The Engagement Deal

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For lying to your family!’

  ‘We lie every day of our lives—even you, Dr Parish—so put away that sanctimonious little smile and whip up some unquestioning adoration.’

  ‘In your dreams!’ she choked.

  ‘Mine and every other male on the planet,’ he conceded with a lecherous grin. ‘If you want to make a hit with my father, just eat his food,’ he advised, leading her towards the rest of the family, who had gathered around the table set under the rather grand picnic awning.

  ‘I can’t eat. I feel sick.’

  ‘We’ll all feel sick once we’ve consumed our token share of the burnt offerings,’ he announced, with callous disregard for her mental torture. ‘It’ll be very handy to have a doctor in the house.’

  Despite the age and grandeur of the historic house there was nothing museum-like about it. Primarily it was a home like every home, it had lots of small quirky individual touches that said things about the people that lived there. Holly kept telling herself this; she didn’t want to give the impression she was awed by her surroundings—even if she was!

  ‘Our bags have been taken up.’ Niall appeared and she stopped gawking at the chandelier that was probably as big as their sitting-room, back home. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ Without waiting for her, he started up the great sweeping staircase.

  Holly decided it was lucky she was fairly fit, partly due to the fact she spent her life walking miles down hospital corridors, as Niall didn’t make many concessions for the drastic difference in their inside leg measurements.

  ‘This is the oldest part of the house.’

  Holly nodded; she’d already noticed that the ceiling was a more intimate height in this, the original part of the building, that had begun life as a relatively modest Medieval manor house.

  ‘Here we are.’ He opened an oak-latched door with flourish and stood to one side as she entered.

  ‘This is lovely.’ It was a delightful half-timber panelled gem of a room: She’d seen bedrooms smaller than the vast fourposter that dominated it. She walked over to the window and gave an appreciative sigh. It looked out directly over the formal Italianate gardens and the lake beyond. Leaning her elbows on the stone sill, she poked her head out of the leaded frame to get a better view.

  ‘Be careful!’ A hand on her shoulder hauled her back.

  The dizziness that afflicted Holly as she looked up into his dark face had nothing to do with vertigo. She ought to have added that she didn’t need the support of the hand that encircled her waist, but somehow she didn’t get around to it—it stayed there, light but disturbing.

  Welcome distraction came in the form of a leather bag placed beside the awe-inspiring bed. ‘They’ve brought the wrong bag up…or perhaps this isn’t my room.’

  His hand fell away as she took the opportunity to move away from him.

  ‘I didn’t say this was your room, I said this was our room. That—’ he nodded his head towards the offending item, ‘—is mine. So,’ he added, his grin deepening, ‘is that.’ This time, his glance encompassed the massive four-poster.

  Horror seeped slowly into Holly’s brain. She shook her head slowly from side to side. What was he talking about? Ours? No, he’d said nothing about ‘ours’: it was something she’d definitely have noticed.

  ‘Are you expecting me to share a room with you?’ Her laughter, as she lifted a shaky hand to her head, was strained.

  ‘It’s not what I’m expecting: it’s what my family is expecting. Mother prides herself on being very liberal and open-minded. From my point of view, I find musical beds to have a certain old-fashioned charm.’ His casual smile had a lecherous quality that filled her with a fresh spurt of panic.

  ‘You knew she’d put me in here,’ she accused slowly. Then the truth dawned on her. ‘Is this your room?’

  ‘Man and boy,’ he admitted solemnly.

  ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ she asked hoarsely.

  ‘Aren’t you overreacting just a bit?’ The quirk of one dark brow casually trivialised her justified distress. ‘If you’d actually paused to think about it, you’d have realised we’d be expected to share a bed—or at least a room.’

  In her pale face, two feverish spots glowed hotly high on the curve of her smooth cheeks. ‘Think about it?’ she yelled in frustration, bringing both her fists to rest against his unyielding chest. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying not to do. This is a nightmare!’ she groaned, bringing her chin to rest against her balled fists. As her fists themselves were still resting on his chest, her actions brought her inevitably into intimate contact with his well-toned torso.

