"… she can think again!'

Yancie came slowly out of her shock to realise that Matthew had just finished telling her something. 'Er-would you mind very much if I took off now?' she asked him, dragging up a smile from somewhere.

'Oh, Yancie, you couldn't hang on for another half-hour, could you? It's only eleven and I wouldn't mind at all if Pippa caught sight of me captivating the best-looking woman here.'

She didn't want to hang on-she wanted to get out of there, and fast. Thomson Wakefield wasn't interested-but he might have come over to say hello. Since they'd been looking straight at each other, he couldn't pretend he hadn't seen her. Not that she wanted him to come and say hello either. She just wanted to get out of there. She wanted to go home.

So, she stayed, `Go on, then,' she smiled at Matthew Grant. `Captivate me.'

He laughed, and she hoped Thomson was watching. Watching and taking note how, if he wasn't interested, then-as some other eager male came up to them-there were others who were.

It was a large room, more of a hall than a drawing room, but Yancie was aware of where in the room Thomson was most of the time. Where he wasn't was anywhere near her!

'I have to be up very early in the morning,' she told Matthew when, in her view, having done a magnificent stint and still there threequarters of an hour later, she just couldn't take any more. `Will you say goodbye to our hosts for me, and thank them for me? I'd prefer just to slip off.'

'You're sure? I'll come to your car with you."

'Oh, good heavens, no!' she smiled. `No need for that. Stay and…' she had an idea he might be sidling up to his ex fairly shortly `…and the best of luck.'

He kissed her cheek, and Yancie, unable to resist looking where she had last surreptitiously looked, felt completely wretched that she was denied her last sight of Thomson-for he wasn't there.

As if making her way to the cloakroom, for all she hadn't brought a coat, Yancie wandered out from the drawing room. She felt unutterably bereft as, impervious to the cold, she walked down the long line of cars, until she came to the Mercedes.

But that was when her heart started to thunder. She had the Mercedes unlocked when, before she could get into the driver's seat and speed away from there, a voice she would know anywhere quite clearly drawled, `Well, if it isn't Yancie Dawkins! Fancy seeing you here,' and Thomson Wakefield strolled out of the shadows.

What could a girl do? Instinctively, while most peculiarly she wanted to stay and linger a while with Thomson, she also wanted to rocket out of there. Thomson had come round to stand facing her by the time she'd got herself a little more together.

She decided on a charm offensive-well, you never knew. `It's a fair cop, guv,' she trotted out, smiling. She could see his face-he wasn't smiling. `How about-I've a widowed mother and six siblings to support?' she pressed on, feeling suddenly desperate not to lose her job, but realising that she was going to have to be exceedingly lucky to keep it.

'You forget, I've met your mother-you couldn't make enough in a year to support her monthly expenses,' he replied.

Yancie stared up into his unsmiling expression. `You're going to sack me, aren't your' she questioned, all bravado gone.

'Give me one good reason why I shouldn't,' he invited, fair to the last, she realised.

But she didn't have any good reason. And to go partying in one of the firm's vehiclesa Mercedes, no less-was something that was most definitely against the rules. It was, equally definitely, something that would be frowned upon and was, without doubt, a sackable offence.

'If-if you sack me then the-er-business will suffer,' she brought out of a despairing nowhere.

Thomson continued to stare, unsmiling, at her. `Intriguing,' he allowed. `You're suggesting you're doing a deal somewhere which will collapse if you're not on the payroll to finalise it?'

Sarcastic toad! But she still wanted her job. `Not me, but Douglas Clements might be doing that kind of a deal. I'm picking him up to take him to the airport at five in the morning. He might miss his plane and jeopardise his whole mission if he can't find alternative transport when I don't show up.'

She wished she could read Thomson's eyes, but they were giving nothing away. `Then you'd better go home to bed, hadn't you?' he remarked at length. `I imagine you're going to be up very early.'

Her heart picked up speed. `Have I still got my job?' she asked eagerly. `Or do you intend I should do just this one job from expediency, then see to it I'm dismissed as soon as I get to work on Monday?'

'You know better than that!' he clipped, curtly-and she rather thought she did.

'I'm sorry,' she apologised at once, and, having just added insult to the rest of her crimes, she decided it might be an idea to get out of there before she said something that might annoy him some more-when he wouldn't give her another chance.

