‘“Funny” is far from the right word to describe how I feel about what’s happened,’ he bit out, suddenly looking at her with an arctic chill in his eyes. ‘You are obviously under some misapprehension concerning Dani and David’s relationship. Contrary to the conclusion you seem to have jumped to, your daughter is not pregnant!’
Merry stared at him uncomprehending. Not…? When Zack Kingston informed her of his nephew’s determination to marry Dani, it had seemed to her there could be only one reason for such impetuosity. Distressing as that conclusion might have been. But he was saying Dani wasn’t pregnant!
‘I don’t understand.’ She shook her head.
‘I didn’t,’ he rasped. ‘But, having now met you, I’m beginning to!’
Merry looked at him blankly. What was that supposed to mean? What could she possibly have to do with his nephew’s announcement that he intended marrying Dani; she had never even met the young man!
‘Perhaps you would care to explain that remark?’ she invited coolly, green eyes sparkling.
He gave an abrupt laugh. ‘I most certainly would,’ he rasped. ‘You obviously have an attitude towards pre-marital sex—’
‘I have an attitude towards marriage too!’ she jumped in. How dared this man come into her home and make snap judgements about her? He didn’t even know her! He was an arrogant swine, and if he thought she was going to let her daughter have anything to do with a relative of his, then he was sadly—
‘We’ll get to that in a minute,’ he dismissed, with that arrogance she had just mentally attributed to him. ‘I was about to say that, in the circumstances, your attitude towards pre-marital relationships is perfectly understandable.’
‘Exactly what “circumstances” would you be referring to, Mr Kingston?’ Merry prompted fiercely, raising herself to her full height of five feet and half an inch—and making absolutely no impression on him, judging by the way he looked down his arrogant nose at her!
As she had expected, he looked unperturbed. ‘Obviously the circumstances of Dani’s birth—’
‘Which you know absolutely nothing about!’ she returned furiously. He raised his blond brows questioningly. Well, he could question all he liked; it was none of his business what those ‘circumstances’ might have been! Besides, he seemed to have already drawn his own conclusions.
The silence stretched between them, as green eyes warred with blue. But Merry had no intention of being the one to back down.
‘Which I know absolutely nothing about,’ Zack was finally the one to slowly admit. ‘But I believe it has everything to do with Dani’s own feelings towards relationships.’
‘You already said that,’ Merry retorted.
His mouth tightened. ‘Having now thought about this, it’s my belief—though I won’t be able to confirm this until I’ve spoken to David again—that he and Dani are in love, and that, like all young people in love, they wish to consummate their physical attraction towards each other, but that Dani would rather wait until after they are married.’
‘I can’t see anything wrong with that,’ Merry scorned.
‘There is if their only solution to the problem is for them to marry immediately!’ Zack returned exasperatedly.
Dani had watched Merry’s struggles over the years to cope with working and being a mother, and she knew exactly how difficult it had been for Merry to acquire a career at all when she had become pregnant during her first term at university. Had that coloured Dani’s own views on marriage and lovemaking? If it had, was that really such a bad thing? Dani was so young still, not much more than a child, really, not old enough for the responsibility of either marriage or a family.
Thinking of Dani dissipated Merry’s anger and distress, cleared the initial panic from her mind. She and Dani were close, and she didn’t believe, now that she could think straight, that Dani would agree to marry someone and then not tell her own mother about it. Admittedly, Dani seemed to have kept the intensity of this particular relationship with David Kingston to herself, not seeming to have mentioned him any more than the other new friends she had made in the last couple of months. But a marriage proposal, and its acceptance, was something else entirely…
Merry looked up at Zack Kingston with a new confidence. ‘I don’t believe they have decided to marry, immediately or otherwise,’ she told him calmly. ‘I think you may have been a little premature in coming here today, Mr Kingston—’
‘For God’s sake call me Zack!’ he exploded. ‘And no matter what you may think, Merry, I did not imagine David’s announcement to me this morning—it totally destroyed my appetite for breakfast!’
