The Playboy's Proposal

‘Can I help you with that, Agnes?’ she asked in a voice that thankfully gave away nothing of her inner turmoil.

The housekeeper smiled at her. ‘Thank you, my dear. If you’d just move that vase to one side… There.’ She set the tray down whilst Kathryn found another spot for the vase. When she straightened up, she glanced at Drew. ‘Have you eaten, Mr Templeton?’

‘Not since this morning, Agnes,’ Drew admitted.

It was a cue for Kathryn to shoot Joel a mocking look. She might be all of a twitter inside, but not for the world would she let anyone know it, least of all the cause. Keeping up the appearance of normality was suddenly very important. Having started out flirtatiously, she couldn’t now back off without giving too much away.

‘He said we couldn’t spare the time. Food was weighed in the balance against your temper, and found wanting,’ she taunted gently, not averse to saying what she thought. She was here to do him a favour. Her livelihood didn’t rest upon his goodwill. Besides, she felt the need to goad him a little, because the best form of defence was often attack. Until she had had time to think, it seemed the most appropriate thing to do.

Joel’s response was to raise an eyebrow, but he said nothing to her, merely turned to his housekeeper. ‘You’d better bring dinner forward, Agnes. I’d hate to see such a beautiful woman fainting away.’

‘Very good, Master Joel,’ Agnes agreed. ‘I’ve put Mr Templeton in his usual room, and I thought it best to put the young lady in the rose room.’

Joel’s expression became wry, but he smiled fondly at the elderly woman. ‘Quite right. The rose room does have some of the best views.’

‘And it’s on the other side of the house from you,’ Agnes added pointedly, causing Kathryn to hastily smother a laugh. ‘Now, if you’d give me a hand with the cases, Mr Templeton, I can get the food on the table sooner,’ she declared in her motherly fashion, and bustled out again.

‘Master Joel?’ Kathryn asked in amusement, after Drew had obediently followed the other woman from the room. She had recovered her equilibrium, and felt more able to hold her own with him now that her pulse had steadied.

Joel pulled a wry face. ‘Agnes used to be my nanny. She’s been with my family for many years, and nobody wanted to see her go, so her position has changed several times. She was companion to my mother before becoming my housekeeper. She’s more like one of the family now.’

Kathryn felt a curl of warmth grow inside her at his explanation. It showed, she was glad to notice, that there was a softer side to him. ‘I like that.’ Her grandfather, her mother’s father, treated his servants as something below his notice. His only interest in their welfare was in how it would affect him.

‘You approve?’

‘I always approve of kindness. My grandfather would call it foolish sentimentality,’ she admitted regretfully. ‘You don’t keep somebody on when they’re past their usefulness.’

‘Your grandfather, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, is a fool.’

Kathryn smiled wryly. ‘Blunt, but true. He’s a cold man. I’ll never understand how my grandmother came to marry him, but it’s no mystery to me why she left. I’m very like her, so I’m told.’

Joel raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘He won’t have a picture of her in the house,’ she explained evenly. ‘She humiliated him, you see, by leaving. I used to think the reason he didn’t like me was because I reminded him of her.’ Childhood visits to her grandfather’s house had been far from pleasant.

‘But you don’t think that now?’

She smiled and shook her head. ‘The truth is it isn’t in him to love or be loved.’

‘Whereas you are eminently loveable,’ he declared with a decidedly rakish gleam lighting up his eyes again.

Barely recovered from the last time, the nerves in Kathryn’s stomach quivered in reaction, but she laughed and shot him an old-fashioned look. ‘Do you think flattery is going to get you somewhere?’ she asked, sounding far too breathless to her own ears, but thankfully Joel didn’t appear to notice.

His grin was charmingly lopsided. ‘A man has to live in hope.’

Kathryn groaned silently. Everything about him pleased her rioting senses. It was amazing she was still on her feet, considering her knees felt like jelly. Still she battled on. Tipping her head to one side, she eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Are you really as good as they say you are?’

He placed a hand on his chest, whilst a smile flickered round the edges of his mouth. ‘In all humility, I couldn’t possibly say.’

