Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

“You let me love you, and all the time you belonged to another man!”

“I didn’t ask you here to rake up the past, Mel. You help companies that are in trouble, and, loath as I am to admit it, I need your advice. They say you’re the best.”

“I don’t come cheap, Jade.”

“You never did.”

“But you did, didn’t you? Bargain basement.”

The insult was unbearable. “Your sole purpose for being here is to humiliate me for what you think I did to you four years ago, isn’t it?”

“I came here to lay a few ghosts before I made the big commitment.”

Jade stared at him, her dark eyes wide with pain. “Y-you’re going to…to be married?”

NATALIE FOX was born and brought up in London, England, and has a daughter, two sons and two grandsons. Her husband, lan, is a retired advertising executive, and they now live in a tiny Welsh village. Natalie is passionate about her three cats, two of them strays brought back from Spain where she lived for five years, and equally passionate about gardening and writing romance. Natalie says she took up writing because she absolutely hates going out to work!

Man Trouble!

Natalie Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘MEL BIAGGIO for you, Jade,’ came over the intercom.

Jade Ritchie took a nervous breath. Well, this was it, what she had been waiting for all week. He was here, and the fact that he had agreed to see her at all was something, she supposed. She cleared her throat to respond to her secretary, striving to sound cool and efficient because she knew Mel would be able to hear her voice as he waited by the reception desk and the last thing she wanted him to know was that she was terrified of facing him again.

‘Send him in, Diane, and hold all my calls till he’s gone.’

Jade’s index finger stayed suspended over the buzzer, as if by depressing the button again she could wish all this away. But it was impossible. Her company needed a troubleshooter and, as Nicholas had sagely advised, when you were in trouble you didn’t mess with second best. There were other troubleshooters, of course, but unfortunately none with Mel’s track record of unparalleled success. He had the Midas touch when it came to rescuing companies from the brink of bankruptcy. And Jade’s company needed rescuing and, miserably, the best happened to be Mel Biaggio, the Mel of her painful past.

Jade felt sick inside and bravely stood up ready to face him. She was of medium height but her small bone structure put her in the class of petite. His pocket-sized princess, he’d used to call her, and her bones had always melted when he’d murmured the endearment in her ear. Now, after four years without sight of him, she wondered whether if he spoke those tender words again those same silly bones would melt She shivered at the thought, flicked her jet hair away from her neck and fixed her dark eyes on the back of the door.

The door opened and instinctively Jade clenched her fists with tension, her polished nails digging into her palms, but the pain was nothing compared to what was searing her heart. He hadn’t changed a bit and she was overwhelmingly disappointed. She had prayed that he’d look different so that she could look at him and wonder what she had ever seen in him in the first place. But life wasn’t that obliging.

Folding down the collar of his navy cashmere coat, he approached. He was still as wretchedly good-looking as ever, his hair as black as ever, not even a wisp of silver to soften the dark severity of it. Tiny lines around his dark grey eyes were the only sign that an eternity had passed since they had last met.

She understood why gossip columnists took such interest in him. When she had known him he hadn’t yet hit the tabloid columns but he had since made up for lost ground. Classed as one of the most eligible bachelors in the financial City, he had certainly earned his title. He’d had more on-off relationships than a light-house. With punishing, morbid curiosity Jade had brooded over those reports, hardly able to believe them at times, because surely that wasn’t the Mel she had known and loved? So hadn’t she had a narrow escape, hadn’t time drawn out his true character and wasn’t she the lucky one in escaping?

As he came to a stop in front of her desk, silent, predatory, cold, her emotions swam with a dizzying effect that totally confused her. She wanted to despise him for the injustice he had done her four years ago, for the women in his life since, and even for not having had the decency to age since she had seen him last. But those silly bones were softening already.

‘Mel Biaggio,’ Jade breathed levelly, surprising herself with the evenness of her tone. Her insides were heaving like an oarless boat on the perimeters of a whirlpool but at least her voice hadn’t failed her.

Not a smile of greeting or even recognition softened his dark features and Jade’s heart floundered helplessly. A business associate of Nicholas’s had arranged this meeting for her, someone Mel had helped in the past. Nicholas didn’t know Mel personally and yet he was the one inadvertently responsible for the break-up of their love affair. Jade hadn’t enlightened him when Nicholas had suggested Mel for the job. It was done, over with, and nothing to do with the present. And yet now Mel was looking at her as if she were a stranger and the name Jade Ritchie hadn’t registered with him when this meeting had been set up.

‘Jade Ritchie,’ he said coldly and unemotionally. ‘You trade under your maiden name—an affectation that doesn’t surprise me.’

Her heart faltered. Of course her name had registered, of course he recognised her. She was mad to think for a minute that he wouldn’t remember their past. How awful this was, facing him like this. How bitter and harsh he sounded. He had assumed she’d gone through with the marriage and the thought sickened her and filled her with shame.

He’d never believed how much she had loved him, and how futile her pleas must have sounded that awful night of her party. But how wrong he had been in not giving her a chance to explain. She couldn’t take all the blame. He should have listened, and judging by his attitude now it was obvious he hadn’t relented. He was here, facing her, but had she really imagined they could keep this on a business footing after the pain of their past?

‘What’s in a name, Mel?’ she said lightly, almost dis-missively. What was the point in enlightening him and saying that she was still single? It wouldn’t make any difference to a business arrangement, which was what this meeting was all about, she reminded herself. She forced a thin smile. ‘Business is business. Won’t you sit down?’

‘Is it going to be worth my while?’ The question came out wrapped in a tone of cynicism, with a small, derisive smile to accompany it.

It’s hopeless, Jade thought miserably. There’s too much pain and not enough cool control. And yet she willed it from deep inside her because four years in the ad agency business had taught her that when the going got tough the tough got going. She had swallowed her pride and was standing here now, facing the man she had once thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, because she wasn’t a wimp and she was going to fight to keep her company afloat, whatever the personal cost!

‘That’s for you to decide, not me,’ she returned coolly. She sat down and he followed suit, sweeping aside his coat and lowering himself into the seat across the desk from her. His keeping his coat on seemed ominous to Jade. He didn’t look as if he was going to afford her any decent amount of time to discuss her problem. Was he simply here out of curiosity, to see what a mess she had made of her life without him at her side?

‘Mel…’ she started again, levelling her dark eyes at him, striving for a businesslike tone to cover her obvious awareness of him. He seemed to fill the office, all man, all power, seeming to draw the very air from the room. She swallowed hard. ‘This is all very difficult for me. I would have sold my soul to the devil and my body to the highest bidder if I’d thought by doing so I could avoid calling you in, but—’ she gave a small, hopeless shrug of her narrow shoulders ‘—I need your help.’

She watched his eyes for some kind of softening but almost instantly knew it was hopeless. He was unflinching in his cold scrutiny of her. Wasn’t he aware of the enormous effort of will and swallowing of pride that had gone into her decision to call him in?

He held her gaze, eyes hard and implacable, and then suddenly those eyes blazed across the front of her open jacket, taking in the rise of her breasts against her cream silk shirt under the crisp designer tailoring.

Jade tensed, inwardly shocked that even a blatantly sexual glance like that could upset her so. It brought their past flooding back to her—the depth of passion so easily aroused by a mere glance at each other, the love, the lust, the need for each other.

It was as if he knew what she was aware of: the charge between them. He tutted mockingly. ‘I wouldn’t put much of a price on your soul, darling, but that body of yours, if my memory serves me well, would bring a packet if marketed more sensually than in that austere outfit you are wearing.’

