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Pride & Consequence Omnibus by Penny Jordan (3)

CHAPTER THREE

JAY WAS A man who prided himself on his self-control. It was that control that ensured he would never repeat his father’s folly in allowing his desire for an unworthy and avaricious woman to rule and humiliate him. Jay could allow himself to satisfy his physical desire, but he must always be the one to control it rather than the other way around. No woman had ever been allowed to intrude into his thoughts when he did not want her to, and yet now here he was, wasting his valuable mental energy thinking about a woman he despised. The mere fact that she was there in his thoughts, occupying space that rightly belonged to far more important matters, angered him far more than the unsatisfied ache of the desire she had left him with.

Why was he bothering to think about her? She’d probably thought she was being extremely clever, that by offering and then withdrawing she would get far more from him than if she had simply gone to bed with him there and then, but Jay did not allow anyone to manipulate him to their own advantage—especially not the kind of woman who tried to play games with him. He had desired her, she had recognised that fact and responded to it, and then she had tried to make capital out of it. So far as he was concerned that meant game over.

Jay wasn’t the kind of man who let his physical desires rule him, and it wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to women coming on to him. Coming on to him, yes. But then walking away from him having done so? He wasn’t used to that, was he? It stung his pride—all the more so because of the type of woman she so obviously was. She was a fool if she thought he had been taken in by her puerile attempt to make him want her more by pretending that she didn’t want him. And she was a fool because she had already previously admitted to him that she did want him. But she had still walked away from him. That knowledge rubbed against his pride as painfully as the sand of the nearby desert could rub against unprotected flesh.

Jay and his brother Rao had ridden their horses there as boys. He had a sudden longing for the freedom of the desert now, for its ability to strip a man down to his strengths and lay bare his weaknesses so that he was forced to overcome them to survive. The desert was a hard taskmaster but a fair one. It taught a boy how to become a man and a man how to become a leader and a ruler. He had missed it in the years of his self-imposed exile, and one of the first things he had done on his return, following Rao’s letter to him warning him of their father’s imminent death, had been to have a horse saddled up so that the could ride free in the desert.

Rao would be a good and a wise ruler. Jay loved and admired his elder brother, and was grateful to him for the compassion he had shown in making sure that Jay had the opportunity to make his peace with their elderly father before his death.

The courtesan who had caused the original breach between them had long gone, having run off with her young lover and a trunk filled with not only the jewels her besotted lover had given her, but also some she had ‘borrowed’ from the royal vault and had never returned...

* * *

‘I’ve set up an appointment for you with Jay. Unfortunately I can’t stay with you, as I’ve got another meeting to go to, but he’s cool about the idea of having you on board as our interior designer.’

While she was grateful to Sayeed for accompanying her to the meeting, Keira was also regretting the fact that she wasn’t on her own and so able to study her surroundings more closely, she acknowledged as they walked together through the old city.

Somehow she hadn’t expected the billionaire entrepreneur who was the driving force behind some of the most modern office structures currently going up around India to have his office in an ancient palace within the heart of Ralapur’s old town.

‘Jay doesn’t make a big deal of it—as I’ve already said, he’s fanatical about his privacy, and who he admits to his inner circle—but the truth is that his father was the old Maharaja, and until his brother marries Jay is his heir and next in line to the throne. The old Maharaja had been in poor health for a number of years before his death. He was very anti the modern world. Rao and Jay want to bring the benefits of modern life to the city and their people, but at the same time they are both dedicated to maintaining all those traditional things that makes Ralapur the very special place that it is. That is why all the new development will be outside the city.’

Sayeed was right in saying that Ralapur was a very special place, and Keira could well understand why the new Maharaja and his brother were determined not to see it spoiled. Her own artistic senses feasted on the array of ancient buildings. She couldn’t make up her mind which form of architecture actually dominated the town. There was undoubtedly a strong Arab influence, but then according to legend one of Ralapur’s first rulers had been a warrior Arab prince. The Persian influence of the Mughal emperors could also be seen, as well as the tranquil calm of Hindu temples. She would have loved to stop to explore and enjoy the city at a more leisurely pace.

