The Engagement Deal

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘Why should it matter to me if you’re in love or not with Tara?’

  ‘It might affect your decision to carry on seeing me.’

  Holly clenched her feebly fluttering hands to her sides. She swallowed and tried to sound casual. ‘Seeing you? After this weekend, you mean?’

  ‘You sound shocked. Surely it isn’t such an extraordinary idea, after last night? Or are you saying that nights like that come along every day of the week for you?’ There was frustration mingled with the glint of dry humour in his eyes.

  ‘No,’ she denied readily. ‘But I thought maybe they did for you.’

  Niall’s shrewd glance narrowed. Unless Holly had a sex life that defied belief, what she’d said betrayed a surprising naivété that inclined him to rethink quite a lot of things. Maybe she had seemed to act as if she’d never done certain things before because she hadn’t…A disbelieving laugh was wrenched from him, but his expression was sober enough as it locked with hers—in fact, it was deadly earnest.

  ‘They don’t.’

  Her mind was racing. Did that mean he’d thought it was special? How special? She waited with breathless impatience for him to fill in the infuriating gaps left by his terse response.

  ‘Last night…’ It was strange to see the articulate Niall almost fumble for words to describe what they’d shared. ‘Was not like any other I’ve spent,’ he rasped. ‘You were incredible…Last night was incredible, this morning was incredible, and, call me crazy, but I don’t see any reason not to repeat the experience on a regular basis. If I were a pessimist, I’d say the only way to go after sex like that was down.’ Niall’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. He sought and captured her eyes.

  Holly was stunned by his admissions. The challenging smile that curved his amazing sensual lips made her start shaking feverishly.

  ‘But I’m prepared to risk it if you are,’ he admitted in a deep sexy drawl that sent a plump voluptuous shiver dripping down her spine.

  It was pretty satisfying to have it confirmed by a second party—second interested party—that last night hadn’t been ordinary. And Niall should know, she told herself; he did have a lot more room for comparison than she did!

  ‘How will that work? I mean, I know you’re not asking me to marry you.’ Her laugh invited him to share the joke—he didn’t. ‘Which,’ she added soberly, ‘is just as well, because marriage isn’t on my agenda for years and years—not until I’m established in my career.’ Her fierce frown defied him to argue the point—he didn’t.

  ‘I think you’ve mentioned that point before…’

  There was no harm reinforcing it. ‘Marriage is only one possibility for a woman,’ she told him earnestly. ‘People assume…’

  ‘People being men.’

  Holly gritted her teeth determined to show him she could match anyone in the cynicism stakes. ‘People assume that every woman wants marriage and babies…’

  ‘Is this a direct Rowena quote?’ he enquired with interest. ‘If I hadn’t seen how happy your parents are with my own eyes, I’d have assumed you’re both the products of a particularly bitter divorce.’

  ‘I’m not some Rowena clone!’ she shrieked.

  ‘I already know that,’ came the dry response. ‘If I promise not to propose.’ His heavy ironic tone made her feel gauche and clumsy. ‘We could see one another, go out occasionally…’ The hot look he shot her made Holly’s stomach dissolve into an erotic black hole ‘And stay in a lot.’

  His message came through loud and clear. He wasn’t talking exploring a deep mutual bond, here; he wasn’t talking love—he was talking sex! And where will I be when the novelty wears off? she asked herself. Still fathoms in love, that’s where, you idiot. Cut your losses now: you’re only delaying the inevitable, the sane voice of logic in her head told her sternly.

  ‘I’m starting my stint on paeds—paediatrics—next month. I’ll be working long hours…’ As excuses went, this one was just begging to be demolished. You could have at least pretended to think about saying no, she told herself with self-disgust.

  ‘All the more need for relaxation.’ His relaxed expression suggested that there never was any question over her reply.

  ‘I’m a bit of a couch potato when I finally do get any time off,’ she warned him. ‘Not very entertaining company.’

