Bride for a Price

by Stephanie Howard

  Suddenly her lips pursed as she remembered the look of surprise on Matthew Jordan’s face when she had casually dropped in Sydney’s name. Even now she wasn’t quite sure why she’d done it. Nor why his reaction had irked her so.

  She went through to the bedroom and quickly undressed. Then, in the adjoining bathroom, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror as she pulled on a shower cap and switched on the shower. Beneath the sober, businesslike suit and the plain, restricting blouse, her slim figure was surprisingly curvy, with firm, high breasts, a tiny waist and legs that were long and shapely and slender.

  Outwardly, she might not be the ultra-feminine, ego-stroking type of female that men like Matthew Jordan preferred, but she was indisputably all woman underneath. But a woman on her own terms, not on the terms of some egocentric man who would take over her life and use her, then scorn her when he had tired of her.

  That was the fate she had seen fall to her mother as the wife of an ambitious and insensitive man whose only true concerns had ever been himself and his precious career. Throughout her childhood Olivia had watched the ritual humiliation of her mother, conveniently honoured with the role of wife for the occasional public appearance, neglected and treated with studied contempt for the remainder of the time. And the agony that, at times, she had seen staring out of her mother’s eyes was burned like a brand across her brain.

  At a very young age Olivia had made a vow that no man would ever get close enough to inflict such pain and humiliation on her. Hence the outward shell of independence and untouchability that she had cultivated to protect herself. For, deep in her soul, she knew—and feared—her own immense vulnerability.

  With a sigh, she stepped under the shower and allowed the warm, spiky jets of water to sluice away the day’s aggravations. Which today, she had to confess, had been considerably more aggravating than usual. Matthew Jordan had succeeded in getting her back up in a way that very few people did.

  Quickly she rubbed herself dry with one of the big pink stripey towels, then smoothed in body lotion from head to toe before padding back into the bedroom and slipping on a loose burgundy caftan— her customary attire for relaxing at home. Next she unpinned the neat, tight chignon, letting her long dark hair fall loose to her shoulders, then applied a couple of vigorous strokes of her hairbrush before stuffing her feet into gold leather mules and returning to the living-room.

  Gratefully she slumped down on the sofa beside Sydney, feeling the tension in her start to ebb away as she gently stroked the thick ginger fur, smiling contentedly to herself as the cat stretched languorously and purred. She reached for the TV remote control. She’d watch her favourite chat show for half an hour, then stick a TV dinner in the microwave. No cooking tonight. Just a lazy, relaxing evening in front of the box. She could start reconsidering her strategy regarding Richard and his future tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.

  But such an agreeable itinerary was destined to fall foul of fate. She had just poured herself a small glass of wine and was sinking back against the sofa cushions when, to her dismay, the doorbell rang.

  Damn. Who could that be? Olivia laid down her drink on the coffee-table and hurried reluctantly out into the hall. It was rare for anyone to turn up at her flat at this time of the evening unannounced. Though it was probably just some neighbour collecting for charity, she assured herself as she opened up the door.

  It was no neighbour. And it was most certainly no charity. Dismay turned to abject horror as her eyes met those of the tall, dark figure standing in the outer hallway.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Garland,’ he intoned with a smile.

  Olivia glared up at him, wishing with a vengeance that she’d had the foresight to ignore the bell. Without returning his greeting, she demanded rudely, ‘What do you think you’re doing here?’

  He was wearing a different suit from the one he had worn that afternoon—mid-grey, slightly less formal, with a light blue shirt and royal blue tie. With total poise, he leaned in the doorway and surveyed her unhurriedly up and down, his dark hair gleaming in the bright hall lights, an insolent smile in the deep hazel eyes. ‘It’s your lucky night, Miss Garland,’ he told her. ‘I’ve come to take you out to dinner.’

  What a preposterous idea! Olivia’s eyes narrowed as she told him curtly, ‘Then I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time. I already have other plans for dinner.’

  ‘With Sydney?’ A mocking smile curled round Matthew Jordan’s lips. ‘Surely he could spare you for just one night?’

