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  Playing Safe

  By

  Claudia Jameson

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  "You're avoiding me, Grace, and I want to know why."

  Demetrius continued insistently. "You've refused more dates than you've accepted from me. I think you're afraid to acknowledge what's happening between us."

  "I swear I don't know what you're talking about!" Grace blurted out in confusion and shock. "To start with, what have I got to be afraid of?"

  "You tell me," he said evenly, his eyes not leaving hers. "Being hurt? Commitment? Another affair that might turn sour?"

  Another affair? She had never had another affair. "My God!" Grace retorted angrily. "You really do take a lot for granted! If you have in mind an affair—"

  "Come on, Grace!" Demetrius interrupted impatiently. "Where else do you think we're heading? Sooner or later you and I are going to make love—and don't bother to deny it."

  Claudia Jameson lives in Berkshire, England, with her husband and family. She is an extremely popular author in both the Harlequin Presents and Harlequin Romance series. And no wonder! Her lively dialogue and ingenious plots—with the occasional dash of suspense—make her a favorite with romance readers everywhere.

  Books

  by

  Claudia Jameson

  HARLEQUIN ROMANCE

  2578—NEVER SAY NEVER

  2594—YOURS… FAITHFULLY

  2691—A TIME TO GROW

  2842—IMMUNE TO LOVE

  2857—A MAN OF CONTRASTS

  2878—AN ENGAGEMENT IS ANNOUNCED

  HARLEQUIN PRESENTS

  777—THE FRENCHMAN'S KISS

  817—THE SCORPIO MAN

  867—ROSES, ALWAYS ROSES

  891—THE MAN IN ROOM 12

  922—ONE DREAM ONLY

  945—ADAM'S LAW

  969—TO SPEAK OF LOVE

  Original hardcover edition published in 1988

  by Mills & Boon Limited

  ISBN 0-373-02936-5

  Harlequin Romance first edition October 1988

  With many thanks to Julie, from whom the inspiration came.

  Copyright © 1988 by Claudia Jameson.

  CHAPTER ONE

  It sounded like a bargain. It was less than two years old and, according to the advertisement in the local paper, it was in immaculate condition.

  Grace Allinson put the newspaper to one side, unconsciously narrowing her eyes as she weighed the pros and cons of buying a second-hand BMW. She, personally, could afford to buy the car; the question was whether she could afford to buy it with the profits from her business—because her private money and the living she made from her business were two totally separate entities in her mind. If she stuck to a down-market car she could buy something new for the same price as the BMW. On the other hand, there was something very attractive about the idea of owning, of having earned for herself, a quality car such as the one being advertised, albeit second-hand.

  She turned her attention to her appointments book, to the appointments book. She was no longer working alone in the business, she had one full-time employee and a part-timer who came in Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays; today was Friday. Mavis and Jillian were both fully qualified beauty therapists, both competent and extremely pleasant to have around.

  Mavis came breezing in then, smiling and shivering in the warmth of the salon as she closed the outer door. 'Gosh, it's freezing out there!'

  It was, literally, freezing. Grace looked up with a smile. The Beauty Parlour opened at nine and it was ten minutes to nine now, but she herself was always there by eight-thirty, eight-thirty at the latest. 'I know, the wind's awful, isn't it? If only it would drop. I don't know what's happened this year, but the wind's getting to me far more than anything else.'

  It had been incessant. Winter had started in the middle of November, it was now February and still bitterly cold. There had been rain, sleet, hail, snow, fog—the lot. And with it all there had been the wind which seemed to be relentless. Everyone was grumbling, everyone was thinking spring would never come. It was the first topic of conversation from every client—and heaven knew, Grace's clients chatted a lot, about anything and everything. In fact, it had come as a surprise to her in the early days, how much people revealed about themselves and their families, their problems, while undergoing beauty treatment.

