Conflict Of Hearts

by Liz Fielding

  ‘None of this is necessary,’ she said.

  Noah said nothing, but the solicitor smiled reassuringly. ‘I’m sure it’s not. It’s simply a precaution to protect inherited property. Quite normal, these days. And, of course, your own settlement in the event of divorce would not be insubstantial.’ He glanced at the document. ‘In the event of a total breakdown of the marriage within the first five years resulting in divorce, and providing there is no issue—’

  ‘Issue?’

  ‘Children,’ Noah interjected a little sharply.

  ‘Oh.’

  The solicitor waited briefly to see if she had any other query on this point, and she shook her head. He carried on. ‘Providing there is no issue, there will be a one-off payment of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’ After that, he continued to explain, there would be a rising scale of payments.

  ‘And if there is... issue?’ Noah turned to stare at her and Lizzie swallowed hard, wondering what on earth had prompted her to ask such a stupid question.

  ‘Separate arrangements will be negotiated at the time,’ the solicitor assured her. ‘In view of the somewhat hurried nature of your union, Mr Jordan thought it best to leave it until later, when a more considered judgment can be made.’ He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘However, if you’re concerned we can, of course, leave this for another day or two—’

  ‘No. It can wait,’ Noah interrupted.

  ‘I think, perhaps, Miss French has the right to decide that,’ the solicitor intervened quite gently.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lizzie said quickly as the atmosphere grew steadily more tense. ‘Noah is right. It will wait.’ The point, after all, would never arise. ‘Can I look at the document?’

  ‘I’ve paraphrased it, of course, to make it as simple as I can. Your own solicitor will advise you on any points that are unclear.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  The solicitor glanced at Noah, but, receiving no help from that direction, turned back to Lizzie. ‘May I assume, then, that you wish to sign now?’

  ‘I should like to read it for myself.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said a little indulgently, and handed the agreement to her. And in that quiet room, while the dust motes danced in the slanting rays of the sun, Lizzie read every painful word, slowly and carefully so that she would be sure that she had not misunderstood. Finally she raised her head. ‘Is everything clear, Miss French?’

  ‘Quite clear.’ It was quite clear that Noah thought that she would try to take him for every penny she could get when it came to their divorce.

  Did he really believe that if that had been her intention a mere quarter of a million pounds would have bought her off? Just one of his paintings—the small Picasso that had pride of place in the drawing room, for instance—was worth at least ten times that. Perhaps more.

  ‘Then shall we sign...?’ The man smiled, clearly relieved to get the awkward moment over with, and offered her a pen. She didn’t take it.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Thank you.’ She replaced the document carefully on the desk and then rose to her feet. She offered the solicitor her hand and he took it, somewhat uncertainly. ‘Thank you for your patience. I’m sorry you’ve been put to so much trouble for nothing.’

  Then, without sparing Noah Jordan a single glance, she walked from the building and climbed into the Bentley.

  ‘Please take me home, Harper,’ she said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LIZZIE jumped as the door of the morning room snapped shut behind Noah. ‘Very clever, Elizabeth.’ His voice was soft. Too soft.

  Her hand shook a little, and a battalion of butterflies invaded her abdomen as she slowly raised her eyes from the book she was pretending to read. She hardly knew what had driven her, shivering despite the August heat, from that solicitor’s office. But she had had the best part of an hour to work it out.

  The offhanded assumption that she would need to be bought off, that she had not one whit of honour had been a severe shock. If she had wanted his wretched money she would surely have leapt at the chance of marriage, no matter how loveless an affair it was to have been. That he couldn’t see that had cut like a knife-wound to her heart.

  And that scared her. Because, as misunderstanding and insult had followed each other with increasing intensity, piling one on another, she had managed somehow to convince herself that she didn’t care tuppence what Noah Jordan thought of her. But this final hurt had tumbled the pile about her ears, so that only the rags of pride had stopped her from screaming and tearing the miserable contract to shreds.

