Engaged to Jarrod Stone Read online

  Brooke wasn’t so sure; there was an inflexibility about him that pointed to him not liking to be thwarted. A pity she hadn’t noticed that sooner, like two weeks ago.

  ‘But I don’t want to be engaged to you,’ she told him crossly.

  ‘A pity you didn’t think of that before. I’m sure you realise that I feel exactly the same way.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted guiltily, knowing that this was all her own fault.

  ‘Mm,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Well, now that it seems to be public knowledge you can start acting the part. We’ll meet for lunch at twelve-thirty.’

  ‘I couldn’t—I couldn’t go out to lunch with you. What would everyone think?’ Besides, she was hardly dressed to go out with him.

  ‘They can think what they damn well please,’ he muttered grimly.

  ‘I think you’ve taken this far enough,’ Brooke snapped, suddenly angry. ‘I admit that what I did was wrong, and I’ll leave your employ straight away if that will please you.’ Although how she would support herself until she found another job she had no idea! ‘But I’m not going to let you make a fool of me—’

  ‘I think you’ve managed that quite successfully without any help from me,’ he interrupted dryly.

  ‘You have no right—’

  ‘I have every right! Think of how much more of a fool you would have looked if I’d denied all knowledge of you. Think of the adverse reaction you would have got from the press if I’d done that. They would have hounded you to death.’

  She knew he was right. The trouble with her was that she hadn’t thought of the consequences when she had made that stupid move, and now Jarrod Stone was going to make her pay for it. But what else had she expected? He was a well-known personality, he couldn’t afford the publicity of a broken engagement. And neither could she!

  She could just imagine the unpleasantness it would cause. But she couldn’t stay engaged to him either. Just to look at him terrified the life out of her. How she had ever thought herself in love with him she would never know. She must have been mad. Yes, that must be it; at twenty years of age she was definitely past the stage of infatuation.

  ‘Brooke?’ he cut into her thoughts.

  ‘Don’t call me that!’ she snapped her resentment.

  ‘What would you have me call you—dearest, darling, my love?’ he taunted.

  She looked away. ‘Of course not!’

  Jarrod Stone shrugged. ‘Then I’ll call you Brooke. It is your name—and you are my fiancée,’ he added mockingly.

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘Oh yes, you are—until I say otherwise.’

  Her blue eyes widened. ‘And how long do you think that will be?’

  ‘Oh, four, maybe five months,’ he told her carelessly.

  ‘What!’ She walked forward to rest her knuckles on the front of the desk. ‘Now I know you’re joking!’

  ‘I rarely joke about anything this serious.’

  ‘You’re—you’re telling me I have to be engaged to you for four months?’

  ‘At a minimum,’ he nodded.

  ‘But won’t that cramp your style a bit?’

  ‘A little, but I can take it if you can. I gather there’s no boy-friend—no, of course there isn’t. He wouldn’t exactly welcome the announcement.’ He straightened some papers on his desk, giving an impatient look as the telephone rang and he picked it up. ‘Yes, Catherine? No—and I don’t want any more calls put through to me until Miss Faulkner has left.’ He put the receiver down, looking up at her. ‘Now, is there anyone I should talk to about our engagement?’

  ‘Why on earth should you—’

  ‘Consent, Brooke. It’s usually considered polite to consult parents when contemplating marrying their daughter.’

  Brooke paled even more. It all sounded so—so real when he put it like that. ‘My parents are dead. I was brought up by a maiden aunt.’

  ‘So do I speak to her?’

  ‘She died last year,’ Brooke told him. ‘But I hadn’t had a lot to do with her—for the past four years anyway, not since she made it perfectly clear to me that she disapproved of my father marrying her sister.’

  ‘And four years ago you were—?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ she admitted quietly, remembering all too well the terrible things her aunt had said to her about her father.

  ‘That makes you twenty now. God, I’ll be thought a cradle-snatcher!’ Jarrod Stone muttered in disgust. ‘I’m thirty-seven,’ he added by way of explanation.

  ‘And you’ve never married?’ It seemed strange in this day and age to think of a man of his age not marrying.

