0373134266 (R)

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  He frowned. ‘You mean you run this show all by yourself?’

  She picked up her purse and jacket from underneath the counter. ‘I outsource some of the cutting and sewing but I do most of everything else because that’s what my customers expect.’

  ‘But none of the top designers do all the hack work,’ Jake said as they walked out of the boutique into the chilly autumn air. ‘You’ll burn yourself out trying to do everything yourself.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m not quite pulling in the same profit as some of those houses,’ Jaz said. ‘But watch this space. I have a career plan.’

  ‘What about a business plan? I could have a look at your company structure and—’

  ‘No thanks,’ Jaz said and closed and locked the boutique door.

  ‘If you’re worried about my fee, I could do mate’s rates.’

  She gave him a sideways look. ‘I can afford you, Jake. I just choose not to use your...erm...services.’

  He shrugged one of his broad shoulders. ‘Your loss.’

  * * *

  The jeweller was a private designer who had a studio above an interior design shop. Jaz was acutely conscious of Jake’s arm at her elbow as he led her into the viewing area. After brief introductions were made a variety of designs was brought forward for her to peruse. But there was one ring that was a stand out. It was a mosaic collection of diamonds in an art deco design that was both simple yet elegant. She slipped it on her finger and was pleased to find it was a perfect fit. ‘This one,’ she said, holding it up to see the way the light bounced off the diamonds.

  ‘Good choice,’ the designer said. ‘It suits your hand.’

  Jaz didn’t see the price. It wasn’t the sort of jeweller where price tags were on show. But she didn’t care if it was expensive or not. Jake could afford it. She did wonder, however, if he would want her to give it back when their ‘engagement’ was over.

  Jake took her hand as they left the studio. ‘Fancy a quick coffee?’

  Jaz would have said no except she hadn’t had lunch and her stomach was gurgling like a drain. ‘Sure, why not?’

  He took her to a café a couple of blocks from her boutique but they had barely sat down before someone from a neighbouring table took a photo of them with a camera phone. Then a murmur went around the café and other people started aiming their phones at them. Jaz tried to keep her smile natural but her jaw was aching from the effort. Jake seemed to take it all in his stride, however.

  One customer came over with a napkin and a pen. ‘Can I have your autograph, Jake?’

  Jake slashed his signature across the napkin and handed back the pen with an easy smile. ‘There you go.’

  ‘Is it true you and Miss Connolly are engaged?’ the customer asked.

  Jaz held up her ring hand. ‘Yes. We just picked up the ring.’

  More cameras went off and the Twitter whistle sounded so often it was as if a flock of small birds had been let loose in the café.

  ‘Nice work,’ Jake said when the fuss had finally died down a little.

  ‘You were the one who suggested a coffee,’ Jaz said, shooting him a look from beneath her lashes.

  ‘I heard your stomach rumbling at the jeweller’s.Don’t you make time for lunch?’

  She stirred her latte with a teaspoon rather than lose herself in his sapphire-blue gaze. ‘I’ve got a lot on just now.’

  He reached across the table and took her left hand in his, running his fingertip over the crest of the mosaic ring. ‘You can keep it after this is over.’

  Jaz brought her gaze back to his. ‘You don’t want to recycle it for when you eventually settle down?’

  He released her hand and sat back as he gave a light laugh. ‘Can you see me doing the school run?’

  ‘You don’t ever want kids?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said, reaching for the sugar and tipping two teaspoons in. ‘I don’t want the responsibility. If I’m going to screw anyone’s life up, it’ll be my own. That I can live with.’

  ‘Why do you think you’d screw up your children’s lives?’ Jaz said.

  He stirred his coffee before he answered. ‘I’m too much like my father.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re anything like your father,’ she said. ‘Maybe in looks but not in temperament. Your father is weak. Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn but he is. The way he handled his affair with Kat Winwood’s mother is proof of it. I can’t see you paying someone to have an abortion if you got a girl pregnant.’

