A Virgin for a Vow

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  He steadied her with two strong hands on her upper arms; the sensation of his fingers pressing into her skin even through the layers of her clothing was nothing short of electrifying. He dropped his hold as if he’d felt the same voltage, and took a clean white handkerchief from his pocket. For a moment she thought he was going to mop her breasts for her but then he seemed to collect himself and handed it to her instead. ‘Don’t worry about the carpet and the sofa. They’ve been treated with a stain resistant.’ His voice was so husky it sounded like he’d been snacking on gravel.

  Abby dabbed at her breasts and tried not to notice how close he was. She could smell the subtle lime notes of his aftershave and a base note of something else, something woodsy and arrantly masculine. She could even see the individual pinpoints of his regrowth on his chin, the way it was liberally sprinkled around his well sculptured mouth, making her want to press her fingertips to it to see if it felt as prickly as it looked.

  She balled the soiled handkerchief into one hand while the other pulled her soaked sweater away from her breasts. ‘Do you have something I could wear while I take this off and rinse it?’

  ‘Can’t you just put your coat over it or something?’

  Abby blew out a breath. ‘This sweater cost me a week’s wages.’ No way was she going to admit it was second-hand. ‘And don’t get me started about my bra.’ Which wasn’t second-hand and had cost a packet because no way was she going to wear someone else’s underwear. She had done that for most of her childhood.

  His frown made his forehead wrinkle like isobars on a weather map. ‘Unbelievable.’

  ‘What? Why do you say that?’ Abby asked. ‘I work at a fashion magazine. I have to wear the latest fashion. I can’t be seen out and about in last season’s threads.’

  ‘Don’t they give you freebies or a discount?’

  Abby moved her gaze to the left of his. ‘I’m not a fashion editor. I just write a weekly relationships column.’

  ‘Come with me,’ he said and led the way out of the room to the downstairs bathroom. ‘Wait here. I’ll bring you something from upstairs.’

  Abby closed the bathroom door and took off the sweater. She grimaced at the state of her bra. Why had she worn the virginal white one when she could have worn the red?

  Because you’re a virgin?

  Don’t remind me.

  Which made her wonder...when was the last time Luke had sex? Had he had sex with anyone since Kimberley’s death? Five years was a long time to be celibate if you’d had a regular sex life before. Which Abby was pretty certain he’d had. Men as sexy as Luke Shelverton did not have to work too hard to find lovers. One look from him and women came out of the woodwork like termites.

  There was a knock at the bathroom door and Abby held a hand towel across her breasts and opened the door. Luke handed her a finely woven sweater the colour of his eyes. ‘I know it’s too big but I don’t have anything your size.’

  Abby took the sweater from him and held it against her chest along with the towel. She could smell the clean scent of wool wash on the soft fibres and even a faint trace of him. ‘Ella told me she thought you still had some of Kimberley’s clothes.’

  His eyes hardened to chips of blue ice. ‘Is this scheme of stand-in fiancé something you and Ella have cooked up together?’

  Abby held the sweater against her chest like armour. ‘No. It was my idea but she thought it was a good plan. She said it was high time you went to something other than a boring engineering function. And since you and Ella are the only people in my life who know I’m not really engaged, in a way you’re the only one who can help me.’

  ‘What about your family? Don’t they know?’

  Family. That was another thing Abby had done some considerable embellishing over. She hadn’t even told Ella the truth about her background. Abby didn’t have a family. She didn’t want her friends, much less her adoring public, to know she had grown up in numerous foster homes with a bunch of other needy kids and overworked, overwrought, overbearing at times foster parents. The last family she’d stayed with had been the most functional, but even they hadn’t kept in touch with her once she’d left the foster system.

  Even Abby’s surname was a stage name because she had more skeletons in her closet than she had clothes. She didn’t want anyone putting her real surname in a search engine and linking her to a now deceased drug-addicted prostitute and a man currently in jail for assault with a deadly weapon. She couldn’t bear reliving the shame all over again. Being reminded she had never been loved as a child should be loved, never protected as a child should be protected.

