‘Sorry, what was that?’ she murmured into the taut silence that spoke volumes about his annoyance at being ignored.
‘I said there’s no need to come into work on Monday; I’ll pick you up from home. You’ll need to travel in something comfortable, but pack an evening dress as we’ll be dining with my client.’
Would her faithful black skirt and a blouse constitute evening dress? Jenna wondered as her mind made the short trip through her wardrobe. It would have to do. Maisie needed a new winter coat, and the boiler was on the blink; she certainly couldn’t afford to buy a new outfit.
‘One other thing.’ His voice halted her as she was about to escape to her own office. ‘Do something with that suit.’
‘Do what with it?’ she queried with a puzzled frown.
‘Bin it, preferably.’
‘It’s the only smart suit I own.’
‘So I gathered,’ Alex replied dryly, and she flushed at his implied criticism of her appearance.
Admittedly she had worn her grey suit to the office every day, but she had bought a couple of new blouses and taken time with her hair and make-up. She didn’t look that much of a mess, surely?
‘Perhaps you can sweet-talk your husband into splashing out? A few good-quality outfits are a necessary requirement of your job.’
‘Alex, by the time I’ve repaid my mortgage I’ll be ninety-seven. I can’t afford a new wardrobe of clothes. If you want me to go to Paris, it’s in this or nothing.’ She stalked out of his office, bristling with indignation and humiliation.
His dulcet comment followed her. ‘Nothing could prove interesting.’ But it failed to evoke even a ghost of a smile.
It was the morning from hell, she decided later, having discovered that she had deleted an hour’s work from her computer by mistake. Alex’s presence unsettled her, she felt on edge whenever he was near, and she had managed to spill an entire cup of coffee over his desk simply because her fingers felt as though they had turned into bananas.
‘I’m sorry,’ she had muttered, close to tears as she attempted to blot the pile of coffee-stained documents in front of him.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ His unexpected kindness had been worse than if he’d lost his temper. She’d almost wished he would crucify her with one of his scathing comments, because at least then she could have kidded herself that she hated him.
‘I think I’d better buy you lunch. That way you might actually get some work done this afternoon.’
He materialised in front of her desk and her gaze focused on his chest, admiring the way his blue silk shirt echoed the colour of his eyes. He looked so gorgeous it hurt: tanned and fit, the superb cut of his charcoal-coloured suit emphasising his height and the formidable width of his shoulders.
‘I’ve got a sandwich in my bag—cheese and pickle,’ she added, before he could find fault with her lunch.
‘It wasn’t a request, Jenna, it was an order. So save your breath and let’s go.’
She grudgingly had to admit that she felt better after a plate of lasagne, and at his request filled him in on the week’s events, knowing that he would accuse her of sulking if she did not.
After lunch he steered her into a department store, and she frowned as he led the way to the designer ladieswear section. If he intended to ask her opinion on titillating lingerie for his girlfriend he would find himself sporting a pair of silk cami-knickers on his head!
‘My companion would like to see a selection of formal daywear, and she also needs a couple of evening dresses,’ Alex explained to the assistant, and Jenna glanced over her shoulder, looking for the said companion.
‘We’ll need to look at the petite section,’ the assistant said, smiling at Jenna, and realisation suddenly dawned.
‘They’ll never fit you,’ she snapped at Alex furiously. ‘And no way on this earth will I allow you to buy my clothes.’
‘I had a feeling you’d say that. The trouble with you, Jenna, is that you’re so predictable. Now, there’s an easy way of doing this or a hard way. The easy way is for you to go with the assistant and choose a suit and something for the evening. The hard way entails me coming into the changing rooms with you.’
His eyes flashed with steely determination, and, mindful that they were causing a scene, Jenna could only glare at him.
‘You’re my boss, Alex, not God himself,’ she hissed.
‘Same thing,’ he told her urbanely. ‘At least as far as you’re concerned. I’ll be back in an hour,’ he informed the assistant, who visibly wilted under the full charm of his smile, and then he was gone, leaving a stunned silence in his wake.
