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He left her standing in the hallway for a minute or two, presumably while he went to let his grandmother know he’d be out for a while. Did the old lady demand to be told where he was and what he’d be doing? Was she over-protective because she knew he was feckless, incapable of holding a job down for more than five minutes at a time, was a sandwich short of a picnic?
She couldn’t go along with that, not after walking into that room and sensing the aura of power that surrounded him, seeing the cold, clinically distanced look in those golden eyes.
Suddenly she shivered, as if a goose had walked over her grave, and he said from just behind her, ‘Ready?’
‘If you are,’ she replied and fell in step behind him. But she baulked when he opened the passenger door of his dreadful old van. ‘I thought we might walk to a park, find a bench to sit on,’ she objected. ‘There’s no need to drive.’ The vehicle didn’t look as if it would go a hundred yards without braking down, and the thought of being cocooned in it with him made her feel even more nervous. She’d feel easier in the open air, with other things—people and traffic—to provide a distraction.
She planted her feet firmly on the pavement, but he said smoothly, ‘And I thought we’d drive out to a pub I know of. It has a garden at the back which overlooks the river. We’ll have coffee, and if the conversation proves interesting enough stay on for lunch.’ His long mouth curled derisively. ‘Or are you afraid that being seen riding in an old banger might spoil your super-model image?’
So he knew! She wasn’t going to ask how, but he’d hit a raw nerve. Her mouth tightened. She plucked angrily at her baggy cotton trousers. ‘Do you think I’d dress this way if I was afraid of that?’ And she inserted herself into the passenger seat, just to show him.
Then she wished she’d stuck to her guns and insisted on walking to a park. Even the rough, grinding sound of the engine did nothing to ease the silence between them. It was all proving to be even more of a strain than she had imagined. Allie really couldn’t understand what was happening here. All last week, on the occasions when he’d forced his company on her, he’d been giving off mega-strong signals. He fancied her, wanted to date her, wanted—as they all did—to get her into bed.
And now he was acting as if he thoroughly disliked her. She’d thought she’d g
ot him taped: feckless, short on cash and prospects, long on male conceit, thinking that he only had to look at a woman in that explicit way he had to have her panting, begging…
He was turning out to be an enigma!
Allie heaved an unconscious sigh and Jethro took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at her profile. Pure poetry. Smooth, wide forehead, straight, neat nose, the curling upper lip above that invitingly sensual mouth. The fine, delicate skin needed no make-up, and the tender length of her neck, exposed by her scraped back silvery gold hair, made him ache.
He glared back at the road ahead, his jaw tightening. He should have told her he wasn’t interested in whatever it was she was prepared to pay him for. Should have let her go. She—although he had to admit she could hardly have meant it, because why should she explain her sexual orientation to someone who was practically a stranger?—had made a fool out of him.
And by being here he was making a fool out of himself.
The knowledge didn’t sit easily, and his mouth was grim as he parked the van on the forecourt of the pleasant riverside inn.
Coffee was what they’d come for and coffee was what they’d have. Forget lunch. Why prolong it? He’d find out what was troubling her, give her the best advice he could offer, drive her back and get the hell out. Forget he’d wanted her—still did, dammit!—forget she’d ever existed.
He stalked inside ahead of her, and was digging into his jeans pocket for the money to pay for the coffee he’d ordered when, beside him, she dug into her shoulder bag for her purse and said quietly, ‘Let me do this.’ She handed a note over the bar counter.
Jethro almost walked out right there and then. He wasn’t used to having a woman pay for him, and hated the feeing of being patronised. Before this wretched morning was over he’d tell her who he was, what he was.
A few words from him and she’d realise that the money she’d laid on the table as payment for a favour as yet unspecified might seem like a lot to her but would be considered as nothing more than loose change by him!
Wallowing in the ignoble thought, he gestured to the open French windows which led out to sun-drenched gardens overlooking the Severn and allowed her to precede him. Then he wished the hell he hadn’t, because the light shone through the thin fabric of the loose pants she was wearing, clearly delineating every elegant contour of her long and lovely legs.
Battening down an upsurge of lust, he followed her out to the only table with a sun umbrella. It was green, and the shade it cast made her look ethereal. The slender hands that fiddled with stray tendrils of silky hair, tucking them behind her delicate ears, were so fine-boned, almost transparent in their fragility, that they brought a lump to his throat.
It was such a waste!
Firmly, he reminded himself that she could no more help the way she was than she could help the shape of her nose, the texture of her skin, the curve of her mouth.
Such a kissable mouth.
Growling silently at the torture he was inflicting on himself, he waited until the coffee things had been brought out to them and then got straight to the point, because it would be masochistic to spin it out. He wanted her out of his life—well out of it.
‘So, what’s the favour you’re willing to pay me for?’
Allie stopped fiddling with her hair and started fiddling with the strap of her bag instead. The moment had come, and quite frankly she was terrified. This man would be no push-over, happy to dance to the tune she arranged for him. This man, with his intimidating look of grim-faced power, would do nothing he didn’t want to do—and heaven help anyone who tried to make him!
But she had already stuck a toe in the metaphorical water, so she might as well plunge right in.
‘I need you to marry me,’ she said.
CHAPTER THREE
EVERYTHING inside him lurched. Forty-eight hours ago he’d have jumped at the offer, done practically anything to have her in his life, in his bed. And he knew now, right at this moment, that he would even have been willing to settle for wedding bells and marriage vows for the first time in his life.
