The Marriage Merger

by Liz Fielding

Or that her legs matched her ankles very nicely.

  That would be taking unfair advantage.

  He drew the drapes to keep off any curious insects that might fly in, then, closing the louvre doors to the veranda behind him and leaving her to sleep, returned to his delayed breakfast.

  To consider the conundrum that was Flora Claibourne. The woman hiding behind the disguise of a plain, spinsterish academic. All she’d left out was a pair of spectacles, he thought.

  Ones with heavy tortoiseshell frames—to match the combs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FLORA woke feeling muzzy-headed, dry and aching in all her joints. She also felt slightly hungover, as if she’d been sitting in one position for too long. Then she remembered. She had.

  Not been drinking too much, just sitting in one position for hours and hours and hours. In a plane. With Bram Gifford.

  Working to avoid talking. Working in an effort to stave off the tension caused by his presence.

  She’d thought she’d got over her problem with men like him, with their good looks, easy smile, natural charm. Had it under control.

  Apparently not. The moment he’d stepped into the car it had all come flooding back. The shame. The painful humiliation.

  The hot, sweet rush of desire.

  It wasn’t fair to blame Bram Gifford, take it out on him. He was a man who worked hard and played hard. And made no pretence of being interested in her. She’d try and be nicer to him. She owed it to India.

  She sat up, easing her limbs, then blinked, thinking there was something wrong with her eyes. But it wasn’t her eyes that were misted, just the sheer drapes pulled around the bed.

  She pushed them aside, swung her feet to the floor and, finding a bottle of mineral water on the night table, opened it and took a long drink as she looked about her. She must have crashed fairly spectacularly since she hadn’t even noticed the bedroom. It wasn’t surprising. She’d been on the go non-stop for the best part of two days.

  The only surprise was that she’d managed to get to bed at all. Divested of most of her clothes and with her hair loose, her hairpins and precious antique combs neatly laid out in a row by the bed—all but one of them, anyway—was quite an achievement. She checked her hair for the missing comb, but it must have slipped out somewhere.

  The last time she’d flown long-haul she’d woken up with her head on her desk, a crick in her neck that it had taken a week to straighten out and a hairpin jammed in the keyboard of her laptop.

  If Bram Gifford had found her like that… Well, she preferred not to think about the kind of impression that would have made. India, quite rightly, would have thrown a hissy fit.

  She stood up, did a few stretches. What did the man want, for heaven’s sake? He made her so nervous with all that quiet consideration. He was too serious. She didn’t believe it. It had to be an act. She just knew he was laughing at her… She stopped herself.

  Why would he be laughing? He didn’t even want to be here. She had nothing that he wanted.

  Except control of Claibourne & Farraday.

  As for being serious, wasn’t it more likely that he was thoroughly bored? Fed-up with having to trail around after her when he could be hitting the high-life at some fashionable resort packed with pretty girls eager for a holiday flirtation.

  At least he hadn’t flirted with her.

  Despite the lack of encouragement, in her experience men like him could rarely resist any opportunity to set female hearts fluttering.

  If her mother was busy, they’d practise on her.

  Just to keep their hand in.

  Most of them had meant no harm. They might even have thought they were being kind. Clearly she’d been desperate for attention.

  They had been right. She had. Until she’d learned that not all attention was good. Too late. But she’d learned.

  Bram Gifford must wonder what he had to do to get some response from her. She hadn’t even squealed entertainingly at the thought of bugs in her sleeping bag. She was no fun at all, she told herself sternly, and caught herself grinning.

  And on that cheering note she decided it was time for a shower and something to eat.

  Twenty minutes later, wrapped in a towelling robe and with her hair in a turban, she padded back into the bedroom to look for something to wear. She picked up her wristwatch. It was gone three in the afternoon. No wonder she was hungry.

  She crossed to the louvre doors and opened them. They were on the east of the island and the veranda was pleasantly shaded—something that Bram Gifford, stretched out on a cane lounger in a pair of shorts and T-shirt, was taking full advantage of.

