The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Susan Stephens

  ‘You want me to come? Really?’

  ‘Couldn’t do it without you,’ he said lightly.

  She didn’t believe him. But it warmed her almost as much as if she did.

  Instead she tossed her head so that her pony tail swung and said carelessly, ‘Then you got it.’ She thought about it. ‘I’ll even give you my totally ordinary thoughts on your analysis,’ she added wickedly.

  Jay stayed calm under this provocation. ‘I look forward to it.’

  Zoe looked at him with deep suspicion. ‘Do you? Why?’

  ‘The right-hand-side bias,’ he said mysteriously.

  ‘What?’

  Jay was bland. ‘Tom Skellern’s profile analysis.’

  Zoe frowned. ‘You mean that pointless test? What about it?’

  Jay stopped and leaned on the wall, looking down into the busy canal. Dark gondolas jostled each other in duels for precedence. They just managed not to touch as the winner swept away with a flourish. Vaporetti chugged. People on the other bank strolled hand in hand. He propped his elbows on the river wall and locked his hands together.

  He said, ‘If you’re interested in the PR business there’s a spectrum of response. Male attitudes at the extreme left, female at the right. Most people are somewhere in the middle. But you particularly are hard on the right-hand side. Very girly.’

  ‘Girly?’ Zoe was revolted and did not try to hide it.

  He smiled. ‘Tom’s score calls the category that you come into the Boyfriend’s Dream.’

  She tensed. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘Touch of political incorrectness there. But the message is—you’re all woman. And,’ he added with an abrupt return to the prosaic, ‘there won’t be a lot of them at the conference tomorrow.’

  ‘Then I’ll be glad to fill in,’ said Zoe between her teeth.

  All woman!

  If only he meant it. And if only it was what Jay really thought, rather than the result of Tom Skellern’s multiple choice questionnaire, she thought, depressed. If only it was what he thought after last night, in her arms!

  She turned and leaned on the wall beside him, turning her head away. She had done her best to stay bright all day. But now she could not deny the emptiness between them any more.

  Oh, he had made love to her, fair enough. He had said he would and he had kept his promise. More than kept his promise, she thought. There was warmth round her heart when she thought of the care he had taken of her.

  But today, though he was trying, he was as far away as the moon. Zoe kept trying to work out why and she simply could not find the answer. He was not embarrassed, of course. He was much too sophisticated for that. And not emotionally involved, either. That had been implicit in the deal.

  So what was it? Something was wrong; she knew it.

  And then she remembered him saying, a lifetime ago, ‘Once you’ve made up your mind to do something you don’t want to, the best thing is to get it over with.’

  Well, it felt like a lifetime ago. But it had only been Friday night. Less than two days. And he had got it over, all right, hadn’t he? At the time she had thought he was talking about her feelings. But now she realised he had been talking about his own.

  He hadn’t wanted to do it. But he had.

  And, in doing so, he had caused her a little pain. He had not been prepared for that. Zoe had seen how it had shocked him.

  Hell, she thought, staring out across afternoon Venice. I’ve made him ashamed of himself. He’s never going to forgive me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE rest of that day they walked, until Venice was swimming before Zoe’s eyes.

  Then Jay took her to some famous bar for a drink; then another, less famous, for jazz. They ate in a bistro. It was full and noisy, with families and a huge party of people who turned out to be gondoliers at the central table. Jay chatted to them in easy Italian and he and Zoe joined them in toasting the newest member of the group, for whom the dinner was being held.

  When they left she nearly said, We’re going to have to talk. We have to share a bed tonight and we have been walking round the subject all day.

  But Jay got in first.

  ‘They told me where the best club is,’ he said. ‘They’re not as ageist in Venice as they are in London. They’ll probably even let me in.’

  They did. It was not so different from the clubs where Zoe danced at home. Maybe a bit smaller, and the drinks were different. More wine, less vodka. But the atmosphere was the same and so was the music.

