The Marriage Solution

by Helen Brooks

  This was crazy… But the thought couldn't compete with what his mouth and body were doing to hers. Sensation after sensation washed across her closed eyes as a trembling warmth shivered through her limbs. He was good at this, oh, he was very, very good, she thought helplessly as his fingers explored the length of her spine in a sensuous, warm caress that made her aware of every inch of her body, her breasts heavy and full as they pressed against his hard chest and her lower stomach achingly hot.

  'So perfect…' As his mouth took hers in a deeper, penetrating kiss he moved her more firmly into his body, his arousal hard and dominant against the softness of her hips, leaving her in no doubt as to what she was doing to him. 'Now do you doubt it?' He moved her slightly from him as he spoke to look down into her face, his eyes glittering. 'We would be good together, Katie, I know it.'

  She came back to reality with a hard jolt as she opened her eyes to stare into the dark, triumphant face in front of her. All this had been a cold-blooded exercise in proving a point? But of course, what else? And she had fallen into his arms like a ripe plum? Self-disgust was bitter on her tongue as she adjusted her clothes with shaking hands, her cheeks burning.

  'Do you doubt it?' he asked again, his voice almost expressionless now as she glared at him before turning away, mortally embarrassed.

  'I don't know.' She shook her head blindly as she walked over to the fire, holding out her hands to the warm blaze as she kept her face in profile to him. 'I've never—'

  She stopped abruptly and then forced herself to go on. He had to know, after all. He'd probably assumed that she had slept with other boyfriends, that she was at least a little experienced. 'I'm not used to the physical side of a relationship,' she managed stiffly, her face hotter than the fire now. 'I've nothing to judge by.'

  There was utter silence in the room for several moments and then he spoke again, his voice quiet and low. 'Does that mean what I think it means?'

  'Yes.' She wanted to curl up and die with embarrassment but the need to justify her statement was paramount. 'And not because I haven't had offers,' she said tightly. 'I just haven't happened to meet anyone I liked enough, that's all, and for the last few years my job hasn't left me much time for socialising.'

  'You don't have to apologise—'

  'I'm not!' She interrupted his quiet voice sharply as she turned to face him, expecting mockery, contempt, even derision, but the hard face was completely expressionless— curiously so. 'I'm not,' she reiterated more quietly. 'But you're used to more experienced women. I wouldn't be able to…' Her voice trailed off as she found herself completely unable to finish what she wanted to say.

  'I get the message.' His voice was very dry. 'You think I'm looking for a cross between a performing chimpanzee and a modern-day Jezebel between the sheets, is that it?'

  'Well, aren't you?' His cool composure was the last straw. 'From what I've heard—' She stopped abruptly, aware that she had been about to be less than tactful.

  ' 'From what you've heard'?' he repeated softly—so softly that she was fooled into thinking that he was unconcerned until she looked into his eyes. 'And what exactly have you heard, Katie?' he asked grimly, his voice quiet and even. 'And who from?'

  'It isn't important.' She shrugged with a lightness she was far from feeling.

  'The hell it isn't.' He moved the two steps to the fireplace in a moment, his face tight with controlled rage. 'Someone has been filling your mind with stories and I would like to know who.'

  'It isn't like that.' She raised her gaze to his as she spoke, her hazel eyes jade-green in the dim light. 'And you have no right to question me like this, no right at all,' she added quietly as she forced herself to stand her ground and not flinch away from his rage. 'You're a millionaire and people are bound to be interested in your private life. It's human nature.'

  'Jennifer…' He breathed the name between clenched teeth as he looked down into her face. 'Of course, I might have known.'

  'I didn't say—'

  'You didn't have to.' He nodded grimly. 'And you believed every word which came from such a reliable source?' he asked cuttingly, his voice icy and his narrowed eyes tight on her face.

  'Look, this is ridiculous.' She sat down in the chair as her legs began to tremble, taking a deep breath as she did so and forcing her voice to remain calm. 'It doesn't matter one way or the other, does it? I can't marry you; you must know that. We barely know each other and, anyway, the whole thing is…immoral.'

