Tiger's Eye Read online

  Tiger's eye

  by Madeleine Ker

  He was tall, dark and dangerous. Blaize Oliver was also a high-powered businessman who was out of Leila Thomas's league. Not that it mattered--she was only interested in her temporary role as his personal assistant. At least that's what she told herself. Only she wasn't quite immune to Blaize's charm and good looks, nor to the needs of his two children. But with the glamorous Kathleen already secure in Blaize's affections, Leila knew she'd just be heading for heartbreak if she wanted to be part of his future.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names.

  They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  MILLS & BOON and Rose Device is registered in U.S.

  Patent and Trademark Office.

  Published by

  Mills & Boon Pty. Limited

  72-74 Gibbes Street

  Chatswood, NSW 2067

  Australia

  First published in Great Britain 1989

  Australian copyright 1989

  New Zealand copyright 1989

  Philippine copyright 1989

  First Australian paperback edition April 1990

  Madeleine Ker 1989

  ISBN 0 263 76560 I

  Printed in Australia by

  The Book Printer,

  Victoria

  CHAPTER ONE

  LEILA pushed her suitcases through the Customs area unchallenged, and emerged into the balmy warmth of the main airport hall.

  There were several signs being held up among the crowd of people awaiting Flight BA 304 from London, and it took her a moment to locate the one that was for her. It read ‘CLAREWELL’. Not her own name, nor that of her future employer, but the name of the London agency that had sent her.

  She gave the girl holding it a quick wave, and wheeled her trolley round the railings.

  ‘Hi,’ Leila greeted her with a smile. ‘I’m Leila Thomas.’

  ‘Hello,’ came the cool greeting back. A pair of green eyes looked her up and down with not very friendly interest. ‘Got all your luggage?’

  ‘This is it.’

  ‘Come on, then. I’ve left the car outside, and you’re not meant to do that.’

  Without further ado, she led the way to the nearest exit, giving Leila a chance to assess very pretty legs and a mass of glossy chestnut hair.

  It was even hotter outside. The skies over Barcelona were a deep, almost violet blue, and there wasn’t a hint of cloud. Palm trees rustled in the barest of breezes―just enough to tell Leila that her skin was already damp with the heat.

  ‘Whew!’ she commented brightly. ‘This is hotter than I expected!’

  ‘If you expected it to be cool in July, you obviously don’t know the Costa Brava.’

  ‘I’ve never been to Spain before,’ Leila confessed.

  ‘It’s hot,’ the girl said succinctly. She opened the boot of the car, an all-white Volkswagen Golf convertible, and stood waiting for Leila to load her own luggage, obviously not intending to help.

  Leila hefted the lighter cases in first, then finished off with the heaviest one, gasping a little with the effort.

  ‘What have you got in there?’ she was asked scornfully.

  ‘Fur coats?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Leila replied, straightening. She glanced at the other girl for a moment. She was very pretty, with quite startlingly beautiful green eyes and petite, rather snub features. The rounded, bee-stung mouth looked both sulky and spoiled, though whether that was a permanent state, or due to some temporary irritation, there was no way of telling. Her figure was small, but with feminine curves in all the right places. Her breasts pushed aggressively against the silk blouse.

  Despite all that, Leila now saw that she was very young-not more than eighteen. ‘Are you a member of Mr Oliver’s staff?’ she asked politely.

  ‘Hell, no. I’m Mr. Oliver’s daughter,’ came the disdainful reply.

  ‘Oh.’ She still hadn’t bothered to give Leila a first name, so Leila decided that ‘Miss Oliver’ was evidently what was expected from menials. ‘Well, thank you for meeting me, Miss Oliver.’

  ‘You’d never have found the place on your own.’ Miss Oliver slammed the boot shut with a thump, and nodded Leila to the passenger door. ‘Let’s go.’

  The inside of the car was all white leather, and smelled strongly of Miss Oliver’s rather heavy perfume. Miss Oliver checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror, taking a moment to brush some dust off the eyelashes which were heavily coated with mascara. Her scarlet nails were a little overlong for the job, however, and she grimaced, muttering.

  Thhn she started the Golf, crashed into gear, and set off with a squeal of tyres, weaving in and out of the more sedate traffic around them.

  Leila clung to the strap beside her. Her companion’s awful driving was made all the more hair-raising by the fact that she only had one hand on the wheel. The other was scrabbling in the glove compartment for a cassette tape. She located the one she wanted, and slotted it into the complex-looking car stereo.

  A crashing blast of up-to-the-minute heavy rock invaded the car, making Leila wince. Miss Oliver’s dainty pink ears were evidently less sensitive, however, because she .was nodding in satisfaction to the beat. She popped a sliver of chewing-gum into her sulky mouth, put her hand―much to Leila’s relief―back on the wheel, and settled down to driving with quite dramatic badness down the autopista towards Barcelona.

