The Engagement Deal

Poor angel! Holly gaped at him incredulously. The way the tabloids had told it—and, yes, she had read every single word—his model wife had dumped him when he’d quit the glamorous Formula One circuit and left him literally holding the baby! Did this mean he was still in love with her…?

Heavens, she thought, aggravated by her fascination with the state of his emotions, what’s wrong with me? Two minutes ago, I had him in love with Rowena. Anyone would think I gave a damn.

He looked genuinely distracted as he absently stirred his coffee. For once, he seemed to have forsaken his habitual urbane poise. ‘Tara is a woman on a mission,’ he told her in a tone of deep foreboding. ‘She wants to rescue me from a lonely, aimless existence.’

‘Do you have a lonely, aimless existence?’ she asked unsympathetically. If he did, he only had himself to blame.

‘Being single equates with lonely and aimless in Tara’s eyes.’

‘My heart bleeds.’ She stopped short of smirking outright—but only just. She widened her eyes innocently when he shot a savage glare in her direction.

‘I enjoy my single state.’

‘Yes, I think I read something about that the other week in the newspaper my fish and chips were wrapped up in.’ He’d been enjoying his single state in the back of a limousine with a young actress barely wearing a stunning outfit.

Annoyance flickered in his eyes as he bent his dark head in acknowledgement of her sly words. ‘The awards ceremony debacle,’ he said grimly. ‘If I weren’t a gentleman, I’d say the same thing to you that I did to that photographer. For your information, that stunt was a put-up job.’ He ground his teeth as the little witch actually giggled.

‘Of course it was,’ she soothed. ‘Couldn’t you have asked—what was her name?—to help you out?’ Holly bit her trembling lower lip. ‘She looked to be a very obliging sort of girl,’ she choked.

‘No, I couldn’t!’ he bellowed. ‘I never intended to actually produce a woman. I thought Tara would accept it when I told her I’d fallen in love.’ He looked deeply frustrated by her lack of co-operation.

‘You mean she doesn’t take what you say at face value? How strange,’ Holly puzzled.

‘It just so happens I don’t lie to Tara.’

Holly lifted her brows expressively.

‘Normally,’ he ground out, with an expression which suggested that throttling his interrogator would offer him the greatest satisfaction. ‘I don’t lie, but this is for her own good.’

‘Not to mention yours.’

‘I said I’d produce this woman thinking Rowena would step into the breach. That was before she vanished off the face of the earth. Now…Now I’ve got about—’ he looked down at his watch ‘—about thirty minutes to find a stand-in lover.’

‘I’d have thought there would have been a whole flock of lovelies gagging to help you out.’

He raised guileless blue eyes to her face and mournfully nodded his agreement. ‘The problem is,’ he confided in a slow languid drawl that, had she known it, was pitched deliberately to aggravate her, ‘they wouldn’t all be as happy as Rowena to hand back the ring in the morning. I could well be jumping from the frying-pan into the fire.’

‘God, it must be tough being irresistible!’ Teeth clenched, she sighed sympathetically.

Niall gave her a long thoughtful look. ‘I’d ask you to step into the breach…’ He paused politely while she made a rude derogatory noise in her throat. ‘But I get the impression you don’t like me. Besides, you’re not exactly…’ With a pained expression he tactfully averted his eyes from her colourful striped pyjamas.

‘Not exactly what?’ she jumped in, bristling with suspicion. As if she needed to ask! He was implying, and not very subtly, that nobody would believe a man like him would want to marry a girl like her.

Holly’s firm chin went up to an aggressive angle. She might not be every man’s first choice, but to be deemed unworthy even to be the last choice of a desperate man…! Well, this wasn’t the same little girl who had been reduced to abject misery by a careless cruel comment, and Niall Wesley was about to find that out. She’d show him!

‘Not exactly dressed for the occasion.’

He was awfully glad he had dredged up a memory of Rowena saying that the best way to make her sister do anything was to tell her not to! ‘She’s so pig-headed it’s unbelievable!’ Rowena had informed him with affectionate irritation. She hadn’t mentioned the size sixteen chip on Holly’s size eight shoulder, though!

Holly wasn’t going to let him wriggle out of this that easily. If he thought she wasn’t good enough to be seen with him, he’d have to come out and say so!