  It had taken every second of the long hour that had ensued, while she’d waited for his return, to gather herself, to remind herself why she was marrying him. But it had been touch-and-go.

  ‘Clever?’ She managed to sound vaguely surprised. She’d known that he would be angry with her, but as she forced herself to meet his leaden eyes she saw the whiteness about his nose and mouth—less easily controlled than the velvet texture of his voice—and knew that he wasn’t just angry, he was absolutely furious with her.

  His jacket had been discarded, his tie pulled loose about his neck. Now he leaned back against the door, filling the space as if to bar any further attempt at escape. He was definitely not impressed with her cool query.

  ‘Please don’t play the innocent, Elizabeth. Those big blue eyes may fool the rest of the world, but they don’t fool me for one minute. You assumed that without the safety net of a pre-marital contract I’d back off, let you off the leash to pursue another woman’s husband.’

  Lizzie, sitting in the relaxed, careless pose that she had so carefully arranged as a defence against his anticipated wrath, was shaken from her outward composure. Not by his accusation of duplicity—that was to be expected. It was far worse than that. Because he had been so determined to get his own way and marry her, she had never even considered the possibility that he might back out. When pride had carried her through the door of the solicitor’s office she hadn’t been thinking of anything beyond her determination not to sign his wretched contract.

  ‘It was...’ It was not like that—that was what she had been going to say. But she caught herself just in time. Having constantly protested that she did not want to marry him, what else was he to think? Now, if she backed down too quickly, buckled under and signed his nasty piece of paper, his suspicions would be aroused. But she had to say something. He was regarding her frostily down the length of his long, thin nose, waiting for her to speak.

  ‘It was... what, Elizabeth? Tell me. I really can’t wait to hear.’

  She lifted her shoulder in an offhand little shrug. ‘It was... worth a chance.’

  ‘And?’

  She looked at him as if she had no idea what he was talking about. She wished she hadn’t. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I think you do.’ He pushed himself away from the door, took a step towards her. ‘Since you must have anticipated that, having gone to such lengths to keep you, I was hardly likely to let you go quite that easily...’

  It was as if she had been cast in a role from which there was no escape, a part where no depth was too low for her to sink into. Well, if that was what it took, she would do her very best to oblige him. ‘And,’ she agreed a little defiantly, bright red spots staining her cheeks, ‘it wasn’t enough.’

  There was a certain grim satisfaction about his mouth, and she knew that she had told him exactly what he’d expected to hear. ‘A hundred thousand pounds for each year of your time with me, and all the clothes you can wear? You were anxious to get a job, Elizabeth, and I congratulate you on your good fortune. I can’t imagine that even in your wildest dreams you could have conjured up anything that paid as well. But evidently it’s not enough.’

  He joined her on the sofa, crossed one leg over the other, propping ankle on knee, and regarded her dispassionately. ‘So, my sweet, innocent little Lizzie, shall we haggle for a while, or do you have a sum in mind?’

  She shifte
d away from him, as far as the arm of the sofa would let her go, and wrapped her arms protectively about her legs. Why did it all have to be so horrible? She swallowed unhappily. ‘Perhaps we should leave it for the courts to decide what’s appropriate...’

  ‘That’s a cop-out, my dear. State your price. I’d be interested to know just how much you think you’re worth.’

  ‘I would have thought it was more a question of what you are worth,’ Lizzie retaliated.

  He smiled then. But it wasn’t a very nice smile. ‘Yes, I suspected that was the way your mind was working.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m going to have to disappoint you. Sign the agreement as it stands, Elizabeth, or throw yourself upon the mercy of the courts if you think you can do better. It’s your risk.’

  It didn’t matter one way or the other. She wouldn’t touch a penny of his money, but she would never put her name to that agreement. ‘Then let’s leave it to the courts, shall we? I’m sure they’ll be fair.’

