Marriage Bargain With His Innocent (HQR Presents)

by Cathy Williams

  She dragged her eyes away and said abruptly, ‘You don’t have to do this. Rose would be none the wiser if you go to the next town and work to your heart’s content and then return at a respectable hour for us to join her.’

  ‘Strangely, I’m uncomfortable with such large-scale lying. Your one whopper is bad enough without adding to the tally by telling a few more lies. Now, let me in. I’d really like to see some of your work.’

  He straightened, and after a few seconds’ hesitation Georgina stood back.

  He brushed past her into the hall. ‘I haven’t been here in a long time...’

  He looked around him at a house that was homely and large but in need of some TLC. He could count the number of times he had stepped foot in this house on the fingers of one hand. For some reason gatherings had always been held by his parents. Or maybe he just hadn’t been around for the ones that had taken place here.

  ‘Why?’ he asked with genuine curiosity.

  Why do you continue to live here...? Why not spread your wings...? You’re young and sexy...

  The house was typically the residence of middle-aged people who had no real interest in décor. The wallpaper harked back to an era of flowers and birds and was faded. The wood was shiny, the rugs attractive but threadbare. Everything looked tired and old-fashioned. David and Alison White, from memory, both had the academic’s typical disregard for their surroundings, and for the first time he could understand why their creative daughter had been so enchanted by his parents’ flamboyance.

  ‘Why what?’

  Matias shrugged, letting it go. ‘Where do you work?’

  Georgina hesitated, then led him to the conservatory at the back, which she had converted into a studio. Her portfolio of work was neatly stacked on shelves and in a metal filing cabinet, and some of her photos hung on the wall. Her camera equipment was extensive.

  Matias was seriously impressed. He peered at the photos on display, standing back and then examining them in detail while she described the ins and outs of food photography and what it entailed with some embarrassment.

  Eventually her voice tapered off and she hovered, arms folded, by the door. ‘You honestly don’t have to say that you like them,’ she blurted out.

  ‘They’re...amazing.’

  He looked at her in silence for a few long seconds and she could feel her face getting hotter and hotter and redder and redder.

  ‘Who are your clients?’

  ‘Some chefs...obviously...’ She spun round and began heading out of the conservatory. Having him look at her work had made her feel exposed and vulnerable for some reason, and the sooner they headed off the better. ‘Usually up-and-coming ones, because I’m relatively cheap. Also I’ve made a name for myself in the restaurant trade around here. That’s my bread and butter, really. There are always new dishes they want photographed. And I’ve had a couple of commissions from publishing houses for recipe books...’

  She blathered on witlessly and followed him out to his car. His driver had clearly vanished back to London.

  ‘So...’ Matias switched on the engine and the powerful car roared into life, but he didn’t drive off, instead choosing to lean against the door to look at her. ‘A day doing what loved-up couples apparently do. My mother was up at the crack of dawn preparing a picnic for our trip to the seaside. Now, I may have lived here for years, but you’ll have to provide directions. I can’t tell you the last time I went to a beach down here.’

  ‘Not even with one of those blondes you’ve sometimes brought down?’ Georgina said, disobeying her own mantra about steering clear of anything remotely personal and reverting to the comfort zone of bickering ex-neighbours.

  She briefly gave him a series of directions, but her curiosity about him had been unleashed and she was finding it hard to stuff it back into its box.

  ‘I don’t do beach trips with women,’ Matias drawled, glancing at her sideways as he began driving away from the house. ‘And I certainly don’t do home-made picnics.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I like keeping it light.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re very curious, aren’t you?’ Matias murmured. ‘Do you find me as fascinating now as you did all those years ago?’

  Georgina went beetroot-red. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said woodenly.

  ‘No? I remember you used to follow me with your eyes...always curious about my life at boarding school...always taking pot-shots at the girls I sometimes brought home...’

  ‘Polite,’ Georgina corrected in a strangled voice. ‘I was polite when I asked you about school. You were the only person I knew at a boarding school! And I didn’t take pot-shots at those girls. I may have sniggered a bit because they were all so empty-headed, and gazed at you as though you were the next best thing to sliced bread, but it certainly wasn’t because I found you fascinating.’

  Matias shrugged, but a half-smile tugged the corners of his mouth.

  Mortified, Georgina could barely appreciate the splendour of the beach when they finally got there, and although she made all the right noises about the hamper his mother had prepared she was barely able to think straight.

  She’d been so careful all those years ago! She’d watched him from the side lines, safe in the certainty that her silly crush was something no one knew about—least of all him. She’d downplayed the jealousy she’d felt when, over the years, she had noted all the wafer-thin models who had hung like limpets on his arm, gazing up at him with adoring eyes. She’d told herself that she was far happier with her photography and a sense of direction in her life.

