The Engagement Deal

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘I’ve never been stalked before. I don’t think I like it.’

  What the hell was he doing here? Her brain was working its way through a list of probabilities, which all on second examination proved unlikely.

  Well, be realistic, Holly, he’s not about to tell you that not seeing your face is keeping him awake at nights! Although she was beside herself with curiosity, she’d have died before she’d admit this shameful fact to him.

  ‘I need your help.’

  If her indiscriminate hormones didn’t transform her brain into mush every time she saw him, she’d already have worked this out for herself.

  ‘No!’ She turned her back on him and started to pile tins into her trolley.

  The large hand on her shoulder was light, but it completely immobilised Holly. ‘You don’t know what I’m going to say.’

  ‘I don’t need to,’ she retorted. ‘The answer is still no!’

  Niall could tell she had really enjoyed saying that. Never had he heard one syllable contain so much relish. He waited a moment before spoiling her pleasure.

  ‘Do you actually have a cat?’

  Holly looked at the large pile of tins in her trolley. ‘No, not yet. I like to be prepared,’ she added weakly.

  He didn’t ridicule this ludicrous explanation, so he must really be desperate, she reflected thoughtfully. Some vague notion of holding Niall Wesley’s fate in her hands flashed through her head—it was a nice, warm, comforting thought. Would he beg? She looked at his dark saturnine features and decided regretfully that this was doubtful; the man didn’t have a humble bone in his beautiful body.

  ‘We have cats at home.’

  By ‘home’, she assumed he was talking about the ancestral pile, not his town house. ‘Nice for you.’

  ‘I’m sure you’d like them.’

  Holly had had enough of his graceful dancing around the issue. ‘Will you just get to the point? I’ve not got all day.’

  ‘I need you to pretend to be my fiancée again…just for the weekend, this time. Tara’s been talking to my mother and she told her about you. The upshot of which is, they’ve invited us down for the weekend. My parents are going away next month. When they come back, we can have split up and by then Tara will have gone back to her man and it won’t matter.’

  Not matter—oh, no, messing around with her life counted as zero in his list of priorities. Holly folded her arms and looked up at him incredulously. ‘You can’t imagine even for one second I’m going to agree to this.’

  ‘Not for me, no.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she snapped. ‘Not for me?’

  ‘I was speaking to Rowena earlier. I explained the situation…She thought it was a hoot.’

  Holly could almost hear her sister’s musical laughter. ‘And I thought I was the one with the warped sense of humour.’

  ‘She said she was sure you’d be delighted to help out one of her best friends.’ He smiled as those big brown eyes staring up at him gradually filled with horror. ‘Let me see,’ he mused, tapping his forefinger against the bridge of his masterful nose. ‘The words “one favour deserves another” did come up at some point. Oh, I almost forgot. Rowena made me promise to ask you if you’re enjoying staying at the flat—rent free?’

  Now he made her sound like a freeloader, when in actual fact she’d wanted to pay her way. It was her magnanimous big sister who’d insisted that Holly was doing her a favour by flat-sitting.

  ‘Are you telling me,’ Holly choked, her voice shaking with outrage, ‘that Rowena will throw me out of the flat if I don’t help you?’

  ‘I can’t see Rowena doing that, can you?’ he remonstrated gently. ‘No, Rowena might be hurt if you didn’t do a little favour for her friend, that’s all. There’s no obligation. She might be disappointed…’ he forecast tentatively.

  No obligation—oh, no, not much! Her temper blazed into full flagrant life. ‘You’re a dirty, blackmailing rat!’ Her dark eyes sparkled with contempt. How she’d love to slap that smug smirk off his face! Her glare widened to encompass the girl at the delicatessen counter, who had giggled when Holly had given her rather loud assessment of his character.

  ‘Rowena felt sure you’d do the right thing. She tells me you’re very big on principles, personal honour and so forth.’ He made it sound amusingly quaint.

  ‘Much you’d know about it!’ she roared contemptuously, going extremely red in the face. ‘And how dare you discuss me with my sister?’

