Читать книгу Hired: A Bride for the Boss: The Playboy Boss's Chosen Bride / The Corporate Marriage Campaign / The Boss's Urgent Proposal - SUSAN MEIER, Emma Darcy - Страница 14

CHAPTER TEN

MERLINA bolted out of bed. She was stark naked. And so was Jake in the bathroom! Their clothes were on the living-room floor. Any second now her father would see them and…a string of loud Italian curses told her he had.

‘Merlina, get out here this minute!’ came the thunderous command.

‘Coming, Papa!’ she yelled back, frantically hoping Jake would hear and understand the warning to stay in the bathroom and let her handle her father.

Almost sick with panic, she raced to her clothes cupboard, grabbed her silk dressing-gown off its hanger and put it on as fast as she could. Her hairbrush was in one of the bags Jake had carried in so the best she could do was a finger-comb. It was impossible to make herself look respectable, anyway. Her father was probably still staring at the evidence that she wasn’t.

Why, oh, why hadn’t he rung the doorbell instead of appropriating the spare key and letting himself in? She would have had time to hide the discarded clothes, time to…but there was no time!

On the dubious principle that attack was the best form of defence, she fronted up to him in the living-room and asked, ‘What are you doing here, Papa?’

‘What am I doing here?’ he repeated incredulously. He threw his hands up in the air in his usual histrionic fashion. His thick, wavy, grey hair was tossed back. The black eyebrows rose, mocking the question. His hawkish nose sniffed the air in battle-readiness. His barrel chest was all puffed out and his teeth—very white against a face darkly weathered by working outside in the vineyard—gnashed before biting out the words again. ‘What am I doing here?’

He was starting to sound like a Greek chorus but Merlina knew this was venting in the Italian style, building up to the storm where hail stones would rain on her head.

‘You don’t usually drop in without warning,’ she slid in quickly.

‘How can I warn you when you do not answer your telephone?’ His dark eyes flashed furious accusation as he wildly gesticulated to punctuate every point he made. ‘Not on Saturday. Not on Sunday. Not today. And when we ring your workplace we are told you are not employed there any more. Told by a stranger. No news of this from our daughter.’

‘I would have got around to telling you,’ she excused, shrugging off the necessity for instant communication about everything—her family’s favourite pastime. ‘Why were you calling me? Is something wrong at home?’

‘And look where this precious independence of yours has got you!’ he lashed out with a sweeping gesture of disgust at the clothes on the floor.

Merlina unclenched her jaw, took a deep breath and persisted with her question. ‘What’s happened? What’s brought you here? Is Mamma okay?’

‘No, your mother is not okay,’ he retorted fiercely. ‘She is worried sick about you. All day she is saying, something bad has happened to Merlina. I feel it here.’ He slammed his hand over his heart, play-acting her mother’s distress. ‘I cannot bear it, Angelo, she says. You must fly to Sydney, find her. And what do I find? What do I find?’ His arms flew up in outrage again. ‘My daughter—’ his eyes raked down her red silk dressing-gown ‘—a scarlet woman!’

Merlina couldn’t help rolling her eyes. He’d have her painted as a prostitute next. Banned from his household forever. The modern world and her father had no meeting ground. The big problem was…she didn’t want to lose her family. Somehow she had to fight this, but how?

‘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,’ Jake declared, stepping in to give her absence respectability, having already lifted her up from being a fallen woman.

She heaved a sigh at how adept he was at making their relationship sound official. In fact, he was every bit as good as his grandfather at deception. Unfortunately that was not a happy thought. Deception could achieve a short-term effect, but what would happen when this engagement fell through?

On the family front, she’d probably get sympathy, with Jake cast as a villain for taking her virtue, which she’d supposedly given up in good faith. But what might her brothers do to the absconding husband-to-be? Jake had no idea what he’d just set in motion. Maybe she should spill the real truth, save him from the consequences of his well-meant lies. On the other hand, if there was a possibility…

Hope was a terrible thing.

It held her tongue.

