The Threat of Love Read online

  'Handsome fellow, isn't he?' said her father, also considering that face.

  Caro shrugged. T suppose so. If you like the type.'

  'You don't?' Her father watched her narrowly. 'Other women seem to like Martell. This isn't the first time he's got into trouble over a woman, after all. I don't read the gossip columns myself, but I'm told he's regularly in them; there's always talk of him and some new woman. I don't suppose his grandmother likes that much, either. He's too old for that sort of thing—he ought to get married and stop having fun.'

  'Can I quote you on that, Dad?' Caro asked, laughing, then glanced at her watch and got hurriedly to her feet. 'I must go, or I'll be late for work.' She might be the chairman's daughter, but she was treated just like any other employee. She had to be at her desk by nine, and from the first day at work she had made sure of being punctual, working hard, never clock-watching. In fact, she worked harder than most people did, often staying late, working hours of unpaid overtime, merely because she had got absorbed in what she was doing, or knew that it had to be finished that evening and could not wait until the next day. She had got her promotion because she deserved it and had worked for it, not because she was next in line to run the entire company.

  Fred looked at his own watch. He usually got to work early too, but today he was visiting several of his London stores and was not going to the office until later. 'See you at the finance committee meeting, this afternoon,' he said, as Caro made for the door.

  'Three o'clock,' she agreed, giving him a wave as she vanished.

  It was a busy morning for her. The accounts department had put together the usual monthly financial report for study by the finance committee, but there were several late additions which had to be circulated so that members of the committee could study them, and Caro hardly had time to think before noon, when she broke for lunch.

  Although Caro was only the second in command she did most of the organisational and daily work. It was a vital job in the company: she monitored salaries and costs, planned the company's annual budget, examined expenditure in detail and authorised payments. The head of the department was fifty-nine years old and a mere cypher; he was working out his last year without enthusiasm. He would retire at sixty, collect a pension and move into the country, leaving Caro in charge in name as well as in fact.

  Of course, some people sneered about that, and whispered behind her back or openly hinted that she was getting such power simply because of who she was, but although her progress had been swifter than normal, and probably there were others who could do her work as well as she did, Caro had no doubts about taking promotion, or about her own capacity. She knew she had brains, she could do the job and do it well, and she worked hard. If she hadn't been very good, Fred would never have promoted her. He was a ruthless realist where his precious company was concerned, and so was Caro. She would one day, she hoped, run the company, and, meanwhile, she wasn't going to apologise or feel guilty about being her father's daughter.

  Amy was waiting at their table when Caro arrived at the Penthouse Restaurant on the top floor of Westbrooks. 'You're always late!' she complained as Caro dropped into the seat opposite her. 'As you're the boss's daughter I would have thought you could slip out when you liked!'

  'That's just why I can't,' Caro said, picking up the menu as the waitress approached. 'Have you ordered? Good, then I'll just have melon and the bean and pasta salad.'

  'Pasta? So fattening, don't do it!'

  Caro laughed. 'Pasta's OK if there's no rich sauce with it. Shall we have wine? No? Oh, well, mineral water for me, too.' When the waitress had gone, she said, 'I'm sorry I was late, Amy—I got stuck in traffic. London is hell these days.'

  'So is life,' Amy said mournfully.

  Caro gave her an amused look. 'Is it? What's happened now?' Amy's life was full of dramas; it kept Caro constantly entertained.

  'Johnny didn't go to Paris with his aunt! He took his secretary. He says it was business, but in that case why lie to me about it?'

  'They always do,' said Caro drily.

  'I thought Johnny was different!' Amy mourned, lip trembling.

  'None of them are! They all cheat, if they can.'

  'You're so cynical,' Amy accused. 'You always think the worst. You know what I think? You're still carrying a torch for Damian Shaw!'

  Caro flushed angrily. 'You're out of your mind!'

  Amy looked knowing. 'If I'm wrong, why have you gone red?'

  'With temper!' said Caro sharply, then bit her lip as the waitress brought their first course.

