by Penny Jordan
So much for his earlier high-minded promise to himself not to use any kind of emotional blackmail to press his suit, Leo reflected grimly. But those comments Jodi had made about not wanting him as a father for her child had hurt—and badly—and he had been within a breath of telling her in no uncertain terms that if her body was allowed to speak for itself it might have a very different story to tell. ‘Because make no mistake about it, Jodi Marsh, your body damned well wanted me!’
To Leo’s consternation he suddenly realised as the sound of his own voice filled the car that he was talking to himself! No wonder they called love a form of madness!
* * *
More drained by everything that had happened than she wanted to admit, Jodi suddenly discovered that she was craving the escape of sleep. She normally had buckets of energy, but these last couple of days she had felt physically drained. On her return home she went upstairs, intending to collect some washing, and then she saw her bed, and one thing led to another and...
It was the sound of her doorbell ringing that finally woke her. Realising that she had fallen deeply asleep, still fully dressed, she made her way groggily downstairs, her heart leaping frantically as she wondered if her visitor was Leo.
It had hurt her so badly this morning, after the wonderful night they had spent together, to know how desperate he was to distance himself from her and to make sure she knew that he didn’t want her.
However, her visitor wasn’t Leo, but Nigel her cousin. As she let him in he was waving a newspaper in front of her.
‘You’re on the front page,’ he told her. ‘Have you seen the paper yet?’
The front page! Jodi took the newspaper from him and studied it, her face burning with consternation and embarrassment as she studied the photograph of the previous evening’s arrests.
‘I was half expecting I was going to have to bail my strait-laced cousin out of prison,’ Nigel joked as he made his way towards her small kitchen.
‘Only, as I understand it, Leo got there before me.’
He shot Jodi a wry look as she demanded, ‘Who told you that?’
‘I rang the police station,’ Nigel informed her. ‘Reading between the lines, it sounds as if Leo must have put one hell of a lot of pressure on Jeremy Driscoll to get him to back off from charging you.’
To back off? Jodi began to frown.
‘But Leo said that Jeremy had changed his mind,’ she protested shakily.
‘Yeah, but probably only after Leo had told him that if he didn’t he would change it for him, if my guess is correct,’ Nigel agreed derisively. ‘Apparently Leo was on the phone to the police for nearly half an hour this morning, insisting that he did not want charges pressed against you, or any of the workforce. It seems to me that Leo must think an awful lot of you, little cousin, to go to so much trouble on your behalf,’ Nigel teased her. ‘This wouldn’t be the beginning of a classic tale of romance between two adversaries, would it?’ He grinned, his smile fading when he saw the look of white-faced despair Jodi was giving him. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked in concern.
‘I’m fine,’ Jodi lied.
‘Feel like going out for a meal tonight?’ Nigel suggested.
Jodi shook her head. ‘No; I’ve got some work I need to prepare for school on Monday,’ she told him, ‘but thanks for asking.’
Nigel was almost at the front door, when he turned round and told her, ‘Leo was meeting with the representatives of the factory this morning. Did he drop any hints about what he was going to say to them?’
‘No, why should he?’ she asked Nigel primly.
He was, she could see, giving her a worried look.
‘Something’s wrong; you’re not your normal self, Jodi. What—?’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she lied grittily. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’
She felt guilty about lying to Nigel, who was practically her best friend as well as her cousin, but what alternative did she really have?
A small, uncomfortable silence followed her denial, before Nigel turned to open the front door.
Jodi watched him go. She had been unfairly sharp with him, she knew, and ultimately she would have to apologise and explain, but not right now. Right now she just wasn’t capable of doing anything so rational! All she really wanted to do was to think about Leo, and what Nigel had told her.
It had confused her to learn that Leo had intervened with the authorities on her behalf. After all, he had allowed her to believe that they had been the ones to contact him, and not, as Nigel had implied, the other way around.
It galled Jodi to know that she was in his debt—not that that made a single scrap of difference to what she felt about what he had said to her earlier. No way! Those words were words she would never forgive him for uttering. Still, she knew she would have to thank him for what he had done, and the sooner she got that onerous task over with the better! Gritting her teeth, she went upstairs to shower and get changed.
* * *
Leo saw Jodi as she walked up the drive towards the front door of Ashton House. He was standing in the room he was using as an office, having just completed a telephone call with his new partner in the haulage and distribution business he intended to site at the motorway-based factory.
As he had informed the representatives of the Frampton workforce earlier, he had now decided to keep that factory open, but it would be up to them to prove to him that he had made the right decision, with an increased output to ensure his business kept its competitive edge over its overseas rivals.
Despite the fact that it was a hot summer’s day, Jodi was wearing a very formal-looking black trouser suit, its jacket open over a white T-shirt.
Leo, in contrast, had changed into a pair of casual chinos on his return from his meeting, but that did not prevent Jodi from thinking how formidable he looked as he opened the door just as she reached out to ring the bell.
