Natalie Fox - Reluctant Mistress

Reluctant Mistress

Natalie Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

ROBERT BUCHANAN was everything she had expected him to be. Cool, aloof and as arrogant as the media proclaimed.

Liza observed him through the glass panel of her office, her green eyes calculating every move he made as he toured the editorial offices with John Standish, the editor of Leisure Days magazine.

Standish was sweating. Buchanan the cause. With a deep sigh Liza turned away from the sickening scene of the staff flapping and trying to court favour with the new owner, the all-powerful Buchanan, whose reputation for pulping magazines like theirs into sawdust went before him like a flagship of destruction.

They were all scared, including Liza. As advertising director she knew she had nothing to fear as far as her work was concerned, but she had reluctantly to admit that lately it had become more and more difficult persuading advertisers to take space in the magazine. She had succeeded because she was skilled at her job, but how long would it last with Standish taking such an outdated stand on the editorial side? And what were Robert Buchanan’s plans for their future? He was fast becoming Europe’s top publisher, scooping up ailing periodicals and mutating them till they became clones. All the same, just in a different language.

‘Whose head will be the first to roll?’ Liza’s assistant Julia muttered ruefully from her desk.

Unconciously rubbing her neck, Liza stared bleakly out of the window. ‘Whose indeed?’ was all she could offer in consolation.

‘Do you believe all they say about him in the papers?’ Julia asked, her bright eyes looking decidedly interested.

Liza turned to her and smiled, knowing the tangent her man-mad assistant’s mind was veering off at. ‘Well, there’s no smoke without fire, Julia,’ she teased. ‘Flash your eyes at him the way you do at most men and you just might save your job.’

With a snort Julia tapped away at her computer. ‘Would that it were that easy. It’s always redheads with him, isn’t it? Perhaps I should whisk to the hairdresser’s lunchtime and swap my mouse-brown mop for Titian gold like yours.’

‘Are you implying mine comes from a bottle?’

‘Of course not!’ Julia laughed. ‘But seriously, he’s always being photographed with some gorgeous redhead. You’d better watch out, Liza...’ She stopped in mid-sentence as the door opened and the Buchanan entourage stepped into Liza’s office.

Julia stumbled to her feet, flushed, and pulled at her sweater nervously. Liza stood where she was, coldly unemotional, her hair brightened to flame by the light from the window behind her. If she had consciously stage-managed her impact on Robert Buchanan she couldn’t have done it more successfully. His dark penetrating eyes devoured her from head to toe, and came to rest on the aureole of marmalade frizz that cascaded around her shoulders.

It was easy to give Robert Buchanan a wide smile of welcome, easy to lift her hand and hold it out to him as John stammered out his introductions. Handsome he might be, powerful in publishing he undoubtedly was, but he wasn’t a gift from the gods as most women thought. He was a man like any other: ruthless, cold, a taker, just like another she knew.

He even resembled her former lover. He had the same jet hair as Graham, the same tall muscular build. They shared the same characteristics too, if all the papers said about the publishing giant was true: cold, calculating and a heartbreaker where women were concerned. But, whereas Robert Buchanan had maintained his bachelor existence, Graham had fallen prey—to her own sister of all people. They’d been married a year now, a year in which the pain of betrayal was still edged with a sharpness that cut into Liza’s very soul at the thought of the two of them, cosily cocooned in their Welsh cottage. Yvonne happily baking and housekeeping while Graham’s literary prowess prospered as it never had all the two years they had been lovers.

‘So, you are Liza Kay, without whose advertising sales skill this dreary magazine would have bitten the dust months ago.’

His brutal words, so softly, yet deeply, delivered with the faintest of a Scots burr, stunned everyone in the room. There was a long silence, followed by the uneasy shuffling of feet. Poor John looked waxy and gaunt. Liza held her smile with all the loyalty to John she could muster.

‘If that was a compliment, Mr Buchanan, I relinquish it on the grounds of bad taste.’ She withdrew her hand from his, yet maintained her sweet smile.

He raised a dark brow, that was all, turned from her, and left the office, his minions following, flustered and apologetic.

To Liza’s surprise she experienced a tremor through her body, a peculiar frisson she couldn’t explain away. Slumping down on to her chair, she murmured, ‘That was dumb, really dumb!’

‘You can say that again!’ Julia breathed with a mixture of admiration and awe. ‘You’ll be the first to go.’

Composed now, Liza scooped her hair back from her face. ‘First or last—makes no difference; we’re all for the slush pile if Buchanan runs true to form.’

‘Don’t you care?’ Julia quizzed anxiously.

‘Of course I care,’ Liza admitted on a sigh. ‘I’ve got as big outgoings as the next person.’

‘So why insult him in front of everyone like that? You’ve got to be out of your mind!’

How very right, Liza mused, very regretful now. She had been stupid, incredibly so. If she lost her position, which she undoubtedly would now, what then? Her mortgage was high, taken out when times with Graham had been good and she had hoped he would ask her to marry him. The terraced town house would have been perfect for the two of them. Close to town on the south side of the Embankment, in an up and coming area of Battersea, it was within easy striking distance of the West End. Theatres, restaurants, art exhibitions—everything she had wanted to share with Graham had been at hand, and yet he had chosen to end their relationship for her countrified sister and that hideous cottage in the hills!

That was the root of her insult to Robert Buchanan, she realised with a plop of her heart. She was getting back at Graham, through any man that crossed her path. Buchanan had been the target for the day. Pity she hadn’t challenged her insult in the direction of someone less influential. For a twenty-eight-year-old advertising director she was pretty dumb!

‘I’m sorry,’ Liza moaned later when Julia had skipped off to lunch and John Standish sloped into her office. His colour had returned, an infusion brought on by the exit of Robert Buchanan and his henchmen. He slumped in Julia’s seat, and rubbed his fevered brow.

‘Thanks for your loyalty, but you did yourself no favours, Liza. He stormed out of here like an enraged bull.’

‘What’s going to happen?’

‘He didn’t say; ranted on about dropping sales and restructuring the whole set-up, and we both know what that means. New editor for starters.’

Liza opened her mouth to protest but snapped it shut when John raised his hand. ‘Don’t say anything, Liza. I’ve brought it on myself. Not moved with the times, have I? He was right, you know. If it weren’t for you and your persuasive ways with the advertisers we would have sunk into oblivion a long while back.’ He stood up, stretched his long limbs lazily. ‘Can I buy you a liquid lunch to drown our sorrows?’