Best of Virgins Bundle

by Cathy Williams

  So what? she thought, stiffening her spine. She wasn’t ashamed of living here.

  He looked down at the baby in his arms, just as Brodie turned his head and sputtered a small amount of liquid over his shirt.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Paige said, hoping her tone drowned out any defensive note as she came over and held out her arms for the baby. ‘I’ll take him now.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ Marc’s voice was hard and autocratic, but when Brodie forced a small fist into his mouth and began to suck noisily his expression changed, some fugitive emotion softening the dominant features. ‘I don’t know much about children this small, but surely that indicates that he needs food?’

  ‘He needs changing and medicine first. I’ll heat a bottle,’ she muttered unhappily, racing into the kitchen to grab a cloth and run it under the tap. She held it out to Marc, but he ignored it.

  ‘I’ll hold him until you’ve prepared it,’ he stated, his pleasant inflection not hiding the steel in the words.

  She did not care what he thought of her or the flat—not a bit. In fact, she was probably doing the world a service, showing him how the other half lived!

  But the bitterness of rejection scraped across her skin. Stubbornly silent, she yanked open the refrigerator door and took out a sterilised bottle filled with formula. The electric kettle with its frayed cord spat sparks when she plugged it in.

  ‘Be careful!’ Marc snapped.

  A knot somewhere inside her loosened a fraction, only to tighten again when he glanced at her. Above Brodie’s wails, she said, ‘It’s all right; I’m used to it. All it does is spit.’

  ‘It’s dangerous.’

  But not as dangerous as you, she thought angrily. And she couldn’t afford a new one anyway.

  A frown knotting his dark brows, Marc looked at the sewing machine on the table, and the swirl of bright fabric beside it. ‘What the hell happened? When last I heard you and your mother were living with a cousin near a village called Bellhaven. You were working for him in his farm office.’

  Juliette must have told him, and he’d remembered.

  Then he killed the tiny flicker of warmth this had engendered by finishing abrasively, ‘How did you get from there to a slum in Napier?’

  Paige’s chin jerked up. She stared at the kettle. ‘This might be a slum to you, but most of the world would consider it basic but perfectly adequate,’ she said politely. ‘As for how I got here, that’s simple. Lloyd, my mother’s cousin, died and his farm was sold.’

  He watched her with hooded eyes. ‘When was this?’

  ‘About a year ago. We moved to Napier because my mother thought it would be a good place to live.’ She swallowed and finished in a flat voice, ‘Unfortunately, for her it was a good place to die.’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked in an oddly gentle voice.

  ‘She went for a walk along the beach and got caught by a rogue wave.’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘I know how close you were. When was this?’

  Something in his tone—a touch of rare gentleness—made her blink ferociously. ‘Five months ago.’

  The silence was broken by the sound of the kettle boiling. Paige switched it off and poured the water into a jug.

  Marc looked from her to the child in his arms. ‘Where is the child’s father?’

  Until then it hadn’t occurred to her that he’d think Brodie was her child. Which just shows what an idiot you are, she told herself wearily. One look at Marc and your mind turns into candyfloss!

  Before she could tell him about Sherry and Brodie the baby broke the silence with a wail, and she said swiftly, ‘He isn’t here. I’ll take Brodie now; he needs changing and some lotion on his rash to stop the itching.’

  She bore him off through a door without a backward glance. Marc’s mouth curved in a sardonic smile as she closed that door firmly behind her.

  Clearly she wanted him in her home as little as he wanted to be there. At any other time he’d be ironically amused at how much she resented the outrageous coincidence of their meeting, and the fact that the baby’s illness meant she’d had to rely on a man she viewed with wary distaste.

  But one thought burned holes in his self-control: she didn’t want him there, but every time he came near her she reacted like a cat faced with an unknown threat, spitting defiance and acute awareness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A FIERCE, very male smile curling his mouth, Marc looked around the room. It must have been dingy indeed when Paige moved in, yet without spending much she’d made it as welcoming as it could be, given its depressing furnishings. He’d be prepared to bet that she had painted the walls the soft, buttery gold that both warmed and lightened the small room, and the touches of colour were hers too.

