She pulled out a chair and sat, watching him narrowly. He’d wrapped a padded cosy around the cafetiére and the coffee was still hot and aromatic. She accepted the cup he passed her and stated, ‘We have an agreement. You’ve already been paid for your part in it, so I expect you to keep to the letter of it, not pocket the money and then decide you can do as you please.’
On one level she was proud of her clipped tone, the restatement of how she viewed their relationship—such as it was. On another she felt the unease of emptiness, the feeling that she was throwing away something of importance, something that could enrich her life.
She looked at the strong black coffee she needed so badly and knew she wouldn’t be able to swallow a single mouthful. Her throat was too tight, painfully constricted. But there was one more thing to be said.
‘You want to have sex to spice up the coming twelve months. Forget it.’ She folded her arms across her diaphram, her small chin stubborn. ‘I’m not an inanimate toy for you to play with, Mr Cole. I have feelings.’
‘I know you have, Mrs Cole,’ he said softly. ‘It’s simply a question of when you’re going to take them off the rein.’
Uncomfortably flustered by the honeyed softness of his voice, the mesmeric, wickedly intimate gleam of his golden eyes, his use of her married title, she compressed her lips to stop them trembling and reminded herself of the other woman. Of Chloe.
And she said harshly, ‘You know nothing about me. But I think I’ve been around you long enough to recognise at least one genuine emotion. You’re in love with your friend’s sister, Chloe Abbot. As a prospective husband for his sister your friend wouldn’t rate you very highly—about zero on a scale of one to ten, I’d imagine. I guess that’s why you agreed to go through a marriage ceremony with me. The money. In a year’s time you won’t be empty handed. You could even use the bulk of it to help her start up in business, go in as her partner. Fine. But don’t look to me to provide you with sex while you’re waiting.’
CHAPTER NINE
SILENTLY Jethro cursed himself. His plan hadn’t included putting his cards on the table this soon. He’d probably blown his chances. His only excuse was that the relief of realising that she wasn’t one of the sisterhood of gold-diggers he had momentarily believed she might be had addled his brain.
Add to that his compelling physical reaction to her—her tell-tale trembling response to his earlier light caresses when he’d massaged the knots of tension from her shoulders—and his self-discipline, his will-power, had been kicked into touch.
So he’d blown it, made his intentions known far too soon. And she’d got this weird idea in her head concerning himself and Chloe!
For a guy who was reputed to have one of the keenest business brains on the planet he was making one hell of a mess of wooing his wife!
His wife.
Hunger for her clawed at him until the need to reach for her, crush her body to his, kiss her until she darn well had to admit that she felt far more than the indifference she feigned so badly was imperative. Then he’d take her to bed, make love to her until she understood that there was an incandescent beauty to the act of sex that could lead to other things. Like love. And trust.
The physical alchemy between them was earth-shattering. She was doing her damnedest to deny it but he could recognise a woman’s sexual response and knew he could easily make her admit it. Heat gathered inside him. He could take her in his arms and make her lose herself, forget whatever it was that made her lock her emotions away in a cage.
But she looked so uptight, her arms wrapped around her slender body, the dappled sunlight slanting between the heavy leaf canopy making her look like a creature of the air, insubstantial as the morning mist. Her coffee was untouched and there was a haunted look in her deep blue eyes that told him she would do anything to be able to walk away. It touched him deeply.
He loved her, for pity’s sake! And love for her, and caring for her, won the day. There was no way he was going to put the cart before the horse, make her admit that she wanted him physically before she was ready to trust her future happiness to him. Love came first; it had to. And trust.
There was no going back, so he had to find a way to limit the damage he’d done, and then go forward. He told her gently, ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I’m in love with Chloe. I’ve always looked on her as a kid sister, and that’s the gospel truth.’
Her eyes flicked in his direction. Disbelieving? Suspicious? He had earned her mistrust and he was going to have to deal with it, say something more positive. Nevertheless, there was an up side to her misconceptions about Chloe’s place in his affections.
