The Engagement Deal

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘You hung on her every word,’ she accused unimaginatively. ‘Have you slept with her, Niall?’ The anguished words emerged with all the subtlety of a hand grenade. Barely stifling a groan, Holly knew her skin tones had achieved a sense of oneness with her fiery hair.

  ‘Is that what this is all about?’ he grated incredulously. He took her softly rounded chin in his hand. ‘Look at me, Holly.’ She twisted her head away and a low growl of annoyance emerged from his throat. ‘I could shake you.’ Not straight away, though; there were other more immediate priorities. He swallowed convulsively as a tide of warm blood deepened his naturally dark colour by several shades.

  ‘What an excellent basis for a relationship,’ she hissed ironically. ‘And I use the term loosely.’

  ‘Are you going to go into this Cinderella routine every time Rowena walks into a room?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘I think it’s time you learnt to deal with your insecurities; they’re not attractive.’

  Holly’s temper spiked at this brutal afterthought. She viciously bit her trembling lower lip—he wouldn’t make her cry! I suppose this is his way of telling me I’m not attractive, either, she thought.

  ‘The way I recall it, Cinderella had two ugly sisters; I have one beautiful one.’

  ‘Sure, Rowena’s a stunner, but that doesn’t mean you’ve any need to be jealous.’

  ‘Tara was jealous,’ she taunted him. ‘And anyway, I’m not jealous as such,’ she lied with cool dignity. ‘How was I supposed to contribute to a conversation that concerned cute little things that happened when I was still in school?’

  Niall gave a deeply exasperated sigh. ‘You’re acting as though you’re still in school,’ he told her scornfully. ‘Rowena and I, we’re just friends: and as her friend I couldn’t help but notice she had something on her mind tonight, and I’m not just talking about me sleeping with her little sister—she was bound to be protective about that,’ he mused thoughtfully. ‘Rowena didn’t want to be alone tonight. Surely you could see that?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Or were you too busy feeling sorry for yourself because you didn’t have centre stage?’

  Uneasily, Holly recalled briefly receiving the self-same impression of Rowena’s unhappiness earlier that evening.

  ‘Perhaps you should have stayed, then.’ Despairingly, she heard another in the long line of childish and unattractive hackneyed responses that seemed ready to gush from her lips tonight. ‘To be a supportive friend.’

  Bizarrely, for someone who was sick to the stomach with fear of losing him, she seemed to be doing her level best to push Niall away.

  ‘Do you think I like this any more than you do?’ Niall snarled, suddenly taking her by the shoulders.

  Drawn into a dizzyingly close proximity to his lean, taut, virile body, Holly blinked up at him, bewildered by the strained intensity in his voice. For the first time, she was conscious of a coiled tension in his strung-out body. Even as her own wretched body responded to the gratifying glitter of sexual frustration in his deep-set eyes, Holly despised her weakness.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about spending tonight with you ever since we parted this afternoon—before that, even,’ he confessed rawly, his eyes ranging hungrily over her face. ‘If you must know, I’ve been counting the minutes like some silly adolescent because, to be quite frank, you’re driving me ever so slightly crazy.’ A strained grin cracked his taut features. ‘At least you falling on the ice gave me a legitimate excuse to dust down that delightful bottom of yours.’ His hands slipped to her behind as he spoke and he pulled her hard against him.

  This unexpected lustful reference to her rear, closely followed by close contact with the core of a pulsing frustration he wasn’t attempting to disguise, made Holly sigh in relieved delight. Her jealousies seemed suddenly irrational; they melted away, leaving her feeling foolish and embarrassed.

  ‘Me, too,’ she echoed in a husky voice. ‘Counting the minutes, that is. Seeing you and Rowena together, looking so disgustingly perfect—the pair of you look like an advert to promote eugenics!’

  ‘I know I’m in danger of sounding trivial, Holly, but I’m not interested in your genes, angel.’ His smouldering restless glance gave a lot of clues about what he was interested in. ‘Holly.’ Huskily, he murmured her name before his tongue thrust skilfully between her slightly parted lips. There was raw desperation in the greedy erotic exploration that left her gasping noisily for breath.

