'Have you finished dinner, Mr Meldenton, because if so I would like to clear away.'
'Sorry, Margaret; yes, thank you, it was a lovely meal as usual.'
Margaret? Since when had the housekeeper become Margaret? Katy's mouth hung open as her gaze slid from one to the other: her father was smiling benignly at the older woman, and the housekeeper looked positively coy. The hall was beginning to feel like Piccadilly Circus.
Circus was the right word, she thought numbly; the whole day was slipping away from her.
'Get your coat, Katy; we're leaving.'
She opened her mouth again to tell Jake exactly what a lying rat he was, and then closed it yet again as her father agreed with him.
'Yes, Katy, you run along and enjoy yourself.'
In the face of so much male persuasion, Katy had no option but to agree and, turning, she walked upstairs to fetch her wrap. Taking the only thing she could find, she flung the mink stole around her shoulders. Her wrinkled suit she would have to come back for some other day, but she had the horrible feeling she was not going to need a business suit for quite some time.
Walking back down the stairs, she wondered how on earth she had ever been foolish enough to let Jake manipulate her into going out with him; but it was too late to back out now.
'You know, Katy, sometimes I almost forget you are not a pin-up any more,' Jake taunted softly as she reached the foot of the stairs, and he moved towards her, circling her waist with one arm. 'In that slinky dress and fur stole you look very approachable,' he murmured silkily.
Katy shot him a vitriolic look. 'Model... the poster was a mistake,' she snapped. He was so arrogant, so sure she would be prepared to fit in with whatever he arranged. But her fury went unchecked as Jake arched one dark brow in blatant disbelief, then turned and spoke to her father.
'Goodnight, David, and try not to worry; I'm quite sure everything can be sorted out quite profitably tomorrow.'
'And just how do you intend to do that?' Katy sneered as he ushered her out of the door. 'You may be half-Italian, but you are not Machiavelli.
Even you can't change a few million losses into profit overnight.'
'No, but you and my money can, cara.'
She felt colour creeping under her skin as the insolent Italian endearment taunted her. Incredibly in the turmoil of the past half-hour she had actually forgotten for a while Jake's dishonourable proposal, but now it loomed like the sword of Damocles hanging over her head.
Suddenly realising she was staring at him apprehensively, she lowered her eyes, and slid into the passenger-seat of, to her surprise, a white Rolls-Royce. Alone with him, she did not feel safe, and the past day had been too much. She felt physically sick...
'Do you have any preference as to where we go? Or shall I surprise you?' Jake asked suavely and, slipping the car into gear, he pulled out into the road.
'I'd be grateful if you just drop me off at my apartment.' A horrible nausea was rising in her throat, and the churning of her stomach reminded her that she was not immune to the man by her side. He could still make her heart-rate rise alarmingly, and what was more, he knew it.
'No, I said we were going dancing and we will.'
'I can't see why you are so insistent.' She derided, regaining her self-control. 'We have never danced before— in fact, I didn't know you could.'
'There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Katy. But in the next few months I am sure you will learn to know me as intimately as it is possible to know another person. It should be interesting,' he observed, shooting her a triumphant glance before returning his attention to the road.
His suggestive remark silenced her completely, and for the rest of the short journey she sat lost in the turmoil of her own thoughts. Jake was so supremely confident that she would comply with his request to be his mistress that she wanted to throw his disgusting offer in his face. Like Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind but in reverse. Unfortunately she did 'give a damn', and that was the problem. She couldn't bear to see the family firm go to the wall, to see her father a broken man, and Jake knew it...
The supper club in Mayfair was a small, dimly lit, obviously very exclusive watering hole. A discreet word at the radio-controlled door had gained Jake their entrance. Katy could not help a start of surprise as she recognised one of the young royals, dancing with a quite well-known model whom Katy had worked with countless times in the past.
A dark-suited man took Jake's coat, but before he could take Katy's fur Jake was behind her and deftly removing it. His strong hands lingered a little too long on her slender shoulders and it took all of her will-power to repress the shiver his touch aroused. Finally he released her and allowed the waiter to lead them deferentially to a table in a secluded corner of the room.
It was obvious to Katy that Jake was well known here; he had returned the nods and greetings of quite a few people. 'I'm surprised, Jake; I never saw you as the kind of man who would haunt a place like this,' she commented.
'I don't; I'm a member, of course, but actually this is only my second visit in years.'
Katy shot him a cynical smile. Who was he trying to fool? She sat down on the chair respectfully pulled out for her by a hovering waiter.
'I know most of the people here through business,' he qualified as he took the chair opposite and with a brief word ordered a whisky and water before turning his dark assessing eyes on her.
Lost in her own thoughts, she never noticed his look. Jake's personal life over the past few years was a closed book to Katy. But there must have been dozens of women; somehow she could not see him as being faithful to the likes of Monica, another man's wife... Perhaps he liked variety, and was that a bad thing under the circumstances? she mused.