  Olivia straightened defensively. Already he was getting her back up again. ‘My plans are really none of your business. I’ve already told you, you’ve wasted your time.’ And, with a flourish, she made to close the door.

  ‘Hold on just a minute, Miss Garland. Not quite so fast!’ With an almost imperceptible movement he stepped forward and jammed his foot in the door. Then, without a glimmer of a smile, he went on to inform her, ‘I have a proposition I think you might be interested to hear.’

  Olivia stopped short and stared suspiciously at him. ‘What proposition?’ she wanted to know.

  The slow, taunting smile returned to his lips. ‘The proposition I intend discussing over our little business dinner. Rest assured,’ he added with a twist, ‘my invitation is strictly in the interests of business, not pleasure. Surely you don’t think I’d give up my evening just to enjoy your gracious company?’ Then, as she continued to hesitate, he enquired, ‘Are you going to invite me in, or must we conduct this conversation on the doorstep, Miss Garland?’

  Stiffly, reluctantly, Olivia stood aside and watched with fierce irritation as he strode past her into the drawing-room.

  He glanced round. ‘Very nice.’ Then he continued as she stood poker-faced in the doorway watching him, ‘I tried to phone you a couple of times, but your line was constantly engaged.’ He tossed an amused look at the little table where the phone sat, receiver detached. ‘Now I understand why.’

  Inwardly, Olivia cursed herself. If she hadn’t taken the phone off the hook to pre-empt his threatened call, she would have been spared the infinitely more distasteful alternative of having him turn up in the flesh at her front door. At least, on the phone, she could have put him off by protesting some prior engagement. In person, he would not be quite so easy to dispose of—a supposition to which he gave instant substance by seating himself comfortably in one of her chintz chairs.

  As Olivia came to stand before him in the centre of the room, he nodded in the direction of the dozing ginger cat. ‘So that’s Sydney,’ he observed with one of his amused, superior smiles.

  Olivia coloured slightly and glared at him in silence with every ounce of loathing that she felt.

  ‘Somehow I suspected he’d turn out to be a cat.’ His smile curled wickedly at the corners. ‘Or perhaps a budgerigar.’ Slowly he looked her up and down. ‘One thing I knew for certain was that he wouldn’t be a man.’

  ‘Did you?’ Her tone was flat. She resisted the temptation to ask him why.

  But he went on to tell her anyway. ‘A man can tell such things about a woman, you know. You’re definitely the chaste and spinsterish type.’

  Abruptly Olivia dropped her eyes, momentarily caught off balance by his direct, unchivalrous remark. Though he had definitely been right about one thing, at least. She was nothing if not chaste. But she had never thought of herself as spinsterish —career-minded, perhaps—and she wasn’t quite sure if she cared for the tag. Still, she swiftly reminded herself, Matthew Jordan’s evaluation of her was really the last thing she cared about. She glanced up and threw him a glacial look. ‘You said you had some kind of proposition. Perhaps you could just get on and tell me what it is.’

  He reached for one of the magazines that lay strewn on the top of the coffee-table and leafed through it unhurriedly. ‘I’ve already told you— we’ll discuss it over dinner.’

  ‘And I’ve already told you that I have no intention of having dinner with you.’ She stepped forward, confronting him, and
folded her arms across her chest. ‘If you have something to say, you can say it here. And then, once you’ve said it, you can go.’

  He tossed the magazine aside and gave her a long, slow, lingering look. His tone when he spoke was that of a long-suffering parent addressing a particularly tiresome child. ‘Look, my dear Miss Garland,’ he told her, ‘I happen to be very tired. I’ve had a long day and I haven’t eaten properly since breakfast-time. With or without you, I’m going to have dinner. If you want to hear my proposition, fine. Come along. I can assure you,’ he added on a sarcastic note, ‘I’m not planning to try and seduce you over the soufflé surprise.’

  He raised one straight black eyebrow and concluded, ‘It’s up to you. Make up your mind. If you’d rather stay at home with Sydney, we can just forget the whole thing.’