  ‘Why didn’t you kiss me before?’ she moaned angrily, her body stretching in a tight arc as she reached up and tightened her grip on his thick lush hair. ‘I wanted you to do that so much!’

  Niall felt the blood pounding in his temples when, as she drew up onto tiptoe, the rounded contours of her small firm bottom tightened deliciously under his hands. The air-conditioned atmosphere of the hallway felt more like a steamy tropical night to him as, with a muffled exclamation he thrust his hand up under her skirt, until there was only thin lace separating his fingers from her warm smooth flesh. The idea of letting his fingers wander towards that hot, silkily damp area between her legs—knowing it was what she wanted—was driving him to the edge. He was having a hard time remembering where they were.

  ‘Starting’s easy.’ The tip of his tongue traced the full outline of her lower lip. ‘It’s stopping I have the problem with,’ he groaned.

  ‘So don’t stop,’ she commanded, fiercely reckless. Her hot hungry eyes fused with his.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you’ve done to me.’ Continually fascinated by the full plush contours of her soft pink mouth, his tongue flickered greedily out once more. The nightcap he’d sensibly refused couldn’t have intoxicated him half as much as her brandy-tinged lips, he reflected grimly. ‘I think I was right: you must be a witch,’ he rasped.

  He was seriously spellbound—or, rather, lustbound; that much was indisputable. Concentrating on what Rowena was saying tonight had been hellishly difficult and, he feared, embarrassingly obvious. Considering his friend’s obvious distress, he felt all kinds of a heel.

  Holly was mesmerised by his raw sensual appraisal. The shivery hot sensations that writhed in the pit of her belly had spread until her entire body was shaken by feverish little tremors. Her toes trailed uselessly on the densely carpeted floor as he took the couple of steps that had her spine hard against the wall.

  The breath whooshed from her lungs as, simultaneously, every nerve fibre in her body jerked to attention. Her bones melted and submission swept through her body as she felt the imprint of his erection grinding boldly into her belly.

  ‘Niall…!’ Plea, surrender: her voice carried both these things plus a measure of the agony she saw etched on his own dark, drawn features.

  He released his grip on her hips and took a step backwards. ‘Sorry.’ Stiffly, he drew an unsteady hand through his thick tousled hair. ‘Got a bit carried away,’ he added tersely.

  Holly pressed the back of her hand to her trembling lips. He’d carried her right with him! ‘Me, too.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ The streak of dull colour highlighted the slashing high curve of his cheekbones.

  ‘Early…Please.’

  He looked startled and then pleased as his warm laughter welled. ‘Tom’s spending tomorrow with Tara before she flies back to Paris.’

  ‘And her lover?’

  Niall nodded. ‘It’s Fiona’s day off, so tomorrow morning I’m a nanny-free, Tom-free zone…’ His secretary would have a fit when he asked her not to come in only hours after he’d begged her to spend her precious Sunday helping him work on the backlog. He cheerfully ignored the slight guilty twinge of his deeply ingrained work ethic.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ Holly smiled as she felt the tension ease, but she couldn’t totally dismiss the nagging doubts that still lingered. ‘What would you do, Niall…?’ She took a deep breath. ‘What if Rowena doesn’t want you to sleep with me?’ she blurted out.

  With a sinking heart she saw his warm eyes turn icy arctic blue. I had to go
and spoil it, didn’t I? she wailed inwardly.

  It was a valid point, she told herself stubbornly, no matter what he said. What if he did have to choose between casual sex with me and a long and valued friendship with my sister? Rowena wouldn’t do anything so crude but…She couldn’t help torturing herself with this humiliating scenario.

  ‘Rowena…Rowena? What the hell has it got to do with her?’ he blasted, his eyes blazing. ‘I’d be worried if you didn’t want to sleep with me—but you do, don’t you, Holly?’

  Meeting his eyes, her need was suffocating. Her shoulders sagged weakly as surrender rushed through her body. ‘Yes,’ she agreed simply. ‘I do, Niall.’

  ‘So much it hurts,’ he persisted.

  ‘It does…’ A thought struck her. ‘Do you…?’ she began hopefully, the idea of their shared frustration pleased her.

