by Penny Jordan
Was it really only such a short time ago that she had been a model of virginal morality, basking in the approval of both the parents and the school authorities? And she’d been in receipt of an offer of employment from the area’s most prestigious private school…She felt as though that Jodi belonged to another life! How could she have got herself into such a situation? She had heard that falling in love was akin to a form of madness.
Falling in love! Now she knew she was dangerously close to losing her grip on reality. No way did she still think she was in love with Leo Jefferson. No way!
Leo looked at his watch. He had been in meetings for the whole of the afternoon, but at last he was free.
He was acutely conscious of the fact that it might be politic for him to warn Jodi about their ‘engagement’, but after the way they had parted the last time they had met he doubted that trying to telephone her was going to be very successful.
School must be over for the day by now. He could drive over to the village and call on her at home, explain what had happened, tell her that once the furore had died down they could discreetly let it be known that the engagement was off.
Just the memory of the salacious look in Jeremy Driscoll’s eyes when he had taunted Leo this morning about the gossip now circulating concerning Jodi was enough to make Leo feel murderous and to wish that he had the real right to protect Jodi in the way that he wanted to be able to protect her. And, so far as he was concerned, the best way to do that was for her to have his ring on her left hand—his wedding ring! He really was far more Italian than he had ever realised, he recognised grimly as he headed for his car, which reminded him—he ought to telephone his parents. The visit he had promised his mother he would make to see them again soon would have to be put back, at least until he was satisfied that Jodi was all right.
‘I take it that you will be attending the meeting this evening?’
Jodi tensed warily as Myra Fanshawe stepped past the other parents grouped at the school gates to confront her.
‘Only, now that you’ve got a wealthy fiancé to consider, I don’t imagine you’re going to be particularly concerned about the future of the school or its pupils, are you?’
A wealthy fiancé. Her? What on earth was Myra talking about? Jodi wondered wearily.
She couldn’t remember ever feeling so drained at the end of a school day, but of course this had been no ordinary day, which no doubt explained why all she wanted to do was to go to sleep, but not until after she had had some delicious anchovies…For some reason she had been longing for some all afternoon! Which was most peculiar because they were not normally something she was very keen on!
Myra was standing in front of her now, her cold little eyes narrowing with hostility as she continued, ‘I hope you don’t think that just because you’re engaged to Leo Jefferson it means that certain questions aren’t going to be asked—by the parents if not the education authority,’ she sniffed prissily. ‘And—’
‘Just a minute,’ Jodi stopped her sharply, ‘what exactly do you mean about me being engaged to Leo Jefferson?’
She was starting to feel light-headed again, Jodi recognised, her face burning hot and then cold as she wondered how on earth Myra could possibly have got hold of such an outrageous idea—and quite obviously spread it around as fast and as far as she could, Jodi guessed despairingly as she saw the other parents watching them.
‘It’s a little too late for you to assume either discretion or innocence now,’ Myra told her disdainfully. ‘Although I must say that, as a parent, I do think that someone in your position should have made more of an attempt to employ them both instead of acting in a way that could bring the school into disrepute.’
‘Myra…’ Jodi began grimly, and then stopped as the small knot of parents in front of the gates fell back to allow the large Mercedes to pull to a halt outside them.
‘Well, here comes your fiancé,’ Myra announced bitchily as Leo got out of the car. ‘I just hope he doesn’t think because he’s bought Frampton at a ridiculous, knock-down price—virtually tricking the family into selling the business to him against their will, from what Jeremy has told us—it means that he’s got any kind of position or authority locally! Jeremy was very highly thought-of by his workforce,’ she continued, with such a blatant disregard for the truth that Jodi could hardly believe her ears.
Leo had reached them now, and for a reason she certainly was not going to analyse, Jodi discovered that a small part of her actually felt pleased to have him there.
Not that he had any right to be here, making a bad situation even worse by putting his hand proprietorily on Jodi’s arm, before bending his head to brush his lips lightly against her cheek as he murmured into her ear, ‘I’ll explain when we’re on our own.’ Then he moved slightly away from her to say in a louder voice, ‘Sorry I’m late, darling; I got held up.’
And then, without giving her an opportunity to say a word, he was guiding her towards his car, tucking her solicitously into the passenger seat, and then getting in the driver’s seat beside her.
Jodi waited until she was sure that they were safely out of sight of the gathered watchers, before demanding shakily, ‘Would you mind explaining to me just what is going on, and why Myra Fanshawe seems to think that we are engaged?’
‘Myra Fanshawe?’ Leo queried, puzzled.
‘The woman with me as you drove up,’ Jodi explained impatiently.
She felt tired and cross and very hungry, and the ridiculous temptation to beg Leo to stop the car so that she could lay her head on his shoulder and wallow in the cathartic pleasure of a really good cry was so strong that it was threatening to completely overwhelm her.
‘She’s a close friend of Jeremy Driscoll,’ she offered casually, ‘and—’
‘Oh, is she?’ Leo growled. ‘Well, no doubt that explains how she knows about our engagement.’
‘Our engagement?’ Jodi checked him angrily. ‘What engagement? We are not engaged…’
‘Not officially—’
‘Not in any way,’ Jodi interrupted him fiercely.