Oh, Lord, just let me get through the next few minutes without turning into a gibbering idiot, she prayed silently, as the power of his charm hit her yet more devastatingly. ‘Meaning, if I want to know, I’ll have to find out for myself?’

His shrug was careless, but his eyes glittered invitingly. ‘There’s nothing to compare with first-hand knowledge. You might find it…interesting.’

She was sure she would. This was seduction on the grand scale, and, despite her floundering senses, she met it with a gurgling laugh. ‘I’m sure it would be educational, but there’s always the danger of the commodity being overpriced.’

‘Trust me,’ Joel urged throatily. ‘I always do my very best to give value for money.’

‘Hmm,’ she murmured consideringly, whilst the nerves in her stomach fluttered around like demented butterflies. Oh, he was good. He was very good. All he’d done was utter a few innuendoes and she was quivering like a jelly because her mind had filled in the gaps with vivid pictures that definitely needed censoring.

‘I’ve a feeling the woman who mashed your computer felt just a little short-changed,’ she observed ironically, and Joel’s smile vanished like magic. She blinked, surprised to find she had hit a nerve. So the man was vulnerable after all.

‘She took the relationship too seriously,’ he declared shortly, and Kathryn’s heart lurched as she took in the message. She knew it wasn’t specifically aimed at her, but it might as well have been. Her nerves steadied as she heeded the warning shot across her bows.

‘Perhaps she didn’t intend to. Perhaps she fell in love with you,’ she suggested, and her lips parted on a soft gasp as her statement brought a chilly glitter to his eyes.

‘I didn’t ask her to,’ he added grimly, and she laughed chidingly,

‘Nobody asks to fall in love, they just do,’ she argued, stating what most people accepted as universal, but Joel looked at her steadily.

‘I don’t, and I never intend to. I make no secret of it.’

Kathryn felt a chill wind brush past her and shivered faintly because he had sounded so adamant. ‘How can you be so certain you’ll never fall in love?’ she asked curiously. It seemed to her a rash statement to make.

‘Because in order for it to happen you have to believe in it, and I don’t believe in love,’ he told her firmly, but she saw the flaw in his argument immediately.

‘You love Agnes,’ she said softly, and his eyes narrowed.

‘That’s different. The kind of love we’re talking about between a man and a woman doesn’t exist.’

The flat statement, in direct opposition to her own belief, couldn’t pass without argument. ‘There are countless millions of people out there who would disagree with you. They can’t all be wrong.’

He dismissed them, and her, with a shrug. ‘If they want to believe in fairy tales, I won’t stop them.’

Kathryn shook her head sadly. ‘You know, beliefs like that are likely to get shot down in flames. It wouldn’t surprise me if one day love hit you right between the eyes and proved you wrong.’

Joel laughed out loud, his good humour restored as quickly as it had departed. ‘I won’t be holding my breath. And don’t you let those rose-coloured glasses of yours trip you up. I wouldn’t want to see all that beauty spoilt.’

Kathryn smiled at him confidently. ‘It won’t be. You see, I happen to believe the man for me is out there somewhere. I just haven’t met him yet.’

‘And in the meantime?’

She laughed, her shrug a masterful touch. ‘In the meantime, I enjoy searching, because there are interesting stops along the way.’

He stepped heart-stoppingly closer. ‘Like coming here to sort out my computer?’

His closeness didn’t make thinking easier. Still, she managed to find a chirpy reply. ‘Exactly. If I hadn’t said I’d help Drew, who knows when I would have met another Big Bad Wolf?’

‘You’re not afraid of me?’

‘Should I be? Do you intend to devour me?’ she challenged scoffingly, knowing she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him.

The fires in his eyes sent out sparks. ‘The idea becomes more enticing by the minute. Doesn’t it?’ he charged softly, the question heavy with meaning, and her breath caught as her stomach twisted with a powerful surge of desire.

Her lips trembled faintly, drawing his eyes. Crazy as it was, her flesh tingled as if he had actually touched her. Warning bells went off in her head. ‘I think this is where I should protest that we have only just met.’

Reaching out, he drew a finger lightly across her lips, setting up a tingle she felt to her core. ‘Maybe we have, but it took only a second for both of us to know we want each other.’

Without warning he had brought the unspoken out into the open and her brows rose. Instinct put her on the defensive. ‘Do we know it?’ she charged mockingly, and he nodded.

