Man Trouble!

by Fox, Natalie

  ‘Oh, Mel,’ Jade moaned. ‘I didn’t listen, not properly. I just blundered out, not wanting to hear about your…what I thought was your baby.’ Suddenly Jade reached out and covered his hand with her own, feeling so guilty for everything she had thought. ‘And, Mel, you bought the company for her and not to hurt me.’

  He lifted her chin and kissed her lips lightly but warmly. ‘I’ve hurt you enough in the past, my darling. Initially I wanted the company as a means of laying a claim to you. The thought of giving it to Nadia came later. She’s done so well and she loves the work and her life is back on track once more. I considered a partnership, you and her, but the more I thought of it, the more I knew I didn’t want to share you, even with Nadia. At this moment in time you need me more than she does.’ His eyes softened. ‘Nadia is doing fine. I suspect she might be seeing Dave Rand on a more personal basis before very long.’

  Jade’s eyes widened. How had she missed that? Quite easily, she supposed. When you were in love yourself other loves didn’t interest you.

  ‘I wanted to give her something special, a new start; surely you can understand that?’

  Her head was swimming with happiness but she managed a nod. Yes, she understood, and loved him for caring for Nadia.

  ‘And I wanted you entirely free to devote your life to me,’ he added with a sudden gleam in his eye.

  Jade let out a small, soft laugh to cover the racing of her heartbeat. ‘Oh, Mel Biaggio, that is fighting talk.’

  ‘Well, let it be the last fight we ever have.’

  Jade shook her head, her eyes suddenly gleaming too. ‘I can’t promise that, Mel,’ she teased softly.

  He grazed a tempting kiss across her mouth and then gathered her into his arms, and she clung to him, arms around his neck, holding him tight, as if to show that he would never escape her again. ‘I can promise that I’ll love you for ever, though,’ she told him passionately.

  ‘You’ll have to when you marry me,’ he growled in her ear.

  She looked at him and smiled happily, all her worries easing away, her heart lifting, all the terrible anguish gone for ever. ‘Is that a real live marriage proposal?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely. And the last, because I won’t take no for an answer.’

  Jade frowned teasingly. ‘But can I trust you? Were you really considering marrying Nadia? You led me to believe you were.’

  ‘I was talking through my pain—wanting you so much and yet unable to forget that awful moment in my life when I heard you were engaged to be married. It scarred me so badly. I went crazy after that, and I might have been crazy enough to ask Nadia to marry me if you hadn’t asked for my professional services. But it would have been a loveless marriage—for both of us. Nadia and I are fond of each other but—’

  ‘Like Nicholas and me,’ Jade murmured, her eyes searching his. Had he really forgiven her or was he just storing his anger away to be dredged up at some time of weakness?

  Mel sighed. ‘You know, my relationship with Nadia is similar but I was so hopelessly jealous of Nicholas I couldn’t see it. I’m not proud of that. But I never made love to you for revenge as you thought. I wanted you so very much that first night and the next morning…I nearly went out of my mind when I saw those suits. The poison started to work again. That man was encroaching on my world. He was someone threatening my happiness and yet was an unknown quantity. A part of your life that I wasn’t.

  ‘When I came back to the apartment the following week I knew I had to be rid of him once and for all—his clothes, everything. You saw nothing wrong in his staying with you but I couldn’t stand it. If you had stopped me I don’t know what I would have done. Then later when I met him it hit me just what I had done to myself and you: tortured us both for nothing.’

  ‘You said something to Nicholas after he’d nearly hit you and I’d left the pair of you.’

  ‘Seeing him, I realised you couldn’t possibly be romantically involved with him.’ He grinned at her and smoothed a kiss across her chin. ‘Not your sort, not man enough for you.’

  ‘Oh, Mel,’ Jade laughed, tightening her arms around his neck. ‘You really are a pig. Nicholas is—’

  ‘Nicholas was a hero,’ he interrupted in a conciliatory tone. ‘I must admit he stuck up for you when he thought I had wronged you. I admire him for that.’

  ‘That’s what friends are for.’

  Mel kissed her again, more deeply this time. His hands moved to the front of her silk shirt. ‘Well, that particular friend—’

  ‘That particular friend is coming down on Sunday. With his fiancĂe,’ Jade added quickly. She planted a kiss firmly on his mouth. ‘Now if that isn’t a test of your love, Mel, I can’t think of—’

  ‘Anything worse,’ Mel groaned, and lowered his mouth to the warm, scented valley between her breasts. His kiss was seductive and sublime, and she read his unspoken message. Nicholas wasn’t a threat any more, just a nuisance perhaps.

