Two-Timing Love
Kate Proctor
The last thing Jenny wants to do is see Jamie Castile again but, four years on, it seems she has no choice. In order to care for her baby nephew she must not only look at the man who had so harshly rejected her, but move in with him!It is only a matter of time before they end up back where they started, but this time Jenny vows that Jamie can't be aware of her love for him. So she tells him she's involved with another man!
“You are completely despicable,” croaked Jenny.
“You sound almost surprised,” Jamie 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…with so little going for me, how is it that you managed to develop such an almighty crush on me?”
KATE PROCTOR is part Irish and part Welsh, though she spent most of her childhood in England and several years of her adult life in central Africa. She now lives just outside London with her two cats, Florence and Minnie (presented to her by her daughters, who live fairly close by). Having given up her career as a teacher on her return to England, Kate now devotes most of her time to writing.
Two-Timing Love
Kate Proctor
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘I WAS beginning to think you’d never turn up—have you brought the documents?’
Jennifer Page froze at the sound of that voice, the warm, creamy tones of her normally vibrantly attractive features dulling to pallor as she resisted the urge to drag her fingers through the gleaming auburn of her short, almost boyishly cropped hair—a habit she knew to be triggered off by feelings of stress. And stress was decidedly what she was experiencing now, even as she hoped against hope that her imagination was in the throes of playing the nastiest trick it possibly could on her. But it was a pale imitation of her normally sunny smile that she bestowed on the hotel porter as he deposited her overnight case on the floor beside her.
Her movements almost robotic, Jenny turned to face the tall, powerfully built figure of the man who had addressed her, myriad sensations bombarding her and precious few of them in the least pleasant.
‘I haven’t any Austrian money—would you mind tipping the porter?’ she muttered stiltedly, one part of her strenuously denying that this was happening to her while the rest responded with nerve-jangling awareness to the familiar, larger-than-life figure of Jamie Castile.
She had almost forgotten how disgustingly attractive he was, she thought, weak with disbelief; but not the aura of danger emanating so powerfully from that faultlessly built masculine body now taking oddly tentative steps towards her.
She frowned in puzzlement as he halted before the porter, conscious that his movements lacked their customary languid grace as he fumbled awkwardly in his pocket and then handed the man some money. It was as he turned slightly towards her that Jenny let out a soft groan of disbelief and leaned heavily against the wall for support.
Perhaps the dimness of the room’s lighting accounted for her having missed it—that swaddled mound nestling against one broad shoulder and so obviously hampering the flow of his movements.
‘Well?’ demanded Jamie, his grey-green eyes offering no hint of welcome as the porter closed the door of the suite behind him. ‘Did you bring all the papers?’
‘Yes,’ replied Jenny, attempting to clear her mind of the shock and disbelief threatening to paralyse it. ‘Where are Clare and Graham?’
‘They’re still in Czechoslovakia with the other doctors—trying to do what they can for the earthquake victims.’
‘But…I…’ Jenny threw up her hands in exasperation with herself as the words refused to come. ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on?’ she exclaimed, an edge of desperation in her tone.
Jamie Castile gave an impatient shrug, a gesture he plainly regretted the instant he had made it as the bundle against his shoulder stirred and let out a wail of protest that brought a look of weary sufferance to his handsome features.
‘For God’s sake, take it, will you?’ he groaned, gingerly removing the baby from against him and holding it out to her.
Jenny took an involuntary step back from the now vociferously protesting bundle that was their four-month-old nephew.
‘I…I’m not used to babies,’ she stammered.
‘For God’s sake, try something, can’t you?’ exploded Jamie. ‘Once it decides to start screeching like this there’s nothing I can do with it.’
‘Stop calling him it!’ hissed Jenny, taking the proffered bundle awkwardly into her arms and gazing down at it with a mixture of awe and trepidation. ‘Hello, little Jonathan Page,’ she whispered, her tentative smile accentuating the delicate beauty of her features as the infant quietened and fixed her with a wide-eyed gaze. ‘It’s late—shouldn’t he be in his bed and asleep?’ she demanded accusingly of his uncle.
‘I’m sure he should,’ drawled Jamie, flinging his tall frame heavily on to one of the perilously dainty chairs dotted around the room. ‘But actually achieving that requires skills I obviously don’t possess.’
Though ones he clearly expected her to have in abundance, simply because she was female, thought Jenny exasperatedly, then cuddled the baby to her with a small pang of guilt as he let out an ear-piercing wail. It wasn’t his fault his little life had suddenly been turned upside-down and it certainly wasn’t going to make him feel secure hearing his uncle and aunt indulging in a slanging match.
‘Which room is he in?’ she asked briskly.
Jamie’s reply was to nod in the general direction of one of the doors leading off the room.
The cot, next to an outsized double bed, looked slightly incongruous in contrast to the opulence of the room, as did too the jumble of disposable nappies and baby clothes strewn over the bed.
Jenny unwrapped the shawl from around her tiny nephew, whom she had last seen at his christening over a month ago—after which his parents had taken him back to Brussels, where they were part of an international medical team.
