Dishonourable Proposal

by Jacqueline Baird

  Katy smiled. He was maudlin, but he was right.

  'And then she had to meet that bitch Fiona, the artist.'

  'Auntie Fiona, I've never seen her in years,' Katy murmured, almost to herself.

  'No, by God! I made damn sure of that.'

  Katy shot her father a puzzled glance. He was once more filling his glass. 'Don't you think you have had enough?' she prompted.

  'Enough? I've had enough, all right, more than any man should have to endure. I caught them, you know.'

  Suddenly Katy realised her father was talking about the past in a way he had never done before. He seemed to have forgotten she was there. He was seated at his large oak desk, staring at the drink in his hand, his lips moving, but she had to strain to catch what he was saying.

  'It was our eleventh wedding anniversary that weekend. I had felt something was wrong for some time, and I could not understand what it was. So that week I left London on the Thursday. I wanted to surprise Lydia—a long weekend in Paris or something like that.

  Whatever she wanted. I would have given her the world if I could. Instead it was me who got the surprise. Lydia and Fiona in our bed together. Another man I might have understood, but a woman...'

  Katy's glass dropped from her hand, her mouth fell open in shock, and her green eyes mirrored her disbelief. But one look at her father told her he was telling the truth.

  He was shaking his head from side to side. 'I will never understand; never, never,' he mumbled, and once again raised his glass to his mouth.

  Katy stumbled to her feet and, ignoring the glass and the spreading tide of liquid on the thick pile carpet, she moved to her father's side. 'Dad, please.' She did not know what she wanted to say; she only knew she wanted to comfort him.

  'Katy, I always loved your mother. I still do. I will when I go to my grave, but I could never forgive her. I took other women out, but it was no good; it was as though Lydia had castrated me. And then she died. Monica was good in bed, and for that I married her... Now she has gone and likely the business with her. But I will never regret divorcing that woman.'

  'Dad, you don't have to explain to me.'

  'Yes, I do, Katy. But I can't find the words to apologise to you. I have lost your heritage, I have failed my father and betrayed our ancestors and our employees. How am I going to face them?'

  'Please, Dad, don't worry about that now. Let me help you upstairs; you're tired; you need to rest.' Slowly she helped him to his feet and together they left the room and mounted the stairs. 'Tonight we will have dinner together, and everything will seem a lot better, Dad, honestly.'

  'I doubt it, unless Jake can come up with something.' He turned his head to look at her and she flinched from the almost childlike appeal in his watery blue eyes. 'Do you think so?'

  'I know so,' she responded with a smile, and watched until he was safely in the master bedroom.

  She went into her own room, and gave a sigh of relief as she closed the door behind her. She slipped off her suit and blouse and lay on the bed, her mind whirling like a windmill, and every blade a cutting one. The full horror of the last few hours she could barely contemplate, but she had to...

  A bitter smile twisted her lovely mouth. For years she had been cool with her father; she had blamed him for his girlfriends, and indirectly for the death of her mother. How had she dared pass judgement on him all these years? He was right to remind her she had been happy as a child; he had been a perfect father, a proud, happy family man. He had never lied to her, and she knew he had finally, in a moment of weakness, told her the truth about her mother.

  A lot of small instances from the past she saw in a different light in the wake of his revelation. Her mother and Fiona had always been together, so much so that the woman had become Katy's honorary auntie.

  With a low groan Katy rolled over on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. It was not up to her to judge her parents, but she was swamped with guilt at her neglect and coldness towards her father. She blushed with shame. God, but she had been a precocious teenager, passing a superior moral judgement on her dad when she had neither the experience nor the knowledge to do so.

  Because of Jake she had shot off to France and magnanimously called her father once a week. In the past four years they had only met three times, and always at her father's instigation.

  Two months ago she had calmly walked back into his life and informed him she was going to take up her rightful position in the firm. She cringed at her own conceit. She had told herself that her years on the Continent had mellowed her view, she was a mature woman and was prepared to forgive her father his little peccadilloes.

