by Helen Brooks
'You should have told me.' He turned round at Katie's quiet voice, meeting her eyes as he gave a small shrug.
'Probably.' He eyed her expressionlessly.
'I could have said something wrong, offended him.'
'I knew you wouldn't,' he said simply.
'No, you didn't.' She flushed slightly but kept to her point. 'People can say all sorts of silly things when they're surprised.'
'And you were surprised, weren't you?' he said flatly as he flung his black leather jacket on to a chair. He was wearing a thick sweater teamed with black denim jeans and the result made her nerve-endings quiver as he walked over to stand just in front of her, lifting her chin with the tip of a finger as he looked down into the greeny brown of her eyes. 'In spite of knowing nothing about me there are a whole host of preconceptions in there, aren't there?' He tapped the side of her head gently as he turned away. 'What would you like to drink?'
'Anything—white wine if you have it,' she said absently. 'Does Joe live here with you?'
'Uh-huh.' He passed her a glass of wine before speaking again. 'The same accident that killed my parents left him paralysed from the waist down at the age of thirteen,' he said quietly, meeting the shock in her eyes with an expressionless face. 'I was abroad at the time, bumming around Europe with a group of friends.' He waved to the big leather sofa behind her. 'Have a seat.'
'Thank you.' She moved to a big easy-chair to one side of the huge fireplace in which a log fire crackled and sparked, holding out a hand to the blaze as she sat down, as though she were cold. She wasn't, but the thought of sharing a sofa with him was definitely out of the question. 'You're a little older than him, then?'
'Ten years.' If he had noticed the manoeuvre he didn't comment on it. 'Joe's twenty-six.' So that made Carlton thirty-six, she thought quickly as she nodded at him, taking a long sip of wine as she did so. 'Once all the legal technicalities were sorted we bought this place and had it adapted for Joe, although he spent a good deal of his time in a special school in the early years.' The smoky grey eyes held hers hard. 'Learning what he could and couldn't do with people much like you, I suspect.'
'I'm sorry, Carlton.' She stared back at him as she nerved herself to make the apology. 'What I said in the car would have been right out of order whether there had been a Joe or not. It was cruel and stupid.'
'Yes, it was.' He walked back to the sofa with his own drink and sat down without taking his eyes off her face. 'The more so because I suspect you aren't usually like that. What is it about me that hits such a nerve, Katie?' he asked impassively. 'I don't think I've ever had anyone take such a violent dislike to me before and I'm curious to know why.' There was no emotion in his voice beyond faint interest but she was beginning to feel that he let very little of the real Carlton Reef show and wasn't fooled by the calm exterior.
'We just got off on the wrong foot, that's all,' she prevaricated quickly as she let her eyes drop from his. 'So Joe's an architect, then?' she continued, desperately searching for a change of conversation. 'He's done very well.'
Tour A levels and an excellent degree at Cambridge; Carlton said quietly, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice. 'He started a business with a friend of his when neither of them could get a job and it's going like a bomb now; he's hardly able to keep up with the amount of work They're thinking of taking on a third colleague soon.'
'That's good.' She didn't know what to say. She had never felt so out of her depth in her life. The Carlton she had built up in her mind over the last few days, the harsh, uncaring, worldly philanderer, was metamorphosing in front of her eyes and she didn't like it; she didn't like it at all. It had been far easier to hate him when all was black and white; suddenly the amount of grey was more than a little disturbing.
But nothing has really changed, she told herself silently as she took another swallow of wine. He might be good to his brother but even the most selfish of men have the odd Achilles' heel; it doesn't mean anything in the overall run of things.
Suddenly the desire to leave, to get out of his presence and just run and run, was overwhelming and she bit her lip hard as she fought for control. No reason to panic, she told herself firmly; no reason at all.
The relief on her face was transparent a moment or so later when Joseph opened the door and wheeled himself in, and as she turned from smiling at him she caught Carlton's eye and saw that his face was icy. 'Steak and salad OK?' the younger man asked cheerfully as he took the beer Carlton held out to him. 'You've sent Maisie into something of a spin.'