  Never wanted.

  There were some things you just had to keep private.

  Abby couldn’t quite meet Luke’s gaze. ‘Of course they know. But it’s not like they can do anything. You’re the only one I can ask to do this.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Abby. You’ll have to find someone else.’

  Abby forgot about covering her wine-splashed bra and handed him back his sweater. ‘Look, Luke, I know the last five years have been tough on you, really tough, but don’t you ever want to just go out and have a night on the town like normal people do?’

  His eyes flicked to her bra-covered breasts and then returned to hold her gaze in a steely blue trap. ‘What’s normal about pretending to millions of people you’re in a relationship that doesn’t even exist?’

  Abby grabbed her sweater from the marble basin console and pulled it back over her head, thrusting her arms through the sleeves with such force she nearly tore a hole in one of them. ‘I’ll tell you what’s normal,’ she said, popping her head out of the collar to glare at him, not caring that her wavy hair was as ruffled and wild as her temper. ‘It’s normal to help friends out when they’re in a pickle. But you keep pushing all your friends away since Kimberley died, which is so sad because your friends and family are who you need to get you through this. You’re needed, Luke. Ella and your mum need you and I do too.’

  His mouth was so tightly set a postage stamp couldn’t have been pushed between his lips. ‘I think you’ve said enough.’

  No way had Abby said enough. She wasn’t going to be put off her plan. She had to get him to agree to it.

  She had to.

  ‘My entire career is at stake here. I can’t go to the ball without a partner. I’m supposed to be half of one of London’s most influential couples. I’ll be fired on the spot if they find out I’ve made him up. I want so much to raise funds for this charity. It’s my way to really make a difference in the world. There’ll be sponsors there who are going to pay hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds to see me there with my fiancé. You have to help me, Luke. You have to go with me. You have to!’

  He slowly shook his head at her as if she were a child having a tantrum, his arms folded across his chest, his feet firmly planted like centuries-old tree trunks. ‘No.’

  Desperation was climbing up Abby’s spine like hundreds of faceless creatures with hooked claws. So many people would be at that ball. Important people. Stars, celebrities, movers and shakers and even minor royalty. Possibly major royalty. Maybe the Queen would be there—she’d turned up at the Olympics, so why not the Spring Ball?

  People were expecting to see Abby there with her fiancé. It was unthinkable for her to be there on her own. Her chance to do her bit for disadvantaged kids like her would be ruined if she didn’t show up on the arm of her soulmate. The thought of those poor little kids missing out on the things she had missed out on because her fundraising attempt had blown up in her face was heartbreaking.

  Why couldn’t Luke do this one small thing for her?

  Abby stalked past him out of the bathroom and went back to the sitting room, where she had left her bag and phone. ‘Right, well, then. I thought you were a friend but clearly I’m mistaken about that.’

  His expression showed no trace of emotion. ‘Your sweater is on back to front.’

  Abby looked down at her sweater and suppressed a groan. Why was
she always so clumsy and gauche around him? It hardly helped her cause to be acting like a clown in a farce. She put her phone down and drew her arms out of the sleeves while still wearing the sweater and turned it around so it was facing the right way before poking her arms back through the sleeves. ‘There. Happy now, Mr Perfect?’

  Mr Perfect?

  His eyes dropped to her mouth but then just as quickly jerked back to her eyes as if he was fighting some inner demon and only just winning the battle. ‘Why didn’t you say anything to Ella about that night?’

  ‘How do you know I didn’t tell her?’

  ‘She would’ve mentioned it by now if you had.’

  Abby let out a long breath. ‘I didn’t want her to know you were drowning your sorrows in booze. She worries about you enough as it is.’

  He looked taken aback. ‘I wasn’t drunk...’ He paused for a beat. ‘I had a migraine.’

  ‘A migraine?’ Abby frowned. ‘But there was an empty wine glass on—’

  ‘I’d had one drink after work but it triggered a migraine. I get them occasionally.’

