by Penny Jordan
Only when Jago tugged impatiently at his tie, unfastening his shirt so that she could feel the harshness of his body hair against her breasts, did Storm realise what was happening. She struggled to sit up, pushing ineffectually at his chest, shaking with guilt and terror. How could she have allowed him to touch her like that, to… She shuddered, closing her eyes and trying to pull her blouse round her.
‘Can David make you feel like that?’ Jago asked comprehensively. ‘And don’t tell me you didn’t feel a thing, Storm, or I might be tempted to show you how easy it would be to blot David Winters from your mind for ever.’
‘No!’ Storm mumbled, shivering with despair. Even now she couldn’t believe what had happened. Pride made her say angrily, ‘And I do love David, I don’t care what you say. I know you can arouse me,’ she admitted bitterly. ‘You’ve proved that. I hope to God it gives you some satisfaction, because it doesn’t give me any. I loathe you, Jago,’ she said quietly, ‘and now I loathe myself as well.’
‘You loathe me?’ Jago said derisively. ‘You’ve got a damned funny way of showing it. You wanted me, Storm, whatever you say to the contrary, and you know it. But still you cling to this “love” you claim to have for David. Why?’ he asked softly.
Storm didn’t reply. With shaking fingers she fastened her blouse, dismayed by the feeling that flooded through her as she remembered the feel of his mouth against her skin, a deep yearning ache throbbing through her.
What would he say if she told him she clung to David because she was frightened of what he was doing to her? Run a mile, probably, she thought derisively. Jago had no compunction about arousing her body, but he wouldn’t want any emotional involvement. Perhaps she ought to tell him, she thought wryly. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t reveal her deep fear of such a commitment to him, not after the way he had just breached her defences.
‘No answer?’ he prompted. ‘Very wise. I meant what I said about obliterating David from your mind, Storm, and every time you mention him and love in the same breath I shall remind you of how very easy it is for me to do what he finds impossible.’
Her face flamed. She couldn’t help it. She longed to deny that he had aroused her, or to tell him that she and David were lovers, but she sensed that to do either would provoke another ruthlessly enforced example of what he could do to her. And if she had doubted him before she did so no longer. He had the power to make her feel desire. But desire was not love, she reminded herself, and mere sexual appeasement no part of what she wanted from life.
‘I should imagine it’s possible for any experienced male to get some sort of reaction from a woman, especially when she’s…’
‘Got less knowledge about the opposite sex than it would take to cover a postage stamp?’ Jago jeered. ‘Sure—it’s possible.’
After that, mercifully, he turned away from her, starting the engine, leaving her to cope with her disturbed senses alone.
Why did he have the power to make her feel like this? she asked herself bitterly, trying to concentrate on the scenery, but all that she could think of was her own betraying response to his calculated assault upon her senses, her face flaming anew as she remembered her abandoned reaction.
‘Aren’t we stopping for lunch?’ she asked him awkwardly, trying to dispel the memory.
Jago glanced at the clock on the dashboard and shook his head. ‘Our slight altercation seems to have affected my appetite—for food at least. Why, are you hungry?’
‘Not particularly.’
She refused to look at him. In point of fact she had never felt less like food. Her stomach was churning with all the efficiency of a high speed electric mixer, and to much the same effect. The thought of food was totally nauseating. It came to her on a wave of dismay that she wanted nothing quite so much as the peace and quiet of her own room so that she could indulge in a good cry, which was most unlike her—in fact she could not remember when she had last cried, and it certainly hadn’t been over a man!
Jago on the other hand had never looked more self-possessed. Storm watched him out of the corner of her eye, noticing small hitherto unimportant things about him, such as the way his lean fingers held the steering wheel, the powerful thrust of his thigh muscles whenever he changed gear. Hastily she averted her eyes, forcing herself to relax.
After all that had happened, she thought shakily, he obviously still expected her to go on to this meeting and behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. What was he, a man or a machine?
Her shaking legs told her the answer, although she did not want to acknowledge the message they were relaying to her—Jago Marsh was very much a man, as her aching body knew to its cost.
Their destination, Harmer Brothers’ Mill, was on the outskirts of a small village, tucked away in a corner of the Cotswolds, an enviable location, and one which Storm usually enjoyed visiting. Today she was too strung up to pay much attention to the familiar landscape. At her side she caught Jago’s eye as he glanced out of the car window. His dark hair lay smooth and sleek against his skull and she fought to drag her eyes away, remembering how less than an hour before she had… Dear God, she must forget that it had ever happened, she told herself. Everyone was entitled to one mistake, and she had now made hers, and yet her body continued to quiver restlessly.
The Harmers had adapted an old watermill for their needs; the cream Cotswold stone of the original building blending perfectly with its surroundings. The mill wheel had been lovingly restored, and Storm reflected that the tranquillity of the double-storey building set next to the sheet of placid water would be difficult to rival anywhere.
Inside it was a very different story, and John Harmer was every inch the businessman as he strode out of his office to greet them.
Storm had expected the two men to conduct the interview over her head, but she was pleasantly surprised, when they entered John Harmer’s office, to be introduced to a friendly-looking young man of her own age.
