Susan Napier - Temporary Mistress - Mistress for a Weekend / Mistress on Demand / Public Wife, Private Mistress

He turned. ‘A wise man knows his enemies.’

‘I’m not your enemy,’ she protested, slapping the disk into his outstretched hand. ‘And I don’t steal,’ she added with all the force of angry sincerity. ‘When I found this lying on the back seat of my car last night, I had no idea where it came from—’

He stared impassively down into her wide-set eyes. ‘Copies?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I want any and all copies you’ve made,’ he said, slipping the CD into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘And don’t bother to tell me you didn’t burn any, because I wouldn’t believe you.’

She gritted her teeth. He made it sound as if good computer housekeeping was a criminal act. ‘Since I didn’t know what the disk was, of course I made a back-up copy before I tried to open it,’ she informed him.

‘Is that where you were last night…at your office, downloading my confidential data on to Maitlands’ network? I suppose you were hoping I wouldn’t notice anything was missing until today. Unluckily for you, I decided to do some more work after you ran out on me—’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I never went near the office,’ she said tightly, massaging her aching temple. ‘Why would I? I told you, I didn’t know what the disk was, and I couldn’t very well return it until I found out who it belonged to, could I? I happened to have my laptop with me, so I used that to check it out.’ She found the copy she had made and shoved it at him. ‘There. Now, feel free to leave after you apologise!’

Her bitter sarcasm had little effect. ‘Did you make a printout or email it to anyone?’

Her generous mouth thinned. ‘Of course not. And, no, I’m not going to turn over my computer to you—you’ll just have to take my word for it.’

‘And why should I do that?’

‘Because I’m a very trustworthy person,’ she snapped.

His steely gaze was unrelenting as it inspected her shiny face. ‘You expect me to believe this was all an unfortunate coincidence…? That you didn’t seduce me in order to gain access to information in my hotel room—’

‘Any seduction going on was entirely mutual!’ she choked.

A faint gleam appeared in his grey eyes. ‘You have an odd idea of mutuality. Or do you usually get your kicks from picking up strange men and skipping out on them as soon as you’ve taken your own pleasure?’

She clenched her hands at her sides. ‘I don’t usually pick up men at all, ’ she rebutted fiercely. ‘I don’t go in for meaningless one-night stands—’

His voice deepened into a dark drawl that wrapped around her like black velvet. ‘Then why did you invite yourself to my hotel room? Why did you lead me on the way you did…let me undress you, touch you, taste you…?’

She shivered at his evocative words, her skin prickling from her scalp to her toes at the erotic memory of his sensuous skill, her limbs weighted with a strange heaviness that had nothing to do with fatigue.

‘Look, you’ve got your disk back and I’ve apologised; what more do you expect?’ she said raggedly. ‘Can’t we just forget about last night?’

‘No, I’m afraid we can’t,’ he said, with an implacable gentleness that seemed more threatening than his former raging temper. ‘Because we both know that you opened and read those files—didn’t you, Nora?’

His soft words made it more of a statement than a question and her gaze dropped to the item in question, her thick brown lashes screening the guilty expression in her eyes as she watched him pocket it with its twin. ‘It was security protected.’

A sceptical sound rumbled in his chest at her evasive answer. ‘R-i-g-h-t. And you’re a hacker from way back. You’re one of Maitlands’ resident computer whizkids, constantly manipulating the interface between man and the sharp end of technology.’ He flaunted his newly acquired knowledge of her background with ruthless intent: ‘You took papers at Otago University while you were employed there, but you never bothered doing a full degree course—you’d already proven yourself in the market-place, hawking your software skills since you were in high school. Coming up against a good security block like the one on this disk would be a challenge rather than a deterrent to someone like you.’ His cool contempt was not unmixed with admiration. ‘Given the time, opportunity and Internet access, bypassing it would be well within your capabilities. So don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to be an innocent fluff-head.’

She winced at the accuracy of his insight, his accusing words pounding into her tender skull like hot nails. ‘OK, OK—so I peeked at your boring reports,’ she admitted sulkily. ‘I know I shouldn’t have—but, well—it was a choice of that or the porno channel.’

‘What in the hell are you talking about?’

His abrupt scowl made her regret her loose tongue. ‘I—I stayed the night in a motel a couple of blocks from here.’ The words dragged themselves reluctantly out of her mouth. ‘I couldn’t sleep, the TV reception was dreadful and the inhouse video channel was playing adult movies, so I decided to pass the time with my laptop.’

Finding that her computer was still in the car had been the saviour of her sanity through the long lonely hours. She had welcomed the company of a trusted old friend, one who was endlessly entertaining and who had never let her down. And the mystery disk had been a convenient distraction from her personal problems. With a complex puzzle to focus on, Nora had been able to shove her own misery to the back of her mind, her steady ingestion of vodka muffling any whispers of conscience.

‘A motel? What were you doing at a motel?’ Blake’s face had tightened with renewed suspicion, his nostrils flaring with distaste.

Nora squirmed inwardly under his accusatory gaze.

‘It’s a long story.’ she muttered. ‘A very long, very boring story,’ she hastened to emphasise as she saw his eyes flare with curiosity. ‘And it really has nothing to do with any of this…’

He put his hands on his hips, his sleek dark suit cloaking a lean frame that bespoke both immovable object and irresistible force. ‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’

She felt too fragile to keep battling his bull-headed stubbornness.

‘If you’ll just get me a couple of aspirin from the bathroom, I’ll tell you,’ she stalled, directing him with a limp wave of her hand. ‘They’re in the mirrored cabinet above the basin.’

She groaned as he remained welded to the spot. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake—I’m not going to run away as soon as your back is turned. I have a thumping great headache and I don’t want to go in there right now, OK?’

‘Why? Is there a body in the bath?’

His sarcasm conjured up the images she was trying so hard to scrape out of her skull. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she said, rubbing at her bloodshot eyes.

‘Explain.’

She automatically baulked at the rapped-out order. ‘Can’t you get the aspirin first?’

‘Stop whining and start talking.’

Nora had never whined in her life. Infuriated by his intransigence, she exploded and gave him an earful of her stored resentment, drawing a graphic picture of the sordid events of the previous day and taking a masochistic delight in painting all the gory details of her humiliating failure to satisfy the man she had honoured with her long-time affections.

‘Is it any wonder that I didn’t want to come home last night? I’d be happy never to see either of them ever again, but we all work for Maitlands so I’m stuck with having my nose rubbed in my stupidity five days a week.’

There was a crackling silence. ‘So what was I supposed to be?’ he asked with a distinct edge. ‘Your revenge on the straying boyfriend?’