Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon's most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan's characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women's fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Christmas Eve Wedding
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

A LITTLE hesitantly Jaz pressed the button for the lift to take her to her hotel bedroom. She was alone in the dimly lit foyer apart from the man who was also waiting for the lift. Tall, broad-shouldered, and subtly exuding an aura of very male sexual energy. Being alone with him sent a frisson of dangerous nervous excitement skittering over her skin.

Had he moved just that little bit closer to her whilst they waited, blocking her exit and hiding her from the view of anyone walking past the lift bay so that only he knew she was there, or was she imagining it? Like she had ‘imagined’ that look he had just given her body…her breasts…

And had he noticed the treacherous reaction of her body to his sexually predatory glance? The taut peaking of her breasts, the sudden soft gasp of her indrawn breath. Could he tell that recklessly she was in danger of actually becoming physically excited, not just by his presence but also by her own thoughts?

There was an awesome sexuality about him that made her tremble inside with arousal and guilt.

Was it possible he guessed what she was thinking? Was that why he had moved closer to her?

Colouring up self-consciously, Jaz looked away from him, determined to focus her thoughts elsewhere. She pondered on what had brought her to this hotel in New Orleans in the first place.

On the other side of the city her godfather would be going through the final details of the sale of his exclusive and innovative English department store to the American family who had been so eager to buy it, to add to their own equally prestigious and larger chain of American stores. They needed the store to give them an entrée into the British market.

She knew that her own job as the store’s display coordinator and window designer was totally secure, but it had been a struggle for her, and a test of her determination and resolve to prove herself and succeed in her chosen career.

Her parents, loving and caring though they most certainly were, had initially been shocked and disbelieving when their only child had been unable to share their commitment to the farm she’d grown up on, and had instead insisted on making her own way in the world.

They had been very reluctant to accept her decision to go to art college, and Jaz knew that it was really thanks to the intervention of her godfather, Uncle John, that her parents had finally taken her seriously. Thanks to him too that she now had the wonderful job she did have.

It was no secret that her parents still harboured the hope that she would fall in love with someone who shared their own lifestyle and ambitions, but Jaz was fiercely determined never to fall in love with a man who could not understand and did not share her feelings. She felt that the right to express the artistic side of her nature had been hard-won, and because of that it was doubly precious to her. She was ambitious for her talent, for its expression, and for the freedom to use it to its maximum capacity, and she knew how impossible that would be if she were to marry a man like her father, kind, loving and generous though he was.

To further validate her ability she had recently been head-hunted by a top London store, but she had chosen to remain loyal to her godfather and to the unique and acclaimed store which had originally been begun by his grandfather.

Now in his late seventies, her godfather had been for some time looking for a worthy successor who would nurture the store’s prestigious profile, and although at first he had been dubious about selling out to new owners on the other side of the Atlantic, a visit to New Orleans to see the way the Dubois family ran their business—a trip on which he had invited Jaz to go with him—had convinced him that they shared his own objectives and standards. Since he had no direct heirs to pass the business onto, he had decided that the best way to preserve the traditions of the store was to sell it to the like-minded Dubois family, a decision Jaz herself fully endorsed.

As the lift arrived and the doors slid open Jaz’s thoughts were snapped back into the present. She couldn’t help snatching an indiscreet look at the man waiting to step into it with her, her heart bumping against her ribs as she acknowledged the buzz of sexual excitement she had felt the moment she had seen him. Was it the fact that she was out of her own environment, a stranger in a different country, that was encouraging her to behave so recklessly? Or was it something about the man himself that was making her touch the tip of her tongue to her lips as she stared boldly at him, her female senses registering his sexy maleness?

Just the thought of being alone in the lift with him was filling her mind with all manner of forbidden erotic scenarios. A wanton inspection of his body verified just how completely male he was. A soft, dangerous lick of excitement ran over her as her senses reacted to the way he was looking at her, silently responding to the fact that she had looked at him for just that little bit too long, challenging him in a way that was wholly female to show her that he was equally wholly male.

‘Seen something you like, hon?’ he asked her as the lift door closed, trapping Jaz inside the intimate space with him.

Apprehension curled feather-soft down her spine. She knew that what she was doing was totally out of character, but for some reason she didn’t care. There was something about him that brought the secret ache deep within her body to a wire-sharp intensity that could not be ignored.

Refusing to back down, she met his amused look head-on, tossing her head as she replied huskily, ‘I might have done.’ She had been warned before her visit that New Orleans was home to a very dangerous type of sexually attractive man—men who never refused to gamble against fate or to take up a challenge. And she held her breath now, wondering how he would respond. She couldn’t resist glancing into the mirrored wall to her side to take another peek at him.

His shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing an exciting ‘V’ of male flesh. Impulsively she took a step towards him. She wondered how it would feel to caress that flesh with her lips, to taste and tease it until he had no option but to reach for her and—

She could feel her body melting with arousal. Everything about him tormented her senses in ways she had never imagined. Just looking at him made her want him. She could feel her face burning, her heart racing at the explicitness of her own thoughts and fantasies. She felt shocked by them.

Her heart thumping, she continued to study him. Over six foot, with very thick rich brown hair just touched with honey-gold where the fierce heat of the sun had lightened it. In the close confines of the lift she could smell the cool expensive tang of his skin. Everything about him looked expensive. From his clothes and his haircut to his elegantly discreet watch. Everything apart from his hands which for some reason, whilst immaculately clean, were slightly callused. Her stomach lifted and clenched with female excitement at the thought of those hands, so tellingly male, pressed against the soft femininity of her own skin.

She had started to breathe too fast, betrayingly fast, she recognised as his glance locked on her mouth.

‘Go ahead,’ she heard him urging her shockingly. ‘Go ahead, hon, and do what you want to do. And you do want to, don’t you?’ he guessed, his voice dropping until it was a low sexy murmur, as rawly sensual as though he had actually caressed the most sensitive parts of her body with the rough male heat of his tongue.

Somehow she had actually put one hand against his chest!

His skin was warm and tanned, with tiny lines fanning out from his eyes. His eyes…

Her breath locked in her chest and another wave of sensual dizziness filled her. She had never, ever seen eyes so blue before. It was a denser, deeper, stronger blue than the bluest sky she had ever seen, the colour so intense that she felt her own golden-brown eyes must look totally insignificant in comparison.

‘I can’t,’ she responded shakily, too lost in her own desire to conceal what she was feeling from him. ‘Not here.’ Her voice faltered and fell to a husky whisper. ‘Not in the lift.’ But as she spoke her gaze went betrayingly to where his jeans were now visibly straining against the tautness of his arousal.

