Read the book: «Bittersweet Yesterdays»

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’RE joking, of course! Me? Your secretary?’ Lucy Preston flashed her stepbrother a look of horrified defiance across the huge, leather-topped desk separating them—a look completely wasted, it infuriated her to find, on Mark Waterford, who, having delivered his tersely worded bombshell, had turned his attention to one of the telephones beside him and began dialling a number.

‘Yes, you—my secretary,’ he snapped. ‘And I wasn’t asking your opinion, I was simply telling you that’s to be your position for the time being.’ With barely a pause, he launched into a rapid flow of French as his call connected, leaving Lucy leaning back heavily in her chair, her teeth almost grinding with fury.

She was twenty-three years old, she fumed to herself—not the accident-prone fifteen-year-old who had been abandoned to Mark Waterford’s despotic—not to mention vociferously reluctant—mercies virtually from the day her mother had married his father, James Waterford. The James Waterford, she reminded herself acerbically, of the fabled Waterford Consortium.

Lucy glowered across the desk at the man on the telephone. At fifteen she had been smitten by the most devastating of infatuations for her then twenty-two-year-old stepbrother—with his careless sophistication and rakish good looks he had seemed like the embodiment of her every romantic dream.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as they moved from the glossy dark thickness of his hair to the almost chiselled perfection of his features. She frowned with the effort of trying to pinpoint exactly what it was about him that drew women to him in their droves. Perhaps it was that intriguing blend of harshness and sensuality that was there, not only in his extraordinarily good looks but also in his personality. Or perhaps they were attracted by the broad streak of tyranny in him, to which she had been subjected, on and off, for the past eight years, she mused scathingly; if that was the case, they should all be certified, she decided, tensing perceptibly as he terminated the call.

Mark Waterford rose to his feet and proceeded to stretch. He was a tall man, well over six feet, and there wasn’t a square ounce of flesh on his magnificently proportioned body. He lowered his arms when he had finished stretching, his powerful shoulders flexing beneath the dazzling white of his shirt, then he returned to his seat. He gazed across at the slim figure of his stepsister, a dismissive impatience in the cold blue of his eyes.

‘Well, don’t lounge around here looking as though you’re about to doze off,’ he snapped. ‘I suggest you get your bits and pieces moved into my reception office.’

Lucy, who had been doing some rapid mental arithmetic and had come up with answers she found depressing, glowered over at him while biting back her inexpressible views as to what he and the entire Waterford Consortium could do regarding what she considered her enforced connections with them.

‘It’s hardly likely to do much for your image,’ she stalled, ‘promoting the typing pool’s equivalent of the village idiot to your secretary.’

‘It so happens that I’ve decided it’s high time something was done about that village idiot routine of yours,’ he retorted coldly. ‘And it’s a pose you’ll find yourself dropping pretty damn quickly around me, I can assure you.’

‘Oh, I see,’ gushed Lucy, glaring balefully at him. ‘You’ve decided to have another bash at furthering my education, have you?’

He tilted his large frame back in the leather swivel chair as he gave her a look of fastidious forbearance with which she was all too familiar.

‘Your education—or, to be more precise, your appalling lack of it—is and never has been of the slightest interest to me,’ he informed her with exaggerated patience. ‘But the unfortunate fact that you happen to be a peripheral member of my family—’

‘I’m not a member of your precious family!’ exploded Lucy. ‘The fact that my mother is married to your father has nothing to do with me! And another thing,’ she continued, every single one of her pent-up frustrations clamouring to have a say, ‘unlike you, I happened to have a completely open mind about their marriage at the time—I could hardly have been expected to foresee that my mother would lose her reason and waltz off and leave me at your mercy. I’d have been better off if she’d dumped me on the streets!’