‘I’ve got other clothes and some people,’ she taunted, ‘think I scrub up quite well.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ he soothed smoothly. The gleam in his eyes made Holly frown as she suddenly felt less certain of what she was doing. ‘Shouldn’t you hurry?’

‘Hurry?’

‘If we’re going to get to dinner on time.’

Holly’s mouth opened and she blinked. ‘Why would I want to help you? I didn’t say I’d—’

‘Well, if you don’t think you’re up to the task,’ he drawled understandingly.

By this point Holly was ninety-nine per cent certain that she’d been manipulated by an expert, but a combination of that one per cent uncertainty and a congenital stubborn inability to back down from a challenge made her respond immediately.

‘I draw the line at drooling over you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed, his dark head inclining graciously, ‘I can work around that.’

Stifling a grin, he watched her small stiff-backed figure retire to the bedroom, muttering ferociously under her breath.

Ten minutes later, as she emerged from a hot shower, Holly still wasn’t quite sure how she’d got herself into this mess. She was even less sure why she felt excited. Wearing nothing but a towel wrapped turban-like around her head, she stalked back into the bedroom with the unconsciously smooth, graceful stride of a cat. She then opened the two neatly packed suitcases which contained a large proportion of her worldly goods.

Lips pursed, she extracted a few items and her eyes travelled to the full-length view of herself in the cherub-decorated cheval mirror set just behind her. Not too bad, she conceded, staring critically at the firm gentle curves that were in pleasing proportion to her diminutive frame. Not great, but not bad, she decided, holding up a bias-cut dove-grey silk dress against her slightly damp body. The creases in the long flowing gown made her frown. A spark of mischief entered her dark eyes.

Standing behind the door, she opened it a crack and flung out the dress. ‘Be a lamb and iron it for me, if you don’t want to be late!’ she instructed loudly.

She closed the door with a firm click before he had an opportunity to reply. Well, I bet that’ll be a first. Niall Wesley, former pin-up of the racing circuit, present boss of the family publishing empire and future titled lord of Monksleigh and several thousand acres…ironing…? The man had spent his life surrounded by flunkies—it was likely he hadn’t learnt to tie his own shoelaces yet! She gave a small chuckle as she sat down to explore the Aladdin’s cave of cosmetics on her sister’s dressing table.

Her hair was still damp when, with a clever twist of her wrist, she secured the heavy copper swathe in a loose knot at the nape of her neck before pulling loose a few long soft curling tendrils to frame her face. She screwed up her nose in approval at the overall effect. Fortunately, the black eye had proved simple to disguise.

She sniffed at the neck of an interestingly shaped perfume spray before dousing her body in a generous mist of scent. All I need now, she thought, slipping on some underwear and then a pair of high-heeled mules, is the dress.

There was only pause enough between the light tap on the door and it swinging open for her to clamp her hands over her bare breasts and fix an indignant expression on her face.

Although she would have happily crawled out of her skin, pride made Holly stand immobile while his startling cerulean eyes travelled over her skimpily clad body from head to toe, pausing noticeably longer over some areas than others.

‘You were right.’

One nicely shaped brow rose in haughty enquiry as she tried to maintain the illusion that she felt perfectly at ease with this nerve-shredding situation. Actually, until that moment she’d have claimed she was quite relaxed about her own body, only suddenly…She shivered, even though her skin felt hot. She felt conscious of every centimetre.

Calm down, Holly, she told herself. Niall Wesley has seen more beautiful women naked than you’ve had hot dinners, and you’re only passable. Being passable didn’t stop a violent surge of feeling rushing through her, a feeling that was purely sexual.

‘You do scrub up well.’ His sardonic mask left his words open to any interpretation she wished to place upon them—no, better by far not to think too much, if at all, about what he might mean! ‘Here.’ He held out the dress—which was draped across one arm—towards her.

‘Thanks.’ Automatically, she began to stretch out one hand towards him before realising how exposed, quite literally, this gesture left her. She gave a dismayed gasp and retracted her hand, but not before the erect coral tip of her exposed breast had peeked out. ‘You’d better leave it on the bed,’ Her voice cracked as she made a desperate attempt to regain her composure. ‘Hurry up, will you?’ she snapped as he strolled slowly towards the bed…Had he slept in it with Rowena? ‘We don’t want to keep your wife waiting.’

He laid the soft garment on the bed and smoothed it with the flat of his hand. The gesture brought a searing image to her head of the same hand stroking bare flesh.