‘Liar!’ he taunted her softly. ‘I could take you here and now. And if you want me to prove it—’ His hand was already reaching for the buckle of his belt.

Jaz felt dizzy with the aching intensity of her fevered longing. Impulsively she moved even closer to him, and then stopped.

The knowing smile that accompanied the look he was giving her brought a deep flush of colour to Jaz’s skin.

He had the whitest, strongest teeth, and it was hard not to imagine him biting them into her skin with deliberate sensuality. A fierce, shocked shiver ran through her at the explicitness of her own thoughts, and she moved a little uncomfortably, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

‘Careful, hon,’ she heard him warning her. ‘If you keep on looking at me that way I guess I’m just going to have to give you what those big eyes of yours are asking me for. In fact…’

Jaz shook her head and tried to deny what he was saying, but it was too late for her to say or do anything. He had moved so quickly, so light-footedly for such a big man, and he had somehow imprisoned her against the back of the lift, his hands planted firmly either side of her as he lowered his head until his lips were resting on hers.

The feeling of being surrounded by him, by the heat of his body, the weight of it that was almost resting on her, the scent of it that filled the air around her, was so intensely erotic that she felt almost as though he had laid her bare and actually touched her. She shuddered as he placed his hand on her breast, caressing it through the fine silk of the dress she was wearing. He bent his head and she turned her own to one side, then cried out in protest as she felt his lips caressing her nipple through the fine silk.

Swooningly Jaz closed her eyes. She ought not to be doing this. It was so dangerous. Common sense told her that. But her hand had already gone to his groin, seeking, stroking, needing the hot hard feel of him to prove to her that she was not alone in the savage almost frightening urgency of her need. The sensation of him swelling fiercely beneath her touch soothed her fractured ego, just as the sudden rough acceleration of his breathing brought her a swift feminine surge of triumph. She was not alone. He wanted her as much as she wanted him!

The lift shuddered to a halt and the door opened. Immediately she pushed past him.

They stepped out of the lift together, Jaz aware that her face was burning hotly and that her legs felt so weak they were barely able to support her. What if they had remained in the lift for longer? Would he…? Would she…?

As she turned away from him she heard him saying softly to her, ‘Let’s go to your room.’

Helplessly she stared at him. He was a man totally outside all her previous experience—which she had to admit was less than worthy of any kind of comparison. She had always led an unfashionably sedate kind of life, compared with the lives of her peers. Her battle to prove to her parents how important her chosen career path was to her had not left her with time to indulge in the sexual experimentation of other girls her age.

But it was a life which suited her and which she had always been very happy with. Sexual adventures of the kind that involved kissing tall, dark, handsome men in lifts were not something that had ever remotely interested her—or if they had she was certainly not prepared to admit it publicly, she hastily amended, as she wordlessly led the way to her hotel bedroom with her head held high but her heart thumping frantically in a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

It was only when they reached the door that qualms of conscience made her hesitate. She turned to him as she searched in her bag for her key.

‘I don’t think—’ she began, but he had taken her bag from unresisting fingers and was reaching out to draw her into his arms. In the same movement he slid open the door.

‘What is it that you don’t think, hon?’ he asked her with male emphasis. ‘That you don’t want this?’

Jaz’s whole body shook in the hard embrace of his arms as he bent his head and kissed her, a long, slow, lingering kiss that melted her bones and her will-power. They were inside the room, now and he had closed and locked the door, all without letting go of her, and now in the soft darkness he was still kissing her. Though what he was doing to her mouth was more, much more than merely kissing it. What he was doing was…

Jaz shuddered convulsively as his hands touched her body lightly, delicately, knowingly…This man knew women…He knew them very, very well. She could feel it in his touch…feel it in him. His tongue caressed her lips, as though he sensed and wanted to soothe her fears, circling them slowly and carefully, until the delicate pressure of his tongue-tip became not soothing but frustrating, tormenting…making her want…

The darkness seemed to increase her awareness of him, of the hot, musky male scent of his body. It made her doubly aware of the feel of his skin against her as she felt the roughened rasp of his jaw on her cheek, and the corresponding texture of his jacket sleeve against her bare arm. She was almost intoxicated by the cool fresh hint of cologne he was wearing.

In her mind’s eye she could see him in a very different environment from that of her hotel room—the Bourbon court had been exited from France to New Orleans, and it didn’t take much imagination on Jaz’s part to picture him at Versailles at the height of the Sun King’s reign. How well he would have fitted into that sophisticated and splendid milieu; his sexuality would have driven the court ladies into swooning fits of desire—would have had much the same effect on them as it was having on her right now!

He was like no other man she had ever met, dangerous and exciting, and she was drawn to him in a way that both shocked and thrilled her.

His teasing kiss was beginning to aggravate her. He was treating her like a girl, not a woman—not like the woman she knew she could be with him. All fire and passion, need and hunger. A woman to whom nothing else mattered more than her man, the feelings and desires they were generating and creating between them. Her made her feel…He made her feel alive, primitive, sensual—all woman! His woman!

Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around him, boldly tangling her tongue with his, drawing him into a kiss of fierce passion.

‘Uh-huh, so that’s what you want, is it?’ he demanded thickly against her mouth as he responded to her. ‘Well, in that case, hon—’

Jaz gasped as he picked her up as easily, as though she were a child, making his way sure-footedly towards the bed like a mountain cat.

As he laid her down he was already undressing her, and she made no move to stop him. She had known the moment they stepped into the lift together that this was going to happen. Had wanted it to happen. As it had happened with this man so many times since she’d arrived in New Orleans. She positively longed for Caid’s now familiar touch.

Moonlight streamed in through the unclosed curtains, silvering her exposed breasts. She gasped in pleasure as he touched them, running the slightly coarse pad of his fingertip round the exquisitely sensitive flesh surrounding each pouting nub.

Excitement, as hot and sweet as melting chocolate, filled her with shocked pleasure. Her body arched like a bow as she offered her breasts to him in the silent heat of the shadowy room, its stillness broken only by the raw tempo of their aroused breathing.

This was what she had been imagining them doing in the lift—she’d been picturing their naked bodies entwined in the still heat of the Louisiana night.

Fiercely she reached for him, her fingers tugging at buttons and fastenings, not stopping until she was able to touch the hot skin that held the muscled tautness of his naked body.

Just touching him unleashed within her a driven hunger she was half afraid to recognise. It was far, far outside the boundaries of her normal emotions. A reckless and alien, dangerous and wild wantonness that refused to be controlled or tamed.

As he reached for her, covering her body in fierce, rawly sensual kisses, she sobbed beneath the onslaught of her own response—which was immediate, feral and unstoppable.