The assistant did her best, but Jenna could only be coerced into choosing a soft ecru-coloured suit and one black evening dress—which, she had to admit, was to die for. Even then she found that she needed shoes, handbag and a black beaded purse to match the dress, and when Alex returned she was frantically trying to tot up the cost in her head.
‘Stop fretting,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Think of the clothes as part of your uniform. Many companies provide their staff with suitable work clothes, and if it really bothers you so much, consider them on loan from Morrell and Partners. You can hand them back at the end of your contract.’
He handed over his credit card to the sales assistant and Jenna paled as the total flashed up on the till. She would repay him every penny, she vowed. It might stretch her overdraft to the limit, but she would not be beholden to Alex Morrell.
They walked back to the office in silence, Alex seemingly lost in his thoughts, but as the lift whisked them up to the top floor he turned to Jenna. ‘Will the clothes cause a problem with Chris?’
‘I doubt he’ll even notice them,’ she replied honestly, forgetting for a moment that he thought Chris was her husband.
There was something strange about her marriage, Alex decided. He had tried to ignore the gossip circulating round the office that Jenna’s marriage was an unhappy one, and the fact that she pointedly avoided talking about Chris. If nothing else her husband must be blind, he thought grimly. She was achingly beautiful, even when angry, he thought with a wry smile. Right now she was positively bristling with outrage at his heavy-handedness, but it was better that she was furious with him than embarrassed by her lack of suitable clothes when they dined with the elite of Parisian society.
‘Miss Carter-Lloyd is here to see you,’ Margaret announced on their return, and Alex stifled a groan. A dose of Selina he could do without.
‘If the lovely Selina has her way, Alex will be tied up for the rest of the day,’ Margaret whispered to Jenna, as Alex closed the interconnecting door between the offices. ‘Not literally, of course—although knowing Selina anything’s possible. I don’t suppose she was very happy when he took off to Cannes without her.’
‘Pity he didn’t stay there,’ Jenna muttered, and Margaret threw her a curious glance.
‘I thought he was going straight from Cannes to Paris to see his client, and I had the shock of my life when he walked out of his office first thing this morning,’ she confided. ‘I wonder why he came back.’
Jenna didn’t know, and certainly didn’t care. Tucked away at the bottom of one the carrier bags, beneath her new dress, she had discovered a set of exquisite underwear, its sheer black silk blatantly sexy. A new suit for work was one thing, and the black evening dress was pushing it, but she drew the line at underwear.
‘You appear to have left something of yours in with my shopping,’ she began, brandishing the underwear in front of her as she marched into Alex’s office, and came to an abrupt halt when she found him locked in a passionate embrace with a statuesque blonde. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
It was ridiculous to feel so utterly betrayed, she reasoned, but nothing, not even Lee’s brazen infidelity, had prepared her for the pain of seeing Alex kiss another woman. He meant nothing to her, she told herself frantically, but the knife in her chest cut deep, and something of her despair must have shown in her eyes, causing Alex’s gaze to
narrow as he pulled out of his companion’s arms.
‘Can’t you see we’re busy?’ the woman snapped, looking down at Jenna with haughty dismissal.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise…’ Jenna backed towards the door, shoving the silk underwear behind her, but Alex’s cool tones stopped her.
‘Now that you’re here, I’d like to introduce you to Selina Carter-Lloyd. Selina, this is my temporary secretarial assistant, Jenna Deane.’
Selina gave a brief, uninterested nod and turned her back on Jenna, wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck like a limpet of Amazonian proportions.
She had to be six feet tall, Jenna decided, noting the way Selina’s face was almost on a level with Alex’s. She was well built and broad-shouldered, strikingly attractive rather than beautiful, with thick honey-blonde hair and the careless elegance of someone who had grown up with money.
