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The sound of car doors slamming, giggling women and high heels tottering on gravel made Jaz’s teeth grind together like tectonic plates. At this rate she was going to be down to her gums. But no way was she going back to town until the weekend was over. Jake could party all he liked. She was not being told what to do. Besides, she knew it would annoy him to have her here. He might have acted all cool and casual about it but she knew him well enough to know he would be spitting chips about it privately.
Jaz put down her sewing and carefully covered it with the satin wrapping sheet she had brought with her. This she had to see. What sort of women had he got to come? He had a thing for busty blondes. Such a cliché but that was Jake. He was shallow. He lived life in the fast lane and didn’t stay in one place long enough to put down roots. He surrounded himself with showgirls and starlets who used him as much as he used them.
It was nauseating.
Jake was standing in the great hall surrounded by ten or so young women—all blonde—who were dressed in skimpy cocktail wear and vertiginous heels. Jaz leaned against the doorjamb with her arms folded, watching as each girl kissed him in greeting. One even ruffled his hair and another rubbed her breasts—which Jaz could tell were fake—against his upper arm.
He caught Jaz’s eye and his mouth slanted in a mocking smile. ‘Ah, here’s the fun police. Ladies, this is the gardener’s daughter, Jasmine.’
Jaz gave him an ‘I’ll get you for that later’ look before she addressed the young women. ‘Do your parents know where you all are?’ she said.
Jake’s brows shot together in a brooding scowl. ‘Knock it off, Jasmine.’
Jaz smiled at him with saccharine sweetness. ‘Just checking you haven’t sneaked in a minor or two.’
Twin streaks of dull colour rode high along his aristocratic cheekbones and his mouth flattened until it was a bloodless line of white. A frisson of excitement coursed through her to have riled him enough to show a crack in his ‘too cool for school’ façade. Jaz was the only person who could do that to him. He sailed through life with that easy smile and that ‘anything goes’ attitude but pitted against her he rippled with latent anger. She wondered how far she could push him. Would he touch her? He hadn’t come anywhere near her for seven years. When the family got together for Christmas or birthdays, or whatever, he never greeted her. He never hugged or kissed her on the cheek as he did to Miranda or his mother. He avoided Jaz like she was carrying some deadly disease, which was fine by her. She didn’t want to touch him either.
But, instead of responding, Jake moved past her as if she was invisible and directed the women to the formal sitting room. ‘In here, ladies,’ he said. ‘The party’s about to begin.’
Jaz wanted to puke as the women followed him as though he were the Pied Piper. Couldn’t they see how they were being used to feed his ego? He would ply them with expensive champagne or mix them exotic cocktails and tell them amusing anecdotes about his famous parents and their Hollywood and London theatre friends. Those he wouldn’t bother sleeping with he would toss out by two or three in the morning. The one—or two or three, according to the tabloids—he slept with would be sent home once the deed was done. They would never get a follow-up call from him. It was a rare woman who got two nights with Jake Ravensdale. Jaz couldn’t remember the last one.
The doorbell sounded behind her. She let out a weary sigh and turned to open it.
‘I’ll get that,’ Jake said, striding back into the great hall from the sitting room.
Jaz stood to one side and curled her lip at him. ‘Ten women not enough for you, Jake?’
He gave her a dismissive look and opened the door. But the smile of greeting dropped from his face as if he had been slapped. ‘Emma...’ His throat moved up and down. ‘What? Why? How did you find me?’ The words came spilling out in a way Jaz had never seen before. He looked agitated. Seriously agitated.
‘I had to see you,’ the girl said with big, lost waif, shimmering eyes and a trembling bottom lip. ‘I just had to.’
And she was indeed a girl, Jaz noted. Not yet out of her teens. At that awkward age when one foot was in girlhood and the other in adulthood, a precarious position, and one when lots of silly mistakes that could last a lifetime could be made. Jaz knew it all too well. Hadn’t she tried to straddle that great big divide, with devastating consequences?
‘How’d you get here?’ Jake’s voice had switched from shocked to curt.
‘I caught a cab.’
His brows locked together. ‘All the way from London?’
‘No,’ Emma said. ‘From the station in the village.’