Passionately they clung together, stroking, touching kissing, devouring one another in their mutual driving need. In the moonlight Jaz could see the scratches she had scorched across his back, and in the morning she knew her own body would bear the small bruise-marks of his hotly male demands on her, his desire for her. Then perhaps she would wonder at her own behaviour, but right now her thoughts were elsewhere.

‘Ready, hon?’ he demanded as he gathered her closer, so close that she could feel the heavy thud of his heart as though it were beating within her own body.

Wordlessly she answered him with her body, lifting her legs to wrap them tightly around him as he thrust into her.

The sensation of him filling her, stretching her, made her shake with almost unbearable pleasure.

Each movement of his body within hers, each powerful thrust, increased the frenzy of need that was taking her higher, filling her senses with the immensity of what was happening. And then abruptly the fierce, breath-catching ascent was over, and she was cresting the topmost wave of her own pleasure, surfing its heights, awed by the power of what she was experiencing. She cried out unknowingly, clinging to the body covering her own, feeling the male release within her; her body accepting the satisfaction of knowing it had given him completion whilst her exhausted senses relaxed.

Caid leaned up on one elbow and gently tickled the impossibly delicate curve of Jaz’s jaw with his fingertips. She was so tiny, so fragile, and yet at the same time so breathtakingly strong, this Englishwoman who had walked so unexpectedly into his life and his heart.

He had had his doubts—one hell of a lot of them, if he was honest—and with good reason. But then he had overheard her godfather talking to his mother about her background, and Caid had started to relax. Knowing that she came from farming stock—that she had been raised in a country environment and that her role within the store was simply a temporary one she had taken on to show her independence until she was ready to settle down and return to her roots—was all he had needed to lower his guard and stop fighting his feelings for her.

Which was just as well, because there was no way he could stop loving her now. No way he would ever contemplate settling down with a girl who did not share his deep love of country living and his determination that their children would be raised on his ranch, with their mother there for them, instead of travelling all over the world in the way his own mother had done. She had never been there when he had most needed her, and his parents finally divorced when his father had grown tired of his mother’s constant absences, her single-minded devotion to the family store. Caid had never been in any doubt that the store mattered more to his mother than he did. She had always been frank about the fact that his conception had been an accident.

As a young boy Caid had been badly hurt by his mother’s open admission of her lack of maternalism. As a teenager that hurt had turned to bitter resentment and as Caid had continued to grow his resentment had become an iron-hard determination to protect his own children from the same fate. Like many people who’d experienced a lonely and painful childhood, Caid had a very strong desire to have his own family and create the kind of closeknit unit he felt he had missed out on.

One of the most painful episodes of his childhood had been the time when his mother had not even been able to be there for him when his father—her ex-husband—had been killed in a road accident.

Caid had been eleven at the time, and he had never forgotten just how it had felt to be taken to the mortuary to identify his father…How alone, how afraid and how angry with his mother he had felt.

He had made a vow then that there was no way anything like that was ever going to happen to his kids. No way!

Consequently he had been very wary of becoming emotionally involved, despite the number of women who had tried to coax and tempt him into falling in love with them.

Until now…Until Jaz.

He had walked into the restaurant where the family, including his mother, was having dinner with Jaz and her godfather, and the moment he had set eyes on her he had known!

He had known too, from Jaz’s dazed expression and self-conscious pink-cheeked colour, that she was equally intensely aware of him.

It hadn’t taken him long to skilfully detach her from the others, on the pretext of showing her the view of the Mississippi from the upper floor of the restaurant, and even less time to let her know how attracted he was to her.

That his behaviour had been somewhat out of character was, he recognised, an indication of just how strong his feelings for her were.

Ironically, he had almost not met Jaz at all.

Although Caid had now established a workable and accepting adult relationship with his mother, one of the legacies from his childhood was his intense dislike of the family business. Had he been able to do so he would have preferred to have nothing whatsoever to do with the stores at all. However, that simply wasn’t possible. His maternal grandfather had left him a large portfolio of shares in the family business, which he held in trust, and as a further complication his mother had put emotional pressure on him to take on the role of the business financial adviser, following the completion of his Masters in Business Studies, claiming that if he didn’t she would never be able to believe he had forgiven her for his childhood.

Rather than become involved in painful wrangling Caid had given in, and of course the family had insisted that he further his role as financial adviser on their proposed purchase of the English store his mother was so keen to acquire—to add to the portfolio of highly individual and specialised stores already operating in Boston, Aspen and New Orleans.

Unlike the rest of his mother’s family, Caid’s first love was the land, the ranch he had bought for himself and was steadily building up, financed by the money he earned as a much sought-after financial consultant.

But he had come to New Orleans, protesting all the way like a roped steer, and thank heavens his mother had persevered, insisted on his presence. Because if she hadn’t…

The sexy smile curling his mouth deepened as Jaz opened her eyes.

‘Mmm, that sure was another wonderful night we spent together, ma’am,’ he teased her softly.

As he had known she would, Jaz started to blush. It fascinated him, this delicate English colour of hers that betrayed her every emotion, and made him feel he wanted to wrap her up and protect her.

‘You’d better go,’ Jaz told him unsteadily. ‘You know we both agreed that we wanted to keep this…us…to ourselves for now, and my godfather will be expecting me to have breakfast with him. Your mother has arranged for us to visit her warehouse this morning.’

Jaz gave a small soft gasp as Caid leaned forward and covered her mouth with his own, kissing her into silence, and from silence into sweetly hot fresh desire.

‘Are you sure you want me to leave?’ he asked, breathing the words against the sensitivity of her passionately kissed mouth whilst his hand pushed aside the bedclothes to mould round her breast.

As she struggled to keep her head and behave sensibly Jaz breathed in the intoxicating warm man-scent of Caid’s skin and knew she was fighting a lost cause.

Much better simply to give in, she acknowledged giddily as Caid started to kiss her again, gathering her up in his arms and rolling her swiftly beneath him.

‘Oh!’ Just the feel of his naked flesh against her own was enough to prompt Jaz’s soft betraying gasp, swiftly followed by a second and much more drawn out murmur of female pleasure as Caid made his intentions—and his hungry desire for her—very clear.

In terms of days they had known each other for very little time, but in terms of longing and love it felt to Jaz that they had known one another for ever.

‘A month ago I never dreamed that I’d be doing anything like this,’ she gasped as Caid’s hand stroked her body.

‘I should hope you didn’t,’ he growled mock-angrily.

‘After all, a month ago we hadn’t met.’

Immediately Jaz’s eyes filmed with tears.

‘Hon…What is it? What’s wrong? What did I say?’ Caid demanded urgently, cupping her face with his hands, his expression turning from one of amusement to anxious male concern.