  ‘We don’t have long, then,’ Mel told her, slipping the shirt from her shoulders. ‘A day and a bit and a couple of nights and it isn’t nearly enough, my darling.’

  ‘After that…’ she helped him with his sweater’…we have a lifetime.’

  ‘Mmm, but with all these weddings coming up…’ He helped her with the zip of her skirt.

  ‘Weddings?’ she murmured dreamily. She fumbled with the belt of his corduroy jeans.

  ‘This Nicholas of yours and hopefully Nadia and Dave’s, and, of course, your father’s.’

  ‘My father’s?’ Jade uttered weakly as he grazed passionate kisses across her throat.

  ‘Mmm, didn’t I tell you? We exchanged confidences. I told him something I should have told him four years ago—that I had every intention of marrying his daughter—and that was why he was so happy to let me have Ritchie’s. Then he told me about his lady, Anita, and how he’s planning on—’

  ‘I don’t care what he’s planning,’ Jade muttered as her heart raced, and the fire inside her roared as he held her, naked at last, pressed tightly against him on the sofa, a real fire crackling in the background. ‘Weddings, weddings,’ she breathed.

  ‘And most importantly ours, darling,’ he murmured. ‘Our union, like this, special and perfect and inevitable.’

  She closed all around him, her body, her heart, her very soul wrapping him in love. This man who had given her so much trouble would soon be her special husband and their children would be special and their whole life would be so…so special.

  ‘I love you so very much, my darling,’ they whispered in unison, and then laughed, and suddenly everything was right with the world.

  EPILOGUE

  JADE stopped in the doorway of the drawing room and gazed at Mel propping up the bar. The spectre of him standing there four years ago—gosh, it was four and a half years now—had been well and truly exorcised. Though he was chatting quite happily to her father now, she knew he was uncomfortable. He had always loathed parties.

  She went to him as her father moved away to join his beloved Anita and the other guests. She hooked her arm in his and gave him a loving squeeze.

  ‘Can you bear it?’ She grinned up at him.

  Mel gazed down at her adoringly. ‘Only because I know what’s coming this time.’ He lifted her chin and kissed the tip of her nose.

  ‘You’re going to have to get used to it. Daddy’s a party animal and now he’s back in the UK for good he’ll find every excuse to throw one.’

  Mel groaned and then grinned at her. ‘I’ll suffer anything for you.’

  ‘You’d better,’ she teased, then squeezed his hand tightly, and he lifted it and kissed the diamond ring on her engagement finger. ‘With this ring…’ he started to murmur.

  ‘Shush.’ Jade giggled softly. ‘Daddy’s about to make one of his famous speeches.’

  ‘This one I can bear,’ Mel whispered in her ear.

  And John Ritchie stood up and made his announcement—several in fact. He congratulated Nicholas and Trisha
on their engagement and said if they didn’t hurry up and get married it would be the longest engagement in history. He congratulated Nadia and Dave Rand on their whirlwind romance and engagement. Then he announced his own engagement to Anita and said how the woman he loved had threatened him with pain of death unless he made a decent woman of her. And then he announced the best bit of all—the engagement of his beautiful daughter to Mel Biaggio. And he was still extolling their virtues as Jade and Mel quietly slipped out of the French doors, immediately breaking into a run across the velvety green lawns of Bankton House.

  Giggling and breathless, Jade fell into Mel’s arms outside the summer house.

  ‘Oh, you were so brave, darling,’ she laughed as Mel nuzzled her hair.

  ‘I told you I’d suffer anything for you.’ His mouth closed firmly over hers and she clung to him, lost in his love and the depth of the kiss. He drew back from her at last and grinned down at her. ‘I kind of liked it, actually. Perhaps I’ll get used to it after a while. There are going to be a lot more announcements in the future, after all.’

  ‘Oh, yes, what?’ she asked laughingly, her eyes dancing with happiness.

  ‘Wedding plans. Birth announcements. I think there might be a few of those as you have nothing better to do with your time…’

  She sprang back from him with a squeal, wagging her finger at him. ‘Now don’t you give me any trouble, Mel Biaggio’

  ‘Don’t tempt me,’ he laughed, and gathered her up into his arms and carried her into the summer house, kicking the door shut with the back of his heel.

  ‘Mel!’ Jade cried, and then there was silence…

  eISBN 978-14592-6263-8

  MAN TROUBLE!

  First North American Publication 1998.

  Copyright © 1997 by Natalie Fox.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work In whole or In part in any form by any electronic mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or In any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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