Poor little kid, Jaz thought. She remembered looking at Jake exactly like that, as if he was some demigod and she’d been sent to this earth solely to worship him. It was cruel to watch knowing all the thoughts that were going through that young head. Teenage love could be so intense, so consuming and incredibly irrational. The poor kid was in the throes of a heady infatuation, travelling all this way in the hope of a little bit of attention from a man who clearly didn’t want to give her the time of day. Jake was here partying with a bunch of women and Emma thought she could be one of them. What a little innocent.
Jaz couldn’t stand by and watch history repeat itself. What if Emma was so upset she did something she would always regret, like she had done? There had to be a way to let the kid down in such a way that would ease the hurt of rejection. But brandishing a bunch of party girls in Emma’s face was not the way to do it.
‘Why don’t you come in and I’ll—?’ Jaz began.
‘Stay out of it, Jasmine,’ Jake snapped. ‘I’ll deal with this.’ He turned back to the girl. ‘You have to leave. Now. I’ll call you a cab but you have to go home. Understand?’
Emma’s eyes watered some more. ‘But I can’t go home. My mother thinks I’m staying with a friend. I’ll get in heaps of trouble. I’ll be grounded for the rest of my life.’
‘And so you damn well should be,’ Jake growled.
‘Maybe I could help,’ Jaz said and held out her hand to the girl. ‘I’m Jaz. I’m Jake’s fiancée.’
There was a stunned silence.
Jake went statue-still beside Jaz. Emma looked at her with a blank stare. But then her cheeks pooled with crimson colour. ‘Oh... I—I didn’t realise,’ she stammered. ‘I thought Jake was still single otherwise I would never have—’
‘It’s fine, sweetie,’ Jaz said. ‘I totally understand and I’m not the least bit offended. We’ve been keeping our relationship a secret, haven’t we, darling?’ She gave Jake a bright smile while surreptitiously jabbing him in the ribs.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish that had suddenly found itself flapping on the carpet instead of swimming safely in its fishbowl. But then he seemed to come back into himself and stretched his lips into one of his charming smiles. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That’s right. A secret. I only just asked her a couple of minutes ago. That’s why we’re...er...celebrating.’
‘Are you coming, Jakey?’ A clearly tipsy blonde came tottering out into the hall carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and a glass in the other.
Jaz took Emma by the arm and led her away to the kitchen, jerking her head towards Jake in a non-verbal signal to get control of his guest. ‘That’s one of the bridesmaids,’ she said. ‘Can’t handle her drink. I’m seriously thinking of dumping her for someone else. I don’t want her to spoil the wedding photos. Can you imagine?’
Emma chewed at her bottom lip. ‘I guess it kind of makes sense...’
‘What does?’
‘You and Jake.’
Jaz pulled out a kitchen stool and patted it. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Have a seat while I make you a hot chocolate—or would you prefer tea or coffee?’
‘Um...hot chocolate would be lovely.’
Jaz got the feeling Emma had been about to ask for coffee in order to appear more sophisticated. It reminded her of all the times when she’d drunk vile-tasting cocktails in order to fit in. She made the frothiest hot chocolate she could and handed it to the young girl. ‘Here you go.’
Emma cupped her hands around the mug like a child. ‘Are you sure you’re not angry at me turning up like this? I had no idea Jake was serious about anyone. There’s been nothing in the press or anything.’
‘No, of course not,’ Jaz said. ‘You weren’t to know.’ I didn’t know myself until five minutes ago. ‘We haven’t officially announced it yet. We wanted to have some time to ourselves before the media circus begins.’ And it would once the news got out. Whoopee doo! If this didn’t get Myles’ attention, nothing would.
‘You’re the gardener’s daughter,’ Emma said. ‘I read about you in one of the magazines at the hairdresser’s. There was an article about Jake’s father’s love-child Katherine Winwood and there were pictures of you. You’ve known Jake all your life.’
‘Yes, since I was eight,’ Jaz said. ‘I’ve been in love with him since I was sixteen.’ It didn’t hurt to tell her one more little white lie, did it? It was all in a good cause. ‘How old are you?’
‘Fifteen and a half,’ Emma said.
‘Tough age.’
Emma’s big brown eyes lowered to study the contents of her mug. ‘I met Jake at a function a couple of months ago,’ she said. ‘It was at my stepfather’s restaurant. He sometimes lets me work for him as a waitress. Jake was the only person who was nice to me that night. He even gave me a tip.’
‘Understandable you’d fancy yourself in love with him,’ Jaz said. ‘He breaks hearts just by breathing.’
