The CEO's Contract Bride

by Yvonne Lindsay

  “Yeah. Where can I put the rubbish?”

  “Here, let me take it.” She stepped forward into the room and reached to take the bag from him.

  “No, it’s okay. Just tell me where to put it,” he insisted.

  Gwen didn’t let go. He gave the bag a tug. “Does everything have to be a battle with you?”

  She uncurled her fingers from the bag one by one. “Down the side of the house will do fine. You’ll see where when you get outside.” Her voice was stiff, like the set of her shoulders.

  With his free hand Declan grabbed her wrist, turning her hand palm down. “Where’s your ring?” he scowled.

  “In its case. I’ve been working in the garden.”

  “You don’t wear gloves?” It was obvious by the dirt under her nails that she hadn’t.

  “Do you?” she fired back quickly before snatching her hand back. “Don’t think because we’re engaged you can order me about. You don’t call all the shots.”

  “I was thinking of your hands. For the wedding photos.”

  “Oh.” Gwen curled her fingers and examined them closely. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they’re clean.”

  Declan let go of the rubbish sack and took her hand again, examining it closely as she had. He rubbed his thumb across the backs of her fingers as he assessed the damage she’d wrought today.

  “Yeah, you do that.” He dropped her hand like a hot potato, snagged the bag in one fist and stalked up the hallway to dump the rubbish outside. He shouldn’t let her get under his skin like that, but somehow, it was easier said than done.

  Gwen jumped as the front door slammed. All she’d been going to do was offer him a meal. He’d eaten the sandwiches she shoved through his doorway at lunchtime, but a man his size was bound to be hungry now. It was coming up six o’clock. She looked around the room. It would have taken her a week to get all that paper off. He’d done it in a day, and properly, too.

  “I’ll have my things sent around tomorrow,” he said from behind her.

  Gwen jumped. “Couldn’t you whistle or something when you’re coming!” How often was he going to sneak up on her like that?

  “What, like this?” Declan pursed his lips and gave a long, low wolf-whistle.

  “On second thought, don’t bother.” Gwen couldn’t stop the blush that spread up her neck and flamed her cheeks. “I’ll get used to you.”

  “You’d better.” Declan bent to pick up the toolkit and started to refold the tarpaulin he’d spread across the floor. “I’ll go and put these in the car and then I’ll be on my way.”

  “I…um.” Sudden nerves churned in her stomach. What the hell was she doing? She didn’t want to spend any more time with him than absolutely necessary yet here she was trying to ask him to stay for dinner?

  “You um what?” His voice was clipped, as if he’d had enough of her and her company.

  “I took some steaks from the freezer a couple of hours ago. I wondered if you’d like dinner before you go.”

  He hesitated for a moment before replying. “I’m a bit on the ripe side. Is there any chance I could have a shower? I have a change of clothes in the car.”

  “The shower’s not installed yet, but you can have a bath if you’d like.”

  She wondered what he’d make of that. A bath. Granted, the deep, claw-footed tub in her decrepit bathroom was larger than the standard bath of today, but then Declan Knight was larger than the standard man, too.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance it’s a spa?” He arched a thick black eyebrow in hopeful query.

  “Not a chance.” Gwen grinned back.

  “Well, it looks like it’s a bath then. Give me a couple of minutes to get my things together.”

  Gwen was running the taps and taking the largest fluffy towel she could find from the cupboard when Declan came into the bathroom.

  “I put some bath salts in there for you. I know how my shoulders feel after all that kind of work. It’ll help ease the knots out.”

  “Thanks.” Declan lifted his T-shirt up over his head.

  “Excuse me.” Gwen bolted for the door.

  “What’s the matter? It’s not like you haven’t seen me half-naked before.”

  Or completely naked, Gwen remembered with another rush of heat to her cheeks. “I thought I’d give you a bit of privacy.”

  Behind her she heard the rasp of the zipper of his jeans before the dull thud of fabric on the floor. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

  She turned around.