  ‘I’m sold by all these lures you’re throwing in my direction.’ There was a thread of steel in his sardonic tone. ‘Be careful, Holly, or I might get the idea you’re not keen.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ she snapped. ‘You know perfectly well I’m keen.’ She blushed deeply—considering some of the things she’d babbled at him in the grip of mindless passion, he must be aware that keen didn’t begin to cover the way she felt about him. ‘I wish I wasn’t!’ There was no mistaking the heartfelt sincerity of this statement.

  ‘Is it the idea of the baggage I carry around that worries you?’ Niall speculated in a hard, cynical voice. ‘Is this another of your lifestyle choices: you don’t date fathers?’

  ‘You’re my first.’ First love, last love, she thought, feeling the warmth of unshed tears fill her eyes. She turned her head away and blinked rapidly to clear the suspect moisture. ‘But that’s more by luck than good judgment.’

  ‘It looks like your luck has run out.’ His dark, fierce face came very close to hers as he drew a line through the chalky grime on her cheek with the tip of his forefinger.

  ‘I don’t mind.’ Twisting her fingers into his hair, she made the husky confession almost defiantly. God, she needed him any way she could have him. She’d show him she could be as casual as him if it killed her!

  His electric blue eyes smouldered with triumph as he swept her into his powerful arms. ‘I think we’re going to have a lot of fun,’ he told her, just before he nuzzled the delicate area beside her ear.

  Holly was all for fun, but it didn’t suggest depth of commitment. Was it so wrong to want those things? she wondered bleakly. She firmly buried her restless sense of dissatisfaction as Niall chose that moment to torment her lips with a series of soft muted kisses.

  He laughed deep in his throat when she growled softly and tightened her grip on his hair. ‘Is this what you want?’

  The kiss drove the air from her lungs and left her wanting more—much more!

  Her lips moved to form a sultry smile. ‘You’re on the right track.’

  ‘Well, was it so bad?’ Niall asked as his wildly waving family diminished from view in the rear window.

  ‘I had a nice time, thank you.’ Holly looked at her hands neatly folded in her lap rather than at the man beside her. It was one thing to play the fiancée for an audience; it was quite another to act the girlfriend…

  ‘Even after Mum’s attempts to teach you to ride.’ Niall didn’t seem to share her feelings of awkwardness.

  ‘You can laugh!’ She raised indignant eyes to his amused face. ‘But you wouldn’t be,’ she added darkly, ‘if you had to sit on my—’

  ‘If you’re going to do anything as stupid as fall off a pony, it’s the best place to land.’ Niall was looking towards the area where her ‘best place’ was cushioned by blissfully soft upholstery.

  ‘It wasn’t a pony, it was a horse.’ A great stomping thing at least ten feet tall!

  ‘I thought, by the way you were looking at it, it might have been a fire-breathing dragon.’

  Holly’s lips twitched. ‘I’m never getting on a horse again.’

  ‘Quitter,’ Niall taunted. He glanced over his shoulder into the back seat, where his son was already nodding off. ‘They can smell the fear…so can I.’ The swift sideways look he shot her was not nearly so casual as his sly dig.

  Holly looked stubbornly at the road ahead and tried to brazen it out. Her brow furrowed in innocent incomprehension. She silently cursed his damned uncanny perception.

  ‘I won’t throw you if you mount me,’ he promised helpfully.

  ‘Niall!’ she remonstrated, hot-cheeked. She glanced
furtively towards the back seat. Tom, who’d spent the morning playing a rough game of soccer with the menfolk, was already sound asleep.

  ‘I’m only trying to put you at your ease,’ he protested mildly.

  ‘Then I have to tell you you’ve failed,’ she croaked, trying to get all those lurid images of her astride…No she wouldn’t think about it!

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Holly,’ he persisted. ‘And don’t bother denying it. You haven’t insulted me for at least half an hour, so I know something’s got you worried.’

  ‘I’m not worried. It’s just this is all a bit unexpected. Circumstances have made things happen rather quickly. The couple thing…I mean…this…us…’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re not the sort of girl who sleeps with the guy on the first date?’

  ‘I know you’re a good driver,’ she said, as his fingers curled around her thigh. The pressure they exerted was rather nice, actually. A small choking sound escaped her throat as she felt her nipples harden instantly. ‘But I’d prefer you kept both hands on the wheel.’ Her sigh of relief when he complied had less to do with fear for their physical safety and more to do with fear for her sanity. ‘We’ve not even had a date yet,’ she reminded him shrilly.