The words shocked Jade so deeply that she was rendered speechless for an embarrassing moment. She felt the heat of humiliation rise up her throat, but fought to control it and succeeded. She’d been wrong to think he hadn’t changed. Maybe he hadn’t physically, but his cruelty had never been so apparent before. But perhaps he had always been like this and she just hadn’t seen it, love being blind. She wouldn’t allow him to get to her now, though, not after this length of time. She didn’t have to take this.

Slowly she got to her feet. This meeting had served one purpose if nothing else—shown her that she’d wasted four years of torn emotions on this man.

‘I’m sorry I troubled you, Mel,’she said quietly. ‘Just one thing before you leave,’ she added pointedly. He would go, of course, because he had never come here with the intention of helping anyway. ‘Why did you come here armed with humiliation and insults when you dished them out so effectively four years ago?’

He took his time getting to his feet, lazily rearranging his cashmere overcoat over his superbly cut navy blue suit before answering her, the languorous movement stage-managed to grate on her nerves, she felt sure. Even his low tone was gauged for effect.

‘When it came to trading humiliation, Jade, you beat me hands down. Whatever I said to you could never match what you put me through that horrendous night.’

He put his palms down on her desk and leaned closer to her, eyes dark and menacing. He was so close she could smell the seductive cologne that came from the heat of his body. A scent so evocative that she had to clench her fists to stop herself swaying into it and losing her cool control.

‘Did you really believe I would come here with an open heart and a willingness to haul your company out of the bankruptcy pit?’ he went on scathingly, his eyes darkening even more savagely. ‘You have some nerve, Jade. Four years ago you indulged in an affair with me while you were committed to another man. You let me love you, we made love, and all the time you belonged to another man. I’ve often wondered just how far you would have gone with the charade if your father hadn’t made that engagement announcement at your twenty-first birthday party…’

‘Mel,’ Jade cried, ‘please don’t!’ Oh, she couldn’t bear it. She bit her lip in anguish, drawing on her reserves of cool. She might have known he would never forget it; she might have known he’d seen his chance for revenge and that was why he was here.

‘Please don’t?’ he echoed harshly. ‘You even talk the way you used to. You used me four years ago, Jade, and the only explanation I could ever come up with was that you were such a rich, spoilt child you wanted to possess everything you set your eyes on, including me.’

Jade’s cool shattered like thin ice. The injustice of his words hurt so deeply that she felt physically winded. He was wrong, so very wrong to believe that of her.

‘It was never like that, Mel,’ she breathed painfully. ‘I might have had an over-privileged childhood because my father was making up for the absence of a mother, but that wasn’t my fault, and he was only doing what he thought best in his usual bulldozing way. I wasn’t spoilt, never that. I didn’t want to possess you in that way, like a trophy. I loved you—’

‘You don’t know the meaning of the word love,’ he snapped back. ‘When you love someone you don’t two-time them—’

‘I didn’t two-time anyone, Mel,’ Jade insisted, though she knew she was wasting her breath. ‘I know how it must have looked but you didn’t even give me the chance—’

‘To explain?’ he exploded. ‘What needed explaining? Your father said it all in his announcement speech. His wonderful daughter was that night betrothed to his greatest friend’s son, Nicholas Fields. My God, Jade, what was going on in that beautiful head of yours that night? You insisted I came to the party to humiliate me and-’

‘Stop it!’ she cried at last, her fingers going to her temples with the anguish of his agonising reminders. She had relived that terrible moment so many times and it never got any better, only worse. Humiliation had been the order of the night. None had escaped from it. Not Mel, Nicholas nor herself.

The only one immune to the whole horrible experience had been her father. Her powerful, manipulative father who ploughed through life not considering anyone’s feelings but his own. His ill-timed engagement announcement had stemmed from his own wish to bond the two families together. She and Nicholas had practically grown up together and, though very close, hadn’t dreamt of marriage…But they might have drifted into it if Mel hadn’t stepped into her life and shown her what real love was all about. Though there had never been any formal commitment to Nicholas it had always been accepted between the two families that they were a couple. But that hadn’t been a consideration when Mel had asked her out. She hadn’t felt as if she belonged to Nicholas.

Mel had been so different—a high-flyer and a very powerful man. He had swept her off her feet. Half-Italian, he was magnetically attractive, in looks and charisma and everything else. In no time at all she had known she was in love with him, and he had loved her too. And then, at her party, it had all gone horribly wrong.

But though she blamed her father she knew deep in her heart that she had made a grave mistake in not mentioning the existence of Nicholas to Mel before that night. But would it have made any difference? Somehow she doubted it because she hadn’t taken into account Mel’s fiery Italian ancestry. Any man, friend or otherwise, in competition with Mel Biaggio wasn’t on.

‘I didn’t ask you here to rake up the past, Mel,’ she told him in a resigned tone. ‘It was all useless then and is equally useless now.’

She took a deep breath and met his dark gaze bravely. Having to plead with him for help was worse than anything she’d had to do in her life before. She did have to take this—his spiteful recriminations for a lost love; she had no choice. These last few weeks had driven all pride from her. She had employees to consider, people who had worked for her father before her, new young talent she’d given a chance to in difficult economic times. She owed them and she owed her father for having had enough confidence in her to hand over control of the company and take off for a new life in the South of France.

‘I want us to forget we have a past, Mel. You help companies that are in trouble,’ she went on, trying not to humble herself too much in case he leapt on it and hurt her more. This was hard enough. ‘And, loath as I am to admit it, I’m in trouble. I need your help and your advice, Mel, on a professional basis. It’s your job. It’s what you do. And…and they say you’re the best.’

‘And you reckon you deserve the best, do you?’

Jade tilted her chin, biting back the pain caused by his sarcasm. ‘My staff and the company deserve the best and that is why I wanted you. It’s obvious flattery isn’t going to get me anywhere with you but that doesn’t alter the fact that you are the best. I want your help in pinpointing where I’ve gone wrong—’

‘You never were very sharp at pinpointing right from wrong,’ he said wearily.

Jade shut her eyes briefly in sufferance and when she focused on him again she knew she had to swallow all his insults and persist.

‘Yes, I’ve made mistakes in my life and my work and I’m not afraid to admit to them. I’ve shelved my pride too, which is something you might be interested in learning from. If I can handle the past I’m sure you can.’ She took a long breath. ‘Mel, I need your expertise. I need your advice. This is a business arrangement, nothing else. I have the problem and you have the solution. Won’t you even consider it?’

Her plea hung in the air with nowhere to go, because Mel looked as if he wasn’t about to give it a home. He looked as if he didn’t care a damn about anything or anyone in the world, especially not her and her predicament. He was still gazing at her with contempt, making her feel inadequate and at fault, and she suffered it all because her back was against the wall.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked quietly.

Jade controlled the leap of her heart. He still stood stiffly in front of her, not making any move to sit down again and discuss it with her. She wondered if she should buzz for coffee; it might relax him, persuade him to take a seat, and make her feel more at ease. Perhaps it would be too presumptuous. He’d only asked what the problem was; that wasn’t an acceptance that he would help her.

‘I’m hoping you can tell me,’ she told him, handing him a weighty file she had prepared earlier, detailing their current financial status, projects—existing and proposed, staffing—everything that was relevant. ‘It’s been a bad year—not disastrous, but another year like this and it could be. I’m loath to involve my father and I decided to ask your advice and…’ She stopped, realising he probably didn’t know her father had handed the running of the company over to her.

