Desire And Deception

A sudden memory stabbed at Jade’s heart before the corner of her mouth lifted in a cynical smirk. It was just as well, perhaps, that Melanie was as she was, considering what had happened between the last housekeeper and the master of Belleview. Catching her father with that woman in his arms had come as a dreadful shock to Jade. Her god of a father, high on his pedestal—or was it podium?—always preaching about character and control and moral standards. Her father, having an affair with his housekeeper while his manic depressive wife was safely installed in a sanatorium somewhere.

He’d tried to explain everything away, saying he hadn’t actually slept with the woman, saying he’d kissed her in a moment of weakness. Jade had not accused. She’d simply stood there, not listening, refusing to understand, unable to forgive, regardless of the circumstances. She couldn’t abide parents who had the policy of ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say.’

She’d been just twenty at the time. Her father had dismissed the unfortunate woman—another injustice, she believed—and hired Melanie. But Jade had never looked at her father in the same way again. Neither had she taken a blind bit of notice of anything he tried to tell her. She went her own way, did her own thing. She had her own code of right and wrong, and had never hurt anyone as she was sure he had. He, and Nathan. They were the hurters, the despoilers.

Jade frowned as her mind shifted uncomfortably to her mother.

No, she decided abruptly. I will not make excuses. For either of them. For any of them!

An alien tap-tapping sound click-clacked somewhere in the house. Not recognising it, Jade swivelled on the kitchen stool she was perched up on, only to see her father making his way across the family-room, a walking cane in his right hand.

Their eyes met simultaneously through the open doorway, Jade’s widening as Byron’s narrowed. He looked hopping mad.

‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you,’ Melanie said quietly from the other side of the breakfast bar. ‘Your father came home from the hospital yesterday.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU’VE changed your mind, it seems, about darkening this doorstep again,’ Byron barked at his daughter.

‘And hi to you, Pops,’ Jade said with a flipness she fell into when at her most stressed. What on earth was her father doing home from hospital? A fortnight ago they’d said his leg wasn’t mending properly and he’d be stuck in there for another month at least. She should have known he’d prove them wrong. ‘You thinking of auditioning for the part of Long John Silver?’ she quipped airily, waving at the walking cane.

Byron hobbled into the kitchen, still scowling at his daughter. ‘One day you’ll use that sassy mouth of yours on the wrong person. I hope I’m around to see it. Melanie, I’m expecting a visitor shortly. A Mr Armstrong. Show him into my study when he arrives, will you? And we’ll be wanting coffee. Or tea, if he prefers. Ask him.’

‘Certainly, Bryon. Will this Mr Armstrong be staying to dinner?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll have to let you know.’

‘And who is Mr Armstrong?’ Jade asked, the name not at all familiar.

Byron’s hard blue eyes swung back to his daughter. ‘No one you know.’ He looked her up and down, his upper lip curling with disgust at her appearance. ‘Good God, girl, don’t you ever wear a bra?’ And, spinning round on his good leg, he limped off.

She pulled a face at his disappearing back. She did wear a bra...once every hundred years or so.

Admittedly, the ribbed pink vest-top she was wearing moulded her well-rounded breasts like a second skin, her nipples outlined and emphasised. But she hadn’t brought any clothes with her and all that was in her wardrobe were things she hadn’t worn for years, most of which were a little tight on her. She’d gone through a semi-anorexic stage back in her teens, till the loss of half her boobs had brought her up with a jolt. Horrified, she’d quickly eaten up till she was back to her shapely self, substituting the dieting with aerobics and weight-training. Her figure had steadily gone from gaunt to good to great. She was quite proud of it and had no intention of hiding her hard-earned shape under dowdy matronly clothes. Lord, she was only twenty-two, not fifty-two!

Sliding from the kitchen stool, however, reminded her that the jeans she had on were close to obscene, they were so tight. Maybe she should hunt out something of Auntie Ava’s to put on. The old dear was always buying things in sales that were several sizes too small.

Jade was on the way through the family-room, heading in the direction of the front hall when the doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it, Melanie,’ she shouted back over her shoulder. ‘It’s sure to be the mysterious Mr Armstrong.’

‘Find out if he’s staying to dinner, will you, Jade?’ Melanie called back. ‘And if he wants tea or coffee.’

‘Will do.’