‘Why can’t you come to Hampshire for the weekend?’ she pouted. ‘You know you have an open invitation to stay at Amberley. Mummy was saying only yesterday that you haven’t visited for ages.’
‘Your parents are very kind, and I’ll get down as soon as I can. But I’m going to be tied up with work all weekend, before I fly to Paris on Monday.’
‘You know what they say about all work and no play,’ Selina murmured. ‘You need a wife, Alex, someone who can persuade you to relax more.’
There was no doubting the form of persuasion Selina had in mind, Jenna thought disparagingly. The woman had the subtlety of a carthorse, but Alex didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps marriage was on his agenda after all, and Selina, the daughter of a judge, would make him an eminently suitable wife.
The thought left a hollow feeling around her heart, and she stared at him bleakly when he came back into the office, having escorted Selina to the door with the promise that he would call her.
‘In future, knock before you barge into my office,’ he bit out furiously, and her temper flared.
‘I said I was sorry, but I didn’t realise you were…entertaining.’
‘I could have been cavorting on my desk stark naked if I’d so desired.’
Jenna’s breath snagged in her throat as she pictured his gloriously bare body, the image so starkly erotic that she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze.
‘And I wasn’t “entertaining”, as you so delicately put it, I merely gave Selina a friendly kiss.’
‘I thought you were eating her,’ Jenna returned haughtily, and despite himself Alex’s lips twitched.
No one ever answered him back. Even Margaret, who had worked for him for years, used subtle persuasion to influence his decisions, but Jenna suffered no such inhibitions. She gave as good as she received, and he found himself admiring her for her nerve.
Somehow this tiny, feisty redhead had crept under his skin, and, rather like an irritating rash, he couldn’t seem to get rid of her. She was staring at him now, with those enormous Bambi eyes, and as his gaze focused on the tremulous curve of her mouth, his smile faded. He had dated many beautiful women over the years; he had never professed to be a monk. But the few days he had spent in Cannes had been akin to taking Holy Orders, notable only for his distinct lack of desire for Angelina or any other woman. His loss of libido had been frankly embarrassing, and he had used the excuse that he needed to return to the office as a way of ending an awkward situation, leaving behind a patently bemused Angelina.
Of course it would have made more sense to stop over in Paris on his way back from Cannes, and he refused to admit to himself or anyone else that he had only flown straight to London because he ached to see Jenna again. For some reason this woman had the ability to distract his usually disciplined thought process, even whilst he was in court, and at night she haunted his dreams, featuring in erotic fantasies that were totally inappropriate when dawn heralded the reality that she was married to another man.
Perhaps that was the key to her allure—the reason for his fascination with her, he surmised grimly. He had been blessed, or cursed, with a fiercely competitive streak and a determination to win what he wanted from life. Did he want Jenna because she was beyond his reach? The thought hovered uncomfortably in his subconscious, and he turned away from her to stare blankly at his computer screen. Was he really contemplating breaking up her marriage simply to prove a point?
Jenna returned home that evening, already fretting about the Paris trip with Alex, but the letter waiting for her from her ex-husband’s solicitors banished everything from her mind. The letter briefly reminded her that under the terms of her divorce Lee had been granted access visits to his daughter every other weekend, and that if she continued to prevent him from seeing Maisie the matter would have to go back to court.
‘I’ve never tried to stop Lee. At first, when the divorce was finalised, I encouraged him to visit Maisie,’ she explained to Chris. ‘I wanted them to maintain a good relationship. But Lee was so unreliable, he either showed up late or not at all, and after a while I stopped phoning him to remind him that it was his weekend to visit. I don’t understand what this is all about,’ she muttered worriedly, waving the letter in the air. ‘Why didn’t he just ring me to say he wanted to renew contact with Maisie? Why involve the courts?’
‘He’s playing mind games with you,’ Chris told her sympathetically. ‘He always was a manipulative bastard, and behind his pretty-boy image he has a devious brain.’