  He bent to test the water and that was enough for her. She was out of there like an Olympic sprinter off the blocks. The faint rumble of his laughter penetrated the door as she pulled it closed behind her.

  Garlic pepper steak. No, double chilli garlic pepper steak. It was the only suitable revenge she could think of. But she couldn’t help but hesitate and rest her head against the door long enough to hear his deep sigh of satisfaction and the gentle lap of water against the sides of the tub as he sank into the bath.

  What was she thinking? Next she’d be plastering her eye to the keyhole to take a peek. Gwen mentally revised her renovation plans to include having the shower installed as soon as possible. Once they had the Sellers contract and her progress contract payments started coming in it would be first on her list, no matter what else may have taken top priority for work around here. She’d even take a part-time job at the local takeaway bar if she had to.

  Anything would be better than imagining him in her tub every night.

  Anything.

  Six

  The scents of sandalwood and lavender wafted past her nose as Gwen straightened the duvet over the king-sized sleigh bed that had been delivered earlier today and now silently dominated the old master bedroom. How did he get his linen to smell like that? She flicked the corners of the pillows one last time. There, that looked better.

  At the end of the bed she trailed her hand along the edge of the footboard and tried to ignore the expanse of fine cotton that encased the wickedly plush feather duvet. The bed looked new, but she wondered if he had slept in it before. Slept in it with someone else.

  She tried not to imagine his long dark hair spread in wild abandon over the rich, ruby-coloured pillows, or his tanned skin against the dusky sheets. A tiny moan slipped past her lips at the sudden, intensely vivid image that flooded her mind.

  She locked her knees rigidly straight and desperately gathered her wild imagination back under control. No intimacy. No repeat of the mistakes of the past. Gwen forced her wayward thoughts into submission just as she heard a key in the front door and a measured tread down the hall.

  He was home.

  Home? When on earth did she start thinking of Declan and home in the same sentence? That implied a permanence she was never going to have. Not with him, anyway.

  “You didn’t need to go to the bother of making up the bed, I’d have done that.”

  Gwen congratulated herself silently. She didn’t so much as flinch this time as he appeared beside her.

  “I know, but when you called to say you were working late I thought I’d help out. I’ve kept you some dinner. It’s in the oven.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.” Declan tossed his briefcase on the bed and flipped it open. “Here, I brought something for you in case you want to get started on the job before the wedding.”

  Gwen reached for the DVD case he held out. “A disk?”

  “Yeah, I had the chance to go through the hotel today and took some video. I thought you might like to view it—you know, start putting some thoughts together, see what you could be letting yourself in for.”

  Excitement thrilled through her. She loved the planning stage of every job. Being able to visualise what she had to do, to put each thing in its place and start sourcing the appropriate fittings and furniture, was the best part of her job. Declan threw another packet onto the bed. Celluloid images—some colour, some black and white—spilled out to scatter over the bedcovers.


  “These are from around the time the hotel closed for guests and date back to when the hotel originally opened.”

  Gwen sat down on the bed and snatched up the photos, eager to see the images. She flipped past the current photos quickly, lingering when she reached the older ones. “These are amazing. Do you know if they’ve kept any of the original furnishings or light fittings?”

  “There are a few, especially in the hotel lobby and restaurant, and I understand there’s a massive storage area in the hotel basement, too.”

  “Do you think I could take a look sometime?”

  “There’s an inventory in the paperwork I requested. That’ll do for now. Once we get the job you can hunt and pick as much as you like.”

  Gwen tried to hide her disappointment, but what he said made sense. No point getting her hopes up or getting all excited when they might not even get the job. And if they didn’t? What then? What of the wedding they had looming ahead of them at the end of the week. Would it all be in vain?

  “It’ll be okay, Gwen. No one else has our combined experience. We will get this job.”

  He was too astute. It wasn’t fair that he could read her so well.