They had walked through the town from a large new car park outside the walls, where everyone was required to leave their vehicles because of the city’s narrow, winding and frequently stepped streets. Now they had emerged from the cool shadows of one of those streets into a large square in front of the blindingly white alabaster-fronted royal palace. Two flights of white steps led up to it, divided by a half-landing on which stood two guards in gold and cream Mughal robes and turbans, their presence more for effect than anything else, Keira suspected.

Facing each other across the square, adjacent to the main palace, were two equally impressive but slightly smaller palaces, and it was towards one of these that Sayeed directed her.

‘Jay has taken over the palace that was originally built for a sixteenth-century Maharaja, whilst the one opposite it was built at the same time for his widowed mother, who had been a famous stateswoman in her own right,’ he said.

Sayeed spoke briefly to the imposing-looking ‘guard’ at the entrance before urging Keira up the flight of marble stairs and into a high square hallway that lay beyond them. She was feeling increasingly nervous by the minute. It had been bad enough when she had believed that her prospective client was an exacting and demanding billionaire, but now that she knew he was also a ‘royal’ her apprehension had increased.

He might be royal, but she was a highly qualified interior designer, who had trained with one of the most respected international firms, and whose own work was very highly thought of. She had very high standards and took pride in the excellence of her work, she reminded herself stoutly. She was a professional interior designer, yes. But she was also the daughter of a woman who had sold her body to men for money to feed her drug habit. Where did that place her on the scale of what was and what was not acceptable? Did she really need to ask herself that question? Of course she didn’t. The burn of the shame she had known growing up because of her mother was still as raw now as it had been then.

It hadn’t just been her great-aunt who had rammed home to her the message that her mother’s lifestyle made Keira unacceptable and unwanted in more respectable people’s social circles.

After her mother had died and her great-aunt had taken her in, Keira had had to change schools. In the early days at her new school another girl had befriended her, and within a few weeks they’d been on their way to becoming best friends. Keira, who had never had any real friends before, never mind a best friend, had been delirious with joy.

Until the day Anna had told her uncomfortably, ‘My mother says that we can’t be friends any more.’

By the end of the week the story of her mother had gone round the playground like measles, infecting everyone and most especially Keira herself. She’d been ostracised and excluded, forced to hang her head in shame and to endure the taunts of some of the other children.

Keira had known then that she must never allow people to know about her mother, because once they did they would not want to know her. She had made a vow to herself that she would not just walk away from her past at the first opportunity. She would build a wall between it and her that would separate her from it for ever.

Her chance to do just that had come when her great-aunt had died of a heart attack, leaving Keira at eighteen completely alone in the world, and with what had seemed to her at the time an enormous inheritance of £500,000.

She had bought herself elocution lessons so that she could hide her Northern accent, and with it her own shame, and the money had also helped her to train as an interior designer. It had bought her a tiny flat too, in what had then been an inexpensive part of London but which was now a very up-and-coming area.

As a child Keira had loved her mother. As she’d got older she had continued to love her, but her love had been mixed with anger. Now, as an adult, she still loved her—but that love was combined with pity and sadness, and a fierce determination not to repeat her mother’s errors of judgement and weaknesses.

Keira never lied about her past. She simply didn’t tell people everything about it, saying only that she had been orphaned young and brought up by an elderly great-aunt who had died just before she started university. It was, after all, the truth. Only she knew about the darker, more unpalatable and unacceptable parts of her past. A past that would certainly render her unacceptable to someone of such high status as a royal prince.

They were being guided to the main reception room—a huge, richly decorated room with columns and walls of gilded carvings designed to overwhelm and impress.

Don’t think about the past, Keira urged herself. Look at the décor instead.

An Arabic-style fretted screen ran round an upper storey walkway, allowing those behind it to look down into the hallway without themselves being seen. It seemed to Keira that the very air of the room felt heavy with the weight of past secrecy and intrigue, of whispered promises and threats, and of royal favour and power courted and brokered behind closed doors.

