The Innocent Virgin

‘Max. What do you want?’ she demanded rudely.

‘Coffee, thanks,’ he replied briskly. ‘Black. One sugar.’ He dropped down into one of the comfortable armchairs.

Abby frowned. ‘I wasn’t offering you anything to drink,’ she told him impatiently.

‘No?’ He raised dark brows, his grey gaze moving slowly over her face before moving down to her slender curves in denim and a blue T-shirt. ‘What were you offering me, then?’

Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and twenty-five books for Harlequin. Carole has four sons—Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie dog called Merlyn. She says, ‘I’m in a very happy relationship with Peter Senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship.’

Recent titles by the same author:

The Prince Brothers trilogy

PRINCE’S PASSION

PRINCE’S PLEASURE

PRINCE’S LOVE-CHILD

The Innocent Virgin

Carole Mortimer

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

ABBY stepped into the hot scented bathwater, sat down, and let her shoulders sink beneath the luxurious bubbles, ebony hair secured loosely on top of her head, a glass of champagne in one hand, her mobile phone in the other.

She took a large sip from the former before gently dropping the latter into the water beside her, smiling at the satisfying ‘glug’ it gave before sinking to the bottom without trace. The four-inch layer of bubbles simply closed back over the temporary dent the mobile had made in their formation.

The landline was unplugged, the speaker system from her doorbell in the street downstairs switched off. Nothing and no one was going to disturb this hour of decadence.

She took another sip of the champagne and gazed from the free-standing claw-footed bath at her surroundings. Twelve scented candles were her only illumination and a dreamy smile touched her lips as she looked at her frankly opulent surroundings. The floors and walls were of peach-coloured marble, the glass-sided shower unit that stood at one end of the large room had all its fittings gold-plated; the towels on the racks were a sumptuous peach of the exact shade as the walls and floor. Monty was sitting on the laundry basket, all her bottles of perfume were neatly lined up on the glass shelf beneath the tinted mirror, the bucket of ice containing the bottle of champagne was right beside her, and—

Monty was sitting on the laundry basket!

Her gaze swivelled sharply back to look at him. No, it wasn’t the champagne she had already imbibed; Monty really was sitting on top of the laundry basket, unmoving, those green cat-like eyes unblinking.

Well, of course his eyes were cat-like—he was a cat, after all. A huge white, long-haired Persian, to be exact.

Not that Monty was aware of this himself. Somewhere in his youth someone had forgotten to mention this little fact to him, and now he chose to ignore any reference to his species.

Abby wasn’t to blame for this oversight; Monty had already been a year old when she’d chosen him over the other cats at the animal rescue centre. At least, she had thought she had chosen him; within a very few days of arriving home with him it had become more than obvious that Monty had done the choosing. Someone soft and malleable, he must have decided. Someone still young enough to be moulded into the indulgent, pandering human he needed to make his life completely comfortable. Enter Abby.

‘Well, of course that’s going to change now, Monty, old chap.’ She waved her champagne glass with bravado. ‘No more boiled chicken and salmon for you, I’m afraid,’ she warned him ruefully. ‘From now on you’ll be lucky if I can afford to buy you that tinned food you consider so much beneath your notice!’

Cats, she was sure, weren’t supposed to be able to look at you with scepticism and disdain, and yet that was exactly what Monty was doing at this moment. He had several easily readable expressions, from ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ to the smug ‘Aren’t I lucky to own an accommodating human like Abby?’. At the moment it was definitely the former.

‘It isn’t my fault,’ Abby assured him with another wave of her champagne glass—which definitely needed replenishing, she decided, and did exactly that. ‘It’s that man’s fault.’ She took a huge swallow of her champagne. ‘I mean, whoever thought he would do such a thing?’

She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry!

But of course she did, her tears accompanied by huge, heaving sobs.

How could he have done that to her? And on public television, live, in front of millions of viewers.

Oh, God…!

Every time she even thought of that she felt her humiliation all over again.

