The Threat of Love

He stared. 'Doing what?'

'Checking out the store.' Her tone was half defiant; she knew he was going to resent what she had been doing, but she wasn't lying about it.

'What does that mean, exactly?' Gil Martell asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

'I was trying to get an idea of your strengths and weaknesses on the sales floors, assess the flow of customers, the displays, the loss leaders, everything.'

'You were spying on us!' His voice held distaste and her colour deepened. He made it sound like espionage, and it was nothing of the kind. Her eyes flashed resentment at him.

'It isn't against the law to wander around a department store and assess it. Any customer could do it any time of day.'

'An ordinary customer wouldn't be planning to buy us up!'

'My reasons are irrelevant. The only question is: was I breaking the law? And the answer is no.'

'And that's the only thing that matters, is it? Staying inside the law and not getting caught?'

The words, the dry tone were meant to insult her, and

she felt herself getting angrier. 'Of course not! I didn't

say that, you're just twisting my words! My father has

made an open bid for your store '

'And been turned down!'

'For the moment, maybe, but things change, people change their minds.'

'We won't,' he tersely told her.

She ignored that, carrying on in a flat, cool voice. 'And in the meantime we always like to keep an eye on the current situation so that, if a property comes on to the market suddenly, we have a pretty fair idea of the state of affairs inside the store, and what it is therefore worth. On paper, something can look terrific value, but when you take a closer look you find it isn't quite such a bargain, so...'

'So your father sends you to snoop around?' he disdainfully murmured.

Caro felt like hitting him. She stared at him with dislike, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of letting him know how angry she was getting.

She wasn't sure why, but she did not want to betray herself to this man. She wanted to keep any emotion she felt—rage or humiliation, or pain—hidden from him, and that was puzzling in itself because she had never felt like that about any other man.

'Look, Mr Martell,' she said in a leashed voice, holding on to her temper with difficulty, T was in your restaurant, having lunch with a friend, and afterwards I wandered around the store to see what sort of business you were doing. I fail to see what was wrong with that, and I'm sure as hell not going to apologise for it.'

'Then you won't expect me to apologise because my security staff mistook your prowling about for the behaviour of a shoplifter!' he snapped.

'I wouldn't be so foolish as to expect common courtesy from you, Mr Martell!' she snarled back, and then they were both silent, staring at each other because their raised voices reverberated in the office and startled them both.

Caro had to do something to break that silence; she lifted her wrist and stared blankly at her watch. 'I have to go,' she said in a flat voice. 'I won't bother to make that call. I'm expected at an important meeting at three o'clock and it's half-past two now. I'll see my father there and fill him in on all this. You can expect to hear from our lawyers.'

As she turned to go, Gil Martell caught hold of her arm and she jumped what felt like six feet into the air, her whole body tensing as if she had had an electric shock.

She looked at the hand on her sleeve and then up into his frowning face. 'Will you take your hand off me?' she almost whispered. 'I've had enough of being manhandled this afternoon.'

His hand fell; he pushed both hands into his pockets in a deliberate way, eyeing her with hostility. 'When you said you were Fred Ramsgate's daughter I couldn't believe it for a minute. I hadn't supposed Ramsgate had ever done anything so human as get himself a daughter. But I can see the resemblance now. Very much so.'

'Good!' she snapped. 'I'm glad!' She knew he hadn't meant it as a compliment, but she insisted on taking it as one.

Gil ignored the interruption. He talked on coldly, staring down at her out of those night-black eyes. 'Your father doesn't believe in ethics, any more than you do— he hasn't built his empire up, he's snatched it from other men, men who worked all their lives to build a strong business only to have your father come out of nowhere to grab it from them. He has clawed his way to the top using the tactics of the jungle, and clearly you're a credit to him.'

Caro was hurt and bitterly angry at the same time. Hoarsely, she spat back, 'I hope I do take after my father, in every way, so you can take that look off your face. I love my father, he's a great man, and I'm proud of being his daughter.'