Bride for a Price

by Stephanie Howard

  Again she struggled futilely as he continued to hold her firm, her blue eyes flashing with sudden venom as she railed against him in helpless fury. ‘I told you at the start that there’s only one way you’ll ever make me give in, and that’s by using brute force—which I’m sure you’ve got plenty of! But I can think of nothing more repugnant than being made love to by a man like you!’ Her lips curled to illustrate her distaste. ‘You’re a cheap opportunist and a bully. The very thought of any form of physical contact with you at all literally makes me sick!’

  It was way, way over the top, and she knew it, besides being a million miles from the truth. Once, maybe, some of it might have applied, but alas, no longer. Which was precisely why she glared up at him with cold and unrepentant eyes as he continued to hold her in his grip. Somehow she had to protect herself from the powerful and potentially fatal attraction that Matthew wielded over her. And if she had to go to extremes to do it, then the end justified the means.

  White-lipped, his face rigid with anger, Matthew stared at her in silence for a moment, and there was a dark and fearsome glint in his eyes, like a dangerous animal provoked too far. Olivia steeled herself for the onslaught as she felt his grip tighten around her arm, but when he eventually spoke his voice was low and carefully controlled. ‘In that case, I shall relieve you of my presence.’ Roughly he flung her back down on the sofa and, abruptly, turned away. ‘Sleep in any bed you like tonight! Sleep in hell for all I care! I won’t be here to bother you—I’m going to spend the night in London!’

  For a long time after the door had slammed behind him and she had heard the Rolls growl off down the drive, Olivia remained crouched on the sofa, her head in her hands, feeling faintly sick and shaky. Once again she had ended up behaving in a manner of which she felt deeply ashamed. In spite of the threat he posed her, Matthew had not deserved that torrent of abuse. What was it about the man that drove her to such vindictive excesses?

  All evening she could not shake off her guilt. She ate hardly at all, picking without appetite at a piece of poached fish. Then she poured herself a drink and sat on the sofa, her eyes drifting constantly towards the phone. Perhaps she should call him and say she was sorry? She felt sure he would be at the flat at Regent’s Park. But a phone call could sound so impersonal, and what if he hung up on her? She knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink tonight until she had set things straight.

  Resolutely she got to her feet. That meant there was only one thing to do. She would drive down to London herself and offer her apology personally.

  She changed quickly, into one of the outfits they had bought in Paris—a soft blue dress with a wide leather belt that Matthew particularly liked. Then she unpinned her hair and brushed it to her shoulders in a deliberately conciliatory gesture. However angry he might still be, he would surely realise the instant he saw her that she had come on a mission of peace.

  She took the Mercedes that he had put at her disposal and headed south, driving as fast as the traffic would allow—all the while rehearsing, yet again, the little speech she had prepared that afternoon. This time there must be no hiccups. She had to get it right first time. For suddenly it was vitally important to her that she and Matthew find a way to live out the next few months together in some kind of harmony.

  She did not want him to be her enemy, to see again that look of cold contempt in his eyes. Though she would never dare let him become her lover, surely they could be friends?

  At last, with beating heart, she drew up outside the elegant Nash terrace and squinted up at the second-floor windows. She had been right; he was here. In spite of the late hour, the lights were burning brightly.

  Too nervous to wait for the elevator, she sprinted up the stairs, anxiety quickening in her breast as she reached the front door and pressed the bell. It seemed like an interminably long time until she heard the latch being drawn back, then her stomach squeezed with illogical pleasure as the door finally opened and Matthew was standing there.

  He was dressed as he had been when he had stormed out of the house, only he had shed his jacket and tie. But the buttons of the crisp white shirt were undone to half-way down his chest, the sleeves rolled back to the elbows, giving him a faintly dishevelled look. Even the sleek dark hair looked rumpled, and he wore the impatient frown of a man who had just been most inconveniently disturbed. He took one look at Olivia and growled, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Olivia smiled apologetically. Perhaps he had been on his way to bed. ‘Matthew, can we talk?’ she began. ‘I know it’s late, but I had to—’

  But that was as far as she got. Before she could even finish her sentence, she was interrupted by a purring female voice. ‘Matthew darling… who is it?’