She was whistling when she opened the door, her whistle changing to a low wolf-whistle as she took in the man standing there. God, but he was gorgeous! Tall, without being too tall, black curly hair, olive skin, lean saturnine features and piercing black eyes. His thick dark eyelashes were curly too, the bottom ones resting on high cheekbones that looked as if they’d been carved in stone.

He looked as if he’d been carved in stone, so still was he. And so totally unaffected by her none too subtle whistle.

Jade thought she detected the slightest flicker of something when his hard gaze raked over her eyecatching form. But if he was in any way impressed by what he saw he certainly didn’t show it. Instead, there was a fractional lifting of his already sardonically arched eyebrows before he spoke in a voice reminiscent of Melanie’s for its lack of emotion.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said coolly. ‘Mr Whitmore is expecting me. Kyle Armstrong.’

I wonder if there’s a Mrs Armstrong, was Jade’s first thought, not at all put out by the man’s apparent indifference to her charms. Nothing like a good challenge. It would make for a pleasant change. But she never tampered with married men. That was one of the lines she drew.

Pity other people didn’t, she thought bitterly.

Her attention returned to the man before her. He wasn’t wearing a wedding-ring but he was too good-looking not to be married. Taking a wild stab at his age, she came up with somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty-two. She was always hopeless at ages. She’d thought Roberto around thirty and he’d been closer to forty!

‘Good afternoon, Mr Armstrong,’ she greeted, holding out her hand and flashing him one of her most winning smiles. Her dentist had every reason to be proud of the perfectly even white teeth she displayed. ‘Yes, my father mentioned he was expecting you. Do come in. I’ll take you to him.’

Her smile turned slightly smug at Mr Armstrong’s startled reaction to her announcing her relationship with the man he’d come to see. Possibly, he expected any daughter of the wealthy Byron Whitmore to be dressed a little more classily. Or maybe he hadn’t known Byron had a daughter?

Now that was an interesting speculation. Still, Jade appreciated her father wouldn’t go round proudly showing her photograph to every Tom, Dick and Harry. He was probably terrified one of them might recognise her as the little bit of fluff they’d had one night. After all, if she’d slept with as many men as her father and Nathan presumed, Byron was bound to come across one sooner or later!

Jade brushed aside the jab of dismay this thinking brought and wondered for the first time what business the gorgeous Mr Armstrong was in. He had to be calling on business. Why else would he be dressed in a dark grey suit on a hot Saturday afternoon? Besides, her father was not one for male friends of the personal kind. He was close to Nathan, and had a type of friendship with Zachary Marsden. But that too was partly business. Zachary had been the Whitmores’ legal advisor for as long as she could remember.

Jade shut the front door and turned to their guest. He was no longer looking at her but was glancing around the house. Assessingly, she thought.

‘This way...’ She waved him along the downstairs hall that went under the staircase. Byron’s study being the second last door on the right. ‘Mr. Armstrong...’ She began as they walked side by side.

‘Kyle,’ he returned coolly. ‘Call me Kyle.’

‘How nice. Kyle, then.’ She smiled over at him. ‘And I’m Jade.’

‘Jade,’ he repeated, but said nothing more. He didn’t smile back, either.

Jade felt a momentary irritation. She didn’t like men she couldn’t read, or who didn’t react the way she expected them to. It came to her abruptly that she didn’t like men who were challenges after all. She much preferred men who fell victim to her charms immediately, and who pursued her doggedly. She enjoyed leading them a merry dance, making them almost beg for her favours, favours she did not bestow left, right and centre, au contraire to popular opinion.

She slid a sidewards glance over at the man beside her. In profile, he was not as pretty. His nose was sharp. His chin jutted stubbornly. He was not a man to beg for anything, of that she was certain. He was also staring steadfastly forward as they walked along the hallway together.

But if Jade’s mind found Mr Armstrong’s rude indifference highly offputting, her body did not. Just looking at him was making her stomach curl with a quite alien sensation. Dear God, but she would give anything to have him want her as she was suddenly wanting him.

Jade only managed to stop herself gasping in shock. For she had never really wanted a man like that in her entire life!

Oh, yes, she’d once been mad about the opposite sex, thriving on the dizzying excitement of being desired and needed and loved. But she’d been very young then, a teenager desperately looking for love and attention and approval, finding substitutes for all three in the kisses and arms of her boyfriends.