Emma’s mouth lifted at the corners in a vestige of a smile. ‘I should hate you but I don’t. You’re too nice. Kind of natural and normal, you know? But then, I guess I would hate you if I didn’t think you were perfect for him.’
Jaz smiled over clenched teeth. ‘How about we give your mum a call and let her know where you are? Then I’ll drive you to the station and wait with you until you get on the train, okay? Have you got a mobile?’
Silly question. What teenager didn’t? It was probably a better model than hers.
* * *
When Jaz got back from sending Emma on her way home, Jake was in the main sitting room clearing away the detritus of his short-lived party. Apparently he had sent his guests on their merry way as well. ‘Need some help with that?’ she said.
He sent her a black look. ‘I think you’ve done more than enough for one night.’
‘I thought it was a stroke of genius, actually,’ Jaz said, calmly inspecting her nails.
‘Engaged?’ he said. ‘Us? Don’t make me laugh.’
He didn’t look anywhere near laughing, Jaz thought. His jaw was locked like a stiff hinge. His mouth was flat. His eyes were blazing with fury. ‘What else was I supposed to do?’ she said. ‘That poor kid was so love-struck nothing short of an engagement would’ve convinced her to leave.’
‘I had it under control,’ he said through tight lips.
Jaz rolled her eyes. ‘How? By having a big bimbo bash? Like that was ever going to work. You’re going about this all wrong, Jake—or should I call you Jakey?’
His eyes flashed another round of sparks at her. ‘That silly little kid has been stalking me for weeks. She gate-crashed an important business lunch last week. I lost a valuable client because of her.’
‘She’s young and fancies herself in love,’ Jaz said. ‘You were probably the first man to ever speak to her as if she was a real person instead of a geeky kid. But throwing a wild party with heaps of women isn’t going to convince her you’re not interested in her. The only way was to convince her you’re off the market. Permanently.’
He snatched up a half-empty bottle of champagne and stabbed the neck of it in her direction. ‘You’re the last woman on this planet I would ever ask to marry me.’
Jaz smiled. ‘I know. Isn’t it ironic?’
His jaw audibly ground together. ‘What’s your fiancé going to say about this?’
Here’s the payoff. She would have to tell Jake about the break-up. But it would be worth it if it achieved the desired end. ‘Myles and I are having a little break for a month,’ she said.
‘You conniving little cow,’ he said. ‘You’re using me to make him jealous.’
‘We’re using each other,’ Jaz corrected. ‘It’s a win-win. We’ll only have to pretend for a week or two. Once the hue and cry is over we can go back to being frenemies.’
His frown was so deep it closed the gap between his eyes. ‘You’re thinking of making an...an announcement?’
Jaz held up her phone. ‘Already done. Twitter is running hot with it. Any minute now I expect your family to start calling.’ As if on cue, both of their phones starting ringing.
‘Don’t answer that.’ He quickly muted his phone. ‘We need to think this through. We need a plan.’
Jaz switched her phone to silent but not before she saw Myles’ number come up. Good. All going swimmingly so far. ‘We can let your family in on the secret if you think they’ll play ball.’
‘It’s too risky.’ Jake scraped a hand through his hair. ‘If anyone lets slip we’re not the real deal, it could blow up in our faces. You know what the press are like. Do you think Emma bought it? Really?’
‘Yes, but she’ll know something’s up if you don’t follow through.’
He frowned again. ‘Follow through how? You’re not expecting me to marry you, are you?’
Jaz gave him a look that would have withered a plastic flower. ‘I’m marrying Myles, remember?’
‘If he takes you back after this.’
She heightened her chin. ‘He will.’
One side of his mouth lifted in a cynical arc. ‘What’s Miranda going to say? You think she’ll accept you’re in love with me?’
Miranda was going to be a hard sell, but Jaz knew she didn’t like Myles, so perhaps it would work. For a time. ‘I don’t like lying to Miranda, but she’s never been...’
‘You should’ve thought of that when you cooked up this stupid farce,’ Jake said. ‘No. We’ll run with it.’
‘What did you tell your party girls?’ Jaz said. ‘I hope I didn’t make things too awkward for you.’ Ha ha. She loved making things awkward for him. The more awkward, the better. What a hoot it was to see him squirm under the shackles of a commitment.