  His slow provocative smile deepened. ‘Scared I know all your deep dark secrets?’ he taunted softly.

  Holly shook her head and her short fat plait whipped around and caught her in the mouth. ‘I don’t have any dark secrets.’

  He shook his head sympathetically. ‘Rowena said as much.’

  Holly took a hopeless wrathful breath. When she saw her sister…! He had her trapped. He knew she wouldn’t let Rowena down; half the expensive medical books she possessed had been purchased courtesy of her big sister’s generosity. Their parents weren’t well off and Rowena’s financial help had made life much easier in Holly’s student days.

  She gripped the handle of her trolley with both hands until her knuckles turned white.

  ‘When do you want me?’ she enquired with gloomy resignation. His dark brows shot up and she winced. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told him with icy dignity. ‘That wasn’t an offer.’

  A slow, scary grin slashed his lean dark features. ‘Pity.’

  Holly’s lips tightened as a sensual shiver slid down her spine. Was that supposed to keep alive her furtive fantasies for the duration? Actually, her furtive fantasies were surviving without any help!

  ‘Save the theatricals for our audience and don’t blame me if they smell a rat in the first five minutes.’ Her expression made it clear that the rat she was talking about stood six feet four in his bare feet!

  ‘We’ll just have to convince them, won’t we, Holly?’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Do you think we should have pet names for one another? To give some depth to this thing?’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ She could think of one or two things she’d like to call him!

  ‘How about “poppet”? You look a poppet sort of girl to me.’

  Holly gave a very unpoppet-like growl. ‘If you want to live, don’t ever call me that!’ she told him with deep sincerity.

  Niall’s lips quivered. ‘Anything you say,’ he promised, as she strode off at a rattling pace guaranteed not to leave a single egg so meticulously ticked off her grocery list intact.

  ‘So your sister married an American and they live in Maine.’ Her brain was spinning from the information he’d been force-feeding her on the journey out of the city.

  ‘No, they live in New York. They have a summer house in Maine, which is where Thomas has been staying. They have a son a couple of years older than Tom, as well as a new baby. I’ve warned Mother that we want to break the news of our marriage to Tom in our own time, and as far as Tom’s concerned she’ll respect my wishes.’ He only wished this respect extended into other aspects of his life. ‘So there’s no worries there.’

  When he talked this way, it felt almost as if the whole thing was real. Holly had caught herself at some points during the last hour, while she’d been memorising family details, feeling as if all this was for real and she actually was going to meet her future in-laws. Fortunately, the rational part of her brain kept her feet firmly rooted in reality.

  ‘It’s unusual, isn’t it?’

  ‘What’s unusual?’ He didn’t take his eyes off the monotony of the motorway. As was to be expected, Niall was a good driver; though, rather to her surprise, no speed-fiend.

  ‘It’s not usual for the child to live with his father.’ And the way she recalled it from newspaper stories Thomas had only been a baby when his parents split up. ‘And you’re not the most obvious—’

  ‘Nurturing figure?’ he suggested drily as, deciding she might have said too much, her rambling observations abruptly
ceased—but not for long.

  ‘But how could Tara—’ she began thoughtlessly.

  ‘Desert her child?’ he bit out. The deep-set eyes that skimmed over her face held an arctic chill. ‘She didn’t. Tara sees Tom whenever she can. He stays with her when it’s reasonable for him to do so.’

  Which couldn’t be often, considering Tara’s globe-trotting lifestyle. Glancing at Niall’s set profile, she kept this observation to herself.

  ‘She loves him,’ he continued, ‘but he lives with me.’

  ‘I wasn’t criticising.’

  ‘Yes, you were, and you’re not saying anything that Tara hasn’t heard, had said to her face, behind her back or seen in print a thousand times before. She’s heard every sanctimonious permutation on the “unnatural woman who deserted her child” line.’ A stark silence followed his grim words. ‘You’ve no idea…’

  ‘No, I haven’t, but if everyone else there this weekend does, isn’t there a strong possibility I might put my foot in it?’ Her ignorance could well be the downfall of his little scheme.

