The Price of a Wife

'Yes.' She nodded with what she hoped was cool aplomb. 'I've sketched out a few rough ideas on different angles for the fair and the ball later. There's a Victorian look, or perhaps you'd prefer an Edwardian style? And we need to determine pretty early on whether the period you choose for the fair will run over into the ball, because if so your guests will need some considerable time to get appropriate clothes ordered for both. The ice rink will be expensive to construct, of course, and we will have to provide a vast number of boots in different sizes—'

A discreet knock at the door broke into what was fast becoming a gabble, even to her own ears, and a second later a waiter entered, carrying a tray containing coffee and cakes.

'Thank you.' Luke's voice was cool and calm, and once the waiter had left, leaving the tray on the table at their side, where Luke had indicated it should go, he turned to her, a slight smile curving the hard mouth. 'Do I make you nervous, Josie?'

'What?' The word escaped before she could draw it back, and she knew she was blushing a bright red as she qualified it hastily. 'No, not in the least. Of course not.'

'Of course not.' He repeated her words with slow, laconic disbelief, his dark eyebrows slightly raised as he leant back in his chair to survey her through narrowed eyes. 'There is no need to be nervous, I do assure you. You have the job. It is, as they say, in the bag.'

'I know.' If only it was just the job in hand that was the trouble, she thought silently. If only. 'And there's no problem, really,' she said brightly, willing the hard, astute man in front of her to believe the lie.

'Good.' The piercing s

ilver eyes remained trained on her face for one more moment before they dropped to the papers in front of him and he waved his hand at the tray. 'Would you care to be mother?'

It was an old phrase, and one that she had come up against many times in the last few years, but it still had the power to hit her in the stomach like a hard fist and she was glad that that glittering gaze was no longer on her.

'Milk or cream?' she asked carefully as she poured the coffee.

'Black, please.' He didn't look up as he spoke. 'And I'd like a piece of that disgustingly rich fruitcake while you're about it. Lunch seems a distant memory, and I can see we'll be tied up here for an hour or two. Dinner at eight suit you?'

'Dinner—?' She stopped abruptly. She somehow hadn't expected to have dinner with him, although, thinking about it now, maybe she should have. But she had supposed he would be busy with other high-flying tycoons—the ones he had come out here to see, presumably.

'You do eat?' he drawled quietly, still with his eyes on her work.

'Yes.' In spite of all her good intentions—and she had been repeating them to herself ever since waking very early that morning—her stomach clenched in protest at his faintly mocking tone. 'And eight would be fine.'

'The food here is more than adequate, but I know a little restaurant that is excellent if you don't mind a drive?' The devastating gaze swung to her face before she had time to school her features into an acceptable mask, and she saw his eyes narrow as they fastened on her tight mouth.

'I don't mind—really,' she said hastily. 'Whichever you'd prefer.' She passed him the coffee and cake as she spoke and then almost dropped the plate as a tingle shot up her arm at the touch of his fingers.

If he noticed her little start of surprise he said nothing, accepting the coffee and cake with a polite word of thanks and then transferring both his gaze and his energies to the job in hand.

And Josie found, after a few seconds had slipped by, that the razor-sharp mind and intimidating intelligence of the man in front of her called forth all her powers of concentration—so much so that she was absolutely amazed when, some time later, Luke glanced at his watch and announced that two hours had slipped by.

'I think we've covered the initial groundwork.' He smiled at her as he stretched with animalistic grace, his hard muscles flexing under his clothes. 'Certainly enough to give the thing a kick-start, anyway.'

She nodded quickly in reply, forcing a polite smile to her lips. He had been absolutely right, of course. There was no way the majority of this could have been sorted out by faxing or telephone calls or anything else. It had needed a one-to-one discussion; she had been stupid to suggest anything else. As it was she was going to have her work cut out to keep to the schedule they had drawn up; every day, every hour would count from now on.

'Let me take those.' When she'd finished packing all her sketches and papers into her large black briefcase and leather folder he took them from her, tucking them under his arm as though they weighed nothing at all. 'Your room is just down the corridor from my suite. I'll call for you at eight and we'll drive to that restaurant, OK? I'd like a decent meal after the last day or so.'

He gestured for her to walk through the door he had just opened, and as she did so the realisation that she was being controlled by a superior force, one that represented danger, was so strong that she could taste it. And along with that disturbing knowledge came the fact that she was vitally aware of every single movement of that big, powerful male body, that she had been even when immersed in facts and figures and calculations. Even then her subconscious had registered every slight gesture, every action, however small. It was humiliating, mortifying, but her mind and body seemed determined to respond to this man in a way she couldn't control, and she didn't like it at all.

The first few months after the accident had been a dark nightmare as she had struggled to come to terms with the loss of her father and also the end of all her girlish dreams of marriage, a husband, babies. Babies. For a time it had seemed as if the whole world revolved around babies. Every television commercial, every programme or magazine featured wide-eyed infants, be they blade, brown or white, and each one had screamed her deficiency at her, the fact that she was hopelessly, irreversibly flawed.

Babies had become a terrible and wonderful fascination for her, a whip with which she beat herself daily, an ob-session she couldn't overcome. She had spent hours in front of a mirror with a cushion in front of her stomach under her clothes, the tears streaming down her face as she had cried her desolation from the black void where her heart had been.

But then, slowly, she had begun to claw back her mental stability, forcing herself each morning, minute by minute, hour by hour, to count her blessings. She had become nurse as well as daughter to her mother, and in a strange way that tragedy, following so hard on the heels of the accident and her father's subsequent death, had settled her emotions. She hadn't had time to dwell on her own grief as she had sought to make her mother's last days happy ones, and unbeknown to herself it had been therapy for them both.

When her mother had died she had been almost seventeen, but she had felt like an old, old lady as she had determined the path her life would follow. A fulfilling and interesting career, and a destiny that she and she alone would control, with no emotional or romantic commitment of -any kind. Her parents' death, coming so soon after Peter's cruel treatment of her adolescent adoration and its devastating conclusion, had turned the word 'love' into something that meant agony, misery, suffering and bereavement.

She had determined to be strong, mentally and physically. She would be in control of both her emotions and her fate from now on. No more being tossed about by the waves on the sea of life; no more crying for what had been taken so brutally from her. She would make her place in a world in which children rarely featured and learn to be content with that. She would.

And now? She was aware of Luke just a step behind her as they walked to the lift. Now, for the first time in all those years, that control had been shaken. And she was having dinner with him tonight! Was she mad? Before she had time to consider her next words, she turned round so sharply that he almost walked into her.

'Mr—Luke, I really think I would prefer to have a meal in my room tonight,' she said hastily to the dark, hard face above her, stumbling slightly over his name, which seemed as though it had burnt her lips. 'It will give me a chance to go over a few of those calculations, and I'm really very tired…'

She found her voice dwindling away as he stood looking down at her, his silver-grey eyes gleaming in the dull artificial light overhead and his face perfectly still. Even whoa he wasn't speaking, perhaps especially when he wasn't speaking, the cold, compelling aura of the man was fiercely strong.