Rendezvous With Revenge

Letter to Reader Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN CHAPTER SIXTEEN Copyright

Happy 25th birthday, Harlequin Presents, May the next 25 years be as much fun!

Love as always

Carde Martines

Dear Reader,

How nice to have the opportunity for a personal word. For we are kindred spirits, you and I. We both like to lose ourselves in the unique world of romance fiction. Where else can we be sure of “happily ever after,” despite the seemingly insurmountable problems our hero and heroine are confronted with? Yet we do so enjoy their struggles, their conflicts and especially their passion. Passion for life, and for each other. Harlequin Presents® has been giving its readers passionate love stories for the past twenty-five years. If this is your first venture into a Harlequin Presents® or a Miranda Lee romance, then let me welcome you to our world—a world of excitement and intrigue, of sensuality and surprises; a world of sheer unadulterated pleasure!

Best wishes and happy reading during Harlequin

Presents®’ silver anniversary year!

Miranda Lee

Miranda Lee

Rendezvous With Revenge

Miranda Lee

CHAPTER ONE

‘WHAT do you mean, you’re not going? Oh, Ethan, you promised! You’ve been working non-stop now for nearly two years without a holiday. If you don’t take a break soon, you’ll crack up!’

‘And you call going to this type of medical conference having a break?’ came the scathing reply. ‘They inflict you with the most dreary lectures for the first half of each day, then expect you to come out of your boredominduced coma and socialise for the second half.’

‘Which is exactly what you need.’

‘What? To be bored to death?’

‘In a way. But I was thinking more of the socialising. What on earth is Evelyn going to say when you tell her?’

‘Evelyn is the reason I’m not going.’

Abby grimaced from where she was sitting at the reception desk, trying to get on with her work and not listen to the private conversation which was unfortunately coming loud and clear from Doctor Grant’s surgery.

If only Sylvia had closed the darned door properly, I wouldn’t be in this embarrassing position, Abby thought disgruntledly.

‘Explain yourself, Ethan,’ came Sylvia’s imperative demand.

‘What’s there to explain? I simply decided I didn’t want to take Evelyn. Since this style of conference has been designed around couples, and I didn’t want to stand out like a shag on a rock, I’ve decided not to go at all.’

‘But why have you decided not to take Evelyn, for heaven’s sake?’

‘For reasons which I should have anticipated when I asked her in the first place. Evelyn’s no different from any other woman I’ve been fool enough to become involved with over the past few years. After a couple of months they start fancying that our relationship—such as it is—should develop into something deeper.’

‘Oh, how shocking of them!’

Abby winced at the caustic tone in Sylvia’s voice. Not that Abby was on Dr Grant’s side. Sylvia’s brother was a cold devil at the best of times—something his older sister obviously knew only too well!

‘Spare me the sarcasm, Sis,’ he drawled. ‘I never promised Evelyn anything more than the odd night here and there. She claimed that was all she wanted too, after her divorce came through last year, but she was lying. I should have known my requesting three whole days and nights of her company would be simultaneously equated with my feelings for her having miraculously blossomed into love, with a proposal of marriage imminent.’

‘Silly girl,’ Sylvia mocked drily. ‘Though it might be fairer if you had a warning tattooed on that oh, so handsome forehead of yours, Ethan: ALLERGIC TO LOVE AND MARRIAGE!’

‘Not allergic, Sylvia. Wary. As I am of all beautiful women like Evelyn. Most don’t have love on their minds when they look to marriage, only money and position.’

Sylvia’s sigh echoed through the quiet rooms. ‘You still haven’t gotten over her, have you?’

‘Who?’

‘You know very well who. Vanessa Whatsername.’

‘I really do not wish to discuss the past, Sylvia. Neither do I wish to discuss my decision not to go to the conference. Now, if you don’t mind, I still have a few letters to dictate here for Miss Richmond to type up before she leaves.’

Abby’s eyebrows rose in a sardonic arch. Six months she’d worked for Ethan Grant and he still called her ‘Miss Richmond’. Not that she really cared. It suited her fine to keep the disgustingly handsome orthopaedic surgeon at a safe distance. Romance was not on her agenda this year.

