Now, she wondered what it might have been like if that half-formulated, barely realised fear, which had been there when this whole charade had first been suggested, had actually come to pass. When Theo had first contacted her, she had quailed at the thought of having to share a bedroom with him, after the initial biting disappointment that the only reason he had picked the phone up had been to ask a favour of her.
For surely, in this day and age, that would be a given? If his mother was expected to fall for them being a couple, then she would likewise expect them to share a bed.
And what if they had?
Would her ‘no sex’ stipulation have been swept aside under the overwhelming surge of her physical attraction, combined with the power of knowing that she had fallen in love with him? Would common sense have been obliterated by the deadly combination of love and lust? Between those twin emotions, would there have been any room left for her head to prevail?
And would she have been worse off than she was now? Because she was a wreck. Which was probably why she had succumbed to a bug. Her body was telling her that she needed to rest.
Theo picked up on the third ring and, even though it wasn’t yet six thirty in the morning, he sounded as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as if he had been awake for hours.
‘Why are you up so early?’ were his opening words, and Becky nearly smiled, because for all the frustration he engendered in her she had become accustomed to certain traits of his. A complete lack of social niceties was one of those traits.
‘Why are you?’ she countered.
‘Why do you think?’ In the outer room, which had been converted into an office years previously—indeed as soon as the villa had been bought and the prospect of going there, even for a couple of days at a time, had become inevitable—Theo pushed himself away from the sleek, metal-and-wood desk and swivelled his chair so that he was staring out of the floor-to-ceiling window.
She hadn’t come to him.
He’d really and honestly believed that she would have cracked. After all, he had seen the flare of mutual attraction in those luminous eyes, and he hadn’t banked on her resistance, whatever she might have said to the contrary.
Why would he have? Since when had he ever been prepared to withstand any woman’s resistance? He didn’t know the rules of that particular game but he had felt his way and decided that he’d said what he had to say, but he wasn’t going to push things with her. If she wanted to huff and puff and flounce around with maidenly virtue wrapped round her like a security blanket, then sooner or later she would drop the act.
He knew women, after all.
He also knew the power of good sex. It was more than a worthy adversary for any amount of doubts, hesitations or last minute qualms.
And they’d had good sex. The best.
Unfortunately he’d misread the situation and, having taken up a certain stance, he was condemned to dig his heels in or risk being a complete loser by being the first to crack.
It was beginning to do his head in. They were both bloody adults! They’d already slept together! It wasn’t as though they were tiptoeing around one another in some kind of slow burn of a courtship game! Plus his mother was living the dream life, loving every second of seeing her son with a woman of whom she seriously approved.
Throw hot attraction into the mix and he just couldn’t work out why it was that he was barely able to focus on his work and was having to take cold showers twice a day when it all should have been so simple.
And now, hearing her voice down the end of the line, he couldn’t stop his imagination from doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things to his body as he pictured her, sleep-rumpled, in only her birthday suit.
Or else covered from top to toe in a Victorian maiden’s nightie, to match her crazy ‘no sex’ rules...
Either image worked for him.
‘I’m working.’ He shifted, trying to release some of the sudden painful pressure.
‘Do you ever,’ she was distracted enough to ask, ‘get any sleep at all, Theo?’
‘I try and avoid sleep. It’s a waste of valuable time. Is that why you’ve called at...six forty in the morning? To check and see whether I’m getting my essential fix of beauty sleep?’
‘I’ve called because... I’m afraid today is going to be a bit of a write-off for me.’
‘Why? What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve woken up with a crashing headache and all sorts of aches and pains. I think I may have a cold. It won’t last but I’m going to stay in bed today.’
‘My mother will be disappointed.’ Theo stood up, brow furrowed. ‘She had planned on introducing you to her favourite tea shop...’
‘I’m sorry, Theo. I could venture downstairs but I feel absolutely rotten and I wouldn’t want to...pass anything on to your mother. She’s had a pretty poor year and a half and the last thing she needs is to catch germs from her house guest. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’m going to grab some more sleep and hopefully I’ll be fighting fit by tomorrow...’
‘What have you taken?’
‘Are you concerned?’ Becky couldn’t resist asking. ‘Do you think that you won’t be getting value for money if I take a day off?’ As soon as the words had left her mouth, she wished that she could snatch them and stuff them back in.
‘Are you offering to stay an extra day, Becky? I know you have a very strong work ethic.’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have... Well, I’m sorry...’
‘Go back to sleep, Becky. I’ll get Ana to bring you up some food when she gets here.’
He cut the connection, mouth thin as he contemplated the due reminder of why she was in this villa, mutual attraction or no mutual attraction. There was nothing like a sudden sucker-punch to remind a person of priorities.
* * *
Becky struggled up, reluctantly rising from a disturbed, fever-ridden sleep. She had taken a couple of tablets two hours previously and she could feel the effects of the tablets beginning to wear a little thin.
In fairness, she felt better than she had two hours before, but she still needed a day off, a day during which she could gather herself.