  ‘Agony,’ he confirmed drily. He sucked in his breath and the erratic pulse in his lean cheek began once more to throb. ‘You don’t need to look so pleased. I’ve got to see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Why not tonight?’ Holly suggested hopefully. She saw his expression and thought she might have been too eager. She wasn’t really keeping him guessing by giving the impression she’d be quite happy if he picked her up and tucked her under his arm. Perhaps he was one of those men she’d read about in the women’s magazines, the ones who preferred the chase to the capture?

  ‘As tempting as that idea is, I think you should go back in and find out what’s bothering Rowena.’ Being unselfish and noble wasn’t all it was cracked up to be; he felt bloody awful!

  Holly swallowed her disappointment. ‘I think it’s far more likely she’d confide in you.’

  ‘Rowena doesn’t have many friends, Holly.’

  Holly thought of her sister’s wide and extensive circle and gaped at him.

  He read her incredulity. ‘I mean real friends.’

  There was only one friend she begrudged Rowena. ‘She’s got you.’

  His expression was cold and unfriendly as his eyes swept over her face. ‘It’s a two-way thing, Holly. You expect me to fit in around your career, which you’ve made pretty clear comes first for you—’

  It would seem that her efforts to paint herself as a career girl who would not only never seek to become emotionally dependent upon him, but would actively discourage such a situation, had been a bit too successful! Holly was startled to realise that he’d interpreted her often defensive comments as some sort of inflexible set of ground rules. There was nothing she’d like better than to combine marriage with a career, but she couldn’t really contradict him now without doing some uncomfortable explaining.

  ‘And I accept that.’

  There was no mistaking the harsh resentment in his voice. For the first time, Holly wondered whether she’d actually been saying what he wanted to hear after all; she shook her head, dismissing the notion as fanciful.

  ‘But there are some things you have to accept,’ he added grimly as she tried to collect her confused thoughts. ‘I’m thirty-one, Holly. I’ve got a lot of friends; I’ve got an ex-wife, a son, a family, a job—none of that is going to change dramatically because I’ve added a redhead to the list of things in my life. If you can ask me to turn my back on my friends, how long,’ he enquired in a disillusioned voice, ‘before you ask me to give up on my son? I couldn’t…’ He clung angrily to this certainty, while he was being torn to pieces by the devastating knowledge of how much he would be prepared to compromise his life to keep this woman in it. The completely uncharacteristic way he was prepared to play hooky the next morning was only a symptom of something much bigger.

  ‘I’d never!’ Holly cried in horror.

  Stony-faced, he didn’t respond to her exclamation. ‘Think about it.’

  He didn’t add, if you don’t like it, tough—but he might just as well have; his expression said as much, loud and clear!

  Holly watched him disappear into the lift. She was pretty sure she’d think about what he’d said most of the night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘I WASN’T sure if you’d come.’ Dressed in an open-necked polo shirt and jeans, Niall stood to one side to let her enter the hallway. He sounded terse as opposed to bothered by her tardiness, and his expression gave no clue to the fact he’d been pacing the floor restlessly for the past hour.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you still wanted me to,’ she responded awkwardly.

  Nostrils flared he gave a sceptical snort. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  Flustered by not just his cryptic words but his mere magnetic presence, Holly looked around. The period hallway was dripping with the sort of original features that always featured prominently in any sales literature—not that this address would be hard to sell. Detached houses overlooking the park like this one were gobbled up by those lucky enough to be able to afford the prices they fetched.

  ‘I didn’t actually know where you lived—’ she unwrapped the vividly patterned silk scarf from around her neck and held in uncertainly in her hand ‘—which sort of brought home to me how untraditional our…’ She fumbled for words to describe what they had.

  ‘Courtship is?’ he suggested, entering the sunny living room at the back of the house behind her.

  Holly’s mouth was still open as, startled at his choice of word, she swung around to stare at him warily. His blue eyes held a very intense expression that made her over-sensitive stomach muscles quiver and melt into a pool of liquid warmth. Courtship bestowed something…what did it bestow? An aura of semi-permanence? Niall’s expression didn’t give much away, except perhaps he was feeling almost as wary as she was.

