His Christmas Acquisition (8 page)

She had seen Greg, and Greg had seen her, and she had succumbed to the oldest need in the world. The need to make another man jealous.

Had she been reminding Mr Vet of what he had missed? The sour taste of being used rose in Ryan’s throat. It was a sensation he had never experienced. She had wanted to bury the incident between them. As far as he was concerned, he would fetch the shovels and help her.

‘He doesn’t have anyone else to talk to,’ Jamie was saying now. ‘He’s an only child and I don’t think his parents really ever approved of the marriage. At least, not from what Jessica’s told me over the years. So he can’t go to them for advice, and I suppose I’m the obvious choice to confide in because she’s my sister and I know her.’

‘And what pearls of wisdom have you thrown his way?’ Ryan couldn’t help the heavy sarcasm in his voice but Jamie
barely seemed to notice. She was, he thought, too wrapped up in thoughts of her erstwhile lover.

She might complain about her house being invaded but chances were that she was loving every second of it.

‘I’ve told him that he’s just got to persevere.’ She smiled drily. ‘Who else is going to take Jessica off my hands?’

‘Who else indeed?’ Ryan murmured. ‘So there’s no end to this in sight?’

‘Not at the moment. Not unless I change the locks on the front door.’ Making light of the situation was about the only way Jamie felt she could deal with it, but her smile was strained. ‘Things will sort themselves out when Christmas is done and dusted. I mean, Greg will have to return to work. He said that he’s got cover at the moment but I think his animals will start missing him!’

Ryan stood up and began prowling through the office. Usually as easy-going and as liberal minded as the next man, he was outraged at the nagging, persistent notion that he had been manipulated to make another man jealous. He was also infuriatingly niggled at the thought that Jamie might have slept with the vet. Naturally, people were entitled to live their lives the way they saw fit, but nevertheless …

Could he have been that mistaken about her?

‘And what if things don’t sort themselves out over Christmas?’

‘I prefer to be optimistic.’

‘Maybe,’ Ryan said slowly, ‘what they both need is time on their own.’

‘Do you think I haven’t suggested that?’ Jamie asked him sharply. ‘Jessica has dug her heels in. She doesn’t want to return to Scotland and Greg doesn’t want to leave without her.’

‘Wise man.’ Ryan’s voice was shrewd. ‘She’s an unexploded time bomb.’

‘I don’t see how this is helping anything,’ Jamie inserted briskly. ‘Course it’s nice to talk, and thank you very much for listening, but …’

‘Maybe they need time on their own away from Scotland. Being in the home environment might just pollute the situation.’ He had absolutely zero knowledge when it came to psychoanalysis but he was more than happy to make it up as he went along.

A plan of action was coming to him and he liked it. More to the point, it was a plan that would benefit them both. He sat on the edge of his desk and looked at her.

‘Pollute the situation?’

‘You know what I’m getting at.’

‘Where else are they going to go? I can’t think that Greg has enough money to move them into a hotel indefinitely. Besides, that would only make things worse, being cooped up in a room twenty-four-seven. There would be a double homicide. Actually, it wouldn’t get that far. Jessica would refuse to go along with the plan.’

Ryan made an indistinct but sympathetic noise and gave her time to consider the horror of housing a bickering couple for the indefinite future, because the caring vet might just prioritise his marriage over the animals pining for him in his absence.

‘What a hellish prospect for you.’ He egged the mixture as he scooted his chair back to his desk. ‘I’ll bet your sister doesn’t exercise a lot of restraint when it comes to airing her opinions either.’

‘That’s why I was late,’ Jamie glumly confessed. ‘They were arguing into the early hours of the morning and I could hear them from my bedroom so I couldn’t fall asleep. I was so tired this morning that I slept through the alarm.’

‘I’m going to be joining my family in the Caribbean day
after tomorrow. Stunning house in the Bahamas, if I say so myself,’ he murmured and Jamie nodded.

‘Yes. I know—I booked the tickets, remember? Lucky you. I know what I should be covering while you’re away but there are a couple of things you’ll need to look at before you go. I’ll make sure that I bring them in for you by the end of the day. Also, if your visit over runs, shall I get Graham to chair the shareholders’ meeting on the eighth?’