This was a different world from the one she knew. She could feel its traditions and demands pressing down on her. Here within these walls a person would be judged by who their ancestors had been—not what they themselves were. Here within these walls she would most definitely have been judged as her mother’s daughter, condemned and branded to follow in her footsteps by that judgement. Keira repressed a small shudder of apprehension as she followed Sayeed deeper into the room.

The scent of sandalwood filled the still air. High above them on the ceiling, mirrored mosaics caught the light from the narrow windows and redirected it so that it struck the gaze of those entering the room, momentarily blinding them and of course giving whoever might be standing behind the screens watching them, or indeed waiting for them in the room itself, a psychological advantage.

Sayeed gave their names to the man who appeared silent-footed and traditionally dressed, and then bowed to them and indicated that they were to follow him down a narrow passage behind the fretted screens. It led to a pair of double doors, which in turn opened into an elegant courtyard. He led them across and then in through another door and up a flight of stairs until they came to a pair of doors on which he knocked before opening.

A man speaking into a mobile phone was standing in front of a narrow grilled open window through which Keira could see and hear the street.

No, not a man, Keira recognised with a sickening downward plunge of her heart as he turned round towards them, but the man—the man for whom she had broken the most important rule in her life; the man she had kissed and touched and told without words but with a feverish intensity that had been quite plain that she desired him; the man from whom she had then run in her shame and her fear. The man who had shown her his contempt and his evaluation of her by offering her money in exchange for the kisses they shared.

If she could have done so Keira would have turned and run from him, from all the dark despair of her most private fears—fears which he had given fresh life both through her own desire for him and his treatment of her. But she couldn’t. Sayeed was standing behind her.

The slate-grey gaze flicked over her and rested expressionlessly on her face. He had recognised her even if he wasn’t showing it.

Sayeed stepped forward to shake the other man’s hand, saying to him jovially, ‘Jay. I’ve brought you Keira, just as I promised. She’s desperate for you to give her this contract so that she can show you what she can do. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by what she can offer.’

Keira squirmed inwardly over Sayeed’s unfortunate choice of words and all that might be read into them by a cynical, sexually experienced man who had every reason to believe he already knew what she had to offer.

‘I can’t stay,’ Sayeed was continuing. ‘I’ve got a meeting I have to attend, so I’m going to have to leave you to discuss things without me. However, as I’ve already told you, I’ve seen Keira’s work, and she has my personal recommendation and endorsement.’

He had gone before she could stop him and tell him that she had changed her mind. That she wouldn’t want this contract if it was the last one on earth.

* * *

Jay watched her. Unless she was a far better actress than he believed, she hadn’t faked her shocked surprise at seeing him and realising who he was. So, a woman who hired herself out for sex? Or a professional woman who liked to let her hair down and play a game of sex tease with what she thought was the local talent? Or maybe a bit of both, depending on her mood? If so, perhaps she was more used to being paid off in expensive gifts rather than hard cash—although she hadn’t looked unhappy to receive the bundle of notes he had seen her being given last night. She was dressed today for a business appointment—European-style, with a careful nod in the direction of Indian culture. He could see the faint beading of sweat on her upper lip—caused, he suspected, not so much by the heat as by her discomfort at seeing him again.

‘You come highly recommended. Sayeed can’t praise your skills enough.’

The taunt that lay beneath his words was barely veiled and intended to be recognised.

Keira could feel the slow painful burn of a feeling that was a mixture of shame and anger. That her own behaviour was the weapon she had handed him to use against her was the cause of her shame, and that he had not hesitated to use it the cause of her anger.

Well, she wasn’t going to respond to his goading.

Jay frowned when she remained silent.

It irked him that he hadn’t guessed who she might be, and it irritated him even more that she had brought with her into his office not just the scent of the perfume she was wearing but also the memory of his desire for her. And not only the memory, he realised as his body reacted to her against his will.

She wore her sexuality like she wore her scent, bringing it with her into his presence and forcing recognition of it on his senses whilst maintaining an air of detachment from it and from him.

