Mel had been so different—a high-flyer and a very powerful man. He had swept her off her feet. Half-Italian, he was magnetically attractive, in looks and charisma and everything else. In no time at all she had known she was in love with him, and he had loved her too. And then, at her party, it had all gone horribly wrong.
But though she blamed her father she knew deep in her heart that she had made a grave mistake in not mentioning the existence of Nicholas to Mel before that night. But would it have made any difference? Somehow she doubted it because she hadn’t taken into account Mel’s fiery Italian ancestry. Any man, friend or otherwise, in competition with Mel Biaggio wasn’t on.
‘I didn’t ask you here to rake up the past, Mel,’ she told him in a resigned tone. ‘It was all useless then and is equally useless now.’
She took a deep breath and met his dark gaze bravely. Having to plead with him for help was worse than anything she’d had to do in her life before. She did have to take this—his spiteful recriminations for a lost love; she had no choice. These last few weeks had driven all pride from her. She had employees to consider, people who had worked for her father before her, new young talent she’d given a chance to in difficult economic times. She owed them and she owed her father for having had enough confidence in her to hand over control of the company and take off for a new life in the South of France.
‘I want us to forget we have a past, Mel. You help companies that are in trouble,’ she went on, trying not to humble herself too much in case he leapt on it and hurt her more. This was hard enough. ‘And, loath as I am to admit it, I’m in trouble. I need your help and your advice, Mel, on a professional basis. It’s your job. It’s what you do. And…and they say you’re the best.’
‘And you reckon you deserve the best, do you?’
Jade tilted her chin, biting back the pain caused by his sarcasm. ‘My staff and the company deserve the best and that is why I wanted you. It’s obvious flattery isn’t going to get me anywhere with you but that doesn’t alter the fact that you are the best. I want your help in pinpointing where I’ve gone wrong—’
‘You never were very sharp at pinpointing right from wrong,’ he said wearily.
Jade shut her eyes briefly in sufferance and when she focused on him again she knew she had to swallow all his insults and persist.
‘Yes, I’ve made mistakes in my life and my work and I’m not afraid to admit to them. I’ve shelved my pride too, which is something you might be interested in learning from. If I can handle the past I’m sure you can.’ She took a long breath. ‘Mel, I need your expertise. I need your advice. This is a business arrangement, nothing else. I have the problem and you have the solution. Won’t you even consider it?’
Her plea hung in the air with nowhere to go, because Mel looked as if he wasn’t about to give it a home. He looked as if he didn’t care a damn about anything or anyone in the world, especially not her and her predicament. He was still gazing at her with contempt, making her feel inadequate and at fault, and she suffered it all because her back was against the wall.
‘What’s the problem?’ he asked quietly.
Jade controlled the leap of her heart. He still stood stiffly in front of her, not making any move to sit down again and discuss it with her. She wondered if she should buzz for coffee; it might relax him, persuade him to take a seat, and make her feel more at ease. Perhaps it would be too presumptuous. He’d only asked what the problem was; that wasn’t an acceptance that he would help her.
‘I’m hoping you can tell me,’ she told him, handing him a weighty file she had prepared earlier, detailing their current financial status, projects—existing and proposed, staffing—everything that was relevant. ‘It’s been a bad year—not disastrous, but another year like this and it could be. I’m loath to involve my father and I decided to ask your advice and…’ She stopped, realising he probably didn’t know her father had handed the running of the company over to her.
‘Four years ago…just after…just after I turned twenty-one…my father allowed me to take over the agency.’ It had been her lifeline at the time. Just what she had needed to help her get over Mel. ‘You may remember I came here from art school and a year’s business course in America…Anyway, Daddy had had enough of London Life and wanted out. He still owns the company but I run it and make all the decisions. He lives in the South of France now. He has a new love in his life and…’
Jade swallowed hard. Mel was flicking through the file, evidently not in the least bit interested in her private life or that of her father.
She went on, ‘Everything was going fine with the agency till last year when my top graphic artist left…’ He wasn’t listening. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t help. ‘He set up on his own and took with him a lot of the company’s clients…some of the best clients…and the best advertising.’
Mel looked up then, eyes as steely and implacable as ever. ‘You let him?’ he said, aghast that she should have allowed such a thing to happen.
Jade bristled at that. ‘I didn’t know, not till it was too late!’ she protested quickly.
‘You should always tie up your top staff in contracts they can’t get out of. For your own protection,’ he told her sternly.
‘This is a small agency; I like to think of it as a family business…’
He shot her a look of pure derision. ‘With you as the mother hen, I suppose, all clucking—’
‘That’s enough, Mel,’ Jade interrupted. ‘I trust my staff and I’m not ruthless enough to tie them all to contracts,’ she argued, though fully understanding his way of thinking. If she’d had the employee in question under a more restrictive contract she wouldn’t have lost valuable clients and wouldn’t be struggling so hard now as a consequence.
‘Trouble is, these days being ruthless pays, Jade,’ he told her tightly, his eyes darkening even further as he narrowed them at her. ‘Surely your ruthless stockbroker husband has taught you something since you were married?’
Her full lips parted in protest. Mel really believed she had gone through with the marriage to Nicholas—and how did he know he was a stockbroker? Had her father mentioned it in his engagement announcement? Had that business associate of Nicholas’s, who had arranged all this, named his source?
Jade had sworn Nicholas to secrecy, terrified that her staff would find out that all wasn’t well with the company. Whatever, whoever, however, she couldn’t let it go. If this was a one-off meeting she could let him go on thinking she was married, but if he took on this assignment he would find out that she wasn’t and despise her even more for, as he would see it, yet another deception.
‘I…I didn’t marry Nicholas,’ she told him in a half-whisper she barely heard herself. How could she even consider marriage to anyone after the great love they had shared? And how enormously hurtful that he still thought so little of her.
But she hadn’t the courage to add that Nicholas was still very much a part of her life. He couldn’t help but be, since he shared her London flat with her when he was in town, albeit to save money for when he and his fiancee, Trisha, married and bought their own property. No, her arrangement with Nicholas had no bearing on all this, was nothing to do with Mel. She’d told him the truth—that she hadn’t married Nicholas. It was enough.
There was nothing, no reaction whatsoever to her revelation in his gleaming grey eyes. It meant nothing to him and she felt a small sorrow deep in her heart. Hope; she had always lived with it, though she often thought it a silly little hope to hang onto. She even despised herself for the irrationality of it, but deep, deep down inside her she had nurtured the hope that one day he would come back into her life and…and care.
‘Well, it’s a pity you didn’t,’ he said frostily. ‘His business sense might have saved you from this.’ He waved the file in his hand and then transferred his attention