‘We’re later than I anticipated, have more to talk about, too. So we’ll eat here. I’ve already ordered for us both.’ He shrugged out of his jacket, removed his black tie, saw the way she narrowed her eyes at him and assured her, ‘I can pay the bill. You won’t have to spend the next two months of your life washing dishes.’
The fine white cotton of his shirt clung to his upper body; she could see the faint shadow of dark body hair, almost feel its crispness beneath the tips of her fingers. She swallowed hard. How could someone who was so bad look so mouthwateringly good?
Remembering just why she was here with him, she ground out impatiently, ‘I don’t give a damn how you spend the money you earned from me. Fancy hotel room, expensive suits and a hired Rolls don’t impress me. What would impress me is the truth—why you lied about not being romantically involved with your friend’s sister, why she’s changed her name to Cole, why she’s wearing a wedding ring, why you were smooching over lunch. I’m not interested in the rest of the garbage,’ she flung at him. ‘The house in Mayfair, the fancy car kept to impress visitors, the personal secretary—or whatever it was you said he was!’
She was pacing the floor, didn’t realise she was doing it until he took her by the shoulders and turned her gently round to face him.
‘Sweetheart, why don’t you sit down? If you’ll listen I can explain everything.’ His fingers grazed her naked shoulders, and of its own accord her body began to sway into his.
So sitting down seemed like a great idea. She felt the edge of a chair at the back of her knees and sank into it, closing her eyes briefly as physical and mental exhaustion washed over her in a huge black wave. And when she forced them open again he was holding a slip of paper in his hand.
‘Recognise this?’
It was the cheque she had given him shortly after their marriage. She watched him slowly tear it into tiny pieces, her fingers flying to her temples.
‘I don’t understand!’ Not this, not anything. Offering him that money had been the only way she could persuade him to marry her.
‘Of course you don’t. How could you? But you will; I promise,’
His promises weren’t worth the air he uttered them with, and she wasn’t prepared to sit and listen to whatever make-believe he decided to tell her.
She jumped to her feet, eyes wildly scanning the room for where her purse had landed up. ‘I’m out of here! If you won’t call me a taxi I’ll do it myself from Reception. I don’t want to be here. I don’t know you!’
He was quicker than she was. He reached her long before she got to the door, pinioning her arms at her sides, his eyes insistent as they held her own. ‘You know everything about me.’ He saw panic flare briefly in her lovely eyes, followed by the sheen of tears. Her soft lips were trembling. She was almost at the end of her tether.
Pulling in a ragged breath, he said gently, ‘Think back, Allie. At the cottage, I told you everything about the owner. Everything I said was true, except his identity. I got his Christian names mixed up, and when you wanted to know his surname I gave the name of my PA because I knew I wouldn’t forget that. I was telling you about myself, my darling. Chloe is my sister—half-sister, to be precise. And of course I love her—we’ve come through some sad, bad times together.’
Hardly daring to breathe, he carefully folded his arms around her. It was like holding a ticking time bomb. She was so wired up she could explode at any moment, or she could swing the other way, settle down and listen. At least she wasn’t struggling in his arms, demanding to get away from here. But she wasn’t relaxing, either.
He felt a tiny tremor ripple through her body, felt the loosening of tension in her muscles just as someone knocked on the door. Turning, he swore under his breath, saw the trolley, the white-coated waiter, and snapped, ‘Not now, Mike! Bin it, and bring the order back, fresh, a bit later on. Better still, phone through first!’
‘That wasn’t very polite,’ Allie said stiffly as the door closed behind the trolley. And she pushed herself away from him. What had she been thinking of, letting him hold her when she knew very well how being close to him made her forget everything else?
‘I wasn’t feeling polite. As majority shareholder in this establishment I guess I’m entitled, for once in my life, to throw my weight around. I’ll apologise later—fulsomely. OK?’ He smiled at her, saw the way her face tightened before she turned her back on him, and said heavily, ‘I’m not shooting a line, Allie. Everything I say to you is the truth.’
She gritted her teeth to stop herself from having hysterics. Did he know what the truth was? Could she believe anything he told her? Did it all come down, in the end, to trust?
And please, God, she prayed fervently, don’t let him smile at me again. Don’t let him touch me because my brain cells all close down when he does!
But nobody was listening to her, because he came to stand behind her. Her hair had started to tumble down and he moved his fingers through it, releasing the pins, letting it fall down her back.
‘Try to relax,’ he said, and began to massage her shoulders, her neck, loosening the kinks in her taut muscles, moving the narrow sequinned straps out of the way. And Allie, betrayed by the sheer magic of his touch, by what it did to her, felt her whole body blossom for him and burst into noisy sobs.
Smothering a groan, he lifted her in his arms and carried her, clinging to him, sobbing wretchedly, to the bedroom, eased her hands from their stranglehold around his neck and laid her on the bed.
