Two-Timing Love

‘I didn’t put him in a single bed—simply because I was worried he might manage to roll out of it. And I shan’t roll over and squash him…I’ve put a barricade of pillows between us,’ she informed him wearily—and still she hadn’t slept a wink for fear of something happening to the baby.

‘Jenny, I honestly wouldn’t have the first idea about how to go about buying a cot and a pram,’ he protested.

‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie, you don’t need a doctorate in one of the sciences to do it!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘Go to one of the big stores and ask for advice. I also think you should get a baby bath while you’re at it.’

‘He and I bathed together in Vienna,’ muttered Jamie, suddenly stretching. ‘He loved it.’

‘I still think he should have his own bath,’ insisted Jenny.

‘Talking of baths,’ he said, rising and stretching once more, ‘I could do with a soak in one—care to join me?’

Jenny glanced up from the drawing-board as Ellie Brown entered the room. The tall, vivacious redhead was one of the company’s top copywriters and also a friendly, refreshingly outspoken person. It was Ellie who had been the ringleader of the handful of staff—every one of them female—who had, the previous day, helped conceal Jonathan’s presence from the eyes of those who would have objected.

‘Gil Wardale says he’d like to see you when you have a spare minute,’ announced Ellie, peering over Jenny’s shoulder at her work. ‘You really are very good, you know,’ she murmured admiringly. ‘Which is just as well, because rumour has it that Gil’s got to hear of yesterday’s cuddlesome addition to the staff.’

‘Just my luck!’ groaned Jenny, swinging round to face her. ‘Something tells me my chances of surviving my trial period are just about nil,’ she sighed gloomily.

‘Now, now—let’s not be so negative,’ chided Ellie, then added with a sigh, ‘but we might as well face the fact that Gil, with his tendency towards workaholism, won’t exactly be thrilled to bits at the thought of his entire female staff having wasted the day clucking over a baby.’

‘Whereas the truth is that most of them put in at least an hour’s work,’ quipped Jenny, her heart not in it in the least—she was worried sick.

Knowing she wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until she heard what Gil Wardale had to say, she made her way straight to his office after Ellie had left.

On her way it occurred to her that her present circumstances were making her examine certain aspects of her dream job a little more closely than she had previously. She had to admit that she had been more than a little in awe of the single-minded drive evident in Gil Wardale, a man probably no more than in his very early thirties and whose phenomenally successful company she had been so eager to join. Though now she also had to admit to herself that she had initially felt just the tiniest bit repelled by what could almost have been taken for fanaticism in his attitude to his work…yet she had quickly become infected by his forceful enthusiasm and had ended up regarding it as something to be admired. Now she wasn’t quite so sure, she realised with a pang as she neared Gil Wardale’s office. It was as though the world outside advertising didn’t exist for him and the single-mindedly entrepreneurial men who comprised his management team, she thought, having difficulty putting her finger on exactly what it was that now struck her as being wrong. Throughout the country people were giving with unstinting generosity to collections in aid of the earthquake relief—yet she, and the other women who had helped secrete Jonathan, had seemed to know instinctively that the baby’s connection with the disaster would have cut little ice with Gil Wardale and his associates.

There was no point trying to tug on heartstrings that didn’t exist, accepted Jenny wryly as she knocked on the door.

‘Be with you in a tick,’ called out Gil Wardale to her, motioning her to be seated as he returned to his telephone conversation.

One of the first things that had struck her about this man was his clean-cut good looks, remembered Jenny as she took the seat before his desk. Almost as she had the thought, and to her intense irritation, a picture of Jamie flashed uninvited to her mind. OK, so he wasn’t a patch on Jamie, she admitted irritably—how many men were? But the man before her was unquestionably attractive—he had strong, even features, and hair so unusually blond that it probably indicated Scandinavian ancestry and, though not tall, he was well-built and without a spare ounce of flesh on him.

Jenny gave a small shrug of understanding in answer to her employer’s gesture of apology as his telephone conversation grew more prolonged; but she was experiencing a decided increase in the edgy feeling of tension besetting her. Yes—she was nervous about the negative impression she was bound to have made with her new company; but there was also Jamie to contend with. And she was finding it most disturbing that the image of his presence lurking in her mind seemed somehow almost dependable in its familiarity…which was absolutely ludicrous! The last person any member of her sex would be tempted to regard as dependable was Jamie Castile; dangerous and exciting, most definitely; but dependable—never in a million years!

‘Sorry about that,’ said Gil Wardale, cutting across her indignant thoughts, ‘but that was one of our biggest clients,’ he explained, then launched straight into discussing the campaign in which she was involved.