She didn’t see Theo immediately. The curtains were drawn, thick, heavy-duty curtains designed to plunge the room into darkness so that if you wanted to lie in you weren’t wakened by the stealthy creep of dawn’s fingers infiltrating the room.
Sleepy eyes rested on the now familiar pieces of furniture, then shifted to the glass of water, now empty, on the side table, then...
‘You’re up.’
Becky’s heart sped up and her mouth fell open, before a wash of misplaced propriety had her yank the sheet over her bare arms.
She had bought a complete new wardrobe and that complete new wardrobe included lingerie that she would never have dreamed of buying before. Little wisps of lace and not much else. Her nightwear was along those lines. It left next to nothing to the imagination. It couldn’t have been more different from the homely, comfy, warm, practical nightwear she had made her own for the past twenty-seven years. She had thrown caution to the winds when she had gone on her shopping spree and had robustly decided, in for a penny, in for a pound...
‘What are you doing here?’ She was acutely conscious of her nipples scraping against the lacy top and the brevity of the matching knickers.
‘Doctor’s orders. Breakfast. I’m on a mission of mercy for the invalid. What would you like to eat?’
‘Please don’t put Ana to any trouble,’ Becky begged. ‘She has enough to do around here without bringing me up breakfast in bed as though I’m Lady Muck. I just need to spend the day in bed sleeping and I’ll be back on my feet by tomorrow.’
‘And, while you’re in bed, the diet of choice for returning to full health is starvation? Because you don’t want to put the housekeeper out?’
Becky flushed. Theo’s attitude to the hired help was very different from hers. He was pleasant and polite but, as far as he was concerned, they were paid handso
mely to do their jobs and were no different from any of the other employees in his service working at any of the companies he owned. A business transaction. Simple.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He waved one hand in nonchalant dismissal. ‘Ana is off sick. Probably has the same bug that you have.’
‘How awful!’ Becky was stricken.
‘And please,’ Theo interjected with wry amusement, ‘don’t start beating yourself up about being the carrier of germs. I expect Ana brought it to the house with her. She has five siblings—a lot of scope for bugs to find places to set up camp.’
‘And your mother? Don’t tell me she has it as well...?’
‘Fortunately not but I’ve shipped her off to Flora’s for two days. Her health is fragile and the last thing she needs is a dose of the flu.’
‘You’re probably going to be next,’ Becky said glumly.
‘I’m never ill.’
‘Have you told those germs that have set up camp with Ana’s siblings? Because they might not know. They might have already decided that you’d make an excellent playground for them to have some fun on.’
‘I’m as strong as an ox. Right. Food order.’
So it was just Theo in the house. There was no need for apprehension because, had he wanted to keep touching her and provoking her, he could have. All that had bitten the dust. His declaration of intent had been empty.
And now the poor guy felt obliged to put himself out for her when he would probably rather be working on a day off from supervising his mother and chaperoning his so-called girlfriend in the guise of enthusiastic lover.
‘I guess...’ she allowed her voice to linger thoughtfully before tailing off. ‘I guess I should really have something to eat. I mean, I have had a pretty restless night, to be honest.’
Theo raised his eyebrows. The duvet had slipped a little and, if he wasn’t mistaken, she didn’t seem to be clad in the all-encompassing Victorian meringue he would have imagined. In fact, those thin spaghetti straps, as wispy as strands of pale cotton, pointed to a completely different get-up underneath the duvet.
‘So what will it be?’ he asked gruffly, clearing his throat and concentrating one hundred percent on her flushed face.
‘Perhaps a poached egg,’ Becky murmured. ‘And some toast. Maybe a bit of fried ham as well, but not fried in oil, maybe fried in a little butter, just a dash. Protein. Important for my recovery, I imagine. And if there’s juice...that would be nice. I noticed Ana squeezing oranges with an electric juicer... And perhaps some tea as well...’
‘You’ve done a complete turnaround from not being hungry and not wanting to put anyone out,’ Theo complained in a voice that told her that he knew very well what that turnaround was all about, and Becky smiled sweetly and apologetically at him.
‘I’d understand if you didn’t want to make me breakfast, Theo. I don’t suppose it’s the sort of thing you’ve ever done for any woman in your life before. In fact, I’m guessing that no woman would ever have been brave enough to have fallen ill when you were around to see it. They’d probably have known that they would get short shrift from you.’
‘And that,’ Theo countered smoothly, ‘shows just how special you are, doesn’t it? Because here I am, offering to be your slave while you’re bedridden...’
Becky reddened. She knew why he was here. His mother would probably have told him to make sure he took care of her. Marita was like that. She had had a brief but idyllic married life with a man she had fallen desperately in love with at a very young age. Her concept of love was romantic and idealised because that was what she had had. She actually had no idea how jaded her son was when it came to the concept of love and romance. In her heart, she truly believed that he was capable of falling in love and finding the happiness she had found with her partner and soul mate.
Becky had come to understand exactly what Theo had meant when he had told her that, introduced to a girl deemed suitable, she would happily believe the fiction played out for her benefit.
