‘He looked me up and down as if I was in a corsair slave market.’
Suze jumped and re-engaged attention. ‘You watch too many old movies. Jay Christopher is no pirate.’
‘Then why does he prowl like one?’
Suze gave an incredulous laugh. ‘He doesn’t. You’re just saying that because you fancy him.’
Zoe jumped as if her friend had turned the garden hose on her. ‘You’ve got to be joking. Why would I fancy him?’
‘Everyone does,’ said Suze simply.
‘Can’t imagine why,’ Zoe muttered.
‘Get real, Zo. You saw the man. He’s lethal.’
‘He’s rude and arrogant.’
‘He can afford to be arrogant. You didn’t seem to clock it, but that was the man himself. Jay Christopher of Culp and Christopher Public Relations.’ There was a faint question mark in Suze’s voice.
Zoe pushed her hair back. ‘So?’
‘The Big Cheese. The one the financial reporters write the big profiles of.’
Zoe refused to be impressed. ‘You know me. I don’t read the financial pages.’
‘He hangs out in the sports section as well. To say nothing of the gossip columns. Olympic medallist. One of the long- distance races. You must remember him.’
But Zoe shook her head. ‘You know me. No competitive edge.’
Suze almost danced with frustration. ‘You must remember. No one rated him. And then he just came from nowhere and took the medal.’
A chord in Zoe’s memory started to vibrate very gently. She had a vague picture of an old television news bulletin— a tall, proud figure with remote eyes, in spite of his heaving chest and sweat soaked running gear.
Well, the eyes were right. Though that flame-coloured silk suggested that he had not broken out into a sweat in long while.
‘Maybe I do remember,’ she said.
‘He set up his public relations agency with Theodora Culp, the business journalist. Now it’s one of the best in London. Theodora’s gone back into television, of course, so Jay runs it single-handed.’ Suze laughed. ‘And you thought he was a human resources manager.’
‘I told him he was a bad human resources manager,’ Zoe reminded her. For some reason it felt like a small triumph. Because she had been fighting back, she supposed, not melting into a warm puddle of sub-teen lust at his feet. She would have died rather than admit it, but Suze was not the only one who fancied Jay Christopher.
‘He won’t care. Jay’s not mean. And he knows how good he is.’ Suze was thoughtful for a moment. ‘They say one of the big international advertising agencies is sniffing round Culp and Christopher at the moment. If Jay sells out he’ll be making himself some serious money.’
But if Zoe was unwillingly attracted to the tall man with the remote eyes, she did not give a hoot about serious money. She did not have to say so. Her expression said it all.
‘You’ve got to admire him,’ Suze urged. ‘He did it all on his own. His grandfather’s a brigadier, and terribly well connected. But Jay wouldn’t let him help out, even when the business was just two men and a dog to begin with. Jay would have every right to be insufferably pleased with himself. But he isn’t.’
‘No?’ Zoe was sceptical.
‘Well, not normally. You did seem to rub him up the wrong way.’
Zoe bristled. ‘It’s mutual.’
‘I could see that. Never seen a man wind you up so fast in my life. And plenty have tried. You’re always Miss I Can Cope.’
If only you knew.
But she didn’t say that. Why didn’t she say that? She wanted to get rid of this false image that her best friend had of her, didn’t she? So why the heck did she flick back her hair, strike an attitude and go into the performance Suze expected?
‘I still am. I got that man to apologise.’ She even sounded complacent.
Megabyte Man would say I need a hard drive diagnostic.
‘Yes. I suppose it’s all right.’ Suze sounded doubtful.
‘It will be fine,’ Performance Zoe said breezily. ‘I’ve worked for some stinkers in my time. Now I’ve broken his resistance Mr Successful will be a piece of cake.’
Suze just looked at her.
Zoe’s chin came up another ten degrees. ‘So?’ she challenged. ‘You don’t really think I can’t handle him? Do you? Me?’
Suze put her head on one side. ‘How long have we been friends?’
‘Nineteen years,’ said Zoe, literally.