But she’d only had two actual lovers during her teenage years, not a zillion, her last serious relationship breaking up well before Nathan came back to Belleview to live after his separation from Lenore. That was when Jade’s hero worship for her adopted brother had flared to a full-blown infatuation, and, while her feelings for Nathan had seemed part sexual at the time, she could see now that they hadn’t touched the surface of real desire. Real desire was what she was feeling at this moment.

Yes, she’d tried to seduce Nathan, but not looking for sexual satisfaction—frankly, she’d never found intercourse at all memorable—but as a way to recapture his love and attention, the love and attention he’d once bestowed on her as a child and which had made her young life bearable. Admittedly, after that first bold kiss of hers, he’d quickly turned the tables on her, taking the initiative and managing to arouse her quite stunningly before he’d abruptly terminated the encounter. Her body had undoubtedly been left aching with physical frustration, which might explain why she’d raced precipitately into the arms of a new admirer a couple of days later.

The next morning, however, she’d felt ashamed of herself for the first time in her life. She’d only met the man the previous night at a party, where admittedly she’d had too much to drink. Not that that was any excuse. At least, she hadn’t gone out with him again.

There had been several admirers since. But none had persuaded her into his bed.

Jade conceded, however, that Kyle Armstrong would not have much trouble doing just that.

Suddenly, she hoped he was married. That would put an end to this amazingly intense desire he’d somehow managed to spark in her. Her whole body felt tense and tingling by the time she stopped outside the study door and knocked.

‘Yes,’ boomed her father.

Opening the door, she popped her head inside. ‘Mr Armstrong is here.’

‘Well, bring him in, girl. Don’t stand there looking ridiculous.’

Gritting her teeth, Jade threw open the door and waved their visitor inside.

He went, not giving her a second look. She was disgusted to find her heart was still racing and that her eyes were clinging to the back of that dark grey suit, to the way it fitted his nicely shaped shoulders like a glove. Jade had been on the end of undressing eyes from men before, but she’d never been guilty of doing such a thing herself. She was very definitely undressing Kyle Armstrong in her mind at that moment, however, and the results were unnerving. How was he managing to exude such a potent sexuality without even trying?

‘Don’t get up, Mr Whitmore,’ Kyle said when Byron started struggling to his feet behind the huge desk. Striding over, he outstretched his long arm to shake Byron’s hand. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last, sir. Talking on the telephone is not the same, is it?’

Jade saw her father look his guest up and down. Clearly, he liked what he saw almost as much as she did.

‘It certainly isn’t, my boy,’ he said.

Jade dropped his age down to twenty-six or -seven. Her father would not call a man close to thirty...my boy.

‘You were just leaving, Jade?’ Byron snapped, making her seethe inside. How dared he dismiss her so rudely?

She delivered a saccharine smile his way. ‘Melanie asked me to ask if Kyle was staying for dinner. Also, if he preferred tea or coffee.’

‘You know Kyle here?’ Byron ground out.

‘Not till a minute ago,’ she replied sweetly. And make of that what you will, you horny old hypocrite.

‘Ah...’

His obvious relief infuriated the life out of her. ‘Well?’ she said sharply.

‘What about it, Kyle? Can you stay for dinner? I’d like you to. I doubt if we’ll have finished our discussions till then.’

‘I’d love to stay,’ he replied politely, still not looking at Jade. Suddenly, she felt like slapping his coolly supercilious face. Though poisoning would be better. She might slip some hemlock in his wine tonight.

But then she thought of a better vengeance for this snooty pair. Her father wanted her to wear a bra. Well, she would! At dinner tonight. A quite spectacular bejewelled corselette number that she’d bought for a fancydress costume a few years back and which would undoubtedly be at least one size too small. By God, if those unflappable dark eyes didn’t fall out of their sockets when she walked into the dining-room wearing that, then she wasn’t the girl voted most likely not to be a virgin in her last year at St Brigit’s girls school.

‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked with the simpering sweetness of a Southern belle, fluttering her eyelashes when Kyle turned to glance her way at last.

‘Coffee. Black, no sugar.’

Not a twitch. Not a flicker, either of irritation or amusement or anything. The man was a robot, she decided. A cold lifeless sexless robot. How could she have possibly thought he was sexy a moment ago?