‘Here we go again,’ he groaned, rolling his eyes in disbelief. ‘You’re like a stuck record. Damn it, on the streets is probably where you’d have ended up if it hadn’t been for my father!’ His eyes blazed their fury across the desk at her. ‘Your mother was up to her eyeballs in debt when she married him—’

‘You’re the one like a stuck record,’ Lucy practically screamed at him. ‘She didn’t marry him for his money! For heaven’s sake, how much convincing do you need? They’ve been happily married for eight years now and you still accuse—’

‘I’m accusing no one of anything,’ he cut in coldly. ‘I was merely pointing out the facts. And another fact is that I wouldn’t have been left here with you virtually on my hands if you’d behaved like any normal child and gone with them to the States as they wanted—so don’t give me any more of your sanctimonious hogwash about how open-minded you were about them marrying!’

‘I was fifteen, for heaven’s sake!’ shrieked Lucy indignantly. ‘It was only four years since my own father had died...the last thing I wanted was to be uprooted from England and all my friends.’

‘And how did you behave when you got your own way?’ he demanded witheringly.

‘I didn’t get my own way,’ she protested angrily, wondering why she had even bothered—no one had ever attempted to look at her turbulent teenage years from her point of view and Mark was the last person to do so now. ‘I was dragged from the school I knew and loved, and from all my friends, and dumped in a snooty boarding-school where I was a complete misfit!’

‘Damn it, how else could they have left you in England without sending you to boarding-school?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘And the fact that you couldn’t stand the place was hardly a reason for attempting to burn it to the ground.’

Lucy gritted her teeth and said nothing—what was the point in saying anything now when it had been her own obstinate pride that had condemned her all those years ago?

When Mark had been summoned to the school from his studies at Cambridge it had been impossible for her to judge which had hurt her most: the object of her secret adoration’s arriving with a sultry blonde in tow, or the crushing words with which he had greeted her.

‘This is all I need—you taking up arson!’

In her hurt confusion she had been unable to utter a single word. The fury that had erupted in him as he had taken her silence as total confirmation of her guilt had spawned a brainstorm of furious indignation in her which had eventually resulted in her screaming at him that she would make sure the place burned to a cinder if she had to remain there. Her immediate expulsion had removed any likelihood of her actually carrying out that mindless threat—but what had hurt her even more deeply was that her own mother, loving and concerned though she had been, had never once appeared to question her guilt either.

‘My father should have put his foot down then and made sure you stayed with them in the States until you were fit to be let loose on the world,’ continued Mark ruthlessly. ‘But no—once you turned sixteen you got your own way and returned to England to—’

‘Only because the American education system is so different,’ interrupted Lucy with hot indignation. ‘There was no way I could suddenly fit in there.’

‘Yet you didn’t have much success fitting in here either,’ he pointed out unkindly. ‘How many different courses was it you started on, only to drop out of?’

‘And I’m sure you don’t consider you played any part in that, do you?’ she lashed out at him with all the passionate resentment of her teenage years. ‘I was doing well and really enjoying the art foundation course at Kingston—’

‘Yes—so much that you dropped out of it after barely a year,’ he jeered.

‘And you know perfectly well why!’ she accused hotly. ‘Because of those two harpies you farmed me out with! They made my life an absolute misery. If I wasn’t back at their place by eight, they used to call the police. I must have been the only art student in the entire country who had to be home by eight—weekends included!’

‘Lucy, I simply haven’t the time to sit here being subjected to a blow-by-blow account of your delinquent youth,’ he drawled in tones of bored disdain, sliding back the cuff of his shirt to display a slim gold watch at his darkly haired wrist.

He was a gloriously hairy man, she suddenly found herself thinking. Not in any way abnormally so—there were some men who looked positively ape-like, whereas Mark was... She pulled herself up abruptly, experiencing an uncomfortable churning sensation in the pit of her stomach as she remembered the precise moment she had made the discovery as to his hirsuteness or otherwise. It was one morning during the two weeks when he had had no option but to put her up at his flat and during which he had made it starkly clear she was the most unwelcome of guests. Having believed him to be out, she had gone racing into his bedroom to investigate the alarming sounds emanating from it...on reflection, she realised the girl sharing his bed had probably felt every bit as disconcerted as she had. She glared across the desk at Mark, his unconcerned laughter as he had ordered her from the room all those years ago once again ringing in her ears.