‘It’s lovely to see you again, even though it’s all a bit of a shock,’ she crooned as she placed him gently in the cot and tucked the covers around him. She winced as he let out another of those ear-piercing yells, then began patting him soothingly on his tiny back. ‘Be a good boy and go to sleep,’ she pleaded, her hand still patting gently.
After ten minutes, she crept out of the room, unconsciously holding her breath.
Jamie was still sprawled on the chair, an expression of scowling exhaustion on his face as his gaze met hers.
‘I wouldn’t bother sitting down, if I were you,’ he informed her as she made to do precisely that. ‘It’ll start bellowing any second now.’
‘His name is Jonathan!’ snapped Jenny, confusion and her own exhaustion adding aggression to her tone.
She sat down, her wide-spaced blue eyes meeting his in open defiance as she silently prayed the baby wouldn’t waken.
‘Jamie, would you mind explaining what’s going on?’
He raised a hand to his head and began running his fingers absent-mindedly through the dark thickness of his hair. It was a gesture suddenly so achingly familiar to her that Jenny found herself dropping her gaze to escape it.
‘I left messages all over the place for you,’ he accused inconsequentially. ‘Jenny, where the hell have you been—and where are your parents?’
‘I work in London now and my parents are in New Zealand—they left last week,’ she replied, determined to keep calm. She was a fully fledged adult now, she reminded herself sharply, and there was no way she would ever let Jamie Castile get under her skin again—ever! ‘And as for your leaving me messages all over the place—I was under the impression they came from Clare and Graham.’
There was mocking amusement in the glance he gave her.
‘The implication being that you’d have ignored any message emanating from me, is that it, Jenny?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie, be serious!’ she exclaimed, mortified to feel the hot colour flooding her cheeks. ‘When I got a message asking that I bring copies of Graham’s and Clare’s birth and marriage certificates here I assumed they’d lost their passports in the earthquake…I was worried!’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ drawled Jamie. ‘The medical conference they were attending was in Bratislava, which experienced no more than the mild rumbles registered here in Vienna.’
‘So why do they need all those documents?’ demanded Jenny exasperatedly. ‘I was under the impression they were stranded in Czechoslovakia!’
‘It’s more a case of the baby being stranded,’ replied Jamie. ‘Though why the hell they insist on carting a child that young around with them is beyond me.’
‘I think it’s wonderful that they can do it,’ retorted Jenny. ‘Obviously the best place for him is with his parents.’
‘And obviously that’s precisely where he can’t be right now,’ pointed out Jamie infuriatingly. ‘Getting him out of Czechoslovakia and into Austria didn’t present too many problems—I collected him from Clare the day before yesterday.’
Jenny bit back a comment on how Clare must have felt—having to hand her infant son into the care of a brother few would describe as either predictable or dependable.
‘The authorities at the British Embassy here in Vienna have agreed to issue temporary travel documents for the child—on production of the papers you’ve brought with you,’ he continued. ‘So you won’t have any problems getting him into England.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ croaked Jenny.
‘Clare seemed to think your parents would look after him till she and Graham felt free to leave…obviously they weren’t aware they’d taken off for New Zealand.’
‘They weren’t going till the New Year, but then they decided…Jamie, all this is beside the point!’ she exclaimed frustratedly. ‘There’s no one to look after him in England…unless your mother—’
‘I believe my mother’s off on one of her jaunts,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘And besides, you know how vague she can be—which is why Clare didn’t even bother trying to contact her and got on to me instead.’
‘Precisely—she left him with you,’ observed Jenny decisively. ‘And now that I’ve brought you the necessary documents you’ll have no problem getting him back to England.’
‘I’m not going back to England,’ he informed her icily. ‘I was just about to catch a flight for Brazil when your brother rang—right at this very moment I’m supposed to be doing trial runs on a new boat I’ve entered in an important race—’
‘And you’d rather play with your boats than see to your nephew’s well-being—’
‘You know damned well I don’t play with boats—I design and race them,’ he informed her coldly. ‘And a lot of skilled men depend on my designing and racing abilities for their living.’
‘And I suppose that I, being a mere woman, couldn’t possibly have a job of any importance!’ exclaimed Jenny, perilously close to losing her temper. ‘Well, it so happens that I have. I only started it a couple of weeks ago and I’ve already put it in jeopardy by dashing off here at a moment’s notice. And I’ve lost the flat I was hoping to move into—thanks to having to chase all over the place getting those papers—so if you think—’
‘Give it a rest, will you, Jenny?’ drawled Jamie dismissively, getting to his feet. ‘Because, after two nights without a wink of sleep, I’m not in the least receptive to any sob-story you choose to come up with.’
‘Choose to come up with?’ shrieked Jenny, beside herself with rage as she too leapt to her feet. ‘Jamie Castile, just who the hell do you think you—?’
The two of them froze as the baby’s piercing cries reached their ears.