She had also come to understand why he had done what he had because, however uncomfortable she was with the deceit, she could see improvements in his mother practically from one hour to the next. Flora, in a quiet aside two evenings previously, had confirmed how much Marita Rushing’s frame of mind had improved since Theo had come to visit with Becky on his arm.
‘She’s a different woman,’ Flora had confided. ‘She is my sister again and not this poor, frail woman who felt she had nothing to live for... It was different when Theo was young and needed her, but since all those heart problems...and realising that he had no interest in settling down... Well, it is good that you are here.’
‘I’m fine with just toast’ was all she could find to say, mouth downturned at his coolness.
‘I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of essential sustenance to overcome your cold.’ Theo grinned and gave her a mock salute. ‘Anything else to add to the order? Or should I exit while the going’s good?’
Becky allowed herself a smile once he’d left the room.
He got to her on so many fronts and one of those was his sense of humour. He could be as ironic as he could be cheeky and those two strands, woven together, was a killer package.
Reminding herself of the reality of their situation and the reality of what he felt for her was a daily challenge.
Lying back against the pillows, she wondered whether she should quickly change into something more suitable, but then realised that in her haste to replace her entire wardrobe for the two week period she had recklessly omitted anything that remotely resembled sensible clothing. Even the shorts she had packed had been knee-length linen. A small but exquisitely inappropriate wardrobe for someone who was now bedridden with a severe cold.
Theo returned less than twenty minutes later with a tray. He nudged the bedroom door open with his shoulder, half-expecting to find her sitting primly on the chair by the window, clad in anything but whatever sexy nightwear she had been wearing. However, she was still in bed, with the duvet sternly pressed flat under both arms, a step away from encasing her completely like a mummy.
‘Your breakfast...’ He dragged a chair over to the bed, deposited the tray on her lap and proceeded to sit down next to her.
‘There’s no need for you to stay.’ Becky looked at the muddle of food on her plate and was puzzled as to how her poached egg and ham had been translated into something that was unidentifiable.
‘The poached egg,’ Theo pointed out with an elegant shrug, ‘didn’t quite go according to plan. I’m afraid I had to be creative...’
How could she keep the duvet in place while she ate? She tried, but gradually it slipped a little lower.
From his advantageous position next to the bed, Theo felt like a voyeur as he looked at the soft, silky smoothness of her shoulders and back. He talked to distract himself from falling into a trance because there was something hypnotic about the movement of her shoulder blades as she tucked into the breakfast.
Becky could feel those brooding, silver-grey eyes on her. Even though she wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t even sneaking sidelong glances in his direction...
Hot little looks, as he had called them...
The fever-induced weakness had been overtaken by a thrilling edge-of-precipice feeling as she finished the last morsel of food on the plate and dutifully put down her knife and fork.
When she glanced down, she could see how the duvet had slipped and how the lacy top was peeking open ever so slightly, allowing a fine view of her pale skin underneath.
This was playing with fire and she didn’t know why she was doing that. She had spent so long being strong. She had accepted that he had lost interest in her. She had beaten herself up over her stupidity in falling in love with the man and had been extra careful to make sure that she wasn’t exposed.
But now she could feel his eyes on her and that little voice that she had listened to right at the very beginning—that stupid little voice that had lured her to touch the flame, to climb
into bed with him—was once again doing its thing and getting under her skin to wreak havoc with the defences she had meticulously been building up.
So, she’d fallen in love with him... So it had to be the most stupid thing she could ever have done...not that she had been able to stop herself... But here she was, fighting hard and being a martyr, making sure he didn’t come near her. She’d given him her best ‘hands off’ stance, had told him that sex wouldn’t be on the agenda, but, aside from feeling morally smug, what good had it done her? Was she happy and content with her decision? Had it made him any less tempting?
She was so desperate to read into the future and protect herself against further hurt—so keen to make sure he didn’t add to the tally of pain she would suffer at a later date should she repeat her original mistake and get into bed again—that she was in danger of having a complete nervous meltdown.
‘That was very nice. Thank you.’ She heard the tell-tale throaty nervousness in her voice and glanced across at him as he removed the tray. When she leaned back against the pillows, she didn’t rush to yank the duvet back up into position.
She feigned innocence, half-closing her eyes with a sigh of contentment at being well fed. She’d been hungrier than she’d thought and the eggy stuff he’d served up had been a lot tastier than she had expected.
She half-opened one eye to find him towering over her, arms folded, his dark features inscrutable.
He’d pulled back the curtains but not all the way and the sun penetrated the room in a band of light, leaving the remainder of the room in shadow. The light caught him at an angle, defining the sharp jut of his cheekbones and the curve of his sensuous mouth. He wasn’t smiling. Nor was he scowling. He was...just looking, and adding things up in his head, and that sent a frisson of awareness racing up and down her spine, because she knew what things he was adding up and she liked that.
She’d missed him. He’d gone AWOL on her and she hadn’t liked it. Her brain might have patted itself on the back and thought it’d won the battle but her body was staging a rebellion and common sense didn’t stand a chance.
Snowbound With His Innocent Temptation Page 13