Her Tycoon Lover

Her Tycoon Lover

Sandra Field

Amanda Browning

Lee Wilkinson

MILLS & BOON

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Although born in England, Sandra Field has lived most of her life in Canada; she says the silence and emptiness of the North speaks to her particularly. While she enjoys travelling and passing on her sense of a new place, she often chooses to write about the city which is now her home. Sandra says, “I write out of my experience; I have learned that love with its joys and pains is all important. I hope this knowledge enriches my writing and touches a cord in you, the reader.”

CHAPTER ONE

“LUKE! Good to see you, did you just arrive?”

“Hi there, John,” Luke MacRae said, shaking the older man’s hand. “Got in an hour ago. Jet-lagged, as usual.” And remarkably reluctant to be here, he added to himself although he had no intentions of telling John that. “How about yourself?”

“Earlier in the day… There’s someone here I’d like you to meet, he’s got some holdings in Malaysia that might interest you.”

“Inland?” Luke asked, and to his satisfaction heard the slight edge to his voice, the intentness that had brought him to where he was today: owner of a worldwide mining conglomerate. He and John were two of the delegates at an international conference on mining being held at a resort beside one of Manitoba’s vast lakes.

“You’ll have to ask him the exact location.” John signaled to the nearest waitress. “What’ll you have, Luke?”

“Scotch on the rocks,” Luke said crisply, sparing a moment to wonder why the waitress was wearing such ugly glasses. She might be rather pretty without them.

He was deep in conversation with the Malaysian, who did indeed interest him, when an exquisitely modulated voice to his left said, “Your drink, sir.”

The voice didn’t in the least match the dark-framed glasses or the blond hair strained back under a frilly white cap. Uptight about her femininity and deadly dull into the bargain, Luke decided. Despite that very intriguing voice.

It was a game of his to make instant assessments of people; he was very rarely wrong. One thing was certain. The waitress wasn’t the kind of woman who turned his crank. “Thanks,” he said briefly, then forgot her right away.

Three-quarters of an hour later they all moved into the dining room; his table, he noticed automatically, had the best location as far as the view of the lake was concerned, and its occupants were the real powers behind this conference. He had long ago trained himself not to feel any selfsatisfaction from such arrangements. He was good. He knew it and didn’t dwell on it. Power for the sake of power had never interested him.

Power was security. Security against the kind of childhood he’d had.

Luke took his seat, running his fingers around his collar. Dammit, he never thought about his childhood. Just because Teal Lake, where he’d been born, was in nearby northern Ontario was no reason to indulge in maudlin memories. The proximity of his old home was, of course, the reason he was reluctant to be here. Although home was the laugh of the century. Neither of his parents had provided him with much of a home in the little mining town of Teal Lake.

Quickly Luke picked up the leather-bound menu and made his choices; then his eyes flicked over the other occupants of the table.

The only surprise was sitting directly across from him: Guy Wharton. Inherited money without the requisite brains to manage it had been Luke’s opinion of Guy the first time he’d met him, and any subsequent encounters hadn’t caused him to change his mind. Unfortunately Guy’s wealth was coupled with a tendency to throw his weight around.

The bartender took their orders, then the waitress started at the other end of the table. The waitress with the glasses and the beautiful voice, Luke thought idly. Guy had brought his drink to the table, and was now ordering a double, as well as a bottle of very good wine that would be wasted on him. Guy drinking was several steps worse than Guy sober. Luke turned his attention to his neighbor, a charming Englishman with an unerring nose for the commodity market; then heard that smooth contralto voice again. “Sir? May I take your order?”

“I’ll have smoked salmon and the rack of lamb, medium rare,” Luke said. She nodded politely, then addressed his companion. She wasn’t writing anything down; her eyes behind the overlarge lenses, he saw with a little jolt, were a clear, intelligent blue. Not dull at all. Somehow Luke was quite sure she’d keep all the orders straight.

Well, of course she’d be good at her job; a resort like this wouldn’t hire duds.

