Wild Lady Part 17

"Don't even think it."

"No? Pity. In that case you'd better come through to the fitting room." She nodded in Mac's direction and raised her voice slightly. "Will he let you out of his sight for a few minutes? Or shall we have him in to help with the hooks and eyes?"

Claudia couldn't quite meet Gabriel's eyes. "I think between us we can manage."

"Good, this could take some time and your man appears to be something of a draw." Lucy looked around at the unusually large number of women who were apparently browsing through the daywear and then smiled at Claudia. "I don't suppose you'd rent him out by the hour?"

"Mr. MacIntyre is a free agent. Why don't you make him an offer?" Hopefully one he couldn't refuse.

For their shopping trip Mac had used the discreet taxi service he favored, unwilling to risk parking problems and when Claudia emerged from the fitting room without any evidence of having found anything to suit her, he sighed and called it up on his mobile.

"Don't look so desperate. I've found exactly what I wanted, but it needs a tuck. Lucy will send the dress over when it's done. Now," she said, as they stepped out onto the sunny pavement, "it's time for lunch."

"We should get back to the flat. I'll make you an omelet," he offered, in an attempt to persuade her to behave.

"How tempting." Her smile was positively wicked. "But I've booked a table at my favorite restaurant and no one's going to do anything stupid in such a public place."

He recognized a certain look that he was getting to know rather well. It suggested, quite forcibly, that an argument would be futile. And she was probably right. Tactics so far suggested the kind of man who crept around in the dark to do his dirty work. A fashionable restaurant, and he was certain that the restaurant would be fashionable, was the last place he would attack.

The light airy atmosphere of the place rea.s.sured him and the tables were far enough apart for him to see anyone coming. "Don't look so tense, darling," Claudia murmured as they were shown to a table in the window. He wasn't so happy about sitting in the window.

"Anyone could see us here," he complained. He'd expected to be somewhere in the center of the room, lost in the crowds.

"That's the point. We're an attraction, that's why we've been honored."

"It's an honor to be gawked at while we're eating our lunch?" He wasn't convinced. "Anyone would think you were trying to draw attention to yourself. What have you got arranged for this afternoon? A quiet bungee jump at Tower Bridge? A nude swim in the Serpentine? A sponsored -"

She laid a hand over his. "A quiet lie down in a darkened room with you guarding my door, darling. We can discuss which side of it over lunch if you like." Then she stood up.

Still open-mouthed at her ability to take him by surprise, he rose quickly to his feet. "Where are you going now?"

"To powder my nose. Would you like to come and watch?"

"This is ridiculous, Claudia. You're not making any effort to cooperate with me. I absolutely insist -"

"Shush, darling. People are looking."

"Isn't that what you want?"

"The more people who are looking, the less likelihood that my personal fiend will attack, don't you think? He seems more like a hole-in-the-corner operative to me." And, having apparently read his mind, she swept from the table, stopping at a number of tables on her way through the dining room to pa.s.s the time of day with people she knew.

Mac subsided into his seat. She was right of course. He'd already admitted as much to himself. But she seemed to take enormous pleasure in winding him up. He sat back, shaking his head at his own foolishness. She kept winding him up, because he kept giving her the key.

He glanced out of the window. It was like sitting in a badly equipped goldfish bowl, he decided; there wasn't even a strand of waterweed to hide behind. And there were several photographers outside; he recognized two of the men who had been at theater yesterday afternoon. Miss Claudia Beaumont was actively courting publicity it seemed. Was it her way of poking her tongue out at whoever was tormenting her, saying, "You can't scare me. See?"?

Brave. Idiotic, like poking at a nest of wasps with a stick, but brave.

He looked across the room. She had emerged from the ladies and was talking to a girl, her back to the entrance of the restaurant. He watched her for a moment, enjoying her easy grace, the fluid movement of her hand as she made a point, the way she tilted her head so that her hair, loose now from the comb, swung about her shoulders. He smiled. She might be the most infuriating woman he had ever met, but she was by far the loveliest.

As he watched her, something, some slight movement behind her caught his eye. It was a man, tall, slightly built with floppy fair hair. For just a moment he thought it was Tony and something inside his gut seized with jealousy. But it wasn't Tony. As he realized his mistake he began to relax, watching the man as he approached Claudia. Then his mouth went dry.

