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Too much testosterone, Jake thought, and wondered if his own hair would suffer the same fate as he grew older. Not that it mattered, he decided. He liked to think he’d still be sexually active when he was his grandfather’s age.
‘If you’ll just turn your chair around to face the terrace,’ he instructed, ‘your surprise is about to take centre stage.’
‘Centre stage?’ his grandfather mused as he rose to his feet, eyes flashing with excited speculation. ‘It’s got to be a troupe of dancing girls.’
‘Oh, Dad!’ his youngest daughter chided.
‘He’s never going to act his age,’ an older one advised her.
‘Why should he when he doesn’t have to?’ Jake’s mother slid in, giving her father a sweetly indulgent smile, bolstering her favourite daughter status.
‘Hey! Take a look at that!’ one of the party guests called out in amazement.
All attention was immediately swung towards the terrace, zeroing in on the monster cake which was making its appearance stage right. It was being wheeled in from the wide garden path by four guys dressed in white with Happy Birthday, surrounded by the outline of a heart, printed in red on their T-shirts.
Nice touch, Mel, Jake thought, and took a mental note to compliment her on it when she came back to work.
His grandfather laughed and clapped Jake on the shoulder. ‘You didn’t!’ he cried, his eyes dancing with the memory of his favourite movie.
‘I did!’ Jake answered with happy satisfaction in his grandfather’s delight.
‘Is she a match for Virna Lisi?’
‘We’ll see.’
‘I’m bursting with anticipation.’
So am I, Jake thought. The cake was a masterpiece of decorative art—scrolls and flowers, probably made of plaster of Paris, edging the tiers, red satin ribbon tied in bows beneath them. The candles actually held electric globes and were alight, which meant power had to be supplied by a small generator inside the cake. Another brilliant idea by Mel! So far this production had definitely upstaged the movie.
‘Eight tiers,’ Jake pointed out. ‘One for each decade of your life, Pop.’
‘And the best is yet to come,’ was the resounding reply.
Certainly a tribute to positive thinking! Jake hoped he’d feel the same way when he was eighty.
Grandfather and grandson stood side by side, watching the cake come to a halt. Once it was in position at the centre of the terrace, two of the stage-hands brought a roll of carpet from the back of the bottom tier.
‘Lay it out, boys!’ Byron called, happily stepping forward to meet the end of it.
Red carpet, of course! Another plus score for Mel’s initiative. She deserved a bonus for this.
Fortunately the orchestra had the sense to hold off starting to play until the scene was completely set. Jake couldn’t resist trailing his grandfather, standing just behind his shoulder to get a full frontal view of the quality woman Mel had hired. There was an excited buzz of anticipation from the party crowd behind them. Without a doubt, this act was going to be talked about for a long, long time. People actually gasped as the lid of the top tier slowly lifted back.
The orchestra swung into action, producing a rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday.’ Everyone sang enthusiastically. A blonde head started to emerge from the top of the cake—lustrous shiny hair in a soft, wavy Marilyn Monroe style, a flyaway fringe swept across the forehead. Her eyes were lowered, lids shaded in a smoke-grey, crescents of long dark lashes brushing her cheeks. A very sexy mouth was emphasised by glossy red lipstick.
It wasn’t until her face and neck had completely emerged from the cake that recognition hit Jake and it came like a massive explosion inside his head.
Forget the deceptive blonde hair.
What he was looking at was Mel Rossi’s face.
Unmistakable!
The shock of it totally rattled Jake’s sense of reality. Never in a million years would he have imagined his prim and proper personal assistant taking on the role of blond bimbo in a birthday cake! It was completely beyond belief. Yet here she was, undeniably emerging, the lush curves of her body on stunning display.
The bikini she wore was fashioned out of red roses. They had to be artificial flowers but looked very real, and Jake’s mind instantly conjured up a vision of this Mel artfully posed nude on a red satin sheet being showered by American Beauty rose petals. With himself doing the showering. It was a stimulating vision. A very arousing vision.
She even had a red satin heart-shaped cushion dangling from a red ribbon around her wrist. Jake’s heart was not in such good shape. It was thumping wildly as his gaze followed Mel’s slow elevation from the cake, right down to sexy, red, high heeled sandals on her feet.
‘Wow!’ his grandfather breathed on a sigh of sheer awe. ‘You’ve outdone yourself, my boy!’
Jake was speechless.
