Beaumont Brides Collection (104 page)

‘On what authority do you base that opinion?’

He finally looked up, saw the spark of anger that darkened her eyes. ‘Have I offended you?’ he asked.

‘You seem surprised. Did you think it would be impossible to offend a girl who is forced to earn her living by cleaning up after you, Jack?’ Her voice had a clear, carrying quality and several heads turned in their direction.

Jack Wolfe sat back in his chair and gave her his full attention. ‘In answer to both your questions, I base my opinion on the way someone behaves, not what they do for a living. Now, is there anything else you’d like to broadcast to the rest of the dining room while you’re in the mood?’ he enquired, his own voice matching her own. A couple at a nearby table immediately found the contents of their plates intensely interesting. He waited. ‘No? Then if I apologise for being less than a gentleman, perhaps we can both forget that you have just behaved like less than a lady.’ Mel, utterly confused at having the ground swept from beneath her, blushed deeply. Apparently satisfied by this indication of her contrition, he continued. ‘Now, what would you like to eat?’

CHAPTER NINE

DESPITE her earlier declaration that she was starving Melanie had quite lost her appetite. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, glancing at the menu. ‘I’m not as hungry as I thought.’

‘Grilled fish and a salad, perhaps?’ he suggested, in the resigned manner of a man used to ordering for a weight conscious model and then watching her pick at her food.

Well, she wasn’t a model. She wasn’t in the least bit like Caroline in any way, shape or form, Mel thought crossly as she considered the menu more carefully, looking out for dishes that Caroline wouldn’t have touched with a barge pole. ‘The local seafood in puff pastry sounds good.’ Absolutely laden with calories. ‘Or the chicken breast in rum cream sauce. Or dorado cooked in a breadcrumb and banana crust.’

‘Do you know what dorado is?’ he enquired, gravely, almost as if he knew what she was doing.

‘No,’ she admitted.

‘It’s a kind of fish.’

‘Is it? Oh, well. Perhaps not with banana.’ Her smile was as wide as it was insincere. He appeared not to notice. ‘I’ll have the seafood in pastry.’

‘Nothing to start?’ She shook her head. Jack conveyed their choices to the waiter then, when he had gone, he lifted his glass. ‘So, what shall we drink to?’

Mel shrugged. ‘Your nasty little business deal, perhaps? Caroline’s rising star? You decide,’ she said, carelessly.

With one hand he reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. With the other he picked up his glass and raised it to her. To anyone watching it would have appeared their closeness was total. His eyes, as he challenged her, belied it.

‘I thought you were going to behave yourself,’ he said, quietly. For a moment she remained motionless in her chair, transfixed by the unexpected charge of his touch as he continued to hold her hand, waiting for her to respond. Very slowly she picked up her glass and for a moment it was a toss up whether she threw the wine at him or drank it. He apparently read the thought in her face even before she herself was aware of it. ‘I wouldn’t advise it, Mel,’ he warned, softly.

She leaned towards him, to any onlooker, absolutely captivated by the good looking man opposite her. ‘Why? What would you do to me?’ she asked, her voice equally low, sorely tempted despite his warning, or perhaps because of it, to put him to the test.

He smiled, very slowly. ‘You could risk it and find out. But I understood that you had serious objections to being part of the cabaret.’ His fingers tightened on hers and he touched his glass against her own. ‘May I offer instead a toast to life, love and the wit to enjoy both?’

‘To life and to love,’ she repeated. Then, ‘I’ll leave it for you to decide which you’d rather have this week.’

‘Not both?’

‘Not both,’ she confirmed, with a firmness that belied the tremor that emanated from the region of her abdomen.

‘It does seem a pity to waste that bed.’

The tremor intensified. ‘And I thought you were going to behave yourself. Caroline had a choice, Jack. As your cleaner you didn’t consider it necessary to give me the same privilege.’

He had inadvertently invited Mata Hari along as his personal guest and she was objecting? Well, under the circumstances he supposed she would have to put up some kind of token resistance. It wouldn’t do to be too obvious. Besides, Mike was right, it might be more fun to let her do the seducing.

‘Frankly, I thought it would be easier for you that way,’ he said, seriously.

‘Easier?’

‘I’m not a complete idiot, Mel.’ No? Then where were those gales of hollow laughter coming from? ‘I understood why you felt obliged to reject my proposition. But it’s just a job.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘You don’t feel threatened when you’re in my home, do you?’

‘You’re not usually in it,’ she pointed out. ‘Just look what happened when you were.’ She had meant the scene with Caroline, but as their eyes met she was certain that he too was remembering what had so nearly happened the day she had woken him. ‘I’m afraid that when we get back to England you’ll have to find someone else to do your dusting,’ she said, briskly and detaching her hand from his grasp, removed it from his reach.

‘Because of this?’ he asked, his face, his voice quite unreadable.

She had no idea whether he was shaken by this announcement, or relieved. Not a man to play poker with. Not a man to play any game with. A wolf in the clothing of sophisticated, urban man. But a wolf nevertheless.

‘You think I would allow myself to be put into the same position again?’

He could scarcely believe the gall of the woman. ‘You’re being given a holiday in the lap of luxury,’ he pointed out. ‘What’s to complain about?’ Melanie remained silent. If he was that insensitive there wasn’t any point in trying to explain it to him. ‘You’re really that angry with me?’

‘Congratulations, Jack. You’ve finally got there.’

‘Perhaps I was a little high-handed,’ he admitted, suddenly not quite so sure of himself. If she was acting, she was good. Very good.

‘Perhaps you were.’ She waited, but that was apparently the extent of his apology. Her shrug was more mental than physical. ‘The next time you need female companionship I suggest you call one of any number of young women of your acquaintance who, despite your insistence to the contrary, would undoubtedly have leapt at the opportunity to come along on this trip with you.’

