Loe raamatut: «Gentlemen Prefer... Brunettes»

For wonderful aunts and uncles,

with whom I have been much blessed.

Table of Contents

Cover

“What’s the matter with you, Nick? Isn’t one woman enough for you?

Letter to Reader

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CASSANDRA CORNWALL had a problem. Or rather she had three of them, all male. Added to that, she was suffering from writer’s cramp, smile fatigue and a serious lack of caffeine.

She looked up, hoping to catch Beth’s eye, but her friend was too busy flinging herself into the arms of a man who had just walked through the door to notice her plight.

‘Nick, darling!’

Beth’s squeal of pleasure turned every head in the shop and Cassie paused mid-signature as ‘Nick, darling’ bent from his considerable height to kiss Beth’s cheek.

The movement sent a thick cowlick of hair the colour of clear dark honey sliding over a broad, tanned forehead. ‘Beth, you look gorgeous.’ His voice was honey too—warm honey, running with butter over thick crunchy toast. ‘I don’t know why I ever let you get away.’

The squeal of pleasure, Cassie decided, had been thoroughly justified. The man was sex on a pair of very long legs, with a smile that fanned around a pair of dark eyes that she could tell, even from this distance, would make any woman feel beautiful, desired. The kind of man any girl would be a fool to take seriously.

Beth clearly knew that. ‘There were just too many distractions, I guess,’ she said, laughing. ‘Let’s see. There was Janine Grey... Georgia Thompson... Caroline Clifford—’ she ticked off the names on her fingers ‘—and rumour had it that Diana Morgan...’

‘Enough, Beth! Enough!’ ‘Nick, darling’ held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘I’ve never denied it. I just have this incurable weakness for tall blondes.’

‘Tall, beautiful, willowy blondes,’ Beth said, somewhat pointedly, as he hugged her own full curves. ‘It’s a weakness that will get you into big trouble one of these days.’

‘Is that a promise?’

‘You are appalling, Nick. When are you going to grow up?’

His grin was an admission that Beth was right. But he wasn’t contrite, far from it. ‘Never, I hope. How’s Harry?’

‘Harry, bless him, is content with a tubby redhead. Long may it continue.’

‘Not tubby, Beth. Deliciously curvaceous,’ Nick murmured.

Beth snorted. Cassandra felt like snorting too. You could have too much honey. ‘You’ll never change. But mark my words, some woman will steal that playboy heart of yours one of these days. Just when you’re least expecting it.’

‘Common gossip has it that I don’t have a heart to steal, Beth.’

‘I know, but who listens to common gossip?’ She linked her arm through his and gave it a squeeze. ‘Is this a social call, darling, or are you buying?’

‘I’m looking for a present for Helen; it’s her birthday next week. I saw you had a celebrity book signing...’

Nick Jefferson glanced across at the table piled high with books and found himself being soaked up by a pair of butterscotch eyes, eyes that were regarding him with the kind of look more usually bestowed upon a naughty puppy. Exasperated and trying very hard to be firm. But not quite making it.

Any sensible puppy worth a chocolate button would simply have rolled over and offered his tummy to be tickled. Nick wasn’t a puppy so he contented himself with crossing the shop for a closer look.

He’d been on his way into the office when he’d noticed the poster announcing that Cassandra Cornwell, celebrated television cook, would be signing copies of her new book that day between eleven and twelve o’clock. He’d sent his secretary down at eleven, but she’d come back saying the place was mobbed and she’d go back later. But later she’d been rushing to get out some figures for him.

He could have called Beth and asked her to have a signed copy put by for him, but it occurred to him that if she was that busy it wouldn’t be kind to drag her away to take a phone call when he was just a few floors above her. So he’d come himself. He was rather glad he had.

If he’d thought about Cassandra Cornwell he might have expected some middle-aged matron with red cheeks, greying hair and a slightly bossy manner. But she was none of those things. She had clear translucent skin, thick, glossy brows, eyes that smiled even when they were trying not to and dark, lustrous hair that was escaping her attempts to pin it tidily away from her face.