  He had terrific legs, she thought, before she could stop herself from looking. Sportsman’s legs—but more tennis pro than footballer, she thought. She’d become good at spotting the differences. Her mother loved sportsmen.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he asked, peeling off a pair of dark glasses and looking up from the latest bestselling legal thriller. Well, he was a lawyer. Maybe he was hoping to pick up some useful tips.

  She fought down the urge to beat an immediate retreat to the safety of her bedroom, instead pulling the towel from her hair and shaking it out to dry naturally in the warmth. ‘Yes, thanks,’ she said, taking a wide-toothed comb from her pocket. Sleeping with her hair lose had its downside, she decided, easing it through the knots. ‘Hungry, though.’

  ‘There’s an all-day restaurant over by the pool. I checked it out when I had a look around earlier. The food’s good. There’s a shop, too.’ He indicated the book. ‘It has all the latest bestsellers. Including yours.’

  ‘They knew I was coming,’ she replied, unimpressed. ‘You didn’t take a nap?’

  ‘I made do with a swim. It’s better to tough it out if you can, keep local hours.’

  ‘Yes, well, not all of us are superhuman.’ She winced as the comb caught a tangle.

  ‘I’m not criticising, Flora. I got more sleep than you did on the plane, that’s all.’ He got up. ‘Here, let me do that.’ He took the comb from her, lifted a hank of wet hair and began to carefully tease through a difficult knot.

  She kept very still. He was just combing through her hair, she told herself. It didn’t mean a thing. But her body wasn’t listening. It hadn’t been this close, this intimate with a man in a long time, and every cell seemed to swivel in his direction, attracted by the warm scent of his skin, the small, careful movements of his hand as he worked at the knot. His hair, gleaming in the bright air, slid forward as he bent to his task; the space between his eyes creased in concentration.

  He was a walking temptation. Every part of him said, Touch me.

  ‘I was working,’ she said, and tightened the belt of her robe, as if to keep him out. Then she realised how defensive that looked, how defensive she sounded. She didn’t need to be defensive. It wasn’t any of his business what she was doing. At least it was, but she had no need to justify herself to him simply because she’d needed to sleep for a while. ‘I must have crashed out.’

  ‘With your head on your computer. I thought you’d be more comfortable in bed.’ And, having dealt with the knot, he continued to comb through her hair in slow, sensuous sweeps.

  She stilled. ‘You put me to bed?’

  ‘I tried to wake you,’ he assured her. ‘But you didn’t stir.’

  So he’d carried her through to the bedroom, undressed her, drawn the drapes leaving her like something out of a fairy tale? Not Sleeping Beauty, obviously. A less attractive cousin, perhaps.

  ‘Oh.’ Well, that certainly explained why the bedroom had looked so unfamiliar when she woke up. She discovered she had to swallow before she managed to say, ‘I didn’t realise.’

  Feeble. Very feeble. She should have just thanked him. Said she’d have done the same for him. Anything would have been better than that pathetic ‘oh’. He’d better not smirk, that was all. He’d better just keep looking as serious as he knew how. And she’d better keep looking as if she didn’t give a damn.

>   ‘Well, thanks,’ she added belatedly.

  He’d not only undressed her but taken out her hairpins. He must have held her close, propping her up against that impossibly broad chest, while he’d taken them out one by one. She knew how long it took to find them all. And he’d found every last one.

  She felt more exposed by that than if he’d actually stripped her naked. She turned, forcing him to stop combing her hair.

  ‘Your suit looked a bit the worse for wear so I gave it to the housemaid to wash and press,’ he said.

  ‘Well, aren’t you a regular boy scout?’ Which blew any chance of appearing cool in the face of him seeing her in her knickers.

  ‘You must be hungry, Flora,’ he said, before she could even begin to think of some graceful way to turn her snappy remark into something suitably grateful.

