The Prospective Wife (21 page)

The well-thumbed magazine fell open at the relevant double-page spread.

‘Up To His Old Tricks!!’ the main headline shrieked. The one under the half-page colour picture was only slightly less prominent. ‘This isn’t available on the NHS,’ was the witty caption under a large glossy photo of herself sitting astride a bare-chested Matt. Her shirt was open to the waist, revealing a lacy bra.

Kat could recall the occasion when they’d been sitting beside the lake in the grounds. It had started off innocently enough; she’d been massaging his shoulders, then he’d turned over and… The way she recalled it, if it hadn’t started raining at that point the photo could have been a lot worse!

Kat’s knuckles turned whiter than the paper she gripped as her eyes, which seemed to be the only part of her that could move at that moment, skimmed over the item.

Millionaire Matt Devlin recuperating at a country retreat with the help of his private physiotherapist, Miss Kathleen Wray.

She read on. It didn’t come right out and say that she was being paid for her expertise in the bedroom but it might just as well have!

‘Oh, my God!’ she groaned. ‘Everyone has seen this and…I think I’m going to be sick…’ She pressed her hands to her abdomen and rocked forward.

‘Take some deep breaths,’ an anxious Andie advised, draping her arm over the younger girl’s shoulders. ‘That’s it…good girl. It could be worse.’

Kat looked at her friend as if she’d gone mad.

‘I’d kill for a body like yours,’ her friend admitted frankly. ‘Call me twisted, but the idea of every red-blooded male under ninety lusting after…’

Her friend’s well-meaning comfort was having quite the opposite effect on Kat, who visibly cringed at the prospect of male eyes following her, thinking…
ugh!

‘I don’t want to be lusted after!’ Kat wailed.

‘Not even by
him?
’ her friend wondered with an envious sigh.

‘Especially not him!’ Kat cried. She could see her friend was just aching to ask for details but she had no intention of obliging. Why, she wondered, does this have to happen now, when I was over him…? God! I can’t even lie convincingly to myself, she thought bleakly.

The rest of that afternoon was nothing short of a nightmare. She tried telling herself her new-found notoriety would be soon forgotten if she kept her head down; only each fresh stare and titter made it hard to believe.

She was halfway across the car park when she was way-laid by Dr Parker, the newish young registrar who had a penchant for fast cars and, despite the quiet wife at home, pretty student nurses; Kat found him pathetic.

‘Kat, just the girl I’ve been looking for…’

‘I’m off duty,’ she said, increasing her pace to avoid the arm that was zeroing in on her waist.

‘What a happy coincidence. So am I. What say we do something about it…?’

Kat had no choice but to come to an abrupt halt as he moved to block her path through the narrow space between a row of cars.

Kat lifted her chin. ‘I’m going home,’ she said quietly. ‘I suggest you do the same. The way I hear it your wife doesn’t see very much of you.’

Kat decided anger gave the handsome Dr Parker all the appeal of a sulky schoolboy…less, actually.

‘What’s wrong, Kat? You only up for it if there’s enough money involved?’ he sneered in a voice pitched loud enough to be heard over half the crowded car park.

Kat flinched, but her chin went up proudly—she’d done nothing she was ashamed of.

‘Move out of my way.’

The sneering medic tried to stare her down but failed.

He started to move, but was making a bit of meal of it to prolong Kat’s humiliation, when a hand on the collar of his white coat literally hauled him to one side. He landed against the side of a car with a loud thump.

‘What the hell?’ An unpleasant look on his face, the young doctor looked up and found hell in the cold blue eyes of the big man who stood glaring down at him. It wasn’t an area he felt inclined to explore further! He knew it was a physical impossibility for bone marrow to freeze, but his felt seriously chilled.

His worried eyes flickered furtively from the tall man to Kat and back again. ‘Not to worry…’ he remarked with nervous bonhomie as he brushed off his crumpled sleeve. ‘Accidents will happen.’

‘It wasn’t an accident.’

Like his remark, there was no middle ground in Matt’s outfit; he was dressed in monochromatic colours—black jeans, white shirt. A stunned Kat couldn’t stop herself examining every tiny detail of his appearance like an addict who’d been denied her fix too long.