'Maisie?' Katie asked him enquiringly.
'Our chief cook and bottle-washer,' Joseph said, with a wicked grin. 'We had a succession of live-in helps before Maisie turned up but Carlton was never satisfied with any of them. Mind you—' he turned from Katie and nodded at his brother's impassive face before grinning at her again '—when you see Maisie you'll understand why Carlton let this one stay.' He made an outline of the female figure with his hands, 'Real good to look at, eh, Carlton? As well as being the best little housekeeper this side of the Thames,' he added cheekily.
'Maisie is good at her job, that's all, Joe,' Carlton said with a slight bite to his voice. 'As you very well know. Now drink your beer and stop casting aspersions on the girl's character.'
Katie was surprised at how quickly the next half-hour sped by as she talked and laughed with Joseph, Carlton joining in the conversation once or twice but sitting slightly back from them as he surveyed them through cool, narrowed eyes.
She couldn't really take Joseph seriously—he was the original clown with a slightly childish sense of humour that nevertheless appealed—but he was exactly what she needed to relax. It amazed her that in spite of all he had gone through there wasn't a trace of bitterness or regret in anything he said, and in fact he seemed to have a confidence that was unshakeable coupled with an unswerving belief in his own fortitude.
She wondered how much of this positive mental attitude was down to Carlton and suspected that it was quite a lot. There was no doubt that the two brothers were exceptionally close but then that was only to be expected in the circumstances, she told herself as she watched Carlton raise sardonic black eyebrows in silent amusement at something Joseph had just said.
When Maisie tapped on the drawing-room door to call them through to lunch Katie saw exactly what Joseph had meant as Carlton called her in to meet her. The girl was stunningly attractive, with huge liquid brown eyes and a long fall of sleek black hair almost to her waist. She smiled timidly at Katie and scuttled away after the briefest exchange of pleasantries, and Carlton smiled ruefully as they walked through to the dining-room just across the hall.
'She's very shy,' he said in a soft undertone as they followed Joseph, who was teasing Maisie about something as they entered the room, 'but she has one of the sweetest natures I've come across.'
Katie nodded and smiled even as a sudden dart of something gripped her heart So he was attracted to the girl, she thought slowly as she sat down in the chair indicated Well, it was only to be expected and absolutely nothing to do with her.
The room was exquisitely furnished in the same traditional style as the drawing-room, with heavy velvet drapes at the large full-length windows and expensive Persian carpets on the floor. This room was at the back of the house and the window overlooked a wide sweep of lawned garden, trimmed with large bushes and trees that had taken on a Christmas-card prettiness under their mantle of snow.
The meal went well, largely due to Joseph's irrepressible banter, and it was only as they were finishing coffee that Katie thought to check the time.
'It's nearly three o'clock.' She turned to Carlton in surprise. 'We ought to do that photocopying and then I must get back to the hospital.'
'How is your father?' Joseph asked quietly, his face completely serious for once.
'So-so.' She smiled but it was an effort 'He's a very proud man and the thought of losing everything in the full glare of bankruptcy is hard for him to come to terms with.'
'It would be for anyone.' Joseph's eyes had darted to his brother as she had spoken but now centred on her face again. 'It's a wretched situation.'
'Yes, it is.' Carlton spoke dismissively as he stood up abruptly and indicated for her to do the same, resting his hands on the back of her chair and pulling it away from the table as she followed his lead 'Let's go into my study and see to those papers.'
Joseph raised his eyes slightly as she followed Carlton out of the room and she smiled but said nothing, wondering what had caused the sudden departure but not caring to voice her confusion. Being around Carlton was like living on the edge of a volcano, she thought as she followed him down the hall and into a beautiful book-lined study at the far end of which a large coal fire was glowing bright red, giving the very male room a warm, comforting glow.