‘You’re the one who woke it with your histrionics,’ muttered Jamie, striding towards the second of the doors leading off the room, ‘so you can damned well deal with it.’
‘My God, you’re all gentleman, aren’t you?’ she flung after him.
He turned as he reached the door.
‘And you, my dear Jennifer, are one woman supremely qualified to vouch for that fact,’ he murmured mockingly.
Her face burning with humiliation, Jenny turned on her heel and marched into the room containing her protesting nephew. Trust him to throw that up at her, she fumed to herself, under no illusion as to what his taunt had referred, then forcefully hurled all thought of the subject from her mind.
‘Poor little man,’ she whispered, her face softening as she picked up the distraught baby and cradled him to her. ‘Are you missing your mummy and daddy?’
He quietened miraculously in her arms and remained silent as she laid him on the bed and made an attempt to inspect his nappy.
‘Why—you little rascal!’ she laughed, as his face broke into a lop-sided smile and he began gurgling with contentment. ‘You just wanted some attention, didn’t you?’
Tiny feet began pummelling at her ribcage, dislodging the nappy she was clumsily trying secure around him.
‘Jonathan, you’ll have to co-operate,’ she protested with a chuckle. ‘This is my first encounter with the mysteries of nappy-changing!’
The instant she tried returning him to his cot, he protested deafeningly. In the end she gave up trying and lay down on the bed with her nephew lying in angelic peacefulness against her.
She closed her eyes, a feeling of total mental and physical exhaustion wafting through her. She had gone to work early that morning and had worked flat out to clear what she could from her desk—just in case she didn’t make it back to London at a reasonable hour tomorrow.
She gave a soft groan of dismay as she remembered the icy response with which her unorthodox request for a day off—possibly two—had been met. She was still at the stage of waking each morning unable to believe she actually had landed the job of her dreams with Wardale’s, one of the most dynamic and prestigious advertising companies around…and now, in her first month and in the vital preliminary period of an important campaign in which she had to prove herself, she was taking time off!
A rueful grin crept over her face as she found herself switching her thoughts towards Jamie. Never in her entire twenty-three years had she thought the day would come when she would regard concentrating her thoughts on Jamie as the lesser of two evils!
For the best part of four years she had just about managed to erase him from her mind, she reminded herself with drowsy detachment. And it had probably taken the best part of that time to cure her of her obsession with him, she admitted with reluctance. As a child she had openly hero-worshipped him, dazzled by the recklessly adventurous spirit of the godlike creature who was almost eight years her senior and her older brother’s closest friend. Child and man, Jamie Castile was one who regarded life as something to be lived to the hilt—and live it to the hilt he had done with a total disregard to either convention or his own personal safety.
‘That Castile boy’s been allowed to run wild for far too long—he’ll come to no good,’ had been the oft-voiced opinion in the small Sussex village in which they had both been born…yet there had always been a note of grudging admiration—pride almost—behind the words.
And Jamie, with his strange background of opulence and poverty, had turned their dire predictions upside-down. Never one to compromise, he had thrown himself heart and soul into what he loved most, racing and designing yachts. The fact that he had made a considerable fortune from what he so loved had probably been of scant consequence to him initially, although, judging by his earlier remarks, he now seemed fully aware of his responsibilities towards those deriving their livelihoods from the fortune his skills had brought him.
It was around the time she was fifteen that she had stopped bemoaning the fact she hadn’t been born a boy and that her heart had begun doing strange things whenever Jamie was around. At sixteen, finding herself plotting painfully lingering deaths for any female who caught his attention—a veritable army, for Jamie’s eye roved far and wide—she had finally faced up to the fact that the hero-worship of her earlier years had matured to love. And with a maturity far beyond her years she had bided her time, the woman’s heart within her adolescent body vacillating between despair and relief as a daunting procession of rivals caught and then lost the attention of his restlessly roving eye.
Three years later, on the night of her brother’s wedding to Jamie’s sister, she had decided, at nineteen, that even Jamie could no longer regard her as a child. That night—a full four years ago—the brutal totality with which he had rejected her naïvely explicit advances had devastated her; and today had been the first time she had so much as laid eyes on him since. She was cured of her obsessive love of him, but the savage wound he had inflicted on her pride had left a scar that she now realised would always be with her.
‘Jenny?’
As her eyes flew open they found Jamie standing in the doorway, a small circular tray balanced on one hand.
‘He kept crying each time I tried to put him in his cot,’ she explained defensively, thrown by the flash of pure hatred the sight of him had sent searing through her. She struggled upright, the soundly sleeping baby clasped to her.
‘He’s just about due for another feed,’ stated Jamie, approaching the bed, then sitting down on it.
‘Did you make it up for him?’ asked Jenny, forcing her mind back to the present as she glanced down at the two bottles on the tray he had placed on the bed—one filled with milk, the other apparently containing water.
The darkly defined curves of his eyebrows rose in pained disbelief. ‘Mercifully, it’s a service the hotel provides. Clare gave me a few tins of the formula and sheets of instructions—which you’ll no doubt need.’