  For the first time since she had entered the room he smiled, and she felt some of the tension start to leave her body. He sat back in the chair. ‘I thought about it once, when I was a couple of years older than you are at this moment. She turned me down, thank God.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Right—well, I think you’ve taken up enough of my time for one morning,’ he said, rising. ‘I’ll see you downstairs at twelve-thirty. And arrange to have a two-hour lunch break.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she protested. ‘I have a job to do.’

  ‘And I’m your employer. Get whoever it is that usually covers for you when you’re off sick to take over. And I won’t expect an over-show of emotion in front of other people, but I will expect you to be a little bit more relaxed with me than you are at this moment.’

  ‘Relaxed? How can I possibly feel relaxed? I’ve never even spoken to you until today!’

  ‘Too bad,’ he said callously. ‘Now I’ll see you out to the lift.’

  Brooke stiffened. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  He opened the door for her. ‘But I insist. I must show a natural consideration for my brand new fiancée,’ he taunted.

  Her eyes were beseeching. ‘Please, Mr Stone, don’t—’

  ‘Jarrod,’ he corrected curtly. ‘Call me Jarrod.’

  She couldn’t do that! ‘Please don’t make me go through with this. I’ve apologised, I don’t see what else I can do to make amends.’

  ‘An apology isn’t enough,’ he said cruelly. ‘I’ve already explained my reasons. I could make things very unpleasant for you if you prove difficult.’

  ‘I could leave.’ Brooke hung back defiantly, not willing to leave his office until she had this thing settled. ‘You’re far from being the only well-paying firm in the country.’

  ‘Oh, I know that. But with no references from here you could find things rather difficult.’

  ‘You—you can’t do that! I’ve been a good employee.’

  ‘You call what you’ve just done being a good employee?’ he demanded. ‘Are you aware that you could land up in court for that deliberate lie you chose to tell the newspapers? I could sue you. You’re quoted, so it’s pretty obvious who gave them the story.’

  She went first pale and then red. ‘You—you wouldn’t?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. But I do expect a little co-operation from you. This is your fault, after all.’

  ‘All right, all right. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’

  Jarrod Stone looked unmoved. ‘Like I said, it isn’t enough.’ He opened the door further. ‘I have an important appointment in five minutes.’

  ‘Okay, I— But what do I tell everyone?’ she cried.

  ‘Oh, tell them I’ve fallen madly in love with you and rushed you off your feet.’

  ‘Don’t tease—please!’ Her head was downbent.

  He wrenched her chin up roughly between thumb and forefinger. ‘I don’t know what the hell else you expect me to do. I can assure you that if I did what I really want to do to you you wouldn’t like that either.’

  Brooke was mesmerised by his glittering grey eyes, aware of the darkness of his skin and the tangy aftershave he wore. ‘What do you want to do?’ she asked breathlessly.

  His hand fell away and he turned her firmly out of the room. ‘Put you over my knee and give your backside a good thrashing. Just what
you hoped to achieve I have no idea. But still, it might prove interesting.’

  He silenced her as they entered his secretary’s office, pausing at the door to look down at her with dark brooding eyes. Again he raised her chin, uncaring of the two curious pairs of eyes watching them. ‘I’ll see you later, darling,’ he said, huskily soft, but loud enough for the other two girls to hear. ‘We’ll have lunch at the usual place.’

  Before Brooke could answer him his dark head swooped low and his lips fleetingly touched hers. She felt herself tremble in his arms, her eyes wide with surprise. She looked self-consciously at the girls in the room, but they were apparently busily working. She doubted they had been so engrossed a couple of seconds earlier!

  Her mouth tightened. ‘Did you have to do that?’ she muttered angrily, her almost violet eyes glaring her dislike of him.

  Jarrod laughed throatily. ‘You say the nicest things, Brooke.’

  He was obviously still playing to his audience, and she decided to play him at his own game, reaching up to wind her arms about his neck, her lips raised invitingly. ‘Just to last me until lunch-time, darling,’ she coaxed, revelling in the anger displayed in his deep grey eyes. ‘Darling?’ she questioned innocently.

