It Started With A Proposition: Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price
type who has to borrow squillions, or relies on selling off the plan for his cashflow.’
‘Very sensible.’
‘If you do come to Sydney you could drop by and have a look at my preliminary plans.’
‘I haven’t decided whether I’ll come yet. I might go to the snow instead.’
‘That might be a wiser course of action.’
‘Yes,’ Gino said slowly ‘It might.’
But Gino wasn’t feeling wise.
If Jordan had lied to him…
There was only one way to find out in advance of Saturday night. He would put Confidential Investigations back on the job. That gave them three and a half days to find out if Jordan had broken up with this Chad Stedley or not.
More than enough time, he would imagine. He would also see if they could find out if Jordan would be attending this dinner.
At the same time he would send an e-mail to the RSVP address, accepting Mr Frank Jones’s invitation to the dinner.
JORDAN reluctantly went through the motions of getting ready: same little black dress as last time, same shoes and jewellery.
Her hair she didn’t have to do, thank goodness. She’d been to the hairdressers that morning, and had it shampooed and gently blowdried, giving her slightly wayward waves some control, but not straightening them too much. Her make-up took her less than ten minutes: just foundation, a touch of blusher, lipgloss and two coats of mascara.
Jordan rarely wore much make-up. Never had.
By half-past six she was ready—or as ready as she was ever going to be. Her taxi had been booked for seven, which left thirty minutes to do what? Watch half of an hour-long television show? Or have a glass of white wine and try to relax?
The second option won, hands down.
There was an already opened bottle of reisling in the door of her fridge—a fruity, slightly sweet wine, which Chad would have despised, but which Jordan liked. She poured herself a small glass and carried it through her living room, heading for her front balcony.
Jordan slid back the glass door, giving a small shiver as she stepped into the cool evening air. Fortunately it wasn’t too windy, the sea breeze quite gentle. Darkness had fallen some time back, the lights giving a magical quality to Sydney’s two most famous icons, which were both visible from her seventh-floor apartment. The bridge on her right looked like a huge jewelled coat-hanger, whilst across the harbour the sailed roof of the Opera House resembled the set from a sci-fi movie.
Jordan sighed as she leant against the railing and sipped her wine, her mind swiftly distracted from the lovely view to the evening ahead.
She didn’t want to go to this month’s new client dinner.
But she simply couldn’t get out of it. Not unless she had a very good reason.
When she’d told Chad during his early-morning call that she didn’t want to go, not without him, he’d been flattered but insistent.
‘You’ve taken on a new client this month, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she’d admitted. An angry young man who wanted to sue his employer for unfair dismissal after the boss had discovered he was a homosexual.
‘Then you have to go, darling. Rules are rules. Just make sure you wear your engagement ring. Let all the men there know you’re taken.’
Jordan had come away from that phone call just a tad unsure of her decision to marry Chad.
During his calls this week he’d become quite bossy with her. And demanding. He really seemed to think she was going to give up working once they were married and living in the States.
As if she would!
She’d also been quite put out when he’d been less than effusive in his congratulations over her winning all that compensation money for Sharni Johnson. He hadn’t sounded as if he cared about her success at all!
Yet she was expected to rave over how his ‘wonderful’ friends had thrown him all those welcome home parties. So far he’d gone out somewhere different every night.
Somehow Jordan doubted he’d told any of the females attending these dos that he was taken. Chad liked being the centre of attention.
Jordan wasn’t jealous, but she resented double standards.
Guilt consumed her with this last thought. After all, she hadn’t exactly been Little Miss Innocent since Chad had gone away, had she?
Over a week had gone by since she’d gone to Gino’s hotel room, but the memory of her behaviour still haunted her.
She’d been putty in Gino’s hands, quickly reverting to the naïve little fool she’d been ten years ago.
He’d said, ‘Come with me’—and she had. He’d said, ‘Don’t come’—and she hadn’t.
That was Gino’s modus operandi. He commanded and she obeyed—and how she’d loved it!
Fortunately, fate had come to her rescue in the form of that plane ticket before she’d behaved even more foolishly.
Some damage had already been done, however. The damage which came when a woman experienced that level of sexual excitement, and the ecstasy which inevitably followed. Difficult to go back to the mundane after that. Difficult to forget.
That had always been her problem where Gino was concerned.
Forgetting…
Let’s face it, Jordan, the voice of cold, hard reality piped up. You’re never going to forget that man. You can marry Chad and go live in the States, put thousand of miles between you. But Gino’s always going to be there, in your head.
Jordan groaned, tipped up her glass and swallowed the rest of her wine with one gulp. Then she whirled and headed back inside, to collect her evening bag and her keys.
At the last moment she remembered what Chad had asked her to do: wear the engagement ring which he’d left with her but which she hadn’t as yet put on—even though she’d now accepted his proposal.
Did that omission say something?
It was not a ring she would have chosen, Jordan thought, as she hurried into the bedroom and retrieved it from a drawer. It was too fussy: a huge ruby, surrounded by two rows of diamonds, and on top of that the setting was yellow gold.
Jordan liked white gold. Or silver.
And she liked simplicity.
Of course Chad hadn’t actually chosen this ring, she conceded. It was a family heirloom, having once belonged to his grandmother, who’d willed it to him when she died, to be given to his bride.
Jordan had been touched by the sentiment. But she suddenly wondered, as she slipped the ring on, if she’d be able to cope with Chad’s high-powered and tradition-filled family—not to mention all his ‘wonderful’ friends. They sounded just a little overpowering.
It was one thing to live with him here, in Australia. Things were very easy-going here. But what would life be like in America? She’d never travelled there, her one and only overseas trip being to Europe, with most of her time spent in Italy.
No omission there. She’d stupidly thought she might find Gino. But she hadn’t, of course. How could she have when she’d been looking for the wrong name?
Jordan gritted her teeth. Gino again.
Thinking of Gino reaffirmed her decision to marry Chad.
Okay, so Chad wasn’t perfect.