  ‘We can fix that. I’m taking Tom ice-skating tomorrow. We go most weeks. Come with us.’

  ‘Most weeks: does that mean you’re good at it?’ she wondered suspiciously.

  ‘I get by.’

  What the hell? He’d already seen her fall off a horse; there wasn’t as far to fall on skates. ‘All right. Won’t Tom mind…? I mean, I don’t want to intrude on your private time with him. He might resent it.’

  ‘Tom thinks you’re cool.’

  ‘I like him, too,’ she admitted gruffly.

  ‘You’ve not had a lot of boyfriends, have you, Holly?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Nothing intense.’ Meaning I’m feeling pretty intense now—nicely done, Holly, she chided herself. There was no way Niall could have missed that. Rather to her surprise, he didn’t push her farther. ‘This is a bit of turnaround, considering what you thought of me at first…’

  He winced. ‘I thought you’d forgotten that.’

  ‘I never forget anything,’ she boasted firmly.

  ‘Nothing? You’re starting to scare me,’ he told her drily.

  ‘Maybe you should be.’ Her brow puckered.

  He sighed. ‘We’re talking adolescent trauma here, aren’t we? That night I chucked out your would-be lover? Perhaps we should get this out in the open.’

  His perception once more was uncannily accurate. ‘Actually, he ran without any encouragement, Niall.’

  ‘Probably just as well. I wasn’t feeling very kindly disposed towards…Well, anyone, actually…including myself.’

  ‘It wasn’t just me, then? I suppose that makes me feel better.’ She wrinkled her nose dubiously.

  ‘I can still remember that hurt puppy expression in your eyes. I felt like a total bastard.’

  ‘You were a total bastard.’

  ‘Though it was easier to live with my conscience after you’d kicked me.’ He shuddered, and let his eyes momentarily rest on the moody quiver of her generous lower lip. ‘Jude had just told me she was pregnant and her precious bloody Richard still had a wife.’ The words came out quickly and his discomfort in revealing this to her was pretty obvious. ‘I think I’d run out of understanding, especially for young women bent on self-destruction.’

  ‘I wasn’t—’ she began to protest, only to be impatiently interrupted.

  ‘Just put semantics to one side, for once. I know you were a kid…’

  Holly bit her lip and let his grouchiness pass. She’d actually been going to contest the self-destructive part of his statement.

  ‘Jude wanted me to explain to Mum and Dad that everything would be all right eventually because he was going to leave his wife when the time was right…Can you believe it?’ The memory still had the power now to turn his knuckles white against the steering wheel. ‘As you can imagine, I was looking forward no end to that conversation. If I hadn’t been so bloody wrapped up in my own life, I might have been there to protect her…’ He made a sound of disgust in his throat and stared grimly at the road ahead. ‘I don’t suppose she’d have listened to me.’

  With understanding came a surge of compassion for Niall—who had blamed himself for not being there when his sister needed him—and Jude. Poor Jude: you couldn’t compare an inexperienced teenage grope with what had happened to her, but Niall, frustrated by his inability to help his sister, had obviously seen a tenuous parallel.

  ‘She probably wouldn’t have,’ she agreed, sliding her hand between her knee and the leather upholstery, because the urge to reach out and physically comfort him was getting awfully hard to resist. ‘We don’t listen when we think we’re in love.’

  ‘Are you speaking from experience?’

  It wasn’t until he spoke that she realised how her thoughtless words might be interpreted. ‘What sort of question is that to ask?’ she responded indignantly. ‘Do I go asking you details about your love life?’

  ‘Whether you ask or not, you seem to know one hell of a lot. Actually I wasn’t really thinking about the past…’

  Holly went pale. ‘You’re asking me if I’m in love with you?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Possibly…In a subtle, roundabout way.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ She managed a passably jaunty grin. ‘I won’t subject you to repeat performance of heavy sighs and soulful stares.’ She swallowed the taste of bile in her throat.

