Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

He couldn’t take his attention off his nail-biting wife. She looked so scared on his behalf and she was trembling. Concern for his health must have made her shout at him. She seemed to be fond of him. She might well be fonder still of his immense wealth and all that it could buy her, Roel conceded cynically but, indisputably, she seemed to cherish some degree of genuine fondness for him. He knew all women were terrific actresses but any single one of the previous lovers he could recall would have withstood torture sooner than succumb to cannibalising a nail.

In addition his wife was neither as uncomplicated nor as predictable as he had initially assumed. A startling amount of fire and defiance lurked behind that cute and curvaceous feminine exterior. He was accustomed to women who said yes to his every request and worked hard at meeting his expectations before he could even be put to the trouble of voicing a request. He had never met a woman who had the nerve to shout at him or one who would go toe to toe with him in a fight. In actuality, he did not argue with people ever. He had never had to argue. Arguments just didn’t happen to him.

Hilary was feeling hugely, horribly guilty and shaken up. Roel was still suffering from the physical after-effects of a serious accident and she had lost her temper with him. How could she have done that? As a rule she had an even temper and a sunny easygoing nature. What had come over her? Instead of being calm and coaxing and patient, she had been strident and emotional and accusing. He had looked taken aback. She didn’t think he was used to being shouted at and she could not believe that she had done so.

Sucking in a deep steadying breath, she studied him. Her heart jumped as though it were on a trampoline. His luxuriant black hair was tousled, bold profile taut, his dense black lashes cut crescent-shaped shadows over his proud olive cheekbones. Extravagantly handsome, he had a raw masculine appeal that turned female heads wherever he went. He still took her breath away. Just as he had the very first time she’d seen him and the recollection of that particular day nearly four years ago swept her back in time…

Talking on a mobile phone, Roel had walked through the door of the busy salon where she’d worked as a junior stylist. There he had stilled, ebony brows elevating with a faint air of well-bred surprise as he’d taken in his surroundings. She had immediately understood that, like others before him, he had mistaken the salon for the much more exclusive place a few doors further along the street. In that split second when he had been on the brink of wheeling round to leave again something had propelled her forward. Something? The fact that he was so outrageously good-looking she would have gone without food for a week just to own a photo of him? How could she explain her own unbelievably powerful need to prevent him walking back out of her life again as casually as he had wandered into it?

‘Just you stay on the phone and I’ll take care of your hair,’ Hilary suggested, planting herself between him and the door, relying on his essential male instinct to avoid acknowledging that he had made a mistake to guide him.

He flicked her a perplexed glance, the sort that told her he did not really see her and was much more interested in his phone conversation. She expected that to change when she wielded the styling scissors around him. In her admittedly slender experience handsome men were well aware of being handsome and as keen as any woman to ensure that their hair was cut only to their own exact specification.

‘Do what needs to be done,’ Roel told her impatiently.

Asked for guidance a second time, he gave her an unbelieving appraisal. ‘But it’s only a haircut, nothing important.’

So she just copied the existing conservative style. Even the feel of his luxuriant black hair thrilled her fingertips. As he paid she urged him to make sure that he came back. He had just walked out when she noticed the large denomination banknote that she assumed he had accidentally dropped on the desk. Ever eager, she rushed out into the street after him.

‘It’s a tip,’ Roel said in a pained tone when she attempted to return the money. He stared down at her from his great height while a limousine the length of a train drew up behind him and a uniformed chauffeur leapt out to throw open the passenger door for his entry.

‘But it’s too much…’ she mumbled, staggered by the sight of that limo and the concept of a tip that size.

With a shrug of imperious dismissal, Roel swung away into his opulent car.

Hilary drifted back to the present to discover that while she had been lost in her thoughts Roel had contrived to regain his natural colour and was upright again.

‘Should you be standing?’ Hilary queried, watching him set down the phone he had been using.

‘We’re going home,’ Roel imparted, ignoring the question.

In search of support, Hilary looked in dismay at the consultant. ‘Dr Lerther?’

The older man aimed a stiff smile at her. ‘There is no physical reason why your husband should remain at the clinic.’

‘Naturalmente…the other problem will vanish,’ Roel pronounced with supreme confidence.

We’re going home. Home? For goodness’ sake, where was home? Caught totally unprepared for the development, Hilary followed Roel out to the lift, which swept them down to the ground floor. There she learned that the case she had left at reception had already been stowed in the transport awaiting them.

‘So where were you when I crashed my car yesterday?’ Roel enquired a tinge drily.

‘In London…er…I have a business there,’ Hilary answered in an undertone while she frantically wondered what she was supposed to do or say next for she had no script on which to act. Nothing was as she had assumed it would be. He was walking wounded, conscious, but by no stretch of the imagination was he himself.

A limousine with tinted windows sat outside the clinic. A chauffeur doffed his cap. She climbed in and sank into a seat upholstered in rich hide leather. She struggled not to gawp at the astonishing luxury of the car interior.

‘How long have we been marr

ied?’ Roel drawled softly.

Without looking at him, Hilary breathed in deep. ‘I think it’ll be more relaxing if I don’t force-feed you facts—’

Roel reached out a lean brown hand and closed long, sure fingers over hers. ‘I want to know everything—’

Startled by the ease with which he had touched her, Hilary could not prevent her fingers from trembling within the hold of his. ‘Dr Lerther said that telling you things that you didn’t really need to know would just complicate matters—’

‘Let me decide what I need to know,’ Roel incised without hesitation.

‘I think Dr Lerther has your best interests at heart and I don’t want to risk your recovery by going against his advice,’ Hilary confided unevenly, for that physically close to him for the first time ever she was a bundle of nerves.