Or any other year, came the added bitter thought. She’d had enough of romance to last her a lifetime!

Still, his cold indifference to her as a living, breathing human being did niggle a little occasionally. He’d never asked her one single question about herself during the last six months. Not one.

Abby smiled ruefully as she recalled their first meeting. He’d been sitting behind his desk with his head down when Sylvia had ushered her in for an introduction.

Apparently, he’d given his sister a free hand in hiring someone to take over from her on a Friday—Sylvia having decided that after years of slavery to Ethan as both his housekeeper and full-time receptionist she wanted Fridays off. Her dear brother’s only instruction had been that she was to train her Friday replacement thoroughly so that there would be no hiccups in her absence.

Abby wasn’t sure what she’d expected after having met Sylvia. Someone older, she supposed. And less...striking. Sylvia was around fifty, plump, pale and rather plain. So when Ethan Grant had lifted his darkly handsome head and set his startlingly blue eyes on her, she’d blinked her shock for a few seconds.

Her involuntary surprise at his unexpected good looks, plus his age—late thirties at the most—had not gone unnoticed, a scornful coldness sweeping over those arrogantly handsome features, setting their chiselled beauty into a forbidding concrete.

‘How do you do, Miss Richmond,’ he’d said with a frozen formality which had never changed, not once in six months.

Abby found his chilly aloofness almost amusing at times. What had he thought during those first moments of their meeting? That she’d been bowled over by his brooding sex appeal? Did he believe that she might be harbouring a hidden passion for him, and that if he gave her an inch she would take more than a mile?

God, it would take more than tall, dark and handsome to bewitch her these days. Her experience with Dillon had taught her well. Oh, yes, the dear doctor had made her silly female heart flutter for a split second, but that was all. She’d quickly learnt to control any further involuntary sexual responses when she looked at him; just as she’d quickly learnt what kind of man lay behind his smouldering good looks.

He was a machine, not a man. A cold-blooded, cold-hearted robot who worked eighteen-hour days, operating at not one or two, but three hospitals. He even operated on a Saturday occasionally, if his lists for that week were too long to be fitted in to his Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning operating schedules.

Abby sometimes wondered why his patients set such store by him. It had to be because of his skill, not his bedside manner. He had consultations every Friday afternoon while she was there, giving her plenty of opportunity to study his personality, and she’d never seen him so much as smile at a patient. He would come out of his rooms and call each successive one in with that same sphinx-like expression on his face.

They were just cases to him, Abby accepted finally, not people. She wouldn’t mind betting that he had never become emotionally involved with a single person he’d operated on.

Obviously, he never became emotionally involved with anyone, from what she’d just heard.

‘There’s no use bullying me about it, Sylvia,’ he was saying in a vaguely bored tone. ‘I’m not going and that’s final.’

‘Then more fool you! Any other man would just find someone else to take.’

‘Such as whom?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Sylvia was beginning to sound very irritable. ‘You could hire yourself one of those escorts, I suppose.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. One of my closest colleagues will be there with his wife. Do you honestly think I would show up with an amateur call-girl on my arm?’

‘How would they ever know?’

‘I’d know,’ he bit out.

‘Are you telling me you’ve finally developed scruples where women and sex are concerned? Frankly, I think it’s a perfectly splendid idea, and perfectly suited to your requirements. For the right fee you’d get exactly what you want from a woman and no more,’ Sylvia threw at him tartly. ‘You certainly wouldn’t have to worry about her having designs on you afterwards either. You’d know right from the start that she was only screwing you for your money!’

Abby’s eyebrows shot up ceilingwards. Sylvia must really be mad to resort to such an unladylike expression. Still, it was rather good to hear Sylvia get the better of her pain of a brother for once. Clearly he was rendered speechless by her acid barbs, if the sudden silence was anything to go by.

‘Aren’t you going to say anything more, Ethan?’ Sylvia demanded after a short while. ‘Don’t you dare just ignore me. I won’t have it, do you hear?’

