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‘Impossible,’ Jazz told him. ‘It would take more than a fancy dress and not swearing.’
‘It would but, given that we have several weeks at our disposal in which to prepare, I think you could easily do it,’ Vitale declared, shocking her even more with that vote of apparent confidence. ‘And whether you successfully contrive the pretence or fail it, I will still pay you well for trying to make the grade.’
‘But why me?’ Jazz spluttered in a rush. ‘Why someone like me? Surely you have a friend who could pretend to be something more for the evening?’
‘Why you? Because someone bet me that I couldn’t pass off an ordinary woman as a socialite at a royal ball,’ Vitale delivered, opting for the truth. ‘You fit the bill and I prefer to pay for the pretence rather than ask anyone to do me a favour. In addition, as it will be in your best interests to succeed, you will make more effort to meet the standard required.’
Jazz was transfixed by his admission. ‘A bet,’ she echoed weakly. ‘To go to all that effort and put out money simply to win a bet...it would be absurd.’
Vitale shrugged a wide shoulder, sheathed in the finest silk and wool blend, the jacket of his exquisitely well-tailored suit sliding open to reveal his torso, lean, strong muscles flexing below the thin cotton shirt. Her mouth ran dry because he was a work of art on a physical level, every silken, honed line of his lean, powerful physique hard and muscular and fit. ‘Does the absurdity of it have to concern you?’
‘I guess not...’ she said uncertainly, knowing that what was what he wanted her to say, playing it sensibly by ear and reluctant to argue while momentarily lost in the dark, exciting challenge of his hard, assessing gaze.
She had almost forgotten what that excitement felt like, had never felt it since in a man’s radius and had been much too young and naïve to feel its mortifying bite at the age of fourteen. She had experienced what felt like all the sensations of a grown woman while still trapped in the body of an undeveloped child. Unsurprisingly, struggling to deal with that adolescent flood of sexual awakening had made her so silent, so awkward and so wretched around Vitale that she had been filled with self-loathing and shame.
Now that same excitement was curling up hot in the pit of her stomach and spreading dangerous tendrils of awareness to more sensitive places. She felt her nipples pinch tight below her tee shirt and her small breasts swell with the shaken breath she snatched in as she willed the torture to stop. But her body’s reaction to Vitale had never been something she could control and the inexorable pulse of that heat between her thighs made her feel murderously uncomfortable and foolish.
A bet, she was still thinking with even greater incredulity, desperate to stop thinking about her physical reaction to him. Vitale was willing to invest good money in an attempt to win a bet. That was beyond her capacity to imagine and she thought it was very wrong. In her experience money was precious and should be reserved to cover the necessities of life: rent, heat and food. She had never lived in a world where money was easily obtained or where there was ever enough of it. Even when her parents had still been together, having sufficient money simply to live had been a constant source of concern, thanks to her father’s addiction to online betting.
But Vitale lived at a very different level, she reminded herself ruefully. He took money for granted, had never gone without and could probably never understand how bone-deep appalled she was by his light-hearted attitude and how even more hostile she was to any form of gambling.
‘I don’t approve of gambling,’ she admitted tightly, thinking of the families destroyed by the debts accrued and the addicts who could not break free of their dream of a big win.
‘It’s not—’
‘It is gambling,’ Jazz cut in with assurance. ‘You’re betting on the outcome of something that can’t be predicted and you may make a loss.’
‘That’s my problem, not yours,’ Vitale delivered without hesitation. ‘You need to think about how this arrangement would benefit you. I would settle those loans and find a place of your choosing for you and your mother to live. I don’t know what I could offer on the employment front but I’m sure I could provide some help. The decision is yours. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to think it over.’
Her green eyes flared in anger again. ‘You haven’t even told me what would be involved if I accepted!’
‘Obviously you’d have to have a makeover and a certain amount of coaching before you could meet the demands of the role,’ Vitale imparted, marvelling that she hadn’t eagerly snatched at his offer straight away. ‘Right now you’re drowning in debt and you have no options. I can give you options.’
