Hired: A Bride for the Boss: The Playboy Boss's Chosen Bride / The Corporate Marriage Campaign / The Boss's Urgent Proposal

‘Oh, Byron!’ she purred, hugging his arm in demonstrative pleasure.

Jake felt his innards being clawed.

The lion in him came roaring out, wanting to carry Mel Rossi off and do some clawing of his own.

‘Do you have transport home?’ he asked, trying his utmost to sound considerate and caring.

She smiled, the golden amber eyes glowing warmly. ‘How kind! But I don’t need transport. Byron has asked me to stay here with him and I am so enjoying his company…’

‘What about clothes?’ came straight out of his mouth. The image of her prancing around in her rose bikini throughout a private evening with his grandfather made him want to club her over the head and drag her off to a cave.

‘I brought a change of clothes with me,’ she answered with limpid ease. ‘The butler kindly agreed to mind my bag until the party was over. You don’t have to worry about me, Jake.’

‘No, I’m sure he doesn’t,’ Vanessa slid in snidely. ‘Thank you for a lovely party, Byron.’

‘Glad you enjoyed yourself, my dear,’ he replied, brimming over with enough bonhomie to indulgently encompass a skinny woman who was showing signs of becoming bitchy.

‘Take care, Pop,’ Jake managed to toss out before leading Vanessa away.

‘I’m going to take care of Merlina instead,’ his grandfather declared extravagantly. ‘We’re off shopping tomorrow.’ He grinned at her in delighted anticipation. ‘There are some splendid boutiques in Double Bay. And we can have a marvellous seafood lunch at Doyle’s. The maître d’ can always find a table for me.’

‘Oh, goody!’ the femme fatale cried, snuggling closer to her sugar daddy.

Enough was more than enough!

Jake departed in a simmering rage, dragging Vanessa along with him. ‘Don’t walk so fast,’ she protested. ‘I’m wearing very high heels, you know.’

‘You can be barefoot in the park for all I care,’ he growled, having completely lost any semblance of playboy charm.

Vanessa came to a dead halt, spitting mad. ‘You had her lined up for yourself, didn’t you?’

The accusation pulled Jake up, too. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he bit out.

‘You hung around her after she came out of the cake and a moment ago you wanted to take her home,’ came the peevish argument. ‘What’s more, you’re now in a pet because she prefers to be with Byron.’

‘In a pet?’ Jake repeated incredulously.

‘Don’t bother denying it! And don’t think I’m going to play second fiddle to a birthday cake bimbo. Goodbye, Jake! I’ll leave with Tim and Fiona.’

Having slapped him with her rejection, she turned her back on him, strutted several haughty paces, then half- turned to hurl a piece of spite at him. ‘I hope she becomes your step-grandmother!’

Over my dead body!

Jake stood stock-still as the thought crashed through his mind with stunning violence.

For once in his life he didn’t know what to do.

He didn’t have a plan.

Running after Vanessa made no sense. He didn’t want to hang onto her. Best that their relationship be severed and it didn’t matter who’d done the severing. Let Vanessa have the satisfaction of being the one to walk away.

But Mel Rossi’s defection was something else.

That was definitely a blow below the belt.

He had to fight back.

He had to win.

She was using his grandfather as a weapon and a shield but once she was on her own…

Tonight, when she returned to her apartment at Chatswood, he’d be waiting for her, and no way was he about to let Mel Rossi close her door on him!

Midnight…and she hadn’t come home!

Jake’s frustration knew no bounds. She had to be staying overnight at the Vaucluse mansion. In any event, there was no point in camping here any longer. Even if she turned up now, he’d look like a jealous fool for waiting to confront her at this hour, and he was not—not—a jealous fool. He knew what she was up to, playing a one-upmanship end-game, and if nothing else, he was determined to get in the last word.

He drove home to Milson’s Point with that resolution burning in his mind.

However, opening up the opportunity to get in the last word proved difficult. Mel did not answer her telephone on Sunday and Jake seethed over the possibility that she was, indeed, out shopping and lunching with his grandfather. He told himself to calm down. It was only a matter of waiting out some more time before he caught up with her.

