Jayne Bauling - Sophisticated Seduction

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Excerpt “Why would I want to get involved with you?” Bridget continued, “Anyone who is interested in you is lacking in discrimination.” “As you are?” he derided. “Since you happen to be attracted to me, Bridget.” She hesitated. “I’m too—fastidious to want anything to do with a man like you.” “And what am I like, sweetheart?” “Cynical, decadent, incapable of proper feelings!”

About The Author JAYNE BAULING was born in England and grew up in South Africa. She always wrote but was too shy to show anyone her work until the publication of some poems in her teens gave her the confidence to attempt the romance novels she wanted to concentrate on, the first published being written when she was attending business college. Her home is just outside Johannesburg, a town house ruled by a seal point called Ranee. Travel is a major passion; at home it’s family, friends, music, swimming, reading and patio gardening.

Title Page Sophisticated Seduction Jayne Bauling www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Copyright

Bridget continued, “Anyone who is interested in you is lacking in discrimination.”

“As you are?” he derided. “Since you happen to be attracted to me, Bridget.”

She hesitated. “I’m too—fastidious to want anything to do with a man like you.”

“And what am I like, sweetheart?”

“Cynical, decadent, incapable of proper feelings!”

JAYNE BAULINGwas born in England and grew up in South Africa. She always wrote but was too shy to show anyone her work until the publication of some poems in her teens gave her the confidence to attempt the romance novels she wanted to concentrate on, the first published being written when she was attending business college. Her home is just outside Johannesburg, a town house ruled by a seal point called Ranee. Travel is a major passion; at home it’s family, friends, music, swimming, reading and patio gardening.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

BRIDGET retrieved the long white T-shirt she had just discarded and pulled it on again, accepting that she would have to wait a little longer for the cool shower she needed so badly. She was still not fully acclimatised to the Delhi heat, although almost a week had passed since she had flown from London to this sometimes troubled, always fascinating city.

The sounds from the front of the house were unmistakable. Someone in possession of a set of keys was entering, and it could be almost anyone, Stirling Industries having company houses in the capitals of most countries in which they were active, and any newly arrived employee had only to call on the head of their Indian office to obtain a spare set of keys.

Or it might be a specially favoured girlfriend of the notorious Nicholas Stirling, permitted to have her own set. If so, she was destined to be as disappointed as those others without keys who had called so optimistically over the last few days, having noticed that the house was occupied and hoping to find him in residence.

An air hostess, an English girl currently working for All India Radio, and an elegant young woman from the British Embassy here in Delhi, they had all claimed to have been passing by chance, but even Bridget, unburdened by cynicism, had suspected that the route was a regular pilgrimage among the man’s admirers.

‘Hello!’

‘And who are you?’

There were two people in the beautiful entrance hall, but Bridget hardly noticed the woman who had spoken first, her shadowy green eyes instantly drawn to the man who had asked that coolly disdainful question. He had that rare quality, a presence which commanded and held the attention and would do so in any company however large and glittering.

She had never seen him in the flesh before, but there was no mistaking Nicholas Stirling. Tall, lean and obviously powerful, with a strong but sharply chiselled face unusually allied to sensuously curved lips, dark grey eyes and the sort of true black hair which had eventually made her realise that her own was not the black she had believed it to be as a child, but simply very dark brown.

His skin was dark too, especially against the pale, cool colours of the hall, and he wore the glamour and decadence of his reputation like a patina. Bridget had never seen anyone so overtly sophisticated, and for several seconds she could only keep on staring at him, as if under some compulsion that excluded conscious thought.

Then she realised that he was waiting for an answer.

‘I’m Bridget…’ She saw disdain become irritation and tried again. ‘Bridget Greer, Mr Stirling. I work for your sister.’

‘Oh, yes? In what capacity, precisely?’ he wondered in a sceptical drawl. ‘Where is Virginia, anyway?’

The question presented her with a dilemma. Virginia had issued all sorts of instructions as to what might be divulged in the event of her brother’s arriving in India— the unlikely event, she had assured Bridget—but here he was, and how much loyalty did she owe her employer?

‘Somewhere in America, I think,’ she answered vaguely but with absolute truth.

‘Why? She’s supposed to be here,’ Nicholas Stirling snapped. ‘Buying fabrics for Ginny’s.’

‘I’m doing it for her,’ Bridget supplied, her voice still naturally soft and gentle, despite slowly rising resentment.

‘Nonsense—or highly unlikely, anyway.’

The grey eyes flicked disparagingly over the strands of dark silky hair that were escaping untidily from the loose French braid that hung down her back, before sweeping her face, so completely bare of make-up, and finally skimming the loose T-shirt which concealed the slenderness of her body but left most of her long, slim legs on display.

Bridget’s face heated in response to a surge of chaotic emotion. No one had ever called her a liar before, and she was lost for an adequate response. She glanced at his blonde, blue-eyed companion, but there was no help to be had there.

‘Why else would I be here?’ she began hotly.

‘I cannot begin to imagine right this moment, although it will probably come to me presently.’ He had clearly put aside his irritation, looking and sounding merely bored now as he indicated the suitcases resting on the marble floor just inside the huge double doors of carved teak. ‘But, as you can see, we’ve just flown in and I’m really not in the mood for solving mysteries. So if you’re set on making this a guessing game, would you mind very much if we postponed it until tomorrow?’

‘Right! Fine! That suits me perfectly!’ The words emerged as an odd series of soft explosions as she gave way to unaccustomed anger in response to the exaggerated courtesy of the request.

She turned swiftly and stalked away, bare feet frustratingly silent on the marble floor, as she would have liked to stamp out. Virginia was right. All the Stirling men were as vile as each other, arrogant, superior creatures, patronising people like her.

In the short, wide passage leading to the bedroom and adjoining bathroom she had chosen for herself, Bridget slowed down. It was so rarely that she experienced anger that she lacked the knack of feeding it, and her conscience was stirring. Most people were tired and irritable after a flight; hungry too, occasionally, and she had told Sita Menon that she wouldn’t need her tonight…