‘My son Geoff,’ John Harmer explained with fatherly pride. ‘He’s working for his Ph.D. at the moment, but occasionally he spares us a few hours here and there.’ He shook his head, looking at his son. ‘I had hoped he would be taking over from me long before now.’
Geoff Harmer laughed, his pleasant brown eyes crinkling with amusement. ‘Come off it, Dad, you’re a long way off retirement yet—if ever. You know this mill’s your pride and joy.’
‘With good reason,’ Jago agreed. ‘I notice you stick as closely to traditional tweeds as possible.’
Storm gave Jago full marks for doing his homework, as John Harmer acknowledged his comment.
’Mm. We do use modern dyes, though. Nowadays people want a wider, more subtle range of colours, but we do try to be as authentic as possible. We sell a lot of stuff abroad, of course, especially France and America. In fact our overseas sales greatly exceed whatever we market here. Our product isn’t cheap and quite frankly, there isn’t the demand for it.’ He looked at Storm. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t very enthusiastic when you came to see me.’
Storm winced as she remembered his acerbic remarks about not being a philanthropist, acutely aware of Jago’s powerful muscled body towering over her.
‘We’re very grateful to be given a second chance of convincing you that advertising on Radio Wyechester will be worthwhile, Mr Harmer,’ she replied politely.
‘Don’t thank me. Geoff’s the one who suggested I should think again. I was telling him about some of your suggestions…’
‘Yes,’ Geoff Harmer interrupted eagerly, ‘I particularly liked the idea of using a Fenella Fielding type voice-over to put across the sophisticated aspect of our cloth, especially with the humorous undertones you suggested.’
Storm warmed to him. He was open and uncomplicated, and best of all he didn’t intimidate and threaten her like Jago did.
‘I’m only copying what’s already been used—successfully,’ she said deprecatingly, turning back to his father. ‘I think there’s a market
for your cloth here, Mr Harmer,’ she told the older man. ‘You may not know it, but there are several small specialist manufacturers operating locally, who I’m sure would be very interested in your cloth, and there’s also talk of a French concern starting up a factory complex near Bristol.’
John Harmer looked surprised and impressed.
‘You’ve done your research pretty thoroughly, young lady,’ he said. ‘I only learned about the French the other week myself. So you think your radio station can help sell my cloth, do you?’
His tone was faintly paternal and a little condescending, but Storm refused to let it get to her. She was used to this attitude from older men, and took a pride in turning their indulgence to respect when one of her campaigns succeeded. However, she did not normally have Jago Marsh breathing down her neck, and it was hard to pretend that he wasn’t there or that she wasn’t affected by his presence, the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck prickling with awareness every time he moved.
Forcing herself to appear composed, she smiled at John Harmer.
‘Yes, I do,’ she told him firmly.
‘And so do I,’ Geoff Harmer chimed in admiringly. ‘You really know your stuff, don’t you? And you’re such a tiny little thing. How did you get into radio advertising?’
Smilingly Storm gave him a brief potted biography. His eyes widened a little as she mentioned the agency she had been with in Oxford, and he commented appreciatively, ‘They’re one of the most successful in the country, aren’t they? You must have been very good to be taken on by them straight from college.’
In actual fact she had come first in a competition they had sponsored and her prize had been a job with the agency, but Storm only smiled and said that she expected she had just been lucky. She wanted to steer the conversation away from personal channels and back to her campaign, but was a little taken aback when Jago suddenly cut in crisply, his eyes impatient.
‘If you’re agreeable Miss Templeton could draw up a commercial for your appraisal and then we’ll run it for a month at a special rate—just to give you an idea of what can be achieved. At the end of that month we’ll get together. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.’
He spoke with such an air of calm authority that Storm wasn’t surprised to see John Harmer waver. Encouraged by his son’s enthusiasm, he eventually capitulated and gave his agreement to Jago’s suggestion.
She should have felt elated, she thought as they drove away, for both John and Geoff Harmer had seemed pleased with the results of their discussion, but instead she felt bone-weary, her head throbbing with a tension headache, and it was all she could do to force herself to appear calm as they headed back towards Wyechester.
She glanced at Jago once, shocked by the icy anger glittering in his eyes, and wondered what she had done wrong.
‘You forgot about dear David back there fast enough, didn’t you?’ he gritted at her when they were on the open road. ‘Dear God, I thought I must be seeing things when you turned on the charm for young Harmer, and he fell for it. Is that how you get the advertising? No wonder it’s so badly down,’ he jeered contemptuously. ‘You might come on with the promises, but that’s all they are, isn’t it?’
At first Storm was too shocked to speak. She stared at him in a daze, trying to see her behaviour through his eyes. She hadn’t flirted with Geoff; she had just been polite. She knew he had quite fancied her, of course, but that was all it had been.
‘I think that’s a despicable accusation!’ she said at last, trembling with indignation. ‘I don’t understand you at all. First you tell me that you want me, and seem to expect me to fall into your arms, delirious with excitement at the thought of becoming your mistress, and then you act like a Victorian father because I smile at one of our clients!’ Her voice was deliberately scathing. It had to be to conceal the fear she felt as she saw the anger leaping to life in his eyes.
