by Fox, Natalie
‘Come downstairs with me,’ he suggested, leaping to his feet with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “The builders are out to lunch and we can have a snoop around the new studio without some bolshie foreman breathing down our necks.’
Jade got up, not arguing. She hadn’t done much of that lately, although perhaps she should have. She was still desperately worried that Mel might indeed have some plan to take over control of the company, but time and time again she asked herself why a man in his professional position should be interested in taking control of a very small ad agency. Which was stupid, she reprimanded herself now, because there was a host of reasons why: revenge on her, something for Nadia to dabble in once she and the mighty Mel were wed, a bargaining tool for something bigger.
‘By the time you finish with the company, Mel, we’ll be a force to reckon with,’ she said, fishing for something, although exactly what she wasn’t sure.
‘I don’t like to see talent go to waste,’ he told her, holding the door open for her.
Jade wrinkled her nose against dust motes still heavy in the air after the plasterers had finished that morning. The new studio was empty because, as Mel had said, the builders were out at lunch.
‘My talent or Nadia’s?’ she ventured as Mel wandered around the huge open space, inspecting the power points as if he knew what he was doing. Perhaps he did.
‘Everyone’s,’ he said vaguely. ‘You’ll have a nice little set-up when I’ve finished.’
‘Does Nadia know about you and me, Mel?’ she asked.
She’d intended grabbing his full attention and she succeeded. He shot her a black look across the bright but dusty room.
‘That we were lovers?’ He gave her no space to answer. ‘Of course not, and under the circumstances I don’t want you telling her either.’
‘What circumstances are those?’ Jade cleared a space on the wide window-sill with a piece of old cloth and leaned back against it, extending her legs out in front of her.
‘She works for you.’
That was a matter of opinion Jade wasn’t willing to thrash out at the moment. ‘So?’
‘So forget it, Jade,’ he said wearily.
‘How can I forget it? I might let something slip one day.’ She hadn’t meant it as a threat but from the way he shot a poisoned look at her you’d have thought she’d made a million-dollar blackmail demand.
‘If you know what’s good for you you’ll keep our past well and truly the past and forget it,’ he shot at her.
She wished that she could. Wished that she weren’t faced with her past every wretched day of her life, in the form of him. Sometimes a certain way he looked at her, eyes soft, crinkled at the corners with humour, brought it all rushing back, so many happy memories, and then the present would hit her and leave her bereft, aching with her loss.
‘I find her strange,’ Jade admitted, fishing again.
He was back to his wanderings, running a hand over the wooden panelling on one wall. ‘You’re the only one that does, Jade. She’s extremely popular and has settled in well.’
‘Considering what?’
He looked at her again, frowning broodily. ‘What do you mean, “Considering what?” ’
She shrugged. ‘I thought it needed adding to your sentence. It was sort of incomplete without it.’
‘What the hell are you after, Jade?’
She sighed inwardly. ‘The truth, I suppose. I just find it odd that you’re here far more than you should be. That Nadia, the love of your life, is working in my studio, not knowing about our past and being a bit odd, sometimes brimming over with confidence and then suddenly going flat—’
‘She hasn’t been well,’ Mel interrupted impatiently.
‘Nor have
I,’ Jade returned. Actually she could partly sympathise with Nadia’s mood swings. Since the flu bout she hadn’t really felt right herself. Perhaps both of them had come back to work too soon.
‘When are you getting married?’ She couldn’t have asked this sooner—her emotions had been too raw. Actually they still were, but with these emotions had come a new strength lately—or maybe she was just getting harder and more cynical, sharing her office with him and his cold hostility.
‘No date fixed,’ he muttered.
‘When are you going to buy her a ring?’ Jade had noticed that Nadia didn’t wear a ring on her engagement finger; she did on every one but the third on the left. Maybe it was the Italian way to wear it on another finger.
‘A ring isn’t compulsory for an engagement.’
Jade’s heart began to beat at a different tempo. This didn’t sound at all right.