  Maybe this was because they were relaxed, which was most likely a change for them, relaxed and spending some time and money on themselves. Indulging. Whatever it was, it was a very strict rule with Grace and her staff that nothing, ever, in any way, was passed on from one client to the next. If she or her staff should be pinpointed as a source of gossip, of gossip-spreading, the reputation of The Beauty Parlour would go right down the drain. All three of them were professional right down to their fingertips, especially their fingertips!

  'Grace?' Mavis was looking over her shoulder, eyeing the appointments book. 'Is there something you know that I don't?'

  'No, no, just a train of thought.' She glanced up, smiling. Her relationship with her staff was easy and pleasant, and the atmosphere in the salon was one of friendliness. The decor was all pastel colours and luxurious in the extreme, and virtually every customer remarked that merely by stepping on to the premises they felt relaxed.

  There was a faint aroma of coffee in the air now. Jillian was in the tiny kitchen; it was her first job of the day to put the coffee on and the percolator would be on the go all day.

  'Someone new?' Mavis was pointing to a name against the nine-thirty appointment for the sun-shower. It was Melissa Knight. At ten o'clock she was booked for a bikini-line wax and a half-leg wax.

  'Mmm.' Grace knew as much as Mavis did, namely that someone who was coming for that sort of treatment was most likely going on a holiday in the sun. Lucky lady. A holiday abroad in February was a very attractive idea, especially in this awful, abnormally windy February.

  Mavis glanced along the page and saw that Melissa Knight's treatment wasn't going to end there. She was also booked for a Cathiodermie, followed by a manicure and pedicure. She was going the whole hog. Mavis was about to remark to her boss that the name didn't ring a bell… but it did. 'I've heard that name before. Can't remember where.'

  'Not here. She's new. She booked with me on the phone last week, said she was new to the area.'

  Mavis nodded and moved away. Mrs Wakeham was due any minute; she would spend half an hour on one of the sun-beds before having her facial, during which Mavis would be subjected to the latest news about her poodle—which would be left, at Mrs Wakeham's insistence, in the reception area for over an hour. Well, at least it didn't make a noise?

  Grace stayed where she was and picked up the post. Half of it was in brown envelopes. Bills. They would all be put into her handbag and dealt with in her office at home. There wasn't room for an office at the salon, every inch of space here was used to its best advantage—partitioned off, mostly. There was a small sauna, two horizontal sun-beds, one sun-shower which was vertical and reminiscent of an upright coffin—not that she would ever compare it so to a client—the room in which waxing was done, another for G5 rotary massage and Faradic Muscle Toning, Aromatherapy, facials, manicures, pedicures, and three regular shower rooms.

  Her business was certainly in the right place. Reading was only a few miles away; it was a big town and it was growing rapidly. Many of her clients lived in Reading, but travelled to the salon here in Wokingham because parking was so much easier. There had been a time,
though, during her years of full-time training as a beauty therapist, when Grace had not for one instant thought that the business she would eventually establish would be anywhere near the district in which she had been born and brought up. But it was; Wokingham was just a short drive from her birthplace. She had been born in Doveshill, a dot of an area in Berkshire in the South of England, Royal Berkshire, to give it its correct name. Berkshire—Doveshill—Allinson Manor. Allinson Manor was the house in which she had been born, and in which she now lived.

  Born with the figurative silver spoon, to a beautiful mother and a clever and wealthy father, Grace's childhood had been idyllic. In fact the whole of her life had been ideal until she had met and fallen in love with the man who had proved to be more interested in money than he had been in her. The bad things in her life, all the changes, had happened within twelve months: the disillusionment, finding out the truth about Raymond Ferris, her anger, her fury, at her father…and then her mother's death, and the reconciliation with her father, a reconciliation it had taken Mother's death to bring about…

  Well, it had, and after qualifying Grace had moved back in to Allinson Manor to live with her father and her brother. Not that either of them were around much. Her brother was at home only during the holidays, he was a postgraduate student doing scientific research at Cambridge. Her father spent his weekdays in London; it took only an hour or so to get to Westminster from the manor, but Sir Nigel chose to live in London during the week. He would be home today, though, he had called Grace from London last night to tell her he would be driving home this morning.