It had started to snow again outside, large feathery flakes felling thickly out of a laden grey sky, and Carlton stood looking out of the window for a few moments with his back to her before turning round suddenly and staring her straight in the face.
'Sit down.' It wasn't an invitation, more an order, and she did as she was told, sensing that something momentous was about to happen as she looked into his cold, grim face. 'It isn't much use photocopying those papers, Katie.' His voice was so devoid of expression that the portent of the words didn't sink in at first.
'It isn't?' She stared at him numbly.
'No.' He was still holding her eyes with a piercing gaze which she couldn't have broken if she had tried. 'I saw immediately I looked at them today that there is no hope of a reprieve. Your father signed several documents that were…skilfully worded and in doing so lost any chance of compensation. It was a forlorn hope at the best of times,' he added quietly.
'I see.' Her face had whitened as he'd spoken, but other than that she kept an iron grip on her emotions that wasn't lost on the tall, dark man watching her so intently. The brave tilt of her head, the dark anguish in the huge green-brown eyes with their liquid appeal caused his mouth to tighten into a hard line before he turned to look out into the winter's afternoon again.
'You understand what I'm saying?' he asked tautly after a few seconds had ticked by.
'Yes.' She stared at the broad back and wondered how she was going to dash her father's hopes without breaking down herself. It would have been better if Carlton hadn't offered the little ray of hope, she thought desperately as she remembered the painful appeal in David's face the last time she had seen him. It would be almost as though he had lost everything for the second time.
'But there is a way…' He turned and faced her again as the grey eyes narrowed on her pale face. 'There is a way we could turn things round.'
' 'Turn things round'?' She rose jerkily from her seat— she really couldn't sit still a moment longer—and walked over to the fire, feeling as though she would never be warm again. 'What do you mean, 'turn things round'?' she asked again, swinging to face him as his words sank through the grey blanket that had descended on her mind. 'We're talking thousands and thousands of pounds' worth of debts, aren't we?'
'Yes.' He was completely still as he watched her, an almost menacing tenseness in his body that sent a fluttering of chilling fear through her system as she looked into his dark face. 'Several million if you take the house into account too.'
'Then how—?'
'I could pay the debts for you and give your father the house.'
'What?' The word came out as a breathless sigh but he seemed to hear it none the less.
'I could pay everything off,' he said again. 'You needn't even tell David the real circumstances if you don't want to.'
'But we could never pay you back.' She felt very strange as she spoke, the room and his big dark figure taking on an unreal quality that made the dream-like impossibility of his words even more insubstantial.
'Not in a financial sense, no.' He walked over to her as her heart began to thump frantically, an awful presentiment of what he might be trying to say freezing her mind and body. But he couldn't mean that, she told herself helplessly as he stopped in front of her. He didn't have to buy sex like any back-street voyeur in the less reputable parts of Soho; he could have any woman he wanted with just a raise of his eyebrows—and women far more beautiful and experienced than she was, at that.
'I don't understand,' she said weakly.
'I think you do.' He raised his hand slowly, as though in spite of himself, and touched the soft silk of her hair with one finger as his eyes moved slowly over her face. The sensual, expensive smell that seemed a part of him set her senses aflame as she stared up into his face, her eyes enormous. 'I want you, Katie. I want you very badly.' It was said without any emotion, a cold statement of fact that sent a shiver of fear flickering through her limbs.
'You're seriously saying you want to buy me?' she asked numbly, unable to take it in. 'That you want me to be your mistress?'
'Hell, no!' The explosion was immediate and she flinched at the anger on his face even as she knew a moment of profound relief that she had misunderstood him. Of course he couldn't have been saying that—she should have known. What would a man like him want with someone so naive and ordinary as her, after all? She must have been crazy—
'I want to marry you, Katie.' Now she really was losing her mind, she thought as she stared at him in torpid insensibility. 'I want to marry you—a full marriage in every sense of the word with everything that that entails.' She knew her mouth had fallen open but there was nothing she could do about it. 'After which every debt would be cleared, every last penny paid off, the whole slate wiped clean.'
