The Flawed Marriage

Well paid! Amber knew that he hadn’t missed her expression of indecision. Goodness knows, she needed all the money she could get her hands on, and presumably she’d be living all found. She wanted to ask him exactly what he would be prepared to pay her, but pride—and the look in his eyes—prevented her.

She took a deep breath.

‘I’m interested.’

‘Good.’ He switched on the engine. ‘In that case, I’ll take you up to Lake Fyne now, so that you can meet Paul first-hand.’

She thought about the long journey back to Birmingham, the cold, inhospitable room waiting for her, and then darted a glance at the man sitting beside her.

‘Any objections?’

Without giving herself time to think she shook her head, feeling the powerful surge of the engine as the car pulled swiftly away, and the darkness swallowed them up.

Joel Sinclair had told her that he lived eight miles from the village, but it might as well have been eighty for all the sense of direction Amber experienced on the drive. Mist swirled all around them; the odd sheep materialising in the powerful headlights as they swept the grey blankness of the road, and the now frost-rimed hillsides stretching uproads from the tarmac.

Lake Fyne! She couldn’t remember ever hearing the name before, but then she knew that the Lake District possessed many small lakes whose names were not universally known, and she assumed this must be one of them.

The road curled upwards, a pale grey ribbon, disappearing into the mist.

Sitting on the edge of her seat, gripping the expensive hide cover, Amber was unaware of the fear in her eyes, until Joel turned towards her mockingly, commanding her to relax, telling her there was nothing to fear.

What did he know? she demanded inwardly in a flash of irritation. He had never had to face people with her disability to see the expression in their eyes. She had yet to be accepted by his son and his wife. She could just picture her; a man like him would demand sophistication and elegance in the woman who bore his name; she would be blonde, almost undoubtedly; expensively dressed, an ex-model perhaps, who would raise her eyebrows pityingly when she saw the stray waif her husband had brought home.

They came to an abrupt halt. The mist lifted momentarily and Amber had a brief glimpse of moonlight on water—Lake Fyne?—and then they were driving through huge wrought iron gates which had opened as though at some magic command from Joel to allow the car to move smoothly down a gravel drive towards, the grey granite house slowly materialising ahead of them out of the mist.

Joel, stopped the car. The silence was almost uncanny, heavy, and somehow waiting. There were no lights from the house, and Amber presumed that there must be rooms overlooking the back, where no doubt his wife eagerly awaited his return.

He climbed out of the car, and for one awful moment Amber thought he intended to leave her, but even as she moved frantically towards her door, he was opening it, assisting her to alight, his fingers hard and warm beneath her elbow.

Gravel crunched underfoot. The house was huge, Victorian and austere, and Amber shivered as she waited for Joel to unlock the door.

‘Housekeeper’s night off,’ he told her with heavy irony as the door swung open and he ushered her into a large but cold hall. He saw her shiver and told her, ‘Mrs Downs is Lakeland born and bred and thinks central heating should be kept only for the depths of winter.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s too late for you to see Paul tonight, he’ll be asleep, so I’ll show you to a room, and then in the morning…’

‘But surely your wife will want…’ Amber began, only to be silenced by the look of grim mockery she saw on his face.

‘Ah yes, my wife. Well, you see, my dear Amber, I no longer have a wife, which is why I need you—to take her place.’

The room reeled. Amber placed her hands to her head, telling herself that she was leaping to absurd conclusions.

‘You mean you need someone to look after Paul full time because you don’t have a wife? she said hesitantly, her heart starting to sink when saw him dislodge himself from the wall upon which he had been leaning and come towards her, his hands on her shoulders as he pulled her forward into the harsh overhead light of the hall.

‘What I mean, Amber,’ he said slowly and coolly, ‘is that I need a wife. Not just any wife, but you.’

‘You must be mad!’

He seemed amused rather than affronted.

‘Not mad, just determined. Determined that my ex-wife won’t revoke the custody ruling which gave Paul into, my care. So determined, in fact, that I am prepared to pay you very generously for say, six months of your life… Very generously,’ he repeated significantly, his eyes resting on the tell-tale pulse throbbing in her throat.

‘No!’

