A Secure Marriage Read online

  A SECURE

  MARRIAGE

  Diana Hamilton

  "Mr. Mescal, will you marry me?"

  They were the hardest words Cleo had ever said. It was out of desperation, not love, that she proposed to her dynamic boss, Jude Mescal.

  Cleo could see no other way out of her predicament or to safeguard her family, but she was nevertheless surprised when he agreed. There was just one problem--Jude wanted a real marriage and children.

  Jude was undeniably attractive, and very soon Cleo found her emotions involved. She just wished she knew what Jude's motives were--and how he felt about their marriage.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JUDE MESCAL walked through the office and Cleo thought, as she had thought so many times before: he moves like a cat, a mean, moody, magnificent cat.

  She had heard other adjectives ascribed to the chief executive of Mescal Slade—cold, remote, terrifying. But one of the many advantages of being the personal assistant to the most powerful man in one of the City's most prestigious merchant banks was a certain degree of invulnerability. Jude Mescal didn't frighten her; nannies were rarely afraid of their charges, they knew them too well. And that was how Cleo sometimes regarded him—as a difficult but gifted charge.

  He appeared to be in one of his thankfully rare irascible moods this morning, she decided with a serene half- smile as she noted the way his secretary, Dawn Goodall, cringed at her desk. The way the sedate middle-aged woman was lowering her head, hunching her shoulders and trying to look invisible made Cleo forget her own problems just for a moment.

  Jude paused at the heavy, highly polished door to that inner sanctum, his office. He had failed to issue his customary cool good mornings, and the black bar produced by the frowning clench of brows that thundered down above the almost startling azure of his eyes and the forceful line of his nose attested to his ill temper even before the words, Tm seeing no one today, Cleo. Cancel all appointments. Understood?' were barked out in that husky, slightly gravelly voice that had the power to make even the chairman of the board look as though he felt like a five-year-old on his first day at school.

  'Certainly, Mr Mescal.' Cleo dipped her smooth silver- blonde head, feeling the expertly cut wings of her hair brush against the perfect ivory of her pointed face, hiding the amused smile that hovered around the full, curved contours of her mouth. It was obviously going to be one of those days.

  'And bring in the Research file on Chemical Holdings.' He slewed round quickly on the balls of his feet, the blue steel of his eyes turning Dawn Goodall to stone at her desk. 'And if anyone from First Union calls, I'm unavailable until the lunch appointment we arranged for tomorrow. Got that, Mrs Goodall?'

  An agonised squawk was the nearest Dawn could get to an acknowledgement, but Cleo chimed in, ultra-sweet and smooth as silk, 'As rumour has it, First Union have been shopping around. Could tomorrow's lunch be the preliminary to a hostile bid?'

  She hadn't been able to resist that dig, and for a moment the muscles of his wide shoulders tensed beneath the dark silk and mohair suiting, then his mouth quirked acidly. 'No one makes a bid, hostile or otherwise, for an efficient house. And Mescal Slade's one of the top rankers. Your job is safe, Miss Slade. For the moment. Bring that file through.'

  In the silence following the thud as heavy mahogany closed on its frame Dawn let out a pent-up breath,

  'The file's right here. I had it brought up from Research first thing. And rather you than me. I'd ask for a transfer to washroom attendant if I didn't need the money I get sitting here.' She scowled at a typing error and Cleo picked up the file, shaking her head,

  'You're a damn good secretary, otherwise you wouldn't be sitting there,' she told the older woman. 'You've only been working for him for three months, you'll soon learn to ignore the iceberg image. He's a sweetie underneath.'

  'If you say so.' Dawn didn't look convinced and Cleo turned away, going into her own small office to collect her notebook, the file from the Equity and Research department tucked under her arm.

  Jude Mescal had a reputation for being an iceberg, a well-oiled automaton plugged into his work; remote as a god on top of Olympus, occasionally breathing fire and thunder down on the heads of lesser beings, but not often enough for it to become cause for justifiable complaint.