‘Nothing,’ Jaz assured him. ‘It’s just that…Oh, Caid…If I hadn’t come to New Orleans—! If we hadn’t met—! If…I hadn’t known…’

‘You did come to New Orleans. We did meet, and you do know. We both know,’ Caid emphasised rawly. ‘I know, Jaz, that we were made to be together, that you are perfect for me. Perfect,’ he repeated meaningfully, glancing down the length of her body and then looking deep into her eyes.

Jaz could feel her toes curling as she looked at him. The way she felt about him still totally bemused and awed her. She had never thought of herself as the kind of woman who fell head over heels in love at first sight, who behaved so rashly that nothing would have stopped her sharing Caid’s bed or his life once he had told her how much he wanted her there.

It still made her feel giddy with happiness to know that Caid, who was surely the epitome of everything she had ever imagined she could possibly want in a man, had fallen in love with her. Caid was exactly the kind of man she had always secretly hoped she might meet: sophisticated, virile, sexy. A man who shared her world, who understood how important it was for her to be able to give free rein to her artistic nature; a man whose background meant that he would know instinctively why she preferred to stroke the sensual silkiness of rich velvet than to rub down the hindquarters of a horse. And why she could spend hours, days, wandering in delight through an art gallery, whilst the delights of a cattle market left her cold.

‘Will you be joining us this morning?’ Jaz asked him.

Caid shook his head and Jaz tried to conceal her disappointment. As excited as she was at the thought of seeing behind the scenes of the store, so to speak, she knew it would have been an even more wonderfully fulfilling experience if Caid had been there with her.

She knew that his mother had overall control of all the buying for the stores, and that she travelled the world seeking out new and different merchandise to tempt their discerning customers, but it was through Caid’s eyes that she wanted to see the Aladdin’s cave she suspected the warehouse would be—in Caid’s presence that she wanted to explore a part of the world he had made it clear they were going to share.

‘We can meet up this afternoon at the house,’ Caid said once they were both dressed. ‘You and I have talking to do and plans to make,’ he told her meaningfully.

‘Uncle John and I are flying home tomorrow,’ Jaz reminded him.

‘Exactly,’ Caid acknowledged. ‘Which is all the more reason for you and I to make those plans.’

CHAPTER TWO

JAZ smiled excitedly as she hurried towards the luxurious house in the centre of the French Quarter of New Orleans, where Caid was staying for the duration of his visit.

He had given her his spare key to the house the same night he had declared his love for her—a week to the day after they had first met—and now, as she turned it gently in the lock and opened the door to step inside the house’s hallway, Jaz wondered how on earth she was going to cope tomorrow morning when she was due to fly home—without him!

Already, secretly, she had fantasised about the life they would live together—the children she hoped they would one day have. A boy, a miniature Caid, patterned on his father, and a girl, to fill the home they would share. Suddenly it struck her that she did not know where Caid’s permanent home actually was!

Not that it mattered, she assured herself. After all, she knew all the really important things about him…Like the fact that he slept on his right-hand side and that he was such a light sleeper that if she so much as brushed the lightest of kisses against his skin he was immediately awake—even if on one occasion he had fooled her into thinking he wasn’t, and she had betrayed herself, giving in to her female longing to relish the secret intimacy and pleasure of touching and exploring him whilst he slept.

Hastily Jaz dragged her thoughts onto more mundane things. She knew that Caid had been to college in Boston, where his family also had a store, and that his work as a financial consultant required a certain amount of travel.

‘Fortunately I can work from any base, so long as I have a computer,’ he had told her, adding jokingly, ‘And my own plane.’

Did ‘anywhere’ mean that he was thinking of basing himself in her hometown, Cheltenham?

Or did he have somewhere else in mind? Jaz had been thrilled when his mother had sought her out privately to tell her how much she admired her work.

‘It could well be that there are opportunities for you to branch out rather more after the takeover,’ she had told Jaz, excitingly. ‘Would you be interested? It could mean a change of scenery for you.’

‘I’d be very interested,’ Jaz had replied dizzily.

‘Good,’ Caid’s mother had approved.

Had Caid perhaps hinted to his mother that Jaz might possibly work in one of their American stores?

He had told Jaz very comprehensively how well suited he thought they were, and she certainly felt the same way. She had deliberately refrained from saying too much to him about her job once she had realised who he was, not wanting him to think that she was trying to make a good impression on him out of some ulterior career-driven motive, but she had mentioned to him that she had known where her life lay from being a young girl.

The speed of their relationship and her own love for her parents had kept her from saying anything to him about the problems she had experienced as a child—as yet—but she knew that with his family background he would completely understand and sympathise with how she felt.

From the house’s stately drawing room a corridor led to its other rooms, and from her end of the hallway Jaz could see the door that opened into Caid’s bedroom was ajar. Instinctively, Jaz knew that Caid had reached the house ahead of her and was waiting for her. It was all she could do to stop herself from breaking into an undignified run and rushing into the bedroom to throw herself into his arms.

When she pushed open the bedroom door she saw that she had been right.

Caid was lying on the bed, a thin sheet pulled up to his waist, the rest of his body exposed as he lay back in the bed, his arms raised and his hands folded behind his head.

Hungrily Jaz’s gaze feasted on him. There was, after all, no need for her to try and hide her feelings from him. After all, Caid understood her desire, her arousal…her love.

‘Miss me?’ he whispered as she hurried unsteadily towards the bed.

‘Mmm…’ Jaz admitted. ‘But the warehouse was wonderful. I thought our buyers at home were good, but your mother is in a class of her own.’

‘Tell me about it!’ Caid agreed cynically, but the grimness in his voice was lost on Jaz, who was reliving the awe and excitement she had felt when she had toured the New Orleans store.

‘I know that she personally approves everything that your buyers source.’ Jaz shook her head. ‘How on earth does she do it? She must be totally dedicated.’

‘Totally,’ Caid agreed tersely.

Frowning a little as she caught the sharpness of his voice, Jaz looked at him. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked him.

‘Nothing,’ Caid responded firmly, smiling at her as he added softly, ‘Apart from the fact that you’ve got far too many clothes on and we’re wasting too much time talking.’

‘You said you wanted to talk,’ Jaz reminded him. ‘To talk and make plans,’ she emphasised.

‘Mmm…and so I do,’ Caid agreed. ‘But right now you’re distracting the hell out of me and making me want you so damn much that the way I need to communicate with you has suddenly become much more personal and one on one. You haven’t said hi to me yet,’ he told her softly.

‘Hi…’ Jaz began, but Caid immediately shook his head.