It was the bald truth and she hated him for spelling it out. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, she chanted inside her head. Being badly in debt meant that she and her mother had virtually no choices and little chance of improving their lot in life. She swallowed hard on that humiliating reality that put Vitale squarely in the driver’s seat. A makeover, coaching? Inwardly she cringed but it was no surprise to her that she would not do as she was. She would never be good enough for Vitale on any level. She didn’t have the right breeding or background and found it hard to credit that even a makeover would raise her to the standard required by a highly sophisticated royal prince, who couldn’t even drink beer out of a bottle without looking uncomfortable.
‘Yes, if I can trust you, you could give us options,’ she conceded flatly. ‘But how do I know that you will keep your promises if this doesn’t work?’
Vitale stiffened as though she had slapped him. ‘I give you my word,’ he bit out witheringly. ‘Surely that should be sufficient?’
‘There are very few people in this world that I trust,’ Jazz admitted apologetically.
‘I will have a legal agreement drawn up, then,’ Vitale breathed with icy cool. ‘Will that satisfy you?’
Jazz lifted her head high, barely able to credit that she was bargaining with Vitale. ‘We don’t need a legal agreement for something this crazy. You get rid of the loans first as a show of faith,’ she dared. ‘I’m fed up trying to protect my mother from debt collectors.’
‘I don’t understand why you’re even trying to repay loans that were fraudulently taken out in your mother’s name.’
‘It’s incredibly difficult to prove that it was fraud. Jeff died in an accident last year and he wasn’t prosecuted. A solicitor tried to sort it out for Mum but we didn’t have enough proof to clear her name and she won’t declare herself bankrupt because she sees that as the ultimate humiliation,’ she explained, wanting him to know that they had explored every possible avenue. ‘She was ill and going through chemo at the time and I didn’t want to put any more pressure on her.’
‘You give me all the paperwork for the loans and I will have them dealt with,’ Vitale asserted. ‘But if I do so, I will own you body and soul until the end of next month.’
‘Nobody will ever own me body and soul.’
‘Apart from me for the next couple of months,’ Vitale contradicted with lethal cool. ‘If I pay upfront, I call the shots and you do as you’re told, whether you like it or not.’
Jazz blinked in bewilderment, wondering how she had got herself into the situation she was in. He thought he had her agreement and why wouldn’t he when she had bargained the terms with him? Even the prospect of those dreadful loans being settled knocked her for six. A visit or a phone call from a debt collector upset her mother for days afterwards, depriving her of the peace of mind she needed to rebuild her life and her health. How could Jazz possibly turn her back on an offer like Vitale’s? Nobody else was going to give them the opportunity to make a fresh start.
‘You haven’t given me a chance to think this through,’ she argued shakily.
‘You were keen enough to set out your conditions,’ Vitale reminded her drily.
And her face flamed because she was in no position to protest that assumption. The offer of money had cut right through her fine principles and her aversion to gambling. The very idea that she could sort out her mother’s problems and give her a happier and more secure future had thoroughly seduced her.
‘You’ll move in here as soon as possible,’ Vitale decreed.
Her head flew up, corkscrew curls tumbling across her shoulders, green eyes huge. ‘Move in here? With you?’
‘How else can we achieve this? You must be readily available. How else can I supervise? And if I take you to the ball it will be assumed we are lovers, and should anyone do a check, it will be clear that you were already living here in my house,’ Vitale pointed out. ‘If we are to succeed, you have to consider little supporting details of that nature.’
Jazz studied him, aghast. ‘I can’t move in with you!’ she gasped. ‘What am I supposed to tell my mother?’
Vitale shrugged with magnificent lack of interest. ‘Whatever suits. That I’ve given you a job? That we’re having an affair? I don’t care.’
Her feathery lashes fluttered rapidly, her animated face troubled as she pondered that problem. ‘Yes, I could admit I sent the letter to your father and say I’ve been offered a live-in job and my aunt would look after Mum, so I wouldn’t need to worry about her,’ she reasoned out loud. ‘Would I still be able to work? I have two part-time jobs.’
‘No. You won’t have the time. I’ll pay you a salary for the duration of your stay here,’ Vitale added, reading her expression to register the dismay etched there at the news that she would not be able to continue in paid employment.
‘This is beginning to sound like a very expensive undertaking for you,’ Jazz remarked uncomfortably, her face more flushed than ever.