  When she had been appointed as his personal assistant a year ago, with her degree in economics safely in her pocket and her inbred fascination with the world of merchant banking, she had known she could handle the Frozen Asset—as Jude Mescal was popularly and irreverently known. She had countered cool cynicism with a disregard that was in no way negated by her slightly amused smile, met his rare temper outbursts with total equanimity, did her job faultlessly and enjoyed the keen working of his incisive brain, even, latterly, anticipating the way his mind would jump. They made a good team and she was, quite possibly, the only one of Mescal Slade's employees who wasn't openly or secretly afraid of him.

  He was standing at one of the windows, looking out, when she walked through. An undeniably attractive hunk, she thought inconsequentially as the cool, smoky grey of her eyes appraised the breadth of shoulder and back, the supple leanness of hip and length of leg. Wealthy, worldly, with a brain as quick and sharp as a rapier, he was one of the City's most eligible bachelors, never without a beautiful woman at his side when the occasion demanded such a decoration, and never—Cleo had noted with wry humour and a somewhat incomprehensible feeling of satisfaction—looking other than politely bored by the adoring postures and antics of the woman in question.

  Rumour had it that Jude Mescal was wary, saw all women as mercenary gold-diggers, that he merely used them before they could use him. Idly, she wondered what it would feel like to be dated socially by Jude. Sheer hell, she decided, if boredom was the only emotion that looked out of those remarkable eyes. But if those eyes were to warm into sexual awareness, to intimacy...

  'Sit down, Miss Slade.' The command was abrupt and he didn't turn. So Cleo sat, taking the chair angled across the huge leather-topped desk, smoothing the silver grey fabric of her designer suit over her knees. There it was again,

  'Miss Slade' for the second time this morning. Annoyed by her dig about the prospect of a hostile takeover bid from the American bankers, First Union?

  Possibly. Cleo sucked in her breath. So the biter didn't relish the prospect of being bitten!

  As if the intensity of her gaze had penetrated his mood of absorption at last, he turned, his eyes briefly flicking over her, moving from the top of her groomed silver- blonde head to the tips of her expensively shod toes.

  'Right. To work. Let's see if the findings from Research coincide with my gut reaction about CH.'

  He kept her hard at it for over an hour, probing for her reaction to the report, the complicated balance sheets spread out before them, until Dawn came through with the coffee-tray, putting it down on the desk and sidling out apprehensively when Jude eyed the offering as if it were an intrusion of an unspeakably vulgar kind. Although Cleo had tried to reassure the older woman, Dawn didn't appreciate that when he was engrossed in his work he was on another plane entirely; it was nothing personal.

  And Cleo, pouring from the chased silver pot, said, 'It stinks,' not meaning the coffee, of course. 'I wouldn't advise a cat to buy into that little lot, let alone our valued Trade Union clients. Can't think why they showed interest in the first place.'

  Jude grinned, his whole body appearing to relax as he took the cup she gave him, stirring the brew reflectively although he took neither sugar nor cream.

  'Absolutely right.' He looked pleased with her, almost as if he were about to pat her on the head, as if he had been testing her in some way, finding out if her judgement of market trends was sound.

&nb
sp; He needn't have gone to the trouble, she thought, her cool, liquid eyes betraying not the slightest hint of her inner amusement as she sipped her coffee. The idea of a literal pat on the head was funny enough in itself; Jude Mescal never descended to personal levels. He was too remote, too cool.

  And she made it her business to know her chosen profession backwards and inside out. She wasn't big-headed about it, it was simply in her, bred in the bone, so the idea that he might have been testing her had to be amusing. He shouldn't need to be told that a Slade, as well as a Mescal, had banking in the blood.

  Although he now seemed marginally more relaxed, the bite was back in the deep husky voice as, his coffee-cup empty and the offer of a refill waved aside, he asked, 'How is John Slade?'