He straightened up. ‘Ex-wife,’ he reminded her softly. ‘And Tara’s never been on time for anything in her life—even her own wedding, as I recall…So don’t break your neck. There’s no big rush.’

‘Now he tells me.’ She had managed to slide on a robe of Rowena’s over her minuscule pants and hold-ups and she was able to sound more like herself.

That sensation had just been because she felt vulnerable—him being fully dressed and her being almost naked, she told herself comfortingly. Yes, that had a nice comfortingly logical sound to it, she decided, tying the sash of the pale green robe around her waist. If he’d been naked too he wouldn’t have had the upper hand at all; they’d have been on more of an equal footing.

As images of Niall Wesley’s well-built naked body flashed through her mind, her lovely little theory crumbled. Oh, God, she thought, as he turned to flash her the sort of smile that made her worry he had read her mind. I’ll be glad when this night is over!

CHAPTER TWO

‘THERE’S no time to think up a cover story so when we get there leave me to do most of the talking.’ Businesslike, Niall cast her an arrogantly stern look.

‘Laryngitis?’ Holly queried meekly. ‘Or am I meant to be struck dumb by my good fortune in landing you?’

He took her hand and, before she could protest, had slid a large flashy-looking sapphire ring on one finger. ‘It’s smart remarks like that I’m talking about,’ he said, observing the effect of the large sparkling gem on her small slim finger with a critical frown.

‘I can’t wear this thing!’ she gasped in tones of revulsion.

‘Sorry if it’s not to your taste, but it’s only for one night.’

Not to my taste? Actually, it was beautiful and probably scarily expensive. ‘It’s too big, I might lose it,’ she babbled, feeling her chest tighten as pure panic gripped her. It would probably have fitted Rowena like a glove—perhaps it had been made for her? This possibility made it even more imperative to rip it off her own finger.

‘The setting’s quite old-fashioned; Tara never wanted it. It was my grandmother’s,’ Niall announced casually.

Under the circumstances, it was perverse to feel as if she was wearing another woman’s cast-offs. It was even more perverse to mind—but she did.

‘I don’t think your Tara is going to swallow this, Niall,’ Holly remarked, staring at the heavy ring as if it were going to jump up and bite her.

‘So long as you can withstand the odd cryptic dig, she’ll believe it. Tara doesn’t have a suspicious bone in her body. I’ve never lied to her before, so she has no reason to believe I’ve begun now.’

Holly toyed with the uncomfortable band on her finger. ‘Never?’ she challenged sceptically.

‘Never,’ he confirmed firmly. ‘If you discount the odd occasion when I’ve said I’d like nothing better than to spend my afternoon sitting in the front row of a catwalk show.’

‘I’m just amazed this perfect, honest marriage ever broke up.’ Holly gave a disgruntled sniff. He was painting a picture of himself as a remarkably devoted husband.

‘It probably broke up when it did because it was so honest.’

For someone who accused her of making cryptic remarks, he produced the odd gem himself. ‘Are you saying marriages stand a better chance of survival with a liberal sprinkling of deceit?’

‘I’m saying I didn’t want to stay married to a woman who was in love with someone else.’

‘Oh!’ His frankness was extremely unsettling. He didn’t sound like a man whose ego had taken a beating, but perhaps that hard exterior was hiding a shattered heart? ‘She’s not in love with someone else now, though, is she?’

‘Your thinking is predictably female.’

‘I am female.’

‘In that dress there was never any question about it, but then that was the object of the exercise wasn’t it?’

‘Pardon…?’ Unfortunately he didn’t seem to find her tone of haughty detachment much of a deterrent—not if his cynical smirk was anything to go by. Looking into those deep blue, knowing eyes made Holly wish she hadn’t let vanity overcome her better judgement and agreed to go along with this silly scheme.

‘The only reason you went along with this was because you wanted to prove to me that age had improved you beyond all recognition.’

Holly went scarlet. How, how could he know? ‘That’s—’

‘Perfectly understandable for a person with an outsize chip on her shoulder.’

Holly gasped. This man got more detestable with each passing second. I must have been totally blind as well as besotted when I was a silly teenager she concluded wrathfully. ‘I have not—’

‘Whatever you say.’ He waved aside her choked denial with languid disinterest. ‘And actually, Tara is still in love with another man—the same man. Tara’s carrying around a burden of guilt about leaving me and Thomas. It’s that guilt that’s stopping her from finding happiness. I care a lot about Tara and I want her to be happy.’