  A shaft of amusement lightened his expression momentarily. ‘From what I’ve seen of you it’s highly likely you’ll put both feet in it, but,’ he conceded reluctantly, ‘I can see your point. History lesson: Tara comes from a big family—ten kids; she was the eldest. They were poor, absent father, her mother retreated from the grim reality of her life with the assistance of anti-depressants which, at that time, doctors like yourself handed out like sweets.’

  Holly saw the inference in his eyes that she was somehow responsible for the inadequacies of the medical profession twenty years ago. She didn’t interrupt, though; he was warming to his theme and she was fascinated by the picture his bleak words were drawing.

  ‘When she should have been playing with her dolls, Tara was bringing up her brothers and sisters, something she did until her big break came. Tara has already done the parent thing,’ he explained. ‘She tried with Tom, but she was deeply unhappy; she felt trapped. Perhaps it would have been easier if she’d still been in love with me—but she wasn’t. You know almost as much as my family now—if not more,’ he added drily. ‘Satisfied?’

  The most obvious thing that emerged from his words was Niall’s strong sense of protectiveness towards his ex-wife.

  ‘Did you have Thomas in an effort to patch up your marriage?’ Holly knew as soon as the words passed her lips that she shouldn’t have voiced her thoughts out loud. Despite this, there was no need for him to look at her as though she’d suggested he was a mass murderer! It was a perfectly legitimate suspicion, considering he’d already said their marriage had been over and she personally knew a couple who had used a baby as a sort of marital band-aid.

  ‘That’s an angle that even the tabloids didn’t latch on to. It would seem that medicine’s gain is gutter journalism’s loss.’

  Holly winced. She knew this was a major insult, coming as it did from someone who had been savaged by the press. First they’d labelled him as an unpatriotic quitter for leaving the race circuit when he had the driver’s number one place in the bag—‘Has The Blue-Eyed Boy Lost His Nerve?’ the headlines had screamed. Today’s villain was tomorrow’s hero; later, he’d been the loyal husband and father left holding the baby by his flighty heartless spouse, such was the fickleness and casual cruelty of the media.

  ‘As you’re so curious about the circumstances surrounding Tom’s conception, I’ll tell you.’ Without a word, he pulled the car off the quiet country road they’d just joined and turned off the engine,

  ‘There’s really no need,’ she blustered anxiously.

  Niall ignored her words completely and, showing no consideration for her discomfiture, placed his hand on her chin to jerk her around to face him.

  Curiosity might be a natural human reaction, but Niall wasn’t feeling in an understanding mood. Her words, whether malicious or just plain clumsily misjudged, had managed to revive a host of memories that he would have preferred to forget. The worry resurfaced that somehow these old stories would one day rear their ugly heads and hurt Tom. He looked at the flustered face of his passenger without compassion. People who blundered in places they had no right to be should expect to hear a few things they might not like.

  ‘Tom was conceived with no forward planning, and much pleasure.’ He paused to let that sink in and watched the embarrassed colour flare in her cheeks. ‘This occurred during our last attempt to make a go of things, and yes, he is mine, and no, I haven’t demanded DNA testing! Does that satisfy your prurient interest?’ His blue eyes raked her face contemptuously and the derision in his voice made her squirm uncomfortably in her deeply upholstered leather seat.

  Even in the midst of her mortification, her imagination insisted on providing painful pictures that went with the event. And it’s pretty obvious why I feel sick to my stomach, isn’t it? she thought. It’s never going to happen, but I can’t stop imagining myself in similar sweaty situations with this man. She’d never felt such a victim to her irresponsible hormones in her life than at that moment.

  The feeling of helplessness made her glare aggressively at him and pull her chin angrily from his grasp.

  ‘Don’t get mad with me because your wife prefers someone else.’ Pursing her lips she pushed a rich red curl which was making an escape bid from a heavy Celtic-designed barrette that held her rebellious hair back from her face. ‘I’m not about to be your whipping boy.’

  Boy? he watched narrow eyed as she licked, a bit nervously perhaps the last of the pale pinkish lipstick off her full lips. The natural shade underneath was actually much more attractive. No, despite the extreme slenderness, there was nothing even remotely boyish about this young woman. There was a lot that was annoying, provocative and plain irritating.

