His Christmas Acquisition (9 page)

Jamie nodded briskly. Whichever way it was wrapped up, Ryan was doing this for his own benefit. She had been inconsistent recently and he didn’t like that. She was his efficient, well-run, well-oiled secretary and that was what he wanted back. It was why she was paid so handsomely. He could easily do whatever work he needed to do without her,
but he had decided that her home life was interfering with her work life and, since her work life was the only thing that mattered to him, he was prepared to take her with him, away from the chaotic environment in which she now found herself.

‘I’ll see to the ticket, shall I?’

‘First-class, with me. And sort out your replacement for while you’re away. It’s a quiet time. There shouldn’t be anything that can’t be handled by someone else for a short while.’

‘Is there anything in particular you’d like me to read up on before we get out there? I wouldn’t want to come unprepared.’

Ryan narrowed his eyes but her face was bland, helpful and utterly unreadable.

But that, he thought with a kick of satisfaction, was just an illusion, wasn’t it? Strip away the mask and she was a hotbed of undiscovered fire.

‘Nope. No reading to be done. But you might want to think about packing a few swimsuits. I’m going to insist that you enjoy yourself, like a good boss, and the house comes with an amazing pool. And don’t look so appalled. When this is over, you’re going to thank me.’

S
O
far she
had
thanked him; on at least four separate occasions she had thanked him. She had thanked him variously for giving her the opportunity to enjoy ‘such a wonderful place’, for allowing her to relax in ‘such amazing surroundings’, it was a ‘guilty pleasure’. She had thanked him the day before when he had shooed her off to explore the tiny nearby town with his sisters. She had thanked him when he had insisted that there was no need for her to wake at the crack of dawn with her laptop at the ready, just because he happened to need very little sleep and enjoyed working first thing in the mornings.

Her copious gratitude was getting on his nerves. He had been hoping to reacquaint himself with the intriguing new face he had glimpsed behind her polite, efficient mask but so far nothing. Although, to be fair, his plans for her to be a buffer between himself and any awkward conversations with his family members had been spectacularly successful and he was rarely in her company without some member of the troupe tagging along, unless they were specifically working.

They had established one of the downstairs rooms as a makeshift office but its air-conditioned splendour, whilst practical, felt sterile when through the windows they could see the stretching gardens, fragrant and colourful with tropical
flowers which spilled their vibrancy under the palm trees. So they had migrated to one of the many shady areas of the wide veranda that circled the house. Which, in turn, meant that they were open to interruption, sometimes from one of the four kids belonging to two of his sisters who used outside as their playground. Sometimes from one of his sisters or—and he would have to fling his arms up and concede defeat when this happened—all three. And sometimes from his mother, who would appear with a tray of cold drinks and proceed to embark on a meandering conversation with Jamie to whom she seemed to have taken a keen liking. This was partly because Jamie was such a good listener and partly because his mother was, by nature, a sociable woman.

But when they were alone together, Jamie was not to be distracted from what she considered the primary purpose of her all-expenses-paid winter break. The very second they were together, their conversation focused entirely on work and on progressing a series of elaborate flip charts in which Ryan had no interest and probably wouldn’t use anyway. She asked him innumerable questions about various technicalities to do with car manufacture, displaying an admirable breadth of knowledge, but, the minute he attempted to manoeuvre the conversation to something a little more interesting and a little more personal, she smiled, clammed up and he was obliged to return to the subject in hand.

Right now, the evening meal was finished. Two of his sisters were settling their children, who ranged in ages from three to six. They would be chivvying their husbands, Tom and Patrick, into performing a variety of duties and neither would be released until those duties were satisfactorily completed. His sisters were nothing if not bossy. Susie—older than him by two years, and seven months pregnant—had disappeared back to England with her husband. The house was at least becoming quieter. It would be quieter still in a
day’s time when his other sisters headed back to their various homes.

Enjoying the peace of the gardens and lost in his thoughts, Ryan was only aware of Jamie’s presence nearby by the low murmur of her voice.

His ears instantly pricked up. He had assumed that she had retreated to the conservatory with a cup of coffee.

Naturally, he knew that it was beyond rude not to announce his presence by making some obvious noise—rustling a few leaves or launching into a coughing fit, perhaps.

Instead, he endeavoured to make as little noise as possible. Of course, if she looked around carefully, she would be able to spot him, although it was dark and this part of the extensive gardens was a lattice-work of trees and shrubbery leading to the infinity pool, which overlooked the sea from the cliff on which the house was majestically perched.

