Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded (Bedded By Blackmail)

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Only because he funded it.’

  ‘He did not!’ she said. ‘He offered to but I wouldn’t take it from him.’ Especially after what my mother did to him, she tacked on mentally.

  Jasper gave a grunt as he examined the menu. ‘You were always good at winding him and Raymond around your little finger. No one else got a look-in once you came on the scene.’

  ‘And that annoyed you, didn’t it?’ she asked. ‘But it was your own fault. You seemed intent on annoying your father every chance you could.’

  He tossed the menu to one side. ‘You sucked up to him every chance you could, telling tales about me all the time, sticking your little snub nose into everyone else’s business.’

  Her jaw dropped. ‘Snub nose?’

  ‘Yeah, snub nose.’

  She put a hand up to her nose and traced its contours. ‘You really think it’s that bad?’ she asked.

  Jasper frowned at the crestfallen look on her face. He was being a bastard, but somehow he couldn’t help it when he was around her. She got under his skin. Made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. One minute he wanted to throttle her for her stupid little tattle tales that had made his life hell, the next he wanted to kiss her senseless.

  ‘Well, maybe not a snub exactly, but it does sort of tip up at the end a bit,’ he said.

  ‘And you think that’s unattractive?’ Her tone was suddenly full of insecurity. ‘God, no wonder Myles wouldn’t—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Hayley, your nose has nothing to do with it,’ he said. ‘He’s a two-timing idiot and you’re well rid of him. He slunk out of here twenty minutes ago, by the way, and didn’t once look back this way. It has nothing to do with how you look. You look fine. Great, in fact. You’ve got great legs.’

  Her expression brightened. ‘You think so?’

  He gave her a skewed smile. ‘Yeah, shame about the nose, but the legs more than make up for it.’

  She reached over and slapped his arm. ‘You’re a jerk,’ she said.

  ‘I know, but you love me anyway.’

  ‘I do not love you,’ she said with a flick of her dark mane of hair.

  ‘I know, but only you and I know that,’ he said. ‘The rest of the world has to believe otherwise.’

  ‘Does this mean you’re going to have to tone down your monumental sexual activity over the next month?’ she asked.

  ‘How do you know about my sex life?’

  She gave him a contemptuous look. ‘I read the gossip pages occasionally. You’re in every one, a different woman hanging off your arm every week. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘It’s exciting, that’s what it is,’ he said with a twinkling smile. ‘You’re just jealous because Myles wasn’t giving you any.’

  She tightened her mouth at his crudity. ‘How will you cope being celibate for a month?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be discreet.’

  She frowned at him, her heart suddenly squeezing painfully inside her chest. ‘You mean you’ll sleep with other women while living with me?’

  He gave a casual lift of one shoulder. ‘Why not?’

  She sat back in her seat and folded her arms crossly. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to agree to this ridiculous marriage I want you to play by my rules.’

  ‘I’m the one making the rules, sweetheart,’ he reminded her. ‘But if you want to offer your services now and again I’d be more than happy to oblige.’

  She gave him a scathing look. ‘I thought you weren’t the least bit attracted to me?’

  He grinned at her cheekily. ‘If the lights were off I think I could probably manage to perform.’

  Hayley buried her head in her menu. The very last thing she wanted to think about was his sexual performance. Just sitting with his long legs so close to hers was enough to send her pulses soaring. She could just imagine how his hard, athletic body would feel pumping its desire into hers, his long limbs entrapping hers, his sensual mouth enticing hers into paradise.

  She suppressed a tiny shiver and chose the most calorific item on the menu. She could always lose the weight, but the one thing she didn’t want to lose was her heart.

  And certainly not to him…

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘SO WHERE DID you and Myles plan to go on honeymoon?’ Jasper asked once their main meals had been cleared away.

  ‘We were going to go to Green Island,’ she said with a despondent slump of her shoulders.

  ‘I meant what I said, you know,’ he said. ‘No point in wasting a perfectly good holiday.’

