Convenient Brides

by Catherine Spencer

  ‘What? And have you fund your pension by revealing the private arrangements of an old lady who no longer wishes to be in the public eye?’

  ‘She was in the public eye for over thirty-five years. Surely that counts for something?’

  ‘No. Not if she doesn’t desire it,’ he said. ‘Celebrities are not public property unless they give their permission to be so. Rose decided that enough was enough and the rest of her years should be spent in seclusion. I respect that and so should you.’

  ‘But why all the secrecy?’ Emily asked. ‘Lots of celebrities quietly retreat from public life without question. Rose’s sudden departure has fuelled the public’s interest. One statement from you and I could tie up all the loose ends and she could live the rest of her life in peace.’

  ‘You never give up, do you?’ He eyeballed her over the rim of his brandy glass. ‘Always on the hunt for information, always the investigative journalist.’

  Emily reclaimed her glass and took a tentative sip. She didn’t drink brandy as a rule, but didn’t want to appear unsophisticated in his company.

  ‘I’m committed to providing the public with what they want.’

  ‘Even if you hurt innocent people in the process?’

  Emily bit her lip once more. She was still haunted by the images of the parents of the target of her previous book. They’d pleaded with her to represent him differently but she’d had to follow her agent’s directions.

  ‘I do what I’m told to do.’

  ‘Well, I’m telling you to halt the book. Write something else. Anything but a book about my aunt.’

  ‘I can’t do that. That award I received will ensure my success. My agent is already pushing for a contract from my publisher.’

  He reached for his jacket, which was lying across the sofa.

  ‘How much?’ he asked, fanning open the leather pouch of his wallet. ‘I can cover your losses. How much?’

  Emily felt sick, cheapened by his implied insult.

  ‘You couldn’t afford me,’ she stated in a flat tone.

  One of his dark brows lifted.

  ‘I could cover your costs and set you up for a new book. Something a little less controversial.’

  ‘Controversy sells,’ she said. ‘I need sales or my career is over.’

  ‘How much?’ he asked again, brandishing his wallet.

  Emily gave him a scornful look. ‘Is that what you say to all the girls?’

  His expression clouded. ‘I’m making you a generous offer—take it or leave it.’

  ‘I’ll leave it,’ she said arrogantly. ‘I’ve got a lot riding on the release of this new book.’

  ‘You’re willing to risk everything for it?’ he asked.

  ‘Do your worst, Mr Margate.’ She glared at him. ‘I’m not frightened of you.’

  ‘You should be,’ he warned. ‘I have the means to totally destroy your literary career.’

  ‘I’m increasingly fascinated as to why you would want to,’ she said archly. ‘It seems to me you’re very threatened by the exposure my proposed book represents. It makes me start to wonder exactly what it is you’re so protective of. According to my sources, you and Danny have had very little to do with Rose over the last fifteen years. I can’t help wondering why you’d be so motivated to protect her now.’

  ‘Tell me, Miss Sherwood.’ His eyes held hers with determination. ‘Do you come from a close family?’

  Emily lowered her gaze and concentrated on the amber fluid in her glass. ‘I have two siblings. My parents died some years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She looked up at him. There was a sincerity about his simple comment that touched her unexpectedly.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said dismissively. ‘My…family have never been close. My parents divorced when I was four. I’m used to being alone.’

  Damien perched on the edge of one of the leather sofas and cupped his brandy balloon in one large hand.

  ‘Is that why you’ve chosen to write biographies?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He twirled the glass in his hand reflectively.

  ‘Writing about other people’s families must answer some sort of need of your own, surely?’

  She decided against responding to his comments and instead wandered out of his line of vision to inspect the walnut bookcase. He was certainly an eclectic reader, she observed, but there was no sign of an Emily Sherwood title. The tinge of pique she experienced was both unexpected and unsettling.

  ‘Isn’t that why you delve into other people’s private lives? To make up for the close family you didn’t have yourself?’ he added.

