Merger By Matrimony

by Cathy Williams

  She turned to lie on her side, facing him, half wanting to cover herself, but the desire to do that was a lot less strong than the desire to watch him react to her. She had never known that one man’s hunger could be such a powerful aphrodisiac. Eventually, he couldn’t resist, and he trailed a finger to circle her nipple, touching it with butterfly lightness, watching as it stiffened and puckered under his finger.

  ‘We need never stop this, you know,’ he said gravely, addressing her responding breast, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Wasn’t this what she had wanted to hear? Some talk of commitment? Of permanence? What else could he mean? They had spent a wonderful night together, and at least as far as she was concerned it was much more than that. Somehow it felt as though their personalities fused. Did he feel it too?

  She was no liberated westerner who could gaily conduct an affair as a fun thing while it lasted. She was a traditionalist and, although she’d slept with him, she wanted so much more.

  She could feel herself holding her breath as she looked at him.

  ‘What, not even to eat or have a bath?’ she asked lightly, while her heart pounded like a steam engine inside her. Having Callum at her side, her husband, would raise a few problems—not least those concerning country of residence—but the doubts were soothed as soon as they surfaced. She would be at his side, wherever that might turn out to be.

  ‘I’m being serious.’ He lay flat on his back with his hands folded behind his head. He could feel a muscle pulsing gently in his jaw and a light film of perspiration was breaking out over his body. It hadn’t been like this with Stephanie, but, then again, he hadn’t been toying with his heart then. She’d wanted proof of security and he’d had no trouble agreeing to an engagement because he had felt more real warmth and affection for her than he had ever felt for any of his previous women. Not that talk of marriage had ever cropped up before. It had been something he had purposefully avoided.

  But now it was different. He couldn’t envisage not having this woman by his side for the duration of his life, for better or for worse and all those other vows uttered during a marriage ceremony, vows that he had never given much thought to in the past. And he didn’t want an engagement.

  But, for all that, the thought of exposing himself and telling her how he felt sent a chill of terror crawling along his veins.

  It hadn’t escaped him that not once during their lovemaking had the word love been mentioned, not even when she’d been flushed and moaning with pleasure, with every defence down and her head thrown back in abandon. And that in itself said it all. Because, however sharp she was in every conceivable practical area, when it came to emotions she was still finding her way, and there was an openness there that was almost innocent in its demonstrations.

  But, God, he still wanted her to be his for ever.

  ‘We could get married,’ he said, still staring upwards. ‘I mean, it makes sense, don’t you think? We’re compatible in bed—more than compatible—and it could sort out every niggling area of all this bargaining we’ve been trying to do over the past few weeks. I can’t personally think of a better arrangement than marriage.’

  She couldn’t fail to see the sense behind his proposal, he thought, and then he would have time on his side. Time to woo her into loving him. He was her first lover and, in a life in which relationships had never made an imprint, she probably wasn’t very certain what love was. She would only ever have had the example of her parents, and from the sound of it they had been an exceptional couple, both scientists, both fiercely determined to bring their skill and knowledge to a country that needed it. From the start they had been unified in their goals. But with him, well, hadn’t it all been a little different?

  ‘Arrangement?’ Destiny asked numbly.

  ‘Partnership,’ he corrected quickly.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said, feeling cold all over and very sure indeed. Very sure that the proposition he had put to her had not been the one her romantic, delusional mind had conjured up. Now, it made her feel ill to think that she’d imagined a marriage proposal to have been made with some declaration of love, or at least with some emotion other than the coolly logical one he was displaying now.

  She had to get out of here. She couldn’t afford to let him start working on her with his arguments of common sense and practicality. He weakened her, and she wouldn’t enter into a marriage for all the wrong reasons. That would be a recipe for disaster. Hadn’t she made one disastrous error already by sleeping with him and telling herself that it was fine because she loved him? No way would she compound the mistake by adding yet another, and one that she would have a lifetime to regret.

  ‘I need to think it over.’

  ‘What’s there to think over?’ He rolled to his side and looked at her, his blue eyes urgent and demanding.

  She wriggled back a bit. ‘I need a few days. Just to get my head around it…to adjust…’

  ‘Adjust to what?’

  ‘We barely know each other!’

  ‘We have been as intimate as two people can be…’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’ She edged towards the side of the bed and practically fell off, reaching down for her clothes and sticking on the shirt she had borrowed with her back to him.

  ‘Where are you going?’ It was more of a demand than a question. He could feel her ebbing away from him, but the temptation to push harder was something he knew he had to resist. The ebb would turn into outright flight if he did that. She said she needed time, and there was nothing ominous about that. Of course she needed time. Marriage proposals were not things that were sprung on a daily basis. The best thing he could do now would be to curb his savage impatience and let her have the time she needed. With restrictions.

  ‘I need to get back to my place,’ she mumbled, not looking at him.

  Callum sprang out of bed and pulled a tee-shirt over his powerful torso, followed by boxer shorts.