‘And I won’t have you telling me how to run my private life,’ her brother returned in an ominously cold voice. ‘Now, go home and leave me be. I have work to do.’

Abby knew that tone of voice. And clearly so did Sylvia, who emerged from the room looking defeated. Closing the door distractedly behind her, she began walking slowly across the empty waiting room with a genuinely troubled look on her face. She seemed totally unaware of Abby’s presence behind the desk, so deep in thought was she.

Abby’s clearing her throat brought her head up with a startled gasp. ‘Oh, my goodness, Abby! I forgot you were still here.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Sylvia?’ Abby offered. ‘You seem a little... upset.’

Sylvia sighed. ‘No, thanks, but thanks for offering. You’re a sweet girl. I’d better go home and get dinner started. It’s time you went home too, isn’t it? It’s after five.’

‘Dr Grant hasn’t finished dictating today’s letters. I’ll have to stay back till I’ve typed them up. You know how particular he is about that.’

‘What a slave-driver that man is! Make sure you put down the overtime.’

‘Oh, I will; don’t you worry.’

Sylvia gave her a sharp glance. ‘Are you having money problems, Abby?’

‘I’m always having money problems.’ The money she earned from her one day here plus her weekend waitressing job was just enough to make ends meet, with nothing left over for emergencies or luxuries.

‘No luck getting a permanent position yet?’

‘Unfortunately no.’ Despite spending every spare second and cent having her résumé photocopied and sending it off in answer to every suitable job advertisement. The local unemployment office was getting sick of the sight of her, as well.

‘I don’t understand that at all. I would have thought some big flashy company would have snapped up a good-looking girl like you for their front desk.’

Abby just shrugged. She didn’t want to tell Sylvia the probable reason that her application was passed over most of the time. They obviously took one look at where she’d taken her secretarial course and immediately put her résumé aside.

Sylvia had never asked for a written or detailed application, naively hiring Abby on just a telephone call and one short personal interview, blindly believing her when she’d said she’d been overseas on a working holiday for a few years and had no recent employment history in Australia.

Abby had not liked lying to her—she’d taken to Sylvia straight away—but poverty did rather make one desperate. She took some comfort from the fact that the glowing personal reference she’d been able to supply had been the genuine article and not a forgery. Dear Miss Blanchford... Abby was so grateful to her.

‘I did get one interview earlier this week,’ she admitted, cringing inside as she recalled the smarmy manner of the man who’d interviewed her. No way would she take that job, even if it was offered to her.

‘Oh? Who with?’

‘A small car-repair company in Alexandria.’

Sylvia’s nose wrinkled. ‘Surely you could do better than that.’

‘I was hoping to, but times are tough.’

‘I’ll ask Ethan to find out if any doctor he knows requires a full-time receptionist,’ Sylvia said kindly. ‘Not that I want you to go. I’m really going to miss you. Ethan will too. He just doesn’t know what a gem we found in you. You’re always so willing to work back. Most pretty young things would be out of here like a shot on a Friday night.’

‘I’m not that young, Sylvia.’

‘Which is another thing I don’t understand—how you got to be twenty-five years old without some lucky man snapping you up as well.’

‘I guess I’m just not the type men snap up,’ Abby said, smiling wryly as she glanced up at Sylvia. Her smile faded when she found that Ethan had come out of his rooms and was standing in the middle of the waiting room watching her, a drily cynical amusement in his cold blue eyes.

You’re right there, darling, they seemed to say. You’re the type men take to bed, not to the altar.

Resentment at his ongoing and unjustified assessment of her character sent her nostrils flaring and her heart thudding angrily. Who in hell did he think he was, judging her like that, and on such superficial evidence?

Abby was well aware that she hadn’t been behind the door when God gave out looks. But she’d never been a flaunter of her various feminine attributes, or a flirt. And she had only had one lover in her life!

Admittedly she’d dressed and acted a bit more provocatively during her months as Dillon’s girlfriend—he’d liked her in tight tops and short skirts and skimpy bikinis, and she’d been too besotted to deny him anything. He hadn’t minded other men looking at her either, had seemed to enjoy their wanting what he had.

