The Prospective Wife (14 page)

‘We’ve already established I’m not about to fade away. I’m simply not hungry.’ She was dismayed to discover that what had sounded so coolly dignified in her head had emerged from her mouth sounding appallingly petulant.

‘Perhaps I should have invited the lovely Emma to stay…’ Matt mused.

Number four!

This was beginning to feel as if he was deliberately rubbing her nose in it… Maybe he didn’t like being turned down and this was a sort of ‘I’ve had a better offer’ kind of thing.

His dark curling lashes slowly lifted. ‘To give you someone to talk to, of course.’

‘Why else would you invite a beautiful woman to dinner…?’ she agreed nastily with a cynical scowl.

His eyes made a slow deliberate inventory of her curvy figure. The simple dress she wore was one of the cheap but cheerful designer rip-offs that the high street stores did so well these days. Matt had dated women who wore the real thing, but this girl
was
the real thing. The thought came right out of the blue, but he quickly warmed to the theme. She was the sort of woman who made the dress and not the other way around…

‘Why, indeed?’ he drawled slowly.

Her pulses did uncomfortable things. It was the first time since they’d come to their sort of truce that he’d done anything to signify by look or gesture that he was still aware of her sexually. If she was strictly honest, she had been quite riled by the ease with which he had been controlling his baser instincts, especially when she was being constantly reminded of the struggle she was having with her own.

She tried to look exasperated and not devastated by the slow, sexually loaded scrutiny. It wasn’t an easy thing to do when your skin was literally tingling with sexual desire. It was hard to judge from his enigmatic expression how successful she’d been. She fiddled nervously with the shoestring strap of the silky blue dress and tried to calm her erratic breathing.

‘Emma has just been through a nasty divorce,’ she began carefully.

‘Are there any other kind?’

The look she shot him would have reduced a more sensitive man to tears… Unfortunately, the only person who seemed likely to disintegrate at that moment was Kat herself.

‘She’s rather vulnerable at the moment.’ Kat expelled her breath in an exasperated hiss. Aren’t we all? she thought, giving her head a little shake to clear her foggy thoughts. ‘I know she comes over as… But she’s not as…’ Her cheeks grew pink as she racked her brains for a tactful way of explaining away her friend’s behaviour.

Matt let her flounder wretchedly for a few moments before coming to her rescue.

‘Eager…? Available…?’ He raised one eyebrow as Kat gave a horrified gasp. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem as a rule with women who get straight to the point.’

‘I just bet you haven’t!’ she choked. ‘How dare you make assumptions about poor Emma?’ she fumed. ‘If she were a man…’

‘She isn’t.’

For the first time, Kat picked up on the anger he’d been nursing all evening. It was hard not to shrink back from the subdued fury in his icy appraisal. The abrupt shift in his mood intensified her confusion even more.

‘Neither is she a physio, as it turns out.’

‘Oh!’

‘
Oh,
indeed.’

Nothing could have been more bland than his silkily smooth smile—it sent an icy shiver up Kat’s tense spine.

‘I didn’t say she was,’ Kat defended uneasily.

‘No, that’s true. I suppose I unreasonably assumed that a person who was substituting for my physio would be similarly qualified. But then that wasn’t the role you wanted a stand-in for, was it, Kathleen…?’

His words unravelled the last fragile threads of her composure. Was the man a mind-reader or something?

‘You’re the most arrogant man I’ve ever met!’ The accusation had an uncomfortably pushed-in-a-corner sound to it.

‘Perhaps you should have taken her vulnerability and my conceit into account before you set us on a collision course.’

Kat, who had been thinking much the same thing herself, flushed guiltily. She breathed in deeply.

‘What do you mean?’ she quavered suspiciously.

‘Think about it…if you haven’t already.’ His expression remained bland as Kat’s eyes widened in guilty alarm. ‘Attractive, recently traumatised young woman, sexually deprived male, very few clothes…is this ringing any bells for you?’

It did; they were all alarm bells. His silkily sensuous words conjured up the hot steamy atmosphere in the pool-house so well that for a moment she didn’t really hear them, or understand the implications.

Kat wasn’t even aware of getting to her feet and pushing her chair away with hands that were hot and sticky.

‘She was doing me a favour.’