He turned from her and strode the length of the room, trying to force down the ache that somehow managed to surface past his angry contempt.

He was pacing his office floor in such a way that she could almost hear the pad of a hunting cat’s sharp-clawed paws, along with the dangerous swish of its tail—as though her mere presence fed his hunger to destroy her, Keira thought sickly.

‘Has Sayeed bedded you? Is that why he is so keen to secure this contract for you? Did he promise it to you in exchange for your sexual favours?’

‘No. I don’t go to bed with anyone to secure business. I don’t need to,’ Keira told him proudly. ‘My work speaks for itself.’

‘Yes, indeed. I saw that for myself last night.’

The blood surged and then retreated through her veins, causing her heart to thud erratically. There was no mistaking the meaning behind his words.

‘You must think what you wish. Plainly that is what you intend to do.’

‘It isn’t my wishes that govern the logic of my thinking process, rather it is the visual evidence of my own eyes. I saw the man you were with handing you money—and rather a substantial amount of money at that.’

Keira had to defend her professional reputation. She wasn’t going to get the contract, so she had nothing to lose in defending herself, had she? She took a deep breath and spoke swiftly.

‘And because of that you leapt to the conclusion that I am...that I...that my body is for sale? That isn’t logic. It is supposition tainted with prejudice.’

She was daring to argue with him? Daring to defend the indefensible and accuse him of being prejudiced? Jay could feel his fury pressing against the cords of his self-control, threatening to break free.

‘He gave you money. I saw that with my own eyes.’

‘He is an old friend. He was paying me for the refurbishment of his flat. If you don’t believe me you can ask him—and you can ask Shalini as well.’

‘Shalini?’

‘The bride. She and Vikram are cousins. The two of them and Tom, Shalini’s new husband, and I were all at university together.’

Keira had no idea why she was telling him all this. What difference could it make now? She had lost the contract, and despite the fact that she desperately needed the money a part of her was relieved. There were some things that mattered more than money, and her own peace of mind was definitely one of them.

Jay frowned. Something told him that she was telling the truth. Not that he had any intention of demeaning himself by questioning others about her.

And besides, there were other issues at stake here. She had an impressive client list, the majority of whom were women. That had been one of the most important deciding factors in his original decision to take her on. India’s growing middle class wanted new and more westernised homes, and it was predominantly the women who were making the decisions about which developer they bought from. The interior of any new property was a vitally important selling point, and Jay knew that he could not afford to make any mistakes in his choice of interior designer.

On paper, this woman ticked all the right boxes. She had connections with an elite of London based Indian families—no doubt through the friendships she had made at university. She had worked for them in London, and he was well aware of the praise she had been given for the way she blended the best of traditional Indian and modern Western styles to create uniquely stylish interiors that had delighted their owners. She had also worked in Mumbai; she was at home in both cultures and apparently well liked by the Indian matriarchs whose approval was so vitally important to her business and indirectly to his.

His long silence was unnerving her, Keira admitted inwardly. It flustered her into repeating, ‘My work speaks for itself.’

‘But perhaps your body language speaks more clearly? To my sex at least.’

His voice was as cool as steel and just as deadly. Keira could feel it piercing her pride, taking a shimmering bead of its life force as though it were a trophy. Now that he had savoured his pleasure in wounding her no doubt he would close in for the kill and tell her that he wasn’t going to give her the contract.

She lifted her chin and told him proudly, ‘I don’t see the point in prolonging this conversation, since it’s obvious that you don’t have any intention of commissioning me to work for you as an interior designer.’

He certainly didn’t want to do so, now that he knew who she was, Jay acknowledged. But there was the delicate matter of losing face—both for Sayeed and in a roundabout way for Jay himself.

Sayeed might be a very junior partner in their current venture, but he would be within his rights to question why Jay had rejected Keira, after allowing the negotiations to get this far. Sayeed would be personally insulted, and whilst Jay was too rich and too powerful to worry about that, his own moral scruples were such that bringing his own personal feelings into the business arena was something he just would not do without explaining. That would cause him to lose face.