  Talking about the dim and distant past, when she’d dogged his every step, had obviously aroused memories of her embarrassingly obvious devotion. The idea of a repetition was obviously filling Niall with alarm. It was the only reason she could imagine for the sudden inquisition. Niall didn’t want any complications in their relationship—like love. She was going to have to be more cautious in the future.

  ‘I’m relieved.’

  Holly suspected she hadn’t quite convinced him. She put her all into her breezy response.

  ‘You won’t need to send out the heavy mob to get the ring back, either.’ She slid the ring off her finger and solemnly held it out to him. She thought for a moment that he was going to refuse it.

  ‘It suited you,’ he said almost absently as he dropped the gem into his breast pocket.

  ‘It made me nervous, walking around with a small fortune on my finger,’ she told him hoarsely.

  ‘I don’t think it was the market value that was bothering you.’

  Holly didn’t want to go down that road. She smiled brightly. ‘I’d like to invite you in when we get back, but…’

  ‘I’d like to come in…but…’ Niall too looked at his sleeping son.

  They both left it at that, but Holly was aware this was a subject which wasn’t going to go away. She couldn’t hide what she felt forever. Love was a hindrance, from Niall’s point of view, to the sort of adult, no-strings-attached relationship he wanted.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘WOW, when did you learn to cook?’ Rowena sniffed appreciatively and dumped her overnight bag on the floor.

  Jaw ajar, spoon in hand, a startled Holly whirled around. ‘What are you doing here?’ She blew the rebellious bright strands of hair out of her eyes and realised her response had sounded perilously like an accusation.

  ‘I live here—remember?’ One artistically plucked eyebrow rose towards her sister’s stylish hairline.

  The mild mockery only increased Holly’s hot-cheeked dismay. ‘I wasn’t expecting—you took me by surprise,’ she babbled, trying to compensate for her lukewarm welcome with an extra bright smile. ‘Great to see you.’ Why did Rowena have to turn up now, of all times, looking so disgustingly perfect. Unfortunately her tone showed a tendency to echo her lack of enthusiasm.

  Stifling a childish urge to push her sister back out of the door—if only the Rowena complication could be solved that easily—Holly pu
t her spoon down before she hugged Rowena. ‘I like your new haircut.’

  That at least was true. The soft style disguised but didn’t completely hide the fact that her sister had lost some weight. Rowena was still stunning, of course, in a new toned, lean, hungry—I work out twice a day—sort of way.

  ‘You should try a new look yourself, Holly. You’d be amazed at how much difference it could make.’

  Holly didn’t take offence to the obvious implication that her old look needed a bit of work; it was true, especially at the moment when the steamy atmosphere in the kitchen had made her once-smooth chignon frizz around the edges.

  ‘Actually,’ Rowena continued slowly, surveying her sister from shrewd china-blue eyes, ‘you do look different. It’s not the hair…Speaking of which, I know a really good hairdresser who…All right.’ She gave a concessionary shrug. ‘Just promise me you’ll never again try and cut your fringe yourself.’

  ‘That was years ago. I couldn’t afford to go to the hairdresser’s then.’

  ‘You still couldn’t afford to go to a decent hairdresser.’ Rowena had been appalled to discover what her sister’s salary was after so many years’ study. ‘Talking money, how would you feel about a little monthly column when I come back: women and health, that sort of thing? It would be for a trial period to begin with, of course, but it’s the sort of thing that would take off, I’m sure.’

  ‘Me, write?’ Holly said blankly.

  ‘If you can’t, I’ll sack you. Nepotism is all right, so long as it’s good business. It pays.’

  Rowena mentioned a sum that made Holly’s knees go weak.

  ‘Think about it,’ Rowena advised. ‘There really is something different about you. What…?’

  Her words only confirmed something Holly had puzzled over when looking in the mirror earlier; they also sent alarm bells ringing in her head. It was only a matter of time before Rowena cottoned on the fact it wasn’t what, but who that had brought about these subtle alterations in her own appearance. True, she’d not been transformed overnight into a raving beauty, and to say she had an inner radiance would have been wildly over the top, not to mention soppy: but there was something indefinably different.