Slave to Love

She must have agreed because Mac nodded and put down the receiver, then, with a decidedly threatening look about him, turned his attention on Roberta. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Where’s Joel?’

She was instantly on her guard. ‘Out,’ she answered. ‘Hiding away from you, I think.’

‘Is he, now?’ he murmured. ‘That’ll make a change. Usually he enjoys taking me on! Like the time in Jenny’s flat when he provoked me into punching him one.’

‘That was a disgraceful thing to do!’ she flared. ‘Hitting your own brother just because he made a very poor joke!’

‘That’s my bunny rabbit,’ he drawled. ‘Defend the indefensible. He envies me you, no matter what you prefer to believe.’

She stiffened instantly in affront. ‘I don’t see how you—’

She got no further because his mouth came hungrily down on her own. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured as he drew away. ‘I needed that!’

Roberta just stared at him in breathless bewilderment. He was so bright and alive now that she could hardly believe that this was the same man who had been slumped in a chair in defeat only minutes ago!

‘Now, where’s your coat?’ he asked, looking impatiently round the room. ‘Get your coat. You’re coming with me.’

‘I most certainly am not!’ Roberta protested, staring at him as if he’d gone stark, staring mad. ‘Just in case it’s escaped your memory, I work here!’ she reminded him hotly. ‘I can’t just walk out at a moment’s notice, even if I wanted to—which I don’t!’

‘I’m the boss, remember? So get your coat!’ Grabbing determinedly at her hand, he took it upon himself to hook her coat off the hanger behind her door, then threw it over his shoulder. ‘We have things to do, you and I,’ he stated. ‘And, now I’ve decided to do them, I want them doing right away.’

‘Things like what?’ she demanded in exasperation. ‘Mac!’ she appealed, when he began dragging her protestingly through the door. ‘I don’t want to go with you to Delia’s! And I don’t see why you would want me along!’

‘Don’t you?’ He kept on pulling. ‘You started all of this, Roberta,’ he reminded her grimly. ‘So I don’t see why the hell you shouldn’t help me to finish it!’

‘Finish what?’ she sighed out bewilderedly. ‘Can’t you just stand still long enou

gh to tell me what the hell it is you’re intending to do?’

He shook his head. ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he promised ominously. At Mitzy’s desk, though, he paused. ‘If you know which hole it is that my brother is hiding in, then get him out of it and tell him that I’ve kidnapped his PA,’ he instructed a Mitzy wide-eyed with curiosity. ‘Tell him that if he wants to see Miss Chandler again, then he’d better come and find her. At Delia’s.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Just as soon as he can get himself there.’

‘This is crazy,’ Roberta complained as he drove them towards the St John’s Wood district of London, after having dragged her out of the building, shoved her into his car, then belted her in before slamming the door and climbing in himself. ‘You’ve gone crazy if you think you can just bully me like this!’

He just ignored her, driving the new-model Lotus with the cool precision of a lion-tamer controlling a wild animal. Delia’s home was the one Mac had once shared with her. A big old thing, set behind a high fence in its own secluded grounds. The heavy wrought-iron gates opened electronically and it niggled Roberta to know that Mac still had right of access, when, at the touch of a button on his dashboard, the gates slid open to let them drive through.

He stopped at the bottom of the stone front steps which led beneath a wide porchway, killed the engine, then climbed out, came around to open Roberta’s door for her when she made no effort herself, and firmly hauled her out.

‘I have no wish to go in there!’ she informed him hotly.

‘No matter,’ he said, his hand a manacle about hers again as he pulled her towards the steps. ‘You’re coming.’

Inside was quite surprisingly conservative, Delia’s exotic tastes in personal dress obviously not overlapping into her taste in home décor.

A tall, grey-haired man with a sober face came to meet them as they entered. ‘Where’s your mistress, Jock?’ Mac asked him.

‘In the small sitting-room, sir,’ the man replied. ‘Resting,’ he added pointedly.

Mac just grunted at the other man’s acid manner and walked off down the hall, dragging Roberta behind him.

Delia was reclining on a beautiful damask-covered sofa, her silky red hair flowing like lava over the softly padded arm. She looked wonderful in that particular shade of violet satin she had strategically draped around her—exotic, seductive—and Roberta suddenly realised why the house was so elegantly bland. It acted as the perfect foil to Delia’s hectic beauty.

‘How’s the wound?’ Mac asked by way of a greeting.

‘Healing,’ Delia informed him, without bothering to open her delicately bruised eyes. ‘But killing me. What’s all this urgency about, Mac?’ she demanded wearily. ‘I suppose that sly bitch has been making trouble for poor Lulu?’

‘Ask her yourself, since the bitch in question is standing right next to me,’ Mac drawled, watching cynically as Delia’s eyes flicked wide open while Roberta stiffened jerkily at his side. ‘And as for poor Lulu,’ he continued, while both women glared at each other, ‘we’ve let a serious problem develop between us here, Delia, and it’s high time we did something about it.’

‘Problem? What kind of problem?’ Wincing at the effort, Delia levered herself into a sitting position.