And she had the sweetest mouth. Like her eyes, it seemed to smile all by itself and he had this disconcerting urge to kiss it, certain that it would taste exactly like the strawberries he’d stolen from his mother’s kitchen garden as a boy.

‘...and you know how she loves to cook,’ he finished, slowly.

‘I’m not sure that I’d want a cookery book for my birthday,’ Beth was saying as she followed him across the store. ‘But heck, I’m not above parting a customer from his money, especially one as well endowed with the stuff as you. Cassie, do you know Nick Jefferson?’ Behind his back she silently pointed upwards at the office block rising above them, indicating that he was that Jefferson.

Cassie tried to keep a straight face as Beth continued her pantomime, pointing at her wedding ring and shaking her head and then doing a melodramatic death scene which Cassie took to mean that he was the kind of man a girl would die for.

Apparently sensing something was going on behind his back, Nick began to turn but Cassie swiftly stuck out her hand and said, ‘No, we haven’t met.’

‘Why?’ he said, enfolding her hand—there was no other word that described the way he took hold of it, Cassie decided. He enfolded it, very tenderly in his own. His long, cool fingers seemed to reach up to her wrist, their tips resting lightly against a pulse that was fluttering in a quite ridiculous way. ‘If you live in Melchester...’

She blinked at the casual ease with which he flirted. ‘It’s a big place, Mr Jefferson.’ And she avoided the social circuit.

‘Nick,’ he urged.

‘Nick, this is Cassandra Cornwell, a woman whose pastry could break your heart. She catered for my wedding, met a television researcher my brother was dating at the time and the rest is history.’

He glanced back at Beth, now fully recovered from her dramatic rendition of Nick Jefferson’s bachelor status and leaning against the cash desk. ‘History?’

‘Television history. Cassie has the biggest television ratings for a cookery programme in the history of broadcasting. Women watch her programmes to learn how to cook the way their mothers used to. Men watch her television programmes and drool.’ She gave Nick a thoughtful look. ‘It may be her sticky toffee pudding that attracts them, but somehow I don’t think so.’

‘No, I don’t think so either.’

‘She’s just come back to Melchester to live.’

‘Lucky Melchester.’ Despite the fact that she was at least six inches short of his gold standard and, like Beth, her figure leaned towards cuddly rather than super-model slender, Cassandra Cornwell, he decided, was exactly the kind of woman a man might fantasise about finding in his kitchen at the end of a hard day at the office. Warm, comforting, homely. Someone to massage your neck and put a drink in your hand to keep you happy until she served a meal fit for the gods. In short, the kind of girl a man would marry just to keep her all to himself. Not his type at all, in fact. Except for those lips.

Cassie, very much afraid that she had been doing a little drooling on her own account, swallowed and smiled politely. ‘Hello, Nick.’

It was her cue for him to release her hand. He ignored it. Beneath her neat white shirt Cassie was uncomfortably aware that her skin was beginning to tingle dangerously and she threw a silent plea for rescue in Beth’s direction, but her friend had been buttonholed by a customer and was disappearing towards the rear of the shop. And Nick Jefferson was showing no inclination to surrender her hand as her cheeks and quite a lot else began to heat up.

Maybe that was why he reached out and with just the tip of his finger touched the corner of her mouth. Maybe why, when she was still too startled, shaken, entranced to move away from this unexpected gesture, this most gentle of touches, he leaned forward and kissed her.

It was quite shocking. She should have been shocked. He was a total stranger... well, not total exactly, they had been introduced...and they were in the middle of a classy bookshop in the atrium of a very classy high-rise building. She should have stopped him; she knew it. The trouble was, it just wasn’t the kind of kiss that a girl wanted to stop. Ever.

He didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to bring it to an end, either. His lips moved over hers lightly, inquisitively, as if he was seeking out something rare and precious. And when finally he did stop she heard herself give a little, regretful sigh.

That was when she realised with horror that she was the one actively seeking to prolong the kiss, her face lifted invitingly, her lips slightly parted. She snapped her eyes open to see Nick Jefferson regarding her with the dark, knowing eyes of a man used to making instant conquests.

