by Alison Kelly
Reb grinned. ‘Rubbish. The money for this place was advanced to you from your trust after your divorce, but with the condition that you can’t sell it and gain the use of the funds until such time as your inheritance is released to you. According to my sources that’s three years down the track.’
Amanda-Jayne clenched her fists and concentrated on not punching him. Never in her entire life had she wanted to hit someone as much as she did Reb Browne. The problem was he was absolutely right. She’d weighed up all her money-raising options and every one was terminally anorexic. Any way she looked, this odious, arrogant hellraiser was her and her baby’s only immediate source of income.
‘Well?’ he prompted, making no attempt to conceal a smart-alec grin. ‘What’s your answer?’
‘I hate you.’
‘I’m not looking for a love match.’
‘What exactly are you looking for?’
‘Stability for my child.’
It was a noble sentiment, but Reb Browne didn’t strike her as the noble type. Then again, she’d recently discovered neither was she… When she’d first realised the extent of her money problems she’d intended filing a lawsuit against Patricia as a means of forcing her to release the money she was owed; all that had stopped her was learning the family solicitors would side with Patricia and that such an action by her would be deemed as bringing the Vaughan name into disrepute, thus contravening her father’s wishes anyway. She was in a position where she was going to be damned if she did, damned if she didn’t and, Lord help her, damned well going to have to marry Reb Browne!
Surely a person was supposed to be dead before having to endure hell? Then again, hadn’t she’d already experienced it once in this lifetime? She’d managed to survive seven years in one bad marriage; what was a further measly three in another one? she reasoned.
Besides, in a few months the baby would provide her with all the happiness she’d ever need. It was the baby she had to think of; even though the very idea of being Mrs Browne filled her with an almost electric dread there was simply no other solution. Unless, of course, I hyphenate my name to Vaughan-Browne! Finding a glimmer of light in her black humour, she turned to the man whose presence seemed to shrink her spacious apartment to phone-booth proportions. She breathed deeply before saying, ‘I’ll accept your condition, but I have one of my own… If we marry I want to keep my maiden name.’
Reb told himself the sigh he expelled came from impatience, not relief, but he knew he was lying. His biggest concern had been that she’d refuse to marry him, leaving him next to no legal rights over the baby, and with his family history and her wealthy background he needed as much legal leverage as he could get. Traditionally the women who bore children to the Browne men invariably lacked maternal instincts; his own mother had shot through when he was only ten and Savvy’s hadn’t stuck around even that long. Neither woman had cared enough to take her kids with her, but if they had, in the absence of a marriage certificate in both cases, there would have been little chance of either his father or uncle getting custody.
Reb might well be the first male Browne to produce a child in wedlock for three generations, but his proposal wasn’t motivated from a moral or social angle, purely a legal one. He knew that when Amanda-Jayne decided to call it quits, unlike his mother and aunt, she’d be the type to take her child with her, if only because she had the money to do it. He also knew that he couldn’t match it with the Vaughans in an expensive, drawn-out custody battle. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to be shoved entirely from his child’s life and marriage would prevent that happening.
‘You can call yourself anything you like,’ he said, snatching up his helmet and jacket. ‘I’ll be here at nine tomorrow morning so we can go get a marriage licence. Once we’ve done that we’ll be heading for Vaughan’s Landing; I’ve only got the bike so pack light. You can arrange to have the rest of your stuff sent—’
‘What do you mean we’ll be heading to Vaughan’s Landing? I’m not going back there! Why would I?’
‘We’re getting married, remember?’
‘As if I could forget! But there’s no reason we can’t live here.’
‘In case it’s slipped your mind, I have a business there and I’m not about to commute three plus hours twice a day.’
