by Penny Jordan
And only she knew that until she had met him she had been a virgin, and this evening she had as good as told him. That had been a mistake, yes, she allowed judiciously, but it was a mistake she had learned from. A mistake she most certainly was not going to be repeating.
She pulled the covers up more closely around herself. In the dream she had just woken from Leo had been wrapping her in his arms whilst he tenderly stroked her skin and even more tenderly kissed her lips…
What on earth was she? A born-again teenager indulging in a fantasy? She was not going to dream about him again, she told herself sternly. She was not!
The first Leo knew about the demonstration was when he received a phone call from a local radio station asking if he would like to comment on the situation.
Several other calls later he had elicited the information that the demonstration was non-violent, protesting against the factory being closed down.
Meetings he had already arranged with a large haulage group who were interested in potentially acquiring the site of the motorway-based factory meant that Leo was unable to go to Frampton himself until later on in the day, but he did speak with the leader of the group to set up a meeting with them to discuss the situation.
Although he was not prepared to say so at this stage, Leo had virtually made up his mind that he would keep the Frampton factory open. This decision had nothing whatsoever to do with Jodi Marsh, of course.
Later in the day, when the police rang him to inform him that they intended to monitor the situation at the demonstration, Leo told them that he had every confidence that things would be resolved peacefully.
It was four o’clock, and there was no way he could leave London until at least five. His mind started to wander. What was Jodi doing now? He really did need to talk to her; if there was the remotest chance that she might have conceived his child then he needed to know about it.
Jodi glanced a little anxiously over her shoulder. She had joined the demo an hour ago, straight from school. At first things had been quiet and peaceful, and the leader had told her that Leo Jefferson had been in touch with him to organise a meeting for the following day. But then to everyone’s surprise, half an hour ago Jeremy Driscoll had arrived. At first he had demanded that they open the factory gates to allow him access and when they had refused Jeremy had got out of the car. A small scuffle had ensued, but ultimately Jeremy had been allowed to walk into the office block.
He was still inside it, but ten minutes ago a police car had drawn up several yards away from the demonstrators, quickly followed by a reporter and a photographer from the local paper.
Now the original peaceful mood of the picketers had changed to one of hostile aggression as Jeremy emerged from the building, and one of the demonstrators to whom Jeremy had been particularly verbally abusive on his way into the factory caught sight of him.
‘You don’t really think that this is going to make any difference to Jefferson’s decision to close this place down, do you?’ Jodi could hear Driscoll challenging her fellow demonstrator contemptuously.
‘He’s agreed to meet with us in the morning,’ the other man was retaliating.
‘And you think that means he’s going to listen to what you have to say! More fool you. He’s already decided that this place isn’t viable and who can blame him, with a lazy, good-for-nothing workforce like you lot? It’s because of you that we’ve had to sell the place. Everyone knows that…’
Jodi gave a small indignant gasp as she heard him.
‘That’s not true,’ she interjected firmly, causing Jeremy to turn to look at her.
‘My God, you!’ he breathed. ‘I suppose I should have guessed,’ he sneered as he gave Jodi’s jeans and T-shirt-clad body a deliberately lascivious stare. ‘This isn’t going to do you any favours with the school board, is it? But then, of course, your precious school will end up being closed down along with the factory, won’t it? Looks as if I shall be getting my building land after all.’ He smirked as he started to walk purposefully towards Jodi. People tried to stop him, but he was too quick for them.
As he moved towards Jodi one of the men started to step protectively between them. He was only a young man, nowhere near as heavily built as Jeremy, and Jodi winced as she saw the force with which Jeremy thrust him to one side.
The young man retaliated, and suddenly it seemed to Jodi as though all hell had broken loose; people were shouting, shoving, the police car doors were opening, and then before she could move, to her shock, Jeremy had suddenly taken hold of her and was dragging her across the factory forecourt.
Instinctively she tried to resist him, hitting out at him as he deliberately manhandled her; her panic was that of any woman fearing a man she knew to be her enemy, and had nothing whatsoever to do with her role in the demonstration. Jeremy dragged her towards one of the advancing police officers, claiming to them that she had deliberately assaulted him.
‘I insist that you arrest her, officer,’ Jodi could hear him saying as he gave her a nastily victorious look. ‘I shall probably press charges for assault.’
Jodi tried to protest her innocence, but she was already being bundled towards the police van that had screamed to a halt alongside the car.
Jodi blinked in the light from the flashbulb as the hovering photographer took their picture.
The police station was busy. Jodi couldn’t believe what was happening to her. A stern-looking sergeant she didn’t recognise was beginning to charge them all. Jodi was feeling sick. Her head ached; she felt grubby and frightened. There was a bruise on her arm where Jeremy Driscoll had manhandled her.
‘Name…’
Jodi flinched as she realised that the sergeant was speaking to her.
‘Er—Jodi Marsh,’ she began. Supporting the workforce by taking part in a peaceful demonstration was one thing. Ending up being charged and possibly thrown into a police cell was quite definitely another. She couldn’t bear to think about what the more conservative parents of her pupils were going to say, never mind the school governors or the education authority.