‘Weeks and weeks—several weeks, anyway,’ she amended tearfully. ‘Well, okay, seven.’ She sniffed inelegantly. ‘All that time I’ve been gently trying to persuade that man to come on my show. Yes, I know you liked him, Monty.’ Her voice rose with indignation on her bland-faced pet’s behalf. ‘So did I,’ she admitted heavily. ‘But if you only knew—if you had only heard—I had no idea, Monty.’ She shuddered. ‘Absolutely none!’ If she had she would never have got out of bed this morning!

In fact, it was worse than that. If she had guessed in any way just how deep her annihilation was going to be this evening she would have taken a one-way trip to Bolivia earlier today and spared herself all the pain.

She had always liked the sound of that name. Bolivia. It sounded so romantic, so mysterious, so different. But, knowing her luck, it was probably nothing like that at all. She had always liked the sound of the so-called Bermuda Triangle too, but no doubt that was just another myth…

She had probably had too much champagne.

‘Okay, okay, so my thoughts are wandering,’ she acknowledged, as Monty seemed to look at her with derision. ‘But if you only knew, Monty.’ She began to cry again, the tears hot on her cheeks. ‘If you had only heard what that man said to me! You would have been shocked, Monty. Shocked!’

Abby had actually passed being shocked where this evening was concerned. She had reached surreal now, able to envisage that whole humiliating experience as if in slow motion—like a reel of film going round and round in the projector.

‘Oh, God, Monty!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t ever leave this apartment again! I’ll have to barricade the door, put bars on the windows. I daren’t ever go out in public again!’ She took another slurp of her champagne, the salt of her tears mixing with the bubbly wine. ‘Once our supplies run out, we’ll both simply starve to death!’ she added shakily.

Four months ago it had all looked so promising. As the weather girl for a breakfast television show—an interesting career move, considering she couldn’t tell a cold front from an isobar!—she had been asked to stand in for the female half of the presentation team while the other woman went on maternity leave for several months. She had made a impact, and a well-known producer had approached her with an offer to do six half-hour chat shows, to be shown live the following spring.

The next three months had been a dream come true for Abby—choosing the guests for each week, researching, negotiating the appearance of those guests—and everything had gone well until it had come to the guest she had chosen for her final show.

Max Harding.

Her intention had been to finish the series on a high note. Once the presenter of his own current affairs programme, Max Harding had returned to reporting foreign news and hadn’t appeared in a British studio in two years. Not since he had walked away from his own programme, and the lucrative contract that went with it, after one of his political guests had tried to commit suicide on the live Sunday evening show.

Max Harding’s personal elusiveness since that time, his flat refusal even to discuss the subject, would make him a prime finale, Abby had thought, for her own series of shows.

But she should have known, Abby berated herself now. Should have guessed what his intentions were when he had finally—surprisingly—agreed to be her guest.

‘He meant to hurt and humiliate me, Monty.’ Her voice hardened angrily at the memory. ‘All the time you liked him so much—that I—that we—How could he do that to me, Monty? How could he?’ Her ready tears began to fall again. ‘But I showed him, Monty. In fact, I showed everyone watching as well,’ she remembered with a pained groan. ‘Millions and millions of people sat in their homes and watched as I hit him. Yes, you did hear me correctly; I hit Max Harding—on live television!’

Abby closed her eyes as the memory overwhelmed her. She wasn’t a violent person—had never hit anyone in her life before, never wanted to hit anyone before. But she had certainly hit Max Harding this evening.

‘Actually, it was worse than that, Monty.’ She choked, not at all concerned with the fact that a lot of people might think it strange that she was having this conversation with her cat. Temporary insanity was certainly a plea she could make for her actions tonight, but at the moment it was the least of her problems. ‘It wasn’t just a gentle slap on the cheek.’ She groaned. ‘He annoyed me so much, hurt me so much, that I swung my arm back and belted him with all the force that I could. It was perfect, Monty. Right on his arrogant chin.’ She smiled through her tears with remembered pleasure. ‘You should have seen the stunned look on his face. Then his chair toppled backwards, taking him with it, and he was knocked unconscious as he hit the floor!’

