Price of Passion by Susan Napier Read Free Book Online Page B

recognise that vague allusion she had reached the spiral staircase, where she paused to look provocatively back over her shoulder, and hit him square between the eyes with a husky rendition of classic exit-line.
    ‘“You know how to whistle, don’t you,” Drake?’
    It was almost worth the pain of leaving to see his expression, an instant, ungovernable blaze of lust mingled with baffled admiration.
    Almost…

CHAPTER FOUR
    A MONTH later Kate had answered her cell phone in the early evening to a distinctive, deep velvet voice that had made her heart jump.
    ‘ To Have and Have Not .’
    ‘Ernest Hemingway,’ she murmured automatically, tamping down a dangerous flare of hope.
    ‘I’m flattered, but actually it’s Drake Daniels,’ he said with typically brazen cheek. Did he really think that picking up exactly where they’d left off was going to make her forget the intervening weeks?
    ‘I know who it is,’ she said coolly, her heart still fluttering in her throat. Tucking her personal card in the pocket of his black jacket as she left his hotel room had been a wild gamble she’d thought that she’d lost. Even if he hadn’t found it before he’d jetted off to America, he knew where she worked and she was in the phone book
    Her eyes darted around the almost empty office and she slumped lower in her seat so her head slipped below the level of her flat-screen display, giving her the illusion of privacy. She had endured a lot of ribbing from colleagues who had seen her leave the party with Drake, especially after her unprecedented late arrival at work the next morning. Luckily, none of them had really believed the fastidious Katherine Crawford capable of getting down-and-dirty on a first date with a serial womaniser, and their interest had rapidly faded on hearing that Drake had left the country.
    ‘I thought you might have forgotten me.’
    Fat chance of that, with the reception area plastered with blow-ups of his latest book-jacket! Every morning when she came to work she was greeted at the door by his sexy grin and mocking brown eyes.
    ‘I have an excellent memory for trivia,’ she reminded him.
    ‘Ouch!’ he said, with the vocal equivalent of a rueful shrug. ‘I suppose I should be grateful that it’s your passion, then, as well as your profession.’
    She found her toes curling inside her delicate pumps. How magnificently he turned his guilt to flattery. ‘Most researchers have university degrees—I got lucky when I did a work experience with Enright’s just as they were setting up their own PR department,’ she found herself telling him. ‘Marcus noticed how much I enjoyed reading and how good I was at ferreting out interesting facts for people, and offered me on-the-job training if I stayed. It turned out to be a perfect fit. I like being able to come up with things that surprise and intrigue people.’
    ‘So, I guess you already know that although Hemingway and Faulkner were included in the writing credits for the movie, a lot of the dialogue in To Have And Have Not was actually improvised on set.’
    ‘Which goes to show that even great authors don’t always get it right,’ she shot back, feeling exhilarated and alive again for the first time in a month, but unwilling to let him entirely off the hook. She cupped a hand over her phone as the last of her co-workers in the open-plan office switched off his computer and began loading his briefcase. ‘Why are you calling, Drake?’
    There was a brief pause during which she visualised him smiling with that irresistible twist of self-derisive arrogance.
    ‘I’ve forgotten how to whistle,’ he drawled. ‘I thought you might bring your lips over to remind me.’
    Hope burned incandescent, even as she cautioned herself to wariness. Drake was never going to fit into the mould of a conventional lover.
    ‘To New York?’ Enright Media subscribed to a multimedia clippings service for all its clients. In spite of her pretence of indifference in front