“But as it happens,” she continued firmly, “I’m free this evening. It’s very rare for me to organise a lunch and a dinner on the same day,” she explained dismissively.
“And today you have a lunch,” Gabe said with satisfaction. “My lucky evening!”
It could be. But then again, it might not be, not if all he was after was a conquest…
“And how do you know Father Christmas takes time off?” she asked inconsequentially.
Gabe burst out laughing. “I wondered if you would pick me up on that one!”
She would pick him up on anything she felt she should. But as she glanced at him she saw he was looking at his watch once again. “Am I keeping you from something? Or possibly someone?” she added dryly.
His mouth quirked. “As it happens—both those things! I have an appointment at ten o’clock, and after our run I need a shower before going to the office.”
Jane’s returning smile lacked humour. “Some other unlucky person whose business is in trouble?”
Gabe shook his head, looking at her with narrowed eyes. “I would like to know who gave you this detrimental version of my business dealings,” he drawled irritably. “I could thank them personally!”
Not really! It was Paul who had told her all about Gabriel Vaughan and the way he did business, and he had been out of Gabe’s—and anyone else’s—reach for three years…
She shrugged. “It isn’t important—”
“Maybe not to you,” Gabe bit out tersely. “But it sure as hell is to me! I may have stepped in and taken a business over when it was in danger of failing— If I hadn’t done it then someone else would have!” he defended harshly at her sceptical expression. “And at least with me the original workforce, and often the management too, would be kept on if they weren’t the reason for the problem.”
As he had with her father’s company…except for her father, of course! “Somehow, Gabe, you don’t strike me as a knight in shining armour—”
“I’m well aware of how I strike you, Jane,” he rasped tautly. “And I’m doing my damnedest to show you how wrong you are!”
And in part, she realised with a worried frown, he was succeeding. Because several times in their new acquaintance she had been surprised by his actions, found them difficult to place with the ruthless shark she had originally thought him to be…
“Oh, to hell with this,” he suddenly snapped impatiently. “Just tell me when and where this evening, and I’ll meet you there. And try not to make it in yet another establishment where the male proprietor greets you like a long-lost lover, hmm?” he added grimly.
He was jealous! Of Antonio and François. He had been pleasant to both men; in fact, this morning she had noted how easy he found it to get along with people and put them, as well as himself, at their ease. And yet that continued show of relaxation hid another emotion completely.
“Caroline’s,” she told him, adding the address of her favourite French restaurant. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get a table for eight o’clock,” she added dryly. “Although that may be difficult this close to Christmas.”
“Do I take it that Caroline is a female?” Gabe muttered warily.
“You do,” Jane nodded. “But it’s her husband Pierre who does the cooking,” she added with a grin.
“I give up!” Gabe sighed disgustedly, glancing at his watch once again. “And I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting us a table—even if it is Christmas!” he dismissed exasperatedly. “I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock. Now I really do have to go!” He bent and kissed her briefly on the lips before turning and running off towards the main road where, hopefully, he would be able to flag down a taxi to take him home.
Jane watched him go, ruefully shaking her head as she did so. The man had a way of first bursting in and then bursting out of her life!
And of kissing her whenever he felt like it!
He had dropped that kiss lightly on her lips just now, as if they were two lovers parting briefly to be reunited later in the day. Which was exactly what they were going to do. But they certainly weren’t lovers!
Nor ever likely to be either…!
JANE sat at the table waiting, a frown marring her brow as she remembered the telephone message that had been left on her answer machine when she’d got in earlier.
“Janette, darling,” her mother had greeted excitedly. “Such fun, darling! Daddy and I have decided to come up to London for the day, and we thought it would be marvellous if we could all have tea at the Waldorf like we used to. Daddy and I will be there at four-thirty. But don’t worry if you aren’t able to make it,” she’d added doubtfully. “If that’s the case I’ll give you a ring in a few days’ time.”
A few days’ time…! There was no way Jane could wait a few days before finding out what had prompted her parents to come up to London.
The London house had been sold three years earlier along with the rest of their surplus needs, and with it most of their London friends had disappeared too. Besides, Jane knew there was little cash to spend on a day in London, let alone tea at the Waldorf…
Tea at the Waldorf had always been a first-day-home-from-boarding-school treat that she and her mother had indulged in, her father usually too busy to join them.
But that wasn’t the case today, and luckily Jane had returned from catering the lunch to receive her mother’s recorded message in time for her to get to the Waldorf.
A day in London…
Her parents rarely came to London nowadays, and when they did it wasn’t done spontaneously, as this visit appeared to have been. And it was never just for the day; the two of them usually stayed with Jane for several days.
So here she sat, the troubled frown still marring her brow, the time one minute to four-thirty…
Her mother looked transformed as she entered the hotel, radiant in a fine woollen rose-pink suit, her hair newly coloured and styled, her smile graciously lovely as she greeted several other people she knew at the tables as she and Jane’s father approached their own reserved table.