As his agile business mind moved swiftly from one pertinent point to the next, Jenny once again found herself slightly in awe of his total immersion in his work and the attention which he paid to even the most seemingly trivial of details. No wonder he had made such a name for himself, thought Jenny, feeling slightly shell-shocked after almost two hours of intense discussion.

‘Well, you’re managing to hang in there much as we expected you would,’ he finally announced—a statement, Jenny gathered from his tone, that was intended as something of a compliment. ‘Now, let’s see what we can arrange,’ he muttered, opening a desk diary beside him and leafing through its pages. ‘I’m afraid Friday’s about the only night I have free for some time—how about dinner?’

The words were so unexpected that Jenny had no chance to mask her surprise.

‘Company policy,’ he stated, the merest hint of amusement flickering in the wintry blue of his eyes. ‘I like to make a point of wining and dining new team members—you know, get to know them one-to-one and fill them in on the company’s little idiosyncrasies.’

‘Oh…I see,’ muttered Jenny, wishing she had managed to sound a little more businesslike: the truth was that for one uncomfortable moment she had actually thought he was asking her for a date! ‘Yes—Friday would be fine.’

Once again she found Jamie’s face leaping disconcertingly into her mind. It was just too bad if he had anything planned for that night, she told herself firmly—this was business, and, even had it not been, he was just going to have to get used to doing his fair share of baby-sitting. One thing was for sure: he would have no qualms about leaving her to do it when the occasion arose.

‘Right,’ stated Gil, snapping shut the diary and immediately reaching out as the telephone began ringing beside him.

Jenny found herself torn between remaining put and leaving as she listened to him speak. One of the things she liked least in this man—and in the other members of the top management staff—was a seeming inability to indulge in any conversation other than one related to work. To a man they seemed almost to ‘switch off’ once they had finished with the business they were discussing, as though rounding off their words with a few social pleasantries was an entirely alien concept to them.

Gil had obviously said all he wanted to say, Jenny decided, then rose to her feet and mimed a goodbye. It was the staying hand the man on the telephone raised towards her that returned her to her seat. A few moments later he terminated the call.

‘One further point,’ he rapped out. ‘I believe you brought a child to the office yesterday.’

‘Yes, I—’

‘I don’t remember any mention of your having a child during your interviews,’ he interrupted coolly.

‘He’s not mine. He—’

‘Glad to hear it. Apart from anything else, the presence of an infant would do nothing for the image we like to maintain within the company.’

‘No, I’m sure it wouldn’t,’ agreed Jenny with acerbic quietness, her sense of justice outraged by his refusal to hear out her excuse. ‘Though it won’t happen again, I can assure you,’ she added, surprised to find he appeared to have taken her agreement completely at face value.

‘I’m sure it won’t,’ stated Gil, his smile as brisk and confident as his words. ‘I’m a firm believer in tackling problems as and when they arise—it makes for better working relationships all round.’ He leaned back against the soft black leather of the executive chair. ‘And I’ve a feeling you will fit in and enjoy a very good working relationship with us, Jenny…I most certainly hope we shall.’

The sound of laughter drifted to Jenny’s ears as she let herself into Jamie’s flat that evening. She pulled a small face of discontent—she didn’t feel in the least like socialising, especially not with one of the exotic creatures Jamie seemed to get entangled with, which the feminine lightness of the laughter warned her might well be the case.

‘Jenny—in here!’ his voice called to her. ‘I’ve a surprise for you.’

She removed her jacket and walked into the sitting-room, experiencing a flash of irritation as her suspicions were confirmed. Seated on the sofa next to Jamie, and with a docile Jonathan on her knee, was a woman of exactly the type she had expected. Most of Jamie’s women tended to be flawless creatures who looked as though they had stepped out of a fashion magazine—and this one wasn’t exactly plain!

‘I was just going to take a shower,’ she announced vaguely, feeling thoroughly disgruntled.

‘Bad day at the office, darling?’ drawled Jamie, a remark that brought a flicker of surprise to the face of the woman next to him and an angry tensing in Jenny.

Deciding to ignore his remark, she gave the woman a half-hearted smile of greeting, then turned to leave.

‘Jennifer!’ Jamie’s sharply censorious tone halted her. ‘I’d like you to meet Mandy—our salvation.’

Jenny swung round. ‘Our salvation?’ she queried, not bothering to attempt hiding her puzzlement.

‘Most definitely,’ stated Jamie, bestowing a smile of supreme contentment on the woman now adjusting the baby on her knee in order to reach out a hand to Jenny—a hand which, for the sake of good manners, Jenny felt obliged to walk over and accept. ‘Mandy’s going to be looking after Jonathan as from tomorrow.’