  And Olivia felt the blood drain from her face and a cold Baltic chill creep through her bones as a tousled blonde figure in a thin silk robe appeared in a doorway at the end of the hall.

  Of course. She should have guessed why Matthew appeared so grumpy and so dishevelled. She had just had the gross effrontery to disturb him while he was busy entertaining the delectable Celine.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The chilling events of the hour that followed were branded forever on Olivia’s brain.

  Her first instinct was to turn and run, to retreat with her hurt and humiliation and hide herself away. For, unlikely and out of place as they might be, those were the emotions that ripped through her soul at the sight of the blonde figure in the ruby silk robe standing brazenly watching her from the end of the hallway. And more than just hurt and humiliation—a mindless, illogical, ravening wrench of naked, primitive jealousy.

  But even as she stood poised for flight in the doorway, bitter bile rising in her throat, her innate reserves of dignity and strength chose this timely moment to come to her aid. Very deliberately she straightened and levelled cold blue eyes at the blonde Celine. ‘What do you think you’re doing here with my husband?’ she demanded imperiously. ‘Kindly put on some clothes and get out of our house immediately!’

  Celine was visibly taken aback by the response. It was as though she had been expecting Olivia to slink off with her tail between her legs. The heavily mascaraed eyes flicked across to Matthew, awaiting his command, and Olivia fancied she detected the merest hint of dark amusement through the more evident anger etched across his features as, with a silent but expressive gesture, he indicated to his secretary to go.

  Then, as the blonde girl reluctantly retreated into the bedroom from which she had emerged, he stood aside with derisive deference to allow Olivia into the hall. ‘So, to what do I owe this hysterical intrusion?’ he enquired in a cutting tone.

  As Olivia followed him into the sitting-room, her stomach was a nest of squirming vipers. She didn’t bother to answer his snide enquiry. Instead, mildly surprised at the outrage in her voice, she instantly shot back one of her own. ‘What’s that female doing here? I thought you told me you didn’t believe in adultery?’

  As he turned to confront her, hands thrust arrogantly into the pockets of his trousers, more than a hint of a cruel, mocking smile glittered in the dark hazel eyes. He held her gaze. ‘And I thought you told me you did?’ he countered. ‘You were the one who made a point of spelling out, so romantically, on our wedding night, that I was free to indulge in whatever extra-marital activities I wished.’ The dark eyes narrowed questioningly as, slowly, he looked her up and down. ‘Why this sudden change of heart?’

  Why, indeed? Olivia was wondering to herself. She ought to be delighted by this turn of events—or indifferent, at the very least. This attack of vicious, gnawing resentment made no sense at all. Struggling to get a grip on her renegade emotions, she managed to sound almost convincing as she assured him now in a clipped, tight voice, ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t had a change of heart. It’s just that I’d hoped you might have the taste to be a little more discreet about your affairs.’

  He raised one logical dark eyebrow at her, dismissing the patently irrational claim. ‘And what could be mor
e discreet than this? You’re the one who’s lacking in taste, coming here spying in the middle of the night!’

  ‘Spying? Is that why you think I’m here?’

  ‘And why else would you have come here?’ Matthew challenged her.

  It was her cue to break into her long-prepared and carefully rehearsed speech, but the now fully clad Celine chose that moment to re-emerge from the bedroom and come clicking down the hallway on impudently high heels. At the front door she turned and paused to cast a leisurely glance over her shoulder in the direction of the sitting-room. Then, once she was certain that she had Olivia’s attention, she raised one blood-red manicured hand and fluttered a fond farewell towards Matthew. ‘See you later,’ she mouthed. Then, with a geisha-like swing of her shapely hips, she made a graceful and unhurried exit.

  The defiant spectacle had the instantaneous effect of driving all Olivia’s good intentions from her head. Why should she bother to put her case to him in some pointless effort to bring harmony into their lives? The parlous state of their relationship was evidently the last thing on his mind!

