Engaged To Jarrod Stone. Carole Mortimer

find women good for one thing,’ he scoffed lightly. ‘And I don’t mean housework,’ he added with a laugh.

      Brooke had stepped back with a gasp. What a cheek! What a nerve! The meaning behind his words had been obvious and she had waited open-mouthed for his companion’s answer. She knew she should really knock on the door, make them aware of her presence before they said anything else, but she was held mesmerised by the arrogance of the words she had just overheard.

      ‘Come on now, Jarrod,’ the other man replied, this voice sounding younger. He had called the first speaker Jarrod, confirming her belief that Jarrod Stone had made that insulting remark about the female sex. ‘You like women as much as I do,’ he continued.

      ‘I enjoy them,’ Jarrod Stone had corrected. ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever actually liked them. But I’ve desired them, yes. But I find them preferable as bed-companions than as anything else.’

      ‘If one of them could hear the way you’re talking …’

      But one can, Brooke wanted to shout. She had never felt so disgusted and degraded. How a man as successful and good-looking as Jarrod Stone could judge all women by the type he had obviously been associating with for years was beyond her. To her he appeared the handsomest man she had ever seen, and to think he had that low opinion of women just didn’t seem fair. His looks and charm had obviously done him no good whatsoever, making him cynical about women.

      ‘Why should they care?’ he replied carelessly. ‘They’re usually well compensated for their—charms, for want of a better word,’ he added with a sneer, ‘with jewellery and clothing. No woman will ever trap me into marriage while there are women like that about, but they can never accuse me of being mean.’

      ‘I’m sure,’ laughed the other man.

      Brooke had decided she had just about heard enough of this distasteful conversation, knocking firmly on the door and entering when bade to do so.

      ‘Yes?’ Jarrod Stone raised one dark eyebrow, his eyes broodingly grey in his deeply tanned face.

      Brooke stopped in her tracks, the anger that had been the momentum behind her being able to walk into the room slowly fading. Her breath caught in her throat at the lazy smile he directed at her, leaving her momentarily speechless. When she finally did manage to speak it was in a voice that sounded strange, even to her own ears. ‘I—er—I—I’ve brought up the model for the advertising photographs. She’s waiting outside.’

      ‘Thank you.’ He smiled at her again, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Would you like to show her in? My secretary’s at lunch, I’m afraid.’

      ‘Certainly,’ she answered breathlessly.

      He looked every inch the arrogant businessman sitting behind his imposing desk, and Brooke turned in confusion to leave the room. She hesitated outside the door as she heard him give a throaty chuckle.

      ‘You see what I mean,’ he said with amusement.

      ‘What?’ The other man was obviously puzzled, a younger man that Brooke had recognised as being Philip Baylis, a business associate of the owner of Stone Computers.

      ‘A smile and a few softly spoken words and any woman will do exactly what you ask them to, even that little mouse. She knows very well it isn’t her job to bring people up to the offices, and yet she did it anyway.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘So that’s a perfect example of what we were just discussing. No, Philip, while there are still girls like her about no woman will ever catch me in the matrimonial trap. I don’t see that it’s necessary when what you really want can be obtained without feeling as if you’re in a cage.’

      Little mouse indeed! She still felt angered at his condescension. His looks might be fantastic, but his nature wasn’t so impressive, at least, not the part she had seen. But even if his words had angered her she shouldn’t have played this stupid trick on him. It had been the confident way he had escorted the model out to lunch that had fired her anger anew, and given her the crazy idea of announcing her own engagement to him.

      And now she had to face him. She hoped she looked more self-confident than she felt. He was likely to rip her to shreds with his tongue when he had her in his office, and it was no more than she deserved.

      Today the outer office wasn’t deserted. Catherine Farraday, Jarrod Stone’s personal secretary, and her young assistant both busily working as Brooke entered the room.

      Catherine gave her a cool look. ‘Yes?’

      ‘Mr Stone is expecting me. My name is Brooke Faulkner.’

      Catherine gave her a disbelieving look but buzzed through to the inner office anyway. ‘A Miss Faulkner to see you, Mr Stone.’

      ‘Send her straight in,’ he snapped, letting Brooke know that his temper hadn’t cooled at all since his telephone call down to her.

      The cool beautiful girl stood up with a slight raising of her delicately shaped eyebrows, as if she were mentally trying to work out the reason for her boss to be seeing a mere receptionist.

      ‘I know the way,’ Brooke told her hurriedly, unwilling to let this girl witness her humiliation if Jarrod Stone should be unable to contain his anger and lash out at her with his icy tongue as soon as she entered his office.

      ‘Very well.’ Catherine subsided back into her chair, resuming her work with a coolly detached air.

      Brooke moved through into the small reception room, hesitant about actually confronting Jarrod Stone. But if she didn’t go in there soon he would come out here looking for her, and she had no intention of letting him find her cowering nervously outside his office.

      He bade her curtly to enter as she knocked on the door, which she reluctantly did. This time there was no charming smile for her, only a furious look on his face and an angry glitter to his eyes.

      He stood up, coming round his desk to walk slowly around her as she stood in front of his desk. He came back to rest on the front of his desk, his arms folded in front of his powerful chest.

      Even in her embarrassment Brooke could appreciate how attractive he looked, the navy blue pin-striped suit he wore fitting him as if it were tailored on him, his linen immaculate.

      ‘So you’re Brooke Faulkner,’ he said softly.

      ‘Yes.’ Did he have to be so taunting? She was perfectly well aware that her navy pinafore dress and light blue fitted blouse in no way matched up to the expensive clothing some of the women he escorted out of the building wore. But did he have to look at her quite like that?

      ‘The girl I’m engaged to,’ he continued even more softly.

      She moved with a start. ‘I—I can explain that.’

      He gave a smile, but it owed nothing to humour. ‘Can you now?’ he mused. ‘You can explain how I come to be engaged to be married to a complete stranger, can you?’ His light eyes snapped angrily. ‘It had better be a damned good explanation!’

      Brooke moved uncomfortably. ‘I wouldn’t say that, but it is an explanation. The only trouble is I don’t think you’re going to like it.’

      He made an impatient movement to sit behind his desk. ‘I don’t like being engaged to a girl I’ve never met before either!’

      Brooke gasped. ‘Oh, that isn’t true. I work here, I’ve seen you hundreds of times.’

      ‘Seeing isn’t the same as meeting. I’ve seen hundreds of people many times over, but that doesn’t mean I know them.’

      ‘But we have actually met,’ she corrected him. ‘I brought a model up to your office a couple of weeks ago.’

      Jarrod Stone studied her for a moment. ‘So you did.’

      ‘And that’s why I told the newspapers what I did.’

      ‘Because