Waitresses and Teal Lake…he was losing it. “Rupert,” he asked, “what are your thoughts on silver over the next couple of months?”

The Englishman launched into a highly technical assessment, to which Luke paid close attention. Wine was poured into his glass; he sipped it sparingly, noticing that Guy’s face was already flushed and his voice overloud. The smoked salmon was excellent; the rack of lamb tender and the vegetables crisp. Then Luke noticed Guy signaling the waitress. She came instantly, her severe black uniform with its white apron effectively hiding her figure. But nothing could hide a certain pride of bearing, Luke thought slowly; although she wasn’t a tall woman, she walked tall, like someone who knew who she was and liked herself. Yet he’d categorized her as deadly dull…was he going to prove himself wrong for once?

“The steak,” Guy said loudly. “I asked for medium. You brought rare.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” she said. “I’ll take it back to the kitchen and bring one more to your liking.”

But as she reached down for his plate, Guy grabbed her by the wrist. “Why didn’t you do it right the first time? You’re being paid to bring me what I ask for.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “If you’ll let go, I’ll make sure your steak is brought to you immediately.”

There were faint pink patches in her cheeks; her mouth, Luke noticed, was set, her whole body rigid. But Guy didn’t let go. Instead he twisted her wrist, leering up at her. “You should take those stupid glasses off,” he said. “No man in his right mind’ll look at you with those on.”

“Please let go of my wrist.”

This time, she hadn’t said sir. Without stopping to think, Luke pushed himself partway up from his chair and said in a voice like a steel blade, “Guy, you heard the lady. Let go of her. Now,” and noticed from the corner of his eye the maître d’ heading toward their table.

“Only kidding,” Guy said, running his fingers over the woman’s palm, then releasing her wrist with deliberate slowness. The waitress didn’t even glance at Luke as she quickly removed Guy’s plate and hurried away from the table.

“I didn’t find it funny,” Luke said coldly. “Nor, I’m sure, did anyone else. Including her.”

“For Pete’s sake, she’s just a waitress. And we all know what they’re after.”

Luke was quite sure the waitress with the ugly glasses wasn’t after anyone. If she were, she’d wear contacts, and make the most of eyes that could be truly startling were they not framed by thick plastic. Pointedly he turned to the man on his other side, an Italian goldminer. A few minutes later the maître d’ brought Guy another plate. “Please let me know if that’s not to your satisfaction, sir,” he said with meticulous politeness.

“She chickened out, did she?” Guy smirked.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“You heard,” Guy said. “Yeah, this is okay.” Brandishing his knife as he talked, he began telling an offcolor story to his neighbor.

When they’d finished their entrées, it was the waitress who removed their plates. Her name tag said Katrin. Luke had read that the resort was near a village that had been settled over a hundred years ago by Icelandic immigrants; with her blond hair and blue eyes, she certainly fit the stereotype. Then, as she reached for his plate, he saw on her wrist the red mark where Guy had twisted her skin, and felt an upsurge of rage that was out of all proportion.

Because he’d always loathed men who picked on those who were weaker, or otherwise powerless to defend themselves? Because basic justice was a tenet he held no matter what the class distinctions?

He said nothing; the woman had already made it all too clear she hadn’t been grateful for his intervention. In no mood for dessert, he ordered a coffee.

“Join me in a brandy?” John murmured.

“No, thanks,” Luke replied. “Jet lag’s catching up on me, I’m going to call it a day very shortly.”

This was true enough. But Luke had never been one for alcoholic excess; his father had drunk enough for five men. One more reason why Guy’s drunken pronouncements had gotten under his skin. He and John talked briefly about the abysmal markets for copper and nickel; then Luke saw Katrin approaching their table with a loaded tray of rich desserts. She lowered it skilfully onto the dumbwaiter and started distributing tortes and cheesecakes with scarcely a pause. She had a very good memory and was extraordinarily efficient, he thought with reluctant admiration. So what else had he missed in his initial assessment?

Guy had ordered a double brandy. As she started to put it on the table, he deliberately brushed his arm against her breast. “Mmm…nice,” he sneered. “You hiding anything else under that uniform?”

So quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it, Luke saw a flash of blue fire behind her ludicrous glasses. Then the brandy snifter tipped as though the stem had slipped through her fingers. The contents drenched Guy’s sleeve and trickled down his pale blue shirt. “Oh, sir,” she exclaimed, “how careless of me. Let me get you a napkin.”

As Guy surged to his feet, his face mottled with rage, Luke also stood up. She’d done it on purpose, he thought, and suppressed a quiver of true amusement: the kind he rarely felt. “Guy,” he said softly, “you cause any more trouble at this table, and I personally will see that the deal you’re working on with Amco Steel gets shelved. Permanently. Do you hear me?”

There was a small, deadly silence. Guy wanted that deal, everyone at the table knew that. Wanted it very badly. Guy snarled, “You’re a bastard, MacRae.”

Technically Guy was telling the exact truth: Luke’s father had never bothered marrying Luke’s mother. But Luke had long ago buried any feelings around the circumstances of his birth. “I’ll kill the deal before it even gets to the table,” he said. “Now sit down and behave yourself.”

Katrin had reached for a serviette from the shelf below the dumbwaiter. As she straightened, she gave Luke a withering look which said more clearly than words that she neither needed nor appreciated his help, and passed the crisply folded linen to Guy. “The resort will, of course, look after the dry cleaning of your suit, sir,” she said, and very calmly passed out the remainder of the drinks and desserts, as if nothing had happened.

Adding a formidable self-control to his list of the shapeless and bespectacled Katrin’s qualities, Luke drained his coffee cup and said flatly, “Good night, all. According to my time zone it’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m going to hit the pit. See you all in the morning.”

On the way out, he stopped to speak briefly to the maître d’. “I trust there’ll be no repercussions for the waitress at our table,” he said. “If he were working in my office, Mr. Wharton would be slapped with a sexual harassment charge. And I’d make damn sure it stuck.”

The maître d’, who was at least five years younger than Luke’s thirty-three, said noncommittally, “Thank you, sir.”

“I’m sure there’ll be no further trouble from Mr. Wharton.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Luke said pleasantly, “If she’s fired or otherwise penalized, I’ll file a complaint with the management.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir.”

Suddenly Luke was tired of the whole game. Why was he wasting his time on a woman who patently couldn’t care less about him, and had resented his help? Bed, that was where he should be, he decided, and marched toward the elevators.

In bed. Alone. As he’d been for rather too long.

Once he got back to San Francisco, he must do something about that.

CHAPTER TWO

LUKE slept well, went for an early morning run, then returned to his room to shower and dress. After straightening his discreet silk tie, he shrugged into a jacket and ran a comb through his black hair; he’d had it trimmed last week in Milan, although nothing could subdue its tendency to curl. He glanced quickly in the mirror, meeting his own dark brown eyes, so dark as to be almost black. He’d do. He looked his usual self: well-groomed, single-minded and totally in control.

Not bad for a kid from Teal Lake.

Luke grimaced irritably. He didn’t want to think about Teal Lake. Now or ever. So why was he standing here admiring himself when he should be downstairs? There were some valuable contacts he could cement in the next few days.

He took the elevator to the main floor. The resort might be situated in the wilderness but there was nothing remotely backwoods about it. The dining room had tall, velvet-draped windows and a magnificent stone fireplace, flanked by striking oil paintings of the prairie wheatfields. It was mid-July, the lake as smooth as the mirror in his room, the eastern sky a limpid blue.

He’d like to be out there, Luke thought. Capturing the sky’s serenity with his digital camera.

But not right now; there were more important things to do. As he started across the room to his table, Katrin the waitress emerged from the kitchen. She was wearing a peasant skirt and an embroidered blouse. He said cheerfully, “Good morning, Katrin.”

Her steps didn’t even falter. “Good morning, sir.”

In three words she managed to imply that although being polite to him was part of her job, it was far from her personal preference. Again Luke felt that wayward flash of true amusement. He’d been insulted many times in his life, both as a raw kid working the mines of the Arctic and as a ruthless entrepreneur. But rarely with such finesse. Not one wasted word.