‘Four years ago…just after…just after I turned twenty-one…my father allowed me to take over the agency.’ It had been her lifeline at the time. Just what she had needed to help her get over Mel. ‘You may remember I came here from art school and a year’s business course in America…Anyway, Daddy had had enough of London Life and wanted out. He still owns the company but I run it and make all the decisions. He lives in the South of France now. He has a new love in his life and…’

Jade swallowed hard. Mel was flicking through the file, evidently not in the least bit interested in her private life or that of her father.

She went on, ‘Everything was going fine with the agency till last year when my top graphic artist left…’ He wasn’t listening. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t help. ‘He set up on his own and took with him a lot of the company’s clients…some of the best clients…and the best advertising.’

Mel looked up then, eyes as steely and implacable as ever. ‘You let him?’ he said, aghast that she should have allowed such a thing to happen.

Jade bristled at that. ‘I didn’t know, not till it was too late!’ she protested quickly.

‘You should always tie up your top staff in contracts they can’t get out of. For your own protection,’ he told her sternly.

‘This is a small agency; I like to think of it as a family business…’

He shot her a look of pure derision. ‘With you as the mother hen, I suppose, all clucking—’

‘That’s enough, Mel,’ Jade interrupted. ‘I trust my staff and I’m not ruthless enough to tie them all to contracts,’ she argued, though fully understanding his way of thinking. If she’d had the employee in question under a more restrictive contract she wouldn’t have lost valuable clients and wouldn’t be struggling so hard now as a consequence.

‘Trouble is, these days being ruthless pays, Jade,’ he told her tightly, his eyes darkening even further as he narrowed them at her. ‘Surely your ruthless stockbroker husband has taught you something since you were married?’

Her full lips parted in protest. Mel really believed she had gone through with the marriage to Nicholas—and how did he know he was a stockbroker? Had her father mentioned it in his engagement announcement? Had that business associate of Nicholas’s, who had arranged all this, named his source?

Jade had sworn Nicholas to secrecy, terrified that her staff would find out that all wasn’t well with the company. Whatever, whoever, however, she couldn’t let it go. If this was a one-off meeting she could let him go on thinking she was married, but if he took on this assignment he would find out that she wasn’t and despise her even more for, as he would see it, yet another deception.

‘I…I didn’t marry Nicholas,’ she told him in a half-whisper she barely heard herself. How could she even consider marriage to anyone after the great love they had shared? And how enormously hurtful that he still thought so little of her.

But she hadn’t the courage to add that Nicholas was still very much a part of her life. He couldn’t help but be, since he shared her London flat with her when he was in town, albeit to save money for when he and his fiancee, Trisha, married and bought their own property. No, her arrangement with Nicholas had no bearing on all this, was nothing to do with Mel. She’d told him the truth—that she hadn’t married Nicholas. It was enough.

There was nothing, no reaction whatsoever to her revelation in his gleaming grey eyes. It meant nothing to him and she felt a small sorrow deep in her heart. Hope; she had always lived with it, though she often thought it a silly little hope to hang onto. She even despised herself for the irrationality of it, but deep, deep down inside her she had nurtured the hope that one day he would come back into her life and…and care.

‘Well, it’s a pity you didn’t,’ he said frostily. ‘His business sense might have saved you from this.’ He waved the file in his hand and then transferred his attention to its contents again.

At least he hadn’t insulted Nicholas by presuming he had no business sense. She waited, shifting her weight from one high heel to the other as he flicked through the pages, reading only what interested him. But was anything interesting him? she wondered. His expression didn’t change. Finally he tossed the file down on the desk in front of her.

‘By the look of those financial statements you can’t afford my fees anyway. I don’t come cheap, Jade.’

She hardened her heart and stiffened her back. She shouldn’t have asked him. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be persuaded by Nicholas that this was the best course of action to take. She should have known it would be hopeless, that Mel wouldn’t help her—even if she could afford his wretched fees.

‘You never did come cheap, Mel,’ she said coldly, and astonishingly this brought a small, thin smile to his lips.

‘No, I didn’t,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘But you did, didn’t you? Bargain basement.’

The insult was unbearable. So painful, she felt almost sick. It was worse than all his other insults that night of her birthday. He had accused her of every moral misdemeanour in the book of proprieties. She had tried to explain the situation with Nicholas but, up against a barrage of raw accusations and offensive remarks, what chance had she stood? According to proud Mel Biaggio, she had deceived him, hurt him, cheated him and insulted him. He never wanted to see her again as long as he lived. It had turned out to be the worst night of her life instead of what should have been one of the happiest.

She watched him come round the side of her desk, her eyes misted by that insult, her heart flapping weakly in her breast He stopped, only inches from her. She felt his heat and steeled herself against it, wishing with her very soul that she hadn’t started all this. She should have known that his fiery Mediterranean ancestry harboured no leeway for forgiveness.

His breath, when he spoke, came with the heat of the devil, fanning her responses till she almost physically recoiled from him.

‘I wonder if you are still such a bargain, or if perhaps life has finally taught you what honour is? I can’t resist the temptation to try you out.’ His voice was leaden with menace and his mouth so close to hers that it was almost touching. ‘Don’t kid yourself that it’s a weakness on my part. One thing you taught me was never to let a little tease like you get under my skin again.’

Jade naively opened her mouth to form some sort of insult in retaliation, but her parted lips were given no chance to respond. They were suddenly claimed by his, hot and punishing and so shockingly sexual that all fight she might have summoned if forewarned disappeared for evermore.

His arms slid around her, crushing her to him just in case she thought of escape. Hard arms that had once melted her bones and melded her to him in the prelude to their passion. His mouth, scouring hers so painfully now, was a wicked reminder of the depth of feeling that had once charged between them. But then that feeling had had its roots in love and desire; now it was powered by the need for punishment.

Jade knew this and yet it made no difference to the aching need that Mel’s kiss thrust into her unwilling heart. She didn’t want to want him but she did. After all this time she still yearned for a small miracle to happen so that he would love her again. She wanted to tear herself away but couldn’t. She knew she should be making some attempt to fight him but she couldn’t.

She was utterly weak and senseless and she thought he must have sensed her submission. For one fleeting second she imagined his lips were softening. Was she willing the pressure to ease, to soften away from punishment and veer towards what they had once been to each other—passionate lovers?

She didn’t know. The only thing she was sure of was that Mel Biaggio could still arouse her so deeply that she lost all control. And that must mean that he was still very much in her heart, and the thought was despairing and so very painful.

Her eyes were filled with tears of past regrets as she drew back from him, the first to move. So much loss and so much heartache to carry on living with. Where was the indifference she had hoped would take the place of her love after four years without sight of him?

He was completely unaffected by her look of despair, his eyes cold as his hands dropped to his sides.

Jade stared at him, determinedly now, the tears swallowed down hard and her eyes clear once again. She was the first to speak—bitingly, to hide the hurt.

‘If I had thought you had sunk that low, Mel, I would never have dreamt of asking for your help. You came here today with no intention of even considering helping my company. Your sole purpose for being here is to insult me and humiliate me in revenge for what you think I did to you four years ago.’

He shook his head and his mouth twisted into a cruel half-smile. ‘Revenge has nothing to do with my coming here today, Jade,’ he grated roughly. ‘And if you think that kiss was a punishment you are very wrong. What you think and feel is no concern of mine any more.’