  ' 'Immoral'?' he repeated savagely. She watched him take an almost visible hold on his emotions as he glared down at her, his eyes glittering hotly, and when he next spoke his voice was cool and controlled, only his eyes betraying his inner fury. 'Hardly, Katie,' he said softly. 'People marry for much less reason than we have, I do assure you. There are still countries where arranged marriages are the normal procedure and the rate of success is very high, much higher than in the Western world where so-called 'love' dominates the game.'

  'You don't think it's right to marry for love?' she asked quietly, appalled by his cynicism.

  'I didn't say that.' Something flickered in the back of his eyes and was gone. 'But love is a transient thing, all too often here today and gone tomorrow. If you married me I can assure you that I would never look at another woman and I would expect absolute fidelity from you in return. I can make you that promise in the cold light of day without any messy emotion gilding my words. You would gain immediate solvency for yourself and your father and my protection both physically and financially for you and yours for the rest of your life.'

  'You really are serious,' she whispered slowly. She moistened suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue and as his eyes followed the gesture, a dark heat flaring briefly in their grey depths, she felt her stomach tighten in response to his desire. The full enormity of what marriage would mean, in all its intimacy, flooded her senses and she shut her eyes for a moment as its rawness overwhelmed her.

  'Oh, I'm serious, Katie.' Her eyes snapped open to meet his cool, sardonic gaze and their eyes held for a full ten seconds before she broke the spell, lowering her head quickly as she took a shuddering breath. 'I've never been more so,' he added.

  How could he be so cool, so unemotional about it? she asked herself weakly in the few seconds before she raised her head again. He was treating the whole thing almost like a business deal, a clinical merger. Even her father had more emotion than this man. And however he dressed the proposal up he was buying her as a breeding machine for his offspring. No more, no less.

  She steeled herself to look at him calmly and keep her voice steady. 'I'm sorry, Carlton, but I can't accept your offer, generous though it is,' she said stiffly. 'And I'm sure you will be able to find someone far more suitable for the perpetuating of the Reef name.'

  Her father would understand, he would, she told herself desperately as she met the cool grey gaze that was carefully blank. He wouldn't expect her to make such a sacrifice… would he? 'I really think I'd better go now,' she added uncomfortably when he still didn't speak. 'I'd like to visit Dad tonight.'

  'Of course.' She could read nothing that indicated his feelings in either his face or voice; they could have been discussing the weather a few minutes previously instead of the joining together of their bodies and future in matrimony. 'Would you like me to drop you at the hospital or at the house?' he asked quietly as he walked across the room and opened the door, his body relaxed and controlled.

  'The house, please.' She smiled nervously, but as he opened the door and stood for her to pass through the grey gaze didn't centre on her face. 'I want to pick up my car.'

  The drive home was the sort of unmitigated nightmare Katie wouldn't have wished on her worst enemy and the tense, electric atmosphere in the car wasn't helped by her growing panic at the thought of what she had refused. They had been given a way out, something she had imagined impossible just days earlier, and she had thrown it away without even considering it.

  She sneaked a quick glance at Car
lton's harsh, dark profile from under her eyelashes and her stomach churned painfully. But she'd had no choice. To marry him, to actually marry him? She couldn't.

  She glanced at his large, capable hands on the steering-wheel, the dark body-hairs disappearing into his sleeves, and again that little thrill of something hot and alien shivered down her spine. What would it be like to be made love to by such a man?

  She caught the thought firmly and locked it away before it could develop. She would never know. She didn't want to know. But even as she chastised herself the elusive smell of his aftershave was doing crazy things to her hormones.

  'Goodbye, Katie.' He had left the car, intending to open her door, but she was too quick for him, almost falling out of the luxurious interior in her eagerness to escape before he could touch her. He paused to lean against the bonnet as she backed away towards the steps, his face cool and sardonic and his eyes veiled. 'The offer still stands, you know.' His voice was cold and formal. 'I'd prefer you to think about it for a day or so before you make a definite decision. It would be advantageous to both of us.'