  “Yeah, I know. I just can’t help worrying.” Gwen’s voice caught in her throat. She knew all too well how easily hopes and dreams could be ripped apart. How a life, so perfect in every way, could be destroyed in a careless moment. Had she become some kind of Jonah that everything she’d held dear in her life had been laid to waste—first, her parents’ marriage, then her mother’s desertion of her, then Steve? And worse, Renata?

  “Hey, don’t worry.” Declan sat down on the bed next to her. “It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”

  Gwen allowed herself to draw strength from the assurance in his voice. If only she could rest her cheek against his broad shoulder, lean into him and absorb his comfort. She drew in a deep breath, steeling herself against giving in to the weakness that urged her to seek comfort in his arms, to inhale the scent she’d long since come to associate only with him. Her heart hammered in her chest. It would be so simple to just let go, to turn into him and—

  Declan got up from the bed, the movement throwing Gwen slightly off balance and bringing her rampaging thoughts back under control. Just as well.

  He shrugged out of his suit jacket and slipped his vibrant silk tie loose at his neck before unhooking the top two buttons of his shirt with a sound of relief that bordered on a growl.

  “Tough day?” Gwen asked, then wished the words unsaid. Well, wasn’t she slipping into the little wife mode already.

  “Yeah, board meeting. I had to bring the board members up to date with the police investigation. It wasn’t pretty.” Declan slung his jacket on the bed and hooked a T-shirt and jeans from the chest of drawers that was wedged under the window on the other side of the room. The late afternoon sun streamed in through the window, gilding him as he stood framed by golden beams of light. He sighed. “And then I told them about the wedding and the tender for the Sellers Hotel.”

  “How did your dad take the news?”

  Declan’s short bark of laughter fractured the air between them. “As well as could be expected.” His lips pressed together in a grim line. “He doesn’t like having his plans upset. His vision for Cavaliere Developments runs along a different line to mine.”

  Gwen frowned. “It’s hellish being at cross purposes like that.” A memory flashed through her mind of Aunt Hope’s stern and unforgiving face as she greeted nine-year-old Gwen when, after her mother’s latest beau had objected to Gwen’s presence on his luxury yacht, she’d arrived in New Zealand—alone, totally confused and rejected even by the man she’d been brought up to believe was her father. The whole time she’d lived with Aunt Hope she’d been filled with stories of her mother’s failures—failure to maintain a successful career, failure to maintain a successful relationship, failure to be a good mother. Failures Gwen refused to replicate.

  “It has its moments.” Declan’s comment dragged her back to the present. He sat back down onto the bed and looked at Gwen. “He’s definitely coming to the wedding—are you okay about that?”

  “Shouldn’t I be?” He’d already told her he wanted his family there. It wasn’t as if she could object, anyway. Even so, the prospect of meeting Declan’s father did set her stomach aflutter. He was the kind of man whose reputation as a tough negotiator preceded him in foot-high letters. No one fooled Tony Knight.

  Declan kicked off his shoes and they landed with a dull thud on the bare floor. “He might ask you a few questions, that’s all.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Where we met, how long ago. That sort of thing.”

  Gwen chewed on her lower lip. There were bound to be quite a few of those sorts of questions floating around next Saturday.

  “It’s not as if we were strangers. We can easily tell him the truth—that we met eight-and-a-half years ago but haven’t seen much of one another until recently.” The instant the words were out of her mouth she wished them unsaid. Renata had introduced them, filled with the excitement of a prospective bride and insisting her two best friends get along.

  For Gwen it had been a bitter pleasure-pain to meet Declan Knight. From the first time she’d shook his hand in greeting she’d felt a trickle of sexual awareness. An awareness she’d spent the better part of the next six months valiantly ignoring, until that fateful night when commonsense, relegated to the backseat by grief, had let her down and she’d acted purely on instinct. Instinct that had seen her burned so badly she’d promised she’d never let herself feel so much, so deeply, for a man ever again.