There was nothing there, not a smidgeon of feeling for her, and it was irrational to be hurt but she couldn’t ignore the pain that sliced through her.

‘So why, Mel?’ she cried impatiently. ‘Why come here at all if it wasn’t to make a fool of me?’

‘I came here for my own selfish reasons,’ he told her darkly. ‘Something for me, nothing to benefit you, nothing to do with humiliation or insults or revenge.’ His eyes suddenly narrowed and his jaw stiffened. ‘I came here to lay a few ghosts of my past before I make the big commitment myself.’

He paused to let that sink in, a pause that homed in on its target—her heart—and then he added softly and yet lethally, striking where it hurt, ‘Get my drift?’

Jade stared at him in horror, her dark eyes wide and brimming with pain. She was skidding on emotional black ice and couldn’t stop. Her head was spinning. Had she got his drift, and was he…? Oh, so cruel, wicked even. She ran a tongue over dry lips before stuttering helplessly, ‘Y-you’re going to—to be married?’

There was a long, leaden silence before he responded. How clever he was at using those pauses to full effect. They were worse than words, the anticipation of what was to come the real cruelty.

‘That’s the drift,’ he murmured at last. ‘The ghosts of our past are firmly buried, Jade; and I’ll tell you something—I’m glad, relieved, too. I’ve just one small regret. I’d have liked to think that by kissing you I might have aroused just a small measure of remorse in you for what we lost, because then I could have asked you how you felt about my betrothal.’

He turned then and Jade squeezed shut her smarting eyes against the pain, to close the world out. When she opened them the world was still spinning and Mel Biaggio was smiling at her from the open doorway—a cold, cynical smile. He held her file aloft.

‘I’ll take this with me. It’ll make good bedtime reading. I’m a slave to insomnia. Hopefully, this should cure it.’

He slammed the door after him and shakily Jade sank into her chair and covered her face with her trembling hands. No, this couldn’t be happening; she hadn’t heard right, she hadn’t got his drift and this was all too awful to bear. Mel, the great womaniser, had finally made a commitment to the woman he loved, and she, Jade Ritchie, wasn’t that woman. Somehow it was so much worse knowing that his reputation had been grounded at last, because that must mean the lady in question was someone very special. Far more special than she had ever been to him. Oh, it hurt, so very much.

How irrational could you get? she asked herself in abject misery, because now she knew exactly how Mel had felt that night her father had announced her engagement to Nicholas. Totally, utterly betrayed and deeply hurt. And it was stupid, stupid, stupid, this awful feeling inside her, because he wasn’t a part of her life any more. And yet he would be if he took her and her ailing company on. Everything was getting desperately worse instead of better…

CHAPTER TWO

JADE had her feelings of betrayal under control a few days later. How could she feel betrayed when she hadn’t seen him for four years? But the truth was that she had never completely given up hope because he had always been in her heart. All the time she’d been reading about his latest amorous adventures with women in the gossip columns she’d allowed that hope to stay firmly implanted in her. Perverse as it might seem, she had thought that so long as he was womanising he wasn’t finally lost to her. Now that he was about to be married, however, he definitely was. It was a thought she was trying to come to terms with and she was not having a whole lot of success. When you were dealt a devastating blow like that it wasn’t easy to carry on as if the world was still turning.

‘You’re not cooking for me, are you?’ Nicholas asked, coming up behind her in the kitchen part of the open-plan living area. ‘I’m leaving for Paris almost immediately. The taxi will be here in a minute.’

‘I know, I heard you ringing for it, and I’m not cooking, just heating up some canned soup. How long will you be away?’

‘A couple of days. Did Mel Biaggio get in touch with you?’

Jade stirred the soup and gave a small sigh. ‘Yes, while you were in Belgium. No go, I’m afraid. After looking at my financial statements he said I couldn’t afford him.’ She didn’t tell him the content of the rest of their talk because Nicholas, being the sweetie he was, would show such concern that she’d be in tears before she knew it.

‘Arrogant swine.’

‘He has a point,’ Jade said defensively. ‘I’d have to mortgage this apartment to afford his fees.’

‘Don’t even think about it. I’ll advance you the money.’

Jade turned to him, grinned and tweaked his chin. ‘Your wedding money? Trisha would have a fit. She only tolerates you living here because I don’t charge you rent and you can save quicker. Thanks for the offer, though; you’re an angel. But it isn’t the answer. I’m going to have to swallow my pride and—’

‘Bargain with him?’ Nicholas suggested with a thin smile.

‘No way,’ Jade retorted, and then sighed heavily. ‘I’m going to have to tell Daddy. Hopefully he’ll inject some money into the company and I’ll struggle on.’

Nicholas took the wooden spoon from her, placed it on the counter, and put his hands on her shoulders. He was serious, worried about her. ‘You said you couldn’t bear the thought of facing him, and you know that isn’t the answer anyway, Jade. In another year you’d be back in the same position and beholden to your father again. The company needs restructuring and you need financial advice too, and Mel Biaggio is the only one who can help.’

‘Can’t you help?’ Jade pleaded softly, her limpid brown eyes wide and appealing. ‘You could look over the books and—’

‘I would have offered help before now if I thought I could be of service, but it isn’t my field, Jade,’ Nicholas insisted. ‘Biaggio has the expertise. I wish I knew him personally; I’d have a word with him—’

The door buzzer went and Nicholas shrugged and let her go. ‘That’s the cab. I have to dash. Chin up, sweetheart. We’ll talk about it when I get back.’

‘Have a good trip,’ she murmured as he went out of the door.

‘I’m lonely,’ she muttered to the soup. ‘Resorting to talking to a pan of soup because there’s no one special in my life. But once there was…’

Mel groaned as he gathered her lovingly into his arms, nuzzling her warm hair as they lay sprawled in the corn-field. A perfect day, a perfect picnic; everything was perfect.

‘I hate parties, ‘ he moaned. ‘It’ll mean I’ll have to share you. Can’t we just swish away on a magic carpet to somewhere romantic for your birthday? Paris would be perfect. The city of lovers.’

Jade giggled and twined his hair around her fingers. ‘Daddy would never forgive you for whisking his baby away on her twenty-first. Besides,’ she added, her voice low, seductive and teasing, ‘you want to meet him, don’t you? Haven’t you something special you want to discuss with him?’

‘Like his daughter’s hand in marriage?’

He looked down at her, his eyes so full of love and adoration that her heart squeezed. He lowered his head and gently pulled at her lower lip with his teeth, mur-muring, ‘Do people still do that these days?’

‘Not before they’ve made their intention quite clear to the lady in question,’ she laughed.

He grinned down at her. ‘Was that ever in dispute, my pocket-sized princess? I adored you from the moment I first set eyes on you queuing for bagels in Harrods food hall.’

‘Doughnuts,’ she corrected him and they both started to laugh, remembering how corny their first meeting had been. Jade had dropped her purse and her money had scattered; everyone had helped to gather it up and then, in the confusion, she had tried to pay with pesetas, not pounds, because she’d just come back from Spain. People had grown impatient and Mel had stepped in, paying for her and then gently taking her by the elbow and steering her out of the food hall and into his life.

‘What ever happened to those doughnuts?’ he murmured now as his mouth closed over hers in a kiss so deep and moving it was a perfect demonstration of how they felt about each other. Theirs was a wonderful, wonderful love, and they had a perfect future to look forward to.

