Man Trouble

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

“You let me love you, and all the time you belonged to another man!”

“I didn’t ask you here to rake up the past, Mel. You help companies that are in trouble, and, loath as I am to admit it, I need your advice. They say you’re the best.”

“I don’t come cheap, Jade.”

“You never did.”

“But you did, didn’t you? Bargain basement.”

The insult was unbearable. “Your sole purpose for being here is to humiliate me for what you think I did to you four years ago, isn’t it?”

“I came here to lay a few ghosts before I made the big commitment.”

Jade stared at him, her dark eyes wide with pain. “Y-you’re going to…to be married?”

NATALIE FOX was born and brought up in London, England, and has a daughter, two sons and two grandsons. Her husband, lan, is a retired advertising executive, and they now live in a tiny Welsh village. Natalie is passionate about her three cats, two of them strays brought back from Spain where she lived for five years, and equally passionate about gardening and writing romance. Natalie says she took up writing because she absolutely hates going out to work!

Man Trouble!

Natalie Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘MEL BIAGGIO for you, Jade,’ came over the intercom.

Jade Ritchie took a nervous breath. Well, this was it, what she had been waiting for all week. He was here, and the fact that he had agreed to see her at all was something, she supposed. She cleared her throat to respond to her secretary, striving to sound cool and efficient because she knew Mel would be able to hear her voice as he waited by the reception desk and the last thing she wanted him to know was that she was terrified of facing him again.

‘Send him in, Diane, and hold all my calls till he’s gone.’

Jade’s index finger stayed suspended over the buzzer, as if by depressing the button again she could wish all this away. But it was impossible. Her company needed a troubleshooter and, as Nicholas had sagely advised, when you were in trouble you didn’t mess with second best. There were other troubleshooters, of course, but unfortunately none with Mel’s track record of unparalleled success. He had the Midas touch when it came to rescuing companies from the brink of bankruptcy. And Jade’s company needed rescuing and, miserably, the best happened to be Mel Biaggio, the Mel of her painful past.

Jade felt sick inside and bravely stood up ready to face him. She was of medium height but her small bone structure put her in the class of petite. His pocket-sized princess, he’d used to call her, and her bones had always melted when he’d murmured the endearment in her ear. Now, after four years without sight of him, she wondered whether if he spoke those tender words again those same silly bones would melt She shivered at the thought, flicked her jet hair away from her neck and fixed her dark eyes on the back of the door.

The door opened and instinctively Jade clenched her fists with tension, her polished nails digging into her palms, but the pain was nothing compared to what was searing her heart. He hadn’t changed a bit and she was overwhelmingly disappointed. She had prayed that he’d look different so that she could look at him and wonder what she had ever seen in him in the first place. But life wasn’t that obliging.

Folding down the collar of his navy cashmere coat, he approached. He was still as wretchedly good-looking as ever, his hair as black as ever, not even a wisp of silver to soften the dark severity of it. Tiny lines around his dark grey eyes were the only sign that an eternity had passed since they had last met.

She understood why gossip columnists took such interest in him. When she had known him he hadn’t yet hit the tabloid columns but he had since made up for lost ground. Classed as one of the most eligible bachelors in the financial City, he had certainly earned his title. He’d had more on-off relationships than a light-house. With punishing, morbid curiosity Jade had brooded over those reports, hardly able to believe them at times, because surely that wasn’t the Mel she had known and loved? So hadn’t she had a narrow escape, hadn’t time drawn out his true character and wasn’t she the lucky one in escaping?

As he came to a stop in front of her desk, silent, predatory, cold, her emotions swam with a dizzying effect that totally confused her. She wanted to despise him for the injustice he had done her four years ago, for the women in his life since, and even for not having had the decency to age since she had seen him last. But those silly bones were softening already.

‘Mel Biaggio,’ Jade breathed levelly, surprising herself with the evenness of her tone. Her insides were heaving like an oarless boat on the perimeters of a whirlpool but at least her voice hadn’t failed her.

Not a smile of greeting or even recognition softened his dark features and Jade’s heart floundered helplessly. A business associate of Nicholas’s had arranged this meeting for her, someone Mel had helped in the past. Nicholas didn’t know Mel personally and yet he was the one inadvertently responsible for the break-up of their love affair. Jade hadn’t enlightened him when Nicholas had suggested Mel for the job. It was done, over with, and nothing to do with the present. And yet now Mel was looking at her as if she were a stranger and the name Jade Ritchie hadn’t registered with him when this meeting had been set up.

‘Jade Ritchie,’ he said coldly and unemotionally. ‘You trade under your maiden name—an affectation that doesn’t surprise me.’

Her heart faltered. Of course her name had registered, of course he recognised her. She was mad to think for a minute that he wouldn’t remember their past. How awful this was, facing him like this. How bitter and harsh he sounded. He had assumed she’d gone through with the marriage and the thought sickened her and filled her with shame.