Jane’s father looked the tall, handsome man she had known when she was a child and teenager, his smiles of greeting as warm as her mother’s.
But Jane’s feelings of pleasure at the change in her parents were tinged with trepidation as she wondered at the reason for that change…
“Darling!” Her mother kissed her warmly on the cheek as Jane stood up on their arrival at the table.
“Janette.” Her father greeted her more sedately, but there was a teasing glitter in the warmth of his eyes.
“This was a lovely idea,” Jane smiled as they all sat down. “Thank you both for inviting me.”
But still her feelings of trepidation wouldn’t be pushed aside. Although it wouldn’t do to just blurt out her curiosity concerning their spontaneity. Besides, she didn’t want to wipe out that happy light in the two faces she loved best in the world.
“Have you had an enjoyable day?” she asked casually once their sandwiches and tea had been placed on the table, the latter in front of her mother so that she could pour the Earl Grey into the three china cups. “It’s a little late for Christmas shopping, and the weather hasn’t exactly been brilliant for walking around the shops.” There had been flurries of snow and rain most of the day, and the wind was bitterly cold.
“Everywhere looks so festive we didn’t notice.” Her mother smiled her pleasure. “I had forgotten how wonderful everywhere looks at this time of the year,” she added wistfully.
Jane had barely noticed the decorations, she had to admit, not because she didn’t like Christmas, but because until the evening of the twenty-fourth of December she would be worked off her feet providing other people’s food for the festive season. Christmas Day she would spend with her parents, and on Boxing Day the round of parties and dinners would all begin again. But, yes, everywhere did look rather splendid, and, without her being aware of it until this moment, she was feeling lightened by some of the Christmas spirit hers
elf.
And part of her now wondered just how much of that was due to the presence of Gabriel Vaughan in her life…
She quickly pushed the question to the back of her mind, not wanting to know the answer. He couldn’t be coming to mean anything to her; he just couldn’t!
“Was there a special reason for your coming up to town today?” she queried as she took her cup of tea from her mother.
Her parents looked briefly at each other before her father answered her. “Actually, Janette, I had a business meeting. Don’t look so surprised.” He laughed at her shocked response to his statement. “I do still have some contacts in the business world, you know,” he chided teasingly.
And most of those contacts hadn’t wanted to know when he’d run into financial difficulty and had to relinquish his company. To Gabriel Vaughan…
But, whatever had transpired earlier today at this “business meeting”, her father was transformed from that man already grown old at only sixty-one, his shoulders no longer stooped and defeated, that playful twinkle back in his eyes.
“I know you do, Daddy,” she soothed apologetically. “I just thought—I believed—”
“That I had turned my back on all that,” he finished lightly. “As most of them turned their back on me,” he added tightly, the first time he—or her mother—had ever indicated the pain they had suffered over the last three years because of the defection of their so-called friends. “Retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know,” he added wryly, stirring sugar into his tea.
Especially when it had been forced on him!
But, nevertheless, her father was now sixty-one; he couldn’t seriously be considering fighting his way back into the business arena at this stage of his life…
Jane looked across at her mother, but her mother only had eyes for her husband: proud and infinitely loving. That love and pride in her mother for her father had never changed.
As it hadn’t in Jane. It was just that she could see something else in her mother’s gaze today, something she couldn’t quite put a name to…
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Daddy.” She turned back to her father. “Tell me what you’ve been up to!”
“I haven’t been ‘up to’ anything,” he smiled at her frustration. “And I’m not sure I should actually tell you anything just yet,” he added less assuredly. “Not until things are a little more settled. What do you think, Daphne?” A little of the hesitancy that had been with him so much over the last three years crept back into his face as he looked at Jane’s mother for guidance.
“I think everything is going to work out splendidly,” Daphne answered him firmly, one of her hands reaching out to rest briefly on his. “But I’m sure it can all wait until after Christmas,” she added briskly. “You are still coming to us for Christmas Day, aren’t you, Janette?” She looked across at her encouragingly.
Where else could she possibly be going for Christmas? Besides, she always spent Christmas with her parents. Even during the really bad times with Paul, Christmas had been a family time, when they had all been together, happily or not.
And she couldn’t say she was particularly happy now with the way the conversation had been turned away from her father’s business meeting earlier today. She never had been able to stand mysteries, and that dislike had been heightened during her marriage to Paul, when everything he did and said had become questionable. Until it had got to the stage where she’d stopped asking and he’d stopped telling!
“Of course I am,” she assured them brightly. “But are you really not going to tell me anything else about what is obviously good news?”
Her father laughed. “Do you know, Janie, I haven’t seen you pout like this since you were a little girl?” he explained affectionately at her hurt look.
Jane gave a rueful grin; maybe she had been trying a little too hard! “Did it work?” She quirked mischievous brows.
“Maybe back then,” her father conceded warmly. “But you’re twenty-eight now; it doesn’t have the same impact.”
She laughed. It was a long time since she had heard her father being quite this jovial. But she liked it. Whatever the reason for the change in him, and her mother, she could only thank whoever was responsible.