Merry felt her mouth twitching with humour, had to bite her lip to stop herself from smiling. She could picture Zack now, seated at the end of a long dining table, newspaper spread out in front of him, while some meticulous, silent servant served him bacon and eggs—the latter would be scrambled, of course, no messy egg-yolks for this man to deal with’ And then, just as he was about to take his first mouthful of the mouthwatering food, David dropping his bombshell!
‘I trust you managed to eat lunch, Zack?’ she said soothingly. ‘It really isn’t good for the blood sugar for you to go without food for too long. It impairs your judgement, and—’
‘My judgement is not impaired, Merry,’ he bit out. ‘David told me—’
‘I’m not disputing what he told you,’ she assured him evenly. ‘I’m merely questioning the validity of the news that Dani intends marrying him. I must admit I was thrown for a few minutes after your initial announcement, but I’ve had time to collect my thoughts now. I know Dani, the two of us are friends, as well as mother and daughter, and if she were serious about your nephew then I believe she would have told me about him.’ Merry’s confidence increased even as she spoke the words. She did know Dani, and what this man was suggesting didn’t sound at all like her daughter. ‘I don’t disbelieve that David told you how he felt towards Dani—’
‘Thank you for that, at least!’ Zack snapped with sarcastic impatience.
She couldn’t exactly blame him for feeling this way; he had obviously had a tough day since David’s intentions had destroyed his breakfast. They had certainly dispelled her own earlier tiredness too!
‘I don’t mean to sound patronising, Zack,’ she assured him. She might not have meant to, but in retrospect that was exactly what she had sounded! ‘I’m just doubtful of Dani’s part in all of this.’ She absently poured them both another glassful of wine, wordlessly handing his over. ‘Dani and I have never had secrets. There’s never been any reason for us to,’ she revealed, thinking of her own years without romantic involvement.
When Dani had been very young there just hadn’t been the time, between studying and caring for a young child, and there had only been the occasional date in the years following. Most men of a similar age to herself were either already married, running away from an unhappy relationship, or had no interest in a woman with a young child. None of them had appealed to Merry either. In fact, there had been no relationships that she couldn’t happily talk to Dani about because there had been none that were serious!
‘If Dani were in love,’ she told Zack assuredly, ‘then I believe she would have told me about it. And about him!’
‘I—’ Zack broke off as the sound of the front door opening and closmg could clearly be heard.
‘That will be Dam now,’ Merry warned him softly, putting a lightly restraining hand on his arm. ‘Let me handle this, please,’ she advised gently as she heard Dani walking down the hallway.
‘Mum, I’m home—’ Dani broke off her cheerful greeting as she entered the kitchen and saw that her mother wasn’t alone, her glance resting interestedly on the man who stood there.
Merry looked at her daughter with pride; she would never cease to be amazed that this gloriously beautiful creature was her own daughter. Almost six feet in height, Dani towered over her. Her hair was a long riot of honey-blonde curls that reached down the length of her spine,
and her face as beautiful as any model’s, with eyes of deep honey-brown.
Merry glanced sideways at Zack Kingston to see what his reaction was to this vision of loveliness that was her daughter. He looked stunned! But then so did every other man who looked at Dani. Including Zack’s nephew, it seemed…
But, seeing Dani now, Merry was even more assured that her surmise concerning that situation was correct; Dani looked as carefree and open as she always did, and if she were hiding something as serious as a secret engagement then she wouldn’t have done. Dani had never been any good at keeping secrets!
‘Hello, darling.’ Merry moved to hug her daughter. ‘Had a good day?’
‘Pretty good,’ Dani responded vaguely, obviously fascinated by the man standing watching them from across the room—which wasn’t surprising, considering what conclusion she must have come to concerning Zack’s presence here; it was over a year since Merry’s last date, and she certainly hadn’t brought him home!