  His grip on her arms was quite painful and it took great effort not to cry out. ‘Later, Brooke. Later.’ His words sounded romantic enough, but she knew his words promised something completely different from what they were implying.

  She pouted up at him. ‘Oh, Jarrod!’

  ‘If you don’t behave yourself I’m like to give you that good hiding I promised you,’ he warned her quietly.

  ‘Oh, Jarrod, how sweet of you to say so,’ she smiled up at him, uncaring of the dangerous look in his eyes. ‘Until later, darling.’

  By the time she stepped out of the lift into the reception area the two bright wings of colour in her cheeks seemed to be a permanent fixture. How she was going to get through the next few months she had no idea.

  Jean was looking rather harassed by this time, having difficulty managing her switchboard and also dealing with people at the desk. Brooke hadn’t realised she would be so long or she wouldn’t have left her alone. She had expected to be only a few minutes, just long enough to be sacked.

  ‘What gives?’ Jean asked once the rush had died down and they had a couple of minutes to themselves again. ‘First of all you receive a telephone call that makes you look like death and then you calmly step into the boss’s private lift and disappear for an hour.’

  ‘I’m sorry I was gone so long, Jean. I didn’t mean to leave you in the lurch like that.’ She shuffled the papers about on her desk, not anxious to answer the real question in Jean’s words.

  ‘So what’s happened? Is someone you know ill or something?’

  ‘Er—no.’ She didn’t quite know how to explain what had just happened to her. She certainly couldn’t tell Jean the whole truth, it would be too humiliating. ‘I—er—I seem to have got myself engaged.’

  Jean’s eyes brightened with excitement. ‘You do? Who to?’ She frowned. ‘You haven’t mentioned seeing anyone special.’

  ‘No—well, it seems to have happened all of a sudden. I’ve hardly had time to think.’ Which was true; she certainly hadn’t had time to realise exactly what this bogus engagement was going to mean to her. She did know that she had felt a strange floating sensation at the touch of Jarrod Stone’s lips on her own. And also, to her shame, she had responded! Only momentarily, but it had been a definite response. But she blamed that solely on the suddenness of it, nothing else. She didn’t even like the man now, let alone imagine herself in love with him.

  Jean still looked puzzled. ‘But what does it have to do with Jarrod Stone?’

  ‘Everything,’ she said with feeling.

  ‘Everything?’ Jean’s frown cleared, to be replaced with a look of amazement. ‘But surely you don’t mean—’

  ‘Yes. I’m engaged to Jarrod Stone.’

  ‘Goodness! But you—you can’t be! I didn’t even realise you were seeing him.’ Jean’s face showed her disbelief.

  ‘It has been rather sudden. I—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ interrupted a husky female voice. ‘I’m looking for Mr Stone’s office.’

  Brooke turned to look at the woman, her nostrils twitching sensitively with the deep heavy perfume she wore. This woman was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. She was very tall, her blonde hair shoulder-length and waving provocatively about her face, her eyes a glowing green, her tiny nose uptilted, her pouting mouth painted an inviting scarlet. To Brooke she looked exquisite and she wondered who she could be. Obviously one of Jarrod Stone’s women, of that she felt sure. She looked the type he would go for, about thirtyish and very sophisticated.

  ‘Mr Stone’s office is on the tenth floor,’ she answered politely. ‘If you would like to take the private lift up I’ll telephone them of your arrival.’

  The woman nodded coolly. ‘Thank you, Miss—Brooke Faulkner!’ Her green eyes narrowed as they looked at the gold lettering on the nameplate. ‘You’re Brooke Faulkner?’

  Brooke frowned. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, well, well.’ The woman seemed to have regained her composure. ‘Clever old Jarrod,’ she murmured to herself.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  The woman gave her a dazzling smile. ‘It isn’t important. So nice to have met you, Brooke, you have helped to explain a lot.’

  ‘But I didn’t do anything.’ She needn’t have bothered to speak; the woman had already walked away from the desk to enter the lift. How rude of her! ‘Who was that?’ she asked Jean.