Jenny’s sharp exclamation of impatience brought a whimper of protest from the bundle in her arms—a whimper that fast developed into a full-blooded yell.
‘I think you’d better feed him now,’ she said, placing the bellowing infant in his arms and jumping to her feet as he showed signs of wanting to pass him back. ‘And, at the risk of sounding repetitive,’ she stated firmly, ‘Jamie, I really do have to be back at work by tomorrow, if possible.’
‘Surely they can give you a bit of time off, in the circumstances,’ he exclaimed, deftly transferring the baby to the crook of his arm and testing the temperature of the milk in the bottle before proceeding with the feed with a casual air of expertise that took Jenny’s breath away. ‘After all, it is your brother’s baby—’
‘And your sister’s!’ she cut in exasperatedly, drawing up a chair and sitting down. ‘Which is all beside the point. Jamie, I’ve only been in this job for a couple of weeks…it’s one in a million, as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t want to jeopardise it.’
He glanced up from the baby and pulled a wry face.
‘One in a million, eh?’
Jenny nodded. ‘And I’m on an initial three months’ trial.’
‘It seems as though we have a bit of a problem on our hands,’ he muttered, then suddenly removed the bottle from the baby and hoisted him up on his shoulder, pummelling him vigorously on the back.
‘Jamie, don’t you think you’re being a bit rough with him?’ she gasped.
‘Stop trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs,’ he retorted with a grin that became a chuckle when the baby obligingly burped with gusto. ‘He’s a tough little tyke,’ he laughed, transferring the baby back into his arms and resuming the feed.
Jenny raised her hand to her mouth in an attempt to hide the disbelieving laughter mounting within her—she would have given anything for a camera, preferably a cine.
‘And you can stop smirking, clever clogs,’ he warned, ‘because it isn’t nearly as simple as it looks. The first two feeds were sheer hell, until I got the knack…as you’ll soon find out.’
‘Jamie, how many times do I have to tell you?’ she exclaimed in exasperation, all trace of laughter gone. ‘I can’t look after him!’
His heavily lashed grey-green eyes lifted to hers, holding them for a brief moment before returning to the baby lying in abandoned contentment in his arms.
‘The point is, Jenny, that we’re going to have to come up with something,’ he said quietly. ‘When it comes to the crunch, no matter how successful you or I may be at the work we do, we’re neither of us indispensable—whereas, right now, your brother and my sister are…wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Of course I would,’ she muttered uncomfortably.
‘Their being part of a team geared to deal with precisely the type of catastrophe that’s just happened in Czechoslovakia and being virtually on the spot is pretty miraculous…which is why Clare regards the fact that she’s technically on a year’s maternity leave as being neither here nor there.’
‘Which is only natural—someone of her training finding herself in the middle of something as ghastly as that,’ exclaimed Jenny with a decided twinge of guilt. ‘Especially when she feels secure in the knowledge that my mother would be taking care of Jonathan. Jamie, what are we going to do?’
‘I suppose we could tell Clare the truth…Graham would obviously stay on, but there would be nothing to stop her coming back—’
‘How can you possibly say that?’ exclaimed Jenny, aghast. ‘It’s specialists like Clare and Graham that the other doctors will be turning to for advice!’
‘Well, she’s ringing here in about half an hour,’ he told her, returning the empty bottle to the tray and subjecting the baby to another bout of pummelling, ‘so we’d better think up something to tell her.’
‘Think up something?’ repeated Jenny, her heart sinking somewhat. ‘You make it sound as though you plan telling her a pack of lies!’
‘Only a fool would try that,’ he snapped with a flash of impatience that was a sharp reminder of how quick a temper he had. ‘Right now, Graham and Clare are where they’re most needed—desperately needed—and the last thing they deserve is worry over who’s looking after their baby.’
‘They’re bound to worry when they realise Mum and Dad aren’t around to do it,’ protested Jenny.
‘Why should they—there are the two of us, aren’t there? Just let me finish, for heaven’s sake!’ he barked impatiently as Jenny shook her head vehemently. ‘If I can be on the morning flight to Rio I could get back in time for you to be at work on time on Monday—Jenny, will you shut up and let me finish?’ he roared as she began protesting volubly. ‘And you can shut up too,’ he growled softly to the baby at his shoulder who, far from being disturbed by his raised voice, was gurgling with delight. ‘Jenny, all it necessitates is your having tomorrow off—on Monday you’ll be back to work as usual.’
‘Oh yes?’ demanded Jenny furiously. ‘How can you possibly get through trial runs in time to—?’
‘I shan’t be conducting the trials,’ he cut in sharply. ‘The rest of the team can handle those. The reason I have to get there by the weekend is that I’ve contracts to sign in connection with another boat, which are of great importance to my business. It’s something I should have had tied up a couple of days ago and which I can’t delay any longer, simply because those concerned only agreed to the signing taking place in Brazil in order to fit in with my schedule.’