  ‘You’ll need a lift back. I’ll drive you.’ He kept one eye on her while putting on a pair of trousers, not bothering with a belt so that they hung slightly down his hips. She had sailed into the bathroom, shutting the door, and he waited with increasing frustration for her outside, drumming his fingers on the windowsill.

  One desperate part of him was beginning to think that somewhere along the line his impeccably tempting offer, full of the sort of practical advantages that would appeal to someone as clear-headed as she was, was going badly wrong.

  And with the desperation, nauseating in itself because it was just so alien to him, came a rush of surly defensiveness. Shouldn’t she have jumped to his offer with alacrity? Maybe, he thought, she was disturbed at the thought of cutting ties with the country she’d spent most of her life in. Perhaps she just needed time to sort out the practicalities of the issue.

  That line of thought was reassuring, and by the time she emerged from the bathroom, inappropriately clad in her dress, he was prepared to be magnanimous.

  ‘Look,’ he said sympathetically, ‘I understand that you might be having a few doubts about leaving Panama…’ She was virtually scuttling out of the room and down the stairs, running her fingers through her uncombed hair, sticking on her shoes when she got to the front door. ‘But you would be able to go over there on holiday whenever you wanted. And of course your father could come and visit whenever he wanted…’

  ‘Oh, yes, right,’ she answered in a vaguely surprised voice. She still wasn’t looking at him and he positioned himself in front of the door so that she was compelled to look up. ‘I hadn’t really considered that aspect of it,’ she continued, flushing.

  ‘Then what aspects are you considering?’ he demanded with a trace of aggression in his voice, and she immediately pulled away into herself.

  ‘Please don’t push me.’

  ‘I’m not pushing you.’

  ‘You expect me to give you a yes or no answer right this minute…’

  ‘I told you I can more than understand that you migh
t need time to think it over,’ Callum said repressively.

  He steadied himself and stood aside to open the door, following her into the car and starting it with barely contained anger.

  ‘I’m going to be away for the next few days,’ he said into the lengthening silence. ‘So I won’t be around to pester you. Do you think you might have an answer for me by the time I get back?’

  ‘I guess I might,’ Destiny told him vaguely.

  ‘You guess?’

  ‘All right, then. I will.’

  ‘That’s better.’

  But when she sneaked a glance at his profile, it was grimly tight. She knew what was niggling him. He’d tossed his proposal to her, expecting her to not be able to resist. A marriage of good sex and good business, without the tricky business of love getting in the way. It made perfect sense, didn’t it? And, into the bargain, she would have the pleasure of being wed to the most eligible bachelor in London and all the consequent advantages of limitless money. He must be thinking that the alternative was slinking back to Panama to continue working in a funless vacuum with enough money to fairly do what she wanted, but without the vital medical facilities the company would offer—because she knew that selling the company was virtually a foregone conclusion, despite the fact that so many people would prefer her not to go down that road.

  Marriage would be of mutual benefit. He would get the company he had craved, a company that would establish a foothold in the huge, complex world of pharmaceuticals, and she in return would get the benefit of his considerable investments to make it work. Everyone would be happy.

  ‘How long are you planning on being out of the country?’ she asked tentatively, and he relaxed fractionally.

  ‘Five days. Maybe a bit longer. Depends on how many problems I have to sort out. Why, will you miss me?’

  ‘Will you miss me?’ She threw the question back at him and felt a treacherous sense of arousal as his mouth curved into a satisfied smile.

  ‘What do you think? Perhaps,’ he drawled softly, ‘I should find a deserted back road somewhere and stop the car so that I can demonstrate exactly how much I’ll be missing you…’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Destiny said hurriedly, recognising the familiar road down which all her good intentions tended to go wildly astray.

  ‘No, maybe a little absence is good for the soul.’

  A little absence? He was so sure of getting what he wanted, the way he always had, all through his life.

  She didn’t dare contemplate his shock when he returned from his trip abroad.

  ‘Maybe it is,’ she repeated sadly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CALLUM stared out of the window of his office which offered an uninspiring view of leaden skies pressing heavily above the grey, claustrophobic confines of the city. He had a meeting in under an hour and he was toying with the notion of delegating it to one of his directors, even though delegation was beginning to become something of a habit—and a habit that was not going unobserved by several of the people who worked for him.

  Frankly, he didn’t give a damn.

  He spun round on his chair and buzzed through to his secretary, telling her to send Peters in his place to the Viceroy meeting at the Savoy.

  ‘But he’s already scheduled to see someone,’ Rosemary protested uselessly.

  ‘Then he’ll just have to cancel, won’t he?’

  ‘But…’

  ‘I’m leaving the office. I can’t go. That’s all there is to it. In case it’s missed you, Rosemary, I pay these people to handle important meetings. They’ll just have to start earning their keep.’

  ‘Of course, but…’ She sighed. ‘Are you feeling all right, Mr Ross?’

  ‘Of course I’m feeling all right. Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be? Do I sound ill to you?’

  ‘Not ill, no…’ Rosemary’s voice trailed significantly down the end of the line and he had to stop himself from clicking his tongue in annoyance. He’d seen enough looks and been privy to sufficient concerned remarks to know what was coming next and he wasn’t in the mood for it.