He’d like to pluck those god-awful glasses off her nose.

He’d reached his table. Guy was noticeable by his absence. No loss, thought Luke, and sat down so that his back was to the lake. He didn’t want to look at water. He had work to do.

And work he did, all day. Lunch was served buffet-style in the foyer to the conference rooms; Katrin was nowhere to be seen. Before dinner, Luke went to the fully equipped exercise room to get rid of the pressures of the day. On the whole, he was pleased with the way things were going. He had Malaysia hooked; and could feel himself backing off from a strip mine in Papua New Guinea. Long ago he’d learned to trust his instincts, and they were all screaming beware. Labor troubles, gangsters and environmental destruction: not his cup of tea.

An hour later, feeling both relaxed and alert, Luke was crossing the lobby toward the dining room. A smartly dressed woman walking in the opposite direction gave him an assessing glance, followed by a smile that was rather more than casual. Luke was used to this; it happened to him all the time. His own smile back was courteous, nothing more.

As he waited for the maître d’, he wondered idly what it was about him that attracted women. His suit and shirt were custom-tailored, his shoes Italian; both outward signs of wealth. But lots of other men were similarly garbed. So it wasn’t just his money. He wasn’t blind to his height, his athletic build and the regularity of his features; and had always assumed that they were what drew women to him. What he was unaware of was his aura of decisiveness, of hard-won power, of sheer male energy and banked sexuality; unaware also of the impact of his rare smile, that softened his deep-set, enigmatic eyes and the hewn masculinity of his jaw.

He was the last to arrive at his table. Katrin was once again wearing her unflattering black uniform; for the first time, Luke noticed how thick the bundle of straight blond hair was under her cap. Loose, it would fall past her shoulders…he suddenly realized she was speaking to him. “What can I get you to drink, sir?”

“Rye and water, no ice, please.”

“Certainly, sir.”

At what point did politeness turn to parody, he wondered; and decided Katrin knew that point precisely, and wasn’t above using it. He sat down.

No one else had noticed anything; perhaps his imagination was working overtime. The odd thing was that, elusively, she reminded him of someone; he’d figured this out while he was doing his routine of bench presses. He’d already searched through all the old Teal Lake contacts, and knew she didn’t belong there. So where else could he have met her? Nowhere that he could think of. And yet something about the tilt of her chin, her carriage, set off signals in his brain.

Once again the food was excellent; once again Guy was gulping a fine Shiraz as though it were water and eating Châteaubriand with the appreciation hamburger deserved.

The conversation turned to the vagaries of the stock market. Guy, to do him justice, had one or two insights about insider trading that were worth listening to. As Katrin poured coffee from a sterling pot, moving efficiently from seat to seat, Guy said with overdone bonhomie, “Well, Katrin, I don’t suppose you earn enough to consider investing. But if you did, would you buy into the Alvena bond fund?”

She said woodenly, “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“Of course not,” Guy said in a voice as smooth as cream. “Let’s try something a little closer to your level. How about two-minute portfolios, they’re all the rage for people with no smarts who know zilch about the market…is that how you’d invest your money?”

For a split second she hesitated, as though making an inner decision. Then she looked right at Guy, coffeepot suspended, and said crisply, “A two-minute portfolio isn’t a bad strategy. When you play the market, you’re going to get some duds no matter how careful you are. So by picking from the TSE’s top blue-chips, you’ll also get enough high-earners to more than offset your losses.” She gave him a bland smile. “Would you agree with me, sir?”

Guy flushed an unbecoming brick-red. “This coffee tastes like it was brewed yesterday,” he snarled.

“I’ll make you some fresh, sir,” she replied, deftly removing his cup, and with that same unconscious pride of bearing that Luke had noticed the day before, headed for the kitchen.

Luke drawled, “That woman’s wasted as a waitress…so what’s the prognosis for the S&P over the next six months, Guy?”

