The Prospective Wife (10 page)

Kat had little choice but to follow him, even though she wasn’t the best swimmer in the world and, given the choice, she didn’t normally venture out of her depth. He had covered a good half of the pool in a lazy but efficient crawl before she caught up with him. He was lying on his back, squinting up through half-closed eyes at the elaborate murals of toga-clad women on the high ceiling.

‘Hell, that felt good!’

Kat began to inexpertly tread water. ‘That was a stupid thing to do!’

‘Your breathing could do with some work,’ he observed, regarding her red-cheeked breathlessness critically.

This was one piece of provocation too many for Kat, who had been scared stiff that he’d get into trouble in deep water and she’d be unable to help him.

‘I didn’t come here to be your lifeguard, or for that matter your nursemaid!’ she yelled. ‘If you’re going to ignore everything I say, I don’t see much point in staying!’ At that moment she swallowed a large mouthful of water. Coughing and choking, her uncoordinated thrashing movements sent her head under the water. Panic kept her there longer than was necessary and a strong arm brought her back up.

When her head re-emerged above the water, Matt’s arms were linked gently under her armpits.

‘You’re fine,’ the voice beside her ear soothed persuasively—so persuasively, in fact, that if she hadn’t felt as if she’d swallowed half the pool she might have believed him. ‘Just relax.’

Easier said than done! Kat fought back the instinct that made her want to claw wildly at him.

‘Good girl,’ he approved as she allowed her head to rest against his shoulder. ‘Let me do the work.’

Every professional instinct told Kat she should do nothing of the sort, but her fright had taken the fight clear out of her.

‘You’ll…’

‘
Break?
I don’t think so. Besides, the water is doing all the work; you’re as light as a feather.’

‘That’s a novelty.’

Her passive acceptance of his aid lasted until she felt the bottom of the pool under her toes. The arm looped across her ribcage fell away as she struggled to regain her feet.

‘You can’t swim!’

The virulence of his biting accusation took her by surprise. ‘Of course I can. I just can’t swim as well as you.’ She pushed back her drenched hair from her face with unsteady hands.

An image of his streamlined body moving through the water appeared in her head. He was as supple and confident as a seal in the water. Even in a panic-stricken state, part of her had registered his grace and casual elegance. She instinctively knew that under normal circumstances he would be just as rivetingly, breathtakingly elegant on dry land.

‘You call that swimming?’ His brows drew into a scornful dark line.

Kat glared mutinously back. Hadn’t she been humiliated enough without him rubbing salt in the wound? Still he didn’t let it go! It was
her
near-death experience, for heaven’s sake!

‘Why the hell swim out of your depth when you knew you couldn’t handle it?’

Kat still felt out of her depth; she felt that way every time she looked at him. ‘Well, someone had to be there to save you if you overreached yourself!’ she yelled back, stomping abruptly towards the steps and sitting down in the shallow water with a bump. Her knees were feeling the after effects of her little adventure and her head was spinning. With a sigh she let her head fall weakly to her lap.

‘She was going to save me…?’ Matt repeated under his breath as he made his way towards her. Out of the water it was a slow, arduous process. ‘
She
was going to save
me
…! he repeated. A slow grin spread across his face as he shook his head wonderingly from side to side. ‘Are you all right?’

Kat lifted her head. Her face was pale but otherwise she didn’t look too bad… Actually, she looked deeply desirable. His body responded lustfully. If asked at that moment he would have fiercely denied that he’d ever thought her insipidly pretty.

‘I’m fine.’ Thankfully the nausea had receded.

‘Are all our sessions going to be this dramatic?’

Kat shook her head. ‘There aren’t going to be any more. I really don’t think this is going to work out.’ She was just amazed that he couldn’t see this too. ‘You must see that.’

‘Why must I?’

Kat’s jaw tightened. ‘We don’t get on.’

‘Do you only treat patients you like?’

Now she knew he was being deliberately obtuse. ‘This isn’t dislike. This is a total clash of personalities! I’m not—’

‘Throwing in the towel?’ he suggested smoothly.

‘I’m no quitter!’ she insisted defiantly. ‘I just can’t work in this atmosphere.’