‘You were the one who brought up the subject,’ she informed him, her tone suddenly switching to ominous sweetness. ‘And while we’re on it—perhaps you’d care to cast your mind back to those two ghastly weeks I was forced to spend at your flat.’

‘You were forced?’ he queried with supercilious indignation. ‘My God, that’s rich! I reckon I deserved a medal simply for having let my father talk me into allowing you to stay there!’

‘No, if you deserved a medal for anything, it was your stamina as a stud—as far as I can remember, you had a different woman every night, and that was hardly an example to be setting for an impressionable teenager, now was it, Mark?’

‘Lucy, darling, your terminology is, to put it mildly, unfortunate,’ he murmured through clenched teeth. ‘I might have seen different women every night, but...’ He broke off with an eloquent shrug that brought the colour racing to her cheeks. ‘But I have to admit that one woman did spend the night there during your stay,’ he conceded off-handedly. ‘And I also admit that it was wrong of me to allow her to do so—just as it was wrong of me to credit you with enough intelligence not to come barging in on us. And as for your picture of yourself as an impressionable teenager—I’d be more inclined to describe as delinquent a sixteen-year-old who decides to take a joy-ride in an extremely expensive car—especially one who wrecks it before she’s even managed to get it out of the garage.’

Lucy leapt to her feet, beside herself with fury. Yes, she had almost wrecked his precious car—but that was only half the story. And, as always, he hadn’t even attempted to find out the other half!

‘I take it you’re now off to get your things and move them into your new office,’ he murmured tauntingly, having beaten her to the door, which he now nonchalantly barred.

There was consternation as well as defiance in Lucy’s wide-spaced blue eyes as they rose to those of the man towering over her. As always, when she stood this close to him, she felt as though her five and a half feet of height had shrunk to four. And that wasn’t the only effect he had on her. The amount of male attention she received was more than enough to confirm that she was an attractive woman; all too often the slender curvaceousness of her lithe young body and the wholesome loveliness of her features brought her attention she could well do without, yet at this very moment she felt like a frumpy fifteen-year-old.

Rattled by these confidence-sapping sensations flooding her, she made to flick her cornsilk, shoulder-length hair behind her ears—a gesture she resorted to without even being aware of it whenever she felt nervous or threatened—only to find that today was one of those days she had decided to tie it back.

‘Yes—I’ll move my things into that office, but only because I haven’t any choice!’ she flung at him, furious with herself for the way she was feeling. ‘But I warn you, I’m sure there’s a law against what you’re doing to me—and when I find out what it is, I’ll...I’ll sue you through every court there is!’

‘You plan to sue me for plucking you from what amounts to a typing pool and making you my secretary?’ he murmured in wonderment, the laughter colouring his words incensing her.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean!’ she raged. ‘Every time I’ve tried applying for other jobs, you’ve made sure I didn’t get them—I don’t know how, probably through some business mafia you belong to, but I know you have!’

‘I suppose it would never occur to you that other potential employers found you lacking in some way?’ he taunted.

‘If that’s the case, why do you want me as your secretary?’ she demanded triumphantly.

‘I have my reasons,’ he murmured enigmatically. ‘Now, would you mind—?’

‘Silly me—of course you have!’ exclaimed Lucy, her eyes widening in indignation as a thought suddenly struck her. ‘You’ve been here how long—four months? And you’ve been through secretaries like a dose of salts! Dear me, now I really am getting the picture! Let’s see, two Waterford offices in the States, four on the Continent—and possibly sundry others dotted around the world I’ve never even heard of—and you’ve alley-catted your way through all of them!’ She could tell by the thunderous expression on his face that she should stop, but the words kept coming. ‘And now you’ve hit London—and at last it’s dawned on you that business and the sort of pleasure you revel in simply don’t mix. No wonder you’re prepared to put up with me as a secretary—it probably wouldn’t even bother you if I couldn’t type.’

