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So smooth, so suave, so damnably cool. She could have hit him! She couldn't imagine now why she had ever thought she liked him, believed that an expedient marriage to a man such as him would be no intolerable thing.
He lit a slim cigar, taking his time, and the flame of his lighter threw his features into harsh relief, sharpening every slashing angle, every plane. And his eyes, darkened to midnight, dealt her a glancing blow, knocking the breath clear out of her lungs because he'd looked at her before, of course he had, but never like that, never as if he owned her.
'I have decided,' he regarded the glowing tip of his cigar with lazy interest,
'to agree to your suggestion of an alliance—a marriage of convenience.
Successful marriages have been based on less,' he told her, his magnificent eyes lifting from their inscrutable contemplation of the glowing tip, meeting the hazy smoke-grey of hers. A smile flickered briefly over the long, masculine mouth. That is to say, I agree in principle—however, there would be one stipulation.'
Cleo stared, her eyes wide, hardly able to take it in as the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding was expelled silently from her burning lungs. If Jude Mescal had accepted her proposal of marriage then the idea couldn't have been as demented as she'd come to believe it was. And she need no longer lie awake at nights worrying about the likelihood of failing to pay the money Fenton demanded. She would have control of her inheritance once she was married, and the whole dreadful business could be kept quiet.
Everything was going to be all right!
A sudden smile of utter relief made her face radiant, and Jude raised one black eyebrow. 'Don't look so delighted. You haven't heard my stipulation yet.'
'No. No, I haven't.' She felt light-headed. Her conscience wouldn't have to bear the burden of knowing she had been instrumental in darkening her uncle's declining months with shame and misery or, even worse, being the cause of another and almost certainly fatal heart-attack. And Jude's stipulation, whatever it was, couldn't be too daunting.
She tilted her head in easy enquiry, the movement elegant, eloquent, and saw the way his eyes narrowed on her pointed face, on the warm curve of her lips as he said, 'It would have to be a full marriage. I want children.'
The long, square-ended fingers of one hand flexed round the handle of the coffee-pot and, watching them, letting the words he'd said sink in, Cleo felt her insides , clench. Fool that she was, she hadn't viewed marriage to him from that angle, merely from the academic side. Two compatible adults merging their lives, their assets, for mutual benefit—that was the way she'd seen it. A marriage of convenience, a business arrangement, made tolerable by their mutual respect.
A full marriage, having children, meant sleeping together, having sex. It put an entirely complexion on the whole idea. Sex without love seemed unconscionably squalid in her view. But not in his, obviously. And why, oh, why hadn't she at
least considered the possibility that he might demand a full, physical marriage? Because her head had been too full of the need to take control of her inheritance, she answered herself drily, to think about what Jude Mescal might want!
She stared at the tablecloth, as if the fine fabric held a weird fascination, quite unable to meet his eyes as the beginnings of a slow, deep flush made itself felt. She knew those clever azure eyes were on her, analysing her reaction, and she strove to keep calm.
She had seen the outcome of his acceptance only from her narrow viewpoint, as a means of enabling her to pay off Fenton, shield Uncle John.
She had looked no further than that, believing that Jude would view the union as a business arrangement, too, that the offer of the Slade Securities shares and the addition of her own considerable fortune to his might be enough.
However, he was not a eunuch and naturally enough he wanted children, and as a male he was biologically different and could enjoy sex without love; his emotions would not have to be involved. And if he wanted children then it would be her duty, as his wife, to produce them. But could she go through with such a marriage—to a man she did not love?
She would have to, the answer came starkly. She was no twittery, starry-eyed teenager, and if she accepted the benefits of his acquiescence then she must accept the other. The alternative, Fenton's foul threat to go to the seamier tabloids, was impossible to contemplate.
Having rationalised the situation, accepted it with the logic that was such an intrinsic part of her way of thinking, she was able to meet his eyes squarely, unconsciously lifting her chin and setting her shoulders.
'I accept your stipulation. I can understand that a man in your position needs an heir.'
She thought she had countered him with suitable dignity, admitting no hint of the carnal which his deliberate introduction of the subject of children, and the getting of them, could very well have produced.
But her tongue ran away with her then, panicking, betraying the intimate nature of the thoughts she'd hoped to hide from him.
'But I would like to make one stipulation of my own- that we don't—we don't actually sleep together for, well, a couple of weeks or so after we're married.' She met the cool questioning of his eyes, the slight upward tilt of one strongly defined black brow, and blundered heedlessly on, her gaucheness totally out of character. Td like time to adjust, to get to know you better—as a husband, I mean—before we actually, er--' Words failed her then and he supplied,
'Make love.'
His eyes moved with lazy boldness over her lips, her throat, the sweet, curving line of her shoulders and breasts.
'It's a bargain, Cleo. Two weeks to the day.' And she hung her head, her fingers twisting mindlessly in her lap. It sounded less like a bargain than an awful threat!
They were married quietly three weeks later, and the only , people at the sort civil ceremony were Aunt Grace, Luke and Jude's sister Fiona.
It was fitting in a way, Cleo thought as she left the registrar's office on Jude's arm, that there weren't vast throngs of people waiting to celebrate a wedding that had been arranged, on her part through dark necessity, and on his a need, at last, to begin a family to carry on his name, to inherit his vast wealth.
But Grace had been delighted when she'd heard the news, Cleo recalled as she watched her aunt and Fiona climb into Luke's BMW for the drive back to Slade House.
'An excellent match!' That lady had come as near to open enthusiasm as it was possible for her to do. 'It will be good to have the Mescal name so closely allied with the Slades' again.'