‘Really?’ choked Jenny, the casual announcement knocking the breath from her.

‘I’d better leave Jamie to explain,’ exclaimed the woman with a small gasp of consternation as she looked at her watch. ‘I’d no idea it was so late!’

Jamie solicitously took his nephew from her as she struggled to her feet, then rose to his own.

‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’ he asked.

Mandy shook her head, an action, Jenny noted ill-humouredly, that seemed to interfere with her balance as she was forced to place a hand on Jamie’s arm for support.

‘I’ve got my own transport—but thanks for the offer,’ murmured Mandy, smiling up at him. ‘Sorry I’ve to dash like this, Jennifer, but I’ll see you in the morning,’ she added.

Jenny remained silent as she watched the curvaceous Mandy bid her farewell to the baby—an act which, to Jenny’s increasingly acute perception, seemed to involve her almost burying her head, with its gleaming, shoulder-length cascade of hair almost the same colour as Jenny’s own, against Jamie as she kissed the unprotesting infant. And as she watched man, woman and child leave the room she felt a murderous rage churning within her. How dared he? Did he honestly believe she would hand Jonathan into the so-called care of some dolly bird who happened to have caught his eye?

It was several moments before Jamie reappeared at the door, the baby still in his arms.

‘I’ll just put him in his pram,’ he muttered, scowling across the room at her, then disappeared.

Well, at least he had managed to get a pram, Jenny told herself, a thought which did nothing to lessen the anger and indignation trembling within her as she marched off to her own room and began impatiently removing her clothes. There had actually been an element of accusation in that scowling look he had flung her—as though she were in some way at fault!

Trying to calm herself, she slipped into a housecoat and picked up her clothes. She needed a shower, she decided, if only to give her time to compose herself before confronting that…that…

‘So this is where you’re hiding,’ observed Jamie, strolling into the room unannounced and right up to her. ‘And what the hell was that about just now?’ he demanded, gazing down at her from coldly assessing eyes.

‘Get out of here!’ she exploded, taking an involuntary step back from him and finding the backs of her legs trapped against the bed.

‘Not until you’ve explained what that ill-mannered performance of yours was all about.’

‘Ill-mannered! You’ve got a nerve!’ she croaked indignantly. ‘The agreement was that the two of us would interview any prospective nannies!’

‘At the time, if I rightly remember, you were all for my doing it alone,’ he retorted, flinging himself down on the bed and gazing up at her accusingly.

‘That’s hardly the point,’ hissed Jenny, glowering down at him. ‘How do you imagine Clare’s going to feel when she hears you’ve roped in one of your…your floozies to look after her child?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing angrily as he propped himself up on his elbows.

‘For God’s sake, Jamie, don’t you think it’s about time you grew up and started taking life seriously?’

‘Oh—now we’re back to how irresponsible I am, are we?’ he said, his tone ominously quiet. ‘Exactly what is it that makes you think you have some God-given right to be my judge and jury, Jenny? I think it’s time you were reminded of a few facts.’

‘I don’t need reminding of anything. All I—’

‘You’re eight years my junior—the kid sister of one of my closest friends. It probably seems to you that I’ve been around for as long as you can remember…but the fact is that you don’t know me any more than I know you. You seem to be stuck in some sort of time-warp, repeating all the dire warnings the village biddies used to trot out when I was still a kid—’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘No—it isn’t,’ he snapped. ‘Yes, I was a tearaway as a kid, and yes, I have had possibly more than my fair share of women—but I can assure you, Jenny, not one of them is a floozie—’

‘I’m sorry,’ she cut in hastily, shame staining her cheeks. ‘I had no right to say that…it’s just that I feel so responsible for Jonathan.’

‘And you think I don’t?’

Jenny opened her mouth to protest, then clamped it firmly shut. There was no way she was going to allow herself to be manoeuvred into accepting Mandy as a nanny, simply because she felt guilty over referring to her as a floozie.

‘Yes—well, that resounding silence manages to speak volumes,’ he noted sarcastically. ‘The point that seems to have escaped you—though mercifully not the rest of the village dears—is that I am now a fully fledged adult and perfectly able to take on the responsibilities that go with that status, should the need arise.’

He rose from the bed and for an instant Jenny was convinced he was about to stride from the room in disgust. Then he turned and grasped her without warning by the shoulders.

‘Tell me, Jenny, does it make you feel safer, kidding yourself I’m still an irresponsible tearaway?’ he asked softly. ‘Was I so irresponsible when I refused the very considerable charms you once offered me?’

‘I wondered how long it would be before you dragged that up again!’ she spat, struggling dementedly to free herself.