Monday was filled with more frustration. He found it increasingly wearing to be civil to his temporary assistant because she wasn’t Mel. She was a skinny blonde who kept transmitting availability signals which sparked no interest whatsoever. In fact, he suspected Mel had gone out of her way to find a woman who fitted the type he usually dated. Another slap in the face!

And still he was only getting the answering machine when he telephoned her apartment. Had she already left on her vacation? Or…no, it was beyond belief that she really was cosying up to his grandfather. That had only been a game…hadn’t it?

He called the Vaucluse mansion.

The butler answered.

‘It’s Jake,’ he said quickly. ‘Is my grandfather in, Harold?’

‘Mr Byron is out today.’

Jake hesitated, but the need to know drove the question. ‘What about Ms Rossi?’

‘Ms Rossi accompanied Mr Byron.’

Jake’s stomach clenched. ‘When will they be home?’ shot out of his mouth.

‘Dinner is to be served at the usual hour so I’m expecting them to return before then.’

Them! Not just his grandfather!

Jake forced himself to say, ‘Thank you, Harold. I’ll call later.’

‘Any message, sir?’

‘No. Thank you.’

It was impossible to apply himself to any work. His mind kept churning over the situation with Mel. Was it going beyond a game? His grandfather had the wealth to wrap a woman in however much luxury she desired but surely Mel wouldn’t consider marrying an eighty-year-old man.

Maybe she’d taken up the position of his personal assistant, with the promise of lots of perks on the side. His grandfather would spoil her rotten and enjoy every minute of doing it. And Mel would perform brilliantly as she always did.

Damn them both!

That scenario was almost as hard to swallow as marriage. But what could he do about it? He chewed over the problem and was still chewing it over when his temporary assistant alerted him to a call from Vanessa Hall. With considerable effort he reset his mind to dealing with the other fallout from his grandfather’s party. It was now late afternoon and he hoped she didn’t want to press for a reconciliation.

‘Vanessa…what can I do for you?’ he asked blandly.

‘I’ve just come home from doing a charity luncheon fashion parade…’

Reminding him she was a queen of the catwalk and should be valued accordingly.

‘Guess who was there, Jake,’ she prompted silkily.

His spine crawled. ‘Do tell,’ he drawled, knowing instantly what this call was about and resolving to sound uncaring.

‘Byron and your cake bimbo,’ she crowed.

‘No doubt they were enjoying themselves.’

‘Oh, yes! The champagne was flowing. For good reason. She’s now wearing a huge, flashy, diamond solitaire ring on her engagement finger. Happy days, Jake! You might get to kiss the bride.’

CHAPTER SIX

MERLINA was beginning to appreciate how very seductive the lifestyle of the mega-wealthy could be. The bedroom suite she was currently occupying was absolute luxury, and from the moment she’d stepped into Byron’s amazing mansion, she hadn’t done a single chore—no cooking, no cleaning, no washing, ironing or tidying up. Her only job was to look good and be ready to do whatever Byron decided they should, which invariably involved the pursuit of pleasure in one form or another.

In a purely pampering sense, this was the best start to a vacation she’d ever had, though it was impossible not to think about Jake and how her departure from his life might be affecting him. Had he missed her at work today? Or was the new temporary assistant—chosen in a fit of female pique—providing the kind of distraction a playboy appreciated?

She glanced down at the magnificent diamond ring Byron had insisted she wear, arguing that it was a necessary prod to produce results. Her fingers automatically wriggled to catch the light in the facets of the fabulous gem. It was seductive, too, but not all the wealth in the world could give her what she really wanted. Could this pretend engagement to his grandfather pry Jake from his freewheeling life-style?

With a heavy sigh, she picked up her hairbrush, determined on not letting the answer to that nagging question mean too much to her. She had a life to live no matter what, and right now it was better to concentrate on presenting a picture of perfect grooming for Byron.

While the blond wig had worked effectively at the birthday party, she much preferred her own natural dark brown hair for real life and wasn’t about to change it. If Jake didn’t find her so desirable as a brunette, that was his problem, not hers. Such a superficial thing should be irrelevant. It was the person to person attraction that put depth into a relationship—enough depth for a marriage to work.

