The CEO's Contract Bride

by Yvonne Lindsay

  “Yes, I have my own crew of craftsmen and labourers. But not for this job.” She ran a hand lovingly over a satin-finished doorframe. Her hands still intensely feminine despite the lack of manicure or softness he’d grown accustomed to in his companions. “Wherever possible, this one is for me.”

  “You love it, don’t you? The work. The house.” He couldn’t take his eyes from her fingers as they stroked the polished wood. His skin stretched taut across his body, every sense standing on full alert.

  She nodded, and let her hand drop from the frame, a self-conscious look chasing across her features.

  “Has it always been in your family?”

  “Uh-huh. Built by my great-grandfather in the late 1800s.”

  Declan considered her carefully. His biggest fear was that for one reason or another she’d still bail on the outrageous arrangement they’d made. But with her family heritage on the line, he had a stronger assurance. She wouldn’t walk away from this in a hurry and now he felt bound to help her make sure she didn’t have to. He followed her into the hallway and nodded towards a door fitted with a multicoloured stained glass panel.

  “What’s in here?”

  “The bathroom. It was one of the first rooms I started. It’s still not finished.” She sighed. “But I’ll get there—eventually. I have the twin of this glass window installed on the outside wall, but that’s about as far as I’ve managed.”

  “Hey, don’t knock yourself. It isn’t as if you had enough help around the place.”

  “Steve did help sometimes.” She was quick to rush to Crenshaw’s defence, he noted, although Declan doubted the other man had been much support. From what he knew of the guy, he was more into paper solutions than physical work. Definitely not into getting his hands dirty, unless it was with someone else’s money. Did she still love the jerk? he wondered. Who knew? It was irrelevant so long as she stuck to her side of the bargain.

  He swung open the door, taking in the unfinished floor with ancient linoleum still adhered in places and the wallpaper that had been painted over at some time and that was now pulling away from the walls.

  “You’ll let me help you while I’m here?”

  She looked startled. “Do I have any choice?”

  Choice? No. Neither of them had any choices left. “No.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “My mother brought me up to be polite.”

  A guarded look crept back in her grey eyes, darkening them to pewter. “Then I accept, since we’re only being polite.” Acidic tartness laced her reply.

  They continued through the house, Declan asking about her plans for each room, suggesting a few ideas of his own. When they came to the bedrooms, Gwen hesitated.

  “This room is mine, and—” she gestured across the hallway and two doors down, the pained expression on her face leaving him in no doubt as to her reluctance to make room for him in her home “—you can go in there—the original master bedroom. It’s full of boxes at the moment but I can shift them into the old drawing room. It’s my office but I don’t spend a lot of time in there. A few boxes won’t make much difference.”

  The old brass doorknob glowed a rich gold with the patina of years of use and twisted smoothly in his hand. He pushed open the door to the room she’d designated. Strips of wallpaper hung in a haphazard fashion off the walls, and threadbare carpet covered the floor.

  “I’m sorry, it’s not up to much. But I wasn’t expecting a guest.”

  She did that thing with her chin again. Tilting it up as if she could take on the world. Including him. Unbidden, the need to answer her challenge rose hotly inside him. Driving his body to total awareness. Daring him to break all the rules and meet her head-on. And he would win. He’d make sure of that.

  He slammed the brakes onto his wayward reaction. God, what was he thinking? This was Gwen. The one woman he should never have touched and the one woman he’d sworn he’d never touch again. Declan dragged his eyes from her face and looked around the room with a critical eye. “It’s okay. If I finish stripping the walls and get rid of this carpet it should be liveable. Do you mind if I bring my own furniture?”

  “Of course not. I hardly expect you to sleep on the floor.”

  “I’ll move my things in during the week.”

  “You don’t want to wait until after the wedding?”

  “Why wait?” Declan nailed her with a dark half-lidded stare. “After the wedding everyone will expect us to take a honeymoon.”

  “A honeymoon? I’m not going on a honeymoon with you.”