  Did his sister and mother know about his migraines? Did anybody know? Abby couldn’t stop her gaze from darting to his mouth and back again. Had it been wishful thinking on her part to think he had almost kissed her? Had she wanted him to kiss her?

  Damn right she had.

  ‘Do you remember anything about that night?’ Abby said. ‘Anything at all?’

  ‘Not much.’ His tone had an edge of something she couldn’t quite identify. ‘I didn’t...do or say anything to you that I shouldn’t have, did I?’

  She couldn’t control the impulse to send her tongue over lips that suddenly felt drier than the carpet she was standing on. His gaze followed every millimetre of the journey, leaving a trail of blistering, tingling heat along the entire surface of her lips as if his mouth and not his eyes had rested there. ‘You mean like make a pass at me?’

  A flicker of worry flashed over his face. ‘Please tell me I didn’t.’

  ‘Maybe if you kissed me again you’d remember if you did or not.’

  Are you completely and utterly crazy?

  Abby had no idea why she’d issued such a daring challenge but it popped out of her mouth and was now hovering in the air between them like an intoxicating vapour.

  Or maybe she did know why she’d said it—because she wanted him to kiss her. Had wanted it ever since that night.

  A real kiss.

  Not an almost one.

  She couldn’t pull her gaze away from his mouth, or pull her mind away from the thought of his firm disapproving lips pressing down on hers. Wondering how his mouth would feel—hard or soft or somewhere deliciously in between. How he would taste—salty with a hint of coffee or mint or maybe even a lick of top-shelf brandy. She was getting tipsy on the images her mind was spinning—images of him taking her by the shoulders and pulling her against his broad chest and plundering her mouth with his.

  Yes, plundering, like one of those swashbuckling heroes in the period dramas she loved to watch on rainy Sunday afternoons.

  Luke stepped closer and placed his hand beneath her chin, his fingers warm and firm against her skin. She couldn’t remember him ever touching her before, apart from That Night, but the same thing happened now. Nerves she didn’t know she possessed leapt and danced and all but fainted at his touch. The space between their bodies pulsated with magnetic energy—energy that rippled in the air like an invisible current.

  His eyes held hers in a searing tether that made something in her core quiver and a shiver rolled down her spine like a runaway firecracker. This close she could see every thick lash fringing his mesmerising lapis lazuli eyes, the way his pupils were black and wide like bottomless pools of ink. She could see the detailed sculpture of his mouth, the deep philtrum ridge and the well-defined vermillion borders, and wondered again what it would feel like to have those lips clamped to hers.

  ‘Read my lips.’ His voice was so firm it sounded as if it was underlined. In bold and italics for good measure. ‘I am not going to the ball. Got it?’

  Abby was more than reading his lips. She was studying them as if she was swotting for a final exam. Had she ever seen a more gorgeous mouth? Not that it was a mouth that ever smiled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him crack a grin. But then, his air of brooding gravitas had always secretly fascinated her.

  Abby had to get him to change his mind about the ball. She had to. Had to. Had to. Her career depended on it. Her reputation. The children at risk charity she was raising funds for would not reach its target if she didn’t show up with a fiancé in tow.

  She blew out a breath and cast him a shamefaced glance from beneath her lashes. ‘Okay, so I might have misled you a bit about that night. You didn’t kiss me. You didn’t even try but—’

  ‘Then why did you let me think I had?’ Luke dropped his hand from her face and frowned as if he was doing it for The Guinness Book of Records.

  Abby’s cheeks were feeling so hot she thought she might end up with a world record herself. ‘I don’t know...’

  ‘You don’t know?’ His voice had a razor-sharp edge to it that nicked at her nerves.

  She bit down on her lip. ‘I guess I was a bit shocked when I found you so out of it that night. I stupidly jumped to conclusions and assumed you were drunk.’

  ‘But why mislead me to believe I made a pass at you if I didn’t even touch you?’

  ‘Actually, you did touch me.’

  His eyes flared as if her words shocked him to the core. ‘Where did I...?’ He left the question hanging in the air.