  'I—'

  He interrupted her by dint of raising one very autocratic hand. 'Goodbye, Katie.' The dismissal was very definite.

  She watched him slide back into the Mercedes as she stood at the bottom of the steps and although the air was already redolent with the tang of frost she still stood there long after the car had vanished, her mind whirling in a maelstrom of fear and excitement and confusion. Just a few days ago she had never heard of Carlton Reef. Her normal, safe little world had been ticking on in the same old way, no big highs and no lows.

  She turned to look up at the house, mellow and lovingly familiar in the dusky light of the dying day. And now this could go, along with everything she had always thought of as theirs. She shook her head slowly. And she still wasn't convinced her father was going to get well. She put her hands up to her head, feeling as though it would burst with the force of her thoughts.

  'No more thinking.' Her breath was a white cloud in the bitingly cold air as she spoke out loud into the silent, snow-covered evening. 'Just one step at a time.'

  Her father was alone, dozing in an armchair next to his bed, when she reached the hospital half an hour later. She had been unable to see Jennifer's car in the car park but as it had been almost full she hadn't paid too much attention.

  'Katie?' David White opened tired eyes as she sat down quietly next to him. The sight of him rent her heart. For the first time that she could remember he looked every inch his age, his big, broad-shouldered body strangely vulnerable in the old, thin hospital blanket that someone had tucked round his waist, and his head bowed, as though the effort to hold it upright was too much.

  'Hi, Dad.' As she bent to kiss him she prepared herself, subconsciously, for the usual turning away of his head, but tonight it didn't happen. Instead she found her kiss accepted, welcomed even as his mouth met hers, and the shock robbed her of conversation as she leant back in her own chair. 'How are you feeling?'

  'How do you think I'm feeling?' The irritable, exasperated voice was the same, however. 'These damn nurses are forever fussing in and out; it's like Piccadilly Circus in here most of the time. How- they expect anyone to get better in this place is beyond me—you need an iron constitution just to survive.'

  'Well, you'll be fine, then.' She smiled at him as he glared his irritation. 'Did Jennifer come in to see you?'

  He indicated a bowl of grapes on the top of the hospital locker with magnificent disgust. 'She stayed long enough to give me those and then went off in a huff because I told her what to do with 'em,' he said testily. 'If she had to bring anything at all a half-bottle of Scotch would have gone down well.'

  Katie closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for patience. 'And you needn't look like that,' he continued flatly. 'You know as well as I do that the only reason she came was out of duty and because you'd badgered her to make the effort.'

  'Dad—'

  'I know Jennifer, lass.' The pale blue eyes were cynical now. 'And there's no need to make any excuses for her. Unfortunately she inherited most of me and very little of her mother, unlike you.' She stared at him in surprise, her mouth falling open in a little O. 'And she's astute enough to know I read her like a book,' he added quietly. 'Jennifer will always do unto others before they do unto her, whereas you…' His voice faded as he shook his grey head slowly. 'You worry me to death.'

  'I worry you?' For a moment she thought she was hearing things. 'Why do I worry you?'

  'No matter.' He waved his hand at her, clearly embarrassed, his voice gruff and his face scowling. 'How did you get on with Carlton? Did he find anything of interest?'

  'Well…' She hesitated, unsure of how much to say.

  'I feel in my bones there is a solution, Katie.' It pained her to see the eagerness in his face, the light of hope in the tired blue eyes. 'And if there is one Carlton is the man to find it He's one of the hardest men I've ever come across but he's fair. Oh, yes, he's fair,' he added almost to himself, nodding with his thoughts. 'He'll find a way out.'

  How was she going to tell him? She bit her lip as her stomach turned over. It would have to be now. He would know sooner or later anyway and it would be better hearing it from her than from someone else.

  'I was born in that house, you know, lass.' He raised his eyes to hers again and she was shocked to see the suspicion of tears in their watery brightness. 'Your grandparents were never abound much, always partying here and there or away out of the country, but although I didn't have any brothers or sisters I was content with my nanny, living quietly at home. That house sort of became father and mother to me, I suppose.'