‘No. Not like that. Like this.’ Swiftly he reached for her, his mouth starting to caress hers.

‘Oh, that kind of hi.’ Jaz managed to find the breath to tease him.

‘That kind of hi,’ Caid agreed, releasing her mouth to look into her eyes.

Jaz could feel the heat spreading through her body. She started to quiver, and then to tremble openly. She could see from the look in Caid’s eyes how much he was enjoying her helpless response to him.

Well, he would pay for that enjoyment later, when she tormented him the way he was tormenting her right now.

‘I’ve never met anyone who shows her feelings so clearly and so openly,’ Caid told her quietly. ‘I love that honesty about you, Jaz. I don’t have any time for people who cheat or lie.’

For a second he looked so formidable, so forbidding, that Jaz felt unsettled. To her he was the man she loved, but she could see that there was another side to him—a fiercely stubborn and unforgiving side, she suspected.

‘I love the way you show me your feelings,’ she heard Caid saying. ‘The way you show me how much you want and love me. Show me that now, Jaz.’

Jaz didn’t need a second invitation.

The heightened sound of Caid’s breathing accompanied the speedy removal of her clothes, until her progress was interrupted by Caid’s refusal to allow her to complete the task unaided, his hands hungrily tender against her body as they exchanged mutually passionate kisses and whispered words of love.

The heat of a New Orleans afternoon was surely made for lovers, Jaz reflected languorously a couple of hours later as she lay in Caid’s arms, enjoying the blissful aftermath of their lovemaking. After all, where better to escape the heat than in the shadowy air-conditioned coolness they were enjoying?

‘Time to get dressed,’ Caid murmured as he leaned over to kiss her.

‘Dressed? I thought we were going to talk,’ Jaz reminded him.

A sexy smile crooked his mouth.

‘We are!’ he confirmed. ‘Which is why we need to get dressed. If we stay here like this, talking isn’t going to be what I feel like doing,’ he added, in case Jaz had missed his point. ‘I can’t wait for us to be married, Jaz, or to take you home with me to Colorado—to the ranch. We can begin our lives together properly there. With your background, you’ll love it, I’ll get you your own horse, so that we can ride out together, and then, when the kids come along—’

‘Your ranch?’ Jaz stopped him in a shocked voice. ‘What ranch? What are you talking about, Caid? You’re a businessman—a financial consultant. The stores…’

‘I am a financial consultant,’ Caid agreed, starting to frown as he heard the note of shocked anxiety in Jaz’s voice. ‘But that’s what I do to make enough money to finance the ranch until it can finance itself. And as for the stores…to be involved in the stores or anything connected with them is the last way I would ever want to live my life. To me they epitomise everything I most dislike and despise.’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I could say that I have a hate-hate relationship with them. Personally, I can see nothing worthwhile in scouring the world for potential possessions for people who already have more than they need. That’s not what life should be about.’

Jaz couldn’t help herself—his angry words had resurrected too many painful memories for her.

‘But living on a ranch, chasing round after cattle all day, presumably is?’ she challenged him shakily.

With every word he had uttered Caid had knocked a larger and larger hole in her beliefs, her illusions about the kind of relationship and goals they shared. Jaz recognised in shocked bewilderment that Caid simply wasn’t the man she had believed him to be.

‘The stores aren’t just about…about selling things, Caid,’ she told him passionately. ‘They’re about opening people’s eyes…their senses…to beauty; they’re about…Surely you can understand what I’m trying to say?’ Jaz pleaded.

Caid narrowed his eyes as he heard the agitation and the anger in Jaz’s voice. From out of the past he could hear his mother’s voice echoing in his six-year-old ears.

‘No, Caid. I can’t stay. I have to go. Think about all those people I would be disappointing if I didn’t find them beautiful things to buy! Surely you can understand?’

No! I don’t understand! Caid had wanted to cry, but he had been too young to find the words he wanted to say, and already too proud, too aware of his male status, to let her see his pain.

But he certainly wasn’t going to make the mistake of holding back on telling Jaz how he felt.

‘I thought we were talking about us, Jaz! About our future—our lives together. So why in hell’s name are we talking about the stores?’

‘Because I work in one of them, and so far as I am concerned my work is a vitally important part of my life.’

‘How vitally important?’ Caid demanded ominously, his voice suddenly icily cold.

Jaz felt as though the ground that had seemed so safe and solid was suddenly threatening to give way beneath her, as though she was rushing headlong into danger. But it was a danger she had faced before, wasn’t it? Listening to Caid was in many ways just like listening to her parents—although Caid’s anger and bitterness was a frighteningly adult and dangerous version of parental emotion.

She felt intensely threatened by it—not in any physical sense, but in the sense that his attitude threatened her personal freedom to be herself.

As she looked at him, remembering the intimacy they had just shared, the love he had shown her, she was tempted to back down. But how could she and still be true to herself?

‘My work is as important to me as it gets,’ she told him determinedly. Though what she was saying was perhaps not strictly true. It was not so much her job that was important to her as the fact that it allowed her to express her creativity, and it was her creativity she would never compromise on or give up. ‘As important,’ she continued brittly, ‘as you probably consider yours to be to you!’

‘Nothing—no one on this earth—could ever make me give up the ranch!’ Caid told her emphatically.

‘And nothing—no one—could ever make me give up my…my…work,’ Jaz replied, equally intensely.

Silently they looked at one another. The hostility in Caid’s eyes made Jaz want to run to him and bury her head against his chest so that she wouldn’t have to see it.

‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ Caid’s voice was terse, his jaw tight with anger.

‘If I had known—’

‘You did know,’ Jaz interrupted him fiercely. ‘I have never made any secret of how much my…my creative my work means to me. If I had thought for one minute that you might not understand…that you were a…a farmer…there is no way that—’

‘That what? That you’d have jumped so eagerly into bed with me?’

‘I was brought up on a farm.’ Jaz struggled to explain. ‘I know that it isn’t the kind of life I can live.’

‘And I was brought up by a mother who thought more of her precious stores than she did of either my father or me. I know there is no way I want a woman—a wife—who shares that kind of obsession. I want a wife who will be there for my kids in a way that my mother never was for me. I want a wife who will put them and me first, who will—’

‘Give up her own life, her own dreams, her own personality simply because you say so?’ Jaz stormed furiously at him. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. Just what kind of man are you?’

‘The kind who was fool enough to think you were the right woman for him,’ Caid told her bitingly. ‘But obviously I was wrong.’