  The pool of vivid material on the table caught his eye; he walked across to examine it.

  It looked like a fancy dress costume, brief and shrieking with colour, but he recognised it for what it was—a costume intended to tease and titillate, designed to reveal its wearer’s breasts and waist and legs.

  So, Lauren had been right; as well as being a single mother and a woman down on her luck, Paige was a stripper or a lap dancer—or some such thing. Life hadn’t been easy for her since her mother died; she had already developed the bright, hard shell of a woman who’d been rejected too often to trust any man.

  Who the hell was her lover? Marc totted up months and realised that it had to be someone from Bellhaven. Why wasn’t he here for Paige and his son?

  Marc’s lip curled with contempt as he thrust hands that bunched into fists in his pockets. He’d like to have the father of her child to himself for a few minutes, he thought with cold, aggressive anger; he’d show him exactly what he thought of a man who got a woman pregnant and then abandoned her.

  But beneath the contempt was another, more primitive emotion—anger that some other man had taken the woman he wanted. Facing the admission with a slow burn of fury, he tried to rationalise this degrading infatuation.

  It was nothing more than simple, basic lust, and if he gave it free rein it would reduce him to the same level as the men who paid to see her remove the cheap satin bra and scanty, high-cut briefs.

  And although he mightn’t be able to evict the mindless hunger from the weak part of him that bred it, he could certainly control it.

  A memory leapt into his mind, shiny and precise as though it had been continually polished. They had danced at his wedding, the conventional dance of bridegroom and bridesmaid. He remembered the fresh, faint scent that had been hers alone, the way her slim body had moved against his with natural grace and an innocent seductiveness. She’d been seventeen, overwhelmed and excited, yet she’d glanced up through her lashes with a purely female need.

  Desire gripped him, powerful, laden with temptation—and completely despicable.

  She’d be a good stripper, he decided cynically. Not only did she move like a houri, but she looked like one—a walking, breathing challenge even now, when grief and pregnancy and sleepless nights with a sick child had leached much of the radiance from her fine, soft skin and ground away her vitality.

  Nothing had been able to dim the rich honey glaze of her hair, or the gold lights in her great green eyes, or the full, sensuous contours of her mouth.

  And she faced the world with a dogged independence that jutted her jaw and kept her shoulders squared.

  In Sherry’s bedroom, Paige fastened a clean napkin and manoeuvred Brodie into new leggings. The lotion she’d smoothed on seemed to have eased the itchy rash; he still wriggled, but without the frantic restlessness of a few minutes ago.

  ‘Those red cheeks haven’t gone away yet, though,’ she murmured, kissing him as she picked him up. ‘Better get some of that medicine inside you right now.’

  But she had to force herself to take the first step towards the living room. No other man sent subtle electrical shocks through her with the accidental, meaningless brush of his skin against hers. Even in the dark she’d k
now Marc by his touch, she thought dazedly.

  And he felt it too. Her spine had tingled when she’d seen the ruthless, swiftly concealed awareness in his eyes.

  She wanted him and he wanted her.

  Which was why she’d let him go on believing that Brodie was her child. Marc was no lover for a virgin to cut her teeth on.

  What was he doing in Napier?

  Not, she thought with bitter pragmatism, looking for her—when their eyes had duelled across the hotel foyer he’d been as astonished as she had.

  And because that thought hurt much more than was safe, she went through the door and out into the cramped living room.

  ‘I measured out the dose of medication,’ Marc said, his voice cool and detached.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Brodie hated it; he spluttered and choked, thrusting out his tongue in disgust, but eventually she managed to get the drops into him.

  Marc asked curtly, ‘Why doesn’t the baby’s father live here?’

  ‘He’s in Australia.’ She tested the temperature of the milk on her wrist. Exactly blood heat, so she carried both baby and bottle over to the shabby sofa. Deliberately she shook a swathe of hair across her face to serve as a fragile barrier against Marc’s penetrating eyes.