‘Jodi, I had no choice,’ Leo told her quietly. ‘Driscoll told me about the fact that you’d been seen leaving my suite early in the morning. He was…’ Leo paused, not wanting to tell her just how unpleasant Jeremy’s attitude and assumptions had been. ‘Apparently—’
‘I know what you’re going to say.’ Jodi stopped him hotly. ‘I was seen leaving your room, so I must be some kind of fallen woman, totally unfit to teach school, to be involved with innocent children. For heaven’s sake, all I’ve done is to go bed with you twice; that doesn’t mean…’
To her own consternation her eyes filled with emotional tears, her voice becoming suspended by the sheer intensity of what she was feeling…
‘Jodi, I know exactly what it does mean and what it doesn’t mean,’ Leo tried to reassure her. ‘But that knowledge belongs only to the two of us. You do know what I’m saying, don’t you?’ he asked her gently.
When she made no response and instead looked studiedly away from him out of the passenger window he could see the deep pink colour burning her skin and his heart ached for her.
‘I didn’t think you’d particularly care for it if I were to take out a full-page advert in the local paper announcing that you were a virgin until that night in my suite.’
‘That doesn’t mean you have to claim that we’re engaged,’ Jodi protested.
‘I did it to protect you,’ Leo told her.
To protect her! How could he sit there and claim to want to protect her when he had already told her that he didn’t want to keep their child? Or was that why he was doing this? Jodi wondered wretchedly. Was this just a cynical ploy to make her feel she could trust him, to keep her close enough to him for him to be able to control her, and act quickly, if necessary, to…?
‘It isn’t your responsibility to protect me.’ Jodi told him fiercely.
‘Maybe not in your eyes,’ Leo retaliated, suddenly serious i
n a way that made her heart thud in pure female awareness of how very male and strong he was, and how she longed to be able to lean on that strength, and to feel she could turn to it and him for comfort and for protection and for love…
But of course she couldn’t! Mustn’t…
‘But in mine, Jodi, I can assure you that I consider it very much my responsibility. You aren’t the only one with a reputation to consider and protect, you know,’ he told her. His voice was suddenly so hurtfully curt that Jodi turned to look at him—and then wished that she hadn’t, as the mere sight of his profile caused a wave of helpless longing to pulse through her body, pushing every other emotion out of its way.
She must not feel like this about him, Jodi told herself in defensive panic. She must not want him, ache for him…love him…
A small sound somewhere between pain and despair constricted her throat.
‘How do you think it is going to reflect on me once it becomes public knowledge that you and I—?’
‘You mean, you’re doing this for yourself and not for me?’ Jodi challenged him.
This was more like it. Knowing that his behaviour was motivated by selfishness would surely help her to control and ultimately conquer her love for him?
‘I’m doing it because right now it is the only option we have,’ Leo told her firmly.
Jodi could feel herself weakening. It would be such a relief to simply let Leo take charge, to let him stand between her and the disapproval of public opinion.
To let the world at large believe that he loved her and that…
No. She could not do it. Because if she did she would be in grave danger of allowing herself to believe the same thing!
‘No!’ she told him fiercely, shaking her head in rejection. ‘I’m not going to hide behind you, Leo, or lie, or pretend…What I did might have been wrong. Immoral in some people’s eyes. But in my own eyes what would be even worse would be to lie about it. If people want to criticise or condemn me then I shall just have to accept that and be judged by them; accept the consequences of my behaviour.’
As he watched her and saw the fear fighting with the pride in her eyes Leo was filled with a mixture of admiration for her honesty and a helpless, aching tenderness for her vulnerability. She was so innocent, so naïve. He had to protect her from herself as much as from others.
As he swung his car into the drive to Ashton House he told her bluntly, ‘You’ll be crucified. Do you really want to throw away everything you’ve worked for, Jodi? The school, everything you’ve achieved there? Because I promise you that is what could happen.’
‘There are other schools,’ Jodi told him whilst she struggled to contain the pain his words were causing her.
He brought the car to a standstill and Jodi suddenly realised just where they were.
‘Why have you brought me here?’ she demanded indignantly. ‘I wanted to go home.’
‘You’re my fiancée,’ Leo told her silkily. ‘This is your home.’
‘No,’ Jodi protested furiously. ‘No…I…’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘We can’t be engaged,’ she told him helplessly. ‘It isn’t…We don’t…’
‘We have to be, Jodi,’ Leo responded, shattering what was left of her composure by telling her, ‘We can’t afford not to be.’
‘Take me home,’ Jodi demanded wretchedly. ‘To my home.’ She added insistently, ‘I’ve got a meeting tonight and if I don’t go Myra Fanshawe is going to have a field-day.’
Jodi sank down onto her small sofa. The meeting had been every bit as bad as she had dreaded, with Myra Fanshawe openly attempting to turn it into a debate on morality, plainly intent on embarrassing and humiliating Jodi just as much as she could.
Jodi had not been without her supporters, though; and several people had come up to her to congratulate her with genuine warmth on her engagement.