‘This is Zack,’ Merry introduced. ‘He just called in for a chat,’ she added meaningfully—for his benefit!
‘Zack,’ Dani greeted, politely shaking the hand he offered before turning to her mother. ‘I’ll just go and freshen up, and then I’ll help you with dinner. Will you be eating with us, Zack?’ she added mischievously, obviously intrigued by this male friend of her mother’s who had just dropped by for ‘a chat’.
Zack looked briefly at Merry. ‘Er—no,’ he answered huskily. ‘As your mother said, I only called in briefly.’
‘Oh, well.’ Dani shrugged lightly. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you again some time.’ She left the kitchen, her movements unconsciously graceful, taking her boundless energy and effervescence with her, her footsteps soft on the stairs.
Merry gave Zack another glance from beneath lowered lashes. If he had looked stunned before, he now looked speechless!
He swallowed hard.
‘She takes after her father,’ Merry told him.
‘Tall, blond, and gorgeous,’ he acknowledged heavily.
Jeff had been all of those things. He had also been a lot of other things Dani wasn’t…
‘Yes,’ Merry confirmed quickly. ‘But the important thing is that Dani doesn’t look to me like a young girl in the emotional throes of a secret love affair.’
‘Or to me either,’ Zack rejoined, obviously deeply annoyed now at the embarrassing situation he found himself in.
Which wasn’t surprising, really. Zack Kingston gave every impression of being totally self-assured, in control of any situation he should happen to find himself in; Merry could only imagine the inner squirming he was going through at this moment!
‘I think I’ll take your advice and talk to David again,’ he said grimly, putting down his empty wine glass. ‘One of us has obviously got his wires crossed.’
As it wasn’t Merry or Dani who were at fault, then the blame had to be on his side. Merry felt almost sorry for him. Almost… Except he had put her through some of the most traumatic moments of her life such a short time ago!
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU really should take more care, Merry,’ drawled a familiar voice. ‘I could have walked off with your handbag just now,’ Zack pointed out.
Him again!
And she could see what he meant; her handbag was sitting on the bonnet of the car while she loaded her shopping into the boot.
She straightened. ‘I doubt it, Zack,’ she told him dryly. ‘Mr Patel is a good friend of mine.’ She nodded in the direction of the convenience store where she had just done her shopping; the sunny-faced proprietor was undoubtedly watching their exchange through the window. ‘And if he failed to stop you, there’s five pounds of potatoes in this bag.’ She held up a plastic carrier before putting it into the boot with the rest of her bags. ‘I would simply have hit you around the head with it!’
Zack’s mouth twisted. ‘And asked questions later!’
Merry nodded. ‘When you regained consciousness, yes.’
He looked at her for several seconds, and then he chuckled, seemingly more relaxed today. ‘You would, too!’
‘Of course I would; I have all my money in there.’ She slammed the boot shut, taking her handbag from his unresisting fingers and placing it inside the car on the passenger seat. ‘Wonderful as it is to see you again, Zack,’ she said with no sincerity at all, as he made no effort to move away from the driver’s door to allow her to get into her car, ‘I do have to get on.’ She looked up at him challengingly.
To her dismay, he looked just as gorgeous today as he had yesterday, the blue jumper that he wore so casually a perfect match in colour for those ‘come-to-bed’ eyes of his and he was slim and powerful in black denims.
After he had left her house the previous evening she had convinced herself that he couldn’t possibly be as heart-stoppingly handsome as she had thought he was, but, looking at him now, in the rapidly fading daylight, she knew that he was even more so. In fact, he shouldn’t be allowed out, was likely to cause traffic accidents. All to women, of course. Because instead of looking at the road they would be unable to take their eyes off Zack Kingston!
She had lain awake in her bed last night thinking about him. And then she’d been furious with herself. To lose sleep at all was bad enough, but to lose it over a man she hardly knew was unforgivable!
‘I was just driving over to see you when I saw you come out of the shop,’ Zack said, still leaning against the side of her car.
