Penny Jordan - Response

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Cover

Title Page Response Penny Jordan www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

SIENNA saw him walk past her office as she paused to fit a new sheet of paper into her typewriter, and even though it was merely his outline she saw through the frosted glass she was interested enough to turn discreetly in her chair and pull open one of the filing cabinet drawers so that she would be facing the door should he decide to walk in. He paused outside, no doubt studying the notice on the door, and Gillian, who owned and ran the agency, crossed her fingers and hissed across at her, ‘Here’s hoping!’

Her wish was granted. The door opened inwards smoothly and Sienna had a handful of seconds to assimilate the powerful combination of a face that was distinctively hard-boned, its sensual impact deeper by far than any mere handsomeness, before amused grey eyes rested with brief comprehension on her half parted lips and dazed expression.

‘Miss Forbes?’

He was addressing Gillian, who smiled and looked equally dazed, leaving Sienna free of his careless scrutiny and at leisure to admire the way the dark wool suit fitted his broad shoulders and to note the leisurely grace with which he folded his tall frame into the chair Gill indicated.

‘Your agency has been recommended to me by an acquaintance,’ Sienna heard him saying as he extracted a small piece of cardboard from his wallet and handed it across to Gillian. ‘I’m in London on business, and unfortunately my secretary’s mother has been taken ill and she has had to fly back to New York. I can’t cancel the business meetings I’ve arranged, and I’m hoping you’re going to be able to supply me with an adequate replacement. I understand you specialise in multi-lingual secretaries with excellent shorthand and typing speeds. I appreciate that it’s short notice, but….’

As she turned back to her typewriter Sienna’s fingers trembled, and she witnessed their betrayal with a certain amount of wry self-mockery. She had been working for Gillian for six months. Before that she had worked at home, translating her father’s books, doing his research, typing his manuscripts…. She sighed. Her father’s death had been a sad but not totally unexpected blow. Gerald King had had a weak heart for years, and as her brother Rob had reminded her at the funeral, he had had a very good innings. ‘Dad was over seventy, Sienna,’ he had told her gently, ‘and this is the way he would have wanted to go—quickly and relatively painlessly.’

Sienna knew that Rob was right, but she still missed her father. She had worked with him since she left university, quite content with the calm flow of life in the sleepy Cotswold village where they lived. Gerald King was an expert on Mediaeval history and had taught at the local university prior to his retirement. His books were always well received in academic circles, and Sienna knew with hindsight that Rob was right when he claimed that her life with their father had been at times an unnatural one for a girl in her early twenties. But now that was all over. There had been sufficient money for her to stay on in Waterford-on-the-Hill had she wished, living in the cottage which was willed to Rob and herself jointly, hut Rob had told her that she was far too young to bury herself away in the sleepy Cotswold backwater, and it was at his suggestion that she had taken the job with Gillian working for her agency as a freelance temporary secretary. It was her private belief that Gillian and Rob were in love, but neither of them seemed prepared to admit it.

Rob was a busy foreign news reporter working for one of the national papers, and he had met Gillian at university. Four years older than she was herself, Rob had always seemed very much the older brother during her teens, but nowadays they met as equals and there was a growing bond between them. Although he scoffed at it, Sienna considered that her brother was more like their father than he realised. In Sienna’s eyes her father had always possessed a quality she could only describe as ‘gentlemanly’—nothing to do with birth, accent, or academic achievements, but something that went much deeper than that, an old-fashioned gallantry and consideration for other people that everyone around him responded to, and Rob possessed it as well. He might prefer to assume the role of the hard-bitten tough journalist, but Sienna had seen him when he thought himself unobserved, helping others with that same quiet, almost self-effacing manner which characterised their father.

Only last night he had challenged her to deny that he had been right when he insisted that she come to London, and she had been forced to admit that he was. He had been on the point of leaving to cover another story and they had met briefly in the hall of his flat where she was staying until she was able to find somewhere for herself. She had often wondered if having her living with him cramped his style. There was no evidence that the flat had ever been shared with anyone else, but Rob was a virile and very attractive man of twenty-eight and she was not naïve enough to assume that as his sister she was the only female in his life, or that he would restrict himself to chaste goodnight kisses outside his dates’ homes.

She came to, with a start, realising that she had been completely lost in her thoughts, flushing to find herself being scrutinised by two pairs of eyes, Gillian’s rather puzzled and her companion’s openly amused. But it was an amusement that was shot through with something else; and a something else that made her blood tingle, a curious heady excitement spiralling through her body. She had experienced sexual chemistry before, for heaven’s sake, Sienna chided herself, but she was forced to admit, rather ruefully, that it had never before been as potent as this. Something she had once read flashed briefly through her mind ‘… she would have followed him to the ends of the earth dressed only in her petticoat….’ Someone had once written that about Mary, Queen of Scots and her love for charismatic and dangerous Bothwell, and in that instant, as her sherry-brown eyes met comprehending mocking grey ones, Sienna knew exactly how Mary had felt.

‘Mr Stefanides needs a multi-lingual secretary to work for him while he’s in London, Sienna,’ Gillian repeated. ‘I’ve just told him you’re the only girl we have free at the moment….’

‘You want me?’

The moment the words left her lips, Sienna flushed pink with mortification. Heavens, did she need to make herself sound even dumber than she most undoubtedly looked?