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‘Liar,’ he whispered, his head lowering to hers. ‘I didn’t even kiss you, did I, Jenny?’ he murmured, his lips now hovering so close to hers that his every word seemed spoken on a shared breath. ‘In fact, I’ve never kissed you…until now.’
It was a kiss that triggered off a half-remembered ache that swelled to painful sharpness within her beneath the hot incitement of the lips possessing hers. And, as the search of his mouth deepened in instant response to the hungry welcome of hers, her senses began leaping in tense expectancy, her body accepting with an uncharacteristically unquestioning fatalism its blatantly erotic response to every nuance of his. When she lifted her arms to encircle his neck it was almost as if she had felt compelled to move them in order to accommodate the hands that moved in seductive exploration to caress against her breasts. It was the alien sounds of her own soft moans of pleasure, wrung from her by the nerve-tingling search of those hands, that began resurrecting long-suppressed memories within her. It had been that inexplicable ache within her that had led her to this man’s bed four long years ago; then blindly seeking a response from the lean masculine body which now was burning against hers with a blatancy of desire that was transforming the aching softness within her to an explosively demanding need.
But it was the ghostly echo of his taunting laughter that then drifted back to her across the years, reminding her of the implacable brutality with which he had once spurned her and returning her senses to her with a sharp cry of horror.
‘It’s all right—I’ll get it,’ he muttered hoarsely, confusing her completely with those inexplicable words as he released her and strode towards the door.
Her confusion lessened fractionally as she saw a waiter enter and move to the centre of the room to place a tray on a low oblong table.
She hadn’t even heard the waiter’s knock, she realised, watching the man retrace his steps while she remained as though transfixed to the spot. Yet Jamie had, and was obviously under the impression that it was the waiter’s interruption that had elicited her cry of horror.
For several seconds after the door had closed behind the man, she remained where she was, striving to bring order to the erratic distortion of her breathing while at the same time bracing herself against the almost paralysing wave of humiliation flooding through her.
Then she turned, the pride he had once so brutally damaged rallying to her support in a sudden surge.
‘Right, it’s getting late—we’d better get down to business.’ She moved swiftly towards a chair and sat down on it, willing herself not to give in to an almost ungovernable temptation to look around to find out exactly who it was who had uttered those briskly casual words.
Acutely conscious of his eyes on her, she trained her own on the hands clenched tightly on her lap, silently urging them to unclench. And even though she felt those eyes drilling into her, issuing their silent demands to be faced, her gaze remained locked on her hands.
‘Jenny, you can avoid looking at me for as long as you like,’ he taunted coldly. ‘But it won’t alter anything.’
‘Really, Jamie, all we did was exchange a kiss,’ she chided, inwardly stunned by the precise degree of disparaging amusement she had managed to inject into the words. ‘And now that I’ve satisfied my curiosity, we really should get down to discussing Jonathan.’
‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean—now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity?’ he demanded, his voice soft with barely suppressed rage.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Jamie!’ she exclaimed lightly, part of her recoiling in horror, as she spoke, from this cool stranger now taking possession of her. ‘I know I’m a big girl now, but I really couldn’t resist a sample kiss from the man on whom I’d had such a colossal crush in my teenage years!’
Her head rose in involuntary response to his sudden movement, catching the chillingly murderous gleam in his eyes as his hand reached out for the silver coffee-pot on the tray. For one instant of stark fear she was convinced he was about to pick it up and hurl it at her.
‘Coffee?’ he asked with an urbane detachment that threw her completely, then began pouring without awaiting her reply.
It was when he passed her a cup that their eyes met, the mocking challenge in his sending a premonitory shiver of fear winging through her. It was as though those shrewd grey-green eyes of his had the power to pierce the veneer of hatred marring the wide-spaced blue of the gaze they examined and to lay bare the helpless uncertainty now gnawing within her.
CHAPTER TWO
AT ELEVEN o’clock on the following Monday night, Jenny dragged open the front door of Jamie Castile’s luxury London flat in response to the sharp ring of the doorbell.