  It didn’t help that she didn’t want to be grateful. She didn’t want to say thank you. She just wished he wasn’t standing there with her comb in his hand, evidence of how easily he’d manipulated her into accepting his help. Wished that he was back in London so that she could relax.

  ‘You haven’t eaten more than a mouthful since we left London. Get dressed and I’ll buy you a late lunch. You might feel a little less tetchy with something solid inside you.’

  About to tell him what to do with his lunch, she felt her common sense finally kick in. He was just trying to be pleasant, which was more than she could say about herself. There was undoubtedly an ulterior motive, but since she knew that she wasn’t risking anything by being polite in return, she should probably be making a real effort in that direction. She might even find out something useful for her sister.

  ‘Good move,’ she said, with a reasonable stab at a smile. ‘When I’m hungry I don’t know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Then I’d better make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ he said, offering her the comb. ‘You wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing to Dr Myan just because your blood sugar’s taken a dip. It would put a major dent in that serious academic image you work so hard to portray. Although why crumpled clothes and a strange hairstyle should equate with brilliance has always been a mystery to me. Maybe you could explain that some time.’

  And with that he returned to the sun lounger, put his feet up and, replacing his dark glasses, resumed reading. Leaving her speechless.

  Bram peered over the top of his sunglasses, watching her walk away. She was one prickly lady, he thought. And when she smiled he didn’t trust her further than he could throw her.

  Prickly, complex. Nice ankles, though. Lovely hair—when it was down around her shoulders.

  And he’d thought he was going to be bored.

  Flora, on the right side of six hours of solid sleep and a sandwich, felt if not exactly reborn then sufficiently recovered to take an interest in her surroundings.

  Flapping away a large iridescent blue insect with her broad-brimmed hat, she looked around her at the poolside restaurant. Only a few of the tables were occupied. One of them by a classically lovely blonde in her late thirties. She was reading, but her gaze had followed Bram as they’d walked across the terrace to a shady spot, lingered for a while. And, although she still had her book open, Flora thought she’d lost interest in the plot. It probably happened wherever Bram Gifford went.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ she asked.

  ‘Doing whatever people do around here in the heat of the afternoon,’ Bram said without bothering to look around. ‘There were more people about earlier when I used the pool,’ he said, apparently unaware that he was under close scrutiny.

  Maybe it was such an everyday occurrence that he found it easy to ignore. Or maybe he preferred to keep business and pleasure in separate compartments.

  Which was fine with her.

  ‘How many?’ she asked.

  ‘A couple of dozen, I suppose.’

  Or maybe he was just being thoughtful, giving her his undivided attention because he was that kind of man.

  How likely was that?

  Not likely at all, unless she had something he wanted. Unless he thought he could use her in his quest to bring down the Claibournes.

  ‘This is a beautiful resort. It seems a shame there are so few people here.’

  ‘It’s only been open a few months and it’s not exactly on the beaten track,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Isn’t that what most people are looking for?’

  ‘So they say. But if they found it, it wouldn’t be off the beaten track any more, would it?’ Then he shrugged. ‘Enthuse about the place to the Claibourne & Farraday travel department when you get home if it bothers you. I’m sure the place will be standing room only before you know it.’

  An article in one of the Sunday newspapers about the discovery of an unknown princess, dripping in funerary tribute of gold and precious stones, would raise awareness of the island, attract travel writers looking for somewhere undiscovered very nicely too, she thought.

  She said, ‘I’m not enthusing about anything until I’ve had a good look round. I’ll be taking photographs of the downside of Saraminda as well as the bits the tourist office wants to sell.’ Somewhat belatedly she recalled India’s advice. ‘Maybe you could help with that. How are you on the business end of a camera?’

  She wasn’t good at dissembling, and to her own ears her casual query sounded horribly false, but that was probably because she knew she wasn’t being sincere.

  ‘I can handle a point-and-shoot job without cutting off heads or feet,’ he confirmed.

