Natalie Fox - Man Trouble

He turned, face gaunt and pale, eyes as hard as steel.

‘Mel, you don’t understand—’

‘I understand you hadn’t the courage to tell me to my face. You callous—’

‘Please don’t, Mel. You must listen. Nicholas and I-’

‘Are engaged. Yes, I just heard. What sort of games are you playing, Jade?’ He gave her no chance to answer before blazing on, ‘God, what a fool you’ve made of me and what a character misjudgement I’ve made. You’re nothing but a rich, spoilt child with no thought for people’s feelings. You…’

The chicken soup frothed over the side of the pan and Jade grasped it and hurled it into the sink. Tears streamed down her face just as they had the night she’d pleaded with Mel to listen to reason. She’d blurted that she and Nicholas were just good friends but even as she’d said it she’d known it sounded hopelessly fragile. His Italian ancestry made no allowances for boy-girl relationships with no sexual undertones, but then Mel was a man of the world—surely he could see that Nicholas wasn’t a threat to their relationship?

But of course she’d got nowhere with her reasoning that fateful night. Mel had been too furious, too hurt, too betrayed to listen. Until then he’d never heard of Nicholas Fields and Jade knew she’d made a grave mistake in not mentioning him before. Her only excuse, not even voiced to Mel, was that their affair had been so swift and intense that no one else had encroached on their lives—not her father, not Nicholas, not anyone.

The phone rang, jarring her nerves, and Jade brushed the tears from her face with the backs of her hands. She knew it would be Trisha, wanting to know if Nicholas had got off all right, and it was. Trisha’s caring for Nicholas only served to accentuate Jade’s loneliness. She envied what they had—a love, a life together, a future full of promise. She forced herself to laugh and joke with Trisha on the phone but her heart was heavy with the emptiness of her life.

‘Mel Biaggio has been ringing all morning,’ Diane, Jade’s secretary, told her when she came in late after an unsuccessful meeting with the company bank manager. He could only offer so much, and it was not nearly enough.

Jade gazed at Diane in disbelief, her heart leaping wildly. ‘Mel Biaggio?’ she breathed, slipping out of her overcoat. ‘Did he say what he wanted?’

Diane grinned ruefully. ‘I did ask but he wouldn’t say. I told him you’d be in at lunchtime and he said he’d see you then.’

Jade paled at the thought. He was coming here, just when she had got herself together after his last visit. Had he changed his mind about helping out? After all, he had taken the file with him. But perhaps he’d decided he hadn’t punished her enough and was coming in for another stab at her!

She was ready for him when he arrived. Afraid but outwardly in control of her fear.

He crossed her office, tall, dark and maddeningly handsome, hardly looking at her as he approached. He tossed the file down on her desk. For a horrible second it occurred to Jade that the return of it was the only reason he was here.

‘Th-thank you,’ she murmured, eyeing him warily, wondering why he hadn’t sent it by courier.

His face was expressionless as he spoke. ‘I’ve given this a lot of thought and have a proposition to put to you.’

Jade widened her eyes. ‘You’ve had a change of heart?’ she uttered, and prayed her voice didn’t sound too hopeful.

‘Certainly not where you are personally concerned,’ he clipped. ‘I’d like to look over the place.’

Jade stared at him, smarting from his cold insult and puzzled by his request.

‘Why?’ she asked directly.

‘I want to see what I’m letting myself in for,’ he told her coldly.

Her heart didn’t even miss a beat at the thought that he was considering taking the job on. His attitude dismayed her. He was so cold and clinical and once he hadn’t been…But they weren’t lovers now and never would be again; this was business, and the only reason he was here, she reminded herself.

‘So…so you think you can help?’ He nodded. ‘But why? Last week you said I couldn’t afford you. Nothing’s changed, Mel.’

‘My thinking has,’ he told her as he slid out of his cashmere coat and threw it down on a chair. ‘Now, before I make a final decision are you going to show me around, or is my journey wasted?’

Jade steeled herself, and it was surprisingly easy now. This man before her wasn’t the man she had loved so passionately. This Mel was different. He gave off not one scrap of warmth or sincerity. He was hard and unfeeling…and was only here to do a job, she reminded herself yet again.

‘Before I show you anything, Mel, you must make your intentions clearer,’ she said formally. ‘I’ve a lot to cope with at the moment and if this is your idea of more punishment for what happened between us forget it.’

‘I won’t forget it till the day I die,’ he said coldly, his eyes intense. ‘But that isn’t why I’m here today. I pride myself on my professionalism and I don’t think I gave you a fair hearing before.’

Jade’s brows shot up in surprise. There was more to this than met the eye. ‘Or perhaps you were thinking of your reputation,’ she suggested knowingly.

He frowned. ‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning word might have got around that you’d turned my company down because we were too small and ineffectual to promote your image as a high-flyer.’ She couldn’t resist that. It was very likely, too.

He smiled very thinly. ‘I doubt you or any of your associates could harm my reputation or my image, Jade. You really are too small.’

She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Sometimes good things come in small packages—quantity isn’t a guarantee of quality.’

He didn’t say a word. His eyes locked onto hers and she felt mesmerised for a few seconds, then embarrassed when she got the message they were sending her. Small packages, pocket-sized princesses. Oh, she didn’t want him here, looking at her like that, slamming their past at her with knowing looks.

She stretched taller, stiffened her shoulders, picked up a pen from the desk and thrummed it in her palm. ‘I think you are wasting time, Mel—yours and mine. This isn’t going to work out. There are other troubleshooters and-’

‘They won’t give you the time of day, Jade.’

‘So what are you doing back here?’ she burst out, rage welling inside her. Why couldn’t he have stayed away? Oh, how she wished she had never involved him. It was awful, awful. ‘You’ve no intention of giving your services. This is a personal vendetta and—’

‘You were the one who called me in,’ he challenged.

‘Someone recommended you,’ she argued. ‘Because you’re the best.’ She cooled her tone but spiked it with sarcasm. ‘In my opinion your best stinks. I wish I hadn’t bothered—’

‘So do I,’ he sliced back at her. ‘Because I can see trouble ahead all the way.’

‘And with good reason. You’ve done nothing but put me down since stepping into my office and I don’t have to take that—’

‘Well, you’ll have to get used to it because there’s going to be plenty more where that came from,’ he interrupted darkly.

‘What do you mean?’

He stepped right up to her desk, leaned towards her and spoke levelly, his features, as usual, a mask of cold hostility. ‘If I take this fiasco on I’m going to be breathing down your neck so hard you are going to need stabilisers to stay on your feet. I’m going to be digging so deep I’ll rock your foundations. I’m going to be probing every weakness and treading on every slack nerve I find. Can you take that, I wonder?’

She glared at him in defiance. ‘What exactly is that supposed to mean? Are you talking about the ad agency or was that a personal threat to me?’