But nowadays she played down her sex appeal, using no make-up and wearing her long honey-brown hair in a simple plait most of the time. She never highlighted her full mouth with lipstick and did her best to keep her smiles to a minimum after her sleazy landlord had told her that her cool grey eyes took on a ‘come hither’ sparkle whenever she smiled.

‘Is there something I can do for you, Doctor?’ she asked, congratulating herself on the coolly delivered question.

He arched a cooler eyebrow back at her. ‘Just three letters to type, thank you, Miss Richmond. After that, you can go home.’

Sylvia made an exasperated sound. ‘For goodness’ sake, when are you two going to start calling each other by your first names?’

When hell freezes over, Abby thought tartly.

‘Miss Richmond would not appreciate my being familiar with her—would you, Miss Richmond?’

Their eyes clashed and Abby saw the mockery in his. She decided that two could play that game. ‘I think a certain decorum is called for during surgery hours. Of course, if Dr Grant wants me to call him Ethan after hours, then he only has to say so.’ Her steely gaze was drily challenging, but it didn’t faze the robot one bit.

‘I think we’ll keep the status quo for now,’ he countered without turning a hair. ‘Shouldn’t you be off, Sylvia? It’s getting late.’

Exasperation was written all over his sister. ‘One day, Ethan,’ she muttered as she stalked out, banging the door behind her.

Abby hoped that she’d be around to see this unlikely comeuppance. But she doubted it. Ethan Grant couldn’t be emotionally hurt because he didn’t feel.

Or did he?

Sylvia’s earlier accusation that he was still getting over some woman named Vanessa popped back into Abby’s head. She stared at him, wondering if that could explain his attitude towards her. Had he been jilted once by some pretty young woman? Was she still embittered years later?

Abby could appreciate how that might happen. She herself knew that it would be many years before she got over what Dillon had done to her. But she’d never attributed such sensitivity to the male sex, and especially not to a man like Ethan Grant, who didn’t seem to have a sensitive bone in his body.

‘Do I have a pimple on my nose, Miss Richmond?’ Ethan Grant asked archly. ‘You’re staring at me.’

‘Sorry, Doctor. I wasn’t really staring at you. I was off in another world.’

‘Not a pleasant one, by the look on your face.’

‘No,’ she agreed drily. Memories of Dillon and what he’d done never inspired her to do the Highland Fling.

‘You’re not the most communicative female, are you?’ he said, a flash of irritation crossing his normally impassive face. ‘Here. Make sure you post all the letters on your way home,’ he said as he handed over the small tape recorder, then whirled to stride back into his room, his white coat flapping rather angrily around his legs.

Abby stared after him with rounded eyes, aware that she’d just seen Ethan Grant not quite his usual, coolly composed self.

What had disturbed his equilibrium? she puzzled. His earlier argument with Sylvia? Surely not his discovering that his latest ladyfriend wanted more of him than the occasional dinner date. He’d been coldly contemptuous about that.

No, it had been something to do with her. Probably her staring at him. He hadn’t liked that one bit. He also hadn’t liked her not revealing what lay behind her preoccupation.

Well, that’s too bad, Abby thought caustically as she settled down behind her computer to begin typing up the letters.

She hadn’t typed more than a heading when a bitter smile tugged at her mouth. God, she could just imagine Ethan Grant’s reaction if she’d told him she was thinking about her bastard of an ex-boyfriend, and how his betrayal had sent her to prison for four years—four long, hard, soul-destroying years.

Abby didn’t think that what had happened to the dear doctor via the hands of that Vanessa woman would match what Dillon had put her through. If anyone had the right to be bitter and wary about the opposite sex, it was Abigail Rose-Maree Richmond!

CHAPTER TWO

ABBY was just beginning the second letter when she remembered the other letter—the one she’d forgotten to give to Ethan.

All the mail had been delivered extra late that day, after Dr Grant had started seeing patients. Not that he ever opened the mail himself, unless it was marked ‘Confidential’ or ‘Private’.

