AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nothing was ever easy. She gave him a suspicious look. “What?”
“We make a good team.”
Miranda snorted. “Where did you get that idea from?”
“The Christmas cocktail function was a huge success. People loved it. And it’s given me the opening to secure opportunities I’ve been trying to tie up for a long time.” He drew her hand back into his. “I need a hostess.”
It was part of the reason marrying Petra would’ve been so convenient. But he’d never desired Petra with this raw, physical ache.
“I was hardly a hostess. I just made the food,” she said dismissively.
He tipped his head to one side and considered her for a long moment. What was it about this woman that drew him? Even when he wasn’t with her, all he could think about was her. She was starting to consume him. “No, you did so much more than that. It was the little touches that made the evening memorable.” Even his PR officer had commented on the unique feel of the party.
He massaged her fingers and they went stiff beneath his. “You’re asking me to hostess your functions?”
“More than that.”
Suspicion glistened in her eyes at his throaty statement. “You’re asking me to be your mistress?”
“No!” Even he wasn’t fool enough to think she would accept such a preposterous proposition. But, God, he was tempted to ask. To have her in his bed, fulfilling his every desire…
Perhaps there was another option.
“So what do you want?”
Miranda had never been one to back away. So it was to be expected that she’d get to the crux of the matter. What did he want?
He lifted her rigid fingers to his mouth and placed a soft kiss on each fingertip, watching her eyes grow wide with shock.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “I’m asking you to be my wife.”
Seven
“Your wife?”
Miranda’s lips parted in astonishment and her pulse picked up. Opposite her, Callum looked almost as startled by his proposal as she. Had he meant to ask? Or was this an impulsive mistake? Her brain worked furiously. Did his proposal have anything to do with his break-up with Petra? Surely it couldn’t. That had happened a week ago.
“Why on earth would you want to marry me?”
The corners of his mouth crinkled up into a heart-stopping smile. “Lots of reasons.”
So he had meant to ask. And at least he wasn’t insulting her intelligence by claiming to love her.
Tilting her head to one side, Miranda studied him. The tantalizing thought of hardheaded Callum in love was impossible to envision. He hadn’t loved Petra—even though she would’ve made him a perfect wife. Especially considering her father was a major shareholder in Ironstone Insurance. Callum and Petra came from the same world. Whereas Callum imagined Miranda’s father to be nothing more than a thief.
And then of course with her flawless oval face, blond hair and pale blue eyes, the other woman was exquisitely beautiful. The children she and Callum would’ve shared would almost certainly have been blue-eyed little angels. Thinking about them caused an unexpected glass splinter of pain to pierce Miranda’s heart.
Callum had admitted he’d intended to marry the beautiful blonde—he’d even bought a ring.
So why was he asking Miranda to marry him? “Name one reason.”
“Your cooking is to die for.”
Even though mirth bubbled up inside her, she didn’t laugh as he’d clearly meant for her to do. Instead, refusing to be distracted, she gave him her most severe look and said, “This is no laughing matter. Or was your proposal meant as a joke?”
She had to know.
In response his fingertips stroked across the back of her hand, and under his touch she caught fire. Her blood fizzed and a heady excitement seized hold of her. Okay, this definitely wasn’t funny. It felt like he’d branded her as his.
She shook off the ridiculous sensation. Callum Ironstone couldn’t make her his merely with a stroke of his fingers!
“And if I told you that it drives me mad with lust when you don your apron? That I have a yen to seduce you wearing a tall chef’s hat? Would you accuse me of joking then?”