  ‘I’m sure they will, and the more I pay my lawyers, the fairer they’ll be.’ And he smiled. He was pleased with himself. ‘You realise, of course, that you’ll have to be very, very good if you want to see a penny of my money?’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Well-behaved. Not just discreet, Elizabeth. Celibate. For every day of two and a half years while you gather your injured innocence about you. I can have all the fun I want, but for you there won’t even be the consolation prize of an affair with your favourite banker.’ His satisfaction was palpable. ‘I’m almost tempted to take the vow of celibacy myself and force you to wait the full five years. It’s going to be a tough choice, Elizabeth. What do you want most? Peter Hallam or my money?’

  She didn’t want either. Whatever rose-coloured spectacles she had viewed Peter through had been wiped clear by his appalling behaviour. As for Noah’s money...she didn’t want that either. But it was clearly pointless to say so. In fact, it wouldn’t suit her purpose at all. She lifted the glossy, sun-streaked hair from the back of her neck and let her head fall back against the sofa cushion.

  ‘A celibate wife,’ she murmured. ‘Well, it probably beats typing for a living. You should have offered it to me as a job, Noah. I’m sure a contract of employment would have been a great deal cheaper than—’

  She broke off as his eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘It wasn’t my intention to be cheap.’

  ‘No, indeed. But your intentions are beginning to baffle me. Why would Francesca Hallam’s happiness be worth a quarter of a million pounds to you? You’re rather cynical for such a quixotic gesture. Or does that smooth exterior hide a marshmallow heart after all? Maybe you’d have done the same for me if the situation had been reversed—married Francesca to protect my—?’

  ‘No!’ Angry colour suffused his cheek-bones.

  Stunned by the fierceness of his response to her teasing question, Lizzie stared at him. What was it about Francesca that provoked such a protective reaction in him? Could it be that this man who protested that he never involved himself with married women, didn’t believe in love, had fallen for the dark, fragile beauty of Peter’s wife? And was this his way of demonstrating it? The idea should have seemed ridiculous. But it didn’t. It was oddly painful.

  Noah, as if sensing that he had overreacted, gave a little shrug. ‘You have no need of my protection, Elizabeth. Or have you forgotten you have a track record for trying to upset marital harmony?’ Lizzie started guiltily. She hadn’t given her father one thought in the past two days and Noah, seeing her reaction and misunderstanding it, said, ‘I rest my case.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Olivia?’

  ‘She telephoned this morning to offer her congratulations.’ There was something in the tone of his voice that suggested something rather different.

  Lizzie lifted her head. ‘Congratulations or commiserations?’

  ‘Commiserations?’ He shrugged. ‘Hardly that. She’s been trying to marry me off for years. She expressed one or two reservations, perhaps.’

  ‘To put it mildly.’

  ‘After what she’s had to put up with from you I think she was remarkably restrained. She wondered, for instance, if you were a little too young, which rather amused me.’

  She blushed at this reference to her own less than convincing objection to her father’s marriage. ‘And?’

  His eyes were quite expressionless. ‘And that you were, perhaps, rather innocent for a big, bad wolf like me.’

  Lizzie swallowed. ‘That was all?’

  ‘Yes. She’s a generous woman. I told her that time would sort out the first problem and that I would assuredly deal with the second.’ He regarded her dispassionately. ‘She made me promise to be... kind.’

  ‘And will you be?’

  His eyes glittered angrily. ‘Behave yourself and I’ll be Prince Charming.’

  ‘I think you’ve strayed into the wrong fairy tale,’ she snapped.

  ‘Is that right? And which particular role did you have in mind for me?’

  ‘The Beast?’ she offered.

  ‘And you are Beauty?’ He regarded her with eyes devoid of expression. ‘I think I should warn you that it will take more than a kiss to tame me.’

  ‘Then we’d better do some work on the job description to make sure we both know exactly where we stand.’ His mouth tightened, but she was beyond caring. ‘Let’s see. Wife for short-term contract. Comfortable living quarters. Some entertaining. No housework...’ she gave him a pointed look ‘... or children. Own room and use of car. Generous salary. That’s all pretty straightforward.’