‘I’m not in the habit of explaining myself to anyone,’ he said. ‘But no doubt they’ll hear the news like everyone else.’
Jaz glanced at her bare ring finger. Who would take their engagement seriously unless she had evidence? ‘I haven’t got a ring.’
His dark eyes gleamed with malice. ‘No spares hanging around at home?’
She sent him a beady look. ‘Do you really want me to wear some other man’s ring?’
His mouth flattened again. ‘Right. I’ll get you a ring.’
‘No fake diamonds,’ she said. ‘I want the real thing. The sort of clients I attract can tell the difference, you know.’
‘This is what this is all about, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You don’t want your clients to think you can’t hold a man long enough to get him to marry you.’
Jaz could feel her anger building like a catastrophic storm inside her. This wasn’t about what her clients thought. It was about what she felt. No one in their right mind wanted to be rejected. Abandoned. To be told they weren’t loved in the way she desperately dreamed of being loved. Not after she had invested so much in her relationship with Myles.
What did Jake know of investing in a relationship? He moved from one woman to the next without a thought of staying long enough to get to know someone beyond what they liked to do in bed. Only Jake could make her this angry—angry enough to throw something. It infuriated her that he alone could reduce her to such a state. ‘I can hold a man,’ she said. ‘I can hold him just fine. Myles has cold feet, that’s all. It’s perfectly normal for the groom to get a little stressed before the big day.’
‘If he loved you he wouldn’t ask for a break,’ Jake said. ‘He wouldn’t risk you finding someone else.’
That thought had occurred to Jaz but she didn’t want to think about it. She was good at not thinking about things she didn’t want to think about. ‘Listen to you,’ she said with a scornful snort. ‘Jake Ravensdale, playboy extraordinaire, talking like a world expert on love.’
‘Where did you take Emma?’
‘I put her on the train once I’d talked to her mother and made sure everything was cool,’ Jaz said. ‘I didn’t want her to get into trouble or do anything she might regret.’ Like I did. She pushed the thought aside. She wouldn’t think about the rest of that night after she had left Jake’s bedroom.
Jake picked up a glass, filled it with champagne and knocked it back in one gulp. He shook his head like a dog coming out of water and then poured another glass. With his features cast in such serious lines, he looked more like his twin Julius than ever.
‘We need a photo,’ Jaz said. ‘Hand me a glass.’
He looked at her as if she had just asked him to poke a knitting needle in his eye. ‘A photo?’ he said. ‘What for?’
She helped herself to a glass of champagne and came to stand beside him but he backed away as if she was carrying dynamite. Or knitting needles. ‘Get away from me,’ he said.
‘We have to do this, Jake,’ she said. ‘Who’s going to believe it if we don’t do an engagement photo?’
‘You don’t have a ring,’ he said. ‘Yet.’ The way he said ‘yet’ made it sound as though he considered the task on the same level as having root canal therapy.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Jaz said. ‘Just a shot with us with a glass of champers and grinning like Cheshire cats will be enough.’
‘You’re a sadist,’ he said, shooting her a hooded look as she came to stand beside him with her camera phone poised. ‘You know that, don’t you? A totally sick sadist.’
It was impossible for Jaz not to notice how hard and warm his arm was against hers as she leaned in to get the shot. Impossible not to think of those strongly muscled arms gathering her even closer. Was he as aware of her as she was of him? Was that why he was standing so still? He hadn’t been this close to her in years. When family photographs had been taken—even though strictly speaking she wasn’t family—she had always been up the other end of the shot close to Miranda or one of Jake’s parents. She had never stood right next to Jake. Not so close she could practically feel the blood pumping through his veins. She checked the photo and groaned. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Surely you can do better than that. You look like someone’s got a broomstick up your—’
‘Okay, we’ll try again.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and leaned his head against hers. She could feel the strands of his tousled hair tickling her skin. Her senses were going haywire when his stubbly jaw grazed her face. He smelt amazing—lime and lemongrass with a hint of ginger or some other spice. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Take the goddamn shot.’
‘Oh...right,’ Jaz said and clicked the button. She checked the photo but this time it looked like she was the one being tortured. Plus it was blurred. ‘Not my best angle.’ She deleted it and held up the phone. ‘One more take. Say cheese.’
‘That’s enough,’ he said, stepping away from her once she’d taken the shot. ‘You have to promise me you’ll delete that when this is all over, okay?’