  She made no other effort to talk to Leila and the earsplitting music made any conversational gambits on her own part futile, so Leila just looked out of the window at the skyline of Barcelona. You met all sorts as a temporary secretary. She had already placed Miss Oliver firmly in the mental category of rich bitches. She had met enough of them in her time to recognise the signs early. Spoiled, ill-tempered, utterly indifferent to others.

  It didn’t promise over-well for the character of Mr. Oliver, Senior. He would be either the arrogant male version of his child, or the kind of preoccupied businessman who was too interested in making money to notice what had happened to his sweet little daughter.

  She didn’t bother wondering about a Mrs Oliver. Carol Clarewell, the owner of her agency, had already informed her that Blaize Oliver had been divorced for something like eight years, and that his ex-wife lived in Monaco.

  That, too, was par for the course. Rich people, in Leila’s brief experience of them, were all divorced. It was something to do with their money. Money was like plutonium―once a critical mass of the stuff had been amassed, there was inevitably an explosion that blew the first wife to Monaco―or Jersey, or Monte Carlo, as the case might be. The bang usually left one of the partners, in this case evidently the husband, with one or more sulky, maladjusted teenage children.

  Hers not to reason why. She was here for six weeks, a top-of-the-range temp who was paid very well to impersonate a computer from nine to five. She wasn’t expected to form personal opinions, let alone express them.

  Caro
l Clarewell evidently had a high opinion of the man she’d sent Leila to work for. He owned several companies, and had brought a lot of business Carol’s way in the past. She obviously also respected him as a man, however, and that was rare. Carol, a rather overpowering personality, didn’t respect many people.

  So Leila had been flattered when Carol had passed this job her way. ‘It isn’t the usual thing,’ she’d told Leila. ‘He’s had some sort of crisis with his personal assistant, and needs a stand-in. He’s asked for one of my best people, and that means you.’

  They drove through the centre of Barcelona. Even at the speeds Miss Oliver preferred, Leila got the impression of a beautiful city with a unique period atmosphere.

  During the hour it took to get through the city, Miss Oliver swore at pedestrians twice, changed the cassette for a marginally noisier one, and went through five more sticks of gum. But she didn’t address another word to Leila.

  Leila, glancing at the girl occasionally, wondered whether she was perhaps even younger than eighteen.

  Not that it was easy to tell―the nubile Miss Oliver had used a heavy hand with the make-up, and had gone for a sultry, over-sexed look that was very adult. The hands were a giveaway, though. They were girl’s hands, dainty and plump, and they bore not the faintest trace of toil.

  Leila looked down at her own slender fingers. Plain hands. Hands that had been used to work ever since she could remember. Hands that could type seventy words a minute, and were ringless, short-nailed, and competent.

  Like the rest of her, they had known a life very different from the cushioned existenceof such as young Miss Oliver beside her. Though Leila Thomas was only a few years older than her future employer’s daughter, she knew instinctively that she was decades older in experience and maturity.

  That’s the way it is, she told herself. Now stop dripping acid, and enjoy the ride.

  Having passed through the city, the autopista climbed steadily upwards, leaving the rather depressing industrial suburbs behind. They passed through a tollgate, and continued on their way up the coast. The countryside around them was suddenly green and flourishing, and the heavy traffic that had dogged them through Barcelona began to ease off.

  Though she’d worked in businesses all over England, she’d never been to the Costa Brava before, and she was determined, work and the Olivers permitting, to enjoy her stay here as much as possible.

  A red-nailed hand reached out and switched the tape-machine off. In the blissful silence that followed, the girl next to her asked abruptly, ‘Is Leila your real name?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leila nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘There’s no “of course” about it where secretaries’names are concerned.’

  Leila fielded a glance from green eyes that were, she now realised, distinctly hostile. ‘Well, my name happens to be Leila.’

  ‘All right. I’d like a talk with you, Miss LeilaThomas.’

  ‘All right.’ Leila nodded warily. ‘What did you want to say?’

  ‘I wanted to get a few things straight before we get to Cap Sa Sal,’ the girl replied, sitting back in the white leather seat to hold the wheel at arm’s length.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like keep your hands off my father,’ the girl said meaningfully.

  ‘Keep my hands off your—’ Leila gaped in surprise. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, don’t treat me like a child!’ Miss Oliver snapped. ‘Do you think you’re the first temporary secretary to come out here? I know what women in your job are like, Miss Thomas.’ The colour in her cheeks was deepening as she spoke. ‘I’m just warning you―try any tricks with Dad, and I’ll see to it that you regret it. Don’t think I don’t mean it, because I do!’

