The Price of a Wife

by Helen Brooks

  'I don't.' She stared at Andy's fast-receding hairline as her mind spun. 'Why was it in the papers?'

  'Because Catherine Morley is the love-child Luke Hawkton's father kept quiet about for years,' Andy said with heavy patience. 'For crying out loud, Josie, it was the scoop of the year for the journalist who dug it out.'

  'The Hawkton family insisted that the father had told than all years and years ago, when the kid was born as a result of a brief affair with some distant relation of his wife. They say the girl in question married a man she loved and Catherine was brought up as that man's child but with the knowledge of who her real father was. When she attended old Hawkton's funeral some smarty-pants on one of the tabloids started digging and it all came out. According to Luke Hawkton, Catherine is accepted as part of the family and there's no big deal.'

  'Then that's the way it is, I'm sure,' Josie said carefully.

  'Maybe…' Andy glanced at her before scooping the paper off her desk. 'Anyway, Catherine's just got engaged to some titled Italian guy, so she should be happy enough. Now, how's that report going?' he asked abruptly.

  Once Andy had left and she was alone Josie sat staring blindly at the desk as her mind dissected the information it had been given. That day at the chateau, as they had chatted about his family, he had given her the reason for his father's betrayal of his mother, although she hadn't realised he was doing so at the time. And he had under-stood both his parents, she thought with a sudden rush of emotion that caused her chest to tighten. He hadn't judged either of them and it was clear he held no animosity for Catherine or her mother either. He had a big heart, an understanding heart.

  She felt the hot prick of tears behind her eyelids and blinked them away rapidly. She couldn't pretend any longer that he was the heartless philanderer she had first imagined, although it would be easier if she could—much easier. And she had so misjudged him about Catherine…

  She shut her eyes tightly. But it didn't make any difference; in fact it merely strengthened her resolution that she had to stay away from him. Everything she had learnt about him made her realise she could trust herself less and less where he was concerned. It was only distance that held any safety.

  So when Luke called her, later that night, she kept her voice calm and pleasant, although her heart was pounding in her throat. 'I've been away in the States for a few days-one of the inevitable panics that occurs from time to time,' he said lazily after enquiring as to how she and Mog were. 'I wondered if you'd care to have dinner tomorrow evening?'

  'Sorry, I can't.' Josie took a deep breath and spoke evenly. 'I'm going to be frantically busy over the next few weeks if everything is going to come off on the big day.'

  'Not so busy you won't take time to eat, surely?' His voice was still lazy but with a tiny edge that caught at her heartstrings. 'I'll whisk you straight back home afterwards, I promise,' he added softly. 'Back to your chaste little bed-alone.'

  'No, I really can't.' Mog chose that moment to come and stand by her legs, his great eyes reproachful as he stared up at her, which didn't help at all.

  'OK. Goodnight, Josie.' His voice was suddenly very cold, and as the phone went down she felt a sick feeling in her chest that rose up into her throat in a stranglehold.

  'It's no good you looking at me like that,' she said sharply to Mog, who had sat down with an air of censure. 'I know you like him—I like him, and that's why I can't see him. Surely you can see that?' Mog stared at her for a full minute without blinking, and then turned away with an expression of condemnation before he stood up and sauntered out of the room, his tail very straight and disapproval expressed in every line of his sleek body.

  The next week passed, and then the next, and the only contact she had with Luke was by telephone or in brief, curt meetings where he was very much the remote tycoon and kept everyone on their toes, rushing about hither and thither.

  She flew out to France twice in the next few weeks, but made sure her schedule could be accommodated in day-trips which didn't necessitate an overnight stay. She informed Luke's secretary each time she planned to go, but he didn't join her as she had half expected, and wanted. She was eating less, sleeping less, working harder—and more confused than she had ever been in the days following the accident.

  August came, blazed brightly and left, and in the second week of September she woke up one morning to the knowledge that it washer twenty-ninth birthday and she was more miserable than she had been in the whole of her life. She had refused several invitations to go out with friends, using work pressure as an excuse, but as she sat eating her breakfast, with Mog lying in a patch of sunlight at her feet, she wished she had accepted one of them.

