by Fiona Brand
And arrange contraception.
The decision made, she forced herself to relax about the whole issue of pregnancy. There was nothing she could do until the morning. “I’m sorry we didn’t have a conversation before we made love, but I thought if we stopped you might...leave.” She lifted up, pressing against his chest, and boldly rolled on top. “It’s not as if you haven’t done that before.”
He tangled his hands in her hair, grinned lazily and pulled her mouth down to his. “You must be talking about leaving, since we’ve never made love before.”
He kissed her and she felt him stir against her stomach. He rolled until they were lying comfortably sprawled, side by side.
It occurred to Eva that she had never felt so relaxed or so comfortable with a man, and she went still inside at the stunning thought that since Kyle didn’t want kids then maybe, just maybe, he was the perfect man for her?
Just as long as she didn’t get pregnant.
* * *
Eva woke to the sound of the shower. She blinked at the enormous old-fashioned room with its striped brown wallpaper and bare boards. She was presently the sole occupant of the huge modern bed, which sat in the center of the room.
Kyle stepped back into the room, wearing dark pants and a shirt he was in the process of buttoning. Feeling exposed, Eva dragged the sheet up to her chin before attempting to drape the sheet around her like a sarong.
Kyle strapped on his watch. “We need to have a conversation before we go to work.”
Eva tried for a smile as if waking up in some man’s bed after spur-of-the-moment sex was a very normal thing for her. “A conversation would be good in just a few minutes.”
She found her overnight bag and lugged it through to the bathroom, which was still steamy from Kyle’s occupancy. She quickly showered and dressed. There was no dryer, so she had to be content with combing her hair out straight. She quickly made up her face then checked her appearance. When she saw a faint pink graze on her neck, where Kyle’s five-o’clock shadow must have scraped against her skin, the reality of what they’d done last night hit her.
When Kyle knocked on the door, she stuffed the sheet she’d worn into a laundry basket, hung up her towel and walked out into the hall. She was still barefoot, and Kyle, now fully dressed in a dark suit with a blue tie that made his eyes seem even bluer, towered over her.
She had hoped he might pull her into his arms and kiss her so they could both relax and have the discussion they needed to have, but he had his banker face on, cool, neutral and unreadable.
He glanced at his watch. “If we’re going to get married, we should make arrangements.”
Eva frowned at the way Kyle had casually leapfrogged the whole concept of a proposal. She guessed it wasn’t warranted in her case, because she was the one seeking the marriage. Technically, Kyle was doing her the favor, but he had checked his watch as if he didn’t even have time to talk about it.
Abruptly, she wondered if their lovemaking last night had meant anything at all to him. Annoyed enough to keep him waiting, Eva reached into her bag and found her cell, taking her time as she flicked through to her calendar, which she already knew was packed full of consultations that morning and clear for most of the afternoon, which meant she could book a doctor’s appointment directly after lunch.
His gaze shifted to her mouth, and for a shivering moment the sensual tension was alive between them.
“What’s wrong?”
“That would be the marriage thing. You haven’t exactly asked me.”
There was a vibrating silence. “I thought I had.”
With careful precision, Eva checked the next month’s appointments, of which, thankfully, there were a number. “I can recall something along the lines of a command, followed by a business-type proposition.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but technically it is a business proposition. If you become engaged to me, the marriage can be approved immediately, since Mario made it clear his first preference for a husband was a Messena. You should have access to your trust fund within a couple of weeks. After two years, you receive the full inheritance.”
When she continued to flick fruitlessly through her calendar, Kyle said something soft and curt beneath his breath. They both knew her answer had to be yes, but she was frustrated and terminally annoyed that after the searing intimacy they’d shared last night, he was now treating her as if she was an irritating pain in the rear again.
“Marry me, and you get the house.”
She clamped down on the automatic burst of outrage that Kyle clearly thought she was so materialistic that he could buy her with the house. “I thought you bought the house for yourself.”
He straightened away from the doorframe, but still didn’t enter the bedroom, his expression oddly cagey. “For the short term. It’s a good investment.”
It occurred to Eva that after the passionate lovemaking last night, Kyle was now doing his level best to create some distance. Maybe it was just a masculine desire to compartmentalize. Whatever it was, it did not work for her. The last thing she wanted was to be treated as some kind of sexual convenience who could be bought.
She drew a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll marry you. But what happened last night can’t happen again. If you want a marriage of convenience then it has to be on the same terms I offered the others.”
She hated saying the words; she had adored making love with Kyle, and she wanted to do it again but she couldn’t do so under these conditions.
The hum of a cell sounded from his jacket. The cool neutrality of his expression, the same kind of expression she imagined he used at the negotiating table, didn’t alter. “No sex. Agreed.”
Kyle reached for his cell and slid smoothly into a business conversation, but Eva refused to let herself get either angry or depressed about it. Last night had been special in a way she hadn’t expected, but this morning they had bounced back into the old, aggravated relationship. But perhaps the fact that Kyle had pressed her for marriage signaled that he wasn’t as indifferent as he seemed.