She had every intention of introducing Nicholas to Mel at her twenty-first birthday party. They had been so wrapped up in themselves these past weeks that she hadn’t considered her friends. Her father had organised a lavish party at their Kent home, Bankton House, as usual going over the top to compensate for Jade not having a mother. Her mother had left when she was a small child, not able to live with John Ritchie’s overbearing temperament a minute longer. Her father organised everyone’s life. He did it the night of her party with disastrous results.

When Mel arrived she greeted him happily, but before she had a chance to whirl him around to meet her father and Nicholas another crowd of guests arrived.

He brushed a kiss across her hair. ‘See what I mean? I’m having to share you. Come back soon, princess,’ he teased, and then, with an understanding smile, he moved across the hall to the drawing-room buffet and bar. And that was where he was standing when John Ritchie got to his feet to make a speech Jade had known nothing about in advance. Her father opened his mouth and sent Jade’s world crashing.

She caught the look of horror on Mel’s face, but before she could reach him Nicholas clutched at her arm. He saw it as some sort of joke.

‘Us, engaged to be married? Your father’s drunk, surely?’ He laughed.

Jade supposed Mel had witnessed Nicholas grasping her arm and laughing and assumed they were indeed a happy couple. Then, to make it worse, people surrounded her and Nicholas, offering congratulations and good wishes. Nicholas was laughing and spluttering, thinking it all a hoot, and by the time Jade could tear herself away Mel had disappeared. She found him getting into his Jaguar on the floodlit gravel drive, tearing his bow tie from the collar of his evening shirt.

‘Mel!’

He turned, face gaunt and pale, eyes as hard as steel.

‘Mel, you don’t understand—’

‘I understand you hadn’t the courage to tell me to my face. You callous—’

‘Please don’t, Mel. You must listen. Nicholas and I-’

‘Are engaged. Yes, I just heard. What sort of games are you playing, Jade?’ He gave her no chance to answer before blazing on, ‘God, what a fool you’ve made of me and what a character misjudgement I’ve made. You’re nothing but a rich, spoilt child with no thought for people’s feelings. You…’

The chicken soup frothed over the side of the pan and Jade grasped it and hurled it into the sink. Tears streamed down her face just as they had the night she’d pleaded with Mel to listen to reason. She’d blurted that she and Nicholas were just good friends but even as she’d said it she’d known it sounded hopelessly fragile. His Italian ancestry made no allowances for boy-girl relationships with no sexual undertones, but then Mel was a man of the world—surely he could see that Nicholas wasn’t a threat to their relationship?

But of course she’d got nowhere with her reasoning that fateful night. Mel had been too furious, too hurt, too betrayed to listen. Until then he’d never heard of Nicholas Fields and Jade knew she’d made a grave mistake in not mentioning him before. Her only excuse, not even voiced to Mel, was that their affair had been so swift and intense that no one else had encroached on their lives—not her father, not Nicholas, not anyone.

The phone rang, jarring her nerves, and Jade brushed the tears from her face with the backs of her hands. She knew it would be Trisha, wanting to know if Nicholas had got off all right, and it was. Trisha’s caring for Nicholas only served to accentuate Jade’s loneliness. She envied what they had—a love, a life together, a future full of promise. She forced herself to laugh and joke with Trisha on the phone but her heart was heavy with the emptiness of her life.

‘Mel Biaggio has been ringing all morning,’ Diane, Jade’s secretary, told her when she came in late after an unsuccessful meeting with the company bank manager. He could only offer so much, and it was not nearly enough.

Jade gazed at Diane in disbelief, her heart leaping wildly. ‘Mel Biaggio?’ she breathed, slipping out of her overcoat. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

Diane grinned ruefully. ‘I did ask but he wouldn’t say. I told him you’d be in at lunchtime and he said he’d see you then.’

Jade paled at the thought. He was coming here, just when she had got herself together after his last visit. Had he changed his mind about helping out? After all, he had taken the file with him. But perhaps he’d decided he hadn’t punished her enough and was coming in for another stab at her!

She was ready for him when he arrived. Afraid but outwardly in control of her fear.

He crossed her office, tall, dark and maddeningly handsome, hardly looking at her as he approached. He tossed the file down on her desk. For a horrible second it occurred to Jade that the return of it was the only reason he was here.

‘Th-thank you,’ she murmured, eyeing him warily, wondering why he hadn’t sent it by courier.

His face was expressionless as he spoke. ‘I’ve given this a lot of thought and have a proposition to put to you.’

Jade widened her eyes. ‘You’ve had a change of heart?’ she uttered, and prayed her voice didn’t sound too hopeful.

‘Certainly not where you are personally concerned,’ he clipped. ‘I’d like to look over the place.’

Jade stared at him, smarting from his cold insult and puzzled by his request.

‘Why?’ she asked directly.

‘I want to see what I’m letting myself in for,’ he told her coldly.

Her heart didn’t even miss a beat at the thought that he was considering taking the job on. His attitude dismayed her. He was so cold and clinical and once he hadn’t been…But they weren’t lovers now and never would be again; this was business, and the only reason he was here, she reminded herself.

‘So…so you think you can help?’ He nodded. ‘But why? Last week you said I couldn’t afford you. Nothing’s changed, Mel.’

‘My thinking has,’ he told her as he slid out of his cashmere coat and threw it down on a chair. ‘Now, before I make a final decision are you going to show me around, or is my journey wasted?’

Jade steeled herself, and it was surprisingly easy now. This man before her wasn’t the man she had loved so passionately. This Mel was different. He gave off not one scrap of warmth or sincerity. He was hard and unfeeling…and was only here to do a job, she reminded herself yet again.

‘Before I show you anything, Mel, you must make your intentions clearer,’ she said formally. ‘I’ve a lot to cope with at the moment and if this is your idea of more punishment for what happened between us forget it.’

‘I won’t forget it till the day I die,’ he said coldly, his eyes intense. ‘But that isn’t why I’m here today. I pride myself on my professionalism and I don’t think I gave you a fair hearing before.’

Jade’s brows shot up in surprise. There was more to this than met the eye. ‘Or perhaps you were thinking of your reputation,’ she suggested knowingly.

He frowned. ‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning word might have got around that you’d turned my company down because we were too small and ineffectual to promote your image as a high-flyer.’ She couldn’t resist that. It was very likely, too.

He smiled very thinly. ‘I doubt you or any of your associates could harm my reputation or my image, Jade. You really are too small.’

She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Sometimes good things come in small packages—quantity isn’t a guarantee of quality.’

He didn’t say a word. His eyes locked onto hers and she felt mesmerised for a few seconds, then embarrassed when she got the message they were sending her. Small packages, pocket-sized princesses. Oh, she didn’t want him here, looking at her like that, slamming their past at her with knowing looks.

She stretched taller, stiffened her shoulders, picked up a pen from the desk and thrummed it in her palm. ‘I think you are wasting time, Mel—yours and mine. This isn’t going to work out. There are other troubleshooters and-’

‘They won’t give you the time of day, Jade.’

‘So what are you doing back here?’ she burst out, rage welling inside her. Why couldn’t he have stayed away? Oh, how she wished she had never involved him. It was awful, awful. ‘You’ve no intention of giving your services. This is a personal vendetta and—’

‘You were the one who called me in,’ he challenged.