  To know that he had seen through all that made her squirm with shame and embarrassment. Made her realise how sharp his instincts were when it came to the opposite sex. Made her see just how dangerous this little game could become if she allowed her eyes to stray. If he noticed... If he jumped to conclusions...

  They’d hit the beach at peak time, but they managed to find themselves a relatively serene spot and he laid out the picnic with exaggerated ceremony. He’d shrugged off her random remark of earlier, and barely glanced at her now as they settled on the large rug his mother had packed along with the food.

  ‘Hot,’ Matias said, sprawling on the ground with his hands behind his head, staring up at a cloudless blue sky from behind his designer sunglasses. ‘If I’d known it was going to be this hot I would have suggested we come equipped with our swimming gear—although swimming gear in these waters is strictly called a wetsuit. Unless you happen to be extremely hardy? Are you?’

  ‘I’ve been swimming a few times,’ Georgina said politely, gazing off into the distance but very much aware of his loose-limbed elegant body on the rug next to her. She was sitting up, as rigid as a plank of wood. He was sprawled on his back, his body language unspeakably relaxed and sexy.

  ‘Very impressive.’

  ‘You don’t have to put on a show when it’s just the two of us, Matias. I know the last thing you’ve ever been when it comes to me is impressed.’

  ‘You need to lose your insecurities. Earlier I asked you a question.’

  ‘What question?’

  Since when was Matias Silva equipped to talk to her about insecurities? Who did he think he was?

  He was looking at her. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her and it made her squirm.

  ‘Why are you still working here? Living here? In your parents’ house? I would have thought that after you were let down by that loser this would be the last place you would want to stay.’

  Georgina turned to look at him for a few seconds, then looked away. The questions felt invasive, and way too personal. She’d barely talked to anyone in any depth about the break-up all those years ago. She’d just got on with her life and side-stepped the pity and the sympathy.

  ‘There’s a big, bad world out there,’ he mused, ign
oring every No Entry sign she was erecting and barging through. ‘Maybe you’ve stayed here because, for all your talk about still being a fan of happy-ever-after fairy tales, it’s safer for you to avoid putting it to the test and you can do that by burying yourself in your parents’ house and daydreaming about a world of possibilities you have no intention of exploring.’

  ‘This suits me at the moment.’ She was holding on to her temper with difficulty, but she wanted to throw something hard and heavy at his beautiful head. ‘I can save while I’m here. And, trust me, Matias, if something came up and made me think about leaving then I would.’

  ‘Something like what?’

  ‘I’m finished with this conversation!’

  She sprang up and began walking fast in the direction of the car, not looking back to see whether he was following or not. He was making her confront deep-seated insecurities about the direction of her life and she loathed him for it.

  Yes, of course she knew that there were more adventurous roads she could go down! But he didn’t understand and he never would. He had blown off this village when he was a teenager and he had never looked back. He had left as one person and morphed into a completely different one. He had pursued wealth and power and now he thought the way wealthy, powerful people thought. In black and white.

  She glanced behind her to see him sweeping up the picnic, hardly touched, and carelessly flinging everything inside the basket which had been provided.

  ‘What I think...what I choose to do with my life...is none of your business!’ She turned to him with furious eyes as soon as they were in the car and the engine was switched on.

  ‘You’re right.’ Matias looked at her levelly—a long, unflinching look that she had difficulty returning. ‘But do you want to know something?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you anyway—considering you’ve made it your life’s work to tell me what you think of me and my life choices. You’re a coward. You talk the talk, but you don’t walk the walk. You’re in your parents’ house because you’re afraid of all the crap that happens out there in the big, bad world. You might have in your head some nonsense about the perfect man, but you won’t be looking too hard for him because you don’t want to get hurt again.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  Her huge green eyes held a mixture of hurt and defiance and Matias knew that he had put that look there. But she’d never been backward at coming forward, and if she couldn’t stand the heat, then she had to get out of the kitchen.

  ‘Did he hurt you that much, Georgie?’

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  He smoothed his finger over her cheek and this time he let it linger there. And she couldn’t push him away because she was mesmerised by his touch and by the nearness of him.

  She leaned towards him, the palms of her hands flat on the smooth leather of the passenger seat. ‘What do you think?’ she muttered gruffly.

  He cupped the side of her face with his hand. ‘I think you were probably a lot less hurt than you should have been if you actually loved the guy, but you never loved him.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘He was never the one for you,’ Matias said gently. ‘Which I said to you at the time. But your parents approved of him and that was enough for you to get sucked into something that never had legs in the first place.’

  ‘You think you know it all!’

  ‘I know enough.’

  ‘You’ve never had a long-standing, successful relationship!’

  ‘Never wanted one.’

  ‘Because...?’ Georgina looked at him with mutinous, challenging green eyes.

  ‘Because I prefer to direct my energies into the more tangible business of making money.’

  ‘Why the fixation with money?’ Georgina dared to ask, even though his shuttered expression was directing her away from any more personal questions. ‘It’s not as though that was the sort of thing that ever mattered to your parents.’