  'We're having guests to dinner,' he'd said. 'Will you be in for the evening, Grace? You'll join us? Dinner will be at eight.'

  'Yes. Unless you'd rather—'

  'Now don't be silly. I want you to meet this couple, the chap is absolutely first rate. You'll like him.'

  'Who are they?'

  'Our new neighbours.'

  'Oh!' It had taken a moment for her to realise what he meant. Firstly, she had to remind herself that her father was referring to the property next to that of the manor. Well, it was 'next door,' but there were some eighteen acres of land separating the houses, owned between them. Eighteen acres, some of which were woods. Colonel Barrington's place, the late Colonel Barrington's place, had been on the market for almost a year. Grace knew it had been sold, but that was all she knew. A few weeks ago she had seen a furniture van turning in to the lane which led to the house.

  'How come you know these people?' she had asked her father, not that she got a satisfactory answer.

  'Oh, I've known him some years. We've done a spot of business together from time to time.'

  It didn't tell her much, not that she was interested. Her father's 'spots of business' did not concern or interest her any more than his politics did. His or anyone else's. It was probably something to do with land, of which he owned quite a lot in Berkshire. He didn't even mention the couple's name, not that that mattered, either, although she had wanted to ask what sort of age group they were in. There hadn't been time. Sir Nigel had rung off after asking her to warn the housekeeper that there would be two extra mouths to feed at dinner on Friday evening.

  The bell on the back of the outer door tinkled and Grace looked up to see Mrs Wakeham and her ever-present poodle standing there. They were both covered with snowflakes and, while the poodle was making no protest, it being wrapped in a hand-knitted coat, Mrs Wakeham was making no secret of her feelings about the weather.

  'Good heavens, when is it going to let up, Grace? Honestly, I'm seriously considering going to live abroad for the winters. I'm not getting any younger, you know, and I really don't think I can put up with this cold for much longer.'

  Grace opened her mouth to commiserate, but she got no further. 'I was saying to Desmond,' her client went on, fluffing the poodle's head, 'that it's high time he retired. Don't you think? He's sixty-seven and really has no need at all to carry on working. I think he likes it,' she added with a certain amount of bewilderment.

  Grace smiled, inclining her head in a feminine mannerism of which she was unaware. Her long, elegant hands came up in protest, while her black sheet of shining hair slid across her shoulders. This lady was not merely a client but also a friend, a family friend of long-standing. 'You've been saying that for years, Belle. Of course he likes it. He's brilliant, and you know it. Now, what would I do if he weren't there to look after my teeth?'

  Belle Wakeham grunted—a very ladylike grunt. She knew full well how good a dentist her husband was, but this girl had been born with perfect teeth. Some would say her teeth were her best asset. She had known Grace Allinson for twenty years, since she was four, and her husband had been taking care of her teeth all that time. She was an attractive child, always had been, and yet she could not be described as beautiful. Attractive but not beautiful, definitely not. Her nose was very straight and in Belle's opinion just a little too long. Her lips were bow-like, but in Belle's opinion just a little too thin. Of course, her eyes were—well, maybe they were too large, great big blue eyes. Doe-like. One had to suppose it was an aristocratic face… if a little bony. Yes, there was all of that, all those flaws, yet she was attractive, very. These days, she certainly knew how to play up the best God had given her and how to play down the worst.

  When it came to her brains, however…privately, Belle was disappointed that Grace had not ended up at Cambridge like her brother, for she certainly had the brains. This business of hers was surely just a means of keeping herself occupied, although on the other hand, and the girl had to be applauded for this, she really believed in what she was doing. As it happened, so did Belle; she wouldn't be here otherwise. In fact, if one so much as asked a simple question about skin care, nail care, one's hair condition, wrinkled skin or superfluous hair on the chin, Grace would plunge into details so—so detailed—one would get quite lost! In other words, she knew her business.

