Millionaire's Woman

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS five to seven and Cory was panicking big time, not least because she barely recognized the girl staring back at her out of the mirror. When she’d left Chantal earlier that afternoon, the little Frenchwoman’s parting encouragement had been, ‘Chérie, make up your mind to enjoy a night on the tiles in haute couture style! Yes? You will look enchanting. As the late Gianni Versace once said: ‘‘If you make an entrance and nobody turns to look at you, my dear, find a back door and leave. And then find a new dress.’’ I promise you, chérie, you will not have to find the door,’ Chantal had said with great satisfaction. ‘Not in that dress.’

It was beautiful. Cory’s gaze left the frightened eyes in the mirror and travelled downwards. And in this case the clothes did definitely maketh the woman. The midnightblue silk just missed being black, the cap-sleeved bodice with flattering collar-bone-skimming neckline topping a skirt with the same leaf transparencies and beading, and, as if all that wasn’t enough to catch the eye, the skirt had vertiginous side slits. These had caused Cory to protest that she couldn’t possibly wear the dress out before she had tried it on, but once Chantal had zipped her up she’d had to admit that it did something to her figure and skin that was riveting.

‘This is the one,’ the little Frenchwoman had cried. ‘This is the dress that makes you a goddess.’

Goddess was going a bit far, Cory thought, her gaze returning to check her make-up for the umpteenth time. But the dress did do something for her that was amazing. She dreaded to think how much it had cost her aunt. None of the clothes in the exclusive shop had had anything so vulgar as a price label. Presumably if one couldn’t take the heat one stayed out of the kitchen!

When she’d made noises about the cost, Chantal had merely tapped the side of her small nose and shook her beautifully coiffured head in disapproval. ‘This is the gift, yes?’ she had scolded, making Cory feel terribly unsophisticated. ‘Your aunt will know and this is enough. Now…’ She had gone on to recommend another couple of establishments where Cory could purchase suitable accessories but, although she’d thanked the older woman, Cory had known she wouldn’t be stepping through their doors. Shoes and bags at several hundred pounds a go just wasn’t an option on her salary.

Instead she had looked round various high street shops and market stalls, eventually finding delicate strappy sandals in just the right shade with a little purse to match in Covent Garden. Racing home to her flat in Notting Hill—the purchase of which had taken every last penny of her inheritance, but which had been supremely worth it—she had showered, washed her hair and set about moisturising and perfuming for the night ahead.

Should she have left her hair down? She glanced again at the silky smooth chignon she’d persuaded her shoulderlength waves into. It had seemed too fussy somehow, the dress being so stunning, but her hair had been up and down three times before she had made up her mind.

‘Stop it.’ She breathed the words out loud into the quiet, pastel-coloured bedroom. ‘It’s just a nightclub, they’re just people like everyone else, he’s just a man.’ And he’d reduced her to talking to herself already after one brief meeting!

An authoritative buzz from the lobby entry intercom brought her hand to her throat before she breathed deeply, willing the panic to subside. Walking through into the small square hall she steeled herself to press the button situated to the side of her front door. ‘Yes, who is it?’ she asked with a breathlessness she could have kicked herself for.

‘Nick Morgan.’ Succinct and to the point.

‘I’ll be right down, Mr Morgan. If you’d care to wait in the lobby…’ She pressed the building’s door release before flying back into the bedroom in a tottering scramble which warned her that the sandals didn’t lend themselves to anything other than dignified sedateness, not unless she wanted to end up on her rear end, that was. And that was unthinkable in front of Nick Morgan.

Snatching up her purse, which was just large enough to hold her keys, lipstick, two twenty pound notes for emergencies—in case he didn’t intend to see her home for example—and a few tissues, she walked carefully back to the hall, opening her front door and then making her way down the wide staircase which led to the lobby.

The old Victorian house had been converted to three fairly large flats, one on each floor. The ground floor flat was owned by a retired couple with a massive German Shepherd called Arnie who had a howl like a wolf’s. This was the biggest apartment, having three bedrooms and its own tiny garden. Cory’s flat and the one above each had two bedrooms and a large balcony off the sitting room French windows. The young married couple above her had made their balcony into a miniature garden, but Cory’s contained a small table and two chairs and a large lacy palm in a big pot and that was all. Her work sometimes involved excruciatingly long hours for a couple of weeks or so and if a problem occurred in one of the families she was assigned to the last thing she wanted to worry about was watering plants.

She was concentrating so hard on descending gracefully, balanced as she was on her giddily high, needle-thin heels, that she didn’t lift her head until she’d reached the safety of the tiled floor of the small entrance lobby.

‘Wow.’

The deep male voice brought her head turning. Nick Morgan was leaning against the far wall, hands thrust in his pockets and black hair slicked back from his brow. He looked like something every red-blooded woman from the age of sixteen to sixty would love to find in their Christmas stocking. An exquisitely cut dinner jacket sat on shoulders broad enough to satisfy even the most demanding female, and the smile lighting up his blue eyes was electric.

Cory forgot to breathe as he walked towards her, only managing to mumble, ‘Hello,’ at the last moment.

‘You look sensational.’

‘Do I?’ Oh, come on, you can do better than that. She wasn’t totally without the ability of social repartee. She took hold of herself, adding, ‘Thank you, you look pretty good yourself,’ with a coolness she hoped he didn’t know was completely feigned.

His gaze moved over her hair, eyes made up to look huge, and carefully painted lips, and there was a faint note of surprise in his voice when he said, ‘You’ll set tongues wagging tonight. They’ll all want to know where I found you.’

He made it sound as though she was a stranded puppy he’d brought in from the cold. She forced a smile, saying lightly, ‘I think it was the other way round, don’t you? Or rather, it was Rufus who did the finding.’ And then, because his comment really had caught her on the raw for some reason, she added sweetly, ‘Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t explain I had to pick you up from the floor.’ She hadn’t, not exactly, but if ever there was justification in stretching a point, Cory felt this was it.

He blinked, just once, but she knew she’d taken him aback. The smile dimmed a little for one thing. ‘Quite.’ He took her elbow. ‘Shall we go?’

That had set the boundaries quite nicely; at least she hoped so. There was no way she was going to let this man patronise her, even if he did have the clout to take half of London to Templegate as his guests. Wealth did not equate to lordship, not in her book.

Onc

e outside, even the heavily laden city fumes couldn’t obliterate the beauty of a perfect June evening. The air was soft and warm, the buzz of the city lazy and evocative. Cory felt a little thrill of anticipation she wouldn’t have thought herself capable of just minutes before.

Instead of the taxi she’d been expecting, she found herself led to a chauffeur-driven Mercedes. After seating her inside the vehicle, Nick Morgan joined her. ‘Templegate, please, George,’ he said easily, before settling himself more comfortably beside her. She could feel the imprint of a hard male thigh against her hip but didn’t dare move. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he bothered her in any way—if he was thinking along those lines, which he probably wasn’t, of course.

Burningly aware of the way the slits in the dress revealed a tantalising amount of leg, Cory tried to think of something else. Nothing came to mind.

Too late she realised he’d said something and she’d missed it. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said politely.

‘I asked you if you’d been to Templegate before.’