Christmas Eve Wedding

She had been out of her depth, Jaz acknowledged miserably, in more ways than one.

The only consolation was that, thanks to Caid’s practicality and insistence on protecting her, there was no chance there would be any repercussions from their affair. And for that she was profoundly thankful! Wasn’t she?

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU want me to go to England and find out what’s happening?’ Caid stared at his mother in angry disbelief. ‘Oh, no…no way. No way at all!’ he told her, shaking his head.

‘Caid, please. I know how you feel about the stores, and I know I’m to blame for that but you are my son, and who else can I turn to if I can’t rely on you? And besides,’ she continued coaxingly, ‘it would hardly be in your own financial interests for the stores to start losing money—especially not right now, when you’ve invested so much in modernising the ranch and buying more land.’

‘All right, Mother, I understand what you’re saying.’ Caid stopped her grimly. ‘But I fail to see why a couple of personnel leaving the Cheltenham store should be such a problem.’

‘Caid, they’re going to work for our competitors.’

‘So we recruit better and more loyal employees,’ Caid responded wryly. ‘Which departments are we talking about anyway?’ he asked, as casually as he could. So far as he was concerned, he told himself, if one of the people who had left was Jaz then so much the better!

It was over four months since Jaz had walked out on him after their fight. Over four months? It was four months, three weeks, five days and, by his last reckoning, seven and a half hours—not that he was keeping count for any other reason than to remind himself how fortunate he’d been to discover how unsuited they were before he had become any more involved.

Any more involved? How much more involved was it possible for him to have been? Hell, he’d been as deep in love as it was possible for a man to be!

Irascibly, Caid started to frown. He was growing a mite tired of being forced to listen to the mocking taunts of his unwanted inner voice. An inner voice, moreover, that knew nothing whatsoever about the realities of the situation!

So what if it was true that there had been occasions when he had found himself perilously close to reaching for the phone and punching in the English store’s number? At least he had been strong enough to stop himself. After all, there was no real point in him speaking to Jaz, was there? Other than to torment and torture himself—and he was doing one hell of a good job of that without hearing the sound of her voice.

His frown deepened. By now surely he should be thinking about her less, missing and wanting her less—especially late at night…

‘Caid…come back…You’re miles away…’

His mother’s voice cut into his private thoughts, mercifully rescuing him from having to acknowledge just what was on his mind late at night when he should have been sleeping.

‘The employees who have left are both key people, Caid: loyal personnel who had worked for the store for a long time. I’m concerned that their decision to leave will reflect badly on us and on our ability to keep good staff. Not to mention our status as a premier store. The retail world is very small, and it only needs a whisper of gossip to start a rumour that we are in danger of losing our status as market leader…’ She gave him a worried look. ‘I don’t need to tell you what that is likely to do to our stock.’

‘So two people leave.’ Caid shrugged. He knew his mother, and the last thing he needed right now was to have his time hijacked on behalf of her precious stores.

‘Two have left so far, but there could be more. Jaz might be next, and we really can’t afford to lose her, Caid. She has a unique talent—a talent I very much want. Not just for the Cheltenham store but for all our stores. It’s in my mind to appoint Jaz as our head window and in-store designer once she has gained more experience. I’d like to have her spend time working at each of the individual stores first. Caid, we mustn’t lose her, but I’m very much afraid we are going to do so. If it wasn’t for this stupid embargo the doctors have put on me flying I’d go to Cheltenham myself!’

Caid watched as his mother moved restlessly around the room. It had come as just as much of a shock to him as it had to his mother to learn that a routine health check-up had revealed a potentially life threatening series of small blood clots were developing in her lower leg. The scare had brought home to him the fact that despite everything she was still his mother, Caid recognised grimly. The clots had been medically dispersed with drugs, but his mother had been given strict instructions that she was on no account to fly until her doctor was sure she was clear of any threat of the clots returning.

When she saw that he was watching her she told him emotionally, ‘You say that you’ve forgiven me for…for your childhood, Caid, but sometimes, I wonder…I feel…’ When she stopped and bit her lip, looking away from him, Caid suppressed a small sigh.

