Christmas Eve Wedding

‘This means so much to me…’

‘You don’t have to tell me that!’ Caid responded dryly, and yet he knew that despite his own feelings he would give in. After all, as his mother had just pointed out, he couldn’t afford to see the value of his trust fund stock in the business go down—not now, when he had so much tied up in his ranch. And that, of course, was the only reason he was going, he reminded himself firmly.

‘Jaz, I’d like to have a word with you, please.’

Jaz’s heart sank as she saw the store’s new chief executive bearing down on her. Since returning from New Orleans things had been far from easy for her. She knew that she had been fully justified in everything she’d said to Caid, and that there was no way there could have been a relationship between them, but that still didn’t stop her missing what they had shared, or dreaming about him, or waking up with her face wet with tears because she ached for him so much. The last thing she had needed to compound her misery had been the unwanted interference in her work of someone like Jerry Brockmann.

After meeting Caid’s mother, and listening to her enthuse about the Cheltenham store and her objectives for it, she had never expected that they would be saddled with a chief executive who seemed to epitomise the exact opposite of what Jaz believed the store was all about. Already the changes he had insisted on making were beginning to affect not just the staff, but their customers as well.

Jaz had lost count of the number of long-standing customers who had commented unfavourably about the fact that the store was no longer perfumed with the specially made room fragrance she herself had chosen as part of the store’s exclusive signature.

‘What the hell is this stuff made of?’ Jerry had complained, as he’d chaired the first departmental heads meeting after his arrival. He’d thrust the bill from the manufacturers beneath Jaz’s nose. ‘Gold dust? It sure costs enough. Why the hell do we have to scent the damn place anyway? Are the drains bad or something?’

‘It creates the right kind of ambience. It’s what our customers expect and it encourages them to buy designer fragrances for their own home,’ Jaz had replied quietly, trying to ignore his rudeness.

It had been soon after that, and before Jerry had chaired his next meeting, that the chief buyer for their exclusive Designer Fashion Room had announced that she intended to leave.

‘He says that he plans to cut my budget by half!’ she fumed furiously to Jaz. ‘Can you believe that? After what you said about the New Orleans store and its management I’d been putting out feelers to a couple of new up-and-coming designers to see if I could tempt them to let us stock their stuff—and now this! If I stay here now I’m going to totally lose my credibility.’

Jaz felt acutely guilty as she listened to her, and tried to smooth things over, but Lucinda refused to be appeased. She had already handed in her notice she informed Jaz angrily.

Even worse was Jaz’s discovery that her closest friend on the staff was also planning to leave.

‘But, Kyra, you’ve always said how much you loved working here,’ Jaz protested.

‘I did,’ Krya emphasised. ‘But not any more, Jaz. Jerry called me in to his office the other day to inform me that he thinks we should go more downmarket with our bed and bath linens. He said that we were catering for too small a market.’

‘Didn’t you explain to him that the mass market is so well covered by the multiples that we couldn’t possibly compete with them, that it’s because we supply only the best that we’ve got our Royal Warrant?’

‘Of course I did,’ Kyra had responded indignantly. ‘But the man’s obsessed by mass sales. He just can’t seem to see that this isn’t what we’re all about. Anyway, the upshot of our “discussion” was that I completely lost it with him and told him what he could do with his mass market bedding and his job!’

‘Oh, Kyra,’ Jaz sympathised.

‘Well, as it turns out I’ve done myself a favour, because I’ve got a friend who works at Dubai airport—that represents the real luxury end of the market—and she says there’s a job for me there if I want it.’

‘I’m going to miss you.’ Jaz sighed.

‘Well, you could always leave yourself,’ Kyra pointed out. ‘In fact,’ she added, ‘I don’t know why you don’t. It can’t be for any lack of offers. Oh, I can understand that whilst John still owned the store you must have felt bound by loyalty to him. But now…’

‘Perhaps I should think about leaving,’ Jaz agreed huskily. ‘But not yet. Not until—’

‘After the Christmas windows?’ Kyra supplied ruefully, shaking her head.