‘Someone recommended you,’ she argued. ‘Because you’re the best.’ She cooled her tone but spiked it with sarcasm. ‘In my opinion your best stinks. I wish I hadn’t bothered—’

‘So do I,’ he sliced back at her. ‘Because I can see trouble ahead all the way.’

‘And with good reason. You’ve done nothing but put me down since stepping into my office and I don’t have to take that—’

‘Well, you’ll have to get used to it because there’s going to be plenty more where that came from,’ he interrupted darkly.

‘What do you mean?’

He stepped right up to her desk, leaned towards her and spoke levelly, his features, as usual, a mask of cold hostility. ‘If I take this fiasco on I’m going to be breathing down your neck so hard you are going to need stabilisers to stay on your feet. I’m going to be digging so deep I’ll rock your foundations. I’m going to be probing every weakness and treading on every slack nerve I find. Can you take that, I wonder?’

She glared at him in defiance. ‘What exactly is that supposed to mean? Are you talking about the ad agency or was that a personal threat to me?’

His mouth thinned to a semblance of a smile. ‘It boils down to the same thing, Jade. You run this company so every weak link leads back to you. I’ll ask you again, can you take it?’

Was there a choice? For a full half-minute she considered it, trying not to let her heart interfere and overrule her sensibility. Could she take Mel breathing down her neck, metaphorically or otherwise? There was no choice, other than to face her father with her failure, and oddly she’d rather face Mel. When this was over Mel would be gone; her father was with her for life.

‘Of course I can take it,’ she fired back at him at last. ‘I wouldn’t have put up with all you’ve dished out to me so far if I didn’t want the best for the company and

my staff.’

‘And what do you want for yourself out of all this, if I decide to stay?’ he asked heavily.

Her heart and soul cried out for what she truly wanted. In spite of everything—his verbal brutality and coldness—she wanted everything they had lost. The long, hot summer and their love, the intensity of passion and sweet pleasure of living each precious moment for each other. But that wasn’t possible. Mel was going to be married and lost to her for ever. Jade took a deep, controlling breath and spoke with sincerity.

‘I’ve failed my father’s trust in me. I want to make things right for the future of the company and for myself I want peace of mind,’ she told him slowly.

He looked at her long and hard before replying smoothly, ‘I wonder if you know what you do want, Jade? I’m also beginning to wonder if your requesting my services has anything remotely to do with the business.’

Jade’s mouth dropped open in astonishment and a fire scorched her spine at his veiled suggestion. Had she given something away—a look, a thought, a misplaced word? He couldn’t think this was personal, surely? No, that was impossible—but then he did have some ego to nurture, she reminded herself. She forced a smile to cover her acute embarrassment.

‘I wouldn’t have you back if you came with a knighthood,’ she told him disparagingly. ‘You think you were the only one hurt that night, Mel. Your bigoted attitude damaged my love for you more than you could ever know.’ Her eyes narrowed with anger. ‘You gave me no space to explain. You wanted to believe it all because it was an easy way out for you. After all, your womanising ways weren’t cultivated after we split up. You were born with them!’

‘We were an excellent match, then, weren’t we?’ he grazed back at her sarcastically.

Her shoulders slumped in an unguarded second of defeat. How could she even begin to think that she could ever have any effect on him? He could hurt her so easily but her poisoned arrows hit an unyielding force, and because of that hostile defence of his she knew this could never work out. It was impossible for them to bury the past and channel their energies into getting her agency back on line.

‘Yes, we were,’ she agreed because it was the only way to be rid of him. Let them both think the worst of each other. ‘And it’s why this won’t work. I thank you for your interest but it’s not on.’

‘My God, you’re fickle,’ he grated cynically. ‘Is this why things have gone wrong here—because of your indecisiveness ? You want my help, then you don’t. Your back is against the wall, Jade. I’m your only saviour and you know it,’ he informed her tightly.

‘Yes, you are,’ she acknowledged, inwardly agreeing that he had a point about indecisiveness. With him drawing the air from the room with his magnetism she couldn’t stick to any firm decision. She couldn’t think clearly any more. She had to, though. She had to force herself to think. Her dark eyes narrowed. ‘But I might decide none of this is worth saving. I might decide bankruptcy has a nice ring to it as opposed to the ring of your insults in my ears!’

He smiled cynically. ‘Bankruptcy is a painful state, sweetheart. Loss of kudos, status and very probably your home, your car and your valuables. I wonder if you could bear that?’

‘You don’t frighten me,’ she returned, though her in-sides coiled tightly at the thought that he could think such things of her. ‘But your arguments are a fair indication of what is important in your life: everything that pertains to materialism and ego,’ she said bitingly. ‘I wanted your help to save my employees more than my valuables, and, yes, my pride where my father is concerned.’ She lifted her small chin. ‘As an Anglo-Italian that might strike a chord with you. I’ve failed and I’m not afraid to admit it to you but my father is something else. He had faith in me and I failed him and…and I can’t bear to face him.’

Oh, no, she could feel the tears flaming at the backs of her eyes. Damn him for exposing her vulnerability with such ease. She tossed the pen down on the desk, turned away from him and made for the door. She held it open, composed now, and defiant too. She’d cope, and without any help from him. She’d remortgage her flat, pawn her wretched valuables if it came to it. What she wouldn’t do was humble herself to him any more!

‘Actually, Mel Biaggio,’ she said stoically,’I owe you an enormous debt, but one I’m not going to offer any payment for. I’ll take it as a freebie. Your insults and put-downs have served me very well. I’ll fight this on my own if it’s the last thing I do, just to prove to you I’m not that rich, spoilt child you keep insisting I am.’

She rapped her nails on the door to indicate that her patience was running thin and she would like him to leave. He made no movement, simply held her gaze with steely eyes as if wondering if she had it in her to struggle along on her own. Jade read the look and was more determined than ever. She’d do it, and on her own, too. Her fingers tightened round the edge of the door, willing him to hurry up and pass through it.

She smiled sweetly. ‘Do let me know your wedding day, Mel, so I can send your intended my very best wishes…and sympathies,’ she added meaningfully. If that didn’t shift him nothing would, she thought.

Success. Slowly he moved towards her, without his coat. She parted her lips to remind him but he was upon her before she could utter a word. He took her arm and propelled her through the door. His grip on her was iron-hard and determined.

‘You’ll be the last to know my wedding date, sweetheart,’ he breathed, keeping his voice low because Diane was in the outer office. ‘And now that I know you are determined to get this agency bouncing its merry little way along the road to success we’ll get started,’

Once they were out in the corridor she breathlessly pulled her arm from his grip. Her cheeks were flaming as she swung to face him. He could talk of indecisiveness! He was the one who was up and down. So he was going to help, was he? If so, she wanted a promise from him to cool it, forget the past and get the job done. This was business and it needed to be separated from emotions. Emotions were draining.

She took a deep breath. ‘There are conditions—’

The laughter that cut her off wasn’t fired by humour. ‘I make the conditions , sweet one, and you just do as you’re told.’

Gritting her teeth, without another word Jade turned away from him and led the way to the stairwell, her stomach churning. Grit and bear it, not even grin and bear it, was going to be her motto from now on. It was all quite unbearable but she had no choice but to put up with it. Halfway up the stairs to the next floor, in control again, her emotions buried deep inside her, she spoke.

‘Administration’s on my floor, the studio above,’ she told him without looking at him.

‘Just the two floors?’

‘This is Soho, not the Sahara,’ she told him flintily. “The rents are astronomical around here.’