  She abandoned herself to the familiar intoxication of the music. There was nothing else to do. Jay was evidently quite determined not to talk. So she danced and laughed and waved her arms as if she were having the time of her life. And in the small hours of Monday morning, when her eyes were gritty with tiredness, he took her back to the hotel suite.

  He did not put the light on. Instead, as he closed the door behind them, he said quietly, ‘Zoe—’

  She did not mind him not putting the light on. As long as he put his arms round her and took her to bed. Tonight she wanted to take the same care of him that he had taken of her.

  Hell, be honest, Zoe. You want a lot more than that.

  Yes, but I want that, too.

  Jay said in a strained voice, ‘Zoe, this virginity thing. I didn’t understand. I should have thought harder.’

  Why didn’t he put his arms round her?

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said, her voice slurring with tiredness. And lust. Well, more lust than tiredness. Probably.

  ‘I don’t think it was an accident that you were a virgin.’

  ‘What?’ Her head reared up. Suddenly she was not tired at all.

  ‘You gave me a line about how it was just chance—boyfriends in different places, friends getting the wrong idea. I don’t think it was anything to do with that. I think you were exactly what you should have been.’

  She was so hurt she could not speak. Could hardly move. Everybody in the world thought she was a hot babe. Everybody but one. Jay Christopher thought she was meant to be alone.

  ‘I should never have interfered.’ His voice rasped.

  ‘Well, you should know,’ said Zoe, equally harsh.

  She heard him swallow in the dark. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Not much point in saying that now. But I am. I wish—oh, hell!’

  And he left her to sleep alone.

  Long after she had gone to bed Zoe heard him moving around in the sitting room. He was ultra-quiet. But her ears were strained for sounds that would tell her what he was doing. And they did.

  He sat for a long while. By the window, she thought. In the dark, certainly, because there was no light under the connecting door. Then he got up and she heard him move a large piece of furniture, gently, carefully. Arranging the sofa, she realised.

  So he wasn’t intending to come back to bed. He must really have hated last night, then. She had made him break his every rule. Even making him hold her through the night. No, he was not going to forgive that.

  He was going to take her back to England, employ her for one more week at Culp and Christopher—and then she was never going to see him again. It was inevitable. Zoe knew it now, though she had been pretending to herself all day. Trying to pretend, anyway.

  She closed her eyes. Sleep was a long time coming.

  Jay came into the bedroom very quietly the next morning. He was barefooted and walked cautiously. But Zoe was already awake. She struggled up on one elbow.

  She was not going to let him see how he had hurt her last night. She was not. Fortunately there was good old Performance Zoe to call on in times of need.

  ‘Time to go and lecture the masses?’ she asked brightly.

  His smooth dark hair was tousled, and he had a red line on his cheek where his night on the sofa’s piped cushion had marked him. Zoe felt an almost irresistible urge to stroke it away. She was shocked, and pulled the sheet up to her chin.

  Jay sent her an inscrutable lo
ok. ‘There’s no need to cower,’ he said coldly. ‘I didn’t jump on you last night. I’m not going to do it this morning. I’ve got work to do.’

  He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Zoe shaken. She had never seen the cold come off him in waves like that before. Was that what the people at Culp and Christopher meant when they called him the Ice Volcano?

  By the time she had dressed in her smart trousers and jacket Jay had packed. His bags stood by the door: overnight bag, laptop computer, briefcase. He was wearing one of his dark suits. The shirt this morning was silver-grey. Beautiful, of course, but much more sombre than usual. Maybe that was what made his eyes look lifeless. No green, no hazel. Just dark pools of emptiness.

  There was no sunshine this morning. The canal was wreathed in fog and the doors to the hotel terrace were closed. So they breakfasted rapidly in the suffocating formality of the restaurant.

  They hardly spoke. Jay was going through his notes one last time. When he did speak he was conscientiously pleasant. But it was clearly an effort.

