A Suitable Husband. Jessica Steele

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      CHAPTER TWO

      MEMORY of a pair of grey eyes glinting steel made Jermaine leave her bed the next morning well before her alarm went off. Ridiculous, she fumed, as she showered and went over yet again Lukas Tavinor’s visit last night. She was giving the man far too much space in her head. For goodness’ sake, she hardly knew him—and no way on this earth could he make her go down to Highfield to ‘look after’ her sister.

      Jermaine tossed him out of her head. Overbearing pig—who did he think he was? She went to work, however, with the feeling starting to creep in that she wasn’t too happy that anyone should think her the unfeeling kind of monster that Tavinor, and his younger brother, obviously believed her to be. But, since she couldn’t very well tell either of them what an utter sham her sister was, Jermaine knew that she was stuck with the ‘unfeeling monster’ label.

      ‘Come out with me tonight and make all my dreams come true?’ Tony Casbolt, ace flirt, waltzed into her office with his usual Thursday offer.

      ‘I’m shampooing the dog,’ she answered without looking up.

      Tony knew as well as everyone else that she didn’t have a dog; he never gave up. ‘One of these days you’ll say yes, and I’ll be shampooing my cat,’ he threatened.

      She laughed. She liked him. But she wasn’t laughing a half an hour later when she took a call from her mother. Her mother rarely phoned her at her office.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Jermaine asked quickly; her mother sounded rather strained.

      ‘I think so—but your father’s getting himself into a state.’

      ‘What’s the matter with him?’ Jermaine questioned, ready to drop everything and dash to her parents’ home.

      ‘We’ve just had a visit from Ash Tavinor’s brother.’

      ‘Lukas!’ Jermaine exclaimed in absolute astonishment.

      ‘Oh, you know him?’ her mother asked, but didn’t wait for a reply as she went on, ‘I know you went out with Ash several times; you brought him here once. But he’s apparently been going out with Edwina since you stopped seeing him. Anyhow, she’s been staying at the Tavinor home, and has injured her back slightly. Since Lukas was passing this way, he called in to personally tell us not to be alarmed, but that she might feel better if one of us went to see her.’

      He’d been to see her parents! Jermaine couldn’t believe it. The utterly unspeakable swine. Since Tavinor was passing, my aunt Mabel! The devious toad had made a special journey or she was a Dutchman.

      ‘I’ve spoken to her on the phone, and she’s fine.’ Jermaine immediately put her mother’s mind at rest.

      ‘You have? But you’ve not seen her?’

      ‘No,’ Jermaine admitted carefully.

      ‘I shall have to go and look after her. Your father won’t rest until one of us does, and you know how hopeless he is in a sickroom.

      ‘Mum, there’s no…’ ‘Need’ she would have said, but her mother interrupted.

      ‘I’ll have to. You know your father.’

      Indeed she did. And at that point Jermaine knew, galling though it was to accept, that Tavinor, L. had won. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, as she knew she must. Her father would go on and on until one of them had seen and reported on Edwina. He would be beside himself if anything happened to her—it would be pointless telling him that his eldest daughter hadn’t hurt herself at all.

      ‘Will you love? I’ll go if…’

      Jermaine wouldn’t hear of it. The bout of flu her mother had suffered had been particularly exhausting and she was only now getting back to her former strength. No way was Jermaine going to have her fetching and carrying for Edwina—as she knew full well Edwina would let her.

      ‘I’ll go and see her tonight after work. How’s that?’

      ‘And you’ll ring as soon as you can?’

      Jermaine promised she would, and ended the call with steam very nearly coming out of her ears. How could he? How could he? Okay, so her parents weren’t in their dotage, but Tavinor hadn’t known that when he’d gone to see them.

      Barely knowing what she was doing, she was so incensed, Jermaine grabbed the phone and dialled the number she had occasionally dialled when she’d needed to delay meeting Ash when work had taken precedence.

      ‘International Systems,’ answered a voice she remembered.

      ‘It’s not Ash I want this time—’ Jermaine put a smile in her voice ‘—but Lukas Tavinor. Is he in?’ Too late Jermaine realised what, in her fury, she had overlooked. If her parents had only just had a visit from Lukas Tavinor, then he couldn’t yet be back at his office.

      ‘I’m afraid he’s not answering, and his PA is off sick. Is it personal, or can anyone else…?’

      ‘May I leave a message for him to ring me? Jermaine Hargreaves.’ She gave her name, and also where she might be reached.

      She was still angry when she went out for some air at lunchtime. Seeing the brightly lit shops all festive with Christmas decorations did nothing to calm her sense of outrage. In fact the more she thought of what Tavinor had done, the more furious she became. Suddenly a date with Tony Casbolt that night seemed a better idea than what she was committed to do.

      She was still kicking against what she had to do when Stuart left the office, saying he’d be away about fifteen minutes. Only seconds later her loathing of what she had to do peaked, and she quickly dialled her sister’s mobile phone.

      Unbelievably, Edwina wasn’t answering. Jermaine let go an exasperated sigh. So much for her notion to get Edwina to phone their parents to tell them she was fine. Not that there was any guarantee that Edwina would phone, even if she said she would.

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