‘And what about the race you’re entered in?’ demanded Jenny heatedly. ‘Presumably you intend returning to Brazil to participate in it—or can you navigate this new boat of yours by remote control?’
‘If you’d let me finish,’ he stated with steely softness, ‘you’d hear that on Monday, when I get back, I intend lining up some trained nannies for us to interview—’
‘Us?’
‘Damn it, I can hardly interview them on my own!’ he exploded. ‘I’ve no idea what constitutes a good nanny.’
‘And, being female, I have—is that it?’
‘Forget it!’ he snarled, rising to his feet. ‘We’ll just tell Clare the truth and let her sort it out for herself!’
‘This is little short of emotional blackmail,’ accused Jenny angrily, though even as she uttered the words she was conscious of her anger being directed more at herself than at the man towering over her and gazing down at her from chillingly impersonal eyes. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake—this is ridiculous,’ she groaned. ‘Jamie, of course I’ll do everything in my power to ensure Clare and Graham can get on with their work with complete peace of mind over Jonathan.’
‘If that’s the case, how is it you’re so reluctant to hear what I have to suggest?’ he demanded.
Jenny gazed up at him, tempted to ask him to sit down again, not because looking up at his well over six feet of height was giving her a crick in her neck—which it was—but for other, less specific, in fact, barely definable reasons. Towering over her was the man who, from the first instant she had become aware of the opposite sex, she had unquestioningly regarded as the embodiment of male physical perfection. Yet at some point during the past few years she had unconsciously become convinced that her previous perception of his looks had had far more to do with her juvenile obsession than with any fact. And now she wasn’t in the least sure. For a reason she was unable to fathom, the sight of him standing there with one strong, darkly tanned arm supporting the baby against a broad shoulder seemed only to accentuate the extraordinary quality of his looks and the powerful, aggressively masculine magnetism he had always exuded.
‘It’s not that I’m reluctant to hear what you have to say,’ she sighed, lowering her eyes as she fought to rid herself of those deeply unsettling thoughts. ‘It’s just that for a number of purely practical reasons this couldn’t have happened at a worse time for me.’
To her relief he sat down again and began bouncing the baby on his lap.
‘Shouldn’t you try putting him in his cot?’ she suggested uncomfortably, the complete unexpectedness of his actions triggering off the thought in her once more that none of this was really happening to her.
‘He likes a bit of company after he’s eaten,’ he replied tersely, lifting the baby under the arms and letting him stand on his lap. ‘Could you be a bit more explicit about these practical difficulties you’re experiencing?’ he added in that same tone. ‘Clare will be ringing soon.’
‘My main problem is that I have nowhere to live,’ replied Jenny. ‘I told you about the flat I missed out on. Actually, I was staying with Lizzie Street until I found somewhere—you remember Lizzie, don’t you?’
He nodded impatiently, motioning her to continue.
‘It was very kind of her to offer to put me up, but I can’t possibly impose Jonathan on her as well.’
‘You wouldn’t have to—the most convenient solution for everyone is for you to stay at my place.’
He laughed as she started visibly.
‘What’s wrong, Jenny? Didn’t you know I had a place in London…or is it the idea of sharing it with me that’s the problem?’
‘My only problem is that I know you far too well, Jamie Castile,’ retorted Jenny, annoyed by the sensation of hot colour liberally washing her cheeks in response to the teasing mockery of his words.
‘I doubt if you know me nearly as well as you believe; though, to be fair, my innate nobility of spirit can hardly have escaped you,’ he murmured in drawling tones of mockery.
‘Your innate nobility of spirit?’ she drawled back, rolling her eyes heavenwards.
‘Jenny, there can’t be many healthily functioning males around into whose beds you’ve crept—nubile and devastatingly tempting—and left as pure as when you entered—’
‘That’s it!’ raged Jenny, leaping angrily to her feet. ‘I’ve had enough of you and your snide remarks—’
The two of them froze as the phone rang, the sound sending Jenny slumping back on to the seat from which she had just leapt.
‘I suggest you answer it,’ remarked Jamie coldly. ‘After all, you’re the one calling all the shots.’
Jenny levelled pleading eyes at him as the phone rang relentlessly on. His response was a dismissive shrug after which he turned his attention exclusively towards the baby trampling happily against his thighs.
Jenny snatched up the phone on the bedside table with no idea what she could possibly say.
‘Hello—Clare?’
‘Jenny! What a relief it is to hear your voice—I had visions of Jamie trying to cope on his own with Jonathan until he got him to England,’ exclaimed her sister-in-law.
‘I’m sure he’d have managed,’ said Jenny. ‘How are things going where you are?’ she added, the sound of Clare’s voice making her suddenly acutely aware of the terrible devastation by which both she and Graham must be surrounded.
‘I suppose we should all be thanking God that relatively so few were killed,’ replied Clare, exhaustion tingeing her words. ‘But one of the things for which Graham and I are specifically trained is to help the survivors cope with the horrific psychological trauma of it all. Jenny, you can’t begin to imagine what it’s like for these poor people. There are areas where entire villages have completely disappeared, some with virtually no loss of life…but it’s almost akin to experiencing death for the inhabitants…they’re huddled together, loath to leave the places where the majority of them have spent their entire lives, yet as they look around themselves they search in vain for a single landmark that can be recognised.’