  ‘Are you joining him?’ Marc asked, as though he had the right.

  ‘No.’ Keeping her eyes on the baby’s face, she said neutrally, ‘The rash looks much more like chickenpox now.’

  Brodie began to suck with enthusiasm, but the milk didn’t bring its usual satisfaction. After a few seconds he turned his head away and whimpered.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she encouraged him. ‘You’ve got to get some liquid into you; you don’t want to dehydrate.’

  Achingly, violently aware of the man who watched her with a shuttered sapphire gaze, she risked a swift glance from beneath the curtain of her hair.

  Apart from the hardening of his wide, sculpted mouth, no emotion showed in Marc’s expression. Yet beneath the charismatic combination of tanned skin and brilliant eyes set off by hair as dark as sin she sensed cool speculation. Skin tightening, she shook her hair back and met his eyes.

  With a brisk, no-nonsense emphasis, she said, ‘Thank you. You’ve been very kind. Would you mind closing the door when you leave?’

  The long, powerful muscles in his thighs flexed as he lowered himself onto the other end of the sofa.

  ‘Tell me why you’re living like this,’ he said, a purposeful note in his voice making it more than clear that he had no intention of going until he’d got what he wanted.

  Fighting back a rapid flare of resentment at his probing, she parried, ‘Compared to the way some people live, this isn’t bad.’

  One black brow lifted in cool disbelief, but his voice was perfectly courteous. ‘You’re being evasive. I presume your mother’s death left you badly off financially?’

  Her composure began to unravel. ‘Funerals cost money.’

  He was silent for a heartbeat. Quietly he said, ‘Why didn’t your cousin provide for you and your mother in his will?’

  ‘Why should he? He had a son.’ Paige knew her voice sounded flat, but she couldn’t change it. She added, ‘Lloyd was very good to us; he gave us a home for years.’

  He didn’t look convinced. ‘Juliette said your mother kept house for him and you organised his books.’

  Keeping her eyes on Brodie’s face, Paige said quietly, ‘He paid us.’ Not a living wage, but they’d managed.

  ‘Keeping you home was selfish of him and your mother,’ Marc observed austerely. ‘They should have sent you to university.’

  Paige bit her lip. It seemed like a betrayal to be discussing her mother’s tragic affliction with this man, intimidating in his strength and confidence. ‘Mum needed me. After my father left us she suffered from bouts of depression.’ Sometimes she had lain in bed for weeks at a time, staring into the grey world she’d inhabited.

  Marc frowned. ‘There are drugs available.’

  ‘None of them worked.’ Brodie snuffled a little and jerked his head around. As she coaxed him to drink some more Paige said, ‘Anyway, we were happy here; it mightn’t look much to you, but Mum settled in well. I got a job in an office and everything—everything seemed to be humming along. Then I was made redundant, and Mum died.’

  She’d been so thrilled to get that job; her only employable skills were farm bookkeeping, and her previous experience didn’t cut much ice. But she’d been given a chance and she’d been determined to make the most of it.

  Then she’d discovered that her boss had a roving eye and hands that followed suit. An even greater blow to her pride followed: when she’d threatened him with a sexual harassment charge he’d let slip that he’d hired her because he’d seen her as an easy mark, a victim.

  Well, she’d soon disabused him of that idea; startled by her angry response, he’d left her alone, but a month later she’d been made redundant. Yet another rejection, she thought cynically.

  She hadn’t been able to get another position. In summer there’d be plenty of casual work, but summer was several months off. No one wanted a woman with practically no employment history and a reference so subtly noncommittal the only thing a prospective employer could take from it was that she’d been hopeless in the one job she’d had.

  Marc looked at the pale, proud profile and swore silently in rapid French, deciding not to push further, although the green glitter in her eyes told him there was more to the story than that.

  Had she been raped? The thought made him feel both sick and coldly, furiously angry. He didn’t want to force her confidence; besides, there were other ways of finding out what he wanted to know.

