Dancing With The Devils Heir

NOT again!

   Vivienne's teeth clenched in sheer frustration as she stared at the sheaf of red roses in the delivery boy's arms. She knew, without having to count them, that there would be twenty-three this time.

'Miss Vivienne Carter?'

'Yes,' she bit out, unable to respond to the fatuous grin on the boy's face. She inwardly winced over the curtness of her acknowledgement as his grin disappeared. The boy was only doing a job. He wasn't to know that the beautiful blooms gave her more torment than pleasure. She offered an appeasing smile as he gravely handed her the roses and the gold-embossed envelope-sealed, as it had been every year, with wax.

Vivienne didn't bother to ask who was the donor. She had pursued that track three years ago and the florist knew no more about the mystery man than she did. The envelope was sent with a typed note of instructions and a bank cheque-untraceable. She dragged her gaze up from the wax seal and caught the sparkle of suppressed laughter in the delivery boy's eyes. 'Thank you,' she said with almost frigid dignity, instantly realising that the curious once-a-year incident was probably a source of amusing gossip at the florist shop.

Being Sir Gabriel Carter's illegitimate daughter carried enough notoriety. Her stupid and indiscreet attempt to identify the sender had almost certainly turned a routine transaction into a memorable one.

The delivery boy gave her a whimsical--or was it a mocking?--half-bow, and retreated towards the lifts. Vivienne grimaced at his swaggering back. Only after he had gone did she step back into her apartment and slam the door shut, giving vent to some of her bitter frustration.

This was the sixth time. She almost hated the man who was doing it to her, whoever he was. The roses she could have dismissed. Anyone could be sending her roses on her birthday, one for each year of her age since she had turned nineteen-if only the gold-embossed envelope did not come with them.

 What he was doing to her-what he had done to her--with his tantalising messages was diabolical. They had completely undermined her relationships with Dante and Rob and Farrell; made her wonder about every other man who had apparently been attracted to her... whether it was for her own self, or because of their potential prospects as Sir Gabriel Carter's future son-in-law. Even if she was illegitimate, it seemed that any foot inside her father's door would do.

Vivienne had suffered too many lessons in life to accept much at face value any more. But this insidious siege on her heart and mind... why didn't he make himself known to her? Why taunt her with words of love if he had no intention of meeting her... openly declaring what he secretly and mysteriously professed?

It was madness! Mean...eccentric...selfish...and positively infuriating. Perhaps he was psychotic!

The thought had crossed Vivienne's mind before. She pondered it again as she filled a vase with water and jammed the roses into it; roses so darkly red they were almost purple, and so deeply scented they were an invasion of her privacy, the aroma quickly stealing to every recess of the spacious apartment.

Not psychotic, she decided. At the hospital where she had been working she had dealt with people who were mentally unbalanced. The game this man was playing was too patterned, too deliberately paced to have been conceived by a sick mind. This was someone diabolically clever... ruthlessly determined to infiltrate and influence her life... and acting out of purposeful self-interest.

Undoubtedly a fortune-hunter.

Possibly trying to climb on to some non-existent bandwagon. When he did declare himself, as he obviously must, she would know how to deal with him!