‘Perhaps that’s where you’re failing—not thinking big enough,’ Mel parried.

‘Perhaps I know my capabilities and live within them,’ she retorted sharply.

He made no comment but held the swing door open for her. Her arm brushed his as she passed through. Both were adequately clothed, Jade in a cherry-red suit, the jacket cut in sharply to accentuate her tiny waist, and Mel in a Savile Row creation in silver-grey, but she felt the contact as acutely as if they had both been naked. Her eyes flicking up to his, she wondered if he had been as aware of the contact as she had. His leaden eyes gave nothing away and she despised herself for her own recollection of times long gone when any touch, however slight, had sparked thrillingly between them.

She paused in the tiny foyer outside the studio before entering. Nodding towards the glass doors through which you could see the whole layout of the floor, she told him, ‘As you can see, some of the boards are vacant. I’ve got three key staff off with a flu bug.’

‘Let’s hope you don’t go down with it, then. It only takes a kiss for these things to spread like the plague.’

His eyes were gleaming with mockery as he said it and he was standing close enough for an infectious kiss. Jade didn’t know why that thought had even occurred to her when she was still wondering if that was another stab at her supposed loose morals of four years back. Whatever, she warded him off with her own preventative remedy-biting sarcasm.

‘You’re in for a chronic overdose of whatever’s doing the rounds, then,’ she retorted tartly, turning her back on him to push open the inner door of the studio, his low, not madly amused laughter making the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

She showed him around the studio, thinking how jaded it all looked when you were forced to see it through someone else’s eyes. New equipment was needed, new enthusiasm, an injection of fresh spirit. Jade stood on the sidelines, listening to what Mel had to say and not interfering but resenting the enthusiasm and keenness he seemed to be drawing from her all-male artistic staff. She supposed word had got round that things weren’t going terribly well in the company and they saw Mel Biaggio’s interest as something positive. If Mel agreed to help she’d have to inform them that he was a trouble-shooter and there would be inevitable changes.

‘Every one of them needs a kick in the rear,’ he told her sourly as they concluded their tour of inspection, Mel holding the door open for her, Jade avoiding brushing against him again.

She swallowed his contempt and kept her objections to herself. He’d warned her what to expect and she’d have to take it or face the consequences. She was learning but it wasn’t easy.

‘ Who occupies the ground floor of the building?’ Mel asked as they returned to the first floor, where the offices were. Jade led him through the main open-plan office, and it was obvious that most of the female staff were stunned at the sight of Mel, tall, charismatic and God’s gift to the young and nubile.

‘It’s vacant at the moment,’ she told him.

He said nothing till they were back in her office and then he shot the lot at her, taking her breath away with his suggestions.

‘You have to be joking!’ she protested hotly. This was ridiculous. ‘I can’t afford to expand. How can I take on another floor when I can scarcely raise the rent for two? As for taking on more staff, there’s scarcely enough work for the ones I’ve got after that creep creamed off my best clients.’ She was almost trembling with rage. This was his revenge once again. His suggestions were crazy. If she took them up ruin would slap her in the face sooner rather than later. Was that his intention? To take his revenge to the very end—total destruction?

His eyes darkened at her protestations. ‘You can’t get any lower than you already are, Jade. There’s only one way out of this situation and that is up. Now, if you are scared of the challenge quit now, because you’re no good to me if you don’t think positively. You’ll need financing and I can help; you’ll need new contacts and I’ll help. I can put key staff in here who will inject new enthusiasm…’

In awe Jade listened to it all, acknowledging the power and energy the man had and realising why he was so successful. She felt her spirits lift for her company but still a deep part of her lamented her emotional loss. She knew she shouldn’t even be considering her own feelings when he was outlining plans for saving her company but she couldn’t help the snap of sorrow squeezing at her heart. With all these changes going on he would be around a lot. Would she be able to cope with the sight of him? With the knowledge that every day was bringing him closer to his wedding day—the day when she would know for sure it was finally over?

Mel picked up his coat from the chair. ‘I’ll turn this company around in three months,’ he told her at last.

‘And…and your price?’ she uttered weakly, still dazed by his restructuring plans.

Slowly he came across the thick carpet to her, something so strange in his eyes that she steeled herself. The crunch was about to come, she sensed, some exorbitant fee that would cancel out any profits that might come from his new plans for the company.

After folding his coat over one arm, his hand came up to grip her chin quite firmly. His touch was paralysing, numbing her limbs and yet making her nerve-endings tingle. His dark, broody eyes captured hers so utterly compellingly that she had no choice but to stare at him, wide-eyed.

‘At the end of three months, if not before, you’ll know my price, sweetheart,’ he said in a dark undertone which made his words sound more like a threat than anything else. ‘But don’t ever forget I don’t come cheap.’

Jade ran the feverish tip of her tongue over her lower lip—the lip he was scorching with his eyes. She felt danger shiver down her spine. It was the way he was looking at her…as if…as if he wanted to claim those lips.

‘I’ll pick you up at nine,’ he breathed softly. ‘Dinner and more discussions before we get this rolling.’ She opened her mouth to protest. ‘Don’t argue,’ he cut in before she could. ‘I’ve warned you. Just remember I always know best,’

He left her suffering yet another indignity, which washed over her like a tidal wave. The indignity of not having any choice but to put up with his arrogant pomposity. No, Mel Biaggio didn’t come cheap. She would pay the price all right, more than she could have envisaged at the outset of all this. In fact she had started the instalments already. She was going to pay dearly for ever having fallen in love with him.

CHAPTER THREE

JADE had already decided she wouldn’t invite him up to the apartment when he arrived. He’d buzz and she’d be ready and she’d tell him over the intercom she was on her way down. She wasn’t going to allow him into her space, to suffer him looking around critically and making disparaging remarks about her lifestyle, which she was sure he would, just to be unpleasant.

He saved her the trouble when he buzzed and said to hurry down as he had the engine running. It was precisely nine o’clock. He couldn’t have been more on the dot if he’d been the keeper of Big Ben.

Jade took one last look at herself in the mirror. Why had she bothered to make herself look special? she wondered. Was it for him or just for her own self-esteem? She felt so tight inside, she wasn’t at all sure about her reasons for anything any more. She wore a clingy black velvet dress softened with a cream and peach silk scarf around her throat. Her heels were the highest she could stagger in. They were making a comeback after flatties being in fashion for so long. She’d always worn risky heels with him, though, he being so tall, she so small.

Her eyes were misty as she hurriedly slicked on another coat of red lipstick. She’d nervously drawn on her lips so much that there was hardly any colour left. As she’d got ready the past had flooded her, bringing with it the despair of her loss yet again. She’d loved dressing up for him when they were lovers. It had all been a ritual, everything done for his pleasure and approval. He’d adored her femininity, laughed at her feisty temper when aroused, hungered for her kisses. Now he despised her so openly that she dreaded facing him again, and yet here she was, checking and rechecking her appearance, and what for? More painful put-downs?

The last thing she did before turning away from the mirror was to harden her heart against him, pride adding to the steely determination. She looked the way she did for self-preservation, not his approval.

‘Why dinner, Mel? I’m sure we could have done all this in my office some time.’ Chin up, she settled into the passenger seat of his black BMW and he pulled away from the kerb. It was pouring with rain, with a biting wind to add to the misery of the winter night.

‘I don’t have some time, Jade. You’re not the only poor fish in the sea of troubled waters these days.’