It astounded her how quickly he had moved. One minute they were facing one another in combat, the next she was locked in his arms, the muscled hardness of his body imprinting itself down the length of hers as though the clothing had been stripped from her.

‘But what if you’ve got it all wrong, Lucy?’ he murmured with threatening softness. ‘What if I’ve decided to move in on you...and really finish off your education?’

She had never been this close to him; never experienced the mind-sapping chaos of excitement of being in his arms.

‘I...you...I’ve already been thoroughly educated in that particular department, thank you very much,’ she stammered with childlike guilelessness, her heart hammering as though it would burst against the wall of his chest.

‘What a relief it is to hear that,’ he whispered, his head lowering as though in slow motion towards hers. ‘That means we can dispense with all these boring preliminaries and get down to the really advanced business.’

And there was nothing in the least preliminary about his kiss. His mouth possessed hers with a practised thoroughness that startled her into a complete lack of resistance to the probing invasion of his tongue. But it wasn’t simply the instantly intoxicating effect of his mouth on hers that she had to contend with, it was also the debilitating excitement caused by the hands that had somehow found their way beneath her sweater and to which her flesh responded as though to high voltage, intensely pleasurable blasts of electricity.

These were Mark’s lips burning against hers with such swiftly soaring passion, her crazily spinning senses tried to warn her; and Mark’s hands moving with such inflammatory effect against her flesh and making her feel more acutely conscious of being a woman than she ever had in her life before.

‘No!’ She tore herself free, staggering backwards from him, her hands rising to cover her face in a gesture of sheer panic as she battled to regain her senses.

It had taken all the strength of will she possessed to drag herself free from the mesmerising spell of his touch, and it was the mere fact that it had been necessary for her to conjure up such a strength that was terrifying the wits out of her.

‘Lucy, don’t you dare go throwing a wobbly on me,’ warned Mark, his voice oddly strained despite the aggression in its tone. ‘I’m perfectly aware that I stepped way out of line—and I’m sorry.’

She spread her fingers open against her face, peeping through them at him, but far too wary of what her own voice might betray for her to dare attempt speaking.

‘You’re just going to have to learn to stop riling me like that,’ he exploded accusingly, ‘especially now you’ll be working for me.’

Lucy’s hands dropped from her face in a fury of indignation that swept all other considerations from her mind.

‘That’s a great apology—telling me it’s my fault for riling you,’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘Since when have I ever opened my mouth and not managed to rile you? And now you order me to work in close proximity with you! What are you—some sort of masochist? I haven’t the first idea what being a secretary entails, but I’m sure that’ll make it all the more fun for you!’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ he roared. ‘For God’s sake, one of the few courses you managed to survive was at that ludicrously exclusive—not to mention extortionately expensive—secretarial college you went to!’

‘Yes, but you obviously didn’t read any of the reports—’

‘I wasn’t interested in the damned reports—just as long as they didn’t sling you out,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘I was under the impression they gave you certificates when you left,’ he added, frowning.

‘Yes—one for elementary typing and another for shorthand at fifty words a minute,’ she retorted, knowing that such information would probably be double-Dutch to him.

‘So—what’s the problem?’ he enquired, his tone suspicious as his frown deepened.

Lucy opened her mouth to inform him that there were probably several typists in the company who could type twice as fast as she had once been able to take down shorthand—most of which she had probably forgotten anyway—then had second thoughts. She had taken the course simply to learn the basic typing skills she felt would be a useful tool in her ambition to write and for that reason had never regretted it, but, though her speed had improved markedly, there was no guaranteeing it wouldn’t collapse with Mark standing over her.

‘You can’t be that bad,’ he muttered, doubt resonant in his tone, ‘otherwise you’d have flitted off to another department, as you did with such monotonous regularity when you first started here.’

‘You’re wrong—I can be that bad,’ she informed him with gloating satisfaction. ‘Though, to be fair, even though I’m slow, I’m painstakingly accurate when it comes to complicated figure work—that’s why they dump all those mind-bogglingly boring specifications and the like on me.’