He hadn’t heard the birthday song end but it obviously had because people were applauding, men whistling, cries of ‘Bravo!’ rang in his ears. His mesmerised gaze travelled back up to Mel’s face, just as she lifted her lashes.
And…choong!
Her eyes shot sizzling bolts of heat straight at him.
Nothing was suppressed in that look!
Even his toes curled.
Amid the chaos of the moment, some deeply intuitive sense in Jake Devila told him his relationship with Mel Rossi had just been changed…forever!
CHAPTER FOUR
A BLAZE of satisfaction settled Merlina’s quivering nerves. Jake looked completely stunned. And he wasn’t recovering quickly, either. Shock had blanked out the usual vitality of his playboy handsome face. There were no dimples in his cheeks. His mouth was absolutely still, not so much as a twitch of amusement. His dark eyes were not enlivened by mischievously teasing twinkles. He stared at her as though dazed. Mesmerised.
No doubt about it.
She had socked it to him with a vengeance.
And here she was, on show, in a bikini, and proud of herself for having dared to do it. A liberated woman. Her own person.
All the time and attention she had poured into producing this scenario had just paid off. She could retire from the battle scene of her employment with honours on her side. No sense of defeat at all!
But she still had to finish the act and do it absolutely right. She hoped all the rehearsals of stepping down the tiers of the cake in these sexy red shoes would stand her in good stead. Teetering would be terrible at this point. She fastened her gaze on Byron Devila, obviously the man standing at the end of the red carpet and just in front of Jake, then turned on a slow, sensual smile designed to warm the cockles of his eighty-year-old manhood.
Though he didn’t look eighty, more like a young sixty, and the smile he returned smacked of very lively male appreciation of how she looked. Which gave Merlina the encouragement she needed to set off descending to the red carpet which led directly to him.
Think Marilyn Monroe, she told herself. The orchestra took it upon itself to play ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ as she made her way down the steps, for which Merlina was intensely grateful. It was much easier to look sexily graceful moving to music than in silence with everyone watching. She arrived on the red carpet without a falter, and determinedly ignoring Jake, she walked straight towards his grandfather, growing in delicious confidence with every step.
She’d done it and it was wonderful!
She felt Jake’s gaze on her, felt a churning maelstrom of thoughts coming from him and swirling around her. Her nerves were very active again, not quivering with the fear of failure as before, but buzzing with elation at having thrown the puppet master into a wild tangle with his own strings.
And Byron Devila was looking at her as she’d always wished Jake would—with sparkling admiration and captivated interest. The triumph of it all was exhilarating. The smile on her face grew in brilliance. Her eyes danced with daredevil glee at the older man. He held out his hands in open welcome as her approach came to a halt. She unhooked the ribbon from her wrist and presented him with the red satin heart-shaped cushion.
‘Happy Birthday, Mr Devila. May your heart always be filled with joy,’ she said, beaming her own joy right at him.
‘It is, my dear, and you’ve put it there.’ He hooked the ribbon attached to the cushion around his own wrist, then took both her hands in his, pressing lightly, his eyes twinkling encouragement. ‘I prefer at this point in my life not to waste any time. Tell me your name.’
‘It’s Merlina,’ she replied with an arch emphasis for Jake’s benefit. ‘Merlina Rossi.’
‘Merlina…’ He rolled it off his tongue as though finding it much to his taste. ‘A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.’
‘Thank you, Mr Devila.’
‘Call me Byron.’
‘Thank you, Byron.’
‘Now the only other question is—’ he waggled his eyebrows in flirtatious appeal ‘—will you marry me?’
She laughed. Whether it was a joke or not, there was such delicious irony in being proposed to by the grandfather of the man she really wanted, right in front of him.
‘That’s going a bit far, Pop,’ Jake said in an irritable tone, not the least bit amused. ‘You’ve only just laid eyes on her.’
‘Ah, yes! Love at first sight. Nothing like it!’ Byron said with relish, his eyes not leaving hers for a second. ‘Thank you for choosing Merlina for me, Jake.’
‘I didn’t choose her!’ he rasped in exasperation. ‘And you can’t have her. She’s mine!’
‘Yours?’ Byron turned a frown to his grandson. ‘You’ve had a skinny model hanging off you all afternoon. Go back to her, my boy. You can’t have it two ways, you know.’