  Holly gasped and sexual heat, hot and fluid, rushed through her body. Struggling against bonds that didn’t exist outside the disgusted shock in her own mind, she staggered backwards—but not before she became aware that she wasn’t the only one sexually aroused by the contact. Her belly quivered helplessly as she recalled the imprint of his hard sex against her.

  Niall regarded her flushed face with an inscrutable expression. When he spoke, he didn’t sound like a man driven to distraction by lust.

  ‘We’re only going to share a bed. Anything else is purely optional.’ Looking into his burning blue eyes, Holly revised her estimation: not driven to distraction, possibly, but edgy…definitely edgy. If it was possible for eyes to reach out and grab a person, Niall had those eyes; she felt well and truly grabbed!.

  She resisted the temptation to laugh scornfully at the idea of her voluntarily sharing a bed with him. Given the state of her hormones, the last thing she needed was him taking it into his head to make her eat her words!

  ‘You should have warned me,’ she persisted stubbornly.

  ‘Some things are on a need-to-know basis, and you didn’t need to know until absolutely necessary.’

  ‘On what do you base that ridiculous comment?’ she demanded hotly.

  ‘On the basis that you would have given me earache,’ he told her with breathtaking candour, ‘earlier.’ He parted the drapes around the bed—the heavy fabric was encrusted in jewel-coloured crewel work—and laid his holdall down. He withdrew a parcel wrapped in garishly coloured paper. ‘Think you can find your own way back?’

  Holly nodded untruthfully. Orienteering never had been her strong point. She would probably expire from thirst before she encountered another human being. The fact this notion wasn’t nearly as worrying as the idea of sharing his bed told her she’d lost all sense of proportion…

  ‘I want to spend some time with Tom.’ He walked towards the door and then turned back his hand on the handle. ‘She doesn’t offer to give everybody the guided tour personally, you know.’

  Left to her gloomy solitude, Holly assumed he was talking about his mother; she couldn’t help wishing she wasn’t so privileged.

  ‘You’ll know everyone there this evening except Ian Webster, he’s the estate manager.’ Niall glanced in the mirror as he knotted his tie.

  Holly glared at his perfect profile and felt her sense of resentment grow—he made it sound so easy! She cinched the belt of her robe a notch tighter. ‘I won’t know anyone there tonight,’ she corrected him resentfully. ‘I’m the outsider…which is where incidentally I’d like to be—outside and far away from here.’

  She’d managed to establish herself as a totally unsuitable bride for the heir to this estate during her guided tour. She didn’t ride, she didn’t shoot anything—not even clay targets—and she wasn’t quite sure what had made her assure her hostess in a borderline belligerent manner that she had no intention of learning any of these skills. When his parents returned from their trip to the States and discovered their son was once more single and eligible, they’d no doubt breathe a collective sigh of relief.

  ‘Try to be philosophical about this,’ Niall advised, turning to look at her. He glanced at the outfit she’d laid out on the bed. ‘That dress again…’ A reminiscent smile played around the corners of his mouth.

  ‘It�
��s not like I have any choice,’ she snapped. Unlike my sister and your glamorous ex-wife, she could have added, but she didn’t; it might have made her sound petty and even jealous.

  ‘We don’t dress for dinner normally; it’s just they don’t have an opportunity to welcome someone new to the family every day of the week.’

  ‘I’m not going to be one of the family.’

  ‘Do you have to be so pedantic?’ He held up his hand. ‘No, don’t answer that. You obviously can’t help yourself.’

  ‘Actually, your father gave the distinct impression it wasn’t very unusual having…guests.’ She wondered how often Rowena had been here. A nasty thought occurred to her. Had her sister slept in this very bed—and not alone?

  Niall sighed. ‘You noticed that, did you?’

  Holly looked at the four-poster and wondered queasily. ‘I noticed your sister seemed upset.’ A bed is an inanimate object, she told herself; who has slept in it with whom is totally irrelevant. The important thing to remember is I’m not sharing it with anyone!