‘My, what an unexpected surprise!’ she hurled savagely at the visibly wilting figure of the man before her. ‘What made you rush back like this? Don’t tell me your precious boat sank on you!’
Flashing her a look of scowling dismissal, Jamie strode past her and into the parqueted hallway. Still not having offered her so much as a word of acknowledgement, he strode on and into the living-room—a huge, high-ceilinged room, sparsely yet exquisitely furnished in colours of the softest pastels.
Almost beside herself with outraged disbelief, Jenny flew in after him, the pressure of the fury building up in her since the early hours of the morning now barely containable as he silently flung his leather holdall on to an armchair and his tall, lean body face downwards and at full stretch on to the sofa.
‘Six o’clock this morning—that’s when you said your flight would touch down!’ she almost screamed at his prone form as the travesty of her day flashed through her mind and demolished any remnant of control left in her. ‘You haven’t changed, have you? You’re as thoroughly selfish and manipulative as you’ve always been!’ she accused bitterly. ‘I told you how much this job means to me. Heaven knows, I created a bad enough impression asking for time off before the start of an important campaign and after barely two weeks with the company, so you can imagine how they must have felt when I swanned in an hour late this morning and with a baby in my shopping basket!’
His head rose from the cushion against which it had been buried.
‘You had the baby in a shopping basket?’ he croaked, his words as dazed as the expression on his face.
‘What was I supposed to put him in?’ she snarled. ‘There aren’t any pram shops on the way to where I work; if there had been I’d have bought one…all I could get was a large shopping basket.’
The breath she paused to take, on which she had intended to continue giving vent to her long-pent-up anger, deteriorated into a gasp of fury as he began laughing softly.
‘How dare you—?’
‘Give it a rest, for God’s sake, Jenny,’ he snapped, all trace of laughter disappearing from him as he dragged himself upright and began shrugging off his jacket.
‘That’s great—coming from you!’ she shrieked, striding threateningly towards him, then halting, her eyes widening in total confusion as he cast aside the jacket and then began removing the silk shirt that had every appearance of having been slept in. ‘You’ve always used others without any shred of compunction. Even as a child, you had all the other kids in the village organised into your own personal Mafia!’ She broke off, frowning. ‘What’s that smell?’ She leaned towards him and sniffed. ‘My God—you smell like a brewery!’ she exclaimed in disgust.
‘It’s brandy,’ he muttered, flinging his shirt aside then leaning back and gazing up mockingly at her, the gleaming bronze of his naked torso rendered even darker by the contrasting paleness of the upholstery.
Feeling somewhat overwhelmed—though uncertain whether it was caused by his casual admission or the disconcerting leap of her senses at the sight of such splendid near-nakedness—Jenny hesitated. Uncomfortably conscious of the suddenly loaded silence, she forced herself to look at him objectively. The last time she had seen him he had looked pretty exhausted—now he looked a positive wreck.
‘My, my, Jenny—nothing to say?’ he drawled.
‘You’re drunk!’ she lashed out wildly, desperately trying to revive the momentum of her disconcertingly dying anger. Of course he was drunk, she told herself; a sober Jamie would at least have tried to charm his way into her good books, and doubtless given her a string of unconvincing excuses for his lateness…that was his way.
His eyes narrowed to dark slits as his broad shoulders rose and fell in a barely perceptible shrug. It was that slight movement that drew her attention to the ugly bruise staining down his right shoulder and disappearing into the dark profusion of hairs on his chest. And it was his raising of a hand to rub irritably against the dark stubble on his chin that brought a gasp from her. The knuckles of the hand, in fact, the entire back of it, was bruised and lacerated.
‘You’ve been in a fight,’ she accused in disgust.
He gazed down at his hand, then up at her, the smile creeping to his lips doing nothing to soften the brittle coldness glittering in his eyes.