  The question didn't surprise her too much; there had been close business connections for decades between the Slades and the Mescals. Since her parents' deaths ten years ago her Uncle John had run the largely family-owned finance house, Slade Securities, until a couple of years ago when he had been forced to retire after a near- fatal heart-attack.

  'Not too good,' she replied sadly. Her uncle had become her guardian after the deaths of her parents, the only person to offer her any comfort at all during those earlier, lonely years. 'He has to take things very quietly. We've been warned he mustn't get excited or upset.'

  'And your cousin Luke?' Jude's eyes, over steepled fingers, were cool, astute.

  Cleo hunched one shoulder, 'Coping in his father's stead, as far as I know.

  Keeping his nose clean, I hope.'

  It was fairly common knowledge that a spiteful piece in a gossip column concerning a brawl Luke had been involved in at some notorious West End nightclub had been responsible for his father's latest and most serious attack, and Cleo could sense the condemnation in Jude's eyes. Luke was brilliant in his way, but emotionally immature, and his father wasn't the only person who thought it was high time he faced up to the responsibilities he now carried. Running a successful finance house demanded more than a clever mind and financial bravado.

  Thankfully, Jude let the subject drop, instructing, 'Have a word with Chef. I want tomorrow's lunch arrangements to be perfect. Nothing ostentatious, just the best. You know the drill. And have everything you can lay your hands on pertaining to First Union on my desk in half an hour. And make sure I'm not disturbed. Oh—and Cleo--' this as she was already on her way, file and notepad neatly gathered, thinking with a touch of satisfaction that he

  did have the jitters about the Americans 'have lunch with me. One-thirty?'

  Her heart dropped to the soles of her feet and squirmed back up again because the mention of lunch, today, gave her a very sick feeling indeed. But her answering smile was tinged with polite regret, exactly right, as she told him, 'I'm sorry, Mr Mescal. But I've a prior appointment. I would break it if I could, but it's not possible.'

  If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. But she was. If she had been free to lunch with him it would have meant that she didn't have that prior date with Robert Fenton.

  Robert was the last man she wanted to see, but his telephoned invitation—more of a command, really—late last night had been dark with a threat she didn't want to speculate about too deeply. Not until all the cards were down. She couldn't understand why he wanted to see her and, knowing him, she had been worrying about it all morning. They had parted far from amicably, so why was he insisting they met?

  She signed the routine letters and memos Dawn had left on her desk, made a couple of brief inter-office phone calls regarding the details of First Union which were to be sent up, pronto, then took the lift to the executive dining-suite, the back of her mind ticking over the list of precise instructions for Chef, the front of it occupied with regret over the missed opportunity to have lunch with Jude.

  They lunched together fairly frequently, sometimes dined at his home in Belgravia, and she always enjoyed the occasions. He used them to put his mind in neutral, allowing it to digest some problem or other, a decision that had to be quickly and correctly reached—no margin for error. She used them to get to know him better, an exercise she found increasingly fascinating. It was essential, she told herself, to know what made one's boss tick. And during those quiet interludes she had gained a rare and, she firmly believed, unique insight, catching glimpses of his droll sense of humour, the underlying deep humanity of the man. And she found that liking for the man himself had been added to respect for his remarkable brain.

  Latterly—although there was nothing personal in it, she always assured herself—she had found herself wondering why, at the age of thirty-sue, he had never married, never come close to it as far as subtle probings had allowed her to gather. Because, subtle as they were, the steel shutters had always come down decisively whenever he had sensed he was in any danger at all of giving away more of himself than he intended to do.

  And Cleo pushed through the swing door into the immaculate kitchens, feeling fraught because she knew full well that lunch with Robert Fenton would be no pleasure at all.

  The restaurant Robert had suggested they use was pricey, exclusive and secluded, and she looked at him across the beige linen-covered table and wondered what she had ever seen in him.

  At twenty-seven, three years her senior, he was superficially good-looking.

