The sun was just starting to set when she made her next move. There was no warning. No chance to prepare. She just took off her hat and shook out her hair, the mahogany strands gleaming like gold in the warm light of the sinking sun. Really, really gold, begging to be touched. For an instant, I felt the insane urge to pluck off a single hair and place it in my most secure bank vault.

Nonsense! She isn’t El Dorado.

But she wasn’t done yet, apparently. I watched, unable to look away, as her hands slid around to her back, searching for buttons to open.

‘Stop!’

It took me a moment to realise that the voice had come from my own mouth. It must have been one of those instant, unconscious decisions. A survival instinct.

She glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. And I felt…

I didn’t how. I just felt. Which was infuriating enough. Why the hell did I suddenly have to go around feeling things?

Hurriedly, I cleared my throat.

‘I…ehem. I mean we’ll stop here for the night.’

‘Already, Sahib?’ Karim asked, and started to turn - then remembered the temptress in our midst and whirled to face away again. ‘It’ll be quite a while till the sun is down yet.’

‘Don’t question my orders! Do as I say!’ Because even I don’t have a logical reason for those orders right now. Damn that female!

‘Yes, Sahib. As you wish, Sahib.’

I breathed a sigh as her fingers dropped away from the buttons at her back. But…was it a sigh of relief, or of disappointment? I should know that, shouldn’t I?

Concentrate. Rest. Camp.

Reaching into the right bag, I pulled out a hammock and threw it at Miss Linton. It was pure coincidence, I’m sure, that it happened to hit her in the back of the head.

‘Sling this! Go on, don’t laze about!’

She gazed at the hammock for a moment - then her eyes lit up in a dangerous way.

‘There’s one for each of us,’ I informed her, before she could get any ideas.

Too late. She glanced up at me and fluttered her lashes. Deep inside, I felt something tug at my insides.

‘Oh, really? Could you maybe help me and show me how to hang one of these up? I’m afraid I’ve never done it before, and I might do it wrong.’

Another tug, harder - and without a doubt in her direction. I wanted to go to her. I wanted it like I wanted gold and diamonds and world domination.

Well, maybe not quite as much as world domination.

‘If you do it wrong,’ I told her, keeping my expression hard as stone, ‘you’ll land on the forest floor. A course of action I would advise against, considering the poisonous snakes.’

With that, I turned and marched away. I had my own hammock to hang. Far away from her. As far as possible.

*~*~**~*~*

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. They’re wrong. There was no place on earth hotter than this jungle, and revenge could not have tasted more delicious. As we sat and ate our breakfast the next morning, I watched with relish as Miss Lillian Linton wiggled and squirmed under the onslaught of insects buzzing around her scantily-clad figure as if she were an all-you-can-eat buffet. She had wanted to attract attention with a lack of clothing? Well, she had definitely succeeded.

Negligently, I brushed off the single little insect that had dared to land on my mint-condition, barely ten-year-old tailcoat. Apparently, I was not nearly as appetising to the buzzing vermin as Miss Linton. Glancing up, I let my eyes rest on her for a moment.

I had to admit - mosquitoes had good taste.

Things were going smoothly again. The insects kept Miss Linton occupied. If all went well, we would make good time today.

I should have known it was too good to last. As if a few insects would be enough to deter her.

‘Dear oh dear.’ Sighing, Miss Linton rose from the tree root she had been sitting on, put her breakfast bowl away and stretched. Stretched long and lavishly.

I will not look. I will not look.

‘Hm…’ her voice came from my left. ‘It’s really hot this morning, don’t you think?’

‘No!’ Karim protested. ‘No, I don’t think so at all! In fact, I detect a definite chill in the air this morning! Isn’t that right? Sahib, you know best! It’s chilly, is it not?’

‘I concur,’ I will not look. I will not look. ‘Positively freezing.’

‘Strange. I somehow feel that I’m too hot. You know what? I think I’m wearing too many clothes. I should…’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a giant form dash off into the trees. Karim, that cowardly traitor! I was going to get him for this.

‘That’s south!’ She called after him. ‘We’re going northeast!’

Abruptly, I rose to my feet. ‘I had better be going, too.’