  She paused, breathing rather heavily. ‘Now for the difficult stuff. What did you have precisely in mind for the night-shift?’

  His hand flashed out and covered her mouth, and his weight bore her back against the cushions of the sofa.

  ‘I’ve never paid for a woman before,’ he grated, his eyes angry slits. His thumb pressed hard across her lips, bringing the blood to the surface, making them throb. ‘I wonder what you get for that kind of money?’ Lizzie, already near the end of her tether, boiled over and sank her teeth into his hand.

  He swore, jerking his hand away. ‘You damned little vixen! You’ve drawn blood!’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like me to kiss it better?’ she demanded furiously, struggling to free herself. But even as she said it she recalled the impulsive way she had kissed his hand before. As his eyes darkened she knew that Noah had remembered too, and she became very still beneath him, very aware of his raised breathing rate, the pounding of his heart pressed against her breast, that special male scent mixed with the faint citrus note of cologne that was Noah Jordan.

  He thrust his hand towards her face. ‘Yes,’ he said thickly. ‘Kiss it better.’ His fingers were long, the nails beautifully kept, and she found herself imagining dizzily what it would be like to be caressed by such a hand. To have her breasts cradled in those long, sensitive fingers. To feel the firm stroke of his palm across her stomach...

  She drew in a sharp, shuddering breath, shocked by the intensity of such thoughts, the unexpected desire... No, that wasn’t true. The desire had been there from that first kiss. He seemed to have jolted something loose in her brain then, because she hadn’t been behaving quite like herself ever since...

  Lizzie ducked her head so that he should not read the hunger that she was certain must be blazing from her eyes as brightly as the lights in Piccadilly Circus. Hesitantly she touched the broad pad of his thumb with her own, to wipe away the tiny drop of blood that had oozed from the puncture mark her teeth had made.

  The touch was small yet hauntingly intimate. It was as if that tiny contact had sparked some connection between them—a fuse that had been there all the time, underlying the constant flare of antagonism, that had only needed a spark to set it off on an unstoppable trail of destruction. And as she touched her lips to the spot she felt the searing betrayal of a blush colour her cheek-bones.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ She didn’t dare look, afraid that she had misread that look in his
eyes. Then he captured her throat, cupping it in the warm, curved palm of his hand, tilting her face towards him, and his thumb began gently to caress the pulse that throbbed beneath her jaw. His touch was hypnotic, its power shimmering through her body like an electric charge as his dark, heavy-lidded eyes smoked with desire.

  She raised her hand to touch his face, touch the skin drawn tight across the bones of his cheeks, trail the tip of her thumb across the fierce promise of his mouth, slightly parted to reveal the tip of his tongue.

  Without warning something seemed to explode inside Lizzie, burning up her lips, tightening the peaks of her breasts against the delicate lace of her bra, kindling the blissful ache of desire low in her abdomen. There was a moment of exquisite agony as he kept her waiting, suspended, it seemed, between heaven and hell, then with a shudder that racked through him his mouth descended and her lips parted on a soft groan to drink him in.

  His earlier kisses had stirred her. But he had been in control then, making a point. Now, as his tongue tormented her, seeking the sweetness of her mouth, she knew it was different. Gloriously, wonderfully different. Noah was no longer in control. He couldn’t help himself any more than she could.

  He felt her tremble and swore softly, almost angrily as his hands caught at the hem of her blouse, tugging it over her head to fling it away. There was a moment then when she might have contained the passion—a small, still moment while his eyes drank in the soft glow of her skin, the swell of her breasts. Then, quite deliberately, she unfastened the clip between her breasts and let her bra fall away.

  She had no recollection of how they disposed of the remainder of their clothes. This was no long-drawn-out seduction. There were no endless, tormenting moments while buttons were unfastened to expose the delicate curves of her body to his lips, his tongue, the gentle grazing of his teeth. There were no sweet words, no tender caresses. It was a fierce and furious mating of two people in the grip of something quite beyond them.