  Gwen rapidly gathered her thoughts into some semblance of order as facts slotted back into place. “Declan, it’s simple. We met through Renata.” She turned away from the sudden pain she saw reflected in Declan’s eyes and the tightness that bracketed his lips as he clenched his jaw. “Then, more recently we’ve seen each other off and on through work. It’s all true, surely we don’t need to go into too much detail—oh no!”

  “What?”

  “The invitations I gave you. They had Steve’s name on them.”

  “I noticed,” Declan replied wryly. “Don’t worry, I had my secretary scan them up and change the minor details before reprinting them.”

  Minor details. Gwen clenched her hands into fists so tight her fingernails bit painfully into the palms of her hands. Minor details like the groom being a different man? Minor details like how false this entire wedding was going to be? Minor details like the lie she was going to live for the next six months so she could be certain her home would be safe?

  “I’ll leave you to get changed.” Her voice was strained.

  Declan gently grabbed her arm before she left.

  “Gwen. It’s going to be okay. I won’t let you lose this place, whatever happens.”

  She flicked a glance at his face. His eyebrows were pulled together, his dark eyes burned with concern and a tiny frown marred the perfection of his forehead. Gwen clamped down on the urge to smooth away the creases. Clamped down hard.

  “Thanks, I know, I’ll be fine.” She stiffened and pulled away, closing the door gently behind her.

  Declan watched her go, frustration building inside of him at the way she would bend, almost break, and then in an instant be as strong as a reed in the wind. Bowing but never giving in. She did it all the time. Assumed responsibility. Bore it alone on her slender shoulders. What had made her like that, he wondered?

  Had it been when Renata died that day on the mountain, or did it go back further? He knew she still blamed herself—heaven knew he did, too, in so many ways. But even so, he was the one who should have been there with both of them, but he’d been too damned busy with his fledgling business to take a day out to go climbing with them. Sharp pain burst in his chest as he remembered them heading out that day. One, daylight and energy—the other, moonlight and secrets. Each the antithesis of the other, yet despite their disparity they’d been the best of
friends.

  The next time he’d seen them he’d been part of the rescue team sent to pluck Gwen from the ledge that had saved her. They hadn’t let him be part of the crew that had retrieved Renata’s body, no matter how much he’d insisted. But he’d been there when they’d brought her down the mountain.

  He groaned and pushed the thought far, far into the recesses of his mind. Down that road lay only torment—torment he already had a painfully intimate relationship with. He stripped off his shirt, balling it up before tossing it into the corner with a curse. He had more problems on his hands than what had happened in the past and what made Gwen Jones tick.

  His father wasn’t happy. Not happy at all. Somehow, in the next five days, Declan had to convince Gwen to be an ardent loving bride or, with a full complement of legal might behind him, his father would usurp his plans.

  He dropped backwards onto the bed and lay staring at the painted kauri-batten ceiling. He could hear Gwen moving about in her workroom-cum-office next door, and the occasional floorboard would creak as she paced from one side of the room to the other.

  His eyes slid shut and he tried to visualise her. She probably was poring over those photos and the video already. Bit by bit, muscle by muscle, he felt the tight, coiled tension that had seen him through the day begin to ease off. A small, satisfied smile crept across his face. At least he’d done something right by bringing those pictures home. The light of enthusiasm in her face had been like a gift.

  He sighed and levered himself up off the bed, a rueful expression on his face as he saw the crumpled bed linen. His mother would have skinned him for lying on the freshly made bed. He wondered how Gwen felt about it. Despite living in a house in a constant state of chaos through the renovation she kept things very tidy.

  Would it bother her? No, she probably wouldn’t care. But out of habit, Declan quickly smoothed over the damage before changing his clothes and hanging his suit in the freestanding wardrobe perched in the corner of the room. Funny, that hadn’t been here when he’d left last night. Gwen must have manoeuvred it in on her own after he’d gone.