Having refreshed her make-up, Merlina checked her overall appearance in the cheval mirror before going downstairs for pre-dinner drinks with Byron. She was wearing one of her new dresses from yesterday’s shopping spree—a tan and white polka dot silk wrap-around with a wide tan leather belt cinching in her waist. It was both elegant and sexy and she loved it, especially teamed with the new Ferragamo tan and white shoes. A classy outfit for job interviews, she’d decided, and didn’t care how much it had cost.

If Jake did not rise to the occasion, she was determined to start afresh, setting aside everything linked to him, including the type of clothes she’d chosen to fit into the company image. Stodgy black suits were out, too. They’d been a hangover from what her family had expected of her, and coincidentally suitable for her previous job since her Queen Bee magazine boss had hated anyone stealing her limelight. Now she had the confidence to create her own style and stick to what she liked for herself.

It was also time she found a husband, though where she was going to find a man she’d want to spend her life with was definitely a problem. After being with Jake…she shook her head. Making comparisons was stupid. Besides, hadn’t she thought all along that Jake wasn’t marriage material?

Though Byron thought he might be, given enough provocation to realise that she was the one for him to marry. The hope that her benevolent match-maker’s reading of the situation was right kept pumping through her heart. Dreams did not die easily.

But whatever the outcome of Byron’s manoeuvres, she still had to look for a new position. There was no going back to what had been. Moving forward, one way or another, was the only option.

Having set her mind straight once again, Merlina went downstairs to the main reception room. As she entered it, she couldn’t help thinking that only the mega-wealthy would choose white sofas. They looked wonderfully dramatic set amongst beautifully polished antique furniture and the gloriously coloured rugs on the parquet floor, but they’d be hell to keep clean in any normal living area.

Byron, looking sartorially splendid in white trousers and shirt, teamed with a beige linen jacket, swung around from a cocktail cabinet from which he’d just collected two crystal flute glasses. He beamed at her at her as though she was the best plaything he’d ever picked up. No doubt about it. Jake took after his grandfather.

‘Good news, my dear!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘Harold has just informed me that Jake called this afternoon and he asked about you!’

Her pulse skipped haphazardly at this evidence that Jake hadn’t simply wiped her out of his life as she’d thought he might, his ego smarting at her bold and abrupt departure from the place he’d put her in.

‘It could just be a problem at work,’ common sense forced her to say.

Byron grinned at her. ‘He also asked when would we be home? I am confidently anticipating a visit from him this evening.’

‘He probably asked out of irritation that I wasn’t readily available,’ Merlina muttered.

‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ Byron mocked good-humour-edly, his eyes twinkling devilment. ‘You’re forgetting our trump card.’

‘The engagement ring? But how could he know so soon?’

‘I’m betting that Vanessa Hall couldn’t wait to tell him.’

‘Why would she?’

‘Because she had her nose royally out of joint when Jake showed too much interest in you on Saturday. Trust me. I know women.’

Merlina couldn’t argue with that. Byron had married seven of them and no doubt had experience of many more. He oozed gleeful confidence as he strolled forward to place a glass of champagne in her hand and click his own glass against hers.

‘To success, my dear.’

Counting chickens before they hatched was not a good idea, Merlina reminded herself. Nevertheless, Byron’s toast was irresistible. She did hope for success, though she couldn’t feel the same confidence he did. They were both sipping the champagne when the butler made an entrance.

‘Yes, Harold?’ Byron invited.

‘I’ve just opened the security gates for Mr Jake, sir.’

‘Splendid! Right on cue!’

A host of butterflies invaded Merlina’s stomach.

The butler, a tall, thin man in his fifties, very conscious of his dignity, unbent enough to smile at his employer’s pleasure. ‘Will it be three for dinner, sir?’

‘I doubt my grandson will be in the mood to dine with us tonight. Hold dinner back until I give the word, Harold.’

‘As you wish, sir.’

Door chimes called Harold out of the room to greet their visitor and let him in.

‘That was quick,’ Byron commented with amusement. ‘Jake must have burned up the driveway. Are you primed for confrontation, Merlina?’

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. This was it—the moment of truth! Jake’s reaction to the situation would tell her if she meant anything to him beyond a wound to his ego.

‘The game is on,’ she said with gritty determination.

Hearty approval smiled back at her. ‘That’s my girl!’

