had been a beautiful female living next door to him for three months, and he hadn’t even noticed. Get your act together, Jordan, he remonstrated with himself. Stazy must think he was—
‘Why are you smiling?’ the woman who had given birth to him thirty-five years ago demanded indignantly. ‘This isn’t in the least bit funny—’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Mother.’ His mouth twisted derisively at the way she flinched at the name; a woman trying to look thirty-five did not want to be reminded she had a son of that age—and two more even older than that! ‘This situation isn’t funny, but you are hilarious. You want something, Stella, and we all know it, so I suggest you stop playing games and get to the point. But a word of advice: don’t use Jonathan’s wedding as a way to get what you want from Jarrett. You would regret it!’
‘Don’t threaten me, Jordan,’ she warned, her face pale now, set in harsh lines.
He shook his head wearily. ‘I said it was advice, and that’s exactly what it was. Go ahead and gatecrash the wedding.’ He waved invitingly towards the hallway leading to the reception room. ‘You’ll find yourself marched out of there again so fast you’ll wonder what happened to you! You think I’m becoming hard and unfeeling? Push Jarrett some more and see what happens. And heaven help you—because no one else will!’
She met his gaze for several seconds, and then she wavered, before dropping her eyes away completely, as she obviously rethought her game-plan.
Because this was a game to her, Jordan knew. She had been playing one game or another with them all her life. Playing mother had lasted long enough for her to produce the three boys, and for their father’s money to run out Then she had run off looking for another game to play. And, as Jordan had guessed earlier, this sudden urge to be ‘Mother’ again had something to do with her third marriage. Without a rich husband to support her she couldn’t maintain her lavish lifestyle. She needed money for that, and in the last twenty years her three sons had managed to amass quite a lot of that!
With a mother like her was it any wonder he was a cynic where women were concerned?
‘I really don’t have any more time to waste standing here talking to you, Stella,’ he told her hardly before turning away.
‘Running after Cinderella?’ she called after him tauntingly.
Jordan turned slowly back to face the woman he had once known as Mummy, feeling absolutely nothing towards her now. Not even hate, he realised. She was just a very sad woman, trying desperately to cling onto the things that mattered to her—her looks and the money to keep them. Outwardly she was beautiful, inwardly she was ugly. And there was nothing that plastic surgery could do to change that!
‘I’ve never run after a woman in my life,’ he replied before going back down the hallway to the reception.
He wasn’t ‘running after’ Stazy; after he had made the appropriate excuses to Jonathan and Gaye, he was simply going home. Stazy just happened to live in the apartment next door to his!
And who knew? Maybe tonight would be the night Stazy would kiss a prince and he wouldn’t turn into a frog...
She was a long time answering his ring on the doorbell. Probably she was surprised to hear the internal doorbell and not the entryphone. But she was certainly worth waiting for when she did finally open the door, having changed out of the blue dress into a pair of figurehugging blue denims and a skimpy blue top, her hair—beautiful, gloriously red hair, like a Renaissance painting—falling the length of her spine like a moving flame. And the freckles on her nose seemed more pronounced—and more endearing.
‘Jordan?’ She looked taken aback to see him standing there.
‘You didn’t have any champagne earlier.’ He smiled, holding up the cooled bottle of bubbly liquid and two glasses, that he had taken from the wedding reception on his way out. ‘An oversight I felt needed rectifying,’ he added huskily. It had been his own morose temper earlier that had created the ‘oversight’; he hadn’t even given her the common courtesy then of ensuring she was provided with a drink!
Her eyes widened, the deepest, clearest blue he had ever seen. ‘Wouldn’t you rather be sharing that with Stella?’ she queried, making no effort to open the door wider and move aside so that he could enter her apartment.
Not that he could blame her for that, either; he hadn’t exactly been attentive so far in their acquaintance. And from the cool way she was looking at him, he wasn’t sure he was going to be given the chance to make amends!
‘Stella is something else that needs rectifying,’ he drawled dismissively.
‘You don’t owe me any explanations, Jordan—’
‘I know that,’ he replied sharply. He didn’t owe any woman anything! ‘I just thought it would be nice if we shared some champagne together,’ he continued less aggressively—so much for making a fresh start with Stazy!
‘Okay,’ she accepted without further argument, opening the door to let him in.
Jordan was a little taken aback at her sudden acquiescence, but he stepped inside before she changed her mind as quickly.
Her apartment had the same layout as his own; he knew that because he had looked at it first when he was thinking of moving in five years ago, but in the end had decided that the apartment he had now possessed the better view of the two.
But as soon as he stepped inside he could see the differences in their tastes. Stazy had chosen decor in creams and golds, with bright splashes of orange, giving a much lighter, airier feel, a warmth, that his own green, cream and brown furnishings didn’t achieve.
The touches of orange in the rugs and scatter cushions somehow seemed to be the same shade of burnt copper as her hair, the furniture in the lounge she took him into consisting mainly of big, comfortable-looking armchairs and several huge bean-bags. Overall, Jordan felt a peace and restfulness amongst this casual comfort that he didn’t feel in his own apartment.
‘This is great,’ he told Stazy admiringly, putting the bottle of champagne and glasses down on a very low table. ‘You’ll have to give me the name of your interior designer.’
‘Stazy Walker,’ she provided softly.
His brows rose. ‘You decorated all of this yourself?’
Stazy nodded, smiling slightly at his obvious amazement. ‘I’m an interior designer.’
He gave the sitting room another look. She was good. Very good. And his apartment hadn’t been decorated since he’d moved in... Not that he spent a great deal of time there anyway, being either out at work, or just out. But if she could transform her own apartment in this way...
He picked up the bottle of champagne. ‘I don’t suppose you would be interested in a job?’
Stazy curled herself up on one of the bean-bags while he uncorked the champagne, and she eyed him warily across the room. ‘Doing what?’ she prompted guardedly.
Now that he had taken the trouble to notice her at all, Stazy Walker was fast becoming an enigma to him! She had seemed so open and friendly, but with each thing she revealed about herself she appeared to be holding something else back... In fact, he knew absolutely nothing of real relevance