  But there was only one person she wanted to be with at the moment. And she had given him a very firm and very definite elbow.

  The postman brought a whole host of cards just before she left for work, along with two packages from old workmates who had moved to distant pastures, and one from the old aunt she corresponded with. There were more cards and presents waiting for her at the office, and when Andy and Mike insisted on taking her out for lunch she didn't protest, unable to keep back a tear when they presented her with a magnificent bouquet at the table, along with an envelope containing a very hefty cheque.

  She had lots of good friends, she told herself that afternoon as she sat working at her desk, her head reeling a little from the effects of a champagne lunch; people who cared. Her career was blooming, she had no financial worries, so why did she feel as though the sky had just fallen in on her?

  'Deep in work, as always. I hope it's the Night Hawk project you're poring over so intently?'

  Her head snapped up so sharply that her neck muscles twanged as Luke's deep, husky voice sounded from the open doorway.

  'Hello.' Her eyes drank in the sight of him. It had been two weeks since their last office meeting, when ten other people had been present and Luke had appeared in a foul mood.

  He didn't seem to be in a foul mood today, she reflected silently as she let her eyes indulge themselves a second or two longer before dragging them away. The hard mouth was smiling slightly, the silver-grey eyes were watchful but not cold, and he wasn't in his normal immaculate suit but in casual loose trousers and a black silk shirt under the black leather jacket he had been wearing the night he had returned Mog. He looked devastating. Deliriously, overwhelmingly devastating.

  'Hello.' He wandered lazily into the room, walked up to her desk and leaned over her papers, his hands either side of her on the hard wood as he kissed her very thoroughly before raising his head and standing back a pace. 'Nice, very nice,' he said appreciatively as she stared at him still in a state of shock. 'But it's your birthday, not mine…' He reached into his pocket and handed her a small gift-wrapped package with a lazy smile.

  'How did you know?' she asked dazedly.

  'That it was your birthday?' The smile deepened, but his voice was not smiling and there was something in the deep, husky depths that made her legs weak and her lower stomach melting-soft. 'That was easy. Office records state all sorts of surface things like that.'

  'Do they?' She stared at him for a moment more before she unwrapped the package with trembling fingers to reveal a small box. He'd bought her a present! Suddenly, and quite irrationally, it was the most wonderful birthday of her entire life. 'What is it?' she asked tentatively.

  'Open it and see; it won't bite.' He moved to sit on a corner of the desk, and as the faint scent she had come to associate with him teased her senses—a mixture of subtle aftershave, male skin and something else that she couldn't define but which made her legs distinctly wobbly—she smiled weakly.

  'Thank you…' she began as she raised the lid of the box, only to find herself speechless as she gazed down at the exquisite emerald it contained, the brilliant green jewel hanging from a fine gold chain and flashing its magnificence like wild fire.

  'To bring out the colour in your eyes,' Luke said softly as he watched her cheeks turn rosy pink. 'I tho
ught of a diamond originally, then an opal, but for the design I wanted they looked too much like teardrops, and something tells me you've had enough tears in your life without me giving you any more, so…' He took the chain from her nerveless fingers and fastened it carefully round her neck. 'An emerald it is.'

  'I can't accept this.' She raised stunned eyes to his. 'It must have cost a fortune—'

  'Oh, it did. I'm quite bankrupt.' He grinned at her rakishly.

  'But, Luke—'

  'Accept it, Josie, please.' He wasn't smiling any more, and there was something in his glance that made her toes curl. 'It would give me great pleasure to think of you wearing it sometimes. Partly because…' He raised a quizzical eyebrow as he paused, then said, 'You will have to think of me, however fleetingly, on those occasions.'

  'You have worked hard on the Night Hawk project,' he continued as she still stared worriedly at him, 'and it was very important to me to get it right—to my mother too. We both know how much it would have meant to my father. So, the necklace is just a thank-you, if you would prefer to think of it like that. A small bonus for a job well done?'