Formidably male, that was, she admitted to herself as he invited her into the house.
Why, oh, why did she have to feel this way about him? Her pain at loving him was laced with her furious anger at his unbelievably callous words of the morning.
Perhaps to him, a high-powered businessman, an unplanned child was just a problem to be disposed of, but there was no way she could contemplate taking such an unemotional course.
If she thought for one moment that there was the slightest chance that she could be pregnant... After all, she had lied to Leo when she had intimated that she had taken precautions to ensure that she did not conceive.
Now she was deliberately trying to frighten herself, Jodi decided firmly, dismissing her uncomfortable anxiety. She was not pregnant. Totally, definitely not.
And, besides, didn’t she have enough to worry about?
As she followed Leo inside the house she began with determination, ‘Nigel’s been to see me. He says that I have you to thank for the fact that I did not have to return to the police station this morning.’
The way she delivered the words, with an extremely militant look in her eyes, made Leo curse her cousin silently.
‘Jodi—’ he began, but she shook her head, refusing to let him continue.
‘Is it true?’ she demanded.
‘The police agreed with me that there was no reason to take things any further with any of those concerned in what essentially had been a peaceful demonstration,’ Leo palliated.
‘So it is true,’ Jodi announced baldly. ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked him bitterly.
‘So that you could have me under some kind of obligation to you? Why would you want that, or can I guess?’ she demanded sarcastically. ‘So that you could demand that I—?’
‘Stop right there.’
Now it was Jodi’s turn to fall silent as Leo glared furiously at her. Did she really think that he would stoop so low a
s to try to demand that she make love with him?
Beneath his anger, running much, much deeper, Leo could feel the savage, ripping claws of pain.
Jodi told herself that she wasn’t going to back down or allow him to make her feel she was in the wrong. After what he had said this morning it seemed perfectly logical to her that he would consider using the fact that he had negotiated her freedom to demand that she acquiesce to his demands over an accidental pregnancy.
All the anguish she was feeling welled up inside her. Ignoring the oxygen-destroying tension crackling between them, and the anger she could see glinting in Leo’s eyes, Jodi protested, ‘You just don’t care, do you? Feelings, human life—they don’t matter to you. You’re quite happy to close down the factory and put people out of work...’
And quite happy, too, to deny his child the right to live, Jodi reflected inwardly, the pain of that knowledge twisting her insides like acid—not just for the child she was positive she had not conceived but also for the destruction of her own foolish dreams.
Somewhere deep down inside herself she had seen him as a hero, a truly special man, imbued with all the virtues that women universally loved, especially the instinct to protect those weaker and more vulnerable than himself. It hurt to know just how wrong she had been.
Leo had had enough. How dared she accuse him of not having feelings? If he was as callous, as uncaring as she was accusing him of being, right now she would be lying under him on his bed whilst he...
As Leo fought to control the surging shock of his fierce desire he couldn’t stop himself from retaliating savagely, ‘If this is your way of trying to persuade me to keep the factory open, let me tell you the tactics you employed in my hotel suite would be far more effective.’
Leo knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that they were a mistake, but it was too late to recall them.
Jodi was looking at him with an expression of contemptuous loathing in her eyes, whilst her mouth...!
Leo had to swallow—hard—as he saw that small, betraying tremble of her firmly compressed lips. The same lips he had not such a very long time ago teased open with his tongue before...
Was that actually a groan Leo had just uttered? Jodi wondered with furious female anger. Well, he certainly deserved to be in pain after what he had just said to her!
It was only the sheer force of her anger that was keeping her from bursting into either incoherent speech or helpless emotional tears.
How could he have stooped so low as to throw that at her?
Well, he would quickly learn that she could be equally offensive!
‘If I thought that such tactics would work—and that you would not renege on any deal made in the heat of the moment—I might almost be prepared to risk them,’ she told him with pseudo-sweetness, her tone changing completely as she added in a much colder and more authoritative voice, ‘But if I were in your shoes...’
‘You’d do things differently?’ Leo supplied for her.
‘Well, if I were you I’d make sure of my facts before I started throwing accusations around.’ Jodi turned round, giving him one last furious look as she told him, ‘I’m not listening to any more of this.’
And then she was gone before Leo had the chance to stop her, leaving him mentally cursing both her and himself.
Why on earth hadn’t he simply told her that he had found a way of keeping the factory open?
Why? Because his damned stupid male pride wouldn’t let him, that was why!
* * *
By the time she had walked home, Jodi was feeling both queasy and slightly light-headed. It was because of the heat of the sun and the fact that she had not really had very much to eat, Jodi told herself firmly—to even think of allowing herself to imagine anything else was completely and utterly silly.
Silly, yes, but still somehow she couldn’t stop herself from imagining, dreading that her foolish behaviour was now going to have dire consequences.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like children—she did, nor even that she didn’t want to be a mother and have babies herself—she did. But not yet, and most certainly not like this.
