The Innocent Virgin

Abby had actually passed being shocked where this evening was concerned. She had reached surreal now, able to envisage that whole humiliating experience as if in slow motion—like a reel of film going round and round in the projector.

‘Oh, God, Monty!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t ever leave this apartment again! I’ll have to barricade the door, put bars on the windows. I daren’t ever go out in public again!’ She took another slurp of her champagne, the salt of her tears mixing with the bubbly wine. ‘Once our supplies run out, we’ll both simply starve to death!’ she added shakily.

Four months ago it had all looked so promising. As the weather girl for a breakfast television show—an interesting career move, considering she couldn’t tell a cold front from an isobar!—she had been asked to stand in for the female half of the presentation team while the other woman went on maternity leave for several months. She had made a impact, and a well-known producer had approached her with an offer to do six half-hour chat shows, to be shown live the following spring.

The next three months had been a dream come true for Abby—choosing the guests for each week, researching, negotiating the appearance of those guests—and everything had gone well until it had come to the guest she had chosen for her final show.

Max Harding.

Her intention had been to finish the series on a high note. Once the presenter of his own current affairs programme, Max Harding had returned to reporting foreign news and hadn’t appeared in a British studio in two years. Not since he had walked away from his own programme, and the lucrative contract that went with it, after one of his political guests had tried to commit suicide on the live Sunday evening show.

Max Harding’s personal elusiveness since that time, his flat refusal even to discuss the subject, would make him a prime finale, Abby had thought, for her own series of shows.

But she should have known, Abby berated herself now. Should have guessed what his intentions were when he had finally—surprisingly—agreed to be her guest.

‘He meant to hurt and humiliate me, Monty.’ Her voice hardened angrily at the memory. ‘All the time you liked him so much—that I—that we—How could he do that to me, Monty? How could he?’ Her ready tears began to fall again. ‘But I showed him, Monty. In fact, I showed everyone watching as well,’ she remembered with a pained groan. ‘Millions and millions of people sat in their homes and watched as I hit him. Yes, you did hear me correctly; I hit Max Harding—on live television!’

Abby closed her eyes as the memory overwhelmed her. She wasn’t a violent person—had never hit anyone in her life before, never wanted to hit anyone before. But she had certainly hit Max Harding this evening.

‘Actually, it was worse than that, Monty.’ She choked, not at all concerned with the fact that a lot of people might think it strange that she was having this conversation with her cat. Temporary insanity was certainly a plea she could make for her actions tonight, but at the moment it was the least of her problems. ‘It wasn’t just a gentle slap on the cheek.’ She groaned. ‘He annoyed me so much, hurt me so much, that I swung my arm back and belted him with all the force that I could. It was perfect, Monty. Right on his arrogant chin.’ She smiled through her tears with remembered pleasure. ‘You should have seen the stunned look on his face. Then his chair toppled backwards, taking him with it, and he was knocked unconscious as he hit the floor!’

And Monty should have seen her own face as her anger had left her and she’d realised exactly what she had done…

The studio had grown so hushed you could literally have heard a pin drop. The small studio audience deathly quiet, no one even seeming to breathe; the camera crew no longer looking into their cameras but staring straight at her in open-mouthed disbelief.

Her director in the control room had been the first to recover, screaming in her earpiece, ‘Abby—what the hell are you doing? Say something,’ he yelled, when she could only stand there in mute silence, staring down at the slumped form of Max Harding. ‘Abby, do something!’ Gary had instructed harshly as she still didn’t move. ‘This is live television, remember?’

She had remembered then, turning to look at the surrounding cameras, realising they were still transmitting.

In her panic there had been only one thing she could do—no other choice left open to her. With a startled cry, she’d stepped over Max Harding’s prostrate body before running out of the studio as if pursued.

No one had spoken to her as she’d run. No one had even attempted to stop her.

And why would they? She had totally blown it—had broken the cardinal rule of not losing your cool on public television, of always remaining calm and in control, no matter what the provocation. No matter what the provocation!

Her career was in ruins. She would never appear on television ever again.

Which was why she was now locked in her apartment, with the telephone disconnected, the intercom to the doorbell downstairs switched off, and her mobile lying waterlogged in the bottom of the bath.