But he was, she groaned silently. He most definitely was. God!

It struck Jade quite forcibly then that he couldn’t be married. Married men always showed interest in her. Always.

She stared at him for a long moment with angry eyes, then, whirling, left the room, slamming the door behind her. ‘Pompous fool!’ she muttered aloud. ‘Arrogant bastard,’ she amended as she marched along the hallway. By the time she reached the kitchen, various other unprintable descriptions had found favour, the last one bringing Melanie’s eyes snapping up with startled surprise.

‘Goodness! Who are you referring to? Surely not your father!’

‘No. Kyle Armstrong. Mr. Cool-as-a-cucumber.’

‘Oh, I see. You found him attractive and he didn’t respond accordingly.’

When Jade glared outrage at Melanie, the housekeeper actually laughed. Once again, Jade was struck by the transformation in the woman once she abandoned her icy façade. What Melanie needed to snap her out of the past was some man to come along who could make her smile and laugh again. Laughter made life bearable.

Jade wagged a finger at Melanie. ‘I haven’t given up yet,’ she warned. ‘Mr Armstrong’s staying for dinner.’

‘Is he, now? And what are you going to do, come down to dinner in your birthday suit?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Has it ever occurred to you that some men just don’t like women who are obvious in their pursuit of them?’

Jade declined telling Melanie that it didn’t work if you dressed like a nun and acted like a corpse, either. ‘I don’t intend chasing the man. I simply want him to see what he could have if he chased me!’

‘And what if he doesn’t choose to chase you? What if he likes more subtle women whose clothing hints at their charms rather than shoves it in their faces?’

‘I don’t shove my charms in men’s faces!’ Jade protested.

‘Don’t you?’ Melanie’s eyes slid drily over the skintight jeans and top. ‘Look, Jade, you can get away with things at university that the more mature world won’t tolerate kindly. How old is this Mr Armstrong?’

Jade shrugged. ‘Late twenties, I think. But he acts like he’s pushing forty.’

Melanie smiled. ‘In that case, if you want to attract his attention, perhaps you should adopt a more mature fashion sense and attitude.’

‘I’d rather be dead than dress and act like some snobbish society bitch,’ she pouted. ‘They all look the same, as if they’ve been poured out of a mould. If Mr Kyle Armstrong doesn’t like the way I am then he can drop dead. I won’t play ice princess for any man.’

‘Then you’d better resign yourself to losing out this time.’

‘We’ll see,’ Jade bit out, and went to leave. ‘Oh, by the way,’ she added, stopping to look back over her shoulder. ‘He likes coffee. Black, no sugar. Same as me.’

With that, she stalked from the kitchen, determined strides carrying her across the family-room to the front foyer, up the stairs two at a time and along the picture-lined gallery down to Ava’s studio. Bursting in without knocking, she threw a greeting at her startled aunt before plonking herself down on the much used divan. With a disgruntled sigh, she rearranged the many pillows and lay down, stretching out her long legs.

‘I’ve had it with Pops, Auntie,’ she grumbled. ‘Really had it!’

‘Tell me something new, Jade, dear.’ Ava put down her paintbrush and wandered over to stare down at her niece. She took one look at the dark smudges under the girl’s eyes and felt a surge of sympathy. She’d always liked Jade, felt the girl had got a raw deal in life with Irene as a mother and Byron as a father. Things hadn’t improved much with Byron bringing Nathan home, either. Having someone like Nathan as an adopted brother was no help at all. Ava had been relieved when Jade finally left home. Nothing like having to do for oneself to make one grow up, and grow.

Ava silently wished she had the courage to buck her big brother’s controlling hand and do the same. But it was too late for her. Far too late...

‘At least you don’t have to stay, if your father annoys you, dear. Why are you here, by the way? Melanie told me at breakfast that you’d come home during the night.’

Ava was shocked by the haunted, almost horrified look that zoomed into her niece’s dark blue eyes. But the fear vanished almost before Ava could be sure that was what she’d seen, replaced by one of Jade’s nonchalant c’est la vie expressions. Ava had always admired the girl’s courage and spirit, but it worried her that she buried far too many problems behind that good-time-girl persona. Clearly, something had happened last night to send Jade running for home like a frightened child. But she knew Jade too well to hope she’d confide in her stuffy old aunt.