‘My choice,’ Vitale parried dismissively while he wondered how far that flush extended beneath her clothing and whether that scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose was repeated anywhere else on her delicate body. He wondered dimly why such an imperfection should seem even marginally appealing and why he should suddenly be picturing her naked with all the eagerness of a sex-starved teenage boy. He tensed, thoroughly unsettled by his complete loss of concentration and detachment.
‘I’ll say you’ve offered me a job,’ Jazz said abruptly, her thoughts leaping ahead of her. ‘Are there many art works in this house?’
Vitale frowned and stared enquiringly at her. ‘Yes, but—’
‘Then I could say that I was cataloguing them or researching them for you,’ Jazz announced with satisfaction. ‘I was only six months off completing a BA in History of Art when Mum’s life fell apart and I had to drop out. I may not have attained my degree but I have done placements in museums and galleries, so I do have good working experience.’
‘If what you’re telling me is true, why are you working in a shop and as a cleaner?’
‘Because without that degree certificate, I can’t work in my field. I’ll finish my studies once life has settled down again,’ she said with wry acceptance.
Vitale struggled to imagine the added stress of studying at degree level in spite of her dyslexia and all its attendant difficulties and a grudging respect flared in him because she had fought her disability and refused to allow it to hold her back. ‘Why did you drop out?’
‘Mum’s second husband, Jeff, died suddenly and she was inconsolable.’ Jazz grimaced. ‘That was long before the debt collectors began calling and we found out about the loans Jeff had taken out and forged her name on. I took time out from university but things went downhill very quickly from that point and I couldn’t leave Mum alone. We were officially homeless and living in a boarding house when she was diagnosed with cancer and that was when my aunt asked us to move in with her. It’s been a rough couple of years.’
Vitale made no comment, backing away from the personal aspects of the information she was giving him, deeming them not his business, not his concern. He needed to concentrate on the end game alone and that was preparing her for the night of the ball.
‘How soon can you move in?’ he prompted impatiently.
Jazz stiffened at that blunt question. ‘This week sometime?’ she suggested.
‘I’ll send a car to collect you tomorrow at nine and pack for a long stay. We don’t have time to waste,’ Vitale pronounced as she slid out of the seat and straightened, the pert swell of her small breasts prominent in a tee shirt that was a little too tight, the skirt clinging to her slim thighs and the curve of her bottom, the fabric shiny with age. Her ankles looked ridiculously narrow and delicate above those clodhopper sandals with their towering heels. The pulse at his groin that nagged at his usually well-disciplined body went crazy.
‘Tomorrow’s a little soon, surely?’ Jazz queried in dismay.
Vitale compressed his lips, exasperated by his physical reaction to her. ‘We have a great deal to accomplish.’
‘Am I really that unpresentable?’ Jazz heard herself ask sharply.
‘Cinderella shall go to the ball,’ Vitale retorted with diplomatic conviction, ducking an answer that was obvious to him even if it was not to her. ‘When I put my mind to anything, I make it work.’
In something of a daze, Jazz refused the offer of a car to take her home and muttered the fiction that she had some shopping to do. In truth she only ever shopped at the supermarket, not having the money to spare for treats. But she knew she needed time to get her head clear and work out what she was going to say before she went home again, and that was how she ended up sitting in a park in the spring sunshine, feeling much as though she had had a run-in with a truck that had squashed her flat.
‘She’s as flat as an ironing board, not to mention the hideous rag-doll hair but, worst of all, she’s a child, Angel...’
Vitale’s well-bred voice filtered down through the years to sound afresh inside her head. Angel spoke Greek and Vitale spoke Italian, so the brothers had always communicated in English. Angel had been teasing Vitale about her crush and of course Jazz had been so innocent at fourteen that it had not even occurred to her that the boys had noticed her infatuation, and that unwelcome discovery as much as Vitale’s withering description of her lack of attractiveness had savaged Jazz. She had known she wasn’t much to look at, but knowing and having it said out loud by the object of her misplaced affections had cut her deep. Furthermore, being deemed to be still a child, even though in hindsight she now agreed with that conviction, had hurt even more at the time and she had hated him for it. She still remembered the dreadful moment when the boys had appeared out of the summerhouse and had seen her standing there, white as a sheet on the path, realising that they had been overheard.
