And…choong!
Her eyes shot sizzling bolts of heat straight at him.
Nothing was suppressed in that look!
Even his toes curled.
Amid the chaos of the moment, some deeply intuitive sense in Jake Devila told him his relationship with Mel Rossi had just been changed…forever!
CHAPTER FOUR
A BLAZE of satisfaction settled Merlina’s quivering nerves. Jake looked completely stunned. And he wasn’t recovering quickly, either. Shock had blanked out the usual vitality of his playboy handsome face. There were no dimples in his cheeks. His mouth was absolutely still, not so much as a twitch of amusement. His dark eyes were not enlivened by mischievously teasing twinkles. He stared at her as though dazed. Mesmerised.
No doubt about it.
She had socked it to him with a vengeance.
And here she was, on show, in a bikini, and proud of herself for having dared to do it. A liberated woman. Her own person.
All the time and attention she had poured into producing this scenario had just paid off. She could retire from the battle scene of her employment with honours on her side. No sense of defeat at all!
But she still had to finish the act and do it absolutely right. She hoped all the rehearsals of stepping down the tiers of the cake in these sexy red shoes would stand her in good stead. Teetering would be terrible at this point. She fastened her gaze on Byron Devila, obviously the man standing at the end of the red carpet and just in front of Jake, then turned on a slow, sensual smile designed to warm the cockles of his eighty-year-old manhood.
Though he didn’t look eighty, more like a young sixty, and the smile he returned smacked of very lively male appreciation of how she looked. Which gave Merlina the encouragement she needed to set off descending to the red carpet which led directly to him.
Think Marilyn Monroe, she told herself. The orchestra took it upon itself to play ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ as she made her way down the steps, for which Merlina was intensely grateful. It was much easier to look sexily graceful moving to music than in silence with everyone watching. She arrived on the red carpet without a falter, and determinedly ignoring Jake, she walked straight towards his grandfather, growing in delicious confidence with every step.
She’d done it and it was wonderful!
She felt Jake’s gaze on her, felt a churning maelstrom of thoughts coming from him and swirling around her. Her nerves were very active again, not quivering with the fear of failure as before, but buzzing with elation at having thrown the puppet master into a wild tangle with his own strings.
And Byron Devila was looking at her as she’d always wished Jake would—with sparkling admiration and captivated interest. The triumph of it all was exhilarating. The smile on her face grew in brilliance. Her eyes danced with daredevil glee at the older man. He held out his hands in open welcome as her approach came to a halt. She unhooked the ribbon from her wrist and presented him with the red satin heart-shaped cushion.
‘Happy Birthday, Mr Devila. May your heart always be filled with joy,’ she said, beaming her own joy right at him.
‘It is, my dear, and you’ve put it there.’ He hooked the ribbon attached to the cushion around his own wrist, then took both her hands in his, pressing lightly, his eyes twinkling encouragement. ‘I prefer at this point in my life not to waste any time. Tell me your name.’
‘It’s Merlina,’ she replied with an arch emphasis for Jake’s benefit. ‘Merlina Rossi.’
‘Merlina…’ He rolled it off his tongue as though finding it much to his taste. ‘A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.’
‘Thank you, Mr Devila.’
‘Call me Byron.’
‘Thank you, Byron.’
‘Now the only other question is—’ he waggled his eyebrows in flirtatious appeal ‘—will you marry me?’
She laughed. Whether it was a joke or not, there was such delicious irony in being proposed to by the grandfather of the man she really wanted, right in front of him.
‘That’s going a bit far, Pop,’ Jake said in an irritable tone, not the least bit amused. ‘You’ve only just laid eyes on her.’
‘Ah, yes! Love at first sight. Nothing like it!’ Byron said with relish, his eyes not leaving hers for a second. ‘Thank you for choosing Merlina for me, Jake.’
‘I didn’t choose her!’ he rasped in exasperation. ‘And you can’t have her. She’s mine!’
‘Yours?’ Byron turned a frown to his grandson. ‘You’ve had a skinny model hanging off you all afternoon. Go back to her, my boy. You can’t have it two ways, you know.’
Absolutely right, Merlina thought darkly, warming to Byron Devila who clearly understood how relationships should work. She gave Jake a look of hot scorn for his playboy ways. If he wanted her to be his, he was going to have to drop every other woman and fight his grandfather for her. Leap through a few of her hoops, too. Like marriage and children. Which wouldn’t happen. She knew that. But it didn’t extinguish the wild fantasy of a life-changing miracle suddenly happening.
‘Mel happens to be my personal assistant!’ Jake bit out menacingly.
‘Mel? Mel? Who is Mel?’ His grandfather demanded.
Merlina was beginning to love Byron Devila. He was fighting on her front, forcing Jake to acknowledge her real name.
‘This woman you’re so taken with is Mel,’ came the belligerent reply. Jake waved his hand in a scissor-like movement that clearly wanted to cut this scene to its end immediately. He glared at Merlina to confirm his statement.
No way, she beamed back at him. You can stew in this juice all by yourself. I’m not rescuing you. Not ever again.
‘You should be shot for corrupting such a beautiful name,’ Byron declared, returning his attention to Merlina, smiling at her as though she was all the goodies in the world wrapped up in one package. ‘It’s the feminine version of Merlin, the great magician, and you hold me spellbound, my dear.’
Oh, he was good! This was real heady stuff! No wonder he’d wooed seven women into wedlock. His immense wealth might be one attraction but the man himself was an absolute charmer.
‘Tell him!’ Jake commanded, positively fizzing with frustration. ‘Tell him you’re my personal assistant.’
Merlina took a deep breath and sighed with blissful satisfaction in her erstwhile employer’s disarray. ‘I was Jake’s personal assistant, Byron,’ she said to her new admirer. ‘But I’m not anymore.’