As insane as it seemed, it wasn’t until that moment that Amanda-Jayne’s brain actually grasped what being married to Reb Browne would mean. Unlike Anthony he wouldn’t be gone for months at a time on business trips; this man would be in her life every day and, God forbid, possibly her bed every night! The realisation threw her breathing pattern into complete disarray, but desperation kept her mind ticking over for a solution. She almost cheered with glee as inspiration struck. ‘I know!’ she said. ‘You could stay in Vaughan’s Landing during the week and just come here on weekends.’
‘You mean sleep over on Friday and Saturday nights…’ he said, with a considering expression.
She nodded eagerly. ‘Or even just Saturdays! No point making a long drive after a tough week at—’
‘Forget it, sunshine,’ he said, cynical amusement in his tone and eyes. ‘Like it or lump it, the only people who are going to know this isn’t a fair dinkum marriage are you and me.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Do you?’ His amused dark-eyed gaze sent heat rushing through her body, but Amanda-Jayne flatly refused to voice the question foremost in her mind.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You want our marriage to appear normal at a public level. Very well,’ she agreed, before he could take exception to her insinuation that it wasn’t going to be normal on a personal level. ‘But where in Vaughan’s Landing will we live?’
‘Where I currently live.’ A wry smile tugged at his mouth. ‘You should feel almost at home—technically it’s a penthouse too.’
‘You have a penthouse?’
‘Technically… I live in a flat above the garage.’
She sank onto the arm of the sofa as her mind threw up a picture of the art deco-style cream-painted building on the outskirts of town between the flood plains and the industrial estate. ‘Oh, my God…’
Reb hadn’t come here intending to blackmail her into marriage—indeed he hadn’t even known he was going to make such a condition until he’d heard himself say the words—but any thoughts of revoking them vanished when she dropped her head into her hands as if he’d condemned her to a death sentence rather than saved her financial butt. It wasn’t that he’d expected or even wanted her gratitude, but he resented the fact she had the ability to make him dissatisfied with a lifestyle which had suited him just fine until now.
Glancing around the sleek, modern apartment with its multi-million-dollar price tag, he saw nothing that reflected the passion Amanda-Jayne had revealed in his arms that night over two months ago. Nor did he see her being overwhelmed by the functional but uninspired decor of his own two-bedroom abode. Although the idea of how she’d react to both that and Savvy appealed to his warped sense of humour. Still, now wasn’t the time to dwell on such things; he wanted to get this sorted out as quickly as possible, while he held all the aces. If she started thinking too hard about ways out of her problems which would spare her marrying him, Reb was back to square one regarding his rights to the baby.
‘Make a list of all your outstanding bills; I’ll fix them up tomorrow, before we leave.’
Her head came up in amazement. ‘All of them? Even the car?’
‘You mean you owe money on the car too?’
Amanda-Jayne swallowed at his pained disbelief and tried not to sound intimidated by it. ‘You mean your investigator didn’t tell you that because I haven’t had any income for three months I got behind on the monthly paym—?’
‘How much?’
‘It’s not a lot considering that—’
‘How much?’ he repeated tightly, flinching when she answered.
‘Well, if you think I’m forking out that much for a car that’s as much use in a rural area as a
screen door on a sub, you can forget it,’ he told her. ‘However, I’ll investigate paying it out and selling—’
‘But I’ll need that car!’
‘Why?’
She looked at him as if he were brain-dead. ‘To get around in of course. I’ll need to go to doctor’s appointments and…and shopping—’
‘You’re hardly in a financial position to be planning too many shopping expeditions,’ he said dryly. ‘And, surprising as this may be to you, a luxury sports car isn’t essential for getting to and from the doctor’s. Sell it and I’ll find you a more practical and economical mode of—’
‘B-b-but that car means the world to me!’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ she echoed, trying to think of a reason that was more logical than the truth.
‘Yeah. It’s not like you have a mechanical appreciation of it. You don’t even know when the tyres are bald.’
‘Well…because it’s mine. It’s the first car I’ve bought—’
‘No, you haven’t bought it,’ he corrected. ‘You’ve got it on hire purchase at some ridiculous interest rate—which I doubt you even bothered to look at—and as a result unless you can come up with the money to pay it out by the end of the week it’s going to be repossessed!’ he said cruelly.
