0373134266 (R)

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘What did you tell your party girls?’ Jaz said. ‘I hope I didn’t make things too awkward for you.’ Ha ha. She loved making things awkward for him. The more awkward, the better. What a hoot it was to see him squirm under the shackles of a commitment.

  ‘I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone,’ he said. ‘But no doubt they’ll hear the news like everyone else.’

  Jaz glanced at her bare ring finger. Who would take their engagement seriously unless she had evidence? ‘I haven’t got a ring.’

  His dark eyes gleamed with malice. ‘No spares hanging around at home?’

  She sent him a beady look. ‘Do you really want me to wear some other man’s ring?’

  His mouth flattened again. ‘Right. I’ll get you a ring.’

  ‘No fake diamonds,’ she said. ‘I want the real thing. The sort of clients I attract can tell the difference, you know.’

  ‘This is what this is all about, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You don’t want your clients to think you can’t hold a man long enough to get him to marry you.’

  Jaz could feel her anger building like a catastrophic storm inside her. This wasn’t about what her clients thought. It was about what she felt. No one in their right mind wanted to be rejected. Abandoned. To be told they weren’t loved in the way she desperately dreamed of being loved. Not after she had invested so much in her relationship with Myles.

  What did Jake know of investing in a relationship? He moved from one woman to the next without a thought of staying long enough to get to know someone beyond what they liked to do in bed. Only Jake could make her this angry—angry enough to throw something. It infuriated her that he alone could reduce her to such a state. ‘I can hold a man,’ she said. ‘I can hold him just fine. Myles has cold feet, that’s all. It’s perfectly normal for the groom to get a little stressed before the big day.’

  ‘If he loved you he wouldn’t ask for a break,’ Jake said. ‘He wouldn’t risk you finding someone else.’

  That thought had occurred to Jaz but she didn’t want to think about it. She was good at not thinking about things she didn’t want to think about. ‘Listen to you,’ she said with a scornful snort. ‘Jake Ravensdale, playboy extraordinaire, talking like a world expert on love.’

  ‘Where did you take Emma?’

  ‘I put her on the train once I’d talked to her mother and made sure everything was cool,’ Jaz said. ‘I didn’t want her to get into trouble or do anything she might regret.’ Like I did. She pushed the thought aside. She wouldn’t think about the rest of that night after she had left Jake’s bedroom.

  Jake picked up a glass, filled it with champagne and knocked it back in one gulp. He shook his head like a dog coming out of water and then poured another glass. With his features cast in such serious lines, he looked more like his twin Julius than ever.

  ‘We need a photo,’ Jaz said. ‘Hand me a glass.’

  He looked at her as if she had just asked him to poke a knitting needle in his eye. ‘A photo?’ he said. ‘What for?’

  She helped herself to a glass of champagne and came to stand beside him but he backed away as if she was carrying dynamite. Or knitting needles. ‘Get away from me,’ he said.

  ‘We have to do this, Jake,’ she said. ‘Who’s going to believe it if we don’t do an engagement photo?’

  ‘You don’t have a ring,’ he said. ‘Yet.’ The way he said ‘yet’ made it sound as though he considered the task on the same level as having root canal therapy.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Jaz said. ‘Just a shot with us with a glass of champers and grinning like Cheshire cats will be enough.’

  ‘You’re a sadist,’ he said, shooting her a hooded look as she came to stand beside him with her camera phone poised. ‘You know that, don’t you? A totally sick sadist.’

  It was impossible for Jaz not to notice how hard and warm his arm was against hers as she leaned in to get the shot. Impossible not to think of those strongly muscled arms gathering her even closer. Was he as aware of her as she was of him? Was that why he was standing so still? He hadn’t been this close to her in years. When family photographs had been taken—even though strictly speaking she wasn’t family—she had always been up the other end of the shot close to Miranda or one of Jake’s parents. She had never stood right next to Jake. Not so close she could practically feel the blood pumping through his veins. She checked the photo and groaned. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Surely you can do better than that. You look like someone’s got a broomstick up your—’

  ‘Okay, we’ll try again.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and leaned his head against hers. She could feel the strands of his tousled hair tickling her skin. Her senses were going haywire when his stubbly jaw grazed her face. He smelt amazing—lime and lemongrass with a hint of ginger or some other spice. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Take the goddamn shot.’