And Monty should have seen her own face as her anger had left her and she’d realised exactly what she had done…

The studio had grown so hushed you could literally have heard a pin drop. The small studio audience deathly quiet, no one even seeming to breathe; the camera crew no longer looking into their cameras but staring straight at her in open-mouthed disbelief.

Her director in the control room had been the first to recover, screaming in her earpiece, ‘Abby—what the hell are you doing? Say something,’ he yelled, when she could only stand there in mute silence, staring down at the slumped form of Max Harding. ‘Abby, do something!’ Gary had instructed harshly as she still didn’t move. ‘This is live television, remember?’

She had remembered then, turning to look at the surrounding cameras, realising they were still transmitting.

In her panic there had been only one thing she could do—no other choice left open to her. With a startled cry, she’d stepped over Max Harding’s prostrate body before running out of the studio as if pursued.

No one had spoken to her as she’d run. No one had even attempted to stop her.

And why would they? She had totally blown it—had broken the cardinal rule of not losing your cool on public television, of always remaining calm and in control, no matter what the provocation. No matter what the provocation!

Her career was in ruins. She would never appear on television ever again.

Which was why she was now locked in her apartment, with the telephone disconnected, the intercom to the doorbell downstairs switched off, and her mobile lying waterlogged in the bottom of the bath.

‘Okay, that last gesture may have been a little drastic,’ Abby allowed, as Monty looked at her with disapproval. ‘Especially as I’m now effectively unemployed—unemployable!—and will never be able to afford to buy a new one. But do you know the worst of it, Monty? The absolute worst of it?’ Her voice shook with emotion now, tears once again falling hotly down her cheeks. ‘I know you liked him, but I actually thought I was in love with him!’ she burst out shakily. ‘I was in love with Max Harding!’ She whipped herself with the lash again. ‘Now I wish I had never even set eyes on him!’

Until seven weeks ago she hadn’t even met him.

Seven weeks ago she had been riding on the crest of a wave, euphoric at her success in landing her own half-hour show, full of enthusiasm as she researched and then met her guests, overjoyed at her apparent overnight success at only twenty-seven.

But seven weeks ago Max Harding had still been just a name to her—a reputation, several dozen photographs. She hadn’t met the flesh-and-blood man then.

Hadn’t fallen in love with him…

CHAPTER TWO

‘YES?’

Abby could only stare at the man standing in the open doorway of the apartment; she hadn’t seen this much naked male flesh since she’d sat on a beach in Majorca last year.

And very male flesh it was too. But the towel wrapped around the man’s slim waist and the dampness of his dark hair told her exactly why it had taken four knocks on the apartment door for him to answer—he had obviously been taking a shower when she arrived.

Alone? Or with someone? Whatever; this man’s semi-nakedness took her breath—and her voice—away.

Not that she wasn’t familiar with Max Harding’s looks. She had seen him dozens of times on the news over the last couple of years, reporting from one war-torn country or another, and had also watched hours of footage of the political forum programme he’d hosted until two years ago.

But in the first case he was usually wearing some sort of combat gear and a flak jacket, shouting his report over the whine of bullets as they whistled past his ears. And in the second instance he had always been sitting down in one of those high-back leather chairs, wearing a dark formal suit with a shirt and tie.

In both cases he had been on the small screen, minimised before being transmitted into people’s homes.

He was huge, was Abby’s first thought. It wasn’t just his height, of about six feet two inches, he also had incredibly wide and muscled shoulders, his skin was darkly tanned, the ebony hair on that powerful chest tapered down to—

‘Seen enough?’

Not nearly enough, was her second, slightly fevered thought. Oh, dear! was her wincing next one, as she slowly raised her gaze back to his face, her cheeks awash with embarrassed colour.