It shouldn’t be important, but she had to wonder exactly how Kyle had viewed their night together, her first and only night with a man. According to the gossip columnists, like all the ultrawealthy Messena and Atraeus men, he was hotly pursued and had enjoyed a number of brief liaisons. And, of course, she could not forget that he had been married. On his scale of things, having sex with her had probably barely registered.
Kyle terminated the call. “I’ll apply for the marriage license today. How about having the wedding the week after next? Thursday?”
The date he wanted was twelve days away. She had already checked her calendar, so she knew that day was free. “Are you sure it has to be a Thursday?” Who got married on a Thursday?
She did. Giddy pleasure fizzed through her, which was crazy and dangerous, because she could not afford to project any kind of romanticism into this business deal. She could not afford to make herself any more vulnerable to Kyle than she already was.
Kyle leaned against the door, his gaze lingering on the rumpled bed. “You can change the date if you want. I’ll just have to check in with my PA.”
“Thursday will do.” At least it would mean she would have more chance of getting a venue she liked, because all the good ones would be booked out on a weekend day.
“And Eva?”
She tried for her absentminded “I’m concentrating so hard on my schedule that I can’t hear you” look, although from the piercing quality of Kyle’s gaze she wasn’t entirely sure she pulled it off. “What?”
“We need to keep the wedding low-key.”
“What exactly do you mean by low-key?”
“I was thinking a registry office, two witnesses.”
She stiffened as it occurred to her that while Kyle hadn’t minded sleeping with her,
he was not entirely happy at being linked with her in marriage. That maybe marrying a lingerie model did not fit so well with his conservative banker’s image.
She tucked her cell back in her bag. “Maybe the word you should have used to describe the wedding is secret?”
“There’s not exactly time for a big wedding.”
“And why would we have one when it’s only for two years?”
A pulse started along the side of his jaw. “Precisely.”
She forced a smooth, professional smile. “No problem. We can get married quietly.”
But it would not be in a registry office, and it would not be a hole-in-the-corner affair, as if Kyle was ashamed to be marrying her!
Eight
Shortly after nine that morning, Kyle’s twin sisters, Sophie and Francesca, who had both recently returned from a buying trip for Sophie’s boutique in Australia, cornered him at his favorite café. It was a neat pincer operation that could only have been spearheaded by his mother, whom he had made the mistake of ringing before he had left the house for work. Sophie, who was normally sleek and unruffled, looked haphazard in jeans and a cotton sweater, as if she’d left the house in a hurry. Francesca, the more flamboyant of the two, looked pale and still half-asleep.
Kyle braced himself. Both twins worked some distance away, and thus they did not normally frequent this café, which was close to his bank. He loved his sisters, they had stood by him through thick and thin, but they had a take-charge streak and a facility for winkling out the truth that tended to make things worse. “What do you want?”
Sophie lifted a brow. “We’re family. Maybe we just saw you and wanted to say hello?”
Resigned, Kyle paid for his coffee and ordered a long black for Sophie, a latte for Francesca. “I repeat, what do you want?”
Sophie gave him a serene look. “Mom rang. We know you’re engaged to Eva—we want to know why. You know we love you, Kyle. We also love Eva. Just answer our questions and we’ll let you go.”
Kyle paid for the coffees and joined Sophie and Francesca, who had commandeered a corner table. “Maybe we fell in love.”
Neither of the twins showed a flicker of interest in his reply. Resigning himself to a longer conversation, Kyle sat back and worked on his poker face.
Their coffee arrived. After the waitress had gone, Francesca leaned forward and gave him a friendly smile. “You kissed Eva on the beach approximately eleven years ago, since then, nothing.” She made a slitting motion across her throat. “Niente.”
Kyle didn’t allow his sister’s Italian theatrics to do what they were designed to do—lure him into a discussion about his love life so they could really mess with his head. He had no idea how the twins had found out that piece of information, since he hadn’t told anyone, including his mother. To his certain knowledge, the only people who had known had been Mario, who was now dead, and Eva. “Since I know you’re not psychic, so you couldn’t have spoken to Mario, I’m guessing you talked to Eva.”
Sophie set her coffee down. “She rang me first thing. She needs a dress.”
Kyle pinched his nose. The phone had obviously been running red hot.
A dress. That did not sound like a registry office wedding. “And since you supply a lot of Eva’s brides, she called you.”
“It’s good business. I recommend Eva’s wedding planning. She recommends my dresses. It’s a marriage made in heaven,” Sophie said smoothly, “while this one, clearly, is not.”
Francesca put her coffee down with a snap. “We know Eva needs a husband to get her inheritance.”
The hum of conversation in the café abruptly dropped. Heads began to swivel. Kyle’s jaw compressed. “Eva told you that?”
