By the time Yancie was parking at the hotel she had drummed up a fine head of hate against the brute. She was, though, by then, fully confident that he had moved on to continue his evening's entertainment elsewhere. Of a certainty, since she was going straight up to her bed, she ran not the smallest risk of seeing him again that night. The next time she saw him would be tomorrow morning-or so she thought.

It was a cold night and once she had locked up the Jaguar Yancie didn't hang about but hotfooted it into the hotel. Hurrying in, passing a lounge area on her way to Reception, she saw Thomson Wakefield, and stopped dead in her tracks. Their eyes locked full-on. He didn't smile-when did he ever?

Tearing her glance away, and without acknowledging him either, Yancie went swiftly on and out of his sight. She all at once felt all shivery and shaky inside, and she just knew that it had nothing to do with the cold weather.

It had been a shock to come in and see him sitting there nursing a Scotch. What rotten luck; another five minutes and he might have gone to bed. Yancie asked for her key, and was all of a sudden indecisive again, her normal confidence fractured. Should she walk back and say something? What? Goodnight? What if he didn't answer? She'd feel a proper idiot.

To the devil with him. Key in hand, she turned from the reception desk-and discovered that her shocks for the day weren't over. There, endorsing her thought that a few minutes more and her employer would have finished his Scotch and made tracks for his bed, stood Thomson Wakefield, waiting for her.

It was a shock too that, instead of going straight over to the lifts, he was standing near, while she claimed her key, ready to walk over to the lifts with her.

'Good evening?' she enquired as they reached the lifts and he pressed the call button.

Thomson Wakefield didn't answer but looked at her, his glance taking in her blacklace-covered arms and upper chest, her lace dress with its modesty lining.