‘Oh, yes, and I give you fair warning. When I want something, I usually get it.’

Her throat closed over and she had to swallow hard to answer. ‘It never does anyone any good to get everything they want,’ she pointed out with creditable calmness.

His smile was pure seduction. ‘Resist it if you want. It makes victory even sweeter.’

Her heart tripped. Like a big cat sensing its prey’s vulnerability, he was trying to outflank her. She couldn’t allow that to happen. ‘Such confidence! You could lose, you know.’

‘I could, but I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that I don’t.’

Kathryn gasped. ‘Your arrogance is incredible!’

‘My lovemaking is better,’ he returned sexily, and sent her defences scattering to the four winds.

Wow! This man had all the weapons, and then some. Taking a steadying breath, Kathryn urged her fluttering heart to be still. Drew was right; this man was dangerous. If he could make her defences crumble without really trying, what would happen if and when he did try? It was more than time to beat a strategic retreat.

‘I’ll have to take your word on that. For the moment I’m more interested in freshening up before dinner. Agnes has put me in the rose room, isn’t that right?’ she said, with all the composure she could muster.

‘This time I’ll let you run away, but it won’t always be so. Left at the top of the stairs and follow your nose. You can’t miss it. No doubt Agnes will have fitted the steel door by now in an attempt to keep me out,’ he added sardonically, and Kathryn left the room feeling as if she had been put through a wringer.

Events had taken an unexpected turn. This was not how she had foreseen the weekend going. Joel had turned her world on its head, and she found herself in a situation entirely new to her. Joel Kendrick wanted her and she wanted him. The problem was, she had never entered into a relationship that had no happy ending in sight. And that, if she responded to the way he could make her feel, was what she would have to do. He had made that very clear. From nowhere, she found herself with some serious decisions to make, and very little time to make them.

CHAPTER TWO

UPSTAIRS in her bedroom, Kathryn sank down onto the bed and gave her wobbly legs a much needed rest. She felt shattered and intoxicated in equal quantities. Nothing could have adequately prepared her for meeting Joel Kendrick. No advance warnings could have equipped her for the reality. She had thought to have some fun, and certainly hadn’t expected to be attracted to him so strongly, or to have that attraction reciprocated.

What she felt went way beyond anything in her experience. She could honestly say she had never felt such an intense physical attraction. It was there between them like a living, breathing thing. What did she do about it? That was the question. She knew what Joel wanted, but what did she want?

To have an affair with Joel would no doubt be an incredible experience, but it would break her own rules, because if he were to be believed—and she had no reason to doubt him—there was no future in it. She might like to flirt, but she wasn’t a fool. She never went further unless she thought there might be a future with the man.

Only, there was a part of her which said this time was special. That she would be a fool to turn it down. Yet if she took what was on offer, that would be doing what Drew had said, and throwing herself to the wolf. Would being part of his life for a brief time be worth it? Certainly she wouldn’t know unless she tried it. But she was only here for two days. Two days wouldn’t even amount to an affair. It would be, at best, a brief encounter. Surely she had more respect for herself than to give in to her passions for a mere forty-eight hours?

With a heavy sigh she fell back onto the bed, knowing the answer. Common sense said it had to be no. She mustn’t allow herself more than a brief flirtation. At least she had an inkling of just how dangerous he could be to her if she wasn’t careful. She was going to have to keep her wits about her, for she didn’t doubt for a moment that he would take advantage of their mutual attraction. His reputation was proof enough. Pride dictated that she must not become his next conquest, no matter how strong the pull on her senses.

A soft knock on the door brought her up on her elbow.

‘Who is it?’

‘Drew,’ the muffled voice responded, and she grimaced, knowing what was coming.

‘Come in,’ she invited, scrambling to the side of the bed and swinging her legs down.

Drew looked at her closely as he entered and shut the door, and she wondered what he expected to see.

‘It’s OK, you don’t have to say it, I know,’ she declared wryly, hoping to head him off at the pass. No such luck.

Her cousin came and sat beside her, concern heavy on his brow. ‘What were you thinking of?’ he challenged despairingly, and that brought a smile to her lips.