  ‘Oh...right,’ Jaz said and clicked the button. She checked the photo but this time it looked like she was the one being tortured. Plus it was blurred. ‘Not my best angle.’ She deleted it and held up the phone. ‘One more take. Say cheese.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ he said, stepping away from her once she’d taken the shot. ‘You have to promise me you’ll delete that when this is all over, okay?’

  Jaz criss-crossed her chest with her hand. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  He grunted as if her demise was something he was dearly praying for.

  She sent the tweet and then quickly sent a text to Miranda:

  I know you never liked Myles. You approve of fiancé # 4?

  Miranda’s text came back within seconds.

  OMG! Definitely!!! Congrats. Always knew you were hot for each other. J Will call later xxxxx

  ‘Who are you texting?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Miranda,’ Jaz said, putting her phone down. ‘She’s thrilled for us. We’ll finally be sisters. Yay.’

  He muttered a curse and prowled around the room like a shark in a fishbowl. ‘Julius is never going to fall for this. Not for a moment.’

  ‘He’ll have to if you want Emma to go away,’ Jaz said. ‘If you don’t play along I’ll tell her the truth.’

  He threw her a filthy look. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  She smiled a victor’s smile. ‘What’s that saying about revenge is a dish best eaten cold?’

  He glowered at her. ‘Isn’t it a little childish to be harking on about that night all these years later? I did you a favour back then. I could’ve done you that night but how would that have worked out? Ever thought about that? No. You want to paint me as the big, bad guy who made you feel a little embarrassed about that schoolgirl crush. But, believe me, I could have done a whole lot worse.’

  Jaz stepped out of his way as he stormed past her to leave the room. You did do a whole lot worse, she wanted to throw after him. But instead she clamped her lips together and turned back to look at the discarded bottles and glasses.

  Typical. Jake had a habit of leaving his mess for other people to clean up.

  CHAPTER THREE

  JAKE WAS SO mad he could see red spots in front of his eyes. Or maybe he was having a brain aneurysm from anger build-up. Seven years of it. He paced the floor of his room, raking his hair, grinding his teeth, swearing like a Brooklyn rapper at what Jasmine had done to him. Engaged! What a freaking farce. No one would believe it. Not him. Not the playboy prince of the pick-ups.

  His stomach turned at the thought. Committed. Tied down. Trapped. He was the last person who would ever tie himself down to one woman and certainly not someone like Jasmine Connolly. She was a manipulative little witch. She was using him. Using him to lure back her third fiancé. Who on earth got engaged three times? Someone who was obsessed with getting married, that was who. Jasmine didn’t seem to care who she got engaged to as long as they had money and status.

  But through the red mist of anger he could see her solution had some merit. Emma Madden had taken the news of their ‘engagement’ rath
er well. He had been poleaxed to see that kid standing on the doorstep. He could count on half a hand how many times he’d been caught off guard but seeing that kid there was right up there. If anyone had seen her—anyone being the press, that was—he would have been toast. He didn’t want to be cruel to the girl but how else could he get rid of her? Jasmine’s solution seemed to have worked. So far. But how long would he have to stay ‘engaged’?

  Then there was his family to deal with. He could probably pull off the lie with his parents and Miranda but not his twin. Julius knew him too well. Julius knew how much he hated the thought of being confined in a relationship. Jake was more like his father in that way. His father wasn’t good at marriage. Richard and Elisabetta fought as passionately as they made up. It was a war zone one minute and a love fest the next. As a child Jake had found it deeply unsettling—not that he’d ever showed it. His role in the family was the court jester. It was his way of coping with the turbulent emotions that flew around like missiles. He’d never known what he was coming home to.