Really, it might be some time since she had seen a man naked—or in this case semi-naked—but she had seen one or two!

But looking at Max Harding’s face wasn’t reassuring. She had hoped the severity of his expression on television was due to the seriousness of his subject matter, but even one glance at his rock-hewn features was enough to tell her that those weren’t laughter lines beside the intense grey eyes, the arrogant slash of a nose and sculptured unsmiling mouth. This man looked as if he rarely smiled, let alone laughed!

Abby straightened her shoulders, deliberately arranging her features into ‘serious but pleasant’. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of me, Mr Harding, but I’m Abby Freeman—‘

She didn’t get any further than that. The door firmly slammed in her face.

He had heard of her, she thought ruefully. His reaction was a bit drastic, though! Especially as he must have received at least two letters concerning appearing on her show—one from her researchers, and one from her personally. Neither of which he had answered. But he might at least have—

Her eyes widened as the door suddenly swung open again. A hand reached out to grasp the collar of her jacket, and she was unceremoniously pulled inside the apartment, her boot-clad feet barely touching the luxurious carpet.

‘Mr Harding—’

‘How the hell did you get up here?’ He glowered down at her, somehow still managing to look imposing despite his lack of clothing and the wild disorder of his overlong dark hair.

Abby blinked, totally stunned at finding herself inside the apartment instead of outside it.

She delayed answering as she pulled her white T-shirt back into place beneath her black jacket, her ebony hair loose onto her shoulders, blue eyes wide as she fought her inner feelings of indignation.

‘I said—’

‘The man downstairs let me in,’ she cut in.

‘After you told him what?’ Max Harding bit out contemptuously, hands on narrow hips.

Bare hips, Abby noted somewhat awkwardly. The towel was starting to slip down those long, muscular, hair-covered legs.

‘I’m waiting for an explanation, Miss Freeman,’ he reminded her harshly, those grey eyes glacial now.

Abby bristled; he sounded like a schoolteacher talking to a disobedient schoolgirl!

‘Maybe you should go and put some clothes on?’ she suggested with forced pleasantness. ‘I’m sure you—’ and she! ‘—would be more comfortable if you did.’

‘I’m not uncomfortable, Miss Freeman,’ he assured her derisively, enjoying the fact that she obviously was. His mouth hardened before he spoke again. ‘Exactly what story did you spin Henry in order to get him to let you up here without first ringing me?’

That cold silver gaze was very forceful, Abby decided with discomfort. The sort of gaze that would compel you to confess to whatever it was this man wanted you to confess to, whether you were guilty or not.

She grimaced. ‘I told him I was your younger sister, that it’s your birthday today, and that I wanted to surprise you,’ she answered truthfully.

That sculptured mouth twisted wryly. ‘Not bad for a beginner,’ he drawled.

Her cheeks flushed. ‘Now, look—’

‘On your way out,’ Max Harding continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘you can tell him you succeeded.’ He opened the door pointedly. ‘I’ll tell him what I think later!’ he added grimly.

Abby didn’t move towards the door. Having got this far, she had no intention of leaving just yet. ‘I hope not with any idea of reprimand in mind? I can be very persuasive when I try.’ She gave him an encouraging smile.

A smile he made no effort to return, and that steely, unamused grey gaze quickly made the smile falter and then fade.

Back to business, she decided hastily. ‘I’ve written to you several times, Mr Harding—’

‘Twice, to be exact,’ he interrupted, his terse tone telling her that he liked to be that, at least. ‘Two letters, both of which I read before duly consigning them to the bin!’

He had enjoyed telling her that, Abby realised with an annoyance she tried hard not to show—one of them being antagonistic was quite enough! Besides, she couldn’t afford to be. She had assured the sarcastic and sceptical Gary Holmes, director of The Abby Freeman Show, that she would get Max Harding to appear on her final show. A very ambitious claim, she had come to realise over the last few weeks, but she needed something—someone!—really impressive to finish the series if she were to stand any chance of being offered another contract.

