His Christmas Acquisition (17 page)

‘It wouldn’t feel good.’ Jamie kept her voice low, even and well-modulated. ‘But I would do it, so please don’t think that you would have to tiptoe around me. The working relationship we have is much more important to me than a brief fling. In fact …’ She paused and glanced around her to where Ryan’s driver was patiently waiting. He would be going straight to the office. She, on the other hand, would be returning to see what damage her sister had inflicted on her house in her absence.

‘In fact …?’ Ryan prompted.

‘In fact, all said and done, you’ve done me a huge favour.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ve taken me out of cold storage. I think I had spent far too long kidding myself that I still had feelings for Greg. You made me see what a big mistake it was to bury myself in the past.’ There was a strong element of truth in that but, more importantly, Jamie liked the control she could impose on her fractured life by rationalising her behaviour. She could almost kid herself that everything had happened for the best and, if she could convince herself of that, then she would be able to cope with Ryan whispering sweet nothings down the end of a phone to another woman. It made sense, and Jamie had to be sensible again. Her life depended on it.

‘I’m a different person now. I’m going to really start enjoying London. I can see that I wasted a long time hibernating.
Not consciously, of course, but I took a back seat and I shouldn’t have. So, that’s all I wanted to say. Except, well, your mother still thinks that we’re about to tie the knot any second now … Can I ask you when you intend to tell her the truth?’

‘Does it matter? After all, you’re out of the equation now,’ Ryan told her politely.

‘Yes, but
what
will you tell her? I’m very fond of Vivian and the more I’ve got to know her the less I’ve liked what we did.’

‘Don’t worry. I won’t blacken your name, Jamie.’

‘Thank you, because I would quite like to see your family. Some time.’

‘That won’t be appropriate.’

‘Right. I understand.’ She felt a lump in her throat and looked away quickly.

‘My mother is given to fond flights of fancy,’ Ryan continued. ‘And I don’t want her to be encouraged into thinking that we’re still an item. It won’t work. As soon as she’s settled back, I’ll break the news to her that we’ve parted company, on perfectly amicable terms that allow us to carry on working harmoniously together. Rest assured that if my mother apportions blame to anyone, it’ll be to me.’

‘She’ll be upset.’ Jamie knew what it was like to live in a bubble and how painful it could be when that bubble burst.

‘In which case, I shall have to make sure that I give her something else to think about and look forward to,’ Ryan murmured, leaning down so that Jamie felt his warm breath against her ear, tickling her and doing all sorts of familiar things to her body.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well.’ He straightened up and shot her a devilish grin that made her toes curl. ‘Maybe this has been a learning curve for both of us!’

‘Really?’

‘Of course! You haven’t got the monopoly on life lessons, Jamie. Whilst you’re busy getting out there and discovering London, let’s just say that
I
might finally start my search for the perfect partner. My mother wants me to settle down. The harridans keep nagging me. Yes, maybe it’s time for me to think about tying the knot!’

R
YAN
looked at the blonde perched on the sofa in his office and she looked expectantly back at him. She was in search of an evening of fun, involving a very expensive meal, a very expensive club and possibly a very expensive trinket to wear around that slender, white neck of hers, something that would complement the tumble of vanilla curls that fell to her waist in artful disarray.

It was Friday night and he couldn’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t shove the work to one side and look forward to the prospect of what was prominently an offer.

Instead, he found himself thinking of excuses to back out of his evening of fun and he scowled at his own idiocy.

Where was Jamie? Ever since they had returned to London two weeks ago, she had turned into an annoying clock watcher. Only now did he realise how accustomed he had become to her willingness to work long hours at his beck and call, and only now did he realise how much of his time had been spent in her company. A Friday evening had often seen them brainstorming something, occasionally with some of his computer whizz-kids who could be relied upon to sacrifice entire weekends in the pursuit of tweaking computer programs, very often on their own, calling in a takeaway and enjoying it with files and papers spread between them on his desk.

Gone; all of it. She was still the super-efficient secretary, always polite and unfailingly professional, but now she left when she should leave and didn’t arrive a second before she was due.

Clearly she was pursuing that fabulous single life she had mentioned when they had parted company at the airport. He wouldn’t know. She never mentioned a word of it and there was no way that he was going to play the loser and actually show an interest.

Abigail, whom he had now seen a couple of times and of whom he was already beginning to tire, leaned forward, flashed him a coy smile and stood up.

‘Are we actually going to go out, Ryan, baby? Please don’t tell me that we’re going to spend Friday night in this office!’

‘I’ve spent many an enjoyable Friday night here,’ Ryan grated, but standing up and moving to help her with her coat.

‘Well.’ She pouted and then stretched up to briefly peck him on the lips. ‘That’s not
my
sort of thing. And good luck finding any woman who would enjoy that!’