‘What are you trying to say?’ he asked her cynically. ‘That you want me to prove I’ve forgiven you once more by going to Cheltenham?’

‘Oh, Caid, it would mean so much to me if you would,’ she breathed.

‘I don’t—’ Caid began, but immediately she interrupted.

‘Please, Caid,’ she begged urgently. ‘There isn’t anyone else I can trust. Not when I suspect that the root cause of the problem over there is the fact that your uncle Donny has appointed his own stepson as chief executive of the store,’ she told him darkly. ‘I mean, what right does Donny have to make that kind of decision? Just because he’s the eldest that doesn’t mean he can overrule everyone else. And as for that dreadful stepson of his…Jerry knows nothing whatsoever about the specialised nature of our business—’

‘I thought he was running a chain of supermarkets—’ Caid interrupted.

The constant and relentless internecine war of attrition waged between his mother and her male siblings was a familiar ongoing saga, and one he normally paid scant attention to.

‘Yes, he was. But honestly, Caid—supermarkets! There just isn’t any comparison between them and stores like ours. Of course, Donny has done it to appease that appalling new wife of his…Why on earth he marries them, I don’t know. She’s his fifth. And as for Jerry…There’s no way he would have ever got his appointment past the board if I hadn’t been in hospital! There’s nothing Donny would like better than to get me completely off the board, but he’ll never be able to do that…’

‘Mother, aren’t you letting your imagination rather run away with you?’ Caid intervened. ‘After all, it is as much in Uncle Donny’s interest as it is in yours to have the business thrive. And if Jerry is as bad as you are implying—’

‘As bad! Caid, he’s worse, believe me. And as for Donny! Well, certainly you’d think with four ex-wives to support he’d be going down on his knees to thank me for everything that I’ve done for the stores. But all he wants is to score off me. He’s always been like that…right from when I was born…they all were. You can’t imagine how I used to long to have a sister instead of five brothers…You’d think after all I learned about the male sex from them I’d have had more sense than to get married myself. You were lucky to be an only child, Caid—’

She stopped abruptly when she saw his expression. ‘Caid, please,’ she begged him, returning to her request. ‘We can’t afford to have this happen. We desperately need Jaz’s skill. Do you know that her window displays for the Christmas season are so innovative that people go to the store just to see them? She has a talent that is really unique, Caid. When I think about how lucky we are to have her…We mustn’t lose her. I’ve got such plans for her…’

‘Mother—’ Caid began resolutely.

‘Caid, don’t turn me down.’

Grimly he watched as his mother’s eyes filled with tears. He had never seen her cry…never.

‘This means so much to me…’

‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ Caid responded dryly, and yet he knew that despite his own feelings he would give in. After all, as his mother had just pointed out, he couldn’t afford to see the value of his trust fund stock in the business go down—not now, when he had so much tied up in his ranch. And that, of course, was the only reason he was going, he reminded himself firmly.

‘Jaz, I’d like to have a word with you, please.’

Jaz’s heart sank as she saw the store’s new chief executive bearing down on her. Since returning from New Orleans things had been far from easy for her. She knew that she had been fully justified in everything she’d said to Caid, and that there was no way there could have been a relationship between them, but that still didn’t stop her missing what they had shared, or dreaming about him, or waking up with her face wet with tears because she ached for him so much. The last thing she had needed to compound her misery had been the unwanted interference in her work of someone like Jerry Brockmann.

After meeting Caid’s mother, and listening to her enthuse about the Cheltenham store and her objectives for it, she had never expected that they would be saddled with a chief executive who seemed to epitomise the exact opposite of what Jaz believed the store was all about. Already the changes he had insisted on making were beginning to affect not just the staff, but their customers as well.

Jaz had lost count of the number of long-standing customers who had commented unfavourably about the fact that the store was no longer perfumed with the specially made room fragrance she herself had chosen as part of the store’s exclusive signature.