  “Don’t worry, Gwen. It’s only for appearances, remember? We don’t need to go away. We’ll stay here and work on the house. Together.”

  He watched with interest as she struggled to find an argument and was almost disappointed when her shoulders sagged and she acquiesced.

  “Right. Appearances. Sure. I can live with that.”

  Sure she could, he thought as he drove away a few minutes later, her words still ringing in his ears. But could he? Could he live with the constant reminder of everything he’d loved and lost, all because of Gwen Jones, for the sake of his company? The answer wasn’t in the fistful of spare wedding invitations scattered on the front seat of the car—thrust at him by Gwen as a last thought on his way out the door—but one thing he knew for certain. One way or another, he’d soon find out.

  Five

  Gwen lay face-down in a tangle of sheets, a pillow shoved over her head and her hands clamped down firmly on its feather-filled softness.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Darn it, but the noise wouldn’t go away. With a groan she pushed away the pillow to peer with bleary eyes at the pearl-white face of her alarm clock. The stark black hands finally came into focus. Seven o’clock! Who came over at seven on a Sunday morning for heaven’s sake? She slid from the bed and grabbed her dressing gown from its hook behind the bedroom door. Her shoulders gave a twinge of discomfort—a reminder that she’d shifted all the heavy boxes from the spare room last night, and why.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  “Gwen? Are you okay in there?”

  Declan! What on earth was he doing here already? When he’d finally left yesterday, she’d counted on his not coming around until he was ready to move his things into the spare room. She’d hoped that wouldn’t be until at least Wednesday, or even later in the week.

  “I’m coming!” She fumbled the key in the deadlock and swung the door wide. “What is it?” she demanded with a glare.

  “You really should get a doorbell, you know.” Declan grinned back, looking altogether too handsome, his long black hair loose and combed back off his face. A faded threadbare T-shirt strained at the seams across his shoulders, and equally disreputable jeans hugged his hips.

  “I don’t need a doorbell,” Gwen instantly argued back. I don’t need you, either. Especially not after a night of disturbing dreams that had thrust her into uncomfortable wakefulness several times before dawn.

  “Not a morning person, huh?” Declan commented cheerfully as he gently shouldered past her, carrying a large toolkit under one arm and a neatly folded tarpaulin in his other hand.

  “Humph!” Gwen wheeled around and stalked back to her bedroom. Slam! Her door rattled on its hinges and she bit back a groan when she saw the crack appear in the plasterboard around the doorframe.

  Blast him! Now look what he’s made me do! she thought angrily.

  She flopped onto her bed and pulled the covers back over her. Morning person, indeed. She heard him moving about in the hallway as he made several trips out to the car and back again. Finally the front door swung shut and then there was nothing but blessed silence. Her eyelids drifted closed.

  An enticing scent tweaked at her nostrils and dragged her from sleep. Coffee? A half-opened eye showed the hands of her alarm had swung around to ten o’clock. Ten o’clock! Gwen shot instantly awake and flew across the room to pull open her door.

  The sinfully fragrant aroma of freshly perked coffee floated
down the hallway from the kitchen. A clatter, followed swiftly by a muffled curse, sounded from Declan’s bedroom. She halted in the open doorway. Low makeshift scaffolding had been erected along one wall and he’d obviously worked hard for the past three hours. Hard and hot, by the looks of him. He’d discarded the T-shirt.

  Gwen tried to ignore the heavy swell of desire that tautened her skin and caused a throb deep within her as she took in the planes of his broad muscled back and followed the line of his spine until it disappeared beneath his low-slung waistband. His skin glistened with exertion. He’d tied his hair back off his face with a thin strip of leather and wielded a steam gun in one hand and a scraper in the other to ease away the last of the wallpaper from where it clung with tenacious determination.

  She swallowed to moisten her throat. “Having fun?”

  The muscles across the top of his shoulders tightened at her words, his only acknowledgement of her presence. Eventually, his task complete as the final strip of paper fell to the floor, Declan turned to face her.

