tangible. He hadn’t really retreated at all, Briony realised. He was still firmly entrenched between her and the door that led back to the party and safety. She felt herself becoming flustered and knew it was important to conceal the fact.
She said rather hurriedly, ‘Why did you do it? Kiss me, I mean?’
‘Call it an irresistible urge.’
‘Do you often have them?’
‘Not as often as I seem to be having them this evening,’ he said mockingly, and grinned at her. ‘I must admit the original urge was more to test the depth of that immaculate boarding school poise rather than to arouse wanton desires in your undoubtedly virginal breast. I also wanted to annoy your father.’
‘Well, you’ve succeeded in that,’ she said coldly, oddly disappointed that he apparently had seen her as a schoolgirl to be teased.
‘So I noticed. I think poor old Mac is being ordered to carpet me first thing on Monday morning—or fire me at the earliest opportunity. Probably both. And if your father realised I was alone with you now, he wouldn’t even wait for Monday morning.’
‘I think you’re exaggerating,’ she said. ‘You don’t fire the Journalist of the Year simply because he annoys you at a party.’
‘You might do,’ he said. ‘If you were Sir Charles Trevor, and if the journalist in question had been a thorn in your flesh for some considerable time.’ His lips curled slightly. ‘And as it looks as if I’m going to be hanged anyway, it may as well be for a sheep as a lamb …’
He took an unhurried step forward and his arms reached for her, drawing her effortlessly against him. ‘You should have been kissed before, Briony,’ he said huskily, and then his mouth came down on hers.
His lips were warm and seeking and very enticing. Her arms slid up around his neck, almost of their own volition, holding him closer still as the kiss deepened from the gently exploratory to the frankly demanding. In the end, it was Logan who pulled away, his breathing a little ragged, his eyes narrowing speculatively as he looked down at her.
‘I don’t know what you have in mind for the remainder of the evening,’ he said with a touch of grimness. ‘But I sure as hell know it won’t be what I’m thinking of right now, so I think you’d better return to the safety of your father’s side, Miss Trevor. Believe me, it will be better for both of us.’
‘Scared, Mr Adair?’ Briony’s heart was pounding suffocatingly as she looked up at him through her lashes. She was being deliberately provocative and she knew it, enjoying the first heady taste of a woman’s power over the man who finds her desirable.
‘Hardly, Miss Trevor,’ he drawled. ‘But I guarantee you would be, if I decided to continue this romantic moment to its obvious conclusion. Don’t play with fire, darling, because it’s a very good way of ending up scorched, and I imagine Daddy would prefer to hand you over to the bridegroom of his choice not even slightly singed.’
She felt destroyed by his cynicism. She said angrily, ‘You’re not irresistible, you know. And I’ll choose my own husband!’
‘Brave words.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But you’ll need more than that to stand up against your father. Believe me, I know.’
She was just going to ask him how he knew—to demand the information if necessary, when a woman’s voice said impatiently, ‘Logan, so this is where you’ve got to!’
Briony recognised her instantly. It was Karen Wellesley, the Courier’s women’s editor, a slim shapely blonde in her late twenties, with one broken marriage already behind her. Karen moved forward to Logan’s side, sliding an openly possessive hand through his arm.
‘Good God,’ she remarked rather blankly as her exotic-ally made-up eyes fell on Briony. ‘I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.’
‘Nothing at all,’ Logan assured her coolly. ‘Miss Trevor and I were just having an interesting discussion on the nature of choice, but we’d reached stalemate.’
‘That’s all right, then.’ Karen smiled blindingly up at him. ‘The party’s beginning to break up, and I thought you might like to take me somewhere to celebrate your award.’
He said lightly, ‘I’d be more than delighted, my love, if Miss Trevor will excuse us.’
Briony said, ‘Of course.’ She gave them both a taut little smile. ‘If the party’s breaking up, then my father will be ready to leave.’
She walked past them, her chin in the air, and made for the lighted doorway. She was thankful to see her father absorbed in conversation with some of the members of the Board, his bad humour apparently forgotten for the moment.
‘Hello, sweetheart.’ His glance smilingly embraced her as she joined him. ‘Where have you been?’
‘I—I went out to get some air,’ she said. ‘I think I have a headache starting. Do you think we could leave soon?’
He was all concern, immediately getting someone to ring down and have his car brought round to the main entrance of the building, fussing protectively as one of the maids hired for the evening went to fetch Briony’s wrap. They were standing waiting for the lift to come up, surrounded by a small group of her father’s colleagues from the upper echelons of management, when Logan came out of the penthouse suite into the corridor, with Karen moulded so closely to his side that a casual spectator might have assumed she was welded there. And Briony discovered to her acute vexation that she was far from being a casual observer.
She transferred her attention almost painfully to the row of lights which indicated the floor that the lift had reached, and saw with relief that it was almost at the top.
She heard Logan say, ‘Come on, love. We’ll walk down two floors. There’s something I want to fetch from my desk.’
She felt them move away. She wouldn’t let herself turn and look, because she knew it would cause her pain.
As the lift descended Sir Charles said abruptly, ‘You behaved very well this evening, Briony. I was pleased with you.’ His brow darkened. ‘I’m sorry that Adair fellow couldn’t behave himself.’
Briony said with difficulty, ‘It—it really doesn’t matter, Daddy. It wasn’t important.’
Her father snorted, but made no further comment, to her relief. In the car the inevitable briefcase was produced, and he became immersed in his papers while Briony sat quietly, a prey to her thoughts.
There had been a lot of first times that evening, she told herself. Her first really adult party, her first kiss, and now the realisation that one’s first awakening to the demands that passion might impose was not necessarily a happy one, because where passion went, jealousy and loneliness trod on his heels.
And lying in bed that night, Briony thought of Logan and Karen together, and was both jealous and lonely.
Briony roused herself with a start, becoming aware of her surroundings again, dragging herself back half-unwillingly to the present.
Jealousy, loneliness and pain, she thought unhappily, as she knelt to tend the fire which had burned low during her reverie. Those ugly words seemed to encompass the whole miserable history of her brief marriage. Why hadn’t she realised that first night what would happen, and held aloof? But she knew the answer to that—because she was already in the thrall of an attraction which she was not experienced enough to resist. And besides the undoubted glamour of Logan Adair’s personality, there had also been the beguiling prospect of living dangerously, of rebelling against her father’s plans and prejudices. It was a situation fraught with pitfalls, but quite irresistible to the child she had been.
If her marriage to Logan had taught her nothing else, she thought detachedly, it had taught her to put away childish things.
But, if this was true, why had she run away? That was the act of a child, not the woman she believed she had become.
It