  She had been twenty-one when she'd got involved with Damian Shaw, a clever and charming young lawyer, and she was twenty-six now, but although she was over the pain of that affair, the anger she felt whenever she remembered it remained. Damian Shaw had humiliated her, made her fall in love with him while he was only pretending to care about her. All he had really cared about was her father's fortune. He had wounded her pride, as well as her heart. No man since had ever been given the chance.

  'The only thing I'm carrying for Damian Shaw is a harpoon,' she said, forking a piece of melon, looking down. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the newspaper Amy had been reading while she'd waited and, before Amy had the chance to say anything else about Damian, Caro asked, 'Were you reading about Gilham Martell's fight with the Earl of Jurby? I wonder if a divorce is in the offing?'

  Distracted, Amy said, 'Yes, isn't it a scream? I wish I'd been there. You know him, don't you? What's he like?'

  'Who?' asked Caro blankly. 'Gil Martell.'

  'I've never met him—what made you think I knew him?'

  'Well, we eat at Westbrooks a lot because your father wants to buy it!'

  'Ssh...' Caro said in a hurry, glancing around.

  'I just thought you must know the managing director of the store,' said Amy blithely.

  'Amy!' spat Caro. 'Shut up. We don't talk about business, remember?' Amy was very indiscreet; she didn't seem to understand why Caro wanted to be incognito when she visited a store her father was targeting. 'I've explained about keeping a project under wraps until it's time to...'

  'Pounce,' said Amy, giggling.

  'I wouldn't put it quite like that,' Caro said sharply. 'I'd have said until we were ready to show our hand.'

  Amy's attention wandered as a woman in a mink hat and jacket sauntered past. 'Look—that's one of ours. Perfectly matched skins; see the smooth fan style? Gorgeous, isn't it?'

  'I never wear real furs,' Caro said flatly.

  'Oh, but mink aren't an endangered species!' protested Amy.

  'That's no reason for killing them for their fur,' said Caro, and they got bogged down in an argument they had had many times before.

  The waitress whisked their plates away and was back a moment later with their main courses.

  'OK, then, what about sheep?' Amy triumphantly asked. 'I'm wearing this cream wool suit...but you don't seem bothered by that.'

  'They didn't have to kill the sheep, just cut its fleece, and it was probably relieved as it's summer when they do it!' Caro glanced over the suit. 'And I bet that looks better on you than it ever did on the sheep!'

  Amy giggled. 'Well, I should hope so! It is gorgeous, isn't it? I got it at cost, and I bought a black dress, too...' She began to talk clothes and Caro listened wryly, not sharing Amy's obsession with fashion. She didn't share Amy's other obsession, either: with men, who always broke her heart. Fortunately, her heart mended quickly and Amy went on to a new man, a new heartbreak. Caro was not that resilient or forgetful; she had had her heart broken once and that was enough. At least I don't make the same mistake over and over again, she thought, as she and Amy said goodbye. After Damian, I've taken care never to fall in love with anyone else.

  'See you next Wednesday at the Portland Club House, and then it's my treat,' said Amy, poised for flight. 'I must rush. Thanks for the lunch. Bye.'

  By next week, she'll be madly in love with someone new, Caro thought, but what does her l
ove mean when it's given and forgotten so easily? I've no intention of falling in love until I'm sure the guy is in love with mc, and means it.

  She took the escalators down to check on the various floors, walking slowly around, her sharp, observant eyes moving like lightning, looking out for clever arrangements, new ideas, what was selling, what wasn't. She was in the jewellery department when a man bumped into her with some force. Caro almost fell over, stumbling back against a counter. When she recovered, she turned to make some terse comment, but the man had already vanished into the lift.

  It was getting late now though, and she ought to get back for the committee meeting, so she headed for the lift herself, walking fast.

  'Excuse me, madam,' a man said beside her, touching her arm. 'I would like a word, if you please.'

  Caro gave him a brief glance. He was middle-aged, solidly built, with eyes like chisels.

  'I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry,' she said impatiently, not wanting to waste time on a sales pitch from one of the Westbrooks staff. 'Whatever you're selling, I don't want it.' And she quickened her step.