  Leila could only stare at the girl in astonishment.

  ‘Young lady,’ she said at last, keeping her voice calm with an effort, ‘whatever you think a temp is, you seem to have the wrong end of the stick.’

  ‘Have I?’ There was something horribly adult in the cynical expression. ‘I don’t think so. I had the wrong end of the stick with the last two, but I’m cured now.’

  ‘What do you mean, “the last two”?’ Leila asked sharply. ‘Are you saying your father had―had some kind of relationship with my predecessors?’

  ‘Oh, you’re so sweet and innocent,’ the girl sneered. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean, Miss Thomas. I mean that they trailed their bait, and Dad snapped them up. Only he’s not going to snap you up. Not this time. There’s too much at stake this time!’

  Leila was conscious of a sick feeling inside her. Was this precocious teenager telling her the truth about her father? Because, if so, she’d be better off driving herself back to the airport and getting the next plane back to London. She took a deep breath.

  ‘I’ve come out here to act as personal secretary to your father,’ Leila said in a quiet voice. ‘I’ll be here for six weeks. I do audio typing, shorthand and word processing. Nothing else. Nothing else,’ she repeated meaningfully.

  ‘After this job, I go home, and get my next assignment with the next firm. I never get involved with my employers on a personal level, and I’ve never yet come across one who wanted to get involved with me.’

  ‘Well, just make sure you mean that.’

  ‘Listen, Miss Oliver, I’m not a great deal older than you— '

  ‘Don’t kid yourself’!’ Miss Oliver retorted contemptuously. ‘You’re at least twenty-three or twenty-four, right? I’m fifteen.’

  ‘Fifteen?’ Her guess had been out by three years! And the girl was right-she was nine years older. It occurred to Leila to wonder angrily what kind of father would let his fifteen-year-old daughter dress like this, talk like this to strangers, not to mention—

  ‘Have you got a licence to drive this car?’ Leila asked briskly as the thought occurred to her.

  She got a sly glance back. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘I’m not being stupid, Miss Oliver,’ Leila replied, tight-lipped.

  ‘If you think I’m impressed, I assure you I’m not. I think the best thing will be if you pull into the next service station that comes up, and let me drive the rest of the way.’

  ‘Like hell,’ the teenager said, turning to stare at Leila incredulously. ‘Nobody drives this car but me!’

  ‘You shouldn’t even be driving a scooter. I’d like you to drop me off, please,’ Leila said evenly.

  Something in the steely note of her voice had got through to the girl. Unconsciously, her foot had eased on the accelerator, slowing their hectic pace. ‘Does my driving scare you that much?’ she asked defiantly.

  ‘Frankly, yes,’ Leila replied. ‘But your not having a licence is far more serious. You see, I do have a licence, and I want to keep it. And if the traffic police stop us for any reason, they’ll hold me directly responsible for your recklessness. I don’t know how you’ve got this car, or what your father lets you do with it, but I’m not prepared to risk my licence. It’s vital to my work, and my work is my livelihood. So, if you’ll let me out at this service-station coming up, I’m sure I’ll be able to organise my own transport to your father’s house.’

  ‘Now, come on—’

  ‘I mean it,’ Leila said grimly. ‘Pull in.’

  For a moment, she thought that the girl wasn’t going to obey, and she wondered anxiously just what the hell she would do if her bluff were called. But, at the last minute, Miss Oliver swung the Golf off the motorway and on to the slip-road that led to the service station car park. Her jaw was clenched, ‘and her cheeks wore ugly blotches of colour. She pulled up so sharply that Leila had to put a hand out to stop herself sliding into the dashboard.

  She turned to face Leila, her eyes narrowed. ‘All right. You drive from here on.’

  Leila silenced her own sigh of relief. ‘Thank you.’ She got out of the car, and walked round to the driver’s side.

  As they exchanged places, Leila stared sharply at the girl, and wondered how she could ever have been
fooled.

  This girl was an adolescent; though she was physically almost mature, with her full figure and burgeoning sexual allure, the look in her eyes was not that of a grown-up.

  Especially not now that they were hot and sullen with defeat.

  It was the hair, Leila decided, that had most fooled her. Worn in the sculpted masses of a soap-opera star, it had given an air of instant maturity to a face that was, as yet, still too rounded and unformed to be that of an adult woman.

  She tried to hide the way her nose had started to wrinkle in disgust at the kind of household that would permit a teenager to get herself up like this, and drive sixty miles on the motorway to pick up an employee. What kind of family was she coming to stay among? There was a bad taste in her mouth as she held up her palm.