He’d never believed how much she had loved him, and how futile her pleas must have sounded that awful night of her party. But how wrong he had been in not giving her a chance to explain. She couldn’t take all the blame. He should have listened, and judging by his attitude now it was obvious he hadn’t relented. He was here, facing her, but had she really imagined they could keep this on a business footing after the pain of their past?

‘What’s in a name, Mel?’ she said lightly, almost dis-missively. What was the point in enlightening him and saying that she was still single? It wouldn’t make any difference to a business arrangement, which was what this meeting was all about, she reminded herself. She forced a thin smile. ‘Business is business. Won’t you sit down?’

‘Is it going to be worth my while?’ The question came out wrapped in a tone of cynicism, with a small, derisive smile to accompany it.

It’s hopeless, Jade thought miserably. There’s too much pain and not enough cool control. And yet she willed it from deep inside her because four years in the ad agency business had taught her that when the going got tough the tough got going. She had swallowed her pride and was standing here now, facing the man she had once thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, because she wasn’t a wimp and she was going to fight to keep her company afloat, whatever the personal cost!

‘That’s for you to decide, not me,’ she returned coolly. She sat down and he followed suit, sweeping aside his coat and lowering himself into the seat across the desk from her. His keeping his coat on seemed ominous to Jade. He didn’t look as if he was going to afford her any decent amount of time to discuss her problem. Was he simply here out of curiosity, to see what a mess she had made of her life without him at her side?

‘Mel…’ she started again, levelling her dark eyes at him, striving for a businesslike tone to cover her obvious awareness of him. He seemed to fill the office, all man, all power, seeming to draw the very air from the room. She swallowed hard. ‘This is all very difficult for me. I would have sold my soul to the devil and my body to the highest bidder if I’d thought by doing so I could avoid calling you in, but—’ she gave a small, hopeless shrug of her narrow shoulders ‘—I need your help.’

She watched his eyes for some kind of softening but almost instantly knew it was hopeless. He was unflinching in his cold scrutiny of her. Wasn’t he aware of the enormous effort of will and swallowing of pride that had gone into her decision to call him in?

He held her gaze, eyes hard and implacable, and then suddenly those eyes blazed across the front of her open jacket, taking in the rise of her breasts against her cream silk shirt under the crisp designer tailoring.

Jade tensed, inwardly shocked that even a blatantly sexual glance like that could upset her so. It brought their past flooding back to her—the depth of passion so easily aroused by a mere glance at each other, the love, the lust, the need for each other.

It was as if he knew what she was aware of: the charge between them. He tutted mockingly. ‘I wouldn’t put much of a price on your soul, darling, but that body of yours, if my memory serves me well, would bring a packet if marketed more sensually than in that austere outfit you are wearing.’

The words shocked Jade so deeply that she was rendered speechless for an embarrassing moment. She felt the heat of humiliation rise up her throat, but fought to control it and succeeded. She’d been wrong to think he hadn’t changed. Maybe he hadn’t physically, but his cruelty had never been so apparent before. But perhaps he had always been like this and she just hadn’t seen it, love being blind. She wouldn’t allow him to get to her now, though, not after this length of time. She didn’t have to take this.

Slowly she got to her feet. This meeting had served one purpose if nothing else—shown her that she’d wasted four years of torn emotions on this man.

‘I’m sorry I troubled you, Mel,’she said quietly. ‘Just one thing before you leave,’ she added pointedly. He would go, of course, because he had never come here with the intention of helping anyway. ‘Why did you come here armed with humiliation and insults when you dished them out so effectively four years ago?’

He took his time getting to his feet, lazily rearranging his cashmere overcoat over his superbly cut navy blue suit before answering her, the languorous movement stage-managed to grate on her nerves, she felt sure. Even his low tone was gauged for effect.

‘When it came to trading humiliation, Jade, you beat me hands down. Whatever I said to you could never match what you put me through that horrendous night.’

He put his palms down on her desk and leaned closer to her, eyes dark and menacing. He was so close she could smell the seductive cologne that came from the heat of his body. A scent so evocative that she had to clench her fists to stop herself swaying into it and losing her cool control.

‘Did you really believe I would come here with an open heart and a willingness to haul your company out of the bankruptcy pit?’ he went on scathingly, his eyes darkening even more savagely. ‘You have some nerve, Jade. Four years ago you indulged in an affair with me while you were committed to another man. You let me love you, we made love, and all the time you belonged to another man. I’ve often wondered just how far you would have gone with the charade if your father hadn’t made that engagement announcement at your twenty-first birthday party…’

‘Mel,’ Jade cried, ‘please don’t!’ Oh, she couldn’t bear it. She bit her lip in anguish, drawing on her reserves of cool. She might have known he would never forget it; she might have known he’d seen his chance for revenge and that was why he was here.

