He’d never believed how much she had loved him, and how futile her pleas must have sounded that awful night of her party. But how wrong he had been in not giving her a chance to explain. She couldn’t take all the blame. He should have listened, and judging by his attitude now it was obvious he hadn’t relented. He was here, facing her, but had she really imagined they could keep this on a business footing after the pain of their past?
‘What’s in a name, Mel?’ she said lightly, almost dis-missively. What was the point in enlightening him and saying that she was still single? It wouldn’t make any difference to a business arrangement, which was what this meeting was all about, she reminded herself. She forced a thin smile. ‘Business is business. Won’t you sit down?’
‘Is it going to be worth my while?’ The question came out wrapped in a tone of cynicism, with a small, derisive smile to accompany it.
It’s hopeless, Jade thought miserably. There’s too much pain and not enough cool control. And yet she willed it from deep inside her because four years in the ad agency business had taught her that when the going got tough the tough got going. She had swallowed her pride and was standing here now, facing the man she had once thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, because she wasn’t a wimp and she was going to fight to keep her company afloat, whatever the personal cost!
‘That’s for you to decide, not me,’ she returned coolly. She sat down and he followed suit, sweeping aside his coat and lowering himself into the seat across the desk from her. His keeping his coat on seemed ominous to Jade. He didn’t look as if he was going to afford her any decent amount of time to discuss her problem. Was he simply here out of curiosity, to see what a mess she had made of her life without him at her side?
‘Mel…’ she started again, levelling her dark eyes at him, striving for a businesslike tone to cover her obvious awareness of him. He seemed to fill the office, all man, all power, seeming to draw the very air from the room. She swallowed hard. ‘This is all very difficult for me. I would have sold my soul to the devil and my body to the highest bidder if I’d thought by doing so I could avoid calling you in, but—’ she gave a small, hopeless shrug of her narrow shoulders ‘—I need your help.’
She watched his eyes for some kind of softening but almost instantly knew it was hopeless. He was unflinching in his cold scrutiny of her. Wasn’t he aware of the enormous effort of will and swallowing of pride that had gone into her decision to call him in?
He held her gaze, eyes hard and implacable, and then suddenly those eyes blazed across the front of her open jacket, taking in the rise of her breasts against her cream silk shirt under the crisp designer tailoring.
Jade tensed, inwardly shocked that even a blatantly sexual glance like that could upset her so. It brought their past flooding back to her—the depth of passion so easily aroused by a mere glance at each other, the love, the lust, the need for each other.
It was as if he knew what she was aware of: the charge between them. He tutted mockingly. ‘I wouldn’t put much of a price on your soul, darling, but that body of yours, if my memory serves me well, would bring a packet if marketed more sensually than in that austere outfit you are wearing.’
The words shocked Jade so deeply that she was rendered speechless for an embarrassing moment. She felt the heat of humiliation rise up her throat, but fought to control it and succeeded. She’d been wrong to think he hadn’t changed. Maybe he hadn’t physically, but his cruelty had never been so apparent before. But perhaps he had always been like this and she just hadn’t seen it, love being blind. She wouldn’t allow him to get to her now, though, not after this length of time. She didn’t have to take this.
Slowly she got to her feet. This meeting had served one purpose if nothing else—shown her that she’d wasted four years of torn emotions on this man.
‘I’m sorry I troubled you, Mel,’she said quietly. ‘Just one thing before you leave,’ she added pointedly. He would go, of course, because he had never come here with the intention of helping anyway. ‘Why did you come here armed with humiliation and insults when you dished them out so effectively four years ago?’
He took his time getting to his feet, lazily rearranging his cashmere overcoat over his superbly cut navy blue suit before answering her, the languorous movement stage-managed to grate on her nerves, she felt sure. Even his low tone was gauged for effect.
‘When it came to trading humiliation, Jade, you beat me hands down. Whatever I said to you could never match what you put me through that horrendous night.’
He put his palms down on her desk and leaned closer to her, eyes dark and menacing. He was so close she could smell the seductive cologne that came from the heat of his body. A scent so evocative that she had to clench her fists to stop herself swaying into it and losing her cool control.
‘Did you really believe I would come here with an open heart and a willingness to haul your company out of the bankruptcy pit?’ he went on scathingly, his eyes darkening even more savagely. ‘You have some nerve, Jade. Four years ago you indulged in an affair with me while you were committed to another man. You let me love you, we made love, and all the time you belonged to another man. I’ve often wondered just how far you would have gone with the charade if your father hadn’t made that engagement announcement at your twenty-first birthday party…’
‘Mel,’ Jade cried, ‘please don’t!’ Oh, she couldn’t bear it. She bit her lip in anguish, drawing on her reserves of cool. She might have known he would never forget it; she might have known he’d seen his chance for revenge and that was why he was here.
‘Please don’t?’ he echoed harshly. ‘You even talk the way you used to. You used me four years ago, Jade, and the only explanation I could ever come up with was that you were such a rich, spoilt child you wanted to possess everything you set your eyes on, including me.’
Jade’s cool shattered like thin ice. The injustice of his words hurt so deeply that she felt physically winded. He was wrong, so very wrong to believe that of her.
‘It was never like that, Mel,’ she breathed painfully. ‘I might have had an over-privileged childhood because my father was making up for the absence of a mother, but that wasn’t my fault, and he was only doing what he thought best in his usual bulldozing way. I wasn’t spoilt, never that. I didn’t want to possess you in that way, like a trophy. I loved you—’
‘You don’t know the meaning of the word love,’ he snapped back. ‘When you love someone you don’t two-time them—’
‘I didn’t two-time anyone, Mel,’ Jade insisted, though she knew she was wasting her breath. ‘I know how it must have looked but you didn’t even give me the chance—’
‘To explain?’ he exploded. ‘What needed explaining? Your father said it all in his announcement speech. His wonderful daughter was that night betrothed to his greatest friend’s son, Nicholas Fields. My God, Jade, what was going on in that beautiful head of yours that night? You insisted I came to the party to humiliate me and-’
‘Stop it!’ she cried at last, her fingers going to her temples with the anguish of his agonising reminders. She had relived that terrible moment so many times and it never got any better, only worse. Humiliation had been the order of the night. None had escaped from it. Not Mel, Nicholas nor herself.
The only one immune to the whole horrible experience had been her father. Her powerful, manipulative father who ploughed through life not considering anyone’s feelings but his own. His ill-timed engagement announcement had stemmed from his own wish to bond the two families together. She and Nicholas had practically grown up together and, though very close, hadn’t dreamt of marriage…But they might have drifted into it if Mel hadn’t stepped into her life and shown her