‘Ah, the
atmosphere
…’

Kat didn’t like the way he said that one bit at all. She shot him a worried furtive glance from under the sweep of her wet eyelashes.

‘Be careful!’ she said sharply as, with his left leg extended stiffly, he lowered himself smoothly down beside her.

Kat didn’t know if the hair-roughened flesh of his thigh had come to rest against her own deliberately, but she did know that it was the last straw! The hot liquid sensation that pooled low in her belly was even more debilitating than the strange, light-headed, floaty feeling and the weakness that afflicted all her limbs simultaneously.

Matt watched as a fine tremor ran through her entire body. ‘Are you cold?’

Cold, hot…? Both…neither. Kat didn’t have the faintest idea, and cared even less.

‘Perhaps we should leave…?’

‘I’ve told you, I am leaving.’ As soon as she could trust herself to stand up.

Matt allowed his exasperation to show. ‘You need a job; I need a physio…’ If he’d said what else he needed…needed
badly,
as it happened…he’d really spook her, and probably earn himself a lot of bad publicity into the bargain!

It occurred to him it was bit late in the day to remember office protocol… There were excuses… This wasn’t an office… This was a hot steamy place where a guy didn’t wear many clothes to hide his interest! Actually, it was a bit of a relief; after the paraplegic scare he’d been assured there would be no problems on that score. Only when the feeling had returned to his toes and his legs there had been no corresponding awakening in vital areas—not until now!

‘How about if I promise to be a good boy and do everything you tell me…?’

A distressed moan escaped from Kat’s throat as her fevered imagination came up with several things she’d like to tell him to do; the
things
could only be termed exercises in the loosest possible sense! Why did he have to be so vibrantly male? she wondered despairingly.

Her teeth came together so hard it hurt.
‘I can’t!’
she told him in a strangled voice.

‘Of course you can.’

Kat lifted her head from her contemplation of her white-knuckled fingers with a snap; her eyes were blazing. ‘I can’t stay here,’ she grated in a goaded voice. ‘It might be different if I was a typist or something.’ Typing didn’t require a person to lay her hands on her boss’s bare skin. There was nothing even vaguely clinical about the almost overwhelming urge she had to place her hands against his solid chest.

‘I don’t see the distinction.’

Kat’s nostrils flared and her cheeks grew hot with shame. ‘I can’t…can’t look at you the way I should look at a patient.’

There was a frustratingly blank look of incomprehension in Matt’s eyes.

‘It’s not…
proper!
’

YOU didn’t have to have a razor-sharp intellect to figure out the opposite of proper was improper. Nobody had ever accused Matt of being a slouch in the brains department.

There was honesty and then there was simple-minded stupidity! A sane person didn’t introduce stray bullets into a crowded place, and what she had just said was just as reckless and even more explosive! The way things were going, it hardly seemed worth taking her foot out of her mouth!

‘Oh, God!’
she groaned, lifting her hands to her face and closing her eyes tightly. ‘I can’t believe you made me say that.’ She glared resentfully at him.

‘Let me get this right…’ he began cautiously. There was such a thing as a man hearing what he wanted to.

He sounded stunned—who wouldn’t under the circumstances? The women he knew were probably shy, retiring types who probably waited a whole
twenty-four hours
before they announced they didn’t trust themselves in the same room as him!

Why did I say it? she despaired, hugging her humiliation quite literally to herself as, elbows braced against her knees, she began to rock gently to and fro. It was only matter of time before that shock would turn to smug amusement…or, worse,
pity and embarrassment!

‘That didn’t come out right at all.’ Not at all and there wouldn’t have been a problem!

‘I don’t think it left much room for misinterpretation.’

The rat looked as though he was enjoying her discomfiture.

‘You are harbouring…what was the word…? Improper, yes,
improper
thoughts about me? I thought you said that you didn’t even like me…and you
definitely
didn’t fancy me…’ he taunted in the manner of a sleek, well-fed feline tormenting a mesmerised mouse.

‘There’s no need to make a song and dance about it. I know what I said,’ she snarled belligerently. ‘And I still don’t
like
you,’ she brooded, serving up a very unsmitten glare for his benefit.