  ‘I find people’s lives interesting.’ She turned to face him again. ‘Even those who aren’t famous in any way. It has nothing to do with me personally. Besides—’ she gave him a provocative look ‘—it’s about making money—lots of money.’

  ‘You callous little bitch,’ he snarled, tossing his wallet on to the coffee table. ‘This isn’t about money at all. This is about power, isn’t it? Danny’s unfaithfulness has given you even more reason to hurt the Margate name now, hasn’t it?’

  Emily tried to outstare him but his eyes were burning with a hatred that frightened her. She drained her brandy and put the empty glass down with a betraying little clatter on to the coffee table next to his abandoned wallet.

  ‘You have a very poor notion of a biographer’s life if you think I would spend months of my life researching a book at great personal cost to simply abandon the task just because one of the relatives couldn’t keep his fly zipped.’

  Damien’s eyes narrowed as he stood before her.

  ‘Danny and Louise Morse have been on and off together for months. If you’re such a hot-shot investigative journalist you should’ve picked that up from the outset.’

  Emily’s face suffused with colour but she maintained her poise. Damien Margate was a formidable opponent but he had a lot to lose. Danny had been a pleasant and entertaining distraction for her—useful too, in providing her with access to family albums and journals. But she hadn’t been in love with Danny by any means. She’d been toying with the idea of sleeping with him, however, and that did make her feel very foolish. She didn’t usually make those sorts of errors of judgement.

  ‘Perhaps I’m like you,’ she taunted him rashly. ‘I don’t mind sharing.’

  He moved quickly, and the sofa behind her blocked her exit so effectively that she suddenly found herself jammed up against his chest, his long strong legs tangling with her shaky ones.

  ‘I seem to remember warning you about making careless statements about my private life.’ He glowered down at her. ‘But you don’t listen to warnings, do you?’

  Her voice, when it came out, seemed to be squeezed out of her chest. ‘I…I’m not frightened of you.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ One of his fingers lifted her chin to make her meet his diamond-sharp eyes. ‘You’ve got everything resting on this new book, haven’t you? And I’ve got every reason to stop you from writing it.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ The light of challenge in his eyes made her stomach free-fall in panic.

  ‘I’ll fight you.’

  ‘Go on, then.’ He gave a half-grunt of mocking laughter. ‘Fight me.’

  She ached to scratch his face. Every nerve in her body wanted to claw at him, bring him to his knees, turn the tables on him so it was him begging, not her.

  She met his eyes, her breath catching in her throat at his nearness. His face was so close, his eyes burning into hers. Her legs threatened to dissolve beneath her and yet she didn’t have either the strength to pull away or the inclination. Part of her wanted to find out just how far he would go. That same part of her wanted to see if she could push him that little bit further…

  His mouth found hers, shocking her with its heat and purpose. This wasn’t a kiss of experimentation; this was a kiss of premeditated punishment. His firm lips opened over her startled mouth
and he entered it with a single thrust of his tongue that sent her rocking backwards, but his strong arms around her gave her no choice but to stay imprinted along the length of his probing and insistent frame.

  She should have been fighting him, but instead of her hands pushing him away they grasped at his shirt sleeves, her fingernails embedding in the silky fabric, pulling him even closer to her fevered body.

  His tongue duelled with hers moistly. Heat flicked along her veins, ran up her legs and pooled between her thighs where his very male body was imprinting a message older than time.

  One of his hands left the back of her head and slipped under the tiny shoestring strap of her cocktail dress. The flimsy ribbon-like strap fell away and the crest of one creamy breast was before his hungry eyes. She could feel the heat of his gaze as his eyes travelled over the smooth, proud mound, the dusky redness of her nipple clearly visible as the strap slipped a little further.

  His mouth found the sensitive skin of her neck, his tongue grazing the underside of her jaw, trailing a relentless path back to her waiting mouth.

  ‘No!’