It was possible that it was just the outfit that made him look leaner, but there was no question mark over the meaner component; Matt was simmering with barely repressed rage. Tall, imperious, with the sort of presence you couldn’t buy at any price, he made an impressive and daunting picture. He looked even more heart-stoppingly spectacular than she remembered.

‘What are you doing here?’

Greg Parker gave a sigh of relief as those cold blue eyes finally left his face. The guy had never looked that
big
in the papers.

‘I came to take you home.’

She didn’t have to ask why today…? It was that wretched magazine article; he was probably about to accuse her of feeding the story to the scuzzy rag!

Kat sighed.
Home!
That word might have had an entirely different meaning, she thought wistfully, if he’d trusted her.

Lately she’d been wondering about the trust thing. Was it possible she’d been a little too hasty in the heat of the moment, herself? Now, as always when unwanted doubts arose to spoil her perception of the occasion, she reminded herself that she might have walked away, but he’d done the pushing.

It was always at the most inconvenient moments—like now—when objectivity of sorts kicked in and she could see how gutted Matt must have felt, after his previous bad experience, believing she was up to her ears in gambling debts. It wasn’t the money; for Matt it was the subterfuge and lies, and, having experienced them first-hand herself, she could appreciate his horror. The bottom line was he’d been honest—brutally honest, true, but at least he hadn’t pretended.

From the way he was looking at the sexy blonde—
How was he supposed to know they still had something going?
— Greg thought it likely nobody would notice if he slipped quietly away. He soon discovered he was wrong.

‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ The silky smooth voice made the younger man freeze.

‘I have…?’

‘I believe you want to apologise to the lady?’

‘Of course, of course. No offence intended.’ He turned a nervous strained smile in Kat’s direction.

Plenty taken,
she wanted to say, but didn’t. Her shoulders lifted in an infinitesimal shrug of lofty dismissal. As he vanished, her shoulders sagged and a deep sigh was dragged from the confines of her tight chest.

‘Bad day?’

The unexpected tenderness she saw in Matt’s eyes brought the sting of tears to Kat’s eyes.

‘I’ve had better,’ she admitted gruffly. ‘How are you? You look well…’ she trilled brightly.

His dark brows arched. ‘Are you being deliberately facetious?’ he gritted.

Kat swallowed convulsively. She was painfully conscious it must seem ridiculous that she was acting as if they were two casual acquaintances.

‘No, just nervous!’

She saw Matt’s eyes widen in shock. What did the man expect, just materialising like that with no warning?

‘I always babble when I’m nervous.’

The direction of Matt’s distracted gaze made her belatedly aware that she was chewing the end of her ponytail.

‘I bite my nails in moments of extreme stress too,’ she explained with a weak smile that didn’t reach her wide anxious eyes.

Their eyes met and clung in a way that made Kat’s tummy muscles twang. God, but she’d missed him; she hadn’t realised just how much until now. His hard expression abruptly softened, making it easier to spot the fact he looked as if he’d not slept for days. Kat was shocked by the haggard cast of his handsome features.

‘I look like hell, Kathleen.’

Maybe he’d read her thoughts…?

‘No!’ She rejected this preposterous claim without thinking.

What if the shadowy hollows beneath his high cheekbones
were
more pronounced than when she’d last seen him, and there were similar dark hollows in intriguing places all over his strong-boned face? He was still spectacularly gorgeous.

‘You’re…’ There was an awkward pause. She could hardly tell him how beautiful he was, could she?

Unexpectedly, Matt came to her assistance.

‘Tired of being gawped at?’ he said, catching the eye of one unfortunate gawper and reducing her to a blushing blob.

‘You get used to it.’

Matt’s eyes narrowed at the bitter note in her voice. ‘You shouldn’t have to.’

‘Why are you here, Matt?’

‘I told you, I came to take you home.’

‘Some of us use public transport…’

‘Not tonight, unless you like to be stared at.’

Kat gulped and shook her head, her eyes reflecting the horror that had been her afternoon on public display.

He nodded his head. ‘Then come with me.’

To the ends of the earth!