  For a long, tense moment Katy took a good hard look at herself, and she did not like what she saw. She had sailed through life, taking what she wanted, her father always there in the background with support and, when she had first left home, money.

  She was his daughter and she had never once considered his feelings until today. Her mother had destroyed his pride in his manhood, but he had battled on the only way he knew how. A psychiatrist could probably explain more succinctly, but Katy could guess how he must have felt.

  Today she had listened to her father apologise over and over again, and beg her forgiveness. She should be the one apologising for her callous insensitivity. Her father had dropped enough hints that all was not well with the firm, but not once had she taken him up on them, asked what was worrying him. Secure in her own little game-plan, she had considered no one but herself. Now her father faced the bankruptcy court and all the attendant publicity, the last vestige of his pride stripped away from him.

  Getting off the bed, she took off her underwear and slipped her wrap on. She could not let it happen; she owed her father that much. The pride of generations of Meldentons stiffened her spine as she walked across to the bathroom. She would do whatever it took to save

  Meldenton China, and if that included being the mistress of Jake Granton so be it.

  An idea hit her, and, shrugging off her wrap, she stepped into the shower cubicle and turned on the water. Maybe she could outwit Jake after all. She had money of her own, and a call to Claude in France would get her back into the fashion business. All she needed was a financial institution that was prepared to lend her money on the strength of her earnings as Lena Lawrence, top model.

  As she balefully eyed the contents of her wardrobe a wry smile quirked her generous mouth: most of her clothes were in her apartment and all she had left were a mink jacket—a present from her father she had never worn—and a couple of dresses.

  She chose the least provocative of the two—a jade silk jersey sheath. Quickly she donned a wisp of a white lace teddy, and slipped the dress over her head. She smoothed the short, slim-fitting garment over her hips and turned to the dressing-table. Five minutes later, with her long blonde hair brushed and rearranged in a neat French pleat and the minimum of make-up gracing her lovely features, she hurried downstairs to the study.

  This morning Jake had caught her unawares and unprepared, and she had forgotten the first rule of business: read everything, including the small print. Before attending the meeting she had read only the report on Meldenton China, and ignored the papers on the property company as being of no interest to her.

  Jake's revelations had shocked her rigid, and delivered a crushing blow to her confidence, but at last she was beginning to think clearly and she would not make the same mistake again.

  She sat down at her father's large leather-topped desk and picked up the telephone. 'Bonjour, Claude.' In rapid French Katy explained to her friend what she wanted. A new contract at a much higher salary, and as many outside commissions as he could find for her besides. Plus she wanted an answer tonight.

  She replaced the receiver, a dark frown marring her smooth brow. Claude had promised to do what he could; he was not too confident, given she wanted a response within hours, but he promised to call her back later.

  Picking up her briefcase, she opened it and withdrew a bundle o
f documents. Two hours later, her eyes gritty from reading, she raised her head as Mrs Thomas the housekeeper walked into the room.

  'Excuse me, miss, but will you be staying for dinner?'

  'Yes,' Katy replied, trying to smile. Mrs Thomas had replaced the old housekeeper. According to her father, she was a gem, a widow in her early fifties who had lost her home on the death of her husband, and was grateful for a roof over her head.

  Katy expelled a weary sigh. After reading the full reports, she wondered if any of them would have a home before long. It was much worse than she had imagined possible, but still, with her savings and her father's personal wealth, the company might be saved.

  Over dinner, which Katy barely touched, she outlined her plan to her father. 'So you see, Dad, with your personal fortune and mine, plus hopefully my earnings over the next year or two, we might be able to hang on. The property market is bound to improve.'

  'Katy, Katy darling, I don't deserve a daughter like you. You would give me all your money and your future earnings——-

  "That's not important, Dad,' she cut him off. 'The company is what matters.' She did not want him getting maudlin again, just when he appeared to have recovered from his earlier alcoholic depression.