‘Then believe me. You really, really can’t handle Jay Christopher.’
Performance Zoe snorted. She had a wide repertoire of dismissive noises.
‘I know you. I know Jay Christopher.’ Suze shook her head wisely. ‘Take my advice. You don’t want to go there.’
‘And why not?’
‘Don’t forget—I know all your ex-boyfriends, Zo.’
Even Performance Zoe was silenced.
Suze shook off her unaccustomed seriousness. ‘Come on. The night is young. We’ve got some serious partying to get in before dawn.’
She was not wrong. And Zoe was the life and soul of it. She danced with Megabyte Man, and Lauren’s boring accountant, and Alastair, whom she had made miserable five months ago, and who now had a brilliant French girlfriend. She danced on her own. She draped her arms over the shoulders of her sister Artemis and Suze and did an untidy high- kicking routine.
As the sky began to lighten only the long-distance party animals were still there.
‘Come on,’ said Zoe, finding a fast song about a rodeo cowboy. ‘Line-dance.’
They lined up and went into the rapid routine that they had worked out last Christmas. Amid raucous insults and much giggling, they managed to keep up for a bit. But in the end too many of them went right while the others went left. Finally Harry did a sideways jump into Suze and the whole line staggered. The music raced away from them. They ended up in heap on the floor, laughing.
‘Great party,’ said the stragglers, tumbling out into the grey morning.
By morning, though, there were only six people left in the shabby kitchen. Hermann, who was Suze’s current favourite, sat on the corner of the scrubbed pine table, plucking at a guitar and singing softly. He was waiting for Suze to take him home to bed and everyone knew it.
Zoe’s younger sister, Artemis, clutched her boyfriend sleepily round the waist as he systematically loaded empty bottles into a cardboard box. From time to time Ed put an absent hand behind his back and patted her hip encouragingly.
Suze and Zoe had bagged up all the food remains in three black sacks and were now loading the dishwasher with the last of the glasses.
This was after Suze had taken Harry on one side and briefed him tersely about his sister’s imminent employment prospects.
‘She really needs this job,’ she ended fiercely.
Harry might be only seventeen but he was a realist. He nodded slowly.
‘Yup. And not just for the money. She needs to do something for herself. And something to stop Mum thinking she only has to call and Zoe will be there. Okay, Suze. Leave it to me.’
Thereafter Harry wandered among the debris, theoretically helping. In practice he was eating any food that he decided there was no room in the fridge for.
‘You’ll be sick,’ said Zoe, matter-of-factly.
Harry grinned. ‘I’m seventeen. My digestion is at peak performance.’
‘It was our best party ever,’ said Suze with satisfaction. ‘Did you get to see Jay, Hermann? Hermann was at college with Jay,’ she explained to Zoe. ‘That’s how I got a nibble at the Culp and Christopher account in the first place.’
‘I saw him.’ Suze’s boyfriend executed a rippling final chord and put the guitar away. ‘Nice of him to come.’
‘Why shouldn’t he?’ demanded Suze, bridling.
Hermann was peaceful. ‘He’s running with the great and the good these days. Not a lot of time for simple socialising.’
Zoe sniffed. She was not surprised, someh
ow. The Mogul Prince had that look of a man who could hardly bring himself to bother with other people.
‘Don’t scare Zoe,’ Suze warned. ‘She’s going to work for him on Monday.’
‘I’m not scared. I was not intending to make friends with the man,’ Zoe said crisply.
Artemis’s Ed laughed. ‘You can’t scare Zoe. One flash of those big brown eyes and men just roll over with their paws in the air—don’t they Zo?’
Artemis rubbed her cheek against Ed’s bent back. ‘Are you going to be long, lover? I’m wiped.’
Zoe was irritated. ‘Like Suze was telling me earlier, there’s more to human relationships than sex, Edward.’
There was burst of ribald laughter from the other five.
‘That’s a good one, coming from you, sis,’ said Artemis fondly. ‘The last of the femmes fatales.’