‘No?’ Again he seemed more amused than annoyed. ‘I’m going to give you the night to think over your decision, Amber, and don’t forget, will you, that I saw the look on your face in the car when I said I was prepared to be generous.’

Hating herself for the question, but knowing she just had to ask it, Amber ran her tongue nervously across dry lips and asked huskily, ‘How generous?’

She almost missed the surprised contempt in his eyes—it was banished so quickly by mocking satisfaction.

‘Twenty-five thousand pounds!’

Her heart almost stopped beating. Twenty-five thousand pounds—far, far more than she had imagined. Far, far more than she could ever envisage earning in so short a space of time, and more than enough to cover all the expenses of her operation, plus the plastic surgery she would need afterwards.

‘You can’t do it,’ a tiny inner voice warned her. ‘It isn’t right. You’ll have to refuse.’

The words were on the tip of her tongue when she looked down at her leg and all her good resolutions fled. What were six months, after all?

‘It would have to be purely a business arrangement,’ she began hesitantly. ‘I mean…’

‘I think we can take what you mean as read,’ came the smooth rejoinder, ‘and certainly I can assure you that I have no sexual designs upon your person, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

Amber flushed to the roots of her hair. Of course he hadn’t. What man in his right mind would have, never mind a man as stunningly attractive as Joel Sinclair?

Chagrined, exhausted and defeated by her own desire to be restored to what she had once been, she gave in.

‘Very wise,’ Joel Sinclair told her softly. ‘I am glad we were able to reach an agreement. Tell me, the money—do you need it for any special purpose?’

In a moment he might guess about her leg, and Amber couldn’t bear his pity. Quickly she interrupted, ‘No more special than any other woman’s. I want to enjoy life before it’s too late. I’ve always fancied a world cruise…’

‘With the bonus of some gullible male thrown in?’ Joel Sinclair suggested sardonically. ‘Still, why should I complain? In this instance your mercenary greed is furthering my ends as well as yours. I’ll take you to your room now,’ he told her. ‘I have to go out again—some business I have to attend to, but in the morning we’ll talk again.’

They had reached a long landing and he had paused outside a panelled mahogany door, and Amber had almost collided into him before she realised he had stopped.

He opened the door and stood back to allow her to enter the room. It was furnished with timelessly elegant Regency antiques, but despite the expensive furniture, the soft pale green carpet and daintily femine décor the room had a cold almost unwelcoming atmosphere, and Amber shivered as she stepped inside it.

‘The bathroom’s through there,’ Joel Sinclair told her, indicating another door opening off the bedroom. ‘We normally have breakfast about eight. I have business interests in Kendal and try to leave the house by nine, although recently my schedule has been somewhat interrupted.’

Amber stared up at him, wanting him to leave and yet reluctant to be abandoned in a strange house.

‘Something wrong?’ he enquired dulcetly, watching the shadows chase across her golden eyes. ‘Or are you waiting for me to seal our bargain in the traditional manner?’

It was several seconds before Amber realised what he meant, and she cringed inwardly wondering if he thought she had been mutely hoping that he would kiss her.

‘Certainly not,’ she told him with as much cool composure as she could muster. ‘You’re buying my time, not my body.’

His suave, ‘Perhaps that’s just as well,’ left a bitter aftertaste long after he himself had gone, reminding her yet again that she was no longer a girl men would want to hold in their arms or kiss. For several totally irresponsible seconds she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by Joel Sinclair. His kisses wouldn’t be like Rob’s, she thought instinctively; there would be nothing tentative or rushed about them. He would know exactly how to arouse a woman’s desire; how to fan it until it threatened to become a raging inferno. Horrified by the train of her thoughts, she started to undress, realising almost too late that she had nothing to wear. Shrugging wearily, she decided that she was too tired to care whether she slept in a nightdress or the nude. Fortunately the bathroom, unlike the bedroom, was adequately heated, and she was able to wash out her undies and tights and place them on the hot towel rail to dry ready for the morning.

CHAPTER TWO

IT was the sound of a child crying that eventually roused Amber. She sat up in bed, listening in the darkness preceding dawn, and stretched her ears for the sound which had disturbed her slumbers. It came again—bitterly hopeless sobs; not the normal cry of a young child, and strangely moved, she slid out of bed, intent on discovering what was happening.