  He meant it. Beneath that sometimes supercilious facade lurked an unbending will. And it would be foolish, Olivia knew, out of personal dislike to pass up the opportunity of hearing what he had to say. It could be important. It was her responsibility to Richard to hear his proposition out.

  ‘Well?’ He was waiting, yet poised as though ready to get up and go.

  ‘OK, I’ll go and get dressed.’ She dropped her arms in gracious defeat and started to move off in the direction of her room.

  ‘As quick as you can. I’m hungry, remember. And there’s a taxi waiting downstairs with its meter running.’ He watched her go with an amused, triumphant smile. Then he added, as he picked up the magazine again and started flicking through it, ‘And leave your hair down, the way it is. I prefer it like that.’

  Did he, indeed? The wretched cheek of the man! As Olivia hurried through to her room, carefully locking the door before slipping off her caftan and rummaging in the cupboard for something suitable to wear, she could feel unbridled anger bubbling inside. Matthew Jordan was an insufferable, opinionated, overbearing bully, the type of man she would run a mile to avoid. An evening in his company had about as much appeal as a kick in the head!

  She picked out a favourite long-sleeved black dress whose simplicity belied its elegant cut—wide-shouldered, high-necked, the hem skimming her shapely knees. Then she pulled on a pair of sheer black tights, slipped her feet into plain black courts and regarded her reflection in the mirror. A heavy gold necklace at her throat with matching earrings in her ears, and she was almost ready to appear.

  Almost. With defiant pleasure she deftly twisted her long dark hair to the back of her head and secured it in a neat chignon. So he preferred it loose, did he? The desert would blossom with waterlilies before she adjusted her appearance to please him!

  As she walked back into the drawing-room, her black cashmere cape draped softly round her shoulders, Matthew Jordan was already on his feet. He gave her a scrutinising look, irritating her and making her blush. ‘A bit severe, but it’ll do,’ he said.

  He hadn’t been joking about the taxi that was waiting downstairs, its meter clocking up the pounds. And, as she climbed in, the spiteful thought crossed Olivia’s mind that she should have taken her time about dressing. Not that a few pounds meant anything to Matthew Jordan, she reminded herself bitterly as he instructed the driver to take them to the most expensive French restaurant in town. Not a few pounds. Not a few hundred pounds. Not even a few thousand pounds, most probably. Which simply made it all the more galling that he and his family had stolen her brother’s precious inheritance.

  The waiter took her cape with a smile. ‘Good evening, Miss Garland. Good evening, sir.’ Then he seated them at one of the better tables, in a discreet corner with a view out over the restaurant. As he handed them a pair of enormous menus—no prices on hers, she noted—Matthew Jordan regarded her with amusement across the table.

  ‘Evidently one of your regular stamping grounds. When you’re not dining with Sydney, you come here, do you?’

  Olivia threw him a deliberately false smile as she laid her napkin across her lap. ‘I occasionally come here for lunch,’ she told him. ‘When I have clients to entertain.’

  ‘Your clients. Of course.’ He smiled again, she thought a trifle patronisingly. ‘The little art gallery you run. It’s quite a success, I understand.’

  Did he? Matthew Jordan, it appeared, knew a great deal more about her affairs than she would have wished. She looked back at him coldly. ‘It does quite well, thank you,’ she confirmed.

  ‘You run it alone?’

  ‘I have an assistant.’ An invaluable one. Without the level-headed Jeffrey Parker’s input—especially on the accounting side—The Gallery, as her little establishment was called, would never have become the success it was.

  Matthew Jordan was leaning back in his chair, watching her over the top of his menu with those deep hazel eyes. ‘I had a look at some of the paintings in your flat while you were getting ready,’ he told her. ‘I have to admit you have good taste.’

  That was definitely patronising! Olivia laid down her menu and fixed him with a stony stare. ‘I’m honoured by the compliment,’ she told him with heavy irony.

  He was undeterred. ‘I mean it. You obviously possess a considerable artistic eye.’

  Olivia sniffed. ‘I’m a businesswoman, not an artist, Mr Jordan. I have an instinct for a marketable commodity. I know what sells. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Yet you ended up selling paintings, not computers.’ He probed her with a look. ‘I think that suggests an artistic bent.’