  'Oh, no, you don't!' growled the stranger, clamping a hand down, hard, on her shoulder.

  Mulled, Caro said, 'Let go of me!' She tried to pull free, but that grip, though light, was unbreakable.

  'I'm the store detective,' the big man said in his grating voice, 'We've been watching you on the monitors for the past twenty minutes loitering about, waiting for your chance to do a snatch. We've got it all on film, so don't bother to lie, and we tagged your accomplice too. He won't have got out of the store, don't hope for that. He'll be on his way to the manager's office by now, and he won't have had a chance of switching the stuff to someone else from your gang because we'll have been watching him on the monitor, wherever he went!'

  'You've got the wrong person! You're making a mistake!' Caro protested.

  'Just come with me, will you, madam?' the detective

  merely said.

  She struggled angrily. 'Let go of me, you're hurting!'

  'Let go of you so that you can bolt for it? I don't think so!' he said.

  A little crowd, meanwhile, had gathered, staring. Caro knew she had turned dark red, and she was very tense. From the expression on the faces around her she realised she must look guilty.

  'You don't want a scene in public, do you, madam?' asked the detective and, of course, she didn't. He read the look she gave him and smiled, not very pleasantly. Caro did not like him at all, but she had no choice. She had to let him steer her towards the lift.

  Once in the lift the man jabbed the button with one hand while he still held her upper arm with the other. As they shot upwards, she pulled herself free, glaring at him while she massaged her arm.

  'Being a store detective doesn't give you the right to push customers around. I shall complain to your boss when I see him.'

  'If I hadn't insisted that you come with me, would you have come?' he asked her coolly.

  'Certainly,' she said. 'If you had asked me politely!'

  He laughed. 'Oh, I bet!'

  The lift door opened; he propelled her out and along a wide corridor, through a mahogany door into a spacious, discreetly furnished office. A smartly dressed woman sat behind a desk, a telephone in her hand. She gave Caro a cold stare.

  'Go straight in,' she said to the store detective. 'The man's in custody. Harry had no trouble with him. There was nothing on him, though; she must have the necklace. I'm just ringing down for Stella to come and strip-search her. The two of them must have been working alone, there doesn't seem to be anyone else.'

  'Then he must have been passing it to her—I saw them pull the old trick of knocking into each other. I thought she'd passed it to him, but it must have been the other way round. Never mind. We've got them both.'

  'You've got the wrong person!' Caro said again, and the detective grimaced at the woman behind the desk.

  'We've heard that before, haven't we?'

  'A hundred times!' the woman agreed, her smile contemptuous as she stared at Caro.

  'This way,' the detective said to Caro. 'Sorry, I forgot. Would you kindly step this way, madam?' He gestured across the office, and she walked with him towards a door on the other side of the room. The detective knocked on the door.

  A deep dark voice curtly said, 'Come in!'

  Caro had just seen the name on the door. Her heart sank. Oh, no, she thought—not him! She backed like a frightened horse facing a leap into the unknown, and the detective grabbed her arm with one hand, opened the door with the other and pushed her into the room.

  Caro was, by now, completely off balance. She tripped, and ended up face down on a deep-pile carpet.

  'Holt! There's no need for that sort of rough stuff, especially with a woman!' the deep voice snapped.

  'She tripped, sir!' the store detective hurriedly said.

  Caro lifted her head, hair across her eyes, and peered wildly at a pair of highly polished black shoes, at slim, long legs in smoothly tailored dark trousers, at an immaculately cut jacket, a crisp white shirt, a dark grey silk tie, and then at a hard face. A very hard face. A face she recognised at once. Only that morning she had said she wouldn't want to meet its owner on a dark night. Well, it wasn't dark, but she still didn't want to meet Gilham Martell.

  He was staring down at her as fixedly. She was glad she did not know what he was thinking. It wouldn't ever be easy to guess, she thought; he had the eyes of a poker player and the mouth of an assassin. Gilham Martell was a very nasty piece of work, almost as nasty as his store detective.

