Christmas Eve Wedding. PENNY JORDAN

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      ‘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.

      The theme of her windows this Christmas was going to be Modern Womanhood, in all its many guises. And her modern Christmas woman, in defiance of everything that Caid had thrown at her, was going to be the hub of her family and yet her own independent and individual person as well! Each of the store’s windows would reflect a different aspect of her role as a modern woman—and each window would be packed with delectable, irresistible gifts appropriate to that role. Right down to the final one, where she would be shepherding her assembled family to view a traditional Nativity play, complete with every emotion-tugging detail apart from a real live donkey.

      Everyone thought that the high point of her year were those few short weeks before Christmas, when her windows went on display, but in fact it was actually those weeks she spent working on the ideas and designs that she loved best.

      This year she had spent even more of her time plotting and planning, drawing out window plans and then changing them. Because she needed to prove to herself that she had made the right decision…because she needed to find in the success of achieving her own targets and goals something satisfying enough to replace what she had lost?

      No. She simply wanted to do a good job, that was all…of course it was!

      Now her ideas and her plans were almost all in place; there was only one vital piece of research she still needed to do, and her arrangements for that were all in hand.

      Jaz was a stickler for detail, for СКАЧАТЬ