He wanted to join her, to hold her close, but he slipped the shoes off her narrow feet instead, then knelt at her side, holding her hands until her sobs became sniffles, and then he reached a tissue from the box on the bedside table and handed it to her.
She blew her nose fiercely. She hardly ever cried. She must look an unholy sight, her eyes all puffy and red and her nose swollen and pink. She hated him!
‘If,’ she challenged imperiously, ‘you are so all-fired wealthy, with homes all over the place and half a hotel, and a Rolls, and goodness only knows what else, then why the sweet blazes were you cleaning windows, driving a wreck? Why did you agree to marry me when I mentioned the pay-off?’
‘Don’t forget the Jag and the private jet, and various businesses all over the world.’ He grinned shamelessly at her. She looked so feisty, so adorable, even if the end of her nose was a radiant pink. He rose to his feet, sat on the bed beside her, anchored her body to the soft mattress by leaning one arm across her.
For a moment he thought she would try to wriggle away, but she didn’t. She seemed scarcely to be breathing, her eyes very wide. And his own eyes clouded as he admitted, ‘I lied to you about who I was because I’m a selfish bastard. I only thought about what I wanted. I wanted you to love me for myself, not my bank balance. I’d had my fair share of women who came on to me for what they thought they could get out of me. I saw you for the first time over a year ago. I’d been dragged along to a fashion show and you were the model everyone was talking about.
‘I was smitten, couldn’t get you out of my head. I could do nothing about it because for the next twelve months I was living out of suitcases around the world. I thought all my Christmases and birthdays had come at once when you appeared at the bottom of the ladder that day to thank me for helping Laura. I was practically struck dumb. And, to put the record straight, I was helping Harry out. He’d come down with flu and Nanny Briggs—’
‘That’s Nanny Briggs?’ she asked quickly. Suddenly, somehow, it was all beginning to hang together. She’d felt so sorry for the little boy who had known nothing of parental love, remembered how Jethro had assured her that he’d had the best kind of mothering from Nanny Briggs. ‘I thought she was your grandmother.’
‘I know you did. And I let you think it, let you think I was on my uppers, scraping a living cleaning windows. When you explained your need to marry, offered to pay me, I jumped at it. I took you to my holiday home, told my staff to keep well out of the way, gave myself a couple of we
eks’ head start in the game of getting you to fall in love with me—head over heels, as deeply in love as I already was with you. Only it wasn’t a game. It was deadly serious. Because I knew you were the only woman I would ever love.
‘I almost blew it a couple of times. I pushed you too fast, too far. I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted you so desperately. I didn’t for one moment stop to think how the truth, when it eventually came out, might affect you. That you might think I’d somehow made a fool out of you, deceived you.’
He removed his arm, no longer imprisoning her. She was free to go if she wanted to. And his voice was low, unsteady, as he told her, ‘I know material possessions don’t mean much to you. I know you loved me when you believed I had little more than the clothes I stood up in and a rusty old van. I’ll understand if you can’t love a man who lied to you, no matter how good he once thought his reasons were. I’ll understand, and I’ll make some sort of fist out of trying to handle it.’
He watched her thick lashes sweep down to hide her eyes. She lay very still. Was she turning everything over in her mind, deciding she couldn’t love a liar?
His body went cold, his heart smothered in ice. How would he bear it if he lost her now? How could he live with the regrets, the lack of her love?
And then she raised her hand to touch his hair, raised her eyes to reveal the shimmer of tears, and her voice shook a little as she said, ‘I always felt I had a strange kind of bond with your mythical wealthy friend. I remember you telling me of his early life, telling me how he couldn’t love because he couldn’t trust, how he never knew if people—women especially—wanted him or his money. I could always understand that. Now I know you were talking about yourself, how you felt, I can understand it even better, because I love you so much you’re part of me. I couldn’t trust emotions, either. I was afraid of them, afraid of being hurt, abandoned.’
‘Sweetheart!’ His voice was raw with passion as he took her hands and kissed every one of her fingers. ‘I don’t deserve you, but I’ll do everything I can to try to!
She drew his hands back to her, rested them against her breasts, her eyes wicked as she whispered, ‘Start trying right now. I’ll let you know how you’re doing!’ Her breasts were hardening, the tight sequinned fabric barely containing them; heat was pooling heavily inside her and her body went boneless for him as his fingers found the back fastening of her dress—just as the telephone rang.
His face went dark red as he reached over for the instrument, and Allie giggled, putting a hand over his. ‘Politeness costs nothing, remember? And even if it did, you could afford it, apparently. You did suggest the poor man phone first, didn’t you?’
His smiling mouth covered hers just briefly before he said into the receiver, ‘Order’s cancelled, Mike. My wife and I have everything we need.’
And then he finished what he’d started.