Ryan had no intention of becoming bogged down in pointless detail. He frowned pensively up at the ceiling, his hands linked behind his head, then startled her by sitting forward suddenly and placing his hands squarely on his desk.

‘Just an idea, but I think you should accompany me on my trip.’

For a few seconds Jamie wasn’t sure that she had heard him correctly. Her mind was still half taken up with the technicalities of rearranging his schedule should he remain out of the country for longer than anticipated. There were a number of prickly clients who liked to deal with Ryan and Ryan alone, as the mover and shaker of the company. They would have to be coaxed into a replacement.

‘Jamie!’ Like a magician summoning someone out of a trance, Ryan snapped his fingers and she started and surfaced to slowly consider the suggestion he had posed.

‘Accompany you?’ she repeated in confusion.

‘Why not? From where I’m sitting it sure beats the hell out of having to duck for cover from verbal missiles in your own house.’ He stood up, began pacing through his office. He peered down at the stack of papers he had inadvertently sent flying to the ground earlier, decided to tidy it all up later and stepped over them to make his way to his coffee machine so that he could help himself to another mug of coffee.

‘Also,’ he offered, ‘your sister and the vet might benefit
from not having you around. I know you probably feel obliged to offer free advice, but sometimes the last thing people need in a time of crisis is a do-gooder trying to sort things out on their behalf.’

‘I am not a
do-gooder
trying to sort anything out!’ Jamie denied heatedly and Ryan shrugged.

‘Okay, maybe the vet would be better off fighting his own battles without relying on his trusty ex-assistant to join in the fray.’

Looked at from every angle, that was an insulting observation, but before Jamie could splutter into more heated defence he was continuing in a thoughtful voice,

‘And if they both prefer to hang out their dirty laundry in neutral territory, and a hotel room is out of the equation, then your place is as good as any—without you in it. You’d be doing them a favour and you’d be doing yourself a favour. No more sleepless nights. No more war zones to be avoided. No more playing piggy-in-the-middle. Chances are that by the time you get back they will have resolved their differences and cleared off and your life can return to normal.’

The promise of normality dangled in front of Jamie’s eyes like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. She was in danger of forgetting what it was like.

‘I couldn’t possibly intrude on your family holiday.’ She turned him down politely. ‘But,’ she said slowly, ‘it
might
be a good idea if I weren’t around. Perhaps—and I know this is very last-minute—I could book a few days’ holiday?’

‘Out of the question.’ Ryan swallowed a mouthful of coffee and eyed her over the rim of the mug.

‘But if I can leave here to go to the Caribbean, then surely I could leave to go somewhere else?’ The weather was immaterial. It was the prospect of putting distance between Jessica, Greg and herself that was so tantalising. The Far East sounded just about right, never mind the jet lag.

‘You can come to the Caribbean because I could use you over there. As you know, I’m combining my holiday with the business trip to Florida to give that series of presentations on trying to get our computer technology into greener cars.’

He glanced at the papers lying on the ground and strolled over to roughly gather them up and dump them on his desk. ‘Still, sadly, in a state of semi-preparation.’ He indicated the papers with a sweeping gesture while Jamie looked at him, unconvinced. Ryan rarely gave speeches that were fully prepared. He was clever enough and confident enough to earn a standing ovation by simply thinking on his feet. His grasp of the minutest details to do with the very latest cutting-edge technology was legendary.

‘You could consider it something of a working holiday. I could get up to speed with these presentations before I fly to Florida. And,’ he added for good measure, ‘it’s not as though you haven’t travelled with me on business before …’

Which was a very valid reason for having her there—business. Of course, he was the first to acknowledge that it wasn’t
exactly
the only reason for having her there. He genuinely thought that her presence in the house with her warring, uninvited guests was doing her no good whatsoever and there was also the small question of his curiosity; that was a little less easy to justify. But those recent revealing glimpses of her had roused his interest; why not combine his concern for her welfare with his semi-pressing need to get his presentations done and wrap them both up in a neat solution? Made sense.

He uneasily registered that there was a third reason. His mother and his sisters were relentlessly concerned with his moral welfare. His sisters had an annoying habit of bustling around him, trying to impose their opinions, and his mother
specialised in meaningful chats about people who worked too hard.