  He shifted his lips from side to side. ‘I wouldn’t offer to marry her, though.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you’d support her and your child,’ Jaz said. ‘And you’d be involved in your child’s life.’

  He gave her one of his slow smiles that did so much damage to her resolve to keep him at a distance. ‘I didn’t realise you had such a high opinion of me.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Don’t get too excited. I still think you’d make a terrible husband.’

  ‘In general or for you?’

  Jaz looked at him for a beat or two of silence. She had a sudden vision of him at the end of the aisle waiting for her with that twinkling smile on his handsome face. Of his tall and toned body dressed in a sharply tailored suit instead of the casual clothes he preferred. Of his dark-blue eyes focused on her, as if she were the only woman he ever wanted to gaze at, with complete love and adoration.

  She blinked and refocused. ‘Good Lord, not for me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We’d be at each other’s throats before we left the church.’

  Something moved at the back of his gaze as it held hers, a flicker like a faulty light bulb. But then he picked up his coffee cup and drained it before putting it down on the table with a decisive clunk. ‘Ready?’

  * * *

  Jake walked Jaz back to the boutique holding her hand for the sake of appearances. Or so he told himself. The truth was he loved the feel of her small, neat hand encased in his. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about those soft, clever little fingers on other parts of his body. Stroking him, teasing him with her touch. Why shouldn’t he make the most of their situation? He had a business deal to secure and being engaged to Jasmine Connolly was going to win him some serious brownie points with his conservative client Bruce Parnell. It wasn’t as if it was for ever. A week or two and it would be over. Life would go back to normal.

  ‘I have a work function on Wednesday night,’ he said when Jaz had unlocked the door of the boutique. ‘Dinner with a client. Would you like to come?’

  She looked at him with a slight frown. ‘Why?’

  He tugged a tendril of her hair in a teasing manner. ‘Because we’re madly in love and we can’t bear to be apart for a second.’

  Her frown deepened and a flash of irritation arced in her gaze. ‘What’s the dress code?’

  ‘Lounge suit and cocktail.’

  ‘I’ll have to check my calendar.’

  Jake put his hand beneath her chin and tipped up her face so her eyes couldn’t escape his. ‘I’m giving you the weekend for the wedding expo. The least you could do is give me one week night.’

  Her cheeks swarmed with sheepish colour. ‘How did you know it was a wedding expo?’

  He gave her a teasing grin. ‘I knew there had to be a catch. Why else would you want me for a whole weekend?’

  Her mouth took on that disapproving schoolmarm, pursed look that made him want to kiss it back into pliable softness. ‘I don’t want you, Jake. You’ll only be there for show.’

  He bent down and pressed a brief kiss to her mouth. ‘I’ll pick you up from here at seven.’

  * * *

  Jaz was still doing her hair when the doorbell sounded on Wednesday evening. She had run late with a client who had taken hours to choose a design for a gown. She gave her hair one last blast with the dryer and shook her head to let the waves fall loosely about her shoulders. She smoothed her hands down her hips, turning to one side to check her appearance in the full-length mirror. The black cocktail
dress had double shoestring straps that criss-crossed over her shoulders, the silky fabric skimming her figure in all the right places. She was wearing her highest heels because she hadn’t been able to wear them when going out with Myles, as he was only an inch taller than her. A quick spray of perfume and a smear of lip-gloss and she was ready.

  Why she was going to so much trouble for Jake was not something she wanted to examine too closely. But when she opened the door and she saw the way his eyes ran over her appreciatively she was pleased she had chosen to go with the wow factor.

  But then, so had he. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored suit that made his shoulders seem all the broader and, while he wasn’t wearing a tie, the white open-necked shirt combined with the dark blue of his suit intensified the navy-blue of his eyes.

  Jaz opened the door a little wider. ‘I’ll just get my wrap.’

  Jake stepped into her flat and closed the door. She turned to face him as she draped her wrap over her shoulders, a little shiver coursing over her flesh as she saw the way his gaze went to her mouth as if pulled there by a powerful magnet.