Hours later, Allie stretched her arms above her head languorously, revelling in the touch of Jethro’s hard, hair-roughened body against the silky smoothness of her own. His dark head stirred on the pillow, the arm that was flung possessively around her tightening.
‘I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘Absolutely starving. I haven’t eaten since breakfast—and then you only gave me time to swallow one piece of toast—and I couldn’t eat my lunch because I’d seen you and Chloe. You didn’t tell me she was married.’
He hauled himself up against the pillows and flicked on the bedside light that made the four-poster look like a rosy cave. His darling wife looked rosy, too, flushed with lovemaking. He glanced at his watch. ‘Are you always so talkative at three o’clock in the morning?’
‘Probably.’
He gave her the slow smile that always made her heart flip over. ‘Chloe isn’t married, but I can understand why you thought she was. When she held out her hand to show me her ring all I saw was a plain gold band. It’s too big for her and the stone slips down, out of sight.’
Echoes of the shock she’d had when she’d seen the two of them together, the terrible sense of betrayal and hurt came back, haunting her. She raised her knees to her chin and looked at him sideways. ‘I could have met your sister, had lunch with you both. You needn’t have left me the way you did.’
‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I made a pig’s ear out of everything. Our honeymoon was coming to an end and I was going to have to tell you the truth about me. I’d planned on telling you on the last day at the cottage. Selfishly, I wanted to hang onto the magic of knowing I was loved for myself. But it was Chloe who phoned last night. She’d met this up-and-coming interior designer, Guy Fellows. They’d fallen in love and she wanted me to buy her a partnership in his one-man business. Knowing her track record, I was worried, told her I’d need to meet him first, take a look at his accounts. Hence the dive back to London. I’d planned to get the business with Chloe and her fiancé out of the way, leaving myself free to concentrate on you, bring you here, tell you everything. You’ll get to meet Chloe soon enough.’
‘I’d like that. And Nanny Briggs. Properly.’
‘Then you forgive me?’
‘Well…’ She gave him a teasing smile. ‘I probably would if I weren’t so hungry.’
To prove her point her stomach grumbled. Jethro slid his long legs out of bed. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘There might be packets of nuts in the mini-bar,’ she suggested, but he fetched one of the towelling robes from the bathroom. ‘I think I can do better than that. I know where all the keys are kept. Keep sweet for me, my love.’
Sweet. She slid out of bed and went to shower, rubbing body oil into her skin. It smelt of honeysuckle and roses. She was insanely happy. How could she have lost her trust in him? And hadn’t she always known that, despite appearances to the contrary, he had huge potential, could achieve anything? How hard he must have had to work to create such wealth.
Something would have to be done about that.
Ten minutes later, both clad in towelling robes, they were sitting at a small round table eating the smoked salmon, hard boiled eggs and crusty rolls Jethro had foraged for. Between sips of champagne, Allie said, ‘You don’t need to earn any more, do you? Or are you a workaholic?’
‘Used to be.’ His eyes gleamed at her. ‘There didn’t seem to be anything else. Now there is.’ He raised his flute to her, his golden eyes glittering, the line of his mouth sensual. ‘I’ve decided to sell off the majority of my holdings, delegate more where the ones I’ll hold onto are concerned. The cottage would be the ideal place to bring up our children and I’d like to concentrate more on conservation. We’ll keep the Mayfair house on, for when we feel like being in London. It will be handy for showing the children the sights—the Tower, Hampton Court, all that stuff. Of course—’ he grinned at her ‘—selling up will make us even more disgustingly wealthy, but I guess we can handle that. What do you say?’
‘I say we can handle anything, as long as we love each other,’ she replied huskily, her eyes drenched with devotion as she watched him rise to his feet.
He took her hands and pulled her up. ‘Do you think you could live with a broad gold band and a diamond bigger and better than anything in the Crown Jewels to replace that cheap brass thing?’ he asked softly. ‘I hated having to put that on your finger when I wanted to cover you with precious gems.’
‘Being covered with jewels sounds a touch uncomfortable,’ she dimpled at him. ‘But I get your drift.’ Her fingers strayed to the narrow band of base metal. ‘Call me sentimental, but I wouldn’t exchange my wedding ring for all the gold in the Bank of England. However…’ She smiled at him, misty-eyed. ‘A diamond to go with it would be acceptable—if it makes you happy!’
Jethro swallowed the lump of sheer happiness that had lodged in his throat, and his voice was raw with passion as he told her, ‘I’ll never stop loving you. I love you more with every breath I take. And now…’ He untied the belt of her robe. ‘I believe it’s my turn to be hungry.’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0679-3
BOUGHT: ONE HUSBAND
First North American Publication 2000.
Copyright © 1999 by Diana Hamilton.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Visit us at www.eHarlequin.com
Bought: One Husband Page 14