  “You’re awake at last.” He put down his tools and pulled a disreputable-looking towel from where he’d tucked it into his waistband. Without the extra bulk of the fabric his denims slid down a notch, exposing another couple of inches of tanned skin and with them the shadowed lines of his hips. “Hungry?”

  An escalating curl of warmth spiralled through her belly as she forced herself to tear her gaze from the hidden promise of what lay beneath his jeans. Her breasts swelled and tightened, her nipples pressing achingly against the sheer fabric of her nightgown and robe.

  What had he said? Hungry. Yes. No! For food. Only food, she reminded herself with a hard mental shake. She dragged her eyes upwards until they locked with the heat reflected in his. He knew, darn him. He knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her.

  “You could pour us a cup of that coffee.” His eyes remained fixed on hers, unblinking. All seeing.

  “Sure. I’ll get the coffee.” Gwen fled down the hallway, grateful for an excuse to avoid looking at him. To avoid acknowledging her instant, weak reaction.

  It was the dreams. Stupid, stupid dreams. Although their shadowed content had escaped her waking mind, the tightly coiled sense of frustration lingered. Any woman with blood in her veins would have reacted to Declan like that when forced to come face-to-face with his blatant masculinity again, she desperately rationalised. Her stomach clenched at the memory.

  “I’ll have mine black.” He sauntered into the kitchen and leaned one hip against the countertop. Gwen thanked her lucky stars he’d put his shirt back on. “Sleep well?”

  She sloshed coffee from the carafe into a mug and pushed it over to him. “Yes, thank you.”

  She poured another mug for herself and added a liberal measure of milk before lifting the warm brew to her lips.

  “Ohhhhh.” She sighed. “This is good.” It definitely wasn’t her regular brand. Nothing she’d bought had ever tasted this sinfully divine.

  “It’s one of Mason’s special blends. I brought a few things over from his place this morning.”

  Gwen took another deep swallow of the coffee and savoured the full flavour as it rolled across her tongue. Suddenly mindful of the way Declan watched her she put her mug back down onto the bench and grabbed a couple of slices of bread to pop into her toaster.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked, making herself busy collecting spread from the refrigerator and opening the pantry door in an attempt to put a physical barrier between them.

  “Yeah, hours ago. I brought you a present, by the way.” Declan put down his mug and turned to lift a brown-paper-wrapped box from one of the bentwood kitchen chairs. He placed it on the kitchen table.

  “A present? Whatever for?” Gwen eyed it warily.

  “Call it an early wedding present.”

  “I don’t want a wedding present.” From you.

  “Go on. Open it.”

  “Really, Declan. I don’t want a wedding present.”

  “Okay, call it a contribution to household expenses then. I can pay those, remember?” Some of the friendly light in his eyes dimmed as he reminded her of the contract they’d argued about. Was it only yesterday? “I’d better get back to work.” Without waiting to see if she opened the present or not, he topped up his coffee and left her alone.

  The toaster popped up, giving her the perfect excuse to ignore the parcel for a while longer. With her toast buttered and spread with marmalade, Gwen took her coffee and plate over to the kitchen table and sat down. She stared idly outside. Some of the roses needed dead-heading and the weeds had sprung back with a vengeance. There was always something to do around here. Maybe she’d work outside today, enjoy the sunshine outdoors. Be anywhere on the property Declan wasn’t.

  Her eyes flicked back to the box. Neither its shape nor its size gave any clue as to the contents. What on earth had he bought?

  She wasn’t interested. Not a bit. Gwen took another bite of her toast and looked once more at the box. A piece of tape at one end had lifted. She allowed her fingernail to play at it, loosening it further until a flap of paper was free. Feminine curiosity eventually got the better of her and she pulled at the remaining tape until the wrapper fell away to expose the box.

  A sander! He’d bought her a top-of-the-range electric sander, with attachments that made her old one look like it had been used in the construction of the ark. A small note was taped to the lid of the box. “To protect your hands.” Gwen emptied the box of its contents and laid each piece out on the tabletop. Tucked in at the side, near the bottom, was another wrapped package—this one cylindrical in shape. The note on the side said, “To repair the damage you’ve already done.”