‘Clare, you sound utterly exhausted!’ exclaimed Jenny anxiously.
‘That’s my own stupid fault,’ claimed Clare. ‘I’m afraid that what little opportunity I’ve had to sleep I’ve squandered worrying about Jonathan.’
‘You probably won’t like hearing this,’ chuckled Jenny, ‘but he doesn’t appear to be missing either of you in the least.’
‘That’s why I realise how stupid I’m being,’ admitted Clare sheepishly. ‘Fortunately he’s at the age where he’ll go to anyone without a qualm…it’s just that Jamie looked about as comfortable with him as a man with a time-bomb glued to his hands when they left.’
‘Is that so?’ laughed Jenny. ‘Because right at this very moment your brother is sprawled across the bed and your son is bouncing with vigorous abandonment on him. Listen carefully and you might just be able to catch the racket accompanying each bounce.’
She held out the receiver just in time to catch a particularly piercing shriek of delight from the baby, to which his uncle responded with a theatrical groan.
‘Your brat’s just pulverised several of my ribs!’ he bellowed accusingly in the direction of the receiver.
‘I take it you heard all that,’ murmured Jenny.
‘All of it—loud and clear,’ replied Clare, relieved laughter distorting her words. ‘It’s not that I even thought for one second he wouldn’t be all right with Jamie—I think I got myself into a bit of a panic when I couldn’t get through to your mother. How did she react to the news? I’m sure she’s thrilled to bits at the idea of having him to herself for a while.’
Jenny’s heart sank. ‘She’s going to be cursing fate when she finds out,’ she began, forcing a humorous brightness into her tone. ‘You see, she and Dad decided to take off for New Zealand slightly earlier than originally planned…so it’s Auntie and Uncle who’ll be having Jonathan all to themselves!’
‘Oh God!’ groaned Clare. ‘This is terrible!’
‘Terrible? Thanks a million!’ exclaimed Jenny, with all the teasing indignation she could muster. ‘Are you implying that Jamie and I aren’t fit to look after him?’
Jamie sat up at those words, silently motioning her to bring the telephone to the bed.
‘Jenny, this isn’t a joking matter,’ protested Clare as Jenny transferred herself and the telephone to the bed. ‘You both have demanding jobs!’
‘And we’re both perfectly capable of organising our work schedules to accommodate our nephew,’ stated Jenny easily, starting slightly as Jamie pressed his face hard against hers in an attempt to hear what his sister was saying.
‘I know that!’ exclaimed Clare uncertainly. ‘But it’s far too much to ask of you both.’
‘Clare, you and Graham are needed desperately right where you are,’ said Jenny quietly. ‘Of course it’s not too much to ask of us. For heaven’s sake, it’s the least we can do!’
‘And as for putting ourselves out,’ butted in Jamie against the mouthpiece, while clasping the now dozing baby to him with one arm and slipping the other round Jenny for balance, ‘on Monday we plan on setting about getting him a nanny who can take care of him during the day. How do you feel about that? I mean, we’ll get someone highly qualified and vet her as no nanny has ever been vetted before.’
‘Idiot,’ laughed Clare. ‘I know you would and I can’t fault the excellence of your idea, but he’d disrupt your lives entirely—’
‘Want to bet?’ cut in Jamie with a chuckle. ‘He’s going to have to fit around us—starting from Monday, when the three of us are going disco dancing. Then on Tuesday—’
Jenny yanked the receiver closer to her own mouth. ‘I’ve a feeling Jamie’s trying to dispel your doubts,’ she teased.
‘Jenny, I haven’t any doubts, but—’
‘No buts, Clare,’ stated Jenny firmly. ‘Not only are you where you’re most needed, but Jamie and I would probably never speak to you again if you turned our offer down.’
‘OK, OK, he’s all yours!’ protested Clare with a groaned laugh. ‘But if there’s any chance of my taking a break and getting over to England, I’ll grab it—just to check up that the pair of you aren’t turning my son into a spoiled brat!’
‘That’s typical of my sister,’ growled Jamie loudly in Jenny’s ear. ‘Doesn’t the wretched woman realise we’ll be the making of this child?’
‘Of course she does,’ chuckled Clare. ‘But listen, folks, I’ll have to go now—there’s a queue forming for use of this telephone. Either Graham or I will ring you at Jamie’s as soon as one of us can…and thanks a million, I really mean that and I hope you both appreciate how much.’
Jenny leaned over and replaced the receiver, the weight of Jamie’s body—not to mention her sudden acute consciousness of it—rendering her movements awkward.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she demanded sharply as the increasing pressure of his arm on her shoulders threatened to send her toppling.
‘I’m trying to keep my balance,’ he muttered in a strained voice. ‘For heaven’s sake, grab the baby, will you? My arm’s completely asleep!’
