Free A Past Revenge by Carole Mortimer Page A

waiting car.
    Danielle was suddenly galvanised into action.
'Hey, stop—'
    'Leave it,' Nick rasped at her side, his hands tightening on her arms as the car drove away.
    'But—'
    'All you'll do by chasing after him is add to his story,' he pointed out resignedly. ' "Latest Andracas mistress denies romance",' he quoted with a sigh.
    Danielle wrenched out of his grasp. 'Because there isn't,' she said forcefully.
    'A denial will only increase their speculation,' he reasoned. 'The fact that I'm leaving your apartment with you now gives the impression I spent the night here.'
    'But you didn't!' she gasped.
    He gave her a pitying glance. 'And who do you think will believe that?'
    'Anyone who knows me!'
    'And everyone else, the people who know me? ' he pointed out mockingly.
    She looked at him with hate in her eyes, tears glistening there. 'God, how I despise you,' she told him vehemently. 'I despise everything about you. But especially this. I'll never forgive you for it. Never!'
    'Danielle—'
    'Don't touch me,' she evaded his reaching grasp. 'You probably arranged all this just to compromise me into going out with you!' she added accusingly.
    He shook his head. 'Don't be ridiculous. I hate this sort of publicity as much as the next man.'
    "Then how would that reporter have known to come to my apartment?' she scorned.
    Nick shrugged, sighing deeply. 'He could have
followed me—'
    'Or he could have been told precisely where you would be,' she finished pointedly.
    'Not by me,' he grated.
    'And certainly not by me,' she snapped.
    His mouth thinned. 'That leaves only one person who could have even guessed I would be coming to see you today. Audra!'
    Danielle's eyes widened as he rasped the other woman's name. It would be the sort of thing the other woman would do, but that didn't mean that she had. Although someone had directed that reporter to her apartment. 'I don't care who it was,' she told Nick sharply. 'I just don't want to be caught up in your publicity ever again!' She turned on her heel and walked over to her parked car.
    'Danielle—'
    She turned to look at him briefly before getting into her car, the sunlight giving his hair an ebony sheen. 'Yes?'
    'Have a nice day?' he called softly.
    She gave a snort of disgust before climbing into her car, watching as he swung lithely inside the sleek Ferrari parked at the roadside, the black model of the past replaced by this silver one. He drove past her with a brief wave of acknowledgment.
    Danielle drove more slowly than him, giving herself time to think, intending to go to her parents' house now that she was out of the apartment.
    Nick had been adamant that he had had nothing to do with the reporter being outside her apartment, and she believed him. He knew her well enough by now to know how she would react to such publicity, how she liked to keep a low profile. That only left Audra and the threat she had made yesterday evening. The reporter trailing her and Nick was another warning; she had a feeling things could get a lot rougher.
    God, how she wished she had followed her instincts that day Lewis brought her this latest commission, wished she had refused it and stayed as far away from Nick as she could. If she weren't careful he would destroy her life a second time, and there wouldn't be a thing she could do to stop it.
    Her parents were pleased, if surprised, to see her again so soon after she had spent the evening with them on Friday, and she saw her father giving her several probing glances. Tall, and still handsome in his mid-fifties, her father hardly looked the part of the successful businessman he was, people who didn't know him personally often mistaking him for one of his own accountants. But he could be ruthless if the occasion merited it, and where his family was concerned he fiercely guarded his own.
    'Your mother is worried about you,' he was looking at her closely.
    The two of them sat together in the garden of her parents' Richmond home, her mother just having gone