‘I can’t see you being “hopelessly enamoured” of anyone,’ she muttered, knowing deep down that she also couldn’t see him really understanding any of her private reasons for doing this in the first place. ‘But surely I don’t have to tell you things face to face? Couldn’t I just put all the facts in a letter?’

‘A business memo, perhaps?’ Lucas mocked. ‘The file on Georgia Harding: name, date of birth, address.’

The final word sparked off a whole new set of questions in Gerogia’s mind.

‘And that’s another thing. How did you know where I lived?’

His shrug dismissed her concern as unimportant.

‘Why is that a problem? I know names and addresses and a whole lot more about all my other business associates.’

‘Yes, but I’m not just—’

Too late, she saw the trap he had laid gaping widely beneath her feet, and backed off hastily, but not quite swiftly enough. Lucas had seen her reaction, she realised, seen it and noted it with a smile that was frankly predatory, making her heart lurch uncomfortably.

‘In my case I think it’s more of an invasion of privacy. If I’d wanted you to know, I’d have told you.’

‘And the fact that you didn’t tell me was far more intriguing than any more direct information, as I’m sure you must know.’

That smile had grown, lighting but not warming the darkness of his eyes in a way that made Georgia think shiveringly of a soaring eagle focusing intently on the innocent rabbit or mouse it had marked out as its prey.

‘If you’re thinking that I did it deliberately in order to “intrigue” you, then I’m afraid I’ll have to disillusion you on that score.’

She could see only too well just how it would arouse his interest, of course.

‘I mean, I can see that a man like you, who’s used to having women if not actually throwing themselves at your feet, then at least coming running if you so much as click your fingers—’

‘You have a decidedly exaggerated idea of my appeal, Ms Harding,’ Lucas drawled with lazy mockery. ‘Or is it that your opinion of your own sex is so very low that you believe they have so little respect for themselves as to behave as you say?’

‘You’re a fine one to talk about respect!’ Georgia flung at him. ‘Particularly where women are concerned!’

That barb struck home, the long back stiffening in response, the dark head coming up, granite eyes blazing into hers.

‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’

Oh, damn, she’d gone a bit too far, said more than she had meant to.

‘I read the papers!’

‘And believe every word?’ he demanded cynically. ‘I gave you credit for rather more intelligence than that.’

Georgia wasn’t at all sure how to respond to the deliberately double-edged compliment, feeling as if she had been backed into a very uncomfortable corner.

‘And I have a friend-’

‘Oh, of course! And does this friend have a name?’

Georgia shifted awkwardly from one foot to another, feeling that she had been pushed into a corner yet again.

‘I promised I wouldn’t say.’

‘I see.’

The two syllables were so brutally clipped and curt that they made Georgia think uncomfortably of the sound of a door slamming shut, or the trap that she had imagined earlier snapping closed with bone-crushing force.

‘So you can throw out accusations, put any slur you fancy on my reputation, and I’m not even allowed to know the name of your informant?’

He was dangerously close to losing that famed cool. Georgia realised nervously, his potentially dangerous temper only being held in check by ruthless control.

‘You probably wouldn’t even remember her. And, besides, I don’t think your reputation—’ deliberately she gave the word a sardonic intonation ‘—needs any help from me.’

‘So that’s the way it is, is it? You’ve barely spoken more than a couple of hundred words to me and yet already you have me tried and convicted, found guilty without even so much as a chance to state my case.’

Georgia had to acknowledge that his assessment of the situation was close to the truth. The admission made her conscience prick her unmercifully, because normally she tried to be scrupulously fair.

‘And are you trying to claim that all of those newspaper reports were untrue? That you haven’t been linked with—oh, let me see.’