Engaged To Jarrod Stone

‘What did these so-called friends of mine have to say? I take it that’s the reason for your attitude?’

‘Oh, they just told me of your sordid little affair with Mrs Howard. Well, I wouldn’t exactly say they told me. They were discussing it between them, I just happened to be there at the time.’ She made a determined effort not to look at him.

‘My affair with Selina?’ he repeated softly.

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s why you told her we were getting married next month?’

‘Yes. She looked quite worried when I told her that,’ she said with satisfaction.

‘So did I,’ he admitted grimly. ‘I’ve never met anyone as impetuous as you are. I’m only surprised you haven’t got yourself into more trouble than you have. Do you realise that by the end of this evening the fact that our wedding is to be next month will be all over London?’

Now she did look at him, her mouth dropping open. ‘Surely Mrs Howard wouldn’t—–’

‘No, she wouldn’t. But you said it loud enough for several other people to hear. Believe me, by tomorrow everyone will be expecting their invitation to our wedding!’

CHAPTER THREE (#ufbe86ad0-f690-5694-b87b-df8ab99b5ccd)

BROOKE’S hand flew up to her pale cheek. ‘Oh no!’

‘Oh yes,’ he nodded curtly.

‘Surely they wouldn’t—–’

‘I tell you they will.’

‘Oh God!’ Now what had she done! Things seemed to go from bad to worse as far as she and Jarrod Stone were concerned. And it was all her own doing!

Jarrod sighed. ‘I thought an engagement was bad enough, but this is something else completely, Marriages aren’t so easy to get out of.’

‘I’m not marrying you!’

‘You may damn well have to,’ he told her shortly.

Brooke wrenched the ring from her finger and threw it on to the dashboard of the car. I won’t do anything I don’t want to! You were using me to cover up your affair with Selina Howard, but I won’t be a party to that any more. No doubt she’ll soon get over her anger with you at my saying we were getting married and you can carry on as you have been doing.’

‘So you’ve already decided that what you heard was the truth?’

‘Oh yes. She was your important appointment, remember? I suppose you told her then about our phoney engagement. It really gave her a shock when I said we were getting married. So you can keep your ring and explain to your mistress that it was all a mistake, that I was just being bitchy.’

Jarrod sat forward and picked up the ring, watching as it glittered and shone. He thrust it at her. ‘Put it back on. The engagement still stands. Nothing has changed since this morning.’

‘It has as far as I’m concerned,’ she said shrilly. ‘I’ve found out about your mistress and I won’t help you to fool Charles Howard!’

‘You will do as you’re told. My threat about your future employment still stands. Put the ring on,’ he ordered.

‘I don’t want to. You still haven’t asked me if I like it,’ she added resentfully, pushing it back on her finger when he seemed adamant that she should.

‘Do you?’

‘Well, yes, but I—– That isn’t the point! You didn’t bother to ask me earlier.’

‘I’ve asked you now. Be satisfied with that.’

‘Mr Stone, I—–’

‘For God’s sake call me Jarrod!’

‘Do you have to be so angry all the time?’ Brooke quavered. ‘It isn’t easy to suddenly be thrust into this intimacy with you when for the last six months I’ve thought of you as nothing but my boss. It doesn’t seem right for me to be calling you Jarrod.’

‘Do you know, Brooke, until this morning I believed myself to be quite a patient man. Since meeting you all that’s changed. Everything about you angers me, your stubbornness, your impetuosity, just about everything. But until a few minutes ago I thought I was handling this situation with moderate calm.’ He ignored her snort of disbelief. ‘That was until your tongue ran away with you just once too often, as it did just now. I hope you have more forbearance over the weekend.’

Brooke’s eyes widened. ‘Over the weekend?’

‘Mm, something else I’m sure you hadn’t thought of.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘My mother and father have invited us down to their country place for the weekend.’

Her heart sank. ‘I didn’t know you had any family.’

‘Oh yes, besides my mother and father I have a brother of twenty-two and a sister of eighteen. I need hardly say that they’re all anxious to meet you.’

His taunting voice angered her. ‘Did you have to tell them? Surely we didn’t have to involve your family in all this?’

Jarrod stopped the car outside the building that contained her flat, turning to face her in the confines of the car. ‘I didn’t tell them—you did.’

‘I didn’t—–’

‘They found out the same way I did, Brooke. The only difference being that they were pleased about it.’

She suddenly felt breathless by his closeness. He might be arrogant and cynical, but he was still the handsomest man she had ever seen. Tonight at the party he had easily stood out as the most attractive man there, a certain aloofness about him making him a challenge to any woman.

Brooke felt her old stirrings of attraction towards him, the longings she had had to be in his arms and be loved by him. But he had never even noticed her until this morning when he could do little else, and she hadn’t been brought to his attention in a way that would endear her to him.

But then he was never likely to be attracted to her anyway, not with someone as beautiful as Selina Howard in his life. No, she knew her own limitations; she might be moderately attractive, but she could never be called beautiful. She would have to leave Jarrod Stone to women like the lovely Selina Howard, women who understood the sophisticated games he engaged in.

But that didn’t stop her feeling attracted to him now, didn’t stop her being completely aware of him. She should have remained adamant when she had handed him back his ring and not been browbeaten into putting it back on. But she wouldn’t marry him, no matter how she had committed herself in the hearing of all those people. She wouldn’t be strong enough to hold out against him, and she had no intention of being his wife while he had the other woman as his mistress.

She looked away from the warmth in his grey eyes. ‘Your family want you to get married?’

‘My brother and sister consider me quite ancient not to have settled down, as they put it, with a family of my own. I’m sure you think the same way, you’re about their age,’ he said almost thoughtfully.

‘You could hardly marry when the woman in your life is already married,’ she put in bitchily, still reeling under his potent attraction—and resenting every moment of it.

‘That’s true,’ he agreed mildly. ‘I think my family are going to like you. You have my mother’s way of thinking, black is black and white is white and grey is just a lighter shade of black.’