before he verbally ripped her to shreds! He hadn’t actually said that, but the implication was definitely there in his voice.

Silke’s mouth firmed with stubborn determination as she stared straight ahead during the rest of the drive. She would stay only long enough to make sure Henry was going to be all right too—and then she was leaving! Without talking to Lyon Buchanan. She had nothing to ‘explain’!