‘Okay, that last gesture may have been a little drastic,’ Abby allowed, as Monty looked at her with disapproval. ‘Especially as I’m now effectively unemployed—unemployable!—and will never be able to afford to buy a new one. But do you know the worst of it, Monty? The absolute worst of it?’ Her voice shook with emotion now, tears once again falling hotly down her cheeks. ‘I know you liked him, but I actually thought I was in love with him!’ she burst out shakily. ‘I was in love with Max Harding!’ She whipped herself with the lash again. ‘Now I wish I had never even set eyes on him!’

Until seven weeks ago she hadn’t even met him.

Seven weeks ago she had been riding on the crest of a wave, euphoric at her success in landing her own half-hour show, full of enthusiasm as she researched and then met her guests, overjoyed at her apparent overnight success at only twenty-seven.

But seven weeks ago Max Harding had still been just a name to her—a reputation, several dozen photographs. She hadn’t met the flesh-and-blood man then.

Hadn’t fallen in love with him…

CHAPTER TWO

‘YES?’

Abby could only stare at the man standing in the open doorway of the apartment; she hadn’t seen this much naked male flesh since she’d sat on a beach in Majorca last year.

And very male flesh it was too. But the towel wrapped around the man’s slim waist and the dampness of his dark hair told her exactly why it had taken four knocks on the apartment door for him to answer—he had obviously been taking a shower when she arrived.

Alone? Or with someone? Whatever; this man’s semi-nakedness took her breath—and her voice—away.

Not that she wasn’t familiar with Max Harding’s looks. She had seen him dozens of times on the news over the last couple of years, reporting from one war-torn country or another, and had also watched hours of footage of the political forum programme he’d hosted until two years ago.

But in the first case he was usually wearing some sort of combat gear and a flak jacket, shouting his report over the whine of bullets as they whistled past his ears. And in the second instance he had always been sitting down in one of those high-back leather chairs, wearing a dark formal suit with a shirt and tie.

In both cases he had been on the small screen, minimised before being transmitted into people’s homes.

He was huge, was Abby’s first thought. It wasn’t just his height, of about six feet two inches, he also had incredibly wide and muscled shoulders, his skin was darkly tanned, the ebony hair on that powerful chest tapered down to—

‘Seen enough?’

Not nearly enough, was her second, slightly fevered thought. Oh, dear! was her wincing next one, as she slowly raised her gaze back to his face, her cheeks awash with embarrassed colour.

Really, it might be some time since she had seen a man naked—or in this case semi-naked—but she had seen one or two!

But looking at Max Harding’s face wasn’t reassuring. She had hoped the severity of his expression on television was due to the seriousness of his subject matter, but even one glance at his rock-hewn features was enough to tell her that those weren’t laughter lines beside the intense grey eyes, the arrogant slash of a nose and sculptured unsmiling mouth. This man looked as if he rarely smiled, let alone laughed!

Abby straightened her shoulders, deliberately arranging her features into ‘serious but pleasant’. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of me, Mr Harding, but I’m Abby Freeman—‘

She didn’t get any further than that. The door firmly slammed in her face.

He had heard of her, she thought ruefully. His reaction was a bit drastic, though! Especially as he must have received at least two letters concerning appearing on her show—one from her researchers, and one from her personally. Neither of which he had answered. But he might at least have—

Her eyes widened as the door suddenly swung open again. A hand reached out to grasp the collar of her jacket, and she was unceremoniously pulled inside the apartment, her boot-clad feet barely touching the luxurious carpet.

‘Mr Harding—’

‘How the hell did you get up here?’ He glowered down at her, somehow still managing to look imposing despite his lack of clothing and the wild disorder of his overlong dark hair.

Abby blinked, totally stunned at finding herself inside the apartment instead of outside it.

She delayed answering as she pulled her white T-shirt back into place beneath her black jacket, her ebony hair loose onto her shoulders, blue eyes wide as she fought her inner feelings of indignation.

‘I said—’

‘The man downstairs let me in,’ she cut in.

‘After you told him what?’ Max Harding bit out contemptuously, hands on narrow hips.

Bare hips, Abby noted somewhat awkwardly. The towel was starting to slip down those long, muscular, hair-covered legs.