  'Your mother understood that; yes…' he nodded again '…she understood. And first Jennifer and then you were born under its roof.'

  'And here was I thinking you weren't sentimental,' she teased softly, taking refuge in lightness as the ache in her chest threatened to spill out in tears, and when a knock at the door sounded a second later, followed by the entrance of two of her father's old cronies, she had never been more pleased to see anyone.

  She sat with the three men for a few minutes before leaving, promising her father that she would call in the next afternoon, and walked out to the car park feeling as though she had just received a death sentence.

  She knew what she had to do; she had known it all along, really, from the moment Carlton had made his amazing offer. If her father lost everything, if he was stripped of even his pride and dignity along with the house, he would give up and die. She knew it. And Carlton knew it too.

  She remembered his face in the study and clenched her hands together in tight fists as she took big gulps of the icy cold air. He was attracted to her physically, he wanted a certain type of wife quickly, and she fitted the bill. And he was prepared to pay an exorbitant amount of money for the privilege.

  She walked slowly to her car, her head spinning. Money was no object to him; he could probably buy and sell them ten times over without even noticing. But it was all so coldblooded.

  She sat in the driving seat without starting the engine, her mind numb and desperate. Cold-blooded and inevitable. Could she go through with it? She sat for a moment more before starting the engine suddenly, her face white but her mouth determined. Of course she could. There was no other choice. She would face this as she had faced all the other twists and turns of life over the last thirteen years and draw on her own strength and determination to get her through.

  But Carlton Reef? She pushed the sudden panic and fear aside with a ruthlessness her father would have been proud of. He was a man, just a man, whatever her fanciful mind tried to make of him. This feeling that he was different in some way, that he could affect her as no other man ever could or would, was merely the result of long, sleepless nights worrying about her father and their financial catastrophe, of trying to find a way out of the maze of problems and difficulties that formed a living nightmare whether she was asleep or awake.

  And
now she had a solution. She negotiated the car out of the hospital gates as her stomach turned over. And she would take it without flinching, with no more hesitation, because lifelines such as this were only thrown once, and if the dark waters of despair and misery closed over her father's head because she had let her fingers slip on the rope she would never forgive herself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  'Carlton?' She had rung him as soon as she'd got home. There was no point in delaying the decision and she didn't want him to visit her father and tell him the truth. 'It's me—Katie.'

  'Katie?' The deep voice held a note of concern. 'Is anything wrong? Your father is all right?'

  'I've changed my mind.' There was a blank silence at the other end of the phone and, after waiting a moment, she plunged on, her voice trembling and her nerves quivering with a sudden fear that it was too late, that he'd already regretted what was, after all, an amazingly generous offer. 'If you still want to marry me, like you said this afternoon, then—' She took a deep breath and prayed her voice wouldn't betray the thick panic that was consuming her. 'Then I agree.'

  She waited with bated breath for his reaction and couldn't have explained even to herself what she wanted it to be. Just hearing his voice sent shivers down her spine.

  'Why?'

  'Why?' she repeated. His voice had been strange, thick and husky, and now she felt a sick dread that he had thought again, and had realised that he was giving far too much and receiving very little in return. He could have almost any woman he wanted; it had been madness to think he was for real. She should have known—

  'Why have you changed your mind?' he asked in his usual voice now, the tone slightly wry and definitely cool. 'I presume you've been to visit your father tonight?' he added quietly, as though the two things were linked.

  'I've just got back.' There was no point in lying. If this crazy idea was going to get off the ground, and it didn't seem too promising at the moment, then at the very least she was going to have to be completely honest about everything. 'He wasn't too good,' she continued painfully, 'and I don't want… I don't want him to lose this house,' she said slowly. 'It means far more to him than you could realise, more than even I knew. I'm frightened he won't get better if he has to see it go,' she added when he still didn't say anything, her voice very small. 'In fact I'm sure he won't.'