‘There’s no way I’m going to finance a car that’s totally impractical for what it’s going to be required for,’ he told her. ‘Which means if you want to keep it you’ll have to find a way to pay for it—’
‘Fine! I will!’
‘By tomorrow. I’ll see myself out,’ he said, praying she was bluffing about paying off the car. If she could come up with the cash required to keep it, then she also had a means to get out of her current difficulties without having to marry him. ‘You know, A.J., you’re really going to have to brush up on the quaint manners of the working class once we’re married… We not only walk visitors to the door, we offer them refreshments.’
For a moment she looked indignant enough to explode. Then she did. ‘Oh, go to hell! Given a choice I wouldn’t offer you the time of day.’
‘I know.’ He grinned at her from the doorway. ‘Which is why it was a real surprise when you were so giving of body!’
Reb didn’t know what crashed against the door as he was closing it, but from the sound of it smashing it could’ve caused him a nasty concussion; maybe he ought to keep his helmet on and the visor down when he picked her up in the morning.
It took Amanda-Jayne several hours to calm down and get her brain working with any degree of clarity, but once she started to analyse her predicament things didn’t appear quite so bleak; indeed by midnight, when she returned from the apartment directly below her, she was feeling decidedly smug.
Ever since she’d moved here her downstairs neighbour, Oscar Cavenor, had been trying to coerce her into letting him sublet her penthouse to the overseas movie stars he regularly had to find accommodation for while they were in Sydney shooting movies. In the past she’d turned him down cold, but tonight she’d made a deal with him that for the amount of the outstanding sum on her car he could sublet her fully furnished penthouse for twelve months and keep all the revenue. Fiscally she knew she could have done better, but because of the trust she wasn’t allowed to turn a profit on the apartment for three years, which was why she couldn’t sell it. But Oscar’s greed and his self-interest had in itself been a guarantee he’d not ask why she was so desperate for money and for that she was grateful; at least she hadn’t had to lie.
She knew few people would understand her obsession with the car, but she didn’t care; to her the convertible was a symbol of freedom. She’d walked into the car dealership and bought it the day she’d left Anthony and it represented her finally taking complete control of her life. It was the first time she’d had a vehicle which wasn’t chosen, paid for and registered to either a father determined to keep control over her life, or a husband who could sell it out from under her once he’d depleted all the assets she’d brought into their marriage. Losing that car would have signified her ultimate failure in a way nothing else could have and thanks to Patricia’s bitchiness that had very nearly happened. Mercifully, though, as of tonight Amanda-Jayne had started to fight for what she wanted and had succeeded in regaining a partial hold on her dream of absolute independence.
While selling the car—which thanks to Oscar she’d own outright tomorrow morning—would give her sufficient cash to tell Reb Browne what he could do with his marriage proposal, it wouldn’t bring enough money to maintain her and the baby for the three years until she got her inheritance. But she had come up with a plan to circumvent that problem…
The rumours of the supposed ‘imminent betrothal’ between ‘Bad Boy Browne’ and the town’s so-called princess would spread through Vaughan’s Landing at the speed of light. Once Patricia heard them she’d be so horrified by the notion she’d not only order Amanda-Jayne’s trust money to be released, but would bend over backwards to convince her stepdaughter to leave town.
‘Like I’ll need convincing!’ she chuckled, switching off her bedside lamp and sliding beneath her sheets. As bizarre as Reb Browne’s ‘condition’ had seemed mere hours ago, it was going to turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to her.
CHAPTER FOUR
REB sat down at the first vacant table in the truck stop which years ago had become his halfway stopping point on the trip between Sydney and Vaughan’s Landing. Turning his head, he stared outside at the midnight-blue convertible parked beside his bike, his mind still obsessing over the same issue it had been all day… Was Amanda-Jayne even more shallow than he’d assumed, or did her articulate, well-bred mannerisms conceal a mind that struggled to grasp the obvious?