He gave her a wary, speculative look, pursing his lips as he did so.

Lucy found her eyes drawn irresistibly to his mouth, a strident excitement exploding through her as she relived the sensation of that mouth on hers—not pursed as it was now, as though for a chaste kiss, but open and uninhibited in its hungry exploration. She gave a sharp toss of her head in an attempt to clear it of the madness of such thoughts and felt the colour sting hotly against her cheeks.

‘OK—so you’re slow but accurate,’ exclaimed Mark brusquely, dragging his fingers through his hair with a gesture of weary impatience. ‘Lucy, we’ve really got to do something about clearing the air between us. I know you’ll probably not believe this, but I’ve been meaning to get around to having a talk with you ever since I arrived, but I’ve simply not found the time.’

Lucy’s look of sceptical disbelief was lost on him as he glanced down at his watch.

‘Look—let’s get your bits and pieces up here, then we can take an early lunch.’

Without waiting for her reply, he strode over to his desk and got his jacket. Lucy watched as he shrugged his broad shoulders into it, her mind racing frantically.

‘Well, come along, then,’ he urged, opening the door and glowering impatiently as he waited for her to make a move to go through it.

‘I...Mark, I’m not eating in the staff canteen with you,’ she burst out anxiously.

‘Who mentioned the canteen? There’s a good Italian place round the corner, where they usually manage to find me a table.’

He was the sort of man for whom most restaurants probably always managed to find a table, even if it meant turfing some other poor devil out, thought Lucy resentfully.

‘Lucy!’

‘Mark, I—’

‘Shift yourself!’ he snapped, grasping her by the arm and propelling her forcibly through the door.

‘I’m perfectly capable of getting my own things,’ she hissed at him in the lift, her eyes studiously avoiding his scowling features.

‘Are you?’

‘Yes! And I—’ She broke off with a squeak of protest as she was virtually shoved through the lift doors before they had finished opening. ‘Stop treating me like this!’ she raged, trying in vain to twist free of his grasp as he marched her towards the general typing offices. ‘I was perfectly happy here until you spoiled it all by turning up.’ She glanced up at his glacial features as he marched her relentlessly on, her heart sinking as she realised she was going to have to humiliate herself by pleading with him. ‘Mark—even you must realise how odd people are going to find this,’ she wailed.

‘Find what odd?’ he demanded.

‘For heaven’s sake—you’re practically God around here! People are bound to—’

She gave a strangled gasp as he halted unexpectedly and spun her round to face him.

‘OK, Lucy, spit it out—what exactly is your problem?’

‘I...well, if you must know, no one knows you’re my stepbrother...well, no one apart from the executives, as far as I know,’ she stammered, then added venomously, ‘I certainly haven’t told anyone!’

Her eyes widened in total disbelief as he began chuckling softly to himself.

‘Don’t tell me you’re actually worried what it might do to your reputation, being seen hob-nobbing with the—”alley-catting” was the term I believe you used—boss. My, that is a problem, sweetheart.’

‘Don’t you dare call me sweetheart!’ she shrieked, then clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes flying with stricken concern to the door near by and finding it mercifully closed.

‘You know,’ he murmured with gloating relish, ‘I’m sure we could give them a lot to talk about—if I really put my mind to it.’

‘Mark...please,’ she begged.

There was nothing she wouldn’t put past him, and the thought of having to live it down with her colleagues was something that didn’t even bear contemplating—especially Sarah Mitson, her closest friend, to whom she still hadn’t got around to divulging her complicated relationship to Mark.

‘Why, Lucy, sweetheart, I do believe you’re grovelling,’ he murmured complacently, releasing her and flashing her a wickedly taunting look as he stepped forward and held the door open for her.

Her eyes trained on the rich green carpeting beneath her feet, Lucy entered.

