Pride & Consequence Omnibus (15 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

S
HE
JUST
HOPED
that her potential client kept their appointment, Keira thought as she walked through the entrance of the expensive and very exclusive boutique hotel suggested by the client as a meeting place. Far too exclusive and discreet to have anything as commercial as a foyer, its entrance hall was more like the entrance to a private home.

An elegantly dressed woman wearing what Keira suspected might be Chanel greeted her and suggested that she might like to wait in a private sitting room, overlooking their equally private garden.

The hotel had been designed by a very well-known design team and showed all their hallmark touches. Keira was impressed and envious.

It had been six weeks since she had left India, and each one of them had felt like its own special version of hell.

Things had to get better.
She
had to get better. And she had to get over Jay. She had to stop loving him and wanting him. She had to.

‘Hello, Keira.’

Jay! She stood up, and then had to sit down again as her legs refused to support her.

He looked thinner, with lines running from his nose to his mouth that were surely new—unless they were a trick of the light.

‘I apologise for tricking you into coming here, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get you to see me.’ He put down the briefcase he was carrying. ‘I’ve brought some press cuttings to show you, just in case you haven’t already seen them. Your work on the houses has attracted rave reviews.’

‘I’m glad the development has been a success.’ How wooden and stilted her voice sounded—nothing like the voice in which she had told him of the pleasure he was giving her, the pleasure she had wanted him to go on giving her when they had been in bed together. The pain breaking inside her was unbearable, but it had to be borne. She could not escape from it.

‘I owe you an apology.’

Could this really be Jay, actually sounding almost humble, actually attempting to be a penitent? Or was she simply imagining it?

‘I’ve missed you, Keira.’

Now she
knew
she was imagining things.

Never in a hundred lifetimes would the Jay she knew have admitted to missing her.

He was looking at her patiently, waiting for her to say something.

‘If you are trying to say that you want me back—’ she began, only to have him shake his head.

‘No, that isn’t what I’m trying to say,’ he told her crisply.

The hopes she had tried to pretend she didn’t have crashed in on her. Why, why,
why
had she let herself hope so stupidly? Because she was a fool and she loved him, that was why.

‘What I’m trying to say is that what I thought I wanted from life is not what I want at all. I’ve changed, Keira. You have changed me. From being a man who didn’t want to commit to a woman at any price, I’ve become a man who would give every penny he possessed for the chance to make a commitment to one very special woman. And that woman is you. I’ve come to ask if you will give me a chance to show you how special what we’ve already shared is, and how much more special it can be. I want you—not just in my bed, Keira, but in my life, as my partner, my love, my one and only for all time. I want you to marry me.’

It was a dream. It had to be. This could not be Jay standing here saying these things to her. But it was.

‘You can’t mean it,’ was all she could say.

‘I
do
mean it. Perhaps the blow to my head that concussed me brought me to my senses—I don’t know. I only know that when I came round in hospital all I wanted was to have you there with me.’

‘Hospital? You’ve been hurt?’

Jay shrugged dismissively.

‘A minor car collision—nothing serious. I was driving too fast, trying to escape the demons who were telling me I had just ruined my life, having driven away the one thing that made it worth living.’

The bitter-sweetness of it all tore at Keira’s heart. Would it be so very wrong to allow herself the joy of playing make-believe for a few precious minutes before she told him the truth and had to watch him recoil from her? Why not? She had nothing left to lose, after all.

‘If you’re trying to tell me you love me...’ she suggested, with great daring.

‘Yes?’

‘It might be easier to convince me if you showed me instead.’

It was just a game, just make-believe. And that was the reason, the only reason, she was able to make such a pro-
vocative appeal.

‘Like this, you mean?’

He had crossed the room in a few strides to take her in his arms.

‘You’ll never know how much I’ve missed you,’ he told her emotionally, before he kissed her.

This was heaven and hell all rolled into one—pleasure and pain, joy and guilt—and she could not bear to relinquish either Jay or her make-believe dream that somehow there could be a happy-ever-after for them. But she knew that she must. She could not live a lie. She could not and would not deceive him a second time.

‘I love you, Keira. I never thought I’d ever want to say those words to any woman, but now not only do I want to say them to you, I want to go on saying them, and not just saying them but living them. I want to hear you saying them to me. Is there any chance that you might do that, do you think?’

‘I do love you, Jay.’ It was the truth, after all.

His kiss was so sweet and tender, so loving and giving— so very precious when she knew it could be their last.