Merry stiffened. ‘Why were you coming to see me?’ she demanded warily.
‘It seems I owe you an apology—’
‘Accepted,’ she said quickly, knowing exactly what he was apologising for. Casual conversation with Dani over dinner the evening before had assured her that Zack Kingston had definitely made a mistake where Dani and David were concerned.
David Kingston had only come into the conversation briefly, but it had been enough to tell Merry that her daughter had no more interest in him than she did in any of her other new friends at university. Dani certainly didn’t know David well enough to realise he had had an Uncle Zack, let alone that she was expected to marry into his family!
‘If I could just get into my car?’ Merry asked pointedly; she was going to physically push him out of the way if he didn’t move soon!
Zack gave her a quizzical look. ‘Are you usually this rude?’
‘With men that accost me in car parks? Yes!’
‘So it was true, what you said about the other days of the week!’
She knew exactly what he was referring to. ‘You aren’t defenceless, Zack—on any day of the week!’
‘True,’ he responded. ‘I would, however, like to make my apology properly—’
‘The ground is too wet for you to get down on your knees,’ she broke in disparagingly; it had been raining most of the day, adding to the misery of the cold November weather.
He shook his head, his eyes glowing with laughter. ‘I had dinner more in mind than grovelling in front of you on my knees!’
Dinner? With this man? He had to be joking! She might as well stand in front of a double-decker bus and simply let it run her down. That was how dangerous she knew this man to be! And she had no intention of standing in front of that bus—or having dinner with Zack Kingston!
‘For one thing, Zack,’ she sighed, ‘I have already accepted your apology—’
‘I haven’t made it yet,’ he put in softly.
‘For another—’ she glared at him for the interruption ‘—I have just been into the shop and purchased the makings of dinner for Dani and myself.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘Dani wasn’t included in the invitation anyway.’
‘And for yet another,’ she added with firm determination, ‘I have no wish to go out to dinner with you!’
He folded his arms in front of his chest, leaning back against the door she wanted to open so she could get inside the car. ‘Tell me,’ he prompted lightly, ‘have there been many men in your life since
Dani’s father?’
The question might have been casually put, but the audacity of it made Merry gasp. What on earth did it have to do with him? ‘Mind your own damned business!’ she responded indignantly.
‘Hmm, I thought not,’ he answered consideringly. ‘Well, I’m thirty-nine years of age, and have never been engaged or married. Although I have no aversion to either state, I just didn’t meet the right woman. I own a publishing house, have a home here in London and a villa in the south of France. I like children and dogs, and not necessarily in that order,’ he added with a smile. ‘Cats tend to make me sneeze, but if you happen to already have a cat, I’m sure I could learn to live with the sneezing. I—’
‘Why are you telling me all these things?’ Merry finally managed to break in. This man had been an irritation in her life since—was it only yesterday they had met for the first time? It seemed like much longer! Now he wasn’t just an irritation to her, he was fast becoming a nuisance!
He shrugged. ‘Character reference. I realise all of this is usually covered in the first date, but as you refuse to even have that initial ceremony, I thought I should tell you a little about myself.’
‘You missed out the bad points,’ she taunted. First date, indeed!
He looked sceptical. ‘I didn’t know I had any,’ he mocked.
Her eyes flashed deeply green. ‘That arrogance is just one of them! You’re also opinionated, judgemental, and—and you’re so tall I get a crick in my neck just looking up at you!’ she concluded irritably—and then felt irritated with herself. He was too tall…! What on earth was she talking—babbling—about?
It didn’t help that Zack’s grin widened at her remark. ‘If we were seated at a dinner table that wouldn’t happen,’ he pointed out. ‘It also wouldn’t apply if we were lying—’
‘You’re so damned presumptuous!’ she cut in huskily, her face fiery red. God, he had her blushing like a schoolgirl! But, considering she had met this man only about twenty-four hours ago, he was being damned familiar!
The Man She'll Marry (Presents Plus) Page 2