  Niall felt very provoked. He also felt a quite unreasonable urge to kiss those slightly parted softly pink lips—and that was her fault, too! Fortunately for her, he wasn’t a man who blindly followed every base instinct.

  ‘It’s easy to see what you saw in Tara.’ Though it seemed his admiration and probably a whole lot more too was alive and well in the present tense. ‘It’s very much more difficult to see what she ever saw in you.’

  The haughty little toss of her bright head made Niall forget he was rising above his baser instincts.

  At first, the kiss was as angry as his eyes; and then, as he burrowed deeper into the warm moist sweetness of her mouth and with a small lost whimper Holly wrapped her arms tight around his neck, it became something more complex and dangerous.

  Holly wasn’t thinking danger—she wasn’t thinking at all—she was feeling! Her senses were bursting with the heady cocktail of stimulants bombarding her brain. The fractured moan in her throat deepened raggedly as her fingers pressed deep into the springy lushness of his ebony hair. Crazily, even the shape of his skull thrilled her all the way down to her toes.

  His lips were on her neck, her eyelids…everywhere. His clever hands moved continuously, tracing the shape of every aspect of her face. The intimacy of his exploration was simply devastating. One big hand moved to the base of her spine and, fingers splayed over the small hollow at the base of her slender back, he dragged her pliant body hard against him. She gave a startled gasp as the liquid heat low in her belly became white-hot. Desire ripped away the last shreds of her restraint.

  Holly wriggled sinuously and her small breasts bounced along enthusiastically before they were firmly compressed in an entirely satisfactory manner against his broad chest. The abrasive pressure against her sensitised nipples was delicious. The heavy throb of their individual pulses became intermingled and inseparable to her sensitive ears.

  He wasn’t still angry—this was no longer a punishment kiss—but he was hungry, demanding and aroused. This was raw sex like she’d never known it—like she’d never in her wildest dreams imagined existed! A heavy throbbing stupor invaded her limbs; it made her feverish caresses clumsy.

  The first motorcycle that went past hooted it
s horn as it roared past; the rest of the small convoy followed suit. The mocking sounds dragged Holly kicking and screaming from her snug sensual cocoon. Little slivers of sense swam to the surface in her sex-saturated brain.

  There was no leverage in the hands she ineffectually placed against his shoulders. ‘This is very silly.’ In broad daylight on the public highway—it was probably illegal, too!

  His dark flushed face was very close to her own as she forced her eyes to open. The taut olive-toned skin was drawn tight across those impressive cheekbones. His eyes as he stared back at her were oddly unfocused.

  ‘Definitely,’ he agreed vaguely. The hands that slid underneath the short, semi-fitted silky shirt she’d hoped was suitable for meeting the aristocratic in-laws didn’t seem very convinced.

  He knew this was going to stop—he was going to stop. It wasn’t as if this could go anywhere. His fingertips accidentally brushed the peak of one small breast and her body reacted as though she’d just suffered an electric shock; the deep ripple that passed through her entire body vibrated against the pads of his fingertips. He graphically pictured other, deeper ripples gripping that slender body. On the other hand, there was no big hurry, was there?

  ‘Your skin is so incredibly soft!’ he groaned, sliding his fingers over the slope of her ribcage just beneath the lacy bra she wore. Aroused beyond bearing, the constriction of his position became agonising as he breathed in the sweet, sharp, intensely feminine scent that arose from her hot skin and pictured her body beneath his.

  The top buttons of her shirt had parted to reveal the shadowy promise of a very appealing cleavage. We are talking quality not quantity, here, he thought, recalling the pert outline of her small pointed breasts against that sexy dress she’d worn. With a groan, he pulled back; head pressed against the headrest, he dragged a slightly unsteady hand through his thick hair.

  ‘You’re right.’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘This isn’t the time or place to do what we want.’

  His assumption—understandable, possibly in the circumstances—made her eyes narrow. ‘You’re very free with the we all of a sudden.’