‘If by that you meant to be flattering, Mel, let me tell you failed.’ He emptied his glass. It was immediately replenished by a discrete waiter. ‘Besides, that would be inviting romantic complications.’

And according to Richard he avoided romantic entanglements like the plague.

‘Which is why Caroline let you get away with bringing me. She doesn’t consider me a threat.’

His gaze swept over her sleek hair, delicate make-up and beautiful clothes in one, all-encompassing glance.

‘If she could see you now I don’t think she’d be quite so confident.’ He didn’t wait for a response to his left-handed compliment. Instead he offered her a smile of such unexpected sincerity that she almost gasped. ‘If I assure you that I won’t coerce you into anything else will you forgive me?’ he asked.

It was as if he was two different people, Mel thought. One was a tough business-man who didn’t care who he stepped on when he had a goal in sight. But when he smiled, really smiled, he was quite different.

That haunting mental image of him in a pair of jeans worn soft with use, his torso slicked with sweat as he bent over a sawhorse flickered disturbingly into her mind. He was still tough, but it was an appealing toughness, all in his body, the ropey sinews of his forearms, the paired muscles as they tightened down his back.

It was odd how she could see him so clearly, almost taste the salt of his skin.

‘I’ll consider it,’ she conceded, quickly, looking down at her glass, avoiding his eyes. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll still have to find someone else to do your dusting.’

‘And if I won’t have anyone else?’

The image faded. Did the wretched man really think he could always have what he wanted, just for the taking? She looked up. His expression hadn’t changed. He was still smiling, but suddenly she could see right through it.

This was a man who took what he wanted without thinking twice about the consequences for anyone else. It would give her the most intense pleasure, just this once, to disappoint him.

‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to do it yourself, Jack. I put my resignation in the post before I left for the airport.’

Jack Wolfe leaned slowly back in his chair. He was still smiling with his mouth but his eyes were hooded, so that she could no longer tell what he was thinking.

‘You’ve resigned?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you are no longer working for me?’

There was something about the way he said that that sent a tiny shiver of apprehension whiffling down her spine. And then she remembered. He didn’t play house with people who worked for him. But he’d said that to the worker bee.

Would he have taken the same line if he’d known that beneath those horrible clothes, the wig, the unflattering make-up, she was someone else entirely? And she’d just given him the perfect get out. But it wasn’t too late to retrieve the situation.

‘Why would you think that? I gave Mrs Graham a week’s notice.’ That should cover it. ‘One has to be considerate.’

‘To Mrs Graham? I thought you were planning to undermine her business?’

‘I am. But there’s no reason to give her advance warning.’

‘A week?’ She nodded. ‘Well that should do it,’ he agreed, smiling to himself.

Melanie was reminding him that she expected him to stick to his own rules, but she wasn’t thinking things through. It should have been obvious to her that once she had given notice the reason for them no longer existed. But it was academic, anyway.

He’d decided the moment he’d set eyes on her in the airport that there was no way he was going to spend the whole week on a sofa. Not when he had Mata Hari along for company, no matter how amateur.

And when, on the launch, he had taken her into his arms and kissed her he’d known he wouldn’t have to.

He wasn’t fooled for a moment by her outraged modesty. He didn’t believe for a moment it was genuine. And if it was?

Well, It was the classic symptom of a girl who wanted to throw caution to the winds, but whose instincts were telling her she was a fool. Her instincts were good of course, but in the end they would be no match for a warm sun, a little wine, and the enforced intimacy of the situation. He’d make sure of that.

‘A week is going to have to do it, Jack, because it’s all you’ve got. But I haven’t forgotten that you’re doing me a favour too, so for the next seven days I’m prepared to appear to be...’ He raised a pair of questioning brows at her hesitation. ‘...appear to be,’ she repeated, carefully, ‘everything you want.’

Nicely put. ‘I’m very grateful.’

‘How grateful? Have you had a chance to look at my business plan?’

‘Briefly. And you were right, it’s well done.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Very well done. In fact, it’s so well done that I’m beginning to wonder just who you are Melanie Devlin. You come into my apartment, clean up after me, wash my clothes, do my shopping when I ask you. You probably know more about me than anyone since my mother.’

‘Surely not more than Caroline Hickey?’

‘I can assure you that Caroline has never felt the urge to wash my socks.’

‘Really?’ She did a very good feigned surprise. ‘What urges does the delectable -’

‘And until today you chose to masquerade behind an unattractive brown wig as a rather plain girl no one would bother to look at twice,’ he continued, firmly, cutting her off before she could say something totally outrageous.

It was odd, Melanie thought. Being outrageous had never been her thing. That was Claudia’s forte. Fizz was the smart one of the family, the girl who’d started her own radio station, married a millionaire and made motherhood look like a piece of cake. While she... Well she had somehow slipped into the role of the baby of the family. Indulged, humoured, and just a little bit spoiled.

Suddenly outrageous seemed very tempting.

Before she could try it, Jack added, ‘I have to ask myself, why?’

Melanie wasn’t fooled for a moment by the lightness of his remark. He hadn’t been convinced by her excuse and now he was digging a little.

‘Camouflage?’ she offered. That was the reason he had given for bringing her along on this jaunt. ‘It’s a jungle out there.’ She lifted her shoulders in a gesture fare too elegant to be described as a shrug. ‘But then I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, Jack. I am?’

Jack Wolfe felt a warning nudge somewhere beneath his belt. He had a gut instinct for trouble and suddenly, now, when it was too late to do anything about it, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he had stepped out of Caroline’s frying pan right into the fire.

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know...”

What the hell did he know about the girl? The only concern on his mind when he had forced her hand had been that she might not quite look the part, might not be convincing enough.