It brought a smile to her face. If Jake’s grandfather ended up accomplishing nothing else with this marriage campaign, he had certainly done her ego a lot of good, making her feel like a woman worth having.
‘Now drink up,’ he instructed. ‘We’re celebrating, remember? Besides which, the champagne will put some fizz in your brain.’
‘Right!’ she agreed, and gulped down some of the heady liquor.
But the fizz came with Jake’s entrance and it was electric, charging through every cell in Merlina’s body.
‘I hear congratulations are in order,’ came the mocking drawl.
Her heart leapt. Pins and needles attacked her skin. Merlina barely stopped herself from spinning around to face him. She had to hold on to control. It was the only way to deal with Jake.
‘You hear right, my boy,’ Byron answered with great aplomb, giving her a moment to collect herself.
She pasted a smile on her face and turned, lifting her left hand to show off the highly ostentatious ring. ‘We’re engaged to be married,’ she lilted happily.
Jake’s thin-lipped smile did not project any happiness for her. It didn’t even put the usual dimples in his cheeks. There was a killer look in the dark brown eyes as they raked her from head to foot, ignoring the brilliant diamond ring they were supposed to fix on. He wore the usual casual jeans and T-shirt he favoured for work but there was nothing casual about the tension emanating from him, putting her nerves on edge.
‘How fortunate! You won’t have to look for another job,’ he said with the silky cut of a stiletto to the heart.
The implication that she had leapt onto a free ride with his grandfather brought a rush of scorching heat to her face. She was no gold-digger and hated to be viewed as such. Yet reason told her Jake could hardly view her as anything else in the circumstances and it was impossible to protest. The sting would go right out of the game if she told the truth.
Byron laughed, rescuing her from the miserable moment. ‘I think Merlina will have her work cut out handling the role of my wife. I can see us leading a very busy life. A long, leisurely trip around the world to begin with…’
‘Yes. Her planning is impeccable,’ Jake sliced in. ‘An attribute I’ve sorely missed today. Her temporary replacement is a featherbrain. If you don’t mind, Pop, I’d like a private word with Mel. Hopefully it might sort out the mess her leaving has caused.’
Work!
He didn’t care about her life.
He only cared about his precious business.
‘That’s up to Merlina,’ Byron corrected him. ‘And might I add you’re really stretching her good nature by calling her Mel. She’s always hated it, you know. Not wise diplomacy if you want her to help you.’
‘You’re right.’ He sketched a half-bow to Merlina. ‘I apologise for tampering with your name once again. Bad habit.’ His eyes glittered more of a demand than an appeal as he added, ‘If you’ll just oblige me on this matter…’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said with a spurt of impatience, her conscience pricking her over having left him with problems. ‘I’m sorry about the replacement. I thought you’d like her.’
His jaw tightened as though she’d hit him. And so she had. The deliberate choice of a skinny blonde to be her replacement had been intended as a slap in the face. Pure spite on her behalf, having felt diminished by the choices he’d made in the women who shared his private life. But business was business and she shouldn’t have let personal issues sway her judgement.
‘Well, I’ll leave the two of you to sort things out,’ Byron said benevolently. ‘Would you like to join us for dinner, my boy? Lift a glass to our future?’
‘No, thank you,’ came the curt reply, tempered quickly by another thin-lipped smile. ‘Your gain is my loss. I don’t feel like drinking to it tonight.’
Byron nodded. ‘Understood. Another time. I’ll go and tell Harold you won’t be staying.’
Merlina felt the tension in the room move up several notches as Byron left it, closing the door behind him. She stared down at what was left of the champagne in her glass, wishing it could drown the dreadful sense of disappointment tearing at her heart. The game seemed very silly now. Like chasing pie in the sky. Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to confess the truth to Jake. Pride insisted that she hold the line.
‘I see you’ve already changed your image, dressing to suit my grandfather’s life-style.’
The biting cynicism in his voice jerked her chin up. Anger flared. ‘I’m dressed to suit myself, Jake. This is me. I’m done with fitting into an image. I’m not your…your front girl any more. Your grandfather wasn’t the only one who had a birthday last week. I did, too, not that it would mean anything to you, but it does to me. I’m thirty years old, not a trendy teenager.’
She banged her glass down on the table which served the white sofas and planted her hands on her hips in an aggressive flaunting of her preferred style. ‘What’s more, your grandfather likes me as I am. He approves of everything about me, dark hair and all!’
Jake’s arm whipped up, stabbing a finger at her. ‘I never asked you to change the colour of your hair.’
‘No. Only to cut off what I’d been growing for years. Long hair has always been traditional in my family, but you didn’t bother asking if I minded having it cut. It was your way or no way.’
‘You could have told me. We were in negotiation.’
‘I was fool enough to want the job.’
‘Fool enough!’ Outrage poured from him. ‘It was the perfect job for you. You revelled in it. And I paid you top dollar. Not to mention the bonus you gave yourself for coming out of the cake.’
‘I was worth every cent of it. You got precisely what you wanted for your money, Jake Devila.’
‘No, I didn’t!’ His arms cut the air like scissors, emphatically demonstrating his frustration and dismissing her claim.
‘So where did I fail you?’ she shot back at him.
His mouth clamped into a grim angry line. His eyes glared black fury at her. His chest rose and fell with a swift intake and expulsion of air. He threw up his hands in an exasperated manner as he finally admitted, ‘You didn’t fail me. I need you back at work.’
The crux of the matter.
Jake was put out.
Merlina folded her arms across her chest in decisive determination to ward off any appeal he might make. Enough was enough. She was not going back. She was moving on.