Walking in Darkness by Charlotte Lamb

dominated Gowrie’s life.
    He shrugged without answering. ‘She may once have done, but not any more.’
    Why not? Sophie wondered. What had changed? ‘Does she have a career?’
    He grimaced, his face sardonic. ‘Several, none of them very serious. She was an interior designer for a while, she’s an expert on eighteenth-century porcelain, she paints and writes articles for specialist magazines . . . she dabbles in a lot of things. I wouldn’t call any of them a career. Anyway, she’s married now.’
    She nodded absently. ‘To an Englishman. I know.’
    ‘Why are you so interested in Gowrie?’ Steve asked abruptly, and her nerves jumped.
    ‘Well . . . obviously . . . if he should become president of the United States that would make him the most powerful man in the world.’ She knew she had stammered, sounded odd, but he had taken her by surprise. He kept coming far too close. She must get away from him before he guessed too much . . .
    She got up unsteadily, very pale. ‘Thank you for the drink. I must go, I have copy to file,’ she said in a rush, beginning to move away just as his producer appeared in the doorway, looking agitated. He didn’t come over to them, but stared fixedly at Steve, held up his wrist, tapped his watch pointedly.
    Steve nodded and began to walk towards him, in step with Sophie. ‘Looks as if I’ve got to go and do some more work, too, before Simon blows his stack. Time always flies by when you’re enjoying yourself. Look, could we have dinner together tonight?’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it. For once she wanted to, she really did, but she couldn’t. It would be far too dangerous. He was one of the most attractive men she’d ever met, and if he wasn’t so shrewd and perceptive she might have taken the risk, but this was not a man it was easy to fool – she knew she would find it hard to go on lying, deceiving him, for long, if they saw each other again.
    ‘Come on, for God’s sake,’ Simon grunted as they reached him, ‘We’re all set up outside, we’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes. If we miss the evening news you can explain it – I’m not taking the can for you.’
    ‘No need to panic, we have plenty of time.’
    Steve Colbourne sounded so calm and unflappable – was he always like that? Sophie envied him; she wished she could stand up to pressure that well. She tried to look and sound as cool as a cucumber, but her nerves made her stomach cramp into agony at times.
    As they walked towards the swing doors leading out of the hotel, the lift doors opened and out came a massed body of men who began moving at speed in their direction, cutting a swath through the hotel guests, who fell back, parting like the Red Sea in the face of that unstoppable force. Sophie’s breath caught as she saw it was Don Gowrie, flanked by security men on all sides.
    Steve and his producer had already gone through the swing doors, but Sophie was too slow in following. A second later the little army of men was on her, but they didn’t march past because Don Gowrie stopped, and they all stopped with him.
    ‘Miss Narodni,’ Don Gowrie said, giving her that boyish smile of his. ‘Hello again. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to answer your question – another time, maybe?’
    His cool nerve took her breath away. She would have loved to shout out the truth, wipe that smile off his face – but she couldn’t, not yet at least. She needed to meet Mrs Gowrie and Catherine, first. She didn’t want to destroy their lives just because Don Gowrie was a lying, cheating bastard. Why should they pay for what he had done? She felt an intense sympathy and pity for his wife; no doubt she had known the truth all along, but the poor woman had suffered. Sophie didn’t want to hurt her even more.
    ‘Maybe you’ll have time to talk to me while you’re in London?’ she told him, hoping she sounded as cool as he did.
    She saw the flicker of shock in his eyes before he veiled them.