Which brought him right back to Jamie. Pretty much everything seemed to bring him right back to Jamie these days. He didn’t want to feel driven to watch her, but he did. He absorbed the way she moved, the way she leaned forward when she was studying something in front of her, tucking her hair behind her ear and frowning. He absorbed the way she nestled the telephone against her shoulder when she spoke so that she could do something else at the same time and then the way she lightly massaged her neck afterwards. He noticed how she shifted her eyes away from him when he spoke to her, and the faint colour that stole into her cheeks, which was the only giveaway that under the polite surface all was not as evenly balanced as she would have him believe.

Or was it?

Ryan didn’t know and he hated that. Having always found it easy to walk away from relationships once they had begun to out-stay their welcome, he was finding it impossible to do the same with this one. Why? He could only think that it was because what they had had been terminated before it had had time to run its course. It was unfinished business. How could he be expected to treat it with a sanguine shrug of the shoulders?

Also,
he
hadn’t generated the break-up. Ryan knew that that was nothing but wounded male pride, but it went into the mix, didn’t it? And the whole mix, for him, was adding up to a very unpleasant fixation which he was finding hellishly difficult to shift.

It would help if he could generate more of an interest in her replacement.

It was after ten by the time they entered the exclusive club in Knightsbridge. They had dined in one of the most expensive restaurants in London, where Abigail had made gentle digs about his choice of dress. He had ordered more wine to get him over his growing irritation. She had spent far too long trying to engage his attention on various titbits of gossip concerning friends he didn’t know and could not care less about. She bored him with anecdotes about the world of acting, which made him recognise the folly of dating yet another woman who thought that everyone was interested in a bunch of people egotistic enough to imagine that what they did for a living really was of immense interest to the rest of the human race. Abigail tittered, trilled, pouted and flaunted a body that he considered far too thin, really.

The trip to the club would probably mark the death knell of the relationship, if relationship it could be called, and that
was the only reason he entered with something approaching a spring in his step.

It took him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The club was intimate, with a number of tables for anyone wanting to dine or just sit and enjoy the spectacle of people on the dance floor. The bar area, sleek and very modern, was busy and waiters were doing the rounds, taking orders and pocketing the very generous tips given by the patrons. A live jazz band ensured that the atmosphere remained up market and sophisticated.

Ryan had been to this club a number of times before but this time he was less than impressed by the subdued lighting and eye candy. Maybe he was getting too old for this sort of thing. He was in his thirties now and there was a fine line between trendy and sad. He hadn’t seriously intended to start hunting for the perfect marriage partner, as he had nonchalantly told Jamie two weeks previously, but now he wondered whether the time really had come to settle down. After all, he didn’t want still to be coming to this place in five years’ time, with another Abigail clone hanging on to his arm.

On the verge of telling his date that if she wanted to stay she would be staying on her own, he spotted Jamie, and the shock of seeing his secretary in a
club
was almost enough to make him think that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

Since when did Jamie frequent clubs? Ryan was rocked by the upsurge of rage that filled him. Was this what she had been busily doing on all those evenings since they had returned to London, when she had tripped over herself to join the throng of people leaving the building on the dot of five-thirty? Was this her bid to throw herself into living life in the fast lane?

Abigail had spotted some of her friends and he absently nodded as she disappeared into the crowd by the bar. He was
keen to see who Jamie had come with. Her sister, maybe? She hadn’t told him the outcome of Jessica’s situation. Obviously, that had been just too personal a conversation for her to endure, and pride had stopped him from asking.

However, Jessica must still be on the scene, perhaps having ditched the caring, sharing vet, and was now introducing Jamie to what she had been missing: a sleazy, over-priced night club in the heart of Knightsbridge.

Ryan almost laughed out loud. Had she come to him for advice on where to go, he would willingly have told her, and would have steered her away from the dubious pleasures of seedy joints where middle-aged men tried to pick up young girls.

He had three bottles of the finest champagne sent over to Abigail and her crowd of giggling friends and received a beaming smile of appreciation in return. Then he got himself a whisky and edged over to wait for Jamie. She had disappeared in the direction of the cloakroom, on her own. Several heads—he noticed grimly, several
male
heads—had followed her progress across the crowded room and he could understand why. Gone were the flat shoes, the hair neatly tied up, the sober suit. In fact, gone was everything he associated with his secretary. She had been at pains over the past couple of weeks to revert to projecting the hands-off image, a daily reminder of her position within his company and in his life. She worked for him. She obeyed orders. She carried out her duties. And she locked him out of everything else.

Ryan swallowed a generous slug of whisky and scowled. She had vanished temporarily but her image was still seared into his head: the high stilettos, the tight, outrageously short red dress, the poker-straight hair parted to one side so that it swept across her face, giving her a come-hither look that frankly set his teeth on edge.

He couldn’t spot Jessica anywhere or else he would have been tempted to personally congratulate her on the miraculous transformation of her sister.

