He hadn’t touched her again.
And she hadn’t mentioned her crazy plan again. Maybe because he wouldn’t give her the chance.
He came home each evening, said a polite “hello” and that was that. While they ate dinner he read through whatever he’d stuffed into his briefcase before leaving his office. Cat kept silent: he figured that had been the way meals were at the convent, and that was fine.
Dinner over, he excused himself, went up to his room and spent the rest of the evening there, working on his papers, catching up on his correspondence…
Jake swung his chair around and stared out the window.
Who was he kidding?
He didn’t do anything even resembling work. He stared at the walls, at the TV screen, at the day’s newspapers, at whatever might take his mind off the woman down the hall.
About how it was his responsibility to find her a husband.
About what she’d asked him to do.
How could she even suggest such a thing? He’d signed on to find her a husband, not to introduce her to sex—although the ugly truth was he’d come awfully close to doing exactly that.
But he’d been good the past two weeks. He hadn’t touched Cat. And he’d kept his promise to phone the guy he knew at the Brazilian Embassy. He’d met Lucas for drinks, explained the situation…
Well, no. Not all of it.
Why go into the complicated details? That he’d inherited responsibility for the ward of the man who’d sired him, and that he was charged with finding her the right husband.
That her fortune and his future hung in the balance.
That Cat wanted to “buy” a fast divorce by offering the man who married her her innocence.
Snap.
Jake grabbed another pencil.
No, he hadn’t told Lucas any of that. He’d just said the ward of a Brazilian acquaintance was staying with him and he wanted to introduce her to New York’s closely knit Brazilian community.
“How old is the girl?” Lucas had asked.
Jake had told him. Lucas had nodded.
“There’s a party at the Embassy next week.”
Jake had felt as if a load were easing from his shoulders. “Great.”
“Is she very unattractive?”
Jake had looked at Lucas. They were about the same age. Lucas was tall, dark-haired and he had a reputation as a ladykiller.
“If she were a ten,” Lucas said, grinning over the frosted rim of his caipirinha, “I might just be interested—but she can’t be, otherwise you’d keep her for yourself.”
Jake tossed aside the pencil, rose from his chair and paced the length of his office. Keep Catarina for himself? What a ridiculous idea. She needed a husband. He needed to find one for her. And if she thought he’d school her in the things men and women did in bed before that could happen, she was out of her mind.
He turned sharply and paced in the other direction.
The only thing he’d teach her was how to be civil. The night he’d told her to go to her room she’d turned white with anger, called him something in Portuguese he figured was better left untranslated, and marched away.
A woman and a wildcat. That was what his supposedly demure ward had turned out to be. Mother Elisabete would probably vanish in a puff of smoke if she saw her charge now.
Especially in her new clothes.