‘You know me so well, don’t you, Jenny?’ he murmured. ‘In fact, there’s no need for me to bother telling you what I’ve been up to—you’ve already worked it all out for yourself. Let’s just check how far you’ve got. I’m drunk; I’ve been brawling—needless to say, over a woman—’
‘Jamie, please! I…I—’
‘You what, Jenny? Don’t start going all coy on me. After all, it’s common knowledge that I have an insatiable appetite for women.’ As he uttered those ominously quiet words his eyes began travelling slowly down her body, openly stripping her. ‘Talking of which,’ he added softly, ‘you’re not the only one with a curiosity to be satisfied. Perhaps you’d care to continue where we left off a few years ago…only this time your presence in my bed will be greeted with unbridled enthusiasm—that I can guarantee.’
‘You are completely despicable,’ croaked Jenny, disconcerted to find herself fighting an urge to lash out at him physically.
‘You sound almost surprised,’ he murmured blandly. ‘Which is odd, considering I still appear to be the selfish, manipulative tearaway you claim to know so well. Though there is one thing that puzzles me, Jenny,’ he added innocently. ‘With so little going for me—how is it that you managed to develop such an almighty crush on me?’
‘What might have appealed to an adolescent is no longer material,’ she informed him frigidly.
‘Adolescent is the last word any sane person would have used to describe you the night I found you in my bed,’ he retorted.
Wondering just how many more times he intended dragging up that ghastly incident, Jenny wisely bit back any retort; instead, she marched over to the armchair nearest her, removed his holdall from it and flung herself down.
‘Tomorrow, when I return from work,’ she announced tonelessly, ‘I expect to find that you’ve arranged for suitable nannies to be interviewed. You’d also better get Jonathan a pram and a cot.’
‘Where’s he sleeping now?’
‘He and I are in the spare room with the double bed,’ she replied, her muscles aching in reminiscence of the struggle she had had dragging the heavy bed flush with a wall.
‘Why didn’t you take the room with the twin beds?’ he asked. ‘Hell, he’s so tiny…aren’t you scared of rolling over and squashing him?’
‘I didn’t put him in a single bed—simply because I was worried he might manage to roll out of it. And I shan’t roll over and squash him…I’ve put a barricade of pillows between us,’ she informed him wearily—and still she hadn’t slept a wink for fear of something happening to the baby.
‘Jenny, I honestly wouldn’t have the first idea about how to go about buying a cot and a pram,’ he protested.
‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie, you don’t need a doctorate in one of the sciences to do it!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘Go to one of the big stores and ask for advice. I also think you should get a baby bath while you’re at it.’
‘He and I bathed together in Vienna,’ muttered Jamie, suddenly stretching. ‘He loved it.’
‘I still think he should have his own bath,’ insisted Jenny.
‘Talking of baths,’ he said, rising and stretching once more, ‘I could do with a soak in one—care to join me?’
Jenny glanced up from the drawing-board as Ellie Brown entered the room. The tall, vivacious redhead was one of the company’s top copywriters and also a friendly, refreshingly outspoken person. It was Ellie who had been the ringleader of the handful of staff—every one of them female—who had, the previous day, helped conceal Jonathan’s presence from the eyes of those who would have objected.
‘Gil Wardale says he’d like to see you when you have a spare minute,’ announced Ellie, peering over Jenny’s shoulder at her work. ‘You really are very good, you know,’ she murmured admiringly. ‘Which is just as well, because rumour has it that Gil’s got to hear of yesterday’s cuddlesome addition to the staff.’
‘Just my luck!’ groaned Jenny, swinging round to face her. ‘Something tells me my chances of surviving my trial period are just about nil,’ she sighed gloomily.
‘Now, now—let’s not be so negative,’ chided Ellie, then added with a sigh, ‘but we might as well face the fact that Gil, with his tendency towards workaholism, won’t exactly be thrilled to bits at the thought of his entire female staff having wasted the day clucking over a baby.’
‘Whereas the truth is that most of them put in at least an hour’s work,’ quipped Jenny, her heart not in it in the least—she was worried sick.
Knowing she wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until she heard what Gil Wardale had to say, she made her way straight to his office after Ellie had left.