‘She sounds a very special lady, then. Most women would see a ring as a very romantic commitment—a binding one too.’
Mel came across the room. He stopped in front of her and leaned towards her, supporting himself with one hand on the panelling around the window. His eyes were dark and accusing.
‘Remember our commitment to each other?’ he taunted. ‘I thought you were a very special lady too, a very special lover. We talked of love, not expensive rings. Was that my mistake? If you’d had an egg-sized diamond glittering on your finger would you have acted any differently?’
Pulsing with the hurt of that, Jade hadn’t the strength to fight back with a protest. This was what she got for prying—knife-edged suggestions meant to cut through to the bone of her emotions.
‘Personally I don’t think so,’ he blazed on. ‘A material commitment wouldn’t have made any difference to what you did to me. I think you did it for kicks.’
‘And what you are doing now is returning those kicks, Mel,’ she said through thin lips, her throat so dry she could scarcely get the words out. ‘I…I might have known you would turn all this around so you could indulge in your weird accusations once more. All I asked was why Nadia didn’t wear your ring.’
‘That is between Nadia and myself,’ he emphasised heavily.
Jade shrugged. ‘OK. I’m not that curious.’ Her eyes sparkled suddenly and she smiled over-sweetly. ‘It’s girl talk anyway. I’ll ask her myself next time we’re powdering our noses together.’ She went to get up and push past him but he thrust her back down on the window-sill, towering over her. His eyes were glittering darkly and she knew she had irritated him intensely, which had been exactly her intention.
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’he warned roughly. ‘Nadia is a very private person. Stick to business and you’ll be all right. Get personal with her and you will wish you hadn’t.’
His threat found its way into her heart and her curiosity. There was definitely something strange about Nadia. She had a past and Mel didn’t want anyone knowing about it. She didn’t wear his ring so maybe…maybe she was already married.
It could explain a lot of things, like why she was here working in an obscure ad agency when she was the talent she was. Was she in hiding from an irate husband? Was Mel a wife-snatcher? Mel wouldn’t get himself involved with a married woman, would he? But she didn’t know him any more. He had changed so drastically he could still shock her with something new every day.
‘She sounds formidable,’ Jade drawled. He didn’t frighten her and nor did Nadia. ‘Is that why you’ve never told her about us—scared for your own skin?’ she goaded.
He snatched at her wrist and hauled her to her feet. She teetered in front of him, stabilised only by his fierce grip on her.
‘No woman is capable of scaring me, Jade. But you—you had the ability to rock my life once. I’ve tried to forget you and might have succeeded if your cry for help hadn’t drawn me back into your life again. Now, in spite of Nadia, I find myself reliving every crippling moment of our affair. You, and what we had that you ruined, isn’t what I choose for fireside conversation when I’m with Nadia. I’m warning you, I don’t want our past brought up with Nadia. My bloody pride can’t take it.’
His grip on her loosened, but just as she thought he was going to turn away from her he changed his mind
and gripped her shoulders fiercely. His voice was gravelly when he spoke. ‘I wish to hell you had married Nicholas Fields, because then you would be out of my reach. Married, you would be out of temptation’s way. This has been the worst business decision of my life.’
His lips on hers were, as ever, the cruellest punishment, the most painful of reminders, the most exquisite pressure. His arms enfolded her slight frame and drew her against his towering strength and she yielded helplessly, her head swimming with the words he had just said and what they meant. She was a temptation to him; he was still trying to get over her and now…now his kissing her meant he was crumbling, wanting her and not able to hold back.
The kiss deepened, all temptation, all desire encapsulated within it. His hands moved around her back, drawing her ever more powerfully into his heady world of passion. One hand smoothed over her breast in a sensual, bone-melting rhythm that set her nerve-endings tingling. Where was her conscience when she needed it? When he kissed her like this, touched her like this, she couldn’t think of anyone but themselves. Jade and Mel as it used to be, as it should be. But it wasn’t Jade and Mel, it was Nadia and Mel…
She staggered back, blinking rapidly, not sure if she had pulled away or if he had pushed her. She gave him a look of total despair as she read the desire in his glittering eyes. Yes, desire—so damned obvious, so damned cruel. Not love, not regret for the past, nothing but damned animal desire, and…and she had nearly succumbed and he knew.