‘It must have been very hard for both of you,’ one of the parents had sympathised with her, ‘with your fiancé potentially planning to close down the factory and you being committed to keeping it open. However,’ she’d added with a smile, ‘love, as they say, conquers all.’
Love might very well do so, Jodi reflected miserably now, but she was never likely to find out, since Leo quite plainly did not love her.
Her telephone rang, and this time, expecting Nigel, she picked up the receiver.
‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you?’ were his opening words.
Jodi’s heart sank.
‘You’ve heard,’ she guessed.
‘Of course I’ve heard,’ Nigel agreed wryly. ‘The whole damned town has heard. Oh, and by the way, the parents have been on to me, wanting to know when they’re going to get to meet your fiancé; I think my mother was on the phone to yours this afternoon.’
‘What?’ Jodi yelped in dismay. ‘But I didn’t want them to know…’
‘What?’ Nigel sounded confused.
‘I mean I didn’t want them to know yet,’ Jodi hastily corrected herself. ‘I mean I wanted to tell them myself and, what with everything happening so quickly…’
‘Very quickly,’ Nigel agreed with cousinly frankness as he told her, ‘I must say, I got a bit of a shock to learn that you’d spent the night with Leo at his hotel, especially in view of the fact that you treated him like public enemy number one at the dinner party.’
‘Oh, Nigel…’ Jodi began, and then stopped. How on earth could she explain to her cousin just what had happened? And how on earth could she explain to anyone else if she couldn’t explain to Nigel?
When she had told Leo that she didn’t want to involve herself in any kind of deceit or hide behind him she had meant what she had said, but now suddenly she realised that things were not quite so simple as that and that there were other people in her life whose views and feelings she had to take into account.
For several minutes after she had finished her call with Nigel she sat nibbling on her bottom lip before finally reaching for the phone.
She dialled Leo’s number while her fingers trembled betrayingly.
When he answered just the sound of his voice was enough to make her stomach quiver in helpless reaction.
‘It’s Jodi,’ she told him huskily. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about our…about us being engaged and I…I agree…’
When Leo made no response her mouth went dry. What if he had changed his mind? What if he no longer cared about his own reputation or felt it was his responsibility, as he had put it, to protect hers?
And then she heard the click as the receiver was suddenly replaced and her heart lurched sickeningly. He had changed his mind!
Now what was she going to do?
Ten minutes later she curled herself up into her sofa in a forlorn little ball and then frowned as her front doorbell suddenly rang.
It would be Nigel again, no doubt, she decided wearily, getting up and padding barefoot to the door.
Only it wasn’t Nigel, it was Leo, and as she stepped into her hallway she realised that he was carrying a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
‘There’s only one real way in my book an engaged couple should celebrate their commitment to one another,’ Leo told her in a laconic drawl as she stared at him, ‘and it involves privacy and a bed. Preferably a very large bed, and a very long period of privacy, but, since our engagement is not of the committed-for-life variety, this will have to be the alternative…’
As he finished speaking Leo looked at her, and Jodi knew that her face was burning—not with embarrassment or anger, she realised guiltily, but with the heat of the sheer longing his words had conjured up inside her.
‘Of course,’ Leo was suggesting softly, ‘if you would prefer the first option…’
Jodi gave him an indignant look.
‘What I’d prefer,’ she told him, ‘is not to be in this wretched situation at all.’
As she turned away from him Leo wondered what she would say if he told her just how dangerously close he was to picking her up in his arms
and taking her somewhere very private and keeping her there until she was so full of the love he wanted to give her that…
That what? he asked himself in mental derision. That she would tell him that she loved him?
‘How did the parents’ meeting go?’ he asked her gently as he opened the champagne and poured them both a glass.
‘Our engagement opened to mixed reviews,’ Jodi told him wryly.
She wasn’t going to tell him that Myra had informed her before she had left that she had decided it was her moral duty to inform the education authority of the situation.
‘It’s only a storm in a teacup.’ Leo told her gently. ‘Six months from now all this will be forgotten.’
That wasn’t what he’d said earlier, Jodi thought, when he’d insisted that the only way to protect her job was for them to be engaged. Jodi bit her lip. Still, in six months’ time Leo might have forgotten her but she would never be able to forget him.
Leo handed Jodi one of the glasses of champagne. Shaking her head, she refused to take it.
‘No, I can’t,’ she told Leo bleakly.
To her relief he didn’t press her, simply putting the glass down before asking her quietly, ‘Because of the effect the cocktail at the hotel had on you? Jodi, from the smell of the jug, it contained the most lethal mixture of alcohol…’
Before he could finish Jodi was shaking her head. Oddly perhaps, in the circumstances, that had not been her reason for refusing the champagne.
‘It isn’t that,’ she told him hollowly. ‘It’s that I hate having to pretend like this,’ she told him simply. ‘I abhor the deceit, and it just seems wrong somehow to celebrate in such a traditional and romantic way what is, after all, just a pretence…a fiction—’
‘Jodi!’
Her honesty, so direct and unexpected, had brought a dangerous lump of emotion to Leo’s throat. She looked so sad, so grave-eyed, so infinitely lovable that he wanted to take hold of her and…