Her father addressed Jake. ‘Mario is bringing his wife and baby home tomorrow. We will be holding a family barbecue in the evening. I am inviting you to attend with Merlina.’

Throwing him to the wolves.

Panic drove her to attempt a rescue. ‘Papa, I’ve already explained about work.’

‘He’s the boss, isn’t he? The call is his,’ her father insisted aggressively. ‘You have met his family. He should meet yours.’

Italian pride!

There was no way to fight it. Jake’s respectable scenario was reaping what it had sown.

‘We’ll be there,’ he said.

She turned on him in exasperation for jumping straight into the hole she’d been trying to dig him out of. ‘It’s in Griffith, Jake. That’s a six hour drive from Sydney.’

‘You can both catch a plane like I did for you, Merlina,’ her father persisted.

She swung back to him, frightened of the dilemma he was posing. ‘It wasn’t for me. It was because Mamma nagged you into it.’

‘So? We do these things for our women, do we not?’ He tossed this at Jake, testing how deep the devotion was to his daughter.

‘Yes, we do,’ Jake cheerfully agreed. ‘We’ll catch a plane to Griffith tomorrow afternoon.’

She could have choked him.

He was escalating something that shouldn’t be escalated. Not unless it was real and she didn’t think it was. Jake was so far into game-playing, he was losing his judgement on where the line was crossed. It was wrong to deceive her family. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Especially up close and personal with the whole lot of them!

‘Good! Merlina can call her mother and let her know the time of the flight and I’ll have one of her brothers meet you at Griffith airport,’ her father offered, nailing down the arrangement.

One of her brothers! They’d all be eyeing Jake over—the outsider fiancé, a city man who wasn’t even Italian.

‘That’s very kind. Thank you,’ Jake said, pouring on the charm.

‘Well, I’ll leave you two alone then,’ her father granted gruffly, not liking the idea at all. ‘I did not think you were home, Merlina. You did not answer the telephone. I have arranged to stay with my brother, Georgio, at Glebe.’

‘I’ll call a taxi for you,’ Merlina said, intensely relieved that her father was prepared to leave her and Jake together instead of taking up residence to enforce his moral standards. She’d slid out of Jake’s hug and was heading for the telephone in the kitchen when Jake dropped another bombshell, halting her in her tracks.

‘My car is out the front, Mr Rossi. If you’ll give me a few minutes—’ his clothes were still on the floor! ‘—I’ll drive you to Glebe myself. It will give us a chance to get to know one another.’

Merlina’s stomach curdled at the thought. Had Jake suffered some mad rush of blood to the head?

‘Your car…would that be the red Ferrari?’ her father inquired.

‘Yes, it is,’ Jake answered matter-of-factly.

‘You have good taste in cars.’ A stamp of approval. ‘Nothing outclasses the Italians. I have always driven an Alfa, myself. A family sedan these days, but when I was a young man…’ He actually smiled at Jake. ‘I shall enjoy riding in your Ferrari. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure,’ Jake rolled out and scooped up his clothes. ‘Please excuse me. I won’t be long.’

‘Take your time,’ her father said graciously. After all, he not only had his son-in-law-to-be coming to his party and dancing to his tune, Jake was even providing the Italian music!

Merlina was so stunned by this last development, she was completely robbed of speech as Jake headed for the hall, grinning at her and dropping a kiss on her forehead as he passed her by.

He was having fun.

It was a game to him and he was revelling in carrying the ball right into her father’s court. He didn’t realise that the Rossi playground was hemmed in by rules which had to be respected. Flout them and…panic swirled up again. Her family took some things very, very seriously, and Jake was diving into the deep end without knowing what he was getting into.

Action had to be taken!

She gestured to the sofa as she forced her legs forward, wanting to pick up her own clothes and follow Jake to the bedroom. ‘Sit down, Papa. I need to go and have a word with Jake before you leave.’

‘Fine-looking man,’ he commented, nodding his understanding of the attraction as he settled himself on the sofa to wait. Then he shook a stern finger at her. ‘After we go you must call your mother, Merlina. She will not sleep until she knows all is well with you.’