Jenny eased the sleeping baby from him and placed him in the cot.
‘Shouldn’t we have changed his nappy?’ she asked uncertainly as she straightened, a groan of laughter swiftly following her words.
‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded, plainly not in the least amused as he rose, still rubbing his arm vigorously.
‘You have to admit that there is something rather incongruous in the idea of anyone consulting you concerning a baby’s welfare,’ replied Jenny, more than a little nonplussed by the hostile look to which she was being subjected.
He shrugged, then made his way to the door, obviously not about to admit anything.
‘He’d have soon let you know had he wanted his nappy changed,’ he informed her brusquely, disappearing into the sitting-room. ‘I’ll get them to send up some coffee,’ he called out. ‘We might as well get all this thrashed out tonight, as I’ll have to leave fairly early in the morning.’
Jenny followed him into the room, closing the bedroom door behind her. As he picked up the telephone extension and began ordering the coffee, Jenny spotted her overnight case, still sitting where the porter had left it. She frowned thoughtfully, wondering whether or not to offer to sleep in with Jonathan in the light of Jamie’s proposed early start.
‘You’d better sleep in with the kid,’ he informed her as he replaced the receiver, his words managing to sound more like an order than a request. ‘I’d like a night’s sleep for a change.’
‘There are a few things I’d like to make absolutely clear,’ she stated coldly, almost beside herself with anger. ‘I’ve agreed to get involved in this solely for Graham’s and Clare’s sakes. The give and take that will be necessary for this to work will in no way consist of my giving and your taking.’
As she spoke he began walking towards her, still flexing his left arm right up until the moment he drew to a halt scant inches from her.
‘It really does still rankle, doesn’t it, Jenny?’ he taunted softly. ‘The fact that you once offered me your all and I refused to take it.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about!’ she spat, lashing out wildly at him and suddenly finding herself trapped in the circle of his arms.
‘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.
‘I’ll just put him in his pram,’ he muttered, scowling across the room at her, then disappeared.
Well, at least he had managed to get a pram, Jenny told herself, a thought which did nothing to lessen the anger and indignation trembling within her as she marched off to her own room and began impatiently removing her clothes. There had actually been an element of accusation in that scowling look he had flung her—as though she were in some way at fault!
Trying to calm herself, she slipped into a housecoat and picked up her clothes. She needed a shower, she decided, if only to give her time to compose herself before confronting that…that…
‘So this is where you’re hiding,’ observed Jamie, strolling into the room unannounced and right up to her. ‘And what the hell was that about just now?’ he demanded, gazing down at her from coldly assessing eyes.
‘Get out of here!’ she exploded, taking an involuntary step back from him and finding the backs of her legs trapped against the bed.
‘Not until you’ve explained what that ill-mannered performance of yours was all about.’
‘Ill-mannered! You’ve got a nerve!’ she croaked indignantly. ‘The agreement was that the two of us would interview any prospective nannies!’
‘At the time, if I rightly remember, you were all for my doing it alone,’ he retorted, flinging himself down on the bed and gazing up at her accusingly.
‘That’s hardly the point,’ hissed Jenny, glowering down at him. ‘How do you imagine Clare’s going to feel when she hears you’ve roped in one of your…your floozies to look after her child?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing angrily as he propped himself up on his elbows.
‘For God’s sake, Jamie, don’t you think it’s about time you grew up and started taking life seriously?’
‘Oh—now we’re back to how irresponsible I am, are we?’ he said, his tone ominously quiet. ‘Exactly what is it that makes you think you have some God-given right to be my judge and jury, Jenny? I think it’s time you were reminded of a few facts.’
‘I don’t need reminding of anything. All I—’
‘You’re eight years my junior—the kid sister of one of my closest friends. It probably seems to you that I’ve been around for as long as you can remember…but the fact is that you don’t know me any more than I know you. You seem to be stuck in some sort of time-warp, repeating all the dire warnings the village biddies used to trot out when I was still a kid—’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘No—it isn’t,’ he snapped. ‘Yes, I was a tearaway as a kid, and yes, I have had possibly more than my fair share of women—but I can assure you, Jenny, not one of them is a floozie—’
‘I’m sorry,’ she cut in hastily, shame staining her cheeks. ‘I had no right to say that…it’s just that I feel so responsible for Jonathan.’
‘And you think I don’t?’
Jenny opened her mouth to protest, then clamped it firmly shut. There was no way she was going to allow herself to be manoeuvred into accepting Mandy as a nanny, simply because she felt guilty over referring to her as a floozie.
‘Yes—well, that resounding silence manages to speak volumes,’ he noted sarcastically. ‘The point that seems to have escaped you—though mercifully not the rest of the village dears—is that I am now a fully fledged adult and perfectly able to take on the responsibilities that go with that status, should the need arise.’
He rose from the bed and for an instant Jenny was convinced he was about to stride from the room in disgust. Then he turned and grasped her without warning by the shoulders.