  She looked up at him, her heart fluttering in sudden panic. ‘You mean go together? Both of us? Alone?’

  ‘Isn’t that what newly married couples do?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t want to go with you,’ she said, pouting. ‘And certainly not on what was supposed to be my honeymoon.’

  ‘You know something, Hayley,’ he said with a thoughtful look, ‘I don’t think you were even in love with Myles.’

  ‘Of course I was in love with him!’

  He raised one dark brow at her. ‘Was?’

  ‘I mean I am still in love with him,’ she amended quickly. ‘I’m still processing the shock of finding out about his…affair…’

  ‘He was totally wrong for you, you know,’ he said. ‘For a start he’s old enough to be your father and, secondly, if he really loved you he wouldn’t have taken your rejection without some sort of fight. He’s clearly not strong enough for someone like you.’

  She sent him a caustic glance over the top of her wineglass. ‘Oh, and I suppose you know exactly who would be my perfect match, do you? You’re hardly what I’d call a relationships expert,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what would you know what constitutes a good relationship? You’ve left a trail of broken hearts in your wake ever since you were a teenager.’

  ‘So can I help it if I’m super-attractive to women?’ he asked with a teasing smile.

  She rolled her eyes into the back of her head and, reaching for her glass, drained it, adding as she placed it back on the table, ‘You’re not attractive to me.’

  ‘I was once—don’t you remember?’

  Hayley wished she could permanently erase that one stupid incident from her mind and his for all time. He never missed a chance to remind her of her sixteenth birthday party when, under the influence of a little too much alcohol, she had thrown herself at him, begging him to make love to her. It had been the most embarrassing episode of her entire life. His cold disdain as he had unpicked her clinging fingers from him and escorted her out of his bedroom had tortured her ever since.

  ‘Not even a little bit?’ he taunted her.

  ‘I prefer my men with a conscience,’ she said with an imperious toss of her head. ‘What you did to Miriam Moorebank was unforgivable.’

  A flash of anger lit his dark brown gaze, his jaw becoming so tight she could see white tips appearing at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘You know, I think I’m going to really enjoy being married to you,’ he bit out. ‘I’ll finally get the chance to tame you as you should have been tamed a long time ago.’

  A flicker of something hot and urgent pulsed between Hayley’s thighs as his eyes clashed with hers. Her heart began to pick up its pace, the blood thrumming through her veins at breakneck speed. Danger seemed to simmer in the air that separated them. She could feel it lurking there, like a leopard hiding in the shadows, poised to pounce at its unsuspecting prey.

  ‘I haven’t actually said I’ll marry you,’ she said as a last show of defiance.

  ‘I’m not going to give you a choice,’ he said. ‘I’ve been doing a little research into your business affairs. You’re currently stretched to the limit. And while your client turnover is good and consistently growing, a sudden increase in rent just now will tip you over the edge.’

  Hayley felt her skin begin to prickle in agitation. She knew he would do it and suffer no tweak of conscience about it. Jasper Caulfield was not only ruthless in his personal relationship
s, but in business even more so. That was how he had achieved the monumental success he had so far, all without a single financial leg-up from his father, who had refused to offer his support because of the shame Jasper had brought upon the Caulfield name when he was eighteen.

  ‘You’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming to the altar,’ she warned him.

  ‘I’ve already factored in that possibility.’

  Hayley stared at him for a moment as her brain did a few quick calculations. ‘You set Myles up, didn’t you?’ she accused him heatedly. ‘You paid that woman to lure him away from me.’

  He leaned back in his chair and gave the red wine in his glass a twirl. ‘He didn’t take too much luring,’ he said smoothly. ‘One look at her cleavage and he was panting like a terrier after a meaty bone.’

  Hayley had trouble controlling her rage. It bubbled and boiled inside her, every part of her twitching with the desire to slap that supercilious smirk off his face.

