voice wafted from the direction of the kitchen, carolling to ask where Jamie was, because she really needed something to eat—and was there anywhere they could go for a halfway decent salad? She didn’t fancy being cooped up for the rest of the night.
And then there she was, long and beautiful and blonde, and all the things that Ryan looked for in a woman, standing by the banister as Jamie turned around with a sigh of resignation. Stunningly pretty, stunningly fair-haired and dangerously bored with her husband.
If Jamie could have reached out and pushed Ryan straight back out of the front door, then she would have done so, but he was already inside the tiny hall, removing his thick coat while his eyes never strayed from Jessica.
‘Well, well, well,’ he drawled in a lazy undertone. ‘What have we here …?’
‘My sister,’ Jamie muttered.
The glitter in Jessica’s eyes mirrored his lazy speculation and Jamie felt a chill run down her spine.
There was no need for her to make introductions. Not when her sister was sashaying forward, hand outstretched, introducing herself—with, Jamie noted, her left hand stuck firmly behind her back.
‘You never told me that you had a sister,’ Ryan said, turning his fabulous eyes to Jamie.
Standing to one side like an uninvited spectator in her own house, Jamie’s voice was stiff when she answered, ‘I didn’t see the relevance. Jessica doesn’t live in London.’
‘Although, I might just be thinking of changing that.’
Jamie’s head whipped round and she stared, horrified at her sister. ‘You can’t!’
‘Why not? I told you. I’m bored in Scotland. And, from what I see here, London certainly has a hell of a lot more to offer. Why did you never mention that you had such a dishy boss, Jamie? Did you think that I might dash down here and try to steal him from you?’
Jamie held on to the banister, feeling faint, and Ryan, lounging only feet away from her, took the opportunity to gauge the electric atmosphere between the sisters. Arriving unannounced on his secretary’s doorstep had been a spontaneous decision which he had begun to regret on the drive over, but now he was pleased that he had made the journey.
‘How long are you in London?’ He looked at Jessica but his mind was still on Jamie and on that ferocious wall of privacy she had erected around herself. Purpose, he thought, unknown.
‘She’s literally only here for a day or two before she returns to Scotland. She’s married and her husband will be waiting for her.’
‘Did you have to bring that up?’
‘It’s the truth, Jess. Greg’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve this.’ And you certainly don’t deserve him, she thought.
‘I’m having lots of marital problems,’ Jessica insisted to Ryan. ‘I thought that I could come down here and find some support from my sister, but it looks like I was wrong.’
‘That’s not fair, Jess! And, besides, I’m sure Mr Sheppard doesn’t want to stand here and listen to our family history.’
‘Please, feel free to go on. I’m all ears!’
‘You need to go.’ Jamie turned to him. Every muscle in her body felt like it had been stretched to snapping point and the ground under her feet was like quicksand. One minute she had been on solid ground and then, in the blink of an eye, her sister was on her doorstep, Ryan was in her house breaking down her fortifications just by being there, and she was struggling in quicksand. ‘And you, Jess, need to go to bed.’
‘I’m not a kid any longer!’
‘You behave like one.’ In terms of condemnation, it was the first time Jamie had ever taken such a dramatic step. She had been conditioned to look after Jessica, to treat her like a baby, to make sure that her needs were met because she, Jamie, was the stronger one, the older one, the one upon whom the responsibilities lay.
In the tense silence that followed her flat statement, Jessica hesitated, confused, then her lips pursed and she glared sulkily at her sister.
‘You can’t make me go back up to Scotland, you know,’ she muttered.
‘We can discuss this in the morning, Jess,’ Jamie said wearily. ‘I think I’ve had enough stress today.’
‘And she is stressed.’ Ryan inserted himself into the conversation and Jessica sidled a little closer to him, her body language advertising her interest in a way no amount of words could have done. ‘She arrived late for work this morning.’
Jessica giggled and looked at her sister slyly. ‘If you’d told me that you were running late, I would have got off the phone sooner. I know you’re a stickler for punctuality. Don’t worry. I’ll be good as gold while I’m here, and you can be the perfect little secretary again and get in to work on time. Mind you …’ She looked at Ryan coyly. ‘If I had a boss like this one, I’d be getting in to work at six and leaving at midnight. Or maybe not leaving at all …’
Jamie turned on her heels and stalked off towards the kitchen. She knew how these conversations with her sister went. The slightest whiff of criticism and she would react with jibes below the belt that were designed to wound. Jamie had long discovered that the fastest way of dealing with this was to walk away from the situation, to treat her sister like a child who was not responsible for her tantrums. They blew over as quickly as they materialised and making herself scarce removed her from the eye of the storm.
She half-expected Jessica to linger on the staircase, turning on the full-wattage smile and bringing all her feminine wiles to play in an effort to charm Ryan. But, in fact, barely had Jamie sat at the kitchen table than Ryan appeared in the doorway and looked at her quietly, his hands shoved into his pockets.
An uncomfortable silence gathered around them which she broke by reluctantly offering him a cup of coffee.
She would cheerfully have sent him on his way, but there were things that needed to be said, and, reluctant as she was to open up any kind of discussion on her private life, she had no idea how she could avoid the issue.
‘Where’s Jessica?’ she asked, standing up and moving across to the kettle.
‘I sent her on her way.’
‘And she listened?’
‘I have that way with women.’
Jamie snorted, no longer bothering with the niceties that would have been more appropriate given that he was the guy who paid her salary. He had invaded her territory, and as far as she was concerned niceties were temporarily suspended.
‘Now you know why I got in late to work this morning. Jessica kept me on the phone for nearly an hour. She was a mess. I only knew that she had decided to sort herself out by coming down here when she phoned me from the train.’
‘No big deal.’ Ryan took the mug she was holding out to him and sat down. ‘Family crises happen. Why didn’t you just tell me the truth this morning?’ He watched her and realised that she was barely seeing him as she walked towards the kitchen table, nursing the mug in her hands. For a man who was fully aware of the impact he had