‘So this is sex, pure and simple?’

Even if your pride was in tatters, in her book it was still worth clinging to. Kat’s hands fell away from her flaming face. Her chin came up. She might be in corner but it wasn’t in her nature to submit without a fight.

‘Hearing you use terms like
pure
is fairly ironic,’ she observed scornfully. Anything less pure than the self-satisfied glint in his eyes would be hard to imagine.

I could have just packed my bags and walked away…she brooded wistfully. I could have kept my mouth shut and my dignity intact. But no, that would have been too easy! I had to go and announce it.

‘It’s not the end of the world… Sexual awareness between men and women is perfectly normal, and if it makes you feel any better it wasn’t exactly news to me.’

Kat groaned. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? You think you’re irresistible.’

‘It seems you share my opinion.’

She opened her mouth and nothing emerged but a little choking sound.

‘It makes a man feel good to know he hasn’t lost his touch.’

Kat cast a look of loathing over his oh, so perfect features. Was she meant to believe he’d even know what self-doubt was if it hit him over the head?

A tiny smile of relief flickered across her face as her madly racing brain came up with the perfect get-out story—well, not
perfect,
but she was in no position to be picky.

‘Do you
honestly
think I’d be stupid enough to say so if I actually was misguided enough to find you attractive?’

Her tinkling laughter made it sound as though it was the best joke she’d heard in ages—it was a bonus that he didn’t look as though he enjoyed the sound.

‘Let me be frank.’

‘Is there any way of stopping you?’ he wondered drily.

‘The bottom line is, deep down, you still think Drusilla had ulterior motives when she gave me this job.’

‘Don’t you?’

Kat bit her lip. ‘It does seem possible,’ she conceded.

‘And this is relevant because…?’ She looked so strung out, he almost let her off the hook.

‘I was getting to that,’ she snapped, directing a look of dislike at his handsome features. ‘When I said…’ Kat found she couldn’t bring herself to repeat what she’d said. ‘My job, by its nature, is very…
tactile,
’ she babbled. ‘I simply meant that I can’t work properly if every time I look at you I’m wondering if you think I’ve got a private agenda.’

‘You mean you’re worried I’ll think you’ve decided to overlook major flaws like my millions?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t forget your arrogance.’

‘In short, you’re concerned I’ll think you’re enjoying your job too much?’

‘If so far is anything to go by, there’s not much chance of that…’ Love wasn’t turning out to be at all what she’d expected. ‘But that’s exactly what I mean!’ she exclaimed, not particularly bothered by the contradictory nature of her statement. ‘I’m going to spend all my time worrying you’ll think I’m making a pass at you, and going by your reaction just now I’m obviously right!’ Kat’s shoulders slumped in relief… It had actually sounded plausible!

Matt could have driven several trucks through the holes in her rambling explanation, but he didn’t have the heart to mention it.

‘Pity…’

Now, don’t go reading anything into that, Kat remonstrated herself firmly. He’s just got
that
sort of voice and
those
sort of eyes. Sizzle and smoulder were the norm for Matt Devlin.

‘I thought it evened things out… No, you’re not running out now!’ he announced firmly as she began to surge purposefully to her feet. A strong hand stopped her mid-surge.

He might have been having a problem with his leg, but the fingers clamped around her upper arm made it pretty clear the weakness didn’t extend to his upper limbs; she couldn’t have budged if she’d wanted to, and since he’d touched her things had got a bit ambivalent on the escape front. She subsided weakly.

‘Would it make things less…
improper
—’ God, but he loved the sound of that word ‘—if I sack you?’

Was he trying to be funny? ‘I’ve just told you,
improper
has nothing to do with it; and you can’t sack me, I’ve already resigned.’ She sighed and tried to act as if the touch of his hand on her arm wasn’t making her ridiculously susceptible body get all hot and
very
bothered!

‘The way I see it, the problem is you don’t look at me and think patient…?’

‘I’ve told you!’ Kat was very conscious of her aching breasts as they chafed against the restrictions of the imprisoning Lycra.