She had instinctively tuned in to his love for his sister. Chloe was all the family he had. His father was dead and their mother hadn’t been seen since she’d left shortly after Chloe’s birth. He’d worried over the little minx when she’d appeared intent on throwing herself off the rails, lectured her, cajoled her, rejoiced with her when she’d finally got herself together and started to make something of her life. And Allie had picked up the vibes, which meant she was beginning to read him, get interested in him as a person in his own right and not merely a means to an end.
So that in itself was a definite plus. All he had to do was find the patience to wait. He moved her now cold coffee, poured orange juice from the jug and pushed the glass towards her with the tip of his finger.
She gave a small start, as if the gesture had been threatening, and his heart clenched painfully. He hated to think she saw him as a danger. He said soothingly, ‘Chloe’s a lovely lady—about your age, at a guess. Talented, sassy—a touch too much so at times—and pretty. But believe me, I have no designs whatsoever on her virtue, and as for marriage, that’s completely out of the question. And Allie…’ His voice lowered sinfully. ‘I prefer blondes. With eyes the colour of sapphires, overlaid with violet, tall and graceful, delicate, yet perfectly formed—’ He noted the faint flush of colour creep over her skin and held back.
She’d got the message; he was sure of that. He wouldn’t push it. Besides, there was no going back on what he’d so misguidedly said earlier, so he had another misconception to put right.
His heart was thumping around, fit to burst itself, but his voice was level, not too light but not heavy either, as he explained, ‘I meant what I said about wanting our marriage to be a real one. A lasting one. I didn’t say that as a ploy to have my wicked way with you—though that would come into it. I meant for ever, till death do us part. I meant something lasting and worth having. Children, the whole bit.’
The question Why? sprang to her lips. She bit it back. She didn’t want to hear him try to persuade her that he’d fallen in love with her. Not if it wasn’t true. Did she want it to be true?
She couldn’t answer that; she really couldn’t. And the only other reason she could come up with for his stated wish to make this marriage real was her earning capabilities. Did he believe he was onto a good thing, seeing her as a meal ticket—no need for him to bother to go out cleaning windows for a crust?
Somehow, she couldn’t believe that, either. Perhaps it had something to do with the sincerity in his voice when he’d denied having any romantic interest in Chloe, talked about making their marriage something worth having, mentioned children, but one way or another she was beginning to trust him.
The orange juice relieved the sudden dryness of her mouth, enabled her to regroup her defences, to state flatly, ‘I don’t want marriage. You knew that when we entered this agreement.’
It was time to back off, let what he’d said permeate her mind, gain a foothold, put down roots and bear fruit. He gave her a soft smile, a small, seemingly insouciant shrug. ‘Sure I did. But you might come round to the idea, given time. You’ve got a year to think it over, maybe change your mind. So why don’t we drop the subject, enjoy the rest of the day?’ He felt the coffee pot, made a grimace of distaste. ‘I’ll make fresh; this is stone-cold. Eat something.’
He gestured
vaguely at the croissants, the dish of fresh fruit, and headed for the kitchen. He was sweating, his heart pumping. The effort to keep everything low key, appear laid-back to the point of near idiocy had been purgatory when all he’d wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her, peel away every scrap of clothing from her willing body and devour every delectable inch of her with his eyes, his hands, his mouth…
He groaned and put the kettle on.
‘Hungry?’
‘Ravenous!’ Allie responded with the wide smile that lit up her whole face, gave it a beauty that was almost out of this world. Jethro looked away before the sheer radiance of her could damage his hands-off policy, slipped the lightweight haversack—empty now of the fruit and bottled water they’d taken with them—down from his shoulders, and pushed open the French windows.