Francesca blushed. “Not exactly. I saw Mario’s will on your coffee table in your apartment one day. I couldn’t help wondering why you even had a copy, so—”
“You read a confidential document.”
Francesca’s brows jerked together. “Maybe you shouldn’t have left it out where just anyone could read it.”
Kyle could have pointed out that his apartment wasn’t exactly a public area, but he recognized a blind ally when he saw one. A little desperately he tried to recall the original thread of the conversation. “The reason I’m marrying Eva is private and, uh, personal.”
A hot flash of just how private and personal they had gotten last night momentarily distracted him. He dragged at his tie, which suddenly felt a little tight, then realized his mistake when Sophie noticed the faint red mark on the side of his neck.
Sophie blinked. “You’re sleeping with her. That changes things.”
Francesca stared at him as if he’d just grown horns. “You’re Eva’s legal trustee and you’re sleeping with her? Aside from being sleazy, isn’t that against the law?”
Kyle kept a firm grip on his temper. “I’m not responsible for Eva. I’m a trustee of her adoptive father’s will, that’s an entirely different thing—”
Francesca gave him a horrified look. “Then she’s pregnant.”
“She can’t be pregnant.” Although the thought hit him like a hammer blow, despite Eva’s confidence that she couldn’t be.
He took a mouthful of coffee, which he suddenly needed. Although, Eva had not seemed to be worried about the possibility of a pregnancy, so he assumed that, like a lot of women, she was on the pill or had taken some other precaution.
Another thought hit him out of the blue as the strange dichotomy of making love with a sophisticated woman who had been at turns fiery and passionate then oddly awkward and uncertain registered. He had assumed the reason Eva had been awkward and uncertain was that she hadn’t made love for a very long time.
Either that, or she was a virgin.
He drew a long breath and let it out slowly. He knew that Eva had never had a live-in lover; that was common family knowledge. They had all assumed it was because Mario was so old-fashioned and that Eva, out of respect for her adoptive father, was preserving an outward show of chastity. It had never occurred to any of them, least of all, Kyle, that she had been doing exactly what it appeared; keeping herself for marriage.
Although, technically, she hadn’t saved herself for her wedding night.
“So this is going to be a real marriage?” Sophie picked up her bag, which she’d placed on the floor.
Kyle frowned as Sophie extracted her phone and made a call, speaking in the kind of low, flat voice that could have been lifted straight out of some B-grade thriller. Apparently, something was green, not red, the 10-33 was over but in general it all still qualified as Alpha Charlie Foxtrot.
Kyle recognized code when he heard it, even if it was a crazy mix of the standard radio language used by the military for decades and the 10 Code that was in popular use by police and emergency services. At a strong guess she was relaying information to their mom, who had spent time volunteering for the local ambulance service as one of their call operators. “If you hand the phone to me, I can speak to Mom direct.”
Sophie’s gave him a faintly irritated look. “No need. She’ll be in Auckland by this afternoon. You can talk to her at my apartment, since both you and Eva are invited to dinner at my place tonight. There’s a lot to decide in a short time frame.”
“Not that much, since the wedding is in twelve day’s time.”
Francesca gave him a pitying look. “You’re marrying a wedding planner. They’re Type As. And you know, Eva, she’s like a double A.”
Sophie set her cup down. “That means perfectionist. Aggressive. Even if you got married in a registry office, which will never happen because I know what the dress is going to be, it would be the most perfect registry office wedding imaginable. But, like I said, it’s not a registry office, so you should brace yourself.”
Kyle groaned inwardly. When he’d left Eva that morning,
he’d been relieved that he’d gotten her to agree to the marriage. His concern had been to get the marriage done quickly and quietly. He thought he’d managed to convey that to Eva, but something must have gotten lost in translation, because now all hell was breaking loose.
But now he could see he had made a big mistake in not factoring in the impact this would have on his family. Mistakenly, he had assumed that his mother, who had been pressurizing him to think about marriage again and find someone “nice,” would be happy that he had finally decided to step back into relationship waters again.
The certainty that Eva had been a virgin when they had made love hit him anew. The anomaly of Eva choosing to give herself to him after years of celibacy and before they had even agreed to a marriage pointed to only one clear answer.
She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.
An odd tension dissipated at the thought. At the same time, Kyle was aware that hell would probably freeze over before Eva would admit feeling anything at all for him. But then Mario had given him the distinct impression that Eva had suffered a lot of emotional difficulties as a child. He had assumed there was abuse in her past and had done what Mario requested and left her alone. He hadn’t pried into Eva’s history, but now that they were getting married, he resolved to find out exactly what had gone wrong.
A part of him was fiercely glad that Eva hadn’t slept around, that she had waited and given herself to him. But he was aware that he would have to step carefully. He was cool, logical and disciplined. Eva was gorgeous and passionate, like rich, decadent chocolate, meant to be enjoyed in small, ruthlessly measured doses.