‘Obviously,’ Jaz agreed chokily, then emphasised, ‘Very obviously!’ And then added for good measure, ‘I hate farming. I loathe and detest everything about it. I would never ever commit myself or my children to…to a man as…as selfish and narrow-minded as you certainly are. My creativity is a special gift. It means—’

‘A special gift? More special than our love?’ Caid demanded savagely. ‘More special than the life we could have shared together? The children I would have given you?’

‘You don’t understand,’ Jaz protested, her voice thickening with tears as she forced herself not to be weakened by the emotional pressure he was placing her under. If she gave in to him now she would never stop giving in to him, and she would spend the rest of her life regretting her weakness. Not just for herself but for her children as well.

But still she tried one last attempt to make Caid see reason, telling him huskily, ‘When I was growing up I knew how important it was for me to fulfil the creative, artistic side of my nature, but my parents didn’t want to accept that I was different from them. If it hadn’t been for Uncle John I don’t know what would have happened. I had to fight far too hard for my right to be me, Caid, ever to be able to give it up for anyone…even you.’

What he hadn’t understood as a child Caid certainly understood now, he acknowledged bitterly. Once again, the most important person in his world was telling him that he wasn’t enough for her, that she didn’t love him enough to want to be with him for himself.

‘I thought after what I’d been through with my mother I’d be able to recognise another woman of her type a mile away,’ he growled angrily. ‘And perhaps I would have done too, if I hadn’t heard your precious Uncle John talking about you and saying that your family expected you to return to your roots and settle down to the life they’d raised you in.’

The accusation implicit in his words that somehow she had actively deceived him infuriated Jaz, severing the last fragile thread tugging on her heartstrings.

‘My parents might want that, but it certainly isn’t what I want, or what I ever intend to do. And if you misinterpreted a conversation you overheard, that’s hardly my fault. If marrying a farmer’s daughter is so important to you, why didn’t you say so?’

‘Because I believed that what is important to me was equally important to you,’ Caid told her bitingly. ‘I thought that you were the kind of woman strong enough to find her fulfilment in—’

‘Her husband and her children? Staying home baking cakes whilst her big strong husband rides his acres and rules his home?’ Jaz interrupted him scathingly. ‘My God. If your father was anything like you, no wonder your mother left him! You aren’t just old-fashioned, Caid, you’re criminally guilty of wanting to deny my sex its human rights! We are living in a new world now. Modern couples share their responsibilities—to each other and to their children—and—’

‘Do they? Well, my mother certainly didn’t do much sharing when she was travelling all over the world buying “beautiful” things,’ he underlined cynically. ‘She left my dad to bring me up as best he could. And as for her leaving him—believe me, he felt he was well rid of her. And so did I.’

Caid started to shake his head, his eyes dark with a pain that Jaz misinterpreted as anger.

‘My mother was like—’

‘Like me?’ She jumped in, hot-cheeked. ‘Do you feel you’d be well rid of me, Caid?’

Broodingly Caid looked at her. Right now he ached to take her in his arms and punish her for the pain she was causing them both, by kissing her until she admitted that all she wanted was him and their love, that nothing else mattered. But if he did he knew he would be committing himself to a life of misery. After all, a leopardess never changed her spots—look at his mother!

The look he was giving her said more than any amount of words, Jaz decided with a painful sharp twisting of her heart that made it feel as though it was being pulled apart.

‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘Because I certainly think that I will be well rid of you!!’

She could feel the burning acid sting of unshed tears. As angry with herself for her weakness as she was with Caid for being the cause of it, she blinked them away determinedly.

‘I’m a woman with needs and ambitions of my own, Caid, not some…some docile brood mare you can corral and keep snugly at home.’

‘You—’ Infuriated, Caid took a stride towards her.

Immediately Jaz panicked. If he touched her now, held her…kissed her…

‘Don’t come any closer,’ she warned him, her eyes glittering with emotion. ‘And don’t even think about trying to touch me, Caid. I don’t want to be touched by you ever again!’

Without giving him any chance to retaliate she turned on her heel and fled, almost running the length of the house and not stopping until she was halfway down the street, when the heat of the New Orleans late afternoon forced her to do so.

It was over. Over. And it should never have happened in the first place. Would never have happened if she had for one minute realised, recognised, just what kind of man Caid was.

She had been out of her depth, Jaz acknowledged miserably, in more ways than one.

The only consolation was that, thanks to Caid’s practicality and insistence on protecting her, there was no chance there would be any repercussions from their affair. And for that she was profoundly thankful! Wasn’t she?

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU want me to go to England and find out what’s happening?’ Caid stared at his mother in angry disbelief. ‘Oh, no…no way. No way at all!’ he told her, shaking his head.

‘Caid, please. I know how you feel about the stores, and I know I’m to blame for that but you are my son, and who else can I turn to if I can’t rely on you? And besides,’ she continued coaxingly, ‘it would hardly be in your own financial interests for the stores to start losing money—especially not right now, when you’ve invested so much in modernising the ranch and buying more land.’

‘All right, Mother, I understand what you’re saying.’ Caid stopped her grimly. ‘But I fail to see why a couple of personnel leaving the Cheltenham store should be such a problem.’

‘Caid, they’re going to work for our competitors.’

‘So we recruit better and more loyal employees,’ Caid responded wryly. ‘Which departments are we talking about anyway?’ he asked, as casually as he could. So far as he was concerned, he told himself, if one of the people who had left was Jaz then so much the better!

It was over four months since Jaz had walked out on him after their fight. Over four months? It was four months, three weeks, five days and, by his last reckoning, seven and a half hours—not that he was keeping count for any other reason than to remind himself how fortunate he’d been to discover how unsuited they were before he had become any more involved.

Any more involved? How much more involved was it possible for him to have been? Hell, he’d been as deep in love as it was possible for a man to be!

Irascibly, Caid started to frown. He was growing a mite tired of being forced to listen to the mocking taunts of his unwanted inner voice. An inner voice, moreover, that knew nothing whatsoever about the realities of the situation!

So what if it was true that there had been occasions when he had found himself perilously close to reaching for the phone and punching in the English store’s number? At least he had been strong enough to stop himself. After all, there was no real point in him speaking to Jaz, was there? Other than to torment and torture himself—and he was doing one hell of a good job of that without hearing the sound of her voice.

His frown deepened. By now surely he should be thinking about her less, missing and wanting her less—especially late at night…

‘Caid…come back…You’re miles away…’

His mother’s voice cut into his private thoughts, mercifully rescuing him from having to acknowledge just what was on his mind late at night when he should have been sleeping.

‘The employees who have left are both key people, Caid: loyal personnel who had worked for the store for a long time. I’m concerned that their decision to leave will reflect badly on us and on our ability to keep good staff. Not to mention our status as a premier store. The retail world is very small, and it only needs a whisper of gossip to start a rumour that we are in danger of losing our status as market leader…’ She gave him a worried look. ‘I don’t need to tell you what that is likely to do to our stock.’