On her way it occurred to her that her present circumstances were making her examine certain aspects of her dream job a little more closely than she had previously. She had to admit that she had been more than a little in awe of the single-minded drive evident in Gil Wardale, a man probably no more than in his very early thirties and whose phenomenally successful company she had been so eager to join. Though now she also had to admit to herself that she had initially felt just the tiniest bit repelled by what could almost have been taken for fanaticism in his attitude to his work…yet she had quickly become infected by his forceful enthusiasm and had ended up regarding it as something to be admired. Now she wasn’t quite so sure, she realised with a pang as she neared Gil Wardale’s office. It was as though the world outside advertising didn’t exist for him and the single-mindedly entrepreneurial men who comprised his management team, she thought, having difficulty putting her finger on exactly what it was that now struck her as being wrong. Throughout the country people were giving with unstinting generosity to collections in aid of the earthquake relief—yet she, and the other women who had helped secrete Jonathan, had seemed to know instinctively that the baby’s connection with the disaster would have cut little ice with Gil Wardale and his associates.
There was no point trying to tug on heartstrings that didn’t exist, accepted Jenny wryly as she knocked on the door.
‘Be with you in a tick,’ called out Gil Wardale to her, motioning her to be seated as he returned to his telephone conversation.
One of the first things that had struck her about this man was his clean-cut good looks, remembered Jenny as she took the seat before his desk. Almost as she had the thought, and to her intense irritation, a picture of Jamie flashed uninvited to her mind. OK, so he wasn’t a patch on Jamie, she admitted irritably—how many men were? But the man before her was unquestionably attractive—he had strong, even features, and hair so unusually blond that it probably indicated Scandinavian ancestry and, though not tall, he was well-built and without a spare ounce of flesh on him.
Jenny gave a small shrug of understanding in answer to her employer’s gesture of apology as his telephone conversation grew more prolonged; but she was experiencing a decided increase in the edgy feeling of tension besetting her. Yes—she was nervous about the negative impression she was bound to have made with her new company; but there was also Jamie to contend with. And she was finding it most disturbing that the image of his presence lurking in her mind seemed somehow almost dependable in its familiarity…which was absolutely ludicrous! The last person any member of her sex would be tempted to regard as dependable was Jamie Castile; dangerous and exciting, most definitely; but dependable—never in a million years!
‘Sorry about that,’ said Gil Wardale, cutting across her indignant thoughts, ‘but that was one of our biggest clients,’ he explained, then launched straight into discussing the campaign in which she was involved.
As his agile business mind moved swiftly from one pertinent point to the next, Jenny once again found herself slightly in awe of his total immersion in his work and the attention which he paid to even the most seemingly trivial of details. No wonder he had made such a name for himself, thought Jenny, feeling slightly shell-shocked after almost two hours of intense discussion.
‘Well, you’re managing to hang in there much as we expected you would,’ he finally announced—a statement, Jenny gathered from his tone, that was intended as something of a compliment. ‘Now, let’s see what we can arrange,’ he muttered, opening a desk diary beside him and leafing through its pages. ‘I’m afraid Friday’s about the only night I have free for some time—how about dinner?’
The words were so unexpected that Jenny had no chance to mask her surprise.
‘Company policy,’ he stated, the merest hint of amusement flickering in the wintry blue of his eyes. ‘I like to make a point of wining and dining new team members—you know, get to know them one-to-one and fill them in on the company’s little idiosyncrasies.’
‘Oh…I see,’ muttered Jenny, wishing she had managed to sound a little more businesslike: the truth was that for one uncomfortable moment she had actually thought he was asking her for a date! ‘Yes—Friday would be fine.’
Once again she found Jamie’s face leaping disconcertingly into her mind. It was just too bad if he had anything planned for that night, she told herself firmly—this was business, and, even had it not been, he was just going to have to get used to doing his fair share of baby-sitting. One thing was for sure: he would have no qualms about leaving her to do it when the occasion arose.
‘Right,’ stated Gil, snapping shut the diary and immediately reaching out as the telephone began ringing beside him.
Jenny found herself torn between remaining put and leaving as she listened to him speak. One of the things she liked least in this man—and in the other members of the top management staff—was a seeming inability to indulge in any conversation other than one related to work. To a man they seemed almost to ‘switch off’ once they had finished with the business they were discussing, as though rounding off their words with a few social pleasantries was an entirely alien concept to them.