  ‘How long had your mother suffered from depression?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Since just after Juliette and her family went back to France.’

  When that ironic brow shot up again she elaborated in an offhand voice, ‘My father left us for his secretary. It shattered my mother.’

  He frowned, eyes hard and blue as diamond shards. ‘Are you in touch with your father still?’

  She said briefly, ‘He’s dead too.’

  ‘How long did you live next door to Juliette?’ Marc asked with what sounded like idle interest.

  Her expression softened. ‘About eight years.’ Juliette’s father had been a diplomat, and in spite of the difference in their ages Juliette had been incredibly kind to her.

  Marc leaned onto the painfully uncomfortable back of the sofa. It smelt clean, as did the unit, although a faint lingering taint in the air hinted at too many cigarettes smoked years ago, too much beer spilt on the thin carpet. He hated to see her in such surroundings.

  Resisting any impulse to ask himself why, he said, ‘What are your plans now?’

  She skewered him with sword-points of green-gold fire. ‘At the moment I have none beyond getting another job,’ she said politely, setting the bottle down on the plywood table beside a small blue vase that held a single marigold, bright and flamboyant as the sun. She lifted Brodie and held him to her shoulder, patting his back until he brought up the last of his wind.

  ‘Doing what?’ When she didn’t immediately answer he indicated a book on the floor by the sofa, a large tome she’d borrowed from the library written by a famous plantsman about his travels in search of new varieties. She’d been thoroughly enjoying it. ‘I see you’re interested in plants.’

  ‘I like flowers. I find the whole business of breeding plants fascinating,’ she said in a cool voice, silently mourning a lost dream. At school she’d planned to study botany and biology, and then work in a nursery. That had gone by the board when she’d realised that her mother couldn’t cope without her.

  Marc said calmly, ‘Juliette would be upset to see you in such a situation.’

  Didn’t he realise that his unfaithfulness had distressed Juliette infinitely more than anything else ever could? Outrage made Paige’s reply brutal. ‘I can manage. And Juliette has been dead for almost two
years.’

  ‘It was such a complete waste.’ His voice was sombre, and when she looked up she saw his eyes close briefly.

  But when he opened them again they were cold and clear and unreadable.

  ‘Utterly,’ Paige agreed unsteadily, deciding that he was an unfeeling, insensitive clod.

  He’d rung her to tell her of Juliette’s death; when she’d wept he’d been kind but icily remote.

  She’d read more in the newspapers. Her friend had been in the back seat of a limousine inching up a steep mountain road in Italy. A truck with failed brakes had hurtled around a corner and pushed them off the cliff. Juliette, the chauffeur and the truck driver had died.

  At least it had been immediate. Beyond one horrified second she’d probably not even known what had happened.

  Blinking back tears, Paige coaxed a reluctant Brodie to accept more milk. He wriggled and turned his face sideways, before relenting and sucking again.

  ‘I’m sorry. You must miss her too,’ Marc said, his deep voice with its fascinating hint of an accent almost gentle. He touched her hand.

  Paige’s gaze flew to his face as that secret, blinding charge of electricity jolted her into a fiery oblivion where nothing else mattered but this man.

  Before she could do anything stupid—like sighing or leaning towards Marc—Brodie gave a little choking splutter followed by an indignant wail.

  Shaken, and intensely grateful to be saved from setting herself up for a rebuff, Paige lifted the baby and patted his back until he settled down. Marc Corbett belonged to a world as distant from hers as it was possible to be—a world of untold wealth, of power and privilege and social position.

  He might want her, but the gap between them was impassable. Don’t ever forget that, she told herself silently, tucking the bottle back into Brodie’s mouth. He whimpered, spitting the milk out with disgust, and began to cry softly.

  Accepting defeat, Paige got to her feet. ‘He’s ready for bed.’ She looked directly at Marc, and her heart contracted in useless pain. ‘Thank you for bringing us home,’ she said formally.