‘Am I supposed to believe you’re some sort of altruistic saint?’

‘Frankly, I don’t give that—’ The pistol-crack of his long fingers indicated the depth of his disinterest ‘—about what you think about me. I’m just asking you to remember you’ve left your broomstick at home tonight.’

Broomstick? The cheek of the man! ‘I’ll be sweet and submissive, just the way you like it,’ Holly agreed, all humble co-operation and saccharine smile. She’d never let a man do the talking for her throughout her entire adult life, and she had no intention of starting now! She swivelled slightly to look directly up at the big man who sat beside her in the taxi.

He was straightening the dark tie set against the brown column of his strong neck. The subdued light emphasised the sharp angles and planes of his intimidatingly handsome face but, after her silly gobsmacked behaviour in the bedroom, Holly wasn’t about to be intimidated by his blue eyes and sexy mouth. She chose to ignore the sudden painful clenching of her disobedient stomach muscles.

Niall stopped what he was doing and slanted her a worryingly ambiguous look. ‘You’ve absolutely no idea about “the way I like it”.’ The sensual gleam in his eyes as they rested on her defiant face caused more damage to her nervous system than an electrical storm.

Stubbornly, she didn’t scuttle to the opposite corner of the taxi and hide her face in her hands like she wanted to. There ought to be a law about any one male wielding this much in-your-face masculine virility, she thought.

‘I’ll be hanging on your every word, darling,’ she promised insincerely, batting her lashes at him.

‘And for God’s sake,’ he warned, taking her provocative sarcasm in his stride, ‘don’t drink too much!’

Holly’s mouth tightened as he threw a ‘that’s all I need’ look in her direction. The righteous feeling of ill use swelled in her chest. He seemed to have conveniently forgotten that she, out of the goodness of her heart, was helping him out of a sticky situation.

‘You’re assuming I’m an indiscreet drunk.’ Did two white wines make her a drunk? The way she recalled it, drinking wine after an exhausting weekend on call had made her extremely sleepy not the life and soul of the party.

‘Well, if your eye is anything to go by, you’re definitely a clumsy drunk.’ He reached out towards her face but didn’t make contact.

Holly closed her eyes, wondering what he was making of her instinctive and embarrassingly dramatic recoil from his extended hand. The shivery hot flesh of her bare shoulder was reacting as though his fingers had made contact.

‘Actually, I didn’t fall over.’

‘Then how did you get it?’

‘I was slow to duck…’ His blank expression indicated Niall was a bit slow too…on the uptake, anyhow, so she casually elaborated. ‘A fist did the damage,’ she recalled ruefully.

He sat very still during the lengthy pause that followed her startling but matter of fact statement.

‘A man did that to you?’ There was icy distaste in his voice.

‘It wasn’t as bad as the last time,’ Holly continued cheerfully, blissfully ignorant in the dim light of the growing shocked revulsion in his eyes.

‘And you went back for more…?’ he asked with hoarse incredulity.

Holly gave a small wry grin. She hadn’t wanted to. Her first impression of emergency medicine had been far from favourable, but in the end she’d rather enjoyed the experience, though not the occasional physical intimidation.

‘Well, I didn’t actually have much choice,’ she began to tell him, only he jumped in, his deep voice vibrating condemnation before she had an opportunity to explain farther.

‘No choice! Good God, woman, you always have a choice not to stay in an abusive relationship,’ he told her contemptuously. ‘At sixteen I put your choice of boyfriend down to inexperience!’ Even amid this bewildering tirade of condemnation, his brief allusion to their last mortifying meeting made her blush. ‘But you obviously get some sort of perverted kick out of being knocked around.’

It finally dawned on a mystified Holly how he had interpreted her words. She opened her mouth to tell him just how wrong he was—it would be nice to see the smug, sanctimonious snake squirm a bit—when she stopped.

She didn’t owe Niall Wesley any explanations! How dare the man even think she was some sort of victim? Willing a cool mask of composure to obliterate the wrath that was almost choking her, she smiled with serene disinterest back up at him.

‘I had no idea that you were so…straight!’ she remarked with wide-eyed wonderment.