  Then eventually it had happened. The divorce had been bitter and public and the intrusion of the press terrifying to a child of eight. He and Julius had been packed off to boarding school but, while Julius had relished the routine, structure and discipline, Jake had not. Julius had excelled academically while Jake had scraped through, not because he wasn’t intellectually capable but because in an immature and mostly subconscious way he hadn’t wanted his parents to think their divorce had had a positive effect on him.

  But he had more than made up for it in his business analysis company. He was successful and wealthy and had the sort of life most people envied. The fly-in, fly-out nature of his work suited his personality. He didn’t hang around long. He just got in there, sorted out the problems and left. Which was how he liked to conduct his relationships.

  Being tied to Jasmine, even if it was only a game of charades, was nothing less than torture. He had spent the last seven years avoiding her. Distancing himself from all physical contact. He had even failed to show up for some family functions in an effort to avoid the tension of being in the same room as her. He’d had plenty of lectures from Julius and Miranda about fixing things with Jasmine but why should he apologise? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had done the opposite. He had solved the problem, not made it worse. It was her that was still in a snit over something she should have got over years ago.

  She had been a cute little kid but once she’d hit her teens she’d changed into a flirty little vamp. It had driven him nuts. She had followed him around like a loyal puppy, trying to sneak time with him, touching him ‘by accident’ and batting those impossibly long eyelashes at him. He had gone along with it for a while, flirting back in a playful manner, but in the end that had backfired, as she’d seemed to think he was serious about her. He wasn’t serious about anyone. But on the night of his parents New Year’s Eve party, when she’d been sixteen and he twenty-six, he had drawn the line. He’d activated a plan to give her the message loud and clear: He was a player, not the soppy, romantic happy-ever-after beau she imagined him to be.

  That night she had dressed in a revealing outfit that was far too old for her and had worn make-up far too heavy. To Jake she had looked like a kid who had rummaged around in her mother’s wardrobe. In the dark. He had gone along with her flirtation all evening, agreeing to meet with her in his room just after midnight. But instead of turning up alone as she’d expected he’d brought a couple of girls with him, intending to shock Jasmine into thinking he was expecting an orgy. It had certainly done the trick. She had left him alone ever since. He couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to him other than to make some cutting remark and the only time she looked at him was to spear him with a death-adder glare. Which had suited him just fine.

  Until now.

  Now he had to work out a way of hanging around with her without wanting to... Well, he didn’t want to admit to what he wanted to do with her. But he was only human and a full-blooded male, after all. She was the stuff of male fantasies. He would never admit it to anyone but over the years he’d enjoyed a few fantasies of her in his morning shower. She was sultry and sulky, yet she had a razor-sharp wit and intelligence to match. She had done well for herself, building her business up from scratch, although he thought she was heading for a burnout by trying to do everything herself. Not that she would ever ask his advice. She was too proud. She would rather go bankrupt than admit she might have made a mistake.

  Jake dragged a hand down his face. This was going to be the longest week or two of his life. What did Jasmine expect of him? How far did she want this act to go? She surely wouldn’t want to sleep with him if she was still hankering after her ex? Not that she showed any sign of being attracted to him, although she did have a habit of looking at his mouth now and again. But everyone knew how much she hated him. Not that a bit of hate got in the way of good sex.

  Sheesh. He had to stop thinking about sex and Jasmine in the same sentence. He had never seen her as a sister, even though she had been brought up as one at Ravensdene. Or at least not since she’d hit her teens. She’d grown from being a gangly, awkward teenager into an unusual but no less stunning beauty. Her features were not what one could describe as classically beautiful, but there was some indefinable element to the prominence of her brows and the ice-blue and storm-grey of her eyes that made her unforgettable. She had a model-slim figure and lustrous, wavy honey-brown hair that fell midway down her back. Her skin was creamy and smooth and looked fabulous with or without make-up, although she used make-up superbly these days.