  'Get up!' he ordered.

  She stayed on her hands and knees, hating him. 'You're going to be sorry about this!' Her voice was shaking with rage.

  He bent abruptly; a long-fingered hand fastened on her arm and yanked her to her feet, like a rag doll.

  'Don't you manhandle me!' Caro yelled, pushing him away. 'This man has knocked me about, dragged me through your shop, thrown me into this room...' She was so angry she couldn't get another word out, breathing roughly.

  'Holt, what the hell have you been up to?' Gilham Martell demanded, frowning.

  The detective was scowling at her. 'She's exaggerating, sir! I did it by the book. I asked her to accompany me, and when she resisted I merely held her by the arm! At no time did I knock her about—she's lying.'

  'You had no right to force me to come with you!' Caro threw at him. 'You made a mistake. I am not a shoplifter, and I can prove it.'

  'Do so, then,' said Gilham Martell, watching her, his brows knitted.

  'I'm Caroline Ramsgate,' she said, staring back at him and waiting for that to register. She saw no change in Gil Martel's face; he just waited for her to go on, and after a pause she did.

  'I am Fred Ramsgate's daughter.'

  His face changed then, dramatically. The dark eyes narrowed and hardened, the mouth became tight and straight, his colour darkened. After a moment he repeated, 'You're Fred Ramsgate's daughter,' in a flat voice.

  'Yes,' she snapped. 'And he's going to make you wish you'd never been born.'

  There was a long silence, then Gilham Martell said to the detective, 'You can go. I'll deal with this.'

  The man quietly left the room. The door closed and Gil pushed her firmly down into a chair and sat down on the edge of his desk, his arms folded.

  'Show me some proof of your identity,' he said in a clipped, hard tone, and Caro opened her handbag and produced her driving licence, her wallet, a handful of snapshots of herself with her father in Rome at a recent conference. Gilham Martell only needed to take a brief glance then he handed them all back to her, frowning blackly.

  'The minute I set eyes on you coming through that door, I knew I was going to have trouble from you,' he said, almost to himself.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It had been a fraught day for Gil Martell. His grandmother had visited him that morning, breathing fire and thunder, and making threats he didn't take seriously but which had left him edgy and irritable. He und
erstood why she wanted him to get married and start a family. Occasionally he wanted that himself—but he had never met a woman he couldn't live without, and he wasn't going to settle for less. Nor was he about to pick the first girl he saw. One day he would probably marry, but she had to be right; he was looking for a special woman, a very special woman, and he hadn't found her yet. When he'd said that to his grandmother, though, she had become even angrier and shouted that if he hadn't found a girl and married her by the end of the year, she was selling the store and leaving all her money to charity.

  'Do that!' he had yelled back, resenting the blackmail, and she had walked out without looking back, leaving Gil in a raging temper.

  Which was why he was in no mood to be gentle with shoplifters. The store lost thousands of pounds of stock to shoplifters every year, and, added to that, it cost a fortune to employ store detectives and electronic surveillance systems. If there was anything Gil really hated, it was a shoplifter, and he didn't mean some sick woman who was having a temporary problem which came out as kleptomania, he meant criminals who made a full-time business of stealing from stores.

  Every year the problem seemed to get worse; they were losing so much money that it was a nightmare and something had to be done about it.

  He had stared down angrily at the girl when she first fell on the floor at his feet. She was no beauty: straight brown hair, a very ordinary face, except for those eyes he could see through the fine strands of hair which had fallen over her temples—bright, angry grey eyes which glittered at him and were far from ordinary. He had absently noted their beauty, then told himself to stop wasting his time. The girl was a thief!

  And then she had dropped her bombshell, and Gil found it hard to cope with the realisation of what had happened. His store detective had accused Fred Ramsgate's daughter of being a shoplifter!

  'I'll deal with this,' he had wearily told Holt, and the store detective had stared, puzzled, then slowly left the room, no doubt quite unaware what he had done. He should read the financial pages of his newspaper, thought Gil grimly.