  'It's no good, Katy. I don't have any personal fortune; at least, nowhere near enough to save the firm.'

  'But Grandad left you tons of money...'

  'Yes, that's true, but Monica proved to be a very expensive wife—the villa at Marbella, a yacht in the Mediterranean and the accompanying crew, jewels, furs...you name it, we bought it. But I can't blame Monica entirely. It was my own fault. I reinvested shares in higher-yield stock, but unfortunately also higher risk.'

  'Oh, no.' Katy could guess what was coming next.

  'One black Monday a couple of years ago my fortune was more than halved overnight, and the divorce settlement last year just about wiped me out. I scraped up every penny I could but I still had to give Monica half of my Meldenton shares in lieu of alimony.'

  Kary's snort of disgust did not stop him.

  'At the time I thought it was worth it to be rid of the woman, and there did not seem much risk involved. My lawyer arranged it all so that Monica could not sell for two years, and then I was to have first option to re-buy them. It looked a great arrangement on paper; in two years I would have sold the apartments, made an enormous profit, and still controlled the firm. Unfortunately I never foresaw the complete collapse of the property market.'

  Katy listened with a kind of fatalistic acceptance of her father's speech; his two wives had effectively destroyed him, and she had done nothing to help.

  The ringing of the telephone lightened her spirits a little. She rose from the table and, fingers crossed, walked into the hall. She picked up the receiver. It would be Claude, but, short of some miraculous offer, there was no way she could earn enough to pull the firm through.

  'Bonsoir, Claude,' she answered his greeting, and listened in growing despair to his rapid French. She did not hear the doorbell ring, and when a strong tanned hand closed over hers on the receiver she almost jumped out of her skin. 'Jake!' she exclaimed.

  'Thank you, Claude, she has got your message. Goodnight.' Jake, taking the telephone from her numb hand, spoke briefly and replaced it on the rest.

  'How dare you? I was talking! That was a very important call,' she hissed finally, recovering from the shock of his unexpected appearance in her home.

  'He can't help you, Katy,' Jake said curtly.

  Katy stared up into his dark eyes gleaming with mocking triumph. He was right: Claude could not help her; for some reason he seemed reluctant to renew her contract, but how the hell did Jake know? Was the man clairvoyant? she wondered bitterly.

  'Claude was not only my employer, but a personal friend of mine, and you have no right to come bursting into this house and snatching the telephone from my hand.' She spoke vehemently, but inside she was quaking.

  'I did not burst in, Katy, dear; your very kind housekeeper answered the door and showed me in. As for Claude,' he drawled the name sarcastically, 'I think your friendship with him has just about ended.'

  'No way,' she said shortly. Where did he get off advising her on her friends? she seethed. But her green eyes slid over his tall figure, unable to hold his gaze.

  He looked wonderful—better than any man had a right to look, she thought helplessly. When it came to dressing Jake seemed to have inherited the Italian male's casually elegant style of dress. A smart navy topcoat lay easily across his broad shoulders—generously cut, it fell to about mid-calf-length. Beneath it he wore a dark dinner suit and snowy-white shirt, and a maroon-coloured floppy bow-tie nestled at his tanned throat. On most men it would have looked effeminate, but on Jake it just looked stunning.

  She did not notice her father's arrival in the hall, she was so lost in contemplation of the man standing before her and puzzling Jake's reason for being here.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  'Jake, what a surprise! But it's good to see you in my home again. It's quite a while since you have been here, but now the main attraction has returned, hmm?' Her father's knowing wink and Jake's answering grin were not lost on Katy. 'Have you any new suggestions to solve our problem,' her father continued, 'or have you come to take my girl out?'

  Katy's green eyes widened incredulously. Was her father off his head? Surely he realised, she thought cynically, the only reason Jake had not been around in months was because Monica no longer lived here, and the last thing Katy wanted was to go anywhere with Jake?