  Her mouth... How could he describe it? It was perfect. Simply perfect. He had never seen a more beautiful mouth. The lower lip was full and shapely, the top one a perfect arc above it. The vermillion borders of her lips were so neatly aligned it was as if a master had drawn them. She had a way of slightly elevating her chin, giving her a haughty air that belied her humble beginnings. Her nose, too, had the look of an aristocrat about it with its ski-slope contour. When she smiled—which she rarely did when he was around—it lit up the room. He had seen grown men buckle at the knees at that smile.

  Jake’s phone vibrated where he’d left it on the bedside table. He glanced at the screen and saw it was Julius. His twin had called six times now. Better get it over with, he thought, and answered.

  ‘Is this some kind of prank?’ Julius said without preamble.

  ‘No, it’s—’

  ‘Jaz and you?’ Julius cut him off. ‘Come on, man. You hate her guts. You can’t stand being in the same room as her. What happened?’

  ‘It was time to bury the hatchet,’ Jake said.

  ‘You think I came down in the last shower?’ Julius said. ‘I know wedding fever has hit with Holly and me, and now Miranda and Leandro, but you and Jaz? I don’t buy it for a New York picosecond. What’s she got on you? Is she holding a AK-47 to your head?’

  Jake let out a rough-edged sigh. He could lie to anyone else but not his identical twin. All that time in the womb had given them a connection beyond what normal siblings felt. They even felt each other’s pain. When Julius had had his appendix out when he was fifteen Jake had felt like someone was ripping his guts out. ‘I’ve been having a little problem with a girl,’ he said. ‘A teenager.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to hear this.’

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Jake said and explained the situation before adding, ‘Jasmine intercepted Emma at the door and told her we were engaged.’

  ‘How did this girl Emma take it?’

  ‘Surprisingly well,’ Jake said.

  ‘What about Jaz’s fiancé?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Jake said. ‘He’s either relieved she’s off his hands or he’s going to turn up at my place and shoot out my kneecaps.’

  ‘Always a possibility.’

  ‘Don’t remind me.’

  There was a beat of silence.

  ‘You’re not going to sleep with her, are you?’ Julius said.r />
  ‘God, no,’ Jake said. ‘I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole.’

  ‘Yes, well, I suggest you keep your barge pole zipped in your pants,’ Julius said dryly. ‘What actually happened with you guys that night at the party? I know she came to your room but you’ve never said what went on other than you didn’t touch her.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything except send her on her way,’ Jake said. ‘You know what she was like, always following me about, giving me sheep’s eyes. I taught her a lesson by offering her a foursome but she declined.’

  ‘A novel approach.’

  ‘It worked.’

  ‘Maybe, but don’t you think her anger is a little out of proportion?’ Julius said.

  ‘That’s just Jasmine,’ Jake said. ‘She’s always had a rotten temper.’

  ‘I don’t know... I sometimes wonder if something else happened that night.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘She’d been drinking and was obviously upset after leaving your room,’ Julius said. ‘Not a good combination in a teenage girl.’

  Jake hung up a short time later once they’d switched topics but he couldn’t get rid of the seed of unease Julius had planted in his mind. Had something happened that night after Jasmine had left his room? Was that why she had been so protective of young Emma, making sure she got home safely with an adult at the other end to meet her? The rest of that night was a bit of blur for him. Most of his parents’ parties ended up that way. Even some of his parties were a little full-on too. There was always a lot of alcohol, loud music blaring and people coming and going. He had been feeling too pleased with himself for solving the Jasmine problem to give much thought to where she’d gone after leaving his room. At twenty-six what he had done had seemed the perfect solution. The only solution.

  Now, at thirty-three, he wasn’t quite so sure.

  * * *

  Jaz was making herself a nightcap in the kitchen when Jake strolled in. ‘Finding it hard to sleep without a playgirl bunny or three in your bed to keep you warm?’