  His mid-brown hair was a little overlong but superbly cut, his clothes of good quality but a little on the flamboyant side. Compared with Jude Mescal he was a shadow, lacking the other man's strength and sheer presence. Cleo wondered why such a com- parispn should have come to her mind, and unwillingly remembered how when her cousin Luke had introduced her to Robert Fenton at a party two years ago she had thought he was the cat's whiskers.

  Coming to the end of her final year at the LSE she had had little time for dates. But what time she'd had had been spent with Robert, his seemingly effortless charm helping her to relax.

  With her Finals behind her at last and her sights fixed on joining Mescal Slade in whatever capacity offered, she had seen more of Robert. Until, her brief infatuation dying an inevitable death on her emergence from those long years of dedicated hard slog, she had at last begun to realise that Robert Fenton was not quite what he seemed. The image he chose to project was at variance with the man inside the skin. And with her eyes wide open at last she had discovered that she rather despised him.

  Nothing was said until their order had been taken and then he told her, his hazel eyes sly, 'You're looking more beautiful than ever, Cleo, my love.

  Work obviously agrees with you. I must try it some time.'

  Cleo didn't deign to reply; she was in no mood for facile flattery and she was no longer amused by the way Robert seemed able to afford the best things in life, even though he had no visible means of support. She was no longer the naive, emotionally backward student who rarely lifted her nose from her books for long enough to look around and find out what people were like.

  'Why was it so vitally important that we meet?' she demanded, echoing the words he had uttered over the phone last night, the tone he had used very different from her own cool, almost disinterested one.

  He leaned back in his chair, looking at her with lazy eyes.

  'You haven't acquired any finesse since I saw you last—when was it? About ten months ago?'

  She ignored that. She hadn't needed finesse to tell him to go and take a running jump. And yes, it would have been about ten months ago. She had been Jude's PA for just over two months, still hardly able to believe her good fortune in hearing through the grapevine that the chief executive's then personal assistant would be leaving to have the baby she and her husband had been longing for. That she had landed the job out of a formidable list of applicants had still been responsible for the warm glow of achievement that had totally negated the blow of discovering exactly how perfidious Robert Fenton was. Not that she had still imagined herself in love with him at that time; she had simply been annoyed by her own lack of judgement.

  Cleo drank a little of
her dry martini, smiled as a waiter placed her order of smoked prawns in front of her, then raised an impatient eyebrow in Fenton's direction. She was in no mood for games.

  'It's brass tacks time, is it?' He read her mood. 'I need money, my love.

  Rather a large amount of the stuff. And you are going to have to divvi up.'

  She might have known! His primary interest in her, she had discovered, had always been financial. But the wealthy were always prey to the avarice of others—Aunt Grace had drilled that into her often enough!

  'Like hell I am! And if that's all you wanted to say to me, I'm leaving,' she said softly, a distant smile hovering around her mouth because she wasn't worried, not then. She reached for her bag, not willing to waste one more second on this importuning louse.

  But he caught her wrist across the table, his fingers hurting. To force him to release her would cause the type of public scene she abhorred, so she subsided, fury tightening her mouth.

  'Very wise.' Fenton's voice was suave as he gradually released his hold on her. 'Eat your nice prawns, duckie— this might take some time. You see, it concerns that pillar of respectable society, your good Uncle John. Though he's not so good, healthwise, I hear.'

  He tossed back his whisky and soda and clicked his fingers at the hovering wine-waiter. Cleo felt ill, and she was worried now, but there was no emotion in her voice as she interrupted his conversation with the waiter.

  'There's no way my uncle can be any concern of yours.'

  'No?' He tipped his head as he finished ordering. 'But I am concerned. And he will be concerned about you— about the state of your morals, in particular. Such a highly moral man, your guardian, I hear. And your Aunt Grace is also a pious lady, very concerned with the family image, with some justification. A twenty-room mansion in Herts and a bank account that must be touching the two million mark is an image even I would try to live up to.'