‘Delirious with excitement—there’s a phrase to catch the imagination,’ he said softly, his anger doused and another expression taking its place, causing Storm’s blood to pound through her veins with slow sweetness. For a moment the dark lashes hid his expression from her, and then they swept up and she was caught in the steely glitter of his eyes as they moved slowly over her body in such a way that her clothes were as good as stripped from her, his mouth cruel as he surveyed her flushed cheeks and trembling mouth.
‘And you were, weren’t you, Storm?’ he asked softly, his eyes deriding her. ‘I could have taken you there and then and we both know it. Oh, don’t worry,’ he said with lazy confidence, stretching out a hand to touch the curve of her throat and stroking the skin lingeringly, ‘I’m going to, but not until you admit that you don’t give a damn for David and that you’re only hiding behind the protection you think he can give you.’
The words released her from the spell of his touch. Shrinking back, she glared at him.
‘Then you’ll wait for ever!’ she spat unwisely. ‘Because I do love David.’
She didn’t know which unnerved her more, his soft laugh or the way his eyes lingered mockingly on her face before dropping to where her breasts swelled softly against her blouse.
Damn him! she thought explosively, biting hard on her lip, trying to contain her reaction. She could almost feel her body responding to that look, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing it, just as she refused to admit the truth of what he was saying. He would never hear her say that she didn’t love David, she told herself savagely, drawing some comfort from the knowledge that she could deny him with her mind, even while her body surrendered.
To her surprise, when they reached the intersection which led to Storm’s home, Jago turned left instead of taking the right fork for Wyechester.
’I’m taking you home,’ he said briefly by way of explanation, his eyes mocking. ‘You’ve had a big day, and you look all eyes. If you want to know the secret I’ll tell you—try to remain dispassionate.’
She wasn’t sure if his enigmatic remark was meant to apply to their meeting with the Harmers or what had happened earlier. Either way, she told herself, she didn’t want to know, but she still said lightly, ‘Something you’re very good at, I’m sure. You’d never let your passions rule your head, would you?’
‘Like to find out?’ he asked urbanely. ‘If so, it can be arranged.’
She gave him a scathing look, trying to match his own irony. ‘I’m sure it can. But I happen to be choosy.’
For a moment something flared in his eyes and she wondered if she had pushed him too far, but then he smiled grimly, his eyes openly sardonic.
‘Nice try,’ he told her. ‘But if David is an example of your taste, you wouldn’t know where to begin.’
As he manoeuvred his car into her parents’ drive, Storm saw her father in the front garden, tidying up the flower beds. He straightened up when he heard the car.
‘Hello, you’re early, Storm,’ he greeted her. ‘I was just about to ring up and see if you wanted a lift home.’
’I’m early,’ Storm teased affectionately, resolutely ignoring Jago. ‘What about you? Working part-time now, are we?’
‘I’ll thank you to show a little more respect for your aged parent,’ Mr Templeton grumbled, smiling at Jago. ’No lectures this afternoon—one of the few perks of stuffing the heads of the young with information. Apart from that it’s the labours of Hercules all over again.’
‘Come off it,’ Storm scoffed. ‘You love every minute of it. All those dishy young girls!’
‘Not a patch on your mother.’ He turned to Jago, his hand outstretched. ‘As Storm seems to have forgotten her manners, I’d better introduce myself. I’m Richard Templeton, and you must be Jago Marsh.’ His eyes twinkled a little as they shook hands and he turned to smile at Storm. ‘Looks perfectly normal to me.’
Storm knew her father was deliberately teasing her, but she still blushed infuriatingly. Her father was thanking Jago for bringing her home and he replied easily that it ha
dn’t brought him out of his way.
‘Jago has taken over Mr Simons’ house, Dad,’ Storm explained, wishing for some reason that it had not been necessary to introduce him to her father. The damage was done now, however.
Mr Templeton looked interested and said to Jago, ‘So we’re neighbours, then? We must get together some time.’
Storm knew from her father’s tone that the invitation was genuinely meant and hid her surprise. Mr Templeton did not suffer fools gladly, and Storm had often been a little hurt at her father’s casual dismissal of David, and she wondered a little resentfully how Jago had managed to win her father’s respect on the strength of less than two minutes’ conversation. Her father wouldn’t be so ready to accept if he knew how Jago had treated her, she thought angrily, two spots of colour burning in her cheeks as she fought against the intrusive memory of how she had reacted to him. She had fallen into his hands like an overripe plum, she lashed herself, her colour spreading as she remembered her fevered reaction, and she marched past Jago, ignoring him as she turned to ask her father if he was coming.
Richard Templeton raised his eyebrows a little and Storm bit her lip, knowing that she was being silently reprimanded.
‘You go on ahead,’ he told her, and as she hurried away she heard Jago say, ‘I’d better be on my way.’
‘Pleasant chap,’ her father commented later when they were having dinner. ‘Still…’ he glanced rather thoughtfully at his daughter, ‘I don’t think I’d recommend getting on the wrong side of him. My instincts tell me that he could be a tough nut to crack, eh, Storm?’