Unguarded Moment

‘My phone’s out of order.’ He gave her a level look. ‘I hope you weren’t trying to tell me that Miss Layton would be unable to keep our appointment because she’s been laid low by some virus.’

As this was exactly the excuse Alix had been desperately formulating, she had to grind her teeth.

‘Miss Layton is perfectly well,’ she said stiffly. ‘Nevertheless, it won’t be convenient for her to see you today. That was what I was trying to tell you. I’m very sorry.’

‘Now that I doubt.’ He tossed the magazine impatiently down on to the table again, and gave her a frowning look. ‘I never saw less evidence of regret in anybody. Let’s have the truth, Miss Coulter. Your aunt has developed cold feet over the whole project, hasn’t she, and she’s delegated you to break the bad news to me.’

Anger sparked in Alix. ‘You’re very astute, Mr Brant. Under the circumstances I don’t think there’s any need to extend this interview further.’ She turned away, but incredibly he was beside her, his hand on her arm, detaining her.

‘Then think again, secretary bird. I am a professional man, and I don’t like having my time deliberately wasted.’

‘Then you’d better send us a bill,’ Alix flared. ‘Is your profession paid by the hour, or the minute?’ She gave her watch a studied look. ‘Of which I calculate you’ve wasted approximately fifteen. Unless you walked here, of course.’

His smile held no amusement whatever. ‘Your sharp tongue doesn’t match your demure exterior, secretary bird. I’ve been commissioned to write this book about Bianca Layton, and I intend to do so, with her co-operation, or without it if I have to.’

‘Did Kristen Wallace co-operate?’ Alix asked. ‘It didn’t make a great deal of difference in the end. You still did a hatchet job on her.’

‘I didn’t have to, Miss Coulter. The lady was only too ready to rush headlong on her doom. All I had to do was make a truthful record of her idiocies.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you have a great concern with the truth,’ she said scornfully.

He lifted a shoulder almost wearily. ‘I’ve never found lying to be of any great benefit. Your aunt’s attitude puzzles me, I confess. Less than a week ago she was apparently full of enthusiasm about the book. Now she’s changed her mind, and it makes me wonder why.’

‘The waning of her enthusiasm dates from her discovery that you were involved.’ Alix was suddenly aware he was still holding her arm, and angrily shook herself free. ‘She’s entitled to deny you the right to invade her privacy.’

‘Privacy?’ He looked faintly amused. ‘Since when has Bianca Layton valued that commodity? She’s lived her life well and truly in the public eye. She knows what her public expects, and she doesn’t short-change them. I’d have said her life was—an open book already, wouldn’t you. And yet suddenly she’s wary. It makes me wonder. It really makes me wonder.’

‘Makes you wonder about what?’ Alix demanded sharply.

He smiled down into her flushed indignant face. ‘Just what she has to hide? What else? Now, as it’s clear you have no intention of letting me see her today, I’ll go, but I shall be back, and it would be better if next time she was prepared to see me.’

‘Threats, Mr Brant?’ Alix felt her voice quiver slightly.

‘Call it a friendly warning,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Au revoir, Miss Coulter. Oh, by the way—–’ his hand reached out, incredibly, and unfastened the top button on her dress, then moved down to the next, ‘in the interests of keeping our business relationship formal, perhaps you ought to take a little more care in the way you dress.’

‘How dare you!’ Her face burning, Alix stepped back. ‘There’s nothing the matter with my clothes.’

‘That’s open to debate. What I was actually trying to indicate was that somewhere along the way you’ve put a button through the wrong hole.’

Glancing down at the front of her dress, she was chagrined to see that he was correct.

‘Thank you,’ she said icily. ‘I can put it right for myself.’

‘As you please,’ he shrugged. ‘Don’t overreact, Miss Coulter. There’s no need to make like a frightened virgin. Buttoned or unbuttoned, you’re simply not my type, so you’re in no danger of imminent rape. I hope that reassures you.’

Reassures me? Alix wanted to scream. Nothing about you reassures me. I want you out of this house, and out of our lives.

Aloud, she said with emphasis, ‘Goodbye, Mr Brant.’

He shook his head. ‘No, Miss Coulter. Didn’t you hear me say I’d be back?’

He inclined his head to her with mocking courtesy, then reached past her to open the drawing-room door.