  Her friend’s eyes widened. ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  ‘I didn’t get the chance to ask her,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘You shouldn’t have needed to. That was Selina Howard.’

  Brooke gasped, looking after the woman. ‘The wife of the multi-millionaire?’

  Jean nodded. ‘The same.’

  ‘Oh.’ What on earth could a woman like her want with Jarrod Stone? There seemed only one explanation, and yet that didn’t seem at all likely. Charles Howard was even better known than Jarrod Stone, and one of the richest men in the world. He was also a very good-looking man, although being in his late fifties he was much older than his thirty-year-old wife.

  Brooke looked up sharply as the woman came back down again half an hour later. She must have been Jarrod Stone’s important appointment, a very beautiful appointment, and it certainly wasn’t a business appointment, of that she was sure. Selina Howard gave her a cool smile before leaving the building.

  But the time Jarrod Stone came down in the lift at twelve-thirty Brooke had managed to stir herself up into a very nervous state. But perhaps he just intended for them to look as if they were leaving to go to lunch together, perhaps they would part when they got outside. She hoped so.

  She grabbed her leather jacket and handbag from the cloakroom before he came over, smiling nervously at the girl who was taking over for her during her lunch break. Jarrod’s eyes narrowed as she reached his side, but he said nothing about her flushed cheeks and too-bright eyes, merely taking hold of her elbow to guide her out of the door opened for them by the doorman.

  Once outside the building his hand dropped away and he turned left towards the shopping centre, leaving Brooke to run to keep up with him, his long strides taking him along much faster than her own.

  ‘Could you slow down a little?’ she asked breathlessly.

  Jarrod turned to look at her as if suddenly becoming aware of her, his pace slackening slightly but still much too fast for her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ She looked up at him.

  His mouth turned back in a sneer. ‘I would have thought it was obvious.’

  ‘But I—I thought we were going to lunch. It’s mainly shops in this part of town.’

  He sighed. ‘One shop in particular.’

  ‘What shop is that?’

  ‘A jewellers. There’s a very good one not far fr
om here.’

  Again Brooke felt panic rising within her. ‘A jewellers? Whatever for?’

  ‘My dear girl, if we’re going to be engaged you’re going to need a ring. That’s where we’re going now, to buy you an engagement ring.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  BROOKE stopped in her tracks, unconcerned when he turned to scowl his impatience. ‘I don’t want an engagement ring,’ she declared.

  Jarrod walked back the short distance between them, grasping her arm roughly and pulling her to one side of the pavement. ‘Don’t shout like that in the street!’ he snapped.

  She shook off his hand. ‘What else did you expect me to do? You were miles away from me.’

  ‘Only because you deliberately hung back, behaving hysterically. What on earth is the matter with you? Surely you realise we can’t be engaged without a ring? People will be looking for that, especially this evening.’

  ‘I don’t want a ring and I don’t want to go out with you this evening. I don’t mind keeping up this pretence at work, but I will not put on a show for all your high-class friends to laugh at!’

  His well-shaped mouth tightened angrily. ‘You say the most ridiculous things, do the most ridiculous things. You act far too impetuously, but I put that down to your youth. And my friends will not laugh at you, but they will think it odd if you aren’t wearing my ring. This isn’t something I care to discuss. I’ve already telephoned the jewellers and requested him to get together a selection of rings for you to look at.’ He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘He’s expecting us about now.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll wait for the valued customer that you undoubtedly are. I suppose it’s the place you buy all the jewellery for your women,’ she said bitchily, for the moment not bothered by her outspokenness. She had already far overstepped the line as far as this arrogant man was concerned and nothing she said or did now could make matters any worse for her.

  ‘And if I do? What does that have to do with you?’

  The fight went out of her at his coolness. ‘Nothing, I suppose.’

  ‘You suppose correct. Now, let’s go.’

  ‘Please!’ Brooke held on to his arm, liking the feel of the expensive material of his suit beneath her fingers. ‘Don’t make me do this.’