  ‘That’s one word for it,’ she babbled, trying to cover the tense expectant pause. ‘Do you like it?’ She flicked her wrist and let the scarf drift out towards him. ‘A present from Rowena. It’s a…actually, I’ve forgotten, but it’s a famous name,’ she finished vaguely. Rowena had made a point of stressing that this wasn’t some piece of tat to be treated casually—Holly’s careless attitude to her possessions was a source of great irritation to her sister.

  Niall caught the scarf, saying absently, without even looking at it, ‘It’s very pretty.’ He tugged and Holly let the scarf slip through her fingers.

  He might not be looking at the scarf, but he was looking at her—looking in the sort of way that sent her overheated blood pulsating full throttle around her tense body. Still without looking away, he draped the scarf carelessly over the small walnut bureau beside the fireplace.

  ‘I’m not in the phone book. How did you get the address?’

  ‘A quick trawl through Rowena’s personal organiser. Because,’ she added defensively, before he had time to condemn her furtive tactics, ‘I could hardly ask her where you lived, could I? It’s very nice here,’ she added with an appreciative sigh as she walked over to French doors which opened out onto a pretty leafy garden that stretched impressively into the distance.

  ‘The garden’s one of the reasons I bought this place. A child needs a garden, and there’s a good school nearby.’

  And Niall, as the caring responsible parent he was, would think about such things. She admired these caring qualities he displayed where his son was concerned. The real man she’d got to know was a million miles away from the celebrity playboy the media liked to portray. If he ever did decide to commit again to a woman, she knew instinctively that he’d do it wholeheartedly. She knew he’d never do it at all until he got over his failed marriage to Tara, and maybe even Tara herself?

  I have to be realistic, she told herself, stifling a forlorn sigh. That time might never come, and if it does I’ll probably be long off the scene. She was destined to be a short interlude in his life and it would only hurt more if she let herself pretend otherwise. Unexpectedly, her eyes filled up; blinking back the hot sting, she lowered her gaze self-consciously from his disturbingly intent scrutiny.

  ‘I think maybe we’d all, child or not, benefit from a garden,’ she mused gruffly. ‘There’s some
thing about a bit of green. I must remember to put a window-box on my list. I would have been here earlier,’ she explained, ‘only the landlord replied to the message I left. I’ve been looking at a flat.’

  Even before this morning’s experience, she hadn’t felt upbeat about the chances of matching her inclinations to her budget—now she knew she’d have to lower her standards. Sharing was probably the best idea but, after years of sharing grotty student accommodation, she enjoyed her privacy. Oh, well, she reflected practically, it’s all about compromise.

  ‘Not good?’

  ‘It smelt of cabbage.’

  The line permanently etched between Niall’s dark brows deepened. ‘I thought Rowena wasn’t back for good for a while yet. You two haven’t…?’

  ‘Come to blows over you, and I’ve been kicked out into the August snow?’ she suggested, childishly jubilant that for once she was the one able to anticipate his thought! ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Niall, but you hardly came up in the conversation,’ she told him breezily.

  She decided she wasn’t going to mention the bit when she’d closed the subject on Niall by saying, ‘he’s my mistake to make, Rowena.’ With the emphasis on ‘mine’!

  ‘If you discount the part where Rowena warned me you get bored easily…’ Her voice suggested she found Rowena’s point of view amusing. ‘No, it’s just never too early to start looking.’

  ‘Bored!’ Niall’s smile flashed white and extremely attractive. ‘She really doesn’t know you very well, does she?’

  ‘I think that was a compliment?’ she quizzed him.

  ‘It was.’

  Holly nodded slowly. The morning was looking up, she decided cautiously. ‘Just so long as I know.’

  ‘If you’re in any doubts, feel free to ask.’

  ‘You were right about Rowena.’

  ‘When you come to know me better,’ he told her gravely, ‘you’ll come to appreciate the fact that I’m always right.’

  His nonsense lightened the worried expression on her face for a moment. ‘She got drunk after you’d gone.’ She could see immediately that Niall appreciated, perhaps more than she did, just how uncharacteristic this behaviour was.