  He was still waiting for an answer to his question as to why she had so unexpectedly turned up on the scene. She hastened to assure him, ‘Don’t worry. To spy on you is not why I’m here. As I’ve already made quite clear to you, I don’t give a damn what you get up to. Though I must say,’ she added with a deliberate twist of distaste, ‘I find the total lack of discrimination with which you pursue your carnal appetites just a little bit unsettling. Only a matter of hours ago you were planning to lure me into your bed. Now I find you virtually in the process of slaking your lust with your secretary. Bed-hopping is evidently a pursuit at which you excel. Alleycats, I believe, share a similar set of moral standards.’

  As she finished her malicious diatribe, the hazel eyes narrowed dangerously and the muscles of the powerful shoulders seemed to bunch threateningly beneath the thin white shirt. His tone, as he answered her, was sharded glass, each syllable designed to wound and tear apart. ‘Perhaps, in your book, a man is an alleycat because he has normal sexual desires. But with due respect, I would suggest that normal sexual desires are not something you know much about.’ Eyes like bayonets drove through her. ‘If anyone around here has a sexual problem, that one is you, my dear Olivia, not I.’

  Inwardly Olivia winced, but she willed herself to hide how much his words had hurt. ‘What a typically arrogant male response! Just because I don’t fancy having sex with you, I’m supposed to have some kind of sexual problem!’

  Bitter amusement curled at Matthew’s lip. ‘The arrogance is yours, not mine. Do you seriously expect me to believe what you’ve just said? Perhaps you’ve forgotten what happened—or almost happened—on our last night in Paris? There was no mistaking the fact that you fancied having sex with me then.’ He let his eyes slide over her, their expression crudely provocative. ‘Believe me, I know when a woman is aroused, and you were highly aroused that night.’

  Damn him, did he have no shame? Olivia burned from her hair down to her toes at the unchivalrous, though manifestly true, observation. ‘I’d been drinking!’ she denied. ‘It was the drink that made me react the way I did. It had nothing to do with you!’

  ‘Oh, no?’ He smiled a piranha smile. ‘And have you been drinking now?’

  She glared at him. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  Again that smile that sent goose-bumps down her spine. ‘I was thinking that perhaps we might conduct a control experiment, just to see if there’s any truth in your denials.’ With a panther’s stride he took a step towards her, almost before she could read what he had in mind. ‘Come here, my little wife,’ he purred, reaching out to catch hold of her arm. His gaze glided over her soft, loose hair, the subtle, clinging lines of the chic blue dress. ‘Besides, I have more than the faintest suspicion that this is what you really came for.’

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ Just a fraction too late, Olivia recoiled. He was too strong and much too quick for her. Already her body was clamped against his, held firm by the iron-hard fist at her waist. As her breasts were pressed against the hard wall of his chest and the neat of his muscular thighs devoured her, she dug her fingers into the flesh of his shoulders and struggled violently to tear herself free.

  With ease he caught one of her hands in his and jerked it unceremoniously behind her back. ‘So you’re going to make it difficult, are you?’ He smiled at her with devilish enjoyment. ‘That’s OK, I quite enjoy a fight.’

  ‘You bastard! Let me go!’ She was squirming as helplessly as a sprat caught in a polar bear’s paw, tears of frustration brimming in her eyes as she continued to beat against his shoulder with her one remaining fist. ‘Get your hands off me this minute! I demand that you let me go!’

  ‘Demand?’ He seemed to find the notion amusing. ‘Would you deny your husband a kiss?’

  ‘You’re not my husband! Let me go! You’re not my husband—you have no right!’

  ‘Oh, no?’ One dark eyebrow arched at her as her remaining free hand was grabbed in turn and pinned securely behind her back. ‘I think I have a piece of paper somewhere that would indicate that I am indeed your lawful husband. And husbands, my dear Olivia, happen to have certain rights!’

  Olivia’s heart gave a nervous lurch as he proceeded to immobilise her totally now, his grip on her two pinioned wrists tightening slightly as the fingers of his free hand jabbed roughly through her loose, dark hair, dragging her head backwards, so that she gasped, her lips parting involuntarily as his mouth came down to conquer hers.