She was halfway across the room before she remembered she had no robe. The bathroom afforded a huge bathsheet which she wrapped sarong-wise around her too thin body, before opening her bedroom door.

It wasn’t hard to find Paul’s room; but what did surprise Amber when she opened the door was that the little boy was all alone, curled up in a small foetal ball in the middle of a rumpled heap of bedclothes.

‘Paul.’ She whispered his name, and had the satisfaction of seeing his tears stop as he registered her presence.

‘Who are you?’ The words were wrung from him between sobs.

Amber walked awkwardly towards the bed and switched on the lamp, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the small boy’s features properly for the first time. He was a perfect miniature replica of his father!

‘My name’s Amber.’ she answered matter-of-factly. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Paul Sinclair, and this is my daddy’s house.’

‘Were you having a bad dream?’ Amber asked him conversationally.

The small face closed up. ‘Sort of.’ The reply was deliberately uncommunicative.

‘Horrid, aren’t they?’ Amber sympathised, pretending she had not noticed his withdrawal. ‘Would you like me to get you a glass of milk?’

‘I’m not thirsty. What are you doing here?’

‘Your daddy brought me,’ Amber explained, starting to smooth the crumpled sheets. As she did so, she accidentally revealed the thin child’s body, dressed in over-large pyjamas which had ridden up to reveal a scarred and very frail-looking leg.

She could feel Paul going rigid when he knew she was looking at him, and her heart went out to the small child. She knew exactly what he was feeling. A thought suddenly struck her. Was this one of the reasons why Joel Sinclair wanted to marry her, because he thought she would have something in common with his son? But no; he had stipulated that their marriage was only to last six months, and besides, he didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would marry simply because of emotion.

Paul had turned away from her and was lying rigidly in the bed, his stiff little back expressive of all she herself had felt and never been able to say. She could almost feel him wishing her away.

She touched his arm gently. ‘Paul… You don’t have to hide your leg away from me, you know.’

If anything the little boy became even more stiff.

‘Look,’ she said lightly, ‘my leg’s the same.’

At first he didn’t move, and then very slowly and disbelievingly he turned towards her.

‘Let me see it.’

Obligingly she raised the hem of the bathsheet, holding her breath as she waited for Paul’s reaction. For some obscure reason it had become overwhelmingly important that she win the confidence of this withdrawn, too thin and pale child. Perhaps it was an innate fellow-feeling that told her that he had been fibbed to and fobbed off too often to accept platitudes any longer, and for the first time since her accident she actually didn’t mind someone seeing the unpleasant scars.

Even when Paul’s small stubby fingers touched the ridged and puckered skin she didn’t flinch.

‘I was knocked down by a car—how did you get yours?’ she asked conversationally.

‘He was in a car accident—with his mother,’ drawled a mocking familiar voice from the doorway.

Shock jolted through Amber as she saw Joel’s lean frame propped up against the door, the brief terry towelling robe he was wearing doing nothing to conceal the potent masculinity of his body. As though it were a magnet it drew Amber’s fevered gaze, hot pulses beating insistently through her veins in mute reaction to the sensuality of the lean-muscled male body. What was happening to her? She had never felt like this with Rob. Was it something to do with the fact that she now knew that there would be no lover, no fulfilment for her? Was that what was making her so intensely aware of Joel Sinclair; a stranger?

‘Oh, don’t look like that,’ Joel drawled, totally misunderstanding the reason for her shocked expression. ‘She got off completely unscathed. You ought to be asleep,’ he told his son, walking across to the bed, which depressed under his weight.

‘I heard him crying,’ Amber explained the reason for her presence.

‘And like the compassionate motherly creature that you are you came to investigate.’

‘Her name’s Amber,’ Paul told his father, suddenly joining in the conversation. ‘And her leg is like mine.’

Over his head golden eyes met grey, and Amber knew that in some part she had been right, unbelievable though it seemed, and that Joel Sinclair had made her that offer of a temporary marriage because of his son’s damaged leg.