  ‘You put your arm around my waist when I helped you into bed,’ Abby said. ‘And you rested your head on my shoulder and looked at me kind of like you were thinking about kissing me.’ She couldn’t bring herself to mention the way he’d stroked her face.

  ‘There’s a big difference between thinking and doing.’

  Abby looked up into his frowning gaze and blinked back the sting of tears. She’d taught herself not to cry over the years but she was scarily close to breaking point. ‘Please, Luke, don’t make me beg. I’m really sorry about my little white lie. I shouldn’t have made you think you’d almost kissed me. But I have a lot riding on this ball. It’s just one night and then it will be over and I won’t ask you to do another thing for me ever again. I promise.’

  ‘Why’s the ball such a big deal? Isn’t it just another one of your show pony parties?’

  Show pony parties? Was that how he saw her? As some shallow little party hopper with nothing better to do than have a spray tan and get a manicure? Which reminded her—she had to get a spray tan and a manicure. ‘I know my career must seem ridiculously vacuous to a nerdy engineer like you, but I happen to love working at a gossip magazine and tomorrow night is the biggest fundraising event of the year,’ Abby said. ‘There’s a silent auction as well as a live auction and amazing lucky door prizes worth thousands of pounds and a dinner cooked by celebrity chefs to raise funds for a children at risk charity. The ball has a three-to four-year waiting list for tickets. I can’t not go because my boss will fire me when she finds out I’ve been pretending to be engaged all along. And I especially can’t show up without my other half since we were nominated as one of this year’s most popular and influential couples.’

  His frown was a deep trench between his night sky eyes. ‘You’re going to have to tell everyone eventually you aren’t in a relationship.’

  Abby knew she would have to announce some sort of breakup eventually, but how much easier would that be if Luke stood in as her fiancé at the ball? She could even blog and tweet breakup tips once the ball was out of the way. The thought of telling everyone that she, the relationships expert, was single and still a virgin was not something she wanted to do in a hurry—if ever. ‘But don’t you see? I need a stand-in fiancé in order to break up with him. I’ll find someone for myself eventually. Maybe I’ll try one of those dating apps. But I have to get thr
ough the ball first.’

  He did an I-can’t-believe-you’re-for-real eye-roll and made a move to the sitting room door, holding it open in a pointed manner. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to get back to.’

  Abby knew this was her last chance to get him to change his mind. ‘Please, please, please do this for me, Luke. Just for a couple of hours. You can leave early—no one will suspect anything. Think of all those poor little disadvantaged kids you’ll be helping. You will literally be changing their lives by pretending to be my fiancé for two hours.’

  He kept looking at her without speaking for so long she began to mentally dictate her resignation letter. But then he released a long and weighted sigh. ‘All right—you win. I’ll take you for two hours, tops. But you have to accept this is a one-off occasion and it will not be repeated.’

  Abby was flooded with such a tide of relief she had to stop from flinging herself into his arms and hugging him. Or kissing him, which was even more tempting than she wanted to admit. ‘Okay. Okay. Of course. I only need you for one night. I promise.’

  They briefly discussed arrangements about Luke picking her up and what to wear and then he walked her to the front door of his house. ‘One other thing,’ he said.

  Abby glanced up at him. ‘Yes?’

  He seemed to be having some trouble keeping his gaze away from her mouth. It kept tracking back to it as if programmed to do so. ‘I might be standing in for someone who doesn’t actually exist but that’s as far as your little fantasy goes. Understood?’

  Abby wondered what he meant by such a comment. ‘I hope you’re not thinking I’d want you to actually marry me because that’s just utterly ridiculous.’

  ‘Good to know,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow, Cinderella.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  LUKE CLOSED THE door after Abby left and let out a curse so blue he was mildly surprised to find the walls of his hallway were still white. Damn that girl. How had she got him to say yes? Had she cast some sort of spell on him? Why had he agreed to such a charade? He didn’t do balls. He didn’t do parties. He didn’t even do dinners unless work required it of him.