No, she wanted her babies to be planned for with love, by two people equally committed to their relationship and their children’s future.
She was, she told herself, panicking unnecessarily, deliberately blowing up a small feeling of nausea into something else. Easy to tell herself that, but far harder to believe it. Guilt was a terribly powerful force!
With her imagination running away from her at full speed and sending her harrowing images of single-parenthood, it was hard to think rationally.
Even if she was pregnant, it was far too soon for her to be suffering from morning sickness, surely, and if her nausea wasn’t caused by that then how could she be pregnant?
But what if she was? What if? A woman in her position, a schoolteacher, pregnant after a one-night stand! She went cold at the thought, filled with repugnance for her own behaviour. Mentally she started counting the days until she could be sure that she was safe. And in the meantime... In the meantime she would just have to try not to panic!
CHAPTER EIGHT
JODI COULD FEEL the buzz of excitement being generated by the group of parents gathered outside the school gates. Puzzled, she looked at them. Normally on a Monday parental exchanges were slightly subdued, but this morning’s mood was quite obviously very upbeat—unlike her own, Jodi recognised, pausing as one of the parents called out to her.
‘Have you heard the news—isn’t it wonderful? I could hardly believe it when John came home on Saturday and told me that Leo Jefferson had announced he intended to keep the factory open.’
Jodi stared at her.
Leo had done that? But he had told her... Before she could sort out her confused thoughts another mother was joining in the conversation, chuckling warmly as she congratulated Jodi on her part in the previous week’s demonstration at the factory.
‘We were all really surprised and impressed by the way Mr Jefferson spoke up for you to the police, telling them that he had no intention of taking things any further. And then to learn that he’s going to keep the factory open after all. It totally changes the way we all think about him.’ She beamed, giving Jodi a look she didn’t understand before continuing, ‘Of course, you must have known what was going to happen before the rest of us!’
Jodi’s face started to burn.
The other parents were also looking at her with an unexpected degree of amused speculation, she recognised, although she had no idea why until suddenly she could hear Myra Fanshawe exclaiming vehemently, ‘Well, personally I think it’s absolutely disgraceful. A person in her position...a schoolteacher. A head teacher...indulging in a liaison of that nature. I must say, though, I’m not totally surprised. I’ve never approved of some of her teaching methods!’
Myra was talking to one of the other parents, her back to Jodi. As Jodi approached the other woman whispered something urgently to Myra, her face flushing with embarrassment.
But it seemed that her embarrassment was not shared by Myra, who tossed her head and then said even more loudly, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t really care if she does hear me. After all, she’s the one at fault. Behaving like that... Openly spending the night in his hotel suite, and then trying to convince us all that she’s Ms Virtue personified!’
Jodi felt her face burning even hotter as the group of parents surrounding Myra gave way and stood back as she approached.
Jodi’s heart gave a sickening lurch as she saw the look of malicious triumph in the other woman’s eyes. Myra had never liked her, she knew that. Jodi had to admit that she didn’t particularly care for Myra either, but there was too much at stake here for her to be ruled by such feelings.
Reminding herself—not that she needed any reminding—of her position an
d her responsibilities as the school’s head teacher, Jodi took a deep, calming breath and confronted the other woman.
‘I assume that I am the subject of your discussion, and if that is the case—’
‘You aren’t going to try to deny it, I hope,’ Myra interrupted her rudely before Jodi could finish speaking. ‘It wouldn’t do you any good if you did. Ellie, the receptionist who saw you at the hotel, both when you arrived and the next morning when you left, is my god-daughter, and she recognised you immediately from your photograph in the local paper. She couldn’t believe it when she read that you had been demonstrating at the factory. Not when she knew that you’d spent the night with its owner.’
Jodi’s heart sank. This was even worse than she had expected, and she could see from the varying expressions on the faces of the other parents that they were all shocked by Myra’s disclosures.
What could she say in her own defence? What mitigating circumstances could she summon up to explain? Bleakly Jodi was aware that there was nothing she could say that would make the situation any better and, potentially, telling the truth would make things a whole lot worse!
‘You do realise, don’t you, that, given my position on the board of governors, it will be my duty to bring up the doubts your behaviour gives me as to your suitability to teach our children?’
‘I haven’t—’
Jodi tried to interrupt and defend herself, but Myra overrode her, stating loudly, ‘And, on top of everything else, you were taken into custody by the police. It is my belief that the education authority should be told!’ she said to Jodi with obvious relish. ‘After all, as a parent, I have my child’s moral welfare to think about,’ Myra was continuing with a sanctimonious fervour that had some of the more impressionable parents watching her round-eyed. ‘In your shoes...’ she continued in an openly triumphant manner.
To Jodi’s relief, the final bell summoning the children to their classrooms started to ring, giving her the perfect opportunity to escape from her tormentor.