He stood back a pace and eyed her sardonically as his eyes registered her horrified shock. 'So it's really over to you,' he said slowly as he crossed his arms over his muscled chest and narrowed his eyes like a great black beast waiting to pounce. 'The grand sacrifice or disaster; a way of escape or a long walk down the painful road of financial ruin that you've been trying to save your father from so desperately.'
'Decision time, little Katie White; decision time.'
CHAPTER FOUR
'You can't be serious.' Katie stared up at him helplessly. 'I mean…' Her voice trailed away as she found herself utterly lost for words, her face portraying her horror at the suggestion.
'On the contrary.' His brief smile was quite without humour and didn't touch his eyes at all.
'But why on earth would you want to marry me?' she asked weakly. 'You must know loads of women who would be only too pleased to jump at such an offer.'
'Must I?' He considered her quietly through narrowed eyes. 'Perhaps that's the problem.'
'I don't understand.'
'Then let me explain it to you.' He indicated the chair that she had vacated with a wave of his hand and as she sat down he turned to look out of the window with his back to her and his dark face hidden from her gaze. 'I'm a wealthy man, Katie, a very wealthy man, and that in itself brings a certain set of…difficulties. As you just pointed out, a certain type of woman who is looking for an easy ride for life would appreciate a tailor-made meal ticket to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed.' The deep voice dripped sarcasm. 'I want children but I want something more than a clothes-horse as their mother, you understand?'
'No.' As he turned to face her she shook her head slowly. 'I don't. Surely you must have met someone you liked, someone who would be suitable—'
'You're suitable.' The piercing grey eyes were unreadable. 'You are beautiful, spirited, and your attitude to life and values are in line with what I would look for in the mother of my son.'
'Your son?' This was getting out of hand, she thought desperately. 'Look, I really don't think—'
'Joe will never be able to have children,' Carlton continued quietly as though she hadn't spoken. 'The succession of the Reef name is down to me and I do not intend to leave my estate to a cats' home.' He eyed her consideringly. 'I am thirty-six years of age and I feel the time is right to settle down and produce a family but as yet I haven't met a f
emale I would consider suitable—or I hadn't until you came on the horizon. Besides which—' He stopped as she twisted restlessly.
'But we don't even like each other.' She spoke quickly before she lost her nerve, still unable to believe that he was really serious. 'You can't possibly think a marriage between us would work? It's… Well, it's—'
'The only way out of your problems,' he finished coldly, the dark veil that had settled over his face as she had spoken masking his thoughts. 'Unless of course you would prefer to see your father lose everything he has worked for all his life? The decision has to be yours.'
'But we don't even like each other,' she said again, her voice urgent. 'And I don't want to marry anyone.'
'I do not dislike you, Katie.' Just for a moment something dark and fierce burst in the depths of the grey eyes and then a shutter banked down the fire and his face was ruthlessly implacable. 'And, like I said, I want you. You cannot deny that there's a certain physical chemistry between us?'
'I—' She stopped abruptly. How could she explain to an experienced man of the world like him that she had thought every woman reacted the way she had to his maleness, that her response to him would have been something he would have expected, nothing out of the ordinary?
'If the physical side of a marriage is OK everything else will fall into place,' he continued smoothly, 'and with us it would be, I can assure you.'
'How can you know?' she asked weakly. 'You don't—'
As he pulled her up and into his arms she was too dazed by recent events to resist, although her body tensed, expecting a fierce, overwhelming assault on her senses. But his kiss was delicate, meltingly, deliriously delicate, as he traced the outline of her mouth and her closed eyelids with soft, butterfly kisses that were achingly sweet.
And then his mouth found the hollow of her throat where a pulse was beating frantically and she heard her little moan of desire with a throb of embarrassment even as she tilted her head further, allowing him greater access.