‘What the hell is this stuff made of?’ Jerry had complained, as he’d chaired the first departmental heads meeting after his arrival. He’d thrust the bill from the manufacturers beneath Jaz’s nose. ‘Gold dust? It sure costs enough. Why the hell do we have to scent the damn place anyway? Are the drains bad or something?’

‘It creates the right kind of ambience. It’s what our customers expect and it encourages them to buy designer fragrances for their own home,’ Jaz had replied quietly, trying to ignore his rudeness.

It had been soon after that, and before Jerry had chaired his next meeting, that the chief buyer for their exclusive Designer Fashion Room had announced that she intended to leave.

‘He says that he plans to cut my budget by half!’ she fumed furiously to Jaz. ‘Can you believe that? After what you said about the New Orleans store and its management I’d been putting out feelers to a couple of new up-and-coming designers to see if I could tempt them to let us stock their stuff—and now this! If I stay here now I’m going to totally lose my credibility.’

Jaz felt acutely guilty as she listened to her, and tried to smooth things over, but Lucinda refused to be appeased. She had already handed in her notice she informed Jaz angrily.

Even worse was Jaz’s discovery that her closest friend on the staff was also planning to leave.

‘But, Kyra, you’ve always said how much you loved working here,’ Jaz protested.

‘I did,’ Krya emphasised. ‘But not any more, Jaz. Jerry called me in to his office the other day to inform me that he thinks we should go more downmarket with our bed and bath linens. He said that we were catering for too small a market.’

‘Didn’t you explain to him that the mass market is so well covered by the multiples that we couldn’t possibly compete with them, that it’s because we supply only the best that we’ve got our Royal Warrant?’

‘Of course I did,’ Kyra had responded indignantly. ‘But the man’s obsessed by mass sales. He just can’t seem to see that this isn’t what we’re all about. Anyway, the upshot of our “discussion” was that I completely lost it with him and told him what he could do with his mass market bedding and his job!’

‘Oh, Kyra,’ Jaz sympathised.

‘Well, as it turns out I’ve done myself a favour, because I’ve got a friend who works at Dubai airport—that represents the real luxury end of the market—and she says there’s a job for me there if I want it.’

‘I’m going to miss you.’ Jaz sighed.

‘Well, you could always leave yourself,’ Kyra pointed out. ‘In fact,’ she added, ‘I don’t know why you don’t. It can’t be for any lack of offers. Oh, I can understand that whilst John still owned the store you must have felt bound by loyalty to him. But now…’

‘Perhaps I should think about leaving,’ Jaz agreed huskily. ‘But not yet. Not until—’

‘After the Christmas windows?’ Kyra supplied ruefully, shaking her head.

Jaz’s devotion to her Christmas windows was well known throughout the store.

‘It wouldn’t be fair,’ Jaz told her gently.

‘You should think more about being fair to yourself than being fair to other people,’ Krya chided. ‘Which reminds me. I haven’t liked to say anything before, but you haven’t been your normal happy self since you came back from New Orleans, Jaz. I don’t want to pry, but if you need someone to talk to…?’

‘There isn’t anything to talk about,’ Jaz told her firmly.

‘Or anyone?’ Kyra persisted gently.

Jaz couldn’t help it; she felt the tears stinging her eyes, the emotion blocking her throat, but she managed to deny it to Kyra.

And it was true—in a way. After all, what was the point in talking about Caid?

‘Excuse me if I’m coming between you and your private thoughts, Jaz,’ she heard Jerry saying sarcastically to her. ‘But am I right in thinking that you are supposed to be working?’

Pink-cheeked, Jaz apologised.

‘I’ve been going through John’s files and I can’t seem to find any budget forecasts for your department.’

Jaz forced herself to ignore the hectoring tone of his voice.

‘Traditionally, my department doesn’t work to a budget—’ she began to explain, but before she could continue Jerry interrupted sharply.

‘Well, in future it damn well does. And by in future, Jaz, I mean as of now. I want those forecasts on my desk by close of business tomorrow afternoon.’