Jamie would be a very useful buffer. There would be considerably less chance of being cornered if he made sure that she was floating somewhere in the vicinity whenever the going looked as though it might get dicey. Were he to be on his own, any attempt to excuse himself on the pretext of having to work would be thoroughly disregarded. With Jamie around, however, even his sisters would reluctantly be forced to keep a low profile in the name of simple courtesy.

‘It’s not the same.’

‘Huh? What’s not the same?’

‘You’re going to be with your family,’ Jamie said patiently. ‘Doing family stuff.’ She wasn’t entirely sure what that entailed. Family stuff, for her, had long meant stretches of tension and uncomfortable confrontations simmering just below the surface.

‘Oh, they will already have done the family stuff over their turkey on Christmas day. They’ll be desperate to see a new face and my mother won’t stop thanking you for showing up. When my sisters get together, they revert to childhood. They giggle and swap clothes and waste hours applying make-up on each other while their men take over babysitting duties and countdown to when they can start on the rum cocktails. My mother says that it’s impossible to get a serious word out of them when they’re together. She’ll love you.’

‘Because I’m serious and boring?’

‘Serious? Boring?’ His dark eyes lingered on her and Jamie flushed and looked away. ‘Hardly. In fact, having seen you over—’

‘Who would cover for me in my absence?’ she interrupted hastily just in case he decided to travel down
Memory Lane and dredge up her un-secretary-like behaviour on Christmas day.

Ryan dismissed that concern with a casual wave of his hand before giving her a satisfied smile.

‘I haven’t agreed to anything,’ Jamie informed him. ‘If you really think that you might need me there to help with the presentations …’

‘Absolutely. You would be vital. You know I can’t manage without you.’

‘I don’t want you to think that I’m in need of rescuing.’ Sometimes that dark, velvety voice literally sent a shiver through her, even though she knew that it was in his nature to flirt. ‘I don’t. I might be in an awkward position just at the moment, but it’s nothing that I wouldn’t be able to handle.’

‘I don’t doubt that for a second,’ Ryan dutifully agreed. ‘You’d be doing
me
a favour.’

‘Won’t your family think it a bit strange for you to be dragging a perfect stranger along to their family celebrations?’

‘Nothing fazes my family, believe me. Besides, what’s one more to the tally?’ He lowered his eyes. ‘You have no excuse for refusing unless, of course, you can’t bear to lose your role of personal adviser to the vet.’

‘His name is Greg.’ It was weird but Greg’s effect on her was not what she had expected. She had always imagined that seeing him again would catapult her back to that time when she had been firmly in his power and used to weave innocent fantasies about him. She always thought that she would be reduced to blushing, stammering and possibly making a fool of herself but she hadn’t. His allure had disappeared over the years. Now she just felt sorry for him and the situation in which her sister had placed him.

Watching her, Ryan felt a spurt of irritation that she had ignored the better part of his remark.

‘Well?’ he prodded. ‘Do you think that you’re too invaluable as unpaid counsellor to take a few days away from them? We’ll be there for roughly five days. My sisters and their various other halves and children will leave at the beginning of the New Year. We will stay for a further three days until my conferences are due to begin and you can fly back to London when I fly to Florida. It’s a lot to pass on, for the sake of being the vet’s sounding board. Are you worried that he might not be able to survive this crisis without your input?’

‘Of course I’m not!’

‘Then why the hesitation?’

‘I told you, I don’t want to intrude.’

‘And
I
told
you
you won’t be intruding.’

‘And I don’t,’ she belatedly pointed out, ‘think that I’m invaluable to Greg. Like I said, I’m the only one he feels comfortable discussing all of this with.’ Once upon a time, she might have been flattered, but now she was just impatient. ‘But you’re right—you’re my boss. If I’m needed in a work capacity, then I’m more than happy to oblige. I’m very committed to my job, as you know.’

‘I’m not a slave driver, Jamie. I won’t be standing over you wielding a whip and making sure that I get my money’s worth. Yes, we will do some work, but you’ll have ample time to relax and de-stress. It’ll be worth it to have you back in one piece when we resume work in January.’