The breeze was warm and salty and ruffled the fronds of the palm trees, leaves and flowers like a very gentle caress. In the distance the sea stretched, flat and black, towards the horizon.

And down the small flight of stone steps Ryan spotted her, sitting by the pool in darkness, talking softly into her mobile phone.

If she needed to make a call, she could have used the landline; he had told her this at the very start. Instead, she had chosen to sneak off to the pool so that she could …
what
? Conduct a clandestine conversation? And with whom? The vet, of course.

His lips thinned and he sprinted down the steps, appearing in front of her so suddenly that she gave a little shriek and dropped the phone.

‘Oh, dear. Did I startle you?’ He bent to retrieve the mobile which lay in various pieces on the ground.

Jamie, half standing, scrabbled to get the phone from
him as he clicked various bits back together, put it to his ear, shook it and then shrugged. ‘You got cut off. Sorry. And I think the phone might be broken.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Over the past three days she had contrived not to be alone in his presence at all. Away from the safety net of the office, she had felt vulnerable and threatened in this island paradise. There was just too much of him for her liking. Too much of him wearing shorts, going barefoot, bare chested, getting slowly bronzed. Too much of him lazing around, teasing his sisters, letting them boss him around and then rolling his eyes heavenwards so that one of them laughed and playfully smacked him. Too much of him being silly with the children who clearly adored him. Too much of him being a
man
instead of being her boss. It unnerved her.

‘What are
you
doing here?’ He threw the question back at her, then sat down on one of the wooden deck chairs and patted the one next to him so that she reluctantly joined him. ‘If you needed to make a call, you know that you could have used the landline. I did tell you that.’

‘Yes, well …’ She could barely make him out. He was all shadows and angles, and rakish in his low-slung khaki shorts and an old tee-shirt. To see him, no one would have guessed that he was a multi-millionaire.

‘Personal call, was it?’ Ryan prompted, undeterred by her reluctance to talk. ‘How are they back home? Still alive and kicking, or has you sister put the vet out of his misery? I’m thinking that if they had sorted out their differences and returned to Scotland in the throes of rekindled love you would have reported it back to me.’

The darkness enfolding them in its embrace lent an air of intimacy that Jamie found disturbing. In fact, her heart was beating like a hammer inside her and her mouth felt horribly, treacherously dry. She physically longed for it to
be daylight, with Claire, Hannah and Susie lurking nearby, and a flip chart behind which she could conveniently hide.

‘Nothing’s been sorted as yet,’ Jamie conceded grudgingly. She felt very visible in her shorts and small striped vest, but it had been the first thing to hand after she had had a shower half an hour earlier. She hadn’t expected to run into Ryan lurking like an intruder in the shadows.

‘Oh, dear,’ Ryan murmured sympathetically. ‘Was that the vet on the phone?’

‘Will you
please
stop calling him the vet?’

‘Sorry, but I thought that’s what he did for a living—tended to all those wounded animals who pined for him in his absence.’

Jamie glanced across at him but he was a picture of innocence. The light breeze ruffled his hair and he looked perfectly relaxed, a man at home in his surroundings.

‘Yes, it was Greg, as a matter of fact.’

‘Making a secretive call behind his wife’s back? Hmm …’

‘It wasn’t a secretive call!’

‘Then what was it? Obviously not a call you felt comfortable taking in front of the family.’

‘You’re impossible!’

‘So what did the vet have to say?’

Jamie gritted her teeth together. Ryan was provocative by nature; it was nothing personal. They had both also strayed so far from their boundaries that the lines between them were getting blurred. She had met his family, seen him relaxed in his own home territory. She, in turn, had confided things she wouldn’t have dreamt possible. But he was accustomed to breaking down boundaries and getting into the heads of other people; it was part and parcel of what made him a success. And if
she
found it impossible to deal with then it was a reflection on her, and to start huffing and puffing now and trying to evade his natural curiosity would seem
strange. Strange was the one thing she knew was dangerous. It was an instinctive realisation. So what was the big deal in telling him what was going on with Greg and Jessica? It wasn’t as though he was out of the loop. He was firmly embedded in it, thanks to a sequence of circumstances which she might not have invited but which had happened nevertheless.

‘Jessica told me that the reason she felt that she needed more space was because she felt bored and isolated where they live. It’s at least forty minutes into Edinburgh, and Jessica has always liked to be in the thick of things.’