He had gone before Jaz could either object or explain, leaving her hot-faced and resentful, her only small consolation the knowledge that it wasn’t just her who was suffering.

Since Jerry’s arrival the whole atmosphere of the store had changed—and in Jaz’s opinion not for the better!

‘Jaz, I thought you said the American stores were wonderful, very much on our wavelength. How can they be when Jerry’s so obviously trying to turn the store into some kind of dreadful pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap place?’ one of the department heads had complained.

‘I don’t understand what’s happening any more than you do,’ Jaz had been forced to admit.

‘Can’t you speak to John?’ another of the buyers had urged her.

Jaz had shaken her head. ‘No. He isn’t very well…his angina is getting worse.’

So much worse, in fact, that on his doctor’s advice John had had to move out of the pretty three-storey townhouse adjacent to the store, where he had lived virtually all his life.

For security reasons the Dubois family had insisted on buying the house, along with the store, but John had been granted a long lease on it which allowed him to rent it from them at a peppercorn rental. Jaz knew how upset he had been when his doctor had told him that the house’s steep stairs were not suitable for a person with his heart condition.

Luckily he also owned a ground-floor apartment in a renovated Victorian mansion several miles away from her parents, and he was now living there under the watchful eye of his housekeeper.

To Jaz’s delight, John had offered her the use of the townhouse in his absence, knowing that Jaz was in between properties herself, having sold the flat she had previously owned and not as yet being able to find somewhere she wanted to buy.

‘Are you sure the Dubois family won’t mind?’ she’d asked John uncertainly when he’d made her his generous offer.

‘Why should they?’ he had demanded. ‘And besides, even though it’s not strictly mine any longer, I would feel much happier knowing that the house is occupied by someone I know and trust, Jaz.’

Her new home certainly couldn’t be more convenient for her work, Jaz acknowledged; even if right now that work was becoming less and less appealing. But there was no way she could allow herself to leave. Not until after Christmas!

She had started planning this year’s windows right after last Christmas, and had come back from New Orleans fired up on a mixture of heartbreak and pride that had made her promise herself that this year’s windows would be her swansong—proof that she was getting on with her life as well as a way to show every single member of the Dubois family just how damned good she was. And then she would stand up and announce to them that there was nothing on this earth that would persuade her to go on working for a family of which Caid was a member.

At first she hadn’t been sure just what angle to go for—she’d already done fantasy and fairytale, and she’d done modern and punk only the previous year. But then it had happened. Her idea to end all ideas. And the miracle of it was that it was so simple, so workable, so timeless and so…so right.

The theme of her windows this Christmas was going to be Modern Womanhood, in all its many guises. And her modern Christmas woman, in defiance of everything that Caid had thrown at her, was going to be the hub of her family and yet her own independent and individual person as well! Each of the store’s windows would reflect a different aspect of her role as a modern woman—and each window would be packed with delectable, irresistible gifts appropriate to that role. Right down to the final one, where she would be shepherding her assembled family to view a traditional Nativity play, complete with every emotion-tugging detail apart from a real live donkey.

Everyone thought that the high point of her year were those few short weeks before Christmas, when her windows went on display, but in fact it was actually those weeks she spent working on the ideas and designs that she loved best.

This year she had spent even more of her time plotting and planning, drawing out window plans and then changing them. Because she needed to prove to herself that she had made the right decision…because she needed to find in the success of achieving her own targets and goals something satisfying enough to replace what she had lost?

No. She simply wanted to do a good job, that was all…of course it was!

Now her ideas and her plans were almost all in place; there was only one vital piece of research she still needed to do, and her arrangements for that were all in hand.

Jaz was a stickler for detail, for getting things just right. She needed a real-life role model for her ‘modern woman’. A role model who successfully combined all the elements of her fictional creation: a woman who was loved and valued by her partner and yet someone who had her own independent life. She needed a woman who acknowledged and enjoyed fulfilling her own personal goals, but still loved her children and her family above all else. A woman, in short, Jaz had dreamed of being herself—until Caid had destroyed those dreams.

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