‘You give me all the paperwork for the loans and I will have them dealt with,’ Vitale asserted. ‘But if I do so, I will own you body and soul until the end of next month.’
‘Nobody will ever own me body and soul.’
‘Apart from me for the next couple of months,’ Vitale contradicted with lethal cool. ‘If I pay upfront, I call the shots and you do as you’re told, whether you like it or not.’
Jazz blinked in bewilderment, wondering how she had got herself into the situation she was in. He thought he had her agreement and why wouldn’t he when she had bargained the terms with him? Even the prospect of those dreadful loans being settled knocked her for six. A visit or a phone call from a debt collector upset her mother for days afterwards, depriving her of the peace of mind she needed to rebuild her life and her health. How could Jazz possibly turn her back on an offer like Vitale’s? Nobody else was going to give them the opportunity to make a fresh start.
‘You haven’t given me a chance to think this through,’ she argued shakily.
‘You were keen enough to set out your conditions,’ Vitale reminded her drily.
And her face flamed because she was in no position to protest that assumption. The offer of money had cut right through her fine principles and her aversion to gambling. The very idea that she could sort out her mother’s problems and give her a happier and more secure future had thoroughly seduced her.
‘You’ll move in here as soon as possible,’ Vitale decreed.
Her head flew up, corkscrew curls tumbling across her shoulders, green eyes huge. ‘Move in here? With you?’
‘How else can we achieve this? You must be readily available. How else can I supervise? And if I take you to the ball it will be assumed we are lovers, and should anyone do a check, it will be clear that you were already living here in my house,’ Vitale pointed out. ‘If we are to succeed, you have to consider little supporting details of that nature.’
Jazz studied him, aghast. ‘I can’t move in with you!’ she gasped. ‘What am I supposed to tell my mother?’
Vitale shrugged with magnificent lack of interest. ‘Whatever suits. That I’ve given you a job? That we’re having an affair? I don’t care.’
Her feathery lashes fluttered rapidly, her animated face troubled as she pondered that problem. ‘Yes, I could admit I sent the letter to your father and say I’ve been offered a live-in job and my aunt would look after Mum, so I wouldn’t need to worry about her,’ she reasoned out loud. ‘Would I still be able to work? I have two part-time jobs.’
‘No. You won’t have the time. I’ll pay you a salary for the duration of your stay here,’ Vitale added, reading her expression to register the dismay etched there at the news that she would not be able to continue in paid employment.
‘This is beginning to sound like a very expensive undertaking for you,’ Jazz remarked uncomfortably, her face more flushed than ever.
‘My choice,’ Vitale parried dismissively while he wondered how far that flush extended beneath her clothing and whether that scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose was repeated anywhere else on her delicate body. He wondered dimly why such an imperfection should seem even marginally appealing and why he should suddenly be picturing her naked with all the eagerness of a sex-starved teenage boy. He tensed, thoroughly unsettled by his complete loss of concentration and detachment.
‘I’ll say you’ve offered me a job,’ Jazz said abruptly, her thoughts leaping ahead of her. ‘Are there many art works in this house?’
Vitale frowned and stared enquiringly at her. ‘Yes, but—’
‘Then I could say that I was cataloguing them or researching them for you,’ Jazz announced with satisfaction. ‘I was only six months off completing a BA in History of Art when Mum’s life fell apart and I had to drop out. I may not have attained my degree but I have done placements in museums and galleries, so I do have good working experience.’
‘If what you’re telling me is true, why are you working in a shop and as a cleaner?’
‘Because without that degree certificate, I can’t work in my field. I’ll finish my studies once life has settled down again,’ she said with wry acceptance.
Vitale struggled to imagine the added stress of studying at degree level in spite of her dyslexia and all its attendant difficulties and a grudging respect flared in him because she had fought her disability and refused to allow it to hold her back. ‘Why did you drop out?’
‘Mum’s second husband, Jeff, died suddenly and she was inconsolable.’ Jazz grimaced. ‘That was long before the debt collectors began calling and we found out about the loans Jeff had taken out and forged her name on. I took time out from university but things went downhill very quickly from that point and I couldn’t leave Mum alone. We were officially homeless and living in a boarding house when she was diagnosed with cancer and that was when my aunt asked us to move in with her. It’s been a rough couple of years.’
Vitale made no comment, backing away from the personal aspects of the information she was giving him, deeming them not his business, not his concern. He needed to concentrate on the end game alone and that was preparing her for the night of the ball.
‘How soon can you move in?’ he prompted impatiently.
Jazz stiffened at that blunt question. ‘This week sometime?’ she suggested.
‘I’ll send a car to collect you tomorrow at nine and pack for a long stay. We don’t have time to waste,’ Vitale pronounced as she slid out of the seat and straightened, the pert swell of her small breasts prominent in a tee shirt that was a little too tight, the skirt clinging to her slim thighs and the curve of her bottom, the fabric shiny with age. Her ankles looked ridiculously narrow and delicate above those clodhopper sandals with their towering heels. The pulse at his groin that nagged at his usually well-disciplined body went crazy.
‘Tomorrow’s a little soon, surely?’ Jazz queried in dismay.
Vitale compressed his lips, exasperated by his physical reaction to her. ‘We have a great deal to accomplish.’
‘Am I really that unpresentable?’ Jazz heard herself ask sharply.
‘Cinderella shall go to the ball,’ Vitale retorted with diplomatic conviction, ducking an answer that was obvious to him even if it was not to her. ‘When I put my mind to anything, I make it work.’
In something of a daze, Jazz refused the offer of a car to take her home and muttered the fiction that she had some shopping to do. In truth she only ever shopped at the supermarket, not having the money to spare for treats. But she knew she needed time to get her head clear and work out what she was going to say before she went home again, and that was how she ended up sitting in a park in the spring sunshine, feeling much as though she had had a run-in with a truck that had squashed her flat.
‘She’s as flat as an ironing board, not to mention the hideous rag-doll hair but, worst of all, she’s a child, Angel...’
Vitale’s well-bred voice filtered down through the years to sound afresh inside her head. Angel spoke Greek and Vitale spoke Italian, so the brothers had always communicated in English. Angel had been teasing Vitale about her crush and of course Jazz had been so innocent at fourteen that it had not even occurred to her that the boys had noticed her infatuation, and that unwelcome discovery as much as Vitale’s withering description of her lack of attractiveness had savaged Jazz. She had known she wasn’t much to look at, but knowing and having it said out loud