Something about the way the man was moving, a certain stealthy caution, rather like a cat stalking a mouse sent warning rockets up his spine and he didn't stop to consider the consequences. Shouting a warning, Mac launched himself across the dining room, grabbing the man by the throat just as he reached out with both hands for Claudia, and slamming him back against the wall. Then before he could speak he yanked him around and twisted his arm hard up behind his back. The man's squeal of pain was the last sound heard in a restaurant where even breathing suddenly seemed too loud.

"Explain yourself, mister." The words were rapped out into the astonished silence and the patrons, forks laden with food poised half way to their mouths, held their collective breath. But although the man's mouth opened, nothing came out of it. Mac shook him a little, just to show he meant business, but all it produced was an anguished squeak.

"Come on, Claudia," Mac demanded. "Help me out here. Do you know your little c.o.c.kroach?" She didn't answer and he turned to her. She was staring at him, dumbstruck with shock and horror. She did know him, Mac realized, with a visceral feeling of hopelessness. The whole thing had been nothing but some stupid lover's quarrel. He should have known. All along he had been telling himself that she was trouble. Why on earth he should be so surprised when he was proven right, heaven alone knew.

Claudia shook her head. She couldn't believe what was happening. She tried to say something, but her vocal chords seemed to be glued together and for a moment all she could do was wave her hands, trying to get Mac to let poor David go.

"No," she finally managed. Then, because he didn't seem to understand what she meant, she managed to croak out, "Stop it for goodness sake." She pulled at his arm, hanging onto his shirtsleeve in an attempt to get him to loosen his grip. "You're hurting him." Mac was staring at her. "Let him go."

"Let him go?"

"Please, Mac," she begged. "Before you do him some permanent damage."

"You do know him, then?"

"Yes of course I know him. We've been friends for years." And as Mac released him, she put her arms around David and led him to a chair, motioning to a waiter. "A brandy, quickly," she rapped out before turning back to David. "Darling, are you all right?"

He winced as he sat back in the chair. "I'll live. And I'm sure the feeling will come back to my arm in time." He flexed his fingers as he looked up at Claudia, his expression decidedly rueful. "But that's the last time I creep up behind you to give you a surprise." He jerked his head in the direction of Mac. "He's a big chap. Protective."

"He's nothing but a big brute." She glared up at him. "What the devil did you think you were doing, Mac?" The entire restaurant appeared to waiting for his answer, as were the photographers who had managed to ease themselves in through the door with the help of hurriedly produced banknotes. Claudia scowled at them too. "What do you vultures want?" she demanded.

One of them, realizing that it was all over bar the shouting, grinned at her. "We were rather hoping that Mr. MacIntyre was going to hit Mr. Hart."

"I'll hit you if you don't clear off," Mac said, through gritted teeth.

"That would do," one of the other photographers encouraged, hopefully.

"Would it?" He took a step in their direction and as one they backed away.

"Haven't you done enough damage, Mac?" Claudia hissed. "Please, go away. Just go away." She was close to tears, but since she refused to cry for the entertainment of the public unless she was playing someone other than herself, she turned to the hovering Maitre. "Can someone get me a cab, please, Lawrence. David, will you let me give you a lift home?"

"No, really. I'm fine. Why don't you stay and have lunch with me?" he invited.

"Because she's having lunch with me," Mac intervened. "And since she's got some explaining to do, I suggest we get on with it. So you can forget the cab," he said, addressing the Maitre.

Claudia stood up. "Lunch?" she repeated, as if it were a foreign word that she hadn't used herself thirty seconds earlier. "Do you really think I'd have lunch with a man who would cause a scene in a restaurant?"

"Since it will ensure you get your name in the papers, I don't see how you could possibly resist," he said, angrily, taking her arm to lead her back to the table.

But she stood her ground, shaking him off. "I can resist, Gabriel MacIntyre. It's dead easy. Just watch me."

She stormed out of the restaurant, hailed her own cab and had the door open before Mac had disentangled himself from the crush at the door and managed to catch her. "In," he said, pushing her in front of him. Then having given her address to the driver, he joined her. "Now tell me what's going on. And who the devil is David Hart?" he began without preamble.

"You really are a blithering idiot, Mac," she declared. Tears were stinging at her lids, but she was d.a.m.ned if she would let him see. She clenched her jaw and stared out of the opposite window.

"Without a doubt. If I had half a brain I'd have seen that coming. You set me up didn't you?"

"Set you up?" She turned and stared at him.

"Christ. I can't believe I could have been so naive. Right from the start I was convinced this whole thing was just a stunt, but I let you kid me on, draw me in ... when is it going to hit the headlines, Claudia?"