With shame flaring in her cheeks, Jade turned away and left him standing alone with a very knowing look darkening his eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHERE are you going?‘ Mel asked, stepping into the office a short time later. He came and stood by her desk, his dark, hooded eyes resting on her challengingly.
‘To see a client,’ Jade clipped, buttoning her suit jacket and adjusting the scarf at her throat. She had to get out, away from him and the thoughts of that wretched kiss downstairs.
‘Are you sure you’re not copping out, unable to face what happened just now?’ Infuriatingly, his voice was as smooth as silk.
‘What exactly did just happen, Mel?’ she asked without looking at him. She scoured her desk drawer for a presentation she had prepared last week and added stoically, before he had a chance to speak, ‘We both showed a bit of weakness just now, that’s all. I’m sure we can both live with it.’
‘Yes, well, a guilty conscience never was one of your strong points.’
‘And obviously not one of yours either. A kiss is just as big a betrayal as the whole thing, you know. Don’t go all pious on me just because you were the one who copped out last time we nearly made love.’
‘You were delirious.’
She looked up at him. He was leaning casually on his desk with his arms folded across his chest, a stance that screamed out that he was winding her up. She smiled sweetly at him. ‘So I was. Fancy you recognising it. But then I suppose the women you have associated with over the years have all had degrees in delirium!’
‘So you’ve been charting my amorous progress these last years.’ He smiled knowingly.
‘Hard not to when every week you give the tabloids reason for featuring you and your libido in their columns.’
‘I don’t like dining alone.’
‘You don’t like sleeping alone!’
‘The papers exaggerate—’
‘Huh, there’s no smoke without fire!’ Her eyes went down to the desk again. Where was that presentation?
‘Down to waving that old clichĂ at me now, are you? Can’t you come up with something more original?’
She glared at him then. ‘Sadly, no, Mel, because you are so steeped in rigid thinking you wouldn’t recognise original if it swung from your armpits.’
‘Meaning?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Meaning four years ago you believed I had a lover while I was loving you. You refused to listen to my explanations and if you had listened you would have refused to believe that a man and woman can have a relationship built on friendship and not on sex. That’s what I mean about rigid thinking.’ She stopped and let out a great sigh of impatience. ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering. I’m wrong, anyway. You aren’t steeped in rigid thinking, you bend the rules to suit yourself—’
‘You’re rambling, Jade,’ he interjected, impatient himself now. ‘Get to the point you’re trying to make.’
She slumped down into her chair and looked at him bleakly. This was ridiculous; they should never have allowed this hurtful conversation to get this far. “There isn’t one. You started all this, kissing me downstairs then cross-examining me about it—’
‘It was hardly a cross-examination. Your voluntary input into this conversation has been greater than mine, Jade. Makes me feel you want to shed your conscience,’ he mocked.
‘I haven’t one, remember?’ she breathed sarcastically. ‘Ah, here it is.’ She waved the presentation at him. ‘My passport to freedom for the afternoon.’ She stood up.
‘You can’t go out this afternoon; we have work to go through together,’ he protested.
‘You’re doing such a heroic job here yourself, Mel, you don’t need me. I doubt you and Nadia will notice I’m not here. But I’ll be back.’ She swept out of the office before he could throw another protest in her path, and though she’d had the last word she didn’t feel as if she had.
Jade read Nicholas’s note when she got home. He’d be away for a few days and Trisha would be dropping in with the suits he’d asked her to pick up from the cleaners.
Jade screwed up the note and tossed it into the bin. She wished Nicholas would hurry up and marry Trisha and move out altogether. Trisha still lived with her parents so their free time was usually spent in the apartment and Jade was consequently witness to all their little domesticities, which made her feel the loss of Mel ever more poignantly.