Alix watched him cross the hall to the front door. It wasn’t until it closed behind him that she realised she had been holding her breath.

Whatever happened, she told herself fiercely, no matter what Seb or anyone else said, she was going to keep that—character assassin with his insinuations and innuendoes away from Bianca. Whatever her faults, she didn’t deserve anyone like Liam Brant casting a spotlight on them. Bianca needed to be protected from him, and she, Alix, would see that it was done.

She swallowed, and her hand moved slowly and reluctantly to adjust the buttons on her dress. ‘You’re not my type,’ he’d told her cynically, and he certainly wasn’t hers, so why could she not dismiss the memory of that brief brush of his fingers against her breasts?

Alix bit her lip. She was going to protect Bianca—but the unanswerable question was—who was going to protect her?

CHAPTER TWO (#u50e88bf0-9b89-55a7-9f1b-81617f53ed7a)

BIANCA was dressing to go out to lunch, and she was less than pleased to hear what Alix had to tell her.

‘You seem to have handled it very badly,’ she remarked tartly. ‘I told you to get rid of him, not antagonise him.’

Alix groaned inwardly. ‘I’ve been trying to explain,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s possible to do one without the other. He’s absolutely determined to do the book, whether you agree or not.’

‘We’ll see about that.’ Bianca’s lips were tightly compressed.

Alix sighed. ‘Is it really so impossible? After all, forewarned is forearmed, and according to Seb it’s better to have him on your side.’

‘Oh, Seb,’ Bianca said with scorn. ‘A lot of good he’s been in all this. Why should I agree to this book? God knows I don’t need the publicity. I already have more scripts lined up than I’ll ever have time to do.’

She added some gloss to her lips.

‘There is nothing to stop anyone, any time, writing a book about you,’ Alix pointed out patiently. ‘It’s surprising really that no one’s thought of doing it before. As I see it, if you refuse to have anything to do with it, you’re deliberately forfeiting any control you might have over the content.’

Bianca swivelled round on her dressing stool. ‘You sound as if you’re on this man’s side!’

‘That’s the last thing I am,’ Alix muttered vehemently. ‘But he worries me.’

‘I can’t imagine why he should.’ Bianca was still watching her, her brows raised curiously. ‘I should be worried, if anyone is. Why should you be so concerned?’

Alix met her gaze steadily. ‘I hardly know. Perhaps it could have something to do with the fact that you’re a blood relation as well as my employer.’

‘How very touching!’ Bianca’s lip curled. ‘Well, don’t fret on my behalf, darling child. I can take care of myself.’

Alix felt a full flush creep into her face. There was a bite in Bianca’s tone which was bound to hurt. It was one of the things she had never been able to understand. She supposed Bianca had offered the job in the first place because she was her niece, and therefore she could expect more than usual loyalty from her, and yet her aunt had never treated her as if she was a relation. Alix could never say that she had received any kind of indulgence from Bianca, and not much affection either. Any tentative attempts by Alix to infuse some warmth into their relationship had always been resisted.

Alix had learned to come to terms with it, of course, mainly by telling herself that this should be regarded as just another job, and that Bianca should be regarded as just another employer. In other circumstances she would expect only to do what she was paid for and accept her salary. Yet at the same time she was realistic enough to know that Bianca made demands on her which no stranger would ever accede to.

She had tried once to explain this to her mother, but Margaret Coulter’s face had hardened.

‘Did you really expect anything different?’ she asked roughly. ‘Bianca always did want to eat her cake and have it at the same time. She was selfish and unfeeling from the day she was born. She expected everything and everyone to revolve round her like—like satellites around a moon. And now you’re caught too.’

Alix had been too shaken by the depth of feeling in her mother’s voice to do more than offer a token protest, but afterwards she had wondered whether what Margaret had said was true. Was she beguiled into acquiescence by the undoubted glamour of Bianca’s personality? She was guiltily aware that she had been tactless in the way she had talked about her job at home. She tried unobtrusively from then on to demonstrate to Margaret that she still came first in her affections, but she wasn’t altogether sure that she succeeded. In fact, the more she became absorbed in her job and its hectic demands, the farther she seemed to grow away from her family as a whole. Presumably they felt that someone who travelled the world in Bianca’s wake might find the ups and downs of their everyday life less than fascinating, she thought wryly.