‘I recently opened a letter thanking me for my substantial gift. I take it that donating money to a charity that aids prostitutes was your way of underlining my offence, firstly in misjudging you and secondly in thinking I could buy you?’

It would be easy to be a coward and agree, but her conscience wouldn’t let her. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the protection of his arms, fixing her gaze on the wall and not on Jay.

‘Actually, I donated your money to that particular charity because of my mother. She was a prostitute, you see, and a drug addict.’

Silence.

‘She’s dead now. She died when I was twelve. Like mother, like daughter—that’s what the great-aunt who took me in after her death used to say to me. It’s what people think, isn’t it? I feared at one stage that I could grow to be like her myself. She often said to me herself that I would.’

Still silence.

‘You’re shocked, of course. And disgusted. People are—it’s only natural. What kind of responsible parent would want their child playing with a child whose mother sold her body to buy drugs? Certainly the parents of the children I was at school with didn’t, and who could blame them? And what kind of man would want to take the risk of having a relationship with a woman whose mother had sex with men for money? You won’t want me now, Jay. I know that. You have a responsibility, after all, to your name and to your position.’

‘Was that why you stayed a virgin? Because of your mother?’

His question surprised her into looking at him. The silver-grey gaze was filled with something that looked close to pity. Pity? Shouldn’t he be regarding her with contempt?

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about it.’

Keira wanted to refuse, but somehow she discovered that instead she was telling him how she had felt—the pain of her childhood with its conflicting and confusing feelings, the love for her mother that had sometimes been more like anger and sometimes filled with despair.

‘Once I was old enough to understand, I hated what she did,’ she told him. ‘And sometimes I hated her too, for being what she was. As I grew up we would quarrel about it. During one of our quarrels I told her that I was ashamed of her, and that I would never let myself end up like her. I probably hurt her, although I couldn’t see that at the time. She laughed at me and told me that I wouldn’t have a choice. She said that since I was her daughter I had inherited her promiscuous nature and that sooner or later, as she put it, some lad would come along and I’d open my legs for him. She said it would be expected of me, and that—like her—I’d love the wrong kind of men for the wrong kind of reasons.’

Keira had to stop talking to swallow against her own sadness. Her mother must have felt so alone and unloved, but she had never seen that before. She had been too young and too emotionally immature herself then to see it. If nothing else, loving Jay had taught her to view her mother in a different and surely a fairer light.

‘What she said left me feeling both frightened and angry. I swore to myself that if I had her nature then I would make sure I controlled it.’

‘By never having sex?’ Jay guessed.

Keira nodded her head.

‘Yes. It was easy until I met you. I never guessed...I had no idea...’

‘I made you feel that you were like your mother?’

Keira shook her head.

‘At first, yes. But then later, once we were lovers, my physical hunger for you showed me that I could never be like my mother. I wanted you so passionately, so exclusively, that I knew I could never give, never mind sell to another man, what I only wanted to give to you. I thank you for that, Jay—because knowing that has freed me from my fear of my own sexuality. My great-aunt and my mother both warned me that I would end up like my mother, but I know now that that will never happen. You won’t want me now, of course.’

‘On the contrary. If anything, what you have just told me makes me love you even more.’

Keira couldn’t believe her ears.

‘You can’t love me now. I’m not good enough for you, Jay.’

‘I am the one who isn’t good enough for you. You are worth a hundred—no, a thousand of me, Keira. You humble me with your honesty and your compassion, your generosity of spirit and heart and your loyalty. I am not good enough for you, but that will not prevent me from having the arrogance to beg you to be my wife.’

‘Your
wife?
’

‘Of course.’ Now the look he was giving her was indeed haughty.

‘Do you think I would shame our love by not proclaiming it to the world in the most potent way the world recognises? And besides...’ both his voice and his expression softened ‘...I refuse to let there be any chance of me losing you. Once you have committed yourself to me you will stay with me, and with our children. I know you well enough for that. You will be like my mother—faithful and loving. She would have liked you.’

‘Jay, you cannot marry me. Your brother won’t allow it. You are his heir.’

‘Rao is my brother, not my keeper. I make my own decisions about my life. I have already told him of my desire to make you my wife, and he said that he had every sympathy for you.’

He laughed ruefully, and then shook his head.

‘I do understand why you have thought the way you have. You have had much to bear and endure that I wish I could have spared you. But our happiness together will be all the sweeter because of the past pain we have both endured. I promise you that there is not a single thought or doubt in my heart or my head about the strength of my love for you. I promise you too that if you refuse me now I shall pursue you and plead with you until you give in and agree to marry me.’

