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‘How are you?’ he enquired, his gruff French accent rumbling through the already far too sensitive parts of Ally’s anatomy.
‘I’m good, thank you,’ her reply came out on an unconvincing croak.
Fabulous, Ally—can this actually get any more awkward?
She forced herself to release her arms and jerk a thumb over her shoulder. ‘I was just heading off.’
‘So I saw,’ he said, the wry amusement not helping with her breathing difficulties. He beckoned her towards him. ‘Come here. We need to talk.’
Her breathing accelerated.
What about?
She walked into the kitchen, her cleats clinking against the room’s expensive slate flooring, her heartbeat gagging her.
He patted the stool next to him. ‘Sit down.’
She did as she was told, aware of his gaze gliding over her bandaged leg. The rush of adrenaline, the shot of heat melting her panties, only made her more self-conscious.
‘How’s the leg?’ he asked.
‘Great. Listen, I really don’t have time to—’
‘I have a proposition for you,’ he interrupted her, then placed his palm on a sheaf of papers on the breakfast bar next to his mug of coffee, and slid them towards her. ‘It should be more than worth your time to hear me out.’
‘A proposition?’ She glanced at the papers, confused. They looked like legal documents. Was he going to sue her or something? What for?
‘Yes, a proposition.’ He tucked a knuckle under her chin and forced her gaze back to his. ‘Don’t look so scared, Allycat. This isn’t bad, it’s good.’
The amused, assured tone hadn’t faltered.
‘What’s the proposition?’ she asked.
‘You haven’t guessed it already?’ he asked, and alongside the amusement she could hear the cynicism, which had made her sad for him the night before. It wasn’t making her sad for him now, it was making her sad for herself. Had she ever been more clueless and out of her depth?
‘No,’ she said, because she had no idea what he was talking about and there wasn’t much point in trying to disguise it, however much she wished she could.
‘I need a wife. And you would be perfect.’
‘A...what?’ she said, her mouth going slack with shock. But the way her heart was pinging around her chest cavity like a ball trapped in a pinball machine told a different story. ‘Did you say a wife?’
Because she couldn’t possibly have heard that right.
‘Yes, as I told you yesterday. I have an important deal in Brooklyn that’s about to go up in smoke if I don’t find a way to persuade the conservative consortium who own the land that my private life is...’ he shrugged ‘...stable. And not about to attract any unwanted scandal. I proposed to Mira to solve the problem, but marriage to someone like her would have created other problems. Trying to persuade anyone I was madly in love with her when I could hardly stand the sight of her would have required a level of acting talent I simply do not possess. You, on the other hand...’ His gaze darkened as it drifted over her. The tug of desire became a sharp yank in the hot sweet spot between her thighs.
‘I... I don’t know what to say,’ she said, because she really didn’t.
She was still processing her shock. In truth, she ought to be horrified. He was proposing marriage as if it were a business transaction.
She wasn’t a romantic, and she’d known he was a deeply cynical man, from the way he’d spoken about his broken engagement with Mira yesterday... And maybe even before that, all those years ago, when he’d seemed so much older than his sixteen years.
But if she was so shocked and horrified by the ruthlessness of his proposal, how exactly did she account for her pinballing heartbeat?
‘I guess I’d need more details,’ she said, to buy time, until her ricocheting heartbeat wasn’t threatening to ping right out of her chest.
‘Smart girl,’ he said, his gaze still dark with desire, but his tone stark with pragmatism. ‘I’d need you to sign a non-disclosure agreement and a pre-nup, on the understanding the marriage will only last as long as I need it to. And then we would divorce. It shouldn’t tie up your private life for more than three or four months, six at the most. And I’m willing to offer you a generous settlement if you help me.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ she said, her pride kicking in at last.
