The Boss's Virgin(26)

'I'm sure she was joking,' Pippa quickly said. How much had that hurt  the boy's feelings? Randal was obviously right when he said Renata was a  bad mother; how could any mother say such things to her child?

'She wasn't,' Johnny dispassionately said. 'I could tell. She couldn't  be bothered. But Alex is okay; I like him.' He found the TV zapper and  flicked through the channels. Pippa's heart sank as he settled on a  noisy, blaring cartoon.

It was a relief to her when the Room Service waiter knocked on the door  and wheeled in a table on which were spread a silver-covered plate of  food, a bowl of ice cream nestling in crushed ice, to keep it cool, and  several small bottles of cola.

She signed for the food and tipped the waiter, who left, while Johnny  sat up to the table. Pippa tied his napkin round his neck, suspecting  its protection for his clothes would be very necessary.

'I'll just go through to my own room,' Pippa said as he picked up his  burger and took a bite. 'If you need me, give me a shout.' She didn't  think she could stay to watch him eat; melted cheese and tomato ketchup  had already spilled out of the burger bun and on to the napkin.

'Uh-huh,' Johnny said, turning up the TV and feeding chips into his chewing mouth.

Pippa left the connecting door open in case Johnny needed her, then  settled down on her bed with a book she had brought with her: a  paperback detective story by one of her favourite authors. It wasn't  easy to concentrate on the pages, though, with the boom of Johnny's TV  in her ears.

After a while she went back to see how he was doing and found him  sprawled on the floor on his tummy. Pippa rearranged the table and  wheeled it out of the suite, left it in the corridor, then rang Room  Service to ask them to collect it.

'Why don't you get into your pyjamas now and watch TV in bed?' she  suggested to Johnny, who enthusiastically agreed. 'Better wash and clean  your teeth first,' Pippa casually added, an idea to which he was less  enthusiastic.

'You don't want your daddy to see you with tomato ketchup all over your  face, do you?' she gently said, and he grimaced horribly.                       
       
           



       

'Oh, okay, then.' He went into the bathroom and was back a minute later. 'Can I have a shower?'

'Of course.'

He was in the bathroom for twenty minutes. Pippa wondered a little  anxiously what he was doing in there, and hoped he wouldn't leave the  room looking as if a bomb had gone off, but eventually he emerged  looking very clean in his pyjamas and climbed into one of the twin beds,  clutching the TV remote control.

Pippa turned off the main light but left his bedside lamp lit. 'I'll be  in the next room if you want me,' she said, leaving him. 'Goodnight,  Johnny.'

'Goodnight, Pip,' he said, then gave her a grin. 'Do you mind if I call you Pip?'

'All my life people have called me Pip.' She smiled, not adding that she hated the name.

Going through into her own bedroom she changed rapidly into the cocktail  dress she had brought with her; a delicate fantasy of different shades  of green silk and chiffon, falling to her mid-calf in a flurry, with a  scooped neckline and tiny frilled sleeves. She found a silver chain in  her bag, from which hung a dark green stone and a silver tassel. Around  her throat it gave exactly the right touch to the outfit.

She knew she would never hold a candle to Renata's blonde magnificence, but at least she looked her best, she decided.

A quarter of an hour later, Randal let himself into the suite and found  Pippa reading, curled up on the sitting room couch. She lifted her head  to survey him expressionlessly, and he in turn contemplated her with  what she saw with a gulp of shock to be rage. His grey eyes were molten  steel, his mouth taut.

Breathing thickly, he finally erupted, 'What the hell do you think you  are doing up here? We were supposed to be having dinner with Renata and  Alex; we've been waiting for you for half an hour.'

'Sorry, I was taking care of Johnny and I forgot the time,' she  apologised anxiously. He looked so angry it made her mouth dry and her  heart beat harder.

'Where is Johnny?'

'In bed, watching TV.'

He turned on his heel and stalked through into his own bedroom. The  burble of the TV stopped, the faint gleam of light was switched off,  then he came back.