Keira searched his expression, her heart lifting with joy when she saw that he was speaking the truth.

A little unsteadily, but with a heart filled with love, she went into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss.

EPILOGUE

K
EIRA
WATCHED
THE
busy preparations for the wedding ceremony from the shadows in the garden beyond the courtyard.

The sun was going down, and on the stillness of the lake the palace seemed to float as ethereally and delicately as the lilies.

In the courtyard the Mandap was being assembled; those wedding guests who had already arrived for tomorrow's ceremony were pausing to watch.

Keira saw the man emerging from the shadows to watch her. He was as male and formidable as the desert lion, and her heart lifted and thudded into her ribs, her breath catching on a swift stab of desire.

‘Jay.'

‘I thought I might find you here.'

They had been married in a civil ceremony in London earlier in the week, before flying back here to Jay's home to celebrate their marriage with a traditional marriage ceremony.

Last night Rao had held a formal dinner to welcome her into the family, but this was the first time she and Jay had really been alone since their arrival.

‘You're wearing the bracelets,' Jay commented as he drew Keira into his arms.

‘I couldn't resist,' Keira admitted.

He had given her the Cartier bangles on their first night together, after they had declared their love for one another in a very private celebration.

‘What
I
can't resist is loving you,' Jay told her softly. ‘Now and for ever.'

‘Now and for ever,' Keira agreed, before she reached up to draw him down to her so that she could kiss him.

* * * * *

The Tycoon’s Virgin

To my editor for her patience.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

‘M
MM
.’ J
ODI
COULD
not resist sneaking a second appreciative look at the man
crossing the hotel lobby.

Tall, well over six feet, somewhere in his mid-thirties,
dark-suited and even darker-haired, he had an unmistakable air about him of male
sexuality. Jodi had been aware of it the minute she saw him walking towards the
hotel exit. His effect on her was strong enough to make her pulse race and her
body react to him in a most unusual and un-Jodi-like manner, and just for a
second she allowed her thoughts to wander dreamily in a dangerous and sensual
direction.

He turned his head and for a shocking breath of time it was
almost as though he was looking straight at her; as though some kind of highly
intense, personal communication was taking place!

What was happening to her?

Jodi’s heart, and with it her whole world, rocked precariously
on its oh-so-sturdy axis; an axis constructed of things such as common sense and
practicality and doing things by the book, which had suddenly flung her into an
alien world. A world where traitorous words such as ‘love at first sight’ had
taken on a meaning.

Love at first sight? Her? Never. Stalwartly, Jodi dragged her
world and her emotions back to where they belonged.

It must be the stress she was under that was causing her to
somehow emotionally hallucinate!

‘Haven’t you got enough to worry about?’ Jodi scolded herself,
far more firmly than she would ever have scolded one of her small pupils. Not
that she was given to scolding them very much. No, Jodi loved her job as the
headmistress and senior teacher of the area’s small junior school with a passion
that some of her friends felt ought more properly to be given to her own love
life—or rather the lack of it.

And it was because of the school and her small pupils that she
was here this evening, waiting anxiously in the foyer of the area’s most
luxurious hotel for the arrival of her cousin and co-conspirator.

‘Jodi.’

She gave a small sigh of relief as she finally saw her cousin
Nigel hurrying towards her. Nigel worked several miles away in the local
county-council offices and it had been through him that she had first learned of
the threat to her precious school.

When he had told her that the largest employer in the area, a
factory producing electronic components, had been taken over by one of its
competitors and could be closed down her initial reaction had been one of
disbelief.

The village where Jodi taught had worked desperately hard to
attract new business, and to prevent itself from becoming yet another small,
dying community. When the factory had opened some years earlier it had brought
not just new wealth to the area, but also an influx of younger people. It was
the children of these people who now filled Jodi’s classrooms. Without them, the
small village school would have to close. Jodi felt passionately about the
benefits her kind of school could give young children. But the local authority
had to take a wider view; if the school’s pupils fell below a certain number
then the school would be closed.

Having already had to work hard to persuade parents to support
the school, Jodi was simply not prepared to sit back whilst some arrogant,
uncaring asset-stripper of a manufacturing megalomaniac closed the factory in
the name of profit and ripped the heart out of their community!

Which was why she was here with Nigel.