He had worked his way towards the door through which Jamie would return and was on his second whisky by the time she emerged. He was in just the right position to reach out and grab her by the arm.

It gave her the fright of her life.

Jamie was bitterly regretting the crazy impulse that had brought her to the club with Richard, one of Greg’s friends to whom she had been introduced just three days previously. Clubs just weren’t her thing. The music seemed very loud, too loud to permit any sort of decent conversation, and it was really dark—especially when wearing very high heels. One wrong move and she would embarrass herself by crashing to the floor, so she had spent the past two hours taking very small steps and only reluctantly allowing herself to be dragged to the dance floor for a couple of upbeat tunes that she recognised.

And Richard … Well, he was a nice enough guy, fashioned in the same mould as Greg. Both of them had been to university together and both had studied to be vets, with Richard opting to work in London while Greg had moved north. He should have made the ideal date and Jamie was sure that, had she met Richard a year before, she would have warmed to his gentle personality and perhaps even embarked on a relationship that might have gone somewhere.

But she had been ruined by Ryan. Her ideal man no longer seemed to be the kind, placid sort. Compared to Ryan, with his vibrant, explosive, overpowering personality, Richard was a shadow of a man and they had established early on that there was no attraction. Which made this excursion to
the club slightly more bearable; at least she didn’t have to ward off unwanted attention from her date.

But she had dressed to kill and she knew that other men had been looking at her.

She was half-expecting one of them to sidle over and really throw her into a tizzy by asking her to dance, and the sudden tug on her arm as she emerged from the cloakroom where she had been taking cover for as long as had been humanly possible made her jackknife in startled horror.

Jamie turned, mouth open, to give whoever had had the nerve to grab her a piece of her mind. She was also poised to run. The club seemed full of lecherous old men with suspiciously young and beautiful girls dangling like trophies on their arms.

She was so taken aback at seeing Ryan that her mouth literally fell open in startled shock.

‘What are
you
doing here?’

‘Snap! I was about to ask
you
the same thing. Are you here with your sister? Painting the town red?’

‘No, I’m not. And, in fact, I’d better get back to my table. My date will be wondering where I am.’

‘Date? Date? What date? Are you telling me that you’re here with a
man
?’

Jamie bristled at the tone of his voice. Did he imagine that she was incapable of having a life outside work? She had made it perfectly clear that she did. She had been at pains over the past fortnight to make sure that she left on time and arrived on time, the implication being that she had lots of other exciting things to do with her life aside from devoting all her time to him.

‘That would be most people’s definition of a date!’

‘You came here with him or did you pick him up here? Because if you picked him up here then I would have to warn
you to lower your expectations. Most of these guys come here to scout and see what they can pick up.’

Jamie started moving away and Ryan followed her. She had come here with a man. He was outraged at the thought of that. It felt suddenly imperative that he meet this guy. How had she managed to achieve that in the space of two weeks? Of course, he knew how. She had the body of a siren and she had obviously been determined to flaunt it.

His jaw tightened, and he was further disgruntled to discover that the man rising to greet her looked like a decent sort of guy: short brown hair, pleasant smile, wire-rimmed spectacles. Just the sort of man she had once professed to go for. Ryan tried not to scowl as introductions were grudgingly made. She hadn’t been aware of him following her but, having turned around to see him towering behind her, she had had no option but to introduce the men to each other.

Next to Ryan, Richard looked flimsy and insubstantial, which further annoyed her.

‘Can I be terribly rude, old man—’ Ryan stepped in before she could dismiss him, which was what she clearly had in mind ‘—and ask your date for a dance? She left work ridiculously early today.’

‘I left on time!’

‘And there were one or two things I needed to discuss with her. I don’t normally drag my work out with me, but …’

‘Aren’t you here with someone?’ Jamie asked tartly, then she lowered her voice to hiss into his hear. ‘Or are you one of those men who come here scouting to see what they can pick up?’

‘Not my style.’ He slipped his arm around her waist, already taking it as a given that the neat little guy she had come with would give his permission to have his date whipped away for a few minutes. He didn’t look like the sort to put up much of a fight. Indeed, the man was happy
to let his hot, sexy date get on the dance floor with someone else’s arms wrapped around her, even though the hot, sexy date was making all sorts of noises about feeling tired and needing to sit it out.

‘Tired?’ Ryan murmured in a low, velvety drawl that had her skin breaking out in goose bumps. ‘Surely not? How are you going to paint any town red if you’re yawning at eleven on a Friday evening?’

The music had obligingly shifted from fast to slow, and Jamie stiffened as he pulled her towards him in a clinch that was far too intimate for her liking. She tried to pull back and he tugged her closer, resting his hand on the small of her back, reminding her of what it felt like to be touched by him. It was not a memory she wanted to linger over.