Such an occurrence was rare. Most letters sent to the surgery were either cheques for unpaid accounts, general enquiries from other doctors, or advertising mail from various pharmaceutical and medical companies. But there was one letter that Friday which Abby thought the doctor might want to see personally.

It was from the Bungarla private hotel where the medical conference was being held—a notice about a last-minute change of lecturer. It seemed that one of the Sydney surgeons listed to lecture was unavailable, and was being replaced by world-famous neurosurgeon Dr Philip Ballistrat.

Abby appreciated that Ethan probably wouldn’t care less about it, now that he’d decided not to go, but since she wasn’t supposed to know about that she thought she’d better take it in to him.

Sighing, she pressed pause on the tape recorder, picked up the envelope in question and rose to make her way across the waiting room floor. She stopped in front of the closed door, glancing down to check that all the buttons on her white blouse were safely done up before smoothing the pleated black skirt down over her hips.

Abby didn’t want a repeat of the unfortunate incident a couple of weeks back when, unbeknownst to her, one of the small pearl buttons on her blouse had popped open, giving anyone who had looked at her chest at an angle an eyeful of lace-encased breasts.

‘It seems one of your buttons has lost its battle against your womanly shape, Miss Richmond,’ Ethan had pointed out in a softly mocking voice as he’d bent to pick up his next patient’s file from the tray beside her. ‘Perhaps larger buttons are called for in future? Or even a bigger sized blouse?’

Abby had been thankful that he’d turned away before her embarrassment had time to blossom into a full-blown blush. Which it had—her mortification increased by the way her breasts had immediately seemed to swell further, straining against her bra and her blouse, making her fumbling attempt to do up the tiny button all the more difficult.

It was the only time Ethan Grant had managed to get under her skin—sexually speaking—and she wasn’t about to let it happen again. So Abby was disturbed to find that when she knocked on the door, her hand was shaking. There was also an instant gathering of butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

Her scowl reflected her feelings. To have Ethan Grant reduce her to nervy state was irritating in the extreme.

‘Do come in, Miss Richmond,’ came the laconic invitation.

Gritting her teeth, Abby opened the door and went in, calmed by the knowledge that her private agitation was just that. Private. The man seated behind his desk would never guess from her calm demeanour and cool gaze that she was anything but totally indifferent, both to his personage and his looks.

‘Yes, what is it?’ he asked peremptorily on glancing up.

She stepped forward and deposited the envelope on the leather-topped desk. ‘A letter for you, Doctor. It’s from the people running the conference next week, letting you know about a last-minute change of lecturer. I thought you might like to have a look at it but I forgot to give it to you earlier. Sorry.’

He picked up the envelope and tossed it straight into the waste-paper basket in the corner. ‘I’ve decided not to go to that,’ he said brusquely.

The movement of light and shadow across his face showed dark rings of exhaustion under his beautiful blue eyes, and despite knowing that it was all self-inflicted Abby felt marginally sorry for him.

‘What a pity,’ she said, deciding to do her bit to get the damned fool to go. Love him or hate him, he was a good doctor and he really did need a break. ‘They’ve been able to get Dr Philip Ballistrat in place of one of the lesser lights,’ she said encouragingly. ‘I would have thought you’d like to hear him talk. He’s very famous, isn’t he?’

Abby was taken aback by Ethan’s response to her news. He remained frozen in his seat for several seconds, his normally phlegmatic blue eyes betraying... what? Surprise? Astonishment? Surely not shock! What was so shocking about what she’d just told him?

Abby was even more taken aback when any surprise was swiftly replaced by an icy smile which sent an oddly erotic shiver running down her spine.

‘Well, well, well,’ he drawled. ‘Who would have believed that? You’re quite right, Miss Richmond. I certainly wouldn’t like to miss the opportunity of hearing such a renowned surgeon.’

He swivelled round in his black leather chair, slid over to the corner, lifted the envelope back out of the basket then slid back again. ‘Thank you for bringing it to my attention. You’ve no idea how disappointed I would have been to have found out afterwards he’d been there and I’d missed him.’

‘So you’re going after all?’ she asked hopefully, thinking how happy Sylvia would be.

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Abby almost clapped her pleasure.