‘I was right,’ he said, before she could ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. Actually, he sounded surprised, which threw her a little.

‘Right... ?’ Cassie began, distracted from her legitimate indignation. Then, realising that she was still looking up at him in a way that almost begged him to kiss her again, she made a determined effort to pull herself together. ‘Right about what?’ she demanded, straightening and attempting to retrieve her hand, but he was having none of that.

Aware that several people had stopped browsing amongst the shelves and turned to stare at them, she allowed her fingers to remain in his. Rather than provoke an unseemly struggle. At least that was what she told herself she was doing. But somewhere, at the back of her mind, there was the faint sound of hollow laughter.

‘I was right about your mouth,’ he said. ‘It tastes of strawberries.’

Strawberries! Cassie was very much afraid that the blush had finally materialised beneath the twin assaults of his touch and the intensity of his gaze. And she was furious with herself. The man was an incorrigible flirt; he probably couldn’t help himself but that was no reason to encourage him.

‘Really?’ she enquired, her voice considerably cooler than her body, which was pounding from the jolt of sexual awareness provoked by his touch. She had forgotten that sudden, unexpected collision of desire when a stranger reached for your hand. Or maybe she’d just been avoiding it for such a long time that she had fooled herself into believing that it would never happen again...

Whichever it was, she told herself firmly, she was too old to be taken in by such an obvious pass. He was just doing it to impress Beth. Except that Beth was nowhere to be seen. Whatever. He was impressing the hell out of her and that would never do. ‘Strawberries?’ she repeated, thoughtfully. ‘What variety of strawberries?’

If she had hoped to crush him with this put-down, she was doomed to disappointment. His eyes crinkled into a slow, wide and infinitely seductive smile. ‘The small sweet ones that are bright red all the way through,’ he murmured. ‘The kind that when you squash one between your fingers it dribbles dark red juice into your mouth.’

‘Oh.’ The image evoked was so sensuous, so real that Cassie sincerely wished she hadn’t asked. But at least he had surrendered her hand, finally.

Her reprieve was short-lived, however, since he used the hand to hitch an inch or two of expensive lightweight suiting over his knee and prop himself on the edge of the table at which she was sitting. Then he leaned across her to pick up one of her glossy new cookery books.

She steeled herself against the warm man-scent of freshly laundered linen, soap and an elusive trace of the kind of cologne they didn’t sell in the local supermarket. Nick Jefferson, on the other hand, began idly flipping through the pages as if nothing had happened. Seriously tempted to take it from him and hit him with it, she restrained herself. It would undoubtedly be wisest to follow his example and pretend that nothing had.

Easier said than done. Her lips were singing from his delicate touch and she found herself wondering what it would be like to have Nick Jefferson hold her face between those long, sensitive fingers and kiss her seriously. Then she wondered if she was going quite mad.

‘I’m sure Helen will love this,’ he said, making her jump.

‘Helen?’

‘My sister,’ he told her.

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Again that knowing smile as if he had sensed the ridiculous flash of jealousy at the mention of another woman’s name. Lord, but the man was arrogant. And she was an idiot.

‘Well, far be it from me to discourage you from buying a copy of my book, but I’m rather inclined to agree with Beth. It’s hardly the kind of present a girl expects for her birthday.’

‘Well, this is just a little extra. Helen loves to cook—she collects new cookery books the way some women collect jewels. She’s a great fan of yours—which is why I came in when I saw the poster. Now I’ve met you, I can understand why.’

Cassie ignored the smooth compliment. She strongly doubted that he had ever heard of her and she was positive that he was not the kind of man to waste time discussing cookery with his sister.

‘I think I’d rather buy my own cookery books and have someone give me jewels for my birthday,’ she said feelingly.

‘Don’t worry, Cassandra, I’ll find her some exciting surprise to go with it. I’m not that cheap.’

No. She’d never thought he would be cheap. On the contrary, she was certain that he was a man who would be overwhelmingly generous with the little treasures that money could buy. But something warned her that he would be as mean as Scrooge with anything as important as emotional commitment.