Stunt? Headlines? What on earth was he talking about? And then she knew. For a moment the words hung on her lips, furious words, desperate to spill out and tell him what it was like to have someone you loved think you were a liar.

Loved? A sob quivered on her lips. Loved? Oh, no. Oh, no, not that. She couldn't have that. Love wasn't something she could handle. And he'd given her a way out. A simple way out.

She buried the sob. Blinked back the tears. Shrugged eloquently. "You're right of course. It is all an elaborate stunt. David will be explaining everything to the newsmen right now." She glanced away out of the window. "How you are simply my minder and you attacked him because you thought I was in danger. A simple misunderstanding of course, but by tomorrow my agent will be besieged and by Friday I might be persuaded to meet the press and tell them how I've been hounded by a stalker ... just like the girl in my new series." The little choked sound that came from her throat might have been for dramatic effect. Or maybe it wasn't. But it did the trick.

Mac was staring at her, the blue of his eyes shaded to leaden fury. "Good G.o.d, Claudia, I ought to put you over my knee and spank you."

She lowered her lashes in a perfectly judged characterization of the vamp. Her voice was more difficult, her throat was tightening with misery and it took every ounce of technique to give it that warm, husky sound.

"Shall we wait until we get home, Gabriel?"

And that apparently, was enough. He leaned forward and rapped at the gla.s.s part.i.tion. "Stop here." The driver pulled over and Mac stuffed a note in his hand as he climbed out. "That should cover it." He turned and stared at her for a moment, a slightly puzzled look creasing his forehead. "You never answered my question."

Question? She couldn't remember any question. Only answers. And every one of them wrong. "Which question was that, darling?" she murmured.

"Who the devil is David Hart?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

CLAUDIA stared at Mac. She couldn't believe the nerve of the man. After everything he'd said, how did he dare to stand there and insist she tell him anything?

He'd demanded her trust and she'd given it, wholeheartedly. But when the chips were down he hadn't trusted her a centimeter further than he could throw her. Not even that far.

How dared he accuse her of ensnaring him for her own manipulative purposes? He was the one who had insisted she was in danger. Yet after all that had happened to prove him right, one stupid misunderstanding had driven him to the conclusion that she had been lying to him all along, using him to generate publicity for her new television series. He hadn't even given her a chance to explain, he'd just leapt in with both feet. Size eleven if she wasn't mistaken. Not that he'd had so far to leap.

It had to be a publicity stunt, didn't it? She was an actress for goodness sake and it had been his first thought when he had found the photograph in the parachute. He hadn't seriously believed she was in any danger, he hadn't considered advising her that this might not be the best day to leap out of an airplane, he hadn't even contemplated the possibility that it might just be a joke, even if it was one in very poor taste.

Well, his first thought would have to be his last thought too, because she'd had enough of his tyrannical behavior. She didn't need him to manage her life. She'd been doing pretty well since she was eighteen years old; she didn't need a man to hold her hand.

Publicity of all things! She still could hardly believe it.

Good grief, hadn't he seen for himself that she didn't need any tricks? Publicity followed her like the hem of her skirt because of who she was, who her mother had been. She'd been surrounded by it since she was a babe in arms. She lived with it because it went with the territory but she hated it. Hated the fact that no matter what she said or did, the newspapers printed the interpretation that suited them best. Hated that they never gave her any credit for what she had achieved ... only harked back to her mother, compared her to her mother, continually suggested that she owed everything to her mother ... She hadn't realized just how much she had hated it until now.

But Gabriel MacIntyre hadn't seen. Like everyone else he was fooled by the myth, a.s.suming she must revel in it, that publicity was her life blood.

Yet even while he was insulting her, accusing her of using him, he was still demanded to know who David was. As if, because he had kissed her, he had some right to know.

She'd thought he was stronger than that. Hoped he'd seen beneath the scaffolding she had erected to keep the world at bay.

How could she have been so stupid? Why should he be different?

He was still glowering at her from the pavement, waiting for his answer. Well he could wait. Because as far as Gabriel MacIntyre was concerned, she'd was clean out of answers.

"Drive on," she rapped out, and the cabby didn't need telling twice, whipping the taxi out into the traffic.

Claudia sat back and sighed as she wondered what had happened in the restaurant after they left. She would have to telephone and apologize. And she would have to ring David too. Poor David. What terrible luck to walk into Gabriel MacIntyre when his macho aggression was firing on all cylinders. She'd heard the way he had hit the wall, the rattle of expensive dentistry. It would serve Mac right if David sued. That would give him all the answers he wanted.