‘Excuse me, Officer.’
She was quite definitely going to faint, Jodi decided as she heard the unmistakable sound of Leo Jefferson’s voice coming from immediately behind her.
Something about Leo’s calm manner captured the sergeant’s attention. Putting down his pen, he looked at him.
Leo had arrived at the factory gates just in time to hear from those who were still there what had happened.
‘Yes, and they even took the schoolteacher away,’ one of the onlookers had informed Leo with relish, wondering why on earth his comment should have caused his listener to turn round and head straight back to his car with such a grim look on his face.
‘I’m Leo Jefferson,’ Leo introduced himself to the sergeant. ‘I own the factory.’
‘You own it.’ The sergeant was frowning now. ‘According to our records, it was a Mr Jeremy Driscoll who reported that there was a problem.’
‘Maybe he did, but I am quite definitely the owner of the factory,’ Leo reiterated firmly. ‘Can you tell me exactly what’s happened, Officer. Only, as I understand it, the demonstrators were peaceful and I had in fact arranged to meet with them in the morning.’
‘Well, that’s as maybe, sir, but we were telephoned from the factory by Mr Driscoll who said that he was not being allowed to leave and that both he and the property had been threatened with violence. Once we got there a bit of a scuffle broke out and this young lady here…’ he indicated Jodi ‘…actually attempted to assault Mr Driscoll.’
Jodi could feel her face crimsoning with mortification as she leapt immediately to her own defence, denying it. ‘I did no such thing. He was the one who attacked me…’ To her horror, she could actually feel her eyes filling with childish tears.
‘I think there must have been a mistake,’ Leo Jefferson was saying. Although she couldn’t bring herself to turn round and look at him, Jodi could feel him moving closer to her, and for some in
sane reason she felt that instinctively her body sought the warmth and protection of his.
‘I happen to know Miss Marsh very well indeed. In fact she was at the factory on my behalf, as my representative,’ Leo lied coolly. ‘I cannot imagine for a second that she would have assaulted Mr Driscoll.’
The sergeant was frowning.
‘Well, my officers have informed me that he was most insistent she be arrested,’ he told Leo. ‘He said that he intended to press charges against her for assault.’
Jodi gave a small, stifled sob.
‘Indeed. Well, in that case I shall have to press charges against him for trespass,’ Leo informed the sergeant. ‘He quite definitely did not have my permission to enter the factory, and I rather imagine that the revenue authorities will be very interested to know what he was doing there. There are some account books missing that they are very anxious to see.’
Jodi gave a small start as she listened to him, impulsively turning round to tell Leo quickly, ‘The mother of one of my pupils mentioned that she saw him coming out of one of the unused storerooms.’ Her voice started to fade away as she saw the way Leo was looking at her arm.
‘Is Driscoll responsible for that?’ he demanded dangerously.
Without waiting for her to reply he turned to the desk sergeant and said with determined authority, ‘I understand that you may have to charge Miss Marsh, but in the meantime, Officer, I wonder if you would be prepared to release her into my care. I promise that I won’t let her out of my sight.’
The desk sergeant studied them both. He had a full custody suite and no spare cells, and he could see no real reason why Jodi shouldn’t be allowed to leave if Leo Jefferson was prepared to vouch for her.
‘Very well,’ he acknowledged. ‘But you will have to take full responsibility for her, and for ensuring that she returns here in the morning to be formally charged if Mr Driscoll insists on going ahead.’
‘You have my word on it,’ Leo responded promptly, and then before Jodi could say anything he had turned her round and was gently ushering her out into the summer night.
To her own chagrin, Jodi discovered that she was actually crying.
‘It’s the shock,’ she heard Leo saying to her as he guided her towards his car. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be OK once we get you home.’
‘I want a bath…and some clean clothes,’ Jodi told him in a voice she barely recognised as her own.
‘The bath I can provide; the clothes we shall have to collect from your house on the way to mine,’ Leo replied promptly.
‘Yours!’ Jodi’s forehead creased as she allowed Leo to fasten the passenger seat belt around her. ‘But I want to go to my own home.’
‘You can’t, I’m afraid,’ Leo told her. ‘The sergeant released you into my care, remember, and I have to produce you at the station in the morning.’
‘But I can’t stay with you,’ Jodi protested.
‘I’m sorry, Jodi.’ Leo’s voice was unexpectedly kind. ‘You have to.’
‘I didn’t really assault Jeremy.’ Jodi tried to defend herself. ‘He was the one…’ She stopped and bit her lip, her stomach clenching on a leap of nervous shock as she saw the ferocity in Leo’s eyes as he turned to study her.
‘If he hurt you…Did he, Jodi?’
When she looked away from him Leo cursed himself for the intensity of his own reaction. He had quite plainly shocked and frightened her, and she had already been frightened more than enough for one night.
‘I thought the demonstration was supposed to be a peaceful one,’ he commented as he drove back towards the village.
‘It was,’ Jodi acknowledged. ‘But Jeremy was very confrontational and somehow things got out of hand. Is it true that he’s being investigated?’
‘Yes,’ Leo told her briefly, ‘but I shouldn’t really have said so, I don’t suppose.’