‘Would you like me to sign it for her?’ she asked, holding out her hand to take the book, but he was apparently in no great hurry, turning the book towards her so that she could see the picture he had been looking at.

‘Sussex Pond Pudding?’ he queried, eyebrows raised just a fraction. ‘Is that for real?’

Cassie was not convinced by his apparent interest in recipes, certain that he had further dalliance on his mind. But she was determined not to be drawn into further flirtation with a man who obviously thought he was irresistible—who quite probably was irresistible to anyone looking for a meaningless flirtation. But that was not her. However, she had to clear her throat before she could attain sufficient briskness to answer him.

‘Have you never tried it? It’s a traditional English pudding,’ she explained, as if lecturing a class of fourteen-year-olds at the local comprehensive. ‘The pond is a lemon and butter sauce that forms a moat around the pudding when it’s turned out of its basin. It’s loaded with calories, of course—but it is quite delicious. Maybe,’ she added, ‘if the surprise is exciting enough, your sister will make it for you.’

‘Maybe she will,’ he acknowledged, continuing to flip through the book. ‘And what about fluffs and fools and flummeries?’ he enquired, stopping at a page near the end of the book. ‘Are they stuffed with calories too?’

She shrugged. ‘They’re certainly stuffed with cream.’

He closed the book with a little snap and turned it over. ‘Maybe you should print a health warning on the cover.’ He raised the book slightly as once more his smile deepened the creases around his mouth, sending tiny crinkled fans out from the corners of his eyes.

‘They’re also full of good fresh fruit. Have you never heard the expression that a little of what you fancy does you good, Nick?’

‘Certainly. It’s a philosophy I subscribe to most heartily. But not necessarily in regard to food. Besides, I thought it was all low-fat, no-added-sugar that did you good these days?’

Cassie discounted the smile. There was no denying that the man was gorgeous, but he was just a little too aware of the fact. Besides, she wasn’t a tall, willowy blonde so he was presumably just using her to practise on until something more to his taste came along.

‘Frankly, I’d rather go without. And no one is suggesting you eat them every day. You can have too much of a good thing, particularly flummery,’ she said pointedly.

‘Is that a particularly rich dish?’ he asked, a touch dangerously.

Coming from him it was; the glint of mischief in his eyes betrayed him. She was quite certain he was aware that the word had another meaning, one that he would be far more familiar with...nonsense, humbug, empty trifling.

Beth, who had dealt with her customer, returned in time to witness the sudden flush of bright pink spots that had appeared on Cassie’s cheeks. ‘If you think flummery is rich, my friend, you should try Cassie’s toad-in-the-hole,’ she interjected hurriedly.

‘Should I?’ Nick asked, continuing to look straight down into Cassie’s eyes. ‘If I catch the toad will you cook it for me?

‘Buy yourself a copy of the book, Nick,’ Beth advised him. ‘It will be an investment. One day you’ll run out of women to charm and then you’ll have to learn to cook for yourself.’

‘I’ve never charmed a woman for her talents in the kitchen, Beth,’ he said, without taking his gaze from Cassie. ‘This town is full of good restaurants.’ He hadn’t missed the hectic colour that had seared her cheekbones, confirming that despite her very cool manner he was making some kind of impression on Miss Cassandra Cornwell. Quite what kind of impression he wasn’t sure, which was unusual enough m itself to interest him. ‘But I’ll buy one if Cassie will inscribe it for me.’

‘Of course she will,’ Beth said, suddenly businesslike. ‘What would you like her to write?’

‘Oh, I’ll leave that to Cassie. I’m sure she’ll think of something appropriate,’ he said, offering her the book.

‘How about, “To Nick Jefferson, the most accomplished—?” ’

‘The most accomplished cook in town,’ Nick completed, cutting Beth off before she could say something completely outrageous.

‘But you can’t cook,’ Cassie reminded him, with excessive politeness. Nick had a feeling that she would have preferred to throw one of her cookery books at him. A whole pile of books, perhaps. He rather thought he would like to see her try.