  He can’t wait to get rid of me, thought Zoe. She felt as if he had struck her to the heart.

  And then he gave her a gentle smile that did not seem as if it was an effort at all. For a moment her heart rose.

  ‘I thought you’d like your last ride in a gondola. I’ve ordered one to take us to the conference hotel. Shame about the weather, though.’

  But he did not touch her. Her heart sank back to the bottom of the ocean again.

  Jay dealt with the practicalities swiftly. He paid the bill.

  ‘We’ll take our bags with us to the conference. That way we can circulate as long as possible before making a bolt for the airport.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Zoe, working hard to play bright and interested.

  His smile was twisted. ‘Just another thing I’ve done before.’

  The mist had the odd effect of concentrating sound. In the gondola, Zoe could hear the plop and swish of the gondolier’s pole, the lapping of water against the low sides of the boat. Her breathing. Jay’s. But of the other gondolas, which loomed out of the mist and then were swallowed up again, she heard almost nothing. As they moved towards the Grand Canal, though, she heard the machine gun fire of the Vaporetti motors. And the mist swirled and pulled apart, getting thinner and thinner.

  She thought, This is the last time we’ll ever be alone.

  She took Jay’s hand quickly, before she lost her nerve.

  She said in fierce, rapid under-voice, ‘I want to say—I’m really glad it was you. I won’t ever regret it.’

  And then the gondolier poled them out between two tall palaces. And the mist dissolved into little puffballs of bite- sized cloud and they were into thin sunshine.

  ‘Zoe—’ Jay sounded strangled.

  But the gondolier demanded clarification of their destination— and then the laptop overbalanced—and then another boat came dangerously close and a ferocious argument broke out. And then they were there.

  He helped her up the steps. And held onto her hand when they were ashore, ‘Zoe, we have to— I should have— Oh, hell, this is terrible timing.’

  Zoe looked up and saw a man coming towards them along the canalside, hands held out in welcome.

  ‘Jay. So good to have you. Come inside and meet everyone.’

  Inevitably she slid into the background. Oh, everyone was kind—and Jay was meticulous in introducing her—but she had no role here. She could see it in everyone’s eyes. They were tolerant, even intrigued. But the message was clear: she’s just along for the ride.

  Jay had her seated in the front row, though. He was doing his best to pretend that she was a fellow professional, thought Zoe, touched. The last thing he said to her before he disappeared onto the podium was, ‘Now, don’t forget to take notes. I want a proper post mortem on this speech.’

  And her neighbour’s smile said, as loudly as words, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  Zoe set her teeth and applied herself to the foolscap note pad.

  Jay talked well. Not a surprise, of course. He was always fluent But this was different. He talked with knowledge and wit and ease. But also with a seriousness that was almost like passion.

  He told the crowded room, ‘Recently a friend reminded me that what we call public relations a lot of our critics call putting a spin on things.’

  Zoe sat bolt upright. Jay smiled, straight at her.

  ‘Not a high calling, you may think,’ he went on. ‘Not a very laudable role. Let me tell you what I think we do. And why it’s important.’

  There followed the stuff that she had researched. The statistics. The international examples. The anecdotes.

  And then he said, ‘When I first came into this business I was defensive. The press had stitched me up. I thought that what I was doing was giving people the tools to defend themselves against shallow and malignant journalism. But I have come to see that what we do is more than that. In our campaigns we are telling stories. We are reflecting the age back to itself. And in doing that—if we want to—we can reflect the best. Kindness instead of self-interest. Common humanity instead of hate. We are not just about selling things, ladies and gentlemen. We are about confirming values. In these dark days, that is important.’

  He sat down to stunned silence. And then tumultuous applause. He did not take his eyes off Zoe’s face.

  Afterwards he was surrounded. The international delegates could hardly bear to leave him alone, it seemed. Four of them even insisted on accompanying Jay and Zoe back to the airport. In fact it was fortunate that they only had carry-on luggage or they would have missed the plane.