For once Performance Zoe did not flip into action automatically. Maybe because she was tired.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped.
She seized a damp cloth and worked vigorously at the stains on the table where Ed’s wine bottles had stood.
Artemis unwound herself from Ed’s hips. ‘Oh, come on, Zo. You know it’s true. Your men hardly ever get beyond the fourth date. And I know that they call you and call you because I take the messages. So if it’s not them getting bored, what is it? Picky, picky Princess Zoe, that’s what.’
Zoe bit her lip. If they knew the truth they wouldn’t laugh like this. On the other hand she had worked quite hard so that they wouldn’t know the truth.
And Ed’s next remark proved how right she had been to do so.
‘Hey, don’t worry, babe,’ he said, straightening with the box of bottles in his arms. ‘I think it’s cool.’ He flourished the box at Zoe in a sort of elephantine salute. ‘My friend the heartbreaker. Ta-da.’
‘Could solve your career problems,’ suggested Suze. ‘See if MI5 has an opening for Olga the Beautiful Spy.’
Zoe threw the cloth at her.
And everyone laughed. Just as they always did.
Zoe poured detergent, slammed the dishwasher shut, selected a program and switched it on. Everyone stood up with relief.
‘Thanks for the help with the clearing up, guys. I love you tonight, but I’ll really worship you tomorrow,’ Zoe said. ‘Hermann—take her home. She’s out on her feet.’
‘Little mother of all the world,’ teased Suze.
But Suze was drooping, and everyone knew it. Hermann packed his guitar away in its case and put his arm round her.
‘Lean on me, babe.’
Zoe looked away. Nobody noticed.
‘All of three doors down the street,’ scoffed Suze.
But she leaned into him gratefully and they wrapped their arms round each other. They were muzzy with sleep and low-grade lust. But they looked back to wave as they wandered off into the clear morning.
‘Goodbye,’ said Artemis and Ed, plodding off in the direction of his flat over the paper shop, leaning into each other and swinging their clasped hands. Artemis slept at Ed’s at the weekends. Well, more like all the time now.
Harry wandered off to his room with a video and a paper plate of garlic bread.
Zoe decided she was too alert to go to bed. She made herself some hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was Zoe’s long- term comfort drink. She had been brewing a lot of it lately.
She poured it into the heavy dragon-adorned mug her father had brought back from a trip. He had given it to her just before he’d told her he was moving out. It used to be a family joke: she got the things with dragons on them; Artemis had cats; Harry had crocodiles. No one had given Zoe anything with dragons on it since that day. She was glad.
She would have been quite glad if the dragon mug had been broken, but somehow it was too sturdy. Other mugs came into the house and got pushed off tables or dropped on the stone patio or trodden to dust when someone left them on the carpet after watching television. But solid old dragon just kept on going.
Seven years now. She had been sixteen then. That was why her parties always said, ‘Sixteen Again’. At sixteen she had turned into—what was it Suze called her? Little mother of all the world. Yes, that was it. At sixteen Zoe had turned into the household’s Responsible Adult. And she still was.
At least the thick dragons kept the drink warm. That was useful. The dawn had a chill to it.
Zoe went out onto the patio and sat down on the worn old bench. She held the mug under her chin, brooding.
Artemis was right when she said that Zoe never let a man take her out more than four times. Sometimes she did not let them take her out twice. They looked at her, saw her long legs and fashionably slim figure. They listened to her and heard a sharp tongue and a cool party girl with loads of friends. And nobody—nobody—saw that it was an act.
Responsible adult. Hot babe. Cool gal. The last virgin in the northern hemisphere.
‘What a mess,’ said Zoe wryly. She shivered, in spite of the hot drink between her hands.
Miss I Can Cope. That was what Suze had called her. She believed it, too. Zoe was not sure how. She knew that her family saw what they wanted to see. But how could her best friend be fooled?
Because you’re good at the performance.
Well, good enough. Up to a point. One day soon someone was going to find her out. She felt the chill touch her again. Maybe she had met him now.
