A Convenient Proposal

There wasn't anything that was right! 'No, everything's great,' he lied cheerfully. 'I think I can hear Candy coming; I'll just tell her it's you.'

Candy was halfway down the stairs when he called to her, and her face had a scrubbed, soap and water look to it. He remembered how her body had felt as she had nestled on his lap, and all the good work the cold outside had done was lost. 'It's Essie,' he said evenly, jerking his head at the phone. 'I've told her you are coming to me for Christmas and she is thrilled you aren't going to be here by yourself, so don't worry her by saying anything different.'

'Quinn—'

'Remember the baby,' he warned softly.

'That's emotional blackmail,' she sniffed weakly, the hot retort she had been about to make dying on her lips as she noticed the vivid mark of her hand across one bronzed cheekbone. She had never hit anyone before and she had had to start with Quinn! And it had been no light tap either.

By the end of the conversation with Essie she acknowledged it was a fait accompli. Essie had enthused it would make her Christmas—as it would Xavier's—that Candy was with friends over the holiday. They had been just the tiniest bit worried about her, Essie had confided gently, but, knowing she was with Quinn, she and Xavier could relax. They had been pleased when she had told them she was having Christmas lunch with Quinn some weeks back, but this made so much more sense if the weather forecast was bad.

Candy spoke to Xavier next, and just hearing her uncle's voice made the lump in her throat grapefruit size. They chattered for a few minutes and then Xavier asked to speak to Quinn.

The men's conversation was brief and succinct and consisted mainly of monosyllables on Quinn's part.

'What did he say?' Candy asked hesitantly when Quinn put the phone down. She had told herself during the call she wasn't going to ask but she couldn't help it.

'He merely expressed fatherly concern as to my intentions,' Quinn said shortly, one dark eyebrow raised in a quizzical fashion as he glanced her way.

'He's not my father.' It was pithy, but she was sick of everyone poking their noses in her business, Candy told herself aggressively. She wasn't a child!

And that was exactly what Quinn made her feel—a spoilt, irrational child—when he said calmly, 'He loves you, Candy, and so does Essie. You can't blame them for being interested in your welfare.'

She could! Oh, yes, she could. This present sorry situation had come about by Xavier and Essie's interest in her welfare! She was a grown woman of twenty-four and she had been used to looking after herself for a long time—she hadn't needed them to ask Quinn to be her guardian angel! Her face reflected the fruit of her thoughts, and as he caught her scowl Quinn eyed her reprovingly. 'You'll have lines before you're thirty,' he said with irritating equability.

'Well, you won't have to look at them so it doesn't matter much one way or the other,' Candy said tartly, catching sight of the cat carriers as she spoke, which caused her face to darken further. He was so sure of himself!

Quinn's mouth twisted as he followed her glance and she knew he had read her mind accurately.

'Throw a few things into a case and get your brood ready and we'll be off.' He glanced at her as he spoke, noticing the defiant tilt to her head as she stared back at him.

'I told you. I'm not coming.'

'And what about your promise to Essie?'

'I never promised her a thing,' Candy said sharply. 'You had told them I was coming to stay with you and I didn't contradict it, that's all. They are far enough away to remain in blissful ignorance unless you tell them different, which I'm sure you won't do…in view of the baby,' she added sarcastically.

'And my parents?' Quinn asked flatly. 'You're quite happy to ruin their Christmas? They are expecting me to bring my girlfriend to meet them, so when I go back and say we're no longer an item how do you think that is going to make them feel?'

'You should have thought of that before you said I'd stay.'

But her voice was no longer so certain, and Quinn was quick to ruthlessly press the advantage her soft heart had given him. 'Candy, my mother all but had a nervous breakdown when Laura and her grandson were killed three years ago,' he said quietly, his voice having the advantage of the ring of truth. 'Since then…well, I've dated occasionally over the last year or so but there has never been anyone special. She was so pleased when I mentioned your name.'

'You—!' She swore, a very modest swear-word, but it was so unlike her she blushed scarlet as she continued, 'That's terrible, Quinn. How could you do that to her when you know this is just a façade we're putting up?'

'I didn't realise it would affect her the way it has,' Quinn said soberly. 'At the time of the accident they hid most of their distress for my sake; it was only when I mentioned you that my father told me later how thrilled she was and what it meant to her that I was recovering—' He stopped abruptly.

'It was bad for a time?' Candy asked softly, before mentally kicking herself at the banality of the words. His wife and his son had violently been snatched from him and she asked him if it was bad!

But Quinn didn't seem to find the question trite. 'Yes, it was bad,' he said heavily. 'The worst.'

'I'm sorry, Quinn.' And she was, desperately so. 'Of course I'll come and stay. But—'

'What?' The black eyes were unblinking as they honed in on her troubled blue gaze.

'After Christmas, when they've gone home, we need to have a talk,' she said flatly. 'Agreed?'

'Agreed.' He smiled, a sexy quirk of his mouth that was quite natural and therefore ten times more attractive, and he walked over to her, reaching out and splaying his hands round her waist as he pulled her against him for a moment, dropping a light kiss on her nose. 'After Christmas,' he said silkily.