  He had eased out of the parking slot and they were steadily making their way back to his mother’s house. She’d barely noticed because she’d been so wrapped up in him.

  How could he be so full of contradictions? How could he be so charming, so lazily persuasive, so charismatic...and yet so coolly remote and untouchable?

  ‘But that’s just it,’ Matias said, sliding icy grey eyes across at her. ‘A bit of farming...a bit of hocus-pocus herbalism...a spot of magic massage here and there... You can pull that off when you’re buried deep in a village somewhere, but the real world is slightly more judgemental about that kind of nonsense. I found that out myself when I went to boarding school.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ Matias gritted, his voice hard-edged and unforgiving, ‘when you’re thirteen and your parents are pulling up to collect you in a camper van and your mother is promising discounted Reiki sessions to the parents of boys you’ve only known for five minutes... Well, let’s just say that’s the stuff that learning curves are made from.’

  ‘I never knew...’ She only realised that the car had stopped when he killed the engine.

  ‘No need for the tea and sympathy, Georgie. I got exactly what I wanted out of that school. I learnt what needed to be done to get me where I needed to get. Money, darling, may be the root of all evil in your critical, judgemental eyes, but it’s also the greatest passport to freedom. Have enough of it and the world is yours for the taking.’

  He opened his door and she scrambled out too, protesting heatedly that the last thing she was, was judgemental and fighting off a tug of sympathy for that young boy stuck in a boarding school where he didn’t fit in.

  She was all hot and bothered, with eyes only for the man striding ahead of her towards the front door.

  ‘Not the right time,’ Matias cautioned, barely breaking stride.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘An angry, ranting girlfriend? What will my mother think?’

  He looked down at her. Her colourful hair was everywhere, her bright green eyes were flashing fire, her full mouth was half open. She was the very picture of passion. She was the most tempting creature he had ever seen and he was shocked at how powerful the urge to take her suddenly was.

  He drew his breath in sharply, hearing the sound of his mother’s footsteps. And then the door opened, and Matias lowered his head and did what he’d wanted to do all day.

  He kissed Georgie.

  No messing about with anything delicate or gentle or tentative. This was a real kiss, hot and hard and hungry, his tongue probing, meshing with hers.

  His erection was rock-hard, throbbing. Her softness was a powerful aphrodisiac and the swell of her generous breasts so close to his chest set up a series of graphic sexual images in his head.

  ‘You two should get a room!’

  His mother’s voice was amused and warm and it broke the spell. Matias pulled back, raked his fingers through his hair, and realised that he couldn’t remember when he had last lost control like that.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HOT RED COLOUR surged up into Georgina’s cheeks. She sprang back as though she’d been burnt. She couldn’t meet Rose’s eyes, nor could she risk looking at Matias, so she stared down at the ground instead, wishing it could swallow her up.

  ‘Well done,’ Matias murmured.

  He urged her into the house, following his mother, who was disappearing off to the sitting room and chatting animatedly and thinking... Heaven only knew what, Georgina worried. Certainly not that these were two people due to break up in under two weeks.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Still reeling, Georgina stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at him. Ahead, Rose was peppering them with questions about their day, heading for her favourite chair. Georgina cringed at the thought of ha
ving to reproduce excited tales of how their day had gone.

  ‘I think we’ve managed to convince my mother that everything’s on track between us. She couldn’t have looked happier when she saw me kiss you.’ He paused. ‘Award-winning performance, Georgie,’ he said roughly.

  He glanced away for a few seconds, during which time her mind went completely blank before it cranked back into gear and joined up the dots.

  What she’d seen as devastating had been a routine, necessary pretend show of affection for him. He hadn’t wanted his mother to open the door to a scowling girlfriend in the throes of a heated argument with her son so he had kissed her to shut her up.

  It had worked.

  The only problem was that she had returned the kiss as though it had been the real thing. She had thrown herself into it body and soul, never wanting it to end. That kiss had flung open a door to feelings she now shamefully realised were still very much alive and kicking.

  Humiliation stiffened her backbone and she clenched her jaw and took a few deep breaths before answering. ‘Thanks. Wouldn’t have done for your mother to have seen us bickering.’

  ‘When you returned that kiss I almost got the impression that it was more than just a response to keep this charade on the right track...’

  Georgina laughed. It sounded brittle to her ears but pride had kicked in. This wasn’t real life. This was make-believe. To him she was still the annoying girl next door, and just because she’d had a makeover it didn’t mean that she’d suddenly turned into Cinderella...it didn’t mean that Prince Charming was going to be falling head over heels in love with her.

  She met his eyes and wished that she could see what he was thinking. But his expression was shuttered. Was he desperately trying to contain his impatience? His apprehension that she’d been a little too enthusiastic? Was he terrified that he might have to start erecting No Trespass signs around himself to keep her at bay?