Dangerous Alliance

172 Pages·2011·1.05 MB·English

by  Corrie Jane

Harlequin Romance
2087 9
4
us
Alliance
JANE CORR
H
Dangerous
Alliance
by JANE CORRIE
Somehow, Kent realized, she must
go away She had no defences
where Matt King was concerned.
And she was no good at pretending.
Meeting his eyes firmly she
answered his question. -In a way
you're right," she said coldly -You
once asked me if I was afraid of you.
I wasn't then. I am now"
But she knew that no matter where
she went she would go on loving
Matt King.
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Original hardcover edition published in 1977
by Mills & Boon Limited
ISBN 0-373-02087-2
Harlequin edition published July 1977
Copyright © 1977 by Jane Corrie. All rights reserved.
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CHAPTER ONE
KENT STAINER sat in the plush airport lounge and
unashamedly listened to the conversation two men
were holding in the seats directly behind her.
She had noticed them as she had taken her seat
earlier, simply because she had been looking, or ex-
pecting one of them to meet her.
The tall thin man who constantly referred to his
companion as 'boss', would be Tony Sims, accoun-
tant of Stainer Construction Ltd, Kent mused, and
'boss' would be none other than Matt King, the
tough American she seemed to have spent her life
hearing about from her father.
One thing had come as a surprise to her; she had
always pictured Matt King to be around her father's
age, but this man was, at a guess, in his early thirties.
He was not over tall, probably about five feet nine,
she thought, but thickset. She recalled his features
although she had only been able to afford him one
brief glance in passing. Not what one might term as
handsome in the accepted sense, this man's features
were rugged and held a hardness Kent knew existed
—had to exist, to keep control over the men he em-
ployed.
5
Construction work was men's work; no room for
weaklings here; you pulled your weight or you were
out. The pay was good enough to ensure full co-
operation in this respect, but the men were as tough
as the job, and it took an even tougher man to hold
the reins.
'Just keep him out of my hair,' drawled the un-
mistakably American voice. 'I've enough on my
plate without wet-nursing a kid straight out of
university—and don't tie me down by suggesting I
show him over the works like you did with that
batch of students last month,' he growled. 'He's your
baby, remember. You've been screaming for weeks
that you've too much on your hands; well, now's
your chance to prove it. I'll give you a fortnight to
break the kid in, then I'll expect a little more time
to be spent on those damned estimates I always have
to wait a fortnight for.'
This blunt directive brought a gloomy, 'Yes,
boss,' from Tony Sims.
Kent found herself feeling a little sorry for the
accountant; it appeared he wasn't having things too
easy on this job, although, she thought, no one was.
It was the trickiest project the firm had ever been
landed with, and only a near genius of an engineer
would have dared attempt it. Spanning a mile-wide
gap of mountainous domain in the Andes would give
anyone but Matt King nightmares just thinking
about it.
But Matt King was the best in his line; her father
6
had often said so. Without Matt the firm would have
collapsed when Bob Stainer, Kent's father, was
forced to take a back seat after sustaining an injury
to his back, when a bridge he was inspecting turned
turtle in high winds. In recognition of this fact
Matt had been given a partnership, and the firm had
gone from strength to strength, and now comman-
ded the respect and envy of those in a similar pro-
fession. It soon became established that if Stainer's
couldn't do the job, it couldn't be done, and no
other firm would touch the project.
The last passengers from the London flight had
now collected their baggage, and Kent knew she had
to claim hers; she also knew she had to introduce
herself to the two gentlemen behind her, quite real-
ising what a shock she was about to deliver to them.
Her name, plus a slightly eccentric father, had
placed her in this all too familiar situation. Long
ago she had stopped being amused by the surprise
registered by her father's old friends visiting London
for the first time, and looking them up.
The explanation was simple—at least it was to
Kent; she had grown up with it—but not so simple
to others who had always presumed, or been led to
presume, that Bob Stainer's only child was a son.
Having a daughter when he had set his heart on a
son had not deterred Bob Stainer. She was given a
boy's name, and taught to play with construction
kits and model trains, but never dolls.
Kent had always wondered how her mother had
7
reacted to his fanaticism in bringing up his only
child this way, but she could never recall her scold=
ing or rebuking her husband. It was only later that
Kent had come to realise the reason for this indul-
gence. Her mother, a gentle woman, had been very
much in love with her husband and must have spent
many lonely days and nights while he roamed the
world on different projects. His accident must have
been a kind of release from that terrible loneliness,
for in spite of a limp he was home to stay. There
would be no more heartstopping anxieties over the
not infrequent accidents the job entailed.
Kent had been only fourteen when her mother
died, but she never forgot the waiting, and the ten-
sion each reported accident brought in its wake. As
her mother had suffered those interminable waits for
news, so, too, had Kent suffered, but for different
reasons. She had loved her mother dearly, and suf-
fered on her account, although she could not hon-
estly admit she had been as fond of her father, for in
keeping with his refusal to acknowledge her as a
girl, she received no affection from him. A slap across
the back was the nearest approach to a fatherly hug
Kent had ever received.
At twent-three and fresh out of university, there
was very little Kent did not know about construction
work, her father had seen to that. She was now a
fully qualified accountant, ready to take her place in
the firm as instructed in her father's will, read two
months previously. Kent was sure that had she been
8
taller or stronger, her father would have insisted on
her studying engineering, but her five feet two slight
frame, and black unruly curls, plus retroussée nose
and wide grey green eyes, did not lend itself to this
trade, and even Bob Stainer had to bow to provi-
dence on that score.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to make her
presence known to the two men now silent behind
her, and was only too aware of the fact that in spite
of her age, she still looked much as she had done
when she first started college at eighteen.
Her introduction was just as catastrophic as she
had known it would be, and her eyes held a sardonic
look as they took in the stunned reaction from both
men as she held out a small hand first to Matt, and
then to Tony Sims. Neither did she miss the furious
glare Matt threw at Tony Sims, who shrugged a des-
pondent, 'I didn't know either' look back at him.
Later, in the back of Matt's opulent Chrysler,
Kent found herself having to keep up a constant
flow of small talk to ease the situation. For the life of
her, she couldn't see what all the fuss was about—
they were shocked, of course, but so had all the
other friends of her father's been at first—but not
like this; she couldn't have caused more of a reac-
tion had she had two heads, and it wasn't as if she
had dropped in unheralded. She had been expected;
what was more, she had come to work and take her
place as a partner in the firm; at least, until things
were sorted out.
9
She stared out at the passing landscape and
thought of Jack's reaction to the news. He had been
extremely disappointed, to say the least; the prem-
ises he had got lined up for his interior decorating
business, nicely situated in an exclusive area of
London, would now have to go back on the market;
agents did not believe in promises unless backed by
hard cash.
To be honest, the contents of her father's will had
come as a bit of a shock to her, too, although she
ought to have been prepared for it. Her father never
did things by half, but he had never mentioned a
partnership for her. Of course, she mused, he had
taken an active dislike to Jack, and Jack's profes-
sion hadn't helped much either. Interior decorating
wasn't everyone's cup of tea and might appear a
somewhat dainty profession against the tough world
of construction engineering.
Kent was fully aware of her father's reasons for
making her a partner in the business, and for his
blunt directive that she should join the firm forth-
with, in spite of the fact that they were now opera-
ting in Bolivia.
She suspected he had also been aware of the fact
that Jack had been counting on her inheritance to
back his latest venture and had done his best to
quash that expectance. She sighed; just what her
father had been hoping to gain by these tactics
she couldn't imagine. It was true she couldn't
back out of the conditions laid down in the will
10