  'A small bonus?' She shook her head as she allowed a wry smile to play round her lips at the easy way he had explained away such a magnificent gift. 'If it gets out how you view a 'small bonus' you are going to be inundated with requests from people desperate to work for Hawkton Enterprises.'

  'But they won't all have hair like red silk and golden eyes with flecks of green, will they?' he said, in such a conversational tone that the import of his words didn't strike home for a second or two. 'Do you have a coat?' he added coolly.

  'A coat?' Her face was as blank as her voice.

  'For the wearing of?' He eased himself off the desk and walked casually to the door. 'Because I'm taking you out to dinner…early.'

  'I can't go now—'

  'Oh, but you can, and you are.' He turned, and there was that quiet, calm determination in his face that wouldn't take no for an answer. 'Andy and Mike are delighted to have you leave before them for once; you make them feel most inadequate, you know.'

  He spotted her coat in the corner of the room and flicked it off the hanger with his finger before slinging it across to her. 'Put it on and be quiet, there's a good girl. We'll call in and feed that striped hunter of yours on the way, of course. I've some salmon for him in the car.'

  'Salmon?'

  'I promised him some when I hauled him out of that stinking garage,' Luke said matter-of-factly. 'I figured I owed him. It's not often a man's given such a chance to impress his lady love, is it? It did impress you, I hope?' he added mockingly.

  'Luke, this is crazy,' she said helplessly as she slipped her arms into her coat. 'You know there's no point—'

  'Everyone can be a little crazy sometimes—didn't you know?' He smiled in satisfaction as she walked across the room towards him, the emerald glowing in the hollow of her throat like a green flame. 'And this is your birthday. This is your turn to be crazy. Besides which, according to one of my close friends, who was the only one with the nerve to tell me, I've become impossible to be around the last few weeks.' He smiled cynically with his mouth but the smile didn't reach the intent, narrowed eyes. 'So I decided I needed another fix.'

  'Another fix?' She stared up at him as she reached his side, tiny and fragile against his hard bulk.

  'Another fix of the drug called Josie Owens,' he said coolly. 'It's the very devil, but once you've had a taste…'

  Mog viewed the salmon with something approaching ecstasy, winding ingratiatingly round Luke's legs as he tipped it onto a saucer and then making a thorough pig of himself as he ate it without pausing for breath.

  'Right, that's one satisfied customer,' Luke said easily, his eyes glinting at Josie as she stood watching him in the kitchen doorway. 'Now bid him a fond farewell and we'll be off.'

  'I can't go like this.' She glanced down at her office clothes in horror. 'I must change first, Luke. Is it formal or informal?'

  'Informal. Definitely informal.' His eyes were warm. 'And you look fine to me.'

  'No, really. I must just freshen up.' She fled to the bedroom, pulled off the neat tailored blouse and skirt she had worn all day and opened her wardrobe door as she kicked off her high heels. And then she froze as she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Was that bright-eyed, flushed, radiant girl really her? A trickle of dark warning iced down her back. She had to be careful—so, so careful. She had been right when she had called this craziness; it was. Mad, dangerous insanity.

  She glanced down at herself, deliberately folding back her bikini pants and running the tip of a trembling finger along her scar. There could be no future in this, not ever— not even if Luke himself wanted it that way. He wanted children, a family, an heir one day; he had told her that himself.

  And then the memory of how she had felt this morning came back in all its darkness, and she shook her head at the reflection in the mirror, her eyes suddenly hostile. There was nothing wrong with having dinner with him this once; there wasn't. And she was going to. Damn it all, she was going to.

  The rebellious mood lasted until Luke drove the Mercedes through two massive iron gates set in an eight-foot-high brick wall, having opened the fortress from the car by remote control, and proceeded along a long, curving drive which finished in front of an elegant, Georgian-style mansion surrounded by leafy trees and smooth green lawns.

  'This is your house,' she said flatly as reality dawned.