'He's asleep.'

'Oh, good, I expect he was very tired after all the excitement of  today,' she said, getting up and collecting her handbag. 'But we had  better leave a low light on in here, and the door open so he can see it,  in case he wakes up alone in the dark and gets scared. I explained to  him that he could ring Reception and ask for us to be paged, if he needs  us.'

'Good idea,' approved Randal. 'Did he eat?'

'Burger, chips and ice cream-yes, quite a lot. And he had a shower.  After he was in bed I thought I'd better stay within earshot, in case he  needed me.'

'You're very thoughtful.'

'I remember how scared I was of the dark when I was nine.' She shrugged  dismissively. But there had been nobody to come to her rescue, then; her  foster parents had dismissed her fear of the dark as childish, and told  her to pull herself together.

Randal took her arm and hurried her towards the door. 'It was me who needed you, downstairs, helping me to put up with Renata.'

He did not say thank you, she noted-no Thank you for looking after my  little boy; no Thank you for going to so much trouble on my behalf! All  he was doing was complaining because she hadn't been downstairs with him  to protect him from his ex-wife. Men were incredibly selfish creatures.

'I couldn't be in two places at once!'

He urged her into the lift, which started with a jerk which sent her  sprawling sideways into him, grabbing at him to stop herself falling on  the floor.

His arm came round her, supporting her, holding her close to him, and she felt her treacherous body shudder with awareness.

His head shifted so that he could look down into her wide, disturbed  green eyes. She looked away, unable to meet that stare, afraid of what  her eyes must be revealing. She must not give away too much; she had  already betrayed too much to him. She wanted to clamp a mask on her face  from now on, stop him guessing any more about her.

'Pippa, don't look like that,' he murmured huskily, and his mouth came  down, skimmed hers for a second before the lift stopped, and he  straightened before guiding her out of the lift.

His arm was round her waist, his hand beneath her breast; she was afraid  he could feel the fierce beating of her heart, the raggedness of her  breathing. Every time he touched her, looked at her, there was this wild  reaction; she couldn't stop it. The sooner she could get away from him  the sooner she might start to feel safe. At the moment she was living  moment to moment, like someone on the very edge of a live volcano.                       
       
           



       

'You look lovely,' he suddenly told her. 'I love that dress, all those  shades of green. And your hair looks wonderful against them, a perfect  match, chestnut and green. You look like spring itself.'

She flushed, her throat trembling in pleasure. 'Thank you.'

'Renata and Alex have gone into the dining room; they'll he waiting at the table,' he told her as they walked through the foyer.

'Has Renata changed for dinner, too?'

'Yes, she put on something black, very formal. I've always been turned  off by the sight of women in black; it makes me feel I'm going to a  funeral.'

When Pippa saw Renata a moment later she had to be incredulous about  Randal's comment. The 'something black' he had said Renata was wearing  was body-hugging, sleek, daring black satin with a plunging neckline,  revealing a great deal of golden skin and the deep valley between her  high breasts, curving down into her small waist and swelling out again,  smoothly, over her hips, ending at her knees.

She looked sensational; men at every other table were staring, hardly  conscious of what they were eating, while the other women in the room  looked daggers at her. There was nothing funereal about her whatever.

'Is that what you call formal?' Pippa whispered to Randal as they walked towards the table.

'Black always is, isn't it?'

'Not when it looks like that!'

A trio was playing light, popular music, seated on a dais in a corner of  the room-a pianist, a drummer, a trombone player. Diners talked over  them; the room was quite crowded and bustling with waiters coming and  going.

As they joined the other two Alex rose, smiling. 'Hello, Pippa, you look very pretty. What an unusual dress.'

'Thank you,' she said, then turned to smile at Renata. 'And you are causing a sensation in that dress, as if you didn't know!'

Renata sipped a champagne cocktail, purring like a cat that had  swallowed cream. 'Why, thanks, that's sweet of you. Now, read the menu  and choose your meal; I'm ravenous! I ate a small lunch, now I need  something more substantial.'