Merger By Matrimony (16 page)

‘You mean the bespectacled Henri didn't rush to your immediate aid?'

‘Doesn't work that way out there, I'm afraid. Women need to be able to do their job usefully and not rely on a man to pull them out of uncomfortable conditions.'

He paused in what he was doing. ‘Was your mother as capable as you?'

‘If not more.' She sighed. ‘My father said that he loved her from the very first moment he set eyes on her.'

‘Where did they meet? At a dance? Dinner party?'

‘Oh, she was stitching up a young boy whose head had been busted open by a cricket ball.'

‘Ah. Unusual circumstances for love at first sight.'

‘I guess their eyes met over the needle and nylon.' She giggled.

‘So what are you going to do? Stay or stay?'

‘Stay?'

‘Right choice…'

Was it, though?

She had no idea what time they had finally drifted to sleep. She only knew that she was considerably more experienced in the ways of pleasuring a man than she had been at the start of the evening. And when she wakened several hours later, with needles of light filtering through the curtains, it took her several seconds to remember where she was. Then her eyes flew open to find herself alone on the bed with a mass of crumpled sheets around her.

With the cold light of day came the cold light of reality. Her fragile reasons for sleeping with Callum Ross now seemed ludicrous and naïve. Seductive words and dim lighting, and the overwhelming recognition of her own feelings for him, had worked in devilish ways to banish her reserve, and the prospect of a headlong collision with planet Earth now seemed something that couldn't be reasoned away into non-existence.

What could she have been thinking of?

Had she imagined that she could enjoy the fruition of her love for one night—or maybe one week or even one month, until she left the country—and then take off with her heart and soul intact? What was the remainder of her
life going to be now? Back in Panama, with only her memories for bitter company?

She groaned silently to herself, wondering if there was any reasonable chance that she could sneak out of the house without being caught. Perhaps shinny out of the window or something.

She tried to picture someone of her stature
shinnying
and ran up against a mental block. Shinny down and break her back by crashing thunderously onto the ground in the process would be more like it.

The thing that really scared her was the suspicion that, whatever qualms were now dawning on the horizon, she would still forfeit reason for the pleasure of being with him, and she knew that the more snatched moments of happiness she stole now, the greater would be her eventual prison sentence.

The thoughts were still churning over in her mind when the object of them returned to the bedroom, wearing a white bathrobe underneath which was nothing but his bare body, as she could see every time it swung apart in rhythm with his tread.

‘Breakfast,' he said, raising the tray in both hands slightly and grinning. ‘Full English.' He deposited the tray on the bed, relieved himself of his bathrobe with an enviable lack of self-consciousness, then slid next to her.

On the tray was a plate heaped with bacon, sausages, toast and scrambled egg, two cups of coffee and two plates with the required cutlery stacked on top of them.

Her onslaught of misgivings evaporated at the sight of him, as she had known it would.

‘Tuck in,' he said, heaping a bit of everything on a plate and sliding a spare tray from underneath onto her lap.

‘Don't tell me. You're an expert at entertaining women in your bed in the morning.'

‘On the contrary. Don't forget, Steph and I were together for two years and I'm a one-woman man.'

‘Did you ever love her?' She took a sip of the coffee and waited for his answer.

Love her? Callum almost laughed. Love was anything but the placid affection he had felt for his former fiancée. Love, as he could now testify, was something that took over every pore of your body and left a strong man hesitant and exposed.

‘We had fun for a while,' he said slowly, wishing that she was opposite him so that he could read the expression on her face. Her voice implied nothing but a casual interest. ‘And I was very fond of her. I still am.'

Just like you're having fun with me for a while?
she wanted to ask. Instead, she chickened out of the sickening prospect of putting him in a spot. She wondered whether that would be his future dismissal of her when he was lying on the same bed, bringing breakfast up for another woman.

She ate some of her breakfast in silence, then manoeuvred the tray onto the low oak chest of drawers next to her side of the bed.

‘That was good,' she said. ‘Thank you very much. The last time I had food delivered to me on a tray in my room was years ago, when I was ill, and my father waited on me hand and foot for a few days. I remember thinking at the time how nice it was not to have to fetch and carry for other people.'

She lay back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, feeling the bed shift as he disposed of his own tray then turned on his side to her.

‘You're quite something, Destiny Felt, do you know
that?' He pulled the sheet a few inches down so that her breasts were exposed, but he didn't touch her, contenting himself with looking, until his looks were as heady as his touch would have been.

She turned to lie on her side, facing him, half wanting to cover herself, but the desire to do that was a lot less strong than the desire to watch him react to her. She had never known that one man's hunger could be such a powerful aphrodisiac. Eventually, he couldn't resist, and he trailed a finger to circle her nipple, touching it with butterfly lightness, watching as it stiffened and puckered under his finger.

‘We need never stop this, you know,' he said gravely, addressing her responding breast, and her breath caught in her throat.

Wasn't this what she had wanted to hear? Some talk of commitment? Of permanence? What else could he mean? They had spent a wonderful night together, and at least as far as she was concerned it was much more than that. Somehow it felt as though their personalities fused. Did he feel it too?

She was no liberated westerner who could gaily conduct an affair as a
fun thing
while it lasted. She was a traditionalist and, although she'd slept with him, she wanted so much more.

She could feel herself holding her breath as she looked at him.

‘What, not even to eat or have a bath?' she asked lightly, while her heart pounded like a steam engine inside her. Having Callum at her side, her husband, would raise a few problems—not least those concerning country of residence—but the doubts were soothed as soon as they surfaced. She would be at his side, wherever that might turn out to be.

