Bought: One Husband

But her desperate need to do what she could to make her mother happy had touched him. She and Laura had had it tough, and he knew exactly what he was going to suggest. Which meant coming clean about who he was.

But first there were a couple of things he had to ask her.

‘If you don’t marry I take it the property will be sold? If that’s the case, why don’t you buy it? The money you offered me could go a long way towards a deposit. You could repay the mortgage from your earnings. Top models don’t get paid in Monopoly money.’

‘True,’ she acknowledged tautly. The way he was going round the houses, refusing to give her a definite yes or no, was beginning to wind her up. ‘But look at it realistically. At the moment I’m flavour of the month—and it took me years to get there—tomorrow I could be back to catalogue work. I can’t risk it. The manor and land could fetch close to a million if it went to auction.’

He dipped his head in silent acknowledgement. In a moment he’d explain what he meant to do: buy this Studley Manor estate when it came on the open market. After all, property was a no-lose investment. He would install Laura, charge a peanut rent. No strings. No outpourings of gratitude. Nothing. Finis.

But first he had to hear confirmation from her own mouth. He had no reason to disbelieve what Laura had said, and one or two remarks Allie had made had reinforced it for him. But he had to hear it from her. Only then could he really get her out of his mind.

‘Allie—are you gay?’

Her eyes went wide and dark as she stared at him disbelievingly, then her cheekbones bloomed with colour. ‘You conceited bastard! Just because I made it clear I wasn’t interested in dating you, and wouldn’t have sex with you if we were married, you automatically assume I have to be gay!’ She collected her bag, slung the strap over her shoulder and shot to her feet, glaring at him furiously. ‘I’m as straight as you are; I just don’t happen to fancy you. All I want from you is a piece of paper to prove I’m married.’ Her eyes narrowed, her jaw tightened, and she said through her teeth, ‘And as you obviously have no intention of obliging me, I’ll say goodbye!’

She stalked away, over the lawns, threading her way through the scattered tables, her shoulder bag bumping against her hip.

Jethro watched her, grinning, his white teeth gleaming. Her furious and obviously genuine disclaimer had changed everything. Hadn’t it just!

Laura’s statement that Allie wasn’t interested in men had no roots in her daughter’s sexuality. Wary of men, was more like it. Because of something that had happened in her past? He aimed to find out what it was, and change her attitude.

As for her blistering pronouncement that she didn’t fancy him and would insist on separate rooms should they marry—well, that was something else he intended to change!

Slowly he got to his feet, turned his grin on the openly curious middle-aged couple at the nearest table, dug into his pocket for a handsome tip, dropped it on the tray and casually followed in Allie’s turbulent wake.

He had every intention of obliging the lady!

And no intention whatsoever of expecting anything other than an ecstatically happy outcome!

CHAPTER FOUR

ALLIE stood on the forecourt of the fashionable riverside inn and the sun beat down on her head. The entire morning had been an unmitigated disaster. Not only had Jethro Conceited Cole made it pretty damn clear that he wasn’t interested in her offer, but she had put paid to any hope of being able to persuade him to change his mind because she had done the unprecedented and lost her temper, practically snapping his head off his shoulders! She didn’t know how or why it had happened. Her colleagues didn’t call her Ms Cucumber for nothing!

Any chance she now had of inheriting Studley had gone right down the drain.

She really didn’t know how she was going to face her mother and tell her that there was now no chance of getting Studley back. She shouldn’t have allowed the poor dear to hope. And she shouldn’t have lied to that solicitor in the first place.

Her spine wilting, her spirits as flat as yesterday’s champagne, she dismissed the idea of walking back to town along five or so miles of hot dusty road, turned to go back into the inn to phone for a taxi, and walked straight into the solid wall of Jethro’s broad chest.

Every last gasp of air left her body as she felt his steadying arms go round her, felt the warmth of his body burn through to her skin, making her tremble, every nerve-end suddenly alight with something that felt suspiciously like the tension of high excitement. She put a hand up to push him away, felt the beat of his heart beneath her palm, felt the heat of him, and weakly left her hand precisely where it was, because she’d somehow lost the strength to move it.

‘Ready to go?’

The husky, honeyed softness of his voice, the feather-light caress of his breath against her overheated temple, finally got through to her. Heaven only knew how long they’d been standing like this, like lovers who couldn’t bear to break bodily contact!

As his hands slid down, down to her waist, and showed every indication of going lower, his touch growing ever more intimate, she sprang away and felt her pulse begin a hectic beat at the base of her throat.

‘I’m going—’ Horrified, she realised she sounded like a strangled hen and, worse, he was grinning at her, a particularly piratical kind of grin. She swallowed convulsively as she scrambl

ed for her famous dignity and managed more or less calmly to finish what she’d started to say, ‘I’m going to phone for a taxi. There’s no need for you to waste any more of your time.’

‘My time’s my own,’ he told her lightly, his golden eyes dancing beneath the thick black frame of his lashes, ‘and I’ll use it any way I please.’ He used one hand to push a soft dark lick of hair out of his eyes, the other to cup her elbow. Tightly. ‘My future wife doesn’t ride in taxis while I’m around to drive her.’

Allie felt her feet grow roots through the gravel, felt her breath grow tight and heavy in her lungs. If she’d heard him correctly, and she knew she had, then she should be dragging him back inside, treating him to the best champagne the inn could offer, celebrating having beaten Fabian at his own game.

So why wasn’t she? Why this feeling of deep, paralysing apprehension, as if her future was no longer hers to order and arrange? As if everything that made her life pleasant and predictable had changed, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Just shock, she told herself staunchly. She hadn’t been expecting this, had already resigned herself to failure. So his compliance had stunned her. Nothing odd about that. She’d be fine in a minute.