The Innocent Virgin

Parting with danger…Abby Freeman is thrilled that, at last, she's landed herself a fantastic job as a TV chat-show host. But she needs to prove herself with a ratings-pulling interview. Who better to grill than thefamous, darkly handsome journalist Max Harding? He has an intriguing scandal in his past that has never been fully explained… Max is happy to let Abbyget close–but only in private; he, and his life, are not for public consumption. Now Abby has two dilemmas: she doesn't want to lose Max's story… but she's in danger of losing her innocence! Because, clearly, Max doesn't realise that the apparently worldly Abby is still a virgin…

The Innocent Virgin Carole Mortimer

‘Coffee, thanks,’ he replied briskly. ‘Black. One sugar.’ He dropped down into one of the comfortable armchairs.

Abby frowned. ‘I wasn’t offering you anything to drink,’ she told him impatiently.

‘No?’ He raised dark brows, his grey gaze moving slowly over her face before moving down to her slender curves in denim and a blue T-shirt. ‘What were you offering me, then?’

Carole Mortimer was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and twenty-five books for Harlequin. Carole has four sons—Matthew, Joshua, Timothy and Peter—and a bearded collie dog called Merlyn. She says, ‘I’m in a very happy relationship with Peter Senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship.’

The Innocent Virgin

Carole Mortimer

CHAPTER ONE

ABBY stepped into the hot scented bathwater, sat down, and let her shoulders sink beneath the luxurious bubbles, ebony hair secured loosely on top of her head, a glass of champagne in one hand, her mobile phone in the other.

She took a large sip from the former before gently dropping the latter into the water beside her, smiling at the satisfying ‘glug’ it gave before sinking to the bottom without trace. The four-inch layer of bubbles simply closed back over the temporary dent the mobile had made in their formation.

The landline was unplugged, the speaker system from her doorbell in the street downstairs switched off. Nothing and no one was going to disturb this hour of decadence.

She took another sip of the champagne and gazed from the free-standing claw-footed bath at her surroundings. Twelve scented candles were her only illumination and a dreamy smile touched her lips as she looked at her frankly opulent surroundings. The floors and walls were of peach-coloured marble, the glass-sided shower unit that stood at one end of the large room had all its fittings gold-plated; the towels on the racks were a sumptuous peach of the exact shade as the walls and floor. Monty was sitting on the laundry basket, all her bottles of perfume were neatly lined up on the glass shelf beneath the tinted mirror, the bucket of ice containing the bottle of champagne was right beside her, and—

Her gaze swivelled sharply back to look at him. No, it wasn’t the champagne she had already imbibed; Monty really was sitting on top of the laundry basket, unmoving, those green cat-like eyes unblinking.

Well, of course his eyes were cat-like—he was a cat, after all. A huge white, long-haired Persian, to be exact.

Not that Monty was aware of this himself. Somewhere in his youth someone had forgotten to mention this little fact to him, and now he chose to ignore any reference to his species.

Abby wasn’t to blame for this oversight; Monty had already been a year old when she’d chosen him over the other cats at the animal rescue centre. At least, she had thought she had chosen him; within a very few days of arriving home with him it had become more than obvious that Monty had done the choosing. Someone soft and malleable, he must have decided. Someone still young enough to be moulded into the indulgent, pandering human he needed to make his life completely comfortable. Enter Abby.

‘Well, of course that’s going to change now, Monty, old chap.’ She waved her champagne glass with bravado. ‘No more boiled chicken and salmon for you, I’m afraid,’ she warned him ruefully. ‘From now on you’ll be lucky if I can afford to buy you that tinned food you consider so much beneath your notice!’

Cats, she was sure, weren’t supposed to be able to look at you with scepticism and disdain, and yet that was exactly what Monty was doing at this moment. He had several easily readable expressions, from ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ to the smug ‘Aren’t I lucky to own an accommodating human like Abby?’. At the moment it was definitely the former.

‘It isn’t my fault,’ Abby assured him with another wave of her champagne glass—which definitely needed replenishing, she decided, and did exactly that. ‘It’s that man’s fault.’ She took a huge swallow of her champagne. ‘I mean, whoever thought he would do such a thing?’

How could he have done that to her? And on public television, live, in front of millions of viewers.

‘Weeks and weeks—several weeks, anyway,’ she amended tearfully. ‘Well, okay, seven.’ She sniffed inelegantly. ‘All that time I’ve been gently trying to persuade that man to come on my show. Yes, I know you liked him, Monty.’ Her voice rose with indignation on her bland-faced pet’s behalf. ‘So did I,’ she admitted heavily. ‘But if you only knew—if you had only heard—I had no idea, Monty.’ She shuddered. ‘Absolutely none!’ If she had she would never have got out of bed this morning!

In fact, it was worse than that. If she had guessed in any way just how deep her annihilation was going to be this evening she would have taken a one-way trip to Bolivia earlier today and spared herself all the pain.

She had always liked the sound of that name. Bolivia. It sounded so romantic, so mysterious, so different. But, knowing her luck, it was probably nothing like that at all. She had always liked the sound of the so-called Bermuda Triangle too, but no doubt that was just another myth…

‘Okay, okay, so my thoughts are wandering,’ she acknowledged, as Monty seemed to look at her with derision. ‘But if you only knew, Monty.’ She began to cry again, the tears hot on her cheeks. ‘If you had only heard what that man said to me! You would have been shocked, Monty. Shocked!’