It brought a smile to her face. If Jake’s grandfather ended up accomplishing nothing else with this marriage campaign, he had certainly done her ego a lot of good, making her feel like a woman worth having.

‘Now drink up,’ he instructed. ‘We’re celebrating, remember? Besides which, the champagne will put some fizz in your brain.’

‘Right!’ she agreed, and gulped down some of the heady liquor.

But the fizz came with Jake’s entrance and it was electric, charging through every cell in Merlina’s body.

‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ came the mocking drawl.

Her heart leapt. Pins and needles attacked her skin. Merlina barely stopped herself from spinning around to face him. She had to hold on to control. It was the only way to deal with Jake.

‘You hear right, my boy,’ Byron answered with great aplomb, giving her a moment to collect herself.

She pasted a smile on her face and turned, lifting her left hand to show off the highly ostentatious ring. ‘We’re engaged to be married,’ she lilted happily.

Jake’s thin-lipped smile did not project any happiness for her. It didn’t even put the usual dimples in his cheeks. There was a killer look in the dark brown eyes as they raked her from head to foot, ignoring the brilliant diamond ring they were supposed to fix on. He wore the usual casual jeans and T-shirt he favoured for work but there was nothing casual about the tension emanating from him, putting her nerves on edge.

‘How fortunate! You won’t have to look for another job,’ he said with the silky cut of a stiletto to the heart.

The implication that she had leapt onto a free ride with his grandfather brought a rush of scorching heat to her face. She was no gold-digger and hated to be viewed as such. Yet reason told her Jake could hardly view her as anything else in the circumstances and it was impossible to protest. The sting would go right out of the game if she told the truth.

Byron laughed, rescuing her from the miserable moment. ‘I think Merlina will have her work cut out handling the role of my wife. I can see us leading a very busy life. A long, leisurely trip around the world to begin with…’

‘Yes. Her planning is impeccable,’ Jake sliced in. ‘An attribute I’ve sorely missed today. Her temporary replacement is a featherbrain. If you don’t mind, Pop, I’d like a private word with Mel. Hopefully it might sort out the mess her leaving has caused.’

Work!

He didn’t care about her life.

He only cared about his precious business.

‘That’s up to Merlina,’ Byron corrected him. ‘And might I add you’re really stretching her good nature by calling her Mel. She’s always hated it, you know. Not wise diplomacy if you want her to help you.’

‘You’re right.’ He sketched a half-bow to Merlina. ‘I apologise for tampering with your name once again. Bad habit.’ His eyes glittered more of a demand than an appeal as he added, ‘If you’ll just oblige me on this matter…’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said with a spurt of impatience, her conscience pricking her over having left him with problems. ‘I’m sorry about the replacement. I thought you’d like her.’

His jaw tightened as though she’d hit him. And so she had. The deliberate choice of a skinny blonde to be her replacement had been intended as a slap in the face. Pure spite on her behalf, having felt diminished by the choices he’d made in the women who shared his private life. But business was business and she shouldn’t have let personal issues sway her judgement.

‘Well, I’ll leave the two of you to sort things out,’ Byron said benevolently. ‘Would you like to join us for dinner, my boy? Lift a glass to our future?’

‘No, thank you,’ came the curt reply, tempered quickly by another thin-lipped smile. ‘Your gain is my loss. I don’t feel like drinking to it tonight.’

Byron nodded. ‘Understood. Another time. I’ll go and tell Harold you won’t be staying.’

Merlina felt the tension in the room move up several notches as Byron left it, closing the door behind him. She stared down at what was left of the champagne in her glass, wishing it could drown the dreadful sense of disappointment tearing at her heart. The game seemed very silly now. Like chasing pie in the sky. Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to confess the truth to Jake. Pride insisted that she hold the line.

‘I see you’ve already changed your image, dressing to suit my grandfather’s life-style.’

The biting cynicism in his voice jerked her chin up. Anger flared. ‘I’m dressed to suit myself, Jake. This is me. I’m done with fitting into an image. I’m not your…your front girl any more. Your grandfather wasn’t the only one who had a birthday last week. I did, too, not that it would mean anything to you, but it does to me. I’m thirty years old, not a trendy teenager.’