‘So two people leave.’ Caid shrugged. He knew his mother, and the last thing he needed right now was to have his time hijacked on behalf of her precious stores.

‘Two have left so far, but there could be more. Jaz might be next, and we really can’t afford to lose her, Caid. She has a unique talent—a talent I very much want. Not just for the Cheltenham store but for all our stores. It’s in my mind to appoint Jaz as our head window and in-store designer once she has gained more experience. I’d like to have her spend time working at each of the individual stores first. Caid, we mustn’t lose her, but I’m very much afraid we are going to do so. If it wasn’t for this stupid embargo the doctors have put on me flying I’d go to Cheltenham myself!’

Caid watched as his mother moved restlessly around the room. It had come as just as much of a shock to him as it had to his mother to learn that a routine health check-up had revealed a potentially life threatening series of small blood clots were developing in her lower leg. The scare had brought home to him the fact that despite everything she was still his mother, Caid recognised grimly. The clots had been medically dispersed with drugs, but his mother had been given strict instructions that she was on no account to fly until her doctor was sure she was clear of any threat of the clots returning.

When she saw that he was watching her she told him emotionally, ‘You say that you’ve forgiven me for…for your childhood, Caid, but sometimes, I wonder…I feel…’ When she stopped and bit her lip, looking away from him, Caid suppressed a small sigh.

‘What are you trying to say?’ he asked her cynically. ‘That you want me to prove I’ve forgiven you once more by going to Cheltenham?’

‘Oh, Caid, it would mean so much to me if you would,’ she breathed.

‘I don’t—’ Caid began, but immediately she interrupted.

‘Please, Caid,’ she begged urgently. ‘There isn’t anyone else I can trust. Not when I suspect that the root cause of the problem over there is the fact that your uncle Donny has appointed his own stepson as chief executive of the store,’ she told him darkly. ‘I mean, what right does Donny have to make that kind of decision? Just because he’s the eldest that doesn’t mean he can overrule everyone else. And as for that dreadful stepson of his…Jerry knows nothing whatsoever about the specialised nature of our business—’

‘I thought he was running a chain of supermarkets—’ Caid interrupted.

The constant and relentless internecine war of attrition waged between his mother and her male siblings was a familiar ongoing saga, and one he normally paid scant attention to.

‘Yes, he was. But honestly, Caid—supermarkets! There just isn’t any comparison between them and stores like ours. Of course, Donny has done it to appease that appalling new wife of his…Why on earth he marries them, I don’t know. She’s his fifth. And as for Jerry…There’s no way he would have ever got his appointment past the board if I hadn’t been in hospital! There’s nothing Donny would like better than to get me completely off the board, but he’ll never be able to do that…’

‘Mother, aren’t you letting your imagination rather run away with you?’ Caid intervened. ‘After all, it is as much in Uncle Donny’s interest as it is in yours to have the business thrive. And if Jerry is as bad as you are implying—’

‘As bad! Caid, he’s worse, believe me. And as for Donny! Well, certainly you’d think with four ex-wives to support he’d be going down on his knees to thank me for everything that I’ve done for the stores. But all he wants is to score off me. He’s always been like that…right from when I was born…they all were. You can’t imagine how I used to long to have a sister instead of five brothers…You’d think after all I learned about the male sex from them I’d have had more sense than to get married myself. You were lucky to be an only child, Caid—’

She stopped abruptly when she saw his expression. ‘Caid, please,’ she begged him, returning to her request. ‘We can’t afford to have this happen. We desperately need Jaz’s skill. Do you know that her window displays for the Christmas season are so innovative that people go to the store just to see them? She has a talent that is really unique, Caid. When I think about how lucky we are to have her…We mustn’t lose her. I’ve got such plans for her…’

‘Mother—’ Caid began resolutely.

‘Caid, don’t turn me down.’

Grimly he watched as his mother’s eyes filled with tears. He had never seen her cry…never.

‘This means so much to me…’

‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ Caid responded dryly, and yet he knew that despite his own feelings he would give in. After all, as his mother had just pointed out, he couldn’t afford to see the value of his trust fund stock in the business go down—not now, when he had so much tied up in his ranch. And that, of course, was the only reason he was going, he reminded himself firmly.

‘Jaz, I’d like to have a word with you, please.’

Jaz’s heart sank as she saw the store’s new chief executive bearing down on her. Since returning from New Orleans things had been far from easy for her. She knew that she had been fully justified in everything she’d said to Caid, and that there was no way there could have been a relationship between them, but that still didn’t stop her missing what they had shared, or dreaming about him, or waking up with her face wet with tears because she ached for him so much. The last thing she had needed to compound her misery had been the unwanted interference in her work of someone like Jerry Brockmann.

After meeting Caid’s mother, and listening to her enthuse about the Cheltenham store and her objectives for it, she had never expected that they would be saddled with a chief executive who seemed to epitomise the exact opposite of what Jaz believed the store was all about. Already the changes he had insisted on making were beginning to affect not just the staff, but their customers as well.

Jaz had lost count of the number of long-standing customers who had commented unfavourably about the fact that the store was no longer perfumed with the specially made room fragrance she herself had chosen as part of the store’s exclusive signature.

‘What the hell is this stuff made of?’ Jerry had complained, as he’d chaired the first departmental heads meeting after his arrival. He’d thrust the bill from the manufacturers beneath Jaz’s nose. ‘Gold dust? It sure costs enough. Why the hell do we have to scent the damn place anyway? Are the drains bad or something?’

‘It creates the right kind of ambience. It’s what our customers expect and it encourages them to buy designer fragrances for their own home,’ Jaz had replied quietly, trying to ignore his rudeness.

It had been soon after that, and before Jerry had chaired his next meeting, that the chief buyer for their exclusive Designer Fashion Room had announced that she intended to leave.

‘He says that he plans to cut my budget by half!’ she fumed furiously to Jaz. ‘Can you believe that? After what you said about the New Orleans store and its management I’d been putting out feelers to a couple of new up-and-coming designers to see if I could tempt them to let us stock their stuff—and now this! If I stay here now I’m going to totally lose my credibility.’

Jaz felt acutely guilty as she listened to her, and tried to smooth things over, but Lucinda refused to be appeased. She had already handed in her notice she informed Jaz angrily.

Even worse was Jaz’s discovery that her closest friend on the staff was also planning to leave.

‘But, Kyra, you’ve always said how much you loved working here,’ Jaz protested.