This morning, when she’d insisted they stop at a bank before going to the registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages for a licence, he’d assumed she’d been withdrawing whatever limited cash she still had; instead she’d walked out with a cheque made out to the firm about to repossess her car. Not just a cheque to clear the overdue payments, but one big enough to clear the entire outstanding balance. Wearing an ear-to-ear grin, she’d waved it in Reb’s face, telling him a friend she’d lent money to had finally been able to repay her.
Reb didn’t buy the story and was convinced she’d hit up one of her rich mates for a loan, but his theory didn’t invalidate the cheque nor the fact she’d managed to outman-oeuvre him. All night the realist in him had warned that the smug satisfaction he’d been feeling could turn out to be premature, because the prospect of marrying someone like him would spur a woman of Amanda-Jayne’s ilk to any lengths to avoid it, so he couldn’t claim to have been caught totally unaware. Still, he’d been furious at being back at square one and after ‘congratulating’ her on the fortuitous stroke of luck he’d stormed out of the bank deciding it was time he saw a lawyer.
But if he hadn’t been surprised by the cheque he sure as hell had been when she’d run out of the bank behind him and, with wide-eyed alarm, declared, ‘But of course I’m still going to marry you! I couldn’t possibly sell my car!’
Only sheer amazement had prevented Reb from telling her she was crazy. The cheque would have not only cleared her debts and enabled her to buy a sound, used car, but still left sufficient change to adequately support herself even if he hadn’t been prepared to contribute to the expenses her pregnancy incurred and the baby’s future upkeep. While her decision suited his agenda, he was damned if he could understand it. He’d railroaded her into a situation which had initially had her tossing her stomach and yet when an escape route had presented itself she’d ignored it for the sake of a car.
He looked away from the window and the sleek sports car beyond to see his ‘fiancée’ crossing from the ladies’ bathroom towards his table. He couldn’t help admiring the soft sensuality her body radiated in motion and there was as yet no way an observer would suspect she was pregnant. Yet considering her behaviour this morning Reb could only assume that either pregnancy se
riously impaired a woman’s powers of logical thinking or Amanda-Jayne was the shallowest person he’d ever met.
She was also, he noted, a peculiar shade of green as she slid into the chair opposite him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No, but I’m hoping some dry toast and tea will settle things.’ At his frown she added, ‘Morning sickness. Unfortunately, my stomach doesn’t comprehend time and goes feral at will.’ She sighed. ‘Obviously I’m not one of those women who glow during pregnancy. Lately I’ve spent more time looking down toilets than a plumber.’
Her wry humour caught him off guard and he actually had to fight back a grin. It was one thing to lust after her body and to marry her to gain some leverage when the baby was born, but the last thing he wanted was for her to think she could push any of his buttons, that his interest in her went beyond the fact she was carrying his child. It didn’t.
During the drive from Sydney Amanda-Jayne had struggled to keep her eyes from wandering to the rear-view mirror and the motorcyclist who’d cruised directly behind, but if she’d been burningly aware of him then it was nothing compared to the effect he had on her with only a small café table separating them. In fact she couldn’t be positive whether the churning in her stomach was actually morning sickness or a nervous reaction to the fact she was going to be living under the same roof as Reb Browne for what might turn out to be as long as a week if Patricia decided to prove stubborn.
Still, even as she ruefully accepted she’d displayed the morals of an alley cat in spending a night with Reb Browne, there was no question she’d chosen a good-looking ‘tom’ with whom to cavort. But then she always did. Anthony had been as drop-dead handsome as he had been unfaithful to her. Not that Anthony’s blond, pretty-boy looks and gym-maintained sub-six-foot frame had the gut-heating impact of Reb’s blue-collar muscle tone and gypsy dark looks.