Though she did wish she had approached Max Harding before making that ambitious claim to Gary…!

She gave Max Harding a bright, unruffled smile. ‘Then you will be aware that the whole of the half-hour show will be dedicated to you—’

‘No.’

‘Oh, but I’m sure I made that clear in my letter.’ Abby frowned. ‘I would hardly offer less to a man of your professional stature—’

‘Cut the bull, Miss Freeman,’ he bit out harshly. ‘In this case flattery, professional or otherwise, will get you precisely nowhere! I have no intention, now or ever, of appearing on The Abby Freeman Show.’ He made the programme title sound like something obscene.

Nevertheless, Abby persevered; this was too important to allow obvious insults to upset her. ‘But you’re such an interesting man, Mr Harding,’ she said lightly. ‘You’ve seen so much, done so much, and I’m sure the general public would be fascinated to hear about—’

‘The general public have absolutely no more interest than you do in hearing about any of the things I’ve seen and done,’ he rasped coldly. ‘All anyone wants to hear about from me is the night Rory Mayhew tried to commit suicide on my television programme.’ His eyes glittered icily. ‘It also happens to be the one thing I will never discuss in public. Is that clear enough for you, Miss Freeman?’

Crystal-clear. And he was partly right about the Rory Mayhew ‘incident’; obviously it was such a big thing that she could hardly not ask about it. But it certainly wasn’t the only thing she wanted him to talk about. They could hardly discuss an attempted suicide for the whole of a thirty-minute interview, for goodness’ sake.

‘I thought about mentioning that initially, obviously,’ she conceded. ‘But then I thought we could move on to other things. Your last two years as a foreign correspondent have made fascinating listening, and—’

‘I said no, Miss Freeman.’

‘Oh, please do call me Abby,’ she invited, with a warmth she was far from feeling. In fact, the coldness emanating from this man was enough to make her give an involuntary shiver.

‘You can call me Mr Harding,’ he bit out. ‘But first—’ he moved to close the door again, its soft click much more ominous than the loud slam of a few minutes ago ‘—I have one or two questions I would like to put to you.’

The sudden smoothness of his tone was more menacing than his previous sarcasm and coldness, making Abby very aware that she was completely alone in this penthouse apartment with a powerful-looking man. A very angry, half-naked, powerful-looking man!

She gave him another of her bright, confident smiles—although inside she was neither of those things. This meeting with Max Harding wasn’t turning out at all as she had hoped. ‘Fire away, Mr Harding,’ she invited lightly. ‘I’m happy to answer any questions you have concerning the programme. In fact, I look on it as a very positive—’

‘My questions have absolutely nothing to do with your programme, Miss Freeman,’ he assured her scornfully, ‘and everything to do with how you obtained my personal address in the first place.’ His voice had hardened over this last, his expression grim.

Not much of a chance of him offering her a coffee, then! Or inviting her to sit down in the comfortable lounge she could see through the open doorway behind her.

Not much chance of this turning into a successful meeting, either, if the conversation so far was anything to go by.

‘And don’t say the local telephone book,’ he warned. ‘Because I’m ex-directory.’

Her palms were starting to feel slightly damp, and she was sure there was an unbecoming sheen materialising on her top lip.

Nevertheless, she forced another carefree smile to her face. ‘The how isn’t really important—’

‘It is to me.’ He stood firmly in front of the door now—her only means of escape!—powerfully muscled arms folded in front of that bare chest.

In the same circumstances, wrapped only in a towel, Abby knew that she would feel at a distinct disadvantage talking to anyone. And yet this man gave no such impression—in fact, the opposite. He seemed to know exactly how his near-nakedness was making her feel—and he was enjoying watching her squirm.

Because squirming she undoubtably was. This man, Max Harding, she was becoming increasingly aware, exuded a sexual magnetism that had very little to do with whether or not he was wearing any clothes! There was a toughness to him, a self-containment, that at thirty-nine had been hard earned.