‘I’ll make a lovely salad and you can do your best with it,’ Jazz declared, knowing it was imperative to encourage her mother to regain some of the weight she had lost.
‘Clodagh’s visiting her friend, Rose,’ Peggy told her. ‘She asked me to join them but I was too tired and I like to see you when you come in from work.’
Suppressing her exhaustion, Jazz began to clean up the kitchen, neatly stowing away her aunt’s jewellery-making supplies in their designated clear boxes and then embarking on the dishes before preparing the salad that was presently the only option that awakened her mother’s appetite. While she worked, she chattered, sharing a little gossip about co-workers, bringing her working day home with her to brighten her mother’s more restricted lifestyle and enjoy the sound of her occasional chuckle.
They sat down at the table to eat. Jazz was mentally running through her tiny wardrobe to select a suitable outfit for her morning appointment with Charles Russell. Giving up the luxury of their own home had entailed selling off almost all their belongings because there had been no money to spare to rent a storage facility and little room for anything extra in Clodagh’s home. Jazz had a worn black pencil skirt and jeans and shorts and a few tops and that was literally all. She had learned to be grateful for the uniform she wore at both her jobs because it meant that she could get by with very few garments. Formality insisted on her wearing the skirt, she conceded ruefully, and her only pair of high heels.
She had not mentioned her letter to either her mother or her aunt because she hadn’t expected anything to come of it and, in the same way, she could not quite accept that she had been given an appointment. Indeed, several times before she finally dropped off to sleep on the couch that evening, she had to dig out her phone and anxiously reread that text to persuade herself that it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
Early the next morning, fearful of arriving late, Jazz crossed London by public transport and finally arrived outside a tall town house. She had been surprised not to be invited to the older man’s office where she had sent the letter, but perhaps he preferred a less formal and more discreet setting for their meeting. She was even more surprised by the size and exclusive location of the house. Charles Russell had once been married to a reigning queen, she reminded herself wryly. A queen who, on her only fleeting visit to her former husband’s country home, had treated Jazz’s mother like the dirt beneath her expensively shod feet.
But Charles had been infinitely kinder and more gracious with his staff, she recalled fondly, remembering the older man’s warm smiles and easy conversation with her even though she was only his housekeeper’s daughter. Unlike his royal ex-wife and second son, he was not a snob and had never rated people in importance solely according to their social or financial status. A kind man, she repeated doggedly to herself to quell her leaping nervous tension as she rang the doorbell.
A woman who spoke little English, and what she did speak was with an impenetrable accent, ushered her into an imposing hall furnished with gleaming antiques and mirrors. Scanning her intimidating surroundings and feeling very much like an interloper, Jazz began to revise up her estimate of Charles Russell’s wealth.
Another door was cast open into what looked like a home office and a man sprang up from behind the solid wooden desk.
Jazz was so aghast by the recognition that roared through her slender frame that she froze on the threshold of the room and stared in dismay, all her natural buoyance draining away as though someone very cruel had stabbed a pin into her tender flesh and deflated her like a balloon. It was Vitale, not his father, and that had to be... Her. Worst. Nightmare. Ever...
VITALE STARED, TAKEN aback by the woman in the doorway because she was a knockout, the kind of vibrant beauty who turned male heads in the street with her streaming red-gold curls and slender, supple body. About the only things that hadn’t changed about Jazz were her eyes, green as jade set in a triangular face, skin as translucent as the finest pale porcelain and a surprisingly full pink mouth, little white teeth currently plucking at her lower lip as she gazed at him in almost comical horror.
‘Come in and close the door,’ Vitale urged smoothly, wondering how on earth he was going to teach her to stop wearing her every thought on her face while also wondering why he found that candidness attractive.
Jazz made a valiant attempt to stage a recovery even though every ounce of her hard-won confidence had been blown out of the water. Shock waves were travelling through her slight body. One glimpse of Vitale and her brain was mush at best and at worst sending her back in time to a very vulnerable period she did not want to remember. But there Vitale was, as sleek and drop-dead gorgeous as he had ever been and so compelling in his undeniable masculine beauty that it took terrible effort to even look away from him.
What was it about Vitale, what crazy weakness in her made him seem so appealing? His brother, Angel Valtinos, had been too pretty and vain to draw her and she had never once looked at Angel in that way. But then, Vitale was a much more complex and fascinating creature, all simmering, smouldering intensity and conflicts below the smooth, sophisticated surface he wore for the world. Those perfect manners and that cool reserve of his couldn’t mask the intense emotion he held in restraint behind those stunning dark golden eyes. And he was so sexy. Every sinuous movement of his lean, muscular body, every downward dip of his gold-tipped, outrageously thick black lashes, and every quirk of his beautifully shaped sensual mouth contributed to his ferocious sex appeal. It was little wonder that when she had finally been of an age to crush on a man, her attention had immediately locked onto Vitale, even though Vitale had found it quite impossible to treat her like a friend.
Jazz closed the door in a harried movement and walked towards the chair set in front of the desk. You’re a grown-up now. The embarrassing stuff you did as a kid no longer matters, her defences were instructing her at a frantic pitch, and so intent was she on listening to that face-saving voice that she didn’t notice the edge of the rug in front of her. Her spiky heel caught on the fringe and she pitched forward with a startled cry.
And Vitale was there at supersonic speed, catching her before she could fall and steadying her with a strong arm to her spine. The heat of his hand at her waist startled her almost as much as his sudden proximity. She jerked skittishly away from him to settle down heavily into the chair but her nostrils flared appreciatively. The dark sensual scent of his spicy cologne overlying warm earthy male plunged her senses into overdrive.
Vitale had finally touched her, Vitale, who avoided human contact as much as possible, she recalled abstractedly, striving not to look directly at him until she had got her stupid brain back on line. He would be smiling: she knew that. Her clumsiness had always amused him because he was as lithe and sure-footed as a cat. Now he unnerved her more by not returning to the other side of the desk and instead lounging back against it with unusual casualness, staying far too close for comfort, a long, muscular, powerful thigh within view that did nothing to restore her composure.
Her fingertips dug into her palms as she fought for calm. ‘I was expecting to meet with your father,’ she admitted thinly.
‘Charles asked me to handle this,’ Vitale confided, barely resisting the urge to touch the wild corkscrew mane of flaming ringlets tumbling across her shoulders with gleaming electric vigour. So, he liked the hair and the eyes, he reasoned, wondering why he had abandoned his usual formality to sit so close to her, wondering why the simple smell of soap that she emanated was so surpassingly sexy, wondering why that slender body with its delicate curves, tiny waist and shapely legs should suddenly seem so very tempting a package. Because she wasn’t his type, not even remotely his type, he told himself sternly. He had always gone for