‘But why?’ Jenna shook her head in frustration. ‘As far as I’m concerned there was never an argument over his access to Maisie, but he’s never taken much interest in her. All he ever wanted was money, which is why I extended the mortgage on the house and paid him his share. I can’t help thinking that he’s up to something.’
She tried to put the letter out of her mind, and an energetic trip to the park with Maisie on Saturday morning helped put her worries into perspective, but her reprieve was short-lived.
‘Hello, Jenna, you’re looking good.’ Lee was lounging against the bonnet of his car when she followed Maisie and her little tricycle up the hill.
‘Lee, this is a surprise.’ She was determined to keep calm, but already her hackles were rising under his cocky, faintly insulting appraisal. ‘I take it you’re here to see Maisie?’
‘Course I am.’ Lee hunkered down in front of the tricycle. ‘Hello, Maisie, you got a kiss for your daddy?’
The little girl blinked solemnly at him, and then at Jenna. ‘Daddy?’ she queried innocently, and Jenna dredged up an encouraging smile.
‘Daddy’s come to visit you, darling. Isn’t that nice?’ She glanced back at Lee, her expression cool. ‘You can hardly expect her to leap into your arms. It’s been so long since you bothered to visit she barely recognises you.’
‘Then it’s time I made it up to her,’ Lee replied, plainly unconcerned by her tangible antagonism. ‘From now on I’ll be visiting every other weekend—maybe more often, if the courts agree. And I’ll want to take her away with me. For the day at first, but as she gets older for the whole weekend.’
‘There was no need to involve your solicitor. I’ve never stopped you from seeing Maisie,’ Jenna pointed out, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. ‘What are you up to, Lee? You haven’t bothered with Maisie since the day she was born. Why the sudden determination to be Super Dad?’
Lee ran a hand through his blond highlights, taking care not to ruffle the style, and gave a sly grin. ‘I’m getting married again, and I want Maisie to have a proper, stable home life—not be constantly dumped with babysitters while you screw your boyfriend on the front seat of his bloody car.’
Jenna stared at him with a mixture of horror and disbelief. ‘How on earth do you know—?’ she began, and stopped abruptly. She was damned if she would explain herself to Lee.
‘A little bird told me,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose, his smile telling her that he was aware of her discomfort. ‘There’s not a lot you get up to that I don’t know about, darling, and I’m not going to stand by and allow my little gir
l to be brought up by a succession of uncles—even ones who drive flash cars.’
Jenna was so shocked by Lee’s visit that she seriously contemplated phoning Alex to tell him she could not accompany him to Paris. But what excuse could she give? she fretted, during a long, sleepless night. Alex had employed her in the belief that she had few commitments and would be constantly at his beck and call. She could hardly reveal that her personal life was growing more complicated by the minute without running the risk of losing her job, and if she were unemployed it would only serve to increase Lee’s determination to win custody of Maisie. Common sense told her that Lee didn’t stand a realistic chance of taking Maisie away from her, but he was clever, in a crafty, manipulative way, and although she hated to admit it she had always been secretly afraid of him.
The throaty roar of Alex’s car could be heard long before he pulled up outside the house on Monday morning, and she snatched up her bags and ran down the front path.
She didn’t know how Lee was able to keep track of her movements, and perhaps he had just said it to frighten her, but she was taking no chances. She didn’t want him to find out that she had gone away without Maisie.
‘What’s the hurry?’ Alex queried with a frown as she stumbled to a halt in front of him. ‘You’re not late.’
‘I just thought you’d want to get away,’ she muttered, casting a furtive glance along the street, as if expecting to see Lee spring out from behind a tree.
She glanced back at Alex and felt a hand close around her heart at the sight of him. He was handsome in a suit, but in black jeans and matching sweater he was stunning, his tan corduroy jacket adding a sexy informality to his appearance. At least in the office rules of convention deemed him remote, but now his casual clothes and relaxed air made him seem dangerously accessible, and to her chagrin she found that her legs had turned to jelly.
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