When they reached her cottage he insisted on going inside with her and waiting until she had packed a small case of necessities, and Jodi felt too disorientated to be able to have the strength to resist.
Jeremy Driscoll’s manner towards her had left her feeling vulnerable, and she couldn’t help remembering how when she had won her battle with him to retain the playing field for the school he had threatened to get even with her. He was a vengeful and dangerous man, and for tonight at least, loath though she was to admit it, she knew she would feel far safer sleeping under Leo Jefferson’s roof than under her own.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WHEN was the last time you had something to eat?’
Leo’s prosaic question as he unlocked his front door and ushered Jodi into the hallway of the house made her give him an uncertain look.
She had been steeling herself for, if not his hostility, then certainly some sharply incisive questions. The fact that he seemed more worried about her personal welfare than anything else was thoroughly disconcerting—but nowhere near as disconcerting as the relief and sense of security it had given her to have him take charge in the way that he had done.
‘Lunchtime.’ She answered his question on autopilot, whilst most of her attention was given to what she was feeling at a much deeper level. ‘But I’m not hungry.’
‘That’s because you’re still in shock,’ Leo told her gently. ‘The kitchen is this way.’
At any other time Jodi knew that she would have been fascinated to see the inside of the house she had admired so much, but right now she felt as though her ability to take in anything was overwhelmed by the events of the evening.
As Leo had suggested, she suspected that she was suffering from shock. Otherwise, why would she be so apathetically allowing Leo to make all her decisions for her? She let him guide her firmly to a kitchen chair and urge her into it, whilst he busied himself opening cupboards and then the fridge door, insisting that the light supper he was going to make them both would help her to sleep.
‘Which reminds me,’ he added several minutes later as he served her with an impressively light plate of scrambled eggs, ‘I’m afraid that you will have to sleep in my bedroom, since it’s the only one that’s properly furnished at the moment; I can sleep downstairs on a sofa.’
‘No,’ Jodi protested immediately, praying that he wouldn’t guess the reason for the hot colour suddenly burning her face. The very thought of sleeping in his bed was bringing back memories she had no wish to have surfacing at any time, but most especially when the man responsible for them was seated opposite her.
To her consternation, Leo shook his head at her instinctive refusal, telling her calmly, ‘It’s all right, I can guess what you must be thinking, but you don’t need to worry.’
Jodi tensed. How could he possibly know what she was thinking? And if he really did then how dared he treat it and her as though…?
As she tried to gather her thoughts into a logical enough order to challenge him she heard him continuing, ‘The cleaning team came today, and they will have changed the bed linen.’
Jodi almost choked on her scrambled eggs as relief flooded through her. He hadn’t realised what she was thinking after all; hadn’t realised just what piercingly sensual and shocking images the mention of his bed had aroused for her.
But at least his comments had given her time to gain some control of her thoughts, and for her to remember that she was supposed to be a sensible, mature adult.
‘I can’t possibly take your bed,’ she informed Leo in what she hoped was a cool and businesslike voice.
‘Why not?’ Leo demanded, giving her a quizzical look, and then threw her into complete turmoil as he reminded her softly, ‘After all, it isn’t as though you haven’t done so before.’
As the blood left her face and then rushed back to it in a wave of bright pink Jodi felt her hand trembling so much that she had to grip the mug of tea Leo had given her with both hands to prevent herself from spilling its contents.
She knew that she was overreacting, but somehow she just couldn’t stop herself.
Leo’s teasing comment h
ad not just embarrassed her, it had left her feeling humiliated as well, Jodi recognised as she felt the unwanted prick of her tears threatening to expose her vulnerability to him.
But even as she struggled fiercely to blink them away, Leo was already apologising.
‘I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’ Leo paused, watching her, mentally berating himself for offending her. It amazed him how much discovering that he had been wrong in his earlier assessment of the situation had changed what he felt about her.
The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her in any way, but there were still certain issues they needed to address—together—and, although he had not deliberately tried to lead up to them, now that the subject had been introduced perhaps he should seize the opportunity to discuss his concerns with her.
‘I know that this perhaps isn’t the best time in the world to say this,’ he began quietly, ‘but we really do need to talk, Jodi…’
Unsteadily Jodi put her mug down on the table.
‘Is that why you brought me here?’ she demanded as fiercely as she could. ‘So that you could cross-examine me? If you think for one minute that just because you saved me from a night in prison I am going to repay you by betraying the others involved in the demonstration, I’m afraid you’d better take me back to the station right now—’
‘Jodi.’ Leo interrupted her passionate tirade as gently as he could. ‘I don’t want to talk to you about the problems at the factory, or the demonstration.’
As he watched her eyes shadow with suspicion Leo wondered what she would say if he was to tell her that right now there was only one person and one problem on his mind, and that was her!
‘I’ve already arranged a meeting with representatives of the factory workforce for tomorrow, when I intend to discuss my proposals for the future of the factory with them,’ he told her calmly.
‘Yes, I heard.’ Jodi suddenly felt totally exhausted, drained to the point where simply to think was a superhuman effort. ‘Then what did you want to talk to me about?’ she asked him warily.