For a moment he thought Guy was going to jump across the table at him, and felt all his muscles tighten in anticipation. Then Guy subsided, mumbling something about low percentiles, and the conversation became general again. Luke lingered over a second coffee and was the last to leave the dining room, timing his departure just as Katrin was clearing off a nearby empty table. Soft-footed as a cat, he stepped up behind her. “It’d be a shame if you had to cash in your investments, Katrin,” he said, “but you’ll lose your job if you go dumping expensive brandy over every customer who insults you.”

She turned to face him, her hands full of dirty wineglasses, her face expressionless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Last night you spilled brandy all over Guy Wharton on purpose.”

“Why would I do that? Waitresses don’t have feelings—they can’t afford to.”

“Then you’re the exception that proves the rule. I wish to God you’d take those glasses off…then I might have some idea what you are feeling.”

She stepped back in sudden alarm. “My feelings, or lack of them, are none of your business…sir.”

She was right, of course. “I also wish you’d stop calling me sir.”

“It’s one of the house rules,” she said frigidly. “Another of which is that guests and staff don’t fraternize. So if you’ll excuse me, sir, I have work to do.”

“You’re wasted in a job like this, you’re far too intelligent.”

She said tightly, “My choice of job is just that—my choice. Good night, sir.”

She had turned away. Short of grabbing her by the arm, a move he had no intention of making, Luke knew the conversation was over. Score: Katrin, one; Luke, zero. He said pleasantly, “If you are investing, steer clear of Scitech—it’s going down the tubes. Good night, Katrin.”

But, just as he was turning away, he heard himself add, “You know, I have the oddest feeling—you remind me of someone, and I can’t think who.” He hadn’t planned to tell her this. Not before he’d pinned down the memory that was teasing his brain.

Her whole body went still: the stillness of prey faced with a predator. She said so quietly he could hardly hear her, “You’re mistaken. You’re quite wrong—I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

His senses sharpened. Her shoulders were stiff with tension, the same tension that had underlain her voice. So there was something mysterious about her. The ugly glasses were nothing to do with hiding her femininity, and everything to do with another kind of disguise. Katrin didn’t want to be recognized because she was other than she appeared. He said, thinking out loud, “Right now I can’t pin down where I might have seen you…but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

Two of the wineglasses slipped through her fingers. As they fell to the carpet, one hit the table leg, shattering into pieces. With a tiny exclamation of distress, Katrin bent to pick them up.

“Careful,” Luke exclaimed, “you could cut yourself.”

He grabbed a napkin from the table and knelt beside her, wrapping the shards of glass in the thick linen. Her perfume drifted to his nostrils, something floral and delicate. The red mark on her wrist hadn’t completely faded; her veins were blue against her creamy skin, her wrist bones fragile. She said raggedly, “Please go away—I’ll clean this up.”

Jerkily she reached for a splinter of glass. Blood blossomed from her fingertip; she gave a gasp of pain. Luke said urgently, “Katrin, leave this. Here, stand up.”

He seized her by the elbow, pulling her to her feet. Then he gently rested her fingers on his sleeve, probing at the wound. She said breathlessly, “Stop, you’re hurting.”

“There’s glass in it, hold still,” he ordered, and as carefully as he could extracted a small shard of glass from the cut. “There, that’s better. Is there a first-aid kit in the kitchen?”

A male voice said authoritatively, “What’s the trouble here, sir?”

The ubiquitous maître d’, thought Luke, and wished the man a hundred miles away. “She’s cut her finger,” he said with equal authority. “Will you please show me where the first-aid kit is?”

“I’ll look after—”

“Now,” said Luke, transferring his gaze from Katrin’s finger to the young man’s face. As Luke had known he would, the young man backed off.

“Certainly, sir. This way, please.”

The kitchen was in a state of controlled chaos from having produced gourmet meals for two hundred people. The maître d’, whose name tag said Olaf, led Luke to a square box in a secluded corner of the kitchen. “Thanks,” Luke said briefly, “I can manage now. Perhaps you could see that the remainder of the glass gets picked up.”