‘What have you found out?’ she asked her cousin anxiously,
shaking her head as he asked her if she wanted anything to drink. Jodi was not a
drinker; in fact she was, as her friends were very fond of telling her, a little
bit old-fashioned for someone who had gone through several years at university
and teacher-training college. She had even worked abroad, before deciding that
the place she really wanted to be was the quiet rural heart of her own
country.

‘Well, I know that he’s booked into the hotel. The best suite,
no less, although apparently he isn’t in it at the moment.’

When Jodi exhaled in relief Nigel gave her a wry look. ‘You
were the one who wanted to see him,’ he reminded her. ‘If you’ve changed your
mind...?’

‘No,’ Jodi denied. ‘I have to do something. It’s all over the
village that he intends to close down the factory. I’ve already had parents
coming to see me to say that they’re probably going to have to move away, and
asking me to recommend good local schools for them when they do. I’m already
only just over the acceptable pupil number as it is, Nigel. If I were to lose
even five per cent of my pupils...’ She gave a small groan. ‘And the worst of it
is that if we can only hang on for a couple more years I’ve got a new influx due
that will take us well into a good safety margin, providing, that is, the
factory is still operational. That’s why I’ve got to see this...this...’

‘Leo Jefferson,’ Nigel supplied for her. ‘I’ve managed to talk
the receptionist into letting me have a key to his suite.’ He grinned when he
saw Jodi’s expression. ‘It’s OK, I know her, and I’ve explained that you’ve got
an appointment with him but that you’ve arrived early. So I reckon the best
thing is for you to get up there and lie in wait to pounce on him when he gets
back.’

‘I shall be doing no such thing,’ Jodi told him indignantly.
‘What I want to do is make sure he understands just how much damage he will be
doing to this village if he goes ahead and closes the factory. And try to
persuade him to change his mind.’

Nigel watched her ruefully as she spoke. Her high-minded ideals
were all very well, but totally out of step with the mindset of a man with Leo
Jefferson’s reputation. Nigel was tempted to suggest to Jodi that a warm smile
and a generous helping of feminine flirtation might do more good than the kind
of discussion she was obviously bent on having, but he knew just how that kind
of suggestion would be received by her. It would be totally against her
principles.

Which was rather a shame in Nigel’s opinion, because Jodi
certainly had the assets to bemuse and beguile any red-blooded man. She was
stunningly attractive, with the kind of lushly curved body that made men ache
just to look at her, even if she did tend to cover its sexy female shape with
dull, practical clothes.

Her hair was thick and glossily curly, her eyes a deep,
deliciously dark-fringed, vibrant blue above her delicately high cheekbones. If
she hadn’t been his cousin and if they hadn’t known one another since they had
been in their prams he would have found her very fanciable himself. Except that
Nigel liked his girlfriends to treat flirtation and sex as an enjoyable game.
And Jodi was far too serious for that.

At twenty-seven, she hadn’t, so far as Nigel knew, ever had a
serious relationship, preferring to dedicate herself to her work. Nigel knew
that there were more than a handful of men who considered that dedication to be
a total waste.

As she took the key card her cousin was handing her Jodi hoped
that she was doing the right thing.

Her throat suddenly felt nervously dry, and when she admitted
as much to Nigel he told her that he’d arrange to have something sent up to the
suite for her to drink.

‘Can’t have you driven so mad by thirst that you raid the
mini-bar, can we?’ he teased her, chuckling at his own joke.

‘That’s not funny,’ Jodi immediately reproved him.

She still felt guilty about the underhanded means by which she
was gaining access to Leo Jefferson’s presence, but according to Nigel this was
the only way to get the opportunity to speak personally with him.

She had originally hoped to be able to make an appointment, but
Nigel had quickly disabused her of this idea, telling her wryly that a corporate
mogul such as Leo Jefferson would never deign to meet a humble village
schoolteacher.

And that was why this unpleasant subterfuge was necessary.

* * *

Ten minutes later, as she let herself into his hotel
suite, Jodi hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before Leo Jefferson returned.
She had been up at six that morning, working on a project for her older pupils,
who would be moving on to ‘big’ school at the end of their current year.

It was almost seven o’clock, past Jodi’s normal evening-meal
time, and she felt both tired and hungry. She stiffened nervously as she heard
the suite door opening, but it was only a waiter bringing her the drink Nigel
had promised her. She eyed the large jug of brightly coloured fruit juice he had
put down on the coffee-table in front of her a little ruefully as the door
closed behind the departing waiter. Good old plain water would have been fine.
Her mouth felt dry with nervous tension and she poured herself a glass, drinking
it quickly. It had an unfamiliar but not unpleasant taste, which for some odd
reason seemed to make her feel that she wanted some more. Her hand wobbled
slightly as she poured herself a second glass.