Jaz criss-crossed her chest with her hand. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’
He grunted as if her demise was something he was dearly praying for.
She sent the tweet and then quickly sent a text to Miranda:
I know you never liked Myles. You approve of fiancé # 4?
Miranda’s text came back within seconds.
OMG! Definitely!!! Congrats. Always knew you were hot for each other. J Will call later xxxxx
‘Who are you texting?’ Jake asked.
‘Miranda,’ Jaz said, putting her phone down. ‘She’s thrilled for us. We’ll finally be sisters. Yay.’
He muttered a curse and prowled around the room like a shark in a fishbowl. ‘Julius is never going to fall for this. Not for a moment.’
‘He’ll have to if you want Emma to go away,’ Jaz said. ‘If you don’t play along I’ll tell her the truth.’
He threw her a filthy look. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
She smiled a victor’s smile. ‘What’s that saying about revenge is a dish best eaten cold?’
He glowered at her. ‘Isn’t it a little childish to be harking on about that night all these years later? I did you a favour back then. I could’ve done you that night but how would that have worked out? Ever thought about that? No. You want to paint me as the big, bad guy who made you feel a little embarrassed about that schoolgirl crush. But, believe me, I could have done a whole lot worse.’
Jaz stepped out of his way as he stormed past her to leave the room. You did do a whole lot worse, she wanted to throw after him. But instead she clamped her lips together and turned back to look at the discarded bottles and glasses.
Typical. Jake had a habit of leaving his mess for other people to clean up.
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE WAS SO mad he could see red spots in front of his eyes. Or maybe he was having a brain aneurysm from anger build-up. Seven years of it. He paced the floor of his room, raking his hair, grinding his teeth, swearing like a Brooklyn rapper at what Jasmine had done to him. Engaged! What a freaking farce. No one would believe it. Not him. Not the playboy prince of the pick-ups.
His stomach turned at the thought. Committed. Tied down. Trapped. He was the last person who would ever tie himself down to one woman and certainly not someone like Jasmine Connolly. She was a manipulative little witch. She was using him. Using him to lure back her third fiancé. Who on earth got engaged three times? Someone who was obsessed with getting married, that was who. Jasmine didn’t seem to care who she got engaged to as long as they had money and status.
But through the red mist of anger he could see her solution had some merit. Emma Madden had taken the news of their ‘engagement’ rather well. He had been poleaxed to see that kid standing on the doorstep. He could count on half a hand how many times he’d been caught off guard but seeing that kid there was right up there. If anyone had seen her—anyone being the press, that was—he would have been toast. He didn’t want to be cruel to the girl but how else could he get rid of her? Jasmine’s solution seemed to have worked. So far. But how long would he have to stay ‘engaged’?
Then there was his family to deal with. He could probably pull off the lie with his parents and Miranda but not his twin. Julius knew him too well. Julius knew how much he hated the thought of being confined in a relationship. Jake was more like his father in that way. His father wasn’t good at marriage. Richard and Elisabetta fought as passionately as they made up. It was a war zone one minute and a love fest the next. As a child Jake had found it deeply unsettling—not that he’d ever showed it. His role in the family was the court jester. It was his way of coping with the turbulent emotions that flew around like missiles. He’d never known what he was coming home to.
Then eventually it had happened. The divorce had been bitter and public and the intrusion of the press terrifying to a child of eight. He and Julius had been packed off to boarding school but, while Julius had relished the routine, structure and discipline, Jake had not. Julius had excelled academically while Jake had scraped through, not because he wasn’t intellectually capable but because in an immature and mostly subconscious way he hadn’t wanted his parents to think their divorce had had a positive effect on him.
But he had more than made up for it in his business analysis company. He was successful and wealthy and had the sort of life most people envied. The fly-in, fly-out nature of his work suited his personality. He didn’t hang around long. He just got in there, sorted out the problems and left. Which was how he liked to conduct his relationships.
Being tied to Jasmine, even if it was only a game of charades, was nothing less than torture. He had spent the last seven years avoiding her. Distancing himself from all physical contact. He had even failed to show up for some family functions in an effort to avoid the tension of being in the same room as her. He’d had plenty of lectures from Julius and Miranda about fixing things with Jasmine but why should he apologise? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had done the opposite. He had solved the problem, not made it worse. It was her that was still in a snit over something she should have got over years ago.