  'Frequented by a resident housekeeper and her handyman husband along with several cats, in case you're worried you will be all alone with the big bad wolf,' Luke drawled mockingly. 'Mrs Hodges has been in the kitchen all day preparing for tonight, so don't throw a wobbly on me now,' he added warningly.

  The interior of the house was stunning, as she had known it would be, from the uniquely beautiful galleried entrance hall to the large, high-ceilinged reception rooms, right through to the massive olde-worlde kitchen, where Josie met the redoubtable Mrs Hodges, flushed and busy, in an atmosphere that was redolent with the smells of delicious home cooking. Traditional elegance was married with a softer, more homely feel, the effect of which was heightened by the presence of several plump, well-fed cats in the luxurious drawing room who were lying in cosy harmony around a roaring log fire.

  She loved it all, but then she had known she would. He lived here, after all.

  'It's very nice,' she said stiffly as he gestured for her to be seated in the drawing room. 'Lovely.'

  'Thank you.' That quizzical look was back in his eyes as he watched her sit on the very edge of a soft cream leather sofa, her knees pressed tightly together and her hands resting primly on her lap. 'I know you don't usually drink, but as it's your birthday…' He indicated a bottle of vintage champagne resting in the cradle of its ice bucket at one side of the cocktail cabinet. 'One glass, perhaps?'

  She wanted to say no—tonight more than any other she needed to stay fully alert and razor-sharp—but it would have been too rude, so she nodded smilingly, and when she sipped the faintly pink, icy-cold liquid a moment or two later it tasted like silky, sparkling nectar, in no way resembling the champagne of lunchtime. 'It's—'

  'Very nice? Or lovely?' He was laughing at her, she realised suddenly, but not in the caustic, cynical way she imagined was almost habitual with him. His face was tender, gentile even, his eyes warm. And it frightened her.

  She continued to feel frightened, in an excited, breathless way, through the rest of the evening. The meal was superb, served in an elegant, wood-paneled dining room amid gleaming silver cutlery, sparkling glassware and the heady scent of hothouse flowers from the bowl of expensive blooms in the middle of the table.

  Luke was the perfect host—attentive, witty, setting out to entertain and amuse. And that was fine; she could cope with that. But then, as the meal progressed and they finished the first bottle of champagne and began on the second, he talked of his childhood, his parents, and then of his hopes, his dreams, and sh
e realised the thin ice she had been skating on all evening was getting more fragile by the minute.

  'How old were you when you moved away from that little village in Sussex?'

  Josie's stomach clenched tightly. She had been anticipating and dreading this moment all evening, and now it was here she still didn't know how to handle it.

  'College age,' she said shortly. 'Mrs Hodges really is a wonderful cook. You are very fortunate to have two housekeepers who—'

  'Why do you do that?' His voice was very deep and very soft.

  'Do what?' she asked carefully.

  'You know what I'm getting at, Josie. The past is like a closed book with you.' He leant forward slightly, his eyes drawing hers into their hold in spite of herself. 'That was a typical answer—'college age'. That could mean anything from sixteen to sixty. In fact it's no answer at all. What are you so defensive about anyway? What happened? And when?'

  'Luke—'

  'No, don't 'Luke' me.' He took a deep breath before shaking his head slowly. 'Tell me to go to hell, get angry, shout, scream—but don't go into that impenetrable shell of yours. I know what you are really like, Josie. You can't hide from me. I won't let you. I know.'

  This was too deep, too serious. She forced a bright smile and spoke lightly as she gripped her hands together tightly under the tablecloth, her nails biting into the soft flesh of her palms. 'Well, clever old you, and what do you think you know? What am I? Career woman? Frustrated housewife? Or perhaps—'

  'You're the woman I want to marry.'

  The words hung in the air, stark and naked, as they stared at each other across the table, and she felt her heart stop and then hammer on at a pace that made her light-headed. She couldn't speak or move; even her thought process seemed frozen. She merely stared at him with huge, stunned golden eyes, her face stricken.