Two-Timing Love. Kate Proctor
are completely despicable,’ croaked Jenny, disconcerted to find herself fighting an urge to lash out at him physically.
‘You sound almost surprised,’ he murmured blandly. ‘Which is odd, considering I still appear to be the selfish, manipulative tearaway you claim to know so well. Though there is one thing that puzzles me, Jenny,’ he added innocently. ‘With so little going for me—how is it that you managed to develop such an almighty crush on me?’
‘What might have appealed to an adolescent is no longer material,’ she informed him frigidly.
‘Adolescent is the last word any sane person would have used to describe you the night I found you in my bed,’ he retorted.
Wondering just how many more times he intended dragging up that ghastly incident, Jenny wisely bit back any retort; instead, she marched over to the armchair nearest her, removed his holdall from it and flung herself down.
‘Tomorrow, when I return from work,’ she announced tonelessly, ‘I expect to find that you’ve arranged for suitable nannies to be interviewed. You’d also better get Jonathan a pram and a cot.’
‘Where’s he sleeping now?’
‘He and I are in the spare room with the double bed,’ she replied, her muscles aching in reminiscence of the struggle she had had dragging the heavy bed flush with a wall.
‘Why didn’t you take the room with the twin beds?’ he asked. ‘Hell, he’s so tiny…aren’t you scared of rolling over and squashing him?’
‘I didn’t put him in a single bed—simply because I was worried he might manage to roll out of it. And I shan’t roll over and squash him…I’ve put a barricade of pillows between us,’ she informed him wearily—and still she hadn’t slept a wink for fear of something happening to the baby.
‘Jenny, I honestly wouldn’t have the first idea about how to go about buying a cot and a pram,’ he protested.
‘For heaven’s sake, Jamie, you don’t need a doctorate in one of the sciences to do it!’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘Go to one of the big stores and ask for advice. I also think you should get a baby bath while you’re at it.’
‘He and I bathed together in Vienna,’ muttered Jamie, suddenly stretching. ‘He loved it.’
‘I still think he should have his own bath,’ insisted Jenny.
‘Talking of baths,’ he said, rising and stretching once more, ‘I could do with a soak in one—care to join me?’
Jenny glanced up from the drawing-board as Ellie Brown entered the room. The tall, vivacious redhead was one of the company’s top copywriters and also a friendly, refreshingly outspoken person. It was Ellie who had been the ringleader of the handful of staff—every one of them female—who had, the previous day, helped conceal Jonathan’s presence from the eyes of those who would have objected.
‘Gil Wardale says he’d like to see you when you have a spare minute,’ announced Ellie, peering over Jenny’s shoulder at her work. ‘You really are very good, you know,’ she murmured admiringly. ‘Which is just as well, because rumour has it that Gil’s got to hear of yesterday’s cuddlesome addition to the staff.’
‘Just my luck!’ groaned Jenny, swinging round to face her. ‘Something tells me my chances of surviving my trial period are just about nil,’ she sighed gloomily.
‘Now, now—let’s not be so negative,’ chided Ellie, then added with a sigh, ‘but we might as well face the fact that Gil, with his tendency towards workaholism, won’t exactly be thrilled to bits at the thought of his entire female staff having wasted the day clucking over a baby.’
‘Whereas the truth is that most of them put in at least an hour’s work,’ quipped Jenny, her heart not in it in the least—she was worried sick.
Knowing she wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until she heard what Gil Wardale had to say, she made her way straight to his office after Ellie had left.
On her way it occurred to her that her present circumstances were making her examine certain aspects of her dream job a little more closely than she had previously. She had to admit that she had been more than a little in awe of the single-minded drive evident in Gil Wardale, a man probably no more than in his very early thirties and whose phenomenally successful company she had been so eager to join. Though now she also had to admit to herself that she had initially felt just the tiniest bit repelled by what could almost have been taken for fanaticism in his attitude to his work…yet she had quickly become infected by his forceful enthusiasm and had ended up regarding it as something to be admired. Now she wasn’t quite so sure, she realised with a pang as she neared Gil Wardale’s office. It was as though the world outside advertising didn’t exist for him and the single-mindedly entrepreneurial men who comprised his management team, she thought, having difficulty putting her finger on exactly what it was that now struck her as being wrong. Throughout the country people were giving with unstinting generosity to collections in aid of the earthquake relief—yet she, and the other women who had helped secrete Jonathan, had seemed to know instinctively that the baby’s connection with the disaster would have cut little ice with Gil Wardale and his associates.
There was no point trying to tug on heartstrings that didn’t exist, accepted Jenny wryly as she knocked on the door.
‘Be with you in a tick,’ called out Gil Wardale to her, motioning her to be seated as he returned to his telephone conversation.
One of the first things that had struck her about this man was his clean-cut good looks, remembered Jenny as she took the seat before his desk. Almost as she had the thought, and to her intense irritation, a picture of Jamie flashed uninvited to her mind. OK, so he wasn’t a patch on Jamie, she admitted irritably—how many men were? But the man before her was unquestionably attractive—he had strong, even features, and hair so unusually blond that it probably indicated Scandinavian ancestry and, though not tall, he was well-built and without a spare ounce of flesh on him.
Jenny gave a small shrug of understanding in answer to her employer’s gesture of apology as his telephone conversation grew more prolonged; but she was experiencing a decided increase in the edgy feeling of tension besetting her. Yes—she was nervous about the negative impression she was bound to have made with her new company; but there was also Jamie to contend with. And she was finding it most disturbing that the image of his presence lurking in her mind seemed somehow almost dependable in its familiarity…which was absolutely ludicrous! The last person any member of her sex would be tempted to regard as dependable was Jamie Castile; dangerous and exciting, most definitely; but dependable—never in a million years!
‘Sorry about that,’ said Gil Wardale, cutting across her indignant thoughts, ‘but that was one of our biggest clients,’ he explained, then launched straight into discussing the campaign in which she was involved.
As his agile business mind moved swiftly from one pertinent point to the next, Jenny once again found herself slightly in awe of his total immersion in his work and the attention which he paid to even the most seemingly trivial of details. No wonder he had made such a name for himself, thought Jenny, feeling slightly shell-shocked after almost two hours of intense discussion.
‘Well, you’re managing to hang in there much as we expected you would,’ he finally announced—a statement, Jenny gathered from his tone, that was intended as something of a compliment. ‘Now, let’s see what we can arrange,’ he muttered, opening a desk diary beside him and leafing through its pages. ‘I’m afraid Friday’s about the only night I have free for some time—how about dinner?’
The words were so unexpected that Jenny had no chance to mask her surprise.
‘Company policy,’ he stated, the merest hint of amusement flickering in the wintry blue of his eyes. ‘I like to make a point of wining and dining new team members—you know, get to know them one-to-one and fill them in on the company’s little idiosyncrasies.’
‘Oh…I