The expression of biting scorn in his eyes made her voice die away to a feeble whisper.

‘How does that work?’ This time there was no mistaking the fact he was in a towering rage. “‘If you’ve got nothing else on could you sleep with this guy for me?’”

‘You didn’t!’
she cried, almost wringing her slim pale hands in distress. ‘Emma would have—’

Matt cut across her before she had a chance to utter any further indiscretions.

‘Told you all about it? Tell me, do you often compare notes? How did I score?’ he demanded, with an innocent look totally at odds with the crude enquiry.

Kat was too distracted to respond to the gibe. A long tendril of pale hair escaped from her loose chignon as she silently shook her head in mute denial. What have I done? If Emma does something
really
daft, like fall in love with him, it’ll be my fault! It was hard for Kat to imagine anyone not falling in love with Matt!

Matt didn’t seem in a hurry to put her out of her misery; he seemed to be taking a degree of spiteful relish in her distress.

‘And if I did…?’ he asked casually.

Her bosom heaved as the colour fled her cheeks. ‘I think you’re totally despicable!’ she announced in a low, contemptuous voice.

‘I didn’t say I did.’

His flippancy was fresh evidence, if she’d needed any, of his base and callous nature.

‘And you didn’t say you didn’t,’ she gritted.

‘Never heard of innocent until proven guilty?’

‘Never heard of overwhelming circumstantial evidence?’ she yelled.

‘I was only pointing out what
might
have happened.’

Kat stared at him incredulously. ‘You expect me to believe…’

The expression on his face was frostily contemptuous. It wasn’t hard to see the steel that had enabled him to carve a niche for himself in an unfriendly business environment.

‘I have scruples,’ he bit back. ‘No, I wouldn’t expect you to believe that, Kathleen. It wouldn’t suit you at all to believe I have a single redeeming characteristic.’

The accusation had enough truth in it to alarm Kat deeply. ‘Don’t change the subject,’ she insisted defensively.

‘You know, I don’t quite understand why you’re bellyaching. After all, wasn’t I
supposed
to be smitten by Emma the svelte and sexy divorcee?’

He couldn’t know… It had to be a shot in the dark…didn’t it?

‘That’s a ludicrous thing to say.’

‘I can’t help but find all this moral superiority a tad hypocritical. What’s wrong…did you have second thoughts?’

Again he was bang on target.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You forget, Kathleen, I’ve been subjected to set-ups by an expert—my mother. In comparison you’re merely an inspired amateur, angel.’

‘If you and Emma
clicked
it’s got nothing to do with me,’ she choked hoarsely.

‘You could have fooled me.’

If only that were true!

‘You hoped I’d be so smitten by your slightly scary Emma I’d forget about kissing you.’ Matt got to his feet and the professional Kat automatically registered how much his flexibility had improved, even in the short time she’d been here. The private Kat registered that his smallest gesture just shrieked sex appeal. ‘I’ve news for you, Kathleen,’ he added in a soft voice. ‘I haven’t forgotten!’ His steely eyes moved greedily over her softly flushed face.

Kat’s shaky composure fragmented totally at the sinfully sensual murmur.

Without considering the consequences of so foolish an action, she allowed her thoughts to drift, along with her wide eyes, in the general direction of his mouth. They were the sort of thoughts that had a taste and texture, and she was filled with a dangerous hunger to sample the real thing.

The outline of his lips suggested passion, but fierce control. Speculating on how hard it would be to make his control slip…just a little…made her legs shake and her mouth grow dry.

A burst of shameful heat travelled over her entire body as she attempted to look away from the blaze of sexual challenge in his half-closed eyes. When she discovered she couldn’t, she stuck her chin out and settled for pretending she hadn’t heard him.

‘Scary…?’ she croaked shakily.

The shrewd expression in his hard eyes suggested her diversionary tactics had not gone unnoticed.

‘I’m not too keen on being manipulated.’ The direct look he shot her made Kat drop her eyes self-consciously; the subtext of that look had been painfully obvious. ‘And I rather think your Emma has her own reasons for playing the
femme fatale
…’ he mused thoughtfully.

Femme fatale?
Kat’s head lifted; her eyes were wide and indignant. Just what had Emma been up to…? So much for best friend’s lovers being out of bounds!

