Dangerous Alliance

129 Pages·1977·0.62 MB·English

by  Corrie Jane

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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OTHER harlequin Romances by JANE CORRIE

1956—THE IMPOSSIBLE BOSS 2020—RAINBOW FOR MEGAN 2038—SINCLAIR TERRITORY 2053—GREEN
PADDOCKS 2072—THE BAHAMIAN PIRATE

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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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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.

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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 expecting one of them to meet her.
The tall thin man who constantly referred to his companion as 'boss', would be Tony
Sims, accountant 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 employed.

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 cooperation 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 unmistakably 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
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
commanded the respect and envy of those in a similar profession. 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 realising 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

reacted to his fanaticism in bringing up his only child this way, but she could never
recall her scolding or rebuking her husband. It was only later that Kent had come to
realise the reason for this indulgence. 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 heart stopping 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 tension 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 suffered on her account, although she could not
honestly 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

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
providence 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 despondent, '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 reaction
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.

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 premises 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 profession 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 forthwith, in spite of the fact that
they were now operating 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

for at least a year, unless she relinquished her inheritance, and as Jack had duly pointed
out, there was no sense in that. It meant a year's setback, of course, but it was better
than nothing, and although they were disappointed, they would just have to abide by it.
The wedding, planned for July that year, also had to be put back; as Jack had solemnly
told her, he couldn't afford to run two establishments, and his bachelor flat above the
small premises he worked in could not possibly accommodate both of them.
A year, then, Kent thought moodily, that was all her father had gained by granting her a
partnership in the firm. She shook her head impatiently; it didn't make sense, unless—
her eyes dwelt smoulderingly on the back of Matt King's head, noting how the sunlight
brought out the red glint in his brown hair. Had her father hoped ... ? She blinked as the
revelation hit her. He had! It was just the sort of manoeuvre he was capable of ! She
almost shivered. Even from his grave he was trying to direct her life as he thought fit.
The ends of the chiffon scarf that she had tied round her neck whipped over her face,
and she impatiently removed them; the speed they were travelling at was sending a
small gale rushing into the back of the car.
Directing a glare at the back of Matt's head, Kent wondered whether he had come to the
same conclusion as she had, and judging by his stiff features and

equally stiff behaviour since the introduction, plus the fact that he was driving as if
there was no tomorrow, Kent surmised he had.
Matt was a bachelor and proud of the fact; Kent recalled her father telling her so on one
occasion. There was, he had said, no woman trouble where Matt was concerned; the job
came first and women a poor second.
And that, she thought almost hysterically, was the kind of man her father had lined up
for her. As she was sure that grim-faced character in front of her would have put it,
there was just 'no way'.
With a feeling akin to homesickness, Kent thought of Jack's tall but slight frame; his
lean handsome features and fair hair, the way strands of it constantly fell across his high
forehead, and the way those long artistic fingers of his would brush them back in an
absentminded way. How could her father have even contemplated her alliance with a
man like Matt King? a man used to living rough, and working side by side with casual
labourers, for that was another thing she had been told about him from her father, that
he preferred to be out on the site and hated desk work.
She thought of his hands, large, capable strong ones, and as hard as the man himself,
and made a small moue of distaste—well, there was one thing to be thankful for. Matt
King was a law unto himself, and was not likely to give up his bachelor status on the
whim of his late partner.

Plumes of dust rose from the wheels of the car as they plunged down a desert-like track
into what looked to Kent like no-man's-land. Kent wondered where she would be
staying; there was no such thing as an hotel in the small Andean village near the works,
but she presumed rooms would be found for her in one of the houses in the village.
It wasn't until after they had passed a huddle of clay huts that she realised they had
passed the village. It was very evident she would not be staying there ! She frowned; it
was a rule of the company that wives did not live on the site, and rooms were found for
them in the nearest town, although the number that accompanied their husbands could
almost be counted on one hand, and then they were management-grade wives.
Her puzzlement grew as the terrain changed and the mountain ranges came into sight,
then all else was forgotten as she looked at the beautiful snowcapped peaks gleaming as
the rays of the sun touched them. The car followed a winding road as it descended into
a valley where lush greenery and brilliant shrubs nestled in the hillsides. Gorgeous
purples and pastel blues and pinks of exotic flowers grew in profusion on any available
hold.
They descended yet further, and in the distance Kent saw the chalet and let out a breath
of pure delight. It nestled in the same way as the foliage did against the hillside and
would, she thought, have a