‘It wasn’t the sort of situation where thinking came into it,’ she returned wryly. She had simply responded to the signals coming off Joel, and her own rioting senses.

‘Kathy, this man could break your heart.’

Reaching for Drew’s hand, she squeezed it reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to let him. I have no intention of being seduced.’

‘But you are attracted to him?’ Drew persisted, and she shrugged fatalistically.

‘I won’t deny it. He’s a very attractive man. But I’m not stupid, Drew. I know where to draw the line.’

He didn’t look totally convinced, but grudgingly accepted what she said with a proviso. ‘Just make sure Joel knows where the line is, too.’

Kathryn stood up and tugged him to his feet. ‘Oh, I intend to. Now, get out of here and let me freshen up. I’m starving, and the smells wafting up are making my stomach rumble. Besides, if I’m quick, I could get a look at that computer before dinner. The sooner I start, the sooner I can be finished and on my way home.’

That clearly met with his approval, and he went without further comment, leaving Kathryn to sigh heavily. Then, because she was a practical person, not given to languishing on thoughts of what might have been, she gathered together her sponge bag and a change of clothes and went in search of the bathroom.

As it turned out, Kathryn didn’t get an opportunity to look over Joel’s computer until after dinner. When she went back downstairs, this time dressed in a long-sleeved holly-green dress made of soft wool, she met Agnes coming from the dining room.

‘My, don’t you look nice this evening, miss,’ the housekeeper declared with a warm smile.

Kathryn smiled back. ‘Thank you, Agnes. Something smells good.’

‘Lancashire hotpot. Master Joel’s favourite. The table’s set, so it won’t be more than a few minutes now. If you go into the sitting room, you can help yourself to a drink before dinner,’ Agnes suggested, pointing to a door on the other side of the hall.

Realising her hope of looking over the computer had to be abandoned, Kathryn obediently made her way to the sitting room. It was a pleasant room, with comfortable sofas and armchairs surrounding the brick fireplace where another fire blazed cheerfully. Drinks were set on a tray on the sideboard, and Kathryn helped herself to a small Martini. If she wanted to get some work done later, drinking too much now would be inadvisable.

She was studying a group of photos on the mantel-piece when a subtle shift of the air told her Joel had come into the room. She had never been so attuned to a man that she could sense his presence even at a distance. It was uncanny, and she didn’t know quite what to make of it. Turning, she found him just inside the door, studying her with eyes that gleamed appreciatively. In response, her nerves took a tiny leap and set her pulse throbbing. He looked magnificent, and her heart did a crazy lurch as her own eyes ate him up. The white silk shirt and black trousers he now wore barely seemed to tame him. He moved, coming towards her with a lithe, pantherish grace that tightened her stomach with desire.

‘You look good enough to eat,’ he murmured, his gaze setting her nerves alight with such disconcerting ease it was a wonder she didn’t melt on the spot.

‘I thought hotpot was your favourite,’ she countered, far too breathlessly for comfort, and he was smiling softly as he looked deeply into her eyes.

‘When it comes to food, yes. However, the appetite you arouse will settle for nothing less than your presence in my bed.’

It was heady stuff on an empty stomach, and she groaned silently, aware that her body responded to every soft word with a will of its own. Still, she had made her decision and would stick to it.

‘If you check with the management, I think you’ll find I’m not on the menu,’ she returned smoothly, watching the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when his smile deepened.

He bent towards her confidingly. ‘Could you really watch me starve?’ he taunted softly, and she raised an eyebrow quizzically.

‘Somehow, I don’t think you’d starve for long,’ she quipped, and strangely enough it hurt to say it, which was odd, for she had always known she was not important to him. She was no more than a passing fancy because she was here.

‘Ah, but sometimes hunger can only be satisfied by one thing—or one woman,’ Joel insisted softly.

Kathryn took a steadying sip of her drink, fearing he was right. He had come out with all guns blazing this evening, and the attack on her defences were definitely weakening them. She needed the drink to strengthen her resolve.

‘But hunger is such a contrary thing. Now it wants one thing; next time it wants something completely different,’ she countered, but he shook his head.

‘Not always. Sometimes it takes a very long time for hunger to be satisfied.’

