Merger By Matrimony

‘I’d say you should give it very careful thought,’ he told her, as they drove slowly back to her house.

‘Why would you want a country house?’ she asked.

‘Why do you ask so many questions?’

‘Because it’s the way I am. Oh, I think I understand. Is it so that you have somewhere in the country for you and Stephanie, when you begin to have children?’ She would have liked children. Of course, she was only young and had all the time in the world, but time had a nasty habit of slipping away when you weren’t looking.

‘No, that’s not the reason,’ he was saying impatiently. ‘Naturally, you’d have to see the house. I wouldn’t want you to consider anything until you’re in full possession of all the facts.’

‘Naturally.’ Sooner than expected, the car was pulling up to the front of her pristine house. Strangely, the place was beginning to feel a bit like home, even though she still had an instinctive aversion to the English preoccupation with ordered greenery. She slung open her door and preceded him to her front door. It was much cooler now. She unlocked the door, pushed it open and then turned to face him. His face was all angles and his hair was raked back so that there was no relief from the chiselled perfection of his features. He was also standing too close to her. Claustrophobically close.

‘Thank you for dinner,’ she told him politely, eyes skirting any possible clash with his by focusing on the terraced row of houses visible over his right shoulder. ‘Do you want me to take the files with me and have a proper read?’

‘So I suggest this weekend. I’ll pick you up on Saturday morning and we can return on Sunday night. That should give you long enough to have a look around.’

‘Pick me up?’ she stammered, confused by this alarmingly swift turn of events. Ever since Derek Wilson had stumbled his way to the compound, her life seemed to have adopted a galloping speed that was quickly turning into a sprint.

‘You do want to see your country place, don’t you? See whether you want my proposal to go ahead?’

‘Yes, of course, but…’

‘Don’t tell me you have plans for the weekend.’

‘No, b-but…’

‘Then why are you stuttering and acting as though you’ve been pushed into a corner?’

‘It’s all a bit sudden, that’s all.’

‘I’m a great believer in the saying that there’s no time like the present.’

That, she thought, was glaringly obvious. But a weekend? Alone with him? It wouldn’t do. She couldn’t face down what the man did to her and she had no intention of being in his company without remission for days on end. She didn’t understand what she was feeling, but she knew that it was all wrong. Mild-mannered Henri with his easy ways and his light-hearted flirting was something she could handle. But Callum unleashed different, frightening things in her. A weekend being frightened was not on her agenda.

‘I’d like Stephanie to come,’ she said bluntly.

‘I intended to ask her along,’ he lied. ‘I’ll see you on Saturday. Around nine.’ He looked away, showing her his profile. ‘We can all get to know one another a little better.’

CHAPTER FIVE

THE following day, Stephanie asked Destiny to lunch. A gorgeous little wine bar in Chelsea. You’ll adore it.

What was the dress code, she wondered, for gorgeous little wine bars in Chelsea? The flowered dress which she’d bought on her shopping trip made her feel frivolous. It was added to the list of new emotions which she had been accumulating ever since she’d set foot on British soil. Sometimes she felt as though the perfect bliss she had achieved for all those years in Panama had been an illusion. Back there, she’d operated on one level only. She had been calm, useful, productive and down to earth. Devoting her life to other people had left no room for anything else.

Now, it was as if the small world she had busily and happily occupied had grown and swelled into a complex network of different facets. She no longer felt nauseated and overwhelmed by the crowds. She was becoming accustomed to the buildings that rose around her like the tall, lush trees that encroached upon the compound and to the pace of life that left no time to be alone with the privacy of your thoughts for company. She hadn’t read a book since she had arrived! In Panama, she had read voraciously every evening, all manner of books, which she stocked up on in quantity whenever a trip to the city was made and, of course, her father’s medical journals, which she had started reading for interest from the age of fourteen.

And men had always been her equals. Aside from Henri, who had worked alongside her for two years and whose gallantry rescued her from total asexuality, she’d had no experience of being aware of them in a sexual manner. She discussed problems with them, joined in their conversations, worked with them—but those peculiar antennae that were so finely tuned to their masculinity had never really got going with her. Callum had been the one to bring that side of her to life. It was a good thing that she was going to see Stephanie. Her stepcousin would put a bit of necessary perspective on what was going on in her head.