Jaz’s devotion to her Christmas windows was well known throughout the store.

‘It wouldn’t be fair,’ Jaz told her gently.

‘You should think more about being fair to yourself than being fair to other people,’ Krya chided. ‘Which reminds me. I haven’t liked to say anything before, but you haven’t been your normal happy self since you came back from New Orleans, Jaz. I don’t want to pry, but if you need someone to talk to…?’

‘There isn’t anything to talk about,’ Jaz told her firmly.

‘Or anyone?’ Kyra persisted gently.

Jaz couldn’t help it; she felt the tears stinging her eyes, the emotion blocking her throat, but she managed to deny it to Kyra.

And it was true—in a way. After all, what was the point in talking about Caid?

‘Excuse me if I’m coming between you and your private thoughts, Jaz,’ she heard Jerry saying sarcastically to her. ‘But am I right in thinking that you are supposed to be working?’

Pink-cheeked, Jaz apologised.

‘I’ve been going through John’s files and I can’t seem to find any budget forecasts for your department.’

Jaz forced herself to ignore the hectoring tone of his voice.

‘Traditionally, my department doesn’t work to a budget—’ she began to explain, but before she could continue Jerry interrupted sharply.

‘Well, in future it damn well does. And by in future, Jaz, I mean as of now. I want those forecasts on my desk by close of business tomorrow afternoon.’

He had gone before Jaz could either object or explain, leaving her hot-faced and resentful, her only small consolation the knowledge that it wasn’t just her who was suffering.

Since Jerry’s arrival the whole atmosphere of the store had changed—and in Jaz’s opinion not for the better!

‘Jaz, I thought you said the American stores were wonderful, very much on our wavelength. How can they be when Jerry’s so obviously trying to turn the store into some kind of dreadful pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap place?’ one of the department heads had complained.

‘I don’t understand what’s happening any more than you do,’ Jaz had been forced to admit.

‘Can’t you speak to John?’ another of the buyers had urged her.

Jaz had shaken her head. ‘No. He isn’t very well…his angina is getting worse.’

So much worse, in fact, that on his doctor’s advice John had had to move out of the pretty three-storey townhouse adjacent to the store, where he had lived virtually all his life.

For security reasons the Dubois family had insisted on buying the house, along with the store, but John had been granted a long lease on it which allowed him to rent it from them at a peppercorn rental. Jaz knew how upset he had been when his doctor had told him that the house’s steep stairs were not suitable for a person with his heart condition.

Luckily he also owned a ground-floor apartment in a renovated Victorian mansion several miles away from her parents, and he was now living there under the watchful eye of his housekeeper.

To Jaz’s delight, John had offered her the use of the townhouse in his absence, knowing that Jaz was in between properties herself, having sold the flat she had previously owned and not as yet being able to find somewhere she wanted to buy.

‘Are you sure the Dubois family won’t mind?’ she’d asked John uncertainly when he’d made her his generous offer.

‘Why should they?’ he had demanded. ‘And besides, even though it’s not strictly mine any longer, I would feel much happier knowing that the house is occupied by someone I know and trust, Jaz.’

Her new home certainly couldn’t be more convenient for her work, Jaz acknowledged; even if right now that work was becoming less and less appealing. But there was no way she could allow herself to leave. Not until after Christmas!

She had started planning this year’s windows right after last Christmas, and had come back from New Orleans fired up on a mixture of heartbreak and pride that had made her promise herself that this year’s windows would be her swansong—proof that she was getting on with her life as well as a way to show every single member of the Dubois family just how damned good she was. And then she would stand up and announce to them that there was nothing on this earth that would persuade her to go on working for a family of which Caid was a member.

At first she hadn’t been sure just what angle to go for—she’d already done fantasy and fairytale, and she’d done modern and punk only the previous year. But then it had happened. Her idea to end all ideas. And the miracle of it was that it was so simple, so workable, so timeless and so…so right.