Wife in Public by Emma Darcy Page A

strong instinct to support and protect his woman.
    His…
    Strange…he couldn’t remember feeling actually possessive of a woman before. Probably it was the long waiting that had made him uncertain of having Ivy again. And that was yet to happen. Olivia had better behave herself, he thought grimly. If she gave Ivy any cause to skip out on him…
    ‘There you are!’
    The words were flung at him the moment he and Ivy entered the foyer—Olivia emerging from the lounge, a highball glass in hand, obviously in a state of intoxication, her usual perfect grooming having taken a slide today: eye make-up smudged, her shoulder-length hair dishevelled, silk blouse crumpled, linen trousers badly creased.
    She had the same blue eyes and black hair he did.Tall and voluptuously curved, she could and usually did make a striking impact on people, but she was not about to make a good impression on Ivy at this meeting. He closed the front door behind him, eyeing his sister with stern displeasure. Getting drunk didn’t fix anything, and driving a car while over the alcohol limit was downright irresponsible, let alone illegal. Not acknowledging Ivy’s presence and addressing him as though he’d put her out by his absence was more than he could tolerate.
    ‘Why are you here, Olivia?’ he threw back at her.
    She ignored the question, eyeing Ivy up and down with a supercilious look on her face. ‘Who is this? Taking up with Cinderellas now, are you, Jordan? Been through the whole socialite pack?’
    ‘Keep a civil tongue or go,’ he said cuttingly. ‘I don’t have any patience for your rudeness today.’
    ‘Sorry. I just haven’t seen her before,’ she rolled out with a shrug. ‘Will I recognise the name?’
    ‘Ivy. Ivy Thornton. Unfortunately, I have no pleasure at all in introducing you, Olivia.’
    ‘Tough!’ She sneered. ‘I’m family and you can’t get rid of family. The good old tie of blood is always there. Whereas Ivy…no doubt she will turn into Poison Ivy in due course. They invariably do, don’t they?’
    She was right, but due course hadn’t been run yet, and he wasn’t about to let Olivia spark off another bout of resistance from Ivy when he’d just brought her to the starting line. ‘You’ve been warned!’ he threw at his sister, stepping back to open front door. ‘I’ll call Ray to drive you home.’
    ‘Oh, for pity’s sake! Why take offence when you carry on about being honest and calling a spade a spade?’ She flicked another look down her nose at Ivy. ‘I have to concede you have the good sense not to marry any ofthem. I, on the other hand…’ The jeering spite suddenly crumpled into tears and the eyes she turned back to Jordan were wretched pools of despair. ‘…was fool enough to hitch myself to a sleazy, cheating scumbag who plans on blackmailing me for all I’m worth.’
    ‘Blackmail?’ This was serious business. Jordan frowned over it as he quietly closed the door again. ‘What does your husband have to blackmail you with, Olivia?’ Her third husband, who fell in the toy-boy range—twenty-three years old to her thirty-four—sweet, loveable Ashton whose gym-toned body promised sex on legs and had obviously delivered it beyond the marriage bed, which had always been predictable. But what had Olivia done to put herself in a blackmailing situation?
    She shook her head, choking out words between sobs and shuddering intakes of breath. ‘You’ve got to help me, Jordan. You’ve got to. Daddy would have fixed it.’
    Jordan gritted his teeth. His father had always freed his darling daughter from the consequences of her follies, which, of course, meant Olivia had never learnt any hard lessons from experience. His own upbringing had been designed to teach him the strong hand required to run a business empire, to anticipate the consequences of any decision and make careful provision for them before acting.
    Although well aware of why Olivia was the way she was, he was sorely tempted to