  'Yes, David, Katy and I have a late date to go dancing. I thought it might cheer her up; she is far too lovely to be worrying her head about business,' Jake answered smoothly.

  A late date, Katy fumed as she listened to the two men chat away as if she were not there. She'd give him late date... How dared he? She opened her mouth to speak, but at that instant Mrs Thomas interrupted.

  'Have you finished dinner, Mr Meldenton, because if so I would like to clear away.'

  'Sorry, Margaret; yes, thank you, it was a lovely meal as usual.'

  Margaret? Since when had the housekeeper become Margaret? Katy's mouth hung open as her gaze slid from one to the other: her father was smiling benignly at the older woman, and the housekeeper looked positively coy. The hall was beginning to feel like Piccadilly Circus.

  Circus was the right word, she thought numbly; the whole day was slipping away from her.

  'Get your coat, Katy; we're leaving.'

  She opened her mouth again to tell Jake exactly what a lying rat he was, and then closed it yet again as her father agreed with him.

  'Yes, Katy, you run along and enjoy yourself.'

  In the face of so much male persuasion, Katy had no option but to agree and, turning, she walked upstairs to fetch her wrap. Taking the only thing she could find, she flung the mink stole around her shoulders. Her wrinkled suit she would have to come back for some other day, but she had the horrible feeling she was not going to need a business suit for quite some time.

  Walking back down the stairs, she wondered how on earth she had ever been foolish enough to let Jake manipulate her into going out with him; but it was too late to back out now.

  'You know, Katy, sometimes I almost forget you are not a pin-up any more,' Jake taunted softly as she reached the foot of the stairs, and he moved towards her, circling her waist with one arm. 'In that slinky dress and fur stole you look very approachable,' he murmured silkily.

  Katy shot him a vitriolic look. 'Model... the poster was a mistake,' she snapped. He was so arrogant, so sure she would be prepared to fit in with whatever he arranged. But her fury went unchecked as Jake arched one dark brow in blatant disbelief, then turned and spoke to her father.

  'Goodnight, David, and try not to worry; I'm quite sure everything can be sorted out quite profitably tomorrow.'

  'And just how do you intend to do that?' Katy sneered as he ushered her out of the door. 'You may be half-Italian, but you are not Machiavelli.
Even you can't change a few million losses into profit overnight.'

  'No, but you and my money can, cara.'

  She felt colour creeping under her skin as the insolent Italian endearment taunted her. Incredibly in the turmoil of the past half-hour she had actually forgotten for a while Jake's dishonourable proposal, but now it loomed like the sword of Damocles hanging over her head.

  Suddenly realising she was staring at him apprehensively, she lowered her eyes, and slid into the passenger-seat of, to her surprise, a white Rolls-Royce. Alone with him, she did not feel safe, and the past day had been too much. She felt physically sick...

  'Do you have any preference as to where we go? Or shall I surprise you?' Jake asked suavely and, slipping the car into gear, he pulled out into the road.

  'I'd be grateful if you just drop me off at my apartment.' A horrible nausea was rising in her throat, and the churning of her stomach reminded her that she was not immune to the man by her side. He could still make her heart-rate rise alarmingly, and what was more, he knew it.

  'No, I said we were going dancing and we will.'

  'I can't see why you are so insistent.' She derided, regaining her self-control. 'We have never danced before— in fact, I didn't know you could.'

  'There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Katy. But in the next few months I am sure you will learn to know me as intimately as it is possible to know another person. It should be interesting,' he observed, shooting her a triumphant glance before returning his attention to the road.

  His suggestive remark silenced her completely, and for the rest of the short journey she sat lost in the turmoil of her own thoughts. Jake was so supremely confident that she would comply with his request to be his mistress that she wanted to throw his disgusting offer in his face. Like Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind but in reverse. Unfortunately she did 'give a damn', and that was the problem. She couldn't bear to see the family firm go to the wall, to see her father a broken man, and Jake knew it...