SUSANNE MCCARTHY - Bad Influence

Georgia clenched her fist. ‘I’ll fight it, Bernard,’ she declared. ‘Every inch—they’ll find I won’t be a walkover.’

‘No one would expect anything else from you—the way you’ve run this company for the past three years proves that. Incidentally,’ he added on a note of diffidence, ‘this may be no more than a coincidence—but on the other hand…?’

He put a copy of one of the more sensationalist tabloid newspapers down on the desk in front of her. She glanced up at him in amused surprise, and then her heart gave a sudden thud as she recognised the man in the front-page picture beneath the blazoned headline, LUCKY DIGGER.

Only the iron self-control instilled by her grandfather enabled her to conceal her reaction.

Australian business tycoon Jake Morgan arrived in Britain last week, and already he’s got two new women in his life—stunning dark-haired supermodel girlfriend Sheena Smith, and winning three-year-old racehorse Blondie…

Blondie…?

Even in the black and white newsprint there was an unmistakable air of arrogance in the set of those wide shoulders, a challenging glint in those deep-set eyes. He’d been here a week, the story said—but it didn’t say why he’d come or how long he was planning to stay. She picked up the Falcon Holdings file in her other hand, eyeing it speculatively.

‘Yes, you…could be right, Bernard,’ she managed, somehow keeping her voice steady. ‘Well spotted.’

Had he found out who she was? It had probably been inevitable—though unlike him she sought to avoid personal publicity as much as possible. Newspaper editors seemed to be fascinated by the fact that a female—particulary a young blonde female—was running such a substantial company, and couldn’t resist using a photograph of her whenever they ran a story about Geldard’s. But she had hoped that he might not recognise her—after all, she had been soaking wet at the time they had met.

Well, if he thought he would be able to use that incident to blackmail her in some way, he would be disappointed, she vowed resolutely. No one knew about it, and she would simply deny that it had ever happened.

The May Day Ball in aid of the Geldard Foundation was one of the most glittering events of the social calendar. The foundation had been another of her grandfather’s grand gestures, set up to support research into heart disease—unfortunately he had stubbornly refused to listen himself to the advice available, dismissing all his doctor’s pleas to give up his brandy and cigars.

The grand ballroom of one of London’s top hotels was the venue for the occasion, where two hundred and fifty of the cream of society could dine and dance in elegant style into the small hours of the morning while being parted from as much money as possible in the name of a good cause.

Georgia cast a last anxious glance over the setting as the first of the Bentleys and Rolls Royces began to disgorge their elegant occupants outside the imposing entrance. It was as near perfect as six long months of hard work by the committee—and several days by the staff of the hotel—could make it. Long white-clothed tables, awash with silver and crystal, sparkled beneath the massive chandeliers that swung from the lofty ceiling, and the wide expanse of parquet dance-floor gleamed with polish.

It had occurred to her more than once that it would probably be a great deal easier to call the whole thing off and simply write to people asking for a financial contribution, instead of going to these lengths to prise open their wallets. But she was aware that her grandfather had had a more cynical motive in mind—it did the company a great deal of good commercially to be associated with such a prestigious social event.

‘Georgie, darling! What a fabulous dress! And the Geldard diamonds too, I see. So that’s the reason why some of these “waiters” have such magnificent shoulders!’

Georgia turned, smiling in welcome for her old schoolfriend, now married into the minor echelons of the aristocracy. ‘I’m afraid so,’ she responded lightly. ‘The insurance company insisted on it I’d really rather leave the damned things in the vault and wear paste.’

‘Oh no, surely not,’ Margot protested, shocked. ‘They’re so beautiful—if they were mine, I’d wear them all the time. Even to bed! Especially if one of those gorgeous hunks had to come along to keep an eye on them!’ she added outrageously, slanting a flirtatious eye over one of the stonefaced security-guards who had been assigned to protect the priceless gems around Georgia’s throat, his bulk not too discreetly concealed beneath the white dinner jacket of a waiter.

Georgia shook her head, laughing. ‘Margot, you’re impossible! You’re supposed to be a respectable married woman these days.’

‘Me? Respectable?’ her friend gurgled. ‘Not likely. Oh, Charles is a dear, but he’s just a husband, after all. But what about you?’ she added, frowning slightly as she held Georgia at arm’s length and subjected her to a critical survey. ‘How do you keep your figure? I’ll swear you’re even slimmer than the last time I saw you, and yet you eat like a horse!’

‘Oh, I…get a lot of exercise,’ Georgia explained, waving one beautifully manicured hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘And I…had a slight bout of flu or something earlier this year.’

‘Flu, huh?’ Margot’s searching eyes were watching her face for the slightest betraying flicker. ‘Not a man, then?’

‘Of course not!’ Georgia concealed a stab of alarm at her friend’s shrewd guess. ‘Why on earth should you think that?’

‘It’s usually the only way I ever get to lose any weight,’ Margot confessed ruefully. ‘Excitement while I’m falling in love, and pining when it’s all over! Though now I’m married I suppose I shall have to forego all that sort of fun.’

‘It doesn’t sound much like fun to me,’ Georgia returned drily.

Margot chuckled. ‘Ah, you ought to try it. In fact, it’s about time you did—it would do you good. Your grandfather’s got a lot to answer for, you know—I suppose he was only trying to do what he thought was best for you, but he ended up convincing you that no man could be interested in you for any other reason than your money.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Margot,’ Georgia protested, aware of a slight waver in her voice. ‘Oh, you’ll have to excuse me—I see some more guests arriving. I’d better go and do my duty.’ And she slipped away before her friend could ask any more probing questions.

As she crossed the foyer she caught a fleeting glimpse of her own reflection in the large gilded mirror on the wall. Was Margot right? Had her grandfather made her too suspicious? The image that looked back at her seemed to mock her. Poor little rich girl, it seemed to say—you’ve got everything, and yet you’ve got nothing.

Her hairdresser had swept up her hair in an elegant style, and her slim-fitting dress of silver-white satin had a pure simplicity of line, cut low across the honey-smooth curve of her breasts, hugging her slender figure right down to her ankles—all the better to show off the fabulous Geldard diamonds.

She didn’t actually like them very much; they were rather too ostentatious for her taste—a heavy collar of sparkling white gems, set in gold, with matching drops swinging from her small ears. They were reputed to be part of the Russian Crown Jewels, though Georgia was inclined to doubt the truth of that. Her grandfather had bought them for her grandmother as a silver wedding present; that lady, a plain Yorkshirewoman, had thought it a terrible waste of money, and Georgia heartily agreed with her—most of the time they were locked up in the vaults at the bank.