As with all the Waterford London offices, this general typing complex was magnificently equipped and almost lavishly appointed. Though she had no other work experience with which to make comparisons, Lucy had learned from the comments of staff from several of the departments within the company that Waterford’s wholly deserved their envied international reputation where staff pay, conditions and, most of all, job satisfaction were concerned. To refer to where she worked, as most did, as a ‘typing pool’ she knew was a complete misnomer. And it was too to refer to her colleagues simply as typists. Of the six of them, three were graduates, attracted by the company’s liberal internal promotion policies and lack of sex discrimination. Two current heads of department had started their careers in this very office. And she was the duffer among them, thought Lucy resignedly as she trudged, head bowed, towards her desk—acutely conscious of Mark close on her heels and the palpably loaded atmosphere permeating the suddenly hushed office.

‘My, my—and what have we been up to?’ teased Sarah wickedly beneath her breath as Lucy, now scarlet-faced, passed her and halted at her own desk.

She loved Sarah dearly, she thought resignedly, noticing how her friend had openly abandoned all idea of work to gaze with wide-eyed interest on what was going on around her, but there were times, such as right now, when she could happily throttle her.

She dug a large plastic bag out of one of the drawers and then proceded to tip the entire contents of all the drawers into it.

‘Heck, Lucy—you haven’t been fired, have you?’ exclaimed Sarah, her look turning to one of horrified suspicion.

Lucy glanced pleadingly over at her friend, now on her feet and regarding her with a look of shocked indignation, then towards Mark, standing impassively by her desk.

‘Of course not—but I’ll have to explain later,’ she muttered in Sarah’s direction, then flashed her an imploring look—when it came to defending her friends, Sarah’s normally placid nature could become startlingly aggressive.

‘Is that it?’ enquired Mark, glancing with open disdain at the overflowing carrier bag Lucy was now hoisting precariously in her arms.

She nodded and, casting what she hoped was a reassuring look in her stunned friend’s direction, followed him as he began marching out of the office.

‘Hang on a minute, Mark,’ she exclaimed when they had almost reached the door, and could have bitten off her tongue for her carelessness in speaking in what, to her colleagues, must have sounded an astounding familiar way to address the supreme boss. ‘I’ve forgotten my coat.’

He turned and faced her, his expression long-suffering. ‘OK—wait there while I get it,’ he muttered, striding back past her. ‘Where is it?’

‘I’ll get it,’ offered one of the other girls, having difficulty keeping her face straight as she raced off, then returned and handed Lucy’s coat to a deceptively patient-looking Mark.

‘Is that it?’ he asked Lucy, in tones of equally deceptive patience as he slung her coat nonchalantly over his shoulder.

She nodded, deciding she could collect her scarf and boots, which she had just that moment remembered, later.

‘Come on, then,’ he snapped, striding past her, ‘we haven’t got all day.’

Gritting her teeth, she followed him down the corridor and into the lift, where she maintained a frigid silence which her companion showed no inclination to break on their journey back to his suite of offices.

No wonder she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell even Sarah about her unfortunate connection with the Waterford family, especially not this monster, she fumed resentfully to herself as she entered the office that was to be hers—her pride simply hadn’t the stomach for it.

She placed the carrier bag on the desk and tipped its contents on to it.

‘Right—now that you’ve reduced this place to the sort of mess only you would feel at home in, perhaps we can go and eat,’ drawled Mark from the doorway, flinging her coat across the room at her as he left to get his own.

Clutching her coat to her, she raced out after him.

‘I’ll not last five minutes here—so what’s the point of my bothering?’ she demanded. ‘And as for having lunch with you, it’s an ordeal I’ve decided to skip!’

‘Damn it, Lucy,’ he exclaimed, striding threateningly towards her, ‘stop behaving like a spoiled brat—I’ve told you there are things I need to discuss with you!’

‘Perhaps if you stopped treating me like a child I’d—’ She broke off in consternation as the memory of how much a woman she had felt in his arms seared suddenly through her.

‘You were saying?’ he mocked softly, both his words and the disconcertingly predatory gleam in his eyes leaving her in no doubt that he sensed what was going through her mind. ‘Lucy, I think we ought to go—before I’m tempted to give you further proof that I no longer regard you as a child.’