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She glanced up, saw him, and tried to smile. It wobbled alarmingly, and she settled for chewing on her lush lower lip. And he asked himself why? Why so apprehensive? She’d successfully frozen off all his early attempts to date her, get to know her, and, apart from a couple of understandable glitches, which could be put down to a natural distaste for having to ask him to go through a form of marriage for mutual financial gain, she had been calm and collected right up until he’d touched her, kissed her.
So maybe he’d stripped away one of the layers from around her heavily protected heart. Maybe his own yearning need for her had been transmitted through the heated touch of their lips. And maybe she had felt herself respond to it and was terrified, because she could feel her steely lack of interest in matters sexual slipping away.
Sounded logical to him. Elation punched through his gut, clear through to his backbone, and brought an idiotic grin to his face which he quickly subdued. Down boy, he told himself sternly. Take it easy, nice and easy…
The thought of making love to her in precisely that way—easy, nice and easy—not rushing her, gentling her along, slowly stripping every last stitch of clothing from her delectable body, stroking the warm silk of her skin, making her ready, eager for him, open and moist and willing for him, making her cry out for him as every cell in his body cried out for her, made a certain, seemingly uncontrollable part of his anatomy stand to eager attention.
Clearing his throat sharply, he reached for their cases and humped them up the polished oak stairs. Only when he was more or less sure his voice would emerge naturally did he toss over his shoulder, ‘Come and pick a room out for yourself, Allie. And while you’re freshening up I’ll make supper. Bill—’ he plucked the name randomly out of the air ‘—said we’d find plenty in the larder and fridge to keep us going.’
He wanted to be open and up-front with her, and truly hated this subterfuge, but he had no option but to blur the edges of the truth if he were to achieve his objective.
‘How many rooms are there? It’s much larger than I expected. “Holiday cottage” conjured up a two-up two-down in a patch of grass.’
The heels of her shoes beat a very feminine tattoo on the polished treads, and she sounded fluttery and strangely breathless. Surely the stairs weren’t that steep! Put it down to the relief of knowing he wasn’t about to renege on their bargain and suggest they shared a room, he told himself drily. He wasn’t stupid enough to suggest any such thing, not at this early stage. But, of course, she didn’t know that.
In the wide, panelled corridor at the head of the stairs he waited for her to catch up and told her lightly, ‘It used to be a farmhouse. It was almost derelict when—’ What the heck had he called his mythical old schoolfriend? Damn—he’d forgotten! To be a successful liar one needed a good memory. Normally he had the best, but in this instance it had failed him abysmally. ‘When my friend bought it,’ he finished, his voice shortening with self-irritation.
‘There are three bedrooms,’ he added more equably, and pushed open the nearest door, the one to the room his kid sister, Chloe, used when she could tear herself away from her student friends. ‘You can choose, of course, but this one has its own bathroom, and you might prefer not to share the main one with me.’
He was pleased with the reasonable tone he’d managed to achieve when he’d made what he considered to be that faultless, considerate statement, and the strange l
ook on her face puzzled him. There was a slight frown between her glorious blue eyes and her shapely head was tilted, as if she was thinking hard.
‘You obviously know the house well. Do you stay here often?’
‘Not as often as I’d like.’ He didn’t want her asking too many questions about his relationship with the owner of the property but he fielded that one with ease. It was the truth, after all. Later, when she wanted their marriage to be a real and lasting one, they’d be here more often. He could make it his base, delegate more, travel to London only when he wanted to—taking her with him, of course—and keep the Mayfair house on for when they needed it. This place, his country home, would be perfect for the babies they were going to make…
Holy cow! The thought of making babies with her made a red mist form in front of his eyes! So cool it, he muttered to his over-active imagination, and his voice was weirdly hoarse as he queried, ‘Well? Would you like to see the other bedrooms?’
Allie’s eyes widened, found his and clung. Suddenly, stupidly, she couldn’t look away from those black-fringed dark golden depths. He’d been reasonable, perfectly reasonable, but there’d been something about his voice, an intimate huskiness, that made her feel weak and very, very feminine.
Something was happening. She knew it was; she could feel it. Something—she didn’t know what—was responsible for the thickening air that cocooned them, alternately humming softly then prickling sharply, like smooth hands that reached wickedly beneath the thin barrier of her clothing and soothed her skin, then pricked it into skittering life, made her sharply aware, not wanting it, yet craving…
She tore her eyes away from the mesmeric lights in those hooded golden ones and squawked, ‘No. Not at all. This room—yes. Looks fine.’ And she almost fell over her feet in her haste to cross the threshold, angry with herself for her ridiculously callow behaviour.
Thankfully, Jethro simply carried her case to the flouncy foot of the bed, said, ‘See you later, then,’ and left the room, closing the door behind him. Allie plopped down on the frilled, flower-patterned counterpane and swore at herself.
She didn’t know what was happening to her, why she suddenly seemed incapable of thinking straight, why she acted—and felt—like an all-fired idiot! Squawking, falling over herself, imagining that some vital spark of sexual tension was thrumming in the air between them.
Twisting the thin metal band round on her finger—could it really be brass?—she had the manic urge to tug it off and fling it in a corner of the room. She huffed out her breath on a sharp little groan.
What the hell was wrong with her? She had asked him to marry her, hadn’t she? Offered him what amounted to her life savings. He needed the money and she needed this sham of a marriage in order to give Laura the keys to Studley and tell her, It’s all yours, Mum. For as long as you want it, to do with as you will.
She and Jethro had made a bargain, and so far he was sticking to his side of it. Using his friend’s holiday home for a pretence of a honeymoon was a pain, but it did make sense—as he had pointed out. And he’d done the gentlemanly thing and suggested she use the only bedroom with an en suite bathroom to avoid the embarrassment of them accidentally bumping into each other in the shower.
So why was she getting her knickers in a twist?
No good reason. No reason at all! True, a week ago he’d been hanging around, chatting her up, no doubt fancying a fling—nothing serious, no commitments. But her offer had put a damper on his hopes for a little light fooling around in the soft summer evenings because the cash was far more important to him. Which was exactly what she had banked on.
So stop thinking about it. Stop imagining something that isn’t there, she grumbled at herself.
Stiffening her spine, she stood up and deliberately took stock of her surroundings to shut him out of her mind. The pretty room looked as if it had been designed for a female. The fabrics were patterned with fully blown roses, lovely soft shades of dusky pink and heavy cream, with the pink shade echoed by the carpet and the cream by the plaster panels enclosed by exposed silvery oak beams. What furniture there was was antique pine, lovingly cared for, and the adjoining bathroom was a delight—small, but containing everything she could wish for.
His old schoolfriend must be an extremely generous man to allow them free run of his lovely home, she decided, beginning to unpack the few things she’d brought with her from the selection of slop-around-in old casuals she kept for use when she was visiting Laura.
She would ask him about his friend, she thought, as she put a pair of blue jeans and a cotton shirt out on the bed to change into. Ask what he did for a living, if he was married, had a young daughter, perhaps, whose room she was using. It would be something to talk about during what would probably turn out to be the long, dragging hours of their rural isolation.
After stripping off the blue silk suit, she sluiced her face and brushed her teeth. She’d shower later, directly after supper, and have an early night—cut down the time they actually had to spend with each other as much as she could. In the meantime, she thought as she buttoned the cotton shirt and secured the slithery length of her hair into her nape with an old ribbon, she would revert to her normal self: cool, contained, distant.