He looked back at her because he couldn’t help himself. She’d caught the sun. There was a band of light freckles across the bridge of her nose, a warm flush to her skin, a dewing of sweat above her deliciously curved upper lip. They’d spent most of that day, the first of their so-called honeymoon, exploring the surrounding countryside, and her energy and enthusiasm had been boundless as they tramped fields and woodlands. Exertion and the fresh air showed in the way she looked now—sun-soaked, sleepy, a button missing from the sleeveless white shirt that had collected mossy smudges from the woods.
He ached to trace the track of those tiny freckles with his mouth, taste her sweat, run his hands through the wild tangle of her hair, strip away her clothes and his, soap her agile, graceful body under a cooling shower until her sleepy eyes glittered with desire.
Instead, obliquely giving her one of the reasons he’d fallen so heavily and permanently in love with her, he said, ‘You’re not obsessed by your appearance, are you, Allie? Considering the way you earn your living, I find that remarkable, and very refreshing. You’ve got a twig in your hair.’ He reached out a hand and plucked it away. Touching the shimmering blonde rumpled mass of silkiness made his fingers tremble.
Allie gave an involuntary gasp, and in case he wondered why the touch of his fingers in her hair should make her drag air into her lungs as if she were drowning she turned it into a yawn and covered it with the tips of her fingers. She made herself relax, telling him truthfully, ‘I’ll put on the glam for the catwalk and cameras, otherwise I’m not interested.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘What you see is what you get.’
If only! he thought savagely. He tossed the twig clear of the stone paving slabs of the terrace and ushered her in through the French windows. Keeping his physical distance, behaving himself, acting like a big brother had been harder than he’d thought. A damn sight harder. But somehow, throughout the long, hot summer day, he’d managed it.
‘This must be his study,’ Allie exclaimed, taking an immediate and vocal interest in the small room, examining the book-lined walls, the desk that held a laptop, telephone and fax machine. ‘There must be hundreds of books.’ She ran her fingers over some of the spines. Each and every one of them seemed to have been read, and her absent host’s tastes ranged through Dylan Thomas, Proust, Dickens, and a handful of well-thumbed tomes on land management and environmental studies. ‘Is he a closet farmer, or maybe a conservationist as well as a business brain?’ she questioned, her voice painfully over-bright.
Yet the feeling of knowing the man who was Jethro’s friend was oddly comforting, even if it did verge on the weird. Her compassion for his lack of parental love, the tastes they appeared to share, and deliberately putting the spotlight on him, talking about him, put Jethro and the effect he had on her momentarily in the shadows.
‘I rarely socialise,’ she said, noting a P.D. James she hadn’t yet read, deciding to borrow it and retire to her room with it as soon as they’d eaten. Getting involved in the plot would take her mind off what was happening to her, the way he heightened her senses until the tension made her want to scream. ‘Like your friend, I find books are great companions. And I suppose my love of the countryside, and my concern for what’s happening to it, is down to Laura’s influence and my years at Studley.’
She had the humiliating feeling that she sounded like a pathetic idiot, but she had started on this and somehow she couldn’t stop. She babbled breathlessly, ‘I guess he must feel at home in the open spaces, otherwise he wouldn’t keep this place on, now that his sister’s got a life of her own.’
‘How nice of you to take such a warm interest in the man,’ Jethro said stiltedly. Then mentally berated himself for putting himself in the downright farcical position of being jealous of himself! He drew in a deep breath. He wished he hadn’t started out on this charade, but the wish was futile. He had to run with it until the time was right because he’d given himself no other option. And that time wasn’t now.
If he were to confess that he was their absent host she wouldn’t believe him, would think he was insane.
‘As far as I know, he has every intention of settling here more or less permanently. It’s a good place to raise a family. And you’re right, of course. He is interested in conservation. We walked over a small fraction of his land today.’
He knew his voice sounded wooden, but he couldn’t lighten up. He had the hateful feeling that he was getting nowhere with her. She was far more interested in the fictional Bill Abbot than she was in the flesh and blood reality. Because the flesh and blood man she’d married, the penniless window-cleaner, didn’t warrant so much as a passing thought?