Absolutely right, Merlina thought darkly, warming to Byron Devila who clearly understood how relationships should work. She gave Jake a look of hot scorn for his playboy ways. If he wanted her to be his, he was going to have to drop every other woman and fight his grandfather for her. Leap through a few of her hoops, too. Like marriage and children. Which wouldn’t happen. She knew that. But it didn’t extinguish the wild fantasy of a life-changing miracle suddenly happening.
‘Mel happens to be my personal assistant!’ Jake bit out menacingly.
‘Mel? Mel? Who is Mel?’ His grandfather demanded.
Merlina was beginning to love Byron Devila. He was fighting on her front, forcing Jake to acknowledge her real name.
‘This woman you’re so taken with is Mel,’ came the belligerent reply. Jake waved his hand in a scissor-like movement that clearly wanted to cut this scene to its end immediately. He glared at Merlina to confirm his statement.
No way, she beamed back at him. You can stew in this juice all by yourself. I’m not rescuing you. Not ever again.
‘You should be shot for corrupting such a beautiful name,’ Byron declared, returning his attention to Merlina, smiling at her as though she was all the goodies in the world wrapped up in one package. ‘It’s the feminine version of Merlin, the great magician, and you hold me spellbound, my dear.’
Oh, he was good! This was real heady stuff! No wonder he’d wooed seven women into wedlock. His immense wealth might be one attraction but the man himself was an absolute charmer.
‘Tell him!’ Jake commanded, positively fizzing with frustration. ‘Tell him you’re my personal assistant.’
Merlina took a deep breath and sighed with blissful satisfaction in her erstwhile employer’s disarray. ‘I was Jake’s personal assistant, Byron,’ she said to her new admirer. ‘But I’m not anymore.’
‘What do you mean you’re not?’ Jake fumed.
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘I left my resignation on your desk yesterday afternoon. You no longer have any claim on my time, Jake.’
He was stunned again.
Temporarily speechless.
It was marvellous!
She smiled sweetly at his grandfather. ‘So I’m free to spend as much time with you as I like, Byron.’
‘Bravo!’ he approved.
But Jake wasn’t finished yet. He came back firing. ‘You can’t leave me without notice.’ His eyes glittered satisfaction as he reminded her, ‘It’s not ethical, Mel.’
‘I believe a month’s notice is more than sufficient to fulfil my obligation to you, Jake. I mentioned it in my note of resignation. You have the next month to find my replacement.’
Realisation hit him, drawing his brows into a glowering frown. ‘But you’ll be away on vacation all that time.’
‘Yes. And I am due that vacation, as you very well know.’ Not having had one in the nineteen months she’d been his slave!
‘Splendid!’ Byron approved heartily. ‘Where would you like to spend it, Merlina? Say the word and I’ll…’
‘Merlina…’ Jake grated out between gnashing teeth, ‘is not a true blonde.’
Had he burst a blood vessel?
To attack on such a personal level…
Byron rolled his eyes at him. ‘Neither is your skinny model, my boy. Do be a good chap and go back to her. I understand your disappointment in losing Merlina to me but you obviously didn’t appreciate her enough.’
Too true! she thought, definitely beginning to love Jake’s grandfather.
‘I’m not talking about bottle blondes,’ came the fierce retort. ‘Her hair is dark brown. She’s wearing a wig!’
That was a mean blow. Completely below the belt.
Byron re-appraised her hair. ‘Damned good wig!’ he approved. ‘Had me fooled.’
Jake went for the kill. ‘And she’s fooling with you, Pop.’
Byron grinned at her. ‘Nothing like having a beautiful woman fooling with me.’
The tight place in Merlina’s chest loosened up as imminent humiliation passed. She grinned back. ‘I wore it to please you on your birthday, Byron. Jake said you preferred blondes.’
‘Well, I now find myself leaning towards sassy brunettes. And speaking of my birthday…’ Byron half turned, offering his arm to her. ‘Allow me to escort you to my table where we can toast it together.’
‘How kind!’ she purred, curling her arm around his.
She wasn’t sure if Jake actually growled but he looked at her as though he’d like to go for her throat. The aggression emanating from him was definitely dangerous. And thrilling.
Byron patted her hand and smiled benevolently at his grandson. ‘Thank you, Jake. Best birthday gift you could have given me.’ He blithely waved a dismissal. ‘You can have the cake rolled away now but I’m keeping Merlina. And please ask the orchestra to play Lerner and Loewe’s classic, ‘The Night They Invented Champagne.’