‘I’m sure some blokes get an extra buzz from the danger factor of a jealous husband in the background…only I’m not one of them.’

‘Luc is history,’ Kat responded with a puzzled look. ‘They’re divorced.’

His broad shoulders lifted. ‘Maybe.’

‘They
are
divorced,’ she insisted.

‘I’m not disputing that.’

‘Then what are you disputing?’

‘The history part. I got the impression…’ He gave an irritated frown. ‘You know, I’m not all that interested in Emma—or her husband.’

Nervous tension made Kat more candid than she might otherwise have been. ‘Well, you must have acted like you were interested,’ she observed tartly, ‘to make Em so keen,’ she elaborated indiscreetly.

His expression grew satirical. ‘Must be my natural charm.’

‘How can you laugh?’ she cried angrily. ‘She might get hurt.’

‘I think you’re overrating my irresistibility,’ he came back drily. ‘Or maybe you find it hard to be objective where I’m concerned.’

Kat gave a horrified gasp, frantic to escape. Her enthusiasm made her clumsy; her heel caught on the hem of her dress, she grabbed at the chair, and for a moment she swayed precariously before her balance deserted her completely and she went down heavily, taking her chair with her. One solid oak leg hit her a glancing blow on the head as it fell with an even louder clatter to the floor.

Hand on her head, she opened her eyes to find Matt leaning over her, his dark face taut with concern.

‘I don’t think I broke it,’ she mumbled stupidly.

‘Broke what?’ He pulled away her hand and scrutinised the discoloured area it had hidden on her temple.

‘The chair.’ With her luck, it was probably a wildly expensive antique.

Matt looked at her incredulously for a moment.

‘God, you’re serious, aren’t you?’ A sliver of dull colour ran under his skin and seeped along the bitingly perfect line of his slanted, sharply delineated cheekbones. ‘To hell with the chair!’

Kat couldn’t approve of such a cavalier attitude to someone else’s property. If the world hadn’t been spinning so horridly she would have told him. She closed her eyes. The spinning didn’t stop but mercifully it did slow.

She felt firm, cool,
gentle
fingers against her skin, and any slight inclination she had to move faded. The gentle component of his touch made her throat thicken emotionally. ‘What do they say—you can run but you can’t hide…?’

Trite, she mused—oblivious to the fact she’d spoken out loud—and over-used, but very appropriate for this situation. Even if she had succeeded in running away from Matt, there was no running away from her feelings for him. To cut a short story even shorter, she’d fallen for him big-time!

‘You’ve taken quite a bash on the head.’ She felt her long skirts being neatly rearranged over her exposed legs. ‘Does it hurt anywhere else? Don’t move…!’ His seductive tones deepened to a disapproving growl as she began to struggle into a sitting position.

‘I’m fine now,’ Kat insisted, batting away his restraining hand.

She finally realised that Matt was beside her, kneeling on his right knee with the other leg extended to the side. She knew without asking that this was a wildly uncomfortable position for him to be in.

‘Be careful!’ she cried. ‘You shouldn’t be…’ she began, her eyes widening in alarm. She pulled herself onto her own knees and placed both hands protectively on his injured leg. ‘That was so stupid, Matt.’ Her slender fingers slid anxiously over his thigh, and lower, until, finding no obvious signs of damage, she gave a sigh of relief.

About the same time she stopped worrying that he’d done himself harm being noble and silly, Kat started being aware of a lot of other things—things like the tension in the long firm muscles under her fingers; things like Matt’s audible respirations, fast and shallow. The dragging sensation low in her belly intensified until she could hardly bear it. She heard the low wispy little moan without being conscious of it coming from her own mouth.

‘You should be more cautious.’ It occurred to her that asking Matt to be cautious was just as futile as asking an earthquake to be gentle; there was something elemental about them both. ‘You could have hurt yourself.’

The reproach had a soft insubstantial sound to it as if it, like herself, could have been blown away by a stray puff of wind. There was no air stirring in the room; the stillness had a strange, heavy, expectant quality.

‘I didn’t, but you did.’

There was no legitimate reason for her to touch him now, but Kat was experiencing a strange reluctance to break the contact. It felt as if neat electricity was entering her body. The entry point could be traced back to the point where her tingling fingertips were in contact with his body.