She banged her glass down on the table which served the white sofas and planted her hands on her hips in an aggressive flaunting of her preferred style. ‘What’s more, your grandfather likes me as I am. He approves of everything about me, dark hair and all!’

Jake’s arm whipped up, stabbing a finger at her. ‘I never asked you to change the colour of your hair.’

‘No. Only to cut off what I’d been growing for years. Long hair has always been traditional in my family, but you didn’t bother asking if I minded having it cut. It was your way or no way.’

‘You could have told me. We were in negotiation.’

‘I was fool enough to want the job.’

‘Fool enough!’ Outrage poured from him. ‘It was the perfect job for you. You revelled in it. And I paid you top dollar. Not to mention the bonus you gave yourself for coming out of the cake.’

‘I was worth every cent of it. You got precisely what you wanted for your money, Jake Devila.’

‘No, I didn’t!’ His arms cut the air like scissors, emphatically demonstrating his frustration and dismissing her claim.

‘So where did I fail you?’ she shot back at him.

His mouth clamped into a grim angry line. His eyes glared black fury at her. His chest rose and fell with a swift intake and expulsion of air. He threw up his hands in an exasperated manner as he finally admitted, ‘You didn’t fail me. I need you back at work.’

The crux of the matter.

Jake was put out.

Merlina folded her arms across her chest in decisive determination to ward off any appeal he might make. Enough was enough. She was not going back. She was moving on.

‘You managed before me. You’ll manage after me,’ she stated with cold precision.

‘I don’t want to,’ he almost yelled at her. ‘What will it take to get you back?’

‘There’s nothing you can offer me that will change my mind.’

His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He looked as if he’d like to strangle her. Obviously the violent energy storming through him needed some outlet. He broke into an angry pacing back and forth across the room.

Merlina remained absolutely still, viewing him with immense satisfaction. How many times had she wanted to strangle him? It was good to have the boot on the other foot for once, good to see him not in control of the situation. The guilt over her choice of a temporary replacement was gone. Jake Devila deserved a bit of heartburn. He’d given her plenty.

‘You can’t marry my grandfather,’ he fired at her, pulling up to deliver the shot, eyes boring into hers with blazing intensity.

It stirred a mountain of belligerence. ‘Oh, yes I can!’

He shook his head in agitated negation. ‘How can you bring yourself to marry such an old man?’

‘I find Byron very young at heart.’

‘He has an eighty-year-old body,’ was sliced back at her with venom.

‘Which he keeps very fit,’ she answered with lofty disdain for his emphasis on the physical.

‘That doesn’t make it sexy,’ he argued fiercely.

‘Your grandfather is every bit as sexy as Sean Connery, who even at his age is regularly voted one of the sexiest film stars in the world. He has exactly the same twinkling brown eyes, the same charm of manner, the same charismatic presence…’

‘So you’re happy to go to bed with him, are you? A man old enough to be your grandfather?’

It did sound off, but Merlina was on a roll and she wasn’t about to give Jake the satisfaction of winning any round of this game. ‘Why not? Byron makes everything a pleasure and he knows what a woman wants.’

Jake’s eyes suddenly narrowed, dangerous sparks shooting out of them as he started strolling towards her. ‘And maybe you don’t know any better. Is that it, Merlina? You’ve always been a good Italian girl?’

Her arms tightened across her chest as she started to quake inside. Jake was coming at her as though he meant to test her sexual experience. She was torn by the desire to know what it would be like with him even as a bitter pride insisted he’d be just feeding his male ego if she allowed him any intimate access to her.

‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped.

His mouth curled into a smile of sensual promise. ‘I have a mind to make it my business.’

Her head started whirling as he closed in on her. She was so terribly vulnerable to the physical attraction he exerted. If he touched her, kissed her… ‘Stop right there, Jake Devila!’

Her voice sounded shrill, defensive, fearful.

He stopped barely an arm’s length away from her. ‘Come on, Mel,’ he purred seductively. ‘You know it’s always been there, sizzling between us.’

‘My name is Merlina.’

He ignored the frantic protest, his eyes searing hers, demanding the truth. ‘It was exciting, wasn’t it? The way we sparred—punch and counter-punch, me throwing out the challenge, you meeting it, nailing it…’