Dishonourable Proposal

'Excuse me, miss, but will you be staying for dinner?'

'Yes,' Katy replied, trying to smile. Mrs Thomas had replaced the old housekeeper. According to her father, she was a gem, a widow in her early fifties who had lost her home on the death of her husband, and was grateful for a roof over her head.

Katy expelled a weary sigh. After reading the full reports, she wondered if any of them would have a home before long. It was much worse than she had imagined possible, but still, with her savings and her father's personal wealth, the company might be saved.

Over dinner, which Katy barely touched, she outlined her plan to her father. 'So you see, Dad, with your personal fortune and mine, plus hopefully my earnings over the next year or two, we might be able to hang on. The property market is bound to improve.'

'Katy, Katy darling, I don't deserve a daughter like you. You would give me all your money and your future earnings——-

"That's not important, Dad,' she cut him off. 'The company is what matters.' She did not want him getting maudlin again, just when he appeared to have recovered from his earlier alcoholic depression.

'It's no good, Katy. I don't have any personal fortune; at least, nowhere near enough to save the firm.'

'But Grandad left you tons of money...'

'Yes, that's true, but Monica proved to be a very expensive wife—the villa at Marbella, a yacht in the Mediterranean and the accompanying crew, jewels, furs...you name it, we bought it. But I can't blame Monica entirely. It was my own fault. I reinvested shares in higher-yield stock, but unfortunately also higher risk.'

'Oh, no.' Katy could guess what was coming next.

'One black Monday a couple of years ago my fortune was more than halved overnight, and the divorce settlement last year just about wiped me out. I scraped up every penny I could but I still had to give Monica half of my Meldenton shares in lieu of alimony.'

Kary's snort of disgust did not stop him.

'At the time I thought it was worth it to be rid of the woman, and there did not seem much risk involved. My lawyer arranged it all so that Monica could not sell for two years, and then I was to have first option to re-buy them. It looked a great arrangement on paper; in two years I would have sold the apartments, made an enormous profit, and still controlled the firm. Unfortunately I never foresaw the complete collapse of the property market.'

Katy listened with a kind of fatalistic acceptance of her father's speech; his two wives had effectively destroyed him, and she had done nothing to help.

The ringing of the telephone lightened her spirits a little. She rose from the table and, fingers crossed, walked into the hall. She picked up the receiver. It would be Claude, but, short of some miraculous offer, there was no way she could earn enough to pull the firm through.

'Bonsoir, Claude,' she answered his greeting, and listened in growing despair to his rapid French. She did not hear the doorbell ring, and when a strong tanned hand closed over hers on the receiver she almost jumped out of her skin. 'Jake!' she exclaimed.

'Thank you, Claude, she has got your message. Goodnight.' Jake, taking the telephone from her numb hand, spoke briefly and replaced it on the rest.

'How dare you? I was talking! That was a very important call,' she hissed finally, recovering from the shock of his unexpected appearance in her home.

'He can't help you, Katy,' Jake said curtly.

Katy stared up into his dark eyes gleaming with mocking triumph. He was right: Claude could not help her; for some reason he seemed reluctant to renew her contract, but how the hell did Jake know? Was the man clairvoyant? she wondered bitterly.

'Claude was not only my employer, but a personal friend of mine, and you have no right to come bursting into this house and snatching the telephone from my hand.' She spoke vehemently, but inside she was quaking.

'I did not burst in, Katy, dear; your very kind housekeeper answered the door and showed me in. As for Claude,' he drawled the name sarcastically, 'I think your friendship with him has just about ended.'

'No way,' she said shortly. Where did he get off advising her on her friends? she seethed. But her green eyes slid over his tall figure, unable to hold his gaze.

He looked wonderful—better than any man had a right to look, she thought helplessly. When it came to dressing Jake seemed to have inherited the Italian male's casually elegant style of dress. A smart navy topcoat lay easily across his broad shoulders—generously cut, it fell to about mid-calf-length. Beneath it he wore a dark dinner suit and snowy-white shirt, and a maroon-coloured floppy bow-tie nestled at his tanned throat. On most men it would have looked effeminate, but on Jake it just looked stunning.

She did not notice her father's arrival in the hall, she was so lost in contemplation of the man standing before her and puzzling Jake's reason for being here.

CHAPTER FIVE

'Jake, what a surprise! But it's good to see you in my home again. It's quite a while since you have been here, but now the main attraction has returned, hmm?' Her father's knowing wink and Jake's answering grin were not lost on Katy. 'Have you any new suggestions to solve our problem,' her father continued, 'or have you come to take my girl out?'

Katy's green eyes widened incredulously. Was her father off his head? Surely he realised, she thought cynically, the only reason Jake had not been around in months was because Monica no longer lived here, and the last thing Katy wanted was to go anywhere with Jake?

'Yes, David, Katy and I have a late date to go dancing. I thought it might cheer her up; she is far too lovely to be worrying her head about business,' Jake answered smoothly.

A late date, Katy fumed as she listened to the two men chat away as if she were not there. She'd give him late date... How dared he? She opened her mouth to speak, but at that instant Mrs Thomas interrupted.