  It was a fierce, almost brutal kiss, designed to crush all resistance from her. Yet, beyond its iron domination that all her instincts rose up against, there was a raw, underlying sensuality, a masculine, thrusting, bone-melting passion that the woman in her could not but respond to. Fire licked through her senses, sending sheets of hot longing sweeping through her veins.

  She gasped as Matthew began to deepen his kiss and the hand in her hair moved deliciously downwards to capture the warm, eager weight of her breasts. Cruel fingers mercilessly teased the tightly burgeoning, aching peaks, sending a jolt of white-hot desire piercing wantonly through her loins.

  Where was her denial that he could arouse her now? Washed away like flotsam on the tide of longing that his touch and his kiss had unleashed in her. Her hungry body was limp and quivering as his wild, carnal onslaught on her senses continued. And, in spite of herself, the hands still held captive behind her back longed secretly to be released, so that they might freely twine themselves around the strong male shoulders and let her fingers loose in the thick, dark hair.

  A helpless prisoner in his arms, she ached with every sinew for liberation so that, at last, she might give expression to the fire that raged within her soul.

  And yet when, abruptly, Matthew let her go, she found herself responding physically in total contradiction to the emotional dictates of her heart. As the brooding dark eyes burned down at her, scouring the secrets of her soul, she took a step back and, with all her strength, landed him a blow across the side of his face. Her hand was stinging as she dropped it to her side, mingled shock and satisfaction flooding through her at the sight of the red welt across his jaw. ‘How dare you, you bastard!’ she spat, still struggling to control her trembling limbs. ‘I don’t know what you supposed you proved with that.’

  Matthew smiled thinly. ‘I think you’re the one who’s just supplied the proof.’ Tentatively, he touched his jaw. ‘You wanted me all right back there, but those damned sexual hang-ups of yours won in the end.’

  With a contemptuous gesture he turned away, unmoved by the distraught look in her eyes. For, suddenly, Olivia would have given anything in the world to be able to undo that hasty slap. With an oddly bereft sensation she watched as he crossed to the sofa where his jacket and tie were draped, longing to apologise, but too proud, as he pulled on the jacket and stuffed the tie into his pocket.

  ‘Spend the night here if you want to,’ he was saying. ‘It’s a littl
e late to think of driving back. And don’t worry,’ he added without emotion, ‘I won’t be here to bother you.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Wishing she could think of some way to stop him, she watched as he headed for the door. Then, her tone betraying the bitterness she felt, she added accusingly, ‘You’re going after Celine, aren’t you?’

  Matthew paused in the doorway and fixed her with an unforgiving eye. ‘I’m going where the hell I please,’ he informed her. ‘And it’s really none of your damned business.’ He strode across the hall without a backward glance, then paused to deliver his parting shot.

  ‘As I said, you can spend the night here… but kindly do me the infinite favour of being gone by tomorrow morning. And the even more infinite favour,’ he added for good measure, ‘of keeping your distance from me from now on!’

  After that, things went from bad to worse.

  Matthew was spending virtually no time at all at the house at St Albans. He was sleeping there during the week, presumably because of the convenient proximity of the house to his office, but he took none of his meals at home and Olivia was usually already in bed long before he showed up in the evenings.

  The weekends he spent in London—at the Regent’s Park flat with Celine, she guessed. For he made no secret of the fact that he was seeing the girl again. And, even if he had chosen to keep it quiet, Olivia had almost certain proof. On at least a dozen occasions over the last couple of weeks, Celine had phoned to the house, requesting as bold as brass, ‘I’d like to speak to Matthew, please.’

  No more ‘Mr Jordan’, Olivia thought with a strange, dull ache. Suddenly no one was even pretending to be civil any more.

  On the very rare occasions when Matthew’s and Olivia’s paths had crossed, they had barely acknowledged one another. ‘Celine called,’ she told him, hating the way it hurt her just to pronounce the name, feeling even more chilled by his uncaring answer.