  Her hand reached for her glass but, as if he sensed where her mind was leading, he reached for the wine bottle and strategically moved it out of her reach.

  ‘You bastard!’ she said, her eyes flashing with twin flares of livid blue flame. ‘I bet you paid that woman to break up my engagement! How could you do such a thing? How could you?’

  ‘Contrary to the conclusion you’ve as usual so hastily jumped to, I did not have anything to do with Myles’s affair. The real estate and property world is rather small. I happened to hear he was a bit of a womaniser when I was speaking with a mutual acquaintance. I thought I should warn you before you got your fingers burnt.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she shot back. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing you’d do to get your own way.’

  ‘Listen, sugar,’ he drawled, ‘it seems to me that if your ex-fiancé could be lured away from you by someone like Serena Wiltshire, then he definitely isn’t the man for you, as I indicated earlier. If he was in love with you, no one, and I mean no one, no matter how attractive or determined, would be able to lead him away from you.’

  Hayley knew deep down inside that what he said was reasonable but she didn’t want him to be right.

  She hated that he was right.

  She hated him full stop.

  ‘When you think about it I did you a favour,’ he added. ‘You found out what a weak person Myles was just in time. Imagine how painful it would have been to find out after you were married with a couple of kids.’

  Jasper watched as she sank her teeth into her lower lip, her blue-green eyes misting over again, her small hands absently fidgeting with her glass. Something hard inside him shifted and softened but he couldn’t for the life of him decide what it was.

  She looked up at him again, her eyes liquid pools of shimmering blue and green. ‘So you really didn’t pay her to break up my engagement?’

  He reached across the table and took one of her hands in his, curling his fingers around her smaller ones. ‘No,’ he said with a grim set to his features. ‘She’s not the first and I expect will not be the last. Some men develop a taste for that sort of thing.’

  Hayley looked down at their joined hands, his long tanned fingers with their dusting of masculine hair in stark contrast to the creamy softness of hers.

  Light and dark.

  Hard and soft.

  Man and woman.

  Man and wife…

  She pulled her hand away and wriggled in her seat in agitation as she forced her mind away from such traitorous thoughts. What was the matter with her? Surely one glass of wine couldn’t suppress inhibition to that degree?

  ‘I’ve asked Raymond to marry us,’ Jasper inserted into the silence. ‘But he didn’t sound too keen on the idea given the circumstances.’

  She pursed her mouth at him. ‘I suppose you’re going to ridicule Raymond for standing up for what he believes in. But at least he’s a decent man who does his best for the community. So many men these days have turned their back on the priesthood, but he’s made that huge sacrifice, and the very least you could do is respect him for it. Anyway, if he did take any money off you—unlike you—he wouldn’t spend it on selfishly on himself, he would only use it for a good cause. He does an amazing job with the homeless youth in the inner city.’

  Jasper’s mouth tilted cynically. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Everyone loves Raymond.’

  ‘He visited Gerald almost daily in the weeks before he died, and yet you didn’t bother to go out there once.’

  ‘I didn’t see the point,’ he said. ‘My father always preferred my brother, not to mention you. I only seemed to upset him every time I called, so I gave up in the end.’

  ‘Why did you go out of your way to annoy him so much?’ she asked. ‘You seemed to relish in shocking him at every opportunity.’

  A curtain seemed to come over his face as he reached to top up both of their glasses. ‘My father liked to think he could control me,’ he said. ‘But I wasn’t prepared to play the game.’

  ‘You’re playing now, though, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘You’re following the dictates of his will to the letter.’

  His eyes met hers across the table. ‘I want that property, Hayley,’ he said. ‘And nothing and no one is going to stand in my way to get it.’

  ‘Except me,’ she reminded him coolly.

  His eyes glittered as they held hers. ‘If you want to play dirty, darling, I’m all for it. I love nothing better than a damned good fight. But I should warn you that you are the one who has the most to lose. The financial security you’ve worked so hard for will be in jeopardy.’

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say he wouldn’t dare, but she stopped just in time.