‘If by straight—’ grimly, he mimicked her derisive tone ‘—you mean I can’t abide men who consider a casual left hook an acceptable display of their affection, then I am just that. And if you think you can change him—forget it! Men like that don’t change.’ Ironically, in his present mood he looked far more daunting than any brutish drunk she’d ever had to deal with in the line of duty.

Part of Holly wanted to applaud his statement, but another part of her wanted to punish this man for having the temerity to think even for one second…!

‘Why, you old softie you,’ she pouted prettily up at him as she daringly placed an affectionate hand on his thigh.

Niall’s lips curled with distaste as he forcibly removed her gently curling fingers as though she were contagious, but not before she had been able to note that his muscular thighs were rock hard. There was a sickening lurch in the pit of her belly.

‘Don’t wind me up, Holly,’ he warned darkly.

Meeting the warning glimmer in his eyes, Holly felt even dizzier. ‘For a gentle soul,’ she told him, in a voice that emerged disastrously shaky, ‘you have a firm grip.’ She looked pointedly at her fingers crushed in his ruthless grasp. She despised herself for the unmistakable sensations the contact was sending through her tense body.

He released her with a selfconscious grimace. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ she told him flexing her fingers to encourage the circulation. ‘I’m yours—why, hell! I’m anybody’s—to crush and maim.’ This time she wasn’t able to hide her simmering anger and he saw it too in the over-bright feverish glint of her dark, spikily fringed eyes.

If she hadn’t known for sure that Niall Wesley was unacquainted with the emotion, she’d have thought that there was a flicker of uncertainty in the blue eyes that skimmed over her face.

‘You seem an intelligent girl…’

‘Why, thank you!’ she gushed insincerely. Did this man practise being patronising?

His lips thinned. ‘I know you’ve got some sort of chip on your shoulder, Holly…’

There he goes again with this chip thing, she fumed silently. He’s got me down as the original inadequate.

‘…and I appreciate that Rowena must be a hard act to follow…’

As if I need it spelled out that I’m never going to be able to hold a candle to Rowena!

‘But your self-esteem must be in a sorry state if you allow…’ He gritted his teeth as disgust threatened to overcome him at the thought of some guy… ‘You like to give the impression you’re something of a free spirit, but can’t you see there’s nothing particularly liberating about letting some bully push you around…?’

Holly inhaled sharply and her slight but shapely bosom inflated with wrath, a circumstance which unexpectedly distracted Niall.

‘Do go on,’ Holly urged him bitterly.

‘I don’t suppose it’s any of my business,’ he announced with the strained air of a man who realised he’d just been speculating how far down the loose bodice of her dress would come with one judicious tug.

The very brief glimpse he’d had of her small, sweet breasts had been a tantalising, persistent presence in the back of his mind ever since he’d walked in on her. Such sensual preoccupation wouldn’t have been so disturbing had the female involved not been pretty obviously screwed up, too young and the kid sister of one of his best friend’s to boot! You’ve got plenty of problems without adding that one, he reminded himself.

‘My word, but you catch on slowly.’ Smiling sourly, she met his brooding stare head on. For a man so firmly against violence, he looked about ready to strangle her.

‘Point taken.’ His voice carried a zero level of conviction but unexpectedly he seemed to want to let the subject drop. ‘We’ll be there in a minute. You are going to behave?’

He looked so suspicious that she couldn’t resist a naughty grin and a sing-song taunt, ‘That’s for me to know and you to—’

He bent forwards so suddenly that she didn’t have time to protest. Mouth closed, he pressed his lips firmly to hers and kissed her hard. Firmly enough to force her head back against the seat. Holly smelt his light cologne and the warm male fragrance that drifted off his body. Her fingers and toes curled tightly as she held herself painfully rigid and inhaled deeply. Somewhere deep down she knew for sure that if she relaxed even fractionally she’d just disintegrate.

Drawing back he murmured. ‘I was out of order.’

Ironically, she knew he wasn’t talking about the kiss; he seemed scarcely to have noticed he’d done it. Certainly his breathing hadn’t altered dramatically like her own and his skin tone wasn’t making any of the dramatic fluctuations hers was. I noticed all right—boy, oh boy, did I notice!

‘Your life is your own—’

‘So are my lips—’ A woman who was seduced by a kiss that said shut up, loud and clear, had serious problems.