text came back within seconds.
OMG! Definitely!!! Congrats. Always knew you were hot for each other. J Will call later xxxxx
‘Who are you texting?’ Jake asked.
‘Miranda,’ Jaz said, putting her phone down. ‘She’s thrilled for us. We’ll finally be sisters. Yay.’
He muttered a curse and prowled around the room like a shark in a fishbowl. ‘Julius is never going to fall for this. Not for a moment.’
‘He’ll have to if you want Emma to go away,’ Jaz said. ‘If you don’t play along I’ll tell her the truth.’
He threw her a filthy look. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
She smiled a victor’s smile. ‘What’s that saying about revenge is a dish best eaten cold?’
He glowered at her. ‘Isn’t it a little childish to be harking on about that night all these years later? I did you a favour back then. I could’ve done you that night but how would that have worked out? Ever thought about that? No. You want to paint me as the big, bad guy who made you feel a little embarrassed about that schoolgirl crush. But, believe me, I could have done a whole lot worse.’
Jaz stepped out of his way as he stormed past her to leave the room. You did do a whole lot worse, she wanted to throw after him. But instead she clamped her lips together and turned back to look at the discarded bottles and glasses.
Typical. Jake had a habit of leaving his mess for other people to clean up.
JAKE WAS SO mad he could see red spots in front of his eyes. Or maybe he was having a brain aneurysm from anger build-up. Seven years of it. He paced the floor of his room, raking his hair, grinding his teeth, swearing like a Brooklyn rapper at what Jasmine had done to him. Engaged! What a freaking farce. No one would believe it. Not him. Not the playboy prince of the pick-ups.
His stomach turned at the thought. Committed. Tied down. Trapped. He was the last person who would ever tie himself down to one woman and certainly not someone like Jasmine Connolly. She was a manipulative little witch. She was using him. Using him to lure back her third fiancé. Who on earth got engaged three times? Someone who was obsessed with getting married, that was who. Jasmine didn’t seem to care who she got engaged to as long as they had money and status.
But through the red mist of anger he could see her solution had some merit. Emma Madden had taken the news of their ‘engagement’ rather well. He had been poleaxed to see that kid standing on the doorstep. He could count on half a hand how many times he’d been caught off guard but seeing that kid there was right up there. If anyone had seen her—anyone being the press, that was—he would have been toast. He didn’t want to be cruel to the girl but how else could he get rid of her? Jasmine’s solution seemed to have worked. So far. But how long would he have to stay ‘engaged’?
Then there was his family to deal with. He could probably pull off the lie with his parents and Miranda but not his twin. Julius knew him too well. Julius knew how much he hated the thought of being confined in a relationship. Jake was more like his father in that way. His father wasn’t good at marriage. Richard and Elisabetta fought as passionately as they made up. It was a war zone one minute and a love fest the next. As a child Jake had found it deeply unsettling—not that he’d ever showed it. His role in the family was the court jester. It was his way of coping with the turbulent emotions that flew around like missiles. He’d never known what he was coming home to.
Then eventually it had happened. The divorce had been bitter and public and the intrusion of the press terrifying to a child of eight. He and Julius had been packed off to boarding school but, while Julius had relished the routine, structure and discipline, Jake had not. Julius had excelled academically while Jake had scraped through, not because he wasn’t intellectually capable but because in an immature and mostly subconscious way he hadn’t wanted his parents to think their divorce had had a positive effect on him.
But he had more than made up for it in his business analysis company. He was successful and wealthy and had the sort of life most people envied. The fly-in, fly-out nature of his work suited his personality. He didn’t hang around long. He just got in there, sorted out the problems and left. Which was how he liked to conduct his relationships.
Being tied to Jasmine, even if it was only a game of charades, was nothing less than torture. He had spent the last seven years avoiding her. Distancing himself from all physical contact. He had even failed to show up for some family functions in an effort to avoid the tension of being in the same room as her. He’d had plenty of lectures from Julius and Miranda about fixing things with Jasmine but why should he apologise? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had done the opposite. He had solved the problem, not made it worse. It was her that was still in a snit over something she should have got over years ago.
She had been a cute little kid but once she’d hit her teens she’d changed into a flirty little vamp. It had driven him nuts. She had followed him around like a loyal puppy, trying to sneak time with him, touching him ‘by accident’ and batting those impossibly long eyelashes at him. He had gone along with it for a while, flirting back in a playful manner, but in the end that had backfired, as she’d seemed to think he was serious about her. He wasn’t serious about anyone. But on the night of his parents New Year’s Eve party, when she’d been sixteen and he twenty-six, he had drawn the line. He’d activated a plan to give her the message loud and clear: He was a player, not the soppy, romantic happy-ever-after beau she imagined him to be.
That night she had dressed in a revealing outfit that was far too old for her and had worn make-up far too heavy. To Jake she had looked like a kid who had rummaged around in her mother’s wardrobe. In the dark. He had gone along with her flirtation all evening, agreeing to meet with her in his room just after midnight. But instead of turning up alone as she’d expected he’d brought a couple of girls with him, intending to shock Jasmine into thinking he was expecting an orgy. It had certainly done the trick. She had left him alone ever since. He couldn’t remember the last time she had spoken to him other than to make some cutting remark and the only time she looked at him was to spear him with a death-adder glare. Which had suited him just fine.
Until now.
Now he had to work out a way of hanging around with her without wanting to... Well, he didn’t want to admit to what he wanted to do with her. But he was only human and a full-blooded male, after all. She was the stuff of male fantasies. He would never admit it to anyone but over the years he’d enjoyed a few fantasies of her in his morning shower. She was sultry and sulky, yet she had a razor-sharp wit and intelligence to match. She had done well for herself, building her business up from scratch, although he thought she was heading for a burnout by trying to do everything herself. Not that she would ever ask his advice. She was too proud. She would rather go bankrupt than admit she might have made a mistake.
Jake dragged a hand down his face. This was going to be the longest week or two of his life. What did Jasmine expect of him? How far did she want this act to go? She surely wouldn’t want to sleep with him if she was still hankering after her ex? Not that she showed any sign of being attracted to him, although she did have a habit of looking at his mouth now and again. But everyone knew how much she hated him. Not that a bit of hate got in the way of good sex.
Sheesh. He had to stop thinking about sex and Jasmine in the same sentence. He had never seen her as a sister, even though she had been brought up as one at Ravensdene. Or at least not since