  They whipped through formalities at top speed and were the last on the plane.

  ‘What did you think of my talk?’ said Jay.

  But the noise of take-off was too great for easy conversation. And by the time they were airborne Zoe had thought better of saying, I thought you were talking only to me.

  So she said lightly, ‘It was great. You should have called it the death of spin.’

  Her response did not please him.

  ‘You and I,’ said Jay grimly, ‘are due a long talk.’

  But the plane was not the place for it. Nor was the baggage hall. And when they got through customs and came out onto the crowded concourse the first person they saw was Molly di Paretti.

  She blinked when she saw Zoe with Jay. But that did not stop her rushing over.

  ‘Jay, bit of a crisis. We tried to get a message to the conference but you’d left. Barbara Lessiter has told a tabloid about your affair with Carla Donner. Banana is claiming that Carla only got her programme picked up by Sonnet Television because you’re a director of Sonnet.’

  Zoe stopped dead. His affair with Carla Donner? What affair?

  She had never thought to ask about his private life. She had told him all about her own, spilled it out like the overgrown adolescent he clearly thought she was. It had not occurred to her that he might already be committed. He didn’t feel committed.

  But he wasn’t saying, I’m not having an affair with Carla Donner. He was saying, exasperated, ‘Banana Lessiter is a pain in the butt. Her eyelashes are bigger than her IQ.’

  ‘We can’t tell them that,’ said Molly, walking rapidly beside him. She handed him a couple of sheets of closely typed paper. ‘Sonnet are worried. An accusation like that could hold up their bid for American cable. They’ve got a press presentation tonight on the autumn schedules. We’ve planted a question. But you’ll have to get a move on to make it. Car’s here.’

  ‘Good work,’ said Jay, running hard eyes down Molly’s list. ‘Where’s the presentation? No, don’t bother. Better go straight there.’

  They stormed through the concourse, talking hard. Zoe fell behind. Then slowed.

  Finally she stopped.

  Molly had talked about it as if everyone knew. Slowly Zoe accepted it. Jay was involved with Carla Donner! He probably thought Zoe already knew. Heaven help her, she would have already known, if she had
had the wit to ask.

  There had been plenty of rumours about his affairs in the office. Only she had never heard a name mentioned before. Now she had—Carla Donner was gorgeous and knowledgeable and as sophisticated as himself. Carla was the sort of woman he should have taken to Venice.

  How stupid to think that Jay had been talking to her from the conference podium, thought Zoe. It was probably just another of his clever manipulative tricks. Find someone impressionable in the audience and play upon their feelings so they gave you all the feedback you needed.

  ‘Zoe?’

  She looked up.

  Jay had come back for her. His eyes were still glittering with the light of anticipated battle and he looked harassed. But he was too well mannered just to walk off and leave her there, she thought.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  She swallowed, but her chin came up to the detonation angle.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. You’ve got a crisis to sort out. And I’m all dealt with, thank you,’ she said clearly.

  He looked astounded. ‘Are you saying that’s it? Thank you and goodnight?’

  He sounded outraged, thought Zoe. She was pleased. That was the only thing that kept her from collapsing in the middle of Heathrow Terminal Two and bawling like an idiot.

  ‘That’s right. Thank you and goodnight,’ she said, her eyes glittering as brilliantly as his own.

  And before he could say a word she turned and bolted into the crowd.

  Jay started to run after her. But he was just that half-second too late in setting off. The concourse was too crowded. He lost her before he had even taken a step.

  He stopped. Took stock. Rushed out through the doors to see whether she was in the queue for taxis, but she was not there.

  ‘Jay, come on,’ said Molly, hopping from foot to foot beside an illegally parked limousine in front of the terminal building. The engine was running and a policeman was already approaching. ‘The Sonnet press conference starts in forty minutes. We’ll have to go like the clappers to get there anyway.’