‘I promise I’ll do that, Papa.’ She’d swept up the offensive clothes. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’

‘Go, go.’ He waved her off, adding as she went, ‘A fine engagement ring, too. Your mother will be impressed.’

Merlina’s heart dropped like a stone. Byron’s ring! This was all such a mess! Her head was whirling with frantic thoughts as she hurried to her bedroom. Jake was already dressed, sitting on the bed to pull on his socks and shoes. He glanced up as she backed against the door, pushing it shut behind her to ensure some privacy.

‘Are you mad?’ she shot at him, trying not to get distracted by the rumpled silk doona, though she was instantly hit by the memory of her writhing in wild abandonment to the intense pleasure he’d given her.

‘I thought I was doing really well out there,’ he chided, his mouth twitching in amusement.

‘You’re carrying it too far, Jake,’ she cried, lifting her hands in anxious appeal. ‘I tried to stop you…’

‘I didn’t want to be stopped, Merlina.’ He bent to tie his shoelaces.

‘You don’t understand. You’re playing with my family. They’re not sophisticated city people who’ll shrug this off. They’ll…’

‘I’m not playing.’

‘Yes, you are,’ she protested fiercely, frustrated by his careless manner.

‘No, I’m not.’ He stood up, a devil-may-care smile on his face, eyes twinkling wicked pleasure at her as he strode over to slide his arms around her waist and draw her stiffly resistant body against his, re-awakening the carnal desires she had absolutely no control over. ‘I’ve decided to marry you, Merlina Rossi,’ he said, cutting through any further protest on her part.

Her heart stopped.

He stroked her cheek, still smiling as she struggled with disbelief. ‘Nothing to say?’ he teased.

His overbearing confidence, and the angst he had just put her through, sparked a perverse flash of anger. ‘I haven’t said yes, Jake Devila.’

‘You will. I’ve got you boxed in.’

Then he kissed her, robbing her of any negative response to his triumphant entrapment of her, firing up the passion that made her forget everything else. A savage possessiveness seized her again. She wanted this man. Take him, it commanded. Just take him and don’t quibble about the how and the why and what grief the future might bring.

‘Can’t keep your father waiting, my little tiger,’ he murmured, easing back with far too much control for Merlina’s liking.

‘Have you stopped to think you’re boxing yourself in with this tiger?’ she retorted, unable to blindly follow what instinct dictated. Marriage meant too much to her.

‘We can always get divorced.’

Shock ripped through the irrepressible hope that had been burgeoning from his impulsive decision to marry her. The painful realisation hit that marriage was not a lasting thing to him. His parents were divorced. His grandfather’s divorces were legion. It was just a contract he could break when it no longer suited either party. For Jake that would probably be when someone more exciting came along.

That was how he would think. And she hated it. Hated it! If it was only lust and the desire to win this game, revelling in the challenges facing him, enjoying the fun of coming out on top against all opposition, what chance did this marriage have? She shouldn’t enter into it. She shouldn’t go along with him. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to say a flat no.

She said another truth instead.

‘Divorce is not done in the Rossi family, Jake.’

It was a warning that she needed him to take to heart.

But he didn’t.

‘Let’s see how it goes,’ he said blithely. ‘I’ll pick you up at nine in the morning. We’ll go shopping for a ring.’

‘You’ve already showed my father Byron’s ring,’ she reminded him tersely, frustrated by his carefree attitude.

‘Take it off. We’ll choose one together.’

‘Jake…’ It was a cry of torment over the situation he’d manipulated.

‘Trust me.’ He kissed her again to soothe her distress, then patted her cheek in a tender last salute. ‘I’ll have your father won over before we get to Glebe.’

‘That’s not the point,’ she cried, desperate for him to understand, take heed.

There was no pause for second thoughts. He was brimming over with unshakeable confidence in himself. ‘We’re good together. We’re great together. Think about it.’ He moved her aside, opened the door, and shot her a last happy grin. ‘See you in the morning.’