‘Are you going to stay with us?’ he demanded suddenly of Amber, adding to Joel, ‘I like her, Daddy—make her stay. I don’t want her to go away like Mummy did.’ Tears filled his eyes, and Amber’s tender heart was wrung with pity. Why wasn’t this child with his mother, wherever she was? It was obvious from what Joel had said that he wasn’t a widower, so where was his wife? Obviously she couldn’t ask in front of Paul.

‘I won’t, Paul,’ Joel assured him softly. ‘Amber is going to come and live with us for a while.’

‘Will she be my new mummy?’

The air was fraught with sudden tension. Amber could feel it in the sudden tensing of Joel’s body, the watchful expression in his eyes.

‘We’ll see, Paul. Now try to go back to sleep.’

‘I want Amber to kiss me first,’ Paul protested, turning towards her.

Amber’s own eyes were damp as she leaned down to kiss the soft childish skin. Paul put his arms round her neck, hugging her fiercely, and it was Joel who released the small clinging fingers and switched off the bedside light.

‘Perhaps I ought to stay with him until he falls asleep,’ Amber suggested in a soft whisper. There was a chair beside the bed, and she would be quite happy to sit in it until Paul drifted off.

‘If you’re sure you don’t mind? I didn’t get back until the early hours.’

It was very peaceful, listening to the gradually deepening sounds of Paul’s breathing, going over what she had just learned. Poor Paul! The accident must have been a traumatic experience for him; doubly so because his mother had been with him at the time. And what of her? How she must have suffered, Amber reflected, especially if she had been driving. She must ask Joel how seriously damaged Paul’s leg was. Slowly her own eyes started to close, and when dawn finally tinged the sky Amber herself was too deeply asleep to see it.

The warm male fingers on her shoulder felt vaguely familiar. Submerged in dreams, she murmured Rob’s name, rubbing her face against the male hand, a slight smile curving the soft warmth of her mouth.

‘Darling…’ The word left her lips of a faint sigh, her eyes opening, golden with happiness and love, trust in the shyly provocative manner in which she raised her face for Rob’s kiss.

Only there was no Rob any longer, but the knowledge came too late to stop the swift downward descent of a dark male head, predatory lips capturing the softness of her own in a kiss that tingled warmly right through her body to her toes, bringing it fully alive for the first time in months.

Joel’s hands gripped the slenderness of her body beneath her arms, and hauled her effortlessly out of the chair.

‘Well, well!’

Fully awake, Amber saw the dangerous glitter in the grey eyes she had previously thought of as cold. Now they were hot, burning with an anger that threatened to destroy everything in its path.

‘And just who is Rob?’

‘He was my fiancé.’ When she had told him about her accident and her mother’s remarriage, Amber had omitted to mention Rob and their now defunct engagement.

‘Rob?’ The razor-sharp word warned her that she was treading treacherous ground.

‘We were engaged,’ she told him. ‘He’s a doctor, but he wants to specialise, and specialists can’t afford invalid wives.’

‘So he ditched you?’ he asked crisply.

Stung, Amber retorted, ‘What makes you think that?’

‘If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be dreaming about him the way you were. Don’t ever mistake me for another man again, Amber, and just to make sure you won’t…’

She could feel the palms of his hands resting against the gentle swell of her breasts and her heart started to thunder in panic, but there was no avoiding those punishing lips, bent on exacting revenge for her mistake, and teaching her that he was most definitely not Rob. Rob had never kissed her like this, with a cool skill that demanded contempt, but which instead brought from her trembling lips a response that astounded her in its intensity. She tried to pull away, and felt her bathsheet begin to slip, her face crimsoning as she realised that Joel was gazing with frank enjoyment as the swelling femininity of her breasts.

‘I take it there’s no chance of a reconciliation with this Rob?’ he questioned softly as Amber secured her towel.

She shook her head.

‘No, and even if there was I wouldn’t want one.’

‘You’re after bigger game now, is that it? A struggling physician is no longer your beau ideal?’

In his bed Paul stirred, and Joel frowned. ‘I came to tell you it’s nearly eight. Let Paul sleep on this morning. I want to talk to you before I leave for Kendal.’

‘I’ll be downstairs in half an hour,’ she promised curtly.