She read the newspaper she had found on the coffee-table, and
rehearsed her speech several times. Where was Leo Jefferson? Tiredly she started
to yawn, gasping with shock as she stood up and swayed dizzily.

Heavens, but she felt so light-headed! Suspiciously she focused
on the jug of fruit juice. That unfamiliar taste couldn’t possibly have been
alcohol, could it? Nigel knew that she wasn’t a drinker.

Muzzily she looked round the suite for the bathroom. Leo
Jefferson was bound to arrive soon, and she wanted to be looking neat and tidy
and strictly businesslike when he did. First impressions, especially in a
situation like this, were very important!

The bathroom was obviously off the bedroom. Which she could see
through the half-open door that connected it to the suite’s sitting room.

A little unsteadily she made her way towards it. What on earth
had been in that drink?

In the suite’s huge all-white bathroom, Jodi washed her hands,
dabbing cold water on her pulse points as she gazed uncertainly at her flushed
face in the mirror above the basin before turning to leave.

In the bedroom she stopped to stare longingly at the huge,
comfortable-looking bed. She just felt so tired. How much longer was this
wretched man going to be?

Another yawn started to overwhelm her. Her eyelids felt heavy.
She just had to lie down. Just for a little while. Just until she felt less
light-headed.

But first...

With the careful concentration of the inebriated, Jodi removed
her clothes with meticulous movements and folded them neatly before sliding into
the heavenly bliss of the waiting bed.

* * *

As Leo Jefferson unlocked the door to his hotel suite he
looked grimly at his watch. It was half-past ten in the evening and he had just
returned to the hotel, having been to inspect one of the two factories he had
just acquired. Prior to that, earlier in the day, he had spent most of the
afternoon locked in a furious argument with the now ex-owner of his latest
acquisition, or rather the ex-owner’s unbelievably idiotic son-in-law, who had
done everything he could at first to bully and then bribe Leo into releasing
them from their contract.

‘Look, my father-in-law made a mistake. We all make them,’ he
had told Leo with fake affability. ‘We’ve changed our minds and we no longer
want to sell the business.’

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ Leo had replied crisply. ‘The deal
has already gone through; the contract’s been signed.’

But Jeremy Driscoll continued to try to browbeat Leo into
changing his mind.

‘I’m sure we can find some way to persuade you,’ he told Leo,
giving him a knowing leer as he added, ‘One of those new lap-dancing clubs has
opened up in town, and I’ve heard they cater really well for the needs of lonely
businessmen. How about we pay it a visit? My treat, we can talk later, when
we’re both feeling more relaxed.’

‘No way,’ was Leo’s grim rejection.

The gossip he had heard on the business grapevine about Jeremy
Driscoll had suggested that he was a seedy character—apparently it wasn’t
unknown for him to try to get his own way by underhanded means. At first Leo had
been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt—until he met him and
recognised that Jeremy Driscoll’s detractors had erred on the side of
generosity.

A more thoroughly unpleasant person Leo had yet to meet, and
his obvious air of false bonhomie offended Leo almost as much as his totally
unwarranted and unwanted offer of bought sex.

The kind of place, any kind of place, where human beings had to
sell themselves for other people’s pleasure had no appeal for Leo, and he made
little attempt to conceal his contempt for the other man’s suggestion.

Jeremy Driscoll, though, it seemed, had a skin of impenetrable
thickness. Refusing to take a hint, he continued jovially, ‘No? You prefer to
have your fun in private on a one-to-one basis, perhaps? Well, I’m sure that
something can be arranged—’

Leo’s cold, ‘Forget it,’ brought an ugly look of dislike to
Jeremy’s too pale blue eyes.

‘There’s a lot of antagonism around here about the fact that
you’re planning to close down one or other of the factories. A man with your
reputation...’

‘Oh, I think my reputation can stand the heat,’ Leo replied
grittily.

He could see that his confidence had increased Jeremy’s dislike
of him, just as he had seen the envy in the other man’s eyes when he had driven
up in his top-of-the-range Mercedes.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of the newspaper
that Jeremy had rudely continued to read after Leo’s arrival. There was an
article on the page that was open detailing the downfall of a politician who had
tried unsuccessfully to sue those who had exposed certain tawdry aspects of his
private life, including his visits to a massage parlour. The fact that the
politician had claimed that he had been set up had not convinced the jury who
had found against him.