  Puzzled, Gwen ripped away the paper to find a tube of aloe-based hand cream, rich with pure essential oils to repair and nourish damaged skin. She undid the lid and breathed in the scent. It smelled blissful. A tiny bit of cream oozed from the top and she rubbed it into the back of her hand.

  A sigh of regret floated past her lips as she gazed at the sander on the tabletop. She couldn’t accept it.

  “Like it?” Declan loomed in the doorway.

  “You know I can’t accept this.”

  “Why not?” His words were sharp and his dark eyebrows drew together in a straight line she was coming to recognise as suppressed irritation. Being told ‘no’ obviously didn’t sit well with Declan Knight.

  “Well…” she faltered.

  “Looks like it’s yours, then.”

  “Declan—”

  “Gwen, get used to it. For the next six months I’m going to be a part of your life—and, for what it’s worth, you’re going to be a part of mine. Maybe you don’t understand what getting this trust fund means to me but believe me, the cost of that sander is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what I will gain in the long run.”

  “Couldn’t you have bought a less expensive model?”

  “Of course I could’ve. But why would I? Call it your spare. Call it anything. It doesn’t matter much to me either way.”

  Gwen couldn’t think of a suitable answer. She put out a hand to touch the machine again. She was being a stubborn, prideful fool.

  “Thank you,” she murmured as she turned in her chair, but he’d gone again.

  She heard him down the hallway, first shifting the scaffolding, then gathering the strips of sodden paper and stuffing them into a rubbish sack with a fervour she knew was her fault. This was going to be harder than she imagined. Much, much harder.

  It had taken him the better part of the day, but the walls were ready to be sized. Until Gwen was ready to decorate this room he had a couple of colourful hand-knotted rugs he’d collected on his overseas travels that he could hang for some colour.

  He’d barely seen Gwen. Still, that was probably a good thing, considering she’d only been in her nightgown and robe for most of the morning. An unbidden flare of desire arced through his body.

  He’d been grateful for something physical to distr
act him while she’d slept or he may have felt tempted to join her. Damn, but this was getting tricky. What had seemed the perfect solution on Friday night had turned into a web of complications he hadn’t foreseen.

  If anyone had told him a week ago that Gwen Jones would be boiling his blood he’d have laughed out loud. He’d sworn off her the minute he’d dragged himself to his senses the morning after Renata’s funeral. The morning after he’d lost himself, and all sense, in the soft curves of Gwen’s giving body.

  His body leaped to fiery attention at the memory of the silken softness of her skin, of her legs tangled in his, of the surprising strength in her arms as she’d held him to her and of the hunger of her kiss. The memory was both exhilarating and crucifying at the same time, and he still hadn’t figured out how to deal with the aftermath. Even after all this time he still hadn’t purged her from his memory, and his body let him know it.

  Disgusted with himself, Declan set to packing up his tools and clearing the last of the rubbish as if his sanity depended on it. A rusty laugh echoed in the empty room. Yeah, maybe it did after all. He had to be mad to have put himself in this whole situation.

  The clearing up finally done, he rotated his shoulders to work out the knots he’d developed while scraping constantly at the years’ worth of accumulated layers of wallpaper and let go a sigh of satisfaction. It was good to be on the tools—it was still the side of his job he loved the most. Tools. He frowned. She hadn’t wanted to accept the sander from him. It was too bad. She was going to have to get used to it, and him.

  Absently, he picked a scrap of sticky paper from his shirt. He could do with a hot shower, or a good rubdown. Or both. He grimaced at his ridiculous thoughts. Like he’d stand a chance at both here with Gwen.

  “You’re finished?” Gwen stood poised in the doorway. She’d changed her nightgown for a pair of denim cut-offs and a short-sleeved blouse that she’d knotted at her waist. A floppy brimmed straw hat was perched on her head and judging by the faint bloom of colour on her skin she’d been working outside.