‘What?’ She turned to look at me and, from under lowered lashes, gave me a distinctly insubordinate look. It made me want to grab her and… No! No, stop thinking about that! That’s not what you do with insubordinate employees. You do not want to do that with Mr Rogers from accounting. ‘Don’t you want to guard my rear today?’

On the other hand, maybe I should change my methods for dealing with insubordination according to the circumstances.

A muscle in my jaw twitched. ‘I think your rear will be much safer without me as a guard.’

‘Well, that’s too bad.’ Grabbing her backpack, she whirled around and flitted after Karim. ‘I guess I’ll just have to live in danger.’

Always.

We once again set out on a northeastern route, Karim at the front, and I, Rikkard Ambrose, the richest and most powerful man in the entire Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, trudging after my secretary, who flitted through the forest like a chocolate-addicted sprite with the dress-sense of an inebriated monkey. How the mighty have fallen.

‘Are you enjoying the view, Sir?’ came a cheerful voice from farther up ahead.

Oh yes, I do. Far too much.

‘I’ve seen jungles before.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the jungle,’ she was kind enough to point out.

‘Mr Linton?’

‘Yes, Sir?’

‘Be silent!’

‘Yes, Sir!’

‘And, Mr Linton…’

‘Yes?’

‘When we return to London, you are buying more underclothes!’

‘I don’t know, Sir… Underclothes are quite expensive. Will I get a raise?’

The r-word. It sent a badly needed shock through me and, for a few moments, brought me back to my senses. I shuddered.

‘Don’t stretch my patience, Mr Linton!’

‘Oh well, I’ll stretch something else, then.’ And, leaning against a tree, she stretched herself. Stretched herself like a cat, purring, wanting to be stroked.

My hand was halfway up already when I noticed what I was doing. Clenching my teeth, I jammed it into my pocket.

March. Treasure. Gold. Concentrate!

She apparently didn’t intend to make it easy. Not long after our midday meal, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. My gaze flicked up to her just in time to see her undo the top button of her waistcoat.

‘Mr Linton!’

Of course, she did the only thing such a loyal and obedient secretary could do - ignore me and open the next button.

‘Mr Linton, what are you doing?’

‘I’m adjusting my attire. Don’t you remember?’ Slowing to a languorous stroll, she half-turned to glance at me. ‘I said this morning that I thought it had got even warmer.’

‘It hasn’t!’

‘Really?’ She undid another button, revealing the soft, sodden fabric beneath, which clung…No! Don’t look. Don’t think. I needed a distraction - anything! Counting gold nuggets, calculating the inflation rate of Paraguay, anything! ‘I feel positively hot.’

‘Mr Linton,’ I commanded, my teeth clenched, ‘cease that immediately!’

‘What?’ Reaching for another button, she teased it with her finger. ‘This?’

A muscle in my jaw twitched. ‘Yes.’

‘But why?’ The button popped open. One gold nugget, two gold nuggets, three gold nuggets… ‘They’re just buttons.’

What number came after three again?

‘It’s not the buttons I’m concerned about,’ I bit out. ‘It’s-’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Oh, well, if that’s the case…’

She let the last button pop open, and slid the waistcoat completely off. Dangling like bait from the hook of her finger, she let it swing while striding through the jungle with the confidence of a tigress. I tried to start counting gold nuggets again - but found that I had forgotten math altogether.

By all that was valuable and pricey! This had to stop! I had to rid myself of this illogical fixation. I was losing the one thing I could not afford to lose. My most precious possession and most dangerous weapon - my mind.

*~*~**~*~*

Something was tickling my nose.

It was not a sensation I was accustomed to. Blisters on my hands - yes. Knives at my throat - certainly. But something tickling my nose? That wasn’t something the people I had associated with over the years normally did. Except perhaps for…

No. She had better not be doing this.

I opened my eyes.

It wasn’t her. She was nowhere in sight. Something was hanging from a branch above my hammock. Something white and, and thin and…

I stiffened.

She didn’t. She wouldn’t dare.

Half a second after the thought crossed my mind, I realised how ridiculous it was. This was her we were talking about. Was there anything she wouldn’t dare?

‘Mr Linton?’

‘Yes, Sir?’ came her voice from somewhere behind me.

‘Remove this item at once!’

