Damn, she had already planned to work through lunch today. There was an awful lot to do if the Hall was going to be ready for them to move into in the time James had stipulated. She could, of course, tell him that what he wanted was impossible, but Jenna had the unpleasant feeling that if she did, somehow he would find a way of proving her wrong.
Picking up the note, she scribbled across it, ‘Okay’, and handed it back to Maggie.
Ten minutes later, when she had finished on the phone and her secretary had come back into the office, Maggie enquired lightly, ‘Dare I ask if this is more than merely a business meeting, or will. I get my head bitten off?’
Without lifting her head from the papers on her desk Jenna said calmly, ‘James and I are getting married.’
For a moment there was silence, and then Maggie said weakly, ‘Tell me if I’m hearing things. You and James Allingham are getting married?’
‘That’s right.’ Jenna stood up and walked briskly over to a filing cabinet, pulling open a drawer. ‘Yes, that’s right…At the end of the month.’
‘But, Jenna…’ Maggie swallowed with visible effort, and asked helplessly, ‘Where have I gone wrong? Why doesn’t some gorgeous-looking millionaire sweep me off my feet and ask me to marry him?’
Jenna could have told her, but instead she smiled rather grimly, and wondered what Maggie would say if she told her she was welcome to James and his millions just as long as she was allowed to keep the old Hall.
‘The end of the month? Rather a rush.’
‘James has business in the Caribbean, and he thought we might as well combine it with a honeymoon,’ Jenna told her, grudgingly appreciating James’s wisdom in suggesting his Caribbean trip as a good excuse for their haste.
‘Lucky you. He’s involved in a holiday complex development out there, isn’t he?’ Maggie asked, wrinkling her forehead. ‘Wow! Isn’t Richard going to be sick! Is there any chance of us getting any business from the complex?’
‘James is talking about using us as consultants for the more luxurious part of it,’ Jenna told her. ‘From what little he’s told me about the complex, I think most of it’s already completed.’
‘Richard will be sick,’ Maggie claimed positively with another grin. ‘This will beat the Spanish contract he’s got from Harry Waters into a cocked hat.’
‘If the contract actually comes off with Harry Waters,’ Jenna agreed. ‘You know what he’s like for wriggling.’
‘Mmm, but word on the grapevine is that he’s one of Richard’s backers.’
So much for her accusation to James, Jenna thought wryly. She should have guessed that Harry Waters might have a hand in Richard’s defection. He had complained bitterly about her charges on more than one occasion in the past, and no doubt this was his way of getting back at her. She had sensed on the last occasion when she rebuffed him that she had made an enemy of him.
At ten to one she was suddenly attacked by a swarm of butterflies busily fluttering in her stomach. At first she dismissed the reason for their presence and then when work became impossible she got up and walked tensely over to her window. There was no reason for her to feel in the least nervous. She and James had struck a bargain and that was all there was to it.
By one o’clock she had managed to gain control of herself. When Maggie knocked softly on her door she was seated behind her desk, studying some papers.
‘James is here,’ her secretary told her, standing to one side so that he could walk into the room.
He walked easily towards her, and by the time Jenna’s stunned mind had assimilated the fact that he did not intend to stop on the other side of her desk, he was already sweeping her up out of her chair.
‘Ready for lunch?’
The question was innocuous enough in itself, but murmured against her mouth it had a totally overwhelming effect on her. Because of his grip on her arms it was impossible to step back from James as she wished, neither could she berate him for his outrageous behaviour with Maggie standing by, an avid spectator of what was going on.
‘I don’t think I’m very hungry.’ She said it stiffly, her body tense with rejection and anger. How dare he walk in here and treat her like this, when he knew what they had agreed?
His laughter further infuriated her. She shot him a bitterly corrosive glare and tensed still further.
‘No, neither do I,’ he agreed wickedly, looking at her in a way that brought a wave of angrily disbelieving colour to her skin. How dare he look at her like that—as though he were already visualising her naked and in his bed, and in full view of Maggie too, when he knew quite well what they had agreed?
For a moment, Jenna was so caught up in her own anger that she was completely unaware of anything else, including Maggie’s muffled, ‘Er…I think I hear the phone,’ and the hasty closing of her office door.
The moment it did close James released her. Startled to be free she stepped back from him and almost immediately overbalanced as her heel struck the foot of her chair. As James reached for her she struck him away, her face hard with anger.
‘You know what we agreed,’ she seethed, backing away from him. ‘You——’
‘I remember.’ His voice unlike hers was perfectly controlled. ‘However, I don’t remember either of us agreeing that we would make the true nature of our marriage an open secret.’
He was right, of course, but Jenna was beyond acknowledging that.