Angel had grimaced but Vitale had looked genuinely appalled. At eighteen, Vitale hadn’t had the ability to hide his feelings that he did as an adult, and at that moment Vitale had recognised how upset she was and had deeply regretted his words, his troubled dark golden eyes telegraphing that truth. Not that he would have admitted it or said anything, though, or even apologised, she conceded wryly, because royalty did not admit fault or indeed do anything that lowered the dignified cool front of polished perfection.
“Cinderella shall go to the ball,” he had said as if he were conferring some enormous honour on her. As if she cared about his stupid fancy ball, or his even more stupid bet! But she did care about her mother, she reminded herself ruefully, and if Vitale was willing to help her family, she was willing to eat dirt, strain every sinew to please and play Cinderella...even if the process did sting her pride and humiliate her and there would be no glass slipper waiting for her!
CHAPTER THREE
‘I’M ONLY WORRIED because you had such a thing for him when you were young.’ Peggy Starling rested anxious green eyes on her daughter’s pink cheeks. ‘Living in the same house with him now, working for him.’
‘He’s a prince, Mum,’ Jazz pointed out, wishing her colour didn’t change so revealingly, wishing she could honestly swear that she now found Vitale totally unattractive. ‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘But you were never really aware of him being a royal at Chimneys because Mr Russell wanted him treated like any other boy while he was staying there and his title was never used,’ her mother reasoned uncomfortably. ‘I just don’t want you getting hurt again.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Peggy, stop fussing!’ Clodagh interrupted impatiently, a small woman in her late thirties with the trademark family red hair cut short. ‘Jazz is a grown woman now and she’s been offered a decent job and a nice place to live for a couple of months. Don’t spoil it for her!’
Jazz gave her aunt a grateful glance. ‘The extra money will come in useful and I’ll visit regularly,’ she promised.
Her possessions in a bag, Jazz hugged her mother and her aunt and took her leave, walking downstairs, because the lift was always broken, and out to the shabby street where a completely out-of-place long black shiny limousine awaited her. Amusement filtered through her nerves when she saw that the muscular driver was out patrolling round the car, keen to protect his pride and joy from a hovering cluster of jeering kids.
Vitale strode out of his office when he heard the slam of the front door of the town house because somewhere in the back of his mind he couldn’t quite credit that he was doing what he was doing and that Jazz would actually turn up. More fool him, he thought sardonically, reckoning that the financial help he was offering would be more than sufficient as a bait on the hook of her commitment.
He scanned her slim silhouette in jeans and a sweater, wondering if he ought to be planning to take before and after photos for some silly scrapbook while acknowledging that her hair, her skin, her eyes, her truly perfect little face required no improvement whatsoever. His attention fell in surprise to the bulging carrier bag she carried.
‘I told you to pack for a long stay,’ he reminded her with a frown. ‘I meant bring everything you require to be comfortable.’
Jazz shrugged. ‘This is everything I own,’ she said tightly.
‘It can’t be,’ Vitale pronounced in disbelief, accustomed to women who travelled with suitcases that ran into double figures.
‘Being homeless strips you of your possessions pretty efficiently,’ Jazz told him drily. ‘I only kept one snow globe, my first one...’
And a faint shard of memory pierced Vitale’s brain. He recalled her dragging him and Angel into her bedroom to show off her snow globe collection when they must all have been very young. She had had three of those ugly plastic domes and the first one had had an evil little Santa Claus figure inside it. He and Angel had surveyed the girlie display, unimpressed. ‘They’re beautiful,’ Vitale had finally squeezed out, trying to be kind under the onslaught of her expectant green eyes, and knowing that a lie was necessary because she was tiny, and he still remembered the huge smile she had given him, which had assured him that he had said the right thing.
‘The Santa one?’ he queried.
Disconcerted, Jazz stared back at him in astonishment. ‘You remember that?’
‘It stayed with me. I’ve never seen a snow globe since,’ Vitale told her truthfully, relieved to be off the difficult subject of her having been homeless at one stage, while censuring himself for not having registered the practical consequences of such an upsetting experience.