‘How very poetic,’ Jade muttered. Then she drew in her breath as almost immediately they pulled up outside a restaurant they both knew very well from the past. This was a bit below the belt and she felt the blow as if it had been physically thrown. ‘Was it worth it?’ she snapped. ‘We could have walked around the corner.’

‘You, in those ridiculous heels?’ he said, opening his door and getting out.

He’d never disapproved of them before, she thought miserably, and supposed his woman wore designer trainers.

Jade made no further comment on his choice of venue as he put a steadying arm around her shoulders and they hurried into the crowded restaurant. She made no comment as the waiter ushered them to the same window seat they used to occupy, obviously requested by Mel to make her feel bad. She did comment on the change of view, however, to hide her floundering emotions and the deadly beat of her aching heart.

‘Didn’t that used to be a pizza house across the road?’ She hoped she sounded light and casually interested instead of desperately unhappy, which she was. This was his revenge, bringing her here to stir up old memories.

‘Looks like a Thai restaurant now,’ Mel said, leaning forward to peer through the window. ‘I’ve not been back since we split up,’ he added, so matter-of-factly that Jade knew none of this meant anything to him any more.

But why should it? He’d found love elsewhere and four years had passed anyway. She gazed miserably at the menu. Naturally it had changed over the years but there was nothing on it to bring her appetite back. She ordered fish and he followed suit and then she got down to business immediately, ignoring the twisting inside her as women gazed at the back of Mel’s head, probably wondering what a gorgeous man like him was doing out with a little nobody like her.

As Mel spoke Jade listened and drew herself out of her self-pity, raising her chin and squaring her shoulders as one of a group of businessmen across the room gave her a very interested look. It was as if Mel suddenly had psychic powers. He turned and caught the man looking and then gave her a withering look.

‘You haven’t changed, have you?’ he said pityingly.

‘Is that a serious question?’ she demanded tightly.

‘Rhetorical.’

‘Abysmal, Mel, like your thinking. I wasn’t flirting. If you must know I was sitting here feeling very sorry for myself and wondering how far I had sunk in these last years to end up dining with you, and then that good-looking young man gave me an encouraging look and I responded because he made me feel attractive and alive and not the total waste of time you obviously think I am.’

He said nothing for a while, just twirled his water glass in his fingers as he studied it with equal intensity. When he did finally speak his words made her uncomfortable in her seat.

‘After all these years I still want to punch the jaw of any man who looks at you.’

She recovered quickly. ‘I doubt that. You’d rather punch my jaw, as you symbolically did by thinking I was two-timing you four years ago. You haven’t changed either, Mel,’ she finished contemptuously.

The waiter brought them wine and Mel studied her across the table as she sipped hers. ‘I think we’d better keep to business before we upset each other any more,’ he suggested at last.

‘Honesty upsets you, does it?’ Jade couldn’t resist taunting.

‘Stop it, Jade,’ he warned. ‘It isn’t funny and it isn’t sensible if I’m going to be involved in your daily business.’

He was right, of course. She remembered his warning: ‘Don’t argue’. She might as well have her tongue stitched to the roof of her mouth and be done with it.

‘You were saying something about putting in a new head of the art department,’ she started, determined to get all this over and done with so that she could go home and curl up in misery on the sofa for the rest of the night.

‘Yes, I have someone very talented who would fit the bill.’

Jade braced herself. ‘Mel, I know you said I wasn’t to argue, so don’t take this as arguing, take it as a statement of fact. My problems aren’t with the art department. The staff I have are very talented. I’ve fallen down in other departments and that is where I need your advice.’

‘You need a new art director,’ he insisted.

Jade held her palms up to him. ‘I’m not arguing, honest, but I have enough talent to promote someone within my own staff without bringing in someone from outside.’

He glowered at her. ‘If that isn’t arguing, I don’t know what is.’

Jade sighed. ‘You can’t expect me to lie down and take it all without giving an opinion.’

He’d obviously expected exactly that. His eyes narrowed, daring her to say another word.

‘OK.’ She sighed again and drew in a last defiant breath. ‘If you must you must, but I can’t afford to take a risk with some fresh-faced kid just out of art school who thinks he’s going to change the face of advertising with a working model of a Lamborghini made out of cornflake packets!’

To her astonishment he burst out laughing and his amusement cut right through her till she almost winced with pain. Their affair might have been short and explosive but they had lived and loved and laughed so very much and how she had missed him, so very, very much.

He refilled their wineglasses, still shaking his head. Jade watched him with stinging eyes and a heart that felt as if it was pounding its last beats. What a waste, what a loss, what a fool she had been not to force him to listen that night.

‘It’s a she, not a he,’ he said after putting the wine bottle back into the ice bucket.

The waiter brought their main course and Jade waited till he’d gone before asking, ‘Who is a she, not a he?’

‘Your new art director.’

A chill went down Jade’s spine. Knowing his tabloid reputation with the opposite sex, she was sure to have had an intimate relationship with him at one time. She might be his she! No, his fiancĂe certainly wouldn’t need to earn her own living.

“The boys aren’t going to like that!’ Jade exclaimed. All her art staff were men because the few women they had tried couldn’t keep up the pace.

“That sounds sexist.’

Jade shrugged and gave a small smile. ‘I suppose it does but I’m not sexist. Give me a girl who can stand the pace and won’t get pregnant and I’ll take her on.’

‘That is definitely sexism,’ Mel insisted.

Her smile broadened. ‘I was quoting my father, actually. You know, the one with the big mouth and the Draconian temperament?’

‘I never got around to the pleasure of meeting him,’ Mel grazed, and fixed her with an icy glare that wiped the smile from her mouth and brought a flush to her cheeks.

She shouldn’t have mentioned her father and, worse, tried to make a joke of him. Her intention had been to lighten the atmosphere between them but she had failed miserably, her choice of subject appalling under the circumstances. She regretted it deeply.

‘And I can personally guarantee that Nadia won’t get pregnant,’ Mel added with such conviction that it was like another whiplash to her senses.

Jade stared down at her fish, feeling as limp and as lifeless as the poor thing sprawled on her plate. He could only make a guarantee like that if he was very heavily involved. This Nadia was his intended, the woman he loved, the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with. And Mel Biaggio was about to install her at the heart of her company!

She tried to swallow but it was impossible. She was so choked up she thought she might as well roll over and die right now. She would never be able to cope with having this Nadia thrust at her from all sides. It was cruel and wicked and he knew exactly what he was doing—punishing her. But for it all to be effective he must think she still cared because there would be no point otherwise.

Nervously she reached for her wineglass. He must never know how she still felt about him. Never, but never would she allow him to have any idea that he was getting to her.

She smiled, forcing normality and genuine interest into her tone. She forced courage into her heart, too. “This Nadia woman. Is she the one—the one who is going to end your womanising ways?’

‘What do you think?’ His eyes were clear and unyielding and Jade thought she read cruelty in them. He was enjoying this, hoping he was getting to her.

‘I suppose she must be,’ she sighed wearily. And he had verbally guaranteed her childless state for the time being, obviously not ready for a family yet. Oh, it didn’t bear thinking about. She swallowed, fighting to sound normal. ‘Tell me about her. Do you really think she’ll be able to turn things around?’

‘She’ll be able to bring her own clients…’

Jade concentrated hard. This was awful—discussing his mistress joining her company. She wanted to walk out of the restaurant after telling him what to do with his help and advice, but then he would know she still cared and couldn’t face it. She took a deep breath.

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