  ‘Yeah, she was: not that the old man was getting at her.’

  No, just his womanising son. Holly’s expression hardened at this fresh reminder of Niall’s reputation. It didn’t make her feel more kindly disposed towards him.

  ‘The thing is,’ he explained slowly. ‘Daniel isn’t Chris’s son. Jude got involved with a guy who turned out to be married. The hard-faced bastard had been here, smarming his way into everyone’s good books, had the red carpet rolled out for him—even though he was years too old for Jude…’ His expression was stony as he recalled the sequence of events that had had a permanent effect on his sister’s life. ‘Jude didn’t find out until it was too late. Even then he strung her along, saying he’d leave his wife. He was hard to pin down to specific dates, you understand.’

  Holly understood. Her dark eyes filled with compassion. ‘Poor Jude.’

  ‘She wasted three years of her life on the swine, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop her.’ The stern line of his mouth was a bitter slash in his hard face. ‘She had to learn the hard way.’

  ‘But she met Chris.’ She resisted the weird impulse to reach out to him.

  Some of the grimness left his face as he smiled. ‘Yeah, she met Chris,’ he agreed.

  ‘He seems nice,’ she suggested carefully.

  ‘One of the good guys. It wasn’t a criticism.’ He abruptly switched the subject and reached down to touch the silky fabric of her dress. Holly responded with a helpless shiver to the sight of his long shapely fingers caressing the material. She felt her tingling nipples harden brazenly under the thick towelling. ‘Quality, not quantity,’ he mused.

  She saw a curiously self-conscious expression flicker across his face as he abruptly released the fabric and turned towards the window.

  ‘I see Rowena has converted you to her way of thinking,’ Holly observed sourly. ‘A classic designer item is worth starving for? Actually, it was a gift.’ She glanced at the offending article and didn’t add that it wasn’t an original.

  Martin’s mother ran a small firm that specialised in producing copies of designer originals worn by the famous. Martin’s mother was doing very well; a lot of people, it seemed, were prepared to pay for their little bit of glamour at a price that wouldn’t break the bank—just strain it.

  ‘Rowena has excellent taste.’

  Holly couldn’t help but notice with a stab of anger how swift he was to defend her sister from possible criticism. Her lips tightened.

  ‘It wasn’t from her.’ Suddenly she didn’t want to be the sort of woman who everyone assumed would only receive an expensive gift from her sister. Why shouldn’t she have some wealthy, besotted lover hovering solicitously in the background? She ground her bare toes into the thick rug that partly covered the dark oak boarded floor.

  Niall had turned back to face her; he was frowning critically. ‘Some gift…Special sort of friend?’

  ‘I did him a favour,’ she responded, not much caring in her present frame of mind what Niall made of this deliberately obscure explanation. Where did he get off, anyway, with all that tight-lipped disapproval? It wasn’t any of his business if she let a man shower her with diamonds! Her eyes were drawn to the large sapphire sitting on her finger.

  She had thought Martin’s gesture had been sweet. It wasn’t as if she’d passed the Pharmacology resit for him; she’d just helped him out with his revision.

  ‘He obviously had no complaints.’

  ‘He’s called Martin.’ And she hadn’t seen him since they qualified; she really ought to make more of an effort to keep in touch. Her frown deepened. She didn’t like Niall’s sneery, condescending tone one little bit.

  ‘And what did Martin make of you coming here with me this weekend?’

  This had gone far enough. Carrying off the pretence of having the odd lover hovering in the background might be a useful face-saving device, but she just didn’t have the stamina or the bare-faced cheek to keep it up for long.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t actually tell him. We don’t really have that sort of relationship,’ she confessed reluctantly.

  ‘I see.’ His next words made it pretty clear he didn’t see at all. ‘It’s just hard luck on Martin, then, if he doesn’t feel as casual as you.’

  ‘Why are you yelling at me?’ she asked with a mystified frown.

  ‘I’m not yelling.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re far too well-bred to yell,’ she accused hotly.

  ‘Were they his pyjamas?’