  The air quickened the way it always did when they were alone.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she said.

  He closed the small distance between their bodies so that they were almost touching. ‘I have something for you,’ he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  Jaz swallowed as he took out a narrow velvet jewellery case the same colour as his eyes. She took it from him and opened it with fingers that were suddenly as useless as a glove without a hand. Jake took it from her and deftly opened it to reveal a stunning diamond pendant on a white-gold chain that was as fine as a gossamer thread.

  Jaz glanced up at him but his face was unreadable. She looked back at the diamond. She had jewellery. Lots of it. Most of it she had bought herself because jewellery was so personal, a bit like perfume and make-up. She hadn’t had a partner yet who had ever got her taste in jewellery right. But this was...perfect. She would have chosen it herself if she could have afforded it. She knew it was expensive. Hideously so. Why had Jake spent so much money on her when he didn’t even like her? ‘I’ll give it back once we’re done,’ she said. ‘And the ring.’

  ‘I chose it specifically for you,’ he said, taking it out of the box. ‘Turn around. Move your hair out of the way.’

  Jaz did as he commanded and tried not to shudder in pleasure as his long strong fingers moved against the sensitive skin on the back of her neck as he secured the pendant in place. She could feel the tall, hard frame of his body against her shoulder blades, his strongly muscled thighs against her trembling ones. She knew if she leaned back even half an inch she could come into contact with the hot, hard heat of him. She felt his hands come down on the tops of her shoulders, his fingers giving her a light squeeze as he turned her to face him. She looked into the midnight blue of his inscrutable gaze and wondered if her teenage crush was dead and buried after all. It felt like it was coming to life under the warm press of his hands on her body.

  He trailed a lazy fingertip from beneath her ear to her mouth, circling it without touching it. But it felt like he had. Her lips buzzed, fizzed and ached for the pressure of his. ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘Amazing what a flashy bit of jewellery can do.’

  He frowned as if her flippant comment annoyed him. ‘You don’t suit flashy jewellery and I wouldn’t insult you by insisting on you wearing it.’

  ‘All the same, I don’t expect you to spend so much money on me. I don’t feel comfortable about it, given our relationship.’

  His eyes went to her mouth for a moment before meshing with hers. ‘Why do you hate me so much?’

  Jaz couldn’t hold his gaze and looked at the open neck of his shirt instead. But that just made it worse because she could see the long, strong, tanned column of his throat and smell the light but intoxicating lemony scent of his aftershave. She didn’t know if it was the diamond olive branch he had offered her, his physical closeness or both that made her decide to tell him the truth about that night. Or maybe it was because she was tired of the negative emotion weighing her down. ‘That night after I left your room... I... Something happened...’

  Jaz felt rather than saw his frown. She was still looking at his neck but she noticed the way he had swallowed thickly. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I accepted a drink off one of the guests. I’m not sure who it was. One of the casual seasonal theatre staff, I think. I hadn’t seen him before or since. I was upset after leaving you. I didn’t care if I got drunk. But then... I, well, you’ve probably heard it dozens of times before. Girls who get drunk and then end up regretting what happened next.’

  ‘What happened next?’ Jake’s voice sounded raw, as if something had been scraped across his vocal chords.

  Jaz still couldn’t meet his gaze. She couldn’t bear to see his judgement, his criticism of her reckless behaviour. ‘I had a non-consensual encounter. Or at least I think it was non-consensual.’

  ‘You were...raped?’

  She looked at him then. ‘No, but it was close to it. Somehow I managed to fight him off, but I was too ashamed to tell anyone what happened. I didn’t even tell Miranda. I haven’t told anyone before now.’

  Jake’s expression was full of outrage, shock and horror. ‘The man should’ve been charged. Do you think you’d recognise him if you saw him again? We could arrange a police line-up. We could check the guest list of that night. Track down everyone who attended...’