  Somehow she found the strength of will to push him from her. She stood in disarray before him—her mouth swollen with his kisses, her breasts burgeoning from his touch, her legs shaking from the heat of his maleness pressing against her so intimately.

  ‘No?’ His dark eyes were sardonic, his mouth a thin line of derision.

  She had to look away. His satirical gaze made her feel cheap and colour flooded her face.

  ‘I won’t tell Danny,’ he said insultingly. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

  Emily felt sick. The nausea rose like a tide in her stom-ach. How had she got herself into this situation? Her big night of fame had turned into a farce of mammoth proportions. He’d swiftly manoeuvred the situation so that it was she who was cast in the role of the fool. He was in control, had been from the first, and was now just waiting for an opportunity to dispense with her for good.

  ‘If you think you can manipulate me by such means, think again,’ she spat at him. ‘I’m well used to the groping hands of desperate men, and I know how to deal with them.’

  One dark eyebrow rose expressively. ‘I would hardly describe myself as desperate, but please enlighten me all the same.’

  ‘You’re just like all the rest.’ Her eyes flashed with hatred. ‘You think you can snap your fingers and women will come running, but I’ve got news for you. I know the only women you’ve had have been other men’s cast-offs, and I’m not going to add myself to the list.’

  Emily knew she’d gone way too far. The glitter of venom in his dark eyes impaled her to the spot. He was just a breath away, and she flinched as one of his hands circled her wrist and tugged her back into the wall of his chest.

  ‘Not only are the words you write dangerous,’ he rasped. ‘So are the ones that come out of that delectable mouth of yours. But I’m going to make you regret every one of them.’

  ‘I told you—you don’t frighten me,’ she gasped as his rock-hard pelvis collided with hers.

  ‘You have one week to come to a decision,’ he contin-ued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘If at the end of that week you have failed to withdraw your proposal to write this book, any further dealings we have will be via my lawyers.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  His eyes glinted challengingly. ‘Watch me.’

  Panic beat a tattoo in her chest. If her publisher got wind of a threatened suit they’d pull the plug immediately, with-out sparing her a single thought.

  She pushed herself away from him and, snatching up her purse and wrap, headed for the door.

  ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said, reaching for his keys.

  She swung around to glare at him.

  ‘I’d rather crawl on my knees than accept a lift from you.’ She wrenched open the front door of his house and flung back at him, ‘I’ll see you in court.’

  Chapter Three

  EMILY hailed the first cab she could and sat shivering in the back seat, her heart thumping with adrenalin as she recalled Damien Margate’s threats. The familiar lights of the city blurred in front of her agitated eyes as she contem-plated her next move.

  She didn’t have the means to fight someone like Damien. Her literary career was already hanging by a thread—her agent, Clarice, had warned her only a few days ago of the importance of the success of this next book.

  Emily paid her fare and stood looking up at her tiny apartment as the taxi drove away. She’d worked so hard to have a place to call her own. The success of her first biography about a prominent politician had paid the deposit and furnished it. The failure of her second book had rattled her security somewhat, but she’d clung on with fervent promises to her bank manager as well as a part-time job at a local restaurant.

  She dreamed of the day when she could write full-time, but so far that possibility had eluded her. So she scratched at bits of notepaper and tapped at her old lap-top whenever she could, working frantically to deadlines, trying hard to please editors and pandering to Clarice, who claimed to believe in her but often acted as if she couldn’t wait to weasel her way out of her contract.

  Emily sighed as she waited for the lift. She wouldn’t give in without a fight, even if it took every ounce of courage she had. Damien Margate probably thought he could scare her with a few idle threats but she’d show him. She had all weekend to plan her counter-attack.

  She slept fitfully, too wound up to relax enough to drop off. As soon as eight o’clock came around she called Clarice, who answered the phone groggily. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Clarice, it’s me, Emily. I want to go on tour to promote Rose’s Cupboard.’