Gil had obviously said all he wanted to say, Jenny decided, then rose to her feet and mimed a goodbye. It was the staying hand the man on the telephone raised towards her that returned her to her seat. A few moments later he terminated the call.
‘One further point,’ he rapped out. ‘I believe you brought a child to the office yesterday.’
‘Yes, I—’
‘I don’t remember any mention of your having a child during your interviews,’ he interrupted coolly.
‘He’s not mine. He—’
‘Glad to hear it. Apart from anything else, the presence of an infant would do nothing for the image we like to maintain within the company.’
‘No, I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ agreed Jenny with acerbic quietness, her sense of justice outraged by his refusal to hear out her excuse. ‘Though it won’t happen again, I can assure you,’ she added, surprised to find he appeared to have taken her agreement completely at face value.
‘I’m sure it won’t,’ stated Gil, his smile as brisk and confident as his words. ‘I’m a firm believer in tackling problems as and when they arise—it makes for better working relationships all round.’ He leaned back against the soft black leather of the executive chair. ‘And I’ve a feeling you will fit in and enjoy a very good working relationship with us, Jenny…I most certainly hope we shall.’
The sound of laughter drifted to Jenny’s ears as she let herself into Jamie’s flat that evening. She pulled a small face of discontent—she didn’t feel in the least like socialising, especially not with one of the exotic creatures Jamie seemed to get entangled with, which the feminine lightness of the laughter warned her might well be the case.
‘Jenny—in here!’ his voice called to her. ‘I’ve a surprise for you.’
She removed her jacket and walked into the sitting-room, experiencing a flash of irritation as her suspicions were confirmed. Seated on the sofa next to Jamie, and with a docile Jonathan on her knee, was a woman of exactly the type she had expected. Most of Jamie’s women tended to be flawless creatures who looked as though they had stepped out of a fashion magazine—and this one wasn’t exactly plain!
‘I was just going to take a shower,’ she announced vaguely, feeling thoroughly disgruntled.
‘Bad day at the office, darling?’ drawled Jamie, a remark that brought a flicker of surprise to the face of the woman next to him and an angry tensing in Jenny.
Deciding to ignore his remark, she gave the woman a half-hearted smile of greeting, then turned to leave.
‘Jennifer!’ Jamie’s sharply censorious tone halted her. ‘I’d like you to meet Mandy—our salvation.’
Jenny swung round. ‘Our salvation?’ she queried, not bothering to attempt hiding her puzzlement.
‘Most definitely,’ stated Jamie, bestowing a smile of supreme contentment on the woman now adjusting the baby on her knee in order to reach out a hand to Jenny—a hand which, for the sake of good manners, Jenny felt obliged to walk over and accept. ‘Mandy’s going to be looking after Jonathan as from tomorrow.’
‘Really?’ choked Jenny, the casual announcement knocking the breath from her.
‘I’d better leave Jamie to explain,’ exclaimed the woman with a small gasp of consternation as she looked at her watch. ‘I’d no idea it was so late!’
Jamie solicitously took his nephew from her as she struggled to her feet, then rose to his own.
‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’ he asked.
Mandy shook her head, an action, Jenny noted ill-humouredly, that seemed to interfere with her balance as she was forced to place a hand on Jamie’s arm for support.
‘I’ve got my own transport—but thanks for the offer,’ murmured Mandy, smiling up at him. ‘Sorry I’ve to dash like this, Jennifer, but I’ll see you in the morning,’ she added.
Jenny remained silent as she watched the curvaceous Mandy bid her farewell to the baby—an act which, to Jenny’s increasingly acute perception, seemed to involve her almost burying her head, with its gleaming, shoulder-length cascade of hair almost the same colour as Jenny’s own, against Jamie as she kissed the unprotesting infant. And as she watched man, woman and child leave the room she felt a murderous rage churning within her. How dared he? Did he honestly believe she would hand Jonathan into the so-called care of some dolly bird who happened to have caught his eye?
It was several moments before Jamie reappeared at the door, the baby still in his arms.