The situation was non-negotiable—both practically and morally. He had no alternative but to go ahead and formalise the offer of a contract, as Sayeed would be expecting him to do.

‘Not personally, no,’ he agreed silkily. ‘So if last night’s little game of tease was meant to whet my appetite I’m afraid it failed. However, when it comes to the contract for the interior design work at my new development, I am prepared to accept Sayeed’s recommendation that you are the right designer for the job. Of course if he is wrong...’

Keira was struggling to take in the triple whammy effect of his speech—first the direct attack on her personally, then the surprise offer of the contract, and finally the killer blow, warning her that Sayeed would be the one who would end up losing out if she failed to live up to his recommendation. She was trapped, and they both knew it. Whilst she might have been willing to risk turning her back on the commission and fees for the sake of her own pride, she was not prepared to risk injuring Sayeed’s business reputation by doing so. And she suspected that the man in front of her watching her, so cynically, knew that.

‘Very well,’ she told him, drawing herself up to her full height of five feet nine—which, whilst tall, was well below his far more impressive six foot plus, leaving her in the ignominious position of having to tilt her head back to look up at him. ‘But I want it understood that the relationship between us will be purely and only that of developer and interior designer. Absolutely nothing more.’

She was daring to warn him off?

Jay couldn’t believe her gall. Well, two could play at that game.

‘Are you sure that is all you want?’ he mocked her.

Keira could feel her face burn.

‘Yes,’ she confirmed, tight-lipped.

‘Liar,’ Jay taunted. ‘But it’s all right, because I assure you that I have no intention of our relationship being anything other than strictly business. The truth is that if you want me you’re going to have to come crawling on your knees and beg me. And even then...’ His gaze flicked over her disparagingly. ‘Well, let’s just say I’m not a fan of used goods.’

If she could have walked out, Keira knew that she would have done so. But she couldn’t. Not now. He had trapped her with his implied threat about his business relationship with Sayeed.

The door to the room suddenly opened inwards to admit Sayeed himself, who told them both cheerfully, ‘My appointment was cancelled, so I came back. How’s it going?’

It was Jay who answered, telling him smoothly, ‘Since Miss Myers comes with your recommendation, Sayeed, I am prepared to offer her a contract. Whether or not she chooses to accept it is, of course, up to her.’

Keira gave him a burning look. He knew perfectly well that her choices were non-existent. He had arranged matters so that they would be.

‘Of course she’ll accept it.’ Sayeed was beaming enthusiastically.

‘So that’s agreed, then. Keira is coming on board as our designer,’ Jay said briskly. ‘I’ll get my PA to sort out the contracts, and the three of us can have dinner tonight to celebrate and discuss everything in more detail. You’re staying at the Palace Lodge Hotel, Keira? I’ll have a car sent to pick you up at eight o’clock.’

* * *

It was a fiasco. No—worse than that; it was a total nightmare, Keira decided grimly later in the day as she walked through the city, trying not to let despair over her situation prevent her from enjoying exploring the city’s unique cultural history.

Keira couldn’t remember how old she had been when she had first realised just what her mother was. But she could remember that she had been nine when her mother had told Keira that her father was a married man.

‘Loved him, I did—and he said he loved me. Mind you, they all say that when they want to get into your knickers. Not that he were me first—not by a long chalk. Had lads running after me from when I was fourteen, I did. That’s been my problem, see, Keira. I always liked a good time too much. It’s in me nature, you see, and it will be in yours too—see if it isn’t. We just can’t help ourselves, see. Come from a long line of women made that way, you and me have. Some lad will come along, and before you know where you are you’ll be opening your legs for him.’

Keira still shuddered when she remembered those words. They had filled her with a fear that her great-aunt’s unkindness had reinforced. Keira had decided long before she went to university that she would never allow herself to fall in love or commit to a man because of the risk of discovering she shared her mother’s weakness in controlling her sexual appetite, along with her inability to choose the right man.