  Jaz pulled out from under his hold and crossed her arms over her body. ‘No. I don’t want to even think about that night. I don’t even know if I gave the guy the okay to mess around. I was the one who started flirting with him in the first place. But then things got a little hazy. It would be his word against mine and you know what the defence lawyers would make of that. I was too drunk to know what I was doing.’

  ‘But he might’ve spiked your drink or something,’ Jake said. ‘He committed a crime. A crime for which he should be punished.’

  ‘That only happens in the movies,’ Jaz said. ‘I’ve moved on. It would make things so much harder for me if I had to revisit that night in a courtroom.’

  His frown made a road map of lines on his forehead. ‘I can see why you hate me so much. I’m as guilty as that lowlife.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Jaz bit her lip. ‘I know it looks like I’ve blamed you all this time but that’s just the projection of negative emotion. I guess I used you as a punching bag because I felt so ashamed.’

  Jake came over to her and took her hands from where they were wrapped around her body, holding them gently in his. ‘You have no need to be ashamed, Jaz. You were just a kid. I was the adult and I acted appallingly. I shouldn’t have given you any encouragement. Leading you on like that only to throw those girls in your face was wrong. I should’ve been straight with you right from the get-go.’

  Jaz gave him a wobbly smile. ‘You just called me Jaz. You haven’t done that in years.’

  His hands gave hers a gentle squeeze. ‘We’d better get a move on. My client isn’t the most patient of men. That is if you’re still okay with going? I can always tell him you had something on and go by myself.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. And she was surprised to find it was true. Having Jake of all people being so understanding, caring and protective made something hard and tight inside her chest loosen like a knotted rope suddenly being released.

  He gently grazed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone else,’ Jaz said. ‘I don’t want people to look at me differently.’

  ‘Not even Miranda?’

  She pulled at her lip with her teeth. ‘Miranda would be hurt if I told her now. She’d blame herself for not watching out for me. You know what a little mother hen she is.’

  Jake’s frown was back. ‘
But surely—?’

  ‘No,’ Jaz said, sending him a determined look. ‘Don’t make me regret telling you. Promise me you won’t betray my trust.’

  He let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I promise. But I swear to God, if I find out who hurt you I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LATER, IN THE car going back to Jaz’s place, Jake wondered how on earth he’d swung the deal with his client. His mind hadn’t been on the game the whole way through dinner. All he’d been able to think about was what Jaz had told him about that wretched night after she had left his room. He was so churned up with a toxic cocktail of anger, guilt and an unnerving desire for revenge that he’d given his client, Bruce Parnell, the impression he was a distracted, lovesick fool rather than a savvy businessman. But that didn’t seem to matter because at the end of the dinner his client had signed on the dotted line and wished Jake and Jaz all the best for their future.

  Their future.

  What was their future?

  Jake was so used to bickering with her that he wasn’t sure how he was going to navigate being friends with her instead. While it had been pistols and pissy looks at dawn, he’d been able to keep his distance. But now she’d shared her painful secret with him he couldn’t carry on as if nothing had changed. Everything had changed. The whole dynamic of their relationship was different. He wanted to protect her. To fix it for her. To give her back her innocence so she didn’t have to carry around the shame she felt. A shame she had no need to feel because the jerk who had assaulted her was the one who should be ashamed.

  But Jake too felt shame. Deep, gut-clawing shame. Shame that he hadn’t handled her infatuation with him more sensitively. His actions had propelled her into danger—danger that could have been avoided if he had been a little more understanding. He could see now why Jaz had stepped in with the engagement charade when Emma Madden had turned up at the door. She had been sensitive to the girl’s need for dignity, offering her a safe way home with someone at the other end to make sure she was all right.

  What had he done? He had sent Jaz from his room in an acute state of public humiliation only to fall into the hands of some creep who’d plied her with drink and drugs and God knew what else. Had that been her first experience of sex—being groped and manhandled by a drunken idiot? He couldn’t remember if she’d had a boyfriend back then. Miranda had been going out with Mark Redbank from a young age but Jaz had never seemed all that interested in boys. Not until she’d developed that crush on him.