commanding view of the valley below where she presumed the works lay.
Her presumption proved correct as the car veered off the main track and made for the
chalet. Below, Kent could see the works, not too far away, but close enough to keep a
wary eye on progress. Her eyes moved over the vast construction area to the group of
huts that provided living quarters for the men on the job. Everything, in fact, would be
there; a canteen, a recreation centre, even a small cinema; it was a world within a world.
There was a clutch of larger buildings that sat well away from the men's quarters, and
that, Kent thought, would be where the administration staff worked, and where she
would be working as intimated earlier by Matt, with Tony Sims.
The car jerked to a stop outside the chalet and Matt was out of the car and shouting for
someone named Juan, before Kent or Tony Sims had time to alight. Tony assisted Kent
out of the car, and she felt a spurt of annoyance at Matt King's ill-mannered exit from
the scene, as he strode up the wooden steps to the chalet and disappeared inside.
Favouring Tony with a grateful smile to prove that she thought he was a gentleman at
least, Kent bent to retrieve her handbag from the car, and was suddenly overcome by
dizziness. She blinked quickly and caught hold of the car door to steady herself.
'Take a deep breath,' advised Tony sympathetically, keeping a firm hold on her arm. 'It's
the

altitude—it will take a day or two for you to get used to it.'
Kent nodded, and did as she was told. It helped a little, and straightening up slowly she
met the cynical blue eyes of Matt King, lounging in the doorway of the chalet. The sight
proved more beneficial than a dose of oxygen! Her eyes sparked and she drew herself
up straight, then giving Tony another brilliant smile and gently removing his hand from
her arm, she said, 'I'm all right now, thank you, Mr Sims.'
'Tony, please! he said with a grin. 'No surnames here, You know.'
Smilingly acknowledging this, she thanked him for retrieving her handbag for her, and
together they entered the chalet. A young Mexican boy hovered in the hall, and
obviously anxious to please, he pointed to a tray of cold drinks that Matt King was now
standing by and helping himself to; he did, however, have the grace to ask Kent what
she would like.
Giving him a rather over-emphasised, 'Thank you, I'd like an iced lime,' Kent seated
herself on one of the rattan chairs by the side of the drinks table. She presumed there
was a lounge somewhere, even, though she had not been asked into it, and another thing
she noticed; her luggage was still in the back of the Chrysler—the boy had not yet
apparently been given orders to collect it.
Accepting the drink Matt handed her, and moodily watching Tony help himself to some
concoction, Kent found her temper slowly rising. A fine welcome this was to a new
member of staff, and a partner, no less! Who the devil did Matt King think he was? He
might be brilliant at his job, but so were many others, and not all were offered
partnerships; he had done exceedingly well for himself. It was her father's firm when all
was said and done, and now he was gone, Matt King hadn't the grace to welcome his
daughter.
Not that being a woman when he had expected a man had much to do with it, she
thought bitterly, as she recalled his scathing comments at the airport about wet-nursing
a kid straight out of university. It was hardly a grateful reaction to her father's
generosity in making him a partner.
Her eyes narrowed in speculation. There was one thing Matt King didn't know, in spite
of her feminine appearance, Kent had been brought up to regard men as her equal.
Verbally, she could give just as good as she got, and she knew her job. If he thought he
could browbeat her, he was in for quite a surprise.
`How was the trip?' Tony asked, a little belatedly to Kent's way of thinking, although
she forgave him as she realised he was only making conversation to ease the strained
atmosphere caused by Matt's brooding attitude.
Kent barely had time to reply before Matt rapped out at Tony, 'You'd better get back to
the plant. I want those figures out by tomorrow, remember.'
By a slight lift of the eyebrows, surprise was registered on Tony's face, but he did not
argue, and with a 'See you', to Kent, he swallowed the rest of his drink and left.
Kent had never felt so alone in all her life as she watched him leave, and when she
looked back at Matt she found him studiously studying her with ill-concealed
impatience, and was made to feel she was taking up time he could ill afford to lose.
Her own patience was fast running out, too, and she made an effort to control it by
haughtily requesting that her luggage lie brought in.
'No point,' he drawled laconically. 'You're not staying. If this was your father's idea of a
joke, then it's gone sour.'
Kent Made a tremendous effort to remain calm. She couldn't understand why this man
got under her skin. The situation was one she thought by now to be well used to, and to
have the explanation cut and dried; usually she had, but for the life of her she couldn't
come out with the old quip of, 'Father wanted a son', which would normally be followed
by amusement.
This man would not be amused, in fact, Kent very much doubted whether that granite-
carved face had ever as much as smiled; she took a deep breath. 'It's no joke, Mr King,'
she replied coldly. 'I'm sorry it's come as such a shock to you. For devious reasons of his
own, my father named me

Kent. He was perfectly well aware of the fact that most of his friends presumed his only
child was a son, and he did nothing to disabuse them. That, if you like, might have been
his idea of a joke, but the joke, as you say, has now gone sour, and I've grown immune
to it. For better or worse, I'm Kent Stainer; now a partner in the firm, and as a qualified
accountant will take my place in the firm as directed in my father's will.'