Abby had actually passed being shocked where this evening was concerned. She had reached surreal now, able to envisage that whole humiliating experience as if in slow motion—like a reel of film going round and round in the projector.

‘Oh, God, Monty!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t ever leave this apartment again! I’ll have to barricade the door, put bars on the windows. I daren’t ever go out in public again!’ She took another slurp of her champagne, the salt of her tears mixing with the bubbly wine. ‘Once our supplies run out, we’ll both simply starve to death!’ she added shakily.

Four months ago it had all looked so promising. As the weather girl for a breakfast television show—an interesting career move, considering she couldn’t tell a cold front from an isobar!—she had been asked to stand in for the female half of the presentation team while the other woman went on maternity leave for several months. She had made a impact, and a well-known producer had approached her with an offer to do six half-hour chat shows, to be shown live the following spring.

The next three months had been a dream come true for Abby—choosing the guests for each week, researching, negotiating the appearance of those guests—and everything had gone well until it had come to the guest she had chosen for her final show.

Her intention had been to finish the series on a high note. Once the presenter of his own current affairs programme, Max Harding had returned to reporting foreign news and hadn’t appeared in a British studio in two years. Not since he had walked away from his own programme, and the lucrative contract that went with it, after one of his political guests had tried to commit suicide on the live Sunday evening show.

Max Harding’s personal elusiveness since that time, his flat refusal even to discuss the subject, would make him a prime finale, Abby had thought, for her own series of shows.

But she should have known, Abby berated herself now. Should have guessed what his intentions were when he had finally—surprisingly—agreed to be her guest.

‘He meant to hurt and humiliate me, Monty.’ Her voice hardened angrily at the memory. ‘All the time you liked him so much—that I—that we—How could he do that to me, Monty? How could he?’ Her ready tears began to fall again. ‘But I showed him, Monty. In fact, I showed everyone watching as well,’ she remembered with a pained groan. ‘Millions and millions of people sat in their homes and watched as I hit him. Yes, you did hear me correctly; I hit Max Harding—on live television!’

Abby closed her eyes as the memory overwhelmed her. She wasn’t a violent person—had never hit anyone in her life before, never wanted to hit anyone before. But she had certainly hit Max Harding this evening.

‘Actually, it was worse than that, Monty.’ She choked, not at all concerned with the fact that a lot of people might think it strange that she was having this conversation with her cat. Temporary insanity was certainly a plea she could make for her actions tonight, but at the moment it was the least of her problems. ‘It wasn’t just a gentle slap on the cheek.’ She groaned. ‘He annoyed me so much, hurt me so much, that I swung my arm back and belted him with all the force that I could. It was perfect, Monty. Right on his arrogant chin.’ She smiled through her tears with remembered pleasure. ‘You should have seen the stunned look on his face. Then his chair toppled backwards, taking him with it, and he was knocked unconscious as he hit the floor!’

And Monty should have seen her own face as her anger had left her and she’d realised exactly what she had done…

The studio had grown so hushed you could literally have heard a pin drop. The small studio audience deathly quiet, no one even seeming to breathe; the camera crew no longer looking into their cameras but staring straight at her in open-mouthed disbelief.

Her director in the control room had been the first to recover, screaming in her earpiece, ‘Abby—what the hell are you doing? Say something,’ he yelled, when she could only stand there in mute silence, staring down at the slumped form of Max Harding. ‘Abby, do something!’ Gary had instructed harshly as she still didn’t move. ‘This is live television, remember?’

She had remembered then, turning to look at the surrounding cameras, realising they were still transmitting.

In her panic there had been only one thing she could do—no other choice left open to her. With a startled cry, she’d stepped over Max Harding’s prostrate body before running out of the studio as if pursued.

And why would they? She had totally blown it—had broken the cardinal rule of not losing your cool on public television, of always remaining calm and in control, no matter what the provocation. No matter what the provocation!

Which was why she was now locked in her apartment, with the telephone disconnected, the intercom to the doorbell downstairs switched off, and her mobile lying waterlogged in the bottom of the bath.

‘Okay, that last gesture may have been a little drastic,’ Abby allowed, as Monty looked at her with disapproval. ‘Especially as I’m now effectively unemployed—unemployable!—and will never be able to afford to buy a new one. But do you know the worst of it, Monty? The absolute worst of it?’ Her voice shook with emotion now, tears once again falling hotly down her cheeks. ‘I know you liked him, but I actually thought I was in love with him!’ she burst out shakily. ‘I was in love with Max Harding!’ She whipped herself with the lash again. ‘Now I wish I had never even set eyes on him!’

Seven weeks ago she had been riding on the crest of a wave, euphoric at her success in landing her own half-hour show, full of enthusiasm as she researched and then met her guests, overjoyed at her apparent overnight success at only twenty-seven.

But seven weeks ago Max Harding had still been just a name to her—a reputation, several dozen photographs. She hadn’t met the flesh-and-blood man then.

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