Christmas Child

‘I meant it, Matts,’ he said from right behind her.

She froze. Everything inside her turned into stone. This was not possible. How could he mean it?

Lifting his hands, he took her shoulders, turning her to face him, and that brought her to life, blood coursing madly through her veins at his touch. She shrugged his hands away. He had never touched her before, not even accidentally, and much as she might crave this small intimacy she couldn’t handle it, not right now, not if she were to find out what his agenda was.

‘Has this got something to do with Fiona dumping you?’ she asked, her brain clearing. ‘She jilts you, so you immediately get engaged to someone else, just to show her she’s not the only pebble on the beach?’

Her heart twisted painfully. Was she right? Could he be that cruel? Would he use her like that, just to get his own back on the woman he loved? Buy her a flash engagement ring, make sure the whole world knew about it, then quietly break the whole thing off when the dust of Fiona’s public jilting had settled?

‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘No slick answer for once?’ His bleak silence spurred her on to angry sarcasm. ‘Or have you suddenly fallen madly in love with me? Somehow that would take a lot of swallowing!’

James glanced at the discreet face of his Rolex. He’d meant to spend the afternoon back in his apartment, going through a raft of paperwork. This was going to take longer than he’d thought.

‘You sell yourself short, Mattie. You really should break the habit.’ The words emerged on a breath of impatience, softened by slight amusement. ‘And no,’ he went on with no inflexion whatever, ‘I have no more “fallen madly in love” with you than you have with me. In fact, I don’t think the condition actually exists.’

He resigned himself to the loss of a full afternoon’s useful work. He’d been over-optimistic when he’d imagined he could put his reasons for marriage in front of her in two minutes flat, and it would only take another three or four for her first-class brain to accept that the reasons and terms were both workable and desirable. Far from looking receptive, her face was screwed up in what could be nothing else but suppressed fury.

‘All I ask is that you take time to listen to what I have to say. To kick off—’ The sound of Edward letting himself in through the utility adjoining the kitchen made him bite his words off. Hell! He hadn’t expected his partner back so soon. He’d scripted this as a rational, businesslike discussion, over in a few minutes, and it was rapidly turning into a farce.

His jawline grim, he narrow-eyed the older man as he walked into the room, blowing his fingers, his face ruddy from exercise in the bitingly cold air.

‘So you decided to stay for lunch after all?’ Edward hazarded. ‘Thought you’d be well on your way by now. And, Mattie, if you’re cooking, nothing for me. Getting a paunch.’

‘Actually,’ James drawled, thinking on his feet, mentally postponing that paperwork until later, much later, ‘I’m taking Matts out to lunch, as a thank you for all the hard graft she’s put in over the past few days.’ His narrowed eyes impaled her with silver command. ‘Go get your coat.’

Her instinct was to tell him not to dish out his orders in that brisk, authoritative voice, as if she were some lowly employee. Tell him to ask her nicely, and she’d think about it. But she’d controlled her emotions where James was concerned for more years than she cared to remember and she’d be a fool to give way to the need to snap and shout, indulge in a verbal stand-up fight.

He would simply turn his back on her, walk straight out, and she’d never discover what in damnation he’d been thinking about when he’d come out with that unbelievable proposal of marriage.

Besides, his eyes were positively glacial when he bit out, ‘Scoot, Mattie. We don’t have all day.’

The tone of his voice sent shivers down her spine. She had heard he was a force to be reckoned with, a man no one but an out-and-out fool would dare to cross, but in all the time she had known him she had never been afraid of him, or had the feeling that he was taking control of her life.

She went, almost tripping over her own feet, leaving the room before he could say or do anything else to add to her sense of angry confusion.

Of course she wasn’t afraid of him, she told herself as she pulled Mrs Flax’s overall over her head and searched in the hall cupboard for her serviceable waxed jacket. Afraid of what he was making her feel was more like it.

Disorientated. As if her brain had been put in a blender.

Stuffing her feet into leather boots, she tucked the bottoms of her trousers in with shaky fingers and James, dangling car keys, asked ‘Ready?’ making her jump out of her skin.

Impatient, she thought, glancing up at his tight jawline, the thin line of his mouth. And not the impatience of a man desperate to get his woman to himself. He’d been very quick to respond to her sarcastic question—of course he hadn’t fallen in love with her. Any more than she’d fallen in love with him, he’d added.

If only he knew!

‘Yes, I’m ready. And curious to know what this is all about,’ she answered steadily enough, even though her heart was jittering about like a flying beetle trying to get out of a paper bag.

‘I’ll tell you over lunch.’ And he’d throw in a bottle of wine. He wouldn’t be drinking because he’d be driving later, but she looked as if she needed something to help her relax. She’d pulled a black woolly hat on her head, her bunched-back hair making it sit at an odd angle, the unflattering colour emphasising the pallor of her face. Poor little scrap!

He’d had this idea, had carefully examined it, found it to be sound and, as always, intended to act on it. Right now. No messing about. But she hadn’t a clue what was in his head. He couldn’t blame her for looking as if the world had gone insane around her.

‘Let’s go,’ he said gently.

They drove half a mile to the village pub. Not far, the journey didn’t give her nearly enough time to get her head together. James actually did want to marry her. He’d said so, but she was having difficulty taking it in.

Years ago, before she’d learned to control a tendency to indulge in foolish daydreams, she’d imagined him proposing. Down on one knee, moonlight and roses and all that stuff, vowing he’d always loved her, had been waiting for her to grow up.

Reality was totally different from the daydreams of a teenager. Wasn’t it just!