She had turned about to open the driver's door, when Thomson put his hand on her arm to stay her, his hand remaining on her upper arm, an exclamation leaving him. 'Ye gods, you're like ice!' he added-it didn't feel that way to her; his touch, his skin against her skin was burning. `Where's your coat?' he demanded.

'I didn't bring one!'

He did not comment adversely on that, as she fully expected, but, ever a man of decisions, in next to no time he had shrugged out of his jacket, and was wrapping its delicious warmth about her.

She was, she started to realise only then, freezing. Thomson Wakefield apparently had the power to make her forget all about the skimpiness of her attire on such a cold night.

Feeling quite dazed, Yancie turned again to open the driver's door. But found that Thomson was directing her to the passenger's door.

'I'll drive,' he said, and they were both in the car heading down the drive before she got her wits back.

'Where are we going?' she asked, which she owned wasn't the brightest of questions. `I mean, if you're driving me home, you'll need the car to get back to the party, and I won't have a car to take Doug…'

'I'm not going back to the party.'

'You're not?' she questioned, but managed to find a little more brain power from somewhere. `Oh, Thomson, I… Oh, heck!' she mumbled, realising she had just called the head of Addison Kirk by his first name. `Is that a sackable offence?' she asked. He laughed, just as if he couldn't help it; he laughed, and she loved it, as she loved him. `I'm sorry,' she went on swiftly, not ready yet to more fully acknowledge this world-shattering thing that had happened to her. `I didn't want to spoil the evening for you.'

'You haven't,' he assured her, his laughter gone but his tone pleasant.

'You were thinking of leaving the party anyway?' she began to question, and then thought of something else. `Did you spot me-nonchalantly-on my way out?"

'Too casual to be true,' he commented.

'You really are kind. As I may have mentioned before,' she added. And added too, only hurriedly, 'I'm not trying to butter you up, honestly, but you could have…' Her voice faded; she started to feel a fool. `So what's happening?' she asked unhappily.

'What's happening,' he took up, `since we're heading in your general direction, is that I'm going to drive as far as my place, and you're taking this car the rest of the way.'

'I see,' she murmured. 'You're-um-not going back to the party.' Somehow, she seemed more than a little confused, and even though he'd already said he wasn't going back to the party she felt a need to get everything crystal-clear in her head.

'And neither are you,' he stated.

'I'm not?"

'You're not,' he promised her firmly.

Well, that was clear enough. `Where's your car, by the way-the Aston Martin?"

'Where I parked it,' he replied, which to her mind was no kind of an answer. But it seemed she had recently come through a very sticky patch, and since by the skin of her teeth it seemed she still had her job Yancie decided not to push it.

So, `Thank you,' she said prettily. `What for?'

Not to go overboard-for being absolutely wonderful. `For letting me keep my job.'

'So what's with this pride thing?'

'Pride thing?'

'You said you needed this job,' he reminded her. `That it was a pride thing.'

'Ah.'

"'Ah", as in?"

'As in you know so much, there's little more to tell.'

Silence reigned for several seconds. Then, `You're not going to leave it there, are you?' Thomson asked, and, fantastically, sounded in a very good humor.

'We're nearly at your house,' she said, recognising that part of the road.

'SO?"

'So my stepfather-and rightly so,' she inserted fairly, `was a little displeased when I lent my car to a friend and…'

'And said friend concertinaed it.'

Her mother had acquainted him with the fact. `Exactly,' Yancie agreed.

'You normally get on with the stepfather? Presumably-since your mother's just got engaged-her ex-husband?"

'I get on very well with him,' she agreed. `In point of fact, Ralph's a dear, and I love him very much, and he had every right to be cross with me.'

'But?"

'But-well, nothing, really.'

'But?' Thomson repeated-a man, she guessed, who seldom repeated a question. She roused herself to answer as requested.

'Well, he was rightly cross, as I said, and I would have taken a telling-off as my due.'

'Only?"

'Only my stepsister, Estelle, surprised me by chipping in and saying she hoped I wouldn't expect her father to buy me another car. I'd honestly no idea she resented me so much! Anyhow, when I said I'd pay for a new car out of my allowance, Estelle reminded me it was an allowance her father paid me, andand…' her voice faltered.