‘I did,’ Krya emphasised. ‘But not any more, Jaz. Jerry called me in to his office the other day to inform me that he thinks we should go more downmarket with our bed and bath linens. He said that we were catering for too small a market.’

‘Didn’t you explain to him that the mass market is so well covered by the multiples that we couldn’t possibly compete with them, that it’s because we supply only the best that we’ve got our Royal Warrant?’

‘Of course I did,’ Kyra had responded indignantly. ‘But the man’s obsessed by mass sales. He just can’t seem to see that this isn’t what we’re all about. Anyway, the upshot of our “discussion” was that I completely lost it with him and told him what he could do with his mass market bedding and his job!’

‘Oh, Kyra,’ Jaz sympathised.

‘Well, as it turns out I’ve done myself a favour, because I’ve got a friend who works at Dubai airport—that represents the real luxury end of the market—and she says there’s a job for me there if I want it.’

‘I’m going to miss you.’ Jaz sighed.

‘Well, you could always leave yourself,’ Kyra pointed out. ‘In fact,’ she added, ‘I don’t know why you don’t. It can’t be for any lack of offers. Oh, I can understand that whilst John still owned the store you must have felt bound by loyalty to him. But now…’

‘Perhaps I should think about leaving,’ Jaz agreed huskily. ‘But not yet. Not until—’

‘After the Christmas windows?’ Kyra supplied ruefully, shaking her head.

Jaz’s devotion to her Christmas windows was well known throughout the store.

‘It wouldn’t be fair,’ Jaz told her gently.

‘You should think more about being fair to yourself than being fair to other people,’ Krya chided. ‘Which reminds me. I haven’t liked to say anything before, but you haven’t been your normal happy self since you came back from New Orleans, Jaz. I don’t want to pry, but if you need someone to talk to…?’

‘There isn’t anything to talk about,’ Jaz told her firmly.

‘Or anyone?’ Kyra persisted gently.

Jaz couldn’t help it; she felt the tears stinging her eyes, the emotion blocking her throat, but she managed to deny it to Kyra.

And it was true—in a way. After all, what was the point in talking about Caid?

‘Excuse me if I’m coming between you and your private thoughts, Jaz,’ she heard Jerry saying sarcastically to her. ‘But am I right in thinking that you are supposed to be working?’

Pink-cheeked, Jaz apologised.

‘I’ve been going through John’s files and I can’t seem to find any budget forecasts for your department.’

Jaz forced herself to ignore the hectoring tone of his voice.

‘Traditionally, my department doesn’t work to a budget—’ she began to explain, but before she could continue Jerry interrupted sharply.

‘Well, in future it damn well does. And by in future, Jaz, I mean as of now. I want those forecasts on my desk by close of business tomorrow afternoon.’

He had gone before Jaz could either object or explain, leaving her hot-faced and resentful, her only small consolation the knowledge that it wasn’t just her who was suffering.

Since Jerry’s arrival the whole atmosphere of the store had changed—and in Jaz’s opinion not for the better!

‘Jaz, I thought you said the American stores were wonderful, very much on our wavelength. How can they be when Jerry’s so obviously trying to turn the store into some kind of dreadful pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap place?’ one of the department heads had complained.

‘I don’t understand what’s happening any more than you do,’ Jaz had been forced to admit.

‘Can’t you speak to John?’ another of the buyers had urged her.

Jaz had shaken her head. ‘No. He isn’t very well…his angina is getting worse.’

So much worse, in fact, that on his doctor’s advice John had had to move out of the pretty three-storey townhouse adjacent to the store, where he had lived virtually all his life.

For security reasons the Dubois family had insisted on buying the house, along with the store, but John had been granted a long lease on it which allowed him to rent it from them at a peppercorn rental. Jaz knew how upset he had been when his doctor had told him that the house’s steep stairs were not suitable for a person with his heart condition.

Luckily he also owned a ground-floor apartment in a renovated Victorian mansion several miles away from her parents, and he was now living there under the watchful eye of his housekeeper.

To Jaz’s delight, John had offered her the use of the townhouse in his absence, knowing that Jaz was in between properties herself, having sold the flat she had previously owned and not as yet being able to find somewhere she wanted to buy.

‘Are you sure the Dubois family won’t mind?’ she’d asked John uncertainly when he’d made her his generous offer.

‘Why should they?’ he had demanded. ‘And besides, even though it’s not strictly mine any longer, I would feel much happier knowing that the house is occupied by someone I know and trust, Jaz.’

Her new home certainly couldn’t be more convenient for her work, Jaz acknowledged; even if right now that work was becoming less and less appealing. But there was no way she could allow herself to leave. Not until after Christmas!

She had started planning this year’s windows right after last Christmas, and had come back from New Orleans fired up on a mixture of heartbreak and pride that had made her promise herself that this year’s windows would be her swansong—proof that she was getting on with her life as well as a way to show every single member of the Dubois family just how damned good she was. And then she would stand up and announce to them that there was nothing on this earth that would persuade her to go on working for a family of which Caid was a member.

At first she hadn’t been sure just what angle to go for—she’d already done fantasy and fairytale, and she’d done modern and punk only the previous year. But then it had happened. Her idea to end all ideas. And the miracle of it was that it was so simple, so workable, so timeless and so…so right.

The theme of her windows this Christmas was going to be Modern Womanhood, in all its many guises. And her modern Christmas woman, in defiance of everything that Caid had thrown at her, was going to be the hub of her family and yet her own independent and individual person as well! Each of the store’s windows would reflect a different aspect of her role as a modern woman—and each window would be packed with delectable, irresistible gifts appropriate to that role. Right down to the final one, where she would be shepherding her assembled family to view a traditional Nativity play, complete with every emotion-tugging detail apart from a real live donkey.

Everyone thought that the high point of her year were those few short weeks before Christmas, when her windows went on display, but in fact it was actually those weeks she spent working on the ideas and designs that she loved best.

This year she had spent even more of her time plotting and planning, drawing out window plans and then changing them. Because she needed to prove to herself that she had made the right decision…because she needed to find in the success of achieving her own targets and goals something satisfying enough to replace what she had lost?

No. She simply wanted to do a good job, that was all…of course it was!

Now her ideas and her plans were almost all in place; there was only one vital piece of research she still needed to do, and her arrangements for that were all in hand.

Jaz was a stickler for detail, for getting things just right. She needed a real-life role model for her ‘modern woman’. A role model who successfully combined all the elements of her fictional creation: a woman who was loved and valued by her partner and yet someone who had her own independent life. She needed a woman who acknowledged and enjoyed fulfilling her own personal goals, but still loved her children and her family above all else. A woman, in short, Jaz had dreamed of being herself—until Caid had destroyed those dreams.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.