  'Humph!' The elderly Belle placed her poodle very carefully on the deep, soft, dusty-pink carpet, tied its lead to a leg of the two-seater cane settee and straightened. 'I'm not sure where that leaves me, my dear. Freezing in this wind. How's your father?'

  Grace bit back a smile. Poor Belle, childless and frustrated, wasn't she? Wasn't that poodle a child substitute? She was on every committee, charity fund-raising mainly, within a fifty-mile radius of Reading—and she was a busybody. One could not dislike Belle; basically she was just lonely. She came to The Beauty Parlour mainly because she could natter and have an attentive ear.

  'He's fine.' Grace paused, considering whether or not to throw a little food for thought Belle's way. 'In fact… I'm beginning to think there might be a romance in the air. He hasn't said a word to me, but twice when I've phoned him at his house in London recently, he's had company. Female company.'

  She did not get the response she expected. There were no raised eyebrows, no murmurs of approval or disapproval, there was only a little smile—which gave Grace the distinct impression that Belle Wakeham knew something that she did not. It irritated her. It shouldn't have, but it did. What was there to know, if anything? Was Belle being deliberately mysterious, or was there something? If there was, why the devil didn't her father say something about it? Was their capacity for communication so limited, so retarded, that he felt he couldn't? Well, if he wasn't going to tell her, she was not going to ask!

  'I'd better get on,' the older woman said, meaning get on the sun-bed. Grace let her go without further comment. Belle could have afforded a dozen sun-beds of her own… which wasn't the point.

  Intent on opening the post, Grace picked up the dagger-like letter opener which had been one of many little Christmas presents from her brother— but that was as far as she got. The bell on the outer door tinkled again, the inner door opened and closed quickly, and a white-faced teenager stood in front of the reception desk, looking totally disorientated and extremely upset. Not only was it very obvious that she had been crying, it was also very obvious that she had only j
ust stopped doing so.

  The tears on her cheeks were still wet, her mouth was trembling and her eyes were red-rimmed. She looked at Grace and blurted rather than spoke her greeting. 'I—Melissa Knight. I'm sorry I'm early but my brother—er—I'm booked for sun-ray and… and everything.'

  Grace took one look at her face and felt her heart tug. Lord, the girl was so upset! And she was so pretty! What was she doing here? Of course, one should look after one's skin from an early age, the earlier the better, but not many of her clients were this young. How young? Sixteen? Seventeen? The girl was a doll, an absolute doll. Black-haired, brown-eyed, she was white-skinned, with two perfect rosy cheeks which the warmth of the salon was beginning to restore to their natural colour.

  Grace rose from her seat, held out her hand. Every movement was smooth and befitting her name. She had been graceful when she was two years old—not that she knew it. She still had no idea how lovely she was, she knew only that she wished to make the best of herself, and that in her opinion every woman should.

  'Miss Knight.' Was it, in fact, Miss Knight? The girl's clothes were colourful and ultra-modern, if not to say way-out, and she had rings on every finger except for the pinky on her right hand. Well, there was no contradiction forthcoming, just a somewhat vacant stare which belied the intelligence in the dark, dark eyes. 'I'm Grace Allinson, I own the salon. How do you do?'

  No response. Just the same look of bewilderment.

  'You said you were new to the area, Miss Knight?'

  'Yes, I… my brother…'

  There it was again. Her brother—what? Grace kept the smile on her face, offering a cup of coffee which was refused, very politely refused.

  'No, thank you, I—I'd better—er—I suppose I'll be here all morning, really? I was going to ask if you could do my eyebrows and make-up my face too, but… it doesn't matter. Demetrius will—well, thank you. Er—where do I go?'