‘Please don’t?’ he echoed harshly. ‘You even talk the way you used to. You used me four years ago, Jade, and the only explanation I could ever come up with was that you were such a rich, spoilt child you wanted to possess everything you set your eyes on, including me.’

Jade’s cool shattered like thin ice. The injustice of his words hurt so deeply that she felt physically winded. He was wrong, so very wrong to believe that of her.

‘It was never like that, Mel,’ she breathed painfully. ‘I might have had an over-privileged childhood because my father was making up for the absence of a mother, but that wasn’t my fault, and he was only doing what he thought best in his usual bulldozing way. I wasn’t spoilt, never that. I didn’t want to possess you in that way, like a trophy. I loved you—’

‘You don’t know the meaning of the word love,’ he snapped back. ‘When you love someone you don’t two-time them—’

‘I didn’t two-time anyone, Mel,’ Jade insisted, though she knew she was wasting her breath. ‘I know how it must have looked but you didn’t even give me the chance—’

‘To explain?’ he exploded. ‘What needed explaining? Your father said it all in his announcement speech. His wonderful daughter was that night betrothed to his greatest friend’s son, Nicholas Fields. My God, Jade, what was going on in that beautiful head of yours that night? You insisted I came to the party to humiliate me and-’

‘Stop it!’ she cried at last, her fingers going to her temples with the anguish of his agonising reminders. She had relived that terrible moment so many times and it never got any better, only worse. Humiliation had been the order of the night. None had escaped from it. Not Mel, Nicholas nor herself.

The only one immune to the whole horrible experience had been her father. Her powerful, manipulative father who ploughed through life not considering anyone’s feelings but his own. His ill-timed engagement announcement had stemmed from his own wish to bond the two families together. She and Nicholas had practically grown up together and, though very close, hadn’t dreamt of marriage…But they might have drifted into it if Mel hadn’t stepped into her life and shown her what real love was all about. Though there had never been any formal commitment to Nicholas it had always been accepted between the two families that they were a couple. But that hadn’t been a consideration when Mel had asked her out. She hadn’t felt as if she belonged to Nicholas.

Mel had been so different—a high-flyer and a very powerful man. He had swept her off her feet. Half-Italian, he was magnetically attractive, in looks and charisma and everything else. In no time at all she had known she was in love with him, and he had loved her too. And then, at her party, it had all gone horribly wrong.

But though she blamed her father she knew deep in her heart that she had made a grave mistake in not mentioning the existence of Nicholas to Mel before that night. But would it have made any difference? Somehow she doubted it because she hadn’t taken into account Mel’s fiery Italian ancestry. Any man, friend or otherwise, in competition with Mel Biaggio wasn’t on.

‘I didn’t ask you here to rake up the past, Mel,’ she told him in a resigned tone. ‘It was all useless then and is equally useless now.’

She took a deep breath and met his dark gaze bravely. Having to plead with him for help was worse than anything she’d had to do in her life before. She did have to take this—his spiteful recriminations for a lost love; she had no choice. These last few weeks had driven all pride from her. She had employees to consider, people who had worked for her father before her, new young talent she’d given a chance to in difficult economic times. She owed them and she owed her father for having had enough confidence in her to hand over control of the company and take off for a new life in the South of France.

‘I want us to forget we have a past, Mel. You help companies that are in trouble,’ she went on, trying not to humble herself too much in case he leapt on it and hurt her more. This was hard enough. ‘And, loath as I am to admit it, I’m in trouble. I need your help and your advice, Mel, on a professional basis. It’s your job. It’s what you do. And…and they say you’re the best.’

‘And you reckon you deserve the best, do you?’

Jade tilted her chin, biting back the pain caused by his sarcasm. ‘My staff and the company deserve the best and that is why I wanted you. It’s obvious flattery isn’t going to get me anywhere with you but that doesn’t alter the fact that you are the best. I want your help in pinpointing where I’ve gone wrong—’

‘You never were very sharp at pinpointing right from wrong,’ he said wearily.

Jade shut her eyes briefly in sufferance and when she focused on him again she knew she had to swallow all his insults and persist.

‘Yes, I’ve made mistakes in my life and my work and I’m not afraid to admit to them. I’ve shelved my pride too, which is something you might be interested in learning from. If I can handle the past I’m sure you can.’ She took a long breath. ‘Mel, I need your expertise. I need your advice. This is a business arrangement, nothing else. I have the problem and you have the solution. Won’t you even consider it?’

Her plea hung in the air with nowhere to go, because Mel looked as if he wasn’t about to give it a home. He looked as if he didn’t care a damn about anything or anyone in the world, especially not her and her predicament. He was still gazing at her with contempt, making her feel inadequate and at fault, and she suffered it all because her back was against the wall.

‘What’s the problem?’ he asked quietly.