She put the coffee-pot on and kicked off her shoes. It was funny how Trisha totally accepted that there was nothing but friendship between her and Nicholas. Mel wouldn’t be so understanding if he knew Nicholas stayed here when he was in town. His Italian-influenced thinking was too rigid. Men and women couldn’t be friends in his tight world; it was lovers or nothing.
After a long, lazy soak in the bath Jade eyed the abysmal contents of the fridge. There wasn’t much to excite the palate. As she was contemplating going out for a take-away something or other the security buzzer went. She sighed and pressed the button, praying it wasn’t Trisha at a loose end without Nicholas and wanting to talk wedding talk. It always made Jade feel more lonely than ever.
‘Jade? It’s me.’
‘Mel!’ she croaked into the intercom, instinctively pulling her wrapover sarong-style skirt across her knees, which was ridiculous because he couldn’t see her.
‘I expected you back this afternoon, Jade,’ he said sourly. ‘You lose Brownie points for that.’
‘Not funny, Mel, not original either. What do you want?’
She glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. He must have come straight from work. If so he’d have Nadia with him. They always went off together when Mel was in the office, and when he wasn’t he usually picked her up after work.
‘I want to come in. I’m not standing down here for my health,’ he snapped back.
Must be the happy hour, Jade mused as she buzzed him in, not looking forward to his biting repartee one iota. She put the coffee-pot on again and went to the door, glancing into the gilt-framed mirror beside it. At least she was dressed, in a long skirt and loose, flowing shirt. Normally she fell into a worn towelling robe after a bath. Tonight she must have had a premonition of some approaching catastrophe, like an earthquake, the end of the world, or a visit from Mel Biaggio!
‘I’, he had said, so he was alone, which was a minor relief. She opened the door to him and stood back, surprised at the armful of packages he was holding. ‘What’s all this?’
‘Take-away and wine and a briefcase full of work to go through,
and before you protest I’m leaving for Paris in the morning and won’t be back till next week, so if you want this lot sorted you’ll have to put up with my company for a few hours.’
He followed her through and dumped the packages on the breakfast bar.
She looked at him and shrugged. ‘You won’t get an argument out of me. I’ve nothing in the fridge, not even the dregs of a wine box, and I wouldn’t want you to put off your trip to fairyland for my benefit. Paris, eh? Planning your honeymoon?’
He ignored her sarcasm and clipped open his briefcase. He hadn’t even looked around the open-plan area of the apartment. It was decorated in warm terracotta shades, with splashes of blue in the cushions and upholstery and ceramic pots filled with ferns and greenery to give it a Mediterranean feel. He wasn’t interested in her life. She sighed and sorted out the cartons. She shouldn’t think the way she did, hoping for droplets of warmth and appreciation to fall when she knew it was all hopeless.
‘Where’s Nadia?’
‘Out this evening.’
‘Nice for her,’ Jade murmured. ‘Is this from the Thai restaurant round the corner?’
He looked up. ‘Yes, why? No good?’
‘It looks and smells wonderful. I’ve never tried them. I will in future.’
Their eyes met across the breakfast bar and both looked away. Jade wondered if he was thinking along the same lines as herself. They’d used to practically live on take-aways when they were together, too wrapped up in each other to bother wasting time cooking for themselves.
‘Where do you want to eat?’ she asked. ‘At the table or on your lap?’
For the first time he looked around the open-plan area of the apartment. ‘This is nice. Light and airy. Totally out of keeping with the Regency faÇade of the building, though.’What had she expected—a glowing testimonial to her good taste? She clattered around in the cupboards for plates and glasses. ‘Not guilty, I’m afraid. It was like this when I bought it. I just added a few bits of my own. An interior designer lived here before.’
‘Not a sympathetic one,’ he uttered under his breath as he sorted papers from his briefcase.