  He would dare.

  ‘The very last thing I want to do is marry you,’ she said staring into the blood-red contents of her glass.

  ‘If it’s any consolation to you I feel exactly the same way,’ he said. ‘But we only have to live together for a month. And it’s the only way we will both get what we want.’

  She raised her eyes to his once more. ‘It seems to me you stand to gain much more from this enterprise than I do. You get to inherit Crickglades while I get a sum of money at the end.’

  He studied her tense features for a moment. ‘Were you surprised he didn’t leave you more?’

  ‘No, of course not…’ She looked genuinely puzzled by his query. ‘Why should I? I’m not a blood relative. I was just his stepdaughter and not for all that long at that.’

  ‘All the same, it had been generally assumed he had left you the lot.’

  ‘It was generally assumed by you, no one else,’ she put in caustically. ‘I never once asked Gerald for a thing. To tell you the truth I was surprised he didn’t leave everything equally between you and Raymond.’ A little frown interrupted the smoothness of her brow. ‘He must have changed his mind at the last minute for some reason.’

  ‘Perhaps he assumed Raymond would be well provided for by the church,’ he said, and, after an almost undetectable pause, added, ‘It’s all my brother has ever wanted to do. For as long as I can remember he had his heart set on the priesthood.’

  Something in his tone brought Hayley’s gaze back to his. ‘You admire him for it, don’t you?’ she said, unable to remove the element of surprise from her voice. ‘I thought you didn’t get on all that well.’

  He met her look with equanimity. ‘He’s my older brother,’ he said. ‘We may have had our differences growing up, but what brothers don’t? But, yes, I do admire him for sacrificing himself for others. It’s not something everyone can or is prepared to do.’

  Hayley ran a fingertip around the rim of her glass as she let the silence swirl about them momentarily. ‘About the pre-nup thing…’

  Jasper stiffened. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Your father insisted there wasn’t to be one between us.’

  ‘So?’

  She met his gaze once more. ‘As far as I see it you are in a very precarious situation,’ she said, choosing
her words with care. ‘If I agree to this marriage between us, at the end of it I can legitimately strip you of, if not half, then a considerable portion of your assets.’

  He clenched his jaw, making his cheekbones instantly sharpen, his mouth turning into a thin white line. ‘I was right about you all along, wasn’t I?’ he said. ‘My father was a blind fool. He thought you were nothing like your sleep-around money-hungry mother, but you’re already counting the pennies, aren’t you?’

  Hayley wanted to defend herself but stopped just in time. Let him think she was after all she could get. What did it matter? He hated her anyway. Nothing she said was going to change that. But if any money did come her way she would give it to Daniel Moorebank, the son he had abandoned.

  ‘I have decided I will marry you,’ she said with a lift of her chin.

  Jasper’s dark eyes bored into hers. ‘Why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret this?’ he asked.

  ‘As you say, we’ll only have to live together for a month,’ she reminded him. ‘And it’s not as if we have to spend every second of it together. You can live your life and I’ll live mine. It will be over before we know it.’

  He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, his eyes still locked on hers. ‘So you really are prepared to be my wife?’

  ‘Yes, but we only have to share a house, not a bed.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So whose house are we going to live in?’ she asked.

  ‘Mine, of course.’

  Hayley felt her stomach drop. The thought of sharing his house made it all so terribly intimate. ‘Why should I be the one to move?’ she asked.

  ‘You live in a little flat while I live in a harbourside mansion,’ he said. ‘End of discussion.’

  She gritted her teeth, gearing herself up for another tussle, when she recalled a photograph she’d seen in the press of Jasper’s Point Piper residence. Three of his neighbours were movie stars, and if that weren’t enough inducement the lap pool, tennis court and in-house gym and sauna and spa were enough to make anyone think twice about rejecting a month living there rent free. Besides, as he’d said, it was a whole lot more spacious than her flat, which would perhaps make it easier for her to avoid him.