She’d turned her back on him, her long hair swinging forward to hide her face, but not before he’d glimpsed the heightened colour of her skin, the down-flick of the thick crescent of lashes that effectively hid her expressive eyes. And she’d reached for the silver-framed photograph of his sister, seemingly intent on committing the pretty features, the cloud of dark hair, the obstinate chin, to memory.
‘That’s Chloe,’ he said tonelessly, almost dismissively. He needed out, needed space. He’d mired himself down in deception and had to work out how best to extricate himself before he said or did something that would ruin any hope of winning her trust, let alone her love. A project that seemed pretty damn hopeless at this moment. ‘I suggest we both freshen up, then fix something for supper.’
He walked out of the room because he couldn’t stand being close to her, and yet not close to her at all. He had to plan some kind of viable strategy. Around her, he couldn’t think straight.
Expelling a soft breath, Allie replaced the portrait on the shelf. Chloe was extremely pretty but, unlike the other times when he’d spoken of his friend’s sister, Jethro’s voice hadn’t held a smidgen of warmth. Did that mean that what he’d said was true, that he wasn’t remotely interested, romantically, in Chloe Abbot? Or did it simply mean that he was miffed with her, Allie?
Because she’d waffled on about his friend, the stuff they appeared to have in common? And when he’d told her that his friend owned vast tracts of the surrounding countryside he’d sounded—well, almost defeated, and that didn’t sit right. Although he might be short on worldly goods he’d always come over as being at ease with himself, assured, confident. As if he could have the world at his feet if only he could stir himself to be bothered.
Her brows drawn together, she walked up to her room, stripped off and stood under the shower. Did he feel inferior to that other man, the brilliant achiever? It was more than likely, considering the gulf that now yawned between the men who had been boys together at school. Should she tell him what she believed, that worldly possessions didn’t mean a thing so long as a person had integrity?
Perhaps not, she decided, pulling on clean white briefs. He would think she was being patronising, and besides, it was safer to keep their relationship as impersonal as possible.
And, come to think of it, he had spoken at length on the subject of the owner of this house, but he’d never said anything about himself, his family, where he’d lived and what he’d done before moving in with his grandmother.
So if privacy was what
he wanted, that was fine by her. Non-involvement was safer.
Deciding against a bra—it had been a hot day and didn’t seem to be getting much cooler this evening—she pulled on a soft cotton T-shirt and a pair of skimpy shorts. She wouldn’t say anything that might make him think she wanted to get personal. And she couldn’t explain why she’d babbled on about his wonderful, successful friend either, apparently rubbing his nose in his own failure.
When he’d first suggested their outing she hadn’t wanted to go, her head still buzzing with all that stuff he’d said about wanting their marriage to be a real one, the feeling she’d had of being tempted into something she’d always known would be wrong for her.
But every excuse to cry off she’d fabricated in her brain had seemed either lame or downright ridiculous. So she’d gone along, and she needn’t have worried because he’d been the perfect platonic companion.
It had only been at the end of the long, strenuous but enjoyable day, when they’d been on the terrace and he’d taken that twig out of her hair, that, for her, everything had changed.
Such a small and simple thing. Just the touch of his fingers on her hair. And she had instantly become shimmeringly aware of everything about him. The height of him, the breadth of him, the scent of him, and most of all the sheer male presence of him. And suddenly, as excitement had fizzed through her veins and crackled down her spine, a real marriage to this man had become a temptation she could barely withstand.
Deeply aware of the sudden, urgent danger, she had walked into the study and babbled fatuously. Annoyed him. She’d made him feel inferior. And she’d ended an effortlessly companionable day on a sour note.
Perhaps that was for the best. Sour was better than the other—the slide of his warm, intimate eyes over her features as he’d restated his wish to make their marriage real, to have children with her, the emotional rack he put her on whenever he was near—
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