‘By the look of those financial statements you can’t afford my fees anyway. I don’t come cheap, Jade.’
She hardened her heart and stiffened her back. She shouldn’t have asked him. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be persuaded by Nicholas that this was the best course of action to take. She should have known it would be hopeless, that Mel wouldn’t help her—even if she could afford his wretched fees.
‘You never did come cheap, Mel,’ she said coldly, and astonishingly this brought a small, thin smile to his lips.
‘No, I didn’t,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘But you did, didn’t you? Bargain basement.’
The insult was unbearable. So painful, she felt almost sick. It was worse than all his other insults that night of her birthday. He had accused her of every moral misdemeanour in the book of proprieties. She had tried to explain the situation with Nicholas but, up against a barrage of raw accusations and offensive remarks, what chance had she stood? According to proud Mel Biaggio, she had deceived him, hurt him, cheated him and insulted him. He never wanted to see her again as long as he lived. It had turned out to be the worst night of her life instead of what should have been one of the happiest.
She watched him come round the side of her desk, her eyes misted by that insult, her heart flapping weakly in her breast He stopped, only inches from her. She felt his heat and steeled herself against it, wishing with her very soul that she hadn’t started all this. She should have known that his fiery Mediterranean ancestry harboured no leeway for forgiveness.
His breath, when he spoke, came with the heat of the devil, fanning her responses till she almost physically recoiled from him.
‘I wonder if you are still such a bargain, or if perhaps life has finally taught you what honour is? I can’t resist the temptation to try you out.’ His voice was leaden with menace and his mouth so close to hers that it was almost touching. ‘Don’t kid yourself that it’s a weakness on my part. One thing you taught me was never to let a little tease like you get under my skin again.’
Jade naively opened her mouth to form some sort of insult in retaliation, but her parted lips were given no chance to respond. They were suddenly claimed by his, hot and punishing and so shockingly sexual that all fight she might have summoned if forewarned disappeared for evermore.
His arms slid around her, crushing her to him just in case she thought of escape. Hard arms that had once melted her bones and melded her to him in the prelude to their passion. His mouth, scouring hers so painfully now, was a wicked reminder of the depth of feeling that had once charged between them. But then that feeling had had its roots in love and desire; now it was powered by the need for punishment.
Jade knew this and yet it made no difference to the aching need that Mel’s kiss thrust into her unwilling heart. She didn’t want to want him but she did. After all this time she still yearned for a small miracle to happen so that he would love her again. She wanted to tear herself away but couldn’t. She knew she should be making some attempt to fight him but she couldn’t.
She was utterly weak and senseless and she thought he must have sensed her submission. For one fleeting second she imagined his lips were softening. Was she willing the pressure to ease, to soften away from punishment and veer towards what they had once been to each other—passionate lovers?
She didn’t know. The only thing she was sure of was that Mel Biaggio could still arouse her so deeply that she lost all control. And that must mean that he was still very much in her heart, and the thought was despairing and so very painful.
Her eyes were filled with tears of past regrets as she drew back from him, the first to move. So much loss and so much heartache to carry on living with. Where was the indifference she had hoped would take the place of her love after four years without sight of him?
He was completely unaffected by her look of despair, his eyes cold as his hands dropped to his sides.
Jade stared at him, determinedly now, the tears swallowed down hard and her eyes clear once again. She was the first to speak—bitingly, to hide the hurt.
‘If I had thought you had sunk that low, Mel, I would never have dreamt of asking for your help. You came here today with no intention of even considering helping my company. Your sole purpose for being here is to insult me and humiliate me in revenge for what you think I did to you four years ago.’
He shook his head and his mouth twisted into a cruel half-smile. ‘Revenge has nothing to do with my coming here today, Jade,’ he grated roughly. ‘And if you think that kiss was a punishment you are very wrong. What you think and feel is no concern of mine any more.’
There was nothing there, not a smidgeon of feeling for her, and it was irrational to be hurt but she couldn’t ignore the pain that sliced through her.
‘So why, Mel?’ she cried impatiently. ‘Why come here at all if it wasn’t to make a fool of me?’
‘I came here for my own selfish reasons,’ he told her darkly. ‘Something for me, nothing to benefit you, nothing to do with humiliation or insults or revenge.’ His eyes suddenly narrowed and his jaw stiffened. ‘I came here to lay a few ghosts of my past before I make the big commitment myself.’
He paused to let that sink in, a pause that homed in on its target—her heart—and then he added softly and yet lethally, striking where it hurt, ‘Get my drift?’
Jade stared at him in horror, her dark eyes wide and brimming with pain. She was skidding on emotional black ice and couldn’t stop. Her head was spinning. Had she got his drift, and was he…? Oh, so cruel, wicked even. She ran a tongue over dry lips before stuttering helplessly, ‘Y-you’re going to—to be married?’
There was a long, leaden silence before he responded. How clever he was at using those pauses to full effect. They were worse than words, the anticipation of what was to come the real cruelty.
‘That’s the drift,’ he murmured at last. ‘The ghosts of our past are firmly buried, Jade; and I’ll tell you something—I’m glad, relieved, too. I’ve just one small regret. I’d have liked to think that by kissing you I might have aroused just a small measure of remorse in you for what we lost, because then I could have asked you how you felt about my betrothal.’
He turned then and Jade squeezed shut her smarting eyes against the pain, to close the world out. When she opened them the world was still spinning and Mel Biaggio was smiling at her from the open doorway—a cold, cynical smile. He held her file aloft.
‘I’ll take this with me. It’ll make good bedtime reading. I’m a slave to insomnia. Hopefully, this should cure it.’
He slammed the door after him and shakily Jade sank into her chair and covered her face with her trembling hands. No, this couldn’t be happening; she hadn’t heard right, she hadn’t got his drift and this was all too awful to bear. Mel, the great womaniser, had finally made a commitment to the woman he loved, and she, Jade Ritchie, wasn’t that woman. Somehow it was so much worse knowing that his reputation had been grounded at last, because that must mean the lady in question was someone very special. Far more special than she had ever been to him. Oh, it hurt, so very much.
How irrational could you get? she asked herself in abject misery, because now she knew exactly how Mel had felt that night her father had announced her engagement to Nicholas. Totally, utterly betrayed and deeply hurt. And it was stupid, stupid, stupid, this awful feeling inside her, because he wasn’t a part of her life any more. And yet he would be if he took her and her ailing company on. Everything was getting desperately worse instead of better…