  That didn’t sound particularly convincing either. Bram Gifford looked like a man who’d be totally at home with the most complex equipment. She could very easily imagine his long fingers finessing the lens on a camera—or anything else he considered worth his while. As she watched he laced them together behind his head and leaned back lazily in his chair, so that the soft grey T-shirt he was wearing stretched tight across his chest, riding up to reveal several inches of flat, hard stomach.

  ‘But I’m here to watch—not do your job for you.’

  She started. ‘What?’

  His eyes, behind the dark glasses, were unreadable. There were lines about his mouth that suggested he would be quick to smile, but he wasn’t smiling now. The lack of visual clues was unsettling. And deliberate, she suspected. She used the same techniques when she was dealing with jewellery manufacturers. Unfortunately she had never quite managed the trick in her personal life.

  ‘I said—’

  But her mind had finally caught up with what he’d said. ‘I don’t need you to do my job for me,’ she said evenly, refusing to rise to such a blatant attempt to annoy her. ‘I’m simply concerned that you’ll be bored. I was offering you the chance to get involved, that’s all. You will have to get involved if you succeed in gaining control of the store.’

  Which was rich, coming from her. She did the bare minimum. If she were brutally honest with herself, she’d have to admit that she’d grabbed at Tipi Myan’s unexpected offer in an attempt to avoid having Bram Gifford following her about for a month. To avoid having to look as if she knew what a company director was supposed to do, having to justify taking the salary that her father had begun paying her when, still at art college, she’d started designing jewellery for the store.

  She’d have been happy to do it for nothing, just to see her designs transformed into precious metal. He’d laughed and said he wanted her under contract before she got poached by someone else.

  He wasn’t a man to waste his time on his children and it had made her feel special. Wanted. And at the time she’d needed that.

  But then she’d become fascinated by the history, the politics behind the precious metals and stones that glittered from the necks and wrists and fingers of the rich and powerful: their attempts to carry their wealth beyond the grave.

  The trip to Saraminda had seemed like a gift.

  Bad mistake.

  In London it would have been a nine-to-five commitment. Bram would have had other calls on his tim
e. Even if he’d taken a break from the office, used vacation time, there would still have been distractions—beautiful distractions, she was sure—to keep him busy. Out here there was no escape from the man.

  Remembering how India had looked as she’d begged her to help, she thought that maybe she’d got exactly what she deserved. She had her own totally absorbing, totally satisfying career. How would she feel if someone came along and told her she couldn’t do it any more? That she had to give up everything she’d worked to achieve, step back and let someone else take her place? Not because he was more talented, or smarter. But just because he was a man.

  Maybe she should invite the blonde to join them, she thought. She would undoubtedly prove a distraction. But that would be feeble…and Bram Gifford would know exactly what she was doing. Instead she looked directly at him.

  ‘Do you really want to get involved, or are the Farradays simply hell-bent on getting their macho way? Just to prove they can? I’m here to work. What about you?’

  ‘But which job is more important?’ he returned, ignoring her questions and going straight for the jugular. ‘The academic or the commercial one?’

  She’d been expecting that from the moment he’d stepped into the car and had her answer ready. But she gave it a minute, as if considering the question. ‘I’d say they are symbiotic. They exist in total harmony, each contributing to the other. The store supports my research and travel. The research and travel feeds into my design work.’

  ‘The on-the-spot briefs for the travel department are just an extra, then?’ The lazy attitude in the chair was deceptive. His mind was razor-sharp.

  She shrugged and didn’t attempt to make it sound any more important than it was.

  ‘I can offer a personal impression, a traveller’s perspective. I don’t pretend to anything more. The travel department finds it useful to have a totally unbiased viewpoint.’

  In other words, she had a cup of coffee with the manager of the travel department while he asked how their arrangements for her had worked out.

  ‘Then I guess that answers your question about what you’re going to do until the museum vaults open after the holiday.’