‘Item? What item, Sir?’

Fixedly I gazed up at the shirt dangling above my head.

‘You know exactly what item I am referring to, Mr Linton. Remove it, and get dressed. We’re leaving.’

‘Certainly, Sir. There’s just one tiny little problem with that…’

‘Yes?’

‘I am already dressed.’

‘What?’

Ripping the shirt from the branch above me, I sat up abruptly and slid out of the hammock.

Don’t turn around, I told myself. Don’t turn around. You know what you’ll see if you turn around.

I knew my own limits. Giving credit at less than twenty percent interest was one of them. This was another.

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ I enquired, keeping my voice as cold and controlled as possible, ‘that you intend to skip through the jungle with nothing more to cover you than a piece of skimpy lingerie?’

‘Oh no, Sir. I still have my corset on.’

My little finger twitched, no doubt betraying my hand’s desire to wrap around her neck and start squeezing. ‘What a tremendous comfort to us all!’

Balling up her shirt, I hurled it over my shoulder and, with some satisfaction, heard it hit her in the head with a muffled noise.

Think! Think about normal things. Sane things. Things that do as they are told.

‘Where’s Karim?’ I demanded. ‘Has he gone to dance tango with the monkeys, or is there at least one person in this group besides me who has not lost their mind yet?’

‘He’s gone scouting ahead.’

‘This early? Why?’

‘I, um…’ Did she actually sound embarrassed? No, my ears had to be malfunctioning. The rest of my body seemed to be doing whatever the heck it wanted lately, so why not my ears as well? ‘He woke up just as I was pulling my shirt off. Gave the poor man quite a shock.’

I had been about to open my knapsack. At her words, I froze.

‘Yes.’ I whispered, my voice oddly calm. ‘I would imagine so.’

The ‘poor man’ and I were going to have a chat when when next our paths crossed.

‘I, err…don’t think he saw very much.’

‘Is that so?’

Lucky him.

‘He ran off into the jungle as soon as he had untangled his legs from the hammock he dropped out of.’

‘I see.’

‘So…what about you?’ Footsteps crunched behind me on the forest floor, approaching slowly. ‘If you see me, are you going to run off into the jungle, too?’

I didn’t answer. My fingers clenched around my knapsack. I should run. I should. I should never have let things get this far.

But then…I had never been one to run. Especially not from something I wanted. And I did want her, for whatever infernal, illogical reason. I wanted her more than gold, more than diamonds, more than a three per cent reduction of income tax.

‘What’s the matter, Sir? Are you afraid?’

Afraid?

In front of my inner eye flashed an image from long ago. A boy with sea-coloured eyes cowering in a dirty alley. A starving boy, facing two grinning opponents with wicked grins and wickedly sharp knives.

‘What’s the matter, runt?’ asked the bigger of the two. ‘Are you afraid?’

The boy that was me glared up at them - then, without warning, jumped to his feet and charged.

I whirled around. The knapsack dropped from my hands. Before it thudded to the ground, I was already in front of her, eyes burning with icy fire. Afraid? Me? I almost wanted to laugh. Fear had been beaten out of me a long time ago. And she thought I was afraid of her? She looked so small, so breakable standing in front of me. Afraid? Ha! I’d show her who was in charge here!

‘Don’t play games with me, Mr Linton!’ I warned, my voice low and dangerous.

‘Oh yes? Why not?’

‘Because if you do, you might soon find yourself the plaything rather than the player!’

She smiled at me. Rising on her tiptoes until she was almost level with me, she lifted her eyes until she met mine straight on.

‘Who says I want to play games?’ she asked, and…something touched my lips.

Something soft.

Something warm.

Something incredible.

She was kissing me. She was kissing me! Intolerable! Absolutely outrageous! If she wasn’t going to stop immediately, I was going to-

-kiss her back?

No! No, that was not what I was going to do. I was going to take charge, remind her that I was a gentleman, and she was a well-bred young lady! I was going to do the right thing and-

-kiss her back.

Her lips were dancing over mine. Playing. Playing with me. Blood started to pound in my ears. My hand shot up to grasp her chin. To grasp her.

She wanted to play?

All right, Miss Linton. Let’s play!

THE MIDDLE