She closed her eyes, hoping to blot out the entire incident. It had been so idiotic. David was a dear, kind man, but he had that silly habit of creeping up behind his friends, putting his hands over their eyes and saying, "Guess who?"

The moment she had heard Mac's warning shout and swung round to see David behind her she had realized what was happening, but it had all taken place at such speed that she had been quite powerless to stop it. Gabriel, fired up on anonymous letters, slashed dresses, car tampering and already unhappy about her insistence on going shopping, had thought her life was in danger. She caught her lower lip as she recalled the effect on the other diners as, Rambo-like, he had hurtled across the restaurant to save her. Because he'd thought her life was in danger.

She gave a little sniff. "d.a.m.n!" she said, searching in her bag for a handkerchief as a tear trickled down the side of her nose. One minute he was prepared to risk life and limb to save her life, the next he had been accusing her ...

Well? What had she expected? She knew better than to believe in happy endings. "How stupid!" she declared.

"Did you say something, miss?" the cabby, asked, half turning.

"No." She shook her head. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Good grief, she was talking to herself, completely losing her grip on reality. Was that what falling love did to you?

Love? The word seemed to leap out of thin air and hit her, taking her breath away. Love?

Claudia shook her head as if the physical denial would make it go away. It didn't and she balled the handkerchief in her fist, holding it to her mouth as if that would help stop the word. Love. How could she ever doubt it? Gabriel MacIntyre had filled her every waking moment since she had set eyes on him. Why else, for heaven's sake, would she have slapped him if she hadn't been so disturbed by his kiss?

But there had been so many other things to disturb her that it had been easy to explain away all the oddities in her behavior during the last few days, her agitation, her jumpiness, a heightened sense of her surroundings and emotions. The fact that when he had taken her into his arms and kissed her like a lover, she still hadn't seen the danger. The trouble was, she had made such life career of avoiding love that she hadn't recognized it when it had slipped beneath her guard and tapped her on the shoulder.

Twenty-seven years old and never fallen in love. She sniffed again. No, that wasn't quite right. She had seen what love could become and so she had never allowed herself to fall in love. She had hung on to her heart, resisting every temptation to take her foot off the bottom and swim out of her depth.

Relationships she could handle. She was an absolute whiz at them. Light, fun with no strings attached, certainly without a razor permanently parked in her bathroom. The trouble was, men just didn't see it that way. Suddenly they all wanted to settle down and play happy families.

Well, she had been there, done that. "Miss Beaumont, the actress's daughter", had seen enough of that game to last her for a lifetime. Not that there had been any shortage of eager young actors knocking at her dressing room door over the years. But they didn't want her, only the publicity that she could give them. Perhaps that had been Tony's appeal; she knew he didn't just see her as an easy way to get his photograph in the newspapers. Rather the opposite as it turned out. She must be getting careless.

Terribly careless, because when Gabriel MacIntyre had kissed her she hadn't seen the danger. And now, at last, she understood why she had found it so easy to resist the siren lure of love and marriage when all around her had succ.u.mbed. She had just never met the right man before. The trouble was, Mr. Right was now convinced that she was hopelessly, hopelessly wrong.

d.a.m.n. d.a.m.n. d.a.m.n.

"We're here, miss." How long had they been standing at the curb? She blinked back the tears welling in her eyes, put on the blazing smile that came so automatically and the driver leaned back and opened the door for her. Claudia, though, was reluctant to abandon the safety of the cab for the unknown and she stared up at the facade of the building with a sudden clutch of nervousness.

But there was no help for it. There she was. On her own. It was what she had kept saying she wanted and since she liked nothing better than getting her own way, Claudia knew that she should be feeling pleased with herself. But she wasn't. She was a.s.sailed by a crushing, bone-deep misery.

And she was scared. Maybe that was all it was, this hollow feeling? Just fear? She clutched at this straw for hope. For the last few days she had been put through the emotional wringer, it was hardly surprising that she didn't know whether she was coming or going, was it? Love? What on earth was she thinking about?

She had simply overdosed on Gabriel MacIntyre. It was hardly surprising. He had insisted on sticking to her like glue, even when she told him to get lost. Now, suddenly, she was alone, having to face her apartment alone and she was scared.

Even when he was driving her crazy with his over-protective att.i.tudes, he had been there and she had felt safe, his presence a bulwark against the threatening world.