“Drink your tea, Janette,” her mother encouraged briskly. “Your father and I have a train to catch in a couple of hours.”
She sipped obediently at her tea; her mother was certainly starting to sound like her old self again too. In fact, it felt as if all of them were emerging from a long, dark tunnel…
“Why aren’t you staying with me as you usually do?” she prompted lightly. “Do you have to rush back?”
“You’re so busy, darling.” Her mother smiled understandingly. “We don’t want to intrude on what little time you do have for yourself. I know you never mention any young men in your life, but you’re so beautiful, darling—more beautiful with your blonde hair, of course,” she sighed, “but—”
“Now let’s not start that, Daphne,” her husband rebuked gently. “I agree with you, of course, but young women of today seem to change the colour of their hair depending on which outfit they’re wearing! Janette may decide to be a flaming redhead by next week!”
“I don’t think so, Daddy,” she assured him dryly—although she was glad to have the subject changed from “young men” in her life! Until Gabe had forced himself into her life just under two weeks ago, there had been no man in her private life at all in the last three years. And she didn’t think Gabe was at all the sort of “young man” her mother was talking about!
“Neither do I, really.” Her father gave an answering smile. “And your mother is right, Janie—you are beautiful. And one bad experience shouldn’t sour you for any future—”
“It did, Daddy,” she cut in firmly. “There have been no young men, there is no young man, and there will be no young men, either!” She didn’t consider Gabe a young man at all, and he wasn’t in her life—instead he kept trying to pull her into his!
“And just how do you think I’m ever going to become a grandfather if you stick to that decision?” her father chided softly.
“Adoption?” she suggested helpfully.
“Now stop it, you two.” Her mother tutted. “It’s been a wonderful day, it’s nearly Christmas, and I won’t have the two of you indulging in one of your silly going-nowhere conversations. More tea, David?” she added pointedly.
It was wonderful to see her parents looking, and being, so positive once again. And, Jane realised on her way back to her apartment an hour later, it was the first time for a very long time—three years, in fact!—that she had spent time with her parents without those feelings of guilt that had been like a brick wall between them.
Their lives were changing.
All of them.
Her own because of Gabriel Vaughan, she realised.
But if her parents were to realise, were to know that Gabe was the “man in her life” at the moment, albeit by his own invitation, how would that affect their own new-found happiness?
Not very well, she accepted frowningly. And nothing, absolutely nothing, must happen to affect her parents’ mood of anticipation for the future.
Which meant, she decided firmly, that tonight had to be the last time, the very last time, that she ever saw Gabe…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I FIND it very difficult to believe, with the catering connections you seem to have, that you couldn’t book a table at a restaurant for us anywhere!” Gabe didn’t even pause to say hello as he strolled into her apartment. “So we’re eating at home again, hmm?” He turned in the hallway and grinned at her.
Jane’s mouth had dropped open indignantly at his initial bombardment as he came through the open doorway, but his second remark, and that grin—!
“What can I say?” she shrugged. “It’s Christmas!”
Heavens, he looked gorgeous!
She had spent the last two hours telling herself that Gabe meant nothing
to her, that they would have dinner together, and then she would tell him this was goodbye. And this time she intended making sure he knew she meant it!
But he did look so handsome in the casual blue shirt worn beneath a grey jacket, and black trousers.
It wasn’t true that she couldn’t get a table at the restaurant: Caroline and Pierre were old friends; they would have found a table for her even if they’d had to bring another one into the restaurant for her! But a restaurant wasn’t the best place for her to say goodbye to him, especially if he should prove difficult—as he had done in the past… And so she had acquired his telephone number from Felicity and called to tell him they were eating at her apartment instead.
“I brought the wine.” Gabe held up a marvellously exclusive—and expensive—bottle of red wine. “You didn’t say what we were eating, but I guessed it wouldn’t be beans on toast!” he said with satisfaction.
“You guessed it was eggs, hmm?” she came back derisively.
Gabe gave her a chiding look. “I’ve had a good day, Jane; don’t spoil it by serving me eggs!”
She grimaced as she took the bottle of wine and went back into the kitchen where she had been when he’d rung the bell. “Everyone seems to be having a good day today,” she murmured as she uncorked the wine, remembering her parents’ happiness earlier. “Stay away from those pots, Gabe,” she warned sharply as he would have lifted one of the saucepan lids. “Anticipation is half the fun!”
“I know, Jane.”
She became very still, turning slowly to look at him. And then wished she hadn’t. Gabe was looking at her as if he would like to make her his main course!
And she’d deliberately dressed down this evening, wearing a green cashmere sweater she had bought several years ago when she was still blonde, and a black fitted skirt, knee-length, not so short as to look inviting.
What she didn’t realise was how much more the green colour of her sweater suited the new darkness of her hair, picking out those red highlights—she almost appeared the “flaming redhead” her father had referred to this afternoon!
The Yuletide Engagement & A Yuletide Seduction Page 27