Read Online The Irresistible Tycoon by Helen Brooks - Free Book Online Page B

was with Bob Curtis. He had been a slave-driver, and quite shameless about using people to his own advantage, but he had been fat and balding and middle-aged and hadn’t had the interest to ask her one personal question in the two years she had worked for him. And he’d driven a family saloon that was as exciting as a jam sandwich.
    Lucas shifted slightly in the black leather seat and she felt her nerves tighten.
    And Bob’s suits had been off the peg and more often than not creased into the bargain, and he would no more have worn a silk shirt than the man in the moon. Whereas Lucas… Even in bathing trunks he would still have that air of unlimited wealth about him.
    The thought of Lucas in bathing trunks was enough to cause her cheeks to flush hotly, and she hoped he would assume it was the warmth of the car after the bitter chill outside if he noticed.
    Lucas did notice, and the feeling he had experienced in the lift swept over him again with renewed vigour before he forced himself to relax. Okay, so she was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof, he told himself with silent savagery, but the devil alone only knew what had gone on in her marriage. At least the creep was dead. He breathed out slowly, narrowing his eyes at the wintry vista ahead as he forced himself to concentrate on the road conditions. She was his secretary. That was all she was. Her past only affected him in as much as it might interfere with the job she did for him. That was all.
    The rest of the journey to the restaurant was conducted in a silence that wasn’t at all comfortable, and by the time the Aston Martin nosed into the immaculate car park at the rear of Fontella’s, Kim’s nerves were stretched to breaking point. Lucas was out of the car and opening her door before Kim had a chance to move, and as she swung her legs on to the gravelled drive she took a long, deep, silent breath.
    She knew of Fontella’s but had never ventured within its hallowed walls. The prices began at unaffordable and rose skywards.
    â€˜Chin up.’
    She hadn’t been aware of Lucas’s eyes on her as they had begun to walk towards the gracious wooden doors leading into the building, but now as she glanced at him he continued, ‘Jim is a wily old bird but as down-to-earth a guy as you could wish to meet and his son is from the same mould. You’ll like them.’
    Probably, but it wasn’t the thought of meeting the kingpins of Clarkson International that was bothering her. It was the big dark man at the side of her. For some reason he caused a chemical reaction in her mind and body that she didn’t seem able to control with logic or will-power, and it was getting worse as time progressed, not better.
    Kim did like Jim Clarkson and his son, Robert. They were astute businessmen and as single-minded as Lucas when it came to any issues linked with commerce, but she sensed immediately the three men had had dealings in the past and liked each other.
    To her surprise the conversation, although heated at times, was not without humour, and in spite of it being two against one Lucas more than held his own and manipulated events skilfully and quietly until he had obtained most of what he had been after.
    That this wasn’t lost on Jim Clarkson became evident as the four made their goodbyes in the car park. ‘He’s a wily operator, your Mr Kane,’ Jim told her as he shook her hand in farewell. ‘But of course you know that.’
    â€˜That was exactly what he said about you, Mr Clarkson.’ Kim dimpled at the grey-haired, elderly man as she spoke and he laughed out loud, his blue eyes frankly appreciative of the beautiful woman in front of him.
    â€˜Flattery will get you everywhere, my dear.’
    Lucas had been standing to one side, surveying them from eyes that reflected the winter sky overhead, and now he moved forward, cupping Kim’s elbow as he said, ‘I’ll phone you tomorrow, Jim, once