She had so nearly given herself away tonight, with the way she had stared at the Mogul Prince. He had seen it, too. She knew he had. He had looked at her so hard that she’d thought he was going to be able to draw her. And his face had told her absolutely nothing.
Had he seen through her act? Had he?
No, she told herself. Of course he hadn’t. It had just been a trick of the disco ball lighting. And her own uneasy conscience, of course.
Heck, at one point it had even sounded as if he and Suze were play-acting. How was that for paranoia?
You’ve got to do something about that, she said to herself, as she had done so many times before. Stop performing. Tell someone.
But who? And how? And would they believe her, anyway?
The men in her life took their cue from her friends. And her friends knew that she was a sophisticated twenty-three-year- old with a cool life and a hot wardrobe. They even asked her advice about their love lives, for heaven’s sake. And Suze was forever asking her to look out for any social incompetents who turned up at her parties. Because Zoe knew all there was to know about men and the dating game. Didn’t she?
Not one of her friends would believe that twenty-year-old Artemis knew more about love than Zoe did. Heck, seventeen- year-old Harry probably knew more. And one day soon, if she did not tell them, she was going to trip up spectacularly over her half-lies and evasions.
Or she was going to get stuck in the performance. And she would be performing for the rest of her life. And not one soul would know her. Ever.
‘Aaaargh,’ she said aloud. And dashed the dragon mug on the weedy paved slabs.
It did not break.
CHAPTER THREE
JAY let himself out of the kitchen door, as he always did for his morning run. The old manor house felt asleep. He did some stretches, looking at the way the early-morning sun turned the Cotswold stone to the colour of warm butter. He smiled. His grandfather’s house smiled back at him.
He stopped stretching and started off on the familiar route, his trainers picking up damp from the dew-wet grass.
Across the kitchen garden. Through the iron gate in the wall and into the woods. Along the grassy track that followed the stream back up the hill. It was easy, this first part of the course, a gentle slope and an even surface to run on. He found his pace and let his thoughts wander.
It had been an easy journey last night. The roads had been nearly empty. He had been in bed just after two. That was not so different from the hours he kept in London. Lethal if he were in serious training, of course. Only he wasn’t. It was a long time since he ha
d competed, except in the boardroom.
A long time since I have had to try at anything.
Except he had had to try last night. Suze had been right. He had been surprised to find that the girl with the voluptuous mouth was so hostile to working for him.
No, he corrected himself, she was hostile to working for Culp and Christopher. She did not know him. At least, he hoped it was Culp and Christopher.
Anyway, he had followed Suze’s advice. He had challenged her. And before she knew where she was, she was promising to turn up on Monday morning and make him eat his words. That had made him feel as if he had won a victory.
Careful, he told himself wryly. You don’t want a resurgence of the old male animal. Not at work. Not after last time.
But the thought of Zoe Brown making him eat his words set his feet pounding faster all the same.
He had to make a conscious effort to slow down. On a three-hour-run you did not start off by sprinting. And Jay was a patient man. He was good at biding his time. Even better at self-control.
He remembered the way her satin bra strap had slipped under that damned transparent shirt and he had to remind himself fiercely that self-control was his strongest point.
And you don’t pursue women who work for you either, he added.
But she’s only temporary. After a week or two she won’t be working for me. And by then she won’t be hostile any more. I’ll make certain of that.
He was back by nine-thirty. He changed rapidly and went into the breakfast room. His grandfather was there, eating grilled kidneys and fulminating over the newspaper.
‘Good morning. Been for a run?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your time?’
Jay’s hair was still damp from the shower. He pushed his fingers through it. ‘Not what it should be,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’m getting fat and lazy in London.’
His grandfather pursed his lips. ‘No, you’re not. But you’re not enjoying yourself much, either. Are you?’
Jay was startled. ‘Aren’t I?’
His grandfather rattled the Daily Telegraph at him. ‘It says here you’re going to sell out to Karlsson.’
The Millionaire's Virgin (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 36