  Emily heard the sound of Clarice’s bedsprings protesting.

  ‘But you haven’t written it yet.’

  ‘So what? I won that award. People will go out and buy my previous titles. I want you to ring around and organise as many book signings as you can for Going For Vote. And not just bookshops—I’ll do shopping centres, radio shows and breakfast television.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Clarice said. ‘You told me after Tyson’s Trial you were never going to self-promote again.’

  ‘I know, I know—but this is different.’

  ‘Does the boy know about this?’ Clarice asked.

  ‘This has absolutely nothing to do with Danny,’ Emily said firmly.

  ‘What about that brother of his? I don’t suppose this was his idea?’

  ‘Damien Margate is a stuck-up prig who probably hasn’t read anything but the Financial Times since high school. I want to promote myself, and nothing and no one is going to stop me.’

  ‘Attagirl!’ Clarice cheered. ‘Give me a couple of hours—I’ll see what I can organise at short notice.’

  ‘Thanks, Clarice,’ she said. ‘You won’t be sorry. I know this one’s going to be a hit.’

  ‘Yes, well, it’d better be, my love. We can’t afford another disaster like Tyson’s Trial. That sort of bad publicity is best left for movie stars, not authors and agents.’

  Emily hated being reminded of her book about a young offender. When Tyson had committed suicide behind bars it seemed everyone had blamed her, including his distraught family. It had taken her months to even think of writing again, and then only because of a chance encounter with Danny.

  He’d come into the restaurant where she worked and as she’d served him he’d chatted to her in a flirting and easy-going manner. When he’d signed his credit card she’d noticed the Margate name. She’d made some comment about the famous stage actress Rose Margate, who had taken the theatre world by storm, only to mysteriously disappear from public view without so much as a departing interview.

  ‘She’s my aunt,’ he’d said, pocketing his credit card, his light-blue eyes glinting at hers.

  Emily had taken up his offer of a late-night drink somewhere. That somewhere had been his plush Northbridge apartment, and that evening had restarted her writing career wi
th a bang.

  Clarice Connor had been beside herself once Emily’s synopsis landed on her desk. ‘An unauthorised biography of Rose Margate? Wonderful, darling! But do you have to sleep with this Boy Wonder to get all the inside info?’

  ‘Not yet—’ Emily had laughed ‘—but it’s tempting.’

  She hadn’t known about Danny’s older brother until Damien had come to the restaurant one evening with an elegantly dressed woman on his arm. She’d seen his name in the reservations book and was too much of a journalist not to notice the gold wedding band almost embedded into the flesh of his date’s left ring finger. Danny had told her of his brother’s affair with a prominent businessman’s wife but he’d insisted on her not mentioning anything to do with his brother in her book. Emily had been intrigued, of course, but after a while had taken it to mean that Danny was just being protective.

  Rose’s Cupboard had proved to be much harder to research than she’d expected. Danny had been generous, handing her various letters and photo albums and two dogeared childhood journals. The library had provided numerous paper clippings, and several theatres had shown her through their archives, where Rose’s beautiful face adorned many a promotional poster. But, while Emily had been able to piece together Rose’s early years and much of her per-forming years, there were still yawning gaps that made the task of documenting her life extremely difficult.

  She’d probed Danny for relatives and friends to interview, but it seemed the Margate family didn’t have many close friends and what relatives there were, such as Damien, were very tight-lipped.

  At last she had decided to approach Damien Margate one more time. He was, after all, Rose’s power of attorney. Perhaps he might come to agree with her that Rose’s adoring fans genuinely deserved to know what had become of her.

  Emily had made an appointment at his office and sat fidgeting in his plush waiting room for over an hour. Somehow she’d known the delay was deliberate.

  When he’d finally summoned her into his office she had had to fight to keep her temper under control. Irritated with having to wait, annoyed at being treated like a persistent fly, she had plastered a determined smile on her face and taken the seat he’d offered on the other side of his desk.