‘So, when do the lessons start?’ Jazz prompted.
‘Come into my office. The housekeeper will show you to your room later.’
Jazz straightened her slender spine and tried hard not to stare at Vitale, which was an enormous challenge when he looked so striking in an exquisitely tailored dark grey suit that outlined his lean, powerful physique to perfection, a white shirt and dark silk tie crisp at his brown throat. So, he’s gorgeous, get over it, she railed inwardly at herself until the full onslaught of spectacular dark golden eyes heavily fringed by black lashes drove even that sensible thought from her mind.
‘First you get measured up for a new wardrobe. Next you get elocution.’
‘Elocution?’ Jazz gasped.
For all the world as though he had suggested keelhauling her under Angel’s yacht, Vitale thought helplessly.
‘You can’t do this with a noticeable regional accent,’ Vitale sliced in. ‘Stop reacting to everything I say as though it’s personal.’
‘It is freaking personal when someone says you don’t talk properly!’ Jazz slashed back at him furiously, her colour heightened.
‘And the language,’ Vitale reminded her without skipping a beat, refusing to be sidetracked from his ultimate goal. ‘I’m not insulting you. Stop personalising this arrangement. You are being prepared for an acting role.’
The reminder was a timely one, but it still struck Jazz as very personal when a man looked at her and decided he had to change virtually everything about her. She compressed her lips and said instead, ‘Freaking is not a bad word.’
Vitale released a groan, gold-tipped lashes flying high while he noticed the fullness of her soft pink lips even when she was trying to fold them flat, and his body succumbed to an involuntary stirring he fiercely resented. ‘Are you going to argue about everything?’
Common sense assailed Jazz and she bent down to rummage industriously in her carrier bag. ‘Not if you settle these loans,’ she muttered in as apologetic a tone as she could manage while still hating him for picking out her every flaw.
Vitale watched her settle a small heap of crumpled papers on his desk while striving to halter her temper, a battle he could read on her eloquent face. He supposed he could live with ‘freaking’ if he had to. For that matter he knew several socialites who swore like troopers and he wondered if he was setting his expectations rather too high, well aware that if he had a flaw, and he wasn’t willing to acknowledge that he did, it was a desire for perfection.
‘After elocution comes lessons in etiquette,’ he informed her doggedly, suppressing that rare instant of self-doubt. ‘You have to know how to address the other guests, many of whom will have titles.’
‘It sounds like a really fun-packed morning,’ Jazz pronounced acidly.
Amusement flashed through Vitale but he crushed it at source, reluctant to encourage her irreverence. Of course, he wasn’t used to any woman behaving around him the way Jazz did. Jazz had smoothly shifted straight back into treating him the same way she had treated him when they were teenagers and it was a disorientating experience, but not actively unpleasant, he registered in surprise. There was no awe or flattery, no ego-boosting jokes or flirtatious smiles or carefully choreographed speeches. In the strangest way he found her attitude, her very refusal to be impressed by his status, refreshing.
Later that same day, Jazz got a break at lunchtime. She heaved a sigh over the morning she had endured; lessons had never before made her feel so bored and fed up because all the subject matter was dry as dust. For the first time, however, she was becoming fully aware that Vitale occupied a very different world from her own and the prospect of having to face weeks of such coaching sessions made her wince. But if that was what rescuing her mother demanded from her, she would knuckle down and learn what she had to learn, she conceded reluctantly. A sheaf of supporting notes in front of her, she stroked coloured felt-tipped pens through salient points to highlight them, a practice she had used at university to make reading less of a challenge for her dyslexia. It would be easier for her to ask for spoken notes that she could listen to but she absolutely hated asking for special treatment that drew attention to her learning disability, particularly when it would only remind Vitale of yet another one of her flaws.
Her room, however, was beautiful, she allowed with a rueful smile that took in her silk-clad bed, the polished furniture and the door into the en-suite bathroom. She might as well have been staying in a top-flight exclusive hotel because her surroundings were impossibly luxurious and decidedly in the category of a major treat. The lunch, served in a fancy dining room, had been excellent as well, she was thinking as she sped downstairs for the afternoon session of coaching, wondering what was next on the agenda.