‘Odd match, in that case.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that the vet didn’t strike me as the sort of man who prides himself on having a wild social life. I can’t see him being the life and soul of any party.’

‘You met him for five minutes! You don’t know him at all.’

‘Oh, yes, I’m forgetting that you two shared a special bond.’

‘We didn’t share a
special bond.
’ But she could feel herself flushing, thinking about her youthful, romantic dreams.

Ryan ignored her heated protest. He didn’t have to see her face to be able to take stock of the fact that she was flustered by what he had said—but then she would be, he thought edgily. He was beginning to loathe the caring vet with his menagerie of loyal animals.

‘So what did your flamboyant sister see in him?’ he persisted.

‘He’s absolutely one-hundred-percent devoted to her.’

‘Ah, but is it mutual? One-way devotion could become trying after a while, I should imagine.’

‘Won’t your family be wondering where we are?’

‘We’re adults. I don’t suppose they’ll be worried in case
we miss our footing and fall in the pool by accident. Besides, Claire and Hannah are doing their nightly battle with the children, and my mother was feeling tired and took herself off to bed with a book and a cup of hot chocolate. So you can put that concern of yours to rest!’

‘You have a fantastic family.’ Jamie sighed wistfully, and for a moment Ryan was sufficiently distracted to silently wait until she expanded. Women always enjoyed talking about themselves. In fact, from his experience, they would hold court until the break of dawn given half a chance, but generally speaking their conversations were usually targeted to sexually attract. They flirted and pouted and always portrayed themselves in the best possible light. In the case of the women he dated—supermodels and actresses—their anecdotes were usually fond recollections of their achievements on stage or on the runway, often involving getting the better of their competition.

‘A bit different from yours, I expect,’ he murmured encouragingly when his lengthy silence didn’t appear to be working.

‘Totally different. You never talk about them.’

‘And you’ve only now started talking about yours.’

‘Yes, well, my situation is nothing like yours. When I think of Jessica, I start getting stressed. But
your
sisters … they’re very easy-going.’

Ryan grinned. ‘I have vague recollections of the three of them trying out their make-up on me when I was younger. Not so easy-going for me, I can tell you.’

Jamie laughed. She couldn’t help herself.

‘Still, it was tougher on you, raising a teenager when you weren’t even out of your teens yourself.’

Lost in her thoughts, she was seduced by the warm interest in his voice, by the soft, warm breeze and the gentle, rhythmic sound of waves breaking against the cliff face.

She felt inclined to share, especially after her conversation with Greg.

‘Even before Mum died, Jessica was a handful. I just did my own thing, but she was always demanding, even as a child. She was just so beautiful and she could twist Mum round her little finger. When I look at your sisters and see the way they share everything … Anyway.’ She pulled herself together. ‘I always think that there’s no point weeping and wailing over stuff you can’t change.’

‘Quite. You were telling me about your conversation with the vet. You thought that your sister was bored because she was a party animal and the vet only enjoyed the company of his sick animals.’

‘I never said any such thing!’

‘I’m reading between the lines. Have you got an update on the real situation?’

Of course, Jamie thought, brought down to earth, he was keen to find out whether matters were being sorted. He needed her back and functioning in one piece, and the sooner Greg and Jessica sorted themselves out and cleared off the better for him. She would do well to remind herself that his interest was mostly self-motivated. She would also do well to realise that allowing herself to slip into a state of familiarity with him just because he happened to know a little bit more about her private life than he ever had would be madness. There was no chance that she could ever be interested in him in the way that she had been interested in Greg, because Greg represented just the sort of gentle, caring person she found attractive. But still …

‘I think we might be seeing the true cause of everything that’s been happening between Greg and my sister,’ she told him crisply. ‘Apparently Greg wants children and he thinks that it’s a good time for them to start trying. That seems to have caused everything to explode.’

‘Your sister isn’t interested?’

‘She hasn’t mentioned a word of it to me,’ Jamie said with a shrug. ‘I’m guessing that she might have been feeling a bit bored, but the minute Greg mentioned kids she took fright and started feeling trapped. The only thing she could think of doing was to escape, hence her appearance on my doorstep. At least there’s something tangible now to deal with, so you can relax. I’m sure they’ll both get to the bottom of their problems by the time I return to England, and once they’ve disappeared back to Scotland everything will return to normal. I won’t be arriving late to work and I’ll be as focused as I’ve always been.’