Her horror of sharing her mother’s fate was burned into her heart.

After university Keira had moved to London and found a job working for an upmarket interior design company at a very junior level.

Through Shalini and Vikram she’d been familiar with the ethnically diverse Brick Lane area of the city, and she had quickly fallen in love with the creative intensity it had to offer, putting what she’d learned from it into her own work and adapting it to her own personal style.

Soon word had begun to get around that she had a sympathetic understanding of Indian taste, and rich Indians had started to ask specifically if she could be part of the team working on their interiors.

With the encouragement of her boss, Keira had eventually struck out on her own, finding for herself a niche market that was fresh and vibrant and matched her own feelings about design and style.

She’d met Sayeed through Vikram, and had let him sweet-talk her into doing some room schemes for the rundown
properties he was doing up as buy-to-lets. Sayeed had done well, and an uncle in India had taken him into his own property development business—which was how Sayeed had become involved with Jay.

Jay. The thought of him—or rather of His Highness Prince Jayesh of Ralapur—was enough to have her tensing her body against her own inner panic. How could she have let such a thing happen to her?

It should have been impossible for him to have aroused her as he had done. Not once before had Keira ever felt tempted to ignore the rules she had made for herself.

Yes, she had kissed boys at university—she hadn’t wanted to be thought odd or weird after all—but once they had started wanting more than a bit of mild petting she had had no difficulty whatsoever in telling them no.

True, a certain scene in a film or a passage in a book might have the power to make her ache a little—she was human, after all—but she had never allowed herself to experience that ache with a real flesh-and-blood man.

Until last night.

For him. With him.

Keira paced the floor of her hotel room in agitation. She couldn’t stay and work for him. Why not? Because she was afraid that she might end up wanting to go to bed with him? Because she was afraid that she might, as he had taunted her, end up begging him to take her?

No! Where was her pride? Surely she was strong enough not to let that happen? Where was her courage and her self-esteem? Let him say what he liked. She would show him that she meant what she had said. She would remain detached and uninterested in him as a man. Would she? Could she? She was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin who in reality was scared to death she might be in danger of breaking a vow she had made almost a decade ago, and he was a man who looked as though he went through women faster than a monsoon flood went through a rice field.

She mustn’t think like that, Keira warned herself. She must remember the old adage that the thought was father to the deed, and not will her own self-destruction on herself.

The hard, cold reality was that she could not afford to lose this contract any more than she could afford to be sexually vulnerable to him. If she blew this, she would never get another opportunity to match it. Chances like this came once in a lifetime—if you were lucky. Her success here would elevate her to a much higher professional status. All she had to do was to keep the promise she had made herself not to allow herself to be physically vulnerable.

* * *

At exactly two minutes to eight, Keira walked into the hotel reception area and told the girl on the desk that she was expecting a car to be sent for her.

At five past eight Sayeed came hurrying through the hotel entrance, grinning broadly when he saw her.

‘Jay apologises, but he can’t make it after all,’ he told her as he sank down into the plush vibrant pink cushions of the gilded wood chair opposite her own.

He put the A4 manila envelope he had been carrying down on the marble table in front of them before signalling for a waiter, and then, without asking Keira what she wanted, he ordered champagne for both of them, his dark eyes sparkling with excitement.

‘He gave me the contract for you to sign. I’m leaving for Mumbai and then London in the morning, but I’ll make sure I get it back to him before I leave. Oh, and he said he’ll be in touch with you tomorrow about arranging to bring you up to speed with what’s happening and what he’s looking for you to provide. It’s a great deal, Keira. A good payment in advance that will give you some working capital. One thing I will say for Jay is that he expects the best and he’s prepared to pay for it.’

The waiter brought their champagne.

Sayeed picked up his glass and raised it to her in a toast.

‘To success.’

Half an hour later the contract was signed and witnessed, Sayeed had promised to fax her a copy once Jay had signed as well—and Keira’s head was swimming slightly from the combined effects of champagne and her own awareness that there was now no going back.

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