‘Oh, just thought I’d drop in and see how the old family was doing,’ Jade said, waving an airy hand. ‘I didn’t know Pops was home, of course. Or that Nathan had escaped to Avoca with his daughter and his girlfriend.’

Ava frowned. ‘Girlfriend? Oh, you mean Gemma. She’s not Nathan’s girlfriend, Jade, she’s—’

‘Kirsty’s minder,’ Jade broke in drily. ‘Yes, I gather that’s the occupation she goes under. But you and I both know, Auntie, that she’ll be providing some extra services before long.’

‘I think that is Nathan and Gemma’s business, don’t you?’ Ava rebuked gently. ‘After all, Nathan’s divorced and Gemma’s single.’

‘Single! She’s barely out of nappies.’

‘She’s nearly twenty, Jade, only two years your junior. You didn’t seem to think Nathan was too old for you a while back.’

‘Auntie!’ Jade mocked. ‘Have you been spying on me?’

‘One hardly needs to spy on you, Jade, dear. You flaunt your feelings for all to see. You flaunt your other attributes as well,’ she added, casting an acerbic eye over the girl’s eyecatching and obviously braless figure.

For once, her niece seemed bothered by criticism over her appearance. Normally, she responded by being even more outrageous.

Jade sat up, glancing down at her body with a frown on her face. ‘Melanie was saying much of the same a minute ago,’ she muttered unhappily. ‘But honestly, Auntie, I don’t like stuffy clothes. And I don’t like stuffy people, especially stuffy men!’

Ava laughed. ‘What man’s been putting your nose out of joint?’

‘Some nerd Pops is holed up with in his study. Do you know him? He goes by the name of Mr Kyle Armstrong.’

‘Ah...the whizkid from Tasmania.’

‘And?’

Ava walked back over to sit down at her easel. She picked up her paintbrush and started dabbing before she satisfied Jade’s curiosity. ‘Can’t tell you much. He’s a marketing expert your father is thinking of hiring to jazz up Whitmore Opals.’

‘Jazz up? That man couldn’t jazz up anything. If Pops wants someone to jazz up Whitmore Opals why doesn’t he hire someone with a bit of flair, someone modern and really young? Someone like me! I’m specialising in marketing at uni this year. I’ll have my degree in November. God, I don’t believe this. I’m so mad I could spit.’ She jumped to her feet and started pacing the room.

‘One is hardly likely to hire an undergraduate for head of marketing, Jade,’ her aunt advised logically.

But Jade didn’t feel logical. Fury and resentment were firing her blood. Not only did she have Nathan coveting control of the entire Whitmore fortune—the family had fingers in many pies besides opals—now she had her father overlooking his own daughter to hire some pompous upstart into the very job she’d been going to invent herself after she’d gained her marketing degree. Up till this point, Whitmore Opals didn’t even have a marketing section, let alone a head of it. Byron had been only too happy to be head of everything: managing, selling, marketing, buying, advertising.

Jade’s temper was reaching boiling point when she suddenly realised this could be turned to her advantage. Why, if she played her cards right, she might be able to get the super-cool and undoubtedly ambitious Mr Armstrong on her side. By reminding him on the sly that she was the boss’s daughter and a marketing undergraduate, she might be able to con him into letting her work part-time in the office, so gaining some valuable training. Maybe once she showed her father she could be as clever and competent as any man, he would relinquish that stupid old-fashioned idea that a woman had no place in business.

Of course, to achieve such an end, she would have to present a slightly more conservative image, as Melanie had suggested. Any thought of wearing that ridiculously provocative corselette would have to be abandoned. She might even have to wear a normal bra.

‘Auntie,’ she said slowly, ‘you wouldn’t mind if I looked through your wardrobe, would you? I might borrow something for dinner tonight. Mr Armstrong is dining with us.’

‘I think you’ll find it a bit depleted, dear. I gave everything that didn’t fit me to Gemma.’

Jade couldn’t believe it. What kind of girl was this Gemma person that everyone was so taken with her? No doubt her own father thought she was just the ants’ pants, not like his own cheap, vulgar tramp of a daughter. God, she hoped Nathan hurried up and corrupted that girl. And she hoped everyone found out about it, including her father.