‘Won’t your book teach me how to turn out perfect meals in minutes?’ he asked, provoking her some more. ‘That is the dream you’re peddling’

‘On the contrary. Anyone can heat up some fancy cook-chill meal from the supermarket these days.’ She laid her hand on the pile of books beside her. ‘I write about the kind of old-fashioned cooking that takes time and love to produce. My readers cook for pleasure, Nick, and so do I, not for the instant gratification of fast food.’

‘I can see why your television show is so popular, Cassandra. Nostalgia is really big right now.’

‘Don’t you sometimes long for a taste of rice pudding the way your mother made it? With butter and sultanas and freshly grated nutmeg?’

‘No, I always preferred fresh picked strawberries. And if the strawberries were stolen...’

He wasn’t talking about puddings any more. ‘That’s nostalgia too,’ Cassie interrupted, just a touch crossly. ‘And what about the dreams you’re selling?’ She indicated the floors above her, the glass tower of Jefferson Sports headquarters, glistening in the summer sunshine, dominating the town. ‘Buy this great new tennis racquet, or these expensive golf clubs, and you too can be the world champion? Where’s the reality in that?’

Beth choked. Neither of them noticed.

‘Not world champion.’ He lifted one corner of his mouth in the kind of smile that would have had most women gasping for more. ‘Club champion, maybe. But Jefferson Sports sells more than one kind of dream. We sell the great outdoors, too. Camping gear, fishing rods, hiking and sports equipment, in fact the complete antidote to over-indulgence in your kind of cooking.’

‘You’ll be needing a tent, won’t you, Cassie?’ Beth put in swiftly, before things got totally out of hand. ‘If you ask him nicely, I’m sure Nick will show you his entire range.’ She paused, a wicked little twinkle appearing in her eyes. ‘You never know, he might even offer to pitch it for you.’

‘Are you going camping’ he asked Cassie.

‘You bet she is,’ Beth said, answering for her. ‘In fact she’s going with three perfectly adorable young men.’

‘Boys,’ Cassie muttered, refusing to allow Beth to make something out of this stupid flirtation. ‘And I already have a tent.’

‘Three boys?’ He glanced at her ringless hand, not that it meant anything these days... ‘Yours?’ he asked.

‘My nephews. They want a taste of the big outdoors and since my sister and her husband are going away for a week I volunteered to take them.’

‘Just you and three boys? Beth could be right. You’ll need someone who knows what he’s doing to put up the tent.’

‘Will I? Is it that difficult?’

‘A nightmare if you don’t know what you’re doing.’

‘Do you warn your customers about that when you’re selling them one of your dream tents?’

‘We do advise them to have a practice run at home in the garden before they go trekking up the Amazon. Have you done that, Miss Cornwell?’

‘Trekked up the Amazon?’

‘Had a practice run—in the garden?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You should. This weather isn’t going to hold for ever. It might be pouring with rain, or blowing a force ten gale when you get to wherever you’re going.’

‘Are you volunteering to show me how it’s done, Mr Jefferson?’ She didn’t think so. He was doing it on automatic, Cassie decided. It wasn’t anything personal; he wasn’t in the least bit interested in her, he just couldn’t help himself.

‘Maybe. Why don’t we discuss it over lunch?’

Lunch? The man really was too much. Did he think she would swoon into his arms with gratitude?

‘Won’t you be too busy pursuing leggy blondes to worry about me and three small boys?’ she enquired, keeping the edge from her voice with difficulty as, determined to put an end to this nonsense, she turned to the flyleaf of the book.

‘Who said I pursued anyone?’

The implication being that they pursued him? Good grief. ‘Your sister’s name is Helen, I think you said?’ She refused to take any further part in this conversation.

‘That’s right.’ She signed the book, handed it to Beth to wrap and waited for him to go. He didn’t. ‘Don’t forget my book, Cassandra,’ he reminded her.

She’d assumed his offer to buy a book had been simply part of the game—in fact she’d been sure it was. But if he had more money than sense she wasn’t about to argue. She took a second book from the pile, opened it and for a moment considered the bare white space of the flyleaf.

Then she wrote, ‘For Nick Jefferson—a man to be taken with just a pinch of salt.’ Then she signed it and handed it to him.