In her own room, dressing in the same clothes she had worn the previous day she tried not to remember how she had felt when Joel kissed her. Since Rob had left her she had been driven by one ambition and one only: to recover her old mobility and then confront him with all that he had thrown away when he had turned his back on her love because she was no longer the whole, unharmed girl she had been before this accident.

This compulsion had been the only thing that had kept her going; the only reason she had even considered Joel Sinclair’s outrageous suggestion, and yet now she was experiencing another emotion—compassion for Paul, a child who was obviously suffering as much as she was herself. poor little boy. Why wasn’t his mother with him?

Perhaps if she stopped dawdling in her room and went down for breakfast she might find out, she told herself briskly. In the bright morning light her clothes looked dowdy and dull, and just for a moment she regretted the new, pretty things she had bought for the holiday she and Rob had planned, but that moment was swiftly banished, and the fierce light of battle entered her eyes as she remembered how Joel Sinclair had looked at her and kissed her. She wanted the twenty-five thousand pounds he was offering her badly enough to accept his proposition, but she fully intended to make it absolutely clear to him that their marriage would be a business arrangement only, a big step along the road to achieving her ultimate goal; although he was not to know that. The way in which she intended to spend the money he paid her was nothing to do with Joel Sinclair.

She found him in a large, beautifully modernised kitchen with dark oak units and a mellow tiled floor. To Amber’s amazement he was standing by a hob frying bacon, the rich aroma filling the room. Nearby coffee percolated, and the table had been set for breakfast, with grapefruit in two bowls and cereal in the third.

‘What’s the matter?’ Joel enquired in amusement when she came to an abrupt halt just inside the door. ‘Surprised to discover I know how to fend for myself? It’s one of the first rules of survival, although I admit I’m no Cordon Bleu. Besides, a father bringing up a child alone needs to know at least the rudiments of running a home. I’m fortunate in having Mrs Downs, but in the eyes of divorce judges, housekeepers aren’t particularly adequate substitutes for mothers, which is why I need to furnish myself with a wife—albeit on a temporary basis. Hungry?’ he asked, indicating the pan of sizzling bacon and reaching across for some large brown eggs. On the point of shaking her head, Amber suddenly changed her mind. She had had next to nothing to eat yesterday, or for several days come to that, and the bacon did smell tantalisingly appetising.

‘A little,’ she admitted, surprised that she had lowered her guard for long enough to make the admission. ‘Shall I wake Paul?’

‘No, let him sleep. It will be easier for us to talk without him here. You can see what a dangerously vulnerable emotional state he’s in—a result of a combination of things; his accident and losing his mother mainly.’

It was significant that Joel put Paul’s accident first, Amber thought. He was too hard a man to fully appreciate the effect losing his mother would have on a small child—or to admit perhaps that he might himself be in some way to blame for Paul’s vulnerability.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He seems to have similar injuries to mine.’

‘Which is one of the reasons I put the proposal I did to you.’

‘I guessed,’ Amber supplied wryly. ‘Have the doctors given you any indication as to how bad it will be?’

Joel shrugged. ‘They’re reluctant to commit themselves at this stage—understandably. Paul’s case is complicated by the fact that at the same time as he received his injuries he underwent severe emotional trauma. I’ve already said that he was with his mother at the time. What I didn’t tell you—couldn’t tell you while he was there—was that she was on her way to see her lover and intended to leave Paul with her friend for the afternoon. They say those most closely involved are always the last to know—a cliché, but true in my case. I had no idea. Oh, I knew there was something, Teri had made that much perfectly plain—I even suspected there were… diversions, but not that one of them was serious enough to make her put her child’s life at risk so that she could be with her lover. He was an American working on the North Sea oilrigs whom she met while he was on holiday here. As the son of a Texan oil millionaire he had a super-abundance of the quality that appeals most to Teri in men—money—a trait she apparently shares with you,’ he added cynically. ‘Which is one of the reasons I decided to put my suggestion to you. A woman who can be bought for a few paltry thousand pounds isn’t going to allow emotion to cloud issues at a later stage. This marriage is most definitely only of a temporary nature—I didn’t want someone who might get the wrong idea and want to make things permanent.’