‘Just not for ever,’ Kathryn shot back pointedly, and he acknowledged the hit with an inclination of his head.

‘No, not for ever. Everything diminishes in time,’ Joel agreed as he wandered over to the drinks tray and poured himself a small whisky. Sipping it, he looked at her over the glass.

‘There is an exception, though I hesitate to mention it, knowing your opinion of love,’ Kathryn reminded him, and he lowered the glass.

‘Do you really think this love you believe in lasts for ever?’ he asked curiously.

‘It can do, but it has to be worked at. You can’t ever take it for granted, but the more you feed it the more it grows,’ she said with utter conviction, and that brought a tiny frown to his forehead.

‘You can say that, even though your own grandparents’ marriage failed?’

She sighed. He had to pick on the one failure to illustrate his case, but his argument was based on a false premise. ‘The marriage failed because there was only love on one side. My mother has told me many times that my grandmother loved my grandfather; she just couldn’t live with his coldness.’ Left alone with her father, it hadn’t been easy for her mother either. In the end it had driven Lucy Makepeace to find a place of her own to live as soon as she was old enough.

‘What happened to your grandmother?’ Joel asked conversationally, sliding one hand casually into the pocket of his trousers.

The question caught her off-guard, allowing the old sadness to show in her eyes as she frowned. ‘I really don’t know. There was a messy divorce and a bitter custody battle, which my grandfather won, and that was the last anyone ever saw of her,’ she revealed with a faint shrug of her shoulders.

‘You miss her?’ Joel asked curiously, and Kathryn sighed heavily, because her feelings concerning the situation were more complex than a simple answer could convey.

‘It’s hard to miss someone you never knew. What I miss is not having known her. The person she was. There is so much about her I want to know,’ she said honestly, and her smile was deprecating. ‘I guess I want to ask her why she never came to see my mother. I can’t ask my grandfather because he never speaks of her. It’s a mystery I don’t know how to solve.’

‘Have you never tried to trace her?’

Kathryn shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ she declared wistfully, then, because thinking of her grandmother always left her dissatisfied, she made a determined effort to lift her spirits. ‘What about you? Are both your parents living?’

‘Oh, yes. They’re still going strong, and seem younger than ever, even though they celebrated their golden wedding last year. At present they’re in Canada, visiting relatives. Then they’re off to Hawaii,’ Joel confirmed, and she tipped her head to one side thoughtfully.

‘So they weren’t the ones who made you so cynical about love. That means it has to be a woman,’ she mused, watching him carefully. But, as she was coming to expect, he gave nothing away.

Instead one eyebrow lifted lazily. ‘You think so?’

Kathryn laughed softly. ‘It has to be, and you haven’t denied it. What did she do? Leave you for another man?’

Joel shook his head. ‘She couldn’t, as she’s nothing but a figment of your imagination.’

Her eyes narrowed as she tossed that around in her mind. ‘Hmm, I see. That’s very interesting. If it wasn’t one woman, then it has to be all women. What do we fail to do that convinces you love doesn’t exist?’ She posed the question to herself, and almost immediately saw the answer. ‘We don’t see you as just a man, do we? All we see is a bank balance. An unending source of spending money. That’s it, isn’t it?’ she charged him, convinced she was right.

In response, Joel drained his glass and set it aside. When he looked at her again, there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes. ‘You’re very perceptive.’

‘That’s because I have a similar problem. My father is a very wealthy man, and I’m his only daughter. Which makes me an heiress set to inherit a fortune, and a prime target. There are a lot of men out there who would like to get their hands on the money they think I’ll get one day,’ Kathryn returned with a grimace of distaste.

‘And yet you still believe in fairy stories,’ Joel remarked scornfully, and she tilted her chin upwards defiantly.

‘That’s because I know all men are not the same. Neither are all women.’

He came to her then, his hand reaching out to cup her chin. ‘That hasn’t been my experience. I prefer to believe in what I know exists: desire. Love is a fallacy; sexual attraction is real. You feel it. Right now your heart is beating just a little bit faster, isn’t it? I can see that delicious pulse throbbing in your throat. It’s urging me to kiss it. To know the feel and taste of you,’ he whispered huskily, his eyes glowing with a fierce heat as they looked into hers.