Common sense assailed Jazz and she bent down to rummage industriously in her carrier bag. ‘Not if you settle these loans,’ she muttered in as apologetic a tone as she could manage while still hating him for picking out her every flaw.
Vitale watched her settle a small heap of crumpled papers on his desk while striving to halter her temper, a battle he could read on her eloquent face. He supposed he could live with ‘freaking’ if he had to. For that matter he knew several socialites who swore like troopers and he wondered if he was setting his expectations rather too high, well aware that if he had a flaw, and he wasn’t willing to acknowledge that he did, it was a desire for perfection.
‘After elocution comes lessons in etiquette,’ he informed her doggedly, suppressing that rare instant of self-doubt. ‘You have to know how to address the other guests, many of whom will have titles.’
‘It sounds like a really fun-packed morning,’ Jazz pronounced acidly.
Amusement flashed through Vitale but he crushed it at source, reluctant to encourage her irreverence. Of course, he wasn’t used to any woman behaving around him the way Jazz did. Jazz had smoothly shifted straight back into treating him the same way she had treated him when they were teenagers and it was a disorientating experience, but not actively unpleasant, he registered in surprise. There was no awe or flattery, no ego-boosting jokes or flirtatious smiles or carefully choreographed speeches. In the strangest way he found her attitude, her very refusal to be impressed by his status, refreshing.
Later that same day, Jazz got a break at lunchtime. She heaved a sigh over the morning she had endured; lessons had never before made her feel so bored and fed up because all the subject matter was dry as dust. For the first time, however, she was becoming fully aware that Vitale occupied a very different world from her own and the prospect of having to face weeks of such coaching sessions made her wince. But if that was what rescuing her mother demanded from her, she would knuckle down and learn what she had to learn, she conceded reluctantly. A sheaf of supporting notes in front of her, she stroked coloured felt-tipped pens through salient points to highlight them, a practice she had used at university to make reading less of a challenge for her dyslexia. It would be easier for her to ask for spoken notes that she could listen to but she absolutely hated asking for special treatment that drew attention to her learning disability, particularly when it would only remind Vitale of yet another one of her flaws.
Her room, however, was beautiful, she allowed with a rueful smile that took in her silk-clad bed, the polished furniture and the door into the en-suite bathroom. She might as well have been staying in a top-flight exclusive hotel because her surroundings were impossibly luxurious and decidedly in the category of a major treat. The lunch, served in a fancy dining room, had been excellent as well, she was thinking as she sped downstairs for the afternoon session of coaching, wondering what was next on the agenda.
‘Jazz?’ a voice said in disbelief.
Jazz stopped dead mid-flight and stared down at the tall dark man staring up at her from the foyer, swiftly recognising him from his high public profile in the media. ‘Angel?’ she queried in shock.
‘What the hell are you doing in my brother’s house?’ Angel demanded bluntly, scanning her casual jeans-clad appearance with frowning attention.
Trying to think fast, Jazz descended the stairs, wondering what she was supposed to say to Vitale’s half-brother. Were the two men still as close as they had been as kids?
‘I think that’s a secret so I’d rather not go into detail,’ she parried awkwardly. ‘How are you?’
‘That’s OK, Jenkins,’ Angel addressed the older man still standing at the front door as if in readiness for the Greek billionaire’s departure. ‘You can serve coffee in the drawing room for Jazz and I.’
‘Where’s Vitale?’ Jazz enquired nervously.
‘Out but we must catch up,’ Angel said with innate assurance while the older man spread wide the door of what she assumed to be the drawing room.
‘Who’s Jenkins?’ she asked to forestall further questions when the door was closed again.
‘Vitale’s butler. This is a pretty old-fashioned household,’ Angel told her cheerfully. ‘Now tell me about the secret because I know my brother better than anyone and Vitale does not have secrets.’
‘I can’t... Don’t push me,’ Jazz protested in desperation. ‘My mother and I are in a bit of a pickle and Vitale is helping us out.’
‘Charitable Vitale?’ Angel inclined his head thoughtfully. ‘Sorry, that doesn’t wash.’
‘I contacted your father first,’ Jazz admitted, hoping that fact would distract him, because Angel was displaying all the characteristics of a terrier on the scent of a juicy bone.
‘Tell me about your mother,’ Angel invited smoothly.
Jazz gave him a brief résumé of their plight and confided that she had told her family that she was working for Vitale even though she strictly wasn’t. ‘But if it hadn’t been for the b-bet—’ she stumbled helplessly at letting that word escape ‘—Vitale wouldn’t have needed me in the first place.’
‘Bet,’ Angel repeated with a sudden flashing smile of triumph. ‘Zac, our kid brother, I surmise. And what is the bet? Vitale
tells me everything.’
And since she had already given away half the story she gave him the whole. Angel gave her a shattered appraisal before he dropped down beside her on the sofa and burst out laughing, so genuinely amused at the prospect of her being coached for a public appearance at a royal ball that she ended up laughing too. Angel had always been so much more down-to-earth than his brother.
That was the point when Vitale entered the room, seeing his brother and Jazz seated close and laughing in a scene of considerable intimacy. That unanticipated sight sent a current of deep-seated rage roaring through Vitale like a hurricane.
‘Jazz...you’re supposed to be with Jenkins right now, not entertaining my brother!’ he bit out rawly, dark golden eyes scorching hot with angry condemnation on her flushed face.
‘Jenkins?’ she queried, rising upright.
‘Table manners,’ he extended crushingly, sending a tide of red rushing across her stricken face and not feeling the slightest bit guilty about it.
Jazz fled, mortified that he would say that to her in front of Angel as if she were a half-bred savage, who didn’t know how to eat in polite company. Was she? Ridiculous tears prickled at the backs of her eyes and stung. Did Vitale remember her as having had dreadful table manners when she was younger? It was a deeply embarrassing suspicion.
‘Well, wasn’t that unroyal eruption educational?’ Angel quipped as he sprang upright and studied Vitale with a measuring scrutiny. ‘Yes, she’s turned out quite a looker, our childhood playmate.’
* * *
Jazz was only a little soothed to learn that Vitale’s butler had been co-opted into teaching her about the right cutlery to use, rather than her manners. Furthermore, for once, she was receiving a lesson she needed, she acknowledged grudgingly, when she was presented with a formal table setting in the dining room that contained a remarkably bewildering choice of knives, forks and spoons. When that was done, she returned to her room and was seated against the headboard, reading a book she had got in a charity shop, when the door opened with an abrupt lack of warning.