‘You’ve got that wrong, Mr Rossi,’ came the calm statement from behind her.
Jake!
She spun around.
He was coming down the hall, a white bath-towel tucked around his waist, but the rest of him still flagrantly naked. Didn’t he realise that his appearance would enflame her father’s rage? Her heart pitter-pattered in a frenzy of fear over what might happen next.
‘So! You’ve come out of hiding,’ her father jeered contemptuously, drawing himself up to match Jake’s height and look down his Roman nose at him.
‘I wasn’t hiding,’ Jake corrected him. ‘I’d gone to the bathroom and I couldn’t help overhearing what was going on out here. Seemed to me I should step in.’ He curved his arm around her shoulders in a protective hug. ‘I won’t have Merlina abused, Mr Rossi.’
Her father glared at him. ‘It is you who has abused my daughter, stripping her of her virtue.’
‘Papa, please—’
Her plea for some temperance was cut off, her attempt only serving to bring her father’s wrath down on her again. ‘Who is this man? Did I not teach you to save your virginity for your husband?’
‘My name is Jake Devila…’
‘Devila?’ Enlightenment struck. ‘Is that not the name of your employer, Merlina?’
‘I don’t work for him any more, Papa.’
‘What? He sacked you from your job because you let him seduce you into going to bed with him?’
‘No, Papa…’
He ignored her denial, attacking Jake again. ‘You are a man without honour. Using your position of power over my daughter to turn her mind.’
‘He didn’t,’ Merlina cried. She’d simply given her mind a rest and followed her heart for once.
Her father’s finger went up in victorious argument. ‘He forced you to have your hair cut. And Sylvana told us he insisted you wear immodest clothes to work.’
‘There were good reasons for that,’ Merlina almost shouted in her urgent need to be heard. Sylvana’s big mouth should have been zippered at birth!
‘No. Your father is right,’ Jake chimed in. ‘I was flexing my power.’
Merlina closed her eyes in despair. What was Jake playing at now? He had no idea what her father was like and he was ruining any chance of smoothing over the situation. If, indeed, there was any chance.
‘At that point in time, I didn’t appreciate that Merlina was perfect the way she was,’ he ran on in a quietly diplomatic tone. ‘I wanted to fit her into an image that suited my business. I’m sorry that you found my influence so offensive. It wasn’t meant to be.’
‘You’re sorry?’ her father squawked. ‘Does that give me back the daughter you have ruined for any good husband?’
The arm around her shoulders tightened its hug as Jake picked up her left hand and startled her by holding it out for her father to see the ring that Byron had put on her third finger and which was still there, sparkling its solitaire diamond brilliance. She’d forgotten about it. Byron had dropped right out of her mind. And for Jake to bring up her engagement to his grandfather now seemed utter madness.
‘I was hoping you would accept me as her husband, Mr Rossi.’
What?
Merlina’s body froze into suspended animation while her mind spun in wild circles. She feverishly wished Jake had just spoken the truth. But he might not mean it. He was trying to get her out of trouble. Trouble that he’d made for her. Though not entirely. She had been a willing party. But if he hadn’t come after her, brought her home, she’d still be the good girl her father wished her to be, and which she had been on the whole, within her own sense of right and wrong.
No doubt Jake was thinking they could break the pseudo-engagement at a later date. It was Byron’s ring, not his, but her father didn’t know that. His eyes were goggling at the diamond. Hopefully its magnificence was blinding him to her fall from grace.
‘You are engaged to be married?’ His wrath had been considerably appeased by the ring but a frown of disapproval was still aimed at Merlina. ‘Why did you not tell him he should ask me for your hand first? Why have you not brought him to meet the family?’
Her mind boggled over the thought of Jake with her family. They’d eat him alive. He could put on a fine act for her father tonight but her family en masse was another kettle of fish. ‘I, er, this has all been very sudden, Papa.’
‘Please accept my apology, Mr Rossi,’ Jake smoothly appealed. ‘With my own parents divorced when I was a child, I didn’t appreciate that traditional courtesies would be expected. I surprised Merlina with the ring tonight. We hadn’t talked about marriage before. Of course, we know each other very well from having worked closely together for almost two years, but it was only after Merlina resigned, that I’ve pursued her in a personal sense.’
Oh, wow! He was covering all bases with that little speech. Ironically, all of it was the truth this time, except he was making himself out to be gentleman Jake for her father, not one hint of playboy Jake!
‘You did not take advantage of her at work?’ her father asked suspiciously.
‘I give you my word that nothing untoward happened between us during her employment with me. Completely professional,’ came the firm assurance.
Another truth.
Her father gave the situation some hard pondering before finally conceding, ‘Then I accept that you are a man of honour.’
‘Thank you,’ Jake replied respectfully.
‘If you are marrying Merlina, you must come and meet the family.’
‘Whenever that can be arranged,’ Jake replied.
Evasive tactics coming in, Merlina thought. For a moment there he had sounded so sincere, the hope that he might truly mean to marry her had fluttered through her heart. However, the far more credible truth was Jake coming to her rescue, being gallant as a good playboy should when caught out.
‘Tomorrow would be very suitable,’ her father announced in a challenging tone.
‘Tomorrow!’ Merlina cried, alarmed at how quickly her father was putting Jake to the test. She desperately wanted to hold onto him, not have him driven away. ‘Jake has a business to run, Papa. Tomorrow is a workday.’
‘What is more important than family at a time like this?’ was hurled back at her. ‘Mario’s wife has given birth to her baby. Which your mother wished to tell you.’
The telephone calls that she hadn’t been here to answer!
But the birth had not been expected for another month. ‘That’s way too early,’ she protested anxiously. ‘Is the baby all right? Is Gina all right?’
Her burst of caring seemed to give her father a strong measure of satisfaction. For the first time tonight he spoke to her in a reasonably calm tone. ‘Gina is fine. The baby is a little small but he is perfectly healthy.’
‘He…a boy this time.’ She relaxed into a smile. ‘Mario must be pleased.’
‘Yes. Three daughters are enough.’ Her father glowered pointedly at her. ‘Especially when they do not behave as they should.’
‘Sorry I was away, Papa…’
‘Merlina was with my family, meeting my mother and grandfather,’