What, she wondered as she meekly allowed Matt to take her by the arm and lead her to an opulent-looking coupé he was driving, would he have done if she had said it out loud?

A complete dunce when it came to motors, she had no idea what make it was, but some of the admirers gathered around it obviously did. They parted like a respectful sea as Matt approached.

It didn’t hit her until they reached the end of their totally silent journey that he hadn’t once asked directions.

‘How did you know where I live?’ she asked as he came around to open the passenger door for her—there was hardly any trace of his limp now. ‘Or where I’m working, for that matter…?’

‘I made it my business to know.’

His matter-of-fact reply jolted her. ‘That’s outrageous!’ she accused with shaky contempt.

‘What was I supposed to do? Let you walk out of my life?’

The anger in his eyes confused Kat. Wasn’t that exactly what he had done? It had certainly felt like it.

‘I’m afraid I’m hopelessly out of date about such things. What does that involve, exactly…? Do you require the services of a private investigator or do you just punch a name up on a computer screen?’

‘Depends on how much you need to know.’

Matt didn’t tell her of the nights he’d stood outside himself, in the shadows, thinking about coming up and knocking on her door. A police patrol car had even stopped once and demanded to know his intentions.

Kat threw him a disgusted glance and slid the key into the rusty lock; the peeling front door opened. She didn’t waste any time on social niceties, she got straight to the point.

‘I expect you want to know if I co-operated with those magazine people?’ Matt’s enigmatic expression remained exasperatingly mysterious. ‘That is why you’re here, isn’t it?’ Still no joy. ‘They did ring me once…’ she conceded.

‘That would figure.’

Perhaps his surveillance had already revealed this. The nonsensical notion of some grey-faced little man dutifully recording all her conversations brought a quiver of hysteria to her voice—he’d probably died of sheer boredom!

‘But I didn’t say a word,
honestly
…’

Matt didn’t reply straight off; he was looking around her tiny bedsit in a horrified way that made her even more conscious of its extreme grottiness. It was clean—that was about the only nice thing that could be said of the spartan, threadbare conditions—but if she wanted to clear her debts this side of the next millennium she needed to keep her personal expenses to a minimum.

‘It’s very convenient for the hospital,’ she chirped defensively.

Matt nodded noncommitally. He was feeling physically ill to think she’d been living in these sort of conditions for a whole month.

‘Wait until she’s calmed down,’
his mother had counselled, and like an idiot for once in his life he’d listened!

‘You didn’t trust her.’

‘Why didn’t she tell me?’

‘I expect she tried, but I don’t suppose you were in a mood to listen. You learn the truth about her mother and you go running there wanting to make up—she’ll spit in your eye,’
his own mother had announced with convincing confidence.
‘I would,’
she’d added frankly.

What had a month got him? The poor darling must hate his guts after seeing her face and a whole lot more plastered all over that damned rag. He could have co-operated and given them their damned story, but,
no
he’d had to put their backs up and virtually challenge them to write what the hell they liked about him… That invitation hadn’t included a carte blanche on those he loved.

‘I know you didn’t give them the story…’

He watched her give a sigh of relief, as though she’d expected him to sail in here and blast her. But then why wouldn’t she? he thought with a grimace of self-disgust, after the last time.

He cringed inside every time he thought about the things he’d said to her. She probably hates me!

‘As for the picture…’ Matt couldn’t visualise that picture without wanting to smash something. He was fair game, but not Kathleen. ‘I had no idea at all…’

‘How could you?’ Kat was too jumpy to notice the intensity of his tone. This was a very small room and Matt’s larger-than-life vitality and sheer in-your-face sex appeal seemed to fill it. It was becoming an uphill battle to control her emotions. Throwing herself at his feet would be a crowning glory for what had been the most humiliating day of her life. She tried to look anywhere but at him…Matt wasn’t an easy man not to notice.

‘I’ve spoken to my lawyers,’ he told her stiffly, ‘and though it would give me the greatest pleasure to watch those swines choke on their telephoto lens in public—’ his voice deepened, roughened ‘—the general consensus seems to be that a court case would only attract even more unwanted attention.’

Kat nodded her acceptance. ‘It’s good of you to come and tell me in person.’