Jade controlled the leap of her heart. He still stood stiffly in front of her, not making any move to sit down again and discuss it with her. She wondered if she should buzz for coffee; it might relax him, persuade him to take a seat, and make her feel more at ease. Perhaps it would be too presumptuous. He’d only asked what the problem was; that wasn’t an acceptance that he would help her.

‘I’m hoping you can tell me,’ she told him, handing him a weighty file she had prepared earlier, detailing their current financial status, projects—existing and proposed, staffing—everything that was relevant. ‘It’s been a bad year—not disastrous, but another year like this and it could be. I’m loath to involve my father and I decided to ask your advice and…’ She stopped, realising he probably didn’t know her father had handed the running of the company over to her.

‘Four years ago…just after…just after I turned twenty-one…my father allowed me to take over the agency.’ It had been her lifeline at the time. Just what she had needed to help her get over Mel. ‘You may remember I came here from art school and a year’s business course in America…Anyway, Daddy had had enough of London Life and wanted out. He still owns the company but I run it and make all the decisions. He lives in the South of France now. He has a new love in his life and…’

Jade swallowed hard. Mel was flicking through the file, evidently not in the least bit interested in her private life or that of her father.

She went on, ‘Everything was going fine with the agency till last year when my top graphic artist left…’ He wasn’t listening. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t help. ‘He set up on his own and took with him a lot of the company’s clients…some of the best clients…and the best advertising.’

Mel looked up then, eyes as steely and implacable as ever. ‘You let him?’ he said, aghast that she should have allowed such a thing to happen.

Jade bristled at that. ‘I didn’t know, not till it was too late!’ she protested quickly.

‘You should always tie up your top staff in contracts they can’t get out of. For your own protection,’ he told her sternly.

‘This is a small agency; I like to think of it as a family business…’

He shot her a look of pure derision. ‘With you as the mother hen, I suppose, all clucking—’

‘That’s enough, Mel,’ Jade interrupted. ‘I trust my staff and I’m not ruthless enough to tie them all to contracts,’ she argued, though fully understanding his way of thinking. If she’d had the employee in question under a more restrictive contract she wouldn’t have lost valuable clients and wouldn’t be struggling so hard now as a consequence.

‘Trouble is, these days being ruthless pays, Jade,’ he told her tightly, his eyes darkening even further as he narrowed them at her. ‘Surely your ruthless stockbroker husband has taught you something since you were married?’

Her full lips parted in protest. Mel really believed she had gone through with the marriage to Nicholas—and how did he know he was a stockbroker? Had her father mentioned it in his engagement announcement? Had that business associate of Nicholas’s, who had arranged all this, named his source?

Jade had sworn Nicholas to secrecy, terrified that her staff would find out that all wasn’t well with the company. Whatever, whoever, however, she couldn’t let it go. If this was a one-off meeting she could let him go on thinking she was married, but if he took on this assignment he would find out that she wasn’t and despise her even more for, as he would see it, yet another deception.

‘I…I didn’t marry Nicholas,’ she told him in a half-whisper she barely heard herself. How could she even consider marriage to anyone after the great love they had shared? And how enormously hurtful that he still thought so little of her.

But she hadn’t the courage to add that Nicholas was still very much a part of her life. He couldn’t help but be, since he shared her London flat with her when he was in town, albeit to save money for when he and his fiancee, Trisha, married and bought their own property. No, her arrangement with Nicholas had no bearing on all this, was nothing to do with Mel. She’d told him the truth—that she hadn’t married Nicholas. It was enough.

There was nothing, no reaction whatsoever to her revelation in his gleaming grey eyes. It meant nothing to him and she felt a small sorrow deep in her heart. Hope; she had always lived with it, though she often thought it a silly little hope to hang onto. She even despised herself for the irrationality of it, but deep, deep down inside her she had nurtured the hope that one day he would come back into her life and…and care.

‘Well, it’s a pity you didn’t,’ he said frostily. ‘His business sense might have saved you from this.’ He waved the file in his hand and then transferred his attention to its contents again.

At least he hadn’t insulted Nicholas by presuming he had no business sense. She waited, shifting her weight from one high heel to the other as he flicked through the pages, reading only what interested him. But was anything interesting him? she wondered. His expression didn’t change. Finally he tossed the file down on the desk in front of her.

‘By the look of those financial statements you can’t afford my fees anyway. I don’t come cheap, Jade.’

She hardened her heart and stiffened her back. She shouldn’t have asked him. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be persuaded by Nicholas that this was the best course of action to take. She should have known it would be hopeless, that Mel wouldn’t help her—even if she could afford his wretched fees.

‘You never did come cheap, Mel,’ she said coldly, and astonishingly this brought a small, thin smile to his lips.

‘No, I didn’t,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘But you did, didn’t you? Bargain basement.’