  ‘It’s just that you never take time off work, and you have three meetings this afternoon…’

  ‘A simple request, Rosemary, that’s all it was. A simple request to cancel my appointments for today so that I can leave the office. I fail to see what the problem is.’

  ‘You haven’t been yourself recently, Mr Ross,’ Rosemary said in a burst of courage. ‘Several of us have been…’

  ‘Several of you? I pay you people to work, not to gather into little covens discussing my welfare.’

  ‘How long do you intend to be out of the office, Mr Ross?’ she said, returning to her normal brisk voice, and Callum sucked in his breath, realising that an apology was called for but temporarily incapable of dispensing one. Anyone would think that his employees had nothing better to do than shadow his every movement and watch his every expression.

  ‘I have no idea. One day, two days—maybe longer.’

  ‘So what shall I do about…?’

  ‘Rearrange everything in the foreseeable future. When I come back, you can schedule my time.’ On which note, he disconnected the internal line and remained sitting for a few minutes longer, staring into space and brooding.

  It was becoming an addiction.

  Memory lane was now so well trodden that it was beginning to seem more real than what was happening in his life at the moment.

  He fished into his trouser pocket, took out his wallet and extracted a crumpled piece of paper from one of the compartments.

  It was a fairly pointless procedure, since he knew what was written on the paper by heart, but still he hung on to it, compulsively reading and re-reading the handful of lines that had been waiting for him two months ago on his return from New York.

  She had, regrettably, turned down his proposal, she’d written, though she’d appreciated the offer. Under the circumstances, she felt that nothing further would be gained by remaining in England, and was thereby handing over responsibility for the sale of the company to Derek.

  He savagely scanned the note, his mouth tightening, as it always did, when he came to the bit about wishing him all the best for the future.

  Enraged, as if reading it for the first time, he crumpled the paper, then reluctantly smoothed it out and replaced it in the wallet. Then he strode to the door, flinging on his jacket in the process, and out into the connecting room where Rosemary glanced up from her computer with long-suffering wariness.

  ‘Look,’ he said awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry if I overreacted just then.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Rosemary said quietly.

  ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind recently…’

  ‘Of course. I understand. Felt Pharmaceuticals has taken a lot of financial resources out of the company profits. Naturally, that would be on your mind…’

  ‘Naturally,’ Callum said, going along with that piece of fiction. In truth, the temporary drain on his financial well-being had barely crossed his mind. Within a year things would have evened out, and within a couple of years Felt’s would be more than paying for itself. Life would have been a piece of cake if his only worries centred around something as piddling and unimportant as money.

  ‘It would help if you could call me when you’re about to come back,’ she said, absently flicking through the diary, which, standing above her, he could see was liberally speckled with entries. Important meetings with important people to discuss important things. Who cared?

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said slowly. ‘But I’m not sure how feasible that will be.’ For the first time in a little over two months he managed something resembling a smile, and Rosemary offered a tentative one back in return. ‘Where I’m going, the phone lines might be a little bit erratic.’ He felt a wild thrill soar through him as his decision was made. No more mindless, brooding introspection, spending every waking moment haunted by images of her while he outwardly attempted to control the reins of his life and convince himself
that he was better off without her around. He would go, he would find her and, if nothing else, he would get her to explain how someone could strain in his arms and then hours later bid him farewell via a note and without a backward glance.

  She’d gone and he hadn’t even told her that he loved her. Pride and fear of being rejected had held him back, and he was willing to shed both even if it meant trekking back to England with nothing but his wounds to nurse in private.

  He packed a suitcase like a man demented, remembering her descriptions of the stifling heat and her gentle amusement at Derek’s garb when he’d shown up on their compound. He flung in tee-shirts and the only three pairs of shorts he could rustle up, and underwear, and then an assorted selection of other items which he hoped would tide him over.

  Then he telephoned the airport and, after an aggressive approach, during which he didn’t hesitate to mention every influential name he remotely knew working in the airline industry, managed to secure a seat on the next plane out to Panama the following day.

  Destiny eyed her class with a jaundiced and resigned expression. Today, only five children had shown up. The rains had come and the missing faces had caved in at the prospect of a walk in sodden undergrowth in pelting rainfall. Three were ill with the fever, which meant that she would probably have to do the trip with her father later in the evening to make sure that the fever was confinable and not something more rampant and sinister. It was a prospect that made her heart sink.

  Ever since returning to Panama she’d found that the simple enthusiasm with which she’d greeted these physical and tiring duties had been difficult to muster. And there was no one in whom she could confide. Henri had taken extended leave and was currently in Paris at his mother’s bedside, tending her through the final stages of a cancer about which he’d known nothing until he’d got to England, and to confess to her father that she missed England would break his heart. He needed her and she had to respond to that need, even though her heart was no longer in it. At least, not in the way it used to be. She still efficiently did what she had to do, but in the manner of an automaton, completing functions so that it could then shut down, leaving her private time to think back. Her desperate dash back to Panama, far from assuaging her wounded heart, had been a failure. The torment she’d sought to escape had dogged her right back to the jungle and showed no signs of letting up.