  ‘Who…what…?’ She no longer had the faintest idea what he was talking about.

  Niall didn’t know what had possessed him to ask such a thing…only the ownership of the stripy pyjamas that had drowned her petite frame had been persistently bugging him. The furrow between his brows deepened. It wasn’t like him to get diverted by irrelevant trivialities.

  ‘The ones you were wearing the other morning,’ he said gruffly.

  Typical! He would remember what she was wearing when she looked a sight, wouldn’t he? Mind you, he did recall the dress too and she hadn’t looked a sight then…

  ‘No, they weren’t Martin’s. If you must know, I’m too busy with work to have a regular boyfriend.’

  ‘Just a string of casual acquaintances,’ he suggested.

  It was that faint curl of his sensual upper lip that made her see red. The sheer hypocrisy of his masculine condemnation—if I’d been a man, she thought angrily, he’d have been patting me on the back. The final irony was, of course, that she didn’t have a sex life to speak about, let alone sneer about! It was just his nasty imagination providing the dirt in her whiter-than-white existence.

  ‘It’s a lot easier to part with a casual acquaintance—or even a string of them—than a husband or wife,’ she pointed out tightly. Niall Wesley was in no position to offer her advice on relationships.

  ‘So you and Rowena have that much in common, at least.’

  Rowena didn’t make any secret of the fact she had no intention of marrying.

  ‘No, I can’t even claim to have even that much in common with my sister. I’ve nothing against marriage, you see: I just think it shouldn’t be taken as lightly as it seems to be by some people.’ Her voice faltered. Niall was looking more remote and yes, dangerous, with each reckless syllable that passed her lips. ‘When I do it,’ she added in a small defiant voice, ‘I want it to be forever.’

  ‘A noble aspiration.’

  ‘Spare me the cynical disillusion,’ she pleaded unsympathetically. ‘And I don’t want it to happen for a long time yet—marriage, that is,’ she added. ‘I’m too young; I’ve too much to do,’ She fretted defensively.

  ‘You’re older than I was when Tara and I got married.’

  Holly’s shoulders lifted. She couldn’t help but notice that his jaw, never soft at the best of times, resembled steel by this point. ‘Which rather proves my point, doesn’t it?’

  ‘And what happens to your g
rand plan if you meet someone, fall desperately in love—totally under his spell and he wants to marry you?’ His voice had dropped to a low husky drawl that made a rash of goosebumps break out over her hot skin. Fighting with Niall always got her hot and bothered. ‘He insists on marrying you.’ The rough velvet voice persisted.

  ‘If he really loved me, he’d wait.’ A fine sheen of moisture broke out over her skin as she tried to drag her eyes away from his mesmeric gaze.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t love you—maybe he just wants you. You’re the one in love. You’re totally in his power, and you like it.’

  For one split second of mind-numbing panic, she thought he was actually accusing her. Simultaneously, she knew that accusation would be true! The man she loved was never going to insist on marrying her. He probably wouldn’t mind sleeping with her, if there was nothing better to do.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so stupid,’ she scoffed bravely.

  ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to please someone so badly that you can’t think about anything else?’

  The husky question shook her more than anything else he’d said. There was derision and something else much more scary in his intent gaze.

  ‘You’re talking as if you have a choice,’ he continued. ‘Love isn’t like that…’

  You could say that again! She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and scanned his handsome, relentlessly cruel face with a kind of helpless fascination. Loving this man was not something she’d choose to do—loving Niall was a disaster! God, she didn’t want him telling her what love was like for him…. That was more than she could bear!

  ‘…didn’t you know that, Holly?’

  She stopped the small agitated pants that made her slight bosom rise and fall dramatically and took a deep steadying breath. ‘You’re talking about lust not love!’ she jeered shakily. Desire so intense, so basic flooded through her; she felt weak. ‘Love is about mutual respect.’

  ‘True, but it’s also about sex.’

  Holly was worried her knees were about to give way. ‘Were you in love when you married Tara?’ she croaked, missing jeer and sounding just plain scared.