‘I keep referring to it because it was something of a milestone in my life,’ he replied, the tightening of his arms rendering her struggles ineffectual. ‘I readily admit that twenty-seven is a little late to be reaching mental maturity—but that was the night I finally grew up.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she croaked, a tiny part of her stalling against the seeming inevitability of his kissing her while the rest of her tensed in breathless expectation of it.

‘It’s supposed to mean that even irresponsible Jamie had enough sense to realise that the consequences of deflowering a nineteen-year-old ingénue might be more than he could handle.’

‘You wouldn’t have been deflowering me—as you so gallantly put it!’ she lied, goaded by a sense of helpless outrage.

‘I can assure you I’d not have been so damned gallant had I known you were experienced at the time,’ he muttered, drawing back slightly from her with a rueful laugh. ‘I used up more self-control that night than I ever knew I possessed.’

Jenny felt her pulse-rate shift into a higher, almost painful gear. ‘Now you really are being gallant,’ she managed and was appalled to hear a note of wistfulness in her slightly breathless words. ‘You swatted me aside with about as much thought as you’d have given to an irritating fly.’

‘If you say so,’ he stated in oddly clipped tones, pulling her heavily against him. ‘Who am I to argue with someone who knows me as thoroughly as you do? And who cares anyway?’

There was a heated turbulence in his kiss that contrasted oddly with the cool carelessness of his words; and, as that heat permeated and possessed her, she felt its swift destruction of those self-protective layers built up so painstakingly over the years.

Yet, even as her lips and body were responding with eager spontaneity to the urgent surge of passion in his, she was unable to silence the doom-laden voice within her warning that she was as besotted with this infuriatingly exciting man now as she had ever been.

CHAPTER THREE

JAMIE’S initial reaction was that he thought Jenny was joking—a joke he found it impossible to share, judging by the sudden wariness diluting the soft somnolence of passion in his eyes. Then he drew back from her, wariness hardening to disbelief as he gazed down at her sprawled beneath him on the bed.

“‘No” is what you should have been saying a good five minutes ago—not now,’ he rasped, rolling away from her and dragging himself upright. ‘And, to be brutally frank, some men would regard themselves justified in considering you to have been cutting it dangerously fine even five minutes ago.’

As he rose from the bed Jenny drew the gaping robe back over her exposed breasts, her badly shaking hands an indication of an inner turmoil that made speech impossible. She sat up, hugging her arms to her in a desperate attempt to rid herself of the still tingling imprint of his hands on her body and the intoxicating heat of him still burning along the length of her. And, as the terrible hunger raged on unabated within her, she found herself dazedly trying to recall what words she had used in that barely conscious moment when she had acted contrary to her every desire and had denied both herself and him.

‘Jamie—where are you going?’ she protested automatically as, with an exclamation of disgust, he turned from her and strode from the room.

‘This is all I need!’ she wailed softly to herself, clutching her head as though willing it to start functioning once more.

When her head eventually obliged, it was to present her with the observation that the only way peace could be restored to her life would be for Jamie to be out of it entirely—a comfortless observation, given the presence of Jonathan in their lives.

But she certainly couldn’t leave things hanging in the air as they now were, she told herself dejectedly, rising from the bed and making her way to the sitting-room.

He was pouring himself a drink as she entered.

‘Jamie—I’d like to apologise,’ she began, then broke off, distracted by the fact that his hands, pouring the drink, were no more steady than her own. ‘I…you took me completely by surprise,’ she added disjointedly and silently cursed herself for not having had the wits to have worked out what she was going to say to him.

Without even casting a glance in her direction, he moved to one of the armchairs and sat down, sprawling untidily on it as he gazed moodily into his glass.

‘What you actually mean is that you took yourself by surprise,’ he retorted sharply, cold speculation in his eyes as they rose to hers. ‘Which mucked up your plans for revenge somewhat.’

‘Revenge?’ croaked Jenny.

‘Wasn’t that your intention—to string me along and then give me a taste of what you considered to be my own medicine?’ he enquired frigidly. ‘Too bad your body put up such a struggle against co-operating with your vengeful little mind.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie—what are you saying? How could you possibly think I’d stoop that low?’

‘How indeed?’ he muttered eventually, plainly a little thrown by the sincerity of her indignation. ‘OK—perhaps you’d care to explain yourself,’ he added harshly, returning to his morose contemplation of the contents of his glass.

Jenny walked over to the chair opposite his and sat down gingerly on its edge, wondering what on earth she could possibly say. The truth was something she had yet to examine, she thought frantically; and even if she had, the chances were it was the last thing she would ever want to confide in Jamie.

‘Hell, you almost had me convinced I was wrong in thinking your motive was revenge!’ he exploded through her panicking thoughts.