many I didn’t turn up to or left after a few days? How I’m always coming up with crazy schemes that go nowhere instead of knuckling down to some ‘‘honest hard work’’?’
‘He didn’t run you down to me.’ Distressed by his anger, Emma crossed the room to go to him but he shrugged her off when she reached out to comfort him and glared at her instead.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ His eyes wild, he shook his head. ‘You’re supposed to be my friend. You know how desperate I’ve been. You may not mind living in this dump but I do mind! I’d do anything to get out of it…anything! Why couldn’t you have persuaded him to help me?’
‘Persuaded him?’ Her dark eyes huge, Emma stared back at Lawrence in stunned disbelief. ‘What do you mean, persuaded him?’
‘You’re a pretty girl, nice breasts, long legs, soft voice… It can’t have been beyond you to try and convince him, can it?’
She felt sick. The room seemed to lurch crazily as all her blood rushed to her head, and she remembered Piers asking her, ‘Are you my reward?’ Had he guessed right? Had Lawrence expected her to get intimate with his father so that he would help him out? Could her so-called friend really be that ruthless? The thought was so stunningly outrageous that Emma could hardly find words to express her disgust. ‘Get out,’ she said, her teeth gritted.
‘Yeah, well.’ Pushing his fingers defiantly through his dishevelled blond hair, Lawrence appeared unaffected by her distress. ‘I worry about you, you know, Emma? It’s unnatural not to be interested in sex. The only reason Vicky or Nicky, or whatever her name is, is upstairs in my bed is because you’re so damned frigid! Either that or you’re a lesbian and you haven’t told me.’
‘I think you’ve said quite enough for one day.’ Her back stiff, Emma walked to the already opened door and held it wide. Biting her lip to stop it from quivering, she watched, chilled, as Lawrence swept past her without another word then pounded up the linoleum-covered stairs to his flat. When he’d gone, she quietly closed her door and leaned back against it with her eyes shut tight.
‘You wouldn’t be the first misguided fool to fall for his dubious charm,’ his father had said, and at the time Emma had believed him to be judging his son completely unfairly. But this was the first time she’d really let him down, she realised. Usually when Lawrence asked a favour of her, she endeavoured to deliver it. Disappointment in her failure to come up with the goods this time must have soured his supposed affection for her—so much so that he couldn’t even pretend to be civil. Now she was left with the knowledge that at least his equally ruthless father had been expressing an honest belief when he’d suggested that Lawrence had sent Emma to use her charms to persuade him to cough up financially.
Her stomach churning, Emma pushed away from the door and glanced disconsolately at the clock on the mantel. She had just a couple of hours before she had to be at work and right now she needed a shower to scrub away the taint of the day, though she seriously doubted if she’d ever be able to forget the humiliating events of today. The way she was feeling it would be very easy to blame herself for being such a disappointment to both Redfields. She wasn’t sophisticated or clever enough to command genuine regard the way some more worldly women could and consequently she’d allowed both men to treat her with disrespect. Though she wasn’t entirely sure that gazing at someone as if they urgently needed to be alone with you in the most intimate way could really be construed as demonstrating disrespect… Remembering the almost overwhelming pull of attraction she had shockingly experienced when she’d looked back into Piers Redfield’s disturbingly blue gaze, Emma felt herself grow hot with shame. She had no business lusting after Lawrence’s father—however attractive or compelling he might be—and the sooner she put him out of her mind and got back to reality, the better.
Piers had dinner at his club, enjoyed a glass of his favourite French cognac with an old business associate, then got Miles, his driver, to take him home. But once home in the large five-bedroomed Victorian house on the outskirts of Hampstead Heath, he prowled the huge drawing-room then the impressively stocked library with little enthusiasm or interest, a restlessness in his blood that he could neither restrain nor deny. His mind all but drove him crazy with the memory of Emma Robards telling him that he didn’t deserve to be a father because he wouldn’t help Lawrence and had made a pass at her instead.
Her comment had touched him in a very raw place—an old wound made up of guilt and regret. He’d carefully erected layers of skin as tough as steel around it to stop it from hurting him. But as he recalled it now, it did hurt him. Lawrence might have made a hash of his life so far in terms of getting his act together, but was that really so deserving of Piers’s contempt? Was it the boy’s fault that his mother had tried to make up for the lack of his father’s input by spoiling him rotten and endeavouring to meet every whim and want with meticulous regularity to make up for Piers’s absence? Thereby creating an individual just about as selfish as he could be.
‘And was it my fault that I was away from home too much because I was trying to build a firm foundation for my family’s future? Did Naomi really believe I just did it all for myself?’ Piers stalked the floor of the library, his hands alternately deep in his pockets and raking frustratedly through his hair. Emma Robards had opened a can of worms, that was what she’d done. Who the hell did she think she was, stealing into his office uninvited, practically demanding that he finance Lawrence’s latest crazy business venture just because they were related by blood?
Recalling those bewitching honey-brown eyes of hers with no difficulty at all, along with the unexpectedly sensual touch of her skin when she had laid her hand across his, Piers silently conceded that he was both intrigued and more than a little attracted to his son’s girlfriend. Emma Robards had the kind of chutzpah he admired but she was surely on a lost cause if she was hoping to win Lawrence’s undying gratitude for what she’d dared. Piers knew his own son and it didn’t take much imagination to work out that when Emma had returned home empty-handed—with no promise of his help, either financial or otherwise—gratitude would be the last thing on Lawrence’s mind. He was like a child who’d received every Christmas present he’d ever dreamed of, but still expected there to be one more. No, if Piers wasn’t mistaken, the daring Miss Robards would have received nothing more than the raw edge of his son’s tongue for her troubles. He almost felt sorry for her. What was she doing with a loser like Lawrence anyway?
Piers swore harshly beneath his breath. It had become all too easy to berate his own flesh and blood. Still, he probably deserved it. Especially after this last little stunt, sending his girlfriend to do his dirty work. Well, this time Piers would pay him back and make him think twice about resorting to such a stunt again. He would help him one last time, he concluded, but in return he wouldn’t hesitate to seduce Emma Robards. He’d show his irresponsible son that when it came to matters of strategy, he’d better sharpen his game if he wanted to play with the big boys. As he warmed to the idea, he drove his hand impatiently through his hair one last time then stalked determinedly from the room. In the stunning entrance hall with its black and white tiles and crystal chandelier suspended from the high ceiling, Piers grabbed up his coat from the hall-stand and went out into the cold, rainy night to hail a cab.
‘Sorry, Liz. I don’t know what’s the matter with me this evening.’ As Emma stooped to pick up the pieces of broken glass from the kitchen floor, Liz Morrison—friend and co-owner with her husband, Adam, of the bistro known as The Avenue—dropped down to help her. Her smooth forehead wrinkled with concern when she noticed that the younger woman’s hands were trembling.
‘What’s wrong, my love? Has someone upset you? Those lads are a bit rowdy out there tonight but they’re celebrating a friend’s promotion. Did one of them say something to you?’
‘No, it wasn’t them. I’m just feeling a little on edge, that’s all. Don’t worry.’ Getting to her feet, Emma briskly deposited the broken glass into a nearby bin. ‘It’ll pass.’
‘Want to go home early? I can get Louise to stay a bit later to help out.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine. Really.’
But