‘Tell me, Jenny, does it make you feel safer, kidding yourself I’m still an irresponsible tearaway?’ he asked softly. ‘Was I so irresponsible when I refused the very considerable charms you once offered me?’
‘I wondered how long it would be before you dragged that up again!’ she spat, struggling dementedly to free herself.
‘I keep referring to it because it was something of a milestone in my life,’ he replied, the tightening of his arms rendering her struggles ineffectual. ‘I readily admit that twenty-seven is a little late to be reaching mental maturity—but that was the night I finally grew up.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she croaked, a tiny part of her stalling against the seeming inevitability of his kissing her while the rest of her tensed in breathless expectation of it.
‘It’s supposed to mean that even irresponsible Jamie had enough sense to realise that the consequences of deflowering a nineteen-year-old ingénue might be more than he could handle.’
‘You wouldn’t have been deflowering me—as you so gallantly put it!’ she lied, goaded by a sense of helpless outrage.
‘I can assure you I’d not have been so damned gallant had I known you were experienced at the time,’ he muttered, drawing back slightly from her with a rueful laugh. ‘I used up more self-control that night than I ever knew I possessed.’
Jenny felt her pulse-rate shift into a higher, almost painful gear. ‘Now you really are being gallant,’ she managed and was appalled to hear a note of wistfulness in her slightly breathless words. ‘You swatted me aside with about as much thought as you’d have given to an irritating fly.’
‘If you say so,’ he stated in oddly clipped tones, pulling her heavily against him. ‘Who am I to argue with someone who knows me as thoroughly as you do? And who cares anyway?’
There was a heated turbulence in his kiss that contrasted oddly with the cool carelessness of his words; and, as that heat permeated and possessed her, she felt its swift destruction of those self-protective layers built up so painstakingly over the years.
Yet, even as her lips and body were responding with eager spontaneity to the urgent surge of passion in his, she was unable to silence the doom-laden voice within her warning that she was as besotted with this infuriatingly exciting man now as she had ever been.
CHAPTER THREE
JAMIE’S initial reaction was that he thought Jenny was joking—a joke he found it impossible to share, judging by the sudden wariness diluting the soft somnolence of passion in his eyes. Then he drew back from her, wariness hardening to disbelief as he gazed down at her sprawled beneath him on the bed.
“‘No” is what you should have been saying a good five minutes ago—not now,’ he rasped, rolling away from her and dragging himself upright. ‘And, to be brutally frank, some men would regard themselves justified in considering you to have been cutting it dangerously fine even five minutes ago.’
As he rose from the bed Jenny drew the gaping robe back over her exposed breasts, her badly shaking hands an indication of an inner turmoil that made speech impossible. She sat up, hugging her arms to her in a desperate attempt to rid herself of the still tingling imprint of his hands on her body and the intoxicating heat of him still burning along the length of her. And, as the terrible hunger raged on unabated within her, she found herself dazedly trying to recall what words she had used in that barely conscious moment when she had acted contrary to her every desire and had denied both herself and him.
‘Jamie—where are you going?’ she protested automatically as, with an exclamation of disgust, he turned from her and strode from the room.
‘This is all I need!’ she wailed softly to herself, clutching her head as though willing it to start functioning once more.
When her head eventually obliged, it was to present her with the observation that the only way peace could be restored to her life would be for Jamie to be out of it entirely—a comfortless observation, given the presence of Jonathan in their lives.
But she certainly couldn’t leave things hanging in the air as they now were, she told herself dejectedly, rising from the bed and making her way to the sitting-room.
He was pouring himself a drink as she entered.
‘Jamie—I’d like to apologise,’ she began, then broke off, distracted by the fact that his hands, pouring the drink, were no more steady than her own. ‘I…you took me completely by surprise,’ she added disjointedly and silently cursed herself for not having had the wits to have worked out what she was going to say to him.
Without even casting a glance in her direction, he moved to one of the armchairs and sat down, sprawling untidily on it as he gazed moodily into his glass.
‘What you actually mean is that you took yourself by surprise,’ he retorted sharply, cold speculation in his eyes as they rose to hers. ‘Which mucked up your plans for revenge somewhat.’
‘Revenge?’ croaked Jenny.
‘Wasn’t that your intention—to string me along and then give me a taste of what you considered to be my own medicine?’ he enquired frigidly. ‘Too bad your body put up such a struggle against co-operating with your vengeful little mind.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie—what are you saying? How could you possibly think I’d stoop that low?’
‘How indeed?’ he muttered eventually, plainly a little thrown by the sincerity of her indignation. ‘OK—perhaps you’d care to explain yourself,’ he added harshly, returning to his morose contemplation of the contents of his glass.
Jenny walked over to the chair opposite his and sat down gingerly on its edge, wondering what on earth she could possibly say. The truth was something she had yet to examine, she thought frantically; and even if she had, the chances were it was the last thing she would ever want to confide in Jamie.
‘Hell, you almost had me convinced I was wrong in thinking your motive was revenge!’ he exploded through her panicking thoughts.
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