  ‘Think what you will. Business is business.’ The last thing she was going to allow was that he lead her into a discussion of her paintings. Thanks to years of practice with her father, she had long ago learnt the subtle techniques of fending off patronising remarks, but her ‘artistic bent’, as he had called it, was still terrain too close to her heart to allow a man like Matthew Jordan to invade. Fending him off, she emphasised, ‘Selling paintings is a business, just like any other.’

  A faint smile flickered at the corner of his lips. He paused for a moment, then asked, ‘So tell me, how long have you been running this business of yours?’

  ‘Almost four years. My father bought it for me just before he died.’ After a tooth-and-nail fight, she might have added. ‘I could have gone into Garland’s, of course, but I preferred the prospect of an independent career, one that I could control myself.’ Working alongside her father would have been impossible. She could never have stood for his tempers and his bullying, the way the rest of the workforce had to do. But she kept this to herself as well. Such a stance would find little sympathy with Jordan, every inch the bullying autocrat himself. Instead she added, ‘Besides, my brother has been passionately interested in computers ever since he was a little kid. It made sense that, one day, Garland’s would be his.’ She paused, her blue eyes narrowing now as she put to him, ‘Which brings us neatly to the point we came here to discuss. This proposition of yours.’ She leaned across the table and demanded boldly, ‘Perhaps you’d like to spell it out?’

  ‘First things first.’ As the waiter chose that very moment to arrive soundlessly at their table, she could sense Matthew Jordan’s evident delight at this opportunity to thwart her again. ‘Let’s order first, shall we?’ he suggested with a wicked gleam in his eye. ‘I hate talking business on an empty stomach.’

  They ordered fruits de mer as their starter, Olivia plumping for poulet to follow, Matthew Jordan selecting the chef’s special steak. And to accompany it all he chose a bottle of claret—of particularly desirable vintage, judging by the wine waiter’s nod of approval.

  But the instant they were left alone again Olivia returned to press her point. ‘Your proposition, Mr Jordan. I want to hear it.’

  Matthew Jordan sat back slightly in his seat and ran long, tanned fingers across his short, dark hair. The broad, smooth brow furrowed slightly as he looked across at her and the deep voice was low and sincere as he began to explain, ‘To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what private agreement might have existed between your mother and my uncle when he took over Garland�
��s—nor even what the reasons for the merger might have been. Though I’ve tried, I’ve been unable to track down any records of the deal.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t understand why.’

  ‘I’ll tell you why. Because it was theft. One doesn’t normally keep records of one’s crimes.’

  ‘There’s one thing I do know,’ he continued, his voice never faltering, ignoring her gibe, ‘and that is that my uncle was an honest man. It would never have been his intention to short-change your mother or her family—in any way. That’s why I’ve already offered you what I consider to be generous compensation.’

  Olivia leaned her elbows on the table, her tone derisive as she told him, ‘Let me tell you something, Mr Jordan. I met your uncle Roland once. He was one of those charming, honey-tongued men who find it all too easy to manipulate women…’

  She fixed him with a look of censure, resisting the urge to observe aloud that he had evidently inherited those particular attributes of his uncle’s along with all the Jordan millions—attributes to which she personally was happily immune. Instead she told him bluntly, ‘My mother, unfortunately, was one of those women who are easily led. She could be talked into almost anything, especially by a man.’ She fixed him with another harsh look. ‘But I’m not my mother, Mr Jordan. That’s why I reject your so-called generous compensation. Garland’s is worth a great deal more than a few paltry shares in Jordan Electronics!’

  For a moment he did not look at her, just toyed idly with his knife, the tan of his fingers dark against the pale linen tablecloth. Then slowly, deliberately, he raised his eyes. ‘To call the shares I’ve offered paltry is to somewhat overstate your case. They’re worth considerably more than Garland’s is ever likely to be. However,’ he hurried on before she could interrupt, ‘I can see that owning shares in a larger company over which one has no real control is not quite the same as running a company of one’s own.’ He paused significantly. ‘Hence this new proposition of mine.’