‘I'm being serious.' He lay flat on his back with his hands folded behind his head. He could feel a muscle pulsing gently in his jaw and a light film of perspiration was breaking out over his body. It hadn't been like this with Stephanie, but, then again, he hadn't been toying with his heart then. She'd wanted proof of security and he'd had no trouble agreeing to an engagement because he had felt more real warmth and affection for her than he had ever felt for any of his previous women. Not that talk of marriage had ever cropped up before. It had been something he had purposefully avoided.

But now it was different. He couldn't envisage
not
having this woman by his side for the duration of his life, for better or for worse and all those other vows uttered during a marriage ceremony, vows that he had never given much thought to in the past. And he didn't want an engagement.

But, for all that, the thought of exposing himself and telling her how he felt sent a chill of terror crawling along his veins.

It hadn't escaped him that not once during their lovemaking had the word
love
been mentioned, not even when she'd been flushed and moaning with pleasure, with every defence down and her head thrown back in abandon. And that in itself said it all. Because, however sharp she was in every conceivable practical area, when it came to emotions she was still finding her way, and there was an openness there that was almost innocent in its demonstrations.

But, God, he still wanted her to be his for ever.

‘We could get married,' he said, still staring upwards. ‘I mean, it makes sense, don't you think? We're compatible in bed—more than compatible—and it could sort out every niggling area of all this bargaining we've been
trying to do over the past few weeks. I can't personally think of a better arrangement than marriage.'

She couldn't fail to see the sense behind his proposal, he thought, and then he would have time on his side. Time to woo her into loving him. He was her first lover and, in a life in which relationships had never made an imprint, she probably wasn't very certain
what
love was. She would only ever have had the example of her parents, and from the sound of it they had been an exceptional couple, both scientists, both fiercely determined to bring their skill and knowledge to a country that needed it. From the start they had been unified in their goals. But with him, well, hadn't it all been a little different?

‘Arrangement?' Destiny asked numbly.

‘Partnership,' he corrected quickly.

‘I'm not sure,' she said, feeling cold all over and very sure indeed. Very sure that the proposition he had put to her had not been the one her romantic, delusional mind had conjured up. Now, it made her feel ill to think that she'd imagined a marriage proposal to have been made with some declaration of love, or at least with some emotion other than the coolly logical one he was displaying now.

She had to get out of here. She couldn't afford to let him start working on her with his arguments of common sense and practicality. He weakened her, and she wouldn't enter into a marriage for all the wrong reasons. That would be a recipe for disaster. Hadn't she made one disastrous error already by sleeping with him and telling herself that it was fine because she loved him? No way would she compound the mistake by adding yet another, and one that she would have a lifetime to regret.

‘I need to think it over.'

‘What's there to think over?' He rolled to his side and looked at her, his blue eyes urgent and demanding.

She wriggled back a bit. ‘I need a few days. Just to get my head around it…to adjust…'

‘Adjust to what?'

‘We barely know each other!'

‘We have been as intimate as two people can be…'

‘That's not what I mean.' She edged towards the side of the bed and practically fell off, reaching down for her clothes and sticking on the shirt she had borrowed with her back to him.

‘Where are you going?' It was more of a demand than a question. He could feel her ebbing away from him, but the temptation to push harder was something he knew he had to resist. The ebb would turn into outright flight if he did that. She said she needed time, and there was nothing ominous about that. Of course she needed time. Marriage proposals were not things that were sprung on a daily basis. The best thing he could do now would be to curb his savage impatience and let her have the time she needed. With restrictions.

‘I need to get back to my place,' she mumbled, not looking at him.

Callum sprang out of bed and pulled a tee-shirt over his powerful torso, followed by boxer shorts.

‘You'll need a lift back. I'll drive you.' He kept one eye on her while putting on a pair of trousers, not bothering with a belt so that they hung slightly down his hips. She had sailed into the bathroom, shutting the door, and he waited with increasing frustration for her outside, drumming his fingers on the windowsill.

One desperate part of him was beginning to think that somewhere along the line his impeccably tempting offer, full of the sort of practical advantages that would appeal
to someone as clear-headed as she was, was going badly wrong.

And with the desperation, nauseating in itself because it was just so alien to him, came a rush of surly defensiveness. Shouldn't she have jumped to his offer with alacrity? Maybe, he thought, she was disturbed at the thought of cutting ties with the country she'd spent most of her life in. Perhaps she just needed time to sort out the practicalities of the issue.

That line of thought was reassuring, and by the time she emerged from the bathroom, inappropriately clad in her dress, he was prepared to be magnanimous.

‘Look,' he said sympathetically, ‘I understand that you might be having a few doubts about leaving Panama…' She was virtually scuttling out of the room and down the stairs, running her fingers through her uncombed hair, sticking on her shoes when she got to the front door. ‘But you would be able to go over there on holiday whenever you wanted. And of course your father could come and visit whenever he wanted…'

‘Oh, yes, right,' she answered in a vaguely surprised voice. She still wasn't looking at him and he positioned himself in front of the door so that she was compelled to look up. ‘I hadn't really considered that aspect of it,' she continued, flushing.

‘Then
what
aspects are you considering?' he demanded with a trace of aggression in his voice, and she immediately pulled away into herself.

‘Please don't push me.'

‘I'm not pushing you.'

‘You expect me to give you a yes or no answer right this minute…'

‘I
told
you I can more than understand that you might need time to think it over,' Callum said repressively.

He steadied himself and stood aside to open the door, following her into the car and starting it with barely contained anger.

‘I'm going to be away for the next few days,' he said into the lengthening silence. ‘So I won't be around to pester you. Do you think you might have an answer for me by the time I get back?'